26 March 2015

Consolation Tour, Review & Giveaway


Consolation - The Consolation Duet #1
by Corinne Michaels

Meet Liam and Natalie in Consolation!

Add to Goodreads





What they say: Book One in the Consolation Duet


Liam wasn’t supposed to be my happily ever after.


He wasn’t even on my radar.

He was my husband’s best friend—forbidden.

But my husband is dead and I’m alone. I ache for him and I reach for Liam.


One night with Liam changed everything. Now I have to decide if I truly love him or if he’s just the consolation prize.



Buy Links:







Listen to the book playlist here!





Excerpt:

Aarabelle sits in her highchair as I feed her dinner. She’s growing so fast. Already she’s eating cereal and a little baby food. Soon she’ll be crawling and I have no one to celebrate with. Her father will never see these milestones and it breaks me apart.
“You should really lock the door,” Liam huffs as he throws his coat over the chair.
“But then I’d have to get up to let you in,” I state matter-of-factly and go back to feeding the baby, trying to put aside my worries. The fact is…this is reality. I have to deal with it.
“Uh huh. Hey, Pumpkin,” his eyes alight as he crouches down by Aara. It’s adorable hearing grown men use a baby voice. It gets a little softer and higher pitched.
The corners of her mouth lift and she throws her arms in the air when he gets close. My heart sputters seeing how happy she gets seeing him. Liam kisses her head and she giggles.
“At least someone is happy to see me,” he says playfully.
“I’d be happy if you brought me a present,” I joke.
He laughs and goes into the pocket of his coat. “Just so happens I did, but since that’s the only way you’ll be nice, I’ll hold on to this until you’ve earned it.”
Practically leaping out of my chair, I rush over. “What is it?” I try to peer around his back as he holds the mystery item.
Liam’s lips curl as he sees how much I want this. I don’t even know what it is. Jeez, I’m an idiot. “Nope. We eat first, then maybe you’ll get it.”
“Watch, it’s a freaking Pez dispenser or something stupid.”
“Guess you’ll have to be nice to find out.” He shoves the item into his back pocket and I fight the urge to reach and get it. “How was work?”
We spend the next thirty minutes going over my day and Jackson’s return. Liam never mentioned that they spoke, but he’s surprised to hear he’s in Virginia. After we finish the pizza, Liam somehow convinces me we should watch a movie. I get Aarabelle to bed and come down to find him sprawled out on the couch.
“By all means, make yourself comfortable.”
Liam pulls his beanie higher on his forehead and his eyes glimmer with amusement. He sits up and puts the TV on. “I picked the movie.”
“What?” I ask with mock incredulity. “It’s my house. Why do you get to pick the movie?”
“Ummm, I’m the guest.” He shrugs as if this should be an obvious answer.
I groan and lean back. “What crappy, shoot-‘em-up movie do I have to endure?”
“You’ll see. It’s a classic.”




I received a copy in exchange for an honest review!


What I say: Consolation and the future release Conviction (coming in May) are set in the same fictional world and feature some of the characters from Corrine Michaels's Belonging series. You do not need to have read the Belonging books to enjoy Consolation - I hadn't read them and approached the series as a newbie. 

First up I'm going to point out that Consolation is sad; but with a story focusing on loss and grief I think most of us will be expecting to shed a few tears. What I wasn't expecting was the depth of the emotional journey main character Natalie 'Lee' goes on. Corrine Michaels isn't afraid of showing the dark elements surrounding loss. She doesn't sugarcoat the story and her characters face a great deal of loss, but Michaels also demonstrates the power of hope, joy and love.

As you can probably tell from the blurb (I'm going to mainly stick to discussing the blurb because I don't want to spoil the plot): The book begins with the death of Lee's husband Aaron. SEAL widow Lee is left pregnant, grieving and struggling to cope. Aaron's best friend Liam is there to help Lee and her baby. There is a lot of guilt in Consolation, I was expecting one of them to have secretly harboured feelings for the other and feel guilty about being able to act on them. Don't worry though it's not that type of story. 

Liam is he a great friend to Lee and is tremendous help with the baby. He encourages her to move on with life and not to let her loss destroy her. He's also extremely easy on the eye, and Lee begins to develop some extremely conflicted feelings about him. Liam is also suffering with the grief of loosing his best friend and the guilt of his feelings for his widow.

It's a book of extremes - one moment I was ugly crying along with Lee, the next I was swooning at Liam. Then I'd find myself becoming extremely angry (unfortunately my theory about a certain character turned out to be true) and I began doubting everybody, only then to have something really sweet happen to make me smile.

I felt Lee's pain throughout the story and how she tried so hard to move on. I could completely understand her confusion in terms of Liam and certain revelations. I really liked Liam and felt genuinely sorry for him. He was in the difficult position of wanting Lee but not wanting to betray his friend. 


The dramatic ending sets up the story really well for Conviction (I'm not sure I can wait until May for it), but it also may me want to scream - talk about a cliffy!

4 - 4.5 Stars in my Sky!



Author Spotlight:



Corinne Michaels is an emotional, witty, sarcastic, and fun loving mom of two beautiful children. She’s happily married to the man of her dreams and is a former Navy wife. After spending months away from her husband while he was deployed, reading and writing was her escape from the loneliness.

Both her maternal and paternal grandmothers were librarians, which only intensified her love of reading. After years of writing short stories, she couldn’t ignore the call to finish her debut novel, Beloved. Her alpha Navy SEALs are broken, beautiful, and will steal your heart.




Giveaway:



SHARE:

No comments

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Blogger Template Created by pipdig