We don't learn much about Margaret Jacobsen's previous life before it's utterly destroyed. Her boyfriend's taking piloting lessons and even though Margaret's afraid of flying, she caves in and goes up with him. He proposes in the air, and then crashes the plane. Chip walks away without so much as a Band-Aid, while Margaret will never walk again and has burns to deal with to boot. (I note there's a possible cameo from Cassie in this one as a rescuing firefighter.) Of course she loses her new job that she hasn't gotten to start yet. Of course her new condo has stairs. Of course Chip immediately descends into guilt and alcoholism after what he's done, though I give credit to Margaret for generally realizing that he's not around much and he's a mess when he is and this isn't likely to continue. And of course her mother becomes one of those people who looks up every miracle inspirational story and drums them into Margaret's head, while at the same time literally saying she can't look at Margaret now.
Sounds like a downer, isn't it? I confess I probably wouldn't have picked this up had this not been Katherine Center, who has really impressed me with her books so far. And this did not disappoint.
While in hospital rehab, Margaret is assigned the gruff, surly, Scottish Ian as her physical therapist. He's not obviously fun and encouraging like the other PT's, and he apparently has some SUPER bad blood with his supervisor. But as they get to know each other, well... Ian has Been Through Some Shit, and definitely made some mistakes with the boss, and you are pretty much like "well, no wonder he was surly." He and Margaret eventually hit it off, though the way they met certainly makes things uh, legally difficult.
There's also her sister Kitty, who fled the family and cut them off years ago but finally returns once she's told of Margaret's accident. Kitty had her secret reasons for running, but does her best to be there for Margaret even if she's got issues with their mother. That eventually comes out too.
This isn't just a romance--well, it's slow burn, I'll say--but a story about a lady getting her new life together. This doesn't go all super miracle--Ian's life gets more befucked and at one point he tells Margaret he's not interested when he clearly is, though you can certainly get why he does that. But Margaret does need to make a life for herself, even if she's certainly clear on her feelings as to who's the better man. It's inspirational while being realistic, and it's not syrupy or fake.
I really only have one quibble about this book, which will go below the spoiler cut. I also do find it a bit odd that we don't know that much about Margaret's previous life--hobbies? what else did she get up to? I guess she was just...perfect by family standards. But I do appreciate that the book doesn't waste time on portraying her life before her old life gets destroyed, since that's going out the window anyway. She builds a new one. Heck, she even knits, which cracked me up as a yarnie.
This is a very, very good book. Four stars.
Spoiler space
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The one thing I didn't like about this book was that Chip finally gets remarried IN BELGIUM and everyone in Margaret's family BUT HER is invited. I was all "why is the family being invited in the first place" at first, and then was reminded that Margaret's mom and Chip's mom are still best friends (somehow, after all this). Okay, fine, but then the family is all "But why isn't Margaret invited? There must be some mistake!" followed by "Hey, why don't we just have Margaret crash the wedding anyway?" and I'm all IT'S PERFECTLY LOGICAL TO NOT INVITE THE EX-FIANCEE THAT YOU HANDICAPPED FOR LIFE WITH YOUR BAD FLYING, DONCHA THINK? It also seems perfectly logical that Margaret might NOT want to go (or fly! to another country!), so the fact that she and the family insist on her coming--even if they also throw in "hey, let's parent trap the parents" and "I can go from Brussels to Scotland in a few hours," at least that last one is reasonable--is just fucking weird. That whole thing is weird. Ian showing up at the wedding of a guy he barely met, as well, is also weird.
I dunno why the author didn't just have Margaret go visit Ian like a normal person and skip Chip. Who cares about him any more? Why would you spend that much money and effort to go to his wedding? Just saying.
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