Four little words, uttered by her husband… ‘Oh my god,’ he gasped into her shoulder. ‘Shannon!’ There’s just one problem: her name isn’t Shannon.
Rewind six months and Scarlett and Rufus aren’t in the honeymoon stage anymore so much as the honey-should-we-bother phase. Desperate to get their sparkle back, Scarlett has plotted, planned and waxed more than any woman should have to, but none of it is working. Which makes it very hard to start the family they want.
At least her business is going strong, even if her marriage isn’t. She and her best friend spend their days tangled up in dog leads and covered in fur. Scarlett/ is the fairy dogmother, training hopeless pets like compulsive eater Barkley, impulsive Romeo Murphy, and bossy Biscuit. Meanwhile, her best friend walks the dogs and pines for the man who doesn’t know she exists. Thank goodness the women have each other.
If only Scarlett could work out how to get her marriage back on track. But Rufus isn’t sharing his feelings with her. He is, though, sharing with her best friend. Her best friend, Shannon.
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My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
‘I don’t have needs.’ ‘You don’t?’ ‘Nope, not me, none. I’m like a self-cleaning oven. No upkeep required. You don’t need to worry about me.’ ‘Well, just remember. It’s not healthy to self-clean for too long.’
Roxy the Rocket, their class’s very own man-eater. She’d been round the campus more times than the Domino’s delivery guy.
A slip of the tongue, Rufus? Really? Exactly where has your tongue been slipping?
That man could put a positive spin on a dysentery epidemic. Sure, I shit my pants, but I went down a belt notch!
Please, Octavia, you’re one to talk about looking unnatural. You’ve been tucked so many times you look like a hospital corner.
My Review:
I adored this delightfully amusing book from beginning to end. The writing was crisp, breezy, and heaving with zingy levity and colorful observations that conjured keen visuals. The storylines were cleverly developed, highly entertaining, and kept me smirking. I will also confess to few outright giggle-snorts escaping my mouth. It wasn’t all fun and games as a few rather unpleasant intrusions to their marital bliss needed to be ironed out and the main characters may have each needed a swift kick or two in the derriere to dislodge their misplaced craniums, but they found their way to my must have and highly satisfying HEA. It is a red-letter day as the dual personality of Lilly Bartlett/Michele Gorman has a new fangirl and I have a new author to stalk.
About the Author
Lilly Bartlett is the pen-name of Sunday Times and USA Today best-selling author, Michele Gorman, who writes best friend-girl power comedies under her own name. Lilly’s books are full of warmth, romance, quirky characters, and guaranteed happily-ever-afters.
Michele writes books packed with heart and humor, best friends and girl power. Call them beach books, summer reads, romantic comedy or chick lit… readers and reviewers call them “feel good”, “thought-provoking” and “laugh out loud”. She is both a Sunday Times and a USA Today bestselling author, raised in the US and living in London with her husband. She is very fond of naps, ice cream, and Richard Curtis films.
Space, the second book in the all-new Laws of Physics Trilogy from Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestselling author Penny Reid, is available now!
One week.
Private cabin.
Famous physicist.
Still an unrepentant slacker.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Mona’s meticulously planned allotment of relaxation is thrown into chaos by the unscheduled appearance of her older brother’s band of friends, including the one person she’d hoped to never face again. Abram still makes her feel entirely too much, which is one of the reasons she disappeared after their one week together. But now, trapped on a mountain of snow and things unspoken, Mona will have to find a way to coexist with Abram, chaos and all.
Laws of Physics is the second trilogy in the Hypothesis series; Laws of Physics parts 1 (MOTION) & 2 (SPACE) end with a cliffhanger.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Sometimes reality feels like a dream. Something happens, and it makes you question everything you know to be true, everything you take for granted about the world, about yourself. When that happens, your surroundings and interactions become likewise warped, like you’re watching those around you through a magnifying glass, or in high saturation color, and you can’t stop. You can’t make the world normal again, you know too much.
I’m not used to pensive Abram. I’m used to salty, sarcastic Abram. What’s going on? Is your manbun too tight?
Fine. Now you know the truth. Leo is a cutie pie and I just want to wrap him up in rice paper and eat him up like an egg roll.
Don’t you roll your eyes at me. You write poetry for barnacle’s sake. You can’t tell me you’re not tender. You’re like veal, or foie gras, but without the sketchy ethics issues.
Mean smiles, no jokes, broody eyebrows. You’re like an arthouse movie but without the nudity.
My Review:
I inhaled this book and didn’t fully exhale until reaching the last cleverly written word. I didn’t plan to greedily read all the highly coveted words in one sitting, but had no choice really, as after I started I was sucked into an oddly intense yet extremely pleasant vortex and was compelled to keep going well past my bedtime. It was a bit of a frenzy but I moved through each and every scene while beside either Mona or Abram the entire time; fully engaged from start to finish. I actively sighed, smirked, snorted, cringed, held my breath, and swore aloud while they dithered and debated.
Be warned – you will experience all the feels in this deviously paced and ingeniously plotted tale. I was mesmerized, bewitched, besotted, and transfixed. While I had eventually grown to love Martin while reading the Hypothesis series, I felt like throat punching him during his brief drop-in visit near the end of this installment. The extraordinarily crafty and deft wordsmith known as Penny Reid obviously possesses a magical sparkle filled pen that has been blessed by the fairies.
“Hi—hello,” she said, stepping forward but not out of the way, drawing my attention.
She was still staring at me, her face still pale, but her eyes had turned searching instead of stunned.
“I—” She stopped herself, swallowing, her gaze dropping to the front of my coat, a cute little frown furrowing her eyebrows. In the next moment, she was pulling off the glove of her right hand. Abruptly, she shoved the ungloved fingers toward me, returning her eyes to mine. “I’m Mona.”
I suppressed my disbelief at her small action before it could break my outward mask of calm. I wasn’t calm. Just to be clear, I was the opposite of calm.
The fact that she was introducing herself to me now meant that she thought I was too stupid to figure out her lies over the last two-and-a-half-fucking years. She was arguably one of the smartest people in the world, after all. To her, people like me must seem like housebroken pets. So it shouldn’t have surprised me. But it did. The tension and tightness around my ribs reappeared, squeezing uncomfortably.
Dropping my attention to her bare hand, I pressed my lips into a tighter line, dismissing the way my pulse jumped at the sight of her wrist, the olive tone of her skin under the yellow string lights overhead. Glaring at her outstretched offering, I considered telling her to go to hell.
I considered it, but I wouldn’t.
I didn’t trust myself to speak, that was reason number one.
The other reason was harder to explain, or use as a justification, or admit to myself. Staring at her hand, I braced against a sudden flare of hunger. She might consider me a lower life-form, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted to touch her. I wanted to touch her more than I wanted to tell her to go to hell, and that was fucking pitiful.
But there it was.
Acting on the compulsion, I lifted my right hand and tugged off the ski glove, sliding my warm palm against her much colder one. Her hand felt good in my hand, the right weight, the right size, the right texture, and I inhaled freezing air.
Mona also seemed to suck in a slow but expansive breath as our hands touched, held. This brought my eyes back to hers in time to see her lashes flutter. Pink colored her previously pale cheeks. The sound of the wailing wind, the sting of the air and frost momentarily melted away, leaving just her, her soft skin warming against mine, her beautiful face filling my vision.
So beautiful.
She really was. She was stunning. I hated that she was still so beautiful to me.
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.
Rowan Forrester has it all – the happy marriage, the adorable dog, the good friends, the promising business and even the dream home after she and her husband Tom win a stunning but slightly dilapidated Georgian townhouse in London at auction. But in the blink of an eye, Rowan’s picture-perfect life comes crashing down around her and she is faced with the prospect of having to start again. To make ends meet she begins a search for housemates, and in doing so opens the door to new friends and new beginnings. But could she be opening the door to new heartbreak too?
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
He’s such a messy man, she thought. Was a messy man. The change of tense felt like an obscenity.
‘Last few things,’ said Ace, carrying a cactus through his new front door. ‘What on earth is that?’ said Rowan, pointing at the spiky plant. ‘It’s a bit …phallic.’ ‘This is Dick and you’d better not be laughing. He’s been a good friend to me and helped me out of a depression last year.’ … Ace placed the plant pot reverentially on his kitchen table. ‘When I was feeling low last year, my boyfriend bought Dick for me. And before you start questioning its name, it’s because my boyfriend was called Richard, okay? … He was sensitive and supportive when I couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed, wash or eat. We’re talking my boyfriend here by the way, not the cactus.’ … It really worked. It took some weeks but every time I glimpsed Dick sitting on my bathroom shelf, bulbous and proud – the cactus, not my boyfriend – it would make me smile.’
How can your impression of the man you’ve loved, change in an instant? It was as if she was viewing him through a distorted fairground mirror, where his image had changed beyond all recognition.
I never did like that Helen much. Likes to put her oar in but can’t row the boat.
‘You haven’t told me what the doctors have said about your pain. I heard you’d had stomach ache and were having a lobotomy.’ Libby giggled. ‘A laparoscopy.
Don’t talk to me about time flying. Every time I look in the mirror I see less of Enrique Iglesias looking back and more of Julio.
I’m relieved you’re on the mend now they’ve removed those trees from your oasis.’ ‘Endometriosis, idiot.’ ‘That’s what I just said.’
My Review:
Angela Barton is my new favorite author. I adored her sagacious use of clever levity, which handily balanced out the heavier storylines that were fraught with tension, angst, and indecision. The busy plot was highly active, well populated, shrewdly paced, and held my interest throughout with several intriguing concerns and relevant issues. Ms. Barton’s writing was unfailingly engaging and tapped all the feels, frequently swinging between heart squeezing and wittily amusing within the same scene. Her characters were uncommonly and deeply flawed yet they were also uniquely endearing, well drawn, and well-meaning while striving for betterment, although I might have wanted to give several of them a few sassy pinches at various times; except for Ace, who was the perfect comedic foil and had all the best lines and cleverest quips.
About the Author
Angela Barton was born in London and grew up in Nottingham. She is married with three grown-up children and adorable four-year-old twin granddaughters. Angela is passionate about writing both contemporary and historical fiction and loves time spent researching facts for her novels. Having signed publishing contracts for three of her completed novels with Choc Lit’s new imprint, Ruby Fiction, Angela is excited to be working alongside such a lovely team.
Angela and her husband, Paul, recently moved to France and planted a lavender field. She’s looking forward to spending more time writing in the beautiful Charente countryside working from her new writing room, a beautiful shepherd hut. Angela is a member of the Romantic Novelists’ Association and Nottingham Writers’ Studio.
An abrupt change; a new friendship; a dark secret…
Kind-hearted Violet has never fitted in, but despite being bullied at school is now content. She is dating ambitious Lenny, has her dream job in publishing and runs a book club at the local retirement home.
However, when her relationship with Lenny begins to falter, Violet, hurt and alone, seeks the advice of her new flatmate, Bella. She changes her image and with her head held high aims to show that she doesn’t need Lenny in her life to be happy and successful.
Her long-term friends Mable and Farah worry about Bella’s influence and slowly Violet starts to distance herself from them. When she was a child, her closest confidant and companion was a boy called Flint. Her mother didn’t approve of their closeness and he suffered a terrible end. She won’t let the same thing happen to Bella, no matter what anyone says…
Knowing You is about friendship and knowing who to trust with your deepest secrets; it’s about taking control of your life and not being afraid to stand out. Perfect for fans of Ruth Hogan, Gail Honeyman, and Amanda Prowse
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
My first love was an assistant manager at the local bookshop where I had a Saturday job. It was then that I realised the most attractive thing about a man was the width of his reading list.
Uncle Kevin got headhunted. Sounds scary, doesn’t it? Makes me think of my favourite Horrid Henry story about cannibals. It means he got offered a job in America, the place where people eat bacon with pancakes, do cheerleading and own guns.
I need help persuading Farah that there is no health scare big enough to warrant switching to soya milk.
I have a habit of calling on people at the worst moment. Like when Gran’s in the middle of putting on her tights or my brother has just plastered his face with shaving foam.
If she were an item of stationery, she’d be a stapler. Uncomplicated and unassuming but holding everything together.
I try not to think about it. But when I look in the mirror, I worry. I worry that the woman staring back isn’t me. She’s a stranger and I can’t find an instruction manual.
My Review:
Knowing You was an exceptionally engaging and thoughtfully written tale. I was intensely absorbed and quickly entranced by the ever enticing and smoothly fluent flow of the writing as well as the captivating narrative. Ms. Tonge’s emotive and nimble writing style deftly hit all the feels while peeling back an elegant vulnerability of the highly sympathetic character of Violet at different ages and timelines. Her poignant storylines were ingeniously paced, cunningly crafted, vibrantly detailed, and adroitly evocative. I was so impressed I raced to Goodreads and added her entire backlist on my TBR.
In addition to a new favorite author to fangirl, I also garnered two new additions to my Brit Word List with bedsit – which appears to be what I know as a studio apartment, and collywobbles – which appears to have several meanings such as nervousness and/or a queasy stomach.
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About the Author
Samantha Tonge lives in Manchester UK and her passion, second to spending time with her husband and children, is writing. She studied German and French at university and has worked abroad, including a stint at Disneyland Paris. She has traveled widely.
When not writing she passes her days cycling, baking and drinking coffee. Samantha has sold many dozens of short stories to women’s magazines.
In 2013, she landed a publishing deal for romantic comedy fiction with HQDigital at HarperCollins and in 2014, her bestselling debut novel, Doubting Abbey, was shortlisted for the Festival of Romantic Fiction best Ebook award. In 2015 her summer novel, Game of Scones, hit #5 in the UK Kindle chart and won the Love Stories Awards Best Romantic Ebook category.
A mourning heiress. A selfless sheriff. Saving their town could free them both.
Maya Blackwood drowns her loss in alcohol. After her husband’s untimely death, she retreats to her family’s namesake town only to find they’ve sold it to shady developers. She hardly expected to be taken by the home she never knew and the handsome sheriff who patrols its streets…
Kevin Hoisington has always put everyone else first. And even with the whole town of Blackwood in danger, he finds himself drawn to helping the enchanting, damaged heiress. Holding her hand through recovery, he’s surprised to find that Maya has become his only priority.
When a sinister conman threatens to undo their efforts to protect the town, Kevin might have to give up everything to save the woman he’s falling for.
Will Kevin, Maya, and Blackwood fracture, or can they save both the town and their hearts?
Imagine That… is the second standalone book in the Small Town ~ Big Love series of contemporary romance series. If you like damaged heroines, self-assured heroes, and second chances for the heart, then you’ll love Kelly Collins’ sweet and sexy tale.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
She was a Blackwood by birth and kept her name after her marriage to Brad Dick. He couldn’t say he blamed her.
Do you really want to report back to Togi that I let you slide? … I don’t. My coffee would never taste right again.
I’m not keeping anything on the down low. I’m just moving slowly. I want to do it right, but mark my words, it’ll be wherever and whenever after that. Got it?
While the universe hadn’t necessarily always been kind to her, it had offered her the gold standard for men when Kevin appeared in her life.
My Review:
Oh swoon, I have a new BBF and his name is Kevin – he is simply divine; thoughtful, sexy, caring, and sweetness personified, he should be thoroughly checked for possible wings! He has to be fictional as men like this just do not exist out in the wilds of the real world, but I can still be totally enamored with him anyway. My fondness for Kelly Collins’ uniquely amusing and satisfying writing style and Small Town Big Love Series continues to grow, with eager anticipation already brewing for the next installment. I fully appreciate and have to stop to marvel how each crackerjack book interconnects with a continuing storyline yet are complete, cliffhanger free, hit all the feels, and are strong enough to standalone while enticing me to continue on for more. Boffo!
Kelly Collins writes with the intention of keeping the love alive.
Always a romantic, she is inspired by real-time events mixed with a dose of fiction. She encourages her readers to reach the happily ever after but bask in the afterglow of the perfectly imperfect love.
Kelly lives in Colorado with her husband of twenty-seven years. She loves hockey, shiny objects and has a new-found appreciation for green smoothies.
Publisher: Park Row; Original edition (March 5, 2019)
A devoted wife, a loving husband and a chilling murder that no one saw coming.
Things that make me scared: When Charlie cries. Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry… That something is really, really wrong with me.
Maddie and Ian’s love story began with a chance encounter at a party overseas; he was serving in the British army and she was a travel writer visiting her best friend, Jo. Now almost two decades later, married with a beautiful son, Charlie, they are living the perfect suburban life in Middle America. But when a camping accident leaves Maddie badly scarred, she begins attending writing therapy, where she gradually reveals her fears about Ian’s PTSD; her concerns for the safety of their young son; and the couple’s tangled and tumultuous past with Jo.
From the Balkans to England, Iraq to Manhattan, and finally to an ordinary family home in Kansas, sixteen years of love and fear, adventure and suspicion culminate in The Day of the Killing, when a frantic 911 call summons the police to the scene of a shocking crime.
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My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
“What do you fancy? The throat or the crap?” He pushed the menu in front of me. It was immediately obvious to me that whoever had translated “trout” and “carp” for the English menu had made some very unfortunate spelling errors.
The toothless octogenarian playing the accordion suddenly fell upon our table like a vampire bat on a herd of cows, and I started digging through my wallet for a tip.
“You could never be just another one of the flock,” Ian said, leaning close to me and looking into my eyes. One of his fingers batted at my hair. “Your wool is far too dark.”
And all the while I was sitting there getting my head wrapped in foil like it was a giant baked potato, these girls kept bringing me drinks. In retrospect I see very clearly that I should have been suspicious of a salon that felt the need to get you drunk before you see the results of their handiwork.
Something profound had happened to me just before I lost consciousness. At the exact second that I gave up all hope of surviving, my mind sparkled with unhinged, ecstatic, unbridled euphoria, a joy of such magnitude that I was instantly captive to it, and of a replete and searing sensuousness so irresistible that I opened my mouth to take it all in more deeply. I knew with utmost certainty, as it were as simple as two plus two or the sky is blue, that there was nothing at all to fear.
My Review:
My mind is still processing this compelling tale, it was ingenious and frustrating, and mesmerizing, and maddeningly paced all the way to the chilling end. The characters were a train wreck, and much like arriving at a train wreck I couldn’t look away; they fascinated, vexed, intrigued, antagonized, annoyed, and held me captive to my Kindle. I wasn’t sure who was the most disturbed as they were both over the edge and a hazard to themselves and others. The storylines were intensely absorbing, deviously plotted, and distressingly tantalizing. The narrative thrummed with tension and I read with a ratcheting sense of apprehension. Ms. Ward’s writing was lushly descriptive, profoundly observant, and hauntingly addictive. I fear I will be ruminating on this one for days and am in need a glass of wine or ten. It was brilliant, unsettling, yet brilliant nonetheless.
About the Author
Annie Ward has a BA in English literature from UCLA and an MFA in screenwriting from the American Film Institute. Her first short screenplay, Strange Habit, starred Adam Scott and won awards at the Aspen and Sundance Film Festivals. She lives in Kansas with her two sons and British husband, whom she met in the Balkans. She was recently awarded a Fulbright scholarship and An Escape to Create artist’s residency.
Publisher: MIRA; Original edition (February 5, 2019)
Imagine the worst thing a friend could ever do.
This is worse.
When Mel receives an unexpected email from her oldest friend Abi, it brings back memories she thought she had buried forever. Their friendship belonged in the past. To those carefree days at university.
But Abi is in trouble and needs Mel’s help, and she wants a place to stay. Just for a few days, while she sorts things out. It’s the least Mel can do.
After all, friends look out for each other, don’t they?
I Invited Her In is a blistering tale of wanting what you can’t have, jealousy and revenge from Sunday Times bestseller Adele Parks.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Some people whispered that she was pretentious; they resented the fact that she only enjoyed listening to music on vinyl and was fussy about the strength of coffee beans; she refused to drink beer, sticking exclusively to French red wine; she rarely ate. She was, by far, the most interesting person I’d ever met.
“You’ll still get the fairy tale,” Abi said with her usual cool confidence. “I mean Snow White had seven little fellas hanging off her apron and she still netted a prince.”
Her body leaned into his when he walked into a room, like a compass pointing north.
He’s lucky if I pluck my eyebrows. I just find life busy and tricky enough without having to inflict extra pain on myself for an aesthetic that precisely one person is going to benefit from. I mean, I’d never ask him to put hot wax on his best bits. Ben has never complained about my lack of grooming in that area; it’s not as though he needs help finding his target.
I’m not the sort of shape that’s considered typically desirable. I only stop traffic if I press the button and the lights change.
I throw the phone at the hall wall. It makes a satisfying dent. I can’t believe I once painted that especially for her arrival. More sensible preparation would have been barricading the door, heating tar, sharpening knives.
My Review:
This stunning book was highly addictive and totally consuming; once I got my teeth into it I couldn’t seem to put it down. The writing and storylines were simply phenomenal as start to finish the multiple POV narratives were intensely intriguing, well-crafted, cunningly paced, and just crazy good with jaw-dropping twists that had my digestive system in knots. I was taut with tension, deeply invested and couldn’t read fast enough while also wanting to fully relish every tantalizing detail and shocking revelation. The compelling characters were irresistible, uniquely flawed, and captivatingly nuanced. I was absorbed, fascinated, annoyed, beguiled, frustrated, and horrified, yet I remained overwhelmingly curious while cycling through a variety of reactions to their encounters, inner musings, and shrewd insights. I didn’t think I could have been more impressed or profoundly engaged when an eye-popping and breath-stealing disclosure halfway through actually caused me to gasp, wobble, and nearly fumble my Kindle. I was rocked, and it was sensational! Adele Parks has mad skills and new fangirl.
About the Author
Adele Parks one of the most-loved and biggest-selling women’s fiction writers in the UK. She has sold over 3 million books and her work has been translated into 25 different languages.
1500+ 5 star reviews have kindly been written by her fans on Amazon.co.uk
She has published 15 novels in the past 15 years, all of which have been London Times Top Ten Bestsellers.
Adele was born in the North East of England, in 1969. She enjoyed a traditional 1970’s childhood, watching too much TV and eating convenience food because nobody minded if kids did that in those days. Since graduating from university, where she studied English Language and Literature, she worked in advertising and as a management consultant. In 2010 Adele was proud to be awarded an honorary doctorate of Letters from Teesside University.
“After four, I quit counting. What’s the point if you know it isn’t going to stop?”
Sadie is jealous. Why wouldn’t she be? Her life is falling apart. Meanwhile, her new neighbor is everything she is not.
Ann is perfect—the kind of woman everyone loves to hate—and a best friend to die for. She hosts over-the-top dinner parties, takes parenting to an entirely different level, and makes ambition look sexy as hell.
Sadie learns quick: the best way to cure jealousy is to befriend it. She also learns there’s more to her new friend than meets the eye. She’s patient, she’s kind, and possibly a serial killer.
It isn’t until Ann’s proclivities hit a little too close to home that Sadie has to ask herself how much she’s willing to overlook in the name of getting what she wants.
Exquisitely paced, Her is an unnerving and electrifying psychological thriller about jealousy, passion, and the dangerous places desire can take you. Full of enough tension and twists to make even the most seasoned suspense reader break out in a cold sweat, it keeps you guessing until the very last page.
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My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
I wish someone had told me: worry is a waste of time. The real troubles of your life will be things that never even bothered to cross your mind.
Ann says a lot of things. She believes in survival of the fittest, and she wants everyone else to believe in it too. But there are too many stupid people in this world for me to embrace that notion wholeheartedly.
I only wish someone had told me that making friends as an adult isn’t any easier than it is as a kid. It’s worse. You have all of those hardened beliefs and insecurities to contend with. And those at the top? They like to stay there.
Her emotions have hairpin turns.
My Review:
A plethora of adjectives and adverbs came to mind as I raced through Britney King’s Her, but I have yet to find adequate words to encapsulate my thoughts. I am stunned and may be in shock as I’ve never read anything like this. Her was deviously clever, brilliantly crafted, disturbing, surreal, unsettling, and simply riveting to say the least. It was frighteningly brilliant and kept me on edge, off-balance, and highly intrigued throughout. I could never get my footing with these intense and alluring sociopaths; I was smirking at their cleverly snarky observations and inner musings one minute and reeling from their heinously twisted plotting and rationalizations in the next. The ingeniously penned storylines were completely unpredictable and enthrallingly contrived, obviously dark magic had to have been invoked. At 85% in, my stomach and jaw both dropped and I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen into my lungs. Britney King is a wickedly talented wordsmith and a cunning mastermind, and while I greatly admire her mad skills, I would definitely think twice about living in her neighborhood.
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Britney King lives in Austin, Texas with her husband, children, two dogs, one ridiculous cat, and a partridge in a pear tree.
When she’s not wrangling the things mentioned above, she writes psychological, domestic and romantic thrillers set in suburbia.
Currently, she’s 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.
Without a doubt, connecting with readers is the best part of this gig. You can find Britney online here:
Publisher: MIRA; Original edition (February 26, 2019)
The California sunshine’s not quite so bright for three sisters who get dumped in the same week…
Finola, a popular LA morning show host, is famously upbeat until she’s blindsided on live TV by the news that her husband is sleeping with a young pop sensation who has set their affair to music. While avoiding the tabloids and pretending she’s just fine, she’s crumbling inside, desperate for him to come to his senses and for life to go back to normal.
Zennie’s breakup is no big loss. Although the world insists she pair up, she’d rather be surfing. So agreeing to be the surrogate for her best friend is a no-brainer—after all, she has an available womb and no other attachments to worry about. Except…when everyone else, including her big sister, thinks she’s making a huge mistake, being pregnant is a lot lonelier—and more complicated—than she imagined.
Never the tallest, thinnest or prettiest sister, Ali is used to being overlooked, but when her fiancé sends his disapproving brother to call off the wedding, it’s a new low. And yet Daniel continues to turn up “for support,” making Ali wonder if maybe—for once—someone sees her in a way no one ever has.
But side by side by side, these sisters will start over and rebuild their lives with all the affection, charm and laugh-out-loud humor that is classic Susan Mallery.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Finola, we have models in the building. Tall, skinny, hungry models. They’re starting to look feral and turn on each other. I’m convinced it’s the smell of bacon.
… she alternated between trying to figure out a plan to win Nigel back and wondering if she could find a few anthrax spores to send him in the mail.
Finola told herself they weren’t deliberately cruel, they were just young and thoughtless. At least she hoped they were because otherwise the next generation was going to be a disappointment.
My Review:
I fell into this irresistible story and didn’t want to come back out. Susan Mallery has extraordinarily strong word voodoo. I was fully invested and right beside them or sitting in a corner watching as they bantered and argued. The storylines were deftly written and cleverly crafted with ample servings of levity and curiously addictive conundrums. Each character was uniquely compelling and so enticingly well drawn I could easily identify them in a police line-up. The mother was heinously shallow and possessed all the warmth and nurture of a rattlesnake and whose self-involvement was second only to her eldest daughter, Finola, who was a complete narcissist, although Finola had the wittiest quips of anyone. I adored Ali and Zennie, although my favorite character was the sweet and thoughtful Daniel and was totally besotted with him by the end of the book. Sigh, I want to clear off my TBR and only read Susan Mallery stories for the rest of my life.
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.
Publisher: Park Row; Original edition (January 29, 2019)
From the author of the runaway bestseller The Orphan’s Tale comes a remarkable story of friendship and courage centered around three women and a ring of female secret agents during World War II.
1946, Manhattan
One morning while passing through Grand Central Terminal on her way to work, Grace Healey finds an abandoned suitcase tucked beneath a bench. Unable to resist her own curiosity, Grace opens the suitcase, where she discovers a dozen photographs—each of a different woman. In a moment of impulse, Grace takes the photographs and quickly leaves the station.
Grace soon learns that the suitcase belonged to a woman named Eleanor Trigg, leader of a network of female secret agents who were deployed out of London during the war. Twelve of these women were sent to Occupied Europe as couriers and radio operators to aid the resistance, but they never returned home, their fates a mystery. Setting out to learn the truth behind the women in the photographs, Grace finds herself drawn to a young mother turned agent named Marie, whose daring mission overseas reveals a remarkable story of friendship, valor and betrayal.
Vividly rendered and inspired by true events, New York Times bestselling author Pam Jenoff shines a light on the incredible heroics of the brave women of the war and weaves a mesmerizing tale of courage, sisterhood and the great strength of women to survive in the hardest of circumstances.
My Rating:
Favorite Quotes:
Professor Digglesby walked back into the workshop and returned with what appeared to be feces. “We plant detonators in the least likely of places,” he added. The girls squealed with disgust. “Also fake,” he muttered good-naturedly. “Holy shit!” Josie said.
Eleanor produced a necklace with a silver bird charm and held it out. Marie was surprised. But it was not a gift; Eleanor twisted the necklace and it unscrewed to reveal a cyanide capsule. “The final friend,” Eleanor declared.
Grace imagined herself at seventeen— she had been concerned with coming-out parties and summers at the beach. She could not have navigated her way across Manhattan at that point. Yet these girls were on their own in France battling the Nazis. Grace was overcome with awe and inadequacy at the same time.
My Review:
This was my first experience reading the talented Pam Jenoff and I became an instant and ardent fan. She has mad skills. I was quickly immersed in her tale and so fully invested and simpatico with her characters that I found myself flinching when one was injured. I seldom read historical fiction, as I don’t enjoy being reminded of the ignorant and concerted behaviors that oppressed women for centuries, although I will readily consider the genre when strong female trailblazers are featured. I cannot resist a kick-ass heroine! Such was the case with The Lost Girls of Paris, which featured everyday women who were recruited by for a specialized project within a little known agency of the British government during WWII, the SEO. I had never heard of this branch before but it was an actual section during Churchill. After significant failures and heavy losses of male agents, Eleanor, the secretary to the SEO Director, convinced her boss to employ female agents instead, an idea that was not well received by the Neanderthals of the day but was put into place under Eleanor’s exacting eye. The women weren’t spies and were resented and dismissively scoffed upon by MI6 and the British military, although once in place, the female’s contributions were soon heavily relied upon and invaluable, until through no fault of their own, something went amiss.
The compelling and well-crafted storylines were fictional although well researched, impeccably detailed, and featured three strong and admirably tenacious women across three timelines but only one of which, Marie, had been an actual operative and Eleanor her feared and revered supervisor/mentor. Marie’s story was the most poignant and perilous, and I often found myself taut with tension with my shoulders in my ears while I read. Grace came into the story shortly after the war when she stumbled upon Eleanor’s abandoned suitcase in New York’s Grand Central station with no awareness of what she had found until much later. Grace seemed to have sticky fingers, as she pocketed not only a set of photos before replacing the bag where she had found it, she also pilfered something else later on in the story. Grace had moxie and her own set of skills beyond typing. It was Grace’s insatiable curiosity that led her to uncover the intriguing tale of Eleanor, the SEO, Marie, and the other women’s poignant tales of heroism and sacrifice, as well as the ultimate betrayal that led to their demise. But who had compromised their mission? The answer was heartbreaking, the premise was ingenious, and the writing was transcendent.
About Pam Jenoff
Pam Jenoff is the author of several novels, including the international bestseller The Kommandant’s Girl, which also earned her a Quill Award nomination. Pam lives with her husband and three children near Philadelphia where, in addition to writing, she teaches law school.
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