Digital Reads Reviews

Many thanks to Noelle Holten and publisher Bookouture for my spot on this Blog Tour.

With a title and the cover such a this, I knew I was in a heart rendering journey, and my instincts were bang-on. I read the book armed with a box of tissues. A family lost its backbone and devastation left its scars. Life changed.

Laura, a mother and a wife died suddenly and the family was left bereft like an oarless boat being ravaged by the storms of life. Husband Nathan needed answers to try to make sense of what was left. He met Maria, the woman befriended by Laura, who helped him as well as painted him a different picture of his wife. And she had a secret buried deep in her heart.

Having read books by author Kae Hewitt, I have become a big fan of the author as I knew that the strength of her writing lay in her portrayal of honest heart-tugging emotions. Tears in my eyes was a foregone conclusion. I think I read the book with a film of it.

Two POV of Nathan and Maria, the story unfurled slowly as if free from its binding. Past and present slowly met in the middle to show the true picture. Nathan’s grief moved through its stages, his need to get some answers spoke to me. Maria was intriguing, her past left me shell-shocked.

The plot was filled with feelings but also had a huge secret hiding in the wings which beguiled me. Kate Hewitt is an amazing storyteller who could weave the threads of the characters so finely that the framework on which the book rested, uplifing the story.

The story was a bag of emotions, each pulled at my control and brought mine to the surface, well written in its concept, with hope reflecting through, a story which made me shut my kindle and spend time with my family.

I received a free ARC from NetGalley and publisher, and this is my journey into its pages, straight from the heart!! STRICTLY HONEST AND UNBIASED.

All my reviews can be read here

Kate is the USA Today-bsetselling author of many books of women’s fiction. Her latest releases are A Vicarage Homecoming and Not My Daughter. Under the name Katharine Swartz, she is the author of the Tales from Goswell books, a series of time-slip novels set in the village of Goswell.

She likes to read women’s fiction, mystery and thrillers, as well as historical novels. She particularly enjoys reading about well-drawn characters and avoids high-concept plots.

Having lived in both New York City and a tiny village on the windswept northwest coast of England, she now resides in a market town in Wales with her husband, five children, and two Golden Retrievers.

It hit me, the reality of it, in a way it hadn’t before like a sledgehammer straight to the chest. Laura was gone. She was never coming back. I’d never see her again; she’d never hum in the kitchen, she’d never pull Ruby onto her lap and tickle her tummy as she buried her face in the sweet curve of our daughter’s shoulder.

Nathan West loved his wife Laura with all his heart. But now she’s gone, taaken from him in a seemingly random act of violence. Laura was the glue that held their family together. And for Nathan, life without her feels almost meaningless.

As he tries to find hope in the darkness, his three young daughters express their grief in different and challenging ways – with one set on a path of self-destruction that could devastate their family all over again. Desperate to understand his own heartbreak better, he reaches out to others who had known Laura. Including her new friend Maria, whose light and warmth are exactly what their grieving family needs, and who is soon helping out and providing emotional support for them all.

But the picture Maria paints of Laura is unfamiliar to Nathan – of a wife who felt ignored, a mother who felt she couldn’t do enough – and he struggles to reconcile it with his own memories of the woman he loved. Is it possible he didn’t know his wife after all? And can he trust Maria? He can’t escape the feeling that she’s keeping something from him.

Maria is hiding a secret with the power to rock Nathan’s family to its core. Because it is about what happened the day that Laura died…

Publication Date: 27th September 2019

Publisher: Bookouture