I’m not crazy. My mother may have died with everyone believing she was insane, but I refuse to accept that as my fate. Even if I am recalling memories about a life I never lived. A life that includes the mysterious James—a guy I’ve only just met, but feel as if I’ve known all my life. The memories are coming hard and fast, and I’m falling down a rabbit hole with consequences that far exceed anything I could have ever imagined. And now, someone is trying to kill me.
Someone from my past who knows about my visions and is looking for something he believes I took from him. All I have to do is figure out how these memories relate to the present and maybe I’ll survive to live another day.
The reason I signed up to review this book was the fact that the heroine had a mother who suffered from Schizophrenia; which to be frank, hit quite close to my own life – and therefore, I had no choice but to pick it up!
But imagine my surprise; at how much I ended up loving this beauty! (Absolutely LOVE it; when this happens!!)
Abigail “Abby” Swift has never been able to have a normal mother-daughter relationship – her mother’s struggle with mental illness not only created a myriad of emotions, not limited to, resentment, guilt, pain and fear, in her but they also intensified in the months after her mother’s death. These emotions are such a stark representation of exactly how I have felt having lived with such a mental illness; that it took me three – four tries to actually read this book (I usually ended up crying; which led my wonderful husband trying to console me!! :D)
Abby is a wonderful human being – and someone who was a spectator to her life; I honestly believed that she did everything she could to actually help her mother out – but believing that for herself was a struggle – a struggle that I live with everyday; no matter what people who love me say about my efforts.
I am in love with Abby – not just because she actually is a very interesting character but because she hit close to home for me; and I was content (at least for a while) to know that I wasn’t alone in these insecurities!
But there’s something even more behind the mental illness that Abby fears even she has started suffering from – especially when she locks eyes with James; a man in her “delusions” but a man real enough.
Her opinions, her thoughts and her views about the world she thought she knew are going to be challenged and in ways it is going to be the ride of her life or rather FOR her life!
I actually was under the mistaken impression that this was a paranormal romance (tbh; can you blame me? You have hearing voices and seeing things! Where else could I have gone *grins cheekily!*) – what it actually ended up was a time travel romance; which not only ended up being different but also entertaining to read.
I am not going to give away the plot – but yes, while it took me a little time to get into the book (for personal reasons stated above!) – the plot ended up throwing me sometimes; it could have been considered predictable for some, but for honestly even with the past and present working together at times, it was the mystery that ended up sucking me in; I never saw the twists and turns that came at me.
Though, I ended up being a wee bit disappointed with the ending – for the ending was left me with no feelings of closure; it was a bit more open ended than I would have expected for a standalone (I so want to reveal the questions I still have – but SPOILERS, eh?)
Yet, even with this; having a topic that is personal to me, a plot that kept my interest right till the end; and writing that was brilliant made this book a little more dearer to me – but I have a feeling that this would have been an enjoyable read even without the personal connection for me!
⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ .5
Amazon | B&N | iBooks
Amy Murray graduated from the University of Houston with a B.S. in Psychology. She is a CrossFit addict, proud Harry Potter enthusiast, and obsessed with modern quilting. She and her family live in Cypress, Texas.
For The Love of Fictional Worlds 