On tour with The Coffee Pot Book Club - The Prisoner of Paradise (The Paradise Series, Book 1) by Rob Samborn #BookReview #Thrillers #BlogTour

I am so excited to share my review of The Prisoner of Paradise  (The Paradise Series, Book 1) by Rob Samborn. Thank you to The Coffee Pot Book Club for inviting me to be a part of this tour.

The Prisoner of Paradise 

(The Paradise Series, Book 1)

By Rob Samborn

The world’s largest oil painting. A 400-year-old murder. A disembodied whisper: “Amore mio.” My love.

Nick and Julia O’Connor’s dream trip to Venice collapses when a haunting voice reaches out to Nick from Tintoretto’s Paradise, a monumental depiction of Heaven. Convinced his delusions are the result of a concussion, Julia insists her husband see a doctor, though Nick is adamant the voice was real.

Blacking out in the museum, Nick flashes back to a life as a 16th century Venetian peasant swordsman. He recalls precisely who the voice belongs to: Isabella Scalfini, a married aristocrat he was tasked to seduce but with whom he instead found true love. A love stolen from them hundreds of years prior.

She implores Nick to liberate her from a powerful order of religious vigilantes who judge and sentence souls to the canvas for eternity. Releasing Isabella also means unleashing thousands of other imprisoned souls, all of which the order claims are evil.

As infatuation with a possible hallucination clouds his commitment to a present-day wife, Nick’s past self takes over. Wracked with guilt, he can no longer allow Isabella to remain tor-mented, despite the consequences. He must right an age-old wrong – destroy the painting and free his soul mate. But the order will eradicate anyone who threatens their ethereal prison and their control over Venice.

Trigger Warnings.

Violence, a rape scene, a torture scene.

Oh, how many books am I going to get that are set in Italy? My main goal is that, if I read enough books, it’ll be like I’ve been there myself, but the more I read, the more I just want to actually go! My plan is backfiring, and I’m not at all complaining.

This is very much a mystery/thriller/intrigue/supernatural kind of book. So it should come as no surprise that Nick O’Connor starts to hear a woman talk to him from a painting!  And when a secret organisation, who are responsible for painting evil souls into paintings so they can trap them forever and keep them from doing any more harm to the world, notice Nick’s strange way of interacting with the painting they start keeping a very close eye on him – what does that scream but ‘thriller’? And then, when Nick starts to remember things from another life, as a swordsman in the 16th century, who knows Isabella Scalfini, the woman in the painting, you cannot help but be intrigued. 

This is the kind of book that my husband hates, not because he would actually ever pick up a book and read it, but because I spend every spare moment reading it, and he can’t have a proper conversation with me for a few days because I’m always reading and when he tries to talk to me, I shush him. But then again, books like these are impossible to put down, and that is a fact. 

This book has characters you will love, for example, Nick and Julia, and others you will absolutely loathe. I am not entirely sure how much I can list the characters I didn’t like without giving at least some little spoilers, so I won’t talk about them too much. I didn’t like them anyway. Nick and Julia, however, I loved. Although, Julia spends most of this book convinced Nick is suffering from after-effects from a concussion following an accident he had while playing hockey, and Nick spends most of the book trying to convince Julia he is actually hearing a woman talk to him from a painting. It does seem like a difficult thing to try and convince someone to believe.

The whole idea of souls being stuck in a painting is one that I can’t say I have ever come across before. I can say for sure, though, that if I was stuck inside a painting, and couldn’t move, but had to stare out across a sea of tourists every day, I would most certainly go mad. I can’t imagine what being sentenced to an eternity of nothingness would be like – I tried, and my first thought was that I would miss tea and chocolate immensely. 

This book was incredibly interesting, even though I’m almost certain things like the Order, or people being stuck in paintings is purely fictional, the ins and outs of how they worked fascinated me. Nick’s journey was one that I greatly enjoyed following. He is married to Julia, and loves her with all his heart, but Isabella is his soulmate, and his love from another time. To find one’s soulmate is something rare, but if you love someone truly, as Nick loves Julia, I think the souls can grow to be soulmates. The whole relationship dynamic, of Nick being married to Julia, and then finding this soul that his soul loved centuries ago, is certainly challenging. How exactly does one explain to their wife that this other woman is their true soulmate?!

If you want a good dose of mystery and a book that will hook you in and not let you go, this is the one to choose. Venice and a secret organisation, souls trapped in paintings, and a couple who know nothing, trying to figure out what exactly is going on – what more can you ask for?

I received my copy from The Coffee Pot Book Club but you can grab your copy from Amazon UK, Amazon US, Amazon CA, Amazon AU, Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble

Rob Samborn 

In addition to being a novelist, Rob Samborn is a screenwriter, entrepreneur and avid traveler. He’s been to forty countries, lived in five of them and studied nine languages. As a restless spirit who can’t remember the last time he was bored, Rob is on a quest to explore the intrica-cies of our world and try his hand at a multitude of crafts; he’s also an accomplished artist and musician, as well as a budding furniture maker. A native New Yorker who lived in Los Ange-les for twenty years, he now makes his home in Denver with his wife, daughter and dog. 

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