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