Monday 13 June 2016

Release Day Blitz & Review ~ 1986 by Morgan Parker

 

Title: 1986
Author: Morgan Parker
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Release Date: June 13th



Book Description:

Allana Harrison wanted out. She wanted to escape her painful, broken past and enjoy a fresh start somewhere else. Anywhere else. And while all of the boys in high school and college promised to deliver that dream, only one man actually pulled through.

Now a young adult, Allana finds herself on the opposite side of the world, in a prosperous and rich town that's not only isolated from her past, but from the crime, grime and hustle of bigger cities, in a country where she doesn't understand the language or know anybody else except her husband. And that's how she likes it.

Until she meets Alex, another American who ends up being her only other friend, the one person who reminds her of what it's like to feel desired, wanted and hungered for. 

Except Alex has motives. And Alex has questions -- about her husband's work at the world's most-advanced, leading-edge power station, questions he wants answered... and when Allana can no longer provide them, Alex threatens to reveal the secrets of their forbidden past, secrets that will destroy the man that saved her.

Caught between two men -- one she loves and the other she can't help but love -- Allana must deliberate the role she plays in the moments leading to humankind's greatest disaster... in 1986.


Buy Links:



Our Review:

Reviewed by Donna ~ 3.5 stars
***ARC received for an honest review***


“Before we ever arrived in the Soviet Ukraine, my destiny had been written.”


This was a book that I signed up to read for a few reasons, I loved the eighties, I loved the cover and the synopsis pulled me in. Although it is intimated in the synopsis this book is a story based around the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, Morgan Parker delivers a book full of mystery and suspense as you valiantly try to determine who is good and who is bad, while at the forefront of the story is the relationship between Vasy and his wife, Allana…oh and Alex.


“…with Alex, she felt untouchable; with Vasy she felt indestructible.”


1986 is Morgan Parker’s take on the conspiracy theories pertaining to America's influence with the Chernobyl disaster and is all about the spies and their relationship to the disaster as well as the romantic relationships between them. Double crossing, rogue agents and espionage all led to a thrilling read that had me glued to the pages.

I was a teenager when Chernobyl happened, every news station around the world had that picture that will forever be ingrained into my memory, that mushroom cloud of fire, smoke and radioactive particles that forever altered the life of so many. I was too young to really comprehend the gravity of the situation at the time, however, since reading 1986 I felt compelled to read up about it and really understand exactly what they were. I am seriously appalled.

While Morgan Parker’s book is by no means a historical recount of this disaster is does call in to question just how much this could be true and how much really was fiction. It was obvious that he had really done his homework with regards to the nuclear station itself and the mechanics of it too. I’m not a real history buff and by no means a historical reader but this book was an addictive read and I felt myself more involved with the mystery side rather than the romantic relationships that were at the forefront of this novel, this I feel was due to the third person narrative rather than the story itself.

It is obvious that Morgan Parker is extremely talented, however for me to really understand a character I need to connect with them and for me this was lacking in this story, as I said above I do feel this was due to third person, but none the less, this was a real page turner and an addictive read.

Allana wanted to escape her life in the US and her relationship with Vasy gave her the out and the new start that she desperately wanted. Now married and living in Pripyat in the USSR Allana is despondent with the new life that she has been given, she is incredibly lonely in a city where she knows no-one, doesn’t speak the language and is married to a man that constantly works at least an eighty-hour week. Vasy, knowing how lonely his wife was asked his friend, Alex, to keep her company. Alex was an American too and Vasy thought that he would be the one Allana could relate to the most. Alex and Allana become friends and all too soon the lines of friendships blur.


“Alone. Isolated. Unloved.”


In a flip flop of emotions for Allana her loyalties are tested and she does revert back to the cheating life that she wanted to escape from. I desperately wanted to understand her but I couldn’t, it seemed that she did actually love two men at the same time and her inner thoughts and feelings only really scratched the surface of what I wanted to know. However, are the two men in her life what they seem to be? Is Allana’s life really what she thinks it is? Can anyone be trusted?


“Temptation is fun…surrendering is even better.”


As I said, I loved the history and the mystery surrounding this read. It was extremely well written and totally engaging and actually was a book that I didn’t want to end. Who were the winners and losers in this book? For me no-one won and that was the perfect result. A great read and I will definitely be checking out other books by Morgan Parker.

About the Author:


As the author of the best-selling mystery romance, Surviving Goodbye, Morgan Parker has written several other novels under this pen name. In 2012 and 2013, he self-published Textual Encounters and Textual Encounters: 2, respectively. As a result of the interest in these two stories, he wrote non friction, an unconventional love story. That love story earned Mr. Parker a tremendous amount of attention and at the insistence of his readers, he followed it with Hope (a novella) and Sick Day. All three of those stories have spent time on Amazon best-seller lists. 

When not writing, Morgan likes to spend time gathering story material from his two young children, rereading books by Colin Harrison, and napping where he discovered the Type II Sleep State, which is the topic for an untitled trilogy to be released in late-2016.

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