Book summary: Everything we keep

It had been a long time since I read a fiction based novel. And somehow the novel, "Everything we keep", appeared on the "Kindle Umlimited" dashboard in my wife's Amazon account. I saw that the book had over a thousand reviews and had average rating of four and above. I thought the book might be good. And indeed so. The book did not disappoint. After a long time I read a book from front to back.

The book starts with a sorrow stricken Aimee attending her childhood's sweetheart and fiance James's funeral on the very day on which both were supposed to be pronounced husband and wife. If that was not enough for a misfortune in someone's life, Aimee's parents decided to sell the Irish bar where Aimee is a bread maker. In her 26th year, after having lost her would husband and her only job, Aimee has little to look up to the future. Her only form of support comes from her close childhood friends Kristen and Nadia. The story is beautifully set in the small town of Los Gatos, California which is south of Silicon Valley.

The story becomes more interesting as one of the psychic practitioners approach Aimee with the news that her fiance James is alive. Aimee is not able to believe the psychic practitioner and goes about rebuilding her life after the dust from setbacks of her fiance's death and job loss. It takes her months to move on and she finally realizes her dream of opening a restaurant which serves her unique blend of coffee and breakfast. Through friends, Aimee meets Ian, a landscape photographer, and both of them develop a healthy liking for each other. A liking which could help Aimee foster a beautiful relationship to forget a painful year.

But the psychic, Lacy, keeps coming and reminding Aimee of the fact that James is alive. Even though Ian confesses to Aimee that he loved her, Aimee is not able to progress into the relationship but thinks of bringing her love, James, back if James was actually alive. Aimee hires a professional detective to investigate if her fiance James was actually alive. But such attempts prove futile. Aimee decides to follow psychic's advice and travels to Mexico where her fiance James is assumed to be living a reclusive life. Her lover Ian accompanies her and both of them find that James, now Carlos, has suffered a "fugue state" and is unable to remember anything of the past events as James. Aimee is now torn apart by the choices between her past James, but now Carlos, and her present Ian, her lover. Slowly she finds that Carlos in the fugue state had married a lady and have had kids and that everything she was keeping in connection to James meant nothing to her and that Ian was her likely companion for future.

The author Kerry Lonsdale keeps taking us back into the past events in Aimee's life like the time when James and Aimee met, how Aimee helped and supported James with realizing his love for painting even though his family was against his hobby and how both Aimee and James, despite of threats and perils from James' brothers, grew into the relationship. The author sets up the background for the current events by giving us a detailed insight of the past.

The novel is well written with adequate amount of uncertainties whether James is alive or if James is indeed dead then were his brothers behind his death. The author has written the entire story in first person as Aimee herself and gives a good account of Aimee's feelings and emotions through the various life setbacks and happy moments. The different characters in the novel like Aimee's friends, her lover Ian, James and his family are well created and given important roles in Aimee's life. On whole the book is a good and an easy read.