Flying Solo
by Zoe May

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

‘No make-up? … But I look like a sick Victorian child without make-up,’ … ‘India’s hot. Even if you do want to wear make-up, it’s only going to melt off your face within seconds!’ ‘Hmmm…’ I mumble, wondering whether false eyelashes can melt off your face too. That’s something to Google while I’m waiting for my flight. The last thing I need is spidery lashes crawling down my cheeks while I’m trying to get my boyfriend to fall for me again.

 

Go with the flow, I tell myself, trying to breathe evenly. If you smile at India, India smiles back. I remind myself of Priya’s words as my driver continues to cut through the traffic like a five-year-old playing Grand Theft Auto after too many sweets.

My Review:

 

I enjoyed this light-hearted and cleverly amusing tale, but I always enjoy Zoe May’s wry sense of humor and quirky characters and Flying Solo was well within her forte. Ms. May’s lively storylines were unique and engaging and put a smile on my face while her main characters were often ridiculous yet still believable, as who among us has not been ridiculous at times, or in my case, often still is?  😉

The Last Train to Key West
by Chanel Cleeton

 

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

My Review:

 

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

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

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

Amazon / B&N 

 

Favorite Quote:

 

That’s the beautiful thing about sharing the love in your heart— it doesn’t mean you have less of it. Love is the only thing that grows the more you give away.

 

My Review:

I relished this tender and sweet story.   Duke’s tale squeezed my heart, stung my eyes, and caused my lips to quiver, and more than a few times. This lovely story included a rescued puppy’s point of view and Duke’s observations were my favorites. The characters were endearing and highly likable, realistically flawed, and each struggling with significant personal challenges.   However, they found their burdens were easing once their paths had crossed – which was all due to the exuberant introduction and interventions of Duke. The writing style and storylines were easy to follow, emotive, relevant, and quite moving. I am an animal lover and adore stories featuring clever animals almost as much as the precious animals themselves.

 

That Summer in Maine
by Brianna Wolfson

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

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

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

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

My Review:

 

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

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

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

 

 

Meg Mitchell Moore’s fifth novel, The Islanders, will be published by William Morrow in June 2019 and is a July Indie Next Pick. She lives in Newburyport, Massachusetts, with her husband and their three teenaged and almost-teenaged daughters.

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Summer Strawberries at Swallowtail Bay
(Swallowtail Bay #2)
by Katie Ginger

 

Grab your strawberries and cream and get ready to return to the beautiful Swallowtail Bay!

Summer is in full swing and the locals are getting excited for the launch of the Swallowtail Bay strawberry food festival. But will all run smoothly when festival organizer Hetty’s heart is torn between lord of the manor John Thornhill and successful bakery owner Ben?

My Rating:

Favorite Quotes:

Stanley was the limpy seagull Hetty had adopted and fed regularly from a special little plate. They’d both grown very fond of him as they imagined his deformed foot meant all the other seagulls teased him and wouldn’t let him join their gangs.

 

His family didn’t need any more egg on their faces. They had a whole omelette there already.

 

She hadn’t mentioned camping to Macie yet. Hetty and Macie had a shared loathing of this particular outdoor pursuit. Neither of them could understand the appeal of sleeping on the ground and were terrified that ants might crawl into their knickers in the middle of the night. Admittedly, it would probably be more traumatic for the ant, but it would leave an emotional scar on them too.

 

I thought rule number one was always go to the toilet before a kids’ party started because you definitely won’t want to go in there afterward?

 

A man who even after a year gave her the kind of kisses that made cartoon stars appear over her head and the world burst into song.

My Review:

This was a delightful diversion and pleasant and sweet read, something light and frothy to relax with and ease the tension from my shoulders after reading too many thrillers in a row. The writing was smooth and amusing, the characters were earnest and endearing, and the storylines were easy to follow and engaging with a bit of family drama that plucked at my curiosity as to how it would all play out.

 

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I KNOW YOU LIED
by Lesley Sanderson

Lesley attended the Curtis Brown Creative 6 month novel writing course in 2015/6, and in 2017 The Orchid Girls (then On The Edge) was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish fiction prize.

Lesley is the author of psychological thrillers and spends her days writing in coffee shops in Kings Cross where she lives and works as a librarian. She loves the atmosphere and eclectic mix of people in the area. Lesley discovered Patricia Highsmith as a teenager and has been hooked on psychological thrillers ever since.