Month: January 2019

PAST DUE FOR MURDER by VICTORIA GILBERT

Past Due for Murder (Blue Ridge Library Mysteries #3)

A Blue Ridge Mystery #4

Has a curse fallen on the small town of Taylorsford, Virginia? After a young woman goes missing during a spring bonfire, library director Amy Webber must wade through the web of lies only to find a truth that she may not want to untangle. 

Library Director Amy Webber is back with another mystery to solve.

It’s Spring in Taylorsford and Amy is helping local students and their professor research  the local folklore.

First up a bonfire with a gifted storyteller. There have long been talk of bobbing lights and fairies, missing gold and missing girls. When one of the girls at the bonfire disappears, things get a bit tense.

Mountain people aren’t know for their openness and the good professor has been poking in some very sensitive areas that some residents want to keep closed forever.

Even Amy’s boyfriend, Richard becomes a suspect for a minute. Not to mention her ex Charles is living with his newest girlfriend in the same town.

Amy stumbles on a clue cleaning up after the researchers and is determined to see this through and have it all cleared up before the Mayor’s May Dance celebration. But everyone is acting squirrelly and when the missing girl turns up beside a dead body and a severe head injury that turns into a coma, the killer starts making mistakes.

Will Amy be able to live through this one?

I love how these books have grown. The characters are hitting their strides and I really enjoyed this one!

Well Done!

Netgalley/February 12th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books

 

 

 

BEAUTIFUL BAD by ANNIE WARD

Beautiful Bad by [Ward, Annie]

Things that make me scared: When Charlie cries. Hospitals and lakes. When Ian drinks vodka in the basement. ISIS. When Ian gets angry… That something is really, really wrong with me.

Traveling the world reporting on wars and living that life on the edge, making friends and losing them. Finding love and having it put on hold. Losing your best friend and not knowing why. Having a severe accident while camping with her family has left Maddie afraid.

Even after she and her love Ian marry and have a child, she is still seeing a therapist and laying open her life. Or so her therapist believes.

This was one of those twisty back and forth books. Beginning with The Day of the Killing and going back and forth from 6 weeks before that fateful 911 call that left me totally confused! In a good way.

The ending was scary and open and I absolutely loved every Bad minute of it!

March 19th 2019 by Park Row/Netgalley

CORNED BEEF AND CASUALTIES ( A Tourist Trap Novella) by LYNN CAHOON

Corned Beef and Casualties (A Tourist Trap Mystery #6.25)

I always love Lynn’s Holiday Novellas and this one was short, sweet and left my mouth-watering as usual.

Always good to head to South Cove and see what Jill, Sasha and the gang are up to. This one has the town embracing a new event for St. Patrick’s Day. And it will probably be the last one. While business is booming, the town is left with a lot of drunks, trash and what is that? A dead body? And not just any dead body, but a girl Jill had just met.

I think Greg has about given up on keeping Jill out of his investigations and this one was wrapped up nicely.

I was intrigued by the lady with the red hair at the end. Hmmm….will we see her again? And that cheesecake recipe? Already tried it! Yum!

Thanks for this one!

Netgalley/ Lyrical Press/Kensington February 5, 2019

The Lost Carousel of Provence by Juliet Blackwell

So good ❤️📚

An artist lost to history, a family abandoned to its secrets, and the woman whose search for meaning unearths it all in a sweeping and expressive story from the New York Times bestselling author of Letters from Paris . 

Cady Drake had a rough start in life. Orphaned and shuffled through the foster system she lucked out the day Maxine, owner of an antique and junk shop, takes her in for good. From Maxine, Cady learns about life and restoring to life beautiful pieces of the past that have been abandoned or neglected.

When Maxine dies, Cady is adrift. Terrified to be alone and her good friend Olivia thinks she has the answer to Cady’s problems. A book. Not just any book, but a book about the carousels of Paris. Cady has her own carousel rabbit. Gus, who in a fit of frustration Cady gives a good kick, unlocking a hidden compartment containing a box and a photo with a full carousel in the background. As a photographer, Cady is intrigued by the photo and how old it is. And in that moment she takes the commission and heads to Paris.

She loves taking pictures of the beautiful carousels in Paris but she really wants to find this Chateau Clement in Provence and find out if her Gus is part of their carousel.
What she finds is a long neglected château, and an angry old man who wants nothing to do with her or anyone else. But Cady isn’t one to take no for an answer and soon she has everyone involved trying to put the carousel back and find out who this mystery woman is.

Told in the past and the present, this was such a beautiful story. No, the characters weren’t perfect. And the past isn’t always pretty. But it’s only when secrets and misunderstandings come out in the light, that healing will begin.

I’m quite sure I will never miss a novel by Ms. Blackwell!

*****

the night olivia fell by Christina McDonald

The Night Olivia Fell

An emotionally charged domestic suspense novel about a mother unraveling the truth behind how her daughter became brain-dead. And pregnant.

A search for the truth. A lifetime of lies.

Phone calls in the middle of the night are never a good thing. And for Abi Knight the phone call turns out to be the news every parent dreads receiving. Her daughter, Olivia, has been in an accident. She was found at the bottom of a bridge, bruised and broken.

The doctors say she is brain-dead and must remain on life support until her baby is further along. Baby? How could she not know her daughter was pregnant? And why are there bruises on her wrists?

The police may have ruled this an accident but Abi will go to hell and back to find out who did this to her daughter. And in doing so secrets are exposed, lives will never be the same.

Told with Olivia’s voice from the months leading up to her supposed accident and Abi’s voice in current time with some bad past secrets coming to light as well. And when you start spilling secrets, not everyone is on board.

This was one of the most heartbreaking and suspenseful books I’ve read in a while. I kept going back and forth with the characters. None of them were all bad or all good. They were your neighbors and their teenagers, people you’ve known all your life and yet how much do you really know your own family? We think we are protecting them but the secrets and lies always come to light and it always is painful. 

This story will grab your heart and won’t let go until the last page. And even then, I still had hope.

Very Well Done!

Netgalley/February 5th 2019 by Gallery Books

 

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

I Owe You One

As much as I love Sophie Kinsella, this book was a tough one to read.  Beginning with the main character who is a fixer of people and problems so her name is Fixie.

Since her father has died Fixie and her mother with very little help from her self-absorbed siblings have been running their home goods store. When her mother takes some much-needed time off, Fixie basically becomes a doormat.

Everyone in this book walked all over her and she just annoyed me so much. Everyone was using her. And none of the other characters had any redeeming traits. Especially her brother and an old crush come back to town, Ryan.

I’m sorry, but this one had no depth for me. I did not care one way or the other what happened to her.

Netgalley/February 5th 2019 by Dial Press

THE WINTER SISTER by MEGAN COLLINS

The Winter Sister

In this spellbinding and suspenseful debut, a young woman haunted by the past returns home to care for her ailing mother and begins to dig deeper into her sister’s unsolved murder.

At 14, Sylvie’s older sister, Persephone sneaks out of their bedroom window to meet a boy. Sylvie saw her sister get into her boyfriend, Ben’s, car. Three days later her dead body is found in the snow. And no one has been charged with her murder.

Her once close bond with her mother disappeared the same day. She crawled into a bottle of Vodka and Sylvie went to live with her aunt.

At age 30, Sylvie has an art degree but is working as a tattoo artist and living with crippling guilt and a lot of questions.

As if getting laid off isn’t enough drama, a phone call from her Aunt Jill puts her right back into her childhood home with a mother now stricken with cancer, but sober. Things are tense. Sylvie is frustrated and haunted by the murder of her sister and no one being held responsible.

Meeting up with Persephone’s old boyfriend at the cancer center shocks her to her core. She has always believed he killed her sister, but now she isn’t so sure.

Digging into the past she will find shocking secrets kept by her mother and her sister. She will come face to face with a killer but she isn’t about to back away from getting answers.

Even after I had my own suspicions about what was going on the writing was just so good I barely came up for air. This story asks the question exactly how well do we know our mothers, our sisters? And how one decision can shape so many lives over so many years.

The writing is so smooth, it carries you right along through the good, the bad and the really ugly. The characters are real and deeply flawed in some cases. As a debut novel, I don’t think you can get much better!

Well Done!

Netgalley/ February 5th 2019 by Touchstone/ Atria Books

 

THE MILITARY WIFE by LAURA TRENTHAM

The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)

A Heart of a Hero Novel

Harper Lee Wilcox has only loved one man. Noah Wilcox, a Navy SEAL and the father of her son, Ben. It’s been 5 years since his death and  she is ready for a new challenge. She also wants answers. She doesn’t want the standard military version, she wants to know everything.

While visiting with another SEAL wife, also her best friend, Allison, she finds out that the man who showed up at her door after Noah’s death with a certificate of bravery and $100,000.00 is Bennett, Noah’s best friend in the Navy who was there when he died. But he isn’t talking. He’s fighting his own demons and trying to keep a promise he made to Noah. And soon they are falling in love.

I really enjoyed the telling of the lives of military wives. How much they give up to follow their husbands career, having to give up their own. It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have when prospective employers won’t hire you because you will probably not be in one place very long. And I loved Harper’s idea of a business that could be an ideal fit for the wives who want something more than volunteering.

PTSD is in the forefront here also. While I believe this was a Romance book, it was nicely balanced by real life issues and fears and how to cope with something you don’t even understand.

Netgalley/ February 5th 2019 by St. Martin’s Griffin

 

 

 

 

THE GIRLS AT 17 SWAN STREET by YARA ZGHEIB

The Girls at 17 Swann Street

The chocolate went first, then the cheese, the fries, the ice cream. The bread was more difficult, but if she could just lose a little more weight, perhaps she would make the soloists’ list. Perhaps if she were lighter, danced better, tried harder, she would be good enough. Perhaps if she just ran for one more mile, lost just one more pound.

Anna was once a professional ballet dancer in Paris. When she meets Matthias, it is love at first sight. So she marries him and moves to the States. Hoping to recover from an injury that left her unable to dance as she once had.

Anna has had a lot of heartbreak in her life. Nothing she shares. No, she punishes her body. At 88 pounds she believes she is hideous, and as she begins to fade away, her husband brings her to a home for young women with eating disorders.

Anna chafes against the rules and schedules and doesn’t really share much with her team. She tells herself she is a failure, imperfect and lies to herself about how lonely she really is.

There are many girls at 17 Swan Street. All struggling just to stay alive. Some can’t eat and some can’t stop eating. But with the help of these struggling young ladies, Anna may have the best chance of beating this and returning to being Anna because she has Matthias, someone who wants her to be well and happy.

This was a beautifully written novel. It was unbearably sad and torturous watching these young women try so hard and when one can’t go on, my heart broke for them all.

 

Well Done!

Netgalley/February 5th 2019 by St. Martin’s Press

 

WHAT WILL YOU BE READING THIS WEEKEND?

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What a glorious Friday this has turned out to be. 60 degrees and sunny. A good day for a run in the park and chatting over the fence with neighbors.

Bones Behind the Wheel, a cozy mystery, comes out today. It’s quite a different type of cozy!

This weekend we shall be reading The Gardener of Eden by David Downie and Perfunctory Affection by Kim Harrison. And watching Netflix. I’m behind on Schitt’s Creek and Grace and Frankie return tonight!

So what are all of you other Bookworms reading? What’s your favorite genre?

Enjoy your evening!

xx P