In an ongoing effort to bring back some of this blog’s most popular features, I hereby announce the resumption of #ShareAReviewDay Tuesday. For full instructions on how you can share your favorite or latest reviews, please click on the link entitled “General Blog Rules & Share A Review Day Instructions” in the black header bar above. I will schedule the reviews 2 per Tuesday in the order in which I receive them. (NOTE: I will need to set these posts up myself, even for those of you who are contributors to the blog. Thanks.)
And now, to start things off, I’m sharing one of my reviews from That Darkest Place: Riverbend Book 3. This is basically the way I will set up your reviews each Tuesday. Hope you’ll enjoy taking part!
REVIEW:
MacTrish
5.0 out of 5 starsThis book has it all – Suspense, Romance, Tragedy and Humour
24 September 2018
Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase
That Darkest Place is the third book in Marcia Meara’s Riverbend series. It begins where the second one finishes and tells the stories of the older two Painter brothers, Jackson and Forrest.
Marcia has an insight into the workings of the human spirit that makes for compelling reading. There’s the sense of struggle, of families disagreeing but solidly behind each other, of menace from the unknown antagonist and the tender, sparky love scenes which are always wonderfully done – there’s joy and mischief and twinkling there that makes those scenes for me! She handles these scenes with a light touch that avoids graphic description yet captures the essence of the delight, the amazement, the miracle of love.
There’s also the subtly interwoven information about strokes, counselling and recovering from physical and emotional trauma that grounds the progress in a way that feels real and ‘right’. As with Hunter, the subject of the second book, the real hook as far as I’m concerned lies in the interaction between the characters and how readily we can identify with them. These fears, confusion and delight are common to us all and her ability to express them so realistically means that we share in them and become part of them, too.
I’d read these in chronological order to avoid spoilers even though they can all be read as standalones. Settle down somewhere cosy and prepare yourself for a most satisfying experience!
BLURB:
In Book 3 of her popular Riverbend series, Marcia Meara, author of Wake-Robin Ridge, A Boy Named Rabbit,and Harbinger, takes another look at the lives of the Painter brothers—Jackson, Forrest, and Hunter. While Hunter is home again and on the mend, the same isn’t true for his oldest brother. Jackson’s battle has just begun.
“There are dark places in every heart, in every head. Some you turn away from. Some you light a candle within. But there is one place so black, it consumes all light. It will pull you in and swallow you whole. You don’t leave your brother stranded in that darkest place.”
~Hunter Painter~
The new year is a chance for new beginnings—usually hopeful, positive ones. But when Jackson Painter plows his car into a tree shortly after midnight on January 1, his new beginnings are tragic. His brothers, Forrest and Hunter, take up a grim bedside vigil at the hospital, waiting for Jackson to regain consciousness and anxious over how he’ll take the news that he’s lost a leg and his fiancée is dead. After all, the accident was all his fault.
As the shocking truth emerges, one thing becomes obvious—Jackson will need unconditional love and support from both of his brothers if he is to survive.
Just as he begins the long road to recovery, danger, in the form of a sinister, unsigned note, plunges him back into bleak despair. Scrawled in blood red letters, the accusation—and the threat—is clear. “MURDERER!”
Will the long, harrowing ordeal that lies ahead draw the Painter brothers closer together, or drive them apart forever?
Suspenseful and often heartbreaking, this small-town tale is a testimonial to the redemptive power of love and paints a story filled with humor, romance, and fierce family loyalty.
Buy That Darkest Place HERE
Marcia Meara, Author
Marcia Meara lives in central Florida, just north of Orlando, with her husband of over thirty years, four big cats, and one small dachshund. When not writing or blogging, she spends her time gardening, and enjoying the surprising amount of wildlife that manages to make a home in her suburban yard. At the age of five, Marcia declared she wanted to be an author, and is ecstatic that at age 69, she finally began pursuing that dream. Her belief in the redemptive power of love is a unifying factor in both of her popular series and her poetry. Today, she’s still going strong, and plans to keep on writing until she falls face down on the keyboard, which she figures would be a pretty good way to go!
Marcia has published six novels, two novellas, and one book of poetry to date, all of which are available on Amazon:
Wake-Robin Ridge
A Boy Named Rabbit: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 2
Harbinger: Wake-Robin Ridge Book 3
Swamp Ghosts: A Riverbend Novel
Finding Hunter: Riverbend Book 2
That Darkest Place: Riverbend Book 3
The Emissary: A Riverbend Spinoff Novella
The Emissary 2: To Love Somebody
Summer Magic: Poems of Life & Love
You can reach Marcia via email at marciameara16@gmail.com or on the following social media sites:
The Write Stuff: https://marciamearawrites.com/
Twitter: @marciameara
Facebook: www.facebook.com/marcia.meara.writer
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/marciameara/
What comes first in your writing, the plot or the characters?
