Never Let You Go by Katy Regnerry

I will be forever thankful to Not Your Mama’s Romance for mentioning “Never Let You Go” on Facebook. If you don’t know about her blog, I highly recommend you look it up and follow her. She will often post a quote from a book she likes and share it on Facebook. Such a post is how I, thankfully, found this amazing, emotional and utterly devastating book.

I was first intrigued when I saw it described as a modern fairy tale. I am a BIG fan of talented authors taking fairy tales and twisting them so they’re new again. And in this beautiful modern re-telling of Hansel and Gretel, Katy Regnery honors both The Brothers Grimm and Elizabeth Smart.

Description:

Regret, betrayal, kidnapping, loss, madness, abuse, passion, love.

In this modern retelling of Hansel and Gretel, thirteen-year-old foster children Griselda and Holden escape from their abductor after three years of brutal captivity, and try to cross the Shenandoah River on foot. Tragically, one of them makes it to safety, but the other is left behind.

Ten years later, Griselda’s boyfriend drags her to a fight club grudge match, and her world is turned upside down when she watches Holden step into the ring.

Though the connection between them is fierce, bitter regret, simmering rage, and a tangle of physical and emotional scars lie between them, just as dangerous as the white water of the Shenandoah.

Never Let You Go is a story of fear and hope, defeat and survival, and two people–once profoundly broken–who discover that love is the only thing that can make them whole again.
***
This is a standalone novel inspired by Hansel and Gretel.

New Adult Contemporary Romance: Due to profanity, scenes of physical abuse and very strong sexual content, this book is not intended for readers under the age of 18. (Note: Children are not sexually abused in this book.)

Griselda and Holden met in a foster home. Both wards of the state, they immediately feel a connection to each other that goes beyond their young minds. Just beginning to know each other, they walk along a country road on an errand for their foster parents. A man pulls up in a truck and claims Griselda and Holden’s foster parents sent him to drive them back. A wrong decision unfortunately sentences them to three years of forced slavery to The Man. He calls them Seth and Ruth and his deluded mind believes they are his little brother and sister. He puts chains on them and forces them to garden, can and work until bleeding to save their damned souls.

The book opens to a harrowing escape of the two children. They are running for their lives and attempting to cross the Shenandoah River. Griselda makes it across but Holden is caught. His last word to Griselda, before The Man knocks him out, is “run!” After escaping, she runs straight to a sheriff, wildly demanding they find him. But by the time they made it back to the farm where Holden and Griselda had been held, he and The Man were gone.

Ten years later – Griselda is working as a nanny for a senator’s family and secretly saving up the funds to hire a private investigator to find Holden. She hates every minute of her life, not knowing whether he’s safe or dead. Zelda stays with her abusive boyfriend to try and salvage her guilt for leaving Holden behind. But when Jonah, the abusive boyfriend, orders her to steal from the family she works for to fund a trip to West Virginia Zelda refuses. Instead she secretly withdraws some money from her “Find Holden” fund – an action that breaks her heart.

Afraid of going back to West Virginia when her nightmares of her time there are bad enough, Zelda is more afraid of what Jonah will do if she doesn’t go. The trip brings up her earliest memories of Holden and show the reader how they met and fell into a pure and sweet young love. Memories of their time in the foster home, of their capture and captivity bond both Holden and Griselda as well as the reader to these two tortured souls.

Zelda swims in a mass of sorrow, guilt and uncertainty the closer they get to their destination. And Jonah does nothing to help. Shortly after arriving he hears about a local fight club and plans on the whole group going. After experiencing so much violence as a child Zelda has no interest but again he threatens her into attending. Hiding from the blood, Zelda is approached by two drunk rednecks. After fighting them off she heads closer to the fight to yell at Jonah for bringing her into this situation. By doing so Zelda shows her face to the fighters – and one recognizes her. It’s Holden, only he goes by Seth now.

Recognizing the love of his life, one he thought had been murdered for trying to escape, Holden fights his way to where she is on the side of the ring but is stabbed before he can make it. The referee, a close friend of Holden’s, had recognized Zelda from a tattoo on Holden’s arm and goes to retrieve her. Zelda, having had her suspicions confirmed, drops everything and heads to Holden’s apartment. The reunion is so strong and emotional I had to set my phone down and just cry. After everything the two had been through that moment was so needed for both the characters and me, the reader. Through out the ten years apart, they had never forgotten the other and their love had endured.

Seth is the name The Man gave Holden, a name that during captivity Holden would refuse. Griselda is hurt and confused that Holden would now willingly go by that name. She doesn’t understand why Holden stayed with The Man when he could have escaped. And Holden wants to explain everything but he can’t risk losing Griselda again. His friend offers up a cabin where the two can escape to and have time to just be together again and get everything that’s happened out of the way. This proves to be the smartest decision the two can make. Their time alone brings out old hurts, past regrets, shared nightmares, shared happiness and an almost cathartic relief at airing everything out.

Like many fairy tales, a twist threatens to separate the reunited lovers. Griselda’s heavy guilt and Holden’s past both serve as heavy anchors that may separate the two forever.

I am practically speechless to describe how much this book hit me. Child abuse, of any kind, is always hard to read about but it takes a special skill to write it in such a way it makes the reader truly break down and cry. And I promise, this book is so strongly written you will do exactly that. But Griselda and Holden are an immortal couple – their love is too strong to die. They belong with such couples as Romeo & Juliet, Jack & Rose and Rick & Ilsa. Do they get a happy ever after? Pick up “Never Let You Go” and find out yourself. Just make sure to have a box of tissues nearby. Like Logan says to Veronica in “Veronica Mars” –

No one writes about the ones that come easy.