It's a constant struggle as a bookworm mother, who is also an English major, who has bookworm teenage daughters, to find a book that lives up to the high expectations I have when it comes to filling my time with reading.
Because, let's face it, I love to read.
I will ignore every dirty dish, I will tell The Circus to eat ramen for dinner, I will miss night after night of decent sleep just to finish the book I've gotten myself engulfed in.
Apparently I've taught my daughters to be the same way.
The only problem is that it is really difficult to find a book that has a grabbing story line, is written really well, and is a clean book with no swearing or inappropriate scenes for my teenage and pre-teen daughters to be reading.
That is strangely difficult to find, and it's a real shame.
So I've decided that when we find a book that meets our high expectations, because if I'm going to be spending so much of my precious, limited free time on it, it's going to have to be worth it, I'm going to share it with you.
And I hope that you'll do the same for me.
We've recently just finished a book called
Dark Hope: Book One of the Archangel Series, by
Monica McGurk.
This book obviously falls into the scope of the fantasy genre, which happens to be our favorite type of genre.
It doesn't swear.
It doesn't have scenes that make me cringe when I think of my daughters reading it.
Though it does touch on some sensitive subjects, such as human trafficking, but I feel it handles them well and appropriately, while building the climax of the story.
For a split second the heroine, Hope, and her relationship with Michael reminded me of a certain vampire series that I don't want to admit I read (*cough cough* Twilight Series *cough cough*) but it only lasted for a few seconds as it built into a solid lead into the relationship of Hope and Michael. I didn't want to read about a helpless, incompetent female character that needs to be saved and seems to be a burden on every other character of the book.
I'm happy to say that this book, is
not that book.
I'm happy to say that Hope is a solid heroine.
Monica McGurk loves nothing better than to craft thought-provoking stories where strong women overcome big challenges.
This book is 400 pages and I read it in 3 days, around school and work and church obligations and kids' birthdays.
Hook, line, and sinker, I got sucked in. And I relished every minute of it.
But then again, I am a sucker for young adult fantasy.
Dark Hope is the first book of a trilogy, so I'm looking forward to the rest of the series to come out.
Curse you cliff hangers.
Curse you.
Good news, guys, I get to give a copy of
Dark Hope away! Just enter below on the rafflecopter. It opens now and runs until 11:59 pm on Monday September 8th. Winner will be notified by email so please make sure that the email you use for the rafflecopter is a current one that you check. For US residents only.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
I like that the whole "archangel" scene is a different pace from that YA books that have been floating around recently. I'm excited to share it with you.
You can find Monica McGurk on:
Twitter
here
Facebook
here
Pinterest
here
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
