Jensen and Ryder were high school sweethearts. They did everything together along with Jensen's brother Will, who just happens to be Ryder's best friend. Until one night when everything changed for all three of them. Will had always told Ryder he could have any girl, except his sister Jensen.
One day everything changed for all of them. Will, a high school football player is hit pretty hard in a game and is rushed to the hospital. After he is cleared to leave the hospital they all head back to Will's house. The plan for the evening was for Jensen and Ryder to spend some time alone together. Will however, wants Ryder to watch a movie with him. After Will falls asleep, Ryder sneaks down to be with Jensen. This is when everything changes. Will catches the two of them together, and gets into a heated fight with both of them. Jensen hits Will, he falls and hits his head and later passes away.
The series of events that October evening changed everything for them. Jensen develops Night Blindness and the doctors have no clue what is causing it. Jensen feels since she lied to her parents about what happened, that this is her punishment. Jensen leaves home and goes on with her life. Jensen became a model and meets Nic and marries him. Ryder also leaves home and becomes a brain surgeon. Life went on for the two of them until Jensen's father develops a brain tumor Jensen returns to her home town to help take care of her dad. Ryder is the surgeon on the case. As much as the two of them try to keep their old feelings on the side they just can't.
I was very impressed with Susan Streker's writing. NIGHT BLINDNESS is her first novel, and in my opinion, the first of a great career. I was absorbed from the first page and throughout the whole book. Streker writes about young love, the trials that it takes on the two main characters and other people in their lives. Susan Streker'sinsight into their lives of her characters almost made me feel like she had something terrible happen in her own life.
NIGHT BLINDESS is a great book and a speedy read. I am patiently waiting for her next book. I usually like to know what happens to the main characters in a book, but Susan Strecker ends NIGHT BLINDNESS in the perfect way. No waiting for a sequel on this one.
A future as bright as the stars above the Connecticut shore lay before Jensen Reilly and her high school sweetheart, Ryder, until the terrible events of an October night left Jensen running from her family and her first love. Over the years that followed, Jensen buried her painful past, and now, married to a charismatic artist, she has created a new life far away from the unbearable secret of that night.
When Jensen's father, Sterling, is diagnosed with a brain tumor, she returns to her childhood home for the first time in thirteen years, and the memories of her old life come flooding back along with the people she's tried to escape. Torn between her life in Santa Fe with her free-spirited husband, Nic, and the realization that it is time to face her past, Jensen must make a terrifying decision that threatens to change her life again--this time forever.
An emotionally thrilling debut set during a New England summer, Susan Strecker's Night Blindness is a compelling novel about the choices we make, the sanctity of friendship, and the power of love.
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