Book Review: Knock Out (Fighting for Love, #4) by Jiffy Kate @JiffyKateWrites @SmartyPantsRom

Knock Out
(Fighting for Love, #4)
by Jiffy Kate 

Amazon  / BB

Knock Out, an all-new grumpy sunshine small-town romance from Jiffy Kate, is now available in Kindle Unlimited!

In the blink of an eye, Willow Bernard goes from stocking shelves at the Piggly Wiggly to kicking butt at Viking MMA.

Willow Bernard has taken a lot of hits in her twenty-two years but always manages to come back swinging. Hoping to fly under the radar for a change, she relocates to Green Valley. Her strategy works until one fateful phone call initiates a series of events that shakes up her quiet existence.

Tattooed adventure-seeker Ozzi Erickson goes where the wind takes him. When he blows into Green Valley for his big brother’s wedding—and to figure out his next move—he isn’t prepared for the knock-out punch coming his way.

With Ozzi sticking around the Tennessee mountain town, his brother gives him a temporary assignment as Willow Bernard’s trainer.

His job is to teach her how to fight. But will she have the skills required to protect her heart?

‘Knock Out’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #4 in the Fighting for Love series, Green Valley Chronicles, Penny Reid Book Universe.

Start the Fighting For Love series of standalones!

Read for FREE in Kindle Unlimited!

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My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

My dad laughs. “I hate to break it to y’all, but she never oohed and ahhed over any of you like she does this baby. What they say, about grandkids being your reward for making it through parenthood, is right.”

Those Erickson boys are finer than a frog hair split four ways… or five, I guess.

I will not cry today. I know the old song about it being my party and I can cry if I want to, but I don’t want to.

My Review:

 

The storylines were carefully built and slowly paced although still engaging. The storylines featured and carried over endearing and authentic characters from previous installments. The main character of Willow was admirable yet also rather heavy on the angst, which isn’t one of my favorite things, although I enjoyed the arc of her blossoming confidence and steamy romance and appreciated the welcome hits of wit and humor provided in the other characters’ encounters. There is one more brother to go, the grumpiest of the bunch, I’m already curious.

 

 

About the Author

Jiffy Kate is the joint pen name for Jiff Simpson and Jenny Kate Altman. They’re co-writing besties who share a brain. They also share a love of cute boys, stiff drinks, and fun times.

Together, they’ve written over twenty stories. Their first published book, Finding Focus, was released in November 2015. Since then, they’ve continued to write what they know–southern settings full of swoony heroes and strong heroines.

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Book Review: Play Smart (Work For It, #5) by Aly Stiles @aly_stiles @SmartyPantsRom

Play Smart
(Work For It, #5)
by Aly Stiles

 

Play Smart, an all-new enemies-to-lovers rockstar romcom from Aly Stiles, is now available in Kindle Unlimited!

Nash Ellis knows music. Producing, performing, writing—if it involves the creative process he’s there for it. He knows nothing about copy machines. Or financial reports. Or anything related to the stuck-up business world his best friends have been chasing since they were kids. But Nash also needs money, so when his roommate gets him a paid internship at Reedweather Media, he reluctantly agrees. At least his know-it-all intern competitor is kind of cute in a nerdy-librarian sort of way—especially when she’s being tormented by an angsty rocker she can’t stand.

The only thing Paige Andrews hates more than failure? Nash Ellis. She has little patience for incompetence and zero tolerance for indifference. He clearly doesn’t belong in their corporate world, so why does he insist on ruining her dream job? And the worst part—he’s not what he seems. In fact, it’s all the things he’s hiding behind those electric blue eyes that make him straight-up captivating in an ironic-slacker sort of way.

But their smoldering friction bursts into open flames when the feuding interns are forced into a high-stakes mission that requires intimate knowledge of the music industry. Yep, what could go wrong when the least-qualified candidate to ever walk the halls of a major corporation becomes their only hope of success?

‘Play Smart’ is a full-length contemporary romance and can be read as a standalone. Book #5 in the Work For It series, Educated Romance World, Penny Reid Book Universe.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

You didn’t get me a job. You sent me through a wormhole to Hell…

If lust was a competitive sport, pretty sure I just made Nationals.

He doesn’t look at me as he gets lost in some distant recess of his head. As usual, a part of me wants to follow him there. The other part is relieved I can’t.

We are fire and gasoline, and we’ve become addicted to the flames.

Another win for Zeros Being Heroes, I guess. We’re like the Accidental Avengers. We’re so bad at shit it goes full circle and kinda works.

My Review:

 

I enjoyed the clever humor, cunning snark, and crisp banter between Ms. Stiles’s complex characters. I delighted in the volatile chemistry and blossoming romance between the two main protagonists. Still, I got a bit lost and disinterested in the corporate politics, espionage, and double and triple spies storylines. I so wanted to befriend Nash Ellis, he was quite the tasty treat despite being anathema to his coworker Paige upon meeting. Both were whip-smart, more than a bit fractured, and had complicated personalities. The writing was emotive, heart-squeezing, as well as scorch the sheets and gasp producing steamy.

About the Author

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From angsty and dark to snort-laugh funny, Aly writes romance from her soul to yours.

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Book Review:  On the First Day of Christmas by Faith Hogan  @GerHogan  @Aria_Fiction

On the First Day of Christmas
by Faith Hogan

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A gorgeous new festive read from the Kindle #1 bestselling author of The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club

When Liv Latimer says goodbye to her colleagues and finishes work for the holidays, she’s looking forward to a Christmas to remember with her boyfriend Eddie.

But before she makes it home, her phone rings, calling her back into work. And Liv is faced with a choice. Does she do as she’s always done, and put herself second? Or, will she say no, so she can finally begin the life she’s dreamed of?

Liv’s decision will turn her world upside down in ways she could never have imagined.

Because whatever choice she makes, Liv is about to discover, fate finds a way…

From the bestselling Irish author of The Ladies’ Midnight Swimming Club, comes an emotional and uplifting festive story about love, family and how a split-second decision can change your life.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

Go ahead, eat that frog.

My Review:

 

I struggled with this one and needed to ruminate for a few days before I could write a coherent review as I was rather disgruntled upon reaching the conclusion of the mystery. The book was unusually plotted with puzzling parallel timelines and similar events with the same characters. I was a bit baffled and bewildered with each shift, yet I was also quickly invested in the story and fell right into this wily author’s trap.

Multiple theories were developed, discarded, and circled yet again during my perusal – including parallel universes, dissociative personality, coma dreaming, reincarnation, paranormal spirits, etc. The characters were as thoughtfully constructed as the storylines with the beleaguered main protagonist being perversely stubborn and desperately clinging to her fantasy with an exasperating case of denial as a bonus. I wanted to give her a few hard whacks with my Kindle to dislodge her gray matter from her colon long before she got there on her own. But despite my irritation, I must give this crafty author her due, Faith Hogan is a perceptive and gifted scribe who kept me engaged and immersed in her story, even when it vexed or displeased me.

 

About the Author


Faith Hogan is an Irish award-winning and bestselling author of five contemporary fiction novels. Her books have been featured as Book Club Favorites, Net Galley Hot Reads, and Summer Must Reads. She writes grown-up women’s fiction which is unashamedly uplifting, feel-good, and inspiring.

She is currently working on her next novel. She lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, four children, and a very busy Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker, and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!

.

 

Book Review: Number One Fan by Meg Elison  @megelison

Number One Fan
by Meg Elison

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A headlong rush of a thriller/horror that is Misery for Millennials, about a bestselling author who is abducted by her biggest fan and must figure out who he is, where she is, and how to survive and escape, set against the backdrop of fan and convention culture, the literati and the #metoo movement.

 

Bestselling fantasy author Eli Grey gets into a cab without checking it’s hers, and unquestioningly accepts a drink from the driver. Then she wakes up chained in his basement. With no close family or friends expecting her to check in, Eli knows she’s on her own to save herself. She soon realizes that her abduction wasn’t random–she was targeted. And though she thinks she might recognize her captor, she can’t figure out quite why, or what he wants. But it is clear that he is very familiar with her work, and deeply invested in the fantastical world she created in her books. What follows is a test of wills as Eli pits herself against a man who believes she owes him everything and is determined to take it from her.

 

With unflinching prose, NUMBER ONE FAN examines the tension between creator and work, fandom and source material, and the rage of fans who feel they own fiction.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

It was a line that she had hated. Had, in fact, told the screenwriter that it dripped with cheese like a plate of truck stop nachos…

Some men have a way of eating you with their eyes, and she had been gobbled up before. She knew that look. He wouldn’t look anywhere but her face. He blinked slowly, like a creature of the depths of the sea that rarely saw the sun.

… relief welling up in her like an intensity like she’d never known. It was like every safe plane landing she’d ever had, the feeling when her credit card went through, the fall into a comfortable chair with her bra off at the end of a hard day all rolled together and sharpened into a needle.

My Review:

 

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, what did I fall into? This was a tense and distressingly and painfully realistic read that was skin-crawling creepy. Much like coming upon a bad accident or train wreck, I was compelled to look but didn’t want to see at the same time. I cringed and flinched while reading but was also intrigued and couldn’t seem to leave it alone, and finished with ragged cuticles, my shoulders in my ears, and a sigh of relief. Tomorrow needs to be a spa day to work the knots of tension out of my neck. Meg Elison is one twisted sister but weaves a mighty tale.

 

 

Meg Elison is a California Bay Area author and essayist. She writes science fiction and horror, as well as feminist essays and cultural criticism. She has been published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Fangoria, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Catapult, and many other places.

 

She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA) and the National Writers Union (@paythewriter).

Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife won the 2014 Philip K. Dick Award. Her novelette “The Pill” won the 2021 Locus Award. She is a Hugo, Nebula, and Sturgeon Awards finalist. She has been an Otherwise Award honoree twice. Her YA debut, Find Layla, was published in fall 2020 by Skyscape. It was named one of Vanity Fair’s Best 15 Books of 2020.

 

Elison is a high school dropout and a graduate of UC Berkeley.

Book Review:All the Broken Girls  by Linda Hurtado Bond @TLCBookTours @AuthorLindaBond @entangled_publishing

Amazon  / B&NGP/ Apple / BB

 

When one falls

Crime reporter Mari Alvarez was never able to solve her mother’s murder ten years ago. But when a woman is gunned down on the doorstep of her West Tampa neighborhood, Mari can’t shake the eerie sense of connection.

The others will break

Now there have been two murders in two days. Each crime scene awash with arcane clues?and without a trace of DNA from the killer. And for each victim, a doll. The first is missing an eye. The second is missing a heart. But are these clues leading to the killer…or messages for Mari?

Unless she plays the game…

Caught up in a maelstrom of Old-World superstition, secrets, and ties to her own past, Mari has only one option. Put the puzzle together before someone else dies?even if it destroys her career. But there’s no escaping the hungry spider’s web when it’s been made just for you…

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Lately, walking in and out of these meetings feels like walking across fire. Barefoot. Under a full moon with howling wolves watching.

In my darkest hours, I dreamed of finding my mother’s killer and shooting him or her. Right in the chest, like they’d murdered my mamá. An eye for an eye. And in those dreams, I never felt remorse. The lack of any guilt, that’s what woke me up those nights, gasping for air, gripping the sheets, sweating. It wasn’t that I’d killed, it was my fear someone would sense this darkness in me. And tell the world. Or incarcerate me forever because of it.

I usually don’t trust people. The reporter in me is a natural skeptic. But my heart is stretching, like fingers, reaching out to connect with this woman.

I want to look away, because this vulnerability is a coat I don’t like to wear. It’s hot and uncomfortable.

I exhale, thankful I let the right words fly while the real words stayed inside my head. Isn’t that what life is? A constant struggle with ourselves?

 

My Review:

 

This was a tense, angsty, and gripping read that kept me on edge. The storylines were laced together with heinous crimes, the main character’s prominent OCD traits, tons of family drama, loads of unfamiliar Cuban cultural issues, and the oddly mysterious practices of Santeria which are mingled with Catholic rhetoric, a practice and belief system I confess to being grossly ignorant of. The story progressed slowly and I often wanted to give a kick in the pants to the deeply flawed main protagonist for being so prickly, arrogant, and obstinate. But of course, I am a total delight 24/7.

About the Author

 

Linda Hurtado Bond is an award-winning journalist for Tampa’s Fox 13 by day and author of romantic thrillers by night. She has won 13 Emmy awards, numerous Society of Professional Journalist and Associated Press awards, as well as a Florida Bar and an Edward R. Murrow award. A breast cancer survivor, she’s also active in the Tampa community with The American Cancer Society, Hooked on Hope, and The Shoot for a Cure, raising money and awareness any chance she gets. She’s the mother of five, four athletes and an adopted son from Cuba. She has passion for world travel, classic movies and solving a good mystery.

Book Review: Single All The Way Portia MacIntosh @PortiaMacIntosh

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Will Dani find love this Christmas? Or will she be Single All The Way…?

When Dani’s boyfriend (and boss!) dumps her for a younger model, the only silver lining she can see is to be able to spend Christmas at home with her family after years away.

Determined to surprise them, Dani turns up unannounced in her hometown, excited to see that the festive season in Marram Bay is in full swing with Christmas lights twinkling on every corner. But disaster strikes when she finds her parents’ house is empty and they appear to have gone away on holiday!

Christmas alone and single is not ideal, and when Dani starts bumping into old friends, neighbours and potential love interests, she can’t face telling them the truth. So in a panic she claims to be home to throw a Christmas party for the whole town – easier said than done with 12 days to go before Christmas…

As the fake party approaches, little does Dani know that there may be someone there under the mistletoe for her, if she can just let her guard down and see them…

A laugh-out-loud festive romantic comedy from top 10 bestseller Portia MacIntosh, guaranteed to put a smile on your face this Christmas.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I’m definitely over him– and baffled why I was ever under him…

Also, and I know this sounds ridiculous for a thirty-something woman to say, but it felt so wonderfully naughty, to be breaking the rules. I got a real kick out of it. In a similar vein, I also got a kick out of drinking from my mum’s favourite mug, sitting in my dad’s chair, and listening to his records that no one is allowed to touch. I even allowed myself a cheeky five minutes to touch my mum’s collection of crystal ornaments– basically, all the things I’ve been discouraged from doing my entire life, that I can only do today because no one is here to tell me off for it. To be honest, I’m sure neither of my parents would care about any of these things now that I’m an adult (allegedly), but just let me have this.

I dash to the downstairs loo and check myself over in the mirror quickly. I was eating cheese puffs about half an hour ago and I still feel like I’m covered in orange stuff. I know, I know, it’s unfathomable how sexy I am. How is Rex resisting me?

I tell you what, one thing I didn’t need to worry about, being here alone this past week, was running out of the important stuff like toilet roll or shower gel. There’s a cupboard full of tinned food and bottles of water– something my dad has lovingly dubbed her ‘zombie supplies’– which is supposed to be for worst-case, unlikely scenarios like extreme weather or wars or wars or God knows what– but you better believe she’s ready for them.

My Review:

 

This was a lively and fun read, laced together with breezy and amusing humor and witty observations. It didn’t matter one whit to me that I was reading a British story occurring in heavy snow during the Christmas holidays while I was experiencing a humid August day in the tropics. The engaging storylines were pleasantly entertaining, easy to follow, delightfully original, refreshingly unpredictable, shrewdly paced, and held my interest throughout. I enjoy this crafty author’s sense of humor and I plan to weave more of her work into my bloated TBR.

 

 

Portia MacIntosh is the bestselling author of over 20 romantic comedy novels.

From disastrous dates to destination weddings, Portia’s romcoms are the perfect way to escape from day to day life, visiting sunny beaches in the summer and snowy villages at Christmas time. Whether it’s southern Italy or the Yorkshire coast, Portia’s stories are the holiday you’re craving, conveniently packed in between the pages.

Formerly a journalist, Portia has left the city, swapping the music biz for the moors, to live the (not so) quiet life with her husband and her dog in Yorkshire.

Book Review: Big City Little Rebel by Kelly Collins  @kcollinsauthor

Big City Little Rebel
by Kelly Collins

Amazon  / BB

Opposites attract when a sexy builder falls for the little, blonde rebel intent on destroying his life.

When tragedy claimed the life of Beau Westhaven’s father, he didn’t just lose his dad, he lost his future. Now the project manager for Aspen Construction, Beau has two goals—to rebuild the family construction business and get his still-grieving mother out of her less than desirable circumstances. His plan was simple until a little blonde rebel named Bobbie Cruise arrived.

Bobbie Cruise lost everything to corporate greed. Despite a deathbed promise to her cancer-stricken mother, Bobbie wasn’t a real activist. But when the construction company responsible for her mother’s death showed up with yet another potentially lethal project, she chained herself to the front door to stop their progress. She wasn’t expecting the man in charge to be tall, dark, and unforgettable.

He’s focused on his success. She’s counting on his failure. Two lives pushed together by fate and torn apart by circumstances. Can they set aside their pasts in order to let love win and give them a future?

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

“They were vagitarians.” He shrugged his shoulders and tossed back the second sample. “No way.” Beau laughed so hard the beer came out of his nose. “Leave it to you to find the only two lesbians in the room.” “I’m magical that way.”

My Review:

 

This was a quick and easy read with a satisfying, sexy, and supportive romance that every woman dreams of. The characters were endearing and instantly likable people who deserved all the good things in life, although those good things had to wait until they found each other. The storylines were easy to follow, active, amusing, and well-paced, and held my interest and curiosity in how their dilemma would resolve.

 

ABOUT KELLY COLLINS   

 

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International bestselling author of over 30 novels, Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive. Always a romantic, she blends real-life events with her vivid imagination to create characters and stories that lovers of contemporary romance, new adult, and romantic suspense will return to again and again.

 

Book Review: From Bad to Cursed Lana Harper  @LanaPopovicLit @BerkleyPub

From Bad to Cursed
by Lana Harper

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Wild child Isidora Avramov is a thrill chaser, adept demon summoner, and—despite the whole sexy-evil-sorceress vibe—also a cuddly animal lover. When she’s not designing costumes and new storylines for the Arcane Emporium’s haunted house, Issa’s nursing a secret, conflicted dream of ditching her family’s witchy business to become an indie fashion designer in her own right.

But when someone starts sabotaging the celebrations leading up to this year’s Beltane festival with dark, dangerous magic, a member of the rival Thorn family gets badly hurt—throwing immediate suspicion on the Avramovs. To clear the Avramov name and step up for her family when they need her the most, Issa agrees to serve as a co-investigator, helping none other than Rowan Thorn get to the bottom of things.

Rowan is the very definition of lawful good, so tragically noble and by-the-book he makes Issa’s teeth hurt. In accordance with their families’ complicated history, he and Issa have been archenemies for years and have grown to heartily loathe each other. But as the unlikely duo follow a perplexing trail of clues to a stunning conclusion, Issa and Rowan discover how little they really know each other… and stumble upon a maddening attraction that becomes harder to ignore by the day.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

We glared at each other, the distance between us seeming to thin and contract, pulsing like a heartbeat, as if our shared loathing were potent enough to actually distort the fabric of reality.

I glanced up at the massive gilded portrait of Margarita Avramov— our family’s ancestor and one of the four original founders of Thistle Grove— hanging on the flocked maroon wallpaper above the fireplace. She appraised the crowd of her descendants with black and lustrous eyes, set in the kind of gorgeous resting bitch face that could launch a thousand ships, probably mostly out of screaming terror.

A gratified glow fueled by pure pettiness lit just beneath my ribs. There’s a certain special exhilaration to driving the object of your loathing to soothing breathing techniques.

I was playing with the worst kind of fire here, and I knew it— but when had that ever stopped me before? When had it ever done anything at all, besides making me want to keep blazing my way down trails marked “forbidden”? For me, the forbiddenness usually tended to be the point.

Quit trying to salt my game.

My Review:

 

I rarely read this genre as I am far too lazy for all the world-building so I’m unfamiliar with the different roles and rules and types of magic, but despite the extra effort it took, I found the divisions and petty feuds between death magic and green magic quite clever. I was pleasantly surprised by the range and diversity of the author’s pen with keen snark, biting humor, and creepy curses and spells. The plot was intricate and slowly unfolded with unpredictable story threads and a bit of everything with thick and juicing servings of salty language, an entertaining macabre mystery, a fledgling romance, sensuality, and family drama. I enjoyed the change of pace and have decided I should indulge in this genre more often.

 

Lana Harper is the author of four YA novels about modern-day witches and historical murderesses. Born in Serbia, she grew up in Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria before moving to the US, where she studied psychology and literature at Yale University, law at Boston University, and publishing at Emerson College. She recently moved to Chicago with her family.

 

Book Review: Half Sisters by Virginia Franken  @virginiafranken

Half Sisters
by Virginia Franken 

Amazon  / B&N  / BB

A single lie becomes a defining moment in a family’s life in an unforgettable novel of psychological suspense.

After being gone for two decades, Maddy’s half-sister, Emily, is back in town to settle their late father’s estate. Emily’s not the troubled girl Maddy remembers from their volatile childhood. Apparently, all is well. It can’t possibly matter anymore that Maddy married Emily’s first love, but the pictures Maddy finds on her husband’s phone tell a different story. Suspicions of an affair are hard to ignore.

Then again, Maddy hasn’t been herself lately. She’s increasingly confused. She’s losing items that are precious to her. She forgets where she’s going. The line between what’s real and unreal has become a blur. Even the damning photos have disappeared. Though her state of mind starts to become everyone’s cause for concern, Maddy refuses to believe she’s losing her grip on reality. But the one thing she can’t deny is the secret from the past that rewrote all their lives—a secret that’s ready to come out.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Maddy’s school reports often said, “Talks too much.” Her mom defended the trait as inquisitive. Her dad didn’t say much about it, but she could tell he wasn’t a fan of her endless questions. She’d never realized that talking could have landed her in this much trouble. Perhaps this was why everyone had been trying to get her to shut up her whole life.

Maddy looked around the waiting room, every last person with their head bent to their phone. There were no tattered magazines gracing the various chairs and tables of the room. No one wanted to read secondhand copies of People magazine anymore when they had their phone to gaze at, loaded with personalized content just for them. Maddy sometimes visualized people’s phones swapped out for mirrors, a whole world of people staring in silent awe at digitized versions of themselves.

He made it sound so easy. Find some sperm. As if by looking in enough of Joseph’s creases and crevices they’d dredge some up from somewhere.

“You could both be charged with statutory rape,” said Ivan, looking entirely serious about the whole thing, even though the notion that they were both simultaneously busy raping each other at the same time was clearly ridiculous.

My Review:

 

This book was heaving with unreliable, treacherous, untrustworthy, selfish, and horrifyingly fractured characters. I despised them all by the last page, yet I was undeniably hooked and invested in unraveling their heinous schemes. I devised multiple theories of gaslighting, mental illness, revenge, retribution, rage, hatred, betrayal, and abuse, but who was guilty? The community was apparently a viper’s nest of vile and self-serving individuals, which in reality, under the surface, every community is similarly populated.

The writing and storylines were original, sneakily witty, compelling, and perceptively detailed from multiple points of view. I was engrossed, annoyed, and biting my cuticles from the tension brewing from the petty, destructive, and deplorable manner the characters treated each other. They were all guilty of something, so what is wrong with me that I voyeuristically needed to know exactly what?

 

 

About the Author

Virginia Franken was born and raised in the United Kingdom. After traveling the world as a professional dancer, she now lives in Los Angeles with her family. She works as a copy editor by day and gets most of her writing done when she should be sleeping.

Book Review: Blackout by Erin Flanagan

Blackout
by Erin Flanagan

Amazon  / BB

 Thomas & Mercer (July 1, 2022)

In this unforgettable psychological thriller, the dark is a terrifying mystery for a woman on the edge.

Seven hard-won months into her sobriety, sociology professor Maris Heilman has her first blackout. She chalks it up to exhaustion, though she fears that her husband and daughter will suspect she’s drinking again. Whatever their cause, the glitches start becoming more frequent. Sometimes minutes, sometimes longer, but always leaving Maris with the same disorienting question: Where have I been?

Then another blackout lands Maris in the ER, where she makes an alarming discovery. A network of women is battling the same inexplicable malady. Is it a bizarre coincidence or something more sinister? What do all the women have in common besides missing time? Or is it who they have in common?

In a desperate search for answers, Maris has no idea what’s coming next, just the escalating paranoia that her memories may be beyond her control, and that everything she knows could disappear in the blink of an eye.

 

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

“Everyone thinks old people are old except for old people.” Maris knew what she meant. When she was twenty, she thought forty-two sounded like you had a foot in the grave, but despite the math she still wouldn’t call herself middle-aged.

When she and Noel started dating, they called it second adolescence, only better than the first because they had high limits on their credit cards.

Maris felt like someone had told her the earth was flat, then strapped her in and sent her flying over the edge.

She missed her students. Two had emailed her to say Dr. Scanlon had fallen asleep at the front of the class while they were taking a test and had farted himself awake.

I am worthy, she thought. I am loved. And then, My god, it’s like I finally understand bumper stickers, and she hiccuped out a laugh.

 

My Review:

 

This prickly book had a bit of everything and was distressingly realistic with family drama, addiction issues, social ills, complicated yet frighteningly plausible neuroscience, a twisted mystery, and deeply flawed characters who were self-involved yet generally well-meaning while difficult to fully appreciate.

I battled with the slow and irregular pace as well as the self-admittedly poor decisions the main character continued to make – I wanted to smack her in the back of the head with my beloved Kindle – yet I was also unquestionably curious, deeply invested in the story, and compelled to know how it was going to resolve.

The Easter eggs hidden in the storylines were clever and twisty yet the various story threads kept me itchy and dissatisfied with the annoying behaviors of the struggling characters. Needless to say, I’m more than a bit conflicted about how to rate this one yet the inner musings and narrative style were insightful and perceptive with occasional glimmers of wit and brilliance.

 

About the Author

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Erin Flanagan is the Edgar Award-nominated author of Deer Season and two short story collections, The Usual Mistakes and It’s Not Going to Kill You and Other Stories. She’s held fellowships to Yaddo, MacDowell, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Ucross, and the Vermont Studio Center. An English professor at Wright State University, Erin lives in Dayton, Ohio, with her husband, daughter, two cats, two dogs, and her friendly, caustic thoughts.