Kol Anderson Leaves You In “The Perfect Place” For A Giveaway – Reviewed by Tina

“Nancy: If I asked you to kill me, would you?
Sid: I don’t know. How would I do it? I couldn’t live without ya.” — Sid and Nancy, 1986 (MGM)

Title: The Perfect Place

Author: Kol Anderson

Publisher: Self-Published

Pages/Word Count: 320 Pages

Rating: 5 Stars

Blurb: When Liam Dailey arrives in his hometown of Flint Hill, Virginia because of a family tragedy, he has every intention of leaving with the first flight back. Unfortunately, when he encounters long time ex Jackson Brooks, things start taking a turn for the worse and Liam finds himself getting stuck in a spiral again. Will he ever be able to leave?

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Review: Amazing, beautiful, shocking, intense. These are the words that immediately come to mind when asked to comment on Kol Anderson’s newest book. I count myself to be a lucky, lucky Beta reader for this author. It is an honor I don’t take lightly.

The Perfect Place is a complete departure for Kol. It is beautifully written (as are all his books), but you can tell from the cover that I mean a different kind of beautiful than is the norm for Kol Anderson. The words are as beautiful as any of Kol’s work, but the way he uses them is stunning. No one, in my experience, takes seemingly random English words and puts them together in a way that makes the reader feel the highest of highs followed immediately by a sudden plunge to the deepest of depths. And we not only like it, we love it, eat it up and come running back to beg for more.

There is lightness and life and happiness in The Perfect Place. Not three things usually found within the pages of a Kol Anderson book. His mind is a dark place and to find such sweetness and love in The Perfect Place was shocking. But shocking in the most pleasing way possible. I couldn’t stop reading. I had to explore this bright, sunny place in this author’s usually dark, heavily shadowed creativity. The darkest mind, thought to be shrouded in deep shadows, has suddenly had a door thrown wide open at midday, allowing the bright sun to reflect off the snow and light those dark corners up more brilliantly than one would think possible.

After the initial tragedy, which brings Liam back to his childhood home for his father’s funeral, it appears that Kol has written a good, old-fashioned love triangle. It unfolds over time in three distinct periods from when Liam was six years old to his and Jax’s young adulthood and finally the present. Jax represents Liam’s past, of which we are given glimpses through flashbacks. Ryan is Liam’s present. We see him in present phone calls, then also in flashbacks of the more recent past.
It appears that Liam and Jax left some feelings unresolved. As past events come to light for the reader, an opinion is formed as to whom is responsible for certain actions and outcomes. If you have read any of Kol Anderson’s previous work, you know that appearances can be, and most often are, deceiving. One character seems to be something that is entirely (and intentionally, on the part of the author) misleading. It is enough to scare the pants off a reader.

I will not spoil the end of this story. I am dying to share how it ends, but I want everyone who reads it to be as shocked as I was and to love it every bit and as completely as I did. It is an ending that had me saying, out loud, “What. The. F**k!?” That was the e-mail I sent to Kol immediately after I read this wonderful gem of a book. It is a finale that would make M. Night Shyamalan proud. As an avid reader, I am usually able to see surprises coming from around corners. Well, I couldn’t have found these corners with a map and compass.

Read this book. It will make you smile and laugh, all the while breaking your heart. It will make your head spin. It will make you curse Kol Anderson for his brilliance and his willingness to, no, his glee at, tightening the screws on our thumbs. You won’t be able to look away, he won’t let you. I expect nothing less from Kol.

You can buy The Perfect Place here:

THE GIVEAWAY: THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED