Tenleigh Falyn struggles each day to survive in a small, poverty-stricken, coal mining town where she lives with her sister and mentally ill mother. Her dream of winning the college scholarship given to one student by the local coal company and escaping the harshness of her life, keeps her going.
Kyland Barrett lives in the hills, too, and has worked tirelessly—through near starvation, through deep loneliness, against all odds—to win the Tyton Coal Scholarship and leave the town that is full of so much pain.
They're both determined not to form any attachments, but one moment changes everything. What happens when only one person gets to win? When only one person gets to leave? And what happens to the one left behind?
Kyland is a story of desperation and hope, loss and sacrifice, pain and forgiveness, but ultimately, a story of deep and unending love.
THIS IS A STAND-ALONE SIGN OF LOVE NOVEL, INSPIRED BY TAURUS. New Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to strong language and sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18.
4.5 Stellar Stars!
Review by Jen Hagen
I simply adore Ms. Sheridan’s writing. How can she make her next work better than
the first? Shouldn’t she soon be hitting
a dry spell? These are questions that
run through my head after completing each of her books and I hope I never find
an answer. My wish is that Ms. Sheridan
will keep writing until the end of the time.
This story takes place in the Appalachian Mountains of
Kentucky, where poverty is the norm and cupboards fully stocked are a
rarity. The town’s main employer is the
coal company. These are hard jobs going
into the underbelly of the earth and coming out with only the whites of your
eyes visible beneath the black soot. But
for some, this is the only way to make a decent wage to provide food on the
table and a roof over your head.
Tenleigh is a senior in high school and lives with her
older sister and mother in a rickety old trailer where Tenleigh’s bed is the couch. Tenleigh and her sister work to provide money
for necessities and medication for her mother, as her mother is incapable of
providing income due to her mental illness.
Her mother lives in the glory days of when she won a beauty pageant –
bringing out the sash when the high of being off her medication kicks in. Tenleigh lacks the stability of a parent
providing for the child, in her case it is the other way around, and it wears
on her.
I had to wonder,
should a seventeen-year-old girl be so tired?
Just tired down to my bones…weary in my very soul?
Kyland is also a senior in high school. He blends in well with everybody else never
wanting to call attention to himself, always keeping his head down and staying
out of trouble. Kyland has it extra
rough – not only does he have hunger to battle but he also has loneliess to
conquer as he walks into his home every day and greets a mother that will never
speak out loud to him again. Kyland’s
dreams for the future include getting out of this town and leaving it all
behind.
From the very first paragraph Ms. Sheridan lets it be
known that this is going to be a read that will tug at your heartstrings, want
to wrap up each child in your arms and rock them, all while wiping your wet
face.
Our eyes met, he
flaring briefly and then narrowing, as again, I looked away, my cheeks heating
as if I’d just intruded on a deeply personal moment. And it was.
I should know. I’d done it
myself. I knew the shame. But I also knew the achy emptiness of Monday morning after a long, hungry
weekend. Evidently, Kyland knew it too.
Tenleigh and Kyland have more in common than just hunger
pains. They are both competing for the
coveted scholarship given out by the coal company. This would be a one-way ticket out of the
mountains and into their dreams.
Tenleigh and Kyland forge a friendship following an instance that will
forever change the course of their lives.
Before this, they didn’t speak…now they are constantly aware of the
other’s presence and searching out companionship when the nights are
lonely. Kyland makes one thing perfectly
clear…he is leaving whether he wins that scholarship or not.
“I’m going to leave
here, Tenleigh. Nothing is going to stop
me. Not you, not anything. Not anyone.
Do you hear me?”
From about 45% and on my heart was hurting. It wasn’t a break-your-heart cry, although
that would come later, but rather a sympathy cry for what these 2 have endured
– especially Kyland. These two kids
have dealt with so much but yet have so little to their name. They are good kids -- kids that any parent
would be proud to have…that is if the parents were capable of feeling a sense
of pride because of their children. Kyland
is a strong man and he makes wise decisions and choices. Even when the choice he makes hurts like a
bitch, he knows it’s for the best.
I looked next to me
at a sleeping Tenleigh, her beaty soft and vulnerable under the early morning
sky and I knew what I had to do. I knew
it was wrong, and I knew it would shatter me to do it. And I knew that despite all that, I would do
it anyway.
I want to keep talking about how wonderful Kyland is, but
that would give away too much of the story.
Once you start, you will not be able to set this book down. Even now after I’ve finished it, my heart
still weeps for these children. Even in
the face of adversity they manage to climb out.
Even when it means doing something you don’t want to do…
He stared down at
me for several long beats before he rasped, “I do go to hell. Every day.
For you.”
I’m usually not a fan of high-school love struck kids,
but in this case these teenagers were well above their years. They have life experiences to back their
motives and I never once thought about how I was reading about teenagers. My mind was too caught up in all that they
had had to endure in their young lives. The writing is excellent and I loved how we
got to hear from both Kyland and Tenleigh in their points of view. I do have to mention why I didn’t give this
book 5 stars when it really is well deserving of it, but there was one factor
that I could not get past and it drove me nuts and I spent a whole lot of time
fixating on it while I was reading.
There is a huge incident that changed Kyland’s life but it wasn’t until
I neared the end when I was able to finally place it on my mental
timeline. That one little factor
shouldn’t be a big deal, but to me who needs things precise and orderly in a
book, it did effect my rating. Perhaps
the author has a reason for this, but I am an impatient person and needed this
info sooner.
Life wasn’t easy for these kids in the mountains, but the
one thing they kept intact was hope.
I opened my eyes.
“What keeps your fire burning.”
“The hope that life
won’t always hurt so badly. The belief
that I’ll get out of here someday – that I won’t be cold or hungry
forever. It keeps me going. It’s my fire.
It helps me do the things I need to do to survive, and it helps me hate
myself less for doing them.”
Oh, Kyland…
Until that moment,
I didn’t know my heart could be filled with awe and grief, joy and sorrow, all
at the exact same time.
I felt the same emotions as Tenleigh while reading the
book…awe, grief, sorrow and finally ending with joy.
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