Today! Blog-Tour: Love Is.. by Haley Hill

Hey, it's my turn on the Blog-Tour for Love Is by Haley Hill. It is a delightfully scornful and ironic look at divorce and relationships combined with the messy and eventful life of Ellie Rigby!

About the author
Haley Hill is a fresh new voice in romantic fiction who has previously found success in the self-publishing world. Prior to launching her fiction career, Haley launched and ran the Elect Club dating agency – and is an expert in all things dating! Haley lives in South London with her husband and twin daughters.
Connect with Haley at matchmakermusings.com  or follow @HaleyHillNow and @HQStories and look out for #LoveIs on Twitter.
Buy Love Is

About the book
Dating Agency doyenne Ellie Rigby always thought that helping people find love with the hard part. But now she’s all loved up with husband Nick and has hundreds of matchmaking successes under her belt, Ellie ought to know all there is to know about love.

As her struggles to get pregnant put strain on her marriage, and her matchmaking service starts losing clients, Ellie realises she has so much more to learn. So setting off on a global research trip, Ellie makes it her mission to find out what makes love last forever, and whether it’s enough to save her own romance.

Review
This is the continuation of Ellie Rigby's story, which began in It's got to be Perfect. In Love Is she is still pursuing the perfect life and trying to recreate the vision of her perfect dream. The house, husband, kids, career and the white picket fence. Unfortunately life is full of imperfections and unexpected twists.

Ellie and her husband Nick have been trying to get pregnant for quite a while and after another unsuccessful IVF trial they discover that the path to becoming parents has driven them apart. Suddenly Ellie is confronted with the hurtful reality that Nick doesn't really want what she wants or at least not at the expense of their relationship. This sets her on the path for answers about marriage and divorce.

She wants to know why the statistical chances of couples divorcing are so high, and why are so many of her perfect matches heading down the same path. Ellie literally travels the world to meet alleged experts. A combination of wise gurus and pseudo scientists, to discover the truth or perhaps just her truth.

In the first book Hill gives the reader fun. laughter and rose-tinted glasses of love and new relationships. In this story we find an Ellie, who has gotten over the first butterflies, blushes and sweet moments of togetherness. The reality of marriage has crept up on both her and Nick.

This book is harsher, a little bit like shining a microscopic light on couples, relationships and divorce in general.The language is more graphic and the atmosphere is a wee bit more brassy. Hill has included some interesting parallels, statistics and facts on divorce.

Hill has an interesting writing voice. You can almost hear the smirks and the subtle sarcasm between the lines. Not a dreamer, but a realist with both feet firmly on the ground and she certainly isn't afraid to write what she really thinks.

Hopefully we will see Ellie again in the middle of the next chapter of her life. I already know, but you will have to read Love Is to find out what comes next for her.

Buy Love Is at Amazon Uk or go to Goodreads for any other retailer.

Read It's Got To Be Perfect by Haley Hill (The beginning of Ellie Rigby's story)

Blog Tour & Review: The Thirty List by Eva Woods

Let's start this Blog Tour for The Thirty List by Eva Woods off with a bang. To follow the tour and read what my fellow bloggers are saying about The Thirty List read Blog Tour -Thirty List to follow the links to each blog on the tour.

About the author:
Eva Woods/Claire McGowan is a writer and a lecturer. She writes contemporary women's fiction as Eva Woods and crime fiction as Claire McGowan.

She was born in Northern Ireland and now lives in London, where she writes and teaches creative writing.

According to her blog she also spends a lot of time tutting at slow people on escalators and dodging urban foxes. She likes wine, pop music, and holidays, and thinks online dating is like the worst board game ever invented.

To read more about Claire visit ink-stains.co.uk, visit her Facebook page or follow her on Twitter @inkstainsclaire

About The Thirty List:
Everyone has one.
That list.
The things you were supposed to do before you turn thirty.

Jobless, broke and getting a divorce, Rachel isn’t exactly living up to her own expectations. And moving into grumpy single dad Patrick’s box room is just the soggy icing on top of her dreaded thirtieth birthday cake.

Eternal list-maker Rachel has a plan – an all new set of challenges to help her get over her divorce and out into the world again – from tango dancing to sushi making to stand-up comedy.

But as Patrick helps her cross off each task, Rachel faces something even harder; learning to live – and love – without a checklist.

Review:

Welcome to the disaster called Rachel's supposedly perfect life, well at least it used to be. From the very beginning it seems as if Rachel has made hasty decisions or at least ones made in doubt. She has built an image of a perfect relationship in her head and lives it outwardly for society.

To be quite frank she needed to buck up and stop being the perpetual doormat for the people around her. Instead she goes when she is asked to leave, she gives up house and home, because hey Dan asked her to. I mean come on, really? No spunk, no fight and no disagreement at all?

Instead she has let herself be boxed into this pseudo cupboard of imaginary blame and remorse by her husband and her friends. It isn't as if she did an entire football team in the locker room. Keep it real.

So her friends suggestion of a Bucket List is exactly the right thing to get her out of the slump she has slithered into. A list full of eccentric, exotic, daring and funny challenges or tasks to complete. Things to do before you... You get the picture and might even have one yourself, I know I do.

She embarks on her tasks with her new landlord, father of one, Patrick. They have slumps in common, and that isn't all they have in common. Rachel quickly becomes part of the family, and as part-time nanny she also becomes close to Patrick's son.

Being a step-parent or parent substitute is probably one of the hardest jobs in a patchwork family. Faced with the same responsibilities and yet when it comes down to the nitty gritty you are always only the stand-in for the real parent.

Rachel cares for and looks after Alex, as if she were his mother, and yet in the direst of situations she is treated like a convenient servant. There is no empathy for her or her emotions. No comprehension of the bond she has built with the young boy. Even in that regard I found Patrick to be very lacking in compassion towards her.

I was slightly taken aback by the way Patrick reacted towards the end of the story. How very condescending of him to reach out to the ex and offer Rachel up on a pathetic platter. Sort of  'can you come and pick up your second-hand goods now.' I would have been angry if I were Rachel, I was certainly annoyed on her behalf.

The Thirty List is a tale of romance, the threading together of new families, questioning of relationships and about Rachel's discovery of self. An amusing and also painful journey, but certainly one worth reading.

Thank you to Mills & Boon and Harlequin UK for the copy of The Thirty List.
To buy The Thirty List go to Amazon UK or Goodreads for other store links.

A Year After Henry by Cathie Pelletier

I think it is a home truth that we don't really know how much we and our lives are impacted by certain people in our lives until we have to do without them.

The death of Henry leaves ripples of waves in the lives of his family members, the local community, the people he connected with and the ones he kept hidden in the wings.

It is a year after his death and everyone is still trying to fill the gaps left by the sudden departure of Henry. His brother Larry is struggling to find his place after losing his wife and son after a nasty divorce. In his odd search for comfort he happens to find himself attracted to the one person, who has the ability to destroy what is left of his family.

Jeannie is obsessed with the secret life Henry had. She has this strange need to know why, and why that particular person. She spends her time placing the blame firmly on the living instead of on the dead.

Pelletier has also woven an important sub-plot into this story of loss, sorrow and guilt. The issue of domestic abuse and violent partners. The most important point the author makes is the way the abused is often treated like a liar, especially by other women when the abused is a woman. The abuser is more often than not a charming two-faced popular person, the type who doesn't fit the criteria of abuser in most people's heads.

Why is it so hard to believe someone in that kind of situation? Why does it have to happen again before someone steps in to help? What is it about abuse that make the abuser warrant more support and protection than the abused?
This is a tale of grief and how life goes on after the death of a loved one.
I received a copy of this book via NetGalley.

A Beautiful Day by Kate Anthony

What it lacks in literary prowess the author makes up for with blatant honesty and core emotions. It is very he said, she said and doesn’t flow very well.
It gives a no holds barred look at what it is really like when a family falls apart.

When it comes to the daily struggle of dealing with the breakdown of a relationship and consequently also a family. No one sees the anxiety, the fear, the distress, the feeling of helplessness and the anger the children go through in these situations. When parents separate the children tend to suffer, whether the separation is amicable or not.

When it came to the relationship between Philip and Rachel isn’t what I would call appropriate. Rachel crosses the line between being a carer and being emotionally attached far too often. His needs become a focus in a house full of patients/clients. Rachel also lets him interact with her children, enter her home and calls him my darling.

All of that speaks for a person who has a big heart and cares with instinct instead of common sense or rather with caution. She doesn’t maintain the professional distance she should between herself and the clients.

A poignant moment and one that rings true is her acknowledgement of the fact that hating her ex would make a mockery of their past together.

The best part of book was the letter. It was just so right in so many ways. Written from the very bottom of her heart and with a brutal perspective and image of the future. A reflection that most people in these kind of situations never manage to acquire.
I received a copy of this book via Netgalley.