BOOK REVIEW: How to Save a Life by Lisa Steinke and Liz Fenton @lizandlisa @amazonpublishing @KCC_PR #howtosavealife #bookreview

Groundhog’s Day meets Happy Death Day meets Always Be My Maybe in Lisa Steinke and Liz Fenton’s latest novel, How to Save a Life. Lisa and Liz never fail to bring something entirely new and different from what they’ve done before each time they write a book, and this is no exception. Emotional and cathartic—this is a great read!

About the Book

Dom is having a very bad day—one he literally can’t escape.

When Dom bumps into Mia, his ex-fiancée whom he hasn’t seen in almost a decade, he believes they’ve been given a second chance and asks her out. When Mia dies tragically on their date, Dom makes a desperate wish: to be given the chance to save her life. And when he wakes the next morning to the shock that she’s alive, he thinks his wish may have been granted. But day after day, no matter what he changes about their time together, she still meets a terrible fate.

Dom frantically searches for answers to save his beloved Mia and rekindle their former love. But the further he digs, the more obsessed he becomes, making him realize that slowing down time may be the only way to see things clearly. As he’s forced to confront the truth about himself and those he’s closest to, Dom vows that he’ll watch Mia die a thousand times if it means he can save her once.

Reflection

This book is hard to describe in genre—I think I’d call it contemporary fiction with suspense as the subgenre. I love how Liz and Lisa continue to surprise and stretch their writing boundaries with each book. This is very different from their other books, most notably because it is much more of an emotional read than a psychological thriller. It actually made me tear up several times! It has all of the gripping, hard-to-put down qualities of a thriller, but it is a book about the heart, love, loss, and moving on. It is about learning to let go of the past and live in the present. And most notably, it is about how experiences and people can fundamentally change us for the better.

I wasn’t sure how they’d get into the head of a male narrator since I tend to think writers do better with their own gender than the opposite when narrated first person. They nailed it! Dom is a great mix of serious, rigid, thoughtful, and sensitive. In execution, they nailed him as a character! The only way I could tell this book was written by two incredible women was that Dom identified one of the characters as wearing a “black bandage dress”! (How many straight, single men in this world do you think know exactly what a bandage dress is??)

When Dom happens to run into the one-who-got-away ten years earlier, he can’t believe it. He has been looking for Mia in every woman he meets. It was a mistake to let their engagement go, and he isn’t over it. As the story progresses, Dom begins to relive the day of their first date after the ten year gap over and over again, unable to stop the loop. Even worst, despite everything he tries to do to change the outcome, Mia dies at the end of the day each time.

I don’t want to say too much about the outcome because it is so wonderful experiencing what Dom goes through as a relives the same day over and over. I loved seeing him try to find and piece together clues to save Mia and break the cycle. I also loved how Dom changed by each of these experiences, as he breaks his routine life to try to understand how to save his love.

Beautiful with a lot of thought-provoking moments and lessons, and enough suspense to keep you glued to the book until the very last page!

Thank you to Lake Union Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.