Memory Lane by Becky Wade - Sons of Scandal, book 1

After surviving a trauma several years back, Remy Reed relocated to a cottage on one of Maine’s most remote islands. She’s arranged her life just the way she wants it. It’s quiet and solitary—until the day she spots something bobbing in the ocean. Her binoculars reveal the “something” to be a man struggling to keep his head above water. She races out to save him and brings him into her home. He’s injured, which doesn’t detract from his handsomeness nor make him any easier to bear. He acts like a duke who’s misplaced his dukedom . . . expensive tastes, lazy charm, bossy ideas. Remy would love nothing more than to return him to his people, but he has no recollection of his life prior to the moment she rescued him. Though she’s not interested in relationships other than the safe ones she’s already established, she begins to realize that he’s coming to depend on her. Who is he? What happened that landed him in the Atlantic Ocean? And why is she drawn to him more and more as time goes by? There’s no way to discover those answers except to walk beside him down memory lane.

This was a great story, full of Wade's trademark humor and romance, along with a dash of intrigue. Based on first impressions, I assumed that our hero is a rich playboy. He is rich (no doubt about it). He's competitive and intense, but he's not a playboy. He surprised me by how very respectful he is of boundaries, and he's much more self-controlled than his first, in-pain and confused impression would lend us to believe. 

No one in this book leads a perfect life; everyone's is messy. Remy is dealing with trauma by hiding out and losing herself in art. Our hero deals with trauma of a different sort. Even side characters like Wendall and Fiona are dealing with the consequences of their life choices, not all of which were great. 

Losing one's memories is an awful thing (I have a cousin who was in a bad car accident 19 years ago and is still missing two months of her life). But I loved how in this book it becomes almost a gift--a gift of time for our mystery man to view his life from an outside perspective instead of drowning in the midst of his circumstances. God takes something awful and uses it for good, not just for his own healing, but for Remy's healing, and even Wendell's, Remy's elderly friend. It doesn't mean that things aren't really hard sometimes, but God is still there through it all and forever afterward.

"God has a soft spot for those of us who feel like we've been thrown onto the garage sale pile . . . He's never closer than when we're beaten up, unloved, betrayed." 

I greatly look forward to Jude's story!

Sons of Scandal
1. Memory Lane
2. Rocky Road

In This Moment by Gabrielle Meyer - Timeless, book 2

Maggie inherited a gift from her time-crossing parents that allows her to live three separate lives in 1861, 1941, and 2001. Each night she goes to sleep in one time period and wakes up in another. Until, that is, she turns twenty-one, when she will have to forfeit two of those lives forever. In 1861, Maggie is the daughter of an influential senator at the outbreak of the Civil War, navigating a capital full of Southern spies and wounded soldiers. In 1941, she is a Navy nurse, grappling with her knowledge of the future when she's asked to join a hospital ship being sent to Pearl Harbor. And in 2001, she's a brilliant young medical student, fulfilling her dream of becoming a surgeon, yet unable to use her modern skills in her other paths. While Maggie has sworn off romance until she makes her final choice, an intriguing man tugs at her heart in each era, and she's drawn to each man in different ways, only complicating the impossible decision she must make, which looms ever closer. With so much on the line, how can Maggie choose just one life to keep and the rest to lose?

This is sort of a fantasy version of a dual timeline novel, in which the heroine exists in three timelines all at once. It has the distinct advantage over other dual timeline books by having the same main character in all three timelines, rather than different characters experiencing different stories. Often in dual timelines, one timeline is more interesting than the other, and I wish that the book could just be about that one. Not so with this book: while I was less interested in her 2001 timeline, her choices and events that occurred still had a major impact on her and her other timelines. As much as she tried not let it inform her choices, the knowledge and skills she gains from 2001 still affect her decisions in 1941 and 1861.

The stakes felt a little lower in this book than previous one, for all that Maggie is living through the start of essentially three wars. It's more her personal journey of deciding what is right for her; the decision isn't forced in the same way as her mother's in the previous book. Still, it's a highly enjoyable story, and I look forward to the next in the series!

Thank you Bethany House and NetGalley for the complimentary e-book. I was not required to write a positive review, and all opinions are my own.

Timeless
1. When the Day Comes
2. In This Moment