The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes in Crazy Challenge Connection

Sep 16, 2011 Gina rated it it was amazing

Shelves: mystery, book-club, thriller, contemporary-fiction, women-s-fiction, criminal-charges, suspense, family, kidnapping, 5-00-rating

This is a fantastic mystery read of a 16 year old girl who gives up her entire life to finally telliing the truth to save the man who manipulated her so many years ago.

CeeCee Wilkes is 16 and alone in the world. Her mother died of breast cancer when CeeCee was 12. Her mother's legacy to her was a box of letters with dates for CeeCee to read them. The letters contain advice from a mother who is long gone but desperately wants to be a part of her life after her own death. CeeCee spends many years This is a fantastic mystery read of a 16 year old girl who gives up her entire life to finally telliing the truth to save the man who manipulated her so many years ago.

CeeCee Wilkes is 16 and alone in the world. Her mother died of breast cancer when CeeCee was 12. Her mother's legacy to her was a box of letters with dates for CeeCee to read them. The letters contain advice from a mother who is long gone but desperately wants to be a part of her life after her own death. CeeCee spends many years bouncing around from foster home to foster home, but turns out remarkable well balanced and smart, graduating at 16. After graduation, CeeCee truly finds herself alone in the world. When we first meet CeeCee, she is working in a diner near UNC Chapel Hill. It is there that she meets Time Gleason, an older graduation student who sweeps her off her feet. CeeCee craves the attention and love that he begins to give her and this is where we start learning that Tim has a truly dark and evil side. As she becomes more and more involved with him, he tells her about his sister who is in prison and asks her to help him to negotiate her release along with his mentally ill Vietnam veteran brother, Marty. CeeCee is young and naive and completely believes that this man's sister has killed someone in self defense after a rape, never thinking that the story Tim is telling her may not have been the complete truth. After much debate and inner turmoil, CeeCee goes along with a plan to kidnap the Governor's wife in an attempt to ransom this man's wife for his sister's release. CeeCee is to stay with the Governor's wife in a remote cabin while Tim and his brother try to negotiate for thier sister's release from prison. All along CeeCee has her doubts about the plan...how can a 16 year old keep control of a grown woman, how will she go undetected, she knows she is too young to pull this off but she "loves" Tim so much that she would do anything for him. But Tim hasn't told CeeCee the truth and playing on her innocence, her gullibility, and her naivete, she becomes involved thinking the kidnapping will last a few hours and ultimately an innocent woman will go free. Unfortunately, for all involved things go terribly wrong and CeeCee is forced to make decisions that she is in no place to make. Too young and no real life experience. With the help of an underground organization, CeeCee is given new identity documentation and is now on the run to another state. Luckily for CeeCee, who is now Eve, she is taken in by a good woman who has Eve's best intentions at heart. With this woman's help and support, CeeCee/Eve manages to graduate from college and become a therapist. She marries the man of her dreams and has a family all the while hiding her secret from everyone. The Governor's wife's body was never found, but Eve always feared that one day her decisions would come back to haunt her. 28 years later during the construction of a development near the old cabin, the remains of the Governor's wife are found which starts a chain of events that begin to spiral out of control. Tim Gleason is finally arrested and put on trial for the kidnapping and murder of Genevieve Russell, the now former Governor's wife. The trial of the man who conned CeeCee at 16 opens a floodgate of emotions for CeeCee/Eve. And when Tim is found guilty and awaits sentencing, CeeCee cannot find it in herself to let an innocent man be sentenced to death. Knowing that her decision could most definitely destroy her family and the life that she has built, she finds it necessary to reveal the truth which she has so carefully buried from everyone including herself all of these years.

Chamberlain is a master at telling the story of the wonderful love and bonds between mothers and daughters and the relatoinships women have with each other. This book will have you tearing up at how Eve's decision's have affected her family but you will find yourself cheering on these deeply flawed characters. This book shows us the true emotion between family and what the concept of family really means. I first read Chamberlain's lighthouse trilogy and I marvel at the beauty of her descriptions of the relationships between women. I will definitely be reading more of this author and I highly recommend it to those who are looking for a good mix of mystery and contemporary women's fiction. 5 stars! ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

Sep 16, 2011 Elle rated it liked it

CeeCee Wilkes is conned into aiding Timothy Gleason and his brother kidnap the Governor's wife, Genevieve. She is naive and unaware that she is being used. When Genevieve's remains are found twenty years later, the child she was carrying missing, CeeCee's life turns upside down. She was there and she knows what has happened. How much should she do?

It's difficult to review this book without giving away too much of the story. Though this wasn't what I was expecting, I found myself enjoying this bo ...more

1 like · Like · see review