The truth could destroy them. Or set them free.Maggie Lindquist left Solace Lake determined never to return. Circumstances have pulled her back and she’s helping to restore her family’s dilapidated fishing lodge. When she agreed to the plan she didn’t expect to have to work side by side with the man who abandoned her ten years earlier. She didn’t expect to like him, or want him ever again. But … him ever again. But can she trust him as she once did?
Luke Carlsson rushes home to tend to his ailing mother. Her lengthy illness means he needs to stay, at least temporarily. And to stay, he needs to work. Solace Lake Lodge offers him a job and an opportunity to work with the woman he’s never stopped loving. But the restoration is unleashing secrets hidden for decades and no one is left unscathed. Especially not Maggie and Luke, whose love needs to be resilient enough to forgive, and strong enough to build a future together.
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she never wanted to go back as there would be him, the one who abandoned her. He is back to nurse his sick money and he also needs to work. in doing so he will meet her again. Can they overcome the past? Can they work together again? Follow them to see where it will all end
I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.
After Lies and Secrets (books 1 and 2), we finally have Truth in the Love at Solace Lake series. Maggie, the youngest of the Lindquist daughters, is the heroine of this second-chance-at-romance story. When she was a young teenager, she fell in love was a young man named Luke who was a few years older than she was. After dumping her in a most dramatic and painful fashion, he went to California for schooling and ultimately got a job there. He comes back to the Minnewasta area because his mother is terminally ill with lung cancer. He works in hotel and restaurant management and has agreed to do that temporarily at the lodge so he can be with his mother in Minnesota. Because of their respective jobs in the lodge, Luke and Maggie often work together, which is not always easy for Maggie. They have so much shared history and still-existent feelings for each other, but there are also hurt and abandonment issues.
Will Maggie be able to look beyond the past hurts? Can Maggie and Luke find love again as adults? How will Luke deal with his mother’s illness? What truths will be revealed?
Yet again, the author has written a fantastic book. The past backstory and the current plotlines weave together and mirror each other in a complex way that was beautifully done.
I was wondering how she was going to handle the first chapter, which in the other two books of the series showed the sisters’ parents’ deaths from that book’s heroine’s perspective. But I knew that Maggie was just a baby when her parents died. In this book instead, Maggie gets into a fight with her grandmother about Luke just before her grandmother dies, causing Maggie to feel guilty that she may have caused for heart attack.
In this book, you will finally learn the truth about the death of the girls’ parents as well as the truth about Maggie’s parentage, which was hinted at in the prior book. Another truth revealed in the book is the reason why Luke left back when they were younger.
Yet again, this author is not afraid to address difficult and taboo topics, which are not common in contemporary romance. In this book, she looks at sexual harassment, parental abandonment, cancer, and marital infidelity as well as continuing to address alcoholism. Even though there are many hard topics she explores, she does so with sensitivity and compassion.
If you enjoyed either of the first two books of the series, you will find answers to the questions raised in them, told in the compelling way you have come to expect from this author. If you haven’t read the other books and enjoyed heartfelt contemporary romance, I suggest you start with Book 1 and make it to this one because the journey of the characters in these novels is amazing to watch unfold.
Reviewed by JoAnne
Book provided by Jana Richards
Review originally posted at Romancing the Book
Truth and Solace is book three in the Love at Solace Lake series. It’s not only a nice continuation of the series it’s an emotional read and we find out about the secrets in Harper, Scarlet and Maggie’s family and also about what’s ailing Abby, their mother’s best friend. This is Maggie and Luke’s story but it is so much more since it encompasses everyone. Loose ends are tied up nicely since this is the third and last book in the series but a holiday novella would be nice so we can see how the lodge fares once it fully opens and how they are each living their lives. It was nice to be reunited with the characters I’ve grown to love but also the inclusion of Celeste and Hope was a nice addition to the story.
The book starts off with a prologue that takes Maggie back to her childhood when she lived in the lodge with her grandparents. The story takes place ten years later and we finally learn what’s been hinted in the first two books, Lies and Solace and Secrets and Solace, regarding Maggie’s life when she left home and what really happened between she and Luke. We watch them take one step forward and two or three back since they’re both afraid to feel. There were family and friends, happiness, sadness, tears and laughter, reminisces, anger, fear, heartache, sorrow, holidays. celebrations, food, romance, loving and love. The descriptions of the weather, the land, the town, the lodge, the cottages and Abby’s home made me feel that I was there. There was a nice flow to the story that revealed truths to us a little at a time and some were shockers. The characters all had a depth to them and we learned more about them as their layers were pulled back. There’s a happily-ever-after in the offing along with a few surprises. The epilogue was nice but didn’t go far enough for me.
Richards is a new to me author only having read this series. I look forward to reading more contemporary romances that she writes.
Favorite Quote: Luke’s lips turned up in a grin. “You celebrate with donuts?”
She smiled back. “You celebrate your way, and I’ll celebrate mine.”