Review: Here To Stay, by Suanne Laqueur

Synopsis

“You can’t sort of do this, Fish. Draw a line and get on one side or the other...”

Love is never so sweet as when it receives a second chance. In the sequel to the award-winning novel The Man I Love, Suanne Laqueur continues the story of Erik Fiskare’s romance with Daisy Bianco. Though separated for twelve years, the extraordinary bond they forged in their youth has endured. Now reconciled and committed as adults, they begin to create a new life together. 

Laqueur crafts a new journey that stretches into both the future and the past. Erik’s passionate, soulful love for Daisy continues to evolve and be tested. His friendship with Will Kaeger grows deeper and more complex. And unexpected contact with his Fiskare cousins offers insight to the cruel childhood desertion that shaped Erik as an adult. With Daisy at his side, he travels back to his hometown to explore fragile memories, meet his people and learn about the charms on his signature, heirloom necklace.

All these relationships will prove invaluable when Erik faces his greatest challenge as a son, a husband and a father. Once he walked away from everything he loved. But now he is here to stay. 

Review

4.25 out of 5 stars

Here to Stay is without a doubt the farewell Daisy and Eric deserved, the one I longed for at the end of The Man I Love.  While I loved the first book, I craved more time with both of those two characters.  I yearned to see more of their road, what would happen after 12 years, that’s a long time for soul mates to be apart. Would things pick back up easily, would it be like they were never apart?  In Here To Stay I got all my answers.  It was a very satisfying conclusion when the last page was turned my reward was peace and happiness for a much-deserved HEA.

Suanne Laqueur goes above and beyond in exploring what happens after Eric shows up in Canada.  He and Daisy are finally reunited, past sins are forgiven but it doesn’t mean the demons are forgotten.  As readers we get to see these two fight through their demons, to choose to stay, to choose to fight for one another, for love.  Being apart isn’t an option, but moving towards a future together is something that doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes months and years for their every day life to find the same page, but when it does and the days getting there are absolutely beautiful.

There are two very particular roads Suanne Laqueur chooses to explore that I have to confess I found written perfectly.  I adored and I think it was absolutely necessary to explore Will and Eric’s relationship, their friendship, how Eric’s disappearance shaped these two, the details of how their friendship survived were important and I am glad she chose to explore those details.  I found it a beautiful display of love between two people and how that love transcends any and all bad circumstances.  Not only are those two there for one another in the happy times but they are each other’s pillars of strength in the most trying of times and it’s those moments of this book that I truly loved reading most.

As for my second favorite journey of this book, I don’t want to go into too many details so as not to spoil it for you, but I will say it’s was watching Eric and Daisy leaning on another during one of the most trying times of their marriage.  Watching them fight for happiness, for their marriage, for one another.  The support each gave, the strength of their love was simply astounding.  It’s what I would hope my own marriage would look like if I ever found myself in a similar situation.  I cried, I smiled it was everything this book and their journey needed even though it was simply heartbreaking. 

If I’m being truly honest one of the things I liked least about this book was Eric’s journey into his family’s history.  There were many times I felt bogged down into the details of the family tree, of who was who and what happened.  The family tree diagrams were helpful, but to be perfectly truthful I didn’t really care about those details.  I do appreciate his journey into his past, I think it was essential in order for Eric to accept how his childhood shaped many of the life changing decision in his past as well as the present and the journey into his family history was without a doubt essential in order to move forward as a husband and as a man, I just didn’t find the tiny details important enough to read about in such great lengths.

This is without a doubt a must read follow-up story to The Man I Love.  You will laugh and you will cry and when it’s over you will be so grateful Suanne Laqueur chose to give Daisy and Eric the conclusion they so deserved.  I understand now why it couldn’t have come in an epilogue or even a novella, there were just too many roads, which needed exploring before Daisy and Eric could ride off into the sunset, and I for one and so thankful for the opportunity to see how it all played out.