The Shadow of Your Smile by Susan May Warren

After 25 years of marriage, Eli and Nicole have suddenly found that their marriage is on a downhill slope.  Of course, that can be expected after going through a death...especially the death of your teenage daughter due to a violent shooting at a store.  As many parents do when they've lost a child, both are trying to cope with it in different ways.  Nicole feels like she's just going through the motions and Eli busies himself.  Both are not bad, but neither lead to connection with the opposite spouse.

Nicole and Eli suddenly find themselves in almost the exact same scenario a little while later, except it's Nicole who has been involved in the store shooting.  Now Eli has to not only deal with the death of his daughter but now faces the possibility of losing his wife.  When Nicole wakes up, she appears to be fine...except she's lost her memory.  The past 25 years of marriage have been completely erased. 

Back to square one, Eli has to get to know his "new" wife again and figure out how they can make this marriage work even better.  Since Nicole has no recollection of the past years, she's also trying to figure out Eli and her other children.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book from start to finish.  It had me turning pages and I deeply wanted their marriage to be fixed.  I will warn you to not be surprised if you feel tears coming down your cheeks!  I haven't read any of Susan May Warren's other books, but now I want to read the rest of the Deep Haven novels.  From what I've heard, she connects the characters through some of these books and they tell their stories.  I'll have to let you know once I read them!

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Susan May Warren is an award-winning, best-selling author of over twenty-five novels, many of which have won the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, the ACFW Book of the Year award, the Rita Award, and have been Christy finalists. After serving as a missionary for eight years in Russia, Susan returned home to a small town on Minnesota’s beautiful Lake Superior shore where she, her four children, and her husband are active in their local church.

Susan's larger than life characters and layered plots have won her acclaim with readers and reviewers alike. A seasoned women’s events and retreats speaker, she’s a popular writing teacher at conferences around the nation and the author of the beginning writer’s workbook: From the Inside-Out: discover, create and publish the novel in you!. She is also the founder ofwww.MyBookTherapy.com, a story-crafting service that helps authors discover their voice.

Susan makes her home in northern Minnesota, where she is busy cheering on her two sons in football, and her daughter in local theater productions (and desperately missing her college-age son!)

A full listing of her titles, reviews and awards can be found at:www.susanmaywarren.com.

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I received this book free from Litfuse Publicity Group in exchange for my honest opinion of this book.

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