Pages: 268
Released On: 13/03/2023
Three and a half years ago, Hallie had a happy home with a loving mother, a father she adored, and doting grandparents she loved to spend summers with. All of that changed when her father’s career in the Army took him to the Middle East where he was killed in action. Hallie never gave much thought to her mother’s angry insistence that her grandparents had pushed him into the Army. But his death caused that anger to seep into her heart. Nothing could convince her to forgive them or ever visit their island home again … or so she thought.
But when a threat arises at home that her mother refuses to believe is real, twelve-year-old Hallie finds herself running away from home to escape. She knows a safe place where she can hide, but she’ll have to go back to the island, regardless of her feelings.
Hallie doesn’t know how long she can stay hidden or if she will be forced to see her grandparents again, but it’s a risk she has to take. No matter what else happens, she will never forgive her grandparents for her father’s death and she can’t go home … not until the end of summer.
*****
Thanks to Rebecca for gifting me an advanced copy of this book in return for an honest review.
This book is really well written and flows really well. It’s nice and easy to read and it flies by. Before I knew it, I was a third of the way through, and ended up reading it in one sitting.
Rebecca has perfectly encapsulated the angst that generates have when they believe they’ve been wronged, and when no-one is listening to them.
I wasn’t a huge fan of Hallie to begin with and I can’t really say why, maybe it was her moodiness, her closed-off nature. But that didn’t last long. She soon wormed her way into my heart and I felt sorry for her. There aren’t really any characters I didn’t like. Maybe Hallie’s mum to begin with, but we don’t know the full story there. They were all fantastically written and well rounded and worked perfectly against each other. She’s got a great balance of the children, the parents and the grandparents – three generations that are so recognisable.
It deals with some difficult subjects such as death, grief, abuse, relationship problems etc. in a sensitive way. It’s a book for adults, but our main protagonists are teenagers or younger, and the topics are all handed in a suitable way for the characters.
There may be some difficult topics, but overall it’s a very uplifting book. I found it full of positivity and love and hope, and it was just a really pleasant book to read.
I really enjoyed Rebecca’s previous book, Remember the Butterfly, but this one tops it every way. It’s absolutely beautiful. This book deserves to be seen by more people.
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