This is out now! If you are a fan of historical fiction as I am, you will want to read The Physicians Daughter by Martha Conway. This book takes place right after the end of the Civil War, a time period that I want to learn more about. I admired the character of Vita, smart and strong-willed, she is determined to follow her dream of becoming a doctor even though she is well aware that most women aren’t in that field and it’s an uphill battle. Even her own father isn’t supportive of his daughter’s goals. He just wants to marry his daughter off to any man who will have her which made me so angry!
I was instantly drawn to the plot (and the time period), take a look:
It is 1865, the American Civil War has just ended, and 18-year old Vita Tenney is determined to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming a country doctor like her father. But when her father tells her she must get married instead, Vita explores every means of escape – and finds one in the person of war veteran Jacob Culhane.
Damaged by what he’s seen in battle and with all his family gone, Jacob is seeking investors for a fledgling business. Then he meets Vita – and together they hatch a plan that should satisfy both their desires. Months later, Vita seemingly has everything she ever wanted. But alone in a big city and haunted by the mistakes of her past, she wonders if the life she always thought she wanted was too good to be true. When love starts to compete with ambition, what will come out on top?
If you love historical fiction, you won’t want to miss this novel. Out in September!
Just reading the title, I got teary-eyed. Just know going into this that you might shed a tear. The Next Thing You Know by Jessica Strawser introduces an interesting job- end of life doula. I thought this was fictional but its a real thing! Here’s the description:
Who are end-of-life doulas? End-of-life doulas provide non-medical, holistic support and comfort to the dying person and their family, which may include education and guidance as well as emotional, spiritual or practical care, from as early as initial diagnosis through bereavement.
Sounds life a tough job! In this book, Nova is an end-of-life doula, helping people get ready for their death by various means of supporting them. Enter a cute new client named Mason who isn’t quite forthcoming with his diagnosis. Regardless, its Nova’s job to assist him. Of course, things aren’t that black and white…
As an end-of-life doula, Nova Huston’s job—her calling, her purpose, her life—is to help terminally ill people make peace with their impending death. Unlike her business partner, who swears by her system of checklists, free-spirited Nova doesn’t shy away from difficult clients: the ones who are heartbreakingly young, or prickly, or desperate for a caregiver or companion.
When Mason Shaylor shows up at her door, Nova doesn’t recognize him as the indie-favorite singer-songwriter who recently vanished from the public eye. She knows only what he’s told her: That life as he knows it is over. His deteriorating condition makes playing his guitar physically impossible—as far as Mason is concerned, he might as well be dead already.
Except he doesn’t know how to say goodbye.
Helping him is Nova’s biggest challenge yet. She knows she should keep clients at arm’s length. But she and Mason have more in common than anyone could guess… and meeting him might turn out to be the hardest, best thing that’s ever happened to them both.
Out now!
Free by Lauren Kessler, wow. Everyone should read this to learn about the criminal justice system and the experiences of those who have been through it. This gives you an in-depth look at the prison system and the challenges presented to those who have been incarcerated and are ready to acclimate to life outside. Reading the stories opened my eyes to something I (thankfully) know very little about.
Synopsis:
95 percent of the millions of American men and women who go to prison eventually get out. What happens to them?
There’s Arnoldo, who came of age inside a maximum-security penitentiary, now free after nineteen years. Trevor and Catherine, who spent half of their young lives behind bars for terrible crimes committed when they were kids. Dave, inside the walls for 34 years, now about to reenter an unrecognizable world. Vicki, a five-time loser who had cycled in and out of prison for more than a third of her life. They are simultaneously joyful and overwhelmed at the prospect of freedom. Anxious, confused, sometimes terrified, and often ill-prepared to face the challenges of the free world, all are intent on reclaiming and remaking their lives.
Very interesting book and gave me a new perspective!
Out on April 12.
I loved Audrey Blake’s previous novel about Nora, The Girl In His Shadow, so I was super eager and excited to read The Surgeon’s Daughter. In this book, Nora has been accepted into medical school in Italy and just because she’s on her way to becoming a doctor doesn’t mean it’s smooth sailing. Of course, it’s not! Women are still not accepted in the medical field and her professors treat her with a lack of respect shown to the male students.
What I liked about this story was how C-section surgery was studied and presented. It was a radical idea that was frowned upon though it saved the lives of women. I was nearly biting my nails with anticipation, wanting Nora to triumph.
Here’s the full synopsis:
Nora Beady, the only female student at a prestigious medical school in Bologna, is a rarity. In the 19th century women are expected to remain at home and raise children, so her unconventional, indelicate ambitions to become a licensed surgeon offend the men around her. Under constant scrutiny, Nora’s successes are taken for granted; her mistakes are used as proof that women aren’t suited to the field.
Everything changes when she allies herself with Magdalena Morenco, the sole female doctor on-staff. Together the two women develop new techniques to improve a groundbreaking surgery: the Cesarean section. It’s a highly dangerous procedure and the research is grueling, but even worse is the vitriolic response from men. Most don’t trust the findings of women, and many can choose to deny their wives medical care.
Already facing resistance on all sides, Nora is shaken when she meets a patient who will die without the surgery. If the procedure is successful, her work could change the world. But a failure could cost everything: precious lives, Nora’s career, and the role women will be allowed to play in medicine.
Out on May 10.
Take a break from heavy novels and suspense to read a Marilyn Simon Rothstein book! Doesn’t matter which one, she has a few but her latest, Crazy to Leave You was so, so good. I love the author’s writing style and the insightful story flows easily with humorous characters. I already can’t wait for her next book. I need more like this in my life!
Forty-one years old, the last of her friends to marry, and down to a size 12, Lauren Leo is in her gown and about to tie the knot. There’s just one thing missing: the groom. With one blindsiding text, Lauren is unceremoniously dumped at the altar.
In the aftermath, her mother is an endless well of unsolicited advice (Stay on your diet and freeze your eggs). Her sisters only add to the Great Humiliation: one is planted on Lauren’s couch while the other is too perfect.
Picking her heart up off the floor, Lauren turns to her work in advertising as she gathers courage to move on and plan her next step. She should know by now that nothing in life goes according to plan. What lies ahead is the road to self-acceptance and at long last feeling worthy. With a new way to measure love and success, Lauren chucks her scale—and finds a second chance in the most unexpected place.
Coming to you on May 24!
I don’t come across nearly enough memoirs, this is a favorite genre that has brought some of my absolutely favorite books such as Angela’s Ashes and The Glass Castle. When I saw Beautiful Ashes by Shelly Edwards Jorgensen, I knew I wanted to read it. What a story! It’s amazing what the human spirit can triumph over.
I highly recommend this book, even if you are not usually drawn to memoirs.
When fifteen-year-old Shelly Edwards’s mother is murdered by her alcoholic father, she loses her home, her family, and the only life she’s ever known.
Abandoned, broken from abuse and assault, facing poverty, and gripped with fear for her life, Shelly struggles to dismantle decades of lies.
But into the deepening darkness that follows, God sends heavenly gifts, leading Shelly to a newfound faith. There she finds a peace she’s never thought possible.
When Shelly eventually meets the man she will marry, she thinks her life will finally be everything she’s ever dreamed of, but the lingering wounds of her past—and new, devastating medical complications—shake her faith. After all she’s endured, can she rise from the ashes and trust God once more?
Out on April 6.
I loved the time period and the backdrop of The Foundling by Ann Leary. This was an interesting novel, exploring the idea of eugenics. I’m drawn to historical fiction books about institutions, where completely healthy, normal women were forced into places like this just because they didn’t conform to something in one way or another.
Take a look:
It’s 1927 and eighteen-year-old Mary Engle is hired to work as a secretary at a remote but scenic institution for mentally disabled women called the Nettleton State Village for Feebleminded Women of Childbearing Age. She’s immediately in awe of her employer—brilliant, genteel Dr. Agnes Vogel.
Dr. Vogel had been the only woman in her class in medical school. As a young psychiatrist she was an outspoken crusader for women’s suffrage. Now, at age forty, Dr. Vogel runs one of the largest and most self-sufficient public asylums for women in the country. Mary deeply admires how dedicated the doctor is to the poor and vulnerable women under her care.
Soon after she’s hired, Mary learns that a girl from her childhood orphanage is one of the inmates. Mary remembers Lillian as a beautiful free spirit with a sometimes-tempestuous side. Could she be mentally disabled? When Lillian begs Mary to help her escape, alleging the asylum is not what it seems, Mary is faced with a terrible choice. Should she trust her troubled friend with whom she shares a dark childhood secret? Mary’s decision triggers a hair-raising sequence of events with life-altering consequences for all.
This is based on the author’s own family history! Coming out on May 31.
I was immediately drawn to the beautiful cover of Bloomsbury Girls by Natalie Jenner. I thought this was a fun book, a nice escape from the heavy suspense and historical fiction that I often gravitate towards!
Combining a rare book store (yes!) with the girls who work in the shop during the 1950’s. I liked the characters and their own individual struggles, the literary references, the London setting…so much to admire about this book which would be perfect for a book club.
Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager’s unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:
Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiance was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances–most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction.
Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she’s been working to support the family following her husband’s breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own.
Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she’s working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future.
As they interact with various literary figures of the time–Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others–these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.
Don’t miss this one! Out on May 17.
A fantastic author who writes excellent suspense, D. J. Palmer’s newest novel is My Wife Is Missing. The title tells us that this will be from the POV of the husband and his wife is, indeed, missing. And what better place to set such a story than New York City? It would be so easy to just walk out of a hotel and blend in.
Imagine being on a trip with your family, you run out to grab dinner, and when you return your family is gone without a trace. That’s exactly what happens to Michael! We go from present-day to flashing back in time so we can learn the family dynamic and what’s really going on.
There are so many twists and turns that you won’t see coming. I love nothing more than a novel where I cannot figure out how it will end!
A family vacation turns into a nightmare for Michael Hart when he discovers his wife and two children have disappeared from their New York City hotel room. Horrified, he fears they’ve been kidnapped. Michael’s frantic search to find them takes a shocking turn when he discovers that his wife, Natalie, appears to have left quite willingly, taking their children with her. The police want to know why, and so does Michael. But there may be a reason why Natalie ran, something Michael can’t tell the police—the truth about his past. While untangling his deceptions might be the key to locating Natalie, Michael knows it could also be his undoing. To find his wife, he must now turn to the one person capable of exposing all that he’s been hiding. Natalie thinks she has Michael all figured out and has hatched a plan to escape from him permanently.
One detail, though, threatens to derail her efforts: sleep—or more accurately, the lack of it. Since the moment the shocking revelations about her husband came to light, Natalie’s insomnia has worsened to the point that she now suffers from delusions. Are her fears about Michael valid—or a symptom of her condition? With her children’s lives at risk, the stakes for Natalie could not be higher. On her own, running low on energy and resources, avoiding increasingly close calls with Michael—who is on the hunt and closing in fast—Natalie needs someone to turn to for help. But who can she trust when she can’t even trust herself?
You have to read this when it comes out on May 10!
Give me all the English fiction! I am always drawn to books that are set in England. I frequently look at British books and authors to see what’s out and what’s coming out. In the novel, The Patient by Jane Shemilt, Rachel is a doctor who lives in a wealthy neighborhood. She meets a French painter, married to an American woman, named Luc. She is drawn to him and suddenly she finds herself in an affair. With a patient. This is wrong, isn’t it?
But is Luc who he says? Should Rachel be scared? (yes)
What price would you pay for falling in love?
Rachel isa respected doctor who lives in a picturesque and affluent English village where her husband Nathan teaches at an elite private school. Competent, unflappable, and nearing 50, Rachel has everything in her life firmly in her control, even if some of its early luster has worn off. But one day a new patient arrives at her practice for emergency treatment. Luc is a French painter married to a wealthy American woman who’s just bought and restored a historic home on the edge of Rachel’s posh neighborhood. The couple has only recently arrived, but Luc is struggling with a mental disorder, and so he goes to the nearest clinic…to Rachel.
Their attraction is instant, and as Rachel’s sense of ethics wars with newly awakened passion, the affair blinds her to everything else happening around her. A longtime patient appears to be following her every movement, turning up unexpectedly wherever she goes. Her somewhat estranged adult daughter Lizzie is hiding a secret—or at least, hiding it from Rachel. Nathan has grown sour and cold as well—or is that merely Rachel’s guilty conscience weighing on her? But when one of her colleagues winds up murdered and Luc is arrested for the crime, everything Rachel didn’t know about her life explodes into the open—along with her affair with her patient—a disgrace and scandal that will have consequences no one could have predicted.
Coming out on May 3!
I read and loved Amanda Eyre-Ward’s novel, The Jetsetters, so I was very excited to read The Lifeguards which was a little heavier, but just as fantastic as her previous novel. This one is a slow mystery, unfolding throughout the chapters. This is told from multiple POVs which I like when done right. I was curious what REALLY happened and who was telling the truth, which mother was lying to protect her son? Who was at fault?
So many questions kept me reading until the very end!
Synopsis:
Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music, and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette, and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for fifteen years, believing that they can shelter them their children from an increasingly dangerous world. Their friendship is unbreakable—as safe as the neighborhood where they’ve raised their sweet little boys.
Or so they think.
One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys, lifeguards for the summer, come back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret—news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created.
Combining three mothers’ points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel of suspense filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.
Coming out On April 5.
I am a huge fan of Janelle Brown’s writing going back to her very first novel. Pretty Things was one of my favorite novels back when it came out and I will read anything and everything that she writes unless it’s dystopian/science fiction, or fantasy. I was of course, very eager to read I’ll Be You!
The premise grabbed me right away. Take a look:
You be me, and I’ll be you,” I whispered.
As children, Sam and Elli were two halves of a perfect whole: gorgeous identical twins whose parents sometimes couldn’t even tell them apart. They fell asleep to the sound of each other’s breath at night, holding hands in the dark. And once Hollywood discovered them, they became B-list child TV stars, often inhabiting the same role.But as adults, their lives have splintered. After leaving acting, Elli reinvented herself as the perfect homemaker: married to a real estate lawyer, living in a house just blocks from the beach. Meanwhile, Sam has never recovered from her failed Hollywood career, or from her addiction to the pills and booze that have propped her up for the last fifteen years.
Sam hasn’t spoken to her sister since her destructive behavior finally drove a wedge between them. So when her father calls out of the blue, Sam is shocked to learn that Elli’s life has been in turmoil: her husband moved out, and Elli just adopted a two-year-old girl. Now she’s stopped answering her phone and checked in to a mysterious spa in Ojai. Is her sister just decompressing, or is she in trouble? Could she have possibly joined a cult? As Sam works to connect the dots left by Elli’s baffling disappearance, she realizes that the bond between her and her sister is more complicated than she ever knew.
I cannot imagine what it’s like to be a twin and sharing everything. It’s interesting how these sisters chose to deal with their famous childhood, one goes in a direction of domestic bliss (or so it seems) and the other spirals into a life of drugs and destruction. But when its Elli who leaves for what seems to be a cult, its Sam who comes to her rescue. Or is Elli drawing Sam into something? Or is it Sam? Or what is going on?
Your mind will be racing trying to figure it out! This book is quite a ride of suspense with two broken souls.
Another great read from Janelle!
Can we just pause and admire the cover of Little Souls by Sandra Dallas? It’s what caught my eye!
The year is 1918 and the Spanish flu is going around. Two sisters move to Colorado after the death of their parents. There is Helen who is a nurse and Lutie, a designer at a women’s store. They take in a tenant to live in the basement but when they die, the sisters must step in and care for the young daughter left behind. One day, Lutie arrives home from work to find a dead man in the house and her sister standing there with an ice-pick.
WHAT!
That’s the premise for this book which contains a little of everything: domestic violence, love, murder, suspense, and yes, it’s a heavy read.
Colorado, 1918. World War I is raging overseas, but it’s the home front battling for survival. With the Spanish Flu rampant, Denver’s schools are converted into hospitals, churches and funeral homes are closed, and horse-drawn wagons collect corpses left in the street. Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved to Denver from Iowa after their parents’ deaths. Helen, a nurse, and Lutie, a carefree advertising designer at a fashionable women’s store share a small, neat house, and each finds a local beau—for Helen a doctor, for Lutie a young student who soon enlists. They make a modest income from a rental apartment in the basement. When their tenant dies from the flu, the sisters are thrust into caring for the woman’s small daughter, Dorothy. Soon after, Lutie comes home from work and discovers a dead man on their kitchen floor and Helen standing above the body, an icepick in hand. She has no doubt Helen killed the man—Dorothy’s father—in self-defense, but she knows that will be hard to prove. They decide to leave the body in the street, hoping to disguise it as a flu victim.
Meanwhile Lutie also worries about her fiancé “over there.” As it happens, his wealthy mother harbors a secret of her own and helps the sisters as the danger deepens, from both the murder investigation and the outbreak.
If you are in the mood for a serious, sobering, and detailed read, you will definitely want to pick up Little Souls when it’s out on April 26.
If there is a book about a girl’s trip and something goes wrong which leads to a story of suspense and intrigue, I will want to read it! So I happily dug into The Wild Girls by Phoebe Morgan and enjoyed every page.
This book was absolutely riveting! Something happened years ago to cause these friends to have a falling out, but whats so bad that they can’t talk it out and move on? This amazing vacation is the ideal place to come together and mend friendships. Who wouldn’t go on an all-expenses-paid trip? But when the girls arrive, they sense something is off. Why isn’t Felicity greeting them when she’s the one who organized the trip? WHAT IS HAPPENING? Things aren’t adding up and I wanted to know WHY!
I kept reading, trying to figure out what was going to happen next. The setting was remote, the characters untrustworthy, you know something bad is going to happen….I read this quickly and was left eagerly awaiting more from Phoebe Morgan!
Synopsis:
It’s been years since Grace, Felicity, Alice, and Hannah were together. The “Wild Girls,” as they were once called, are no longer so wild. Alice is a teacher. Hannah has a new baby. Grace is a homebody. Only Felicity seems to have retained her former spark.
Then Felicity invites them all on the weekend of a lifetime—a birthday bash in Botswana. It will be a chance to have fun and rekindle their once bomb-proof friendship… and finally put that one horrible night, all those years ago, behind them for good.
But soon after arriving at the luxury safari lodge, a feeling of unease settles over them. There’s no sign of the party that was promised. There’s no phone signal. They are on their own… and things start to go very, very wrong.
This is exactly the kind of book I love reading. It will keep you on the edge of your seat from start to finish and I’d love to see it as a series! Coming out on April 15.
I think by now I’ve read all of Sally Hepworth’s novels and I will continue to do so because her books are all fantastic. The Younger Wife is her latest and not to be missed. She is an amazing author and this book just proves how talented she is. This is another book where I was reading as fast as possible, on the edge of my seat the whole time as the story unfolded.
It starts off at a wedding and there is a narrator telling us what happened although we don’t know who she is, we do know she wasn’t invited. Suddenly there is a horrible scream and there’s blood and someone is dead.
The book alternates POV and we go back in time to learn how we actually arrive at a wedding with a murder. Of course, things are not always as they seem.
THE HUSBAND
A heart surgeon at the top of his field, Stephen Aston is getting married again. But first he must divorce his current wife, even though she can no longer speak for herself.THE DAUGHTERS
Tully and Rachel Aston look upon their father’s fiancée, Heather, as nothing but an interloper. Heather is younger than both of them. Clearly, she’s after their father’s money.THE FORMER WIFE
With their mother in a precarious position, Tully and Rachel are determined to get to the
truth about their family’s secrets, the new wife closing in, and who their father really is.THE YOUNGER WIFE
Heather has secrets of her own. Will getting to the truth unleash the most dangerous impulses
in all of them?
Don’t miss this book! It will be published on April 5.
Last Dance on Starlight Pier by Sarah Bird is set during the Great Depression, not a happy time in history. Evie experienced a tough childhood as her father died and she was left with a cruel mother. I was cringing when Evie’s mother forced her to do some very questionable things.
Eager to leave home, Evie wants to become a nurse but circumstances beyond her control force her to change plans just as she is about to graduate school. So she turns to becoming nurse at a dance marathon, where performers need light medical care from time to time. She also fills in as a dancer.
Apparently, these dance marathons were a big thing back then, I didn’t know about them at all. These gave people food and a place to stay and they could earn money. Here’s an article I found that delves into what exactly these marathons entailed.
Synopsis:
July 3. 1932. Shivering and in shock, Evie Grace Devlin watches the Starlite Palace burn into the sea and wonders how she became a person who would cause a man to kill himself. She’d come to Galveston to escape a dark past in vaudeville and become a good person, a nurse. When that dream is cruelly thwarted, Evie is swept into the alien world of dance marathons. All that she has been denied—a family, a purpose, even love—waits for her there in the place she dreads most: the spotlight.
Last Dance on the Starlight Pier is a sweeping novel that brings to spectacular life the enthralling worlds of both dance marathons and the family-run empire of vice that was Galveston in the Thirties. Unforgettable characters tell a story that is still deeply resonant today as America learns what Evie learns, that there truly isn’t anything this country can’t do when we do it together. That indomitable spirit powers a story that is a testament to the deep well of resilience in us all that allows us to not only survive the hardest of hard times, but to find joy, friends, and even family, in them.
This was an enjoyable read and I appreciated learning something new about the Great Depression, the dance marathons!
Coming out on April 12.
I love all of Gemma Rogers’s books and The Feud captured my attention right away! I just finished it yesterday.
Kay is at her wit’s end. Nothing is going well for her and she’s had it! Her frustration is at an all-time high and what completely sets her off is when a man in a Jaguar cuts her off. We have all been there, right? She isn’t about to let him get away with it and she confronts him but of course, he belittles her and blows her off. HOW DARE HE? Later, she sneaks over to his house and keys his beloved car. That sets off a whole chain of events that leads Kay into a terrible feud with Simon Fox who is pure evil and will stop at nothing to destroy Kay.
It doesn’t help that Kay’s husband has left her, the men at her job treat her terribly and she has two moody teenagers at home.
As tensions mount all around her, Kay must figure out a way to beat Simon at his own games, but how? He’s rich and powerful and she’s not.
Synopsis:
The day my path crossed with Simon Fox I thought I’d already lost everything but then he ran me off the road with his flash car and belittling jibes.
The men in my life had undermined me for too long.
Enough was enough.
Fuelled by alcohol and the desire to get even, I decided a spot of petty vandalism would make me feel a whole lot better.
Wrong. Very wrong…
I hadn’t realised that Simon Fox was not a man to be messed with.
He showed me just how much I still had left to lose.
Soon I was battling for my home, family and life.
Gemma is a brilliant author and you can’t go wrong with any of her books. This one comes out on May 10.
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden was a wild ride! I really enjoyed this one too!
Millie just got fired from her job and desperately needs work. The trouble is, she is a convict and most people won’t hire her based on her past. So when she is hired by Nina Winchester, to be a housekeeper, she cannot believe her luck. Nina is so kind and the house is beautiful. Millie even gets a room there. It’s not much but it’s better than sleeping in her car. Nina even furnishes Millie was her own cell phone. And bonus, Nina’s very handsome husband Andy isn’t so bad to work for either.
But soon things start going very wrong. Nina runs hot and cold, Millie is never sure what version of Nina she’s going to get. Nina starts accusing her of things, giving Millie wrong dates, and generally starts acting crazy.
Millie is afraid to leave because who will hire her and where will she live? Nina does have a history of mental illness, so Millie tries to cope as best she can. She grows closer to Nina’s husband Andy, an ally for Millie within the walls of the Winchester home.
“Welcome to the family,” Nina Winchester says as I shake her elegant, manicured hand. I smile politely, gazing around the marble hallway. Working here is my last chance to start fresh. I can pretend to be whoever I like. But I’ll soon learn that the Winchesters’ secrets are far more dangerous than my own…
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out… and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.
But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
They don’t know what I’m capable of…
This is told from the POV of Nina and Millie. There were twists and turns and things I did not expect, an entertaining book, coming out on April 26.
