The Sea of Lost Girls
by Carol Goodman

About the Author

The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant
by Kayte Nunn

About the Author

The Moonglow Sisters
by Lori Wilde

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Regret tasted like burnt pennies in her mouth, and her throat clotted thick with the salty taste of grief.

… those Divas were the bomb-diggity…

Gia was feeling overlooked and incidental. “You guys always leave me out,” Gia grumbled. “Treat me like a mushroom, keep me in the dark and feed me—”

“Life is a puzzle.” Darynda backed out of the driveway. “Seems like by the time you’ve got it all together, it’s time to die.”

Contentment stole over her, and she realized she wasn’t thinking about anything. She smiled. It felt like recess. A time-out from the craziness her life had become.

My Review:

I thoroughly relished this cleverly plotted tale and by the end of the book, I knew this oddly enticing train wreck of a family so well I could recognize them on the street. They hadn’t always been a train wreck but they had always had issues.   Each of the three sisters had strikingly different personalities, insecurities, and looks. They had been a close unit until “the Incident with Raoul,” which mercilessly taunted me until the actual event was finally revealed.

The writing was unfailingly engaging, easy to follow, and absorbing with cleverly layered with unusual nuances and unexpected twists, as well as witty Easter Eggs of humor tucked in unexpected places to balance out the emotional tone. The cast with packed with a lively and quirky crew of secondary and tertiary characters who provided considerable levity and amusing scenarios, such as the wry banter provided by the geriatric Quilting Divas and a cameo appearance by a hapless beach bush urinator. I adored this book and felt pleasantly entertained while I also gleaned considerable new knowledge about quilting, love bombing, and kite flying – all valuable lessons. Flying pigs, it was the bomb-diggity!

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The School of Starting Over 
by Lisa Swift

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

That is never good. Never. The we need to talk and the I have to tell you something is always followed by news that you do not under any circumstances want to hear.

I couldn’t sit around alone for the rest of my life. I was two steps from adopting fourteen cats and giving up.

There was a sturdiness about Otis Bell that had always been appealing to me, and yet it was his vulnerability that did me in.

The truth was, I’d always been a charity case. My parents died when I was four, and from that moment on I’d been at the mercy of other people looking out for me.

“You’re beautiful, Mal.” … He didn’t say you look beautiful, but you’re beautiful. Somehow there was a difference, and it landed on me with substantial force.

 My Review:

I don’t know she does it but Jess B. Moore has magical skills, she writes from a dual POV with such keen insights, regardless of the age or gender, and transports me into her compellingly flawed characters’ lives as well as implanting me under their skin. I’m right there, either by their side or behind their retinas. I feel their uncertainties and annoyances while absorbing their inner musings. Her emotive tales conjure empathy and sympathy along with heart-squeezes, rapid blinking, and thoughtful reflection on her expert character development of not just the main characters but the secondary and tertiary players as well.

This installment featured an unlikely pair. Mallory was a fretful and fragile little bird who was riddled with insecurities and social anxiety. She strived to be independent but was in a near-constant state tension after her only friend moved hours away. She frequently felt awkward and worked at being invisible, yet she overflowed with kindness toward others. And she loved cats, how could I not adore her after she rescued an abandoned puss?   Poor Mallory had been cursed with a life-long crush on Otis, who had been a major anus toward her most of their lives. I wanted to give him more than a few swift kicks in a tender area for being such an ass, but he made up for it, eventfully, and gradually won me over when he finally stopped acting like a tool.

I am no fan of angst but, oddly, I don’t seem to mind at all when it comes to Ms. Moore’s captivating and perceptive scribblings.   The engaging storylines of The Chapel were relevant, original, well-crafted, and realistic, and seemed to keep me a bit on edge as Mallory was frequently tense. I enjoyed Otis’s sweetness once they fell into sync and hit their stride, and heard myself sigh contentedly at the stories end.   I can hear their fiddles, guitars, and mandolins being tuned and am already looking forward to my next trip to Bluegrass country.

Mystery at Apple Tree Cottage
(Eve Mallow Mystery #2)
by Clare Chase

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

As a freelance obituary writer, she interviewed the living to unearth the secrets of the dead…

‘I’m sure Simon’s ready to settle down now. And he’s looked very subdued lately.’ ‘You have a vivid imagination. He looks like a dog that’s been let off the leash each time I see him.’

She wasn’t busy at the moment, but a fascinating obituary subject could turn up at any time. It wasn’t like you got advance notice.

Still, he seems like a nice guy, not like he’s portrayed in the press. I’d guess he works hard at his bad-boy image, then goes home and brews up a cocoa.

I know what you’re thinking. I can see it in your face. Nothing would delight you more than having me as a houseguest, but you can’t imagine how to express your thanks. Well, don’t worry, you don’t have to. I want to come. If any dodgy characters turn up on your doorstep, I can frighten them away with my violent hair colour.

Villagers at the ready! Deploy!

He might not be chatty, but he’s easy on the eye. And great with a hoe. So there you are, double benefits. Nice scenery, which will lead to nice scenery.

My Review:

This engaging cozy mystery was a proper conundrum and complete head-scratcher with a full slate of suspects for such a small village. There appeared to be ample circumstantial evidence to put several under suspicion, yet no actual proof on anyone. Color me intrigued. I delighted in this amusing and observantly insightful tale with clever and generous servings of wry humor along with well-paced tidbits and red herrings that had my cynical nature spinning in all directions.

Clare Chase writes women sleuth mysteries. After graduating from London University with a degree in English Literature, Clare moved to Cambridge and has lived there ever since. She’s fascinated by the city’s contrasts and contradictions, which feed into her writing. She’s worked in diverse settings – from the 800-year-old University to one of the local prisons – and lived everywhere from the house of a Lord to a slug-infested flat. The terrace she now occupies, with her husband and teenage children, presents a good happy medium.

As well as writing, Clare loves family time, art and architecture, cooking, and of course, reading other people’s books.

Minnie Price married late in life. Now she is widowed. And starving.

No one suspects this respectable church-goer can barely keep body and soul together. Why would they, while she resides in the magnificent home she shared with Peter?

Her friends and neighbors are oblivious to her plight and her adult stepchildren have their own reasons to make things worse rather than better. But she is thrown a lifeline when an associate of her late husband arrives with news of an investment about which her step-children know nothing.
Can she release the funds before she finds herself homeless and destitute?

Fans of ‘The Hoarder’s Widow’ will enjoy this sequel, but it reads equally well as a standalone.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… her mind was still on the ashes. She imagined some flunkey heaving them out of a bucket on to the ground, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, his shirt not tucked in. Perhaps they’d be mixed with someone else’s. She didn’t like to think of Peter being part of a medley of other dead people. She had never visited the garden of remembrance. It might be a desolate, litter-strewn corner; unkempt, unvisited.

… she had a dry sense of humour, an ability to make everyday things amusing. Today she spoke of a new volunteer at the charity shop who had already jammed the till twice and rubbed a donor up the wrong way by suggesting the paperback books he had brought in were ‘filth.’

Truth be told, the project Maisie suggests appalls him, (an image assaults him, fleeting though vivid, of his mother laundering the rags of hoboes and asylum-seekers, and combing the lice from the matted beards of down-and-outs,) but he would rather die than say so. Dilemma turns him thin-lipped and rheumy-eyed; his thinning hair reveals a scaly flair-up of psoriasis on the narrow dome of his head.

She leafed through the brochures. ‘I’ve never been to Morocco,’ she mused, ‘I expect it’s similar to Egypt, though. The young men are beautiful – there’s no other word to describe them – but by the time they’re forty over-exposure to the sun and inadequate dentistry turns them all into goblins

Jessica perches on the end of Amy’s lounger and eats the olives which have been put there for Amy to enjoy. She does not think she has ever seen such an elderly person before but in her experience the older a person is the more likely they are to have both the time and the wisdom to answer her questions. ‘Tell me about the olden days,’ she says to Amy, ‘when you were alive.’

My Review:

I adored this well-crafted and entertaining tale, it was cleverly written with frequent sneaky slices of delightfully wry humor deftly tucked in which often found me rereading them twice or more while giggle-snorting or smirking with each perusal. This was my first exposure to Ms. Cresswell’s writing and I was quickly impressed by her fluid style. The story flowed with a smooth and seamless quality with writing that was often emotive, highly insightful, and perceptively observant.   Her character development was top shelf with each cast member being enticingly quirked and uniquely flawed yet curiously interesting and accessible, regardless of their different walks of life and mannerisms.

I picked up two new items for my Brit List with trews for trousers, and three-line whip – a political term for a strict edict to attend and vote the party line or suffer the consequences. The character referenced was certainly at the mastery level of those – both the decrees and the consequences.

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You’ve Got My Number
by Angela Barton

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA / 

Apple/ Google

Three isn’t always a magic number … 

There are three reasons Tess Fenton should be happy. One, her job at the Blue Olive deli may be dull, but at least she gets to work with her best friend. Two, she lives in a cozy cottage in the pretty village of Halston. Three, she’s in love with her boyfriend, Blake. 

Isn’t she? 

Because, despite their history, Blake continues to be the puzzle piece in Tess’s life that doesn’t quite fit. And when she meets intriguing local artist Daniel Cavanagh, it soon becomes apparent that, for Tess, love isn’t as easy as one, two, three … 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

… her mind awash with thoughts of how to finish with Blake. Perhaps she should explain in the Star Trek terminology he was familiar with. ‘I need space, this is the final frontier.’

Tess remembered she’d been mumbling expletives in panic. ‘Nothing that a pint can’t put right,’ she replied, trying to sound unfazed. ‘I’m waiting for a girlfriend. She’s late.’ Great! Now she sounded like a possessive alcoholic lesbian who suffered from a mild dose of Tourette’s. This wasn’t going well.

‘I suppose you could try internet dating.’ Tess couldn’t believe how her mouth was taking control of this conversation instead of her brain. What was she doing trying to enrol him at a dating agency? ‘Too scary. I’ve had friends who have dabbled in it. Apparently the odds are good, but the goods are odd!’

Recently he’d been pestering her to move in with him, but she’d no intention of leaving Halston. She couldn’t imagine sharing a house with his numerous diecast models and action figures of Captain Kirk and an army of Klingons. Models of the Starship Enterprise decorated any flat surface and it didn’t help that a poster of Mr Spock looked down on her whenever she sat on Blake’s toilet.

When it came to men, her friend’s attention span was as temporary as a bruise.

My Review:

I checked it three times to be sure, and this is the second time I have smirked my way through one of Angela Barton’s cleverly amusing missives, I adore her unique style of witty levity and wry humor. Her endearing characters were realistically drawn, imperfect, and quite entertaining to delve into, as were her pleasantly engaging and well-crafted storylines. I am eager to see what she conjures next and wonder if she can best her creation of a confused elder’s prideful explanation of her son’s gift of a “dignified camera,” (digital). ~ Snort! Not like I’ve ever made such a gaff – oh no, not me!

Before She Knew Him
by Peter Swanson

About the Author