When Will You Be Home by Gaelen VanDenbergh ~ My Thoughts

When Will You Be Home

When Will You Be Home by Gaelen VanDenbergh
Series: The Running Series #2
Paperback, 408 pages
Published September 15th 2016 by Booklocker.com

Paige Scott believed that moving back to Philadelphia was the right move. She needed to tie up the frayed ends of her past and recreate a life for herself, independent of the support of others. She swiftly learns that this may have been a terrible mistake, as she becomes mired in past relationships.

Polly, Olivia and Lucien, best friends since college, are finding their current situations unstable and their futures uncertain as each inch toward their own difficult crossroads. Polly yearns to have a family, but is caught up with the handsome and unavailable Lucien, while also caring for a friend who is mentally unstable after enduring terrible tragedy. Olivia flees her unhappy marriage to contemplate divorce in her aunt's home in Key West, and finds herself unwinding her tightly repressed life in the arms of a younger man. Lucien hires Paige, a lost love from his past, causing Polly further distress.

As their lives entwine, all must learn that life is bittersweet, and finding your home in the world is about love, not geography...

My thoughts about When Will You Be Home ~~

(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)

First line—"What now? What next? These questions can seem so casual, something a friend might ask you after you have finished a catch up chat over a cappuccino."

I read book one in this series, Running Through Traffic and I loved it. Paige's journey to find herself and to create her new life was a wonderful story of discovery. I jumped at the chance to catch up with her is this sequel.

Paige moves herself back to Philadelphia and gets swept up in her old life, but with some changes, changes she feels that she needs to make. She should be happy but is this really the life she wants? She is going to try to make it work though, she has to.

When Will You Be Home is an amazing story, full of great characters with complicated lives, a group of people who are all just trying to figure out what they need and how to be happy. The lives of Paige, Polly, Olivia, and Lucien become all intertwined as they each try to figure out what 'home' means to them and what they need to do to get there.

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Read my thoughts about 

Running Against Traffic here.

About the Author

I am originally from the Philadelphia area. I went to boarding school in Maine, college in Boston, NYC, then back to Philadelphia, where I have been ever since. I have been writing since I could hold a pencil. Creative writing major in College, I have been working on novels over the years, but haven’t finished anything until now. Like Mitt Romney has binders full of women, I have binders full of unfinished novels. Resides in Philadelphia with husband, 7yr old daughter, a cat, several fish and a one-eyed dog. Running Against Traffic is my first novel.

Connect with Gaelen

Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

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On Tour and a Giveaway! Running Against Traffic by Gaelen VanDenbergh

Running Against Traffic by Gaelen VanDenbergh

Publication Date: February 15, 2013

Genre: Contemporary Women's Fiction

Paige Scott spent her childhood shuffled between relatives who ignored her, and her adult life hiding in her crumbling marriage to wealthy David Davenport. When David suddenly thrusts her into a remote, impoverished world, Paige is forced to face the betrayals of her past - not to mention the colorful townies of her present.

Unexpected friendships and her discovery of running propel her on a jagged and comical journey toward learning how to truly live.

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My thoughts about Running Against Traffic ~~

Running Against Traffic is a wonderful story about self discovery, gaining independence, and finding out who your friends truly are. Paige gets dumped out her car by her husband, in front of a run down house and is told to get on with her life. After several days of self pity and numbing herself with alcohol, she decides to do whatever it takes to get herself out of this hell hole and back to her glamorous life.

'At times her insides twisted in knots and she would break out in a sweat, and then move to a state of numbness again, and then she would sleep, deep and dreamless, or fitful and splinters by waking several times long after dark, and then she was up and prowling again. There was no purpose to her life, nothing to do, no one to talk to. Paige Davenport had disappeared, and her silent phone told her no one was looking for her. It was a hollow realization. A few times in her murky mind, flashes of her parents came and left as quickly, little waves, clear water that slides up onto the sand and as quickly slips back into the dark ocean.'

Well, things don't go as she thinks they should and getting out isn't so easy. I really do love stories like this, when the main character has to go through a process to find out what and who it really is that will make them happy. And the journey that Paige has to take is filled with a lot of ups and downs, and somewhat odd and unusual character. But that's what made this story one that just made me want to keep reading ~ I loved the world that Paige was forced to live in.

'Or maybe there was something to it, this meditation, self-awareness, inner strength-witch -power thing. Maybe it was within everyone, lying dormant and all you had to do was tap into it. Like running, you just lace up your shoes, take a deep breath, and plunge forward; repeat the process over and over and that part of you can open up, revealing something you can feel and examine, and no one really knows about it but you, and a new, pliable skeletal support could begin to grow around it as it nurtured and grows stronger.'

As you can see from the quotes I pulled from the story, Gaelen writes beautiful words which contain wonderful wisdom for us all. We can all learn life lessons from this story.

'These small desires become small accomplishments, which are the bricks in the road that will take you where you need to go. Don't focus on the end of the road, focus on building the road. Brick by brick. .... Each day is a new day. Every day that you wake up, alive, is a fresh chance to get it right.'

I absolutely loved this story, Paige and all her accomplishments, the wonderful, quirky characters, and the wisdom within the pages of the book. I look forward to reading more of Gaelen's stories!

And I will leave you with one last bit from the book ~ I love this one! And it is so true.

'Women, she thought, we have the supple ability to fool ourselves, so cleverly and intricately. We don't want. We want, but we don't need, We need, but we can't bury it. We can't bury it, but we can bury our hearts, and we don't want, anyway. As a reward for our success, for fooling ourselves, we become fools.'

About the author

Gaelen VanDenbergh is a writer, runner, and compulsive list-maker who lives in Philadelphia with her family, a fat cat, and several fish. Her debut novel Running Against Traffic, was a Global Ebook Award nominee, a semifinalist in the The Kindle Book Review’s 2013 Best Indie Book Awards, a semifinalist in the Readers' Favorite 2013 International Book Award Contest, Indie Book of the Day, June 30, 2013, a 2013 Beach Book Festival Award nominee, and has received a four star review in InD’tale Magazine.

When not writing, Gaelen enjoys reading, running races for charities, and spending as much time in Key West and the Adirondacks as she can.

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