Diane Donovan’s Midwest Book Review:
Abuse, recovery, and love stalk Renee Chadwick's life in Diminishing Veil, but even before she met handsome playboy and successful career man Marvin Yarbrough, she struggled with many elements of success that continue to bring her full circle into bad decisions and dubious situations.
If she had made the right choice, life could have been different. Can she make the right choices towards true love, this time; or will they always lie in the dubious, gray world of indecision and bad judgment?
The veil that surrounds Renee consists of her past choices. As she tries to break through it to a different life, she considers both her mother's teachings (“Love is a fool’s journey, and it hurts, but when it is good it’s amazing.”) and new possibilities.
As chapters fluctuate between past trauma and the PTSD Renee struggles with, as well as patterns of engagement that shroud the difference between a bad choice and a good one, readers receive a powerful saga that moves through different lives and approaches to recovery.
Lonz Cook excels at portraying not just a victim, but the stumbling points of true recovery. His story questions how romance is fostered, recognized, and differentiated from efforts to control or victimize others as it builds a new life for Renee from the ashes of extreme abuse.
The psychological components of her interactions with family, friends, and potential beaus are particularly well done because they offer no past answers, but consider the complexity of living life more fully and differently than with the familiar patterns and reactions of the past.
Diminishing Veil outlines the beliefs, experiences, and scenarios that result in limited options or repeated negative options—then illustrates a way out.
Its ability to capture the differing viewpoints of all involved, crafting a more effective romantic connection than Renee previously fostered, makes for a story that will especially intrigue audiences interested in questions of how recovery is achieved.
Collections strong in not just romance but PTSD and abuse recovery will find Diminishing Veil thought-provoking, engrossing reading.
