Review-The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young

The Gates of Evangeline by Hester Young
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Charlotte Cates has started having dreams about young children now that her son has passed away.  She is not sure what these dreams mean, but when they start to come to fruition, she sees that she may have a gift she may not really want.  Sent to Louisiana to write a book about the abduction of young Gabriel Deveau, she believes she knows what has happened to him from one of her dreams.  Will she be able to find out what happened to this boy?  What other dreams will she have before she gets the answers she is looking for?

I started this book and at first I couldn't get into it.  I put it down for a couple of weeks and then picked it back up.  I'm so glad that I did.  While some parts of this book were a little bit predictable, this was an overall good read.  I was invested in the story and I was desperate to know what was going to happen to Charlotte, or Charlie as she likes to be called.

After the death of her own child, she was lost and unsure about how to continue her life.  She wasn't really into her job and then came the opportunity arose for her to write about something, she thought she had first hand knowledge about.  Leaving her home in Connecticut to live at Evangeline, the estate where Gabriel went missing, she uncovers a lot about the Deveau family that she never knew was possible.

At 75% I literally felt my heart begin to race. And it was difficult to put the book down from then on.  Highly recommended.

**I received a copy of this book from FirstToRead, through Penguin Publishers in exchange for my review.**


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Review--Tempting Fate by Jane Green

Gabby is 43, married with two children and she is in "the afternoon of her life." She isn't particularly pretty or dowdy nor does she stand out in a crowd. She is just your average mom of two. According to Gabby she is middle-aged.
On a girls night out, she meets Matt, a social media mogul who is 10 years younger than her. Matt makes her feel like she hasn't felt in a very long time...far from middle-aged. But Gabby has been happily married to Elliott for years, and even though this young man is flattering and gorgeous, she would never do anything to ruin her family. But then Gabby and Matt begin to email and text and soon neither of their lives will be the same.
As women, when we age, we tend to lose our identities. We are used to being single and carefree and then we get married and have to learn to be a wife and share our lives with another person. Then the kids come along and it feels as if we are no longer ourselves. We're someone's wife and maybe a few peoples mother, seldom are we called by our own name. So when we get noticed, our minds start to turn, especially when we as women get noticed by the opposite sex. How we handle these types of situations can be a testament to our strength and character.
At times this book was predictable, which I don't think is a bad thing in this case. It's a story that you have probably heard in your real life. How the characters developed and the story progresses is what makes you want to continue to read. Jane Green always does a great job of writing about female relationships and emotions. This is the second Jane Green book I have read this year, the first being Jemima J. I have read a few others as well. Jane Green is now on my list of favorite authors.