Surrendered Review and Giveaway!

Her father’s will is clear; do what he demands, or lose everything, including guardianship of her younger sister. But there’s a force at work–an evil set on destroying her and her sister. If only she knew whether the enigmatic man helping them is friend–or deadly foe…

After the reading of her father’s will, Tess O’Shay’s panic attacks return. In death, Sean O’Shay is attempting to accomplish what he couldn’t do in life—force Tess to finish her education, a dream she abandoned after being raped on campus. Unless she complies with her father’s wishes, she will lose all claim to the only home she’s ever known as well as to the family business. Worse, she’ll have to give up guardianship of her younger sister to Jake Holland, a secretive man fleeing from his past. Fine! She’ll show Jake and her father. She’ll muster whatever meager energy and strength she has, get her degree, and keep what matters most to her.

No matter what.

Then the man who assaulted her reappears, shattering what little strength she has left. Now she must dig deep to find the remnants of her mustard-seed faith…because that’s the only way she can face the past and right a wrong in order to secure the future.

My thoughts: I enjoyed this story, with it's secrets and surprises! A little bit hard to follow at times, with being in first person and going back and forth between the characters, I still enjoyed how Tess must go back to school in order to fulfill her father's will. It was an unusual story, and her father put Jake in a tough spot, putting him in charge of things until Tess finishes! This is an enjoyable story to pick up, well worth reading.
I received this book from Celebrate Lit. This is my honest review.

About the Author:
Jennifer Sienes holds a degree in both psychology and education but discovered life-experience is the best teacher. She loves Jesus, writing and romance and puts it altogether in inspirational contemporary fiction. California born and raised, she recently took a step of faith with her real-life hero and relocated to Tennessee.

More from Jennifer:
Since I was twelve years old, I’ve been writing stories. I even wrote fan-fiction before it was a thing—a Happy Days episode, which I’m sure dates me. I took every creative writing class I could, starting in high school, and even declared journalism as my college major until I realized I like fiction a whole lot more than truth, because I can create the characters any way I like.
Tess O’Shay, the main character in Surrendered, came by way of accident. She was a minor character in my first novel (which will be the last published in the series) and my critique group loved her. They wanted to know if she would have more scenes. She did not. In fact, she was deleted with the rewrites. But I couldn’t get her out of my mind—it was like she’d become a real person and refused to be ignored. I loved writing Surrendered because Tess O’Shay and Jake Holland ran away with the story and it was everything I could do to keep up.
The first two novels I wrote were inspired by actual events—my brother’s suicide in the first and my daughter’s near-fatal car accident in the second. These are dark themes, yet I wanted to present them with humor and hope—both of which have gotten me through some tough circumstances. I strive to create characters my readers can connect with—three-dimensional and human—but also fall in love with. I think the best books are those that leave us wanting more.

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Giveaway!
Up for grabs is a $25 gift card to Amazon! Go here to enter.