You Were Here by Gian Sardar
Readers of Kate Atkinson will delight in this suspenseful debut novel about a woman haunted by nightmares and her grandmother’s role in a doomed love triangle almost seventy years before.
What if the past is never buried?
Death, accidental and early, has always been Abby Walters’s preoccupation. Now thirty-three and eager to settle down with her commitment-shy boyfriend, a recurring dream from her past returns: a paralyzing nightmare of being buried alive, the taste of dirt in her mouth cloying and real. But this time the dream reveals a name from her family’s past. Looking for answers, Abby returns home to small-town Minnesota for the first time in fourteen years, where she reconnects with her high school crush, now a police detective on the trail of a violent criminal. When Abby tries on her grandmother’s mesmerizing diamond ring, a ring she always dreamed would be hers, she discovers a cryptic note long hidden beneath the box’s velvet lining. What secret was her grandmother hiding? And could this be the key to what’s haunting Abby? As she begins to uncover the traces of a love triangle gone shockingly wrong nearly seventy years before, we, too, see that the layers of our lives may echo a past we’ve never known. With mesmerizing twists and a long-buried secret that may finally rise to light, You Were Here weaves together two worlds separated by decades, asking if the mistakes made in past lives can ever be corrected in the future, and if some souls are meant to find one another time and time again.
Amazon Barnes and Noble Goodreads
Author’s Bio
Gian Sardar studied creative writing at Loyola Marymount University and is the coauthor of the book Psychic Junkie. She lives in Las Angeles with her husband, son, and insane dog.
My Review
4 stars
Abby Walters lives in LA and has been having the same dream of being buried alive for years and suffers from anxiety over her death because of it. But recently while having the dream she hears the name Claire Ballantine, a woman from her family’s past. Abby decides to return to Minnesota to look into this. When she returns home see meets Aidan Mackenzie, her high school crush. Aidan is now a detective and one the trail of a serial rapist/murderer.
The other side of this story takes place in 1948 with Eva Marten, Abby’s grandmother. William is a business man from the city and has been taken with Eva. They start a relationship but there is one issue, William’s wife Claire. Will William leave Claire to be with Eva? How does this relate to Abby, her nightmare, and the note she found hidden with her grandmother’s ring?
The first thing I have to say about this book is that it has a slow start. I was not really drawn in but decided to stick with it. I’m glad that I did. I think a lot of it was the fact that I didn’t really like Abby at first. She is so obsessed with dying and death that she gives herself anxiety. That and her boyfriend just irritated me. After the first hundred pages things take off quickly.
Once Abby gets home and finds the note things take off. I really liked Aiden, he was a decent guy and I thought a better match for Abby than Robert. I’m not really a love triangle girl so I have to say that the amount of cheating and lying got to be a bit much in this story. But I sucked it up because I wanted to see how everything meshed.
This is a great thriller that has some wonderful glimmers that keeps you turning the pages. I really liked how everything came together. Gian Sardar is a wonderful author and writes beautifully. She is one author to keep your eye on.
I received You Were Here from Penguin Random House for free. This has in no way influenced my opinion of this book.
jbronderbookreviews 
Leave a Reply