Read by Therese Plummer
11 hours, 28 minutes
Published May 2018 by St. Martin's Press
Publisher's Summary:
Margaret Jacobsen is just about to step into the bright future she's worked for so hard and so long: a new dream job, a fiancé she adores, and the promise of a picture-perfect life just around the corner. Then, suddenly, on what should have been one of the happiest days of her life, everything she worked for is taken away in a brief, tumultuous moment.
In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Maggie must confront the unthinkable. First there is her fiancé, Chip, who wallows in self-pity while simultaneously expecting to be forgiven. Then, there's her sister Kit, who shows up after pulling a three-year vanishing act. Finally, there's Ian, her physical therapist, the one the nurses said was too tough for her. Ian, who won't let her give in to her pity, and who sees her like no one has seen her before. Sometimes the last thing you want is the one thing you need. Sometimes we all need someone to catch us when we fall. And sometimes love can find us in the least likely place we would ever expect.
In the hospital and forced to face the possibility that nothing will ever be the same again, Maggie must confront the unthinkable. First there is her fiancé, Chip, who wallows in self-pity while simultaneously expecting to be forgiven. Then, there's her sister Kit, who shows up after pulling a three-year vanishing act. Finally, there's Ian, her physical therapist, the one the nurses said was too tough for her. Ian, who won't let her give in to her pity, and who sees her like no one has seen her before. Sometimes the last thing you want is the one thing you need. Sometimes we all need someone to catch us when we fall. And sometimes love can find us in the least likely place we would ever expect.
My Thoughts:
Margaret has always been afraid to fly, terrified, in fact. Her boyfriend, Chip, is a pilot-in-training, who convinces her, despite every fiber in her being screaming out against it, to go on a flight with him. Midflight he proposes and Margaret feels like her entire life is falling into place - she's about to start the perfect job, Chip is about ready to start a great job, and they're about to be married. But Chip is not skilled enough to deal with the winds that confront them as they try to land and the plane is sent cartwheeling down the runway. Chip walks away unscathed. Margaret is not so lucky. She will spend weeks in the hospital after skin grafts for burns and trying to regain the use of her legs.
This is one of those books that is both predictable and unexpected. I knew that any relationship that good, any future that bright, was going to implode. Just as I knew that a relationship will develop between Margaret and Ian and that Margaret and Kit will mend their broken relationship. Readers will want those things to happen; we want Chip (and his not very nice mother) to fade out, we want Margaret to fall in love with someone who deserves her, and we want she and Kit to become close allies.
But this isn't just a book filled with the lightness of a heroine finding love, with some humor thrown in. There is plenty of heaviness here as well. From the plane crash and Margaret's burns and paralysis, to the reason that Kit left home and didn't make contact again for three years, Center gives readers some depth. And while there is a predictable happy ending (I'm not spoiling it - you know it's going to happen), there is an expected piece of the ending that made it all seem more believable.
Was Chip (and Ian's boss, for that matter) a bit too much of a caricature? Yes. Did Ian and Margaret's relationship seem to develop pretty rapidly, considering how much she disliked him at first? Also, yes. Did Margaret seem to mentally heal faster than I would expect it to happen in real life? Yes, again. But all of those things seemed perfectly acceptable to me since I was all about Margaret healing and finding happiness. This is the fifth book by Center that I've read, and I've enjoyed all of them - she's become a go-to author when I'm looking for just a certain kind of book, particularly a book that will end on a high note, something I really need these days.
