Book Review: ‘Accidental Lives’ by Linda Kendall McLendon

Accidental Lives is the gripping follow-up novel to Linda Kendall McLendon’s Unintended Lies about Catherine DeLong, who leaves her old life after the loss of her husband in a car accident and moves to a ranch in northern Florida. Recently retired agents, Zane and Buck, lure her into haunting questions about her husband’s past while she tries to move on with her life.

Zane has his own past to sort out. He has been away from home for decades and feels the urgent need to visit his aging mother and his old friend Parker, who works on his parents’ ranch and was more of a father to him than his own.

Readers will have a lot of surprises in this book, and so will Catherine. I found Accidental Lives to read in a fast-paced manner, and never once did my attention lag. It’s the kind of book you read in a day because you can’t put it down, and then you wish it hadn’t ended. Fortunately, McLendon plans to write one final book in this series.

Good news for me because I’ve grown to love these characters who have their quirks and issues, but are good people who care about one another and are trying just to find a little happiness and make sense of their pasts. I was shocked in all the appropriate places by the surprises that happened in the book, and I read on, waiting for the stunning climactic scene to see how Catherine would react when she found out about the big secret that had been kept from her.

I know readers who loved Unintended Lies will be anxious to read Accidental Lives, and they will be impatient for the final book where all the various plot strands will finally be woven together. To keep the reader’s interest over three volumes is no easy task, but so far, McLendon has done it deftly, subtly, yet powerfully, always leaving us wanting more. Her readers come to feel like they really know all the characters in this book, and they cheer for Catherine, Zane, and all the good characters, sometimes even just wanting to give one of them a hug.

I can’t wait for the final book.