Where There's Smoke Review

Where There's Smoke

By,

Elizabeth Lee

Goodreads

There is something to be said for letting go. Ryland Roberts knows that better than anyone. He'd let go of his ambitions, of his family and—most of all—of her. He'd perfected the art of putting his past behind him and accepted the fact that the town he wanted to leave in his rearview was the place where he was going to live out his days. But sometimes the past doesn't just go away. Sometimes it comes back to haunt you.

Piper Jameson convinced herself that she left for all the right reasons. She'd saved people by leaving—made sure that they weren't tainted by her rebellious ways. When her little sister asks her to come home and say goodbye to their ailing mother, she's forced to see that things aren't always as they seem. The people who she'd left behind might not have been saved at all.

In the amount of time it takes a bullet to travel from point A to point B, Piper and Ryland will have to put their feelings for each other aside and make a choice. Forced on the run with Piper's sister, they begin to understand that the future they thought was gone was never really lost.

 My thoughts….

I really liked this book. The story had a lot of things going on with it. There were a lot of different elements to this story. It keeps you guessing about what Lee is going to bring in to the story next. The best part was that it didn’t feel overwhelming. All of it seemed to work together and make the story better.

Young Love/ Young Heartbreak

Piper and Ryland met in High School. They fell in love despite what everyone thought of them. Piper was the trouble maker/ hellion. Ryland was the nerd that never got into trouble and had a very bright future. One night and a step-dad hell bent on ruining Piper’s life split them up. The airplane hangar in their town went up in flames. Piper thought that she was going to be saving everyone by leaving town (plus that asshole not giving her a choice) but she broke Ry’s heart. 

Corrupt Cop/ Murder

Everyone thought that Piper ran away six years ago. No one knew that Piper’s step-dad forced her to leave. Resden is the super villain in this story and he is only in it for a short time. The effect he has on this story is ridiculous. It wasn’t just him either. He had the whole police station after these two characters.

One night changed everything for Piper, Hadley, and Ryland. One secret came to light and ended a life. This part is kind of predictable. If you can add up clues you should go into this part of the story knowing what happens. You could feel the tension and everything that the characters where going through. That is really hard for an author to do correctly and Lee did an amazing job.

On The Run

Our characters go on the run after the murder that takes place. There is still a lot of confusion between Piper and Ry. They both still love each other but one is still mad and the other doesn’t want to bring the other down. They are so focused on keeping Hadley safe they don’t focus on each other even after the one night in the hotel room.

When you read about people getting away with murder some stories are not believable but this story was believable. The author found a way to end this story in a way you can see it actually happen in life. Another great thing about this book is you never really know who pulled the trigger until the end. There are no clues and Lee doesn’t really bring it up much. She lets you assume and then she surprises you!

Forgiveness

A large part of this book is about forgiveness. Piper is looking for a lot of forgiveness when she comes back to town six years later. She is looking for forgiveness with her mother who she not only left but her mother let her step-dad run her out of town. She needs forgiveness with her sister. Hadley thought that Piper left, hid, and never looked back. Piper thought she was doing the right thing and didn’t know what she was leaving Hadley to deal with. Now she needs to find a way to make it up to her sister.

And for almost every minute of this book Piper is looking for forgiveness with Ryland. Piper expected Ryland to make all of his dreams come true. What she didn’t expect was to find out he went to jail and stayed in the town they were desperate to get out of. The forgiveness that happens between these two characters was beautiful and it took some work. There were bumps in the road but they made it through and it was great.

This book was surprisingly clean. There was one sex scene but it really wasn’t that bad. There were some kissing but the sex was kept to a minimum. So for people who like clean books this is a pretty good one for you.

The book was really great as I said before. The writing flowed well and the characters were interesting. Piper was strong and I loved that she was willing to do everything she could for the people she loved. Ryland was the same way.  Ry loved Piper with all of his heart even when he didn’t want to admit it. He was ready to throw his life away twice, for Piper and her family.

This book was exciting and I couldn’t put it down! Go pick up a copy!!!

Buy Links: 

Amazon 

Amazon UK 

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