The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan is an entertaining novel about a glamorous pop star who commits suicide. Her story is told through the lens of not only Cassidy’s view of events, but her friends. Its easy to see how this could happen in real life.
Fame and fortune don’t always equal a glittering, charmed life.
Here is the synopsis:
Cassidy Holmes isn’t just a celebrity.
She is “Sassy Gloss,” the fourth member of the hottest pop group America has ever seen. Hotter than Britney dancing with a snake, hotter than Christina getting dirrty, Gloss was the pop act that everyone idolized. Fans couldn’t get enough of them, their music, and the drama that followed them like moths to a flame—until the group’s sudden implosion in 2002. And at the center of it all was Sassy Cassy, the Texan with a signature smirk that had everyone falling for her.
But now she’s dead. Suicide.
The world is reeling from this unexpected news, but no one is more shocked than the three remaining Glossies. Fifteen years ago, Rose, Merry, and Yumi had been the closest to Cassidy, and this loss is hitting them hard. Before the group split, they each had a special bond with Cassidy—truths they told, secrets they shared. But after years apart, each of them is wondering: what could they have done?
Told in multiple perspectives—including Cassidy herself—and different timelines, this is a behind-the-scenes look into the rise and fall of a pop icon, and a penetrating examination of the dark side of celebrity and the industry that profits from it.
I loved the look back at the 2000’s and I kept thinking about the girl bands of that time. This was a very good that I enjoyed and highly recommend.
Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair was another enjoyable book that I read quickly! As I have mentioned many times, I love a story I haven’t read a million times before like this one. I want characters I haven’t seen and storylines that haven’t been done.
Check it out:
Agatha Arch’s life shatters when she discovers her husband in their backyard shed, in flagrante delicto, giving the local dog walker some heavy petting. Suddenly, Agatha finds herself face to face with everything that frightens her…and that’s a loooooong list.
Agatha keeps those she loves close. Everyone else, she keeps as far away as possible. So she’s a mystery to nearly everyone in her New England town. To her husband, she’s a saucy, no-B.S. writer. To her Facebook Moms group, she’s a provocateur. To her neighbor, she’s a standoffish pain in the butt. To her sons, she’s chocolate pudding with marshmallows. And to her shrink, she’s a bundle of nerves on the brink of a cataclysmic implosion.
Defying her abundant assortment of anxieties, Agatha dons her “spy pants”–a pair of khakis whose many pockets she crams with binoculars, fishing line, scissors, flashlight, a Leatherman Super Tool 300 EOD, candy, and other espionage essentials–and sets out to spy on her husband and the dog walker. Along the way, she finds another intriguing target to follow: a mysterious young woman who’s panhandling on the busiest street in town.
It’s all a bit much for timorous Agatha. But with the help of her Bear Grylls bobblehead, a trio of goats, and a dog named Balderdash, Agatha may just find the courage to build a better life.
Quirky characters always grab my attention, and Agatha, with all of her fears, was very quirky! Maybe not someone I’d be close friends with in real life, but in the context of this book, I liked her!
If you enjoy fiction in the vein of Where’d You Go Bernadette, The Rosie Project, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, you’ll want to read this book!
You can pre-order it here, the book comes out on November 10th.
Dear Child by Romy Hausmann, is getting rave reviews.
Bustle Best Books of Fall 2020
Publishers Weekly Top 10 Mysteries & Thrillers of Fall 2020
She Reads Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2020
If you think this book sounds like a must-read, you’re right! This novel is tense, dark, frightening. Having said all of that, it’s also a book that you will enjoy reading, especially if you liked Room.
Take a look:
A windowless shack in the woods. A dash to safety. But when a woman finally escapes her captor, the end of the story is only the beginning of her nightmare.
She says her name is Lena. Lena, who disappeared without a trace 14 years prior. She fits the profile. She has the distinctive scar. But her family swears that she isn’t their Lena.
The little girl who escaped the woods with her knows things she isn’t sharing, and Lena’s devastated father is trying to piece together details that don’t quite fit. Lena is desperate to begin again, but something tells her that her tormentor still wants to get back what belongs to him…and that she may not be able to truly escape until the whole truth about what happened in the woods finally emerges.
Dear Child is fast-paced, and I kept reading and reading to find out what was going to happen next. Themes of abduction, captivity, trauma, are present in this book so consider yourself warned if you are easily disturbed.
Out on October 6, pre-order here.
I love the cover of After All I’ve Done by Mina Hardy. It caught my eye right away.
Imagine getting into an accident, then realizing that you’ve lost chunks of your memory? As if that’s not bad enough, what if you start having nightmares about the accident? Just the thought of this makes me nervous and its exactly what happens to Diana Sparrow.
Diana has no one to help; not her best friend and not her husband. The two are sleeping together! Who can she trust?
And what really happened on the night of the accident?
Here’s the official synopsis:
Five months ago, an accident left Diana Sparrow badly injured and missing a few months of her memory. As if that’s not enough, she’s started having recurring nightmares about the night of the accident. Dreams that feel so real, she’s left questioning: maybe she didn’t just slide off the road into a ditch. Maybe, just maybe, she hit something. Or someone.
She can’t turn to her former best friend Val, who’s been sleeping with Diana’s husband Jonathan for months, but she might find some comfort in newcomer Cole Pelham. Yet the closer they become, the more Diana begins to wonder what really happened that night–and how Cole might be connected. Worse, it seems everyone else could be involved, too.
Who was with her that night? What really happened? As her life unravels thread by thread and the dreams become too real to ignore, Diana will have to face the unthinkable–and do the unforgivable.
This suspense kept me guessing and reading quickly so I could see what really happened on the night of the accident. If you enjoy stories that are fast-paced, have characters that are pretty awful… this book is for you!
Out on November 10, you can pre-order it here.
There is a giveaway going on right now for Keep Your Friends Close by Janelle Harris, so head over to Goodreads.com and enter to win!
I was intrigued right away by the premise of this story, a woman who shares her incredible life on social media, you know the type. This person has the perfect marriage, is successful with her cooking business, she is gorgeous too. And she never has a bad day. But the reality of Darcy’s facade differs from what she shows the world.
When she must stay home because of her pregnancy, she wonders if she’s being watched. Creepy phone calls and knocks on the door are scaring her. Someone is out to get Darcy but who?
Take a look:
Darcy Hogan’s perfect life is all over social media. She’s beautiful, she’s successful, and she and her childhood sweetheart are about to become parents for the first time. But behind all the followers and the superficial likes lurks a darker truth…
In reality, Darcy feels isolated and afraid. Her difficult pregnancy has her confined to the house, she’s being harassed online, and out-of-control debt threatens to ruin everything she’s worked so hard for.
When her husband is summoned away on business, Darcy’s cabin fever soon spirals into fear. Who is making mysterious phone calls and knocking on her door? Is it an old friend trying to reach out—or a stranger determined to push in?
As her due date creeps closer, Darcy feels ever more certain that someone is out to get her. She’s desperate to get away—but is she running from the right person?
This is such a timely story, social media plays a huge role in everyone’s life and putting your “perfect life” on display will spark jealousy within someone where its a friend or stranger.
This must-read novel comes out on October 6! Pre-order it here. Free if you have Kindle Unlimited!
It was the cover of the book that grabbed my attention!
Finer Things by David Wharton is an excellent book, I enjoyed it! The author writes beautifully, I always appreciate vivid descriptions and well-constructed sentences. And then the plot! Intriguing characters, an interesting premise, and the fact this takes place in London during the 1960s was just the cherry on top!
Delia is part of a shoplifting ring who steals from fancy shops. She’s street smart and savvy. Tess is new to the city, she’s a first-year art student who is getting used to living in London. The two couldn’t be more different yet when their worlds collide, it makes perfect sense.
The story is written from each of their points-of-view. Witty and engaging, with characters that are lovely, and I found myself fully immersed in the lives of Delia and Tess.
Highly recommended, Finer Things is out now so get your copy today!
I mentioned this book on Instagram recently; it was such a great read! First Date by Sue Watson kept me guessing from beginning to end. Sue is an author whose books I always read, I was thrilled when I saw this one and had to get it into my hands right away.
When Hannah meets Alex, she is so happy. He’s everything she wanted in a man! So what if he always wants to know where she is, what she’s doing. And its okay that he shows up everywhere she goes, he’s looking out for her. But who is sending her weird messages, is it Alex’s ex? Or Hannah’s ex? Maybe it’s Hannah’s boss who is always looking out for her but Alex thinks she’s overbearing.
Check it out:
She’s been waiting her whole life to meet a man like Alex. But he’s been waiting too. And once he has her, he’ll never let her go…Hannah has done everything to make sure her life is safe and secure. A long way from her unstable childhood growing up in foster care, she’s content with her sweet, little, messy apartment and her satisfying job as a social worker. She quietly worries that, aged 36, she might never fall in love. But otherwise her life is where she wants it to be.
Until, encouraged by her best friend to join a dating app, she meets Alex. He’s irresistibly handsome. He loves the same music as her. The same food as well. They both dream of travelling the world but agree they’d be equally happy escaping to a cottage by the beach in Devon. Both of them would love to own a Labrador one day. It’s like he’s made for her. It’s like he’s too good to be true. Hannah’s friends aren’t so sure about him. But Hannah thinks he’s perfect. Which is good. Because Alex knows she’s perfect for him too. In fact, she’s exactly the girl he’s been looking for…
And nothing Hannah’s done to make her life safe will ever be enough.
You can pre-order the book here, it will be out on October 16!
I love books like The House Mate by Nina Manning. Dark, creepy suspense with mysterious characters and an interesting plot.
Regi is over thirty and has terrible OCD. She is running from something but we don’t know what exactly but she suffers terribly with her OCD. One day, Regi’s housemate tells her about an Instagram user named Mrs.Clean. Regi is immediately intrigued, then grows obsessed.
We get little peeks into Regi’s past and know she is running from something. There are pieces of her life that need to be put into place like a puzzle as we continue reading. The pieces come together.
Take a look:
The perfect life? …Or the perfect lie? When Regi moves into her new houseshare, she’s ready for a clean slate. A new home. A new routine. A new identity… Desperate to escape the shadow of her past that follows her everywhere she goes, Regi finds the ideal distraction in the perfect lives of others on social media.
But as innocent scrolling turns into an unhealthy obsession, Regi will soon learn that seeking perfection comes at a price…
I love how this book was just so tense and suspenseful, and I felt bad for Regi. Also, did you know that #cleanstagram was a thing? That might become my new Instagram obsession, too.
Coming out on October 15! Pre-order now.
This topic has been seen a lot recently, and I love it! You can easily see how office tension can escalate, especially between an older woman who is established her career, and a younger woman who is eager to forge her path and climb that corporate ladder.
The Assistant by Cathryn Grant is the latest in the office suspense genre. The characters are somewhat unlikeable, but I don’t mind. The story moves quickly and you keep reading to find out what is going to happen next!
Take a look at the plot:
Laura has sacrificed a lot for her high-powered career – her marriage, the chance to have kids. Now, finally, she’s in line for a big jump up the corporate ladder – all the way to the boardroom.
But there’s a fly in the ointment in the shape of beautiful Vanessa, a lowly assistant who seems to have it in for Laura. Vanessa is PA to Hank, the most powerful executive in the company, a man whose support Laura desperately needs if she is to secure the job of her dreams. Repelled by Laura’s naked ambition, fiercely possessive of her boss, Vanessa deliberately sabotages Laura’s every attempt to make a good impression on Hank.
Laura threatens and cajoles but Vanessa just won’t play fair. Soon their mutual dislike escalates to an all-out war. But career-obsessed Laura has always been willing to do whatever it takes to get ahead. And if Vanessa stands in her way… she’s going to pay the ultimate price.
This was a solid read, though not a page turning, nail biting suspense about toxic women in the workplace! If you enjoyed Precious You by Helen Monks Takhar, you will want to read The Assistant!
Free if you have Kindle Unlimited, arriving on Sept. 27th!
