In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

I remember the first time I was asked this question in a job interview: where do you see yourself in five years? I didn't really have a five year plan, never have. I had more of a lifetime plan in a general sense. In Five Years by Rebecca Serle, Dannie has a five-year plan nailed down to the final details. What she couldn't plan for is that life doesn't always go the way you expect it to.

This turns out to be a love story, but not in the way I expected. When I saw the Romance genre sticker on the spine, I was disappointed because I'm not particulary a Romance reader.  However, I wasn't the least disappointed with the book.

Those of us who have lifelong girlfriends (that sounds like the wrong word, but it is the right one) are very, very lucky. Those who don't have a good girlfriend are sorely missing something in their lives.

This is my first encounter with Rebecca Serle but I do think I will check out her other adult novel, The Dinner List.

Playing Nice by JP Delaney

Unputdownable! That is the only way to describe the psychological thriller Playing Nice by JP Delaney. Two babies swapped at birth, one brained damaged, the other a real handful. Two sets of parents, as different as night and day.

Pete and Maddie, an unmarried but committed couple, are raising Theo, a two-year-old kicked out of nursery school for hitting other children. Miles and Lucy, a married couple, are coping with David and his various health needs with the aid of a full-time nanny. Both children have been born prematurely.

When Miles finds out that David is not his biological son after DNA testing reveals a defective gene that neither he nor Lucy has, he goes on a mission to find and reclaim his biological son, Theo. Anyone who gets in Miles’ way in the course of the book is suspiciously involved in a hit and run accident.

Miles first cons Pete and Maddie to go after the hospital for a lucrative settlement for negligence, before his real intent is determined: to have custody of both boys. Pete and Maddie play by all the rules but at each turn, Miles has been ahead of them in his ghastly plans.

JP Delaney has absolutely infuriated me with the character Miles – he’s that good of a writer. The story was compelling as were the previous Delaney books I’ve read: The Girl Before, Believe Me, The Perfect Wife.

JP Delaney, a pseudonym, was born in Uganda. Educated at St Peter’s College, Oxford, he graduated with a First in English Literature. He has also written books under the names Tony Strong and Anthony Capella. Married to a pig farmer, he is the father of four.

What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand

What Happens in Paradise by Elin Hilderbrand is a welcome follow-up to the initial book in this series, Winter in Paradise, a story that unfolds about a Iowa family with a cheating husband and a secret second family in the Caribbean. Irene Steele and her sons Baker and Cash have returned home to Iowa City after visiting St. John Island where they have scattered the ashes of her husband Russell who was killed in a helicopter crash along with his mistress Rosie Small, leaving their love child Maia an orphan. Each of the Steeles need a fresh start after the shock of Russell’s demise and secret life, and though they choose diverse paths, they all end up back at Russell’s 15 million dollar villa in St. John. Both Baker and Cash are drawn back to the island by an infatuation for the same woman, Ayers, Rosie’s best friend. Irene yearns for the peace of the island and the friendship of Captain Huck, Rosie’s step-father. Readers can count on Hilderbrand to accent her romantic and dramatic stories with all the tropical details of sun, sand, and water; it’s what makes her the queen of the beach reads. The multiple plots will keep readers turning pages to get to the climactic cliff-hanger ending, leaving them hungry for the conclusion of the Steeles’ story.. I highly recommend this book to Elin Hilderbrand fans as everything she writes is gold. This second installment in Paradise is rich and rewarding and will leave readers hungering for the final installment in this trilogy. For readers who like beach reads with intricate plots and a bit ofmystery, this series is for them. (less)

flagcomment · see review

Lost You by Haylen Beck

A psychological thriller about a woman desperate to have a child but can't and a woman who is Lost You by Haylen Beck is a psychological thriller about a woman desperate to have a child but can't and a woman who is interested in being a surrogate...until she's not.

Being a mother myself, I could not put this book down until I finished it. Libby and Ethan are taking a vacation after Libby just sold her first novel. A single mother after she and her husband split, Libby is constantly on edge, looking over her shoulder, panicking 24/7 about Ethan and his whereabouts.

There is a mystery about Ethan’s birth, and Libby has never revealed it to anyone.

The worst happens when Ethan wanders into an elevator before Libby can catch up with him. In heart-stopping panic after the doors open and Ethan is not there, Libby is frantic. Many grueling hours later, Ethan is seen with a woman who is confronted by police. Who is she? She says she is Ethan’s mother.

The suspense of this novel has made me a Haylen Beck fan, and I am in the process of reading everything he has written. Beck, the pseudonym for the Edgar Award-nominated author Stuart Neville, has written a psychological suspense that I could not put down. I have to plan to read his work in one setting.

I highly recommend this book to those who like psychological thrillers that twist, turn, and shock so that you cannot put them down until you finish even if it is 3 o’clock in the morning and you have to get up at 6 a.m. to go to work.

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis

The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis intrigued me because the setting was the New York Public Library, that iconic building with the lion statues at one time named Leo Astor and Leo Lenox. The fictional story is about the superintendent, Jack Lyons, and his family who lived in the seven-room apartment contained within the library (the apartment was a residence for the library superintendent when it was built in 1911) and book thefts that occurred during the time they lived there.

Intertwined with the historical plot line is a story set in 1993 in which Sadie Donovan, a library curator, is working diligently on an exhibit of the Berg Collection, a real segment of the NYPL, while being thwarted by a book thief. The two plots come together in a creative way, solving both mysteries about the book thefts.

[Rant: While I have enjoyed a couple other of her books about historical buildings, I was turned off when a lesbian subplot developed. There was no clue about this in any summary I read, and I do not believe the plot hinged on this aspect in any way. I often wonder if this is the book publishing industry’s agenda to incorporate as many homosexual aspects into fiction as possible. I, for one, am weary of it. Rant over]

Fiona Davis is a Canadian-born author who has developed a specialty in writing historical fiction set in famous buildings in New York City. She began her career in NYC as an actress. Upon earning a master’s at Columbia Journalism school, her writing career has embraced both journalism and fiction.

You Are Not Alone by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen

First of all, I really enjoy psychological thrillers. However, this one just didn't hold my interest...I put it down more times than I can count. In the end, it has a good twist of an ending...it just seemed to be lacking in the middle. The Wife Between Us, an earlier book by by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen, was as exciting as Gone Girl but a bit muddled in the beginning. Their 2019 endeavor, An Anonymous Girl, was better although I found the ending too pat. I will continue to read their offerings.

Light Changes Everything by Nancy E. Turner

Author Nancy E. Turner is back with her latest, Light Changes Everything. I so enjoyed her Sarah Prine series: These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901; Sarah's Quilt, and The Star Garden. The protagonist in the new book is Sarah’s niece, Mary Pearl.

Mary Pearl and her sister Esther live not far from Aunt Sarah Prine’s ranch in the Arizona Territory. In the summer of 1907, the nieces are reading banned Jane Austen novels from Aunt Sarah’s library, and they are dreaming of marrying a rich suitor to make their lives complete.

Fast forward to reality: Esther is dead and buried, and Mary Pearl has been proposed to by rich lawyer Aubrey Hanna. Mary Pearl has enough of Sarah Prine in her to want to go her own way, that way being to attend Wheaton College in Chicago, where she will study art and photography. She considers herself engaged to Aubrey, but he is going to have to wait for her to finish school.

At Wheaton, Mary Pearl learns how to draw and take photographs, but she also learns how to act and dress like a lady. She makes a life-long friend in Prairie Longmore, a rich young woman who shares Mary Pearl’s passion for horses.

In a turn of events, Mary Pearl finds herself jilted by Aubrey so he can marry her sister Rachel. Things go downhill from that point with Mary Pearl facing one hurdle after another including a personal life-changing event and a close call when attempting to rescue her two younger brothers from kidnappers.

In the face of adversity, Mary Pearl accepts taking her licks and moving on…but will she have to? Will she find her own Mr. Right or is she destined to face the world on her own?

Nancy E. Turner is a Texan living in Arizona, that state about which she has often written. She has a degree in Fine Arts from the University of Arizona with a triple major in creative writing, music, and studio art. It is good to see her back with a book that includes Sarah Prine as one of the characters as she unveils a new main character in Mary Pearl Prine.

Creatures by Crissy Van Meter

Creatures by Crissy Van Meter is another one of those childhood-upbringing stories in which the mother leaves and the father stays. While Evie is shaped by the dysfunction of her family, she does love her itinerant, druggie father and is so in need of her on-again off-again mother to love her. Does insecurity and abandonment shape how she looks at her world? Most definitely.

Evie tells her story, moving back and forth on the timeline, in this character-driven novel. Set on a Catalina-like island off the coast of Los Angeles, Evie is about to walk down the aisle as the story opens only to have a dead whale beach itself within smelling distance of her home,  her mostly absent mother show up unannounced, and her fiancé Liam seemingly missing at sea.

Winter Island has been her home all her life, a place where she mostly raised herself living off the money her father made dealing in Winter Wonderland marihuana. Sometimes without a home of their own, they shelter with various friends and lovers of her father. Throughout the story, the sea and the creatures living in it are the one constant Evie has leaned on.

The debut novel of Los Angeles-based writer Crissy Van Meter will be a must-read for those of us who find solace in stories about dysfunctional families and how they shape their offspring. We are not alone!

Van Meter teaches creative writing at The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College.

The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin

The Little Bookshop on the Seine by Rebecca Raisin is a light-hearted read about two bookshop owners who decide to trade spaces for six months. Sarah Smith, from small town Ashford, Connecticut, heads to Paris to swap with her friend Sophie. Sarah yearns to go to Paris, and Sophie needs to escape a love affair gone sour.

Sarah’s journalist boyfriend Ridge Warner can rendezvous in Paris just as easily as in Ashford with his jet-setting freelance job. However, his endeavors consume so much time and energy, he can find little time for Sarah. Meanwhile in America, the community and Sarah’s friends embrace Sophie who heals her broken heart.

Beside man problems, Sarah deals with trouble at the bookshop on the Seine when the till is short over and over again, and the staff will not embrace a set work schedule. Soon sales plummet, and Sarah worries she is losing money for Sophie. On the other side of the ocean, Sophie has employed a number of business practices that are increasing Sarah’s business.

Will Sarah actually ever get out to see the sites in Paris or will she work non-stop trying to find the thief and bring some solidarity to the staff? Is Ridge The One or not? Is Paris all she thought it would be?

This is my first experience with author Rebecca Raisin, who pens Romance, Chick Lit, and Contemporary novels. With this book, she begins the The Little Paris Collection series.

Eden by Jamie Lisa Forbes

Eden by Jamie Lisa Forbes seems to be mistitled as this literary novel is a coming of age story about Rowen Hart. Eden herself presents a series of complications to his life early in the story and again later in life. Rowen and his mother Rita have been reduced to poverty after the suicide of his father. Rowen is only 18 during the 1950s in White Rock, North Carolina, when these circumstances make him the head of the household who must take care of his grieving mother. To make matters worse, Rita takes in Eden, a distant relative whose father was recently murdered. Rowen had been accepted to college and that was his path until all these obligations rained down on him.

Eventually, someone came along in his life who could give him direction. Claude Lowry was a neighbor who stopped to repair the gate to Rowen’s rundown home. He recognized that Rowen is a young man ill-equipped for his circumstances. He turns into a father figure who guides this naïve young man through life. Shed of Eden and now married to Juliette though his mother still lives with him, Rowen learns the construction trade under Claude’s guidance, and after his rightful inheritance comes to him, he eventually buys Claude’s business.

Rowen is still saddled with enormous responsibilities but better able now to deal with them but still, life is draining as he tries to meet everyone else’s needs. He has never forgotten about Eden, and she comes into his life again, only to cause more trouble. Her sad life leads to more complications in Rowen’s life, and he finds her and her family to be an added responsibility for him.

I enjoyed this character-driven novel and heartily felt Rowen’s frustrations as life weighed him down. This is an engaging read, quite thought provoking. Rowen and some of the choices he made will stay with me for some time.

This is my first encounter with author Jamie Lisa Forbes. It is her second novel. She was raised on a ranch on the Little Laramie River thirty miles west of Laramie, Wyoming. Currently she lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she is an attorney with another novel in progress.

The Wife Stalker by Liv Constantine

Oh, these clever, clever sisters who use the pen name of Liv Constantine in their latest psychological thriller The Wife Stalker! I fell for it! They sucked me in. Now I have to go back and reread this entire book to just see how they manipulated me. Like my reaction to Gone Girl (Gillian Flynn), I never saw the twist coming. This one will get the full 5 stars from me, which is not something I award often.

When lawyer Leo Drakos meets Piper Reynard, instant chemistry occurs. But what about Joanna who has been by Leo’s side for years and loves the children Evie and Stelli immensely? Not only does he cast Joanna aside for the gorgeous younger woman he has FALLEN for in just a matter of weeks, he eventually arranges things legally so Joanna can never see the children again.

It turns out that Piper seems to be just the thing to bring Leo out of a severe depression that has nearly DROWNED him. While Evie is a sweet, accepting little girl who warms up to Piper, Stelli is fighting her all the way, instead wanting his Mommy. Neither child wants their father to remarry.

When Joanna learns that not only one of Piper’s previous husbands died while married to her but her second husband and her stepdaughter died on her watch as well, Joanna goes all out to expose Piper for the murderer Joanna is convinced she is.

Plan to read this in one sitting as you will not be able to put it down until you find out what happens to Leo, Evie, and Stelli.

Sisters and best-selling authors Lynne Constantine and Valerie Constantine spend hours plotting their novels using Facebook and email as they live three states apart. This is the second book I’ve enjoyed by them, and I just put their 2019 title on hold at the library.

All Adults Here by Emma Straub

Had the description of All Adults Here by Emma Straub described the main characters as homosexual, bisexual, and transsexual, I would have not requested it as I am not the audience for this particular book. I found it to be short on plot and just a hot mess trying to say something about every current social issue from adultery to pedophilia. The message of the book is severely diluted with this everything-in-the-world approach.

The message does deal with an aging parent who realizes she made some mistakes parenting her children, and the outcome of their adulthood she struggles with, as do they.

While I found the book to be well written and heavy on detail, the plot only went from a to b. Tighter editing might have helped as there was a great deal of redundant verbiage. I found the same problem with her book Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures (2012).

Emma Straub and her husband own Books are Magic, which is an independent bookstore located in Brooklyn, New York.

More Than Love by Natasha Gregson Wagner

Natasha Gregson Wagner, daughter of actress Natalie Wood, has written More Than Love, the story of her mother’s life, her family, and her death. Natasha was 11-years-old when her mother drowned off Catalina Island in 1981, and she has amazing recall of that dark time in her life. Her insight is like no other who has shared Natalie Wood’s biography.

“More than love” was a phrase Natalie and her husband Robert Wagner used instead of the more common “love you” because they thought their connection was more than love. The memoir is a strong defense for Wagner who has been accused from time to time regarding Wood’s death.

Readers get an insider’s look at what it was like to live with famous acting parents in Hollywood. Both blunt and heart-wrenching, the account sets straight the love affair between Wood and Wagner as witnessed by Natasha.

Natasha Gregson Wagner, an actress herself, has written a book that will be a must-have for Natalie Wood fans. I was impressed with the level of writing and insight presented therein.

 

The Perfect Widow by A.M. Castle

The Perfect Widow, by A.M. Castle, is Louise Bridges who doesn’t have a breakdown when PC Becca Holt makes her first notification of next of kin upon Patrick Bridges’ death in a fire. Instead, Louise tidies up, returns to preparing dinner for her children, fails to offer the police a cup of tea—just not the reaction Holt anticipates.

Louise Bridges is perfect. Perfect hair, perfect body, perfect house, perfect children, with a perfectly dead husband. On the other hand, Becca Holt is a bit dumpy, knowing she eats too many doughnuts and candy bars and disregards exercise. Holt’s partner attributes her suspicions about Mrs. Bridges to envy.

Patrick, however, is not perfect, having his first affair shortly after the birth of their first child. Over the course of the story, readers learn Patrick has many affairs, but Louise decides she will look the other way for her children’s sake.  

PC Holt continues to follow her suspicions, digging up Louise’s back story and searching through Patrick’s emails as well as suggesting to the insurance company that Patrick’s death might not have been accidental. Is she right? Is Louise a murderer or simply a perfect widow?

A.M. (Alice) Castle, formerly a newspaper feature writer, lives in London. Besides this first psychological thriller, she also writes novels, cozy crime mysteries, and whodunnits.

The Other Wife by Claire McGowan

The Other Wife by Claire McGowan is a psychological thriller that pits cheating spouses against their wronged partners. Suzi has been married to Nick for three years, and she has given him reasons to be jealous. Now she’s pregnant, not sure whether her husband or her lover Sean is the father, and she’s basically imprisoned in a cottage in a remote area near Kent, England, where Nick hopes to keep her faithful.

Nora has just moved next door, downsizing from a lovely home into a run-down rental cottage after the death of her husband, which has created a shortage in finances. Nora and Suzi strike up a friendship although each is cautious about revealing too much about their personal lives at first.

Then there’s Elle, who lives in a nice home in Guildford, where she waits anxiously for her doctor husband Patrick, who arrives home late most every night. Elle suspects there is another woman, and she worries constantly that he will leave her. She is about to come unraveled.

Not everybody in this novel is who they say they are, leading to deadly consequences for some.

Born in Ireland, Claire McGowan lives in London. She writes the “highly addictive” Paula McGuire series as well as her standalone thrillers.

She’s a total stranger. But she knows who you are… Suzi did a bad thing. She’s paying for it now, pregnant, scared, and living in an iso...

My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me by Jason Rosenthal

My Wife Said You May Want to Marry Me by Jason Rosenthal is a deeply personal account of his life with writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal, her death from ovarian cancer, and his grief experience. The title comes from an essay Amy wrote shortly before her death that gave him public permission to continue living his life.

This memoir is a candid look into the life of the Rosenthals, the home hospice experience with Amy, and how Jason and his children are continuing their lives. The book overflows with his deep love and devotion to his wife and their family.

At some point, a married couple is most likely to lose one of its members. Jason's book could be considered a self-help book as he encourages sharing grief and reaching out to others. He includes an excellent bibliography for additional bibliotherapy.

Jason Rosenthal is an author, Board Chair of the Amy Krouse Rosenthal Foundation, public speaker, and lawyer.

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict

Lady Clementine by Marie Benedict
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Marie Benedict seems to be gathering, one by one, some of the strongest women who ever lived to tell their stories. Lady Clementine (rhymes with Josephine) is her latest historical fiction that tells the story of the woman behind the man, in this case, Winston Churchill.

Clemmie was more than just a wife. She was her husband’s partner in all ways. The burden of her job as supportive wife came at a high cost: her nerves were often shattered, and she could not be the mother she wanted to be when having to fulfill the needs of her husband, most especially during two world wars.

She was so ambitious that she might have been the prime minister of England herself had she been born in a different time. Much like American first ladies have their niche while in the White House, Clementine found her own ways to be supportive of her husband’s mission. During WW II, for example, she completely reformed the nasty air raid shelters into something more hygienic and safer for those who needed shelter for as much as 14 hours a day from the bombings.

Marie Benedict’s subjects don’t always interest me, but her writing draws me in each time. While I tire of world war books, I found a different perspective of the war from one who lived through it.



View all my reviews