Title: Jenna’s Journey
Author: Julie Ryan
Genre: Women’s Fiction, Romance, Mystery
Publication Date: September 8, 2015
About the Book
Leaving town, heading to the Greek Isles without telling husband or friends, is heady medicine for a failing marriage. Seduced by Grecian sun and sky, Jenna innocently buys a bewitching urn that tangles her into the web of a criminal world more sinister than she ever imagined. Romance is always afoot in the Greek Isles and Jenna gets a large helping with the seductive Nikos. Family is important in Greece, and Nikos helps Jenna learn all the richness it brings, and pass it on to the next generation.
Twenty-five years later, Allie takes this same journey, and a little time travel, a big “what if” dream, a fated meeting with a taxi driver and a sprinkle of paranormal intrigue intertwine in a story that spans the lives of a mother and daughter. Twisty as the streets in a Greek island village, full of unexpected characters found on a faraway vacation along with frightening threats from nasty villains, Jenna’s Journey will keep you turning pages far into the night.
Working out a lifetime of secrets, imagining what might have been, eluding nasty antiquities thieves, exploring a new love—how would you have managed? Follow Jenna’s adventure and see how she changed her life in one journey!
My Review
I received a free ecopy of this book for an honest review.
This is a difficult book to review because it has some really good elements, some not so good, and some I still haven’t decided on.
After 5 years, Jenna decides on the spur of the moment that she needs to get away from her husband, Greg, for a while to think after she realizes that he doesn’t want children. She goes to Greece without telling anyone where she is going, and she has quite an adventure, including romance and being followed by criminals.
I enjoyed the author’s writing style for the most part. I did do some skipping of paragraphs at times when Jenna was thinking about her relationship with Greg. She decided over and over that the best thing would be to leave him. Although that’s actually how many of us come to a decision, going over and over it in our heads, it was a bit too much to read over and over. I enjoyed the descriptions of Greece. They were well done but not over done.
There were some questions left unanswered which I would have liked resolved. There were also some inconsistencies that confused me. I liked that Jenna had a choice to make and we get to see the results of both choices. The end, however, had me flabbergasted. I can’t say that I like how it ended, but because of the end I did think about this book for a couple of days trying to figure out exactly what the author was trying to convey.
Available on Amazon
About the Author
Julie Ryan’s roots are in a small mining village in South Yorkshire. After a degree in French Language and Literature, wanderlust kicked in and she lived and worked in France, Poland, Thailand and Greece. Her spirit enriched, her imagination fired, Julie started a series of mystery romances, thrillers set in the Greek Isles.
Jenna’s Journey is the first novel in Julie Ryan’s Greek Islands Series, a series she did not set out to create but which took on its own life and grew, rich and fascinating. This is the first of three published so far, and now as a newly released edition in the USA from Booktrope, it promises to delight readers looking for the hidden dark sides of dream vacations in the Greek Isles.
A prolific and well-known book review blogger, Julie does her writing and reviewing from rural Gloucestershire, where she lives with her husband, son and dippy cat with half a tail.
Social Media Links for Julie Ryan
Website/blog for the Greek Isles series: https://thegreekurn.wordpress.com/
Book review website: http://allthingsbookie.com/
Blog: http://juliesworldofbooks.blogspot.com/
Facebook: https://facebook.com/julie.ryan.3114
Twitter: @julieryan18
Background for the Book
Jenna’s Journey is the first novel in the Greek Islands Series series. The story was inspired by the time I lived in Greece during the 1980s. Some thirty years later I was looking out of the window of my home in Gloucestershire on a wintry morning, idly wondering how my life would have been different if I’d stayed in Greece. I hadn’t intended to write a novel. Jenna’s Journey started life as a short story and thanks to a timely encounter with a fellow writer who persuaded me to turn it into a novel, it took on a life of its own and became the start of the Greek Island mystery series.
I’ve always been interested in fate or destiny, whatever you wish to call it, and this book is about all the ‘what ifs’ in life. It’s also about grabbing a chance of happiness with both hands when it’s offered – life really is too short!
Bound 4 Escape