Lana Walters is haunted. Haunted by her old life, a life that doesn’t exist anymore. All it took was one moment of inattention and she was taken away from all she knew to wake up in a body that is not her own, with a husband she doesn’t know or does she? Has she lost her mind? Or has she been given a second chance?
After a fatal car accident Lana Walters is transported to a parallel world for a second chance with her dead husband. But her husband – and the world itself – are very different to her own.
In her other life, Lana was married to Frank, who had a terminal heart condition and died at thirty. In this new world, she is Alannah Walker, and her husband is Tristan, a man who had a heart operation as a child. But Tristan is nothing like Frank.
Born Frank Walters, Tristan hides his past under a new name. His relationship with his wife, Alannah, is fraught with anger. But even though Alannah has seemed like a different person since the car accident, lessons of the past have taught him not to trust too easily…
Will Tristan and Lana learn from their past mistakes? Does this new life give them a second chance at love?
Mae Archer‘s Return to Me explores redemption and the possibility of second chances not only between lovers but between families as well. Ms Archer has taken a unique approach to the classic ghost/reincarnation story. Lana’s beloved husband Frank had succumbed to the damage his heart sustained as a child from a bout with rheumatic fever. After his funeral Lana’s brooch falls into the street and when she steps into the street to retrieve it she is struck down by a passing bus. She awakens in the hospital surrounded by people she knows but who do not know her and the man they tell her is her husband is hostile and aloof.
He turned away and ushered in the man they said was her husband. She held her breath as the black wavy hair came into view and she had a faint sense of recognition, but when she saw the stranger’s thick eyebrows and taut face the sensation faded.
Return to Me was a compelling fast read with an interesting likable heroine. I found Tristan’s character was harder to emphasize with, his cruelty at times made me question why Lana would even want to be with someone so very closed off. But overall the “what if” story line had a fascinating Twilight Zone type feel to it that will appeal to a wide variety of readers.
AUTHOR: Mae Archer
RATING: 4 Stars
GENRE: Romance
Note – ARC kindly provided by NetGalley on behalf of the publisher.
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- Return to Me by Mae Archer (slitsread.wordpress.com)
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