Earlier this year, I stumbled across a blog post mentioning the Blogging for Books website. Since I was already reviewing my own books, I figured why not try and get a couple free books too!
Synopsis:
From the New York Times bestselling author of Bittersweet comes a novel of suspense and passion about a terrible mistake made sixty years ago that threatens to change a modern family forever.

Twenty-five-year-old Cassie Danvers is holed up in her family’s crumbling mansion in rural St. Jude, Ohio, mourning the loss of the woman who raised her—her grandmother, June. But a knock on the door forces her out of isolation. Cassie has been named the sole heir to legendary matinee idol Jack Montgomery's vast fortune. How did Jack Montgomery know her name? Could he have crossed paths with her grandmother all those years ago? What other shocking secrets could June’s once-stately mansion hold?

Soon Jack’s famous daughters come knocking, determined to wrestle Cassie away from the inheritance they feel is their due. Together, they all come to discover the true reasons for June’s silence about that long-ago summer, when Hollywood came to town, and June and Jack’s lives were forever altered by murder, blackmail, and betrayal. As this page-turner shifts deftly between the past and present, Cassie and her guests will be forced to reexamine their legacies, their definition of family, and what it truly means to love someone, steadfastly, across the ages.



Review:
When I see that the author of a book I'm interested in is a New York Times Best Selling Author, I take that into consideration. As an aspiring author myself, I know how much work it takes to get that type of title, so I don't take it lightly. However, in this case, I probably should have looked into her other novels just to get an idea of the kind of writer Miranda is.

Originally, I thought that June sounded interesting. I was interested in seeing how the story played out and I thought that parts of it might be relatable due to the closeness in age between the main character and myself. Unfortunately though, I didn't see too many similarities.

And as for the story line, I'm saddened to say that it was sub par. I really had high hopes for this book, but it just didn't pan out as I thought it would. There were many reasons for this.

For one, June took a very long time to get interesting. I found myself thinking about other things while I was reading the beginning chapters and often, I found myself needing to reread entire passages from the book.

Now, I understand that authors need to build their world in order to fully engulf their readers. However, there is a better way to do it and unfortunately, I don't think Miranda used that method. At many points in the story, I thought Miranda was just dumping unnecessary information onto the pages. There were many times that I was reading and I felt the need to skip past the useless descriptions and move along to the dialogue. And frankly, that's just not how a is meant to be read.

Another issue that I had with this book was that Miranda spent so much time building her world, that I didn't feel like she spent enough time building her characters. I know that it must have taken a lot of work to introduce important characters from two different time periods, but honestly I think she could have done a better job at it.

Each time the narrator referred back to a previous character besides the main seven or eight, I couldn't remember who they were. If it weren't for flipping back and rereading how they were connected to the story, then I wouldn't have been able to figure it out again. Honestly, I feel like this is one of the books that requires a family tree in the front of it.

Unfortunately, the book's setup didn't exactly help either. As I mentioned in my reviews of Give It Back and Old Magic, only some authors are able to pull off writing in different character's viewpoints and I think the same thing applies here: only some authors are able to pull of writing in different time periods. And I hate to say it, but I don't think Miranda is one of those authors.

To put it frankly, I came very close to calling it quits multiple times and that's saying a lot. There are only three books that I have ever put down without finishing, but June did not turn out to be one of them. I continued to push myself to read a little bit every day until I made it to the end.

With that being said, I do think that the book picked up later on. Eventually, Miranda thinned out the chapters of unnecessary details and really started to get into the story. As the plot developed, I began to actually care about each of the main characters and their relationships with each other.

In the end, I did like the book more than I thought I was going to. However, I do wish that some of the earlier mentioned problems were fixed and the ending didn't seem so rushed. I really wish we would have gotten to hear more of June's memories both the romantic ones and from her travels.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend June. Even though it did get better towards the end, it still isn't something that I would recommend to a friend, let alone read again. Of course, that's just my opinion. If you're really into the details and descriptions that make up a story, then you might just love this book!