To Love A Stranger

To Love A Stranger by Kris Faatz
Published by Blue Moon Publishers
Ebook
Expected publication 23 May 2017
309 pages
NetGalley

Connect with the author Buy the book: UK (affiliate's link) I was given an ARC of this book by the publisher via NetGalley and voluntarily reviewed it. WHAT'S IT'S ABOUT

Sam and Jeannette have two things in common: a passion for music and a need to escape from themselves. In the fall of 1986, when President Reagan is in his second term, Elton John plays on the radio, and Spike Lee is conquering the box office, Sam and Jeannette meet in Virginia. Both of them have landed their first jobs with the Richmond Symphonic Artists, a small orchestra that's fighting to survive.

Jeannette, fragile and shadowed by demons from her past, quickly falls in love with the charismatic and brilliant Sam. She thinks he will bring her stability and redemption. But she doesn't know that he has secrets of his own: especially that the mystery disease AIDS, the so-called "gay plague" that fills the news and terrifies the American public, could possibly touch his life.

As Sam and Jeannette struggle to save their orchestra, they look for deliverance in each other. But their past secrets - especially Sam's - threaten to destroy the future they're trying to build.

A beautiful debut novel filled with human emotion and an undeniable passion for music, To Love A Stranger explores a story of love and personal redemption that is impossible to forget.

OPENING

Sam couldn't land a decent job.

WHAT I THOUGHT

I really enjoyed To Love A Stranger. I thought the characters were fantastic, so real and flawed it was almost painful to read the book at times. I thought Sam was a very sympathetic character. He was faced with difficult choices trying to do his best. Jeannette was also very sympathetic and my heart went out to her for loving Sam, someone she didn't know at all. Sam is a horrible person at times, completely shutting his wife out, acting with little regard for her feelings and treating her with indifference. It would be easy to hate him but because of his struggle to accept himself I felt great sympathy for him. I wanted to dislike him but I couldn't because the author made me care about him. I understood Jeannette's decision when she finds out what Sam has been hiding even though I didn't completely agree with every choice she made. To Love A Stranger has a heart-felt, emotional conclusion without being over the top. I loved To Love A Stranger; it's raw and emotional and I'd highly recommend it.

Published