Sunday, 8 May 2016

✪ The Empty Jar ✪ M. Leighton ✪

© Bianca Janeane




M. LEIGHTON
The empty Jar
• release date: 8 May 2016
• 414 pages
• standalone romantic women's fiction

★★★★★
5 Stars


Three months touring Europe.
Romantic. Dazzling. Unforgettable.
The trip of a lifetime.

But some lifetimes are shorter...

We couldn’t have known it would work out this way.
No one could. No one could’ve guessed that something so beautiful could be so tragic.

But it is tragic.

Yet so, so beautiful.

That’s what sacrifice is
beauty and tragedy.
It’s pain and suffering for something or someone you love.

And this is the ultimate sacrifice.
One stunning act of true love.

This is our story.
Our true love story.


40-year old Helena (Lena) and her husband Nate are about to leave for a 3-month dream vacation to Europe. Nate quit his job so that they could have this one last dream before...
Before what we don't really know. Michelle has the reader guessing what will happen - who will die, because someone is cleary sick and about to die. We just don't know if it's Lena or Nate.
We only know that this story will be heartbreakingly sad....

Off to Europe we go...Last adventures are to be had - and some last beautiful memories are to be made....
England, Italy et cetera.



And then it's time to come back home to face the brutal reality once again.
But now there might be a tiny little blip of hope on the horizon...probably not the one we first hoped for, but still a bit of hope... a HUGE bit of hope and strength for the one left behind....

What will happen with Lena & Nate???
Who will die??


Or is it something completely different than what the blurb and the beginning of the book led us to believe will happen?

I'm not telling you that of course ☺



_________________________________



Ugh, what is it with those UGLY CRY books ...



...they're everywhere suddenly.
I LOVE THEM.... but
It used to be only Nicholas Sparks who made us cry and now it's every 5th book.
Why do authors have to let people die all the time??? I know for most of these authors those dying stories are about something deeply personal, but still :/ I don't want people to die. Enough people die in real life - I don't want them dying in my romances!
I love a good cry in my books - but I also want there to be a very Happy End.
I'm SO not telling you how this book ends. ☺☺☺ You have to cry yourself all the way through to the end.☺

I really loved the story.
It's something completely different to what we normally read every day.
It's something very near to Michelle's heart and life. Something she just had to write to move on...

It's not a New Adult thing for starters. Those New Adult books have been all over the place for years now. And even though we would love to be a new Adult for the rest of forever, I think most of us are long past the New Adult age...☺

Lena is already 40. She already had her New Adult romance with Nate almost 20 years ago. Only we were not present as a reader back then. (Although we might take a tiny little trip back to remember!) We only know that they still love each other so very much.
And we are sooo afraid that one of them will die and leave the other one behind...
Ugh... horrible.
But also very beautiful.
I was a bit weirded out at first, by the blurb and the beautiful in it. The blurb already kind of tells you that someone will die and that everything will be sooo sad...but then Michelle goes and says that everything is sooo beautiful too... I didn't know what to think of that...
But now I know - the story was beautiful.
Lena and Nate have this amazingly beautiful love that everybody is dreaming of, but only a few people will ever experience. So I guess it's the old - better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all? I guess it is.
Everything that happens to Nate & Lena, and everything that happens to the one left behind... it's all so very heartbreakingly beautiful and full of grief and hope and sadness and happiness and sooo much love.
Ugh - this all sounds so very cheesy and made-for-tv-movie-ish - but it's really a very beautiful story.
The way Nate loves his wife and the way Lena loves him back. Beautiful.



I guess those cry-a-lot books are not for every reader - I heard of this weird species of reader who  NEVER cries while reading *gasp* how is that possible? I cry at the slightest sadness in almost every book. How can you not cry in a book like.... Me Before You or any Nicholas Sparks book??? o.O
Just try THE EMPTY JAR - it might make you cry ... or not - but it definitely will make you think and/or remember and it will make you fall in love with Nate & Lena!


 THE EMPTY JAR was such a beautiful + heartbreakingly sad story! I might have started crying before the prologue and didn't stop until The End. I dare you to give Nate & Lena a chance to make you cry too!

oooh and I LOVED how Michelle named the chapters after songs #ConfessionTimeIMightBeATinyLittleBitOfABonJoviFangirl ♥

If I had to mention something that I hated about the book?? Hm yeah... religion, God, praying. Those things are hard limits for me. I hate them in my books. But unfortunately I have yet to read a moving (US american) story where people die without all that in it. Please authors - try writing ONE heartbreakingly moving story withour praying and god and church in it - please! People CAN and DO die every day and they're not religious ... #RantOver #NoOffenseIntended ☺


coming soon





LINKS TO THE BOOK AND AUTHOR




Stalking Michelle:




 New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author, M. Leighton, is a native of Ohio. She relocated to the warmer climates of the South, where she can be near the water all summer and miss the snow all winter. Possessed of an overactive imagination from early in her childhood, Michelle finally found an acceptable outlet for her fantastical visions: literary fiction. Having written over a dozen novels, these days Michelle enjoys letting her mind wander to more romantic settings with sexy Southern guys, much like the one she married and the ones you'll find in her latest books. When her thoughts aren't roaming in that direction, she'll be riding wild horses, skiing the slopes of Aspen or scuba diving with a hot rock star, all without leaving the cozy comfort of her office.

About Michelle: I love coffee and chocolate, even more so when they are combined. I'm convinced that one day they could be the basis for world peace. I also love the color red and am seriously considering dying my hair.