CLP Blog Tours Book Review – Holding On by Karen Stivali

Karen Stivali is on tour now with CLP Blog Tours and Holding On. This is the sequel to Meant to Be, a book I absolutely loved. I was very eager to jump back into the lives of Marienne and Daniel, as they won me over completely in the first book. The couple are happily married, and are both overjoyed when Marienne finds out she is pregnant. A lot happens during her pregnancy, and one large part is Daniel writing a screenplay that gets offered to be produced. The family also moves to a new town when Daniel gets offered a position at Dartmouth, and they meet a neighbor that is a little too friendly towards Marienne. With Daniel traveling due often to the screenplay jealousy starts to spark between the two, especially when Daniel’s manipulating ex-wife reappears back his life. Their marriage is suddenly on shaky ground, and both Marienne and Daniel have to dig deep to understand their love, trust, and partnership to make their marriage work.
I really enjoyed Holding On, maybe not as much as the first book, but I still really liked it. It was so nice to see a couple that really belongs together be together, though there were plenty of rough spots for them. The writing and scenes are very realistic, and I liked that Stivali was able to make me think about my own soon-to-be marriage through her characters and their issues and how they resolve them. The only thing I wasn’t a huge fan of was Marienne and Daniel’s sex life, which can probably make a lot of people feel inadequate. It felt like they were having sex in every third scene which got to be a bit much for me, but overall I really did enjoy this book. I would definitely recommend both Meant to Be and Holding On.
4 stars