She’s Got the Guns
(The Suite #45 Series – # 1)
by M.O. Mack 

She’s Got the Guns, the debut Thriller-Suspense from Author M.O. Mack…

What could possibly be worse than being beaten, broke, and on the run from a dangerous criminal? What if that criminal is your ex and works for the FBI?

Oh, and then there’s the tiny matter of landing a job. Not so easy for a girl on the run.

Which is why when Emily Rockford gets a gig, answering the phone for a “pest control” company, she thinks her luck is turning.

Until…she discovers the business is a cover.

For hitmen. A big, dangerous, deadly group of them.

It’s just about the last place Emily wants to be, but as she’s about to find out, once you’re in, you’re in. There is no out. There is no quitting.

Will she embrace the dangerous world she’s stumbled onto? Or will she find a way to outrun them all?

Favorite Quotes:

Mr. Sampson, the man who’d hired her, said they performed “discreet pest control” for the sort of people who didn’t want their neighbors knowing they had roach issues. “It’s a status thing,” he’d said… She glanced at the machine, noting a giant cockroach skittering across the yellow Formica counter off to the side of the room. It stopped, turned in her direction as if warning her off, and then disappeared down the rust-stained sink at the end. She lifted a brow. Pest control, huh? Well, if that was really Mr. Sampson’s business, he sucked at it.

Ubering to a gunfight. What could possibly go wrong with this plan?

“So how will the jobs come in?” Was there a Craigslist for criminals? she wondered.

They’ve all experienced some sort of personal loss, and when you’ve spent a significant part of your adult life being trained to protect and kill, it’s a skill they’ve chosen not to waste. Also, the money is really good.

My Review:

Aspiring authors should take note – this is the way to launch a new name and ignite a new series. I hit my groove with this cleverly penned tale – it was as snarky and amusing as it was tautly edgy and intriguing. I gleefully inhaled this book in an afternoon; it was a fun read although there were deathly serious issues at hand. The characters were uniquely compelling and tickled my curiosity while the storylines kept me itchy for more. A battered wife on the run takes an odd job from the want ads and after sitting in a filthy office for a week by herself realizes she has been employed by an enigmatic assassin who is full-on about “the rules” and instructs her not to ask questions as, “It’s considered rude in our line of work.” I adored this witty and humorous missive and can’t wait for the next installment.

Okay, most of all that is total rubbish! M.O. is a full-time author from the great state of Arizona, who loves making stuff up and hates a slow story. The faster the better! Most days, M.O. tries to avoid the news (too violent) so it doesn’t interfere with writing funny, but quasi-violent stories.

THE BITTER AND SWEET OF CHERRY SEASON
 by Molly Fader

THE LAST WIFE
by Karen Hamilton

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

People think that envy is a bad thing, but in my opinion, envy is a positive emotion. It has always been the best indicator for me to realize what’s wrong with my life. People say, “Follow your dreams,” yet I’d say, “Follow what makes you sick with envy.”

…surely everyone fibs? It’s not just me. Lies make life palatable. It’s simply unavoidable at times. I do it to protect myself and others. Surely, it’s not a bad thing to tell people what they want to hear? Sometimes, there’s no choice.

It’s amazing how many noises can sound like police sirens if you have a guilty conscience.

I’ve never known a murderer before. I wouldn’t admit this to just anyone, but it’s really quite morbidly exciting!

My Review:

This heralds my first experience reading this wily author and I am ever so impressed, her clever storylines were cunningly paced, well nuanced, and laced with brain-tickling intrigue while taut with tension. Her compelling characters were deliciously twisty, uniquely tainted, and curiously torqued. Written from the first-person POV of Marie, who was obviously emotionally and a bit mentally unstable as well as a compulsive liar, obsessively driven, paranoid, and riddled with anxiety, just to name a few of her most pesky symptoms.   The insightfully written and profoundly shrewd use of inner musings and observations detailing Marie’s obsessive and deceptive traits and compulsions were spot on and brilliantly crafted. I was riveted to my Kindle and thoroughly entertained while I immersed myself in Marie’s troubled yet compelling gray matter and devious schemes. It was divinely twisty.

Death at the Dance
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #2)
by Verity Bright

A Very English Murder
(A Lady Eleanor Swift Mystery #1)
by Verity Bright

The Last Train to Key West
by Chanel Cleeton

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

The only things I’ve ever heard John say in addition to his name pertain to his order, as though God only gave him a certain number of words to use each day, and he’d already expended his quota before he sat in my section.

I envy men the freedom to choose their own spouses. They snap us up as though they are purchasing a piece of fruit at the market, and we are expected to have no say in the matter.

The running of this world is left to men, and quite frankly, I’m not impressed with what they’ve done with it.

It’s strange how your life can change so quickly, how one moment you can barely eke by, desperation filling your days, and suddenly, out of the unimaginably horrific, a glimmer of something beautiful can appear like a bud pushing through the hard-formed earth.

My Review:

I was relatively new to Chanel Cleeton when I started this series featuring a fascinating family of Cuban sisters and had generally avoided historical fiction prior to this as being a strong feminist, I bristle at the limitations placed on women and how poorly they were treated, even by their families. The Cuban sister featured in this installment was Mirta, who had been forced into marrying a man of questionable ethics and criminal ties and whom she did not personally know, to clear her father’s mistakes in judgment.   Meanwhile, the same situation had also occurred to a former New York socialite named Elizabeth. Both women crossed paths in Key West during Mirta’s honeymoon and were served by the same heavily pregnant waitress who, for me, had the most compelling storylines featured in this dynamic tale. The three women could not have been more diverse yet they were sharing an overlapping experience during the most challenging period in their lives.

All of this drama happened to occur during hurricane season, and it got a bit breezy when the worst storm ever hit the area.   The storylines were slowly and craftily constructed with a writing style that was stunningly emotive, compelling, and mesmerizingly immersive. I fell right into each woman’s anxious vortex and enjoyed their various journeys and travails as their lives briefly intersected.

I had no idea it wasn’t just women and minorities who were so devastatingly maltreated and was appalled by the shameful and horrific conduct and attitude of the US government toward the returning Veterans of WWI. I mean no slur to the brave souls currently serving but why anyone still bothers to join the military given their heinous history of atrocities boggles my tiny brain and scorches the little pea lying therein.

That Summer in Maine
by Brianna Wolfson

A novel about mothers and daughters, about taking chances, about exploding secrets and testing the boundaries of family

Years ago, during a certain summer in Maine, two young women, unaware of each other, met a charismatic man at a craft fair and each had a brief affair with him. For Jane, it was a chance to bury her recent pain in raw passion and redirect her life. For Susie, it was a fling that gave her troubled marriage a way forward.

Now, sixteen years later, the family lives these women have made are suddenly upended when their teenage girls meet as strangers on social media. They concoct a plan to spend the summer in Maine with the man who is their biological father. Their determination puts them on a collision course with their mothers, who must finally meet and acknowledge their shared past and join forces as they risk losing their only daughters to a man they barely know.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

It would have been better if that silence between them was thick and heavy with sadness or regret, but it had become light and comfortable now. Hazel and her mother were now connected by only the loosest stitch.

And from that moment on, every subsequent message that Hazel received from Eve was a supernova. Each text blew everything that once was, wide-open. Started life anew. Illuminated every fiber of her being. And it was all happening in Hazel’s own personal universe.

She felt that there was something deep within her that was better than her life allowed for.

Looking down at you, I felt as if I had gone out and bought something too precious and too expensive. It was as if I had walked around a shop I knew I shouldn’t have been in and walked out with something I couldn’t afford.

My Review:

This book was a pleasant surprise and I was rather besotted and bewitched by the outstanding writing quality, which frequently leaped out at me in the most unexpected places. However, the insightfulness and depth of the characters as well as the unexpected corners and nuances of the storylines often left me delightfully stunned and needing to reread passages more than once. This talented wordsmith obviously has a keen memory and profound understanding of the chaotic, confusing, conflicting, calamitous, and crushingly catastrophic emotions and thoughts of a teen as she developed the multi-faceted character of Hazel with devastating clarity. Did I have enough /c/ words there?

Each character was cleverly textured, multi-layered, captivatingly complicated, and endlessly intriguing, even when they greatly annoyed or frustrated me. Ms. Wolfson’s writing was thoughtfully emotive and cleverly observant with deftly penned and well-crafted prose that was often so elegant it snagged my breath.  She is definitely going on my list of Ones to Watch.  Fangirl down!

Brianna Wolfson is a New York native living in San Francisco. Her narrative nonfiction has been featured on Medium, Upworthy, and The Moth. She buys a lottery ticket every Friday.