Book Blog Tour: The Grave Tender
This week I’m once again joining up with #LoneStarLit for a book blog tour for The Grave Tender. We’ve got an amazing giveaway, so be sure to enter for a chance to win the book and more!!!
THE GRAVE TENDER
by
by
By Eliza Maxwell
Genre: Women’s Fiction / Psychological Suspense
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Date of Publication: April 11, 2017
Number of Pages: 248
Scroll down for Giveaway!
A chilling psychological suspense novel, The Grave Tender explores the dark boundaries people cross to save loved ones, and the limits of family bonds tested by the deepest of betrayals.
Endless questions from a shadow-filled East Texas childhood haunt Hadley Dixon. People said her mother, Winnie, was never quite right, but with one single, irreparable act, life as Hadley knew it was shattered. The aftershocks of that moonlit night left her reeling, but the secrets and lies had started long before.
When a widowed and pregnant Hadley returns years later, it’s not the safe harbor she expects. The mysteries surrounding a local boy’s disappearance remain, and the townspeople still whisper about Hadley’s strange and reclusive Uncle Eli—whispers about a monster in their midst.
But Hadley’s father and grandmother, the cornerstones of everything safe in her world, avoid her questions. If Hadley stays here, will she be giving her children the family they need or putting their lives in danger?
The hunt for answers takes a determined Hadley deep into the pine forests, in search of sunlight that will break through the canopy of lies long enough to reveal the truth.
“The Grave Tender will grasp you in its hooks from the beginning as you try to figure out the truth behind each character, because no one is truly what they seem … Addicting, easy to read, and hard to put down.” – Shelbi LeMeilleur, Insite Magazine
PURCHASE LINKS
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This is one of those rare books that is difficult to review because in talking about it I really don’t want to give one single thing away.
Not. One.
Because I cannot ruin it for you, and to let anything slip would be just that.
Eliza Maxwell’s tale does not speed – it floats you along like a ride down a quiet river in an inner tube, the current carrying you along and spinning your float here and there, not sure where it will take you or if it will dump you out in a heap. It will quietly, slowly draw you in and then drop a bomb on you when you aren’t expecting it – perhaps through a flashback, maybe through another character’s revelation, it was nothing predictable and every bit heartbreaking. This is a story about who we are and how what we live through makes us (or breaks us). And it is a story about survival, about what we do for family (to support them or to protect them), and about bonds.
Some chapters contained scenes that were hard to read, the horrifying, rip-your-heart out kind. As the story built, I found that despite the tragedy unfolding, I had been quietly sucked in. Maybe my river analogy was wrong – is it more like quicksand, sucking you in and holding you tight in its grip? Characters fracture under the pain of loss, other characters are damaged but the damage is carefully hidden, until you don’t know who to look at next.
The Grave Tender WAS a heavy book, no lie- but it was beautiful and poignant. And Maxwell’s prose flowed, her characters layered and complex. It’s a book well worth a read, and one that will continue to bubble a while once you put it down.
Eliza Maxwell lives in Texas with her ever patient husband, two impatient kids, a budgie named Sarah, and a bird dog who lives a tortured existence. She’s an artist and writer, an introvert and a British cop drama addict. A former bookseller with a lifelong love of the written word, she can often be found barefoot on the front porch lost in a good cup of coffee and a great book.
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GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
Grand Prize:The Bookworm Basket ($150 Value)
Signed paperback copy of THE GRAVE TENDER
$50 Amazon gift card
Plush decorative throw blanket (Smoke Grey)
Greatest opening lines of literature coffee mug
Taste of Texas Coffee variety pack
Ferrero Rocher Gift Cube
Library card socks
Paperback copy of THE LIFE WE BURY by Allen Eskens
Paperback copy of SISTERS ONE, TWO, THREE by Nancy Star
1st & 2nd Runners-Up:
Signed paperback copy of THE GRAVE TENDER
(U.S. Only)
CHECK OUT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:
4/10
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Promo
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4/11
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Review
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4/12
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Excerpt
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4/13
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Review
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4/14
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Book Trailer
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4/15
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Review
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4/16
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Promo
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4/17
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Author Interview
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4/18
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Review
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4/19
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Deleted Scene
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4/20
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Scrapbook
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4/21
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Review
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4/22
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Playlist
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4/23
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Promo
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4/24
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Review
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3 Comments
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Sydney Young
!!! Totally linking to this review on the GREAT HOOK Choice awards!!!
Eliza Maxwell
Thank you! What a fantastic review!