Regret, betrayal, kidnapping, loss, madness, abuse, passion, love.
In this modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel, thirteen-year-old foster children Griselda and Holden escape from their abductor after three years of brutal captivity, and try to cross the Shenandoah River on foot. Tragically, one of them makes it to safety, but the other is left behind.
Ten years later, Griselda’s boyfriend … Griselda’s boyfriend drags her to a fight club grudge match, and her world is turned upside down when she watches Holden step into the ring.
Though the connection between them is fierce, bitter regret, simmering rage, and a tangle of physical and emotional scars lie between them, just as dangerous as the white water of the Shenandoah.
** Never Let You Go ** is a story of fear and hope, defeat and survival, and two people — once profoundly broken — who discover that love is the only thing that can make them whole again.
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5-I Jump, You Jump Forever Stars. Never Let You Go was in turn silly, intense, heartbreaking, and enough to make you scream in frustration and anger. This is part of the Modern Fairytales series by Katy Regnery and is a retelling of the children’s classic, Hansel and Gretel. Really? It is so much more than that. This book is a mix of opposites: sunshine and darkness, sadness and happiness, loneliness, and overwhelming support.
Holden and Griselda, aka Seth and Ruth/Zelda, are children of the foster care system. One came from a loving family that was filled with tragedy, another from a broken home from the start that never had a chance of being a family. Both end up at the same foster home. At the age of ten, they are kidnapped and held hostage for three years where they suffer at the hands of a madman who is trying to “redeem” them from their sins. They plot and plan their escape and when the opportunity arises, they take it. One makes it. One does not. Ten long years later, they find one another and fight and claw their way back to truly living and reconciling the past. Most of all they find a way to forgive themselves and others.
This story will wrench you apart and then put you back together more whole than you started out. It is a heartbreaking glimpse into the horrors that children face, but how they can come out stronger in the end.
Love, love this author and this series based on fairy tales. Unique.
The Vixen And The Vet was the first book I read by Katy Regnery & it was one of my very favorites of 2014. I was so excited to learn there would be a 2nd book in A Modern Fairytale Series. Each book is a stand-alone, full length, unconnected romance inspired by a classic fairytale. Never Let You Go is inspired by Hansel and Gretel, but make no mistake this is an adult version of a fairytale.
Never Let You Go is a true love story of Holden and Griselda. It is a story of fear & hope, defeat & survival, and two people who were once profoundly broken who discover that love is the only thing that can make them whole again. They endure a childhood of three years of a painful experience that one escaped & one didn’t. Never really knowing what happened to the other, but even when they thought the other was gone, they still lived on in each other’s heart. Together they would be whole, but separate broken. Epic love story even when events kept them apart.
My very favorite part of the book was at 25% into, with what I call the “Reunion Scene”. This is the reason I love to read books. Not knowing what happened to each other they are brought back together by fate, a sighting, a hope, and a prayer. They want a new beginning, a familiarity coming back to their relationship, a feeling of coming home, wanting to be together for the rest of their lives, even apart always been together. Together whole but separate broken, a marriage of past and present of eternal love.
Finding out you could love again, even when you thought you couldn’t, hoping for new beginnings with happy endings, and belonging to each other heart & soul till the end of time now and forever. I jump, you jump. Keep losing each other, but we keep finding each other, too, so meant to be.
Walking a long road together, as long as they had each other anything was bearable, anything was possible, life is not nice and neat. Something terrible has happened once upon a time, but now they stood victorious in the very place of their defeat, and their happily ever after was in reach. NEVER LET ME GO! (less)
Lovely
This book touched me on so many levels, I laughed, cried, and sighed so big, and I got down right angry at the injustices, but the bond between Griselda, and Holden is beyond what most of us can comprehend. One of the best retelling of a fairytale I have read.
Wonderful love story. Made you want to go to Google to check to see if it was real or not. Lol. I did… I it’s not. 😉
I loved this book.
Loved it! Great book!!
This book is heartwarming, tragic, steamy and a rollercoaster ride!! But it is so worth reading!! I love this book!!
Favorite Quotes:
“She loved him in a way that was necessary, not luxurious. She loved him like the tide loves the sand – trapped together, one lost without the other, pushed and pulled, but never ripped apart. She loved him in a deep and singular way, almost as though God had crafted one heart in heaven, then spilt it between Holden’s body and hers, fating her to a never-ending longing to be with him, or a fractional life without him.”
“I love you, and when I say that, I mean that you’re my reason for breathing, for eating, for drinking, for sleeping, for living. I will never hurt you. I will never leave you. I will always protect you. There is no one more important to me that you, and as long as I live, there never w-will be.”
“It’s a strange thing to feel your heart break. Cartoons would have you believe it’s like breaking a cracker. It snaps in half, with red crumbs falling to the ground, leaving two jagged halves sitting side by side. All you’d have to do is shove them together and they’d look like one again.”
“She tasted like tea and honey, heat and home, and every part of her fit into every part of him, like a puzzle piece, like the missing half of his soul.”
“For all my life – all my life – you have been my beating heart, the woman of my dreams.”
“I fell in love with you when I was ten years old because you were pretty and you weren’t mean. And I would’ve died so many times in this life if it hadn’t been for you… my angel, my friend, my family, my hope, my joy, my love.”
My Review:
I have had a girl crush on Katy Regnery since reading my first English Brother novel, quite some time ago. Her enchanting romances are sweet and adorable, so I was totally unprepared for the devastation she was to bring me with Never Let You Go. Make no mistake, Katy Regnery has major writing chops – and the proof being that I am, and was, a total wreck while enthralled with her latest tome. Throughout the reading of this masterful work, Ms. Regnery turned me inside out, and did so several times. I felt a thousand snakes squirming under my skin, yet I could not stop reading. I was anxious, uncomfortable, heartbroken, desperate, sobbing… yet I could not stop reading. I was essentially striped raw by her powerful and dynamic narrative, which alternated from sorrow to delight, all while being achingly emotional throughout. Yet even at the lowest of times, there were echoes and whispers of hope, and her magic words tapped every emotion to my very core. Ms. Regnery’s writing is crafty and insightful, and she skillfully captured the confusing and contradictory relationships that can occur between abusers and their victims, and the years of warped thinking and feelings of worthlessness that can result. The tale contained a teeter-totter of happiness and despair back and forth in the story, past and present, with dual POV, but when their reunions swung to the positive end – it was earth shatteringly marvelous for both. And the sensual scenes – oh my – they sizzled off the page, and often left me breathless and in need of a cool beverage. But what touched me most, was the sweetness and courage of a small boy driven to repeatedly protect and shield his beloved friend from the cruelty of a madman, despite their misfortune being her fault… and in later years, the tenderness, of the boy now a man, in how he continued to treat and adore her, despite the harshness of their intervening lives. This was not an easy read, but one that is well-written, finely crafted and expertly hewn. I have a feeling these characters are going to be occupying my head space for quite some time.
I absolutely loved this book!! The story was so intense and real that I couldn’t put it down!!!
Loved it.
love it
Awesome book! Love the series. I would highly recommend for any romance lover!
It story was good but it was just too much turmoil drug out through the entire book. I found I got bored in some parts and skipped ahead which I hardly ever do. Not a horrible read but not the best.
Good NIGHT this book was long. I really feel like this book would have benefited from a savage editor who doesn’t fear leaving a lot on the cutting room floor. The whole ordeal with Gemma just seemed so over the top dramatic that I felt like it took away from the book as a whole. The book was interesting, and well enough written, but was so meandering and occasionally tedious that I ended up skimming parts of it and was really ready for it to end.
I liked the concept, and I felt like it had some solid potential, but by the end I was really drained wanted to be done with it.