Challenge Read : Simply Love by Catherine Anderson

Stumbling blind into a book for me can be disaster or heaven. This read was inexplicably both. I am truly one who believes redemption is something real and possible for anybody who truly is sorrowful and ready to change. Now in my life I've needed redemption more than once. I've had to give and earn forgiveness more than once. But in my love of reading, I've tried to avoid certain elements that cause me to go back to dark times and dark feelings. I felt those emotions very deeply while reading this heart-rending story.   Luke was not a hero. He was not even close. What he was though was a man whose life caused him to take the darkest road and give up almost all of his humanity. Cassie was a light of pure innocent devotion and sunshine in a cavern of endless darkness for Luke. When a light like that shines on a man he can't stop hungering for more.    One lie, one choice, one deed and then a mountain of sins followed Luke around.  When the house of cards he built fell around him, Cassie's light led him through his own man made hell to find redemption. Every moment I hated him I learned to forgive and every moment I wanted to shake him I yearned to embrace that broken boy who was taught that love was evil. By the end of this well written, emotional tale I felt like maybe I was changed a bit to.   When she looked at him , she made him feel fine and brave and noble and kind. Not a whore's bastard , but a hero. And he liked the feeling      Maybe I can let a little redemption into my love of reading now and again to remind me to extend forgiveness and mercy in my everyday life.