BREAKING NEWS

Friday, September 23, 2016

Everlasting Lies by Barbara Warren (Review and Giveaway)


Well-written, evocative and scandalous, this novel made me experience a roller-coaster of emotions. It was never boring but did leave me frustrated more times than I can count.

Book Details:

Book Title:  Everlasting Lies by Barbara Warren
Category:  Adult fiction, 296 pages
Genre:  Historical Romance, Women's Fiction
Publisher:  Friesen Press
Release date:  March 2016
Content Rating:  R (For explicit sexual scenes and promiscuity)

Book Description:

Edina Paxton is kissed at twelve, seduced at fourteen and married with child at fifteen. She immediately regrets her marriage to Charles Vernon and is relieved when he leaves to fight in the trenches during WW1. She soon finds love, comfort and sexual satisfaction with Bill, another soldier and the boy who first kissed her.

Charles is invalided out of the army and is sent to India on a hospital ship. There, he becomes a manager of a coalmine in Britain’s Indian Empire, with all the privileges that his position rewards, including sexual favours from female employees. At the end of his army service in 1920 he returns to England to collect his family and return to India, only to be greeted with the news that while he was away Edina was at play. She is pregnant.

Reluctantly, Edina and her three children sail for India with Charles and Edina gives birth to her fourth child while sailing south on the Red Sea. On reaching India Charles finds his Indian mistress is pregnant and Edina finds Charles’s Indian boss to be very attractive. It’s a mutual attraction. Neither Edina nor Charles is a saint.

Piecing together fragments of her grandmother’s remarkable and tragic story, Everlasting Lies is Barbara’s loving tale of the early life of Edina, her grandmother, and Charles, Edina's husband. They both experience the horrors of WW1 and, in hopes of renewing their marriage, start new lives as members of the upper class in Imperial India. 



Buy the Book: Author Website (has links to all retail sites where book is sold)

Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Chapters Indigo


My Review
Reviewed by Laura Fabiani

This novel, aptly titled Everlasting Lies, is the story of a couple's turbulent marriage from the time they first meet to the years through WWI and their move from England to India.

The story grips the reader from the get-go as we are transported to an early twentieth century mining town in England. Charlie is a complex character who becomes more and more despicable as he discovers his need to satisfy his sexual urges at all costs. His wife Edina turns from an innocent tease to a housewife verbally abused by her promiscuous husband. The war takes Charlie away as he enlists and Edina enjoys taking care of her children, falling in love with a childhood friend and learning about women who are beginning to speak up for their rights.

Despite the fact that I did not like Charles and at times Edina, the author's writing kept me turning the pages. I would have preferred if the plot would have continued to revolve around the era rather than the sexual exploits of this couple. There is very little integrity, if any, among the main characters and, Edina who I had high hopes for becomes no better than her husband in her own infidelities. She is a strong character, however, and does what she believes she must do to survive during an era and a marriage where her station in life as a mother and a woman is not respected.

Well-written, evocative and scandalous, this novel made me experience a roller-coaster of emotions. It was never boring but did leave me frustrated more times than I can count. I was hoping for some morality among one of its main characters to give them depth and a reason for me as a reader to root for them. The author is a good storyteller, however, and I hope she keeps writing historical fiction.

To read more reviews, please visit Barbara Warren's page on iRead Book Tours.

Disclosure: Thanks to the author for sending me this book for review. I was not told how to rate or review this product.


Meet the Author:


Barbara Warren always has the pedal to the metal. Born in England and educated at a convent, she left school at sixteen and was selling encyclopedias in the roughest part of London at eighteen. She married and emigrated to Canada when she was twenty-three, had three charming daughters, went to university when she was thirty-six and retired from teaching in her mid fifties.

Then she pursued her passion for the arts and for travel. She and her husband rode camels in India, elephants in Nepal and horses in Montana. They hitchhiked in Norway, cycled across Denmark and snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef. Barbara’s paintings grace homes in Canada, USA and Mexico and she designs her own clothes. She spends the winters in Mexico and the summers in the bible belt of southern Alberta.

Her first novel, Everlasting Lies, tells the story of her grandparents’ love affairs with each other and with others. They struggle to survive in the last years of Victorian England and the horrors of WW1 and then start a new life with four children in Imperial India.

Connect with the author:  Website  ~  Facebook



Enter the Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Share this:

19 comments :

  1. It does sound interesting, even if the characters are not that likable.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, and this is a debut novel. I hope the author continues writing.

      Delete
  2. Thank you for your review and you are not alone in your dislike for Charles. Thank you for your comment about morality and giving you a reason to root for a character, great comment. As a new author I am finding the reviews very helpful. Very much appreciated. Barbara Warren

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you for the opportunity to read your book! I hope this will not be the last one you write. You are well ahead of the game as an author because you appreciate your reader comments. Kudos to you!

      Delete
  3. The book sounds like a great read and I need the gift card to buy a new kindle. Mine was stolen.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I would love to read the book. Also, I love Amazon Gift Cards! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  5. I would love to win because I love to read and this book sounds amazing and I could use the 50.00 to buy more!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I love the time period of this book. I can't wait to read it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would love to win because I love books that play with all of my emotions!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Good Golly Miss Molly. Luv the plot of the book. Luv to read it. Wow, prize amazon gc is fab. & splendid. 2 fingers snap. It is tight, fly & off the chain. Thank you for the awesomeness, the contest, and generosity. :) Pick me, pick me! Dear Santa: I’ve been nice. My X-Mas wish this year is to win this contest. Starving artist here desperately needs the gc to shop and eat. A life changing exp.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I love the entire plot behind this book! I also really love books that tell stories of that time period around world war 1 and 2.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I like the setting and the intricacy of the plot. Gorgeous cover too.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am very anxious to read this book. Thank you for the opportunity.

    ReplyDelete
  12. historical book, neet..thanks for the giveaway

    ReplyDelete
  13. I want to win the Amazon gift card

    ReplyDelete
  14. This book has a pretty cover! Love the vintage look with the pop of red.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I'd like to win because I want to win the Amazon GC for my elderly cat rescue shelter. I love to read when I sit with the old cats.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yes I would like be to win a prize!! Who wouldn't!

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for commenting! I appreciate your feedback.

Visit Us Today

Visit Us Today
iRead: getting your book in the hands of readers
 
Back To Top
Copyright © 2009-2017 Laura Fabiani Library of Clean Reads . Designed by OddThemes OddThemes