Tuesday, March 23, 2010

CHASING BROOKLYN by Lisa Schroeder



CHASING BROOKLYN is a story about loss and recovery.  No two people grieve in the same way, but when they work together to move on, progress can be made.

Brooklyn has lost twice.  First her boyfriend Lucca died.  It's been a year, and she struggles every day.  Recently, her friend Gabe died from an overdose.  He had been helping her deal with Lucca's death, and now he's gone, too.

In an effort to move through the stages of grief, Brooklyn began writing letters to Lucca.  She poured out her anger, her fears, and her frustrations in daily letters to her lost love.  When the letters weren't enough, she knew she could talk to Gabe, but then he chose to leave her, too, and now, since his death he has begun to appear in her dreams.  The dreams are frightening and far from comforting.  She feels alone and unable to express the danger she feels from these dreams.

Help and support come from an unexpected direction.  Brooklyn begins to renew her friendship with Lucca's brother Nico.  He is battling his own demons.   Lucca is sending messages from beyond the grave directing Nico to help Brooklyn.  Unsure about exactly how to go about helping her, he hesitantly makes contact and hopes that Brooklyn doesn't misinterpret his kindness as an attempt to replace Lucca.

Both Brooklyn and Nico are struggling to understand and make sense of the deaths two very important people.  Perhaps if each can get passed their nervousness and insecurities, they can lean on each other and begin the healing process.

Author Lisa Schroeder really knows how to touch the hearts of her readers.  The powerful emotions of lost love and the sorrow of death ring out clearly in CHASING BROOKLYN.  Although her characters have every reason to shut down and isolate themselves from the world, Schroeder finds a way for them to connect and guide each other through the painful process necessary to carry on.  If you have read I HEART YOU, YOU HAUNT ME or FAR FROM YOU, you will not want to miss CHASING BROOKLYN.

1 comment:

Jan von Harz said...

I have had Chasing Brooklyn in my TBR pile for a while. I love the cover and am going to get to this soon. Great review!