REVIEW: Life Discarded (+$10 Amazon Giveaway!)

Title: Life Discarded

Author: D. E. Haggerty

Series: N/A

Pages: 123

Date Published: September 1, 2014

Publisher: Smashwords

Format: ebook

Genre: Romance, Mystery

Source: Goddess Fish Blog Tours
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Synopsis:
Why would a woman who has it all throw her life away? Morgan has the perfect life. She married the man of her dreams. Daniel is smart, gorgeous and successful. Everything she has always wanted in a husband and the father of her children. But he’s also domineering, overprotective and jealous. Is living with him enough to drive Morgan over the edge? Or does something more treacherous lurk beneath the façade?

~My Thoughts~

It's the classic, Sleeping with the Enemy, type story. Dominanat abusive husband is awful to wife. Wife fakes her own death to leave him. He will not rest until he finds her and she must get even. Ha! Do I sound melodramatic? Because I totally feel it. While the plot isn't the most original thing on the planet, Life Discarded is full of thrills and chills and is a generally good read all around. 

Morgan as a character was frustrating at first. She exhibits classic examples of abuse, but even as a character who is abused she started off really weak almost. Shy, naive, and completely under the control of her husband. As you find her interacting in the story at first, she grates on your nerves and you long to just shake her and tell her to grow a backbone, but hey...then you would just be adding to the problem. As the story continues, it was lovely to see her change. She started growing, and standing up for herself. They were small things at first...a statement here, a disapproving glance there, but eventually Morgan is standing on her own two feet and you can practically see the strength vibrate off of her. Haggerty employs some excellent writing in order to show such a change in a character over the course of the book. I really liked seeing the progress! 

One thing I do want to note however that may take away from Morgan's overall character. She isn't purely good like many heroes and heroines are. While that is intriguing in itself, it also sort of makes me dislike her some. She is petty in some instances, and extremely vengeful which was weird to see in a heroine, despite the bad that happened to her before. While it is natural, it was somewhat unsettling. She had a new interests and a life which helped to assuage the pains of the past, but overall I felt more wrapped up in Morgan's past than in Morgan's future. (I think the characters felt that way too!) 

~Try an Excerpt!~

Shaking hands steer the car to the nearest full service gas station. Only one or two gas stations in town still offer full service, but she had done her homework and knew this one did. Not only did full service guarantee that someone else would be pumping her gas, but its expense meant that there’s never a wait. Maneuvering the car to the furthest full service pump, she waits, hands clutching the steering wheel, for the attendant.

After what feels like an eternity to her fevered brain, the attendant finally notices her and saunters over to her car. Her eyes follow him, silently urging him to quicken his pace. Come on, come on. “Fill it up,” she squeaks at him when he finally reaches her car. She grabs her over-large purse and jumps out of the car, nearly tripping in her haste. Looking back, she whispers “I’m sorry” to the oblivious attendant before continuing around the building.

When she reaches the rear of the building, she frantically scans the area. Finally she spots the large garbage container, not in its usual spot. She jogs to it and squats behind it; shrinking into herself and covering her ears. Just in time. A loud bang shakes the earth below her feet. Looking up, she sees flames shooting into the sky.

Time to get out of here. She stands on shaky legs, taking a moment to calm her erratic breath before walking in the opposite direction – refusing to look back.

~Meet D.E. Haggerty!~ 

D.E. Haggerty was born and raised in Wisconsin but thinks she’s a European. After spending her senior year of high school in Germany, she developed a bad case of wanderlust that is yet to be cured. After high school she returned to the U.S. to go to college ending up with a Bachelor’s degree in History at the tender age of 20 while still managing to spend time bouncing back and forth to Europe during her vacations. Unable to find a job after college and still suffering from wanderlust, she joined the U.S. Army as a Military Policewoman for 5 years. While stationed in Heidelberg, Germany, she met her future husband, a flying Dutchman. After being given her freedom from the Army, she went off to law school. She finished law school and moved to the Netherlands with her husband and became a commercial lawyer for more than a decade. During a six month break from the lawyering world, she wrote her first book, Unforeseen Consequences. Although she finished the book, she went back to the law until she could no longer take it and upped stakes and moved to Germany to start a B&B. Three years after starting the B&B, she got the itch and decided to pull the manuscript for Unforeseen Consequences out of the attic and get it published as an e-book. Deciding that she may have indeed finally found what she wanted to do with her life, she went on to write Buried Appearances. After moving to Istanbul, she started on Life Discarded, her third book. Between tennis, running, traveling, singing off tune and reading books like they are going out of style, she writes articles for a local expat magazine and various websites, reviews other indie authors’ books, writes a blog about whatever comes to mind and is working on her fourth book.

The author will be awarding a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour, and a $10 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn host.

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