Review: Ilana’s Wish by Annette Lyon

July 18, 2014 | 0 Comments
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Review: Ilana’s Wish by Annette LyonIlana's Wish
Series: Newport Ladies Book Club #8
Author: Annette Lyon
Genres: Women & Family Issues
Pages: 244
Published: April 1, 2014
Publisher: Covenant
Amazon

four-half-stars

On the surface, Ilana Goldstein leads an enviable life: a thriving career and a happy marriage to a handsome doctor. All that’s missing is a baby, an emptiness that will surely be filled with time…

Then, in an instant, her life falls apart. Now, beneath Ilana’s once flawless exterior hides a dark secret that may destroy the woman who seemed to have it all.

Following a rapid succession of crushing trials, Ilana turns to prescription medications to take the edge off her agony—both the ache of her body and the anguish of her soul. But when her desperation to dull the pain leads to the downward spiral of addiction, her friends in the Newport Ladies Book Club must do whatever it takes to save one of their own.

Will Ilana’s devastating losses bring about her own self-destruction, or will the loving determination of friends and family lend her the strength to overcome?

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Ilana’s Wish is the 8th book in the Newport Ladies Book Club series—and I’ve enjoyed every single one of them! However, this one—this one spoke to me on so many levels.

Ilana Goldstein is a regular woman—just like so many of us—who got slammed by the unfairness of life. Her one dream in life is for a family, for children, but she has issue after issue after issue that prevents that from happening. This poor woman barely has a chance to breathe between the events that slam her. And she finds herself suddenly and surprisingly addicted to pain medication.

While I don’t struggle with drug addiction, I do have some issues that led me to a 12 Step recovery program 26 years ago. A lot has changed in my life sense then, but I still remember the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, of feeling lost and alone, isolated, depressed, discouraged. Lyon does an excellent job of portraying this in Ilana’s sotry. She shows  how the downward spiral happens—little by little, one small denial and justification layered on top of another. She gets it dead on!

I’ve read other books by Annette Lyon and I’ve liked them. But when I was reading this book, I was so completely pulled into Ilana’s story and her voice that I had to keep looking at the cover and asking, “Who wrote this book?”

Not that I didn’t think Lyon was capable of this depth of writing, but because it’s a turn in her writing style and theme. She touched on it in her Band of Sisters books, but in Ilana’s Wish, she fully embraces her voice and earns her status as a writer of novels exploring women and family issues.

I loved it. I absolutely loved it. I recommend it to everyone who likes realistic adult fiction for women.

*The publisher gave me a copy to review, but I liked it so well that I bought copies for my mother and sisters.

About Annette Lyon

Annette Lyon is a Whitney Award winner, the recipient of Utah’s Best in State medal for fiction and the author of ten novels, a cookbook, and a grammar guide as well as over a hundred magazine articles. She’s part of the Timeless Romance Anthologies line of sweet romance stories, a senior editor at Precision Editing Group, and a cum laude graduate from BYU with a degree in English. When she’s not writing, editing, knitting, or eating chocolate, she can be found mothering and avoiding the spots on the kitchen floor.

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