Leap of Hope by Shannon Winslow

Leap of Hope is the second book in the Crossroads collection and even though some characters are the same, the main character is a different one with a separete storyline , so the reader doesn’t need to read Leap of Faith before this second instalment. 

The main character in Leap of Hope is Hope O’Neil a college student who has a fascination towards Jane Austen and who is given a second chance in life at the Crossroads Center. Here she is given the opportunity to live another life in any period of her choosing, and due to her love for Austen, she chooses the regency period.

Unlike other time travel Austen inspired books, where someone from the 21rs century goes back in time to Regency, in Leap of Hope we actually see the character making that decision and having several options before her. I truly liked the section of the book where Hope is at Crossroads doing investigation and pondering her options. 

Once everything is settled, she goes back in time, and once more the entire experience is much different from any other time travel book I’ve read because the main character not only knows what will happen, but also has a lot of help that will facilitate her integration.

I particularly liked to see that this Austen inspired story didn’t focus solely on Pride & Prejudice (even if Hope keeps dreaming for a Darcylike gentleman to come along), and instead goes through all of Austen’s novels with cleverly inputted parallels that keep not only Hope but also the reader quite excited about the current events and also what may come next. I also enjoyed the fact that despite these parallels with scenes and characters from Austen’s novels, the character’s themselves are all original. I cannot enjoy a time travel story where someone from modern time ends up paired with Mr. Darcy, and that is definitely not the path Shannon Winslow takes with these stories. Of course, the reader will recognise many Darcy traits in one particular character, but he is not Mr. Darcy, so it is quite all right for Hope to end up with him.

I wasn’t completely in love with Hope O’Neil’s character, but I did love the male hero. Despite the fact that Hope had many suitors, with a bit too many marriage proposals in my opinion, I kept rooting for one in particular because he conquered my heart from the first moment!

The ending was quite a surprise and I did like the fact that the author kept us in the dark until the end. The encounter at the book shop in the end of the story was the cherry on top of the cake and the perfect ending for an incredible journey.

Leap of Hope is unlike any other Austen time travel book, it is creative, well written and heart-warming. The reader is transported into Austen’s world with the advantage of having original characters making this journey an exciting surprise. I highly recommend it to any Austen fan who would like to see Austen’s work cleverly incorporated in an original story.

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Elizabeth Bennet’s Level

Meagan Moses is an accent genius! Her southern accent is incredible and what is more impressive is to see her changing it from that superb American southern accent into a flawless British accent. She was the perfect narrator for this book, she made the characters sound authentic and it was very easy to distinguish when Hope was being herself and when she was portraying Kate. It was even perceptible to see when Hope was transitioning into Kate, and that was simply incredible. I highly recommend this narrator to authors who need someone able to portray many different accents. She definitely sells this audiobook!

 

You can find Leap of Hope at:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

on Audible

and on Kindle Unlimited