Blog Tour Review: What Happened to Us ? by Faith Hogan

What Happened to Us? by Faith Hogan

Published:  October 2nd 2018

Publisher: Aria

Pages: 444

Available on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 5/5

Blurb

Carrie Nolan is devastated when she is dumped by Kevin Mulvey after more than a decade without even a backwards glance! On reflection, she has sacrificed her own long term happiness establishing their critically acclaimed Dublin restaurant and pandering to his excessive ego.

Meanwhile Kevin can’t believe his luck. Valentina, their new waitress is a stunner, the kind of girl that turns heads when she walks in a room and surprise, surprise she has chosen him! He is living the dream!

Carrie seeks solace from a circle of mismatched friends who need her as much as she needs them. Jane, who struggles to run the pub on the opposite side of the street, Luke, who has stopped drifting while his father settles in a nearby nursing home and Teddy, a dog who asks for nothing more than the chance to stay by Carrie’s side.

With Christmas just around the corner, all is not quite as it seems and a catastrophic sequence of events leads to the unthinkable...

How far do you need to fall before you learn the true value of family and friends? And is it ever too late to start again...

Review

I was introduced to Faith Hogan’s writing earlier this year when I read The Woman I Used to Know, that was a book I adored so I was very much looking forward to reading What Happened to Us and hoping that it had the same beautiful story-telling which I loved from her previous book, which it did in fact this one may just have edged ahead as my favourite.

Carrie and Kevin have been together for ten years and during that time they’ve founded and made a success of their restaurant The Sea Pear. Life is moving along okay for both until Kevin drops the bombshell that he’s leaving Carrie and moving in with younger waitress Valentina who’s just started working at the restaurant. Carrie’s then left alone wondering what to do with the rest of her life, but luck’s her side and she meets three characters who help her to piece her life back together. Little lost dog Teddy takes a shine to Carrie and she takes him home, where the two form a strong bond.  Old lady Jane who lives and works across from The Sea Pear has Carrie down as her emergency contact, so when she’s admitted to hospital Carrie is summoned and the two become closer during hospitals visiting hours. Drifter Luke helps Carrie find her lost key one night, he’s drawn to the Marchant Inn where Jane lives and after seeing her taken to hospital he vows to find out if she’s okay.

Carrie, Jane and Luke quickly form a close friendship and discover that fate has a funny way of bringing you exactly the right people into your life at the right time. The journey these three go on was a delight to read about as their all characters which are easily relatable. Carrie was a lovely character and I warmed to her immediately. She’s warm, loving, caring and very down to earth and despite having her heart broken by Kevin, she’s still civil to him while working at the restaurant even when it emerges that Valentina might not be as perfect as Kevin thinks.  Jane and Luke have their own demons to work through and Faith Hogan has dealt with their issues in a sensitive and charming way making it very easy to be immersed into this book.

I’ve loved reading What Happened to Us it’s a wonderful story of forgiveness, second chances and love and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who loves a character driven novel.

About the Author

Faith was born in Ireland and currently lives there with her husband, four children and two fussy cats. She gained an Honors Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate from University College, Galway. She was a winner in the 2014 Irish Writers Centre Novel Fair- an international competition for emerging writers. When she’s not writing, she’s an enthusiastic dog walker and reluctant jogger.

Follow Faith

Twitter: @gerhogan

Facebook: @faithhoganauthor

Buy links

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2Pv3cCJ
iBooks: https://apple.co/2BBjSpp

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2o3aMrV
Google Play: http://bit.ly/2OHDsSO

Follow Aria

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction

Facebook: @ariafiction

Instagram: @ariafiction

Blog Tour: The Girl I Used to Know by Faith Hogan

The Girl I Used to Know by Faith Hogan

Published: 1st Deceber 2017

Publisher: Aria

Pages: 298

Available in Paperback and on Kindle

Order now from Amazon

Rating: 5/5

Blurb

Amanda King and Tess Cuffe are strangers who share the same Georgian house, but their lives couldn't be more different.

Amanda seems to have it all, absolute perfection. She projects all the accoutrements of a lady who lunches. Sadly, the reality is a soulless home, an unfaithful husband and a very lonely heart.

By comparison, in the basement flat, unwanted tenant Tess has spent a lifetime hiding and shutting her heart to love.

It takes a bossy doctor, a handsome gardener, a pushy teenager and an abandoned cat to show these two women that sometimes letting go is the first step to moving forward and new friendships can come from the most unlikely situations.

Review

Tess Cuffe and Amanda King have shared the same house for almost twenty years and yet they know nothing about each other. Amanda has lived in the top three floors of their Georgian townhouse with husband David and their children Casper and Robyn. Tess has lived alone in the basement flat, an unwanted tenant that Amanda and David have battled to be rid of.  But both of these women have one thing in common they’re both lonely and as the new year beckons they both begin to question their life choices and slowly the hostility between them begins to thaw.

Helped along by a stray cat, a sexy gardener named Carlos, a meddling Doctor and Amanda’s caring daughter Robyn and  the pair begin to form an unlikely friendship as they set about resolving the mistakes from their past.

This was an incredibly well written story and I can’t believe Faith Hogan is an author I’ve not come across before, her story-telling is so heartfelt and engaging. I loved the journey that Tess and Amanda went on in this book. At the beginning Tess comes across as a grumpy and rather sarcastic old woman and Amanda as a preened and polished airhead, luckily through the flashbacks to their earlier years we realise this is not the case. Both women have deeply hidden passions which have been crushed by unthoughtful men in their lives.

This is a wonderful story of friendship, family, love, loss and betrayal. It’s a story about second chances and how it’s never too late to change your life, no matter how old you are. It’s about forgiveness and following your dreams. It’s one of those books where you find yourself just reading one more chapter because you just need to know what happens next.  I loved every page of this book and can’t wait to devour more of Faith Hogan’s writing.

Thank you so much to Melanie at Aria for sending me a copy to review and inviting me to be part of this blog tour.