Review & Giveaway: Persuade Me by Joanne Markey

About the Book

Book: Persuade Me

Author: Joanne Markey

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Release date: April 5, 2022

One horrible misunderstanding. Two heartbroken people.

For seven long years, Anne Elliot of Kellynch Station quietly mourned the loss of her first love. Now that she’s finally over Fred for good, her sister offers the perfect escape: Uppercross.

This move, from one cattle station to another, offers new friends, new responsibilities, and now that she’s out from under her father’s domineering thumb, a whole new world of possibilities.

The sky is the limit.

Or maybe the sky is the perfect place for helicopter mustering pilot Fred Wentworth to spend his days. It took a while for him to regroup after their breakup, but now he’s back, he’s successful, and he’s put the past so far behind him he doesn’t even think about Anne more than a couple dozen times a day.

Life is good.

Or it was until he quite literally runs into the one person he hoped to never see again. After that, what’s a bloke to do other than rethink every lie he’d convinced himself was the truth?

Although they both seem willing to admit they were wrong all those years ago, when things take a bad turn, Anne is left to wonder… Is it too late for a reconciliation?

Persuade Me: Austen’s Persuasion meets the rugged Australian bush—plus dingoes.

Click here to get your copy!

My Review

Persuade Me was a really wonderful and creative adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic, Persuasion. The author captured the essence of the original story yet made it her own with not only an Australian setting, but also a few twists along the way.

I loved the connection and attraction between Anne and Fred that was hard to deny right from their first moment of meeting again after so many years apart. There were definitely hurt feelings and misunderstandings between them, yet I liked that they both recognized within themselves that they cared for the person, even if they didn’t realize yet that their feelings were returned.

Anne’s inability to stand up for herself through part of the story was frustrating, however, it was a major growth opportunity for her. I enjoyed watching the journey she took as she began to stand up for the love she wanted with Fred. I really liked Fred, too, and I appreciated that he owned up to his part in their break up, once he realized the way things had been manipulated. I enjoyed this creative story from start to finish.

(4.5 stars)

I received a complimentary copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

About the Author

Originally from Australia, Joanne Markey now lives in Ohio with her husband and seven children. When she’s not reading or writing, you might find her wandering the property with her kids in search of whatever seasonal treasure they’re trying to find.

More from Joanne

Can a book be partially autobiographical without actually being an autobiography?

Probably not. Persuade Me comes close though. Not in it’s entirety, but I did draw heavily on my own life when I wrote this book. Many of the situations that occur in the book were things that happened to me back in the late ‘90s when I worked on a cattle station as station cook. I also set the book in places where we lived—stations we lived or worked on. The autobiographical part ends there though.

As a retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, the family situation in Persuade Me is patterned on the Elliot family, not my own. I was easily able to imagine a family like this living in Australia though. The family pride, boasting of being descended from free settlers, knowing how long the family has been in the country to the exact generation—were all things I ran into as a kid.

Not every Australian knows how many generations of the family have lived over there (or cares to know), but in high school there was this one girl… She knew exactly how long her family had been there, and anyone who couldn’t count as many generations of Australians as she could wasn’t as Australian as her. Other people have quite plainly offered the information that their family descended from free settlers, without a single convict in the lineage. Still others can tell the exact year their first ancestor moved to Australia. All I needed was to package all of those things into one prideful being—Mr. Elliot. He doesn’t play a huge role in the story, but his influence can be felt throughout the pages.

From there it was easy to imagine him as a grazier—a station owner—who’d run into hard times. His daughter, Anne, is the heroine who has a hidden past, a broken relationship she’d rather not remember. The hero of the story can’t exactly be a ship’s captain, but there is one occupation in the bush that does bring in a lot of money—helicopter mustering—and having gotten into that line of work his personal finances have taken a drastic change for the better. I won’t spoil the story, but the rest followed in like manner.

And then came the writing… To craft a uniquely Australian book one has to use Australian terms, phrases, and spellings. And when the author has been living outside the country for 21 years, sometimes it’s hard to remember what words go with what country! We worked it all out in the end though, and if you come across a word that looks like it’s been spelled wrong—it’s the Aussie spelling, which is correct for the setting.

I hope you enjoy this contemporary retelling of Persuasion set in the Australian bush. Happy reading!

Blog Stops

Debbie’s Dusty Deliberations, May 4

Texas Book-aholic, May 5

Inklings and notions, May 6

Artistic Nobody, May 7 (Author Interview)

For Him and My Family, May 7

Locks, Hooks and Books, May 8

Daysong Reflections, May 9

Tell Tale Book Reviews, May 10 (Author Interview)

Miriam Jacob, May 10

deb’s Book Review, May 11

Ashley’s Clean Book Reviews, May 12

Gina Holder, Author and Blogger, May 13 (Author Interview)

Because I said so — and other adventures in Parenting, May 14

Truth and Grace Homeschool Academy, May 15

Happily Managing a Household of Boys, May 16

Britt Reads Fiction, May 17

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Joanne is giving away the grand prize package of a $25 Amazon gift card and a copy of the book!!

Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.

https://promosimple.com/ps/1d729/persuade-me-celebration-tour-giveaway