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Release date: June 4, 2019

Publisher: Harper

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Blurb:

The worst birthday ever might just be the gift of a lifetime…

It’s Sophie Bloom’s forty-second birthday, and she’s ready for a night of celebration with Gabe, her longtime, devoted husband, and her two besties and their spouses. Dinner is served with a side of delicious gossip, including which North Grove residents were caught with their pants down on Ashley Madison after the secret on-line dating site for married and committed couples was hacked. Thirty-two million cheaters worldwide have been exposed…including Sophie’s “perfect” husband. To add insult to injury, she learns Gabe is the top cheater in their town. 

Humiliated and directionless, Sophie jumps into the unknown and flees to France to meet up with her teenage daughter who is studying abroad and nursing her own heartbreak. After a brief visit to Paris, Sophie heads out to the artist enclave of Saint-Paul-de-Vence. There, for the first time in a long time, Sophie acknowledges her own desires—not her husband’s, not her daughter’s—and rediscovers her essence with painful honesty and humor, reawakening both her sensuality and ambitions as a sculptor. 

As she sheds her past and travels the obstacle-filled off beaten path, Sophie Bloom is determined to blossom. Allowing her true self to emerge in the postcard beauty of Provence, Sophie must decide what is broken forever…and what it means to be truly unbreakable.

Review:

I don’t know about you but when the Ashley Madison scandal broke I was equally horrified but also morbidly curious. How could so many millions of people be using such a tacky and torrid site?! It still blows my mind actually, and this book opens with Sophie having a birthday dinner with her closet friends and finding out her husband is on the site. Not only that, he’s their cities most active user 😱 I cannot even imagine the humiliation and pain this would cause but as far as an opening hook?! SOLD!

Listen, I’ve read plenty of books about a woman scorned trying to find herself again but I’ve never read one that felt quite so fresh and empowering as this one. Sophie takes quite a journey after her marriage crumbles and none of what happened was predictable at all. I absolutely love that, it’s hard to surprise me lately but I definitely was here. It was also racier than I expected, Sophie wants to stand on her own two feet after being half of a couple for years and she does this not only in a personal way, but also sexually. She’s the type of character that I think any woman can relate to and I was rooting for her hardcore. It was really inspiring to see her try new things and take chances and I was oddly proud of her by the end.

Highly recommended by me, this was not only a fun and fast read, it was also full of wisdom and felt super modern and hip!

The Unbreakables in three words: Sexy, Empowering and Fresh.

Overall rating: 4.5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

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Release date: June 4, 2019

Publisher: Berkley

Genre: Women’s Fiction

Blurb:

Evvie, Maggie, and Topher have known each other since university. Their friendship was something they swore would last forever. Now years have passed, the friends have drifted apart, and none of them ever found the lives they wanted – the lives they dreamed of when they were young and everything seemed possible.
 
Evvie starved herself to become a supermodel but derailed her career by sleeping with a married man. 
 
Maggie married Ben, the boy she fell in love with at university, never imagining the heartbreak his drinking would cause. 
 
Topher became a successful actor but the shame of a childhood secret shut him off from real intimacy.
 
By their thirtieth reunion, these old friends have lost touch with each other and with the people they dreamed of becoming. Together again, they have a second chance at happiness… until a dark secret is revealed that changes everything.
 
The Friends We Keep is about how despite disappointments we’ve had or mistakes we’ve made, it’s never too late to find a place to call home. 

Review:

JG is an auto buy author for me, when one of her books is released I always know I’m in for a treat and this was no exception. This is yet another book from her that is ideal for summer reading, it’s light and easy but also full of depth and dimension, which is the perfect combination for me in terms of a great beach read.

This begins in the eighties when Evvie, Topher and Maggie all meet for the first time and follows them over the next few decades as they navigate everything from marriage and the birth of children to loss and devastating heartbreak. All three of them are complex and fascinating individually and the dynamics between them are also complicated, each separate relationship is intriguing as well. When they reunite after mostly losing touch thirty years after they met, their lives have all taken several different and unexpected turns and they all wonder if they can manage to get back to the way they used to be.

I always enjoy following a group of characters for a number of years and experiencing all that life brings to them over the years and this story also had some downright juicy secrets and surprising turns which was just an added bonus. This was a heartfelt story about friendship and how secrets and regret can really change the course of our lives and also about how true family can come in the form of those that are not related by blood. Highly recommended by me to add to your summer reading list, especially if you enjoy books about friends!

The Friends We Keep in three words: Heartfelt, Juicy and Effortless.

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

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Release date: May 28, 2019

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Narrator: Carrie Hope Fletcher, Kwaku Fortune

Blurb:

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Release date: June 1, 2019

Publisher: Lake Union

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

What happened to Amanda Holmes?

Twenty years ago, she washed up on shore in a rowboat with a gash to the head after an overnight at Camp Macaw. No one was ever charged with a crime.

Now, the MacAllister children are all grown up. After their parents die suddenly, they return to Camp to read the will and decide what to do with the prime real estate it’s sitting on. Ryan, the oldest, wants to sell. Margo, the family’s center, hasn’t made up her mind. Mary has her own horse farm to run, and believes in leaving well-enough alone. Kate and Liddie—the twins—have opposing views. And Sean Booth, the family groundskeeper, just hopes he still has a home when all is said and done. 

But then the will is read and they learn that it’s much more complicated than a simple vote. Until they unravel the mystery of what happened to Amanda, they can’t move forward. Any one of them could have done it, and all of them are hiding key pieces of the puzzle. Will they work together to solve the mystery, or will their suspicions and secrets finally tear the family apart? 

Review:

I’ve been of fan of the author for the past few years and I’m beginning to realize that she is one of those rare writers who gets better with each new book. There’s an assuredness to her writing style, that combined with her ability to come up with fresh and unique storylines always hooks me.

This is told via multiple perspectives, all the members of the MacAllister family and over the course of one weekend as they reunite at their families camp to hear what their parents will states. You also get several flashback chapters from Amanda from twenty years ago that slowly reveal what happened to her. Past and present timelines usually work well for me and CMK is especially skilled at slowly leading the reader down one path only to throw you off course several times before the end.

This family is pretty damn dysfunctional and I can’t say that I truly liked any of them but damn were they interesting! They all had tons of secrets and none were very close to each other making it very hard to guess where loyalties lied. Since the whole book is set at Camp it had a really cool locked room vibe, really atmospheric, not necessarily super creepy, but definitely a strong sense of place that added to the tension of the plot. The end was super solid with lots of surprises and I was super satisfied!

I’ll Never Tell in three words: Clever, Atmospheric and Complex

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: May 28, 2019

Publisher: Park Row

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

Who can you trust if you don’t know who you are? She arrives at the train station only to realize her bag had been stolen–her passport, credit cards, laptop, house key now all gone. And even more disturbing, when she goes to report the incident, she can’t recall her own name. All she has on her is a train ticket home.Suffering from stress-induced amnesia, the woman without a name is a source of mystery when she appears at the sleepy Wiltshire village where she thought she lived. She quickly becomes a source of conspiracy and fear among the townspeople. Why does one think he recognizes her from years earlier? And why do the local police take such a strong interest in her arrival?From the critically acclaimed author of Find Me comes a shocking new tale of dark pasts and deception, leaving us breathlessly analyzing the role memory plays in defining who we are–and who others think we might be. 

Review:

I’ve been in a weird reading mood lately y’all, I’m either absolutely raving about a book and pushing everyone to read it or I hate it and am pissy. Just wanted to put that out there before I get started on my thoughts about this one because unfortunately this one fell on the the I didn’t like it all side of things 🤷‍♀️

I’m not going to sit here and completely bash this one but I do wanna quickly share why it didn’t work for me. I wasn’t invested in the characters and I think it’s partly because there were way too many of them and none were fully fleshed out. They were very one dimensional to me and I just didn’t really care what happened to them in the end. I also felt like it was longer than it needed to be and I really had to push myself to finish, and I’m talking once I got to like eighty percent. That’s never a good sign for me, usually when I’m reading a thriller the ending is where I’m hooked and don’t want to put it down and I didn’t feel like that here at all. The plot itself was fine, at least most of it but I did find certain aspects to be far fetched and just highly unbelievable. Overall I just didn’t care for this one, the characters, the writing, the story, I was very apathetic about the whole thing and I can’t say I recommend it.

Overall rating: 2/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

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Release date: May 28, 2019

Publisher: Scribner

Genre: Literary Fiction

Blurb:

A profoundly moving novel about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, a tragedy that reverberates over four decades, and the power of forgiveness.

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are two NYPD rookies assigned to the same Bronx precinct in 1973. They aren’t close friends on the job, but end up living next door to each other outside the city. What goes on behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the stunning events to come.

Ask Again, Yes by award-winning author Mary Beth Keane, is a beautifully moving exploration of the friendship and love that blossoms between Francis’s youngest daughter, Kate, and Brian’s son, Peter, who are born six months apart. In the spring of Kate and Peter’s eighth grade year a violent event divides the neighbors, the Stanhopes are forced to move away, and the children are forbidden to have any further contact.

But Kate and Peter find a way back to each other, and their relationship is tested by the echoes from their past. Ask Again, Yes reveals how the events of childhood look different when reexamined from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace, and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace. 

Review:

There has been so much positive buzz surrounding this book and I was SO excited when it was finally time for me to start reading it but, unpopular opinion alert, I didn’t love it as much as I was hoping to. There definitely is quite a lot to love about this one but unfortunately for me there was also enough that didn’t work for me that I can’t truly say I’m a fan.

For the first half of the book I was pretty well invested, the writing is fantastic, no doubt the author is talented, and the storyline itself while not necessarily gripping, had me interested for sure. I really liked that we followed two families over several decades and the character development was very strong, I think it was maybe a little too strong for me actually. Often I struggle with literary fiction, it’s sometimes too heavy and dense for me and while that wasn’t my exact issue here, I’m beginning to think that maybe LF in general just isn’t for me. I didn’t find the writing style to be too verbose or over the top like I sometimes feel, however I did find myself start to lose interest at the halfway point and I think at least part of the reason why is because it started to feel like things were dragging, almost at a standstill for me. I really and truly had to push myself to finish and maybe I should’ve just set it aside because it was a struggle form halfway to the end. But after spending quite a bit of time getting to the middle point I stubbornly refused to set it aside, I figured I could power through and honestly that wasn’t a smart decision.

I’m clearly in the minority on this one, just browse Goodreads or Instagram and you’ll see plenty of rave reviews so if you’re interested in this one please take my thoughts with a grain of salt. I’ve been struggling in general lately with quite a few books, clearly I’m moody and super picky right now so keep that in mind while deciding whether or not to read this one.

Overall rating: Between a 2.5-3 for me I can’t actually decide but I always round up so let’s just call it a 3 and move on 😂

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: May 7, 2019

Publisher: Lake Union

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Blurb:

It was to be the perfect wedding—until the bride disappeared.

Annie Taft’s wedding is four days away, and it will be one of the grandest anyone can remember in her small South Carolina town. Preparations are in order. Friends and family are gathering in anticipation. Everything is going according to plan. Except that Annie herself has vanished. Did she have second thoughts?

Or has something much worse happened to the bride-to-be?

As the days pass, the list of suspects in her disappearance grows. Could it be the recently released man a young Annie misidentified as her mother’s killer? Could it be someone even closer to her?

While her loved ones frantically try to track her down, they’re forced to grapple with their own secrets—secrets with the power to reframe entire relationships, leaving each to wonder how well they really knew Annie and how well they know themselves.

Review:

What is it about small southern towns that appeals to me so greatly?! Throw in a light mystery and a whole bunch of secrets and I’m all in!

The characters are the driving force in this, much as was the case in her previous book, When We Were Worthy, and there’s just something about a character driven tale that speaks to me in a deep way. This one focuses a lot on community and how people come together and support each other during hard times and there are several perspectives that offer you a birds eye POV of what’s really going on in the town, and there is an awful going on. My favorite two characters were Annie’s aunt Faye and her cousin Clary, Faye was larger than life and so loving and Clary was quirky and wildly unique.

This starts out on the slower side but if you look at it like a slow unraveling of both the book itself and the mystery, I think you’ll be satisfied in the end because I sure was. Recommended to fans of character driven stories about life during hard times told with plenty of heart.

Only Ever Her in three words: Heartfelt, Endearing and Subtle

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: May 21, 2019

Publisher: Lake Union

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Blurb:

to fear.

Raymond Jaffe feels like he doesn’t belong. Not with his mother’s new family. Not as a weekend guest with his father and his father’s wife. Not at school, where he’s an outcast. After his best friend moves away, Raymond has only two real connections: to the feral cat he’s tamed and to a blind ninety-two-year-old woman in his building who’s introduced herself with a curious question: Have you seen Luis Velez?

Mildred Gutermann, a German Jew who narrowly escaped the Holocaust, has been alone since her caretaker disappeared. She turns to Raymond for help, and as he tries to track Luis down, a deep and unexpected friendship blossoms between the two.

Despondent at the loss of Luis, Mildred isolates herself further from a neighborhood devolving into bigotry and fear. Determined not to let her give up, Raymond helps her see that for every terrible act the world delivers, there is a mirror image of deep kindness, and Mildred helps Raymond see that there’s hope if you have someone to hold on to.

Review:

If you’re searching for a book to give you all the feels and one that will also restore your faith in humanity my friends then look no further. I’ve become a super fan of CRH over the past few years and this is my favorite of hers to date. Well, of the ones I’ve actually read because have you seen her backlist?! Impressive. But seriously, this is a special book and one that I won’t soon forget.

The driving force behind what makes a CRH fantastic is the incredible characterization, no doubt about it. She also has an incredible knack for telling stories about unlikely friendships that will tug at your heartstrings like no other and this was no exception. Raymond is a teenaged kid who I wanted to mother myself after just a few pages, this kid 😍 He is not your typical boy, he’s more mature and self aware than many adults, the kind of kid that would make every parent extremely proud, except for his own parents, which is such a shame. Millie lives in the same building as Raymond and the relationship between these two was beautiful and just so so special. What could a ninety year old and a sixteen year old possibly have in common? You’ll have to read yourself to truly understand, but the short answer is they have just enough in common to forge an amazing bond.

Yet another one of my favorite things about CRH is her ability to address current societal issues head on, but at the same time she’s not pushing a personal agenda or shoving things in the readers face. She’s exploring problematic issues in a sensitive and respectful manner and she always makes me think. As always this would be ideal for a book club or a buddy read, there is much to discuss, I know I’ve been dying to talk about this one with someone since I’ve finished! (If you’ve read it please let me know) Highly recommended by me, really to anyone who just likes a really well written and engaging story!

Have You Seen Luis Velez? in three words: Moving, Encouraging and Special.

Overall rating: 5/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

Goodreads|Amazon

Release date: April 23, 2019

Publisher: Thomas and Mercer

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Blurb:

She can’t ignore a cry for help. But in this remote hunting town, it’s open season.

Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option. Not when her only mission is to create a normal life for her kids.

But now, a threatened woman has reached out. Marlene Crockett, from the remote town of Wolfhunter, is panicked for herself and her daughter. When Gwen arrives in the small, isolated rural community, Marlene is already dead—her own daughter blamed for the murder. Except that’s not the person Marlene feared at all. And Gwen isn’t leaving until she finds out who that was.

But it may already be too late. A trap has been set. And it’s poised to snap shut on everyone Gwen loves. Her stalkers are closing in. And in a town as dark as Wolfhunter, it’s so easy for them to hide…

Review:

This is the third book in a series so if you haven’t read the first two yet don’t read this review because there will be spoilers for the first two books! I obviously won’t spoil anything in this installment but just wanted to give you guys a heads up just in case.

After the way the last book ended I wasn’t sure exactly what would be next for Gina and her family, there was no big cliffhanger ending or a bunch of loose ends, which meant that this one could go in basically any direction. Well, I loved the direction that Caine went here, and while this had a slightly different feeling than the previous books, I still enjoyed it immensely. Gwen still finds herself and her kids in danger, maybe not as imminent as in the past, but being stalked and threatened by people online is no walk in the park. So while things aren’t quite as tense as usual, there is definitely still an element of danger lurking and that great tension that the author is so good at creating.

Per usual I won’t be diving too deep into plot details because it’s best for it to all unfold for you, but I was really pleased by how things ended and also the journey to get there. There is something exciting about the possibilities ahead for these characters that I’ve come to really like and care about that makes me super anxious to see play out in book four and yes, there will be a fourth book! So far it just has a title, Bitter Falls and no synopsis but who cares?! I’m in! I can totally recommend this series thus far, it’s fun, fast paced and entertaining and I can also vouch for the audiobooks, they’re excellent!

Wolfhunter River in three words: Entertaining, Fast and Exciting

Overall rating: 4/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.

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Release date: May 28, 2019

Publisher: MIRA

Genre: Fiction

Blurb:

How far would you go to protect the ones you love…when they may not be yours to protect?

When Josh’s longtime partner, Grace, dies in a tragic accident, he is left with a mess of grief—and full custody of her seven-year-old son, Logan. While not his biological father, Josh has been a dad to Logan in every way that counts, and with Grace gone, Logan needs him more than ever.

Wanting to do right by Logan, Josh begins the process of becoming his legal guardian—something that seems suddenly urgent, though Grace always brushed it off as an unnecessary formality. But now, as Josh struggles to find the paperwork associated with Logan’s birth, he begins to wonder whether there were more troubling reasons for Grace’s reluctance to make their family official.

As he digs deeper into the past of the woman he loved, Josh soon finds that there are many dark secrets to uncover, and that the truth about where Logan came from is much more sinister than he could have imagined…

Tightly paced and brimming with tension, Her Secret Son is a heartbreakingly honest portrait of a family on the edge of disaster and a father desperate to hold on to the boy who changed his life. 

Review:

I think my expectations for what this book would be weren’t accurate at all and it unfortunately made this one not the best for me in the end. I always talk about how having the right expectations about a book before picking it up helps me SO much and I really wish I would’ve known before I started this that it’s not a thriller at all, the authors last book, The Neighbors was a thriller and I stupidly assumed this would be as well. At best I would say this is a suspense, but really it’s more of a family drama with a mystery. All of that to say, had I known all of this beforehand I think I would’ve enjoyed this one more so take my thoughts knowing that my expectations affected my opinions.

Through the first half of this one I was totally sucked in, it begins when Grace dies and Josh is left to pick up the pieces. I loved the premise, the idea that after his girlfriend dies he begins to find out there is much that he didn’t know about her past and how the secrets she was keeping would effect their son as well. When Josh began to search for answers I was invested, I too was interested in what Grace had been hiding and how this would all make it harder for him to become Logan’s legal guardian. I wouldn’t necessarily say this was fast paced, but it was steady and engaging enough to keep me flipping the pages.

The second half of the story is where things started to fall apart a little for me. I can’t say too much for fear of spoilers but the direction it took was far fetched and a touch dramatic. I was still on board though, I figured the ending would be strong and it would all make sense for me but then that ended up being a little off for me as well. Was it surprising? Sure, but in a ridiculous way that just didn’t sit well with me. Look, it wasn’t incredibly stupid or anything, it just didn’t totally make sense to me, that’s all. I will say the author is a great writer and I’ll definitely be reading anything else she comes up with next, I just don’t think this was the right one for me.

Overall rating: 3/5

Thanks to the publisher for my review copy.