Category: 5-Stars

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Book Review:  The Seven Day Switch by Kelly Harms @TLCBookTours

 The Seven Day Switch
by Kelly Harms

 

Amazon / B&N  / BB

 

Two moms as opposite as a Happy Meal and a quinoa bowl. What a difference a week makes in a heartfelt, laugh-out-loud novel by the Washington Post bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.

Celeste Mason is the Pinterest stay-at-home supermom of other mothers’ nightmares. Despite her all-organic, SunButter-loving, free-range kids, her immaculate home, and her volunteering awards, she still has time to relax with a nice glass of pinot at the end of the day. The only thing that ruins it all is her workaholic, career-obsessed neighbor, who makes no secret of what she thinks of Celeste’s life choices every chance she gets.

Wendy Charles is a celebrated productivity consultant, columnist, and speaker. On a minute-by-minute schedule, she makes the working-mom hustle look easy. She even spends at least one waking hour a day with her kids. She’s not apologizing for a thing. Especially to Celeste, who plays her superior parenting against Wendy whenever she can.

Who do Celeste and Wendy think they are? They’re about to find out thanks to one freaky week. After a neighborhood potluck and too much sangria, they wake up– um, what?? –in each other’s bodies. Everything Celeste and Wendy thought they knew about the “other kind of mom” is flipped upside down–along with their messy, complicated, maybe not so different lives.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

“Where is Anna Joy?” I ask, the second name poison in my mouth. Anna Joy, for heaven’s sake. She’s not even southern. Where does she get off taking two nice names when there are so few good ones left to choose from in the neighborhood? Because of her greed, some poor newborn is probably going around with the name Bertha-Sue.

 

She hops to it with a team enthusiasm that fills me with pride. Sure, at home she can leave a half-drunk glass of milk on her desk until it’s science-lab material, but out here, she’s all in.

 

Are you sick with Old Timers’ like Great-Grandma? Are you going to die?

 

No one knows what to say to you. Your life path is the conversational equivalent of asking about a bad rash. Is that how you really want to roll?

 

I have them both going on a chore chart. I have mad skills, Wendy, and soon you will learn to worship at the altar that is my parenting.

 

 My Review:

 

This was my first experience with Kelly Harms and she provided a deliciously fun and well-crafted read. I adored her clever humor and snark merrily prancing through this slyly insightful and highly amusing book. Her writing style was easy to fall into and her humorous women’s fiction tale covered multiple tropes with family drama, whimsical body-switching, mom guilt, infidelity, and suburban parenting wars gone awry.

All of the characters were well textured and multi-layered but I had a tough time caring for the main character of Wendy throughout most of the book as she was rather acidic, testy, judgmental, full of sharp edges, and needed to save up for that all-important surgery to remove the stick that was firmly embedded up her rectal region. She was a complicated piece of work but thankfully Waspish Wendy salvaged herself and I had mellowed to her cause by the end of the book.

Even if the premise was more than a bit fanciful and outside of my typical reading habits, I enjoyed this one immensely as the women’s dilemmas kept me well entertained. I also find a bit of excellent writing such as this can make any genre worth a go. Kelly Harms has an avid new fangirl and has been added to my list of favorites.

About the Author

Kelly Harms is an author, a mother, and a big dreamer. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, with her sparkling son, Griffin; her fluffy dog, Scout; and her beloved Irishman, Chris. Before this midwestern life, she lived in New York, New York, and worked with many of her author-heroes as an editor at HarperCollins and then as a literary agent. When she’s not lost in a book that she’s either writing or reading, you can find her on the water, in the water, or near the water. Say hello anytime at www.kellyharms.com.

Connect with Kelly

Website | Facebook | Instagram

 

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Book Review: A Hand to Hold in Deep Water by Shawn Nocher  @shawn_nocher

A Hand to Hold in Deep Water
by Shawn Nocher 

Blackstone Publishing
ISBN: 978-1094095219
483 pages

Amazon / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

Willy Cherrymill and his stepdaughter, Lacey, are deeply bruised by a past brimming with unanswered questions. It’s been thirty years since May DuBerry, Willy’s young wife and Lacey’s mother, abandoned them both leaving Willy to raise Lacey alone.

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Lacey Cherrymill is smart, stubborn, and focused. She’s also a single mother to a young daughter recently diagnosed with a devastating illness. The last thing she needs to think about right now is the betrayal that rocked her childhood.
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Reluctantly, she has returned to her rural beginnings, a former dairy farm in the Maryland countryside, and to Willy, a man steeped in his own disappointments and all the guilt that goes with them.
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Together they will pool their wobbly emotional resources to take care of Lacey’s daughter, Tasha, all the while trying to skirt the issue of May’s mysterious disappearance. But try as she might, Lacey can’t leave it alone. Just where is May DuBerry Cherrymill and why did she leave them, and how is it that they have never talked about the wreckage she left behind?
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A Hand to Hold in Deep Water is a deeply felt narrative about mothers and daughters, the legacy of secrets, the way we make a family, and the love of those who walk us through our deepest pain. It is about the way we are tethered to one another and how we choose to wear those bindings. These are characters you won’t soon forget and, more so, won’t want to leave behind when you turn the last page.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Something was expected of her, something that might change the course of what was transpiring, but whatever it was felt just out of reach, like a word one might search for and though it shimmies around the tongue, it can’t be called up.

 

His voice is a painful thing in my ear that has settled in the corners of my mind like broke glass. I cannot bear the feel of his words.

 

She reaches across the table and takes his hand in hers. It’s so big, has always been so big around hers. She squeezes and he lifts his other hand from his lap, places it over hers. She knows now that she had been miraculously caught in the depths of a fall, cushioned by this man with the deepest of hearts.

 

My Review:

 

This was an intensively emotive read that was so perceptively written it was startling. I tumbled right into this itchy, prickly, and heart-squeezing tale and I grew to love these oddly compelling and uniquely crafted personalities. The characters weren’t people I would ordinarily seek out to spend time with yet they become so very knowable to me and I found their story addictive and gripping.

The storylines were cunningly crafted and maddeningly paced with intriguing, painful, and cringe-worthy elements that will stay with me for quite some time. Yet even those uncomfortable events were painted in an uncommonly personable and deeply observant manner and were so very thoughtfully presented that I found an odd wetness seeping from my eyes and hot rocks in my throat as I gasped to catch my breath. I am astounded by the quality and depth achieved by a first-time novelist. Shawn Nocher is definitely one to watch and was quickly added to my list of new favorites.

About the Author

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Shawn Nocher is a debut author and a co-founder of Love In The Trenches (LITT), a non-profit foundation support group for parents of addicts who are suffering the collateral damage of their child’s addiction.
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Book Review: Passerby by Britney King  @britneyking_

 Release Date: July 22

“Roils with passion, rancor, and greed wrapped in Southern politesse… King’s intricately woven mystery is sure to please fans of the thriller and suspense genre far and wide.”

 

Jester Falls has always been an idyllic town. Perfect for a getaway. And what better place to stay than Magnolia House, the tourist trap’s most popular bed and breakfast, run by the eccentric Channing family.

 

 Ruth Channing loves her family—at least what’s left of it. She’d do anything to protect them.

 

But it isn’t until her brother picks up a mysterious woman on the side of Route 78 that Ruth realizes how many definitions the word anything can have.

 

Everything about Ashley Parker rings false: her past, her profession, even her name. Most worryingly of all, her reluctance to leave. 

 

When guests start disappearing, it’s clear there’s more at stake than just the family business… a lot more.

 

Grab Your Copy 

 

Amazon / B&N / Apple / BB

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

There are three things you should always keep a secret: your love life, your income, and your next move. Once you lose your mystery, you can’t get it back. As the saying goes, sincerity is glass, discretion is diamond.

  

My Review:

 

I continue with my fascination with the intriguing and maddeningly paced storylines culled from the dark recesses of Britney King’s irregularly curved and bendy imagination. I never know where her cunning arrangements of words is going to take me, or who the actual culprit will be in her devious and snark-laden tales, but I have so much fun flinching and cringing while I postulate and toss aside a multitude of wild theories along the way. She excels at the fast-paced itchy tales that keep me on edge and unable to put my beloved Kindle down without a struggle. With her newest release of Passerby, she continues to reign supreme on my thriller hit list where I have given her the designation of High Priestess of Word Voodoo.

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Meet Britney King

Hello. I’m Britney. 

 

 I live in Austin, Texas with my husband, children, a dog named Gatsby, one ridiculous cat, and a partridge in a pear tree.

 

 When I’m not wrangling the things mentioned above, I write psychological, domestic, and romantic thrillers set in suburbia.

 

Currently, I’m writing three series and several standalone novels.

 

The Bedrock Series features an unlikely heroine who should have known better. Turns out, she didn’t. Thus she finds herself tangled in a messy, dangerous, forbidden love story and face-to-face with a madman hell-bent on revenge. The series has been compared to Fatal Attraction, Single White Female, and Basic Instinct.

 

The Water Series follows the shady love story of an unconventional married couple—he’s an assassin—she kills for fun. It has been compared to a crazier book version of Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Also, Dexter.

 

Around The Bend is a heart-pounding standalone, which traces the journey of a well-to-do suburban housewife, and her life as it unravels, thanks to the secrets she keeps. If she were the only one with things she wanted to keep hidden, then maybe it wouldn’t have turned out so bad. But she wasn’t.

 

The With You Series at its core is a deep love story about unlikely friends who travel the world; trying to find themselves, together and apart. Packed with drama and adventure along with a heavy dose of suspense, it has been compared to The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and Love, Rosie.

 

The Social Affair is an intense standalone about a timeless couple who find themselves with a secret admirer they hadn’t bargained for. For fans of the anti-heroine and stories told in unorthodox ways, the novel explores what can happen when privacy is traded for convenience. It is reminiscent of films such as One Hour Photo and Play Misty For Me. Classics. 🙂

 

Without a doubt, connecting with readers is the best part of this gig. If you’d like to connect, shoot me an email. You can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and occasionally on Twitter.

 

Connect with Britney King

Website | Newsletter | BookBub | Goodreads | Amazon Author Page 

 

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Book Review: Totally Folked (Good Folk: Modern Folktales #1) by Penny Reid @ReidRomance

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One unforgettable night leads to an unlikely shared connection, and unlikely connections never go unnoticed by the good folks in Green Valley, Tennessee. . .

Totally Folked an all-new small-town romantic comedy filled with humor and heart from New York Times bestselling author Penny Reid is available now!

 

Fall in love today!

Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/TotallyFolked

Nook: https://bit.ly/3sOrkTX

Apple Books: https://apple.co/3sShLDy

Kobo: https://bit.ly/2OkmO0L

Google Play: https://bit.ly/39G9JpY

Amazon Paperback: https://amzn.to/36KBgo6

Barnes and Noble Paperback: Coming Soon

 

Jackson James follows the rules. He has to. He’s a sheriff’s deputy in a super small town with a super big personality. However, strict adherence to the law during the day has been enjoyably balanced by rakish rules at night. Jackson, typically happy to protect and serve (and serve, and serve), starts questioning the value of wayward evenings when they begin to feel more like being waylaid rather than getting laid. Could it be that Green Valley’s most eligible—and notorious—bachelor longs for something (and someone) real?

Mega movie star Raquel Ezra follows only one rule: always leave them wanting more. Strict adherence to this single rule has served her well. Studio execs, reporters, audiences, fans, lovers—no one can get enough of the smart, savvy, and sexy bombshell. But when “generous offers” begin to feel more like excessive demands, years of always leaving has the elusive starlet longing for something (and perhaps someone) lasting.

When Raquel abruptly returns to the quirky Tennessee hamlet, her path crosses with the delectable deputy with whom she spent one unforgettable night. Unfortunately, scandal and intrigue soon follow. Raquel and Jackson must decide which is more important: following their rules? Or, at long last, finding something real.

TOTALLY FOLKED is a standalone, contemporary romantic comedy novel and book #1 in the Good Folk: Modern Folktales series.

 

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

Sexual orientation is a spectrum of course, but I think he prefers peen and pecs, and I get it. I prefer peen and pecs. What do I want with boobs and beavers? So many parts, so many holes. Why do we have so many hills and holes? Women are basically golf courses.

 

“Are you serious?” “As serious as a Botox shortage in Beverly Hills.”

 

Your mistakes and missteps will reinforce people’s unflattering ideas about you, and your good deeds will be explained away by nice weather.

 

She was basically MacGyver, Martha Stewart, and Captain Marvel all rolled up into one woman. Janet James could turn dirt and a paper clip into a winning science fair project, bake ten dozen gluten-free, dairy-free cupcakes while grading assignments, making dinner, and checking in to ensure my sister and I had finished our homework, washed our hands, and eaten our vegetables —all without breaking a sweat or displaying a single crack in her outward calm.

 

My stomach threw a dinner party and only invited anxiety.

 

My Review:

 

 Oh. Happy, Day. A new series from Penny Reid is always a cause for major celebration; as is a new book, new novella, a new newsletter, new Facebook post, new Tweet… you get the picture.   The woman has mad skills and I adore her endearingly peculiar and enticing characters as much as her crisp and cleverly amusing writing style. I have repeatedly fallen into her tales and often felt regretful in having to come back out. After eagerly anticipating the enigmatic Jackson’s story for what has felt like decades, I am delighted to opine that his chronicle could not have been better. The humor, romance, inner conflicts, startling epiphanies, snarky observations, wryly humorous insights, sensual steam, and bitingly witty dialogues were perfectly honed, simply sublime, and everything I have come to expect from this master scribbler.  

 

Meet Penny Reid

Penny Reid is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Best Selling Author of the Winston Brothers, Knitting in the City, Rugby, and Hypothesis series. She used to spend her days writing federal grant proposals as a biomedical researcher, but now she just writes books. She’s also a full-time mom to three diminutive adults, wife, daughter, knitter, crocheter, sewer, general crafter, and thought ninja.

Connect with Penny

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PennyReidWriter/

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lakzsD

Twitter: @ReidRomance

Mailing List: http://pennyreid.ninja/newsletter/

Website: www.pennyreid.ninja

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Book Review: Other People’s Marriages by Kerry Fisher  @KerryFSwayne @Bookouture

Other People’s Marriages
by Kerry Fisher 

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

As I stood at my own birthday party, listening to my husband’s speech about me, I could no longer silence the thought that had started as a low-level hum five years ago and built until I could no longer ignore it… did I want to leave him?

Steph has spent decades building a family with her husband Mal, and putting that family first. She is the glue that holds them all together and she has convinced herself that she’s been happy… most of the time. But as she stands at her birthday party watching her husband talking about a wonderful marriage she doesn’t fully recognize, the doubts that she has been pushing down for so long begin to grow…

After the party, as Steph tries to gather her courage to leave Mal, she receives a letter from her old friend Evie. Steph hasn’t spoken to Evie since a sunny weekend on a holiday beach twenty years earlier when the two friends said things to each other that could never be unsaid. And now, Evie is seeking a reunion and a way to repair the friendship. But this reunion threatens to reveal a secret that could destroy two families.

Other People’s Marriages is an absolutely unputdownable and heartbreaking read about the lies we tell to keep our loved ones close. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Liane Moriarty, and Diane Chamberlain.

My Rating:

 

 Favorite Quotes:

 

I didn’t want him to spend his life feeling that everyone else had cracked the code to their place in the world but he’d scribbled his on the back of an envelope he’d lost before he’d memorised it.

 

Gemma was so charming that even when she was sending someone to hell, she did it in such a way that they enjoyed the journey.

 

I both admired Teresa for being able to keep a secret and could have shaken her out of frustration. But that was Teresa all over. She was like one of those money boxes that you had to smash open to retrieve the cash.

 

Paul looked so disgusted with Wendy that, for a second, I had a brief flicker of fear that he’d divorce me just for being related to her.

 

I’d frequently found myself wondering how so much water could make its way to the eyes, puzzling as I cried into Gladys’s neck about where the liquid came from, imagining a little reservoir tucked behind my jaw like the one in my Mini for windscreen wiper fluid.

 

I was a woman to whom detail was everything – mainly, if I was honest, so I could store it and use it against people at a later date.

 

 My Review:

 

Kerry Fisher’s latest offering was brilliantly insightful and so perceptive that the characters’ realizations and inner musings often stung as she was poking at some of my own failings and secret resentments that seemed to be fighting their way to the surface and had me nodding in emphatically agreement during perusal. This wily scribbler bravely dug deep and rooted around among the secret longings, self-doubts, and resentful sacrifices of marriage and motherhood with surgical precision and cunning, while maintaining a perfect balance of painful awareness and craftily amusing and snarky observations. She also held a bright light on those thoughts and impressions we women tend to keep privately stashed away and don’t dare speak of for fear of being banned from the sisterhood and flogged in the public square. What guile!

The storylines and family issues were varied yet highly relatable with narratives that flowed smoothly and sucked me in with cleverly astute and wry wit along with a keenly discerning eye and brutal honesty for warts and all disclosures of the nitty-gritty as well as the damage of long-held secrets. She had my rapt attention and I loved her deeply flawed characters as they were so real to me I could hear them breathing. I bonded and identified the most with the bombastic and colorful Steph, as gasp, I saw far too much of myself under her skin. So much so, I had to wonder if Ms. Fisher was actually someone who knows me all too well and using a pen name. Perish the thought!

About the Author

Amazon
Goodreads
Website

Facebook
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Kerry Fisher is a million-copy bestselling author. She writes women’s contemporary fiction, is a USA Today bestseller and her books have been translated into twelve languages. She was born in Peterborough, studied French and Italian at the University of Bath, and spent several years living in Spain, Italy, and Corsica. After returning to England to work as a journalist, she eventually abandoned real-life stories for the secrets of fictional families. She lives in Surrey with her husband, and a naughty Lab/Schnauzer called Poppy, who joins in the huge dances of joy when her young adult children come home.

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Book Review: Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey  @KerryAnn

Very Sincerely Yours
by Kerry Winfrey 

 

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

 

A charming and heartwarming new romantic comedy by the acclaimed author of Waiting for Tom Hanks, Kerry Winfrey.

Teddy Phillips never thought she would still be spending every day surrounded by toys at almost thirty years old. But working at a vintage toy store is pretty much all she has going on in her life after being unceremoniously dumped by her longtime boyfriend. The one joy that she has kept is her not-so-guilty pleasure: Everett’s Place, a local children’s show hosted by Everett St. James, a man whom Teddy finds very soothing . . . and, okay, cute.

Teddy finds the courage to write to him, feeling slightly like one of the children who write to him on his show. He always gives sound advice and seems like he has everything figured out—and he pretty much does: Everett has a great support system, wonderful friends, and his dream job. But there is still that persistent feeling in the back of his mind that something is missing.

When a woman named Theodora starts writing to Everett, he is drawn to her honesty and vulnerability. They continue writing to each other, all the while living their lives without meeting. When their worlds collide, however, they must both let go of their fears and figure out what they truly want—and if the future they want includes each other.

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

I knocked three times, and when you didn’t answer, I got worried that you’d died on the toilet and I didn’t want your parents to have to find you like that. It would be undignified and traumatic.

 

“He treated you like garbage.” She pronounced the word gar-BAJ, like it was French or something.

 

He tried to think of a time he’d seen Gretel cry. When she was a baby, of course. She had cried constantly because she resented not being in charge of her own life. She was basically born wanting to drive a car and open a bank account.

 

He had the best smile she’d ever seen in her life, like a baby animal and a classic Hollywood leading man combined.

 

“It’s hard to turn work off, you know?” Natalie nodded. “I know, dude. But sometimes the people in your life need you to turn it off. Unless you want to be one of those eccentric geniuses who’s been divorced fifteen times and lives in a giant mansion full of regret.”

  

My Review:

 

I smirked and giggle-snorted my way through this delightfully sweet and relatable rom/com. It was exactly what I needed after a string of tense thrillers and hit just the right tones with clever humor and sly wit. The characters were thoughtfully crafted and tenderly endearing and knowable yet realistically flawed and struggling with real-world issues within amusing storylines laced with comedic yet insightfully observant scenarios.

Ms. Winfrey’s style was crisp and well-tuned with sparkling humor as she detailed their challenges without being angsty, which felt authentic and a refreshing change of pace from tedious formulaic romance tropes. This was my first experience reading her clever arrangements of words and was an instant fangirl. I have added her to my list of favorites and one to watch and added her entire listing to my TBR. How could I not?   She knows the undeniable magical pull of Taco Bell’s drive-through for the Drunchies as well as the ingenious and regrettable madness of The Breakup Bob.

 

About the Author

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Kerry Winfrey grew up in Bellville, Ohio, where she spent most of her time reading inappropriate books at the library. Not much has changed. Kerry writes for HelloGiggles. She lives in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, their son, and their dog, Merlin. Love and Other Alien Experiences was her first novel.

 

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Book Review: One Little Lie by Christopher Greyson @Chris_Greyson

One Little Lie
by Christopher Greyson 

Amazon  / B&N / BB

THE TRUTH COULD COST HER EVERYTHING.


Kate had high hopes when she moved to her husband‘s hometown, but her domestic bliss was short-lived. Blindsided by her spouse’s very public affair with his high school sweetheart and a painful divorce, Kate’s determined to hold onto custody of her kids and pull herself together. When Kate’s bashed in the head by a drone at her son’s soccer game and face-plants in the grass, it’s more than her self-esteem that’s shattered. The drone’s video reveals that someone is stalking her. And though the handsome detective she’s falling for vows to protect her, Kate knows to be wary of any man making vows.

With things spiraling out of control, she tells a lie. It was only one little lie, but a lie is a welcome mat for the devil, and with the one she told, Kate just rolled out the red carpet. Everything she worked for begins to unravel, along with her sanity. Confused, alone, and afraid, can Kate untangle her muddled mind and unmask her stalker, or will she lose everything—including her life?

My Rating:

 

Favorite Quotes:

 

“I told my friends about the stalker. Tommy said it’s probably an escaped prisoner they did experiments on and he went crazy, but Billy thinks he’s just a serial killer.” Ava giggled. “You can’t kill cereal. It’s not real.”

 

“You need the three Gs.” Donna had a colorful vocabulary, but Kate hadn’t heard this one before. “What’re the three Gs?” “A guy, a gun, or a German shepherd. Preferably all three.”

 

“Mark’s like an old hunting dog. He barks a lot, has a pretty gruff disposition, but he gets the job done, so you tend to overlook the fleas.” Ryan comically scratched at his neck like a dog.

 

The day Tammi feels bad about anything is the day Lucifer starts lacing up his ice skates.

 

 My Review:

 

My first Christopher Greyson read and I cannot understand what took me so long to give him a whirl as the man can spin quite a tale. The storylines were full of angst, family drama, betrayal, grown-up mean girls, small-town pettiness, accelerating harassment, and efforts of identifying a stalker; it was busy – busy – busy and full to the brim with itchy scenarios, uncomfortable prickliness, and clever twists I had not considered.

The characters were an odd and interesting assortment of vile, treacherous, and fiendish creatures as well as flawed, struggling, and original personalities. I cared for the maladroit main character of Kate but was growing increasingly impatient at her rag doll weakness. I enthusiastically fist-pumped when she finally found her voice, and boy oh boy, did she roar once she located her misplaced backbone.

I was annoyed, engaged, irritated, ensnared, and uncomfortably wriggling on the hook and unable to put my Kindle down until unraveling all the knots. Christopher Greyson relentlessly poked and prodded my curiosity with his shrewdly paced tale; I had no idea what I was stepping into with this sly and wily wordsmith. What guile! More, please.

 

Christopher Greyson is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author of mystery, action, and thriller novels. His acclaimed Detective Jack Stratton Series has been read by over a million readers and counting. This action-packed series has a broad appeal, finding favor with mystery, thriller, and romance readers alike. The series includes And Then She Was Gone, Girl Jacked, Jack Knifed, Jacks Are Wild, Jack and the Giant Killer, Data Jack, Jack of Hearts, Jack Frost, with Jack of Diamonds to come. Christopher Greyson has also penned the bestselling psychological thriller, The Girl Who Lived, a young adult fantasy, Pure of Heart, and a special collection of mysteries, The Adventures of Finn and Annie.

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Book Review: The North Face of the Heart (Trilogía del Baztán #0) by Dolores Redondo, Michael Meigs (Translator)  @DoloresRedondoM @TLCBookTours

The North Face of the Heart
(Trilogía del Baztán #0)
by Dolores Redondo, Michael Meigs (Translator)

Amazon  / B&N /  BB

 

Hardcover: 496 Pages

Publisher: Amazon Crossing (June 1, 2021)

Amaia Salazar, a young detective from the north of Spain, has joined a group of trainees at the FBI Academy in Virginia. Haunted by her past and having already tracked down a predator on her own, Amaia is no typical rookie. And this is no ordinary student lecture at Quantico. FBI agent Aloisius Dupree is already well acquainted with Amaia’s skills, her intuition, and her ability to understand evil. He now needs her help in hunting an elusive serial killer dubbed “the Composer,” and in solving another case that’s been following him his whole life.

From New Jersey to Oklahoma to Texas, the Composer’s victims are entire families annihilated in the chaos of natural disasters, their bodies posed with chilling purpose amid the ruins. Dupree and Amaia follow his trail to New Orleans. The clock is ticking. It’s the eve of the worst hurricane in the city’s history. But a troubling call from Amaia’s aunt back home awakens in Amaia the ghosts from her childhood and sends her down a path as dark as that of the coming storm.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Bill and Bull. They’re with the Violent Crimes Unit. These fellas have arrested more criminals than all the rest of my officers combined. They know these streets better than anyone… If I had a son, I’d trust them with his life; if I had a daughter, I’d keep her out of their reach.

 

Juan had difficulty with words… he was overwhelmed by the very fact that every object had its own unique name. He was one of those who thought things existed only when they were spoken of, so he could exclude horrors from his life and home by refusing to put them into words.

 

Her first thought was to go to the nearest toilet. She didn’t care if it was filthy. She needed her privacy, even if she had to pee on the floor. This is teaching me a lesson, she thought. Comes a time, from one day to the next, when we find ourselves ready to accept things we swore we’d never put up with.

 

… it was far better to be nice to someone like her than to get on her bad side. As his late grandmother used to say— and she knew a lot about it— you don’t have to believe they exist, but don’t you dare go around claiming they don’t.

  

My Review:

 

This is a brilliant piece of writing and of superb quality. I was late getting to this one and thought I would give it a quick start before beginning my scheduled tasks but soon changed all my plans as I was bewitched and couldn’t put it down. Ms. Redondo sucked me into a baffling, disconcerting, complex, prickly, and distressingly compelling vortex that tossed me in several different directions without a playbook of the plethora of uncomfortably intriguing storylines that eventually connected and entwined.

It was heart-squeezing, ghastly, inconceivable, curiously addictive, gritty, twisted, riveting, and ingeniously paced and executed.   I’ll be processing and savoring this one for quite some time as the little pea in my brain is still unpacking and connecting all the dots. I consumed this book as quickly as my tired optical orbs and feverish brain could take in 500 action-packed pages, and oddly enough, I would have been thrilled with 500 more of the same.

 

About the Author

Dolores Redondo studied law and the culinary arts before writing The Baztán Trilogy, a successful crime series set in the Basque Pyrenees that has sold over 1.5 million copies in Spanish, has been translated into more than thirty-five languages and was adapted into a popular film series.

Twice nominated for the CWA International Dagger Award and a finalist for the Grand Prix des Lectrices de Elle, Redondo was the recipient of the 2016 Premio Planeta—one of Spain’s most distinguished literary awards—for her stand-alone thriller All This I Will Give to You, which has also been optioned for feature film and television development and will be translated into eighteen languages.

Connect with Dolores

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Book Review: How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart? (The Callaghan Sisters #4) by Kristen Bailey  @mrsbaileywrites @Bookouture 

 

How Much Wine Will Fix My Broken Heart?
(The Callaghan Sisters #4)
by Kristen Bailey 

Are you suffering from a broken heart? Searching for the right medicine? Staring down the barrel of being single and not knowing where to start? Learn from Grace Callaghan! She’s done it all:

    • Wine is the answer. Some serving-size suggestions include a glass the size of your head, a bathtub, an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Best served chilled, and with a straw.
    • Friends with benefits is always an option. Be prepared for side effects such as the guy saying ‘baby’, crying out his ex’s name, and preferring to keep his socks on.
    • Going ‘out out’ helps banish the blues. It may involve breaking into replica ships from the fifteenth century, screaming ‘Aye-aye, Captain!’ and accidentally falling off the plank.
  • Karaoke makes everything better. Best enjoyed singing Enrique Iglesias, followed by an extra-large serving of fries.

Three years ago, when Grace’s heart was blown to smithereens, she made a promise to protect herself. But has she gone too far? Has she played it too safe? Should she take a leap into the unknown, messy business of the heart? Because maybe, just maybe, she could learn to love again…

This hilarious and totally gripping tale is for anyone who’s questioned their qualifications at life, and learned that a little bit of wine goes a long way! Fans of Shari Low, Sophie Kinsella, and Why Mummy Drinks, be warned: prepare for odd looks when reading this in public due to the ugly laughing it induces.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I could weave you a friendship bracelet made of hair. I decided against it. It has a serial-killer quality to it, though it’s useful if you want to go down the voodoo route.

 

‘The playground mafia has been around for years,’ Joyce carries on. ‘In my day it was Jeanie McGovern. I had her son round to play and he came to my house and crapped in a drawer. When I told her, and I was discreet about it, she told me I’d made it up and then spent years spreading rumours around about Tom.’ ‘What sort of rumours?’ I ask, mortified at the thought of someone defecating in a drawer. ‘It was such a bizarre reaction. She made him the centre of every nits outbreak for years. It ended with me slapping her in the playground.’

 

‘You joined the PTA?’ she asks. ‘Emma told me it would be a good way to make friends.’ ‘Never listen to Emma. Her girls are in a private school where everyone wears padded gilets and eats pheasant. Their PTA raffles off cars. Mine raffles off dusty bottles of cherry brandy. I won a bottle once that was half-drunk.’

 

You forget about the cascading effect of social media in these playground battles. One moment you tell a group that your son has a rash and the next he’s a social pariah with possible leprosy.

 

‘Gracie,’ she says, softly. ‘We lost Cam, her dear Olivier and our wonderful Tom. We will never replace them. That light has gone out. We shouldn’t replace them. But never think people can’t come in, that we’ve lost some capacity to love. We’re still alive, it does our loved ones no justice to be sitting here in darkness.’ And there it is. This is why I welcomed Linh into my world. Beautiful turns of phrase like that soothed my tired and confused soul; they still do. And she’s right. We lost three amazing people but, through their loss, our lives all became entwined.

My Review:

 

 I savored every perfectly chosen word of this riotously humorous yet poignant tale. I adore Kristen Bailey and of the handful of books I’ve read, this may be her best yet. The crisp storylines were rife with every type of rib-tickling humor from wry and acerbic wit to ribald comedy. I smirked, chortled, and giggle-snorted my way through although there were also just as many thoughtfully written, insightful, and heart-squeezing scenes of great loss, vulnerability, grief, anger, and betrayal. Ms. Bailey hit all the feels and plundered every emotion with agility and finesse.

As always, her characters were fully inhabited and enticingly intriguing and curiously alluring. I am eagerly anticipating Lucy’s story and cannot wait to see what this clever scribe does with the inner musings of the last remaining Callaghan sister’s tale. I had a feeling she would be saving the best, and most outrageous character of Lucy, for last.

One can only hope she is currently locked in the attic scribbling away. Please write quickly, Ms. Bailey, you won’t even need to leave home for sustenance as your devoted fangirl can have offerings of gin and Marmite winging your way.

 

Mother-of-four, gin-drinker, binge-watcher, receipt hoarder, enthusiastic but terrible cook. Kristen also writes. She has had short fiction published in several publications including Mslexia & Riptide. Her first two novels, Souper Mum and Second Helpings were published in 2016. In 2019, she was long-listed in the Comedy Women in Print Prize and has since joined the Bookouture family. She hopes her novels have fresh and funny things to say about modern life, love, and family.

 

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Book Review: Insider (Glass Family #2) by Owen Mullen @OwenMullen6 @rararesources  @BoldwoodBooks

Insider
(Glass Family #2)
by Owen Mullen

Amazon  / B&N / Apple / GP / BB

Someone’s playing both sides and now they have a score to settle…

When the family business is crime, you can never be sure who to trust. And when three of their businesses are hit in one night, the notorious Glass family close ranks. Either someone is sending them a message or a war is coming…

With trouble coming from all sides, the heads of the Glass family have more than enough to deal with, but all bets are off when a stranger from the past enters the game, causing division and mistrust.

Crooked cops, rival gangs, and old enemies are bad enough, but when the trouble comes from the inside, loyalties are tested, with deadly consequences.

Page-turning, gripping, gritty, Insider is perfect for fans of Martina Cole, Kimberley Chambers, and Mandasue Heller.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

He probably imagined he could handle himself because of the endless hours he spent at the gym. It took a lot more than that. Weights didn’t fight back.

 

The male ego at work once again, imagining he could satisfy a younger woman without bringing on a heart attack. Still – ten out of ten for effort. At one point, he’d made a sound in his throat like dolphins talking to each other and she’d thought he wasn’t going to survive. But he had. On Monday, Algie would be boasting to his colleagues about the foxy lady he’d tamed on Friday night.

 

With his gangly stride, from this distance he looked like a well-dressed stick insect on his way to the Ugly Bug Ball.

 

I was born at night, Kenny, but it wasn’t last night, you get what I’m saying?

 

My Review:

 

I continue in my fascination with Mr. Owen Mullen’s gift of words skills as found in his creation of the Glass crime family of London. And while they were a horrid collection of shared DNA, their adversaries are so much worse I caught myself admiring Luke Glass – say what now?   I had fallen so far into their criminal vortex I had lost my real-world perspective, which is a testament to Owen Mullen’s cunning skills in weaving a tale.

The storylines were just as intense, violent, amusingly snarky, and even more intriguing than the first book in the series as I was itching to uncover the mole and so very wrong in my hypothesis.   The pacing and plotting were shrewd and nothing short of brilliant. But after losing myself in two of Mr. Mullen’s tautly written and absorbing tales, I am in dire need of a vat of wine, rom/com reading material, and a spa day to soak and hammer out the residual tension.

 

 

About the Author

 

Owen Mullen is a highly regarded crime author who splits his time between Scotland and the island of Crete.  In his earlier life, he lived in London and worked as a musician and session singer. He has now written seven books and his first gangland thriller for Boldwood, Family was published in January 2021.

 

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Bookbub profile: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/owen-mullen