Firstly, huge thank you to Harriet for sending me a copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review. 

Publisher: Self-Published
Publication Date: 09/06/2020
Length: 170 pages
Genre: Women’s Fiction | Romance

CW: n/a

Jessie Smith is living the high life in London, with a career that she loves, her own pad and the best friends a girl could ask for. But could one unbelievable night with an incredibly handsome stranger change everything?

GoodReads

Review

I was very intrigued by this book as neither the title nor the description on GoodReads give much away as to what the novel’s plot entails. Therefore, I won’t be giving too much away with my review either. 

There aren’t a lot of characters in this novel, which I liked as it didn’t distract from Jessie and ‘Dan’ as their relationship began to take on many different forms throughout the course of the novel. I thought that Jessie and ‘Dan’ balanced each other quite well and it was interesting to see what similarities they did have and how they deal with their respective family issues. I felt like there was more depth to ‘Dan’ than Jessie, he just seemed to have more layers and faces that he put on which made him more of an interesting character to me. However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like Jessie, because I did and found her to be quite realistic, but I thought that she could have been developed a little more to be on the same level as ‘Dan’. 

I enjoyed that the novel would go between the perspectives of Jessie and ‘Dan’, as that way we were able to understand a lot more about certain situations as a reader that, ultimately, left you wanting to shake both characters and make them see sense at times. I thought the pacing of the novel started well and you could clearly see the passage of time of what was happening but towards the end of the book I felt that the pacing was a lot more rushed. A lot suddenly happens in the space of a couple of chapters towards the end. Big events happened that I would have liked to see a little more developed or fleshed out for them to feel a little more realistic. There were times where Bennett includes some clichés, however I enjoyed the way she included them as they didn’t seem out of place or forced and just left me smiling. 

I wasn’t sure what to expect from A Tempestuous Affair, but I enjoyed what I found. The novel was, overall, a nice feel-good read, which is needed in these times, but with the addition of some steamy scenes and dealing with the aftermath of serious trauma which made the plot more complex. I enjoyed the distraction from the real world that A Tempestuous Affair provided and would recommend it, especially if anyone else is eager for a life changing experience with a handsome stranger!