Written by Laura Frost, SEEKING SASHA is a love story involving a traumatized young woman who’s grown too used to the coping mechanisms that helped her manage (and escape from) her abusive past. Sasha is brave, strong, likeable, and loving, but she’s been trapped in her own fear for too long, and it’s hard for her to stop running from her past. Cole Dawson, a police officer who was Sasha’s best friend as a child, offers her love and stability; but he can’t completely get rid of the fear that keeps her hiding behind Magda, Bryn, Katie, Victoria, and her other assumed identities and personalities. What will it take to get Sasha to stop running and hiding—to be able to freely exist as simply Sasha?
Frost’s writing is beautifully expressive, capturing Sasha’s fear in both her inner dialogue and her actions. Her constant apologies and frequent worry that she’s upsetting Cole or making his life harder; her instinctive grabbing hold of a different name or identity (strong and capable Magda or privileged and socially adept Victoria, for example); and her panicked reaction to tying herself down with such mundane things as a bank account or ID in her real name are profoundly evocative. The balance between the ways her different identities actually do serve her well in a crisis—“You are Magda,” she tells herself at a difficult moment, “don’t crumble”—and the damage that hiding behind them does to the real Sasha underneath is thoughtfully and realistically explored.
Cole’s a bit of a perfect white knight: determined to save Sasha from herself and her past at any cost, rushing to her rescue whenever he can. But even he has his frustrations, and he can’t realistically save her completely on his own. The final crisis in their relationship that leads to the book’s resolution is a bit too coincidental for complete believability, but it’s poetically appropriate and rather satisfying in the end. This is a pure feel-good book, after all. It’s not there to provide a detailed psychological study or a complex emotional analysis; it’s all about loving comfort, healing from wounds, and steady, patient love triumphing over fear and hurt. Readers looking for a gentle, steady, supportive hero and a heroine with the courage of a survivor will enjoy SEEKING SASHA.
Written by Laura Frost, SEEKING SASHA is a sweet love story about trauma and its consequences, as well as the possibility of rescue and healing—given unconditional and genuinely supportive love. This novel serves up a generous helping of literary comfort food.
~ Catherine Langrehr for IndieReader