Title: I’d Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos
Love Walked In Series Book Four
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary, Women’s Fiction
Length: 272 pages
Book Rating: B+
Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss
Summary:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Love Walked In and Belong to Me comes a profound and heart-rending story about a horrific tragedy that marks one woman and her hometown and about the explosive secrets that come to light twenty years later.
Ginny Beale is eighteen, irreverent, funny, and brave, with a brother she adores and a circle of friends for whom she would do anything. Because of one terrible night, she loses them all—and her adventurous spirit—seemingly forever. While the town cheers on the high school football team, someone sets the school’s auditorium ablaze. Ginny’s best friend Gray Marsden’s father, a fire fighter, dies in the blaze.
While many in the town believe a notoriously troubled local teen set the fire, Ginny makes a shattering discovery that casts blame on the person she trusts most in the world. Ginny tells no one, but the secret isolates her, looming between her and her friends and ruining their friendship.
Over the next two decades, Ginny puts aside her wanderlust and her dreams. Moving back to her hometown, she distances herself from the past and from nearly everyone in it. She marries a quiet man, raises their daughter, Avery, and cares for her tyrannical, ailing mother, Adela. But when Ginny’s husband, Harris, becomes embroiled in a scandal, Ginny’s carefully controlled life crumbles, and, just when she believes she is regaining her bearings, the secret she’s kept for twenty years emerges and threatens to destroy her hopes for the future.
With the help of fifteen-year-old Avery and of friends both old and new, Ginny must summon the courage to confront old lies and hard truths and to free herself and the people she loves from the mistakes and regrets that have burdened them for so long.
Review:
I’d Give Anything by Marisa de los Santos is a surprisingly light-hearted novel of healing, friendship and love.
Ginny Beale McCue’s life is turned upside down when her husband, Harris, loses his job amid a scandal. Determined to protect their fifteen year old daughter, Avery, from negative gossip, Ginny asks her terminally ill mother to spin the situation in their favor. She also avoids revealing the more salacious details but Avery knows something is definitely wrong since her father has moved out of the family home.
In the midst of the current crisis, Ginny’s best friend Kirsten makes a request she cannot turn down even though it means facing the best friends she walked away from twenty years earlier. She also hopes to repair her broken relationship with her brother Trevor who left during the same time dark time period during her senior year of high school. As she is looking back on her past mistakes, Ginny unexpectedly finds the man who could possibly be part of her future. But will she trust her instincts enough to give their unexpected romance the chance to flourish?
Ginny is content with her marriage and their life with Avery. Things are a little boring with Harris, so she is utterly shocked to learn about the circumstances surrounding the loss of his job. Very concerned about their daughter, Ginny hopes to protect her from inevitable gossip about her father. Kirsten encourages Ginny to look toward the future, but is she ready to begin dating?
Avery is stronger than her mother thinks but that convincing her of that is going to be an uphill battle. She is curious and also uneasy about what happened with her father and his job, but she is uncomfortable spending time with him. After a stunning revelation about her mother’s past, Avery seeks out more information about the circumstances surrounding the loss of his job. But is she truly ready for what she is about to discover?
I’d Give Anything is a heartwarming novel that is also quite entertaining. The cast of characters is appealing and easy to like. The storyline is interesting and alternates between Avery’s teenage diary entries and events in the present. Marisa de los Santos deftly balances serious subject matter with humor and the resulting story is heartfelt and thought-provoking. A delightful addition to the Love Walked In series that readers of the genre will enjoy.
