#BlogTour ‘State Of Terror’ by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny

About the book…

From the #1 bestselling authors Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny comes a novel of unsurpassed thrills and incomparable insider expertise—State of Terror.

State of Terror follows a novice Secretary of State who has joined the administration of her rival, a president inaugurated after four years of American leadership that shrank from the world stage. A series of terrorist attacks throws the global order into disarray, and the secretary is tasked with assembling a team to unravel the deadly conspiracy, a scheme carefully designed to take advantage of an American government dangerously out of touch and out of power in the places where it counts the most.

This high-stakes thriller of international intrigue features behind-the-scenes global drama informed by details only an insider could know.

Hugest of thanks to Anne Cater of Random Things Tours for the blogtour invite, and publishers Simon and Schuster for my gifted review copy, of one of the year’s most intense, high octane thrillers, State Of Terror -out now from all good bookshops.

What happens when you take a highly acclaimed writer of thrilling mysteries, and a woman who knows the ins and outs of the corridors of power, is an explosive mix of the reader thinking ‘is this a thinly veiled Mr XYZ?‘ and also what it is like to be female, in modern American politics. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall as these women discussed plot points and the finer parts of this thriller! As a huge admirer of both women, in their own rights, this was an opportunity not to be missed, even though I feel a bit too thick to read a political thriller, I felt in safe hands as these are both fantastic writers.

From the very beginning. you sense that the main character, Ellen Adams, fresh from what is perceived as a disastrous tour of South Korea , a loaded dice she was handed with the view to setting her up for failure. Her no holds barred appearance at the State Of The Union Address , shoeless and with messy hair immediately endeared her to me, as did her attitude towards the President, Douglas Adams, who seems to have assigned her as the Secretary of State to keep his enemy close, and put her in impossible positions. She and her close friend and advisor, Betsy, are the ones who pull you into the story and make you care about the ethics behind the politics.

A bomb in London, a world wide hunt for terrorists, and a woman at the very heart of it who has handed over her media empire to her daughter, and has to carefully balance her integrity towards her family relationships , her political, and social conscience in the midst of a global crisis.

There is a cameo for a well beloved character, who made me quietly cheer, a super engaging plot which puts women front and center, some lovely asides , such as the Prime Minister being unkempt and always sounding like he was being sarcastic, a shirtless Russian premier which lightened what could have been a very dense plot.

I am hopeful that there will be more from this duo, these characters have blazed onto the literary scene and now they need space to embed, so maybe a few more adventures from Ellen and Betsy, please?

About the authors …

Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton (born October 26, 1947) was the 67th United States Secretary of State, serving in the cabinet of President Barack Obama. In 2016, she became the first woman in U.S. history to win a major party’s presidential nomination, and the first woman to win the popular vote in a presidential race – despite losing the election.

She was a Senator from the state of New York from 2001 to 2009. As the wife of the 42nd, President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton, Hillary served as First Lady from 1993 to 2001. In the 2008 election Clinton was a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A native of Illinois, Hillary Rodham attracted national attention in 1969 when she was chosen by her peers to be the first student commencement speaker at Wellesley College. As a graduate of Yale Law School, Class of 1973, she served temporarily as a Congressional legal counsel. Rodham moved to Arkansas in 1974, marrying Bill Clinton a year later. Hillary Rodham Clinton co-founded the Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families in 1977, and became the first female chair of the Legal Services Corporation in 1978. Named the first female partner at Rose Law Firm in 1979, she was twice listed as one of the 100 most influential lawyers in America. First Lady of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and 1983 to 1992 with husband Bill as Governor, Clinton successfully led a task force to reform Arkansas’s education system. She has served on the board of directors of Wal-Mart as well as several other prominent corporations.

In 1994 as First Lady of the United States, her major initiative, the Clinton health care plan, failed to gain approval from the U.S. Congress. However, in 1997 and 1999, Clinton played a role in advocating for the establishment of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, the Adoption and Safe Families Act, and the Foster Care Independence Act. Her time as First Lady drew a polarized response from the American public. She is the only First Lady to have been subpoenaed, testifying before a federal grand jury in 1996 due to the Whitewater controversy, but was never charged with any wrongdoing in this or any of the other investigations during her husband’s administration. The state of her marriage was the subject of considerable speculation following the Lewinsky scandal in 1998 that spurred Articles of Impeachment to be issued against her husband, Bill Clinton.

In January of 2000, Clinton was elected as senator to the State of New York after moving to the small suburban hamlet of Chappaqua in Westchester County. That election marked the first time an American First Lady had run for public office; Clinton was also the first female senator to represent New York. In the Senate, she initially supported the Bush administration on some foreign policy issues, including a vote for the Iraq War Resolution, subsequently opposing the administration on its conduct of the war in Iraq, and most domestic issues. Senator Clinton was re-elected by a wide margin in 2006. In the 2008 presidential nomination race, Hillary Clinton won more primaries and delegates than any other female candidate in American history, but narrowly lost to Senator Barack Obama. As Secretary of State, Clinton became the first former First Lady to serve in a president’s cabinet

Links-https://www.hillaryclinton.com/

Twitter @HillaryClinton

Louise Penny is the author of the #1 New York Times and Globe and Mail bestselling series of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache novels.

She has won numerous awards, including a CWA Dagger and the Agatha Award (seven times), and was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.

In 2017, she received the Order of Canada for her contributions to Canadian culture. Louise lives in a small village south of Montréal.

Links-http://www.louisepenny.com/