READER VIEWS – December 2024 – 5/5 Stars

 Reviewer: Stephanie Elizabeth Long

 Can love truly conquer all? Deidra and Cydney will find out in this emotionally driven memoir about the joy of falling in love and the anguish of being separated due to faith and family commitments. 

After a secret rendezvous and four blissful days together, Cydney’s painful departure from her beloved Deidra is more than she can bear. How can she return to her life in Salt Lake when her heart is in California? During her flight back home, Cydney reflects on their tumultuous, albeit passionate, relationship that began seventeen years earlier.

Determined to live by the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, seventeen-year-old Cydney feels conflicted about her feelings for much older Deidra. She becomes deeply in love with a married woman, who is also a member of the church. What ensues is a whirlwind relationship of stolen moments, long periods of separation, joy, and heartache as the women spend seventeen years being forced to deny their love. 

“Four Days: Based on a True Story” by Cindy L. Chatwin is a beautiful memoir that spans decades and explores the unbreakable bond of love between Cydney and Deidra. It is written from Cydney’s perspective as she tries to make sense of her pure love for Deidra while living in a world where her faith condemns same-sex relationships. For Cydney, this leads to agonizing periods of separation, self-loathing, and bouts of unhappiness as she tries to live an unauthentic life. 

The author’s prose is breathtakingly beautiful and weaves poetry into the narrative. She holds nothing back in her poems, perfectly curated for Deidra. 

She is my ocean, and I, her shore…

…is a line Cydney often uses to illustrate their special connection. Additionally, I was fascinated by the use of numerology. Despite my lack of knowledge regarding how numbers and equations can be applied to one’s life, Cydney intrigued me with the number patterns that kept showing up throughout her and Deidra’s relationship. 

“Four Days” was an absolute emotional roller coaster, but it was worth every tear, triumph, and heartache. The memoir’s overarching message is one of determination and hope. It’s about self-discovery and embracing the you that you were meant to be, not what society deems acceptable. 

This memoir will appeal to readers who enjoy love stories that illuminate the potency of love and also examine challenges such as discrimination and long-distance love. Cindy’s writing left me feeling positive and inspired!  

 

 EDITORIAL FEEDBACK – BOOK EDITOR AND CONTENT MANAGER

Audrey Cooper

In the iconic film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the male protagonist, Paul Varjak – a writer – writes a book called Nine Lives which the Times book review described as “sensitive, promising, intensely felt prose.” Cindy L. Chatwin’s book Four Days, is nothing less than that.  It is not just a love story spanning decades but a celebration of two souls that were meant to be together, against all odds, as enjoined by fate itself. The way Chatwin has narrated this tale, inspired by true events, will take you through a sea – nay an ocean of emotions – akin to what the protagonist, Cydney and the love of her life, Deidra felt throughout their relationship. The author masterfully manages to evoke happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, confusion, but most of all longing for your beloved as you put yourself in her shoes and relive the times when you went through something similar.  Throughout the story, one finds themselves waiting for the end to see if the love does indeed conquer all or if it’s just a hoax perpetuated by romance films and fictional novels. In the age, where the LGBTQA movement has made so many people feel seen, this book is a valuable contribution to it, highlighting struggles two women had to face for one simple fact: They loved each other.  Although one can go on and on about this exquisitely written novel, if there was one more word one could add to the aforementioned Times’ review to describe Four Days better, it would be ‘sensorial’.

ONLINE BOOK CLUB – October 23, 2024 – 5/5 Stars

Reviewer: Bertha Jackson

Cydney was a 17-year-old high school student when she met Deidra, a 29-year-old married woman who worked at West Valley Dental, where Cydney had a part-time job. Their immediate attraction to each other confuses them as it develops into them wanting more from it. Their love for each other goes against everything and everyone they know: family, friends, and the Mormon religion. What follows is a profound struggle between pleasing others or themselves amid restrictions of others and responsibilities of their own. Will they find happiness and love with each other against all odds? Are they soulmates? Will fate bring them together?

I enjoyed reading Four Days: Based on a True Story by Cindy L. Chatwin. The author did an excellent job with this book’s character and geographic development. It was easy to visualize Cydney’s growth from being a shy teenager to a strong woman who believed in herself. I could relate to Nathan’s frustration when he could not find the TV remote. The cove, ocean beaches, the California coastline, etc., were also easy to visualize. I enjoyed learning more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and their beliefs. Love, guilt, abuse, friendship, fear, compassion, bravery, betrayal, and confusion are demonstrated throughout the storyline as told by Cydney. For example, Deidra’s care of her grandmother showed her compassionate nature. One of the many takeaways from this book is that sometimes you have to choose between two good things, which can be very difficult. The author’s writing style of putting poems, recordings, and correspondence in italics differentiated them from the rest of the narrative.

Overall, this book is beautiful and honest love story about a love that many religions and people forbid because they do not understand, as it goes against all the beliefs and other teachings they have been taught. Although this book is about lesbian love, it has been tastefully written without any descriptive sexual scenes.

I gave this professionally edited book a perfect score of 5 out of 5 stars due to the positive aspects discussed above, my reading enjoyment, and the fact that I disliked nothing about this romance novel. It is tastefully written with only a small amount of profanity.

This beautiful love story is for readers who are open-minded about same-sex relationships. Although the Mormon Church and its beliefs are not preached to the reader. They are just facts. However, you should avoid this book if LGBTQ relationships or the Mormon religion are offensive to you.