The Book:
Leave the Lights On by Liv Andersson
Published October 17, 2023 by Crooked Lane Books
Date read: October 6, 2023
The Characters:
Beatrice
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
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The Plot (from Goodreads):
Cape Morgan, Maine, is the utopian ideal for a charmed life, and Beatrice Wicker knows it. The multi-million-dollar house on the sea coast. The joint bank accounts. The safety and security that go along with being married to an esteemed architect and community leader. The scenic coastline, perfect for her ambitious plan to turn an abandoned asylum into an artists’ retreat. So what if her husband sneaks off to see his second family now and again? Beatrice is willing to look the other way. It’s simply the price she must pay to keep their life together.
Josh doesn’t realize that Beatrice knows about his other life. That’s just one of Beatrice’s secrets. And now, that truth—along with a deadly host of other secrets from the past—is about to upend their false paradise.
When there’s an explosion at the local elementary school playground, and a two-year-old boy is abducted, it doesn’t take Beatrice long to make the connection between the missing boy and her husband. It was the son from Josh’s other life who was kidnapped, and Josh can’t do anything about it without revealing the truth.
Helping Josh find his son would destroy the façade of her perfect marriage and could put more children’s’ lives in danger. But that’s not all. It would reveal her deeper secret: Beatrice Wicker is not who she claims to be.
How did Leave The Lights On end?
The Reveal:
In Beatrice’s past, she had been kidnapped and brainwashed by an extremist who thought the government was after him. This man, Gabriel, tried to use her to plant a bomb in a senator’s office. Emma refused and escaped, changing her name. For the rest of her life she was running from Gabriel and Elizabeth.
Grace was Elizabeth and Gabriel’s daughter. She had kidnapped the kids to get back at Emma/Beatrice–she blamed her for the fact that her family had always been on the run. Gabriel and Elizabeth had died.
The Ending:
Emma/Beatrice figured out who Grace was with the help of her PI. For some reason they left together to take Gabriel’s notebooks to a physicist in Mexico to see if he was crazy or not. That was the end.
The Review:
I took a chance on this Netgalley audiobook because I liked the cover and was intrigued by the plot. Unfortunately, the book took a turn from what I expected from the summary. I did finish it, but I was confused as heck and not into it. I’m sorry but this isn’t one I recommend!
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