Dark Enough to See the Stars - Beth Duke - ★★★.½

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AUTHOR: Beth Duke

SERIES: It All Comes Back to You, #2
GENRE: Contemporary Drama with Historical Elements. 
RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: Enjoyed this sequel. Emotional and relatable. Can’t be read as a standalone though. You need Book One (It All Comes Back to You) to appreciate the contents of Book Two.

Story Synopsis: (No Spoilers about either book of this duology.)
2020. Ronni is back working as a nurse after her successful book about Violet. She knows she has no more books in her, plus her fulfilling personal life leaves her with no motivation to pick up the pen again. However, when she gets an email from Chet Wilson’s son, claiming his dad has been misrepresented in her book and asking that she reveal the truth about Chet, Ronni is unsure of what to do. As circumstances change and the facts of the past come tumbling out right as the facts of the present begin to alter, Ronni is caught is a whirlpool of emotions, leading her to go digging yet again into the story of all those characters whom she thought she had left behind.
The story comes to us in the first person perspective of Ronni, with the historical timeline coming in a limited third person perspective of various characters.
The contemporary timeline is based three years after the events of Book One.


As this is a sequel to ‘It All Comes Back to You’, it is going to be tough to review this novel fairly without revealing too much of the first book. Moreover, some of the most interesting parts of this story are also major spoilers. So my review will be quite vague – I wish I could tell you more though!


Where the book worked for me:
😍 For a change, I liked the contemporary timeline better than the historical one. (Usually, historical timelines are my bae.) There were quite a few emotional scenes and I could identify with the feelings of heartbreak and loss.

😍 The historical narrative begins a bit earlier this time, starting in 1946. So we see many of the same events, but this time from different characters’ perspectives. The integration between the two books for the historical is quite good. Most of the gaps in the sequence of events narrated in Book One are sorted out in this book.

😍 It was nice seeing the perspectives of some of the secondary characters from the first book. We got only a glimpse of their actions earlier; now we know why they did what they did.

😍 The book goes to establish how important it is to not jump to conclusions on hearing only one side of the story, which is what happened in the first book when Ronni writes an entire novel using only Violet’s narration. A lesson for all of us to remember. There are always two sides to a story.

😍 The writing is very fast-paced and it is easy to complete this within a day or two.

😍 The author’s familiarity with her location and culture is put to good use in both timelines. She uses the story to break many stereotypical assumptions people make about those living in the Southern part of the USA.

😍 There is a running joke in the 2020 timeline about how people keep recommending topics to writers for their next books. It was funny to see how and how often Ronni got this “friendly advice” even from strangers. Of course, this might be more irritating than hilarious to authors in real life, lol.

😍 The author's note at the end is among the sweetest I've read. Loved all the cute hints about how to picture the people mentioned.


Where the book could have worked better for me:
☹ I wish we could have had a little more of Johnny. He is the only character from the past timeline whose story still feels incomplete.

☹ There are more than a few references to good looks, and almost all of the relationships are either based on or initiated by a reference to the character’s physical appeal.

☹ There are too many characters, too many perspectives, and too many interconnections. While these come out okay, it is a task to remember who’s who and who is related to whom.

☹ The spoken dialogues of the children are hardly ever accurate of their age. While one is explained away by saying the child is ‘precocious’ (well, she herself declares it), another case of a one-year-old speaking in comprehensible sentences was farfetched.


Can it be read as a standalone?
Well, technically it can be as there is no great dependency between the two books. But I don’t think you will be able to appreciate this novel unless you know the events that transpired before. Violet was a key character in the first book, and without learning of her story, you wont get most of the historical events in this sequel. So I would recommend reading the books in the right order.


Overall, I am glad I read this sequel as it allowed me the closure I needed after reading the first book. Some of the events are a bit traumatic, but if read when you are in the proper headspace, this book will hit you the right way. 

My thanks to Zooloo’s Book Tours and author Beth Duke for a complimentary copy of “Dark Enough to See the Stars” and allowing me to be a part of this blog tour. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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Author Beth Duke:

Beth Dial Duke is an Amazon #1 Best Selling author and the recipient of short story awards on two continents. She is eyeing the other five.
Beth lives in the mountains of her native Alabama with her husband, one real dog, and one ornamental dog. She loves reading, writing, and not arithmetic. Baking is a hobby, with semi-pro cupcakes and amateur macarons a specialty. And puns--the worse, the better. Travel is her other favorite thing, along with joining book groups for discussion. If a personal visit isn't possible, she is fluent in Zoom.
Please visit her official website for more information, to request a book club visit, and to see photos of the most beautiful readers in the world!.

Follow her at:
Website : bethduke.com

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Get this book:

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This has been a pitstop on the #DarkEnoughToSeeTheStars blog tour conducted by Zooloo's Book Tours. (Twitter Handle: @ZooloosBT)


Thanks for stopping by!

Comments

  1. Zooloo's Book Diary22 January 2023 at 02:34

    thank you so much for sharing your post today on the tour and sharing your review x

    ReplyDelete

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