The Better Liar by Tanen Jones

Leslie’s father’s dying wish was to have his daughters rekindle their relationship.  He wanted it so much that he made it a condition under this will that no money be disbursed to either until they presented themselves to the attorney together. 

When her hunt for Robin takes her to Las Vegas, Leslie discovers Robin dead from an apparent drug overdose.  While trying to work out her next plan, Leslie comes across a girl who looks enough like Robin to fool the acquaintances who haven’t seen her in a decade.  It looks like Mary is in need of a new beginning and so a plan is hatched. 

While waiting for the estate to pay out, each woman starts to learn just ow many secrets the other is keeping.  
The story is told from 3 points of view: Leslie, the good daughter that stayed home and cared for her emotionally unavailable father to the bitter end, Robin, the wild child that ran away from home a decade ago and Mary, the lookalike and sometimes con-artist. 

I really liked the idea of this book and the story is full of twist and secrets.  I had some issues with inevitability and didn’t feel any connection to Leslie, which may have been the author’s intention.  She came off very beige and boring with no depth to her character, even when her secrets were revealed. 
This would make a good rainy weekend read.

Thank you to NetGalley at the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review

Followers by Megan Angelo

The followers follows 2 timelines, current day and 2051.  In the current day, we find Orla, an aspiring author with a roommate named Floss that is working on “making it”.  To make ends meet, Orla finds herself writing for a gossip web-zine called Lady-ish.  When the celebrity that Orla writes all of her articles about dies, she finds that she needs a new celebrity to follow or she will be out of a job.  Orla and Floss combine their talents and turn Floss into the next big thing, influencer du jour and twitter famous in the blink of an eye.

In the 2051 timeline, we find ourselves in Constellation, California, a picture perfect community designed by The Network to be not just a reality show, but several reality shows in one community.  The stars all where a device that allows them to see their followers, read commentary and allows The Network to influence their choices and behaviors.  

The story focuses on Marlow, who has lived in the community since she was 5.  She has grown up in front of the camera for the past 30 years and has had every moment of her life filmed and directed.   After a violent episode in her teen years, she even finds herself as the face of Hysteryl, a mood stabilizing drug that keeps her “happy”.  When the Network decides that she needs to have a baby to spice up her life for her followers, Marlow has to stop taking Hysteryl.  As she emerges from the drugs haze, she realizes that she is not happy with her picture perfect life and when a lab tech tells her about an anomaly with her DNA, Marlow decides she wants answers. 

While Marlow is looking for answers, she discover the story of her parents, Floss and Aston and their short lived reality show that featured Orla as the nerdy disgruntled roommate.  She also finds herself face to face with her nemesis who helps her discover the truth as it centers around The Spill.  

The book is an interesting commentary about social media and sharing, the desire for celebrity and it’s consequences.  It pokes fun at influencers and people who find themselves famous just because they are famous. 

This was a light and sometimes dark read, humorous and thought provoking.  It would be a good beach read, a book club read and even a required reading for later high school and early college to discuss the media and other agencies role in our lives and our actions. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Girls with No Names by Serena Burdick

The story opens on the life of Luella and Effie Tildon, privileged children, raised by a strict mother and a father interested in keeping up appearances.  Luella, the older sister, has a bit of a rebellious streak but dotes on Effie.  Effie was born with a heart condition that leaves her prone to “blue fits” and leaves her parents amazed each year that she does not die.  The girls are inseparable and make their own adventures.. 

When Luella goes missing, Effie assumes that her parents have sent her away to the reform school (work house) up the road, known as the House of Mercy.  Desperate to be with her sister after her parents refuse to bring her home, Effie dreams up a plan and enters the House of Mercy under a different name only to find that her sister is not there.  

Trapped by her own story, Effie finds herself stuck in the House of Mercy and falls victim to the cruelty of the nuns and the girls that find themselves there.  Effie's gets entangled with another girl, Mable, who is also not using her own name but for far different reasons.   While trying to save Effie, Mable's find herself face to face with her past.

This story touches on new York in the 1910's, the wealthy holding on to their traditions and the poor just trying to hold on, the women who would dare to spearhead the suffrage movement, and the women and girls who found themselves with no say in their own lives.

I enjoyed the authors' use of the names to highlight her title  and the lack of identity woman had outside of their male relations. I wish there had been more history than just the touches of the suffrage  movement and the workhouses for wayward girls. 

Effie enjoys writing and the author would sometimes throw some of her fanciful stories into the narrative that were often distracting and didn't add much to the story. 

It was a solid read, good for book clubs .  3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

Dear Edward is a deeply moving story of a young boy that is the sole survivor of a catastrophic plane crash.  

The story is told in alternating timelines, now and during the flight.  At first, I did not like or enjoy the narrative of the time during the flight, but as the story progressed, I began to see its relevance.  

This is not a happily ever after tale, per se.  It has darkness, a sense of stalling, falling, failing.  Edward's unhappiness, the people around him treating him like an unexploded bomb and nobody quite knowing how to move forward feels very real.  It's not overly pretty or hopeful and yet, not completely bleak and hopeless.

The story, for me, could easily have ended with the Colorado\Texas transplant volunteer as it was so moving to read that point of view in it's poignant simplicity. 

I found this to be a great read.  I would be surprised and probably a little saddened if this weren't turned into a movie.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

The Missing Letters of Mrs Bright by Beth Miller

Mrs. Bright is your average middle-aged woman, married for more than half of her life, mother to 2 grown children, keeping up with friends and obligations.  Until one day, when she wakes up and decides that she has had enough and walks away from her marriage.

Kay finds herself at the point in her life where she wonders at the road not taken and looks back  too fondly at what could have been, seeing the past through a distorted lens of wistful thinking.

After her friend’s bi-monthly letters suddenly stop with no notice, Kay decides that while she is spreading her wings and finding her own identity post marriage, she will check in on her friend in Australia.  

What she learns on her travels, about her friends, herself and her marriage helps her to put feelings in perspective and find a new way forward while maintaining her relationships with her husband, children and friends. 

This is a novel about midlife, looking back, family and friendship.  It is a nice light read, the troubles and turmoils are put to bed a little too neatly for my taste, making it a little hard to believe at times, but overall a good book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

First Cut by Judy Melinek, M.D.; T.J. Mitchell

Dr. Jessie Teska is new to San Francisco but not new to her job as medical examiner.  She is smart and down to earth, has a very vocal and kind of destructive dog, a murky family history and a very curious nature that just might lead her into trouble.

Something about one of her first cases in her new department feels off and the more she pursues it, the worse it feels. When someone close to the case takes an interest, things quickly spiral in their own direction, leaving Jessie to follow along as her case becomes entangled in other recent cases.

This book feels like the beginning of a series.  I get essence of early Kay Scarpetta and early Temperence Brennan in here.  There is just the right mix of professional story line with a sprinkle of her human side, her dog her brother, her dates and even a smattering of her past.

A solid read. 

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Good Girls Lie by J.T. Ellison

The Goode School is an all-girls boarding school full of privilege and history and secret societies.  It is also a breeding ground for hazing, secrets and lies.  Ashlyn Carr arrives at Goode under an assumed name to escape the sudden deaths of both of her parents. It appears that her secrets will be safe as the new headmistress is very interested in protecting her own secrets as well as how Ashlyn's tuition was funded.

When Ash’s roommate is found dead at the bottom of the clock tower.  It brings back parts of the dark past associated with not just the school, but the headmistress and some of the students as well.. But Ash has her own secrets and they are just itching to come back to haunt her.

While it has all the necessary elements of a good ghost story that throws a shadow over the real mystery, it missed the boat in that there were too many characters doing and saying too many things that were not of any pertinence to the story itself.  It didn’t hold my interested and I felt that the story dragged on and on and could likely have been done in about half the chapters.

2.5 rounded to 3 Stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

Imagine your husband has two other wives. You’ve never met the other wives…and then one day, you find a scrap of paper in his pocket….

The synopsis had me interested right away.

What starts out as a story about a polygamist relationship with a twist becomes more and more twisted as the story goes one.   It becomes pretty clear right away that this is not a story about “Sister-wives”. The wives aren’t allowed to meet each other.  Their husband, Seth, keeps his lives and marriages with each wife separate, not even allowing them to know each other’s’ names.  

This is a psychological thriller with so many twists and turns that the reader will be confused about what is real and what is not and will stay that way from about halfway through the book to the last page.  While that was a strength in the book, it was also a bit of a weakness, there were certain plot points that just weren’t believable. 

Even when you begin to get the feel of the ebb and flow of truth and delusion, the end will blindside you.  

A fast and solid read, perfect for a book club choice, a winter read or a rainy weekend.  A solid 3.5

Thank You to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Black Canary: Ignite by Meg Cabot

This is a good middle grades/middleschool read.  A nice introduction to a new superhero and a nice touch of backstory as well.  Great illustration and pacing.

All That's Bright and Gone by Eliza Nellums

We are introduced to 6 year old Aoife (Ee-fah) on a very bad and confusing day.  It appears that her mom has had a bit of a nervous breakdown on while driving Aoife to the mall. 

Fortunately she has her imaginary friend Teddy to make her feel safe while her mother stays in the hospital.  When the hospital calls her Uncle Donovan to stay with her, we get a look into the life of a child being raised by a mother with mental illness.  

As any young child, Aoife sees her life as perfectly normal.  She knows that there are things you just don’t talk about, she is accepting and imaginative and has an overwhelming desire to just be good.

Aoife feels that if she could just stop talking to Teddy out loud and if she could just find a way to help her mother deal with the loss of her older brother Theo, her life can return to “normal”.  Luckily Aoife has a neighbor named Hannah who is not only older (8!) but knows just how to solve a mystery.

Aoife is charming, she is imaginative and thoughtful.  The way the family history is told and pulled back layer by layer helps the reader to draw the curtain back on a family full of love and heartache.

I found some of the antics that Aoife gets up to a little hard to believe of a six year old but her age is important the telling of the family tale. 

This was a sweet and fast read that solves the mystery surrounding how and why Theo had to go away, how a family falls apart and comes back together and all the missteps along the way.

The Dead Girls Club by Damien Angelica Walters

2.5 rounded up 3 

Heather Cole, a psychologist who treats troubled kids finds herself plunged back into her own childhood when a mysterious envelope shows up at her office containing a necklace she hasn’t seen since the night her best friend was murdered. 

Heather and her 3 friends found themselves captivated, to the point of obsession, by all things creepy and formed The Dead Girls Club.  Teen fascination with horror, serial killers and urban legends turns to something MUCH darker when Becca, Heather’s best friend, is murdered.  Or was she?

Somebody knows the whole story and is baiting Heather, letting her know that her secret is no longer safe.   Someone wants Heather to pay for what happened.

Talk about unreliable narrator!  It is clear early on that Heather is not mentally stable.    The then and now narration leaves the reader wondering how much of the then is what actually happened and how much is Heather's twisted mind. 

The story is full of twists and turns and has a very dark thread that pulls the story along.

The ending left a bit to be desired and left more questions than answers.  I didn’t really like the ending as it seemed too much like so many endings to books and movies in this genre. 

Thank you to the publisher and to Netgalley and for the e-Arc in exchange for my honest review!

The Memory Thief by Lauren Mansy

The Memory Thief is built around a fascinating concept, memories as currency, which of course means as power and corruption and all that goes along with it.

The Gifted have the ability to give and take memories, the Ungifted are used as sources for these memories; talents and skills and happy memories are sold to the highest bidder.  But bad memories are also wanted and used.  There are many other factions here as well, Shadows, Ghosts, Hunters, Tribes and they each seem fascinating in their own right, for what little is explained of each.

The pacing of this book was off a bit for my liking, it seemed to be selected chapters from a much longer novel crammed together to make plot twist after plot twist and narrative snippets tie in together at a pace that just wasn’t fulfilling.

The connections between the characters were not believable or well sketched out.

Great idea – not so great in the execution. 2 Stars.

One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski

One Night Gone

In 1986, young runaway Maureen is traveling with a summer carnival when they arrive at Opal Beach.  Maureen just knows that it is her destiny to stay there.  She is befriended by some of the locals and the kids who summer at Opal Beach and finds the courage to quit her job and start her new life.  And then she disappears.

Thirty years later, Allison, a former television meteorologist come to Opal Beach to housesit and flee the very public demise of her marriage.

The story is told from Maureen’s point of view and Allison’s.  When Allison meets Maureen’s best friend, Tammy, who still lives in Opal Beach, the two become friends and Tammy enlists Allison’s help to figure out what happened to Maureen all those years ago. 

An interesting premise, lots of local color, the haves and the have nots, and tons of red herrings, this had all the markings of a great suspense tale but it fell a little short for me.  None of the characters were particularly likeable, the whispers and near premonitions that Allison experiences were a little too cheesy for me. 

The resolution of the murder was a little too predictable and the happily ever after way the book tied up made it just 2.5 rounded to 4 for me.   

This would probably made a good rainy day at a beach vacation read. 

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

The Widow of Pale Harbor - Hester Fox

The Widow of Pale Harbor was pitched as gothic suspense/historical fiction.  Set in 1846 Maine, the tale begins when Gabriel arrives to fill the slot as minister in this tiny seaside town.  He arrives during a brutal storm and finds disturbing items left at the altar.  While getting to know his new congregation, he is told to watch out for The Widow Carter, a recluse who locals believe killed her husband in cold blood. 

Her housemate and servant, Helen, does nothing to thaw the villagers perceptions, keeping Sophronia Carver at home and protected through use of herbal spells and bindings. 

Someone is leaving dead birds, threatening notes and other totems at window Carver’s house; at the same time strange things are happening in the village and all are blaming Widow Carver, calling her a witch. 
While Gabriel is enchanted by Widow Carver, he manages to put his foot in his mouth and make himself misunderstood for the first few meetings.  Sadly, that’s where the romance takes over and the mystery takes a back seat. 

Even when Gabriel’s secret is found out by the Widow, it does nothing to dissipate their newly found attraction.   The story had an interesting loop into Edgar Allan Poe to help lead us to the culprit and tie the clues together.

This was a romantic suspense novel, heavy on the romance, very very light on the suspense.  A nice light read on a rainy weekend.

The Stranger Inside - Lisa Unger

A man who likely got away with murder is found dead in his home.  There is no evidence to point a finger at the killer.  For journalist Rain Winters, it all seems eerily familiar.

Rain, a survivor of childhood trauma, finds herself investigating the murder and its similarities to the murder of her attacker and abductor and murderer of her friends.  

As she finds herself divided between stay at home mother and investigative journalist, she must access parts of her past that she kept locked away.  

Hank, the friend that survived the abduction and torture has made it his life to help traumatized children out of the darkness of abuse as a psychologist but he’s never completely forgiven Rain for being the one to survive.

While trying to make sense of the latest murder, Rain uncovers ad rediscovers some truths that were meant to stay buried.  Is there a balance between right and wrong?  Can doing wrong for the right reason make it right?

This is a story full of twists and turns, emotion and introspection.  It has a wonderful depth and a certain lyrical quality, even in its darkest passages.