I Am Now A Blogger
With so many fun book challenges to participate in, I could no longer be without a blog. I intend for the blog to help me keep track of my reading for the year as well as my progress on the challenges I choose to join.
The Family Next Door by Sally Hepworth
Book Description:
Published: March 6, 2018
Audio/Libby
Stars: 4
The small suburb of Pleasant Court lives up to its name. It’s the kind of place where everyone knows their neighbours, and children play in the street.
Isabelle Heatherington doesn’t fit into this picture of family paradise. Husbandless and childless, she soon catches the attention of three Pleasant Court mothers.
But Ange, Fran and Essie have their own secrets to hide. Like the reason behind Ange’s compulsion to control every aspect of her life. Or why Fran won’t let her sweet, gentle husband near her new baby. Or why, three years ago, Essie took her daughter to the park – and returned home without her.
As their obsession with their new neighbour grows, the secrets of these three women begin to spread – and they’ll soon find out that when you look at something too closely, you see things you never wanted to see.
Review –
“Small, perfect towns often hold the deepest secrets.
From the outside, Essie’s life looks idyllic: a loving husband, a beautiful house in a good neighborhood, and a nearby mother who dotes on her grandchildren. But few of Essie’s friends know her secret shame: that in a moment of maternal despair, she once walked away from her newborn, asleep in her carriage in a park. Disaster was avoided and Essie got better, but she still fears what lurks inside her, even as her daughter gets older and she has a second baby.
When a new woman named Isabelle moves in next door to Essie, she is an immediate object of curiosity in the neighborhood. Why single, when everyone else is married with children? Why renting, when everyone else owns? What mysterious job does she have? And why is she so fascinated with Essie? As the two women grow closer and Essie’s friends voice their disapproval, it starts to become clear that Isabelle’s choice of neighborhood was no accident. And that her presence threatens to bring shocking secrets to light.
The Family Next Door is Sally Hepworth at her very best: at once a deeply moving portrait of family drama and a compelling suburban mystery that will keep you hooked until the very last page.” us.macmillan.com
I’ve read several books by this author and she never disappoints. There are twists you don’t see coming and that makes the reading experience even better.
Highly recommend.
The Whispers by Ashley Audrain
Book Description:
Published: June 6, 2023
Audio/Libby
Stars: 5
A pageturner about four suburban families whose lives are changed when the unthinkable happens–and what is lost when good people make unconscionable choices
The Loverlys sit by the hospital bed of their young son who is in a coma after falling from his bedroom window in the middle of the night; his mother, Whitney, will not speak to anyone. Back home, their friends and neighbors are left in shock, each confronting their own role in the events that led up to what happened that terrible night: the warm, altruistic Parks who are the Loverlys’ best friends; the young, ambitious Goldsmiths who are struggling to start a family of their own; and the quiet, elderly Portuguese couple who care for their adult son with a developmental disability, and who pass the long days on the front porch, watching their neighbors go about their busy lives.
The story spins out over the course of one week, in the alternating voices of the women in each family as they are forced to face the secrets within the walls of their own homes, and the uncomfortable truths that connect them all to one another. Set against the heartwrenching drama of what will happen to Xavier, who hangs between death and life, or a life changed forever, THE WHISPERS is a novel about what happens when we put our needs ahead of our children’s. Exploring the quiet sacrifices of motherhood, the intuitions that we silence, the complexities of our closest friendships, and the danger of envy, this is a novel about the reverberations of life’s most difficult decisions.
Review –
“Women don’t stand a chance in Audrain’s pessimistic suspense novel concerning a child’s mysterious fall from his bedroom window.
Ten-year-old Xavier lies in a coma from which he may not recover. His mother, Whitney, sits silently distraught by his hospital bedside.
Months earlier, at a garden party Whitney hosted for her neighbors, guests overheard her berating Xavier through the same open window he’s fallen from. Emergency room doctor Rebecca lives across the street, in a gentrified neighborhood of an unnamed city, and was at that party with her husband. Now Rebecca can’t help asking herself the obvious question: Was it an accident, or did Xavier jump, or was Whitney somehow responsible?
As other women from the block come into focus, it becomes clear that Whitney is not the only woman with guilty secrets. (Forget the men, who are given no inner lives.) This is Audrain’s second novel about troubled children and their troubled mothers, following The Push (2021). These mothers, whom childless Rebecca envies—after multiple failures she is desperately, secretly trying again to get pregnant—are all miserable, although their situations vary.
Devoting herself to her daughter, who happened to bully Xavier at school the day he fell, Whitney’s friend Blair has given up her career and now feels trapped in a comatose marriage to a man she doesn’t like, yet she panics when she suspects he may be cheating on her.
Elderly Mara quietly nurses private anguish over the death of her emotionally delicate son and silently hates her husband for being cruel to him.
As the novel’s central force, Whitney is problematic. Not because she is unlikable, has anger issues, or even because she might have hurt her child, but because she is a caricature of the striving careerist with no redeeming characteristics, a bad mother, bad friend, bad wife, serial adulterer, and liar with a pathological lack of empathy.
The whodunit twists are fun, at least for a while; the heavy-handed treatment of motherhood not so much.” Kirk’s Reviews
Although, there are really no likable characters in the book, once you start, you can’t stop. I loved it! AND, the last sentence was EVERYTHING! If you want to know what I mean, you’ll have to read or listen for yourself !
I highly recommend this book.
The Other Woman by Sandi Jones
Book Description:
Published: May 31, 2016
Audio from Libby
Stars: 5
A deliciously disturbing, compulsively readable debut domestic suspense—prepare to meet The Other Woman: there’s nothing she won’t do to keep you away from her son…
Emily thinks Adam’s perfect; the man she thought she’d never meet. But lurking in the shadows is a rival; a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves.
Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.
The Other Woman is an addictive, fast-paced psychological thriller about the destructive relationship between Emily, her boyfriend Adam, and his manipulative mother Pammie.
Review –
“A woman meets her dream guy, but his mother is something out of a nightmare in Jones’ debut thriller.
Emily Havistock is immediately attracted to the handsome Adam Banks when they meet each other’s eyes across the room at a networking event for her London consulting firm, and even though she wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, it doesn’t take long before they’re seeing each other every night. Emily’s last relationship ended in disaster, but she feels a true connection to Adam, although he’s not forthcoming about his past.
A couple of months into the relationship, he invites her to meet his mother, Pammie, and assures Emily that Pammie will love her. On the way, when Emily makes a light joke about his mom’s taste in music, Adam snaps at her. One would think that Emily might have considered cutting her losses then and there. But, no, Emily is enamored with Adam, so she vows to make it work. What follows is a hellish sequence of passive aggressive nastiness on the part of Pammie that would bring any woman to her knees, begging for mercy.
Emily doesn’t feel like she can confide in Adam since he treats his mother like a saint, but she does have the support of her flatmate, Pippa, and best friend Seb. It doesn’t help that Emily feels undeniable sparks with Adam’s younger, very attractive brother, James. Things with Pammie eventually come to a head in a spectacular way, and Emily begins to realize that Adam may not be as perfect as she thought. Emily, who narrates, is relatable even if readers will root for her to put the fiendish, and fiendishly clever, Pammie in her place and smack Adam for not sticking up for her.
Jones ratchets up the tension to the breaking point and throws in a curveball that will make readers’ heads spin.Melodramatic yet wildly entertaining, with a smashing twist.”Kirkus Reviews
I couldn’t have said it better. Just when you think you have it figured out, the author throws a curve ball and you have to recalibrate your thinking. Near the end, the action ramps up for a surprise, butt satisfying finish.
I highly recommend this book.
The Latecomer by Jean Hanff Korelitz
Book Description :
Published: May 21, 2022
Audio/Libby
Stars: 4
The Latecomer follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and Johanna, under tragic circumstances, to their triplets born during the early days of IVF. As children, the three siblings–Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally–feel no strong familial bond and cannot wait to go their separate ways, even as their father becomes more distanced and their mother more desperate. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna, faced with being truly alone, makes the decision to have a fourth child. What role will the “latecomer” play in this fractured family?
A complex novel that builds slowly and deliberately, The Latecomer touches on the topics of grief and guilt, generational trauma, privilege and race, traditions and religion, and family dynamics. It is a profound and witty family story from an accomplished author, known for the depth of her character studies, expertly woven storylines, and plot twists.
Review –
” A fatal car crash sets the stage for a fraught marriage and family life.
Drifting through his privileged existence, 20-year-old Salo Oppenheimer is further unmoored after a Jeep he’s driving flips and kills two passengers.
On a subsequent trip to Europe, a rapturous encounter with a Cy Twombly painting launches his passionate engagement with cutting-edge art. He’s less engaged with Johanna Hirsch, even though he marries her (it’s expected) and, after three childless years, agrees to IVF, which results in four embryos and the birth of triplets Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally.
Salo’s real life is in the Brooklyn warehouse where he keeps his art collection—and with Stella, a fellow survivor of the crash whom he meets again some years later; soon they are lovers and have a son.
Korelitz deftly limns this tension-riddled setup and the resulting Oppenheimer family dysfunction. Harrison, supersmart and arrogant, looks down on his siblings. Shut-off Lewyn seems to have imbibed his brother’s dismissive assessment of him. Sally keeps secrets from herself and others. Johanna, wracked by a longing for connection neither her children nor husband care to fulfill, learns of Salo’s other family on the eve of the triplets’ departure for college and decides to have the fourth embryo thawed and gestated by a surrogate; Phoebe is born in June 2000, shortly before Lewyn and Sally depart for determinedly separate lives at Cornell and Harrison for an ultra-alternative school that, somewhat paradoxically, nurtures his aggressively conservative views.
Part 2, which chronicles the triplets’ college years, is long and at times alienating; Korelitz makes no attempt to soften the siblings’ often mean behavior, which climaxes in an ugly scene at their 19th birthday party in September 2001.
It pays off in Part 3, narrated by latecomer Phoebe, now 17 and charged with healing her family’s gaping wounds. The resolution, complete with a wedding, persuasively and touchingly affirms that even the most damaged people can grow and change.
A bit slow in the middle section but on balance, a satisfyingly twisty tale rooted in complex characterizations.” Kirkus Reviews
I found the book to drag in the first two-thirds and so much so, that I lost focus on the entire premise. The triplets were so dysfunctional that reading/listening about them was very hard. The part narrated by Phoebe was a joy, as was she. After a tedious start the book ends on positive notes and makes it a worth while journey.
Husband and Wife by K.L. Slater
Book Description:
Published: November 3, 2023
Audio from Audible
Stars: 5
We promised to keep each other’s secrets. Until they found the body…
The Wife:
My husband and I are fighting for our lives in hospital after a terrible car accident. But despite my pain, all I can think about is what our families will find behind our front door. The scarf that has been all over the news, belonging to a dead young woman with honey-coloured hair. I have to speak to the police before my husband can…
The Husband:
I’m drifting in and out of consciousness, but when I hear my wife talking to the police, accusing me of the murder of an innocent woman, a cold fear grips me. I know I’ve got a temper. That I’ve not always been faithful. Will they think I killed her?
I think of my wife’s jealous streak, of the lies she’s told our loved ones. But if I tell the whole truth, they’ll look into her past. And that will destroy me, too…
Two people fighting for their lives. Two people with secrets to hide. Who will you believe?
Review –
“KL Slater is one of my favourite authors, I have read every book she has published so far, so it was a no-brainer that I was going to read this.
Husband and Wife starts with Parker Vance and his wife Luna dropping their son Barney off at Parker’s parent’s house for the night.
Later in the night, they are involved in a serious car accident while Parker is fighting for his life, his mother Nicola, is trying to clear his name for murder!
This was a fantastic book, I was hooked throughout, there were so many secrets and lies that I was left shocked when the reveals happened.
The book had multiple character’s points of view and alternated from past and present. It flowed nicely and I liked getting to know each character, even if I didn’t particularly like certain characters.
As always KL Slater wrote an absolutely gripping book and I would definitely recommend this book and all of her books.
Go grab it now!” stressedrach.co.uk
K.L. Slater is one of my favorite authors also, and the description of this story was too good to pass up.
The story is complex with many twists, turns and surprises that I really didn’t see coming.
Definitely put this on your TBR list!
The Murder Book (Alex Delaware #16) by Jonathan Kellerman
Book Description:
Audio
Stars: 5
In seventeen consecutive bestselling novels, Jonathan Kellerman has distinguished himself as the master of the psychological thriller. Now in Kellerman’s most compelling and powerful novel yet, L.A. psychologist-detective Alex Delaware confronts a long-unsolved murder of unspeakable brutality — an ice-cold case whose resolution threatens his survival, and that of longtime friend, homicide detective, Milo Sturgis.
The nightmare begins when Alex receives a strange package in the mail with no return address. Inside is an ornate album filled with gruesome crime scene photos — a homicide scrapbook entitled The Murder Book. Alex can find no reason for anyone to send him this compendium of death, but when Milo views the book, he is immediately shaken by one of the images: a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped near a freeway ramp. This was one of Milo’s first cases as a rookie homicide cop: a vicious killing that he failed to solve, because just as he and his training partner began to make headway, the department closed them down. Being forced to abandon the young victim tormented Milo. But his fears prevented him from pursuing the truth, and over the years he managed to forget. Or so he thought.
Now, two decades later, someone has chosen to stir up the past. As Alex and Milo set out to uncover what really happened twenty years ago, their every move is followed and their lives are placed in jeopardy. The relentless investigation reaches deep into L.A.’s nerve-centers of power and wealth-past and present. While peeling back layer after layer of ugly secrets, they discover that the murder of one forgotten girl has chilling ramifications that extend far beyond the tragic loss of a single life.
A classic story of good and evil, sacrifice and sin, The Murder Book is a gripping page-turner that illuminates the darkest corridors of the human mind. It is a stunning tour de force.
Review –
“Bestseller Kellerman’s 16th Alex Delaware novel is a hoot of a whodunit, a classic puzzler to keep the most staid traditionalist gleefully scratching his or her head until the wee hours. It’s also a noir of gothic proportions, a descent into a California hell, in which Delaware shares the spotlight with his longtime friend and colleague, Det. Milo Sturgis. When somebody sends Alex a three-ring binder full of grisly police photographs of crime scenes with “The Murder Book” in gold letters on the front cover, Milo is stunned to discover a picture of the mutilated body of Janie Ingalls, a Hollywood High sophomore, whose vicious murder he investigated 20 years before. Milo was just a rookie detective then, partnered with a hard-nosed veteran, Pierce Schwinn. The pair made some progress with the case, but were pulled off it and split up because Schwinn stepped on some big toes. Milo suspects the book has come from Schwinn, an invitation to take up the old case that has haunted them both for years. He and Alex begin to follow a trail that will lead them high up the social ladder and down among the dregs of society. It is a step-by-step, clue-by-clue process beloved of mystery fans, and Kellerman handles it masterfully. By the end there are an awful lot of characters to keep track of, and the biff-boom-bang finale seems too much, but no one’s perfect. This may be the best Kellerman in years. ” publishers weekly.com
I totally agree with the reviewer. This was an excellent book that grabbed me by the throat and never let go. Way to go Mr. Kellerman.
Birds in Flight by Anni Taylor
Audio
Five Stars
Two estranged sisters reunite to solve the harrowing mystery of their missing mother.
In 1998, the American Jorgenson family had been on a year-long road trip in Australia. One humid, storming night, the mother – Elsa Jorgenson – vanished in an isolated stretch of Australian everglades. Elsa was never seen again.
That night, twelve-year-old Lily Jorgenson was left alone and terrified in the family camper—even her teenage sister Iris is missing. When Iris comes racing back through the rain, she refuses to tell where she’s been. Lily is certain her sister is hiding a dark secret.
24 years later, Lily is a travel writer living a settled life with her son in Pennsylvania, USA. Lily and Iris are estranged, with Iris’s secret having torn them apart. When floods dredge up their mother’s backpack from the everglades, tantalising clues are uncovered, and the police reopen the cold case.
Lily returns to Australia, determined to force Iris to finally tell her secret – and to do that, she’ll have to reunite with her. But when Lily unlocks the gut-wrenching events of the past, everything she thought was true about her family is about to shatter.
Review –
Two estranged sister ,hesitantly reunite to find out what happened to their mother twenty-four years ago and the begins the journey that will connect the sisters again and uncover the story of the disappearance of a childhood friend and their mother. It will also disturb the status quo of the family dynamic that has existed in those waning years and they find out much more than they ever thought possible and it changes everything !
This was a powerful read and I highly recommend it to any reader, adult or teen .
Happy New Year 2024
I must say that I am very relieved that 2023 is done.
Last January my husband found out his cancer had come back for the third time in seven years and that it had spread to a new location. Chemo was started in March and is still ongoing. On top of the cancer, chemo, and side effects - in April, he blacked out, falling and breaking his ankle. For the next several weeks he was unable to move around very much . Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not blame my husband for my not keeping up with this site, but I had other priorities. I’m going to try and get on track so be patient with me.
I did not meet my GoodReads Reading Challenge of 250 books, so I’m only going to try and read 200 this year. Goodreads stats show 190 books my “paper and pencil” tally shows 236. Not sure of why there is such a big discrepancy but a notebook never lies, and that’s why I use one as a back up to GoodReads.
I discovered 96 authors who were new to me this year and I plan to read more of their work.
I still read and listen to all genres of books, but my favorites are crime fiction , foreign crime fiction, young adult, historical fiction, and a bit of smut thrown in for good measure. The first big book of the year will be Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. It is second in the Empyrean series.
I’m hoping for a better 2024.
Broken by John Rector
Book Description:
Published: September 15, 2020
Audio
Stars: 4
Trust becomes a fatal mistake in this shocking thriller by the bestselling author of The Ridge . Welcome to Beaumont Cove, a slowly decaying tourist town at the edge of the world, and the place where Maggie James’s worst fears for her estranged twin sister, Lilly, have come true. Lilly is dead, and Maggie has arrived to identify her body. Lilly’s husband, Mike, is in custody for her murder. With his long history of abuse, no one in town is surprised at the inevitable end to their stormy marriage, least of all Maggie. All she wants is to clean up her sister’s affairs, see Mike punished, and get out of Beaumont Cove. With the help of the local sheriff, a retired private investigator, and a strange but friendly carnival psychic, Maggie begins to uncover the truth about what really happened to her sister. But the truth comes at a price, and soon Maggie finds herself walking a dark path toward the same deadly trap that killed Lilly. The more Maggie discovers about her sister’s final days, the more she realizes that nothing is as it appears in this strange boardwalk town.
Review –
“Identical twins lead very different lives.
When Lilly first stumbles into Beaumont Cove, it seems like heaven on Earth. Populated by “old bikers and hippies,” the quiet seaside village strikes romantic Lilly as just the place for her and her abusive husband, Mike, to mend their fragile relationship. The Orion Motor Lodge is all but deserted in the off-season, with only handyman Thomas Bennett as a fellow tenant.
Lilly has time to wander the tranquil boardwalk and watch the waves crash against the foot of the Starlight Pier. But when her sister, Magnolia James, makes her way there more than a year later to claim Lilly’s battered body, she finds nothing more than a dilapidated resort town waiting for a tourist rush that’s never going to happen.
Maggie initially resists Sheriff Parks’ efforts to book her into the slightly upscale Cliff House. She doesn’t plan to stay longer than the one day it will take for her to identify Lilly and confront Mike, who is in custody for her murder. Then it’s back home to Manitou Springs and her busy, orderly life as a private eye. Once Maggie sees Lilly’s body and meets with Mike, though, her plans change. There’s more than meets the eye in her sister’s death, like the missing key Lilly wore around her neck day in and day out.
The combination of flashback and contemporaneous narration, alternating between first-person and third-person viewpoints, precludes any unforeseen plot twists. The result is a tale that’s creepy without being shocking, with a bit of last-minute violence that erases any of the goodwill Rector might have built earlier.
Not a destination that rewards the effort.”Kirk’s Reviews
I don’t think it was the author’s intention to build goodwill with the reader on Maggie’s behalf. Although I was shocked at her actions (or non actions) at the end, I could understand her decision. While the murdered is made known to the reader early on, it did not deter me from listening to the conclusion to see how it would turn out.
If you like CREEPY dark tales, add this one to your TBR list.
BE AWARE THERE MAYBE TRIGGERS FOR SOME READERS/LISTENERS.
The Nice Guy by Sarah A. Denzil
Book Description:
Published: May 30, 2023
Audio
Stars: 4
Laura thought she’d found the one nice guy in New York City.
When Ethan saves her from a crushing crowd on Brooklyn Bridge, their connection is dazzling. Worthy of a heat-filled passionate night.
Laura falls pregnant from their one-night stand—a miracle considering her past fertility issues. Ethan is attentive and wonderful at first. She hopes he will be the kind of father she’d always wanted for herself.
Until his attentiveness turns to obsession. His questions become demands. Why didn’t she answer her phone or respond to his messages? Why won’t she move in with him and his rich mother?
Soon Laura realises the father of her child is a controlling sociopath. And there’s no telling the lengths Ethan will go to in order to keep baby Christopher for himself.
Laura will stop at nothing to save her baby boy.
But is she too late?
Review –
“The Nice Guy by Sarah A. Denzil is a thrilling read that had me hooked from the start. The author does an excellent job of building suspense and creating an atmosphere of unease that had me on the edge of my seat. The beginning of the book was particularly gripping and set a high standard for the rest of the story.
However, the middle of the book did slow down a bit, which made it harder to maintain the same level of engagement. That being said, I still found this section interesting, as it helped build the story and set the stage for the thrilling conclusion. It even kept me gripped while in hospital for the day. I was able to ignore all other distractions and read, something I usually struggle with.
Parts 3 and 4 of the book were absolutely fantastic, and I couldn’t put the book down. The pacing picked up, and the tension increased, which kept me invested in the story until the very end.
While Laura, the protagonist, wasn’t the most likeable character, I did find her journey to be compelling. She was quick to judge, which could be frustrating at times, but her eventual validation made for a satisfying conclusion to her character arc.
Overall, The Nice Guy is a great read that will keep you entertained and engaged. While there are some slow parts, the thrilling ending makes it all worth it.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good suspenseful story.”pinkanddizzy.com
I totally agree with the above review and rated it four out of five stars, but I generally so NOT read/listen to books of this nature. The “Nice Guy” characters gives me the creeps and I try to stay away from them for the most part.
Kathy's Book Bag 