Next Year in Havana

by Chanel Cleeton

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA

B&N / iBooks

Nothing is Forgotten

by Peter Golden

Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iTunes

 Paperback: 352 pages

Publisher: Washington Square Press;

Reprint edition (March 19, 2019)

From the beloved author of Comeback Love and Wherever There Is Light, comes “a sweeping tale full of humor and heartbreak” (Karin Tanabe, author of The Diplomat’s Daughter) about the life-changing journey of a young man who travels from New Jersey to Khrushchev’s Russia and the beaches of Southern France to discover long-hidden secrets about his heritage.

In 1950s New Jersey, teacher Michael Daniels—or Misha Danielov to his doting Russian-Jewish grandmother—is at loose ends, until he becomes the host of a nightly underground radio show. Not only does the show become a local hit because of his running satires of USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev, but half a world away, it picks up listeners in a small Soviet city.

There, with rock and roll leaking in through bootlegged airwaves, Yulianna Kosoy—a war orphan in her mid-twenties—is sneaking American goods into the country with her boss, Der Schmuggler.

But just as Michael’s radio show is taking off, his grandmother is murdered. Why would anyone commit such an atrocity against such a warm, affable woman? She had always been secretive about her past and, as Michael discovers, guarded a shadowy ancestral history. In order to solve the mystery of who killed her, Michael sets out for Europe to learn where he—and his grandmother—really came from.

“Both heartbreaking and mesmerizing, Nothing Is Forgotten is the sort of book you won’t soon forget…Cold War Europe, lingering Nazi secrets, and the tragic history faced by millions of families not only bring this tale to life but will keep you turning the pages” (Lisa Wingate, New York Times bestselling author) and will appeal to fans of novels by Anita Diamant and Kristin Hannah.

“Golden draws a vivid portrait of the Cold War era, but it is the complex and unexpected connection between Holocaust survivors and their descendants that turns this book into a page-turner.” (RT Book Reviews)

“Nothing Is Forgotten is a Russian nesting doll of plot twists across continents and decades. This cleverly constructed Cold War tale, based on gripping true events, keeps readers eagerly anticipating what lies at its heart.” (Sarah McCoy, New York Times and internationally bestselling author of The Mapmaker’s Children)

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

I shook my head, and he smiled a little sadly—the Russian smile, my grandmother called it, like a weak sun in a winter-gray sky.

Named for Mark Twain, whose loathing of Tsarist Russia endeared him to the party, the students spent half the day immersed in the government-blessed curriculum in Russian and the other half taking courses in English, all while a portrait of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, stood guard on a wall of every classroom, glaring at the students as if accusing them of harboring the forbidden desire to own private property.

“He is a real magician, my father.” “A magician? Like he pulls rabbits out of hats?” “Like he makes vodka disappear.”

I had a new reaction. I imagined smashing the wine bottle over Stenka’s head. Visiting Dachau, I concluded, could make a Jew touchy.

Of course, almost everyone loves dead Jews. Jesus was a Jew, no? It is the live Jews who seem to bother people.

I feel like I wandered into the middle of a freakish play, and I can’t get off the stage.

My Review:

Peter Golden has created exceptionally compelling arrangements of words within these 353 pages. His beguiling selections of nouns, verbs, and adjectives were densely packed across two timelines and were highly intriguing, thoughtfully written, mysteriously emotive, poignantly insightful, spiritually devastating, yet highly compelling. His well-crafted storylines were lushly detailed and often held a weighty aura of melancholy, which resulted in a bruised and heavy heart, yet, oddly, I didn’t seem to mind. To deploy his own words out of reference, Mr. Golden is truly a “connoisseur of irony.” He sagely tucked in clever turns of mocking wit and deftly tossed in twists of levity with razor-sharp sarcasm, quips, and sardonic banter. His cunning use of humor felt like delightful treats and often erupted in the most expected of places.

This was not an easy book to slice through given the disquieting subject matter, a large cast of unusual and disturbing characters, frequent use of foreign words and names, and unfamiliar cultural references; all of which left me ever so thankful for the translator and Wikipedia function on my tablet. However, I assure you, this masterfully penned tale was well worth the effort. I feel humbly and gratefully enlightened while having gleaned considerable and relevant knowledge in an entertaining manner. Peter Golden has mad skills and a new fan.

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA / B&N

Just when you thought you had it all worked out …

Best friends Lisa and Felicity think  – maybe, just maybe – they finally have everything sorted out in their lives.

Lisa is in a happy relationship with her old flame, and busy mum Felicity has managed to reignite the passion with her husband, Pete after a romantic getaway.

But when Lisa walks in on a half-naked woman in her boyfriend’s flat and Felicity is left reeling from a shocking discovery, it becomes clear that life is nothing but full of surprises …

Amazon

.

Can 10 Dares help Melinda loosen up, conquer stress and find love? Or might they push her over the edge….

Melinda Spencer had everything but now her life has fallen apart.

Her two best friends, Mikey and Joanie are worried. Melinda’s been acting even more highly strung than usual. They decide to stage an intervention. Something to help her lighten up and take her mind off things: 10 crazy dares. After all, they say laughter is the best medicine…

Never one to squelch on a dare, Melinda accepts her challenge. The dares look simple enough: knock on a door and run away, tend her lady garden, flash a stranger… and if it gets Joanie and Mikey off her back about loosening up, it’ll be worth it. But with a sexy vet, a troublesome ex, and a village full of nutters hot on her trail, has Melinda finally bitten off more than she can chew?

Ten Dares is a hilarious romp about a strung-out single mum trying to hold everything together when life is throwing her lemons as curve balls.

This standalone romantic comedy has a happy ending, no cliffhanger, and can also be enjoyed as part of The Power of Ten Series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Thirsty Thursday always leads to Fragile Friday…

Small town life, Melinda. You know how quick news travels around here. It’s probably all over the senior’s community bingo group and halfway to the London Eye by now. Mrs Bugden is not a happy camper. I saw her in Costco this morning. I’d nipped in for this week’s Celebrity Tattler magazine and ended up with a tale so salacious I’m not sure even the Tattler would print it.

Hyacinth Bugden, my neighbour of twelve years, is most well known for her calculating stares, blather-mouth and acid tongue. She’s stocky for an older lady and generously proportioned. I once saw her accost a shoplifter with the gusto of a sumo wrestler. She’s no sweet old lady, that’s for sure.

“We should make her shave off her lady garden.” Joanie laughs hysterically. “Doesn’t everyone tend their garden?” Mikey asks seriously. When no one bites, he nonchalantly grins and adds, “You don’t know what you’re missing. I’ve been as smooth as an eel since I was old enough to brave the blade, and the guys love it!”

His eyebrows shoot skyward with the precision of synchronised swimmers.

My Review:

What fun! I gleefully consumed this diabolically witty tale while enduring a constant smirk, frequent bouts of giggle-snorting, and the occasional uncontrollable bark of laughter. Emily James’ lithesome writing style was highly engaging and summoned vivid and outrageously humorous visuals. Her wily storylines were cleverly plotted, well-paced, and laced together with colorful levity and deviously and comically peculiar characters. I rued reaching the last page and am eager for the next installment.

Amazon 

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA / B&N

SYNOPSIS:

In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.

Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.

Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

There was nothing to bury, no body to conduct a service over. Instead, we heard that he was gone, and that was that… Nothing had changed, except that nothing was the same anymore, because once I had two brothers, and now I had one… Our oppression was loss without reason, and pain without a purpose.

I didn’t yet understand the horrific depths of the evil of the Nazi agenda— but somehow in the moonlight that night, I felt the loss of humanity, a very pause in the heartbeat of our shared existence on this planet.

War breaks us down to nothing more than our most selfish will to survive— but when we rise above that instinct, miracles can still happen.

Life has a way of shattering our expectations, of leaving our hopes in pieces without explanation. But when there’s love in a family, the fragments left behind from our shattered dreams can always be pulled together again, even if the end result is a mosaic.

 My Review:

This captivating tale was my introduction to the breathtaking storytelling of Kelly Rimmer, and it was an exceptional and epic experience. I was immediately embroiled in the vastly different situations and timelines that consumed and defined Alice and Alina’s worlds, with each storyline cast with curiously and uniquely fascinating characters and circumstances.

The writing was craftily emotive, intriguing, and devastating. I was well and fully hooked and sat riveted to my Kindle while alternating between cringing, sighing, and occasionally gasping and gulping past the hot rocks in my throat. I was wrecked, gutted, and burning with indignation over the well-orchestrated and demonic cruelty perpetrated by the Nazis as a whole and at the individual level.

I cannot begin to imagine the massive amount of research involved to pull all the various historic and profoundly complicated elements together.   However, I am even more impressed and completely awed by the elegance and mastery in finessing such a poignant and thoughtfully compelling narrative among the ghastly backdrop of occupied Poland in Alina’s timeline, as well as the emotional challenges and troublesome issues of dealing with a beloved dying family member on top of the harried day to day considerations involved in caring for the specialized needs of a child on the autism spectrum in Alice’s timeline. Ms. Rimmer’s original premise and intensely engaging storylines were brilliantly crafted and flawlessly executed. She has just acquired a rabid fangirl, for life.

Kelly Rimmer is the USA Today bestselling author of contemporary fiction novels including Me Without You, The Secret Daughter, When I Lost You, A Mother’s Confession and her most recent release, Before I Let You Go. She lives in rural Australia with her family.

For further information about Kelly’s books, and to subscribe to her mailing list, visit www.kellyrimmer.com.

Connect with Kelly

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram