Remedy for Regret by Susan Meissner                                                                        reviewed by Kelli Standish

Meet Tess Longren. At twenty-eight, she has what some would call the perfect life:  A loving fiancé, a comfortable Chicago apartment, and an enjoyable job dressing mannequins and “making tired, rich women look good”.

But Tess has something else, too.  Something that drains all the joy and hope from her existence.

Tess has a heart drowning in regret.

She was just a child when it happened, and her memories are faint. But a discovery she made as a teen told her what friends and family wouldn’t:  Tess Longren murdered her mother.

Some say it wasn’t her fault, but Tess knows differently.  And she knows what it’s like to bear the terrible weight of guilt. So when her lifelong friend, Blair, begs Tess to help her right a wrong hidden since childhood, Tess agrees.

Secretly, Tess hopes they’ll both find a remedy for regret through this one good deed.

But their one good deed is not an easy task to perform, and both Blair and Tess find far more than they expect on their road trip to redemption.

As a hard-core suspense fiction devotee, I am not always captured by literary-style books. But this timeless story, and Susan Meissner’s lilting, lyrical prose, entranced me from the first page.

Characters Tess, Blair, Simon, and the delightful Corinthia are all well-drawn, multi-dimensional, and easy to understand. There is particular depth and simplicity of wisdom in Corinthia that readers will find irresistible.

The plot moves well, and climaxes with a graveyard scene that is so powerful and laden with such an unmistakable sense of the Divine it had me in tears.

And the message of the story is so poignant and gentle, you feel as though you’ve been hugged.

Bottom line? Meissner’s incredible gift with words has never shone truer than in Remedy for Regret, and this book is a must for any discerning reader’s library.

Click here to buy Remedy for Regret by Susan Meissner