The First Time I Saw Him (A Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick‪)‬

I’ve been waiting on this sequel for four long years with bated breath and while it’s been an awful long wait- it was by far well worth the wait!
Hannah and Bailey have been getting by for the last five years as the book opens with a shockingly and unexpected contact by Owen comes to Hannah at her work during an event. He doesn’t act as if he is there for her and whisper quietly to her a code that makes her wonder why he’d come now and say that. The next day a text warning her to leave the house just as the doorbell rings and a man dressed as a utility worker is asking to get inside to check out something. She refuses him and locks the door grabs her readily packed bags that were in case of something like this and she climbs up her attic and out the window safely to a new car waiting with more of her things a burner phone that she uses to contact Bailey and as both women meet up at their previously discussed spot they find out their precariously unsafe world has now turned into a very unsafe and dangerous world in which they are actively being hunted by the syndicate bc hands of power have changed and the barely promising deal that was made to keep them safe is now null and void. The lengths these two will go to keep themselves and their loved ones safe is remarkable but nothing is more heroic or more selfless than the love and sacrifice of Hannah for her daughter (step daughter actually) yet she is everything bring a mother to nearly all women is. She is fiercely protective and actively supportively and loves without condition or exp citation and has stood up in the wake of her husbands and baileys fathers disappearance more so than most mothers even would have. She has a preternatural underlying layer of calm and collective reasoning and can intelligently and efficiently find any resources necesssary to get her and Bailey to safety at the drop of a dime.
Her love for Bailey is all consuming and while she loves Owen it has been 5 years and a lot of questions that have not been asked or answered bc they’ve had absolutely no contact until last night. Her inner thoughts on these last 5 yrs and the position she and Bailey have been thrust into is too intricate and her feelings too unsettled for her to grasp them so she’s never dwelled upon them. When it becomes clear that she may have this opportunity to sse her husband for the first time in 5 yrs and since her life was ripped out from under her forcing her to live every single day in purgatory that’s indescribable let alone what those days and nights have felt like and how heavily they’ve weighed upon her and her daughter. Yet, she has never let Bailey down and she isn’t about to begin to now. She puts her flee plan into place and they are off into unknown territory only to learn the man keeping them som assurance of safety, baileys grandfather has been declared dead. The world has now gone off axis and with it the readers are along for this twisting and turning plot with our racing hearts and fully invested minds. This book is just too good and exciting overflowing with anticipation and terrifying situations. I couldn’t put it down.
Make sure you read the book that began this incredible adventure and dangerous dance that’s happening in Hannah and Baileys lives. It’s so worth the time and if I’m being honest I’m so sad to see this story end, I could’ve spent another 5 hours, 5 days etc with these beautifully dynamic and engaging characters while they gracefully accepted their lot in life and did their best to make it a life well lived. Something that seems virtually impossible to do considering the circumstances yet these two women are nothing if not strong and when they become even closer and as Bailey grows from teen to young women this bond between them is I’m impenetrable and adding more fortitude to their survival and reconciling the aftermath.

And I guess I’m not a lover of crime families as a topic.