Bex (Beckie Bookworm)'s Reviews > When There Is Hope

So I’ve had this one in my TBR pile for a while and as it was not on Kindle at the time and was out of print I had to purchase a used paperback copy to read. It has since popped back up in Kindle if you'd like to read it though. Genre wise it’s a historical body swap romance with a heavy angsty enemies-to-lovers vibe and boy was this a turbulent one. Our heroine is Susan she’s happily married and heavily pregnant but when she’s in a fatal road accident that takes both her and her unborn child’s lives she finds herself transported by the powers that be straight into the body of Margaret Johnsbury.

Margaret is an awful person truly terrible she has a husband Carter who totally detests her and isn’t shy about sharing his feelings towards her. In fact, everyone who knows Margaret hates her and now Susan is the one standing in the firing line paying the price for all of her past behaviours.

After a blow to the head, Carter’s wife is now insisting everyone call her Maggie instead of Margaret and acting completely unlike her usual evil bitchy self. The doctor claims she’s suffering from amnesia but Carter just isn’t convinced, in fact, he’s pretty sure this is just another of her many schemes and constant manipulations and it won’t be long before she reverts to form.

As Maggie tries to win over Carter and convince him of the new and improved version of herself this then swings back and forth, but It is like one step forward and then two back and a lot of the time these two seem to be going around in circles so at times it could get a bit frustrating.

So my final impressions here were that I enjoyed this but it wasn’t without its problems. It’s definitely a little dated but I kind of liked that about it made me nostalgic for all my older romance novels that I used to devour. If you like angsty this one definitely has you covered and I really felt for poor Maggie throughout this. Despite her namesake's prior behaviour, she was totally innocent but now had to shoulder a massive amount of animosity from literally everyone.

I also thought a lot of the characters portrayed here were very fickle and willing to believe the absolute worst despite limited evidence to the contrary. The servants Carter's extended family and the worst of the lot Carter himself.

Look I get that Margaret was a literal nightmare but this took it to the extreme and some of the thoughtless behaviour from her husband was just downright cruel and he constantly swung back and forth in his attitude it was enough to give me whiplash.

Maggie was also far too lenient and forgiving she literally let Carter call all of the shots and just took it all without complaint she never stuck to her guns and followed through on her anger beyond the initial moment very quick to forgive and forget whenever she got an inkling of hope or any small act of kindness, it was slightly heartbreaking to witness.

There was also some added danger in the form of a spurned lover and then we have Maggie’s husband Steven who is currently living his life back in the 1990’s he does only play a small part but that also felt extremely bittersweet.

This was well written and i enjoyed it even with my above observations, it still had plenty of positives to recommend it and I do love a time travel or body swap romance so for that reason alone I’m glad I dived into this one.



Reviewed By Beckie Bookworm
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