BOOK REVIEW & GIVEAWAY - Where Petals Fall by Melissa Foster

 

Welcoming to my blog once again, the popular Melissa Foster.

This time we are showcasing and reviewing her suspenseful novel, Where Petals Fall

 

Where Petals Fall

 

 

"With vivid prose and a tender heart, Melissa Foster has crafted a psychological and emotional mystery fuelled by love in all its forms."

Jennie Shortridge

Book Blurb



On the surface Junie Olson’s life looks idyllic, from her handsome husband and beautiful daughter to her successful business, the bakery she always dreamt of opening. But in the past few months her world has slowly unravelled.  Her precocious child is withdrawing, showing unexplainable signs of emotional regression, a condition that frays the bonds of Junie’s once impenetrable marriage.  When her father dies suddenly of a heart attack, Junie packs up her daughter and goes home to help her mother.  Her homecoming stirs up memories of the nightmare she thought she had put behind her, the disappearance of her childhood friend, Ellen.  Haunted by recurring memories of what happened on that fateful day, Junie must gather the courage to revisit her past and untangle the secrets surrounding her missing friend, and the trauma that has caused her little girl to climb back into herself. As the pieces come together on the event that shook her small town, and at the risk of losing everyone she loves, Junie will question everything she thought she could rely on and everyone she thought she knew.

 

WHERE PETALS FALL is a gripping and emotional novel with an undercurrent of suspense, featuring a determined mother whose world slowly comes apart around her.  Where Petals Fall will appeal to fans of Lisa Scottoline's Save Me or Jodi Picoult's Salem Falls, who love an emotional and gripping read. They will root for Junie as they follow her transition into an indomitable heroine who must reconcile what she discovers about her husband and family’s tragic past, and find a way to put the pieces of her family back together and carry on. 

 

My review -

 

This is my first book review of 2014, and it didn't disappoint. After reading this book which I found hard to put down, I think I have found another author to add to my favourites. Melissa Foster has shown that she can not only write great Chic-Lit, but is also a great mystery writer too.

 

When Junie, one of the main characters was dwelling on her childhood relationship with her best friend it made me think back to my childhood best friend and what we were doing at the age of seven. Luckily my best friend never disappeared.

 

The journey that she was going through, in trying to piece together what happened to her best friend Ellen, really drew you in. It was very emotional and seemed so real. It made Junie come across as really vulnerable. She was having to deal with her young Daughter who was undergoing tests as she had become withdrawn and had stopped speaking. Her relationship with her Husband was also very testing as he didn't want to speak to Junie about Ellen(who also happened to be his young Sister) and her disappearance.

 

Whilst Junie tried to work out what had happened to Ellen, as a reader I went on the journey with her. I was so drawn into the story and started coming to my own conclusions, only for the Author to flip the story in a different direction and dampen all my theories!

 

This book was so well written; full of different emotions; full of content and full of mystery. I'm certainly putting this Author and all her books on my "must read" list.

 







 

About the Author

 

Melissa Foster is a New York Times & USA Today bestselling and award-winning author. She writes contemporary romance, new adult, contemporary women's fiction, suspense, and historical fiction with emotionally compelling characters that stay with you long after you turn the last page. Her books have been recommended by USA Today's book blog, Hagerstown Magazine, The Patriot, and several other print venues. She is the founder of the Women’s Nest, a social and support community for women, and the World Literary Café. When she's not writing, Melissa helps authors navigate the publishing industry through her author training programs on  Fostering Success. Melissa has been published in Calgary’s Child Magazine, the Huffington Post, and Women Business Owners magazine.

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

Melissa hosts an annual Aspiring Authors contest for children and has painted and donated several murals to The Hospital for Sick Children in Washington, DC. Melissa lives in Maryland with her family.

 
Visit Melissa on The Women's Nest, Fostering Success, or World Lit Cafe. Melissa enjoys discussing her books with book clubs and reader groups, and welcomes an invitation to your event.

Authors Links:

Website

Twitter

Facebook

Pinterest

Goodreads

 

 

 

 

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Book Review & International Giveaway - A Lifetime Burning by Linda Gillard

Title - A Lifetime Burning

Author - Linda Gillard

Publisher - Transita

Available from Amazon UK or Amazon US
both in Kindle and Paperback form.

THE BLURB
Greedy for experience but determined to be good, Flora Dunbar spends a lifetime seeking love, trying to build a future out of the wreckage of her past - an eccentric childhood spent in the shadow of her musical twin, Rory; early marriage to Hugh, a clergyman twice her age; motherhood, which brings her Theo, the son she cannot love; middle-age, when she finds brief happiness in a scandalous affair with her nephew, Colin.

"If you asked my sister-in-law why she hated me, she’d say it was because I seduced her precious firstborn then tossed him onto the sizeable scrap-heap marked Flora’s ex-lovers. But she’d be lying. That isn’t why Grace hated me. Ask my brother Rory..."

MY REVIEW

This is a complex family drama with lots of twists and turns.

The main character in the book is Flora Dunbar. She is a twin and has an incredibly close relationship with her twin brother Rory. They grow up in what appears a warm household.  Rory becomes a famous pianist, whilst Flora becomes the wife of a clergyman who was a lot older than her. Flora is a complex character and never seems really happy with her lot.  She creates scandal in her family in more ways than one, as lots of family secrets are unearthed and some taboo relationships are formed.

I loved this story and all of the characters involved. It was a complex story, full of love and passion, warm relationships but also hate. It was beautifully written and full of happy times, sad times and tragedies. So much all rolled into one book.

The only thing I didn't like about the book (but then this is often one of my gripes with many books not just this one) is the fact that it kept going backwards and forwards in time. This is okay for me if you read the book over a couple of days, which you could easily do if you had the time. However I read it over a span of about 10 days and kept forgetting where I was and in which decade and I had to keep going backwards and forwards to work out what was going on. It wouldn't deter me from reading more though. 

I did however love how the author managed to make you warm to some characters and feel sorry for others. The way the characters are intertwined in a complex way, made the story very fulfilling.

I thoroughly recommend it as it has a lot of content and makes you want to keep reading it. I love the style of writing that Linda Gillard produces and have read many of her books, and recommend you do the same.

Learn more about the author by going to her author page. Click here

Also take a look at Linda's other books which are on her author page. .

ENTER THE GIVEAWAY TO WIN A FREE KINDLE EDITION OF THIS BOOK - INTERNATIONAL GIVEAWAY! STARTS AT MIDNIGHT GMT 4TH JANUARY! ENDS MIDNIGHT 12TH JAN.

AS AN EXTRA BONUS, THE AUTHOR HERSELF HAS OFFERED A SIGNED PAPERBACK TO GIVE AWAY TO ONE UK READER!!! THANK YOU LINDA. 

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