Month: October 2023

The One That Got Away is a beautiful love story about missed opportunities, misunderstandings, but also about never losing that first connection when you fall in love. It’s about growing apart, finding oneself and growing stronger. But most importantly, its realizing that the simplicity of life with those you love and care about is what really creates happiness.

The story begins on a Saturday in April of 2022 when Clara, a journalist hears about a bombing at a stadium. She suddenly realizes her old boyfriend, Benjamin, who was truly the love of her life but due to circumstances they drifted apart. Always a season ticket holder to the Saturday soccer games which are played there she is concerned about him. But this was over twenty years ago. Would he still have those tickets? Could he have been in the stadium and was he hurt?

Clara has been married to her husband Thom, a jeweler for years, but continues to be restless in her marriage, deep down knowing she had made a mistake when she married. But Clara can’t admit aloud exactly what she feels deep in her heart. She has always known she should have been with Benjamin but due to a horrible event it was never meant to happen. Clara and Benjamin’s relationship was always tumultuous with her never truly being able to trust, him and his obsession with soccer and drinking did not help either.

So Clara decides she must travel to the city where the stadium is and find out if not only Benjamin was there, but if he is still alive. She lies to Thom and says she’s going out with a friend. While we learn about Clara’s life with Benjamin and what happened to their relationship throughout the years, in separate chapters we learn about Benjamin and his past life leading up to this fateful day. He has had a difficult life since he has last seen Clara, but throughout it all he has never forgotten her.

As they both relive their journey from their first meeting, which coincidentally occurred at the stadium, their love and heartbreak and trauma with Clara never understanding why Benjamin didn’t go after what he really wanted in life and Benjamin always feeling if only Clara could have a little bit more faith in herself things would have gone better.

What they both really want is to find peace, within themselves and with each other. But is it possibly too late?

The One That Got Away is a touching story of first love and first heartache of losing part of your soul and fighting hard to get it back. It’s understanding that sometimes the ordinariness of a life with someone you love gives much more happiness than a massive ring on a finger which may look beautiful but means nothing.

Thank you #St.MartinsPress #TheOneThatGotAway #CharlotteRixon for sending me the free copy #SMPRomance.

The Intern is a page turning nail biter with a mysterious cat and mouse plotline in which the reader has no idea who the actual protagonist is. The story is expertly crafted and clever as all of Campbell’s books are and filled with shocks and suprises.

Harvard Law student Madison Rivera has worked hard to achieve her goals. Having come from a dysfunctional, poor family with her brother facing prison time for drug charges, all she really wants is to help save him and give her mother the peace she deserves.

So, when one of her professors, a highly respected judge who Madison has looked up to for years, Judge Kathryn Connoy asks her to intern in her law office as a law clerk because she suddenly has an opening, she jumps at the chance. But quickly, Madison discovers there could be a problem. The judge is overseeing her brother’s court case. And her brother insists he’s being framed and the judge in the case is in on it. So, Madison must make a decision and decides to lie to the judge and tell her she is an only child so she can truly investigate the claims.

But they are both keeping secrets. Kathryn has not told Madison that she is being manipulated by a mob because of the information she has about a murder many years ago. Kathryn’s well-connected family will not let her go and threaten her constantly.

As Madison discovers some of the judge’s secrets, she unfortunately becomes a target in this who should we believe thriller which is part murder mystery and part suspenseful crime story.

With both of them holding back from each other, and the FBI breathing down Kathryn’s back and goons trying to manipulate Madison, the stakes are even higher. And then Madison discovers Kathryn’s last secret.

Now they have to trust each other or die together! What has Madison gotten herself into?

The Intern will have you on the edge of your seat, questioning everything you are learning and every character you are meeting. What a ride!

Thank you #NetGalley #St.Martin’sPress #TheIntern #MicheleCampbell for the advanced copy.

One Puzzling Afternoon is a wonderfully, sensitive, beautifully told story in which the main character, Edie, in the early stages of dementia tries to remember something she knows was very important which happened to her best friend Lucy back in 1951. This riveting read which flashes back to that mysterious day, and what led up to it, to the present day which in this case is 2018, follows Edie’s desperate journey as she tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together as to what happened to Lucy before her crumbling memory makes it impossible.

As 84-year-old Edie walks down the street, she suddenly sees a young girl who looks exactly like her best friend from when they were teenagers. She knows it’s her! But her best friend Lucy would be the same age as Edie, so she is confused. But that sighting sets Edie on an incredibly difficult adventure.

Edie realizes she knows something about Lucy which no one else knows. But for the life of her she can’t remember what it is. Lucy disappeared one afternoon back in 1951 and was never seen again. There were so many theories on what happened to her, but Edie for some reason feels they are all wrong.

So, Edie tells her family about Lucy, although she knows she’s confused while explaining the story. Her family feels Edie is just confused as she has just been diagnosed with dementia and is forgetting quite a great deal. So much so she can’t really live alone anymore, and they are selling her house and buying one so she can live with them.

Growing up in 1951 Edie was a teased teenage girl with no friends whose father had died and whose mother did the best she could to make money. She worked as a psychic with Edie’s help and that was frowned upon back in the day. And then when her mother remarried, Edie’s life was made even more miserable by this overbearing man who had such distain for her.

And then for some reason Lucy Theddle, a popular, beautiful, rich girl became her friend…and her world changed! They were inseparable and told each other all their secrets. Well Lucy told Edie. And then something happened. And Lucy was just gone.

And now it’s up to Edie to figure out what happened that day. She remembers parts, but not all and what she remembers is jumbled. One thing for sure, she knows she promised Lucy she would never tell. But what was it she was not supposed to tell? What does Edie know?

For Edie, she knows it’s a race against time to figure this out and without the support of her family she just hopes she’ll be able to do this for Lucy before all is forgotten.

One Puzzling Afternoon is a unique story which looks at what happens when someone’s brain begins to fail them, and the despair of their family as they try and navigate a situation which will never get better, only worse.

Thank you #NetGalley #Sourcebooks/Landmark #OnePuzzingAfternoon #EmilyCritchley for the advanced copy.

Peter Swanson’s novella, The Christmas Guest is an outstanding, nerve racking, frightening story with an amazing plot, twists and turns and an unbelievable chilling ending. Trust me, it’s a far cry from The Night Before Christmas!

American student, Ashley Smith is in London doing a junior year abroad. It’s coming up to Christmas, a difficult time for Ashley as she has no family, her mother dying years ago. She is used to spending the holiday alone, something she has gotten quite use to. Until this year when an English student, Emma Chapman asks her if she would like to come and stay at her family’s house for the week and celebrate Christmas with her, her parents and her brother Adam.

Ashley can’t believe her luck! Emma lives in Cotswold manor! What a luxury it will be for her to be pampered for once during the holiday season! She is so excited to find out what an English Christmas will be like. In her excitement she decides to buy a diary and document her stay which she can’t help but think will be the best week of her life!

But, as Ashely soon discovers, life at Cotswold manor is not what she imagined. It’s frightfully cold inside the house, she is left on her own quite a bit, Emma’s father is mean and unkind, and her mother, very meek. The only saving grace is Emma’s brother Adam who is not only handsome but funny and easy to talk to. Although she would never say the words out loud, she has a terrible crush on him!

There has also been a strange death in this cozy village. A young girl was murdered recently, and the killer has not been found. At one point Emma’s brother Adam had even been suspected on the crime, but he had a solid alibi. Now, Ashley has seen a terrifying stranger walking out of the woods and thinks she may have actually seen the killer!

As we follow the story through Ashley’s eyes and witness the dark path the story goes down and how its terribly horrendous turn, it will give the reader not only goosebumps but a shock at the stunning conclusion.

The Christmas Guest is another brilliant, imaginative Peter Swanson story, and even though it is short, it pacts that horrifying punch his readers are so use to and do look forward to. Merry Christmas?

Thank you #NetGalley #WilliamMorrow #PeterSwanson #TheChristmasGuest for the advanced copy.

The September Read with Jenna pick, Amazing Grace Adams is a wonderful, funny, well-written, empathetic story about a woman who has reached her breaking point, with her daughter, her husband, her work and everyone she encounters on that fateful day in which everything that can go wrong, does. The relatable story is filled with emotions everyone can relate to, anger, embarrassment, mistakes and a love so deep and desperate you would do anything to try and fix it and make it better. It’s about never being able to come back from loss, but at least trying to live and deal with the sadness openly. It’s about the good, the bad and the ugly of life and finally saying enough is enough.

Grace Adams is having a very, very bad day. She’s stuck in traffic trying to get to a bakery across town so she can pick up a 16th birthday cake for her daughter Lotte who does not want to have anything to do with her anymore, let alone see her.

So, feeling she has no choice, she gets out of her car, leaving it in the traffic and begins the long walk to find the bakery and make it to a birthday party which she is not wanted at. As she tries to maneuver through the different and difficult moments getting to the bakery, she begins to relive her life and assess what she has done right and wrong. At 45, and being perimenopausal, sweating at the drop of a hat, she relives what has led up to her husband wanting a divorce, her daughter moving out to live with her father and being fired all because she can’t seem to open her mouth. She can’t explain her feelings, so she just shoves them deeper and deeper into a vault she has never opened before.

As her life during the walk explodes around her and as she explodes on everyone she unfortunately encounters, Grace realizes she has become a person she does not know or understand. How and why did her life take such horrible twists and turns.

But by the time she finally makes it to the bakery to get the cake and brings it to Lotte’s birthday party, a party she was told NOT to attend, she is a new Grace, determined to make up for the mistakes she felt she has made , to love more deeply especially to love herself and try to be the woman she knows she wants to be, not the person who everyone around her wants her to be.

Amazing Grace Adams will make you smile, tear up but also make you realize how human everyone really is and make you admire Grace Adams for what she was able to do during that long difficult day, and perhaps we all could learn from her how to react when we make mistakes, or when we don’t speak out mind. She teaches us that no matter what you need to pull yourself up, experience the feelings, learn from them and grow. This is peace…

Courtesy of HOLT Social Media, here are some cute mobile backgrounds for your phone to fit the fun mood this book brings out, along with a delicious cake recipe!

Thank you #NetGalley #HenryHoltandCo #FranLittewood #TheAmazingGraceAdams for the advanced copy.

The follow-up to Shepherd’s eerie story, Malice House is filled with even more extraordinary monsters and bogeymen and an exceptionally horrifying story in which reality versus frightening villains created at an old movie studio.

As her father’s monsters in which he wrote, created and then they came to life are still lurking in all corners of the world, Haven, his daughter, a monster herself, who also has the power to draw creatures and her step-sister Kylie who has the power to write the stories are on the hunt to find their relatives who can hopefully explain to them why this happened and how to stop the killing.

They flee to Hollywood, where Haven’s former mysterious boss who use to send her horror movies from the deep dark web to review lives. There they begin to understand there was a horror film company from the early 1950’s whose logo seems to mysteriously appear on some of the dead bodies. One an actress from the era.

As they begin to get closer to finding out who her relatives are, all roads seem to point to her Uncle Arthur, a crazy monster her father created. He is wreaking havoc on not only her but is trying to kill all of her relatives so he can live forever.

But unbeknownst to them, monsters from these old movies mysteriously draw Haven and Kylie to them. But why? It’s now up to the two women to figure out how to stop these crazy monsters who seem to have so much power. Or they will all die.

Midnight Showing is filled with creative monsters both from the past and the present, an intriguing imaginative story you won’t want to stop reading, which includes a main character who herself is one of them. One thing is for sure, they must figure out how to kill Uncle Arthur and the dead movie monsters before they take over the world!

Excited to see where Haven and Kylie’s journey take them next!

Thank you #NetGalley #HyperionAvenue #MidnightShowing #MeganShepherd for the advanced copy.

I really wanted to love Out Of The Corner by Jennifer Grey. I have watched Dirty Dancing at least fifty times and can’t pass it up when I accidently stumble across it on television, but although her life story was interesting and at times shocking, I sort of felt like she had a bit of a repetitiveness to how she was feeling and what she wanted to do with her life.

Yes, she has quite a bit to say about growing up as the daughter of Broadway veteran Joel Grey, how they moved from the East Coast to the West Coast constantly depending on his jobs, how when she was a very young child, she spent every Saturday afternoon with her father at the matinee of Cabaret watching and learning and solidifying her choice of wanted to entertain when she grew up.

But then there would be bits of what I felt should have been very impactful life changing issues such as when her parents decided to divorce, and her father came out as gay which I felt she glossed over. But perhaps she felt that was his story to tell, not hers.

She does go into great detail about getting both the Ferris Bueller and Dirty Dancing movies which of course she became known for as well as her relationship (or lack thereof) with Patrick Swayze and how she regrets not seeing him then for what he truly was. She tells stories of how the shooting of Dirty Dancing was extremely difficult between the weather, people getting sick, and not enough money for a clothing budget. So much so I feel the need to go back and yes, watch the movie again! One particular interesting tidbit was the fact that Grey was scared to do the lift during the final scene, so much so that she did it only once and of course it was perfection.

As for her romantic relationships, she was engaged twice, once to Matthew Broderick whom she had a very volatile relationship with and whom she was in a car accident while vacationing with him in Ireland in which two people were killed, Broderick was in the hospital for months and Grey was left emotionally and physically scarred for life.

Of course, she starts the book with her infamous nose job in which she became unrecognizable as herself and how it came about and pretty much ruined her then career.

She goes into great detail about marrying her now ex-husband and having a child in her forties never thinking she would be lucky enough to become a mother, only to discover that she began to lose herself in becoming a stay-at-home mom (just like her mother who left a budding career and perhaps regretted having to do so).

Enter Dancing With The Stars and her decision to take on the challenge… and challenging it was! Not only not having danced in years but discovering the car accident she was involved in years ago had unknowingly destroyed her neck!

There are a few surprises hidden throughout the book. Who her best friends are and who else she dated and was even engaged to which I will not spoil here.

But overall, Out Of The Corner was a good read but sometimes I had the feeling I was reading a rant from perhaps a bit of a spoiled child. Not to take away from her story which is powerful in so many ways.

I will just let you decide for yourself.

The Stranger Upstairs will give you the creepy crawlies! Its dark story filled with all types of terror and mystery will take the reader down a rabbit hole of fear, suspense, madness and horror. It was delicious!

Sarah Slack a best-selling author and psychologist and her bartender husband Joe decide to buy, renovate and flip a beautiful house in an affluent community. But unfortunately, there is a history to Black Wood House. You see the previous owners were killed. The husband killed his wife then himself as their daughter ran for help. Although the neighbors feel the house should be demolished, Sarah and Joe were able to get the house and its history for a steal.

As Sarah has a plan to blog about the renovations while working as a psychologist, Joe is not so sure about buying this house. He was very set against it. But Sarah feels she and Joe need this. Their marriage is falling apart, and Joe does not want to even try anymore. But both know because of their history, they are stuck with each other. And they are running out of money as they’ve spent most of her book money and even though her second book is due soon; she hasn’t even started writing.

But as they begin the renovations, they both feel the eeriness of the house. Especially Sarah who opts to sleep in the murder bedroom while Joe sleeps on the couch. Sarah starts of hear noises and footsteps. She tries to introduce herself to the neighbors who don’t want anything to do with them. She’s even chastised for buying the house.

Then, she realizes someone has been inside the house, leaving her notes about things no one should know. She begins a descent down a delusion of paranoia even accusing a neighbor of breaking into her house and poisoning her cat. She knows the house wants her there, she can feel it. But as she digresses, she loses her job and begins to relive her past which she has tried to keep hidden from herself.

But nothing could prepare Sarah for what happens next when she discovers a dead body up in the attic. She knows whose it is and what makes matters worse Joe has left her and now she is alone in the house fighting for her sanity.

Could the house be doing this to her? Or is it the ghost of the husband who killed his wife? Do they know she has a lot in common with them? Or is it a neighbor who wants them out. She begins to not make sense, even to herself. She loses sense of time and can’t understand what’s happening around her.

As all the insanity and paranoia comes to a head and with-it Sarah’s secrets which have been hidden for years are exposed. And the body count will rise. Just as it seems it always does at Black Wood House.

The Stranger Upstairs is an intense deep dive into mania and lunacy with a terrifying ending which is so good it will continuously keep you thinking who was the real killer, a person or something else?

Thank you #NetGalley #Bantam #The StrangerUpstairs #LisaM.Matlin for the advanced copy.