☆☆➹⁀☆ 5 stars☆➹⁀☆☆
What it’s about:
Catherine’s long-lost love is found.
Catherine Barrington is a rich girl. Chris Cartwright is a poor boy.
He left her to make something of himself. A man she could be proud of. A man she could bring home to her parents. A man she could marry.
On the trading floor he became the man he knew he could be. Now, it’s time to return.
Rich girl.
Poor boy.
She didn’t care about his money, but he didn’t believe her. Soon after he left, all the money was gone.
Her life is hell.
Now he’s back, and he’s different. Pristine. Gorgeous. Rich.
Rich boy.
Poor girl.
Money was never the barrier, until now.
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White Knight is a standalone in the same world as King of Code, with its own beginning, middle, and end. You don’t need to read anything else to read White Knight.
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My Thoughts:
C.D. Reiss’ highly anticipated White Knight is everything her fans could have hoped for in this fourth and final book of her American Royalty Universe series of standalone contemporary romances.
Ms. Reiss’ story toggles between 13 years in the past when her characters were 16 years old to the present. Both the main characters, Chris Cartwright and Catherine Barrington tell their tale. It is a classic story of loving and being worthy of love. I am in awe of Ms. Reiss’ effortless transition from describing young, naïve, and inexperienced lust between Chris and Catherine at age sixteen to the hungry wanting of two adults who need each other like they need oxygen.
Catherine grew up privileged. Chris grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. Through no fault of her own, Catherine and the town named after her family fell far from grace. Chris rode a shooting star to financial success on Wall Street. Catherine became the uncanonized Saint of Barrington. Chris became divorced, less rich, and lonely after the loss of his beloved dog, Lancelot.
The story of Chris and Catherine’s young love is touching and quintessential young adult fiction. Ms. Reiss’ quietly displays the breadth of her talent by incorporating a YA romance within an adult contemporary romance and making the YA romance feel like it is a genre that she has been writing for years.
“Back then, you gave me reason to be my own woman, and when you left, I became that woman.”
Back in the present, Catherine struggles with lost love, personal fulfillment, needs, desires, and obligations. I spent a restless night in Catherine’s head as she tosses and turns with the ebb and flow of her thoughts, choices, fears and desires now that the boy she thought she lost has returned. After some deep thought and turmoil, Catherine eventually understands that she is happy with who she became, and she realizes it wouldn’t have happened if she had followed Chris. However, she struggles with the hurt of him leaving, of her perception of being dumped. As the sun rises, Catherine still feels tentative, but she at least knows that she will pursue what she wants, needs and dreams for, and she will be open to Chris joining her in this journey.
While Catherine has spent years crying over the loss—both hers and the townsfolk—she is a supremely strong woman. I love that when Chris returns home to bury his dog along with hoping to rekindle something with Catherine, and Catherine chooses to put herself first. I loved that Chris returned humble. I loved that Chris completely understood that Catherine would not have liked who he was in New York once he became successful. I loved that at the start of the book, Chris realizes that what he needs to be happy is not the wealth that he chased after, but the love of a good woman, in other words, his “Catherine of the Roses”. His only hope is to prove to her that he is now worthy of her.
“The man I am now wants the woman you are now”.
In this enchanting, swoony book, Ms. Reiss has intersected lines and shown her readers the tangential plot points of the prior books in this series. The heart wrenching beginning of White Knight parallels the timeline in King of Code. The beautiful culmination of the story is filled with love, friendship, and 749 roses, give or take a few.
“I’d done much without her, and I’d done much for her. But I hadn’t achieved anything until I turned her sadness into joy”.
Sweet, tender, and filled with yearning, broken hearts and unfulfilled wishes, White Knight is a #MustRead of 2018.
© Copyright 2018 Book Junkie Reviews. All rights reserved.
Read Today!
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2DnefaI
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Kobo: http://bit.ly/2G3v38v
About the Author: CD Reiss is a New York Times bestseller. She still has to chop wood and carry water, which was buried in the fine print. Her lawyer is working it out with God but in the meantime, if you call and she doesn’t pick up she’s at the well hauling buckets.
Born in New York City, she moved to Hollywood, California to get her master’s degree in screenwriting from USC. In case you want to know, that went nowhere but it did give her a big enough ego to write novels.
Connect with CD Reiss:
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Website: www.cdreiss.com
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