Reviewed by Becca
TITLE: Lost and Found
AUTHOR: Liv Rancourt
PUBLISHER: self-published
LENGTH: 265 pages
RELEASE DATE: October 4, 2019
BLURB:
A dancer who cannot dance and a doctor who cannot heal find in each other the strength to love.
History books will call it The Great War, but for Benjamin Holm, that is a misnomer. The war is a disaster, a calamity, and it leaves Benjamin profoundly wounded, his mind and memory shattered. A year after Armistice, still struggling to regain his mental faculties, he returns to Paris in search of his closest friend, Elias.
Benjamin meets Louis Donadieu, a striking and mysterious dance master. Though Louis is a difficult man to know, he offers to help Benjamin. Together they search the cabarets, salons, and art exhibits in the newly revitalized city on the brink of les années folles (the Crazy Years). Almost despite himself, Benjamin breaches Louis’s defenses, and the two men discover an unexpected passion.
As his memory slowly returns, Benjamin will need every ounce of courage he possesses to recover Elias’s story. He and Louis will need even more than that to lay claim to the love – and the future – they deserve.
REVIEW:
This was a good story, but I don’t know if it is really for me. I must commend the author on the writing though. The history of the story, the feelings of the war, the PTSD, the trauma, guilt and so much more were spot on. It’s not an easy story to deal with. Maybe I’m just not in the right frame of mind for this story today, because I don’t want to downplay how well it was written. It’s just a darker story. As wartime stories and the aftermath usually are.
Benjamin has gone back to Paris in a hurry to find his friend Elias. His mind is so blank of things and there are often days where he feels like he can’t even remember his name. While searching for Elias, the owner of the building keeps checking on him and sends a neighbor to help him in his journey. But Benji has a hard time being around Louis. One, because the man never seems to smile, and two, because he brings out feelings in Benji that are confusing him. At every stop he makes to find Eli, more and more his memories are returning. He has flashbacks and moments of terror, but is starting to get back in the swing of things by helping a few with needs from a doctor such as he. But it’s not until he revisits the hospital that more is coming back and finally the final piece has been filled. During this, his relationship with Louis has grown more, until the final piece clicked and then things seemed to fall apart. Especially when it was time to go back home. Now Benji needs to decide what is more important in his life. Being stuck in the past, or moving forward with a man that has brought him back to life.
I truly feel heartbroken for Benji in this story. Without the modern conveniences of today, healing and recovery was often harder in those days. Wartime, period, always brings some sort of PTSD, I don’t care who you are. There are too many things the eyes see and the mind can’t seem to get past. So for Benji, I was heartbroken at parts of his life missing while trying to deal with the PTSD. And it was even worse, when the final piece clicked into place. I hate war. I hate what it does to people and how the effects are so lasting and harsh. I have a cousin who was in Vietnam and to this day, he’s still not right. So this story is hard to read at some points. And sometimes it seemed harder because Louis seemed like such a jerk. Sometimes I just wanted to shake the man. Like Benji was beneath him or something. But I can’t give him too much grief if he was helping bring Benji back to life. And he truly was. He was helping Benji cope, even when Benji wasn’t aware he needed it. So it was a back and forth kind of thing.
It truly is hard to read at some points, but it’s a good story. The author nailed a lot of things in it and I appreciate it. So give it a try and see what you think.
RATING: 
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