LOVE YOU MORE is my favorite book so far by Lisa Gardner and the reason is because of Tessa Leoni. I know this is a D.D Warren book but Tessa stole the spotlight from her.
There are so many things I loved about this story and I’ll start with Tessa. Talk about a sympathetic character you want to root for. Gardner did a brilliant job creating a character who drew you into her private world and made you wondered what the hell happened. Did she really kill her husband? What happened to her child? What is she hiding? Is she guilty or innocent? At the first everything seems deceptively simple, but then we are dealing with Lisa Gardner, and nothing is simple but it is deceptive. Tessa is strong willed, resourceful, clever, and damn tough and the hell she goes through the whole book, well you’ll see why she’s an awesome protagonist.
There is a reason I enjoy reading Lisa Gardner’s novels, I always learn something about the darker side of human nature or humanity. In LIVE TO TELL (4th book in the Detective D.D. Warren series) the subject was children struggling with mental illness caused by a mental or chemical imbalance or abuse and it’s tragic consequences. The following line from the book hit me hard: ”Parents think the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is cancer. They’re wrong; the worst thing that can happen to their five-year-old is mental illness.” Was I prepared to read about such a delicate subject?