Since You've Been Gone

By: Christa Allan

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss

Length: 10 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

A Selah Award winner.

One moment, Olivia Kavanaugh is preparing to walk down the aisle and embrace her own happily ever after. The next, she learns that her fiancé, Wyatt Hammond, has been in a fatal car accident. Then comes a startling discovery: Wyatt’s car wasn’t heading toward the church. He was fifty miles away...with a baby gift in the backseat.

Her faith shaken, Olivia pores over the clues left behind, desperate to know where Wyatt was going that day and why. As she begins uncovering secrets, she also navigates a tense relationship with her judgmental mother and tries to ignore the attentions of a former boyfriend who’s moved back home. But when she starts receiving letters written by Wyatt before his death, she must confront a disturbing question: Can we ever know anyone fully, even someone we love?

When an unexpected path forward - though nothing like the life she once envisioned - offers the promise of a new beginning, will she be strong enough to let go of the past and move toward it?

©2016 Christa Allan. (P)2016 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Liked the destination but didn’t really enjoy the journey

I wasn’t sure where this story was going to go but could not turn away from the description. And with the disclaimer that Olivia’s experience was devastation on top of heartbreak was something that would drive most people off the edge, I found that ultimately I didn’t care for Olivia for the majority of the book and things didn’t turn around until the last hour (and even then she still displayed a level of immaturity towards her parents re the picnic that I felt was completely unjustified). I thought her attack on her parents re: the gift was way out of bounds in light of all they had done and the extraordinary circumstances they all found themselves in. I found Scarlett’s behavior re the pregnancy was SO bizarre and the explanation offered at the end didn’t make any sense and couldn’t be reconciled with how she had behaved the entire pregnancy (so that to me was a missed connection on the author’s part because what we got the entire time was righteous judgment only to be told it was motivated by fear of miscarriage/demons of the past, huh???) I found Olivia’s behavior towards Evan at times reminiscent of her mother’s bitchiness towards her and on several occasions just wanted him to stop engaging with her (the constant obsessing of date vs non-date became SO tiresome!) I didn’t find Laura’s explanation re: the notes convincing at all and thought it was unbelievably high handed for her to choose the handle that the way she did. There were numerous substantive things that bothered me about this book but i ask felt like the pacing could’ve been better and we had several scenes where I felt insignificant things were belabored which made the story drag while the reader continued to dangle off the edge of the cliff wondering where Wyatt was going, why and for whom the gift was for. And then when we got that from the PI, it felt like the reveal was a non-event - at that point Olivia was too wrapped up in her fresh grief to care.
All in all I was just waiting for the end and while I liked what I got, felt like it became a true slog to get there.

A Bit Lackluster

A nice story, but a bit slow and not enough action for me. It is well written and the narrator is good. The ending delivers, which is always a plus.

Emotional, stressful

When I started listening to this book "Since you've been gone", I felt as if this story has been told before..until half way through it was not the same story.

As I don't give any book review away, just so that nobody will not purchase or will purchase due to what I have to say, I can say this story could have hit home if it wasn't fiction.

A bride waiting at the alter, husband doesn't show up but is in a car crash just before he says, "I do". Why in Gods name did he do what he did? Why couldn't Olivia just accept his death? These were actually questions I had in my mind listening to it, but when it turned into something I didn't see coming, I couldn't put it down! I stayed up all night just to get by each chapter. I will say one thing, her mother was a bitch, but in the end you'll see why she acted the way she did...I truly did enjoy this book, but I also felt the emotion coming from the character, she broke my heart.

I highly recommend this book, and please listen and pay attention because it's not what you will think it is when you start. ❤️

Great

This book made me laugh , surprised, and cry. A really great book to listen to on audible.

Reader Comments

This is a great story about moving on past tragedy, finding new love, and a new life. I recommend this book to everyone that loves romance novels.

Family Secrets

A great book on family secrets and the damage they can do. A lesson in how we can be modern day pharasies and allow it to cause divisions within our family that are difficult to mend.

Great story line and characters.

Molly’s web

Great story unlikable characters.
Charlotte is the typical evangelical Christian, “hypocritical” she likes looking and quoting scriptures but don’t know the real walk.
Molly is a self centered selfish Southern bell. Whoa is me is her constant song. I get something life shattering happened to her, but at some point you got to start moving forward. She’s going to be a mother time to pull up her big girl panties.
Narrator’s voice is perfect for Molly.
The book ending is great wrap up for both mother and daughter.

A+

Edge if your seat. I couldn't put the book on pause for a minute. I even made up excuses to drive somewhere.

I like it but....

The base of the story of forgiveness is good. Forgiving those who have hurt you and forgiving yourself so you can have a better life was very good. The explanation of her mother's ugliness was confusing to me. Having miscarriages made you treat your daughter like someone with leprosy.

Great job

I really enjoyed the book and narrator it was clean and well performed. looking forward to the next one