Category: Blog

Excerpt: When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica @MaryKubica

5 Comments

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: September 4, 2018

Publisher: Park Row

Genre:

Blurb:

A woman is forced to question her own identity in this riveting and emotionally charged thriller by the blockbuster bestselling author of The Good Girl, Mary Kubica

Jessie Sloane is on the path to rebuilding her life after years of caring for her ailing mother. She rents a new apartment and applies for college. But when the college informs her that her social security number has raised a red flag, Jessie discovers a shocking detail that causes her to doubt everything she’s ever known.

Finding herself suddenly at the center of a bizarre mystery, Jessie tumbles down a rabbit hole, which is only exacerbated by grief and a relentless lack of sleep. As days pass and the insomnia worsens, it plays with Jessie’s mind. Her judgment is blurred, her thoughts are hampered by fatigue. Jessie begins to see things until she can no longer tell the difference between what’s real and what she’s only imagined.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier and two hundred and fifty miles away, another woman’s split-second decision may hold the key to Jessie’s secret past. Has Jessie’s whole life been a lie or have her delusions gotten the best of her?

I have a special treat for you guys today, I have an excerpt from Mary Kubica’s upcoming book! If you would like to follow along with the tour and read the excerpts in order, check out TLC Book Tours for the full schedule.

Excerpt:

July 1, 1996

Egg Harbor

The boxes are plentiful.  There is no end to the number of cardboard boxes the movers carry through the front door, delivering them to their marked rooms: living room, bedroom, master bath, stomping across our home in dusty work boots.  Sixteen hundred square feet of space needing to be filled as Aaron and I divvied up our gender-appropriate tasks, he directing the movers with couches and beds while I unpacked and washed the dishes by hand and placed them in the cabinets.  I watched the many laps they took, each man’s head beginning to glimmer with sweat.  Aaron’s too, though he hardly carried a thing, and yet the authority in his voice, the obvious clout as grown men trailed him through our home, heeding his every word, was enough to catch my eye.  I watched him round the home time and again, wondering how I was so lucky to have him all to my own.

It wasn’t like me to be lucky in love.  Not until I met Aaron.  The men who came before him were deadbeats and drifters, bottom-feeders.  But not Aaron.  We dated for a year before he proposed.  Tomorrow we celebrate two years.  Soon there will be kids, a whole gaggle of little ones spinning circles at our feet.  As soon as we’re settled, Aaron always said, and now, as my eyes assess the new home, the sprawling landscape, the sixteen hundred square feet of space, three bedrooms – two vacant and left to fill – I realize the time has come and like clockwork, something inside me starts to tick.

When the movers’ backs were turned, Aaron kissed me in the kitchen, pinning me against the cabinets, hands gripping my hips.  It was unasked-for and yet very much wanted as he kissed with his eyes closed, whispering that all of our dreams were finally coming true.  Aaron isn’t one to be sentimental or romantic, and yet it was true: the cottage, his job, leaving the city.  We’d both wanted to get away from Green Bay since the day we were married, his hometown and my hometown, so that two sets of parents showed up at our door on any given day, unsolicited, waging a secret battle as to which in-law could occupy the most of our time.  We hadn’t gone far, sixty-seven miles to be precise, but enough that visits would be preempted with a simple phone call.

Tonight we made love on the living room floor to the glow of candlelight.  The electricity had yet to be turned on and so, other than the dance of candlelight on the white washed walls, the house was dark.

Aaron was the first to suggest it, discontinuing my birth control pill, as if he knew what I was thinking, as if he could read my mind.  It was as we laid together on the wide wooden floorboards staring out the open windows at the stars, Aaron’s prowling hand moving across my thigh, contemplating a second go.  That’s when he said it.  I told him yes! that I am ready for a family.  That we are ready.  Aaron is twenty-nine.  I am twenty-eight.  His paycheck isn’t extravagant, and yet it’s enough.  We aren’t spendthrifts; we’ve been saving for years.

And even though I knew it wasn’t possible yet, the pill in my system nipped any possibility of pregnancy in the bud, I still imagined a creature no bigger than a speck starting to take form as Aaron again let himself inside me.

July 9, 1996

Egg Harbor

Our days begin with coffee on the dock, bare feet dangling over the edge, downward toward the bay.  The water is cold, and our feet don’t reach anyway.  But as promised, there are sailboats.  Aaron and I spend hours watching them pass by, as well as sandpipers and other shorebirds that come to call, their long legs wading through the shallow water for a meal.  We stare at the birds and the sailboats, watching the sun rise higher into the sky, warming our skin, burning off the early morning fog.  Heaven on earth, Aaron says.

As we sit on the dock, Aaron tells me about his nights at the chophouse that steals him from me for ten hours at a time.  About the heat of the kitchen, and the persistent noise.  The rumble of voices calling out orders in sync.  The sputter of boneless ribeye on the grill, the dicing and hashing of vegetables.

His voice is placid.  He doesn’t complain because Aaron, ever easy-going Aaron, isn’t one to complain.  Rather he tells me about it, describing it for me so that I can see in my mind’s eye what he’s doing when he’s away from me for half the day.  He wears a white chef jacket and black chef pants and a cap, something along the lines of a beanie that is also white.  Aaron’s been assigned role of saucier or sauce chef, one that’s new to him, but no doubt comes with ease.  Because this is the way it is with Aaron.  No matter what he tries his hand at, things always come with ease.

About the Author:

Mary Kubica is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of THE GOOD GIRL and PRETTY BABY.  She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in History and American Literature. She lives outside of Chicago with her husband and two children and enjoys photography, gardening and caring for the animals at a local shelter.

.

.

Connect with Mary

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Q & A with Karin Slaughter, Pieces of Her @fictionpubteam @SlaughterKarin

16 Comments

I’m thrilled today to be the stop on the blog tour for the Queen of Crime aka one of my all time favorite authors aka Karin Slaughter!! If you missed my review of Pieces of Her you can find it here. I have a fantastic Q & A to share today, but first here’s some more information about the book.

Blurb:

Andrea Oliver is celebrating her birthday over lunch with her mother, Laura, when they fi nd themselves in the middle of a deadly shooting.  Terrified, Andy is frozen. But Laura – calm, cool and collected – jumps into action and stops the killer in his tracks. No one can understand how a quiet, middle-aged speech pathologist could possibly have the knowledge or ability to stop a shooter on the rampage.  The fall out and widespread media coverage quickly unravels the carefully curated life Laura has built for herself and her daughter. And Andy discovers that the person who she thought she knew best in the world is a total stranger. The bigger problem though is that someone wants them both dead. As two intersecting timelines – 1986 and the present – gradually converge, Pieces of Her begs the question: can you ever truly escape your past?

Q & A:

Where do you find inspiration for your books?

Most of the time I have no idea. I only know in one book, PRETTY GIRLS, I had a dream. I’d slipped a disc in my back. I’ve never smoked a cigarette or taken any kind of drugs—I don’t even drink—and I was taking a narcotic for my back, and it gave me these insane dreams. I woke up, and I wrote down what I had dreamt, and it was the opening for PRETTY GIRLS. Literally the first 100 pages. And I was already working on a different book, what eventually became THE GOOD DAUGHTER and I called my editor Kate Elton, and said I have an idea for this book and that’s the one I want to write instead. She said, “write the book you want to write. Just please do it quickly.” And that’s PRETTY GIRLS. But really I don’t know. Sometimes the first chapter comes to me in bits and pieces, and I have my little pad in the shower I write things down on. One of the Will Trent books, the entire opening is in my shower pad right now.

What kind of research do you do for a book, and how much do you research before you start writing?

I research all the sex myself. It depends on the book. For PIECES OF HER, there wasn’t a hell of a lot. And after doing this a long time, I have a lot of knowledge of things the police do, or how investigations work, or clues or things like that that are in my head just from working on previous novels. With the GOOD DAUGHTER, that opening—I talked to Georgian Bureau Investigation Agents who were at school shootings. I did a drill with all the agents at the GBI, where they took over an abandoned school and simulated a shooter. Each agent had to go through and find the bad guy. I was pretty conversant with that, but I wanted to talk about what an investigation would look like, because there’s always things that surprise me that people who are on the other side of law enforcement never think about, like the fact that—I talk about this in the GOOD DAUGHTER—everybody shows up. They could be ATF, they could be training canines for the DEA, they all show up. They’re all there to help. And no one says where’s the jurisdiction, where’s the money coming from, or whatever.  It’s just “tell us what to do” when a large scale tragedy happens. I love those kinds of details. With PIECES OF HER, I talk about how even if you’re in Witness Protection, you might still go to prison. And just from a practical standpoint, Andy’s driving. Andy’s figuring out the mileage. That was hard for me because I’m not good at that sort of thing. I’m the kind of person who’s told to get on a train—I was in Rotterdam, told to get on a train to Antwerp, and I ended up in Germany. So, I’m not very good with directions at all. I just had to knuckle down with all that, and think about how many days it would take and what it would feel like. Because I’ve been on trips like that, and I wanted to describe them in a way that made sense. I’ve done trips like that in Europe, and it’s not as big as America. Taking a detail, like you could put all of England in Michigan and it wouldn’t touch the sides, that kind of puts it in scale for people. But just the grueling hours and hours of being trapping in a car, and what that would look like on the interstate, I know intimately from long road trips. I wanted to capture that with Andy.

Do you have secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

Yes. There are secrets. I have secrets that no one has ever found. I think maybe it plays into being the youngest of three, because I’d always have these secrets and then I’d drop truth bombs at the most inappropriate times. That was just my way of being the Erin Brockovich of my family.

What has been your hardest scene to write?

That was probably ending Grant Country. I was sobbing like a baby. It was really hard to write. It was really scary, because I thought, I could just write Grant County books until I’m 80, and have a nice living, and be comfortable, but that’s not what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a writer, and really challenge myself, and I wanted it to be about the work. I want each book to be as good as the last one, if not better. That’s always my goal, to top myself. That’s one of the reasons why I wrote PIECES OF HER, and it’s such a different novel. It was such a big leap for me creatively to write THE GOOD DAUGHTER, and I had a journalist in Holland say to me—he tossed the book on the table and said “How are you going to top this?”  I have known him for years, but I thought, “Are you kidding me?” And I decided, you top this by writing a completely different book, that’s fun, that full of important things, and you just keep doing what you’ve been doing. And I always think, for some people, well it’s not that hard to by a hardcover book, but for some people it’s a stretch. And I always remember, when I was a college student, and I would save up money for a hardcover from my favorite author, and it would end up being bad, and I would feel cheated. So I’m always aware of how much minimum wage is, and how many hours of a person’s life it takes to read a book. And I never want to be in a position where I’m not doing everything I can to make sure a person likes that book. I mean, I can’t guarantee they’ll love it, but I can guarantee I’ll work as hard as I can to write the best book I can, because that’s why I’m doing this.

Review: Do No Harm by L. V. Hay @LucyVHayAuthor @Orendabooks #DoNoHarm #TillDeathDoUsPart

7 Comments

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: July 20, 2018

Publisher: Orenda

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Blurb:

After leaving her marriage to jealous, possessive oncologist Maxwell, Lily and her six-year-old son have a second chance at happiness with teacher Sebastian. Kind but vulnerable, Sebastian is the polar opposite of Maxwell, and the perfect match for Lily. After a whirlwind romance, they marry, and that’s when things start to go wrong. Maxwell returns to the scene, determined to win back his family, and events soon spiral out of control. Lily and Sebastian find themselves not only fighting for their relationship, but also their lives.

It is my absolute pleasure to be helping to close down the blog tour for Do No Harm today!

Review:

Remember last year when I was raving about The Other Twin? I was SO excited to get my hands on Do No Harm because I just loved Hay’s style of writing and ability to suck the reader in, almost forcing you to binge read her novels until you find out what exactly is really going on and I can firmly say that she most definitely delivered in a major way with this one.

Hay is a sneaky little devil, while I was reading this I kept thinking, ok I see exactly where this is going, to an avid reader such as myself things seemed obvious, but I was so engrossed I didn’t even care that I “knew” what would happen next. Imagine my surprise when I was wrong! Not once, not even twice, but too many times to count. Shame on me for being so cocky and bravo to the author for shocking me so much. Well played Hay, well played.

I said before I loved her writing style, it’s razor sharp and highly unnerving at the same time and she writes cleverly short chapters that just entice you to go further and further to see what will happen next. I’m not touching the plot with a ten foot pole, but did you read that description?! A jealous ex-husband trying to ruin his ex-wife’s new marriage?! Umm YES PLEASE!! If you love psychological thrillers as much as I do then definitely check this one out, it surprised me in the best possible way and had such a strong ending I’m still thinking about it days later.

Do No Harm in three words: Unsettling, Obsessive and Compulsive.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Blog Tour: Ribbons In Her Hair by Colette McCormick

1 Comment

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: August 23, 2018

Publisher: Accent Press

Blurb:

Jean seems the perfect wife and mother but she struggles to love her daughters whose material comforts mask emotional neglect.

When the youngest daughter, Susan, brings ‘shame’ on the family, Jean can think of only one response. She has to make the problem disappear. Finding the strength to stand up to her mother for the first time in her life, Susan does the only thing that she can to save her baby. What Susan doesn’t realise is that her mother’s emotional distance hides a dark secret of her own.

Examining the divide between generations, between mothers and daughters, this emotionally charged novel asks whether we can ever truly understand another, however close our ties.

Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Ribbons In Her Hair! I have a guest post from the author to share today.

Guest Post:

The inspiration to write ‘Ribbons in Her Hair’ came from a conversation.

I saw a little girl with her hair tied up in a red ribbon and commented to the person that I was with that I remembered when I used to have ribbons in my hair. I said something like, ‘Those were the days.’ My companion, and I don’t want to say anything that might identify them, told me sadly that they’d had never had a ribbon in their hair.

That statement stayed with me and I thought about a little girl who had never had a ribbon in her hair. For me, that simple act represented a bond and I can still remember sitting on a chair as my mother brushed and dressed my hair. In my head, the little girl without the ribbons, became someone who didn’t know what it was like to feel a mother’s love.

I called the girl Susan and she had a story to tell.

I tried to imagine what it would be like to be in a family where your mother doesn’t seem to care if you exist. How would she feel? How might she behave? Then, I started to think about Susan’s mother. I have children of my own and the idea of not hugging them and showing my love for them is very strange to me and I wondered what would make Jean (Susan’s mother) behave the way that she did.

I decided that we needed to hear her side of the story too.

It has been said that my book is about the shame of being an unmarried mother and I suppose that to a certain extent it is, especially in Jean’s case, but for me it’s more about two women who are trying to do the best for their unborn child. They both need to decide whose needs have to be put first. Is it their own or their child’s? The decision they make will shape their adult life and they will both have to live with it and its consequences.

Because of the way that she treated her children I didn’t want to like Jean but when I discovered more about her story I started to sympathise with her. She is as much a product of her upbringing as Susan. She made the only choice she could and when history repeats itself she can only see one way out for her daughter. Is that her fault or society’s?

I tried to show that behind closed doors things are not always as they appear to those on the outside and that even families have secrets from each other.

Review: The Long Revenge by Andrew Barrett @AndrewBarrettUK @Bloodhoundbook

4 Comments

Amazon

Release date: August 15, 2018

Publisher: Bloodhound

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

They say you can always trust a policeman. They are lying.

They lied thirty years ago and they are still lying today.

When a booby-trapped body is discovered in a long-abandoned chapel, CSI Eddie Collins and his team are called to investigate. But when the scene examination goes horribly wrong, Eddie and DI Benson are injured and one of the team killed.

Heartbroken by the death, Eddie is also guilt-ridden. But more than that he is angry. Very angry.

Eddie will stop at nothing to bring the guilty to justice, and will teach them that even when served cold, revenge is a killer dish.  

I’m thrilled to be one of the stops on the blog tour for The Long Revenge today!

Review:

This was my first introduction to Barrett’s work though it’s the fourth book in his Eddie Collins series. I wasn’t bothered by this and never felt like I was missing out on any pertinent information, but I have added the first three books to my ever growing TBR.

Eddie Collins is not a detective like the protagonist in most crime novels, he’s a CSI. I loved this, it made for a really unique and fresh point of view to see things from that perspective instead of a cops perspective. That type of stuff has always been interesting to me and couple that with a character like Collins? Well you’ve got quite a set up. He’s a cheeky guy and very sarcastic, which I adore because sarcasm is my first language. I didn’t always agree with him but I always found him highly entertaining and I especially liked any scenes between him and his father Charles.

The case Collins is working is a series of historical murders which is one of my favorite storylines in crime fiction. I always think the killer must be pretty smug after thirty years have passed and they’re still flying under the radar, until something or someone unearths their darkerst secret.

The pacing was pretty mild to start (but never boring) but the tension was slowly mounting and by the last quarter of the book things really ramped up.Eddie being a CSI means that the reader gets a graphic look at how this profession works and there is also abuse and some violence, but as most of you know by now that doesn’t bother me. Barrett uses some great dark humor that balances out the heavy stuff which I always appreciate and wonderfully lightens the mood just when you need it the most.

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Blog Tour: The Bridesmaid Blues by Tracey Sinclair @Thriftygal #BridesmaidBlues

6 Comments

Goodreads|Amazon

Blurb:

Luce knows she should be thrilled when Jenna asks her to be bridesmaid – after all, they’ve known each other since childhood and Jenna is the best friend any girl could have. But it’s hard to get excited about weddings when you’re terminally single and the best man is the boy who broke your heart: Jamie, the groom’s dashing and irresistible brother. How can she face the man who dumped her when she’s still so hopelessly in love? Then again, maybe this is the perfect opportunity – after all, where better to get back together than at a wedding?

So Luce has six months to figure out how to win back her ex, but she has plenty else on her plate – from an old friend returned to Newcastle with an announcement of her own, to a youthful colleague who may or may not have a crush on her and a mother who is acting very strangely indeed… and that’s all before a mysterious, handsome American walks into her life.

Sometimes being a bridesmaid isn’t all confetti and champagne…

‘A smarter, funnier Bridget Jones’ Diary for the 2010s – great pithy writing and instantly likeable characters’ Cass Green, Sunday Times/USA Today bestselling author of In a Cottage in a Wood’

I’m so delighted to be the stop on the blog tour for The Bridesmaid Blues today, this sounds like such a fun read, I have an excerpt to share today.

Excerpt:

Novel extract – The Bridesmaid Blues, Tracey Sinclair

Luce was late, as usual, but for once Jenna didn’t mind getting to the bar first. She needed a drink before she did this. She’d ordered their traditional bottle of white straight away and, despite her usual restraint, had already managed to gulp down a full glass and she’d only been here 10 minutes. Calm, she thought, just be calm. How bad could it be? Then again, knowing Luce, it could be very bad. Nuclear meltdown, global bio-warfare, imagine-Simon-Cowell-in-hot-pants bad. Cursing herself for own cowardice, Jenna had chosen a table at the back of the pub, so that if Luce did lose it and make a scene, at least there would be fewer witnesses.

She couldn’t believe how stressed she was. She was nearly 40 and a professional woman, for God’s sake. She managed a team of 11 people and could comfortably converse with MDs, CEOs and any number of other impressive initials. Yet here she was, desperately wishing she smoked so that her hands would have something to do other than shake. Nervously, she twisted the ring on her finger, not yet used to it being there. This is ridiculous, she told herself sternly, as she gulped down another mouthful of wine. How hard can it be to tell your best friend you’re getting married?

Pretty hard, as it turned out, although not for any of the reasons Jenna had expected. Of course, with Jenna’s best friend, things were never exactly easy, so why should this be an exception? Luce’s shrieks were so loud that half the pub’s customers were looking round to see what was happening and the staff were nervously craning their necks from behind the safety of the bar, trying to figure out whether they should be calling the police to prevent someone being murdered. And Jenna hadn’t even managed to tell her the actual information

yet. She’d got as far as “I’ve got some news” and Luce had dissolved into hysterics.

“Oh, my God!” she screeched, and Jenna was surprised that none of the glass around them broke. “Oh, my God, you’re sick, aren’t you? Is it cancer? What do the doctors say? Is there anything I can do? Oh, Jen…”

Jenna looked at her friend in sheer, open-mouthed horror. She would have been speechless had there even been a possibility of getting a word in edgeways. She watched Luce continue in this vein for several minutes, helpless to stop her. Finally, seeing an opportunity as Luce took a tear-filled breath to gear up for another round of wailing, she took her chance and jumped in.

“What are you talking about? I’m not ill!” she snapped, louder than she meant to, so that the last three remaining people in the pub who weren’t already looking at them turned around sharply to see what was going on.

“No? No! Thank God! What is it then?” Luce’s expression darkened in sudden fury. “Is Michael having an affair? That bastard, I never liked him!”

“Luce! Of course Michael isn’t having an affair! Why would you even say that?”

“God, Jen, it’s not you? I don’t believe it! Michael is so lovely! How could you?”

Jenna could feel what little patience was left to her rapidly evaporating.

“Luce, for God’s sake! No one is ill. No one is having an affair. Bloody hell. It’s good news.”

“Good news? Good news?” Luce stared at her, affronted. “Then why didn’t you say that? People say, ‘I’ve got good news.’ No one says, ‘I’ve got news’ if it’s good news. ‘Something to tell you’ is always bad!”

Jenna goggled at her friend, amazed. “Who says?”

Luce scowled at her as if she were stupid.

“It’s a universal conversational rule. News-no adjective is always bad. It’s a basic principle. That’s why people always say ‘I’ve got good news’. It’s politeness! You scared the bloody life out of me!”

Jenna took a long, deep breath and tried to banish all thoughts of violence. She loved Luce like a sister, but sometimes she was like the irritating, pigtail-pulling little sister who coloured in eye makeup on your Girls’ World styling head with indelible felt-tip pens and cut

the hair off all your Sindy dolls.

“Luce, you read way too many women’s weekly magazines. Most people, when told, ‘I’ve got something to tell you’ do not automatically start playing Guess The Tragedy.”

Luce opened her mouth to protest but Jenna put a hand up to silence her: let Luce get a word in now and that would be it for the rest of the night.

“Do I get to tell you now then, or not?”

Luce took a deep breath, flapped her hands in front of her face in an ineffectual effort to stop the tears that had sprung to her eyes at Jenna’s opening remark and nodded, in an exaggerated gesture of calm.

“Of course. Go on, I’m excited now. Really.”

Jenna sighed and sat back, taking a moment to compose herself.

“Michael proposed to me. We’re getting married in February.”

There was a long moment of stunned silence, then Luce let out a squeal so shrill that Jenna feared for the hearing of any local dogs.

“Oh! Jen! Jen! That’s great! I’m so thrilled!”

She lunged across the table and enclosed Jenna in a fierce hug, Jenna just managing to rescue the wine bottle that her friend sent spinning in her enthusiasm. Extricating herself from Luce’s embrace, she smiled, placated by her friend’s obvious delight.

“I want you to be bridesmaid, of course.”

“Of course! Of course! I’d sulk otherwise!” Luce clapped her hands in glee. “It’ll be great! Tell me all the details. I want to know everything – the proposal, the venue… show me the ring! And what are you going to wear? What am I going to wear?”

Jenna’s smile wavered. Before her best friend disappeared too far down this path, she knew she had to tell her.

“Luce… Lucy…”

“Will there be other bridesmaids? I get first choice of frock though, right? Something classy and stylish that won’t make me look fat. I mean, I’ve known you longer than anyone, I should get first say…”

“Luce…”

“Not that I won’t go along with whatever you want, of course, but I was thinking…”

There was nothing else for it.

“Lucinda!”

The use of Luce’s full name was so rare that it silenced her. She looked at Jenna suspiciously.

“What?”

Jenna took a deep breath, and when she spoke her voice was carefully kind.

“Honey, Jamie will be there. He’s going to be best man.”

About the Author:

Tracey Sinclair works as a freelance writer and editor.

Her novel and collection of short stories (Doll and No Love Is This, respectively) were published by independent publisher Kennedy & Boyd, and Dark Dates is her second novel and the first in the Cassandra Bick series.

Her work has appeared online and in print in magazines as diverse as Sky, Printer’s Devil, Yours and Woman’s Weekly, and has been performed on the radio. Her first play, Bystanders, was premiered as part of the New Writing Season at Baron’s Court Theatre in 2011 and later staged at both the White Bear and Tristan Bates Theatre.

She is theatre lover and regular contributor to online theatre magazine Exeunt (www.exeuntmagazine.com).

Twitter: @Thriftygal

Blog Tour: Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone

6 Comments

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: August 1, 2018

Publisher: Lake Union

Genre: Psychological Thriller

Blurb:

A double life with a single purpose: revenge.

Jane’s days at a Midwest insurance company are perfectly ordinary. She blends in well, unremarkably pretty in her floral-print dresses and extra efficient at her low-level job. She’s just the kind of woman middle manager Steven Hepsworth likes—meek, insecure, and willing to defer to a man. No one has any idea who Jane really is. Least of all Steven.

But plain Jane is hiding something. And Steven’s bringing out the worst in her.

Nothing can distract Jane from going straight for his heart: allowing herself to be seduced into Steven’s bed, to insinuate herself into his career and his family, and to expose all his dirty secrets. It’s time for Jane to dig out everything that matters to Steven. So she can take it all away.

Just as he did to her.

This review may seem familiar to you and that’s because I read this last month and loved it show much I had to share my thoughts right away! If you missed it the first time around you get to see it today as part of my stop on the tour with TLC Book Tours 😊

Review:

God you guys, this was such a refreshing read, especially for a psychological thriller. There’s not an unreliable narrator in sight, there are not multiple perspectives and there are zero time jumps. If a book labeled as a psychological thriller doesn’t have all three of those is it even really a psychological thriller? Hahaha, I’m kidding, this definitely is and it consumed me, I freaking loved it.

Jane is unapologetically who she is, and she’s a sociopath on a mission. She wants revenge and Steven is her target and she won’t let anything get in her way. She had one of the best voices I’ve encountered in ages, highly unique, she’s funny in a super dry way, she’s cold, manipulative, calculating and cunning and I loved her. I couldn’t help it, I think it goes back to what I said earlier, she doesn’t apologize for who she is, she’s confident and smart and insightfully self aware. She knows she’s not normal, but she doesn’t care, she’s not trying to change and she only pretends to be someone she really isn’t if it serves a greater purpose.

I totally binge read this, I could not wait to see how things played out and if Jane would be successful in all of her plotting and planning. I had so much fun with this and was rooting for Jane so hard, who knew an emotionless sociopath could be so likable? The ending was also great, very strong, a little surprising and super satisfying.

Jane Doe in three words: Crafty, Interesting and Vengeful.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

July Wrap Up

6 Comments

Another month totally flew by and with my kids starting school next week it really feels like the start of a new season. Even though summer isn’t really quite over yet! I had a decent month, 24 books included in this wrap up but I read a few more on my vacation the past few weeks, just haven’t had a chance to write reviews yet. I enjoyed the majority of what I read in July, links below to my full review if you’re interested.

How was your month? Discover any must reads?!

Everything We Give: Emotional, Bittersweet and Surprising.

Safe Houses: Gripping, Tense and Smart.

The Fifth to Die: Bold, Dark and Engrossing.

When We Found Home: Heartwarming, Engaging and Relatable.

Jane Doe: Crafty, Interesting and Vengeful.

Hangman: Clever, Dark and Sardonic.

The Subway Girls: Charming, Sweet and Inspiring.

The Other Woman: Addictive, Wicked and Entertaining.

How to Keep a Secret: Bittersweet, Complicated and Heartfelt.

The Season of Silver Linings: Delightful, Hopeful and Light.

Playing With Matches: Fresh, Easy and Entertaining.

Between You and Me: Thought-provoking, Skilled and Deep.

Ghosted: Current, Unique and Surprising.

Her Pretty Face: Compulsive, Fluid and Engaging.

Those Other Women: Gossipy, Sassy and Amusing.

Give Me Your Hand was one I struggled with unfortunately.

All These Beautiful Strangers: Manipulative, Dramatic and Polished.

Believe Me: I struggled with this one, I think it’s definitely a polarizing read.

Smothered: Humorous, Light and Outrageous.

Pieces of Her: Intricate, Dangerous and Multifaceted.

Bad: Sexy, Outrageous and Fast.

Our House: Original, Secretive and Engaging.

The Masterpiece: Dazzling, Captivating and Impassioned.

She Was the Quiet One: Simmering, Enthralling and Intelligent.

Review: Between You and Me by Susan Wiggs

3 Comments

About Between You and Me

Hardcover:368 pages
Publisher:William Morrow (June 26, 2018)

#1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs delivers a riveting story that challenges our deepest-held beliefs…

Caught between two worlds, Caleb Stoltz is bound by a deathbed promise to raise his orphaned niece and nephew in Middle Grove, where life revolves around family, farm, faith and long-held suspicions about outsiders. When disaster strikes, Caleb is thrust into an urban environment of high-tech medicine and the relentless rush of modern life.

Dr. Reese Powell is poised to join the medical dynasty of her wealthy, successful parents. Bold, assertive, and quick-thinking, she lives for the addictive rush of saving lives. When a shocking accident brings Caleb Stoltz into her life, Reese is forced to deal with a situation that challenges everything she thinks she knows and ultimately emboldens her to question her most powerful beliefs.

Then one impulsive act brings about a clash of cultures in a tug-of-war that plays out in a courtroom, challenging the very nature of justice and reverberating through generations, straining the fragile threads of faith and family.

Review:

Is anyone else fascinated by the Amish faith and their culture in general? There’s something about their simplistic way of life and strong ties to family and their community that never fails to capture my attention. Naturally, I loved the premise for this, an Amish is family forced to enter the English world when tragedy strikes and their encounter with a young doctor has the power to change all of them forever, doesn’t that sound great?! Spoiler alert, it was amazing!

Wiggs has that uncanny ability to create characters that are so deeply developed that by the end of the book you’re heartbroken to say goodbye to them. Both Reese and Caleb were highly complex and interesting, I was so invested in both of them and curious about how their relationship would evolve and grow. She’s also an incredibly skilled writer, I got some serious Jodi Picoult vibes here, it had that same emotional intensity and caused me to question my own beliefs and values alongside the characters.

This book dealt with some heavy issues and Wiggs explores some hot button topics with a sensitivity and grace that’s admirable. There were also some shocking twists along the way and some light romance, nothing too in your face though, more sweet and subtle than anything else. Fans of Wiggs will devour this and for readers looking for a new author to discover I can highly recommended this book!

Between You and Me in three words: Thought-provoking, Skilled and Deep.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher and TLC Book Tours for my review copy.

Purchase Links

HarperCollins | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Photo by Yvonne Wong

About Susan Wiggs

Susan Wiggs is the author of many beloved bestsellers, including the popular Lakeshore Chronicles series. She has won many awards for her work, including a RITA from Romance Writers of America. Visit her website at http://www.SusanWiggs.com.

Connect with Susan on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Review: Safe Houses by Dan Fesperman #BlogTour

4 Comments

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: July 3, 2018

Publisher: Knopf

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

West Berlin, 1979. Helen Abell oversees the CIA’s network of safe houses, rare havens for field agents and case officers amidst the dangerous milieu of a city in the grips of the Cold War. Helen’s world is upended when, during her routine inspection of an agency property, she overhears a meeting between two people unfamiliar to her speaking a coded language that hints at shadowy realities far beyond her comprehension. Before the day is out, she witnesses a second unauthorized encounter, one that will place her in the sightlines of the most ruthless and powerful man at the agency. Her attempts to expose the dark truths about what she has witnessed will bring about repercussions that reach across decades and continents into the present day, when, in a farm town in Maryland, a young man is arrested for the double murder of his parents, and his sister takes it upon herself to find out why he did it.

I’m so excited to be one of the stops on the blog tour for Safe Houses today!

Review:

As much as I love thrillers the sub genre of espionage thrillers is not one that I read very often, but the premise of Safe Houses captured my attention immediately. I’m a sucker for old mysteries colliding with current happenings and the two timelines here ended up coming together in a powerful and intense way.

This begins in 1979 in Berlin and follows Helen, a woman who organizes safe houses. What I found most interesting about this portion was the portrayal of powerful men during this era and the manner in which they can choose to abuse said power, it read as very accurate and authentic and was an interesting piece of history that engaged me. Helen was a strong woman in her own right, the kind of character that I respected and admired, and a bit daring for her time. The 2014 timeline begins after Helen and her husband are murdered as her daughter strives to find answers never realizing how long ago decisions impacted Helen’s life thirty five years later.

I won’t dive any further into the details of the story as there were several great turns, but I was very impressed by the execution of the plot twists as well as the writing of Fesperman, it was of a high caliber and very polished. Recommended for those who want a different type of thriller and love a strong female lead, lots of action and intensity and a plot that held my attention throughout.

Safe Houses in three words: Gripping, Tense and Smart.

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.