Category: Blog Tour

Blog Tour/Review: Choosing Hope by Holly Kammier

whatcathyreadnext

ChoosingHopeTourBanner

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for Choosing Hope by Holly Kammier. Described as ‘a powerful story of passion, deceit and the things we do for love’ you can find my review below. To read reviews of Choosing Hope by other great book bloggers, visit the tour page here.

WinPlus, there’s a giveaway (INTL) with a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card.

To enter the giveaway click here.

The giveaway closes on 16th November 2017.

ChoosingHopeAbout the Book

A broken marriage. A love affair. A lie that changes it all…

Hope Rains Sullivan is living the dream – a successful husband, two beautiful young boys, and a charming home in Northern California. She should be happy. She almost convinced herself she was, until Adrian came along. Adrian, appears to be everything her husband isn’t. He works with his hands, and is even willing to use them in a fight. He’s sexy, strong and fit, with warm brown skin that alludes to his Spanish background. Best of all, he lives for spending time with his kids. Feeling alone in her marriage, Adrian offers her a way out.   Hope’s affair is just the beginning. Her journey inward will require untangling her complicated past and surviving an astonishing revelation. Her lover is not who he pretends to be. She’s searching for her happily-ever-after, and no matter how painful the journey, she’ll find what she’s been looking for all along – the chance to choose Hope.

Praise for Choosing Hope

‘Dark around the edges with a shocking twist I didn’t see coming, this is the kind of book you’ll be passing around to your friends so you can talk about it. Holly Kammier delivers romance, suspense, and a strong, smart heroine who turns out to be nobody’s victim. Don’t miss this one!’ ( Kat Ross, best-selling author of The Midnight Sea)

Format: eBook, paperback (334 pp.)         Publisher: Acorn Publishing
Published: 31st October 2017                      Genre: Adult, Romance, Thriller

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Amazon.com ǀ Barnes & Noble ǀ Kobo ǀ iTunes
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find Choosing Hope on Goodreads

My Review

Choosing Hope is certainly not your typical romance story. I was quite surprised by how dark it became at times and how disturbing I found the physical and mental impact of some of the events on its main character, Hope.

On the surface, Hope may seem to have it all – a lovely house, a hard-working and successful husband, two lovely children – but underneath there lurks anxiety, frustration and disappointment at what her life has become. Having given up her career to be a full-time homemaker, she feels unfulfilled and restless. Despite the fact that her relationship with Kevin has deteriorated into disaffection on her part and barely restrained anger (or worse) on his, Hope lacks the confidence or self-belief to leave the sanctuary of their marriage.

A dysfunctional family background – including episodes of drug and alcohol-fuelled violence – has made her adept at appeasing the male members of her family and deferring to others’ wishes.  When she reconnects via social media with her first love, Adrian, the possibility of a new and much rosier future opens up for her. Everything about Adrian seems to be the polar opposite of Kevin. He says and does exactly the right things, responding empathically in a way that Kevin does not. But does Hope have the courage to step away from her current life into a new one? And is Adrian as perfect as he seems?

I have to say that for part of the book I did struggle to engage with or feel any empathy for Hope. Her belief that her life came down to a choice between two men rather irritated me. I found myself thinking: strike out on your own, don’t rely on other people to determine the course of your life, how can you let other people manipulate you like this? However, as events unfolded, I found myself growing more sympathetic towards Hope and, in the end, had a degree of admiration for her. And for her mom.

Choosing Hope is an interesting exploration of a woman’s journey through disaffection, infidelity and betrayal to eventual self-discovery and independence.

I received a review copy courtesy of Neverland Book Tours and chose to give an honest and unbiased review.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In three words: Dark, emotional, unsettling

Try something similar…Exquisite by Sarah Stovell (click here to read my review)

HollyKammierAbout the Author

Co-owner of Acorn Publishing, Holly Kammier is a UCLA honors graduate and an accomplished content editor. With a background in journalism, she has worked everywhere from CNN in Washington, D.C. and KCOP-TV in Los Angeles, to the NBC affiliate in small-town Medford, Oregon. Holly is the best-selling author of the novel, Kingston Court, and Could Have Been Hollywood, a memoir. She recently completed her third book, Choosing Hope, a spin-off from Kingston Court. Holly resides in her hometown of San Diego, California, close to family and friends. A world traveller in her younger years, these days when she isn’t writing or working with new authors, she spends much of her time hanging out with her two boys, Josh and Alex. Holly is an avid reader with a passion for timeless books and beautiful writing. She also enjoys long walks with her Jack Russell Terrier, romantic movies, and making her mischievous sons smile wider.

Connect with Holly

Website ǀ Twitter ǀ Goodreads

buttonxbt

Blog Tour: In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger

whatcathyreadnext

In the Dark blog tour banner

I’m delighted to be hosting today’s stop on the blog tour for In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger. Published on 2nd November, In The Dark’s protagonist, Jenny Aaron, has been described as a character to stand beside Silence of the Lambs’ Clarice Starling and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’s Lisbeth Salander.

I have a wonderful extract below that will introduce you to Jenny.

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

In The DarkAbout the Book

Jenny Aaron was a government assassin, part of an elite unit tracking Germany’s most dangerous criminals.

She was one of the best, until a disastrous mission ended with her abandoning a wounded colleague and then going blind from her injuries.

Now, five years later, she has learnt to navigate a darkened world, but is haunted by betraying her colleague. When she is called back to the force to trace a ruthless serial killer, she seizes the opportunity to solve the case and restore her honour.

 

Format: Hardback (368 pp.)     Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2nd November 2017     Genre: Thriller, Crime

Purchase Links*
Amazon.co.uk ǀ Kobo
*links provided for convenience, not as part of any affiliate programme

Find In The Dark on Goodreads

 

Extract from In The Dark by Andreas Pflüger

The stewardess asks again: ‘With milk?’

‘Black.’ Aaron reaches out her hand and feels the cup being placed in it. She hears the pilot’s voice: ‘In thirty minutes we will land in Berlin. It has already been snowing all morning. Please keep your safety belts fastened, we are expecting some turbulence.’

Aaron forces herself to drink the coffee.

Since she has been working for the BKA, the Federal Office of Criminal Investigation, in Wiesbaden, there have been several opportunities to travel to Berlin for work. The office has a branch in the district of Treptow, where the security group, the anti-terror centre and the ‘special unit’ department are based. But Aaron has always been able to avoid it.

She grew up in the Rhineland, but in her early twenties she made Berlin her home, which it still is in some way even today, even though she hasn’t been there for five years. She feels that quite clearly, with every kilometre closer to the city. Impatience floods through her, the joyful anticipation of arrival, a tingle. It irritates her, because on this return journey, the twenty-four hours that she will stay, fear is her luggage.

Five years. Aaron didn’t even close down her flat in Schöneberg; her father did that for her.

In Berlin she left behind only a few people that she misses. The life she led hardly allowed her to have friendships. Pavlik and his wife Sandra were, in fact, the only ones. When she moved to the nameless Department at the age of twenty-five, he immediately took her under his wing.

The only woman among forty men.

It was from Pavlik that she learned that everyone, however long they had been there, had nights when the shivering came.

That came as a great relief to Aaron: being hugged, and also being allowed to console others.

Nonetheless, in the years that have passed since Barcelona she and Pavlik haven’t spoken. They talked on the phone occasionally for the first few months. But they were both helpless. Pavlik tried to act as if nothing serious had happened in Spain, and took refuge in coolness because it was the only way he could deal with it. And Aaron could find no words to express what it means for her, she still can’t even today. Eventually they only heard each other breathing. And then the calls stopped.

Will I still recognize his voice?

‘We are now coming in to land at Berlin-Schönefeld. Please fold away your tables and put your seats in the upright position.’

‘Oh great!’

When Aaron’s neighbour furiously throws her coffee cup at her, she realizes that she has left it half full on the table, and must have spilled it over the man’s trousers.

‘Are you blind?’ he snarls.

‘Yes.’

Pflüger_Andreas(c)Stefan KlüterAbout the Author

Andreas Pflüger is a German screenwriter and author. He has written a number of episodes of the hugely popular German police procedural Tatort. In the Dark is published in eight languages.

Connect with Andreas

Website ǀ Facebook ǀ Goodreads