Review by Vickyoreo86 -- For the Love of Suzanne

[Vickyoreo86]

Following is the official onlinebookclub.org review of For the Love of Suzanne by Kristi Hudecek-Ashwill

For the Love of Suzanne by Kristi Hudeecek-Ashwill is a fictional time-travel romance about a young woman coping with many hardships and is then somehow transported back in time during a car accident.

Suzanne married her childhood sweetheart straight out of school against their parents’ wishes, choosing to elope in another city and settle in to life together. Unfortunately for Suzanne, after some years and money struggles, her husband becomes violently abusive and she discovers she is pregnant and unable to handle the hitting and anger. After the death of her husband, Suzanne is driving and loses control of the car and while crashing she is transported to a time before machinery, like her car. She is in a time when white men and Indians are still at odds. Pregnant and unsure of where she is and how she ended up on Apache territory, Suzanne faces more hard times, moments of abuse and love with a half breed man from another time, while finding a way back to her own.

I struggled with the style of writing and found it incredibly hard to connect with the characters due to repetition of thoughts and feelings in the monologue and some unrealistic dialogue. It was very stereotypical Indian verses whites with an old western style theme. Suzanne seemed to have every awful thing happen to her and Cody, while mainly kind, seemed to be in the middle of the Indians and the white men due to his mixed heritage. However, there was something sweet about the love between Cody and Suzanne as she was used to a life of domestic abuse and Cody could barely get a woman to touch him due to being a half breed.

This book deals with cruelty in its harshest of forms; rape, physical beatings and mentally awful situations. Many scenes are violently graphic and some moments became depressing and there is a lot of death which sometimes reminded me of The Game of Thrones. I enjoyed the scenes between Suzanne and Cody, how he wants to help her get back to her own time but has fallen in love with her despite originally wanting to hand her over as a slave to his chief. They are both gentle people in a harsh world, no matter which time they are in. One of the scenes I very much enjoyed was during the time Cody’s horse had gone and they were left in freezing conditions, unable to sleep for fear of dying. Cody talked Suzanne through the hard times and the sweetness poured through the pages and my heart melted. There were even a few supernatural touches, a spirituality, and miraculous healing just to add a little more to the plot.

The story shows how hard life can be no matter the time period and yet our protagonists survive; they push through from one moment to the next. There are a few reasons to enjoy this book, such as the love between the main characters and Cody’s gentleness. The plot carries the book right to the end despite the writing style I was not fond of and the repetition of thoughts and feelings from the monologue. Overall the story was nice and I feel that 2 out of 4 star rating is appropriate. It was not the best I have read of this genre but others who enjoy time-travel romances may enjoy it.