Since You've Been Gone by Christa Allan

One moment, Olivia Kavanaugh is preparing to walk down the aisle and embrace her own happily ever after. The next, she learns that her fiancé, Wyatt Hammond, has been in a fatal car accident. Then comes a startling discovery: Wyatt’s car wasn’t heading toward the church. He was fifty miles away…with a baby gift in the backseat.

Her faith shaken, Olivia pores over the clues left behind, desperate to know where Wyatt was going that day and why. As she begins uncovering secrets, she also navigates a tense relationship with her judgmental mother and tries to ignore the attentions of a former boyfriend who’s moved back home. But when she starts receiving letters written by Wyatt before his death, she must confront a disturbing question: Can we ever know anyone fully, even someone we love?

When an unexpected path forward—though nothing like the life she once envisioned—offers the promise of a new beginning, will she be strong enough to let go of the past and move toward it?

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About The Author

A true Southern woman who knows that any cook worth her gumbo always starts with a roux and who never wears white after Labor Day,Christa writes stories with heart, humor and hope. Her novels include: Walking on Broken Glass, Threads of Hope, The Edge of Grace, Test of Faith, All They Want for Christmas.

Christa's essays have been published in The Ultimate Teacher, Cup of Comfort, Chicken Soup for the Coffee Lovers Soul and Chicken Soup for the Divorced Soul. Christa is the mother of five, a grandmother of three, and a recently retired teacher of high school English. She and her husband Ken live in New Orleans.

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My Review

When you read about this book it is almost a gasp, what, bride left at the altar, groom dead, accident heading away from the wedding.
Poor Olivia, how could so much happen to one person, and then there is more, and parents with good intentions, hiding things from her. How do you go on, living in the home that you choose together, and yet know he was heading in the wrong direction on your wedding day? You can cry a few tears reading this one, and I found some sweet chuckles when we are with Mia and her little one.
How does one get over such tragedy, only one way and that is through God, and yet I was never sure where Livvy’s faith is, and yet I could see his hand on her. What surprised me is the character Laura, and really I am not sure of her thinking, and yet it worked into the story.
The book quickly became a page-turner, and wanting to know why and where and who, and wanting to give Scarlet and shake, Livvy’s mom, and then we find reasons.
I enjoyed this book, and it kept my attention, but that being said it is a very emotional and at times painful read.

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Waterfall, and was not required to give a positive review.