Hi there!
Welcome back to Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers.
Today, we're teaming up with Rachel's Random Resources for a stop along their current tour featuring a recent release via Atria Fiction. It's a Historical Romance that has a rather interesting leading lady and leading man, both with pasts, unable to see clearly to a future free from those heavy chains, and in spite of everything, potentially staring love in the face once again. Sound good? GOOD...then let's get down to business. Today's blog tour guest and ebook of choice is...
A Widow's Vow
by
Rachel Brimble
Atria Fiction
About the book...
From grieving widow...
1851. After her merchant husband saved her from a life of prostitution, Louisa Hill was briefly happy as a housewife in Bristol. But then a constable arrives at her door. Her husband has been found hanged in a Bath hotel room, a note and a key to a property in Bath the only things she has left of him. And now the debt collectors will come calling.
To a new life as a madam.
Forced to leave everything she knows behind, Louisa finds more painful betrayals waiting for her in the house in Bath. Left with no means of income, Louisa knows she has nothing to turn to but her old way of life. But this time, she'll do it on her own terms – by turning her home into a brothel for upper class gentleman. And she's determined to spare the girls she saves from the street the horrors she endured in the past.
Enlisting the help of Jacob Jackson, a quiet but feared boxer, to watch over the house, Louisa is about to embark on a life she never envisaged. Can she find the courage to forge this new path?
A Widow's Vow is the first in a gripping and gritty new Victorian saga series from Rachel Brimble. You won't be able to put it down.
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This is actually one of only a small few I've read where the leading lady is actually...well to put it delicately, though the book does not mince words...a lady of the night, or rather was, and is forced to be once more.
You see, Louisa was rescued from a brothel by her husband nary four years prior, and until the very day this novel starts, knew kindness, if not love. She had a roof over her head, no madam to answer to, one man to which she was promised, and her best friend by her side. What more could a woman want? Perhaps, the truth...the very beginning of which comes to light when a constable comes calling, dreaded news is delivered, and that new life she'd barely become accustomed to is threatened in so many ways. Thing is, she and her friend are resilient. They will do what is necessary to ensure they are never in the same positions they were before...even if that means turning to those tricks of their own volition. It will be on their terms to ensure their future...but the path before them is dangerous and before long, others are included in their makeshift family. One with a past not so far from Louisa's own, and the other fighting his way through life as he lets his past dictate his future. Together, through a seemingly ill advised plan, they will risk it all...including their hearts.
I was actually surprised by how much I loved the characters because the story line was giving me fits along the way. It's not that I was judging them, they did what they needed to do, and seeing it through their eyes made you respect them more for it, but it's certainly one that if you can't suspend your own beliefs about the subject matter, it might not be a perfect match for you. That being said, it's handled tastefully, no intimate scenes in actual detail of that nature though again their trade is not minced in words between themselves or simply on the page, as the author chose to focus more on the mental and emotional turmoil it caused the characters having to turn to this in the first place and what darkness first landed them there.
The only drawbacks I experienced where a small hole or two along the story line, a desire for a more complete ending, and a name mentioned that I'm daring to say was probably fixed between the eARC and the final edition. So ultimately, it was an unusually charming read with a cast you won't be able to turn away from despite your actual feelings about what they carry on at because through their eyes, you can see the greener side of things, the determination to be self sufficient, the desire to not be under another's control, and that in doing what they do, it could possibly afford them those ends.
Recommended for Historical Fiction fans that desire a leading lady with a backbone of steel, a leading man with firsts of fury, and an unexpected sharing of two hearts of gold.
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About the author...
Rachel [Brimble] lives with her husband and their two daughters in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of over 20 published novels including the Pennington’s department store series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin).
Her next project is a Victorian trilogy set in a Bath brothel which she recently signed with Aria Fiction. The series will feature three heroines determined to change their lives and those of other women. The first book. A Widow’s Vow is due for release in September and available for Amazon preorder now.
Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.
To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway every month!), click here.
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Special thanks to Rachel at Rachel's Random Resources for the chance to bring this tour to you. (THANKS!) For more information on this title, the author, this promotion, or those on the horizon, feel free to click through the links provided above. This title is available now, so click on over to your favorite online retailer to snag your copy today and be sure to check out the rest of the tour for more bookish fun!
Until next time, remember...if it looks good, READ IT!
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