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Reviewed by Jennifer Senick for Readers' Favorite
Can love endure the cards that life deals? In this decades-spanning romance about love lost, secrets kept, and second chances, The Bitter End by Elise Lapham, Lilly Conroy is about to find out. In the summer of 1990, recent divorcee Lilly decides to take her children to her family’s beach house in Massachusetts, hoping to rebuild her life. She never imagined she’d lay eyes on her first love, Paul Fletcher, again, but life has a funny way of doing the opposite of what you expect. Back in 1969, he left for Vietnam as a medic, and word soon came that he was missing in action. Convinced she’d lost him for good, Lilly married his best friend, Roger, not knowing she was pregnant with Paul’s baby. When Paul reappears twenty years later, the feelings they once shared come rushing back, along with secrets neither can ignore. Now they have to confront the hurt, the misunderstandings, and the years lost, and answer the question: can love survive so much time apart?
As I was reading, The Bitter End by Elise Lapham, I felt like I was watching a “Lost Loves” segment on Unsolved Mysteries, which is a very good thing. I love that show, and I liked this book just as much. I think Lilly’s vulnerabilities about herself, paired with her strength as a mother, are quite relatable. I admired her when, after a two-year battle finalizing her divorce, she decided to move on for her children. Lots of people choose to start over. Her back-and-forth decision about whether to marry Roger was understandable, one many girls have had to make. It’s clear that Lilly and Paul were meant to be together even after 20 years apart, but rebuilding what was lost over time isn’t easy. In the end, it’s worth it though. The references to the time period, like the cars and fashion choices from the flashbacks, were spot on. However, my favorites were the music references like blasting the Rolling Stones or listening to “Sugar, Sugar” or “Unchained Melody.” In the end, The Bitter End checked all my boxes for both love stories and retro feels—leaving me half-expecting to hear Robert Stack’s voice narrating Lilly and Paul’s reunion as the cameras faded to black.
