About The Book:

 
When Olivia trades her promising career for a more domestic lifestyle as a wife and mother, she expects many things but never to see ghosts much less be one.
Her life with her handsome husband, Brandon, a successful criminal lawyer, starts as a happy one, but following a tragedy, guilt, alcohol and drugs crush their blissful world in a hurry. One minute Olivia is planning to leave the marriage and the next she’s floating at the foot of her son’s bed. Dead. Murdered. And all evidence points to Brandon as the prime suspect.
She is angry and determined to make him pay, but soon, she learns that if she wants justice, she must follow the clues that reach back into Brandon’s past.

Suspenseful, romantic and awash in the afterlife thrill, She Never Got To Say Goodbye captures the power of love and friendship.

‘She Never Got To Say Goodbye' by Ica Iova is available here

My Thoughts:

 
She Never Got To Say Goodbye is a wonderful paranormal fantasy with a lovely and satisfying ending. The story is fast-paced and takes elements from a number of different genres: romance, mystery, action, paranormal and thriller. The story is well written, I noticed a couple of errors but nothing that detracts away from the story. Ica Iova has a beautiful and addictive writing style that will keep you turning the pages.

 
She Never Got To Say Goodbye is centered around two main characters, Olivia and Brandon. The story describes how they meet, fall in love, and how their relationship ultimately falls apart. The story then moves on to Olivia’s life as a ghost, Brandon’s life as a single parent, and the last part of the story introduces the life of the killer.

 
At the beginning of the story Olivia is in her final year at university and is an aspiring lawyer. She meets the perfect man Brandon who happens to be a lawyer already, and within the year she has fallen in love with him and agrees to marry him. She drops her career in order to have a child but when Brandon loses a particular case, it causes a massive divide in their relationship and then Olivia is mysteriously murdered. Olivia returns as a ghost and is able to interact sporadically with the living world. She doesn’t know how or why she was killed, but Brandon is at the top of her suspect list and she is furious.

 
Brandon is a young man and lawyer who is introduced to the reader when he meets Olivia in a restaurant (both are dining separately). Brandon spots Olivia and almost immediately knows that she is the one for him. He proposes to her in one of the most genuine and romantic proposal scenes I have ever read. However, one thing I didn’t like about Brandon was the whole having-a-baby thing, he seemed a little pushy here. Nonetheless, the couple seem to be happy until Brandon is given a difficult case with a devastating outcome. Blaming himself and riddled with guilt, Brandon turns to drink and drugs which drives a huge wedge in his relationship. One evening he comes home drunk, argues with Olivia, passes out, and then the next morning Olivia is dead. Brandon has no idea who killed his wife, but he cleans himself up for his son’s sake and he tries to move on with his life. However, Olivia as an angry ghost is bent on preventing this. Plagued with nightmares and strange happenings, Brandon is forced to accept that Olivia is still around, and she is not happy. Brandon and Olivia’s best friend Debbie set out to find out who really killed Olivia and why?

 
The characters are three dimensional and have been well thought out. It was genuinely easy to get sucked into the character’s lives and backstories. I loved the emotional development within the characters too, Brandon’s character was particularly well done. Although I found it easy to predict who the killer was, there were still many unexpected twists and turns before the end. Ica Iova makes it incredibly difficult to hate certain characters, every character has a complicated backstory that you can’t help but to feel sympathy for them. No one is truly good or bad and the character’s make bad choices due to their circumstances, it’s clever and realistic.

 
Heartbreaking and full of injustice and mystery! She Never Got To Say Goodbye is a story of romance and misfortune that’s easy to empathize with. A great page turner, this novel is full of unexpected twists and turns that will pull on your heartstrings. Definitely not one to miss, especially if you like the paranormal!

 
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About the reviewer:

 
Caitlin Lynagh is a blogger, writer and author of Anomaly (The Soul Prophecies) . She lives with her mother and spends most of her time in a messy bedroom, tapping away on her laptop. Caitlin claims to have an imaginary bookshelf in her head where she stores her favourite books (until she can afford her own place and a real bookshelf). She enjoys reading and discovering new authors and confesses her love for everything about the written word; it is her life, work and passion. Caitlin plans to continue to study and learn, even in her dotage.

For further blogs check out: https://thebookigloo.wordpress.com/