Synopsis
Kaye Trilby and her ex-husband, world-famous author Samuel Cabral, vowed to fight for their rekindled love in rain or shine. They didn’t realize they’d be caught in a deluge so quickly.
A near-fatal skydiving accident shows Kaye how her reckless behavior affects the ones she loves. But while she knows Samuel is afraid to lose her again, she isn’t ready to give up the thrill of the wild backcountry.
Something darker is slipping into Samuel’s mind, though. Just as all of Hollywood is bracing for his blockbuster book-to-movie adaptation, his polish seems to be deteriorating. When he appears on Kaye’s doorstep late one night in a rumpled tuxedo, erratic and agitated, it seems that romance with her ex might be her biggest leap yet. A string of failed relationships has pushed Samuel to the brink, the fall-out leaving him in a dark place—a place where Kaye is powerless to help him. She is reluctantly drawn back into Samuel’s glittering and backbiting world of celebrity, all the while clinging to the steadfast peaks of home.
Can Kaye risk her heart with Samuel a second time? Will they ever find their blue skies?
Ellen’s Review:
This book is a beautifully written, very adult contemporary romance that uses gorgeous skydiving metaphors at the beginning of each chapter. SKYGODS took me on a fantastic journey with Samuel and Kaye through a tumultuous period on their lives and I read it in one day. The book contains a story-within-a-story as Samuel, a world-famous, best-selling author tries to write the real story of his and Kaye’s life.
This is the second book in Sarah Latchaw’s Hydraulic series and while SKYGODS can be read as a standalone, I recommend that Hydraulic Level 5 be read first to appreciate the depth of Samuel and Kaye’s story. That being said, you can still revel in and enjoy this very unusual and offbeat love story without having read the first book.
Samuel and Kay have been divorced for years and re-connect once again. Kaye lives in Colorado and has her own PR firm. Samuel is touring to promote a movie based on his best-selling book. It is a life filled with press appearances, publicity, and many demands from outside forces, and Kaye can see Samuel slowly unraveling before her.
This story is really beautifully written and is refreshingly “adult”. There is certainly no insta-connection as Samuel and Kaye make their way back to each other. You get the feeling they are always meant to be together, irrevocably and forever, but my heart was in my throat at several points in the story. Many secrets are revealed and true love does win out, and happily for me as a reader, the ending seems to be left open for much more of Samuel and Kaye’s story. But their love is not without cost and they do not arrive at their togetherness easily.
I absolutely fell in love with Samuel in SKYGODS and was rooting for him the whole time I was reading. I loved reading about the PR side of the book publishing business, mental illness and skydiving, and I can’t wait to read more from this author.
(*ARC provided by the author in return for an honest review.)
FAVORITE QUOTES:
But that’s the way real love works, isn’t it? It’s not calculating or conditional, or self-serving. It doesn’t subjugate another to the demands of one’s happiness, but it rejoices when happiness is found. Especially when it’s found hand-in-hand. Real love is placing your unmolded years in the palm of another and, despite circumstance, trusting them to shape it into something exquisite before they return it to you. And then you do the same for them because you love them.
Happiness; why is it that we frail beings turn happiness into something so unattainable? Happiness can be as simple as discovering the asparagus you hated as a child is quite tasty once you reach adulthood. It can be a shared, secret smile with a complete stranger in a grocery store line when they place chocolate, strawberries, and candles on the conveyor belt. Being grateful simply for a rain-soaked breeze cooling your face, soft grass under your feet, intricate veins weaving through a leaf. Or reveling in a strong, secure arm around your shoulders and just knowing, even though he hasn’t voiced it, that you are completely and utterly loved.
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About the Author:
Sarah Latchaw was raised in eastern Iowa and appreciates beauty in mud-splattered gravel roads and fields. She also loves to explore far-away places, thanks to countless family minivan trips across the States. This passion for finding stories led to college adventures in many different countries, and each place’s story rests in the back of her mind and in her photo albums.
Sarah received her BA from Wartburg College in public relations and media, and entered the workforce, ready to climb the ladder. However, when researching MBA applications evoked feelings of dread, with the loving support of her husband, she pursued a career in creative writing and was awarded her MA from Iowa State University.
These days, Sarah wakes every morning thrilled to cuddle her small children, show them the world, then capture that world and shape it into stories on paper. She is not thrilled when she wakes to her cats smothering her face. She and her family reside in Des Moines, Iowa—one of the best places to live and work.
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