Light in the Shadows by A. Meredith Walters Find the Author: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads
Published by Simon and Schuster on March 26th 2013
Genres: Dark, Mental Illness, Romance, Young Adult
Purchase links: Amazon, iTunes
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Source: Purchased
How do you keep going when you feel like your life is over?
Maggie never thought she’d see Clay again. So, she attempts to put her life back together after her heart has been shattered to pieces. Moving on and moving forward, just as Clay wanted her to.
Clay never stopped thinking of Maggie. Even after ripping their lives apart and leaving her behind to get the help he so desperately needed. He is healing...slowly. But his heart still belongs to the girl who tried to save him.
When a sudden tragedy brings Maggie and Clay face to face again, nothing is the same. Yet some things never change. Can the darkness that threatened to consume them be transformed into something else and finally give them what they always wanted? And can two people who fought so hard to be together, finally find their happiness? Or will their demons and fear drive them apart for good?
The thing about love, is even when it destroys you, it has a way of mending what is broken. And in the shadows, you can still see the light.
Book Review: 5 stars
*** This review may contain spoilers for book one, “Find you in the dark” ***
After the bittersweet ending of book one in this series, “Find you in the dark”, I was looking forward to reading this sequel. But I have to admit, that I was a bit hesitant, too. I was content with the ending in book 1; even though it left a lot to the imagination, I think it was very fitting for the circumstances. “Find you in the dark” was a book that felt very real to me, so I would have been shocked, if there had been a “butterflies, unicorns and rainbows happy end”. I really debated with myself if to read the sequel at all. But I fell in love with the characters, Clay and Maggie, in book one – so I wanted to know where their path would lead them.
“Light in the shadows” starts approx. 10 weeks after the ending of book 1. We learn about what has happened in the lives of the two teenagers Clay and Maggie after shit hit the fan. I think it was only personal, but I wasn’t so entirely sure, I wanted those two to ever meet again. Both were fighting a hell of a lot of personal demons and to say they had both a very hard time, likewise behind and ahead of them, would be an understatement. Finally, when fate lets them cross paths again, we learn anew, that fate can be a cruel bitch. Pardon my French, but I just can’t put it any other way. The book just continued to be bittersweet…
As much as “Light in the shadows” is a book about the second chance two lovers got, it is also a book about learning, maturing and ultimately – healing. Nothing in this book is rushed, much to my relief. The MC’s progress is described as real as their problems were described in book 1. You just understand, what they went through and I had the utmost respect for how both young souls handled everything. It was awe-inspiring.
The writing-style was as good as in book one, it sucked me in and went flawlessly. This book contains graphic sex, so in my opinion – and after all the maturing the characters did – this was more a New Adult novel. It was also not filled with this certain kind of teenage-angst, like the first book was. The character’s actions and thoughts were very comprehensible.
Something personal, I’d like to add here is, that I’m so glad the author told the message loud and clear in her book, that if you have mental issues and just get a few “happy pills”, NOT everything is right in the world. Most people think that if you take anti-depressants and sleeping pills, you should be happy and careless 24/7. That’s a cliché I had to hear a lot when I was on meds myself. But that’s just not the reality. Those pills do not heal you, they just help you to regulate the problems that you have to battle against nonetheless. Sometimes, those pills even make everything worse. Mental issues are something that you have to live with, maybe your whole life – and not something, that can be magically cured with a few chemicals alone. Thank you so much, A. Meredith Walters, for being so authentic with everything!!! For that alone, I’d give you 1.000 stars, if I could.
After all, I have so much to say about those two books, but it would spoiler too much and where to start and where to end? It’s best to read “Find you in the dark” and then the sequel “Light in the shadows” without fear (believe me, I was so scared and in the end, I shouldn’t have been) and with a very open mind. “Light in the shadows” has the perfect ending. I had tears of joy in my eyes and was even proud of Maggie and most of all Clay, this sweet, sweet soul. It was the perfect ending for all the characters in the book. Mind you, the author did an impressive job of wrapping everything up, without it being cheesy and unrealistic.
So, I’ll give “Light in the shadows” 5 stars and can say, that in my personal opinion, the author did everything right and wrote a perfect book-duet. Those books will stay with me forever.
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