Deconstructing Lila by Shannon Leigh – a Review
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Description:
Preservationist Lila Gentry returns to her small Texas hometown to restore the famous Chisholm Trail whorehouse where her great-great-grandmother was a madam in the 1880s. On her agenda is winning back Jake, the one that got away. But how do you rope a man who doesn’t want to be wrangled?
Jake lives by one creed: Keep it simple. His ex showing up in town complicates his life and makes him think about things he’d rather forget.
When Lila’s restoration project is threatened before it even begins, she turns to Jake for help. Working together stirs up old feelings, but while Lila and Jake always sizzle between the sheets—or wherever the moment takes them—it will involve some sweet-talking and finesse to bring these two together.
Review;
Let me start off by saying I’ve never read anything by Shannon Leigh before and it won’t be the last. I really enjoyed Deconstructing Lila. Ms. Leigh writes a story with realistic, well developed characters, that is heartfelt and emotional. It’s a story about love lost, fear to hope for the future, then once again finding love by letting go of the fear and allowing hope to blossom.
I found Lila to be a strong female lead that’s likeable and easy to relate to. We learn about Lila’s background through her granny, who’s a hoot by the way. I loved her granny and I’ll get to her later on. After spending ten years apart from her beloved granny and love of her life Jake, Lila comes home a changed woman and is bound and determined to show Jake that all isn’t lost between them. Now that she’s grown up, dealt with the past, and Jake’s cancer, she’s ready to prove to him that they can have a future if he’d only let her in, instead of pushing her away, like he did ten years ago.
Jake is a character that broke my heart. We see from the get go that he never stop loving his wife, but due to the uncertainty with his cancer and treatments, he feared leaving her behind through death if his treatments didn’t work. In trying to protect her from his life, he pushed away the one thing he really needed, Lila’s love. Jake is a very honourable, proud, respectable and sexy man, and doesn’t know how to let hope for a future into his life. Hope being his Lila.
The emotion in this story is very real and tangible. It just pours off the pages and made me wanting to keep reading to see how Jake and Lila’s story would end. It’s very easy to see Jakes point of view regarding Lila, but we also see where Jake needs to just let go of his fear and embrace the love and life together that Lila’s offering, no matter how long or short a time he has on this planet. Life is to uncertain to let fear hold us back, we need to embrace it with everything we have, and Jake finally comes to that conclusion in a very dramatic and Texas fashion way, tornados be damned. Along with the emotional journey between Lila and Jake I found that Ms. Leigh did a fine job of balancing all that emotion through some of her secondary characters. She brought in some humour to lighten the mood at just the right spots with Lila’s granny and the Bombshells(her bowling team and gossip friends). When these gals get together you never know what they will do or say. They are a lot of fun in a scene and kept me in stitches as they gave poor Lila advice on how to win back Jake. We also get some humour between Jake and his friend/co-worker Casler. I hope he will have his story told down the road as he’s rather mysterious so far to me.
All in all this is a well written story, with well rounded and realistic characters. I loved the emotional journey that Lila and Jake take to get back to one another. The love scenes are steamy, emotional and romantic. Their love for each other is as real today as it was ten years ago. The emotion and humour in the story are well balanced and make for a satisfying read. I’m so glad I had the chance to read this one and get to know Ms. Leigh as a writer. I’ll be sure to read more by this author in the future.
Until next time, happy reading everyone.
Reviewed by Marcie
Copy provided by Publisher
