About the Book

Book: When Tomorrow Came

Author: Hannah Linder

Genre: Christian Fiction / Historical / Romance

Release date: April, 2023

They Waited Their Whole Lives for Their Papa to Return

Nan and Heath Duncan, siblings abandoned by their papa and abused by their guardian, have no choice but to survive on the London streets. When a kind gentleman rescues Nan from such a life, the siblings are separated and raised in two vastly different social worlds. Just when both are beginning to flourish and years have healed some of their wounds, their long-awaited papa returns and reunites them—bringing demands with him. Nan is expected to marry a rich suitor she’s never liked, and Heath is expected to forsake his gentle spirit and become the hardened man his father always was.

Dangers unfold, secret love develops, fights ensue, and murder upsets the worlds Heath and Nan have built for themselves.

They’ve waited their whole lives for their papa to return, for tomorrow to come—but now that it has, will they be able to see through to the truth and end this whirlwind of a nightmare before it costs one of their lives?

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Book Review

After reading Hannah Linder’s debut novel, Beneath His Silence, and absolutely falling in love with it, I was really excited to read When Tomorrow Came. Unfortunately, however, after finishing the book, I am left with mixed feelings.

When I first started it, I was immediately pulled in. Heath and Nan–children at the beginning of the novel–captured my heart and I just needed to know what happened to them. If they would survive on the streets, if Heath would go after Nan when she was taken in by Mr. Stanhope, if Heath would be able to make it on his own, and if they would ever be reunited.

As the two grew up, I was fascinated by the different lives they led, how they matured throughout the years, and the people they eventually became. Both Nan and Heath are sweet and gentle characters, carrying with them the burdens of their past, but both content where they are in life. But all that is upended when their papa comes back into their lives. On the one hand, his return reunites the two siblings, but on the other hand, he makes demands of them that ends up hurting the both of them. The papa that they dreamed would come back is not the same man. He is rough, cruel, and allows part hurts and anger to control him and his actions.

This is the point of the story where Linder lost me. I was underwhelmed by the sibling’s reunification, perhaps because their story was overshadowed by the two main romances in the novel. The more I continued to read, the more I was pulled out of the story. I wanted to see more of their relationship, but instead, the focus turned to Nan and her finding a suitor and Heath and his potential romance. Both of those plotlines fell flat for me and I ended up being annoyed by them. Heath’s felt forced and I did not connect with it whatsoever, and Nan’s ended up just taking me out of the story completely. She wants to find a suitor who pleases her father, but another man loves her, and the way he acted and treated Nan for her romantic decisions made me dislike him.

It wasn’t until the last few chapters of the novel that I connected with the story again. However, the ending did feel somewhat rushed and I was once again left feeling like there should be more.

Hannah Linder is a very talented author, I just felt she tried to do too much in this book and it did not work. This does not dissuade me from reading her future novels, and I look forward to what she has next. I would still highly recommend her work to people who enjoy Regency suspense novels.

I had received a copy of the book as part of the Celebrate Lit Blogging Team and was required to give an honest review.

About the Author

Hannah Linder resides in the beautiful mountains of central West Virginia. Represented by Books & Such, she writes Regency romantic suspense novels. She is a double 2021 Selah Award winner, a 2022 Selah Award finalist, and a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW). Hannah is a Graphic Design Associates Degree graduate who specializes in professional book cover design. She designs for both traditional publishing houses and individual authors, including New York Times, USA Today, and International bestsellers. She is also a local photographer and a self-portrait photographer. When Hannah is not writing, she enjoys playing her instruments—piano, guitar, and ukulele—songwriting, painting still life, walking in the rain, and sitting on the front porch of her 1800s farmhouse. To follow her journey, visit hannahlinderbooks.com.

More from Hannah

Love interests me. Not just in the romantic sense, but in every sense, because love is the driving emotion behind so much of what we do. It’s the heartbeat of everything. What do we have but love? Yet isn’t it the very essence of our greatest pain?

Sometimes it doesn’t make sense. Sometimes love has no reason. Like a tumultuous wind or a wet branch that sways in different directions, love is often petulant and aimless and powerful. But sometimes it’s soft, like a flower lifting dewy petals to the sunshine. The epitome of everything good, sweet, and true.

What makes love change? What makes two friends who have always been fraternal one day confess romantic affection? How much wrong, how much affliction, does it take for sweet love to sizzle into hatred? Even then, is it really hatred? Or merely the charred crust of the adoration still throbbing beneath? And how strong are the cords of new love? Will they break at every pull and tug, or are they more unfaltering than anyone might think?

Maybe those are silly questions. Maybe, like snowflakes, every heart knows a different answer. But if I explored anything in When Tomorrow Came, it was this. I glided through the story and felt love shift from brotherly to intimate, from hopeful to disappointed, from untested to proven, from safe to betrayed.

Just as love is the heartbeat of life, it is also the heartbeat of this story. I hope you will find yourself falling in love with the characters and their journey as much as I did.