Book Review: Rebound by Heather Justesen

Lily Drake is the mother of a toddler, is pregnant with her second child, and lives in a beautiful home with her successful husband. She's never had to worry about finances, and can pretty much buy whatever she wants. She's not a big spender, but if the yen were to hit, she knows the money is there. With financial security and a darling family, she has everything.

But then one day, nearly everything is stripped away.

One afternoon as Lily returns home, she pulls up in her driveway to find her property surrounded by strange cars. She is informed that her husband has been stealing identities and running up huge debts in other people's names to finance their lavish lifestyle, and everything will be taken as part of the investigation. Lily is given a deadline by which she must leave her house and most of her belongings. This doesn't really matter to her - she never really was into the whole Richie Rich thing - but what breaks her heart is the fact that her husband is a crook, and a crook who has used her, left her, and said he never loved her.

Now on her own, Lily must find a way to support her son, her child on the way, and figure out how to piece her life together from the scraps left behind. She's not ready to think about trying the romance game again, but when Curtis comes along, she realizes that maybe love - real love - is just what she needs to glue all those scraps together.

I enjoy Heather Justesen's writing style. She doesn't rely on the old cliches to put her meaning across - instead, she uses words that are unique to her own voice, and this sets her apart from other authors we see. She is deeply interested in adoption and what happens to families when the adopted member seeks out their biological parents, and this theme continues through in Rebound. With as many adoptive families as we currently have in our society, I think that exploring this timely issue in fiction is a great way to help those adoptive families know they are not alone and to find tools that might help them keep their families strong, even though they are being tested.

Hats off to Heather for another job well done. To order your copy, click here.

I received a free copy of this novel because I'm in Heather's critique group and she loves me. This free copy didn't influence my review.