Month: July 2023

The Wife App is a wonderfully funny, creative thought-out story about three divorced women who are best friends trying to manage all the crap that goes along with being a single parent, while trying to deal with their significant exes, work and manage everybody’s life. As a mother knows, when one of your kids, husbands, exes have a problem, it becomes YOUR problem. While meeting for drinks and complaining about life, they come up with an extraordinary idea which will change their lives forever.

In the process of the creation of The Wife App, they all become stronger, wiser in their relationships with their children as well as their exes. They begin to see their former husbands in very different lights, some for the better and some for the worse.

Lauren is the mother of twins who always thought her marriage was on solid ground. Until she looked at her husband’s phone one day and discovered it absolutely was not! Hence, she joined her best friends in the I am a single parent club. So, when her friend Madeline throws out the idea of an app that allows women to give someone else all the crap jobs they always feel boggled down doing, Lauren who worked in IT when she had no children jumps at the chance to create something.

Madeline is a rich divorcee whose husband lives in England, and she has custody of their daughter who is an upcoming cello player. She is happy. She and her daughter connect on so many levels unlike she and her own mother. The distance between her and her ex works perfectly. Madeline is just into The Wife App for the ride! Until she discovers her daughter has been keeping a secret from her and she begins to see the world in a different light.

Sophie, the third bestie has a different family dynamic. Her husband has remarried and has a very young daughter. Although she likes Beatrice, the new wife, she feels overwhelmed by all the extra tasks she must take on because it seems her husband is too busy with his new family. So as Sophie delves deeper into work for The Wife App, she discovers a new sense of strength and realizes for once what she truly wants rather than what is expected of her, and that truth sets her free.

To their surprise the app takes off. They realize it’s not just for wives, but for single parents, overworked partners and older people who just want help. Overwhelmed they suddenly find themselves in an incredible position of power. Hopefully nothing will go wrong!

The Wife App is brilliant! It opens the door to what we all know. Exhaustion. No matter who you are or what your lifestyle, guarantee you are juggling everything, feeling guilty and of course there is never enough time in the day. The story will be relatable, humorous and touching to those who reads it and I look forward to the purchase of the app, because I imagine some strong woman will absolutely make this happen for real!

Thank you #NetGalley #Simon&Schuster #TheWifeApp #CarolynMackler for the advanced copy.

The Housekeepers is a smartly written Downton Abbey like story with humor, intrigue and empowered women during the early 1900’s. When a group of housekeepers band together to plot the heist of the century from the estate of a recently departed wealthy businessman who it seems left everything to his narcissistic spoiled daughter, well, they have had enough. Especially because as housekeepers they see all and know all and it’s not pretty. The housekeepers plan the con of cons, and chaos ensues!

The two lead scammers are Mrs. King who works as a housekeeper at The Mayfair a huge estate owned by the wealthy late Wilhelm de Vries in Park Lane London and Mrs. Bone, the owner of a pawnshop in town, but owner of much more. They have much in common, especially intelligence and a history of getting what they want.

An intricate conspiracy is put in place, and they must convince the cast of characters they have chosen to accept. They must convince the daughter, Miss de Vries to throw a costume ball. Difficult since her father has just died, but quite easy when you believe the world revolves around you. So hence it begins.

With the countdown of the days to the costume ball, they set up the scam with the help of Mrs. King’s sister Alice, Winnie, the two Janes, Sue and Hephzibah. All take incredible skills to the table which will be used to prepare for the night and work the steal before, during and after the Ball. And practice makes perfect!

The goal? Clean out the estate. Of everything. Leaving nothing. Of course, along the way they come to many crossroads but with determination they will not fail. They will stay strong not for themselves but for the justice that will be served for all the housekeepers who have had to pay with sweat, tears and sometimes their lives. These housekeepers will learn they are extremely strong and capable with more skills they ever thought they had which gives them the courage needed to get the job done.

The night of the Ball arrives and of course disaster after disaster occurs, but with this group of unwavering women, they will fight to the very end for what they are rightly due.

The Housekeepers is the female version of Robin Hood and his merry men (women) who only want to take from the rich and give what is rightly due to the poor. But don’t let this story fool you. Woven within the plot are secrets and lies and shocking twists which makes the story even more exciting.

ALEX HAY grew up in the United Kingdom in Cambridge and Cardiff, and has been writing as long as he can remember. He studied history at the University of York, and wrote his dissertation on female power at royal courts, combing the archives for every scrap of drama and skulduggery he could find. He has worked in magazine publishing and the charity sector and lives with his husband in London. The Housekeepers is his debut novel and won the Caledonia Novel Award.

Thank you #NetGalley #GraydonHouse #TheHousekeepers #AlexHay for the advanced copy. You can buy the book now with the links below:

BookShop.org

Harlequin

Barnes & Noble

Books A Million

Amazon

Oh baby! Murder is A Piece of Cake is just the coziest of cozies with lots of heart, humor, excitement, murder and oh, deliciousness!

In book two of this adorable series, we find social media influencer, Maddy, now the owner of a bakery called Baby Cakes named after her late Aunt Octavia’s very large Mastiff named Baby. They both are still recuperating from their first adventure and the bakery is closed due to renovations. What could possibly go wrong? The will stipulates Maddy must keep the bakery afloat for a certain amount of time in order to receive her inheritance, so that’s what she must do. But with a closed store, no money is coming in.

As she and the “real” baker, Leroy begin to figure out what to bake for the upcoming New Bison Spring Festival, two things suddenly go wrong. First, there is something wrong with Baby and no one can figure out what. She’s not sick, it sees she’s depressed. And oh, there is a murder!

When multi-millionaire and not the nicest guy in the world CJ Davenport comes into town, he does more than just seek revenge on Maddy’s best friend, but not only does he open up a bakery directly across from Baby Cakes, but they discover he owns deeds to a couple of other stores. And he’s after Baby Cakes. So, with most of the town not happy with him, he ends up dead. In Maddy’s bakery with a knife in his back…Karma, I guess.

So as Maddy and her new friends who like to solve mysteries and are known as the Baker Street Irregulars try to find out who the killer is and with the police not very happy with Maddy and even suspecting her, they must figure this out quickly who the murderer really is because the bakery needs to open.

No one believes the killer is Maddy, but when one of their own confesses to the murder they are all thrown into chaos. They know the person is not guilty, so why would they take the fall?

In the meantime, they discover Baby is in love. Not with Maddy, but ANOTHER mastiff named Daisy. How on earth does Maddy deal with this? She wants to keep Baby happy…but. Her own love life is going pretty well in New Bison as she has been seeing the veterinarian, Michael.

What they soon discover is that this murder is somehow related to all the trouble they had just a few months ago. Will it never end? Well, I hope not! In this plot we begin to learn much more about the backstories of some of the characters we as readers have all fallen in love with all the juicy soap opera details of life in a small town.

Maddy and Baby’s adventures are comically enjoyable and continue to entertain with solid mysteries, yummy recipes included at the end of the books all of which continue to be completely satisfying. #loveforBaby #waitingforthenextinstallment.

Thank you #NetGalley #KensingtonCozies #ValerieBurns #MurderisAPieceofCake for the advanced copy.

Dark secrets prevail in this awe dropping thriller with shocking twists and an incredible ending. Although a challenging read due to one of the main plots being domestic abuse, it also depicts how women, desperate to leave an abusive relationship feel hopeless, afraid to leave, who live in fear each day and will do just about anything if they can find a way out and survive. Even then, they are always looking to see if they are going to get caught.

Cassie Peters is on the move. She has left her life in New York and has hopefully erased herself so she will never be found. She is running from the one person she truly loved, but now is perilously afraid of, her husband.

She returns to her hometown of Mammoth Lakes in California where she had previously worked as a search and rescue team member at Yosemite years ago. She desperately needs a job even though the reason she had left the position years ago was because of a tragic search and rescue where someone died.

All she wants to do is blend in under her maiden name, forget what she has been through and think about what her next steps should be to hide forever. A daunting task.

But of course, things don’t go as she planned. When a couple, Jada and Jim post footage of a bear taking food from them chaos ensues at the park and this opens her up to a risk of being seen on social media.

She then meets a woman named Petal and her partner Sandy. Petal is keeping a diary because she would like to write a book someday about their adventures in camping. Petal, it seems has become a bit obsessed with the couple who posted the footage, Jada and Jim. She has a feeling Jim may be abusing Jada as when she first met Jada, she found her crying because she and Jim had a horrible argument.

Suddenly the couple goes missing while on a hike. Which is the same thing that happened all those years ago. As the search and rescue try to find them and the park becomes a circus of media attention, Petal disappears as well. Then a dead body is found, and Cassie’s world is thrown into turmoil. She becomes the prime suspect in the death. Just how did it all come to this? How will she survive? Just what happened to the missing campers?

Have You Seen Her is so captivating and surprising and gripping in so many ways. Because the reader becomes quite invested in the characters and their stories and backstories the shocking outcome will astonish them.

Thank you #NetGalley #AtriaBooks #CatherineMcKenzie #HaveYouSeenHer for the advanced copy.