BOOK REVIEW: Running on Empty

Have you ever read a book that made you feel like you’re indulging in a warm bubble bath, all your senses being spoiled, serenely happy and without a worry in the world? This is that book. It will warm your heart in so many wonderful ways you’ll never want to leave the delightful world of Alex, Blake, Harlow and the three munchkins that steal the show every chance they get.

Alex is a young single mother of three beautiful daughters under ten years of age, having lost her husband when her youngest was only a baby. Her entire life revolves around her children’s happiness, putting their needs first, making every decision with them in mind and neglecting the deep hole that was left in her heart after her husband passed away. Deep down, Alex is lonely, inconsolably desolate from having lost her husband, a man she had loved most of her life. Her sadness suffocates her, slowly extinguishing the bright spark in her eyes, as she longs for the love and partnership she once had, but believing she would never find it again. Or let herself find it again.

Alex hides her sadness and pain but those who love her see it clearly and cannot help but want for her to move on with her life and find happiness again.

“You go on, each day, as though you’re happy and at peace with your life. Or at least trying to convince yourself that you are. But you also go on, each day, not really living.”

And then her oldest friend comes back to town. Once inseparable as children, their lives took different paths once she met the man she would eventually marry but they never forgot the unconditional love they once shared. Blake re-enters her life in a moment of desperate need, forcing her to not only accept what she hates accepting the most from others – help – but also to consider letting another man in her heart again. Blake is patient, considerate, understanding – he knows Alex better than she knows herself, always seeing her attempts at pushing him away as fear rather than lack of interest.

“It’s so much easier for me to cling to the memories of happiness than to consider any possibility of losing someone again.”

And so it starts an entertaining but genuinely touching battle inside Alex. On one side, she dreams of being taken care of again, of being loved, cherished, protected by someone like Blake, someone EXACTLY like Blake.

“I feel safe. I feel protected. I feel relief. I feel scared. I feel vulnerable. I feel desire. I feel… Everything.”

She is drawn to him, her feelings for him are easily ignited, being founded on years of affection and friendship. But her fear of experiencing heart-shattering loss again paralyses her, filling her with apprehension and doubts. She rationalises this in her head by convincing herself that she is protecting her daughters from potential pain and loss, but it is her own terror of the unknown that keeps her from embracing her feelings for Blake.

In this heart-warming story of second chances at happiness in life, we are shown that sometimes it is not the heart that needs to move on, but rather the mind that stalls the heart from embracing love again. Even when the right person is before your eyes, the mind plays tricks on you and convinces you to see what fear wants you to see. Until it is too late…

Through humour, sarcasm, compelling heartache, we are given a beautifully written account of a young woman’s battle with herself. Torn between her heart and what her head tells her she should be feeling or not feeling, Alex tries hard to reconcile her late husband’s role in her life with what her heart is undeniably feeling now. A novel by one of the genuinely nicest authors around, this book will elate you and entertain you, it will make you laugh out loud through bittersweet tears in your eyes and it will make you grin ear to ear. With a loveable group of characters, each one of them leaving a deep mark in your heart, this is a story that will stay with you and make you consider all the missed opportunities and all the ‘what-ifs’ in your own life.

Excerpt

To read an exclusive bonus scene from Blake’s POV, click here…

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Mending Hearts - Recommended Reading Order