Southern by Design by Grace Helena Walz

 In the debut novel by Grace Helena Walz, Magnolia "Mack" Bishop is Southern by Design as she navigates Bishop Builds, her home preservation design firm in Charleston, South Carolina. Mack’s marriage is in a state of dissolution after her husband sent a body part photo of himself to another woman.

 

Though Mack’s firm misses out on a prestigious fellowship for historic preservation, she does secure a new design job thanks to her mother Magnolia Sr., a force to be reckoned with as she has always tried to control Mack’s life including pushing for a match with the husband Mack is now divorcing. Better than the design project is the opportunity it presents for a shot at a home improvement TV show, something Magnolia Sr. has no control over whatsoever, though she would like to be a co-host.

 

Her love life might be looking up as Mack takes a chance on an old love who returns to Charleston when she is in the thick of designing a wide Georgian mansion with a double porch. If left to romance on her own terms instead of a push from her mother, Mack would have married Lincoln Kelly 15 years ago before he left Charleston for a career in New York City. He is back in town with a young son, and Mack has some big decisions to make.

 

This contemporary romance comes out February 11, just in time for Valentine’s Day.

 

Grace Helena Walz received a master’s in social work at the University of Houston and worked with children in foster care, as a medical social worker, and in a mental health capacity.  She resides outside of Atlanta with her family.

 

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting January 3, 2025.

I would like to thank Harper Muse, an imprint of HarperCollins Focus LLC, and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review. I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

The Kennedy Girl by Julia Bryan Thomas

 Mia Walker, dubbed The Kennedy Girl in the historical fiction novel by Julia Bryan Thomas due out January 14, admires the style of Jackie Kennedy, the wife of the United States president. While Mia would love to fill her closet with the fashions of the 1960s, her bakery job does not support that dream.

When a stranger offers Mia a modeling job in Paris, she ponders the proposal before flying to Paris and becoming an employee at the House of Rousseau, where she learns about the world of fashion from the ground up.

As she adjusts to life in Paris where she does photoshoots and runway walks, she finds it odd but does not question it when her employer gives her cryptic messages to deliver to various people at special events. When she meets a man who is an agent for the United States government, she learns she has unknowingly become part of an espionage ring, which is breaking the law.

What can Mia do to clear her name? How will she be able to refuse when she is given the next bit of information to pass long and still keep her modeling gig? How much danger is Mia in?

Born and raised in Tulsa, Julia Bryan Thomas  grew up studying literature. A graduate of Northeastern State University and the Yale Writers’ Workshop, she is married to mystery novelist Will Thomas.

 

The Story She Left Behind by Patti Callahan Henry

 Inspired by the story of a real writer who wrote her first book at age 12 and created words of her own like British authors Roald Dahl invented Gobblefunk and J.R.R. Tolkien developed Elvish, Patti Callahan Henry’s latest book is The Story She Left Behind coming out March 18.

Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham created a dictionary of her invented words and took it with her when she abandoned her family--never to be heard from again--after a fire in their home injured her daughter Clara in 1927 in Bluffton, South Carolina. Shattered by the loss of her mother, Clara has become an illustrator of children’s books as she raises her own daughter, 8-year-old Wynnie, in Clara’s childhood home where her father still lives.

Bronwyn left behind a sequel to her work but without the dictionary of created words, little hope remained for ever translating it. In 1952, Clara is contacted by a stranger in London who claims to having found her mother’s handwritten dictionary in his late father’s home. Charlie Jameson says there are instructions that Clara must pick up an envelope addressed to her in person, prompting a getaway to London for Clara and Wynnie.

Unfortunately, London is experiencing the Great Smog, attacking Wynnie’s asthmatic lungs. Charlie whisks them away to his family home in the Lake District of England, right down the road from Beatrix Potter’s home. Clara gets more than the envelope and the dictionary: a chance to discover what happened to her mother and the story she left behind.

Patti Callahan Henry, a former pediatric nurse, is a co-creator and co-host of the weekly Facebook podcast Friends and Fiction. She won the 2019 Christy Award for Christian Fiction for her book Becoming Mrs. Lewis, a historical fiction novel. A full-time author, wife, and mother of three, she has homes in both Alabama and South Carolina.

The Jackal's Mistress by Chris Bohjalian

Chris Bohjalian’s latest novel, The Jackal's Mistress, has its roots in the Civil War when a Vermont Lieutenant left to die in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was nursed back to health by a Confederate soldier’s wife. This March 11 offering has taken the seed of that fact, budding into a tense historical fiction novel.

Libby Steadman has been keeping the home fires burning after her husband Peter left to serve the Confederate cause, even though he had freed his own slaves after taking over the farm from his father. While Libby clings to the hope that Peter will return, she knows that he was captured by the Union Army at Gettysburg, his future in limbo.

When her servant Sally, a freed slave, discovers Captain Jonathan Weybridge, left for dead in a neighbor’s vacant house, Libby and her servant Joseph manage to get him to Libby’s house where she nurses his amputated leg and his missing fingers. Of course, this is treason, and if the Confederate Army learns she abetted an enemy, she could be put to death along with her servants. Her goal is to restore his health in order that she may return him to the Union in exchange for her husband.

Libby and Joseph keep the gristmill going, providing food requisitioned by the Confederate Army, visited from time to time by soldiers looking for Billy Yanks. So far, they have been able to hide Weybridge, nicknamed The Jackal by her niece Jubilee who lives with Libby since her mother is dead and her father is off fighting for the South. But what might happen if--worse, when--the Rebels catch Libby off guard, finding the rumored Union captain? Already the farm has been visited numerous times, soldiers taking food and livestock, leaving Libby with little to feed herself, her niece, and her servants.

Chris Bohjalian always spins a remarkable story, and The Jackal’s Mistress does not disappoint. The author has already seen four of his books turned into movies, and he writes plays as well as novels. He enjoyed success with his book The Flight Attendant that became a series for HBO. Bohjalian lives in Vermont with his wife, photographer Victoria Blewer.

My review will be posted on Goodreads starting November 4, 2024.

I would like to thank Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.

 

Blood Moon by Sandra Brown

 When Beth Collins, a senior producer in New York on a true crime show, has a theory about the murder of a teenager that occurred more than three years ago in Auclair, Louisiana, during a blood moon, Detective John Bowie shrugs off her idea in Blood Moon by Sandra Brown coming out March 4. Most important, if Beth is right, the two must work together to prevent another young woman from disappearing during the next blood moon…in four days.

Bowie is still smarting over the investigation of Crissy Mellin’s disappearance that was derailed by his corrupt boss, who is being interviewed for Beth’s show, “Crisis Point”. Bowie has been commanded to keep to himself his criticisms about how poorly the investigation was handled. The more Bowie follows Beth’s lead about the timing of blue moons and murders, the more determined he is to go rogue and partner with three other police agencies who have had murders during a blue moon.

The cop and the producer race to pool the clues they have gathered to find the murderer before he acts again. At the same time, they are on the run from the dirty cops who want to silence the pair before they spoil everything for Bowie’s nemesis.

Publishing since 1981, Sandra Brown has written more than 70 novels. She is primarily a writer of romantic suspense with detailed sex scenes, with Blood Moon no exception.  Brown has also written historical fiction about the Great Depression, titled Rainwater.  Four of this native Texan’s books have been adapted to film.

 

Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister

 Two bodies still unidentified seven years after the crime, their hostage taker still in the wind: thus begins Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister due out February 25. Camilla Deschamps has become a single mother of a 9-month-old child with her husband Luke, likely now a murderer and nowhere to be found.

After seven years and no word from Luke—is he dead or alive?—Camilla seeks to have him declared dead so that she and little Polly can leave their house and start life anew in a different place. She has gone back to using her maiden name in her job as a literary agent. Yet, she has not forgotten the love she shared with Luke, keeping his cell phone in service so she can call and hear his voice.

One day she gets a cryptic message with coordinates and a time that take her to a street in Central London. However, the police, who have been monitoring Cam’s life all this time, have intercepted and altered the message, making her an hour late to the street, while a detective has already been there, evidently scaring away whoever sent the text to Cam.

Cam’s sister Libby has been pushing Cam to move on so she is dating a colleague from work but is he who he says he is? Who is the dark figure caught by her motion detector in the back yard? What is the possibility that it was Luke who sent the coordinates, and he is alive? Why can’t Cam give up on Luke since it seems he became a criminal?

British-born Gillian McAllister has had her seven novels translated into 40 languages with several optioned for television and film. She is also the creator and co-host of the popular Honest Authors podcast. She lives in Birmingham, England.

What the Nanny Saw by Kaira Rouda

 In the latest psychological thriller by Kaira Rouda, What the Nanny Saw, an unreliable narrator in the form of a nanny stretches the series that started with Best Day Ever with the narcissistic character Paul Strom. Strom’s role in this book is more behind-the-scenes than as a player, and instead, the soon-to-be ex-wife Cecilia Strom  takes center stage in this novel coming out November 13.

Cecilia has rebuilt her life after removing Paul from it but she is a new mother who is still recovering from spinal injuries she suffered before the pregnancy. She was building a new life with a new man but he takes a long time-out once baby Peyton has made her debut. Cecilia is exhausted because the baby’s father Evan not only doesn’t lift a hand, but he has also moved on with another lover. It’s out with Evan and in with the nanny Lizzie so that Cecilia can get her life back and enjoy her baby.

All of this plays out with Paul in jail but he’s still communicating, unwelcomely, with Cecilia, letting her know he is not interested in divorce but he looks forward to when he is out of jail and can spend their money together. Dealing with exhaustion, Cecilia must battle the enemy she knows as well as the enemy she does not yet know.

Cecilia’s attorney vetted the newcomer to the household but not all is as it seems. Cecilia becomes suspicious of the nanny, and she takes it upon herself to investigate Lizzie’s room where she discovers enough to realize Lizzie is not the God-send she thought she was. When little Peyton disappears from her crib, Cecelia is beside herself as the story plays out.

A master of the psychological thriller, Kaira Rouda is a writer of suspense novels that explore “beneath the surface of seemingly perfect lives.”  She lives in Southern California with her family and is always at work on her next novel.

My review will be posted on GoodReads starting October 23, 2024.

I would like to thank Bookouture and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in return for an objective review.