It’s an unusual feeling when you reach out to one of your readers and your message to them bounces back.
I thought it was strange, so I googled their name. Top result – ‘Funeral Notice’. Same location in the UK where she lived.
I headed to her Facebook page and it was confirmed, a comment on one of her photos. Terrible news, a life ended too soon!
How I knew Jessica
Jessica was kind enough to read my novel, DECEPTION: A Love of Lies. She wrote a FANTASTIC review for it. Her in-depth look into my story and writing is something a writer dreams of. She made one of my dreams come true.
This is her review for DECEPTION. She had a wonderful mind – a really inquisitive reading mind.
Jessica’s DECEPTION review
Deception is an excellent read full of underlying themes, a powerful, emotional, gripping plot as well as overlying the main theme of deception, full of vivid imagery which brought the story to life in my mind, mind blowing and astounding twists, believe me, when you’ve read this review with the others here, you’ll be dying to read it yourself after my personal, analytical review!
Deception follows the main characters perspective in the 1st person (our main protagonist, Billy) and refers to other characters along the way and whisks you away into their world, the only criticism of this is that it is at times confusing in the book and at times i’ve wondered at what the other characters perspectives were. It also explores the following themes, i shall be expanding the themes in this review and they’ll be no spoilers:
1. Love/Lust/Obsession
2. Lies
3. Deception
4. Blackmail
5. Depression and Loss
6. The Sense of Community
7. Secrets
1: Love/Lust/Obsession:
Our main protagonist meets a woman called Eve in the woods walking his own dog, at first he has lustful thoughts and then falls in love. This book did make me cry at the sadness of the loss of love for Billy as he’s the sort of person i’d go for in my ideal man; smart, sensitive, loving and above all loyal and willing to fight for the person he loves. Obsession is experienced in this book too but i wont elaborate here for fear of spoiling the book for you.
2.Lies:
Lying features heavily in this novel and the lies in this book are not all good intentioned as they have a tiny effect on Billy’s state of mined and leads him to question things.
3. Deception (the main theme):
Deception can come in many forms such as lying but mainly a persons deception can happen on different levels. The deception in this book is so shocking and at points in this book horrible and it did make me angry at first but when you read this you may understand the motives just as I did.
4. Blackmail:
This is another theme discovered in this book and is another method of deception (point 3) and can be really harmful. Blackmail can be on a par with cohersion and Lies and i am grateful to say this is one theme i’ve never experienced and i hope i will never experience this.
5. Depression and Loss:
Depression and Loss is experienced in the novel in places and speaks volumes. Our lead, Billy has experienced loss that render anyone depressed ( shall not spoil things for you here). Depression and loss can happen on many horrible, hurtful levels they fringe from small losses such as the loss of freedom.
6. The Sense of Community:
This book is set with a community of characters, each one with their own identity. But we don’t get to know them very well as they are only featured at times in this book.
7. Secrets
Now i’ll start by saying here that everyone has secrets, some secrets can be more shocking than others. Secrets can be kept to both protect a person and harm another person. We are complex as human beings and can have reasons to keep secrets. In this book there are many secrets but i’m afraid you’ll have to read it for yourselves as to find out what they are.
These are all my compelling reasons for why I’ve given this book a 5 star rating and believe me, I was so glad i read this book and did this review. This author is one to watch in years to come and I for one will be keeping a close eye on his books for further titles! T.J. Blake, I was extremely honoured to read and enjoy your book and wish you all the best for your long future as a author!
A really great review from Jessica. A lot of thought and time was put into this one. It reminded me of the kind of review you would write in an english class for a book – it’s wonderful.
Jessica wanted to keep an eye out for my future work, so it’s a real shame I can’t entertain her some more in the future!
T. J. Blake #Author 