Review: Lost To You and Take This Regret by A.L. Jackson - Vilma Iris | Lifestyle Blogger

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Review: Lost To You and Take This Regret by A.L. Jackson

Lost To You and Take This Regret by A.L. Jackson 

6 HUGE Stars!!! One of my all-time favorites!

I had the novella, Lost To You, along with the subsequent book, Take This Regret, downloaded on my Kindle for awhile. While waiting for another book to be released, I decided to finally read the book… And.Oh.Wow. I LOVED LOVED LOVED LOVED these two books. They are definitely part of my all-time faves. I thought the story was so authentic, so real and heart-wrenching that I felt tremendously invested in the story and its two main characters, Elizabeth Ayers and Christian Davison.

al jackson

Lost To You summary:

“People come into our lives. Some stay, and many go. Some build us up, while most tear us down. They become our friends, our enemies, our lovers, our tormentors.  Christian Davison came into mine, and I knew I’d never be the same. To Elizabeth Ayers, New York City had always been a dream. She’s worked her entire young life to make it here. Groomed to one day take over his father’s law firm, attending Columbia University was Christian Davison’s only option.  Neither wanted anything more until they sat across from each other at a café table after being paired as study partners. Christian wants her, but Elizabeth knows better than to give into their intense attraction. Yet there is little she can do to stay away. “

Lost To You chronicles how Elizabeth and Christian fall in love. They met as study partners in their American Government class at Columbia. As Christian describes her, Elizabeth Ayers is “strong and driven, incredibly intelligent, but what was most apparent was that she was genuinely kind.”

Elizabeth is immediately attracted to Christian…

“Christian Davison had to be the most gorgeous guy I’d ever seen… with an unruly shock of the blackest hair…with those blue eyes and I was lost. They were so intense… so unsettling. His jaw was all sharp angles and hopelessly losing the battle with a coat of coarse stubble that was just as dark as the hair on his head. But his mouth was flirty and soft–full–something to smooth out the severity of everything else.”

Elizabeth is from San Diego and was raised by a single mother, along with her two other sisters. She’s simple, naive, kind and intelligent. She is determined to work hard at school and make her family proud. With his gorgeous looks and arrogant attitude, she knows that Christian is the type of guy she needs to steer clear of…

“I didn’t do flings. I fell in love, and falling in love with someone like Christian was a mistake I couldn’t afford.”  But she sees an “undercurrent of vulnerability beneath his perfect exterior.”

And they become friends. Best Friends.  And then one night, everything changes.

“I want you. I want you to take a chance on me. I know I haven’t given you reason to, and everything between us is a mess right now, but it’s only because we aren’t what we’re supposed to be. I’ve been fighting this so hard for so long because I thought I was protecting our friendship when all I was doing was setting us up to fail.”

(Big swoon. Big sigh.)

This novella is seriously romantic. A.L. Jackson depicts the kind of romance you dream of but yet is very much rooted in the reality and angst of its nature… filled with insecurity and attraction, with love and disappointment.  But Christian adores her and Elizabeth comes alive alongside him.

“You are the kind of girl I’m looking for, Elizabeth. The only girl I’m looking for.”

It’s a perfectly-crafted story of these two people’s love and and you grow to know them and love them. The story ends with promises of forever…

“I’m going to love you forever, Elizabeth Ayers.”

“Don’t ever leave me, Christian. Christian frowned, his blue eyes sincere as he leaned forward to whisper at my forehead. ‘I couldn’t.'”

And then comes Take This Regret. Deep breath… Prepare yourselves after reading the novella to have your jaw fall to the floor.

Take This Regret summary:

“There are some mistakes we make that we will regret for the rest of our lives. For Christian Davison, it was the day he betrayed Elizabeth Ayers. For five years, Christian has regretted the day he walked away from his family and will do anything to win them back. Can Elizabeth forgive someone who has committed the unforgiveable? Or are there some wounds that go so deep they can never heal?”

—- SPOILERS!!!! DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT READ TAKE THIS REGRET! —-

The story picks up with Elizabeth confessing to Christian that she’s pregnant.

Christian says, “It’s me or the baby, Elizabeth. You can’t have us both.”

Elizabeth replies, “Goodbye, Christian.”

You begin completely incredulous that you are at this place after finishing Lost To You… you were on such a high. Fast forward 5 years, you find each of them living their own complicated life without each other. Christian is heading up one of his father’s law firm in San Diego. Christian’s father is seemingly an awful person… rich, arrogant, uncaring and overbearing. Christian is incredibly unhappy, but successful.

Elizabeth has raised her 5-year-old daughter on her own and has faced troubles that are heart-breaking. I found myself so angry at Christian that I wanted to throw my kindle to the wall… and coincidentally,  I felt that emotion many times throughout the book… mostly at Christian, that his enormous mistake set a course of events in motion that he can never take back, but many times also at Elizabeth’s stubbornness and fear. One fortuitous day, Christian runs into a little girl with black hair and blue eyes at the grocery store and feels immediately connected with this girl. Could it be his daughter?

“The staggering amount of emotion that hit me brought me to my knees as I fell in love with the tiny person in front of me.”

In short, Christian finds Elizabeth and their daughter, Lizzie and realizes the magnitude of his mistake.

“My soul mourned for what it had lost, for every day I had lived without them, for every moment wasted, for time that could not be reclaimed.”

He is desperate… absolutely desperate… to get them back. But rightly so, Elizabeth is beyond angry and resentful because he left her. She can’t imagine forgiving him, despite the love that he has for Lizzie.

“They say cowards run in the face of danger or pain. I supposed that’s what I was, what I’d become, too fearful to love, too fearful to be loved, too afraid to live–so I ran.”

The remainder of the story details their journey. I’ll tell you now that I was overcome with emotions many time while reading this book. Many times I was happy and hopeful. Many, many times I was so sad… for Christian, for Elizabeth and even for Lizzie. I cried multiple times throughout. And you are in no way certain of what’s going to happen because the story is so authentic, heartfelt and intense. Both Elizabeth and Christian are deeply flawed, forever marked by their experiences, both often times angry and paralyzed by fear… both many times overwhelmed by their undying love and attraction.

These books are perfection. Just writing this review makes me want to re-read them because of the experience they gave me. This is what a love story is all about, folks. 6 stars is my highest rating and it is well-deserved here! LOVE. These books are amazing… one of my all-time faves. DOWNLOAD THEM NOW!

 

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3 Comments:


  1. AL Jackson said:

    Wow. Wow. Wow. Thank you for these absolutely amazing reviews.

    Reply

    1. vcurran said:

      They really were so wonderful! I can’t wait to read Pulled and When We Collide 🙂

      Reply

  2. Liz Bullington said:

    I too loved the books – they were impossible to put down. But I am emotionally exhausted! I guess that’s the sign of a good book 🙂

    Reply

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