Imagine a terrific, deep, true love story combined with an empowering coming- of- age novel. Now add a little mystery, twists and turns and a second love story and you have Marisa De Los Santos’ I’ll be Your Blue Sky. I have not felt wowed by a book in a few months. Don’t get me wrong I’ve read some quality novels, but even though the characters were there and the plot was there, I just didn’t feel 100% satisfied by the end. You know that feeling when you don’t want a book to end because you want to just keep following the characters through their lives? That is what I felt when I closed this book.
Clare is a young twenty-something who we meet on the eve of her wedding day. She is marrying a successful, handsome man but we quickly learn her heart is not completely in it. Coincidently (or not) she meets an elderly woman, Edith, at the hotel where the wedding is taking place. Edith is quick to pick up on Clare’s nerves and Clare opens up to her about some concerns she has for her future with her fiancé. She describes how much Zach adores her and how she would feel guilty abandoning him when he has had a troubled past. Edith replies, “You’re his blue sky. When everything else is darkness. But is he yours?” Edith quickly became my favorite character and what I thought was a brief cameo was actually the introduction to her story, which is told in parallel to Clare’s.
In the past Edith had a great love story of her own. Although it was cut short when her husband died of cancer shortly after their marriage, she held on to this love for the rest of her life and celebrated it through her photography. We learn that Edith is not only empathetic but extremely brave. When she was a young woman, after her husband’s death, she used their home as a safe house for battered women.
If you are wondering how these stories are connected, you are not alone! I thought we would be journeying with Clare as she decides what to do about her almost marriage- but this event is just the beginning of the story. Will she take the advice of a complete stranger? Is Edith a complete stranger? How are the two connected? What is Edith’s story and how does her involvement in a secret escape route for domestic violence victims impact Clare’s life? You will get the answers to all of your questions (and more) once you delve in to I’ll be Your Blue Sky and you will not be disappointed.
2 Book Girls 