The Light We Lost by Marae Good: Book Review

 **ARC received for consideration. All opinions are my own. 

The Book

One loss. One love. One more chance?

Indy Tyler has run out of excuses. Stuck in career limbo and haunted by a pressing need to

right her wrongs, the past has finally caught up with her — Wallowpine, Arizona is calling

her name. Once, this was home. Now it’s a reminder of every mistake Indy ever made,

starting with stealing the golden boy’s dreams.

From college baseball star to drunken failure, Nolan Graham’s career trajectory cost him

more than his reputation. Nine years later, he’s starting to feel like the world has left him

behind. Until fiery, reckless, troublemaker Indy walks back into Wallowpine and lays a bomb

at Nolan’s feet: their divorce papers were never filed.

Bound by small-town scandal, money, and the remnants of a love that once burned bright,

Indy and Nolan agree to spend one month patching up their wounds. After that, they’ll part

ways, forever.

But as Indy and Nolan’s lives entangle once more, they find themselves running out of

reasons to walk away — even as the past threatens to repeat itself one last time.

The Author

Marae Good was born and raised in Arizona, where she currently lives with husband, two daughters and their sassy Yorkshire Terrier, Butter. After an episode of crippling depression forced Marae to reevaluate her priorities, she found herself returning to an old habit: reading. Mesmerized by the worlds she could escape to, Marae started creating her own. When she's not writing, Marae loves to dance with her littles, run and hike in the mountains, or stay up far too late bingeing TV shows (most likely Vampire Diaries or Gilmore Girls).

Follow Marae's bookish adventures on Instagram: @maraegood.writes

Book Review

The Light We Lost is the second book in the Lost and Found in Wallowpine series. While we do get to know all the brothers and more of their history in that first book, I think this could be enjoyed just fine as a standalone as well. (That said, the first one is a great book and one I'd definitely recommend anyway!). 

Oh my goodness, this book. Where do I even begin!? Right from the start, I was drawn into this story. When Indy shows up out of the blue to announce to Nolan that they were in fact still married... the delivery of her news was absolute perfection. I was hooked. From there, their story took me on a rollercoaster of emotions! The story alternates between POVs both in the present time and in the past. This was truly the perfect way to share their story. Not only did it allow us to see their earlier love for each other then (which just makes me root for them that much more)... but it also kept me wondering exactly what went wrong to get them to this point in the first place. We find out those details slowly as the story goes on, just enough at a time to keep you wanting to read on to get all the pieces. Their story was absolutely heartbreaking and had me sobbing at times, but it was also so very beautiful too with amazing chemistry that I couldn't get enough of. 

This story does contain some very difficult topics which could be triggering for some readers, and as such, if you do have any triggers, I strongly recommend reading the author's note at the start of the book to decide if it's right for you. In the next paragraph, I'm sharing some thoughts on that, but if you have no triggers and want to avoid spoilers, please skip over the next paragraph.



This story has a lot of tough topics like depression, alcohol abuse, grief and pregnancy loss. As someone who has experienced recurrent miscarriages, this is one of my own personal triggers and I very much appreciated the heads up about it as I was better able to prepare myself. I thought the author did such a wonderful job of touching on this topic, and I saw so many of my own thoughts reflected in this character... like that feeling of happiness for others mixed with grief and sadness. It didn't go into great detail and was handled with grace, but it also felt very genuine too. I appreciated feeling seen within these pages. I also really appreciated that the ending was left more open ended (as far as starting a family). While certainly an emotional story to read at points, it truly was one that I absolutely loved. 



The Light We Lost is a closed-door romance with some moments that get fairly heated but do fade to black before anything explicit happens on the pages. There is also quite a bit of language throughout the story. 


You can purchase your copy here: https://amzn.to/4gkEp0r