Book Review: Already Gone by Kristen Proby and K.L. Grayson

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Already Gone by Kristen Proby and K.L. Grayson

Release Date: August 27, 2019

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Already Gone, an all-new standalone contemporary romance by New York Times bestselling author Kristen Proby and USA Today bestselling author K.L. Grayson

Falling in love is easy…

New Hope, South Carolina is my home. It’s where I grew up, got into trouble, and fell in love for the first time. Scarlett Kincaid was more than the girl next door, she was my best friend until she decided that small-town life wasn’t for her. One minute she was here, and the next she was gone.

The girl I used to fish with down at the creek is now the biggest name in country music. She headlines world tours, has won four Grammys, and I haven’t seen her since. Until today when she sped through town in her fancy car. One look at her big brown eyes was all it took to stir up a whole slew of emotions. Emotions I’d long ago buried and sure as hell don’t have time for.

It’s the aftermath that’s hard…

There are two things in my life that matter. My music, and my dad. Twelve years ago, I packed a bag and chased my dream. Leaving New Hope and escaping the gossip mill was the easiest decision I ever made. I never planned to return, but my father needs me, and he always comes first. So, I did what I had to do. I cut my tour short and came home, despite having a sister who hates me, and a community that doesn’t trust me.

And then there’s Tucker Andrews.

When he propped an arm on the roof of my car, pulled down his sunglasses and flashed his police badge, I nearly swallowed my tongue. Gone is the lanky boy who used to throw rocks at me and pull my pigtails. Tucker is now a six-foot package of brawny, sexy man wrapped in more muscle than I have hit singles. Did I mention he’s a cop and a single dad?

My goal was to help Dad and get back to my life. But what am I supposed to do when the life that used to strangle me suddenly fits like a glove and makes me dream of things I never thought I’d have? What happens when the boy I walked away from years ago becomes one of the most important people in my life? I don’t have room for a man much less love.

Right?

Because it’s impossible to hold onto someone who’s already gone.

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My Rating:

Favorite Quote:

 

It took me until twenty to ditch the scrawny nerd appearance and start to look more like my dad and less like… well, my mom.

 

My Review:

 

These two clever wordsmiths tossed in all my favorite tropes with this delectably steamy small-town, second chance, friends-to-lovers romance. The storylines were engaging; the characters were endearing yet amusingly flawed; and the writing was well balanced between angst, conflict, romance, and humor. And written in my favorite dual POV. I was practically levitating with glee. Both authors have impressive backlists yet are relatively new to me – I really need to sharpen my focus and pay better attention.

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Excerpt:

New Hope, South Carolina.

Population 6,129.

I know every soul represented in that number. Not a single one of them drives the shiny red Mercedes that just went speeding by.

Seventy-five in a forty-five.

I flick on my lights and press on the gas, sending my cruiser flying past the city limit sign and the godawful billboard that sits directly behind it; the one declaring New Hope home to country music superstar, Scarlett Kincaid.

It wouldn’t be a big deal if this were actually her home. It’s not. Scarlett may have been born here, but her fancy boots haven’t landed on this soil in over a decade.

All it took was one call from a hotshot music executive to send her packing before the ink was dry on her high school diploma. Scarlett flew from this town fast enough to leave our heads spinning. Before any of us could process what had happened, little Scarlett Kincaid—the same girl who used to build forts with me in my living room while my mama made us mac ‘n’ cheese—had a hit single sitting at number one on the Billboard charts.

She went from homecoming queen and most likely to marry a rich spouse in our senior yearbook, to the queen of country music.

The country loves her. Hell, the whole world loves her.

New Hope…not so much. And it’s high time that fucking sign comes down.

But first, I have to deal with this speed demon in the sexy red car.

I sound the sirens, and the car pulls to the side of the road and waits while I walk to the driver’s side window. It’s still up, the heavy tint preventing me from seeing inside. With a hand on my holster—because you never know what you’re going to walk up on—I knock on the window.

The dark glass lowers.

My first thought: this woman is absolutely gorgeous. Long, dark hair. Pouty lips. And a tiny pink dress. Her eyes are covered by oversized aviators, but I’m sure they’re as pretty as the rest of her.

My second thought: what crazy excuse is she going to come up with to try and get out of this ticket? It never ceases to amaze me the things women are willing to do to keep from getting into trouble. I’ve been offered everything from a blowjob to a pay-off to marriage.

“Do you know why I pulled you over today, ma’am?”

“Tucker?” The woman smiles, then pushes her sunglasses to the top of her head. And that’s when I see the brown eyes I’ve spent more than a decade trying to forget. “Tucker Andrews, is that you?”

I step back and square my shoulders. “You can call me Officer Andrews. Do you know why I pulled you over today, ma’am?”

“Tucker.” The woman laughs and shakes her head. “It’s me, Scarlett.”

At the mention of her name, I’m met with an onslaught of flashbacks. Running hand and hand through the neighborhood with her, laughing and playing, only to have her ignore me the second we got to school. The popular crowd versus the nerds who desperately tried to fit in. She the former, me the latter, and the pain it caused every time she acted as though she didn’t know my name. For years, I pretended it didn’t bother me because I knew that when I got home, Scarlett would meet me at the fence, and the awkwardness from the day would dissipate as though it never happened.

But it did. Day after day after day. I was a glutton for punishment. There was nothing in the world I loved more than Scarlett Kincaid, and it didn’t matter how badly she hurt me, I was always willing to forgive her.

Her smile and laugh might’ve gotten to me in middle school and high school, but I refuse to let it affect me now.

“I know who you are.”

Her smile falters.

About Kristen:

Kristen was born and raised in a small resort town in her beloved Montana. In her mid-twenties, she decided to stretch her wings and move to the Pacific Northwest, where she made her home for more than a dozen years.

During that time, Kristen wrote many romance novels and joined organizations such as RWA and other small writing groups. She spent countless hours in workshops and more mornings than she can count up before the dawn so she could write before going to work. She submitted many manuscripts to agents and editors alike but was always told no. In the summer of 2012, the self-publishing scene was new and thriving, and Kristen had one goal: to publish just one book. It was something she longed to cross off of her bucket list.

Not only did she publish one book, she’s since published close to thirty titles, many of which have hit the USA Today, New York Times and Wall Street Journal Bestsellers lists. She continues to self publish, best known for her With Me In Seattle and Boudreaux series and is also proud to work with William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins, with the Fusion Series.

Kristen and her husband, John, make their home in her hometown of Whitefish, Montana with their two pugs and two cats.

Connect with Kristen:

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About K.L. Grayson

K.L. Grayson resides in a small town outside of St. Louis, MO. She is entertained

daily by her extraordinary husband, who will forever inspire every good quality she

writes in a man. Her entire life rests in the palms of six dirty little hands, and when the

day is over and those pint-sized cherubs have been washed and tucked into bed, you can find her typing away furiously on her computer. She has a love for alpha-males,

brownies, reading, tattoos, sunglasses, and happy endings…and not particularly in that

order.

Connect with K.L. Grayson

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Website: www.klgrayson.com

Book Review: Kiss Me Not by Emma Hart

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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

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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

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

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 FacebookTwitter, and Instagram.

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.

Book Review: Silent Night by Geraldine Hogan

SILENT NIGHT 

by Geraldine Hogan

Amazon / B&N / iBooks / KoboGP

‘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/

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 

Book Review: The Perfect Lie by Karen Osman

The Perfect Lie

by Karen Osman

Amazon US / UK / AU / CA /

 B&NKobo / 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.

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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.

Book Review: The Accidentals by Minrose Gwin

The Accidentals 

by Minrose Gwin

Amazon US UK / CA / AU   B&NHarperCollins

 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.

Book Review: Best Friends Forever by Dawn Goodwin

 Best Friends Forever

by Dawn Goodwin

 

Amazon  US / UK / CA / AU  B&NiBooks / 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

Twitter  /  Facebook

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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