Finding Jess
Single mother, Jess, has struggled to get her life back on track after the betrayal of her beloved husband and her best friend. When she is on the brink of losing everything, including her family and her job, she feels that she can no longer trust anyone. Then she is sent a mysterious newspaper clipping of a temporary post back in Ghana. Could this be her lifeline? Can Jess turn back time and find herself again? And what, exactly, will she find?
Finding Jess is a passionate story of love, betrayal and second chances – and of one woman’s bid to reclaim her self-belief and trust. It is a feel-good story of a woman’s strength and spirit rising above adversity.
Finding Jess purchase link Amazon
My review....
That's it, that's the final installment finished, the conclusion to this fabulous trilogy. I feel an air of sadness now having reached the final page. Although if I'm honest I do think that the concluding moment was left wide open and Jess still has so much more to say.......hint hint Julia.
The feel of this book felt like a merger of books one and two. We had the difficulties faced in England complete with the trials of Ghana. The rhythm of the pace didn't burst on impact but slowly and surely pulled you in as Jess negotiated new moments in her life. As I've said before the writing style is poetic in nature and the repetition of certain sections of dialogue felt like a Greek chorus bringing the reader back to significant moments in time. These flashbacks helped to keep the trilogy entwined as a whole which worked extremely well.
Jess has certainly come a long way from the young Quaker girl we meet in the beginning and her lifetime has endured extreme highs and lows. I didn't think anything else could possibly go wrong......I guess I was mistaken but that is all I will divulge on this topic.
My favourite element of these books has been the echoes of the drumbeats which speak to Jess in a secret language. I would have liked the haunting rhythms of these drumbeats to have made an even bigger impact in this installment like we see in book one. They were there in the wings....echoing on the sidelines but I wanted proud and prominent moments, front and centre to further tie the three books together.
But what an accomplished body of work. Finding Jess says it all.....a return to the happy and content being we know she deserves to be. I am thankful and grateful to have travelled on this journey and feel moved beyond words.....I couldn't recommend this trilogy more. Please download it and show these books all the love and support that they fully deserve.
The Drumbeats Trilogy
The love of a woman and the story of a country.
It’s 1965 and 18 year old Jess escapes her stifling English background for a gap year in Ghana, West Africa. Over the next three evocative novels, follow her journey as she encounters new cultures and loves in this stirring series.
The Drumbeats Trilogy is a passionate saga of love, betrayal and second chances – and of one woman’s bid to reclaim her self-belief and trust. A feel-good up-lit story of a woman’s strength and spirit rising above adversity.
It’s 1965 and 18 year old Jess escapes her stifling English background for a gap year in Ghana, West Africa. Over the next three evocative novels, follow her journey as she encounters new cultures and loves in this stirring series.
The Drumbeats Trilogy is a passionate saga of love, betrayal and second chances – and of one woman’s bid to reclaim her self-belief and trust. A feel-good up-lit story of a woman’s strength and spirit rising above adversity.
Author Bio –
Award-winning author Julia Ibbotson is fascinated by the medieval world and concepts of time travel. She read English at Keele University, England (after a turbulent but exciting gap year in Ghana, West Africa) specialising in medieval language, literature and history, and has a PhD in socio-linguistics. She wrote her first novel at 10 years of age, but became a school teacher, then a university lecturer and researcher. Finding Jess (2018) is her sixth book and the last of the Drumbeats trilogy (which begins and ends in Ghana). Apart from insatiable reading, she loves travelling the world, singing in choirs, swimming, yoga and walking in the countryside in England and Madeira where she and her husband divide their time.
Acclaimed author of:
Drumbeats (2015), the first of the trilogy set in 1960s Ghana: sometimes you have to escape to find yourself.
Walking in the Rain (2016), the second in the trilogy set in 1970s and 1980s England: never give up on your dreams.
Finding Jess (2018), the last of the trilogy set in 1990s England and Ghana: can the past ever be left behind?
Also by Julia Ibbotson:
A Shape on the Air (2017): historical (Dark Ages/early medieval) time-slip romance. Two women 1,500 years apart, with one aim: to reclaim their dreams and fight the dangers that threaten them both across the ages …
The Old Rectory: Escape to a Country Kitchen, (first published 2011, rereleased 2017) a feel-good story of the renovation of a Victorian rectory interwoven with period recipes to feed the soul, all from the rectory kitchen.
S.C.A.R.S (first published 2012, rereleased 2016) (children’s novel): a troubled boy slips through a tear in the fabric of the universe into a parallel medieval fantasy world of knights, dragons, and a quest for the triumph of Good over Evil. But can he save himself?
