Though I was immediately drawn to the synopsis of THE PRECIOUS JULES, my expectation that it was going to be a heavy, depressing read was not entirely accurate. Shawn Notcher has written the story of the Jules family with a great deal of sensitivity. The characters are all quite complicated and many are flawed but they are presented with a unique objectivity that made them realistic and, for the ...
Family Dynamics
Review: Never Coming Home by Hannah Mary McKinnon
Do you enjoy books with characters you just love to hate? Me too! And that's only one of the reasons why I have such high praise for NEVER COMING HOME. Lucas Forester is just a guy who has done what he needed to in order to meet his goals. Taking the hit out on his wife, Michelle, was never personal. Sure, she had a few annoying characteristics but don't we all? Lucas is not a man with no ...
Blog Tour and Review: The Cold Cold Sea by @LindaHuber19 #LoveBooksGroupTours
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Cold Cold Sea by Linda Huber. Though reliably disturbing, stories about missing children never fail to attract my attention. When I had the opportunity to join the blog tour for this one, I couldn't say anything but YES! The Cold Cold Sea is told in the third person but straightaway events and twists brought the phrase "unreliable narrator" to mind. I ...
Blog Tour and Review: Another Woman’s Husband by Gill Paul
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for Another Woman's Husband by Gill Paul. I was very excited about this book from the moment I heard about it. Like many women my age, I grew up admiring Princess Diana—not only for her beauty and glamour but for the real impact she made on the world in her too-short life. As for Wallis Simpson, I'd heard of her of course. But it wasn't until watching The ...
Review: Our House by Louise Candlish
If you've been monitoring my tweets (and why wouldn't you be?) you've seen that I started fangirling over Our House the moment I started it. I don't really do the fangirl gushing thing very well or very often but I've found some difficulty in restraining myself with this book. I will do my best to maintain some level of coherency in an effort to convey to you, as best I can, why I loved it. The ...
Review: The Book of Essie by Meghan MacLean Weir
If you, like me, have been seeing The Book of Essie everywhere, it's with good reason. Meghan MacLean Weir's debut novel is a fearless and timely story that's bound to elicit visceral emotional responses in the reader. One can't help but make comparisons between Essie's story and that of a certain reality television show family. Thankfully, there were enough departures to make the story feel fresh ...
Review and Giveaway: The Summer I Met Jack by Michelle Gable
When I first heard about this book, I was very excited because I had read Michelle Gable's I'll See you in Paris and already knew I liked her writing. Like many Americans, I've always been drawn to glamour and glitz as well as the drama and tragedy of the Kennedy family. I somehow had it in my head that this was going to be a very Kennedy-centric book detailing one of his many affairs. I was ...
Mini Audiobook Review: Far From the Tree by Robin Benway
Far From the Tree took me far out of my comfort zone in the most excellent way! It's only the second audiobook I've listen to till the very end and it's YA. Here's what I loved: The Characters - Grace, Maya, and Joaquin were well-developed characters to love. They're all basically good kids carrying more baggage than most adults could bear. Some of their baggage is shared and some is very ...
Blog Tour and Review: That Summer in Puglia by Valeria Vescina
Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for That Summer in Puglia by Valeria Vescina. In addition to jet lag, I'm now officially suffering from the dreaded Book Hangover Syndrome. This is my first blog tour as part of the #BTEAM with Bookcollective and I'm thrilled to be sharing my thoughts on this book today. When Tommaso is found by a private investigator thirty years after leaving Pulia, he ...
Review: The Last Equation of Isaac Severy by Nova Jacobs
The Last Equation of Isaac Severy is a delightfully fresh literary mystery. It was just the thing to get me out of a the little slump I'd been in. I wasn't in the mood for something terribly heavy or terribly morbid. I'm always up for quirky characters. No matter that the quirkiest character was deceased prior to Chapter One. (Of an apparent suicide. In a hot tub. With a string of Christmas ...
