Too Much to Hope For blog tour is through Rachel’s Random Resources and includes a guest post. Comment, share, follow Sarandipity’s.
Book Details
Too Much to Hope For
Scarlett Hope has found a surprising rhythm at Haddon House. Just months into life with Laird Edward Cameron-Reid, their chemistry is electric, and the future feels full of promise – but something inside her is stirring. She’s traded city charm for estate calm yet still feels caught between worlds.
Then Harry shows up. A famous music producer – and a blast from Scarlett’s past – he’s in town to film with a renowned band. His arrival is magnetic, disruptive, and the last thing she ever expected. Scarlett loves Edward, but Harry’s presence reawakens the version of herself she thought she’d left behind.
When Edward’s daughter announces she’s pregnant and moves in full-time, the pressure only grows. And when Scarlett meets Sophie, a young woman struggling to make a home for her unborn child, one small act of kindness turns into something far bigger – a project that might just change everything. But as tragedy strikes, Scarlett faces a deeper choice – not between two men, but between who she was and who she’s becoming.
Too Much to Hope For is a high spice, emotionally layered story of love, legacy, and identity – about staying rooted in love while growing into something more. Perfect for readers who loved the emotional fire of A New Hope in the Highlands, the small-town heart of Things We Never Got Over, and the soul-deep reckoning of After I Do.
Purchase Links
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Too-Much-Hope-Haddon-Highland-ebook/dp/B0G1CWFNN8
Author Bio
Rachel Debrave writes contemporary and fantasy romance with an often twisty, dark sense of humour and a taste for dark edges and emotional depth. Her stories blend heat, heart, and layered character arcs – often set against sweeping Scottish landscapes or otherworldly backdrops.
Her debut series, beginning with A New Hope in the Highlands, explores second chances, found family, and the quiet resilience of heroines who don’t just survive – they set the pace.
When she’s not writing, Rachel can be found wandering the Scottish countryside with her dog, Daisy, reading, or playing the piano (rarely very well!) with a touch of dramatic flair.
Social Media Links –
Facebook: www.facebook.com/racheldebraveauthor/
Insta & Threads: @racheldebrave
Guest Post
As part of the Too Much to Hope For tour, I’ve been thinking a lot about why second-chance romances hit me harder than they used to. They weren’t always my jam. But the older I get, the more I find myself reaching for them first.
There’s something very seductive about first love. It’s reckless and hopeful and slightly delusional in the way only youth can be. You fall easily and hard because you don’t yet know what it costs. And whilst I still enjoy those stories, second chances just hit a little differently for me.
By the time two people find their way to each other, they’ve lived. They’ve been hurt. They’ve made mistakes. And they know exactly how much damage love can do – yet they walk towards it anyway.
That’s what gives it a dangerous edge. And for me, that’s absolute catnip.
As a reader and writer of romance, I love the comfort and dopamine hit of tropes and the guaranteed HEA, but with the Highland Hearts series, I wanted to play too. With Scarlett and Edward’s story, I wanted the fairytale – the Scottish Highland estate, the chemistry, the escapism – but I also wanted some bite. A sense that love doesn’t erase history.
The challenge was weaving those things together. Which is partly why I chose to write the series in duets. I wanted to explore what happens after the initial happy-ever-after, and whether you can move from a romantic high to something deeper and more reckoned-with.
Brave or stupid? I’ll let readers decide.
What surprised me most while writing Too Much to Hope For was how desire can become a distraction. I rarely set out to write something particularly spicy, but I do try to write honestly. And honestly? Adults have sex. But as Scarlett and Edward’s relationship deepened, I realised they were using their chemistry to avoid the conversations that might actually solve their problems.
Scarlett and Edward don’t have the luxury of blaming inexperience. They’ve both loved before. They’ve both failed before. Which means every misstep in book two carries more weight.
There are children involved. Ex-partners. Responsibilities. Pride that’s harder to swallow because it’s had years to calcify. In first love, mistakes feel tragic and romantic. In second chances, they feel consequential.
I wasn’t just asking whether they still wanted each other. I was asking whether they were prepared to change for each other.
And let’s face it – it’s easy to be swept away by chemistry. It’s much harder to stay when real life presses in. That, for me, is where the danger and courage truly live.
Second chances aren’t simply about rekindling desire – they’re about accountability. They force characters to ask uncomfortable questions: are we actually different this time? Or are we just older and hoping that’s enough?
In A New Hope in the Highlands, readers get the fantasy – the castle, the chemistry, the sense of destiny. But real life doesn’t end when the couple finally choose each other. It begins.
Too Much to Hope For asks what happens when the glow fades and real life presses in. When attraction alone can’t carry the weight. And when love has to shift from a rush to a conscious choice.
That’s why second chances feel more dangerous to me than first love.
First love is blind. Second love sees clearly – the fractures, the pride, the history – and moves forward anyway.
Sometimes that ends in heartbreak.
But when it works? When two people confront the past instead of running from it?
That kind of love feels earned – and has me kicking my feet by the final page.
And earned love – the kind that survives timing, distance, and difficult conversations – is infinitely more compelling to me than anything untouched and new.
So, if you enjoy second-chance romances with a little heat, a little Highland escapism, and characters who are forced to confront their own emotional blind spots, then Scarlett and Edward’s duet might be your kind of dangerous.
Too Much to Hope For is the second book in the Highland Hearts series, and their story begins in A New Hope in the Highlands – because sometimes love deserves more than one ending.
