Customer Reviews

Lori, Runaway Wife

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Lori, Runaway Wife is a gripping novel that not only provides exciting reading material but also contains several pointers toward escape for anyone trapped in a bad marriage, especially one poisoned by physical and emotional abuse.

The plot is about a battered wife, Lori Becker, who is a nurse at hospital in Queens. She remains trapped in a marriage controlled by a husband who brutalizes her and seemingly has no way of escape. And so Lori lives in a fantasy world until of romance mysteries and idolizes their handsome author, Ian Damion.

When she meets the author in person, Lori finds a way to escape from her horrid marriage and to enjoy a life of freedom as a nanny for Ian's children. She finally is able to build a new life of independence because her life skills and professional skills as a nurse allow her to build self-esteem and a desire to succeed.

The lesson author Valentine Dmitriev weaves into the story is that an education helps women, or anyone for that matter, develop marketable skills that creates and maintains self-esteem which provides the means of escape from a bad life to a fulfilling and joyful life.

The author, Valentine Dmitriev, graduated from high school at age 15, graduated from the University of Washington at age 19, and then earned a master's in education and Ph.D from the same university. She spent 32 years working with normally developing youngster and with mentally impaired infants and preschool youngsters.

It was fun reading Lori, Runaway Wife but I also was impressed with the author's skill at weaving in values and life lessons into the fast-moving and exciting plot. I read it at home and my wife read it on vacation and we both found it to be moving, meaningful and worthwhile.Lori, Runaway Wife

Lori, Runaway Wife is based on something that happens more than it should in life. Spousal abuse is a common thing in this world and all too often, not taken seriously. Lori is an abused wife, who's husband (Boyd) only married her because his mother told him to. His mother wants Lori's aunt's house for a bed n breakfast once Lori inherits it.

Lori works at a hospital and goes to school for nursing. One day there is a bad accident that sends a pregnant woman to the maternity ward, where a distraught man is on the floor. Lori realizes he is Ian Damion, a well known author. She befriends him. She leaves the hospital later than normal and stops on her way home to buy Ian's books. Once she arrives home, Boyd starts on her. He kicks her and she falls, getting injured. For Lori, that was the last straw.

Ian is looking for a nanny to leave with him and baby Danny. Lori realizes this is her escape from her life, so she takes the job. She adjusts to her new life and slowly things develop between her and Ian. Now she has to tell him she is married!

This is a good book. It's well written with the main plot, but I had a hard time with it jumping to flashbacks from the characters. Other than that, I did enjoy it. This book does make you believe their is hope for abused women. I do recommend reading this.

"Lori, Runaway Wife" is a novel that is quite thought provoking. This novel takes us deep into the life of Lori, a nursing student, wife and abused woman just trying to survive. One day her husband just goes to far and she finally decides to get out. She quickly packs her bag and takes a taxi to work. She knows him so well, she is able to sneak in to get help before he can find her. At the same time a chance meeting with Lori's favorite author in the maternity ward of the hospital where she works provides her with a safe escape. She becomes a new born nanny, flys to the west coast with the author and begins a new life.

Abused women need our sympathy and help. Lori finds both in her journey and is saved from further harm and even death, although she does lose her unborn baby to abuse. The story is filled with characters who mold Lori's life and help her to be who she becomes when she finally escapes her abuser.

Woman of all ages need to be reminded that they are powerful and can make the choices necessary to live a rewarding, safe, fulfilling life. Unfortunately, many young ladies don't realize they're potential and find themselves in unhealthy, sometimes even unsafe relationships. In this book, you are introduced to Lori. She is a battered wife who decides to take a huge step and run out of an abusive marriage. Because she has never experienced a heathly relationship, she has fallen in love with the author of romance novels.

When Lori's path crosses with the novelist, Ian, she has to balance reality with fiction. Sometimes these two paths collide.

This book is a story of Lori growing from an intimidated, frightened young girl to a strong independent woman.

The story line is strong, but there are some side trails in the book that are rather confusing and don't allow the book to flow seemlessly from point a to point b.

Profanity and sexual content: One of the characters uses strong profanity to express his anger and emotions many times. There are some sexual overtones and scenes described in the book.

Bottom line - the story needs to be told. Woman in abusive, unhealthy relationships need to find a way out. It is obvious from the book that the author has done his research and understands the emotions of the characters.

Lori, Runaway wife is the story of Lori Becker, a battered and abused wife. Her husband is emotionally, physically and sexually abusive to the point that eventually she has enough and makes her escape. By a twist of fate, the author of the romance novels that have been her only friend ends up in the hospital where Lori is working as a nurse. As the story unfolds Lori and the author (Ian) both find themselves working through their past experiences and building a future together that is better than what either one of them could have expected. The only flaw I found with this book is that there were so many subplots that the story often became confusing. There were many parts that I had to go back and re-read to be able to understand what exactly was going on. I definitely enjoyed the story as a whole though.

Lori, A Runaway Wife is a novel that focuses on spousal abuse, the affects it has on a person's mental state and how a good support system is a necessity in order to take the first step in walking away from your abuser.

Lori Becker is a nurses aide at a Queens's hospital. She is in the process of finishing school to get her nursing degree. She is professionally skilled, soft spoken, well educated, well travelled and sophisticated (to a certain extent due to her travels with her parents before they died). She is also a battered wife who is physically, sexually and mentally abused by her brutal husband. Her only escape from the reality of her abusive, unhappy world are the romance mysteries she reads written by the handsome Ian Damion.

Lori's life changes one fateful morning when there is a huge accident and the victims are brought to the Queen's hospital, one of the victims is the woman about to give birth to Ian Damion's baby! Lori can't believe her eyes when she sees Ian at the hospital.

Ian is also troubled by his past, he was an abandoned baby left in the system to be raised because he was deemed "unadoptable" as an infant. Now he has an infant son himself and is in charge of raising him alone, he doesn't know how he will be able to succeed as a parent to a newborn and juggle his career. Then he meets Lori at the hospital.

What happens next is a must read journey of two people who are battling their pasts and attempting to look forward to their futures. It's a sweet love story filled with hopes and aspiration.

Will Lori successfully escape her abusive husband? Will Ian be able to find himself and become a good father to his child?

You'll have to read it to find out!

Lori, Runaway Wife is good and had the potential to be great.

I loved the basic premise. Lori is a battered wife and after Boyd has kicked the heck out of her again, something snaps and she decides to leave him - however, she is scared, very scared and has no "real" plan set up. Still, the seed is now planted and this is the first step in Lori's plan to leave and circumstances are about to present themselves in an effor to help her get out of her hell.

While Lori is working her shift at the local hospital, Ian, author and a personal favorite of Lori comes into the emergency ward - his pregnant wife is about to give birth - but things are not well - there is a serious problem. Lori, while sympathetic to the situation is also pinching herself - her favorite author has just walked right into her life!

Through a series of events (I love destiny! it plans everything perfectly - even if we can't see it!), Ian discovers that Lori is a huge fan and, at first, is taken aback. However, after spending some time with Lori, he gets to know her and decides to offer her a position as a nanny for his newborn child.

As soon as Ian and Lori meet, you can feel the connection of the storyline, you can feel the destiny of these people suddenly merge and I thought that this was a great main storyline.

This also served wonderfully as the catalyst for both Lori AND Ian to really start taking a hard look at their individual lives and how they have been living it. Lori - asking herself why she continues to live with a brutal man and Ian looking at his past relationship with his birth mother and how this has influenced his entire life, including his stalled writing.

The reason I rated this a 3 star book is that there is just too much going on here at the same time. The above plotline would have been plenty to work with, but, for some reason, the author decided to throw in a bunch of other "subplots" that just take over the main one and things become a little too distracted for me.

The writing was very good and the premise excellent - however, the author just did not seem to know when to stop a good thing.

This is one of the few romance novels that I have read, I don't know the exact number but am certain that they could be counted on the fingers of one hand. I avoid the genre because I believe that they are too formulaic where the plot and result are predictable. In my opinion, only superb writing could make such a book interesting. While I would not classify the writing here as superb, it is close enough so that I did enjoy reading it.
Lori is a young woman in a brutal marriage to Boyd, whose idea of sex is rape within marriage. She is a quality nurse and Boyd learned his craft at the hands of his mother, a brutal woman with a grudge against the world and the only one she can strike at is Boyd. When he finally kicks Lori so hard her ribs are broken, she has had enough and leaves with no real plan as to what to do. In his hate, Boyd makes it clear that he will kill Lori if he can find her.
In a stroke of incredible good fortune for Lori, Ian is at the hospital where she works with the woman carrying his unborn child. The conception was unplanned and neither one of them has any desire to get married, and the expectant mother values her career more than motherhood. Since the mother was seriously injured in an auto accident, the boy Danny is delivered and Ian assumes responsibility.
In a quick decision, Ian offers Lori the position of nanny to Danny, which will take her far away from her current location. The three of them fly away to Ian's house, where he works as a writer of romance novels. Ian generally retreats into his office to write, surfacing only to eat and take care of other necessities.
This begins a story with a lot of tension between them as the two struggle to keep their growing love for each other in check. Several other major plotlines intrude on this, they are:

*) The fear Lori has for Boyd and his desire to find her.
*) The relationship between Boyd and his mother
*) The fact that Ian was an orphan living in an orphanage until his English teacher adopted him. The teacher still lives nearby and this relationship and his circumstances are explained in detail.
*) Ian is struggling to complete his latest novel until he begins using Lori as a foil to act out some of the scenes in the book.
*) Lori's relatives are bitter due to past events and she has a significant inheritance coming.
*) Ian harbors a great deal of bitterness towards his birth mother for what he perceives as her abandonment of him. In a stroke of major coincidence, she surfaces in the story.

While all these plot twists are handled well, this is just too much for a novel of 229 pages. It would have been a better story if there had been more emphasis on Lori and Ian and how they interacted in their minds. There should have been more details about how Ian thinks about Lori and Lori about him as they are going their separate ways within the same house.