Synopsis:
At long last, the conclusion to bestselling author Kerry Lonsdale’s beloved Everything Series has arrived.
From all outward appearances, Nadia Jacobs is a cool, confident architect at the top of her game. But for the past decade, she’s been quietly building walls to keep the people she loves most at arm’s length. All because of him.
Thomas Donato has sacrificed his own dreams to keep those he loves safe. But when he forced Nadia to keep a dangerous secret from everyone they knew — to protect his family – it cost him a chance at happiness with the woman he has secretly loved since they were kids.
But now he wants to be back in Nadia’s life. And her heart does a familiar skip-and-stumble when met with his hesitant smile . . . but she sees through his bravado: Thomas is achingly alone and lonely. But letting him back into her life requires her to risk losing everyone and everything else that she holds dear.
When his past abruptly crashes into their present, they must both go on the run. And that forces them to confront the repercussions from the secret they’ve kept for a decade, as well as an even more treacherous truth: how they feel about each other.
Running out of both time and places to hide, will their love for each other finally heal what darkness broke in them all those years ago? Or will it shatter them forever?
Everything We Found is a fast-paced, propulsive thriller, an achingly beautiful romantic story, and the satisfying finale readers have anxiously awaited.
Review:
Kerry Lonsdale is the bestselling author of the popular Everything Series and the No More Trilogy (No More Words, No More Lies, and No More Secrets), as well as six stand-alone novels, a novelette, and a novella.
Her Everything Series actually launched her publishing career. The first volume, Everything We Keep, was released in 2016, and focuses on Aimee, who is initially a very naïve, happy young woman forced to deal with an unspeakable tragedy and, in the aftermath, “find herself,” according to Lonsdale. It was followed the following year by Everything We Leave Behind in which Lonsdale relates what happened to James Donato, Aimee’s fiancée. Everything We Give was published in 2018. Ian, who becomes prominent in Aimee’s life, is in the spotlight.
The fourth and final installment, Everything We Found, opens with Nadia Jacobs deciding she will accept Thomas Donato’s invitation to meet him at his home to discuss another architectural project he is contemplating. The proposed meeting is fraught with myriad emotions and apprehension since Nadia knows her best friend, Aimee, will again see Nadia’s contact with Thomas as a betrayal of their friendship. Nadia has been wracked with guilt for years since Thomas forced her – in the interest of safety – to keep a terrible secret from Aimee. And Nadia knows that if Aimee ever learns about Nadia’s collusion with Thomas, their friendship will, irrespective of the underlying good intentions, irrevocably implode. And that’s a consequence Nadia simply would not be able to live with.
Thomas does not know when, where or how. But he knows the danger that has followed him for years will materialize, and he will again have to defend himself and those he loves. Because cartel members never forget and never forgive. They always seek retribution. Deadly retribution. And the Hidalgo Cartel has unresolved business with the Donatos.
Londsdale says that before writing Everything We Found, she reread the first three volumes in the series to refresh her own recollection. That effort plainly paid off because her narrative flows seamlessly between the present-day and events that occurred during and prior to the time periods covered in the first three books. The book opens with a Prologue that reminds readers of the promise Thomas extracted from Nadia, as well as why it was inarguably necessary that she go along with his plan. From there, the story takes off at a brisk and ever-escalating pace that never falters or lags – aside from brief expository respites from the dramatic tension — until the story’s emotional and fully satisfying conclusion.
Readers might be surprised to know that Lonsdale did not set out to write a series. But the response to Everything We Keep was very strong, with readers clamoring for more volumes, in part because the fate of James Donato, Thomas’ brother, was not revealed. Still, after completing the next two installments, she moved on and wrote more stand-alone novels, even though she felt, as did readers, that her characters’ stories were not yet finished. But at that time, “Thomas was silent,” she recalls. B
Around 2022, Thomas began “to speak” to Lonsdale, wanting her to tell his side of the story. Thomas was largely perceived as the villain in the story. So in Everything We Found, Lonsdale returns the narrative focus to the Donato family. “Every villain has their back story or their own reasons, their own motivations for why they acted the way they did,” Lonsdale observes. “The cartel is after him, the woman that he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about gets caught in the crossfire, and they’re both on the run.”
Everything We Found is an unabashed thriller in which Thomas and Nadia are literally fighting to stay alive. Lonsdale did extensive research on cartels in order to make the story believably realistic. Some of the shockingly brutal events depicted are based on actual incidents, although the narrative is neither gory nor blood-soaked.
Thomas has always been very mature and self-aware. From a young age, he understood that his family was both dysfunctional and unusual, and he became his brother’s protector from their abusive father. Lonsdale reveals his early relationship with Nadia and how they became extremely close as teenagers. Nadia’s family was equally broken in different ways. Her father abandoned her and her mother, and her mother was flailing. She was oblivious to Nadia’s pain and need for parenting as the unpaid bills mounted and their house teetered on the verge of foreclosure. In Thomas, she found a confidante, loyal friend, and, eventually, her feelings for him deepened.
As a young man, Thomas chose to make deals and abandon his own goals in order to keep his loved ones safe and, hopefully, happily unaware of his well-meaning machinations. Was he motivated by a savior complex, deriving his own self-worth from being needed by others, or were his motives altruistic? Or perhaps a blend of both? Lonsdale explores the behaviors that others saw as villainous from Thomas’s perspective, revealing the circumstances in which he found himself and why he believed that the choices available to him were limited. But now he is forty-two years old, and the repercussions of and reverberations from his earlier decisions are manifesting and forcing him to take action that will resolve his past once and for all, one way or another. Meaning, with him surviving or perishing.
Nadia finds herself at his side, unwillingly at first. She is initially unable to grasp the gravity of the situation. She is understandably angry that it was Thomas’s actions that now threaten the life and career she has built for herself. (Although she could have refused to meet with him, of course.) Gradually, though, she has to accept that it is indeed her life itself that is at stake. Is trusting Thomas the most prudent approach? Or is striking out on her own more likely to ensure she can escape the cartel’s wrath? After all, she is – yet again – collaterally damaged by the choices and actions of others. But does that even matter?
The foremost consideration for both Thomas and Nadia is how best to protect James, Aimee, and their families.
As they calculate the odds, devise what is hopefully the best strategy to stay alive while protecting the others, and come to grips with their complicated history, will Thomas and Nadia decide that they finally want to be together? That central question helps propel Lonsdale’s compelling narrative toward a powerfully dramatic resolution.
It’s impossible to imagine a more fitting conclusion to Lonsdale’s saga. Everything We Found is simply that well-conceptualized and executed. It is a perfect blend of action and romance, a riveting story about coming to terms with one’s past, redemption, and forgiveness. It’s a tale full of surprising revelations, twists, and unrequited, complicated, but true, deep love. Readers can decide for themselves whether Thomas is really a villain or a hero. Or, perhaps, simply a flawed human being who did the best he could when confronted with overwhelmingly daunting choices.
Also by Kerry Lonsdale:
Standalone Novels
The Everything Series
The No More Trilogy
