Thank you so very much to Damp Pebbles Blog Tour for having me on this tour! I think this is one of my first blog tours with Damp Pebbles and I am so glad that I was able to get on this one. Check out the schedule above – all the accounts are Twitter accounts – and be sure to check out the Damp Pebbles website for other tours coming down the pipe.

Kalopsia – (n.) The delusion of things being more beautiful than they really are.

They say you never know what goes on behind closed doors, but do you really know what goes on outside your front door either?

Kate is a twenty-something, successful woman. Funny, attractive and independent, she seemingly has everything going for her. But when it comes to love, Kate wouldn’t know a good idea if she stopped at a zebra crossing and watched it pass by in front of her.

Suffering at the hands of her mentally abusive partner, she doesn’t quite have the gumption to leave. That is, until Greg shows an interest.

With Greg by her side and offering her everything she has ever wanted, Kate thinks she has finally met her prince. But will temporary feelings have permanent consequences?

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Lucinda is 31 years old in lives in Hampshire. Born in Aberdeenshire, she spent the early years of her life in a small fishing town before relocating with her mother to the South Coast.

She is the middle child and only girl with four brothers.

Lucinda began her higher education in studying Performing Arts and then began a degree in Law (but dropped out). She is a qualified hairdresser but the arts always drew her back in and she took up an interest in writing which she now plans to continue to make a career out of.
 
Mother of one, a baby boy, she works part time for a Business publication and spends her spare time soaking up the Hampshire countryside and plotting her next stories.

Disclaimer: I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thank you to Damp Pebbles Blog Tour and Next Chapter Publishing for this free copy. All quotes in this review are taken from the Advanced Reader Copy and may change in final publication.

I honestly don’t even know how to describe this novel, but it was definitely one that I won’t forget for a long time. There isn’t even a genre associated with this novel on Goodreads, so I can’t really categorize it into any one genre for me. I don’t know, and maybe it’s because I’m still trying to process what happened but I just really enjoyed it.

I didn’t enjoy the mentally abusive relationship, of course. Especially because being in a mentally abusive relationship in the past makes it hard for me to read about someone else having to endure it for entertainment purposes – meaning someone in a book having to deal with it, not saying that she’s literally going through it just for the hell of it – and it just hurts.

Then we have her wanting to leave her abusive relationship but not ready yet, and I totally understand that too. Even though she’s successful with her job and stuff, it doesn’t mean that she’s emotionally ready to leave what she has, even if she knows that it’s not good for her. And nobody can blame her for that.

Then not only that, but enter Greg and honestly like what the title of this book is, we don’t even know if this is actually going to be a good thing. And that honestly scares me too because I just want her to be happy, and to be away from the situation that she’s in but get out safely as well. It’s not just about getting out quickly, but also making sure that there’s no retaliation when she does. And that’s always the hard part.

So yeah, I definitely enjoyed what this book had to offer in the literature sense, but it was also hard for me to get through because of those parts.