10.29.2019 - The Curious Heart of Ailsa Rae

So many heartfelt thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Griffin, and Stephanie Butland for the opportunity to read and review this wonderful book - 5 glowing stars!

Ailsa Rae, 28, has lived her life on the edge of dying - born with a heart condition and now on the heart transplant list.  Her  single mom has sheltered Ailsa and taken care of her - letting her spread her wings a bit to go to university but still always living at home when she wasn't in the hospital.  When her best friend/ex-boyfriend, Lennox, passes away, Ailsa is ready to give up.  Until she gets the call that a heart has been found for her.

Ailsa has been keeping an online blog of her health issues and once she's had her transplant and is at home recovering, she relies more and more on her blog community.  Never having been faced with a certain future before, Ailsa lets her readers make decisions for her through online polls. The stronger Ailsa gets, she starts pulling away from her mom, wants to find her biological father, and live on her own - which all cause issues.

Just a wonderfully-written novel that I couldn't put down.  I love the email/blog conversations and the quirkiness of it all.  Highly recommended!

10.27.2019 - The Patient

Many thanks to NetGalley, Lake. Union Publishing, and Steena Holmes for the opportunity to read her latest thriller.  I'm a fan of Holmes' writing and was excited to have this chance to read this book - and I wasn't disappointed even though I may have figured out a few plot twists.

Danielle is a therapist starting her practice in a new town.  She only has 3 patients now - Tyler, Savannah, and Ella - but she is starting to believe that one of them is a serial killer; she's just not sure which one.  The killer is striking in town with the same MO - killing parents and leaving a child alone.  The town is becoming scared.  Danielle's best friend, Tami, is a detective trying to solve the crimes and Danielle has expressed some of her fears about her patients, but not the complete story.

Best to say too little about this book to not spoil anything - it's a quick read because you'll want to figure out what's going on!

10.26.2019 - Before & After: The Incredible Real-life Stories of Orphans Who Survived the Tennessee Children's Home Society

Many thanks to NetGalley, Ballantine Books, Judy Christie and Lisa Wingate for the opportunity to read and review this nonfiction follow-up to Before We Were Yours, which was a fictionalized account of Georgia Tann's Tennessee Children's Home Society.  Tann ran a child-trafficking operation under the guises of an adoption agency/orphanage from the 1920s-1950s.

After the popularity of that book, people started contacting the author, Wingate, at book readings and by email to tell her their true stories.  One victim was driven to create a reunion of other victims in Memphis when Wingate was scheduled to appear at a book event.  With little time to prepare, Wingate brought in her friend and journalist, Judy Christie, to help her document the stories and pictures.  Little by little, things came together in extraordinary ways and gave these victims an opportunity to open up, some for the first time, and share their stories as well as ways to track down missing biological family members.

This book contains 15 different family stories - all heartbreaking but in the end filled with gratitude and blessings for the life that was theirs.  I also loved the author's thoughts that make the reader think about ways to move forward in our lives with more compassion and thoughtfulness.  A must read!

10.25.2019 - The Other Wife

Many thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer, and Claire McGowan for the opportunity to read and review her latest thriller - it will definitely keep you guessing.

Suzi and her husband, Nick, leave London after Suzi makes a lot of questionable decisions and her husband wants a new start.  However, the cottage they move to is very remote and Nick is very controlling, leaving Suzi desperate for company.  When a new neighbor, Nora, moves in, Suzi is excited to have a friend.  We also meet Elle, a woman trying to be the perfect wife, obsessed and fearful than her husband is seeing someone else.
Told in chapters featuring each of these women's points of view, we find out how alike they are - plus, the book opens with a dead body.

None of these characters are likable, and for some reason I had trouble keeping track of who was who.  But it was a fast-paced suspense read.

10.23.2019 - Twice in a Blue Moon

Many thanks to NetGalley, Gallery Books, and the writing duo Christina Lauren for the opportunity to read and review their latest novel.  I really enjoyed the Unhoneymooners - this latest book wasn't quite the same read for me but still a light, romantic novel with lots of feeling.

Tate Jones meets Sam Brandis while on a vacation in London with her over-protective grandmother and falls madly in love.  She put all her trust in Sam, confiding her family secret that she is the daughter of one of the most famous current Hollywood stars.  When he breaks that trust, her world is shattered.  Fourteen years later, Tate is following in her father's footsteps and is beginning to shoot a film that is destined to make her career.  Then she sees that the screenwriter is none other than her first love.

A nice romantic story filled with all those human emotions that go along with family, love, betrayal, forgiveness.

10.21.2019 - The Poison Garden

Thanks to NetGalley, Lake Union Publishing, and A.J. Banner for the opportunity to read her latest thriller.  I loved her previous books but this one wasn't as good to me as her others.  However, it was a quick read - under 300 pages - and kept me reading to see how it would turn out.  3.5 stars.

Elise Watters is happily married and approaching her first wedding anniversary.  Still grieving over the recent death of her mother, Elise gets a shock when she returns home that threatens her marriage and possibly her life.  Known for sleepwalking, Elise isn't sure if what is happening is paranoia, reality or something even worse.

The plot was just a bit too far fetched from reality for me to really lose myself in this book.

10.20.2019 - All This Could Be Yours

Many thanks to NetGalley, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, and Jami Attenberg for the opportunity to read and review her latest novel - 5 stars for a great read about a family and all its dysfunctional ways.

Victor is the head of his family but he's not a nice man.  His business is built on criminal ways, he's unfaithful to his wife, and is physically abusive with her and their two children.  His wife, Barbra, puts up with his behavior because she gets something out of it - money and the freedom to do what she wants.  Never maternal with the children, Alex & Gary, who grew up not liking their absent father.  Alex gets a call from Barbra that Victor is on his deathbed and wants the children to come.  Alex goes to New Orleans not to be with her dad but to hopefully uncover the true reasons behind the marriage dysfunction that shaped her life.

Set on one day on Victor's death watch, each chapter gives us a view into lots of different characters both in the immediate family as well as outside that circle, all providing more to the story about how dysfunction carries down into the generations and how to stop it.   I loved the truth that poured off these pages into the messy feelings that go along with family and relationships.  Great New Orleans setting as well - the heat and humidity felt so real.

Highly recommended - another winner from Jami Attenberg!

10.18.2019 - Close to You

Many thanks to NetGalley, Bookouture, and Kerry Wilkinson for the opportunity to read and review his latest thriller - my heart was in my throat a few times while reading this book!

This story is told in the present time as well as in the past (The Why).  We know from the beginning that Morgan killed her husband David over two years ago.  She has gotten away with it and moved on with her life.  Her personal training business has taken off and she is at an award ceremony with her best friend, Jane.  When she is at home later and looking at pictures, she is shocked to see David in the background of one of the pictures.  But it can't be - she knows she killed him.  Things go steadily wrong for Morgan after that until she is questioning everything and everyone.

Enough said - you need to read this one yourself for the full roller coaster ride experience!

10.17.2019 - Olive, Again

Many thanks to NetGgalley, Random House, and Elizabeth Strout for the opportunity to read this wonderful novel, a follow-up to her Pulitzer Price winning book, Olive Kitteridge.  5 glorious stars for the chance to spend time again with Olive!

Olive is now in her 70s, her first husband has died, she is estranged from her son, and she is lonely.  But she's still Olive - brutally honest and very opinionated.  Each chapter centers on another character with ties to Crosby, Maine, but Olive always makes an appearance to string the entire book together.  We watch as Olive grows older and has to navigate a world that is increasingly harder for her.

I just loved this book and could see both myself, my children and parents in this book.  It will give you insight to all generations and maybe make you think just a bit how small interactions can make big differences.  Highly recommended!

10.15.2019 - When She Returned

Many thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and Lucinda Berry for the opportunity to read her latest psycho9logical thriller.  I loved this one - 4.5 stars for a thrilling read.

Kate Bennett vanished from a Target parking lot, leaving her purse and phone behind as well as her husband and young daughter, Abbi.  Searches turned up nothing.  Kate had been investigating Love International, an organization that promised to help addicts, when she disappeared but there was never any connection found.  Fast forward 11 years, Kate has been declared dead and her husband Scott remarried Meredith.  Abbi's only real recollections of her mom come from all the stories her dad shared with her.  Then a phone call saying that Kate has been found in Montana with an infant turns everyone's world around.

Told from Kate's point of view in the past, and from Meredith and Abbi in the present time, this book brings up so many interesting topics - how does everyone now relate when Kate is back in the household?  What secrets is everyone not sharing?

10.13.2019 - I Will Make You Pay

Many thanks to NetGalley, Thomas & Mercer and Teresa Driscoll for the opportunity to read her latest psychological thriller - 4.5 stars for a gripping read!

Journalist Alice Henderson starts receiving scary threats on Wednesdays - and the person seems to know things about her that no one else should know.  As the Wednesday threats escalate, Alice realizes this isn't just a hoax and someone is targeting her.  Her boyfriend, Tom, insists that they hire Matthew, a private investigator, to watch over Alice on Wednesdays.  Matthew, an ex-cop, has a good relationship with Melanie, the detective on Alice's case.

The book gives us the points of view from Alice, Matthew, and the stalker, whose story is told starting from when he was a child.  This book will keep you guessing as to the identify of the stalker until the very end!  I also loved the relationship between Alice and her mother.

Highly recommended!

10.13.2019 - Seven Letters

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Griffin, and JP Monniger for the opportunity to read and review his latest book.  Like The Map That Leads to You, which I enjoyed, this book is also part travelogue, letting me experience the beauty and history of Ireland.

Kate Moreton is a PhD student at Dartmouth, studying the Blasket Islands of Ireland.  Kate grew up listening to her father's story of Ireland and these islands and is thrilled to be going there to complete her dissertation.  But fate has a different path for her - she meets and falls in love with Ozzie, a fisherman with emotional scars left from his time in the war.  Their romance is fast and furious and they end up getting married, until Kate wonders who she actually did marry and flees the country and Ozzie.

Besides the beautiful visions of Ireland this book revealed, the story of Kate and Ozzie was one to fall into.  They both were real characters with real emotions and flaws.  I loved the seven letters too, leading the story into the next phases.

10.2.2019 - Cilka's Journey

Many thanks to NetGalley, St Martin's Press, and Heather Morris for the opportunity to read and review this book - as with all books involving the atrocities of the Holocaust, it's hard to read and so moving.  This is the follow-up to The Tattooist of Auschwitz but definitely also a stand alone read.

Cilka was only 16 when she was taken to the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, along with her mother and sister.  There, the commandant separates her and puts her in charge of the women awaiting the gas chamber.  She learns to do what she must to survive.  When the camps are liberated, Cilka is charged with being a prostitute and sleeping with the enemy.  She is sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia.  While overcome with guilt, Cilka still does what she needs to survive.  Others notice her intelligence and she begins training as a nurse.  The book alternates her time in the gulag with her past at Birkenau.

While based on a true person, this is a book of fiction.  However, it brings out more things I didn't know about the horrible conditions of those who lived through this time.