A Life of Their Own by Pauline Tait

Three stars
TW: domestic violence

I wish I could give this book more than three stars but something about it just doesn't work for me. As a long-ago victim of domestic abuse, I get it. I get her fear. I get her inability to tell others while it was happening. I get her wanting to get as far away as she can. And I get her not turning him in. What I don't get is Kate's desperate need to get to Colorado.

The book starts off with a bang. Living in New York City, Kate is married to a monster and has finally wheedled away enough money to get herself and her two young children out of the house and on a train to ... Colorado, where an ex-boyfriend lived. They hop a train, then another, then another and so on until they reach their destination near Colorado Springs.

Kate quickly finds a cute bed and breakfast run by an older couple who take her and her children under their wings. How perfect! And if Kate does some housework her small family can stay there indefinitely. Perfect!

And so it goes that everything lines up perfectly for Kate. And I mean everything. Annoyingly so. Until the climax, which I could see coming from page 1. *sigh*

Here's one of my problems with this read: We know Kate was in an abusive relationship but almost no details were given about his treatment of her. The book would have been much stronger had the author spent more time on the front end of this story.

My second issue was how perfectly everything went for Kate after she left New York City. She needed perfect, but in real life that rarely happens.

And finally, and it's just a small tick, but the author uses English idioms and spellings in a book based in the U.S. I don't think in Colorado kids call their parents "mum," nor do they "tuck in" for supper. I expect and even enjoy that when I'm reading a novel is set in the U.K. I expect local language nuances and I didn't get that with this read.

All of that said, this book will be devoured by certain readers, and I do think it belongs on the shelves of those who enjoy romances because the writing style is quite good. It just wasn't for me so much.

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Read this review on Amazon or Goodreads.