I received a copy of Expected by Sarah England in exchange for an honest review.
Summary:
Red Alert.
Sam Sweet is terrified of giving birth.
Only, she doesn’t dare tell anyone. Especially her grandchild-obsessed mother, or her fiancé, Simon – top surgeon by day, mind-game expert by night.
Repressed by the expectations of others, Sam feels trapped. All she ever wanted was a career and a crack at independence, but as a catastrophically failed psychiatric nurse who now injects fillers into the crinkled faces of unhappy women, a career is proving tricky. There’s something wrong with the product and now clients are suing.
Nasty work colleagues stir up scandalous gossip, and soon Sam hits rock bottom, consoling herself with button-popping chocolate binges and terrifying spending sprees.
Sam is going to have to find her voice if she ever wants to be herself, fall in love, and follow her dreams.
Alas, the wedding date is set…
Review:
I struggled a bit with this novel. I understand that Sam could be trapped and like she feels, well, Expected, to do certain things, but I didn’t really get why she wouldn’t eventually stand up for herself. She seems to hate her fiancé who was portrayed as mind-game expert and was really quite a piece of work. She out and out said she wasn’t attracted to him and didn’t want to be with him, so why she stayed with him for so long confused me. It was interesting to read about her work and the bit of scandal that came with that, but then I also couldn’t decide if her friend Minnie was truly her friend or not. I spent most of time confused and unsure about the heroine, but still certain pieces of the story caught my interest.
