Category: 5-Stars

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Book Review: ENGAGEMENT AND ESPIONAGE (Solving for Pie: Cletus and Jenn Mysteries #1)by Penny Reid

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Engagement and Espionage, an all-new quirky and swoon-worthy romantic comedy featuring fan favorites Jenn and Cletus Winston from New York Times bestselling author Penny Reid is available now! 

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Jennifer Sylvester made her deal with the devil . . . and now they’re engaged!

But all is not well in Green Valley. A chicken choker is on the loose, 61 dead birds most “fowl” need plucking, and no time remains for Jennifer and her devilish fiancé. Desperate to find a spare moment together, Jenn and Cletus’s attempts to reconnect are thwarted by one seemingly coincidental disaster after another. It’s not long before Cletus and Jenn see a pattern emerge and the truth becomes clear.

Sabotage!

Will an undercover mission unmask the culprit? Or are these love-birds totally plucked?

‘Engagement and Espionage’ is the first book in the Solving for Pie: Cletus and Jenn Mysteries series is a full-length cozy mystery, and is a spin-off of Penny Reid’s Winston Brothers series. This novel is best read after ‘Beard Science,’ Winston Brothers #3.

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Download your copy today! 

Amazon: https://amzn.to/3auZzqI
Apple Books: https://apple.co/33ONMAK
Amazon Worldwide: http://mybook.to/engagementespionage
Nook: https://bit.ly/3dvV8hf
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2wxWreY
Google Play: https://bit.ly/3aqIT3h

Add  to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2UoVpea

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Good Lord, now I’d offended his serene layers.

 

Chicken sausage? I didn’t grimace, and that was a miracle. Chicken sausage was akin to turkey bacon, an abomination.

 

That old man is mean as a badger with half a brain.

 

My Review:

 

This was a fun, engaging, and pleasurably engrossing read with healthy servings of mystery, family drama, and romance. Oddly sinister crimes were occurring in Green Valley and surprisingly, it all started with choked chickens and had nothing to do with the criminal elements that typically plagued the community. The mystery was artfully plotted and shrewdly paced with clever lashings of levity, crisp witty banter, and profoundly insightful and amusing inner musings and observations of human nature. I adored this well-matched and quirky couple in a previous series and am gleefully anticipating a continuation of their story with their brainy conundrums and unique and peculiar family complications.

 

Excerpt: 

“Don’t stop.” She reached for my belt again, this time completely undoing it, the button of my pants, and my zipper at world-record speed.

Her phone buzzed. Then it chimed. Then it buzzed and chimed two more times. Then it rang again. Reba.

Cursing, Jenn pulled the phone from her pocket, once again her face illuminated, murderous rage in her eyes. Her finger moved to the power off button. She blinked, hesitating. Her eyes widened, her body stiffened, and she gasped.

“Cletus!”

Something about her tone, like she was horrified, and maybe a little afraid, cut through the heavy haze of lust inertia, and my hands stilled. Shaking myself, it took me a few moments to realize she was showing me the phone screen, and another few to bring the content of the text messages into focus.

 

Momma: Jennifer Anne Sylvester, pick up your phone. If you’re with Cletus, I need his help. Please.

Momma: ALL THE CHICKENS AND ROOSTERS ARE DEAD! PICK UP YOUR DAMN PHONE!

Momma: I’m calling you in a second, pick up the phone. Mr. Badcock’s chickens are dead. All of them. I got here and he’s running around, deranged, yelling about his dead chickens! I called the police and they’re on their way. Please, please, please pick up the phone!

 

At some point, I must’ve taken the phone from Jenn and stepped away, because I glanced up upon reading the messages for the third time, finding the phone in my hand and Jenn fixing her skirt.

“This is nuts.” Her big eyes searched mine imploringly. “Who could have done this?”

I shook my head, having not yet managed to fully shift head gears—you know, from that head to the one on my neck—and my gaze dropped to the wet patch on the front of her dress just visible in the swath of light. My erection throbbed.

So we’re . . . not having sex?

“Why? Why would they do it? And WHO?” She snatched her phone back, her tone bewildered, distracted, and distraught. She was distraught because of the dead chickens, like any normal person would be.

I was distraught also, but my distress had nothing to do with farm animals.

“We have to go.” Jenn grabbed my hand and began walking toward the direction of the hall. Meanwhile, it took me until her hand found the door handle to realize my zipper and belt were still undone.

“This is crazy.” She paused as I zipped up, her tone halting and distracted. “Poor Mr. Badcock. And those poor chickens.” A sound of distress escaped her throat. “This is terrible.”

It was terrible.

And I was going to hell.

Because all I could think was, Talk about a cock block.

 

Meet Penny Reid:
PennyReid
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/
www.pennyreid.ninja

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Book Review: The Switch by Beth O’Leary

The Switch
by Beth O’Leary

Amazon  / B&N / GP/ Apple 

A grandmother and granddaughter swap lives in this charming, romantic novel by Beth O’Leary, hailed as “the new Jojo Moyes” (Cosmopolitan UK)
Eileen Cotton’s husband of sixty years left her four months ago, and good riddance. After all these decades of sleepy village life, Eileen is ready for an adventure. She’d like a chance at real love, too – and she wonders if maybe the right man is up the road in the big city…

 

Eileen’s granddaughter (and namesake) Leena lives in bustling London, where she is overworked, overscheduled, and overcaffeinated. When Leena collapses and her office sends her on a mandatory vacation, she wants to escape to her grandmother’s inviting, picture-postcard little village.

So they decide to switch lives.

Eileen will take Leena’s flat, Leena’s laptop, and Leena’s glitzy twenty-something London lifestyle. She’ll learn all about dating apps and swiping right, the best coffee shops, and paper-thin apartment walls. Leena can have Eileen’s sweet cottage, her idyllic Yorkshire village, her little projects to help her neighbors, and her nice, quiet life. But neither finds that her new life is exactly what she’d imagined.

Will swapping lives help Eileen and Leena become more truly themselves, and can they find true love in the process?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

“Well, she better not leave it too long,” Betsy says. “I am eighty!” I smile at that. Betsy’s eighty-five. Even when she’s trying to make the point that she is old, she can’t help lying about her age.

I look down into the tea leaves. Letitia’s shoulders start shaking before I see what she sees… The tea leaves look like … genitals. Male genitals. It couldn’t be more distinct if I’d tried to arrange it that way on purpose. “I think it means good things are coming your way… That, or it’s telling me the tea-leaves game is a load of cock and balls.”

Leena keeps telling me that there are good men out there, that you have to kiss a few frogs, but I’ve been smooching amphibians for almost a year now and I am losing. The. Will.

It’s quite all right,” I tell her. “I’m seventy-nine. I may seem like an innocent old lady to you but that means I’ve had fifty extra years to see the horrors the world has to offer, and whatever that was, it’s got nothing on my ex-husband’s warty behind.

My Review:

 

This was great fun and my first experience reading Beth O’Leary and I’d gladly enlist for a lifetime of more of the same, she has mad skills! The Switch sparkled with clever levity, snarky observations and insights, sneaky wry humor, and razor-sharp wit. I gleefully indulged in a pleasantly entertaining day of fully engaged reading while giggle-snorting and smirking my way through this delightfully penned tale. Relevant social issues and concerns were laced throughout in a thoughtful and engaging manner while still amazingly maintaining an amusing tone overall.

The characters were fully inhabited, honorable, uniquely peculiar, realistically flawed, and significantly struggling with a variety of rather serious concerns, yet expending their energies creatively and in the intent of the betterment of others. I adored them although I found myself favoring the unpredictable antics and verbal exchanges of the elder contingent quite a bit more than the younger set.

And I hit a bevy of new words for my Brit Words and Phrases List with maungy – sulky or peevish, shambolic – chaotic and disorganized, and sling your hook – telling someone to go away.

About the Author
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Beth O’Leary studied English at university before going into children’s publishing. She lives as close to the countryside as she can get while still being within reach of London, and wrote her first novel, The Flatshare, on her train journey to and from work.
You’ll usually find her curled up with a book, a cup of tea, and several woolly jumpers (whatever the weather).
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Book Review: Paris Never Leaves You by Ellen Feldman

Amazon / B&N / GP/ Apple / BAM

“Masterful. Magnificent. A passionate story of survival and a real page turner. This story will stay with me for a long time.” —Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz and Cilka’s Journey


Living through World War II working in a Paris bookstore with her young daughter, Vivi, and fighting for her life, Charlotte is no victim, she is a survivor. But can she survive the next chapter of her life?

Alternating between wartime Paris and 1950s New York publishing, Ellen Feldman’s Paris Never Leaves You is an extraordinary story of resilience, love, and impossible choices, exploring how survival never comes without a cost.

The war is over, but the past is never past.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I hope her grandmother rots in that special circle of hell reserved for bigots…

 

She doesn’t know if she blames him or pities him, hates him or loves him. All she knows is there is enough shame to go around.

 

She’s his training analyst. Makes her sound like a pair of wheels on the back of a bike, if you ask me.

 

“I told Mr. Rosenblum I wasn’t Jewish… I thought I ought to tell him. I mean, after the business with the menorah and everything.” “What did he say?” “That nobody’s perfect.”

My Review:

 

This was an intense yet gripping read with storylines steeped in angst, despair, and human and inhuman tragedy (which don’t rank among my favorite things), yet the quality of the writing was phenomenal and kept me engrossed and fully engaged. I was hooked – I was starving, I was tense, I was cold, I felt unwashed, I was THERE!

Ms. Feldman’s uniquely evocative arrangements of words were powerful, emotive, poignant, transportive, and thoughtfully plotted. This epic tale involved multiple storylines that laced together toward an entirely unexpected and somewhat indeterminate ending. Each thread as tautly written, mysteriously secretive, and anxiously risky of perilous discovery as the next. Her characters were enigmatic, deeply flawed, profoundly insightful, and entirely human. I was pulled into their edgy vortex of imminent danger and impending doom, not just from the brutal cruelty of the Nazi invaders, but more disturbingly, from the unrepentant savagery of the French citizenry as they turned on each other amidst the escalating tensions and unrelenting subjugation of their occupation as well as the aftermath.

There were several instances that required I put my Kindle down, walk away, and seek solace in a vat of wine… the most ruinous was near the end when I found myself totally devastated by a particular loss, and of the most unexpected of characters.   Ms. Feldman has strong word voodoo and a new fangirl.

About the Author
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ELLEN FELDMAN, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Terrible Virtue, The Unwitting, Next to Love, Scottsboro (shortlisted for the Orange Prize), The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank (translated into nine languages), and Lucy. Her novel Terrible Virtue was optioned by Black Bicycle for a feature film.

 

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 Book Review: My Mother’s Choice By Ali Mercer

 My Mother’s Choice
By Ali Mercer

 

‘A heart-wrenching drama… an emotional rollercoaster with twists along the way… I read this in four hours and I know you’ll be hooked too.’ NetGalley Reviewer, ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Nobody talks about my mother. Absolutely nobody. I have no idea what she was like. I’d always thought they kept quiet about her because they were sad. But what if it was because they were guilty?

I watch them at the school gates, all the mothers with their daughters. I see the hugs and all those thoughtful little adjustments to scarves and ponytails. How their love seems to overflow, they have so much of it to give.

And then I walk home to my aunt’s cold house, where there are a hundred rules for me to follow and only a single photograph of my mother to look at.

She is never spoken about in this house. They tell me that it will be easier if I don’t think about her.

It is strange though, isn’t it? That I know nothing about my own mother?

But they don’t know about the diary I’ve found up in the loft. Maybe they even forgot it was there. It doesn’t matter anymore if they won’t tell me anything. Because within these pages is what I’ve waited fourteen years to find out. And maybe some things I wish I could forget.

All I wanted was to bring our family closer together, but could what I find tear us apart instead?

A heartbreaking and powerful novel about family secrets and how we live with decisions we never thought we would have to make. Perfect for fans of Jodi Picoult, Kate Hewitt, and Amanda Prowse.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

It was like carrying round something from an alien planet. The kind of thing a kid in a film would pick up and think was interesting or harmless, and then it would turn out to be a homing device that, once accidentally activated, summoned invading forces from across the universe to attack the Earth.

 

She seemed nice. Really nice. I felt a sudden ache somewhere near my heart, like a cross between hunger pangs and a stitch.

 

She looked like a sultry Sicilian widow, all dark eyes and glossy hair and philosophical gloom, and she had a languid, unhurried way of moving, as if she lived in her own special climate where there was always a heatwave, even if, in Kettlebridge, it was cool and grey.

 

That was when I began to feel properly distant from home, not quite as if I’d escaped, but certainly as if I’d left and wouldn’t be going back – or wouldn’t be the same when I did.

 

She smelt of sadness. A smell like damp tears mixed with fear.

My Review:

 

I fell right into this enthralling book and didn’t willingly resurface for most of the day. Ali Mercer has strong word voodoo and I readily yielded to her powers.   Her characters were uniquely alluring while her storylines were compelling, poignantly written, evocatively detailed, and so very tight with tension. I was sure someone was going to eventually snap, including me, as I was rabid to know Laura’s story.

The timeline and POV shifts were easy to follow and adroitly crafted. This nimble author had me fooled; I was tricked and far afield in my theories. I had it all wrong and was eviscerated by the shocking twists and devastating turn of events, all of which were cunningly plotted and brilliantly paced.   The little pea in my brain was heavily scorched. I worry I may never be the same.

About the Author

 

Ali decided she wanted to be a writer early on and wrote her first novel when she was at primary school. She did an English degree and spent her early twenties working in various jobs in journalism, including as a reporter for the show business newspaper The Stage. She started writing fiction in earnest after getting married, moving out of London to the Oxfordshire market town of Abingdon, and starting a family. She has two children, a daughter and a son who is autistic and was diagnosed when he was four years old.

Ali is fascinated by families, their myths and secrets, and the forces that hold them together, split them up, and (sometimes) bring them back together again. She always travels with tissues and a book and has been known to cry over a good story but is also a big fan of the hopeful ending.

 Author Social Media Links:

For updates and pictures, follow Ali on Twitter (@AlisonLMercer) or Instagram (@alimercerwriter), or on her Facebook page (AliMercerwriter)

 

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Book Review: Hush Little Baby (DC Beth Chamberlain #3) by Jane Isaac

 

Hush Little Baby
(DC Beth Chamberlain #3)
by Jane Isaac 

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU /

Someone stole a baby…

One sunny day in July, someone took three-month-old Alicia Owen from her pram outside a supermarket. Her mother, Marie, was inside. No one saw who took Alicia. And no one could find her.

They silenced her cry…

Fifteen years later, a teenager on a construction site sees a tiny hand in the ground. When the police investigate, they find a baby buried and preserved in concrete. Could it be Alicia?

But the truth will always out.

When Alicia disappeared, the papers accused Marie of detachment and neglect. The Owens never got over the grief of their child’s disappearance and divorced not long after. By reopening the case, DC Beth Chamberlain must reopen old wounds. But the killer may be closer than anyone ever suspected…

The latest crime thriller featuring Family Liaison Officer DC Beth Chamberlain, Hush Little Baby is tightly plotted, fraught with tension and impossible to put down. Perfect for fans of Cara Hunter and K.L. Slater.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Beth ground her teeth. She’d rather hoped she’d be shot of Andrea after she’d left the team to support the chief, and here she was, returning like a bad smell that refused to go away.

My Review:

 

This was my second time reading Ms. Isaac’s work and I am duly impressed. As with her last book, there was a deeply troubling and mammoth mystery which lead to an intensely twisty and shrewdly plotted tale that had me blinking hard, rubbing my eyes, and biting my lips. I enjoy her unique writing style with blended storylines that were unpredictable, tragic, multi-layered, complex, and highly textured with compounded issues and long-held and heartbreaking secrets. The writing was compelling, deftly executed, evocative, and set each scene with thoughtful touches and interesting observations of ancillary movements and actions that kept the visuals scrolling smoothly in my mind’s eye. Jane Isaac is a clever and cunning wordsmith.

About the Author

Jane Isaac is married to a serving detective and they live in rural Northamptonshire, UK with their daughter, and dog, Bollo. Jane loves to hear from readers and writers. You can reach her via her website at www.janeisaac.co.uk Sign up to her book club at http://eepurl.com/1a2uT for book recommendations and details of new releases, events, and giveaways.

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Book Review: He Started It by Samantha Downing

He Started It by
Samantha Downing

 

Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan haven’t all been together in years. And for very good reasons—we’ll get to those later. But when their wealthy grandfather dies and leaves a cryptic final message in his wake, the siblings and their respective partners must come together for a cross-country road trip to fulfill his final wish and—more importantly—secure their inheritance.

But time with your family can be tough. It is for everyone.

It’s even harder when you’re all keeping secrets and trying to forget a memory, a missing person, an act of revenge, the man in the black truck who won’t stop following your car—and especially when at least one of you is a killer and there’s a body in the trunk. Just to name a few reasons.

But money is a powerful motivator. It is for everyone.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

That’s my husband, Felix, the pale one with the strong jaw and white-blond hair with matching eyebrows and lashes. In a certain light, he disappears.

 

Krista’s out of the car now, hands on hips and her back arched, which can’t be a good sign. She’s one of those suburban women who have never seen real trouble and think it only happens on the Internet.

 

Portia stands in front of me, her eyes unwavering, and I believe that she believes the truck is following us. In a movie, this would end with hillbilly cannibals, but we aren’t in a movie.

 

My Review:

 

This book was an arduous read and heaving with an appalling and vile cast of annoying characters doing dastardly things. The entire family was exasperating, reprehensible, horrid, and despicable. They had been beastly as children during their first run of this peculiar choice of road trip and were three times as horrific as adults while they retraced their original trek. I reviled and despised them all, yet their witty snark and shrewdly paced, intriguing, and mysteriously twisty tale kept me rapt to my Kindle and unable to stop reading.

I was absolutely furious at the ending, stamping my little foot and turning the air around me blue with invectives. Yet I must give this guileful and wily author her due, as her provocative missive was cunningly crafted, deviously clever, and cannily plotted. I would caution her neighbors to tread lightly, ply her with treats, never ask for favors, and always keep a sharp eye open.

 

About the Author

Samantha Downing is the author of the bestselling My Lovely Wife, nominated for the Edgar, ITW, and Macavity awards for Best Debut Novel. Amazon Studios and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films have partnered to produce a feature film based on the novel.

Her second novel, He Started It, was released on July 21, 2020.

She currently lives in New Orleans, where she is furiously typing away on her next thriller.

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Book Review: Lies, Lies, Lies by Adele Parks

Lies, Lies, Lies (Kindle Edition)
by Adele Parks 

LIES LIES LIES (MIRA Trade Paperback; August 4, 2020; $17.99) centers on the story of Simon and Daisy Barnes. To the outside world, Simon and Daisy look like they have a perfect life. They have jobs they love, an angelic, talented daughter, a tight group of friends… and they have secrets too. Secrets that will find their way to the light, one way or the other.

Daisy and Simon spent almost a decade hoping for the child that fate cruelly seemed to keep from them. It wasn’t until, with their marriage nearly in shambles and Daisy driven to desperation, little Millie was born. Perfect in every way, healing the Barnes family into a happy unit of three. Ever indulgent Simon hopes for one more miracle, one more baby. But his doctor’s visit shatters the illusion of the family he holds so dear.

Now, Simon has turned to the bottle to deal with his revelation and Daisy is trying to keep both of their secrets from spilling outside of their home. But Daisy’s silence and Simon’s habit begin to build until they set off a catastrophic chain of events that will destroy life as they know it.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

… she’s had bouts of terrible hallucinations and intense paranoia. She threw things at me when I went into her room, she thought I was an undertaker and had come to measure her up.

 

Born in a different era, Connie would most likely have been one of the women knitting by the guillotines during the French revolution, she had the stomach for it. She always put curiosity before sentimentality. She collected experiences.

 

The cell smelt stale. Simon had always had a keen sense of smell. It was one of the least useful… He wore glasses, his hearing was average, and he couldn’t remember anyone ever saying he was a total king in the sack. So, out of smell, taste, sight, hearing and touch, it was his luck to get an A* in smell. Leon had been openly farting all evening… Simon longed for fresh air and a breeze.

 

Not blackouts Daisy, time travel. I’m like Doctor Who. My Tardis is a whisky bottle. I punch through the mundane rules of time and space that you mere mortals must live with.

 

I don’t need to worry about identity theft. No one wants to be me.

My Review:

 

This author is a wily minx! I adored and despised her as I read and adored and despised her tragic and tensely emotive and prickly storylines, which were populated with curiously compelling characters who were rather awful human beings. I thought they were appallingly weak and horrible people until about 80% into the book and it broke my heart when I realized how wrong I had been. The tale was steeped in angst, which is one of my least favorite things in the world, yet my brain was itching to know every little thing. I couldn’t put it down and wanted to hiss at every interruption to my perusal.

I was on edge, tense, nibbling my cuticles, biting my lips, my shoulders up in my ears, the knots in my neck and shoulders had additional knots of their own. I was confounded by my investment and attraction to these devastating storylines full of woe. The writing was haunting, insightfully observant, cunningly evocative, and poignant with oddly alluring intrigue and bewitching word voodoo that kept me tethered to my Kindle as I navigated this maddeningly paced, taut, and complex tale with a level of tension that continued to build exponentially. Even during those unavoidable periods when I was forced to put my Kindle down, also known as adulting and sleep, I found myself ruminating about the characters.   I had five pages of marked quotes.   There were multiple layers to this tale as well as to the complicated cast, in addition to a series of heart-clenching and unexpected twists. It was tragic, heartbreaking, and in the end – rather brilliant.

About the Author

Adele Parks was born in Teesside, North-East England. Her first novel, Playing Away, was published in 2000 and since then she’s had seventeen international bestsellers, translated into twenty-six languages, including I Invited Her In. She’s been an Ambassador for The Reading Agency and a judge for the Costa. She’s lived in Italy, Botswana, and London, and is now settled in Guildford, Surrey, with her husband, teenage son, and cat.

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Book Review, Excerpt: The Friendship List by Susan Mallery

 

THE FRIENDSHIP LIST
by Susan Mallery

 

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU /
B&N / Apple/ GP / Kobo

 

[ ] Dance till dawn

[ ] Go skydiving

[ ] Wear a bikini in public

[ ] Start living

Two best friends jump-start their lives in a summer that will change them forever…

Single mom Ellen Fox couldn’t be more content—until she overhears her son saying he can’t go to his dream college because she needs him too much. If she wants him to live his best life, she has to convince him she’s living hers.

So Unity Leandre, her best friend since forever, creates a list of challenges to push Ellen out of her comfort zone. Unity will complete the list, too, but not because she needs to change. What’s wrong with a thirtysomething widow still sleeping in her late husband’s childhood bed?

The Friendship List begins as a way to make others believe they’re just fine. But somewhere between “wear three-inch heels” and “have sex with a gorgeous guy,” Ellen and Unity discover that life is meant to be lived with joy and abandon, in a story filled with humor, heartache, and regrettable tattoos.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

She’s a wizened old cow who hasn’t had sex in over a decade. I’m sure her girl parts are about as interesting as day-old bread.

 

“Are you wearing eyeliner?” “Yes. And it’s not easy to put on. I tried a smoky eye yesterday, but I just looked like I got in a fight.”

 

It’s all I can think about. I’m glowing so much, I’m practically radioactive.

My Review:

 

As with every Susan Mallery book I have been lucky enough to stumble upon, The Friendship List was better than an all-day all-you-can-eat and carryout trip to Willy Wonka’s. It was good fun with several cleverly written, witty, and highly entertaining storylines that held something for everyone. I adore and covet Susan Mallery’s writing style, she is a master storyteller and I quickly fall into her smoothly scrolling tales that seem to be populated with oddly endearing characters who are delightfully easy to know while realistically flawed and endeavoring for improvement. Her dialogues and observant narratives are crisp and lively yet comfortable and a pleasure to navigate.   Of course, my favorite character in this tale was the all-wise and lovely Dagmar, a woman I am sure was crafted by the use of hidden cameras following me!

While I didn’t have one thing in common with the main characters I enjoyed them anyway. Unity was a grieving young widow who was stagnant and unable to move on even after three years, and Ellen was a single mom of a teen who had not been on a date since becoming pregnant as a teen herself. Their friendship and sassy banter sparkled with delightful humor and were a welcome reprieve and absolute joy after a reading a slate of tense thrillers. I have decided I need a regular infusion of Susan Mallery in my life for good balance.

Excerpt

Chapter Two

Keith reached for his beer, not bothering to hide his amusement. “Is that going to be part of the decision-making process? How you look in the college colors? Because you care so much about how you look?”

“Hey!” Ellen balled up her napkin and tossed it at him. “I care. Sort of.”

Keith had been around women enough to know this was not a winning line of conversation. When it came to pretty much everything, women had rules men couldn’t possibly understand. He’d often thought that if Ellen put even five minutes into her appearance, she would be chasing men off with a stick. Yet if he mentioned that, he was the bad guy.

Like her clothes. They were always at least two sizes too big. Even when she wasn’t teaching, she wore baggy jeans and oversize T-shirts or sweatshirts. She never put on makeup. Despite having long, wavy dark hair, she never wore it other than in a ponytail or a braid.

Not his rock, he reminded himself. Ellen was his friend and whatever made her happy made him happy, too.

“I’m sure the Stanford colors will be glorious on you,” he told her.

She rolled her eyes. “Glorious? Is that the best you could come up with?”

“It is.”

“Fine. Tell me about your day.”

He reached for a chicken leg and put it on his plate, then added two more. “I had to deal with another pregnant girl. Why does this keep happening and why do they come to me?”

“In reverse order, they come to you because you’re capable and the odds of the guy involved being an athlete are high. As for why they get pregnant, that’s easy. Men don’t control their sperm.”

He stared at her. “What?”

“Sperm. It’s not the sex that’s the problem.” She waved her beer bottle. “Think about it. Women can have sex all day long and not get pregnant. They can have orgasm after orgasm and nada. It’s all about ejaculation. If the male half of the species made sure that didn’t happen inside women, there would be no unplanned pregnancies. Everyone looks to the girl, but she’s not the one who made it happen. He did.”

Despite the hell that had been his day, Keith chuckled. “You always have a unique perspective.”

“I know. What was it you said? I’m glorious.”

“You are. So if you’re right, then the system is rigged against women, but that doesn’t change the pregnancy outcome.”

Her expression turned sympathetic. “You worry about Lissa too much.”

“Do I? As you just pointed out, she’s one wayward ejaculation away from getting pregnant.”

“She’s on the pill.”

“If she takes them.”

Ellen put her hand on his forearm. “Your daughter doesn’t want to get pregnant, Keith. She’s a smart girl and she’s on birth control. Plus, from what I can tell, she’s not seeing anyone. You know how she gets—once she likes a guy, that’s all she ever talks about. On the boy-girl front, things have been quiet.”

“I hope you’re right. The whole situation makes me crazy.” Lissa was his daughter, his world. He wanted to do everything in his power to make her life perfect.

Ellen reached for the mashed potatoes. “When we’re back from the college bus trip, Lissa and I will be working at the fruit stand for the rest of the summer. I’ll find out what’s going on. Between now and then, she’s busy with school, then she’ll be with you on the bus. She should be perfectly safe. And speaking of the bus trip, I think we’re pretty much done with the details. What do you think?”

“I agree. I’m buying the Disneyland tickets this week,” he said. “The hotel reservations are all made.”

“You’re a good man for doing this.”

He raised one shoulder. “I don’t mind it.”

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About Susan Mallery

#1 NYT bestselling author Susan Mallery writes heartwarming, humorous novels about the relationships that define our lives-family, friendship, romance. She’s known for putting nuanced characters in emotional situations that surprise readers to laughter. Beloved by millions, her books have been translated into 28 languages. Susan lives in Washington with her husband, two cats, and a small poodle with delusions of grandeur. Visit her at SusanMallery.com.

Connect with Susan

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

 

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Book Review, Giveaway: You May Kiss the Bridesmaid (First Comes Love #6) by Camilla Isley

You May Kiss the Bridesmaid
(First Comes Love #6) 
by Camilla Isley

Amazon  / Kobo / B&N / Apple / GP/

 

Archibald Hill is handsome, single, and he’s going to his best friend’s wedding ready to make a conquest or two. After all, everyone knows weddings are the perfect setting to get lucky.

Summer Knowles used to have a life—friends, family, a sister who’d do anything for her—until she blew it all away with a terrible mistake. Now, attending her twin’s wedding as the party’s undesirable number one seems like more than she can handle. So, when a tall stranger with smoldering ice-blue eyes offers her a therapy of seven nights of no-strings-attached fun, she might even ignore that he has a beard and accept.

Problem is, Summer has never been good at keeping sex and feelings separated…

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

The only thing this bunch would be interested in seeing stripping is a mummy. And only so that they could properly analyze it and date the corpse to the right Pharaonic era.

 

Not a fan of raisins, uh? … They’re the worst invention ever made Why would someone in their right mind take nice grapes and turn them into shriveled down dead droppings set free into the world to ruin all the best foods?

 

The moment our eyes lock, time ripples. It stops, while simultaneously moving faster.

 

My Review:

 

As with every single Camilla Isley book I’ve read, this was a fun and entertaining read, I adore her clever wit and wry humor.   Her writing is crisp, engaging, and easy to fall into. I enjoyed the amusing storylines as much as I did the characters; they were a feisty and smart bunch with snappy banter and undeniable chemistry while indulging in a secret and red-hot fling during a destination wedding in wine country.

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About the Author

Camilla is an engineer turned writer after she quit her job to follow her husband on an adventure abroad.

She’s a cat lover, coffee addict, and shoe hoarder. Besides writing, she loves reading—duh!—cooking, watching bad TV, and going to the movies—popcorn, please. She’s a bit of a foodie, nothing too serious. A keen traveler, Camilla knows mosquitoes play a role in the ecosystem, and she doesn’t want to starve all those frog princes out there, but she could really live without them.

Social Media Links –

Bookbub https://www.bookbub.com/authors/camilla-isley

Goodreads https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14135080.Camilla_Isley

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

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/camillaisley/

Twitter https://twitter.com/camillaisley

Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/camillaisley/

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Giveaway

Giveaway to Win 3 x ecopies of the boxset of the first three books in the series – First Comes Love (Open INT)

*Terms and Conditions –  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then I reserve the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will be passed to the giveaway organizer and used only for the fulfillment of the prize, after which time I will delete the data.  I am not responsible for dispatch or delivery of the prize.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Book Review: The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley

TBR - BT banner

The Butterfly Room, an all-new not-to-be-missed sweeping family saga from #1 International bestselling author Lucinda Riley, is available now! 

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“Lucinda Riley once again has written a masterful saga.”– People Magazine

Full of her trademark mix of unforgettable characters and heart-breaking secrets, The Butterfly Room is a spellbinding, second-chance-at-love story from #1 International bestseller Lucinda Riley.

Posy Montague is approaching her seventieth birthday. Still living in her beautiful family home, Admiral House, set in the glorious Suffolk countryside where she spent her own idyllic childhood catching butterflies with her beloved father and raised her own children, Posy knows she must make an agonizing decision. Despite the memories of the households, and the exquisite garden she has spent twenty-five years creating, the house is crumbling around her, and Posy knows the time has come to sell it.

Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken fifty years ago. Already struggling to cope with her son Sam’s inept business dealings, and the sudden reappearance of her younger son Nick after ten years in Australia, Posy is reluctant to trust in Freddie’s renewed affection. And unbeknown to Posy, Freddie – and Admiral House – have a devastating secret to reveal…

TBR out now

Download your copy today!

Amazon: http://mybook.to/thebutterflyroom
Apple Books: https://apple.co/2Ai5lPe
Amazon Worldwide: https://amzn.to/2X6xMs8
Nook: https://bit.ly/2M3dI3s
Kobo: https://bit.ly/2XAdVk9

Add THE BUTTERFLY ROOM to Goodreads: https://bit.ly/3er9LC1

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

As you know, men generally tend to be much more basic than women; for the most part, less emotionally complex. They call a spade a spade, whereas women are more likely to say it’s a metal digging implement used in the garden.

 

Evie decided seeing Marie was a bit like eating at McDonald’s; you looked forward to it, but then felt sick halfway through.

 

It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t really thought the future through; and now here I was in it,

 

She’s very young for an old person.

 

… the dress—a shimmering cream 1930s vintage piece that covered the lumps and bumps that age had brought, and didn’t make her look like a ship in full sail.

My Review:

 

 

This epic saga was beautifully written with enticingly mysterious and cleverly intertwining storylines that were threaded with a few heavy secrets and shattering tragedies that this grievously wily author used to taunt and tease me while brutally dangling them rather barbarously out of my reach. I was invested and immersed in the complexities of the characters’ overlapping and oddly compelling family dynamics after being bewitched and pleasantly enthralled by Posy’s early childhood history and interactions with her beloved father. But there was something not quite right about her household and I had numerous suspicions and licentious theories, many of which were incorrect, but I wasn’t too far afield as the long-held secrets had been scandalous in their time as well as heartbreaking. This was my first experience reading this master-storyteller and where have I been, she has written thirty books already?

 

The writing was of extraordinary quality with densely detailed and evocative elements and scenes laced together with vibrantly painted and richly textured descriptions as well as insightful and emotive observations. It was maddeningly paced and kept me a bit on edge, like waiting for a massive heart attack as the various glossy threads were weaving into a tighter design. It was divine and despite all the mystery, angst, and tragedy, the final chapter left me with a light and contented feeling with an ending that pleased me and placed a restful smile on my face.

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Excerpt

‘Daddy?’ I asked at breakfast the next day, dipping my toast soldiers carefully into my egg. ‘It’s so hot today, can we go to the beach? We haven’t been in such a long time.’

I saw Daddy give Maman a look, but she was reading her letters over her cup of café au lait and didn’t seem to notice. Maman always got lots of letters from France, all written on very thin paper, even thinner than a butterfly wing, which suited Maman, because everything about her was so delicate and slender.

‘Daddy? The beach,’ I prompted.

‘My darling, I’m afraid the beach isn’t suitable for playing at the moment. It’s covered in barbed wire and mines. Do you remember when I explained to you about what happened in Southwold last month?’

‘Yes, Daddy.’ I looked down at my egg and shuddered, remembering how Daisy had carried me to the Anderson shelter (which I’d thought was called that because it was our surname – it had confused me a great deal when Mabel had said her family had an Anderson shelter too, as her surname was Price). It had sounded as if the sky was alive with thunder and lightning, but rather than God sending it, Daddy said it was Hitler. Inside the shelter, we had all huddled close, and Daddy had said we should pretend to be a hedgehog family, and I should curl up like a little hoglet. Maman had got quite cross about him calling me a hoglet, but that’s what I’d pretended to be, burrowed under the earth, with the humans warring above us. Eventually, the terrible sounds had stopped. Daddy had said we could all go back to bed, but I was sad to have to go to my human bed alone, rather than staying all together in our burrow.

The next morning, I had found Daisy crying in the kitchen, but she wouldn’t say what was the matter. The milk cart didn’t come that day, and then Maman had said I wouldn’t be going to school because it wasn’t there anymore.

‘But how can it not be there, Maman?’

‘A bomb fell on it, chérie,’ she’d said, blowing out cigarette smoke.

Maman was smoking now too, and I sometimes worried that she would set her letters on fire because she held them so close to her face when she was reading.

‘But what about our beach hut?’ I asked Daddy. I loved our little hut – it was painted a butter yellow, and stood at the very end of the row so if you looked the right way, you could pretend that you were the only people on the beach for miles, but if you turned the other way, you weren’t too far from the nice ice cream man by the pier. Daddy and I always made the most elaborate sandcastles, with turrets and moats, big enough for all the little crabs to live in if they decided to come close enough. Maman never wanted to come to the beach; she said it was ‘too sandy’, which I thought was rather like saying the ocean was too wet. 

Meet Lucinda

Kirjailija Lucinda Riley ||| Author Lucinda Riley

Lucinda Riley was born in Ireland, and after an early career as an actress in film, theatre, and television, wrote her first book aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and sold twenty million copies worldwide. She is a No.1 Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller.

Lucinda is currently writing The Seven Sisters series, which tells the story of adopted sisters and is based allegorically on the mythology of the famous star constellation. It has become a global phenomenon, with each book in the series being a No.1 bestseller across the world. The series is currently in development with a major Hollywood production company. 

Connect with Lucinda

Facebook: https://bit.ly/3hcFFU5
Goodreads: https://bit.ly/2WxLIdX
Instagram: https://bit.ly/3jeMQwR
Amazon: https://amzn.to/3eGtEET
Bookbub: https://bit.ly/3eIpUTa
Website: https://bit.ly/2Ba6mcH 

Connect with
Blue Box Press
https://theblueboxpress.com/