Guest Review: Blank Slate Kate by Heather Wardell

Tracy’s review of Blank Slate Kate by Heather Wardell

Waking up with a strange man is scary. Realizing you lost fifteen years of your life overnight? That’s terrifying. With her memories from seventeen to thirty-two gone, Kate has no idea who she is and where she belongs. As she begins to fall for the man who found her, she wonders if she forgot those years for a reason. Should she keep trying to retrieve her original self, or start a new life?

Kate wakes up with a man who looks really old to her. She can’t understand why she’s not in her room in her parents house. When the man finally starts talking to her she realizes that it’s 2011 and not 1996. She’s not 17 years old but 32 and she can’t remember anything about in the 15 years that she’s lost. Jake, the “old” man that she woke up with who’s really only 30, takes her to the doctor who then calls the police. Once Jake and Kate finally get everyone to believe that Kate has really lost her memories her prints and pictures are taken to try to identify who she is.

Kate and Jake fall into a semi-routine while she stays with him. She helps him with getting his sculptures sold and she also helps his friend Hannah start to get her fashion consulting business off the ground. She’s not sure how she knows how to do certain things, they just come to her – like putting together a sensible business plan for Hannah. During this time Jake and Kate start getting closer and closer and Kate finds herself almost falling in love with the man. After a few months Kate is contacted by the police and she’s told that someone finally knows who she is – and that person is her husband. Yikes. Now how to deal with Jake and Ryan, her husband.

Ryan is more than happy to try to help her with her memories but still Kate feels like the man is holding back. Ryan isn’t sure how to deal with the fact that Kate can’t remember anything about their relationship…oh, and her real name is Donna, not Kate.

Kate/Donna and Ryan start to spend time together but there’s still an odd connection to Jake that confuses her. She’s determined to try and get her memories back and find out what Ryan’s hiding but she’s not sure she’ll ever know. It appears that she ended up running from Ryan but why and if she ran, does she really want to go back? And if she’s married and had once been so happy with her husband how can she even consider being with Jake? And when she does start to get information will she be happy she forgot it or not?

I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect when I started reading this book but after reading an excerpt of it I had to keep reading. I’m such a sucker for amnesia stories! The story ended up being compelling and interesting and you just root for Kate the entire time you’re reading. You really want her to get her memories back – and yes, there’s a perfectly logical reason she lost them in the first place (not a bump on the head) – but as you read further into the book you realize that that just may never happen.

Jake is such a strong support for Kate when they are first together and frankly I really rooted for him for part of the book but it just wasn’t to be. He was a pretty good guy at heart but he was a bit clueless when it came to Kate and the things she needed in life.

That left Kate with Ryan. I frankly wasn’t sure what to think about Ryan. Because the story is told in the first person pov present tense we never got to see anything but Ryan from Kate’s pov. I would have loved to have seen some of the things that were going on in Ryan’s mind at some points but having the pov that we had really made us wonder what would happen next.

The story is one of love and how that love can be broken with indifference, betrayal and secrets. Most of the time those things can’t be overcome but in Ryan and Kate’s case it could. That being said, I just didn’t feel it. I loved the story and where it went and how it came to be and all the secrets and discoveries but I think I was supposed to feel more from Ryan and Kate and their predicament and I just didn’t. It was very sweet and when I got to the last page I was happy for the HEA but I wasn’t emotionally involved as I thought I should be.
In the end, as I said, I really liked the story, all of the characters and the whole premise but the romance was just a little too dry for me.

Rating: 4 out of 5

You can read more from Tracy at Tracy’s Place.

This book is available from CreateSpace. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

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