**I received a complimentary copy for consideration. All thoughts are my own.

About the Book

Book: Revived Hope

Author: Kathleen J. Robison

Genre: Christian Romantic Suspense

Release date: October 19, 2021

How many near misses does it take not to be a coincidence anymore?

Melanie Thompson has spent her entire adult life trying to overcome the mistakes of her youth. Just as everything is looking up, it all begins to unravel as one problem after another piles on top of each other, each with one goal in mind. Get her out of the way.

Determined to make a better life for herself and her daughter, and with the help of her father, Melanie looks at alternative ways to make her dream of owning a storefront for her bridal business come true. Complications with her ex-husband, the new business, and a threatening landlord all conspire against her, and everything seems lost when tragedy strikes not once, but twice.

What will it take for Melanie to accept the alternate path the Lord has laid out for her?

Revived Hope, the prequel to the romantic suspense Bay Town Series, paves the path for Melanie and Lacey’s move from Orange County to the Mississippi Gulf Coast and a new life in Bay Town.

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About the Author

Kathleen J. Robison is an Okinawan-American. Born in Okinawa, raised in California, Florida, Mississippi, and Singapore. Her travels are the inspirational settings for her stories. She and her Pastor husband have eight adult children. Seven are married, blessing them with fourteen grandchildren and counting. The diversity of their 31 family members provide the inspiration for more lively characters than can be imagined. Her husband grew up in the streets of Los Angeles raised by a single working mom, and that life provides fodder for many of the conflicts of her characters.

Tackling difficult life’s trials with God’s strength are the central theme of Kathleen’s stories. She hopes to inspire her readers to trust God and with His strength, weather through and rise above trials and tragedies. If you like suspenseful stories with a thread of romance, you will enjoy Kathleen’s Bay Town Series

More from Kathleen

In Revived Hope, the prequel to Shattered Guilt, it’s one year earlier. Melanie Thompson races through life’s challenges while navigating the trials of being a single mother, a budding entrepreneur, and a woman of faith, all with threats of danger.

Our past doesn’t define us, as Melanie learns, but it definitely frames who we become. Thankfully, we have a gracious God who uses all of the good and the bad to bring us to a place of communion with Him…desiring His will for His glory. And ultimately, it’s always for our good.

I love my character Melanie, and I hope you will too. I’ve spent so many years getting to know her that it was fun writing this prequel. I enjoyed writing about her past and introducing you to her family in California before the move to charming fictional Bay Town in Shattered Guilt. When I wrote of Melanie’s relationship with her dad, I laughed, I cried, and I left my heart in the book…in a manner of speaking.

But Revived Hope is not all sweetness and heartache. Things get pretty testy when Melanie tackles villains head-on and sometimes all alone. Often the world encourages us to do it all, and Melanie tries. Although tragedy strikes too many times, the lessons she learns strengthen her faith and trust in the Almighty.

Lastly, Revived Hope teases with a hint of romance but sets the stage for Melanie’s love story in Shattered Guilt, Book 1, Bay Town Series. I’m excited for you to meet Melanie and her family as you root for her in all her harrowing escapades.

My Thoughts

Revived Hope is a prelude to book one of Bay Town series. If you read Shattered Guilt and enjoyed Melanie's character as I did, it will be a chance to go back and see what her life was like before she came to Bay Town. It's always fun to revisit a character we enjoyed, even if it is before we met them to start with, isn't it? If you haven't yet read that first book, this will give you an introduction before you do. Part of me thinks that perhaps I would have liked to have read this one first, but ultimately, they can be enjoyed in either order.

As with Shattered Guilt, I feel like the author did a great job of creating very real characters and a story that feels genuine. She takes on difficult topics in a way that is honest, and she does so with grace. It is a quick read, but one filled with messages of faith that fans of Christian fiction are sure to enjoy.