Such a great read! From beginning, to the end, I was turning pages quickly. Nina was great, but at times i wanted to shake her. Luckily the author introduced her sister Tiggy, to say all the things i wanted to say. Bravo!

Nina is happily married to Finn. She has the perfect life. When her husband dies unexpectedly, she discovers that she is bankrupt. Her husband kept the finances and didn't tell his wife, Nina anything. When she finds out, she is able to move back to the neighborhood that she grew up in. Her background was poor and motherless. Her dad was a drunk. She is embarrassed to have to take her two sons to live in a small, cramped apartment. She looks for work but is having no success as she has no skills. Will she find work? Her oldest son treats his mother with no respect. Her younger boy looks at it as an adventure. However neither one wants to go the neighborhood school. Will their attitudes change?

The novel is about a single mother who must find herself. She needs to remember the courage and how to live life. She must overcome the disrespect she gets from her oldest son. It is a story that left me with good feelings and hope for Nina. What starts as a sad story, it ends up happy.

a seemingly very sad story becomes one of all 3 members of the family rebuilding their lives in a completely different setting and regaining self esteem. i really enjoyed reading this book.

Nina lived the perfect life as a stay at home mom to her two boys. With a very successful husband in tow, she wanted for nothing and life was good. Until she got the phone call...


This one had me feeling uneasy as it niggled at one of my deepest fears of what I would do if I lost my husband, both emotionally and, since I too am a stay at home mom, financially as well. Needless to say I could easily put myself in Nina's shoes.

The Art of Hiding is a tale of a family's emotional and financial ruin and the process of coming up from the ashes, much stronger.

It highlights some good life lessons like teaching children to be good people, not just teaching them to be financially successful, and showing kindness and friendship to those who may be struggling.

I enjoyed witnessing the growth of Nina and her boys as they overcome their grief, fears and obstacles and not give in to the despair of their dire situation. They became stronger, better people because of the hardships they had suffered.

The one thing that did rub me up the wrong way was that because Nina was a homemaker, because she had no paying job, and didn't pursue a career, she was made out to be as a mere helper in her home. Nina, her sister and her son Connor only saw Nina's value once she had found employment, making a financial contribution of her own. What message is this saying to the rest of us homemakers who have no paying jobs, but whose contribution to the home is just as valuable! Granted, it seemed to be more Finn's decision that Nina stay home, but she agreed and was happy and content to do so at the time.

Although it wasn't a wow read for me, it was a sweet book and I am glad I got to be introduced to Amanda Prowse's work through this novel.

Many thanks to Lake Union Publishing, Netgalley and the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

The Art of Hiding by Amanda Prowse was given to me for free for an honest review. Thank you Amanda Prowse for writing another fantastic read. I laughed, cried and cheered through out this great emotional roller coaster of a read. Nina McCarrick's life was was turned upside down when her husband was killed in a car accident. Told by strangers that everything she knew about her husband was filled with some lies. Her life is not the only that changed dramatically, but Connor and Declan's life too. Nina had to grapple the fact that her husband died a violent death, her normal routine and way of life is now gone. As a mother she knows that her children's life will not be the same, and not to mention she finds out who truly are there for her. I could not imagine going thru what Nina went thru. A great journey of the entire McCarrick family as they find their footing, to come up and above a mountain.

The Art of Hiding is one of those books that really resonates with many of us that have chosen to stay home with our children. In many ways, we lose our own identity as we take on the tasks of homemaking, making sure our children and spouses are happy, putting their needs and happiness before our own. But that can all change in a minute, and we’re left to our own devices to figure out what to do, how to survive without our spouse.

While Nina’s story is quite extreme compared to many of us (perhaps we have college educations, we just chose to stay home), she must provide for her two children, taking them from one financial extreme to another. Giving up their posh lifestyle and trading it for a life of poverty, a life Nina knows all to well.

Nina’s story evokes a rollercoaster of emotions. Nina begins to learn how important friends and family are, connections she’s really never had before. She succeeds on her own with the help of others and her own tenacity. It’s refreshing to see her evolution, yet at her lowest of times you can’t help but want to reach out to her.

My biggest complaint was the ending. It was very much a “happy for now” ending, and while that may work for many, I really prefer a happy ending. This is a new author to me and I will definitely check out her other books, I sincerely appreciate receiving this book as part of the Kindle First program.

good solid plot that is sad at times but very optimistic, it triggered a range of different emotions in me throughout the story and I found the characters likeable and interesting, especially seeing the things they endure and come out the other side stronger for it.
This is the second book of Amanda Prowse I have read and think she is a great emotive author, easy to read with a fast pace, I will definitely be reading more.

Nina's story is a modern tale of how one event can change the family's life dramatically. When Nina is watching her older son Connor play rugby at his elite school she gets a call from the police and learns that Finn has been in an accident. Within a week their carefully constructed world has fallen apart with the discovery that Finn had lost the company and also not paid school fees. So Connor, Dec, the younger son who has a lovely sunny disposition and Nina move to the city to a flat her sister has asked a cousin to let her rent. The church mparisins are great between her old life and the new but Tiggy her older sister supports her and makes her realise that the old Nina was like a bird in a golden cage with Finn, her late husband preventing her knowing how financially bad things were, but also allowing to develop herself as a person. She battles extreme poverty and lack of a job to at the conclusion of the novel when she finds herself with supportive friends and a plan for the future. The scene at the rugby dinner is memorable! What a thought provoking read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story about Nina who has a life of financial security with her husband and two sons. Then her husband suddenly dies and she quickly learns just how fast her life could change when she realizes her husband left her in a mountain of debt, and she is forced to uproot her two sons and return to her old neighborhood of poverty where she was raised. I could relate to Nina's childhood, how far she had come, a husband she adored, and her fight to find a way to provide a life for her sons. I particularly enjoyed her mending her relationship with her sister who loved her unconditionally.

This is a good read. It took a while for me to understand the storyline but the more I read the more I liked it. It makes the reader have empathy for the characters especially a mother having to change her lifestyle while coming to grips with the death of her husband. An emotional read.

This was one of those books that I wasn't sure I would like when I started it. But as I got into Nina's story, and let's face it, it was a heck of a story...I really enjoyed the way the author sucked me in. I've read other books that were similar, but I think the way Nina handled things with her two boys was admirable, and I loved that she reconnected with her sister. An enjoyable read!

The Art of Hiding is like many of Amanda Prowse's other novels in the fact, that it only scratches the emotional surface of the content.
Nina is rich, living in a beautiful house with two perfect boys and a husband with a thriving business. When he is killed in an automobile crash, Nina learns the devastating truth: the family is broke and the company is in bankruptcy. With no money and her friends turning on her, she goes back home to a low income area near her sister Tiggy who helps her adjust to her new life. The novel follows Nina's struggles with her new life and her husband's death.
I couldn't stand Nina for the first half of the book, but as a regular person, I know struggle and how you can have a happy life without riches. about half way her sister tells Nina off and Nina starts to get with the program. At this point, I really start to route for Nina and her happiness in her new life.
Tiggy, the sister, is the best part of the book. Prowse says she writes about everyday women and I was glad to see Tiggy be that character when Nina wasn't. I was also glad that new romance was a small topic and didn't fit the fairy tale ending I was expecting.
What I didn't like was how the book only superficially dealt with Nina's husband betrayal. And that is exactly what it was: a betrayal. Not some happy, oh he loved, me so he kept me safe crap that the book goes with. I've been there and done that with a man and suffered emotionally with guilt and hatred for myself for believing in someone. Luckily, I didn't have to deal with death on top of it. I do feel the book adequately death with the death side for her and the children.
Like The Idea of You, The Art of Hiding hits on big topics that women go through, but it only touches the surface of the emotions these women actually go through.

This book gave me a lot of mixed feelings. The beginning was hard to get through. The sadness. The day to day tribulations. The emotional demise of the family. I honestly didn't think it would ever pick up.

Towards the middle of the story you do see a little glimpse of brightness. But getting there I honestly have to say was tough. Several times I wanted to stop reading. You get the entire breakdown of the family and the lack of self-confidence, which leads to the title of this book.

But getting through all the day to day mundane activity does have a bright side. But this brightness only is towards the last third of the book.

While the writing is strong and full of eloquent detail, I can't even say we got a traditional happily ever after. It was more like a "everything's all right in the world" ending. I guess I'm OK with that since it is what it is. However I like happy books and this was less than that for me.

4.5 Stars

Imagine this.

You are happily married with 2 great kids who happen to go to one of the most prestigious schools in the area, a big beautiful home, a fancy car and nothing but time on your hands. Doesn't sound too bad, right?

Now imagine this.

One minute you are sitting in the lap of luxury. The next minute, your whole world implodes. You husband has died in a horrific car accident, and while you grieve and try to figure out what to do next, you find out that all of that luxury is no longer yours. It belongs to the creditors that your husband was trying to keep at bay and a secret from you.

This is exactly what happens to Nina McCarrick. Left with not much more than the clothes on their backs and a few precious items that the creditors didn't want, Nina must find a place for she and her boys to live and a way for her to support them. With no other choice, Nina returns to the town she grew up in and the sister whom she left behind so many years ago. For 3 people who have had nothing but the best for so many years, Nina's hometown is a shock to the system with it's lower middle class setting. As she and her boys adjust to their new lives, Nina works to right some of the wrongs of her past and make a better future than she may have had.

The Art of Hiding is the kind of book where "one more chapter" and "just until I get to a stopping place" don't mean much. From the start, the story brings you in. You go through a whole host of emotions right along with Nina. You cheer her triumphs and cringe at her pain. Bottom line, I could not put this book down.

I really don't understand women that don't know what is going on in their own house. The book was good if you can get past what the husband did to his family.

A powerful story seen through the eyes of a women who struggles with what life throws at her, after the dealth of her husband. And learning happiness and satisfaction come from a different perspective then what she thought.

Nina struggles after the death of her husband and begins to find herself again. A heart warming story of a woman's perseverance while having to keep her children going in their new life.

A heart-wrenching but ultimately triumphant story of a woman who had to find herself years after leaving her old life behind

I don’t read a lot of contemporary fiction, so this is an unusual review for me. It occurred to me approximately five pages into the book that the reason I don’t read this genre much is because I like my heart right where it’s at and not smashed to pieces then stomped on by the end of the first chapter.

This book started out with a knife in the gut as Nina’s husband dies while she’s at a rugby match watching their older son play. The knife twists around when it’s disclosed that Finn not only died tragically but also in debt (to the tune of £8 million), having taken out additional mortgages on their (what Nina thought free-and-clear) home.

Nina and her boys-Connor and Declan-are forced to vacate their home after watching it stripped bare of most of their possessions and return to the way-less-posh neighborhood of Nina’s childhood; a neighborhood and past she tried to escape.

It’s easy to feel sorry for a character who’s had so much piled on them that they can’t see the forest for the trees, and it’s easier for those characters to feel sorry for themselves. After all, Nina hasn’t ever had a job outside the home, hasn’t wanted for anything, and now needs to find a place to live on the few hundred pounds she’d managed to hide from the bill collectors and a job with zero experience.

Nina’s sister, Tiggy, was my favorite character in this book. Tiggy pulled no punches when it came to Nina’s learned helplessness, and that’s often something missing from books like this.



The rebuilding of Nina’s and Tiggy’s relationship, sundered when Nina ran to Bath with Finn and seldom looked back, is one of the main themes of the story. There were moments of humor (at one point, they are in a thrift store and loudly mock a clock they see…in front of the person who donated it), heartache (when Nina realizes how poorly she’s been treating her sister all these years), triumph (I cheered aloud when Nina got a job), and truth bombs:

I think happiness lies in being content now – right now! Every day! …if you are constantly waiting for happiness to start, waiting for the change that will make it happen, then you just might miss some really good days along the way.
The Art of Hiding is a beautiful book of hope and redemption framed by the familial relationships that are often taken for granted. There were times I wondered if it was all being wrapped up too neatly, but then I told myself that if it hadn’t been, I would’ve been angry, so this is the only way the book could’ve played out. It was hard to read for many personal reasons, but I’m so glad I did.

The Art of Hiding is not the type of book I generally read or enjoy, but in this instance, I'm glad I was invited to review it, because I enjoyed it quite a bit. Nina is a stay at home mom, a soccer mom if you will, to two boys, Declan and Connor. They live in the lap of luxury and it's wonderful. But, one day while Nina is at Connor's rugby match, she gets a call from the hospital that her husband has been involved in a serious car accident. When they arrive home later that night, they're all in shock, Finn has died and none of them can possibly comprehend their lives without Finn in them. Especially Nina, as she had let Finn do EVERYTHING involved with the finances. And when she finds out from his accountant days later, that his successful construction company is gone, the business is 8 million £ in debt?! What does she do? What can she do as the movers come to repossess everything they own, including their home and all their belongings? Well, they move back to the dingy place they grew up - Southampton, where her sister, Tiggy, lives, the sister that she now has to rely on for everything.

What follows is an heartwarming, sometimes heart tugging, story of moving on, growing up, accepting, and becoming independent, not just for Nina, but for Declan and Connor as well. Nina starts to see that she had allowed Finn to control her world, not in a fierce, dominant manner, but rather, that he was so afraid of not living up to the wonderful pedestal she had put him upon. He loved her so much that he couldn't possibly bear to tell her the truth of what he had become, what he had allowed to happen. So now Nina is trying to mother her two boys to whom Finn was their hero, repair her distant relationship with her sister, get a job, survive, live all while trying to come to terms with her loss.

The Art of Hiding is surprisingly uplifting for having such a heavy emotional core. It's beautifully realistic and Nina, Tiggy, Connor and Declan are well-rounded characters with lots of things about them to love. Thank you, Amanda Prowse for this wonderful story!

The Art of Hiding is another amazing book by Amanda Prouse. This is the second book that I have read by this author, and I am amazed at her ability to write family dramas that are so emotionally intense. This particular book was nothing like I expected, but I could not have loved it more. Nina McCarrick is a stay at home mom in an affluent community, raising two boys with her husband Finn. Her ideal world is shattered when her husband is killed in a car accident and she discovers piles of debt and all of their possessions are seized. Forced to deal with her family’s grief and their debt simultaneously, Nina moves her family into a small apartment near her sister. Huge changes are in store for everyone as they adjust to finding income and new schools for the boys. The message of this story is inspiring and empowering, a story of tragic loss and conquering difficult circumstances. Ultimately, it is the story of what truly matters and that the journey to finding true happiness is worth all the pain. I highly recommend this book! I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher for my honest review.