{Review} The Dandelion by Michelle Leighton (@MLeightonBooks @SullandPartners)

​At thirty-five, Abigail Simmons has mastered only one thing—running. When tragedy strikes, she runs. This time her urge to flee brings Abi back to her hometown, where she hopes she can find the peace she’s always searched for. That hope is dashed when Abi’s ex, Sam Forrester, bumps his way back into her life. 

Sam has flourished in ways Abi hasn’t. From the outside, he has it all—a successful medical practice, a beautiful daughter, and a charming wife.

Who is dying.

Sara Forrester is dying and her final wish is for Sam to find love again so she can meet the woman who will finish raising her daughter and grow old with her husband. Abi seems like the perfect fit, but what Sara doesn’t know is that Abi has a secret, a secret no one could guess.

And it’s a deal breaker.

​Abigail Simmons has come back to the small town of Molly’s Knob in search of forgiveness. When she left all those years ago, she left behind her very best pieces and she’s never felt complete since.  
 
Maybe spending the summer on the lake where in her youth she knew true happiness. Her life has been a series of tragedies that have slowly brought her to her knees and the last person that she wants to see how completely broken she has become is the one who taught her about love.

I’ve lived with the pain inside my soul for so long, I just want to think about someone else.  I’m tired of me.  I want to pity someone else.  Hurt for someone else.  Help someone else. Because, at this point, I’m beyond helping. 

But maybe I’m not beyond redemption.  I wouldn’t mind finding a bit of that while I’m here, too. 
​
As I turn left, on toward my destination, I wonder for the millionth time if there is a going rate for the redemption of a soul.  How much might that cost?  But I wonder, too, if some souls are beyond redemption.

​Sam Forrester is the boy that she left behind. He was her first for everything that ever mattered.  Now he’s the town’s respected physician with a beautiful family of his own. 
 
But all is not as it seems.  Sam is dealing with a tragedy of his own – his wife is slowly slipping away and she wants Abi to take her place – as her husband’s love and as mother to their young daughter.  
 
As insane as it sounds, when life gives you a second chance at love, you grab it with both hands and you never give up.  If only Sam can convince Abi to hang on.

“What are you going to do?” 

There is a pause. A long, taut pause. 

When he turns to me, it’s with a plea written in every handsome line of his face.  I search his eyes, eyes that are as expressive as they ever were, and I see everything.  Everything and nothing. They’re hurting and hopeful, but they’re also like the lake at night—dark, fathomless and full of shadows.  Unknowable.  But in them, at least I see his answer. I see it long before he speaks it.  
​
“I’m going to ask a girl I used to know to do something I have no right to ask of her.”  My heart stops.  The world stops.  My breath catches in the back of my throat. “I’m going to ask her to love me again.  Or at least to try.”

​The Dandelion is Michelle at her emotional best! It’s a melancholy journey through loss that’s so palpable that you feel it in your very bones. The tears, the shared smiles and the promise of finding that one life-changing love keeps you turning the pages and in the end that’s really all that matters…

​“That’s where you’re wrong. This dandelion isn’t dying. It’s finding a way to live.”  Sam’s lips purse as he, too, blows on the dandelion, sending the remaining fuzz into the wind. We both watch them fly away.  He nods to them as they go.  “Every one of those has a seed of life inside it. All they need is a good place to grow.  That’s not the end. It’s the beginning.”

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