RELEASE LAUNCH: REVIEW AND GIVEAWAY: Before We Were Strangers by Renee Carlino

Blurb

From the USA TODAY bestselling author of Sweet Thing and Nowhere But Here comes a love story about a Craigslist “missed connection” post that gives two people a second chance at love fifteen years after they were separated in New York City.

To the Green-eyed Lovebird:

We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.

You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more.

We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music (you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley), photography (I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other.

Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding…

I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello.

After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half?

M

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There’s no such thing as perfect timing, but for Grace and Matt, time was just one variable not working in their favor…missed opportunities, outside interference, and a multitude of regrets and what ifs have led them to 15 years of wondering what the other is doing and why they just couldn’t get it right.

In a way, Before We Were Strangers reminds me of the movie Sliding Doors. The heroine faces a decision that could lead her down two paths, and those journeys are shown in a parallel way throughout the film. Grace and Matt have personal and professional goals that could lead them down a path as a couple or one as individuals working to make a name for themselves in their fields of choice, but it seems as if the option they choose will categorically define them for years to come and force them down very different roads.

After Grace and Matt’s connection in college was torn apart, their lives went down parallel tracks that for many years never intersected, but through all the time they were traveling their own roads, they never stopped thinking about one another, leading them to believe that their story wasn’t finished…that the ending they had all those years ago was not supposed to be the conclusion to their relationship.

But Grace and Matt’s second chance at love is a rather bumpy one that leads to moments of rejection, despair, and life changing revelations. They both have to learn who they are now and not hold on too much to who they were before because looking back won’t move them forward.

Renee Carlino does a great job of meticulously weaving Grace and Matt’s present and past, examining the emotional impact for both of them. The reality of their situation is hard for them to accept, and readers will feel the exact same way because a love like theirs – one that’s real and seems so seamless – should not have been destroyed so easily. But what Carlino shows as well is that life is messy and choices made have a domino effect, in both positive and negative ways, and perhaps, the only way Grace and Matt could reunite and have a second chance at love is for them to have parted and lived separate lives, allowing for growth and understanding and forcing them both to realize that even when they were apart, they were never truly strangers because they still held each other in their hearts. 

A complimentary copy was provided by the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 poison apples