Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Christine Brae's His Wounded Light. This is the sequel to The Light in the Wound, and if you missed me review of it, you can click here to read it. My stop includes information about the book, trailers, an excerpt, my review, and a giveaway.
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His Wounded Light by Christine Brae
The Light in the Wound #2
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Release Date: December 8, 2013
Synopsis
The perfect life.
The perfect marriage.
The jilted lover.
Their worlds collide.
Fate intervenes twelve years later and their paths intersect once again. All three will question whether the heart is truly capable of dividing and being divided; each will decide whether it matters who you loved first or who you love last.
Together they will learn that in the end, there can always only be one.
**TRAILERS**
**I'm apologizing in advance for the vagueness in my review. There are certain events that I don't want to mention in order to prevent spoiling anything.**
Christine Brae delivered another powerfully emotional and gripping story. I was immersed, once again, in the highs and lows of Isa and Alex's relationship. This love story wasn't always pretty, but their ending was gratifying.
You know that expression about not being able to fully love someone without first loving yourself? Isa became intimately familiar with that expression over the course of the story. After certain events put a wall up between she and Alex, she has to learn how to forgive herself and how to live her life for herself. She makes some mistakes along with way but eventually comes to a place where she is stronger than she's ever been.
Alex...oh, Alex. I wanted to strangle him a few times. Yes, I understood his reasoning for his actions but it didn't stop me from being angry at him. The events he and Isa had to endure and the heartache it all caused had tears streaming down my face. It was very satisfying to see Alex mature a little more and realize what was most important in his life.
As for Jesse Cain...well, I was never on his team. However, he endeared himself to me in His Wounded Light. He has changed and matured over the past 12 years. He showed it in his ability to be present for Isa when she needed him and not pushing for more than she could give.
His Wounded Light is a love story. And as Isa points out:
"Love will always persevere no matter what happens in your life, so once you have it, nurture it and never let it go. ...You can lose yourself a million time over, but your heart will always know who you are. In every wound and place of emptiness, love provides a light that guides you through the darkness. It relentlessly seeks you out and stops at nothing to find you. Love always finds you. And when it does, it will bring you home."
Isa, Alex and Jesse have been through a lot together over the years...some happy times, some sad times. I was thoroughly satisfied with where they each ended up. His Wounded Light was heartbreaking yet ultimately uplifting conclusion to these three once wounded, now healed souls.
“Good evening, everyone. So sorry we're late.”
I turn my head in the direction of her eyes.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” I mutter under my breath.
It's Jesse Cain. I glare at Betty, and she responds by shrugging her shoulders. I remember that she said she no longer bothers with the seating arrangements. I’m left with no choice but to get up from my chair and shake his hand.
“Cain, how are you?” I ask rather hypocritically. I can’t even stand to be in the same country as him, let alone share a table with this guy. One at which he sits so close to my wife, no less.
“Ailey,” he says coolly. “This is my fiancée, Rose.”
I offer my hand to her and she shakes it warmly. She's very pretty, almost beautiful, but certainly not Isabel stunning, at least to me. She’s quite voluptuous and her dress leaves little to the imagination. I guess she has to compete for his attention, given that he is one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. He’s clearly a crowd drawer at fundraising events like these. I’ll never know why, since he’s such an arrogant ass. Cain pulls her seat out for her and remains standing. Sure enough, he walks over to Betty and Isa.
“Betts.” He gives her a hug and offers his hand to Leigh, who shakes it disinterestedly.
Okay, here it comes.
Wait. No. She’s getting up. Why is she getting up?
He leans down to give her a hug. “Hi, Isa. Nice to see you.”
She embraces him a little too warmly. The smile on her face as she says his name slays me.
“Hi, Jess.”
Jess?
As soon as Cain takes a seat next to me, I lean over and whisper in her ear. “It's Jess-e. There's an E at the end.”
She responds by taking my hand, slipping it through the slit of her dress and resting it on her thigh. If I stretch my finger out far enough, I’ll be able to touch that part of her that might get her attention. Out of the blue, I have the urge to take the napkin on her lap and tie it around her neck to cover up her chest. Sort of like a bib in a seafood restaurant.
“He looks at you all googly-eyed like that one more time and I'm going to poke his fucking eyes out,” I whisper, punctuating my words with light squeezes of her thigh.
She thinks I'm kidding so she laughs.
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Christine Brae is a full time career woman who thought she could write a book about her life and then run away as far as possible from it. She never imagined that her words would touch the hearts of so many women with the same story to tell. This is her second and final book in the Light in the Wound series. Her third book is scheduled to come out in late 2014.
When not listening to the voices in her head or spending late nights at the office, Christine can be seen shopping for shoes and purses, running a half marathon or spending time with her husband and three children in Chicago.
