After launching this lovely new feature of mine during [Autumn, 2018] it is a pleasure of joy to continue to bring #SaturdaysAreBookish as a compliment focus of my Twitter chat @SatBookChat. If you see the chat icon at the top of my blog (header bar) you can click over to visit with us. The complimentary showcases on my blog will reflect the diversity of stories, authors and publishers I would be featuring on the chat itself. As at the root and heart of the chat are the stories I am reading which compliment the conversations.

#SaturdaysAreBookish throughout [2019] will be featuring the Romance & Women’s Fiction authors I am discovering to read across genre and point of interest. Every Saturday will feature a different author who writes either Romance or Women’s Fiction – the stories I am reading might simply inspire the topics in the forthcoming chats or they might be directly connected to the current guest author.

I am excited about where new guests and new stories will lay down the foundation of inspiring the topics, the conversations and the bookish recommendations towards promoting Romance & Women’s Fiction. Here’s a lovely New Year full of new authors and their stories to celebrate!

Borrowed Book By: I first discovered the collective works of Ms Belle in [2015] when I featured a guest post for her novel “The Ones We Trust” when I was a blogger working with TLC Book Tours. I wasn’t able to request the book for review consideration which is why I oft mused about when I could read the novel as my local library hadn’t yet purchased a copy to read. Fast forward through the years, as I tipped @AudioShelfMe (a podcast which grew into a booktube and bookstagram channel) towards her collective works – I noted how well Brad & Britney had taken a hankering to her stories as they would frequently showcase her novels. I caught their podcasts, happily interacted with the three of them on Twitter and re-thought about how to get a hold of Ms Belle’s novels myself! This is why over the Summer of 2019, I decided to see what was available at my local libraries these four years later. I happily found two novels in print and one in audiobook; though technically, “Three Days Missing” and “Dear Wife” were also available at different intervals but I’ll discuss those within the context of this post.

I borrowed a print copy of “The Ones We Trust” and “The Last Breath” whereas I borrowed an audiobook copy of “The Marriage Lie” via my local libraries. The audiobook was courtesy of their OverDrive digital libraries which I was thankful to find as they can be streamed rather easily. I am choosing to share my reflections and takeaways on behalf of these novels without obligation to post my ruminative thoughts about them. The Press Materials shown on this post were provided by the author Kimberly S. Belle and are used with permission; as these stories were a focal point of a recent @SatBookChat wherein the author was a featured guest on 5th October, 2019. I did not receive compensation for my opinions or thoughts shared herein.

Hallo, Hallo dear hearts!

As you might have spied via my bookish feeds on Twitter – via both @joriestory + @satbookchat, my lovely guest author this weekend is none other than Contemporary Women’s Fiction novelist : Kimberly S. Belle! A delightful author I first crossed paths with during a [2015] TLC Book Tours showcase for her second novel “The Ones We Trust” which at the time left quite the strong impression on me even without having had the chance to read it.

Our paths re-crossed on #bookishTwitter, especially when I nudged the hosts of #AudioShelf (@AudioShelfMe) to give her stories a whirl and see if they might be a good ‘fit’ for their bookish podcast. I happily enjoyed listening to their journey into her collective works, whilst looking forward to the day where I could begin my own!

This Summer I had earmarked myself to read her novels in reverse order – starting with her latest release “Dear Wife” and moving backwards into “The Last Breath” which was her debut release in [2014]. However, as life continues to prove, our best plans end up needing a bit of an adaption when some curve-balls enter into the fray! I had some serious health issues post-May due to those 5x cluster migraines I succumbed too during #WyrdAndWonder whilst life became a smidge adverse with numerous plumbing fiascos which included 2x major *flooding* incidents! Woo was Jorie this Summer!

Needless, I kept :pushing: forward my readings of Ms Belle’s novels, eagerly looking forward to seeing my turn in the queue lines dwindle down to where I could pick them up (either the physical copies and/or the digital audiobooks via OverDrive for my libraries) – a few separate times I saw myself having either the audiobook for “Dear Wife” or the print version on my loans shelf – whilst it took a bit more time to track down print copies of “The Ones We Trust” & “The Last Breath” as I waited in queue for the audiobooks of “Three Days Missing” and “Dear Wife” to boomerang back into my loan shelves!

To be honest – the narrator for “Dear Wife” did not convince me to listen to the novel – there was something I was simply not connecting with in how the story was being delivered through the narration itself and this can and does happen to me, dear hearts. There are some narrators of whom I dearly want to *love!* listening narrate a story but in the end, I find they are not the right fit for me in the context of that story at all. Other times, they woo me to read an author I might not have connected with in print; so it just depends, really. I also found the story a bit more jolting – it had more abrasive language and the context in the beginning wasn’t very appealling to me either but I think that had to due to the situations & the subjects explored moreso than anything else. Some story-lines are just not a good fit for me and this one fell into that category.

Likewise, the narrator for “Three Days Missing” was a rough go for me – I couldn’t even put my finger on what was wrong listening to this novel until I started listening to “The Marriage Lie” and recognised the differences between all three audiobooks. The narrator’s approach in this third novel ropes you in rather immediately – from her accent, to how she is articulating the story and personalising your reading experience by how she’s presenting her characters – it felt full and expressive and that kind of narration is my favourite – so even if the story was a punch-gut hit to the dramatic, it was a story I felt I might honestly enjoy hearing due to the narration & how Belle would walk us through a rather remarkable plot!

Overall, the three novels I selected to showcase this weekend and to begin the discussion into how she curates her tone, narrative style & the convicting story-lines of her Contemporary Women’s Fiction Suspense Thrillers is to focus on the trifecta of her collective works which for me were novels one, two & three! The second as mentioned I had a special reason of wanting to read it having hosted the blog tour; the debut as I love to see where a writer begins their writerly career and the third, quite literally was decided due to the narrator who breathed a breath of life into the book as it funnelled its way into my ears!

I lost the hours to properly devour each of these lovelies in full – but as you will see, even with my method of ‘previewing’ the stories ahead of #SatBookChat, I have quite a heap to share about what I am finding inside them; which either meant I was curiously hopeful about what would happen next or I was so dearly chilled by what I found inside the story itself, I realised I could not pursue it further.

Without further adieu,
I give you my first “#SatBookChat sampler”
ahead of conversing with the author whose penned these chilling stories of Women’s Fiction!

The Contemporary Women’s Fiction novels of Kimberly S. Belle

I sampled ahead of #SatBookChat’s conversation!

The Last Breath (2014)

The Ones We Trust (2015)

The Marriage Lie (audiobook) (2016)

 → forthcoming release: Stranger in the Lake (2020)

Converse via: #AudioReads + #AutumnReads with #KimberlyBelle
also #WomensFiction #Suspense or #Thriller

Be sure to stay tuned to @SatBookChat for the transcript post-chat in ‘Moments’ – where I am housing our chat archives after having lost years worth of conversations to Nurph & Storify. Also, if you would like to share or respond to ANY of the chat’s talking points, kindly add our tag #SatBookChat and carry on the convo with us! Likewise, visit our Info Page.

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