Queen Anne’s Lace – Dawn Gardner

★★★★

By seven o’clock, my parent’s words would run together and my father would become unpredictable, like walking by the yellow jacket’s nest that was in our backyard.

Lacy Mitchell hasn’t been happy in a long time.

Her parents are constantly fighting, her father is absolutely awful and she just cannot stand another minute under that roof.

I used to cry – my tears dried up a while ago

She decides to take off – where? She doesn’t know. So long as it is away from where she is now, she will be okay.

But then, an idea comes to her – to find her real father. Someone who she knows just has to be good and true. Someone who will protect her and keep her safe.

The rain hit my face like nails. I ran through the woods behind our house….

And so her journey begins…

I thought this one ended up being pretty good!

Lacy was a pretty engaging main character – she did have a tendency to go the most rash path and run headlong into danger (thank goodness that trucker wasn’t what I thought he was!) but she IS only 14 and allowed to make such bone-headed decisions.

I adored the side characters (well, the good ones – haha) and the trucker couple were just the sweetest. Absolutely adored them!

I did think the story made a few too many leaps.

Lacy bops from one extreme situation to another, and as a reader I would have either preferred to not be given so many extremes or to have had greater buildups to the big scenes (i.e. instead of going 0 to 60, to build tension before getting to the big moment).

And I noticed that there was a bit too much telling rather than showing, though for the most part it felt balanced withing the book.

I did enjoy watching the plot unfold and I was rooting so much for young Lacy to find her place and heal her heart.

All in all, I quite liked this book and I’m intrigued to see what the author writes next!

with thanks to the author (and her daughter) for arranging a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Interested in this one from Dawn Gardner? Buy it here:  Amazon