Blog Tour: Only the Lonely

Today I help end the blog tour for Only the Lonely by Joanne Nicholson where I will be sharing my review! I enjoyed this one and will be looking at what else she has written!

Book Description:

After Tiffany is orphaned on the night of her 18th birthday, she discovers, as the sole heir to her parents’ estate, she has inherited a frozen embryo from when her parents did IVF to have her. Feeling lost, alone and longing for a sense of family, Tiffany can’t bring herself to destroy or donate the embryo. Instead, she decides to be impregnated with her biological twin.

A legal battle ensues over whether the embryo is a person or property and the ethics of whether it is acceptable to give birth to your own sibling.

Set in Australia, this contemporary fiction novel is full of emotion, dilemmas and unexpected friendships, as Tiffany forges a new life without her parents.

Author: Joanne Nicholson
Published: June 12, 2019
191 Pages

Reviewed By: Jessica
Dates Read: June 30-July 7, 2019
Jessica’s Rating: 4.5 stars

Jessica’s Review:

I read the book description for Only the Lonely, and jumped at the chance to be on the blog tour as it was just so unique!  There are so many consequences (both positive and negative) to the many decisions to the various characters that occur throughout the course of the novel.

Tiffany loses both of her parents on the night of her eighteenth birthday. Losing parents at a young age is tough (I lost my father at nineteen) and worse yet is that she is an only child, and she basically has no one. As she works to come to terms with the cause of her parents’ death and works to move on, facing a legal battle, she discovers that that there is a frozen embryo frozen from when her parents did IVF to have her.   In essence, this embryo could have been her twin. She decides she wants to be impregnated with the embryo, and thus begins a second legal battle for Tiffany to deal with.

I don’t know if embryos are actually kept long term in fertility clinics, but if they did I could see this situation possibly happen as the first generation of IVF babies are now becoming adults.

The chapters are short and Only the Lonely is a quick read that will have you thinking about everything that happens throughout the novel.  I connected with Tiffany and was rooting for her to win her case.  She faces a roller coaster of emotions throughout the novel and we see her grow over the course of the story.  I would not have been able to make the decision she did at nineteen years old and face everything that she did.  The novel also shows the side of the fertility clinic, the court case and the media spectacle that erupts due to the uniqueness of the situation.

I never lost interest in Only the Lonely as I wanted to know what was going to happen and how the judge’s decision would affect Tiffany for the rest of her life no matter what the decision was. Unfortunately, I could not give the novel five stars due to a direction the novel goes with a friendship that Tiffany develops.  I could see everything but that friendship happening in reality.

This novel is recommended and after reading about the other novels Nicholson has written, I will be reading more by her.

Purchase Links:
Amazon US
Amazon UK

About the Author:

Joanne Nicholson is an Australian author who enjoys boating, exercising, reading, writing, music and spending quality time with family and friends.

Joanne’s career began in advertising and marketing. After a hiatus to raise her four children, she owned an indoor play centre, worked in property management and bookkeeping. Joanne gave these up to focus on her passion for writing.

She has published the contemporary women’s fiction novels: ‘Intuition’, ‘In Another Life’ and ‘Positive’, as well as a YA novel ‘Music Score’ and several short stories. Her latest novel is ‘Only the Lonely’.

Contact Joanne:
Website
Twitter @jolnicholson
Instagram @joannenicholsonauthor