I really loved Monstrous Souls by Rebecca Kelly. It was one of those surprising stories that grabbed my attention and didn’t let go. I haven’t seen a ton of my fellow book reviewers mention it, they should! If you are a fan of psychological thrillers, you will want to read this. I’m looking forward to whatever Rebecca writes next.

Synopsis:

Over a decade ago, Heidi was the victim of a brutal attack that left her hospitalized, her younger sister missing, and her best friend dead. But Heidi doesn’t remember any of that. She’s lived her life since then with little memory of her friends and family and no recollection of the crime.

But lately, it’s all starting to come back.

As Heidi begins retracing the events that lead to the assault, she is forced to confront the pain and guilt she’s long kept buried. But Heidi isn’t the only one digging up the past, and the closer she gets to remembering the truth, the more danger she’s in.

When the truth is worse than fiction, is the past worth reliving?

 

 

I know many people read and loved His & Hers by Alice Feeney. Me too! I was glued to the pages and wasn’t sure what would happen next or who to trust in this story. It was a fun thriller with two narrators who I found to be equally untrustworthy!

Anna Andrews finally has what she wants. Almost. She’s worked hard to become the main TV presenter of the BBC’s lunchtime news. So, when someone threatens to take her dream job away, she will do almost anything to keep it.

When asked to cover a murder in Blackdown, Anna is reluctant to go. But when the victim turns out to be one of her childhood friends, she can’t leave. It soon becomes clear that Anna isn’t just covering the story, she’s at the heart of it.

When the body of a young woman is discovered, DCI Jack Harper decides not to tell anyone that he knew the victim, until he begins to realise he is a suspect in his own murder investigation.

One of them knows more than they are letting on. Someone isn’t telling the truth.
Whose story should you believe? His or Hers?

 

 

I think everyone who read The Guest List by Lucy Foley loved it. What’s not to love? Excellent writing, fantastic descriptions, a tightly wound story that unraveled at the perfect time. This was an excellent read.

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It’s a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the luxe party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed.

But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsmen begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride’s oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.

And then someone turns up dead. Who didn’t wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

More from Lucy Foley ASAP please!

 

I am always happy to discover a historical fiction story that hits the right notes with characters, setting, details, plus when its based on a real person from history, well, how can you not enjoy a book like that? The Paper Daughters of Chinatown by Heather B. Moore introduced me to Donaldina Cameron along with the story of the human trafficking on young Chinese women. Wow, what a story. This is a must-read for those who love historical fiction and those who want to learn something about history.

In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco is a booming city with a dark side, one in which a powerful underground organization—the criminal tong—buys and sells young Chinese women into prostitution and slavery. These “paper daughters,” so called because fake documents gain them entry to America but leave them without legal identity, generally have no recourse. But the Occidental Mission Home for Girls is one bright spot of hope and help.

Told in alternating chapters, this rich narrative follows the stories of young Donaldina Cameron who works in the mission home, and Mei Lien, a “paper daughter” who thinks she is coming to America for an arranged marriage but instead is sold into a life of shame and despair.

Donaldina, a real-life pioneering advocate for social justice, bravely stands up to corrupt officials and violent gangs, helping to win freedom for thousands of Chinese women. Mei Lien endures heartbreak and betrayal in her search for hope, belonging, and love. Their stories merge in this gripping account of the courage and determination that helped shape a new course of women’s history in America.

Get this as soon as you can!

 

 

The premise of The Closer You Get by Mary Torjussen appealed to me immediately. I saw the potential in the short synopsis and hoped it would be as good as I wanted it to be. It was!

They promised to tell their spouses they were leaving and then meet to begin their new life together. But he never shows up. A new twisting novel of psychological suspense from the acclaimed author of Gone Without a Trace.

Coworkers Ruby and Harry are in love–but they’re married to other people. They decide to tell their spouses that their marriages are over and to start their new lives together. Ruby, who has wanted to leave her controlling husband for a while, tells him she’s leaving him and waits at the hotel where she and Harry are to meet. But Harry never shows up.

Suddenly, Ruby’s life has fallen apart, and she’s lost everything. Harry won’t answer her calls, and she’s fired from her job. She finds a cheap apartment in a run-down part of town, all the while wondering what happened to Harry.

Just as Ruby thinks she’s hit rock bottom, strange and menacing things start to happen–someone is sneaking into her apartment, and someone is following her home late at night–and she is going to have to fight for her survival.

I don’t give out a ton of five stars (on Goodreads) but when a story hooks my interest, holds me close and doesn’t let go, when I don’t think I could have ever conceived of the plot twists, combined with great writing style then I will give it five stars!

I want to pester Mary and beg to read her next manuscript. But I won’t!

 

 

Whew! This book! Playing Nice by J.P. Delaney has you asking what you would do in a bizarre and frightening situation. Take a look:

Pete Riley answers the door one morning and lets in a parent’s worst nightmare. On his doorstep is Miles Lambert, a stranger who breaks the devastating news that Pete’s son, Theo, isn’t actually his son–he is the Lamberts’, switched at birth by an understaffed hospital while their real son was sent home with Miles and his wife, Lucy. For Pete, his partner Maddie, and the little boy they’ve been raising for the past two years, life will never be the same again.

The two families, reeling from the shock, take comfort in shared good intentions, eagerly entwining their very different lives in the hope of becoming one unconventional modern family. But a plan to sue the hospital triggers an official investigation that unearths some disturbing questions about the night their children were switched. How much can they trust the other parents–or even each other? What secrets are hidden behind the Lamberts’ glossy front door? Stretched to the breaking point, Pete and Maddie discover they will each stop at nothing to keep their family safe.

They are done playing nice.

Of course, genius author J.P. doesn’t create a simple story, no there is more to it than the synopsis and the constant twists and turns were compelling and addictive. I will read anything this author writes!

This one would make a great movie.

 

Suzanne Rindell is another genius author. She writes beautifully and knows how to structure sentences so that every paragraph is a turn down another gorgeous lane. Does that make sense? Every paragraph is a treasure.

I have such admiration for authors like her who can not only write gripping novels but do so with such incredible style.

Anyhoo, here’s the premise:

San Francisco, 1906. Violet is one of three people grateful for the destruction of the big earthquake. It leaves her and her two best friends unexpectedly wealthy–if the secret that binds them together stays buried beneath the rubble. Fearing discovery, the women strike out on their own, and orphaned, wallflower Violet reinvents herself.

When a whirlwind romance with the city’s most eligible widower, Harry Carlyle, lands her in a luxurious mansion as the second Mrs. Carlyle, it seems like her dreams of happiness and love have come true. But all is not right in the Carlyle home, and Violet soon finds herself trapped by the lingering specter of the first Mrs. Carlyle, and by the inescapable secrets of her own violent history.

Suzanne is another author whose books I will always read. This one is fantastic. Get it, read it!

 

BRILLIANT. AMAZING. Five stars! Ellen Marie Wiseman’s novel The Orphan Collector deserves its spot on my little list here.

Take a look:

In the fall of 1918, thirteen-year-old German immigrant Pia Lange longs to be far from Philadelphia’s overcrowded slums and the anti-immigrant sentiment that compelled her father to enlist in the U.S. Army. But as her city celebrates the end of war, an even more urgent threat arrives: the Spanish flu. Funeral crepe and quarantine signs appear on doors as victims drop dead in the streets and desperate survivors wear white masks to ward off illness. When food runs out in the cramped tenement she calls home, Pia must venture alone into the quarantined city in search of supplies, leaving her baby brothers behind.

Bernice Groves has become lost in grief and bitterness since her baby died from the Spanish flu. Watching Pia leave her brothers alone, Bernice makes a shocking, life-altering decision. It becomes her sinister mission to tear families apart when they’re at their most vulnerable, planning to transform the city’s orphans and immigrant children into what she feels are “true Americans.”

Waking in a makeshift hospital days after collapsing in the street, Pia is frantic to return home. Instead, she is taken to St. Vincent’s Orphan Asylum – the first step in a long and arduous journey. As Bernice plots to keep the truth hidden at any cost in the months and years that follow, Pia must confront her own shame and fear, risking everything to see justice – and love – triumph at last. Powerful, harrowing, and ultimately exultant, The Orphan Collector is a story of love, resilience, and the lengths we will go to protect those who need us most.

I’ve read Ellen’s other books and they are all worth your time to read. This was especially excellent though.

 

I read a brief synopsis about The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels and was intrigued. I got the book and was instantly hooked. This isn’t my usual thriller or suspense, but it might very well be in my top five books of the year. The writing is terrific, the story will grab your heart. I rarely cry when reading books, but yes I cried with this one for so many reasons.

Small-town Appalachia doesn’t have a lot going for it, but it’s where Brian is from, where his family is, and where he’s chosen to return to die.

At eighteen, Brian, like so many other promising young gay men, arrived in New York City without much more than a love for the freedom and release from his past that it promised. But within six short years, AIDS would claim his lover, his friends, and his future. With nothing left in New York but memories of death, Brian decides to write his mother a letter asking to come back to the place, and family, he was once so desperate to escape.

Set in 1986, a year after Rock Hudson’s death shifted the public consciousness of the epidemic and brought the news of AIDS into living rooms and kitchens across America, it is a novel that speaks to the question of what home and family means when we try to forge a life for ourselves in a world that can be harsh and unpredictable. It is written at the far reaches of love and understanding, and zeroes in on the moments where those two forces reach for each other, and sometimes touch.

I am looking forward to Carter’s next novel. Read this now! Get tissues ready.

I really enjoyed Megan Goldin’s book, The Escape Room, because it was so different from anything I’d ever read before. So when I saw the premise for The Night Swim, I had a feeling I’d enjoy it and I did!

After the first season of her true crime podcast became an overnight sensation and set an innocent man free, Rachel Krall is now a household name―and the last hope for thousands of people seeking justice. But she’s used to being recognized for her voice, not her face. Which makes it all the more unsettling when she finds a note on her car windshield, addressed to her, begging for help.

The small town of Neapolis is being torn apart by a devastating rape trial. The town’s golden boy, a swimmer destined for Olympic greatness, has been accused of raping a high school student, the beloved granddaughter of the police chief. Under pressure to make Season Three a success, Rachel throws herself into interviewing and investigating―but the mysterious letters keep showing up in unexpected places. Someone is following her, and she won’t stop until Rachel finds out what happened to her sister twenty-five years ago. Officially, Jenny Stills tragically drowned, but the letters insists she was murdered―and when Rachel starts asking questions, nobody seems to want to answer. The past and present start to collide as Rachel uncovers startling connections between the two cases that will change the course of the trial and the lives of everyone involved.

Fantastic writing, excellent pacing, a character I wanted to succeed. Looking forward to Megan’s next book!

 

 

I read this in late 2019 but it came out in 2020 so I’m  including it. I remember reading this in almost one day, I absolutely loved it and knew that even though we had a full year of books to read, this would be in my top books list. Pretty Things by Janelle Brown is another case of the perfect literary storm: great characters, amazing writing, excellent descriptions, a plot that moved forward with every chapter along with twists and turns. LOVED THIS BOOK!

I keep looking to see if there is another book from Janelle on the horizon, nothing yet.

Two wildly different women–one a grifter, the other an heiress–are brought together by the scam of a lifetime in a page-turner from the New York Times bestselling author of Watch Me Disappear.

Nina once bought into the idea that her fancy liberal arts degree would lead to a fulfilling career. When that dream crashed, she turned to stealing from rich kids in L.A. alongside her wily Irish boyfriend, Lachlan. Nina learned from the best: Her mother was the original con artist, hustling to give her daughter a decent childhood despite their wayward life. But when her mom gets sick, Nina puts everything on the line to help her, even if it means running her most audacious, dangerous scam yet.

Vanessa is a privileged young heiress who wanted to make her mark in the world. Instead she becomes an Instagram influencer–traveling the globe, receiving free clothes and products, and posing for pictures in exotic locales. But behind the covetable façade is a life marked by tragedy. After a broken engagement, Vanessa retreats to her family’s sprawling mountain estate, Stonehaven: A mansion of dark secrets not just from Vanessa’s past, but from that of a lost and troubled girl named Nina.

Nina, Vanessa, and Lachlan’s paths collide here, on the cold shores of Lake Tahoe, where their intertwined lives give way to a winter of aspiration and desire, duplicity and revenge.

I will continue to obsessively wait for Janelle’s next novel.

 

 

Another can’t-put-it-down book that kept me guessing until the last page. The Light Flight by Julie Clark was such a page-turner that I read it in record time and pretty much ignored everything else while I finished it.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he’s not above using his staff to track Claire’s every move, making sure she’s living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn’t know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets ― Claire taking Eva’s flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it’s no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva’s identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

Yes I am looking all the time to see when Julie’s next book is coming out. I will automatically read it no matter what its about.

 

I read an article about When I was You by Amber Garza and just KNEW that I’d love it and I did! What makes a book stand out? Well, it’s a combination of writing style, keeping the plot moving forward, tight writing, characters we either love or hate, and unexpected turns. This book had it all. If you are a fan of suspense/thrillers, you will want to get this into your hands.

It all begins on an ordinary fall morning, when Kelly Medina gets a call from her son’s pediatrician to confirm her upcoming “well-baby” appointment. It’s a cruel mistake; her son left for college a year ago, and Kelly has never felt so alone. The receptionist quickly apologizes: there’s another mother in town named Kelly Medina, and she must have gotten their numbers switched.

But Kelly can’t stop thinking about the woman who shares her name. Lives in her same town. Has a son she can still hold, and her whole life ahead of her. She can’t help looking for her: at the grocery store, at the gym, on social media. When Kelly just happens to bump into the single mother outside that pediatrician’s office, it’s simple curiosity getting the better of her.

Their unlikely friendship brings Kelly a renewed sense of purpose, taking care of this young woman and her adorable baby boy. But that friendship quickly turns to obsession, and when one Kelly disappears, well, the other one may know why.

I know Amber has another book coming out … I hope its soon! Ill be most definitely be reading it.

 

The Lion’s Den by Katherine St. John was the exact book I was in the mood for when I got to read it!

There’s a genre of books I don’t know quite how to explain… funny but suspenseful. Comical thriller? Humorous suspense? Thriller light with comedic elements? It’s suspenseful and fun, but that’s not to say it’s not well written. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I was wrapped up in the suspense and appreciated the parts that made me laugh. I thought this book was clever and fun!

Belle likes to think herself immune to the dizzying effects of fabulous wealth. But when her best friend, Summer, invites her on a glamorous getaway to the Mediterranean aboard her billionaire boyfriend’s yacht, the only sensible answer is yes. Belle hopes the trip will be a much-needed break from her stalled acting career and uniquely humiliating waitressing job, but once she’s aboard the luxurious Lion’s Den, it soon becomes clear this jet-setting holiday is not as advertised.

Belle’s dream vacation quickly devolves into a nightmare as she and the handful of other girls Summer invited are treated more like prisoners than guests by their controlling host-and in one terrifying moment, Belle comes to see Summer for who she truly is: a vicious gold digger who will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

Belle realizes she’s going to have to keep her wits about her — and her own big secret closely hidden — if she wants to make it off the yacht alive.

I love it when my mood goes perfectly with a book and it satisfies my literary craving!

AND DON’T MISS THESE BOOKS THAT I ALSO LOVED:

 

 

For a decade and a half, Rachel Cunningham has chosen to lock herself away in a psychiatric facility, tortured by gaps in her memory and the certainty that she is responsible for her parents’ deaths. But when she learns new details about their murders, Rachel returns, in a quest for answers, to the place where she once felt safest: her family’s sprawling log cabin in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

As Rachel begins to uncover what really happened on the day her parents were murdered, she learns—as her mother did years earlier—that home can be a place of unspeakable evil, and that the bond she shares with her sister might be the most poisonous of all.

 

 

When 16-year-old Emmie releases a balloon with her biggest secret hidden inside, she doesn’t expect anyone to find it. When, a few weeks later, Lucas Moreau does just that, the two teens develop an instant rapport, going from trading emails to a deep and enduring friendship. Fourteen years later, Lucas asks Emmie to be his “best woman” at his upcoming wedding. Emmie accepts the honor, but must face the fact that her long-simmering romantic feelings for Lucas can never be revealed.

Out now! Go read it, its fantastic!

They whisper about her in Chicago. Men come to her with their hopes, their dreams–their fortunes. But no one sees them leave. No one sees them at all after they come to call on the Widow of La Porte. The good people of Indiana may have their suspicions, but if those fools knew what she’d given up, what was taken from her, how she’d suffered, surely they’d understand. Belle Gunness learned a long time ago that a woman has to make her own way in this world. That’s all it is. A bloody means to an end. A glorious enterprise meant to raise her from the bleak, colorless drudgery of her childhood to the life she deserves. After all, vermin always survive.

Published on January 19th 2021, Berkley

One cold February evening in 1791, at the back of a dark London alley in a hidden apothecary shop, Nella awaits her newest customer. Once a respected healer, Nella now uses her knowledge for a darker purpose—selling well-disguised poisons to desperate women who would kill to be free of the men in their lives. But when her new patron turns out to be a precocious twelve-year-old named Eliza Fanning, an unexpected friendship sets in motion a string of events that jeopardizes Nella’s world and threatens to expose the many women whose names are written in her register.

In present-day London, aspiring historian Caroline Parcewell spends her tenth wedding anniversary alone, reeling from the discovery of her husband’s infidelity. When she finds an old apothecary vial near the river Thames, she can’t resist investigating, only to realize she’s found a link to the unsolved “apothecary murders” that haunted London over two centuries ago. As she deepens her search, Caroline’s life collides with Nella’s and Eliza’s in a stunning twist of fate—and not everyone will survive.

Coming out on March 2nd 2021,  Park Row

 

MY BOOKS

 

 

RUN DELIA RUN

The moment  Delia  Keaton turned eighteen, she bought a one-way ticket out of her abusive aunt’s home and left for sunny California in pursuit of her dreams of becoming a Hollywood actress. Unfortunately, history has a way of repeating itself and  Delia  once again finds herself in an abusive relationship surrounded by fame and fortune.

What goes on when the camera goes off eventually becomes more than this young mother can take, and in one final move, she flees with her son to reclaim her life.

But will Leo allow  Delia  to create the new life she longs for? Or will he come back and stake claim to her and his son once and for all?

 

 

The Low-Oxalate Anti-Inflammatory Cookbook

 

Whether your issue is kidney stones, interstitial cystitis (IC), chronicle fatigue, rheumatoid arthritis, or plus, a low-oxalate diet may be just what your doctor has not ordered!

Here food blogger Cindy Bokma takes familiar recipes and re-creates them for anyone dealing with a limited diet that can become extremely overwhelming. With Cindy Bokma’s guidance, you’ll learn how oxalates affect your body, in which foods they may be found, and how to adjust your diet so they don’t cause you inflammation or other issues.

Recipes such as Chicken with Garlic and Tomato, Cheeseburger Burritos, and Easy Bake Apples are simple, familiar, and stress-free and will allow you to eat your favorite foods without worry.

Health is like a line of dominos and once one falls, others soon follow. Most people have more than one issue that can be addressed by diet. But when gluten-free options lead you to almond flour and milk, for example, and almonds are rich in oxalates, you may then be put in the path of an illness or issue related to high oxalates.

While much is known about gluten-free, low-carb, soy-free, nut-free, and low-sugar diets, this collection highlights oxalates, a naturally occurring but potentially inflammatory substance found in a wide variety of healthy plant foods, such as almonds, rhubarb, spinach, and more. These are, unfortunately, prominent in popular diets such as paleo and ketogenic.