Category: Book Reviews

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Book Review: Kiss Me Not by Emma Hart

KMN-BANNER-LIVE

What do you do when you’re the reigning kissing booth champion but the only person you want to kiss is your best friend’s brother?

Kiss Me Not, an all-new hilarious brother’s best friend romance from New York Times bestselling author Emma Hart is available now!

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Kiss Me Not

by Emma Hart

Amazon: https://amzn.to/2wq22jD

AppleBooks: https://apple.co/2VZW8QH

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

Nook: http://bit.ly/2QFpPWh

Kobo: http://bit.ly/2JMUDng

 

Let me make this clear right here, right now: I, Halley Dawson, do not care that Preston Wright is kissing other women.

Not a lick. Not at all. Nuh-uh-freakin’-uh.

I do care that he’s doing it six feet away from me behind a gaudy velvet curtain—making him my competition in this year’s kissing contest.

Why do I care, you ask? Because I’ve had an unfortunate crush on the insufferable idiot since I was sixteen years old, but I also know it’s never going to happen.

He’s the Creek Falls bachelor to die for, and I’m the Creek Falls raccoon lady who puts peanut butter sandwiches out for them every night.

I’m not going to let him break my four-year-long reign—no matter how many times he breaks the rules and slides the curtain across to do the one thing he’s not allowed to:

Kiss me.

 

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My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

I was woefully single to the point that the only date I had was with the raccoons who lived in the woods behind my house.

 

“Bite me, Preston.” “That can be arranged… should you want it to be literal, it can be arranged.” He gave me a wolfish smile. “There’s no shame in a little nibble, Halley.” He punctuated that with a wink. Why was my mouth dry? What was happening?

 

“You do, don’t you? … You have an entire emergency kit.” “You never know when you’re going to get stranded in the dark, in a place with no cell signal, and no civilization for miles. Also, there might be zombies.”

 

“Wow. You are a hard woman to please.” “Not really. Wine, yoga pants, raccoons, books… I’m fairly simple.”

 

 My Review:

 

Emma Hart is relatively new to me; this is only my third time picking up one her riotously funny tales and I am kicking myself for not discovering this clever minx years ago. Kiss Me Not is the start of a new series and I am all in for whatever Ms. Hart wants to throw down – unless she starts writing zombie stories – those would probably be a no-go. Penned in my favorite dual POV, her writing sparkled and zinged with witty and irreverent banter, a trio of feisty and sassy friends, and smirk-a-minute levity at a lively and snappy pace. I adored it!

Excerpt:

“I never answered your question.”

“What question?” I darted my eyes to the side.

“Just now. You asked me if I wanted to kiss you.”

I did, didn’t I? Right. “Oh,” was all I said.

Slowly, he moved his hand to my chin and gently lifted it. Still, I didn’t look at him, keeping my eyes firmly trained on the front of the tent, even though I was facing him.

“Halley.”

“Yeah?”

“I want to kiss you.”

My eyes darted to his.

“I thought that’d do it.” His lips twitched, and he lowered his head until I had to fight the urge to close my eyes in anticipation of the kiss that was coming.

I swallowed, my lips parting.

Preston moved closer.

And he kissed my cheek.

I jerked out of whatever trance I’d just been in. “What the hell?”

He jumped off the stage, grinning. “I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to break the stalemate, won’t we?”

“Oh, hell no!” I jumped off, stalking him to his side of the stage. “You just stood there in front of me and told me you want to kiss me, then kiss my cheek? The hell was that?”

His eyebrows shot up, amusement flashing in his eyes. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you wanted to kiss me, too.”

“Irrelevant,” I shot back. “But you’re a special kind of asshole to tell a girl you wanna kiss her and then not do it.” I turned around, then stopped. “You know what? When I beat you tomorrow, you can kiss my ass.”

“You’re way too mad about this.”

“I’m not mad!” My voice raised a few octaves. “I couldn’t care if you want to kiss me or not. I most certainly don’t want to kiss you.”

“Why are you shouting at me?”

“I’m not—” I was shouting at him. “Whatever,” I said in a normal voice. “Make sure you take that money to the bank. Tell Tish I sent you.”

I left him on his side of the curtain and went to get my purse. He could get fucked. After all that where I think I was so damn nervous I broke a sweat, he didn’t even kiss me.

I wasn’t lying with what I said.

He could kiss my ass.

I’d even wear my good panties and bend over for him.

 

About Emma Hart

Emma Hart is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over thirty novels and has been translated into several different languages.

​She is a mother, wife, lover of wine, Pink Goddess, and valiant rescuer of wild baby hedgehogs.

​Emma prides herself on her realistic, snarky smut, with comebacks that would make a PMS-ing teenage girl proud.

​Yes, really. She’s that sarcastic.

EmmaHart

Connect with Emma

Facebook: http://bit.ly/2KVY9Lz

BookBub: http://bit.ly/2Dr0atq

Amazon US: http://amzn.to/2Dq42ez

Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/2EBbZNe

Goodreads: http://bit.ly/2D91d3T

Instagram: http://bit.ly/2MCaPsI

Stay up to date with Emma by joining her mailing list: http://bit.ly/2NtAbca

Website: https://www.emmahart.org/home

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Book Review: The Oysterville Sewing Circle by Susan Wiggs

The Oysterville Sewing Circle

by Susan Wiggs

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU

 B&N / HarperCollins

 384 pages
William Morrow; First Edition edition (August 13, 2019)

“Stitched together with love, this is a story just waiting for your favorite reading chair. With her signature style and skill, Susan Wiggs delivers an intricate patchwork of old wounds and new beginnings, romance and the healing power of friendship, wrapped in a lovely little community that’s hiding a few secrets of its own.”
— Lisa Wingate, New York Times Bestselling author of Before We Were Yours

The #1 New York Times bestselling author brings us her most ambitious and provocative work yet—a searing and timely novel that explores the most volatile issue of our time—domestic violence.

At the break of dawn, Caroline Shelby rolls into Oysterville, Washington, a tiny hamlet at the edge of the raging Pacific.

She’s come home.

Home to a place she thought she’d left forever, home of her heart and memories, but not her future. Ten years ago, Caroline launched a career in the glamorous fashion world of Manhattan. But her success in New York imploded on a wave of scandal and tragedy, forcing her to flee to the only safe place she knows.

And in the backseat of Caroline’s car are two children who were orphaned in a single chilling moment—five-year-old Addie and six-year-old Flick. She’s now their legal guardian—a role she’s not sure she’s ready for.

But the Oysterville she left behind has changed. Her siblings have their own complicated lives and her aging parents are hoping to pass on their thriving seafood restaurant to the next generation. And there’s Will Jensen, a decorated Navy SEAL who’s also returned home after being wounded overseas. Will and Caroline were forever friends as children, with the promise of something more . . . until he fell in love with Sierra, Caroline’s best friend, and the most beautiful girl in town. With her modeling jobs drying up, Sierra, too, is on the cusp of reinventing herself.

Caroline returns to her favorite place: the sewing shop owned by Mrs. Lindy Bloom, the woman who inspired her and taught her to sew. There she discovers that even in an idyllic beach town, there are women living with the deepest of secrets. Thus begins the Oysterville Sewing Circle—where women can join forces to support each other through the troubles they keep hidden.

Yet just as Caroline regains her creativity and fighting spirit, and the children begin to heal from their loss, an unexpected challenge tests her courage and her heart. This time, though, Caroline is not going to run away. She’s going to stand and fight for everything—and everyone—she loves.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Since she had left home right out of high school, she had dutifully visited a few times at Christmas… That seemed to satisfy the family and also preserved her status as the official black sheep. Every family needed a pet, her brother Jackson used to joke.

 

I’ve had my heart broken so many times, it’s all scar tissue…

 

“Turns out my ‘perfect’ husband pulled the oldest trick in the book. He took up with an associate at the law firm, plotted a slick exit, and brought my life to a screeching halt. She’s awful, too— one of those phony Christians who claimed she was ‘saving herself for marriage.’” “I guess you should have asked whose marriage,”

 

His eyes were as blue as her favorite color of gumball… As a general rule, she didn’t like boys. With two younger brothers, she was well aware of their shortcomings. Boys were noisy, and they smelled like hamsters, and they had an incomprehensible habit of wearing the same dirty shirt day in and day out until someone made them change.

  

My Review:

 

This was a slowly evolving, relatable, and thoughtfully written story in which every woman from most any culture will find something that resonates for her. While predominantly fitting the genre of women’s fiction, it could also be considered a second chance and small-town romance. The realistic storylines were easy to follow, highly assessable, relevant, and cast with a wide variety of unique and endearing yet flawed characters. The writing was engaging and easy to follow yet slyly emotive and stung my eye sockets several times. Susan Wiggs has earned a permanent spot on my list of favorite authors.

I was provided with a review copy of this stealthily emotive book by TLC Book Tours and HarperCollins. 

About Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs’s life is all about family, friends…and fiction. She lives at the water’s edge on an island in Puget Sound, and in good weather, she commutes to her writers’ group in a 21-foot motorboat. She’s been featured in the national media, including NPR, PRI, and USA Today, has given programs for the US Embassies in Buenos Aires and Montevideo, and is a popular speaker locally, nationally, internationally, and on the high seas.

From the very start, her writings have illuminated the everyday dramas of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances. Her books celebrate the power of love, the timeless bonds of family and the fascinating nuances of human nature. Today, she is an international best-selling, award-winning author, with millions of copies of her books in print in numerous countries and languages. According to Publishers Weekly, Wiggs writes with “refreshingly honest emotion,” and the Salem Statesman Journal adds that she is “one of our best observers of stories of the heart [who] knows how to capture emotion on virtually every page of every book.” Booklist characterizes her books as “real and true and unforgettable.”

Her novels have appeared in the #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller List, and have captured readers’ hearts around the globe with translations into more than 20 languages and 30 countries. She is a three-time winner of the RITA Award,. Her recent novel, The Apple Orchard, is currently being made into a film, and The Lakeshore Chronicles has been optioned for adaptation into a series.

The author is a former teacher, a Harvard graduate, an avid hiker, an amateur photographer, a good skier, and terrible golfer, yet her favorite form of exercise is curling up with a good book. She lives on an island in Puget Sound, where she divides her time between sleeping and waking.

Visit her website at www.SusanWiggs.com, and connect with Susan on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Book Review: The Murder List by Hank Phillippi Ryan

The Murder List

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

 

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA / B&N

Law student Rachel North will tell you, without hesitation, what she knows to be true. She’s smart, she’s a hard worker, she does the right thing, she’s successfully married to a faithful and devoted husband, a lion of Boston’s defense bar, and her internship with the Boston DA’s office is her ticket to a successful future.

Problem is–she’s wrong.

And in this cat and mouse game–the battle for justice becomes a battle for survival.

The Murder List is a new standalone suspense novel in the tradition of Lisa Scottoline and B. A. Paris from award-winning author and reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

My new boss. Martha Gardiner. The woman Jack usually refers to as “Satan in pearls.” He never laughs when he says it.

 

Forget the speed of light. Nothing travels faster than gossip… Secrets only take a few beats longer. Gossip is the fuel of power.

 

At noon, Kurt had brought us lunch, wrapped in the white waxed paper of the Pietro Pan Deli. The Italian sandwiches had too much salami and too many onions, and I’d wondered if that was a sneaky way to encourage us to hurry. I wished the jury room had windows we could open.

 

You could send lawyers to law school. And judges to judge school, or whatever they had. And those people were versed in all the rules. But at the end of all the rule-following and objections and legal procedures, when the gavel banged and the door closed, when you got into a jury room, it was regular people. Flawed people. Biased people. Who may or may not agree to those rules. Who can manipulate and pressure and influence. And, depending on the power of jurors’ consciences, no one would ever know.

 

I flinch at the sound of my name. I’ve felt so invisible, even I almost forgot I was here.

 

My Review:

 

This was extremely clever, so smartly plotted, brilliantly paced, and engagingly written. I fell right inside and didn’t surface for most of the day, only under the threat with death by my internal organs and whining from my neglected husband. This was my first experience reading this sly wordsmith and I was a quick convert, I’ll buy whatever she’s selling as I totally fell for her tricks, I never saw it coming. The writing was superb and cleverly amusing as well as perceptively detailed, but the characters – they were vibrant and alive for me on the page. Ms. Ryan has exceptionally strong word voodoo. Like a binging dieter, I greedily want to amass and consume all her clever words.

About the Author

Amazon
Goodreads
Website

Hank Phillippi Ryan is the bestselling author of eleven award-winning novels of suspense. National reviews have called her a “master at crafting suspenseful mysteries” and “a superb and gifted storyteller.”

Her first psychological standalone, TRUST ME (now in paperback), is an Agatha Award nominee, and was named BEST of 208 by the New York Post, Real Simple Magazine, BookBub, Crime Reads, and PopSugar. Mary Kubica says: “Dazzling!” and Lisa Gardner says “Mesmerizing!”

Hank is also an award-winning investigative reporter at Boston’s WHDH-TV. In addition to 36 EMMYs and 14 Edward R. Murrow awards, Hank’s won dozens of other honors for her ground-breaking journalism.

Her work has resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in refunds and restitution for victims and consumers. She’s been a radio reporter, a legislative aide in the United States Senate and an editorial assistant at Rolling Stone Magazine, working with Hunter S. Thompson, Richard Avedon, and Richard Goodwin.

Hank is a founding teacher at Mystery Writers of America University and served as president of national Sisters in Crime. She blogs at Jungle Red Writers and Career Authors.

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Book Review: Silent Night by Geraldine Hogan

SILENT NIGHT 

by Geraldine Hogan

Amazon / B&N / iBooks / Kobo / GP

‘She reached into the pram and placed her hands on the cotton blanket. It was still warm. But her smiling, new baby sister, with her wide blue-grey eyes, was gone…’

Twenty-five years later, three bodies are found at a ramshackle cottage in the Irish countryside, and Detective Iris Locke is sick to her stomach. The victims are Anna Crowe and her two young children.

Iris has only recently joined the Limerick Murder Squad. Against her father’s advice, she’s working the narrow lanes and green hills of her childhood. Iris still remembers Anna, who was just a small girl when her baby sister was snatched, never to be seen again. It was the one case Iris’ own father never solved, and Iris can’t help but wonder if the two crimes are connected.

She’ll stop at nothing to find Anna justice, but a fire has destroyed almost all the physical evidence, and Limerick is the same small town she remembers: everybody protects their neighbors, and Iris has been away for too long.

Can Iris unpick the lies beneath the surface of her pretty hometown, and catch the most twisted individual of her career, when reopening the old case means reopening old wounds for her team, the rest of the community, and her own father?

Fans of Patricia Gibney, Angela Marsons and L.J. Ross won’t want to miss this – the first book in a gripping and unputdownable new crime series.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

Ah yes, the good old days when they moved you every couple of weeks. It tended to weed out the men from the boys, and the women entirely.

 Boran was an electric eel of a man, long and reedy, jumpy and giddy; with deep-set eyes that Iris supposed might set him aside as an artist, or in Iris’s line of work, a player.

 Rumour has it she’s looking to catch you out, Slattery, better watch yourself. That one, she’s a hairy bit of work on a bicycle, take it from me. You watch yourself up there now.

 Iris lowered her voice, conscious once more of her surroundings. St Abbati’s Terrace wasn’t exactly Soho. It was the kind of place, Iris figured, where the neighbours knew if you flushed twice within the hour and they would be counting.

 Slattery, more than anyone, knew that truth was a costly commodity; he knew it because from what he could see, it was rarer than hens’ teeth.

  

My Review:

 

While the clever story threads and plot lines were unpredictable and smartly paced, I was far more taken by Ms. Hogan’s exquisitely crafted, evocative, and slowly evolving storytelling.   She snared my attention on page one and kept me immersed in her intriguing tale to the last sentence. Her writing was deftly penned and scrolled smoothly through my brain with ease. It was as if I were watching a film.

Each scene was thoroughly set to engage all the senses from vivid visuals to heart-squeezing emotional tones, with an added treat of agilely inserted incidental details and keenly entertaining observations that tickled my brain cells and continually prodded my curiosity.

What an unexpected delight! I am all in with the lovely Iris and am eager to see what the crafty Ms. Hogan shakes loose for her next murder case. And for a bonus, I learned a fun Irish idiom of “on the gargle” – meaning to be boozy.

About the author

Geraldine Hogan was born in Ireland. She gained an Honors Degree in English Literature and Psychology from Dublin City University and a Postgraduate Degree in Training and Management from University College, Galway. She is an Irish award-winning and bestselling author of four contemporary fiction novels under the pen name Faith Hogan.
Silent Night is her first crime novel, her second is due out in December 2019.
She is currently working on her next novel. She lives in the west of Ireland with her husband, four children, and a very busy Labrador named Penny. She’s a writer, reader, enthusiastic dog walker, and reluctant jogger – except of course when it is raining!

 

You can find out more about Geraldine here:
www.Facebook/GeraldineHoganAuthor.com
Twitter @gerhogan
https://www.instagram.com/faithhoganauthor/

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Book Review: DUALITY – Two Sides of the Same Coin (Lies and Misdirection Book 5) by K. J. McGillick

DUALITY

Two Sides of the Same Coin 

(Lies and Misdirection #5) 

by K. J. McGillick

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA 

 

Just when you think you’ve figured it all out, you’ll learn how wrong you’ve been.

What started out as a normal art restoration project for Melinda Martin soon took on a life of its own. Could this unusual painting actually be a Botticelli masterpiece thought to have perished as part of Savonarola’s Bonfire of the Vanities? Had Melinda’s friend, Lara, a well-known art picker inadvertently acquired stolen art; art that might have ties to the occult and worth millions? Did a bad business decision endanger everyone who touched this potential treasure?

When the painting disappears and both women are found dead, the police think it’s an open and shut case. The husband – it’s always the husband. He had means, motive, and opportunity, and acted strangely cold after the fact.

Is it a case of mistaken identity? Does a secret relationship put Mr. Martin in the crosshairs of an assassin sent to retrieve the painting? Or is he really a sociopath forger with mysterious ties to the Vatican?

Two sides of the same coin. Completely alike. Completely different.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

“For example,” Mary said, “if someone asks you what time it is, don’t say ‘Oh, this watch? It was my aunt Tillie’s, an aunt on my mother’s side, who got it from a pawn shop in New Orleans when she was there for Mardi Gras. It’s been broken twice and once I had to replace the glass and another time the battery.’ Just say: ‘It is nine oh four,’ don’t give them more to question you on.” Mary leaned forward and nodded for emphasis.

 

Hospitals, I hate hospitals. They are nothing more than a giant Petri dish filled with incubating bacteria… And do not even get me started on this box they call a room. Because I am on Medicare, I’m sure they found the worst room possible to stow my body, cheap bastards.

 

Are you seriously trying to lead me through some guided relaxation therapy? We have to find Mr. Martin. You need my little gray cells firing at full force right now, stow that Namaste stuff away.

 

Then when she opened her handbag—well—we were alarmed to find weapons on her, so her check-in has been delayed. These weapons in her bag… A special can of hairspray, which emits a harmful gas. There is an umbrella with a sharp-pointed tip, so sharp it could be used as an ice pick or knife to stab someone. We found a beret with a long-pointed needle object attached, and a key chain with tips that could rip your face off. Also, she is carrying a pen that is a pepper spray canister, illegal here in Rome. Most of these are things that you can find if you know the right people of the criminal faction. But the woman had just arrived yesterday, and for her to amass such an arsenal, well, she must have a connection to some criminals.

 

Do you know where you are, Jackson? This place is a country that hosts the two most corrupt organizations in the world—the Mafia and the Vatican. Do you seriously think anyone plays by any rules here?

 

My Review:

Oh, happy day, an entire book featuring Mary, who is my favorite octogenarian. I am envious of her skills and curious as to how a tiny old woman could amass and wield such a vast arsenal of weaponry in her voluminous handbag, which always appears to have the best and newest of gadgets and tech wizardry. She is such a corker, I want to be just like Mary when I grow up. I enjoyed being privy to her snarky and irascible inner musings and sassy observations, although the complex and intriguing storylines featured multiple POVs, unending twists and turns, and a uniquely peculiar cast of characters.

In the latest standalone installment to the Lies and Misdirection series, the crafty and snappish ninety-one-year-old finds herself embroiled in a case with national security and global ramifications, Chinese and Italian/Vatican complications, several murders, fraud, forgery, money laundering, obscure Dante references, and art-theft. If that wasn’t enough, she is also in the crosshairs of an assassin.   Mr. Martin (Mary’s typically flat, enigmatic, and cryptic employee) suddenly seems to be a trouble magnet and Mary is willing to trot the globe and steadfastly determined to follow any and all leads to prove his innocence. But wait – is he really innocent? Mary seems to be the only one left believing and fervently wants him to be or it will make her look a fool for hiring him, and Mary could not possibly be wrong.

About the Author

J.McGillickwas born in New York and once she started to walk she never stopped running. But that‘s what New Yorker’s do. Right? A Registered Nurse, a lawyer now author. 

As she evolved so did her career choices. After completing her graduate degree in nursing, she spent many years in the university setting sharing the dreams of the enthusiastic nursing students she taught. After twenty rewarding years in the medical field, she attended law school and has spent the last twenty-four years as an attorney helping people navigate the turbulent waters of the legal system. Not an easy feat. And now? Now she is sharing the characters she loves with readers hoping they are intrigued by her twisting and turning plots and entertained by her writing  

Social Media Links –  

https://www.facebook.com/KJMcGillickauthor/  

@KJMcGillickAuth  

 http://www.kjmcgillick.com/ 

https://www.goodreads.com/Kmcgillick  

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Book Review: The Perfect Lie by Karen Osman

The Perfect Lie

by Karen Osman

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA /

 B&N/ Kobo / GP

 

Nothing has felt right since she told the lie…

Claire Carmichael leads a charmed life. She has two beautiful sons, Jamie and Joshua, and a handsome and successful husband who loves her. She has been taught well by her mother – the most important thing Claire has is her good reputation.

He said, she said…

Even when she was in school, Claire had it all. She was clever, likable, and after passing the initiation tests, she was welcomed into the society of popular girls – The Queen Bees. So when a scandal threatened to ruin Claire’s reputation, the Queen Bees closed rank to protect her, no matter who else got hurt.

Never forgotten, never forgiven…

Claire may have moved on from her school days, but for one person who she hurt irreparably, those memories are as fresh as blood. And all it takes to reap their revenge, is ONE PERFECT LIE.

The latest heart-racing psychological thriller from the author of the bestselling The Good Mother. Perfect for fans of Lucy Clarke, Paula Hawkins and Lisa Jewell.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

After John Griffith, Claire had kissed other boys at various parties. There was Cameron with his braces and saliva, Rich who had licked her teeth, and Tony – probably the best of a bad bunch, with his eager tongue.

 

My Review:

 

This tautly written book hit all the right notes for me. Penned in my favorite dual POV with dual timelines, the original storylines were compelling, intriguing, maddeningly paced, and unpredictable. I quickly fell into the tale and was soon hooked by this clever and sneaky wordsmith’s agile misdirections and deftly handled twists and turns. It was deviously crafted and cast with a bevy of difficult and unusual characters who were actually rather awful human beings.

Lessons I learned from this story include: mothers don’t want you to do the right thing if it would potentially cause them embarrassment; selfishly keeping your mouth shut to avoid personal shame will surely backfire; never screw over a highly intelligent person; Queen Bees is an excellent name for an elite pack of vapid mean girls; and what goes around may eventually come around but it pays to manipulate the timeline and help karma along with your own vengeful plotting. I was on edge and nibbling on my cuticles the whole way through and huffed in disbelief at the ending. It was outstanding!

About the Author

 

Originally from the UK, Karen won the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature Montegrappa Novel Writing Award 2016 with her crime-thriller novel, the bestselling The Good Mother. When she’s not writing novels, Karen is busy bringing up her two young children and running her communication business Travel Ink.

Follow Aria

Website: www.ariafiction.com

Twitter: @aria_fiction

Facebook: @ariafiction

Instagram: @ariafiction

 

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Book Review: The Year I Left by Christine Brae 

The Year I Left

 by Christine Brae 

 

Amazon  US / UK / AU / CA 

“A thousand half loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.” 

Carin Frost doesn’t understand what’s happening to her. A confident businesswoman, wife, and mother, she begins to resent everything about her life. Nothing makes sense. Nothing makes her feel. Maybe it’s the recent loss of her mother in a tragic accident. Or maybe she’s just losing her mind.

Enter Matias Torres. As their new business partnership thrives, so does their friendship—and his interest in her. Carin is determined to keep her distance, until a work assignment sends them to Southeast Asia where a storm is brewing on the island. In the midst of the chaos, Matias asks her to do something unimaginable, exhilarating, BOLD. Carin knows the consequences could be dire, but it may be the only way to save herself.

An honest look at love and marriage and the frailties of the human heart, this is a story of a woman’s loss of self and purpose and the journey she takes to find her way back.

“A lyrically written masterpiece of women’s fiction that is emotional, raw, and real.” ~Tarryn Fisher, New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

That kiss destroyed me, gave me life, made me hopeful and sad at the same time.

 

I got lost somehow. I don’t know when. I don’t know where… I need to find myself… And then I’ll look for you.

 

I want you to know that my life only began when I met you, that I’d been waiting all my life for you and that finding you, loving you, has given me purpose, made me whole.

 

My Review:

 

This was not an easy read. It was, however, remarkably realistic in how frustrating and exasperating it can be for family and friends of an emotionally or mentally ill individual who will not seek or accept appropriate treatment or assistance, which is bad enough in itself, but then to suddenly disappear.   Heartbreaking! This happens more often than most people realize or want to contemplate, although most people’s stories are not as compelling or entertaining as this one.

Carin was wealthy, successful, beautiful, and had a lovely family and lavish home. Yet she felt stagnant, numb, and dissatisfied by her life and deeply envied her free-spirited friend who avoided commitments and blew with the wind. She lived for her work while her family life and personal responsibilities were falling into chaos from avoidance, neglect, and disinterest. She was also zoning out with thoughts of suicide and acts of self-harm and had developed an inexplicable resentment for her kind and loving husband. When the opportunity arose to disappear, she took it.

I had a difficult time caring for Carin, as she initially appeared extremely self-involved and whiny. I was unsympathetic and sighing with displeasure while considering a DNF until I read a bit further and realized she was grieving and clinically depressed. I had found myself growing increasing antagonized and annoyed with Carin, yet I couldn’t put my Kindle down and walk away. Ms. Brae’s emotive and well-nuanced storytelling put an itch in my brain and I needed to see it through. I was thankful for staying the course, as the ending proved satisfying (although she really made me work for it) and Carin’s romantic island adventures with the tasty Matias were quite the steamy diversion as well as a sweet delight for the daydreaming romantic in me. Sigh, I was totally enamored and besotted with the scrumptious Matias.

 

About the Author

 

Amazon
Goodreads
Website

Christine Brae is a full-time career woman who thought she could write a book about her life and then run away as far as possible from it. She never imagined that her words would touch the hearts of so many women with the same story to tell. Christine is the author of The Light in the Wound, His Wounded Light (2013), Insipid (2014). Her latest book, In This Life, released in 2016 and is currently under option for TV and Film.

Two more books, Eight Goodbyes and The Year I Left are scheduled to be released in 2018 & 2019.

When not listening to the voices in her head or spending late nights at the office, Christine can be seen shopping for shoes and purses, running a half marathon or spending time with her husband and three children in Chicago.

Christine is represented by Italia Gandolfo of Gandolfo Helin Literary Management.

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Book Review: The Accidentals by Minrose Gwin

The Accidentals 

by Minrose Gwin

Amazon US / UK / CA / AU   B&N/ HarperCollins

 416 pages
William Morrow Paperbacks (August 13, 2019)

 

Following the death of their mother from a botched backwoods abortion, the McAlister daughters have to cope with the ripple effect of this tragedy as they come of age in 1950s Mississippi and then grow up to face their own impossible choices—an unforgettable, beautiful novel that is threaded throughout with the stories of mothers and daughters in pre-Roe versus Wade America.

Life heads down back alleys, takes sharp left turns. Then, one fine day it jumps the track and crashes.”

In the fall of 1957, Olivia McAlister is living in Opelika, Mississippi, caring for her two girls, June and Grace, and her husband, Holly. She dreams of living a much larger life–seeing the world and returning to her wartime job at a landing boat factory in New Orleans. As she watches over the birds in her yard, Olivia feels like an “accidental”—a migratory bird blown off course.

When Olivia becomes pregnant again, she makes a fateful decision, compelling Grace, June, and Holly to cope in different ways. While their father digs up the backyard to build a bomb shelter, desperate to protect his family, Olivia’s spinster sister tries to take them all under her wing. But the impact of Olivia’s decision reverberates throughout Grace’s and June’s lives. Grace, caught up in an unconventional love affair, becomes one of the “girls who went away” to have a baby in secret. June, guilt-ridden for her part in exposing Grace’s pregnancy, eventually makes an unhappy marriage. Meanwhile, Ed Mae Johnson, an African-American care worker in a New Orleans orphanage, is drastically impacted by Grace’s choices.

As the years go by, their lives intersect in ways that reflect the unpredictable nature of bird flight that lands in accidental locations—and the consolations of imperfect return.

Filled with tragedy, humor, joy, and the indomitable strength of women facing the constricted spaces of the 1950s and 60s, The Accidentals is a poignant, timely novel that reminds us of the hope and consolation that can be found in unexpected landings.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

My sister and I don’t often go in the room where Dad sleeps. Our mother’s blood made a dark lake on the wood floor by the bed… We open our mother’s drawers and touch her things, drawing them to our faces, then lift up a corner of the rug to look at the stain. It is a secret thing we do together and don’t talk about afterward.

 

We kept our distance from our aunt’s person. Frances had what June and I referred to as the Lady Schoolteacher Smell, a cross between dust and mold, chalk and cloves, face powder and powdered milk. The smell wasn’t unpleasant exactly, but being around her called to mind antique shops and stuffed animals that had once been alive.

 

Baby Girl, she was the be-all end-all of ugly. Looked like some kind of evil slapped that child upside the head, said, There, take that, be a big old ugly catfish. Hooked and brought up hard. All she needed was a set of whiskers and a tail.

 

Where I come from, people say you’re expecting, as if it’s a package coming in the mail or the plumber. I shudder when I think of telling my poor father I’m expecting. What will he say? What are the odds? How many females in one family can get knocked up? We’re obviously fertile as turtles and reproductively challenged; in my case, this new thing called the pill being nearly impossible to come by if you’re a nice unmarried girl in Tennessee.

 

My mother had taught me to always say ma’am to white women, but to always cross my fingers when I said it. Much as I hated myself for doing it, every now and then a ma’am would pop out of my mouth like a sneeze you can’t hold back.

  

My Review:

 

This was a slowly building, beautifully nuanced, and thoughtfully written book, full of perceptive observations, colorful descriptions, and oddly compelling characters. Written from multiple points of view (which I greatly enjoyed) and covering a lifetime of unexpected complexities and daunting experiences for each character, the engaging storylines were expertly textured though not always comfortable as each character faced numerous hardships and unique challenges. It was as if this family was cursed!

Ms. Gwin’s writing was highly descriptive as well as evocative, emotive, and poignant. She squeezed my heart but she also pulled more than a few smirks and barked chuckles for balance. It was not an easy or pleasant era to live through for women and minorities; I remember many of the events and trends mentioned all too well and not at all fondly. It was more than a bit eye-opening and a pleasant relief to realize how far we’ve advanced from those stilted limitations, and constricting and ignorant social mores of the time. There are still vast areas in need of improvement, which I am still hoping to see before my final dirt nap.

I was provided with a review copy of this nimbly and insightfully written book by HarperCollins and TLC Book Tours.

About the Author

Minrose Gwin is the author of The Queen of Palmyra, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and finalist for the John Gardner Fiction Book Award, and the memoir Wishing for Snow, cited by Booklist as “eloquent” and “lyrical”—“a real life story we all need to know.” She has written four scholarly books and coedited The Literature of the American South. She grew up in Tupelo, Mississippi, hearing stories of the Tupelo tornado of 1936. She lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Find out more about Minrose at her website.
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Book Review: Best Friends Forever by Dawn Goodwin

 Best Friends Forever

by Dawn Goodwin

 

Amazon  US / UK / CA / AU  /  B&N/ iBooks / Google / Kobo

Have you ever wanted to kill your best friend?

Anna was the perfect wife. Perfect mother. Perfect woman. And now she’s dead. Leaving behind her husband, David, and two young children their lives will never be the same. But Vicky will make sure life goes on…

These two women have been best friends forever, a lifetime of secrets lies between them and now Vicky is ready to step up into Anna’s perfect shoes. But not everything is as it seems and as David begins to question Vicky’s motives for walking into his life things might just get a little murderous.

The question on everyone’s lips is, who killed Anna? And what actually happened on the night she died?

Perfect for fans of The Rumour, The Silent Patient and The Suspect.

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

He smiled at her and everything around them seemed to hold still for a moment, like a caught breath.

 

Brian had a squashed face like a fat troll, all folds and furrows. His gut hung over his well-worn belt and his shirt strained at the buttonholes. Vicky had never liked him.

 

Secrets and lies. That’s what friends are for.

 

My Review:

 

I am still vacillating in how I feel and in how to rate this twisty and complex story of retribution, manipulation, lies, and secrets. The characters were not admirable or all that likable as people, yet I had empathy for several. Sometimes poor choices started out as no choice, and then continue to mushroom until they pervade every inch, breath, and thought. That is but a part of what happened in this slippery brain-burning tale that kept me on edge and off-kilter. I devised and cast off and reworked a multitude of theories. My curiosity and cynical nature were so active they may have overheated, and I fear the poor little pea in my brain may have been scorched.

 

Anna was all kinds of wrong and simply vile, beautiful, yet rotten to the core. She was a cruel, volatile, vain, and a manipulative and narcissist sociopath.   She had been toying with others and honing and steadily progressing her deviousness since childhood. And Vicky was her perfect victim, needy, eager to please, lacking in confidence or self-control, and able and willing to take abuse. And David, well, David was an idiot, completely under his wife’s spell. In real life, I would not willingly share air with either of them and found them to be heinous and exasperating individuals, yet their encounters and exchanges made compelling dicey storylines that I just couldn’t seem to get a grip on or leave alone. Dawn Goodwin is a crafty minx and led me on a merry chase. So while the ending was not as satisfying as I would have desired, I have to concede to her advanced level of craft – she had me well invested and kept me guessing to the very end.

 

About the Author

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Dawn’s career has spanned PR, advertising and publishing. Now, she loves to write about the personalities hiding behind the masks, whether beautiful or ugly. Married, she lives in London with her two daughters and a British bulldog called Geoffrey.

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Book Review: BLOOD TRUTH (The Black Dagger Legacy Series #4) by J. R. Ward

BLOOD TRUTH

(The Black Dagger Legacy Series #4)

by J. R. Ward

On Sale: August 13, 2019

Purchase Links:

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Savior brings you the next sizzling and passionate paranormal romance in the Black Dagger Legacy series.

As a trainee in the Black Dagger Brotherhood’s program, Boone has triumphed as a soldier and now fights side by side with the Brothers. Following his sire’s unexpected death, he is taken off rotation against his protests—and he finds himself working with Butch O’Neal, former homicide cop, to catch a serial killer: Someone is targeting females of the species at a live-action role play club. When the Brotherhood is called in to help, Boone insists on being a part of the effort—and the last thing he expects is to meet an enticing, mysterious female…who changes his life forever.

Ever since her sister was murdered at the club, Helaine has been committed to finding the killer, no matter the danger she faces. When she crosses paths with Boone, she doesn’t know whether to trust him or not—and then she has no choice. As she herself becomes a target, and someone close to the Brotherhood is identified as the prime suspect, the two must work to together to solve the mystery…before it’s too late. Will a madman come between the lovers or will true love and goodness triumph over a very mortal evil?

Catch up on unique terms in the Black Dagger Brotherhood universe…and their IRL inspirations!

Sneak Peek at BLOOD TRUTH:

29th and Market Streets

Caldwell, New York

Boone’s shitkickers shredded the frozen tire tracks down the middle of the alley, his powerful body churning through the dirty city snow, air sucking into his lungs cold and punching out hot as steam from a locomotive’s stack. In his right hand, he had a twelve-inch serrated hunting knife. In his left, a length of chain.

Up ahead, by about thirty feet, a lesser was running as if its undead life depended on all the Usain Bolt the thing was pulling. The telltale sickly sweet stench of the enemy was thick in its wake, a tracker that Boone’s sensitive nose had picked up on seven blocks ago. The slayer was sloppy of foot, flappy of hand, and given how saturated its smell was, Boone wondered whether it was already injured.

The Black Dagger Brotherhood’s commanding officer, Tohrment, son of Hharm, set the nightly territories for the Brothers and fighters, carving up sections of downtown into quadrants that would be stalked for the enemy. Trainees such as Boone were paired with more experienced people, either Brothers or members of the Band of Bastards, in the interest of safety—especially as there was a new threat out on the streets.

Shadow entities. That were killing innocent vampire civilians.

Boone glanced over his shoulder. Tonight, he was working with Zypher. The Bastard was a great partner, a big, brutal male who nonetheless had a teacher’s patience and an eye for constant improvement.

It was supposed to have been Syn. And a relief when it wasn’t.

Syn was . . . different.

Boone’s favorite to work with, bar none, was Rhage. But the Brotherhood was otherwise occupied tonight. Every last one of them.

And Boone was the one who had set them on a mission that he hoped and prayed didn’t result in death.

His father’s, specifically.

In the intervening twelve months since their blowup over the broken arrangement, he and Altamere had settled into an uneasy détente. Which was what happened when you finally called a bully on their push-and-shove. The two of them kept up appearances, something that was not hard given how starchy and superficial their relationship had always been, but Boone had drawn a line and instead of the threatened repercussions, in return he’d gotten a retreat of hostility.

He probably should have moved out, but as petty as it was, he had enjoyed getting the upper hand and keeping it. Especially after he joined the Brotherhood’s training program, something he was well aware his father disapproved of. Altamere’s “son” a soldier? Fighting in the war? How brutish. The move had made Boone’s bookish decades seem like a fine hand of cards.

But he loved the challenge and he was damn good at the work—and a new kind of life and rhythm had started, where he and his sire rarely saw each other.

Except then came the invitation: The pleasure of his father and stepmahmen’s company requested at an aristocrat’s home this very evening. Going by the card stock alone, it was clear that other members of the glymera were included on the guest list.

Social gathering? Maybe. Treasonous violation of Wrath’s ban on the Council coming together? More likely.

It had been the first time in a year that Boone had spoken to his sire about anything of note. Yet how could he not urge the male to stay home? That viper pit of aristocrats had already tried to take down Wrath’s throne, and if they were planning another attempt?

The training center had taught him in detail all of the things the Brothers were capable of doing to someone who crossed them. And he might not like his father . . . but that was the point. With his alarm bells going off about treason, if he didn’t at least try to keep the male away from that party, he would feel like he had killed Altamere himself.

And that was too close to what he had at times wanted to do, and who needed to live with that guilt?

Predictably, his father had refused the wise counsel. So Boone had gone to the Brothers directly, and that was why he was paired with a member of the Band of Bastards this fine, crystal-cold winter’s evening.

Refocusing on his hunt, he threw some more speed into his legs, his thighs beginning to burn, his calves tightening, his bum ankle issuing the first of what was going to be a lot of complaints. All of that was background chatter easily ignored, utterly forgettable.

Just breathe, he told himself. The more oxygen he could get into his lungs, the more he got into his blood, fuel for his muscles, speed for his body.

Power.

And what do you know, he was closing the distance. The problem? He was getting farther and farther away from Zypher, who was dancing with a slayer of his own three blocks—now four blocks—back.

Time to do this.

Per protocol, he hit the locator beacon on his shoulder to notify the other squads that he was about to engage. And then he closed his eyes.

Dematerializing was something that vampires ordinarily had to concentrate and calm themselves in order to accomplish. Boone, however, had trained himself to find that place of inner equilibrium even when he was running full tilt boogie in pursuit of the enemy. And courtesy of all his practice, his physical form disintegrated into a scatter of molecules and he shot forward, passing the lesser.

He re-formed in front of the enemy, his boots planted, his knife up and his chain down, ready to party.

The slayer did what it could to slow its roll, arms pinwheeling, shoes slapping at the snow and skidding as it tried to stop on ice. Momentum was not its friend. Unlike some of the scrawny new recruits, this one had a football player’s thick neck and barrel chest, and all that body weight was a boulder bouncing down the side of a mountain, all keep-going instead of back-that-ass-up.

As he had been trained to do, Boone’s peripheral vision imprinted the alley’s contours and possible cover opportunities. His brain also did a lightning-quick assessment of threat potential, cataloguing fire escapes, rooflines, doorways, and windows, all of his instincts feeding information into the calculation of his own safety. On the physical side, his body braced for contact.

And the length of chain began to swing.

Boone wasn’t aware of giving his hand and arm that particular command, but things had started happening like that in the field over the past month. According to the Black Dagger Brother Vishous, there were four levels of skill development: unconsciously unskilled, which meant you didn’t know how much you didn’t know and couldn’t do; consciously unskilled, which was when you began to be aware of how much you needed to develop; consciously skilled, which was the level at which you started to use what you’ve trained yourself to do; and, finally, unconsciously skilled.

Which was what happened when your body moved without your brain having to micromanage every molecule of the attack. When your training formed a basis of action so intrinsic to who you were and what you did in a given situation that you were unaware of any cognition occurring. When you entered “the Zone,” as the Brother Rhage called it.

Boone was in that sweet spot now.

The whirring sound of the chain links circling beside him was soft yet menacing, like the easy breathing of a great beast—and Boone knew the second the slayer was going to move because one of its shoulders lifted and its hips angled ever so slightly.

The knife the lesser had tucked in its hand came flying out at Boone end over end—proof that Boone’s subconscious hadn’t considered quite everything. But his reflexes were on it, jerking his torso to one side, the surge of aggressive energy flowing through him so acute, so pleasurable, it was almost sexual.

His counterattack started with the chain. Licking the links out, he sent them around the slayer’s neck, a snake of metal with a tail that swung wide and doubled up on itself. With a tight loop locked in, he yanked with his full body.

The slayer pitched forward into the snow face-first.

And that was when Boone lifted his own hunting blade over his shoulder.

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

In the back of his mind, the tally of his sire’s neglect and condescension was like an electric meter going haywire, the count spiraling up into the stratosphere…

 

You are amazing. I know . . . I know that sounds like a line, but it’s not. You bring me to my knees and lift me up at the same time. It’s the definition of magic.

 

My Review:

 

I have been hearing this author’s name for several years – first as murmurs then loud rumblings and finally as shouted raves; but until now, I had never stopped to read one of the many books from her rather large shelf of offerings. Silly me, what was I thinking? I’m kicking myself… This was fantastic. Despite the need to read slowly while occasionally needing to check the handy and thoughtfully provided glossary of her creatively contrived lexicon, it was well worth the effort. I was quite taken with the cleverness and agile craft of her complex yet captivating world-building.

Being a paranormal novice I had been hesitant to delve in, knowing I was starting the second generation of a long-running and highly venerated series and I would be swimming in alien waters. And, I’m lazy when it comes to extensive world-building. Yet, I was pleasantly surprised, scratch that, I was downright gleeful with my discovery! Even though I found myself sliding into a completely unfamiliar mythology from any vampire lore I’ve ever come across, I had no difficulty following the complexity and didn’t experience the expected struggle in navigating or comprehending the foreign structure of their society and various nomenclatures.

The storylines were action-packed, well-crafted, and laced with sharp wit, keen insights, and evocative observations. I was enthralled, riveted, and highly invested throughout. Ms. Ward’s bewitching and engaging writing style whisked me right inside the core of her secret clan as if I had been granted the vamp power to dematerialize and transport myself there.   Her characters were peculiar, curiously enticing, and uniquely compelling – even the creepy and disturbing ones.

I am a new convert to the Black Dagger Brotherhood and will confess that the last serious vamp book I recall perusing was by Anne Rice in the late 1980s. I am totally enamored with J.R. Ward’s delightfully creative and mesmerizing arrangements of words as well as this new species – they drink hot cocoa and eat ice cream! I may have been turned – I now consider myself a paranormal reader in training.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

J.R. Ward is the author of more than thirty novels, including those in her #1 New York Times bestselling Black Dagger Brotherhood series. There are more than fifteen million copies of her novels in print worldwide, and they have been published in twenty-six different countries around the world. She lives in the South with her family.


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