The Other Sister

I loved this book! It made me laugh, cry and angry. The story was so well told. I characters so real and believable. It gets my highest recommendation to read it!

*Warning: This story deals with rape, abuse, and cutting.*General Travis Bains is like a god in the military. His good daughter, Lindsey, is following in his footsteps, but his other daughter, Jessie, embarrasses him at every turn. When Jessie is kidnapped, the general sends Captain Will Hendricks on a personal mission to save her. Will is good at what he does and manages to get Jessie to safety, but not before witnessing her being brutally raped by her captors. He also witnesses more about Jessie’s personal life than he ever wanted to know—like the fact that she cuts herself.Jessie Bains has been harboring secrets for most of her life thanks to the things her father has subjected her to, so it shouldn’t be a problem for her to keep her mouth shut about being raped. When she finds out she’s pregnant, Will accepts her father’s request to marry her and pass the baby off as his. But Will has an agenda of his own now that he knows what the general has been doing to Jessie. Despite not liking Jessie at first, Will vows to protect her and take care of her, even if that means giving her up so she can heal from her wounds.The Other Sister is a compelling story that grips you right from the beginning and never lets you go. You’ll feel for Jessie, you’ll understand Will, and you’ll hurt right along with both of them. Watching Will go from disliking Jessie, to understanding her, to loving her, to having to walk away will give you all the feels. Seeing Jessie go from the abused, emotionally scarred girl to a confident woman will have you cheering her on. This made me applaud her and cry at the same time:“Be gone when I wake up. I don’t want a big, sad goodbye at the door. I don’t want to watch you leave me. I don’t want to think about where you’re going after you leave me. Just be gone.”I loved the way the author showed Will’s transformation from hero-worship of the general to absolute disdain for the man who abused and pimped out his daughter. Will was such a strong, confident character that even when he was insulting and threatening the general, he was able to do so calmly and with military precision. His love for the military never died—just his love for the general. And his no-nonsense attitude served him well when dealing with Jessie’s outbursts.Since Jessie had never known love before, it was no wonder she wasn’t able to recognize it in Will, nor was the newly confident woman able to fight for it. But when faced with tragic circumstances, she finally took the reins and did what had to be done in order for justice to be served and to try to get her love back.Truly, the only reason for a less than five star rating was the editing in this book. The comma splices all over the place actually made some parts difficult to read, and there were also tense issues. But the content was worth trudging through that.If you enjoy what feels like an impossible romance mixed in with a good dose of hurt and healing, The Other Sister is worth a read. I would definitely read more by this author. 4.5 stars!For more of my reviews, please visit https://rachlawrencebooks.wordpress.com/.

Army General Travis Bains is a highly decorated military hero. He is known, loved, and respected by all that knew or served under him. He was the shining example that everyone wanted to live up to and emulate. Everyone but her younger daughter, Jessica, at the age of twenty, she managed to embarrass him every time she could. Her older sister, Lindsay, followed in her father’s, rather large, footsteps. She was a second lieutenant serving on the same base as her father; Fort Bragg, North Carolina.When Captain William Hendricks is ordered to report to General Bains, he had no idea what he had done to warrant this meeting and is racking his brain for the possible transgression. To his surprise, the General asks him for a personal favor to the family. All members of the military are brothers in arms, thus the family premise. General Bains’ daughter, Jessie has been kidnapped by members of a drug cartel and demanding a ransom. He asked Will to rescue his daughter and bring her home safely.This request wasn’t surprising to Will. As a member of the 3rd Special Forces Group and was good at his job, very good. The General made it painfully clear that this assignment wasn’t a military action and not an order. He could decline without repercussions but this wasn’t Will’s style. He headed for Mexico to bring Jessie home. The rescue from the drug lords is the easy part, after all, Will is a professional and he is good at what he does. Rescuing Jessie from herself is a much more daunting challenge and one that Will isn’t prepared to take on.This is a highly emotionally charged story of power, abuse, and bravery. The stark truth that is often kept in a dark closet is brought out into the light and exposed in all its ugliness. I was surprised at the brutality of the tale. Jessie, with the help and tenacious support of Will, claws her way slowly out of an abyss of pain and misery. From the depths of depression to the ultimate apex of long-desired freedom, Leanne Davis takes you on a trip that speeds out of control. All you can do is hold on, with white-knuckled fists, until the ride reaches its conclusion. I highly recommend this to everyone but would be amiss without a warning. This highly emotional saga is not for the constitutionally weak and faint-hearted.

I'd never heard of this author, but thought I'd take a 99 cent chance. Money well spent! This was a really good book. Well written and quite emotional. It is part of a series, but there is NO CLIFFHANGER.Jessie is a heartbreaking character. The things she's endured are absolutely cringe inducing. She acts out, her way of masking the immense pain, and everyone just writes her off as a worthless troublemaker (including her sister). Her father (an Army general) is at the forefront of her pain. But underneath there is a glimmer of the Jessie she wants to be, she just has to find a way to get out.Will is a soldier who is tasked with rescuing Jessie from kidnappers. He rescues her, then hopes she gets some help and expects to never see her again. But their shared experience bonds them and Will feels obligated to help her. Slowly, Will starts to see past the "acting-out" Jessie and sees the pain she's hiding. He commits himself to doing anything he can to help her.There is romance in this book (slow romance, not insta-love), but it is secondary to the emotional story. It is dark and painful, but also hopeful. Have some tissues handy!There were two minor problems I had. First, I wanted an epilogue, as it ended a little abruptly and I wanted to know how Jessie and Will were doing. Second, I wanted to know what happened to Noah, there wasn't really any closure there. After reading the blurb from the next book in the series (Lindsey's story), I think both of these issues will be resolved. I look forward to the next book.

This is a powerful book about issues such as sexual and domestic abuse and as such could be emotionally difficult for some readers. I started reading it early this morning and kept on reading till my kindle batteries needed to be recharged.It is hard to believe that situations like this exist, but sadly they do and the author does an excellent job of capturing the emotions and pain and developing her characters making you love them or hate them. She handles the subject matter as if she has personal experience with it and doesn't provide quick fixes but shows that it takes lots of time to learn to live with past abuse. here is a love story here, but I would not call this book a romance at all.

This book is by far one of the best books I have read in a long time and I don't say that easily. I am hard to please when it comes to books but this had it all for me. So much pain and heartache but then so much love and compassion. The story is about Will and Jessie who cross paths in the most brutal and unusual situation and that is what I think makes this book so good. It is different but so very good. It is not your normal 'run of the mill' love story but as promised by this author it has no cliffhanger which is important to a lot of readers. I love the way this author writes and when she is describing sex between them it feels so real and the words to describe it are not fake and unbelievable as in some other books. The words she uses are different and capture your heart and soul but not in a cheesy way. But it is not just an unusual romance, it has a much deeper meaning to it and that is what intrigued me and kept me reading page after page. This is the first time I have read anything by this author and I am so excited to be going on to read the rest of her books in this series. I haven't felt this way about a book for a long time. I'm pleased too that we get to hear how Will and Jessie go on to live their lives in another book called 'The years between - Jessie and Will' which I have just started to read. Thank you Leanne.

A good read. I enjoyed the characters, Jessie Will and Lindsay and also hateful general bains, who got what he deserved. Unfortunately the old perverts did not. Good book

The story was kind of shocking to me but I liked to read it. I really like the charakters in it.Jessie is a girl which you can't really like at the beginning. You feel really sorry for her beeing kidnapped and brutally raped but with her attitude she doesn't seem to be a nice person. This is what the General makes believe everybody. So thanks to Will you find out why Jessie is the way she acts. I really like Will. First you think he is a solder and only follows orders but he figures out that something is very wrong with his rescue mission of Jessie. How is it possible that the General knows exactly where she is? He is willing to look behing Jessie's attitude and finds out what is really going on with her and in the house she is living. He is the one who is willing to risc all only to make sure that she is fine and save.

Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down.I fell in love with the characters and their lives. excellent