Review: The Truth About Love and Lightning by Susan McBride

Summary 
“As far as Gretchen Brink is concerned, the tornado that just ripped through her land has nothing on the storms of a different sort happening all around her. Her grown daughter, Abby, has returned home with news that she’s pregnant, and no, she’s not sure whether she’s going to marry the father. A man with no memory has been dropped practically on her doorstep. And the not-so-little white lie she’s been telling for years is about to catch up with her. 

Abby is sure that the mysterious man is her long-lost father, Sam, who has finally returned just when she needs him most. As Abby, Gretchen and the Man Who Might Be Sam get closer, the lie Gretchen told all those years ago begins to haunt her. When her secrets come out, and Sam’s past is finally revealed, will it tear down this fragile life they’ve built—or will the truth bring them all closer together? “

Review 
Mystery, mysticism and historical family drama are exactly what I would use to describe The Truth About Love and Lightning. However, this book could also be described as a second chance romance novel. They say lightning does not strike twice but as science has proved, it can and often does and so does love, especially if it is meant to be.  

Our story begins with a tornado but this is no Wizard of Oz. The twister heads for the Walnut Ridge farm where our matriarchal protagonist Gretchen and her younger twin blind sisters are located yet in the blink of an eye, the storm passes leaving our heroines seemingly intact. However, storms never truly pass over without leaving some sign that they were there. 

For the most part, the storm has broken some limbs and scattered them about. But upon closer inspection, the one hundred year old oak has been struck down, there were walnuts on the ground yet the trees have been barren for years and there was a man lying in the grove. Truly this is no ordinary twister and maybe there is some kind of magic in the air. 

Elsewhere, in Chicago, another storm is brewing between Abby and her six year live in boyfriend, Nate. She wants him to commit and he does not believe you need to be married to prove you love each other. Now he has moved out and Abby has found out she is pregnant. Thus Abby takes her leave to go home and get advice from her mother, to help her sort out things. 

Back on the farm, it has been discovered that The Man Who Fell From The Sky might actually be Gretchen’s long lost love Sam and with him the only person who could unravel her big lie that blanketed and knitted her family together. And to top it all off, her daughter has come home and the Sheriff, an old flame that still burns for Gretchen, is poking his nose into her business, wanting to arrest “The Man Who Might Be Sam” to keep her from falling all over again. 

Thus throughout the story, Abby bonds with “The Man Who Might Be Sam” while Gretchen tries to put the brakes on things yet finds herself getting swept up in “The Man Who Might Be Sam” as well. Even her blind sisters, Bennie and Trudy, are finding ways to get Gretchen and the could be Sam closer and closer together; leaving the two alone to ignite a spark and build a flame, but not if the Sheriff has anything to say about it. 

Also throughout the story, you get a little ancestral background which I feel a lot of books do not do as often or as well as this book. You get how Gretchen’s mother was a woman the whole town hated because she was bluntly honest; her father leaving for the school librarian because he could not take any more. Sam being part Native American and how he has inherited the same mystical powers as his grandfather and great-treat-grandfather before as well as his childhood with Gretchen. 

Honestly, there is something for everyone with this book. A little mystery for those who like to figure things out, some mysticism for those who like fantasy and the supernatural, family drama (which we all love), romance for the romantics and an all around life lesson about lies, forgiveness and second chances. 

Reviewed by Camia Rhodes

Book Informatione
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Release Date: 2/12/2013
Pages: 315