Category: Book reviews

Review of My Sister’s Secret by Tracy Buchanan

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Genre: Contemporary fiction, Mystery, Drama

Release date: June 30, 2016

Publisher: Bookouture

Description:

Willow remembers her childhood as idyllic, full of love and happiness. But was it really as perfect as she remembers it?

Suddenly, Willow finds herself unraveling  secrets in her late parents, Charity and Dan’s past. There are long buried secrets that no one can help her bring to light besides Hope, the aunt that took her in after her parents deaths. When she receives a mysterious invitation to an event from

Who can Willow actually trust now? It seems as if everyone around her has been lying for years. How can she possibly move on with her life without finding out the truth? 

Review:

This one hooked me right from the start. Willow is searching for answers about her parents lives and is desperate to find out anything she can about the people they were. They died tragically when she was seven, so her memories are limited. Hope and Willow’s relationship is strained for reasons Willow isn’t even quite sure of. She knows her aunt loves her, but anytime she asks about Charity she is stonewalled. Because she can’t find the answers she is searching for at home, she sets off on a journey to the truth.

Willow’s voyage leads her to travel the world retracing her mothers steps. All she knows is that her mother had a deep fascination with sunken forests, so she sets off to see them for herself. Willow is a diver and the scenes where she is exploring these underwater forests are absolutely breathtaking. My favorite aspect of the novel is that Buchanan creates gorgeous imagery that really pulls the reader in. She made me want to visit these haunting forests myself, which is not anything I’ve ever dreamed of doing. Her descriptions of the seas and lakes are stunning and conjure up images of true beauty. 

The novel was told from both Willow’s point of view in the present and Charity’s perspective from years ago. Beginning in the 70’s right before her sister Faith’s tragic death all the way up to Charity’s own unfortunate demise, Buchanan takes the reader on a journey that is intriguing and emotional. Along the way you meet a cast of characters that are fascinating and leave the reader wondering what exactly they are hiding. Along with Willow, Faith, Charity, and Hope, there is Niall, a boy the three sisters grew up with on Busby-by-the Sea, Dan, Willow’s father, Ajay who is Willow’s diving buddy, and Lana who was Dan’s first wife. These characters add drama and suspense to an already suspenseful story. 

I don’t want to say too much more as I think this is the type of book that could be totally spoiled very easily. Suffice it to say, I throughly enjoyed every minute of this book. The ending was perfect and neatly tied up any loose ends and answered all the lingering questions I had. I was only sad to see it was over.

Overall rating: 4.5/5 (only because I’m quite stingy with my 5 star reviews!)

Thanks to Bookouture and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Review of The Story of Our Life by Shari Low

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Genre: Contemporary/Romance, Women’s fiction 

Release date: July 1, 2016

Publisher: Aria

Description:

Colm and Shauna have been married for fifteen years. Their love is forever, and it is real. Life is a fairytale.
Until it isn’t.
Life recently changed, due to a devastating blow. Can Colm and Shauna cling to each other during tragic times? Or will they lose everything they’ve worked so hard to build?

What would you do if your husband, the love of your life, cheated on you? 

Review:

Who doesn’t love a good, old fashioned love story? I know I do, but The Story of Our Life is not your typical love story. Boy does not meet girl, get married, have 2.5 kids and they live happily ever after. No, this is real and raw, yet it is still a touching love story.

The pace of this book is perfect. It skips back, touching on important moments in Colm and Shauna’s lives fifteen years ago, all the way to the present. Shauna is the main narrator but a few times the story is told from Colm’s perspective. This works fantastically as it keeps the reader engaged and ready to find out more. You know if one of them begins telling a story about a night in 2009 that it is an important part of their story and you need to pay attention. It is not confusing at all, as every chapter tells you what year it is and a brief title description tells the reader what is coming up.

What I loved the most about this novel is that Colm and Shauna are completely relatable, especially if you have been or are married. Yes, these two love each other deeply, but they are human and they make mistakes just like the rest of us. They are stubborn, selfish, funny, but most importantly they are real. They deal with heartbreaks, grief, divorce, drama amongst a tight knit group of friends, infidelity, betrayal, illness. Everything that we all face through the course of our lives.
The secondary characters in this book are fantastic as well. They too are raw and honest and Low forces the reader to care about what is going on in their lives as well. There are Shauna’s uncaring and cold parents, their beloved daughter Beth, Colm’s twin boys from his previous marriage to Jess, their best friends Dan and Lulu, Rosie, who has been Shauna’s closest friend most of her life, Vincent, Shauna’s business partner, and my absolute favorite, Annie, Shauna’s grandmother. This colorful cast of supporting characters adds warmth and humor throughout the book.
Without spoiling anything, I only wish I could change the ending. I desperately wanted Colm and Shauna to get their much deserved happy ending. But that is just selfish on my part, as Low clearly wanted to tell a true, modern love story where life is not even close to perfect, but yet is truly beautiful.
Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Aria for an eARC in exchange for an honest review. 

Review of Since She Went Away by David Bell

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Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Release date: June 21,2016

Publisher: Berkley/NAL

Description 

Jenna Barton’s best friend, Celia has been missing for three months now. The two women were supposed to meet at a park but Celia never showed up. The only thing found is one of Celia’s diamond earrings. The media have dubbed Celia as the Diamond Mom and started a media firestorm that pushes Jenna to the brink.

Jenna is the single mom to her son, fifteen year old Jared. He recently started dating a girl named Tabitha who seems to have secrets in her past.

When Tabitha disappears too, Jenna finds herself digging for answers as to what happened to both women. Will what she finds expose lies that may harm her and her son forever?

Review

The basic premise of this novel had me hooked as soon as I read a short blurb on Netgalley. I love nothing more than a good missing persons mystery. As I started reading, I was drawn to the pace of the book. The chapters were short, but not too abrupt. It skips back and forth between Jenna and Jared, which works well. You see Jenna struggle to parent her son during a difficult time for their family, during a time in his life that is already trying as Jared is only fifteen. Jared’s dad left when he was five so it has always been just the two of them. Their relationship is interesting. Many times while reading I grew frustrated by Jenna’s parenting choices and found myself judging her. But the more I thought about it, I realized that Bell was showing her making choices that many real parents would make. Jared has a tendency to run off after being told by Jenna to stay put. Instead of panicking and trying to find him, Jenna trusts him and knows he will make the best decisions he is able to. This would be very hard to do as a parent, but it is one of the many ways Bell makes their relationship seem genuine. Jenna does still try a bit too hard to be Jared’s friend rather than his mom, but it is clear this is because she is learning as she goes along, much like any parent.

Jenna finds herself desperate to do anything to find out what happened to Celia. She spends quite a lot of time surfing message boards that discuss Celia’s case. She develops a strange correspondence with a user named Domino55.

There are quite a few secondary characters that play a role in this book. Sally becomes Jenna’s closest friend after Celia dissapears and I enjoyed their scenes. Reena is a national news anchor who has a tenuous relationship with Jenna. The whole angle of the media’s involvement in Celia’s case was intriguing, probably because we have all seen how vicious the media can be in real life. Ian is Celia’s husband and him and Jenna had a brief connection in high school. His aloofness and cold behavior had me wondering about his intentions throughout. Ursula is Celia and Ian’s teenage daughter who goes to school with Jared. She is a typical high school mean girl who I loved to hate.

Tabitha is Jared’s new girlfriend who just moved to town. Her father is super strict and she doesn’t talk about her mother, but it is clear that something in her past haunts her. The relationship between the teens adds something that could draw in typical YA readers.
Without giving too much away, when there was a resolution, I had already kind of figured it out. Not completely, but still. I do read a ton of mystery/thriller novels though and I tend to play whodunnit even when I try not too.

My only complaint about this book is the ending was jarring and very abrupt. Wham, bam and it was done! I would have liked to see an epilogue, even if it was a brief one.

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to Netgalley and Berkley/NAL for the eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Review of All the Missing Girls

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     People have been recommending this book to me for awhile now, so naturally I have been dying to get my hands on a copy of All the Missing Girls. Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC!

Synopsis

Nicolette Farrell is still deeply haunted by the disappearance of her best friend,  Corinne. It’s been ten years since anyone has seen Corinne. Ten years that Nic has been tormented by guilt over her missing friend.

And now it’s all happening again.

There is another girl missing. Same town, too many similarities to Corinne’s disappearance to be unrelated. The same people are linked again, but this time the truth will be revealed.

Told entirely in reverse order, from day fifteen to day one, this novel asks the question; how far would you be willing to go to protect your loved ones?

Review

This is my first time reading one of Megan Miranda’s books and it’s safe to say that it won’t be my last. When I first heard that the story was backwards I was both intrigued and somewhat skeptical. I kept thinking, won’t that be really confusing? How can a book told this way make any kind of sense? Well rest assured, it works. It works better than I would’ve imagined. It kept me turning the pages as fast as possible and there were times that I was so intent in my reading a bomb could’ve went off and I may not have even noticed.

Nic was a character that I was rooting for the whole time. You could feel her pain and regret throughout and I so badly wanted her to find closure and be able to move on with her life. She is absolutely tortured at every turn by her painful past, yet you can feel how desperately she wants to move forward. Her relationships with everyone in her life are clouded with grief and sadness; Her father Patrick, her brother Daniel, her ex boyfriend Tyler, her old friend Bailey. Yet while I felt like I could relate to parts of this character, I also wanted to scream at her. She makes rash and dangerous decisions consistently, however there is something extremely raw and vulnerable about Nic that makes the reader want the best for her. To me, that is the mark of an excellent storyteller. To make the audience root for them even when they are frustrated by their choices.

Without spoiling the ending, I can safely say that I was satisfied. I always adore it when a writer wraps thing up with some kind of an epilogue or fast forward that ties things up and answers all those unanswered questions. Megan Miranda does not disappoint.

Overall rating is 4.5/5

All the Missing Girls is available on June 28 from Simon & Schuster.

 

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