Hello there, bookworms and happy Friday! The weekend has finally arrived, and I don’t know about you, but I am SO ready to curl up with a good book or two and shut out the world for a solid forty-eight plus hours. I’m sure you agree with me there.
Before I do that, I thought I’d bring you my latest book review and let you guys know that I am going to work on a fun post to celebrate four years of this little blog. It’s been quite an adventure and I can’t wait to see what the next four years (and more) bring! I’ll get to more of that in my next post, but for now, let’s dive in to Burying Leo by Helga Gruendler-Schierloh.
Helga was lovely enough to reach out to me a few weeks back to see if I’d like to read and review her book, and after checking out what seemed to be a thrilling plot, I just couldn’t say no!
Meeting Ingrid was bittersweet to say the least. On the surface it seems she is happily married, has a successful career with her husband’s business, and lives a comfortable life. However, it doesn’t take long to peel the layers back and realize that everything is not what it seems.
Joe Bassen is a driven man. Spending all of his time working, at charity events, or trying to mingle to seal another deal, his wife, Ingrid is more like his associate and business partner than his loving spouse. She longs to dote on him, love him, and have a family with him, but he’s already been around that block. Ingrid is his second (and much younger) wife. He already has kids in college and an ex-wife he seems to be a little too cozy with for being over. He doesn’t want more children. He wants to work and keep Ingrid schmoozing his potential clients.
When unexpected back-to-back tragedies bring Ingrid home to her native land of Germany, we find out even more. Trying to have the ideal life with her husband back in America seems to be the least of her issues. She has other dreams that stem from past demons. She has an old flame she never got closure from, and she has a boss who took advantage of her juvenile vulnerability when she was working hard to make her passion become a reality that truly shined through.
Fed up with feeling like a victim and letting her villains get the best of her, she has a change of heart and decides to hold her head high and take control of her future and potential happiness. She makes a promise to follow her heart and destroy her past in the process. Thankfully, she’s also not alone in her venture. A guardian angel by the name of Mick steps in right when she needs a friend and serves as a trusted confidant for her.
I’m pretty glad I finished this book on International Women’s Day. What better than to read a book about a female finding her power, following her dreams, and putting those who wronged her in their places once and for all? I didn’t always agree with or relate to Ingrid’s decisions when it came to significant men in her life, but I admired her tenacity to come out from the shadows and carve her own path.
Though points in this story did jump around a bit for me, and I found some areas could use elaboration and more character development, the overall story was still a hell of a journey. All of us have had to deal with obstacles in our lives, whether its our careers, discovering our talents, or trying to deal with toxic relationships of any sort, and we don’t always know the best way to navigate such things. Ingrid was very much the same for me. Starting out the story as a seemingly meek and obedient housewife and business partner, when Ingrid finds her backbone and sass, it became very refreshing to read. Her flaws and downfalls only made the journey feel more real from beginning to end.
Aside from a few literary bumps in the road, this was still a fairly solid first novel, and I haven’t read much like it in quite awhile. Ingrid’s destiny to take hold of her happiness was a message I really needed right now, and I’m eternally grateful to Helga for writing it all down!
My Final Rating: three out of five stars
Read This Book:
