Book Review: Mine | Courtney Cole

Mine by Courtney Cole is an intense, heart-pounding portrayal of what happens when a woman cheated on finds herself locked in with her husband’s mistress hours after finding out about the affair. The emotions in this book run raw and deep, and I found myself captivated by the story of these women. Add this to your summer reading list—you don’t want to miss it!

About the Book

Tessa was prepared for the hurricane. Lindsey was the storm she didn’t see coming.

When Tessa Taylor unlocked her husband Ethan’s iPad to discover nude photos from a twenty-six-year-old bombshell named Lindsey, her seemingly perfect life came to a screeching halt.

With a hurricane barreling toward Florida and Ethan stuck on a business trip, Tessa finds herself imprisoned in her own home with a choice to make: Does she ride out the storm until she can confront Ethan in person, or does she take matters into her own hands?

Increasingly restless and desperate for revenge, Tessa resolves to act. And when she lures Lindsey over a few hours later, there’s no turning back.

What ensues is a battle of wills between two well-matched opponents, blinded by love for the same man but driven by demons of their own. Like storm-ravaged Florida, neither woman will be the same when the skies clear.

Reflection

I said it upfront and I’ll say it again here for emphasis—this book is INTENSE! A wild ride beginning with an unfortunately common story—a wife discovers by accident that her husband is having an affair. You will empathize fully with Tessa here because this has got to be the worst nightmare of every woman with a long-term spouse or partner.

Tessa arrives home in the beginning of a horrible storm and finds her daughter borrowed her iPad when she went to visit her grandmother. Needing to do some work, Tessa uses her husband’s iPad and is interrupted by a text. From another woman. Who is clearly sleeping with her husband.

Tessa is devastated and angry. And she needs to know what is going on. So she opens the iPad up and sends a text back to Lindsey asking her to come over. And then Lindsey does come over… Trapped together in a storm, Lindsey and Tessa will go to the darkest of places to find out what Ethan has been saying to each of them. And by morning, nothing will be the same.

Tessa is SO relateable. She’s switching between anger, sadness, delusions, hope, and confusion. Courtney Cole did a fantastic job with Tessa in particular. Her emotions were raw and her heart and soul poured out of the page. Lindsey seemed at times manipulative and cruel, then childish and naïve. Though I didn’t really like Lindsey, I did at times empathize with her a bit (a tiny bit).

And beyond the fact that Courtney Cole is an outstanding writer, there is another reason that Tessa felt so authentic. This story is her story. Parts of it, anyway. She wrote a note on Goodreads which I’m sharing here, because it was simultaneously heartbreaking and empowering how she healed through her creativity and introspection.

Thank you to Gallery Books for my copy. Opinions are my own. Keep reading to hear from Courtney about this novel.

Note from the Author

Dear Reader,

Before you begin reading this story, I should tell you… this is about every wife’s worst nightmare. 
You think it can never happen to you. 
It can. 
You think you’re impervious to it because you do your best to keep your husband happy. 
You’re not. 
Trust me, I know. 
The title of this story, MINE, has a double-meaning. 
Ethan is Tessa’s, so from her point of view, MINE is self-explanatory. 
But also… this story… is mine. 
At least, parts of it. 
My husband was unfaithful. It was a crazy circumstance, a perfect storm of irony and tragedy. It gutted me and brought my world down around me in bits and pieces. 
When something like this happens to you, your mind plays tricks on you and turns you into someone you aren’t. I can’t tell you how often I fantasized about terrible things after I found out about the affair—things I would never truly act upon. 
Then, one day, I decided to write this story. To unleash the darkness that dwelled in my heart, the things I would never actually do, in a cathartic way to channel my anger. 
I’ll let you wonder and decide where reality ends and my dark fantasies begin in this story.