The Outcast

I’m back from holidays and the time away was fantastic.

I picked up 'The Outcast' a couple of months ago. I don’t really know why I didn’t crack it open until now. Instead it rested on my nightstand for months eyeing me, wondering when I would fall in love with it. And that is exactly what I did. I fell in love with this book. Or maybe I fell in love with Lewis the main character. It’s hard not to. He’s the type of guy a girl shouldn’t fall for but does. Oh and Kit…you will love Kit. You will become Kit and you will want Lewis to save you. No not want…you need him to save you. He’s the only one who can save you. Oh geez…now I want to read it again. The emotions in this book are so real. You feel their pain, their desperation, their anger, their loneliness, their love, their loss as if it’s your own. I took it in my carry-on thinking I might read a few chapters if the movie selections on board weren’t appealing. After about an hour I reach into my bag and cracked the spine to begin reading. By the time I reached the third page I already forgot where I was. I fell so deeply into this story and the characters and actually didn’t want to get out and I didn’t. I sat in my cramped economy class seat for hours on end, until the plane reached its destination and I had only five pages remaining. FIVE PAGES!!!! I couldn’t believe I was only five pages from the end. I wanted to stay on the plane to finish it but I had to get off. By the time we reached the hotel I was like a crack addict in desperate need of a fix. I couldn’t sit or stand still. I had to learn the fate of Lewis, Kit and all the other characters. I sat and read in silence then brought the book to my chest terribly delighted with the ending but terribly sad it was over. I love it and hate it when a book does that to me. I want to rush to the end to find out what happens but I don’t want my journey with the characters to be over.

The Outcast is from first time author Sadie Jones and most first time authors are not this great. Most authors require a least a few tries before they get it right. Not Sadie. She hit the nail on the head with this one on the first try. Here is the basic synopsis of the book: The story begins in the year 1957. Nineteen-year-old Lewis Aldridge is returning to his home in Waterford, England where he has just served a two-year prison term for a crime that shocked the sleepy Surrey community.

Twelve years earlier, seven-year-old Lewis and his spirited mother Elizabeth are bringing Gilbert (Lewis’s father) home from war. Lewis was nervous about the impending reunion because he would be meeting a man he didn’t remember. The father he never knew. Their relationship was strained from the beginning. Gilbert and Lewis coexisted as strangers while the one other person they both loved stitched them together, Elizabeth. When Elizabeth is tragically ripped from their lives, Lewis spirals out of control, falling so deep within himself he becomes almost invisible.

Two years later, upon his shamed return, the town continues to treat Lewis as an outcast. Only Tamsin’s little sister Kit, now a young woman, sees in him the golden boy he once was. She had become infatuated with Lewis years earlier when he had casually protected her from bullies and broken bicycle chains. But she now faces a much darker and more dangerous sort of bullying at the hands of her father. It is up to Lewis once again to rescue her, redeeming himself through tremendous courage and terrible sacrifice. And perhaps Kit holds the power to rescue him, too.

There are so many times in this book where you will say, out loud, “Oh God no, this can’t be happening. No way.” You will become desperate with anxiety for them. You will want to leap into the pages to be with them. Please, PLEASE go pick up this book and read it yourself. It is a torturous romance to the core. And for the love of all that is good in this world, PLEASE turn this book into a movie.

Read it, fall in love with it, then write me. I can't wait to hear what you think of it too.