White Knight

I just knew when I met Catherine in King of Code that her’s and Chris’ story was going to be an emotional one. Man, nailed that one. This story warmed my heart and made me cry.

Young lovers torn apart by disapproving parents who let social status dictate everything, Chris sets off to become ‘worthy’. Thirteen years later, he’s determined it’s time for that second chance. Both of their lives are changing, both are unsure, but…that table, his letters, her photos…amazing.

White Knight is contemporary romance at it’s finest and just one more reason why this author will always be a one-click favorite.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed revisiting Barrington where there’s never a dull moment! And the cameo appearance of Catherine’s sister, Harper, who started the ball rolling and Taylor who had to stop it, was a real treat. White Knight can be read as a standalone; however, it wouldn’t go amiss if you read King of Code first since you’ll have a better understanding as to why the town’s inhabitants are in such a pickle. Saying that, Reiss has written this love story in such a way that with little effort and even less confusion, this second chance romance can be enjoyed on its own. Even though we’ve seen quite a few poor-boy-falls-for-rich-girl romances around of late, Reiss’ style of writing lifts this novella way above this category. No argument about it; she gave me just the right amount of angst, didn’t exaggerate the bedroom scenes but when the occasion arose…, no pun intended, her idiomatic prose kicked in and is as always, impressive.

I was delighted that one of the main features of the story became a touching name given to Catherine Barrington by the male protagonist because it was hers to wear proudly. Its significance made smile no end since it revolves around a couple of very amusing scenes. Listen guys, you can’t possibly not love her. To my mind, Reiss exerted herself with the character development of her female protagonist. You see, Catherine’s heart is a very delicate one, figuratively speaking of course. Everyone who knows her, have had to watch a series of unfortunate events occur while she’s suffered in silence. So busy trying to please and make life a better place for those involved means her feelings have been abandoned. Or have they?

Christopher Carmichael left his past behind for reasons to be divulged. I truly believe that circumstances made him stronger and the story wouldn’t have panned out as it did if Reiss had chosen another route for him. What happened was heartbreaking and I didn’t like it one bit; nonetheless, now he has the chance to ferret out the whys and wherefores of certain actions. An unusual storyline as situations are reversed in the present, what I enjoyed more was the back and forth from Christopher and Catherine’s youth to today. Observing how they’d changed over the years, how written words from the past would catch up on them, and learning forgiveness and trying to forget, pulled on my heartstrings.

I seemed to finish the book in no time and to be quite honest, would have happily carried on reading. I thought the ending was a tad rushed though, but probably because I wanted more of these two beautiful people. Other than this small detail, I couldn’t find fault in the story and highly recommend it. Bravo Reiss!

I didn’t plan to finish this book in one sitting, but that was what happened and I have no regrets losing some sleep over it. This is a second chance romance novel that gives you all the feels, both heart-breaking and heart-warming. The first chapters introduced us to two star-crossed lovers – one rich and one poor, and how their lives changed as the years went by. Thirteen years later Chris, the poor boy now a rich man, came to fulfill his promise to Cathrine, now the poor woman, to be back for her and to bury his dog, Lance.
I cried when Lance, who was with Chris through thick and thin died. I can feel how that must have hurt.

C.D. Reiss is a very talented writer and I have read a number of her books, this one is definitely going to be included in my Favorites Collection.

Loved Christopher, but did not like Catherine because she seemed so insecure as an adult.

I am voluntarily writing this review for this book I received through arc.
Chris had been living in New York with his dog Lance the last link to the
Barrington. Catherine still lived in Barrington her mother Catherine went through her trust fund to help the people of Barrington get back on their feet. Catherine sixteenth. summer she was at the Doverton Country Club and she sees the boy who knew he was hers. Catherine came from money but that all went down hill after the plant closed 11 years ago. Catherine met a boy in her sixteenth summer.. She knew that they both felt the same way about each other. Chris moves to New York and worked at making money. Catherine wrote him everyday but he never wrote back. His dog Lance was his pal and when he died Chris took him back to where he was born and buried at the pet graveyard. He goes to see Catherine it was her birthday and when she saw him she was furious and told him to leave her alone. She told him she couldn’t believe he did nothing, no letters, no calls, no nothing. He told her he wrote her everyday but never got an answer back. Meanwhile she finds a couple of old boxes of letters she had never seen before. She opens them to see that they had been written by Chris and the other box were letters written to him. Her mother held all this back meanwhile skipping out on her daughters when her father died. Catherine had been so miserable she sold everything so she could help the people of Barrington. Chris was so in love with her so he would have tp prove it to her. Even though Catherine resisted Chris he told her that he would show her how much he loved her. Catherine was so worried that Chris would find her lacking.
There were twists turns and love that brought everyone together
Another wonderful book by CD Reiss

White Knight is the final installment of what has come to be called “The Hacker series” by CD Reiss. But how does Catherine and Chris’ story fit in? They’re an analog couple in a digital age for reasons that will become beautifully and poignantly clear. She was the small town princess let behind to rule over its dying days and he’s a trader/mathematician who left to build an empire. I’ll let you in on a secret. It was never about hacking. They were stories about home. Building one, finding your way back, honoring it and keeping it in your heart. How home is people or that one special person.
I loved Catherine from our first meeting in King of Code. A tragic heroine straight out of a Tennessee Williams play, dismantling her life and dreams for pennies on the dollar to save the people she called home and sobbing herself to sleep at night at the futility of it all. Using everyone else’s pain as a distraction from her own.
And her pain is Chris – a boy from the wrong side of town – run out on a rail in the dead of night with his dog Lance and $749 Catherine gave him, promising he’d come back for her.
And he didn’t. That is until his beloved Lance died years later and a world away in Manhattan, the pampered pooch of a high flying equities trader.
Their story is so epic and raw and amazing. Alternating between past and present, it’s a masterful tale of first love interrupted. Ms. Reiss is pitch perfect capturing the warm, sweet, reckless feel of first love, when you’re nothing but tingling nerves wrapped up in the spun sugar of all of these FEELINGS. But when she’s moves into the present day, and takes all of those sweeping, giddy emotions of first love and tempers them with this heart breaking, grown up self awareness, it’s nothing short of brilliant. It’s a story you want to wallow in.
As Chris and Catherine took their perfect, doomed first love and molded it into something new and strong and tailor made for the people they became, I got the chills. It was just…it touched my soul.
It was PERFECTION. White Knight is a modern woman’s real life fairy tale with a happily ever after of her own making.

Catherine. Chris.

Distressing and lonely. These two souls are like two ships passing in the night, never connecting. 13 sad years. Years of tears and taking care of everyone but yourself. Years of chasing a goal only to realize it wasn’t really what you wanted. You walked away from what you wanted.

Lancelot…a dog who was so much more than a dog. He was a best friend who put the needs of his master first.

The letters. sad and beautiful. A story being told. In rebelling that story, and hers, you see and feel a connection, soul-deep, clicking into place.

Finding each other and not losing yourself. In fact, finding yourself. Not just your soulmate and heart, but your soul itself.

White Knight is more than a second chance romance. It’s a story of life. Growing up and making mistakes. Existing but not living. Waking up and deciding to go after what you really want and not giving up. It was sad and beautiful.

“But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose” – Emily Brontë

White Knight is a sumptuous story of the fantasy inherent in the second chance at romantic love and of the reality that time and distance takes exacting its toll in changing people and their circumstances. C.D. Reiss, true to form, presents us with two passionate erotic love affairs of the same couple 13 years apart, Catherine Barrington and Chris Carmichael. Liberally sprinkled throughout the narrative are references and metaphors of the rose, rose bushes and thorns.

Her use of rose metaphors and mentions became almost mystical to me because after awhile I swear I could smell the faint odor of roses as I read this captivating story of love won and lost. Perhaps the author was gifting us with some sacred and beautiful truth on which to hold by her frequent mention of and references to roses.

Allow me to digress…what have roses come to symbolize through the ages? In every “major religion” they have great significance. In ancient India the cosmic rose, known as Tripurasundari, symbolized the beauty, the strength, and the wisdom of the divine mother. In the temples of the Sumerian and Egyptian priests rosicrucian (cross and rose) symbols were already used many millenniums before the Christian era. In Hinduism and in many parts of the world, this is the flower of love and affection. In Islam roses are seen as symbols of the human soul so smelling them reminds them of their spirituality. The holy Zohar opens with the image of the Jewish nation likened to a beloved rose with 13 petals and 5 sepals. The Christian sees in the rose the beauty of the Garden of Eden, paradise, a world that reflected God’s design. In Catholicism, the scent of roses is considered the odor of sanctity and roses are associated with the Blessed Virgin as is the Rosary upon which Catholics pray.

World literature abounds with thematic metaphor and references to roses. Here too in reading the White Knight, we as readers are presented with a literary bouquet of an abundance of roses and the varied beautiful meanings ascribed to them which lift our hearts and souls above the ordinary. However, we need remember with roses come the thorns.

Interestingly enough… when we meet the older Catherine, she is setting fire to what is now known as the “thorn bushes”. They once were carefully tended rose bushes but have grown wild, tangled and thick. In some way I feel they represent Catherine’s heart which has itself grown wild, tangled and thick with the sadness, watered with nightly tears, she felt for 13 years at the loss of the boy/man Chris.

There is sublime magic in the telling of the young love of these two. There passion so new, so pure and innocent. The mutual discovery of their desire is so enchanting. Circumstances as they were then, ripped them apart. Chris a poor boy could offer Catherine a young heiress nothing but himself. Truly, that is all she really wanted. Chris more the realist of the two…while he loved Catherine desperately, he needed money and lots of it to feel valuable to her. The pursuit of money became his focus. From being a nobody and having nothing in New York, he became a billionaire hedge fund manager. Somewhere in the pursuit of wealth he lost himself and the purpose of his pursuit of wealth.

After a disastrous turn of events in his business and the desire to bury his faithful dog, Lance back in Barrington, he has returned and wants his Catherine back…whatever it takes. She does not want him. She is hurt beyond feeling the pain.

“It’s too late to ride in and rescue me. I don’t need a knight in shining armor anymore.” “Maybe I’m the one who needs to be rescued,” he whispered. “I can’t do that.” I pulled my arm down, and he let go. “I’m sorry. I can barely save myself.”

The story of their eventual reunion has Chris pricking himself on her thorns, this Catherine of the Roses, who still smells like roses. There is so much time that yawns between them. The tug and pull…the angst as they work out their feelings is engrossing…and surely it would not be a C.D. Reiss novel, if we did not get the erotic rekindling.

I was nearly blinded by the light made by their heat coming off the page…my ears were ringing for the blood rushing through my body while I read and the whole time… and I literally smelled the faint scent of roses!

Despite the pleasure they found in each other, Chris understands that he needs to do more and becomes even more than that romantic, sexy modern-day knight who will save the day as he woos his lady and proves to her his devotion. Having lived for money alone at one time which resulted in abject loneliness…he is now determined to claim his Catherine of the Roses no matter what it takes.

“A man could love a woman like that to death. A man could love a woman like that forever. A man could stand by a woman like that and watch her bloom. Water her. Tend her gently. Respect the thorns. Love the rose. A man could walk beside a woman like that the rest of his life.”

So, the gift of the love for him resembles a rose, his Catherine as he gifts her 749 roses. (These roses infinitely more valuable than dollars.) The reader is given the gift of renewed appreciation of this singularly precious, spiritual and beautiful flower, the rose and all it represents in this contemporary tale of the very modern, albeit uber romantic, “White Knight”.

The past four books I have had on my docket to read have been 2nd chance love stories. So, you can imagine, when the next up on my schedule was yet another 2nd chance love novel. I initially though, Oh no here we go again. But if you know anything about CD Reiss, you should know that is the farthest thing from the truth. As the story unfolds, it became one of the best ones I have read. We get the tale of 2nd chances, misunderstandings, loss, heartache, and we also get to see how it all comes back together again through love, trust and communication. Chris and Catherine have a devastating story, yet the journey we see them go on after something tragic happens, is a pure delight to read.

We follow Chris and Catherine in this story and see the story of young love ripped apart by family, wealth, and other circumstances that devastated the two young lovers. The book follows a format of past and present the first half of the book, and while I am not a huge fan of these stories as they can tend to get overworked and loose the reader between the time jumps, in this story I felt it was necessary. To see how they felt about one another at such a young age and see how strong their bond truly was, is nostalgic. The present time reunion between the two did at times feel a bit rushed together, but overall it was a great story at 2nd chance love and the characters were very loveable. Once misunderstandings were cleared up and they were finally free to be together, it was simply well portrayed.

I know that some of my followers are going to say I’m broken. This is the second book in a series where I, the Series Referee, say, “Nah, go ahead. This can be standalone.”
WTH?
I know.
But it’s true.

I find that if the writer has the ability to provide just enough backstory to any re-occuring characters for a new reader to not get lost, I’ll bow to recommendation for standalone. However, for this series, although interconnected, CD Reiss makes a mark in each subgenre that is a delight to the fan. As everyone is well aware, I am a huge sucker for second chance. So I’m going in that this is trope I’m a fan and can’t wait to see the characters journey.

And Catherine & Chris have such a unique and touching second chance that you don’t want to miss.

Just take my word for it: Read the other – pick up this book. Hesitant in picking up the others but would love a unique spin on second chance, do not hesitate to one click. 5 out of 5 stars.