Author: lisascubby

Last Woman Standing by Amy Gentry has so many twists and turns it will keep your head spinning until the very last page.

Donna Diaz is a stand-up comedian trying to break into a business which is mostly male dominated. Moving back to Texas after an unsuccessful run living in LA with her childhood friend Jason, another comic who is still in LA, Donna starts to begin stand-up again from scratch. After one of her shows she meets Amanda Dorn, a very sophisticated computer programmer. They begin to bond over their problems with men who dominate in their careers and how women are not taken as seriously. They start to relay stories of sexual harassment and abuse they have encountered while trying to reach success in their businesses.

Amanda comes up with an idea on how to get back at their harassers. At first hesitant, Donna agrees and what starts out as a way to get revenge and feel empowered turns into a sick game of betrayal, paranoia and blackmail.

This is a fast paces story which shows the struggles of women and the men who hold all their power. It is also very relevant in the Me Too movement which is going on. What would some women do to get revenge on men who have harmed them both physically and emotionally? As Dana gets drawn into Amanda’s sick game she must use her wits to outsmart her. But is Amanda as crazy as she seems or just crazy like a fox?

Who will be the last woman standing?

Last Woman Standing comes out January 15. Thank you #NetGalley #Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for the advanced copy.

The Light Over London by Julia Kelly follows two very strong willed and determined women who never knew one another but whose lives interconnect on so many levels. One lived during WWII and the other today. Both have had heartbreak and survived, and come through their sadness stronger afraid of their futures but willing to take a leap of faith.

Louise Keen lived in a small English village in the 1940’s. At the young age of 19 Louise feels trapped in her ordinary life. Afraid she will never experience life outside her village she takes a leap of faith and goes to a dance. There she meets a young Flight Lieutenant, Paul Barton. When his unit is deployed, Louise makes a decision which will forever change her life.

Cara Hargroves has just come out of a horrible marriage and lost both her parents in a terrible car accident. She and her grandmother Iris are the only family left. Still unable to truly deal with her parent’s deaths, Cara decides she needs to start over and she too takes a leap of faith and moves closer to her grandmother and begins work at an antique shop. While sorting through a client’s house, Cara finds the diary of a woman who lived in the 1940’s. As Cara begins to read the diary she begins to realize that no matter what generation you have lived heartache, heartbreak and survival are all the same.

It becomes Cara’s mission to find out who the diary belongs to and return it to its proper family. In the process by reading the diary she begins to heal herself as she takes the life lessons from the diary to heart. What happened to the woman after the last diary entry? Will Cara ever find out?

Secrets play an important role in the story. Some which should be taken to the grave and others which are buried in a different place…deep in the mind and the past.

The Light Over London is a love story, but its more than that. It’s also a story of women’s empowerment and not listening to people who say you can’t succeed. A terrific read!

Thank you #NetGalley #Simon & Schuster #The Light Over London #Julia Kelly for the advanced copy. The book comes out January 8. Don’t miss it!

Looker by Laura Sims is the story of a woman whose life becomes shattered and she begins to spiral out of control after she separates from her husband after years of being unable to conceive a child. Her mind slowly dissolves as she begins to obsess and emulate a famous actress who lives across the street.

The woman whose name we never learn. narrates the story. Through her eyes we see her begin to lose her mind as she tries to rationalize the anger at her soon to be ex-husband and his cat which she will not return, her poor choices as a Humanities professor and especially her sickening obsession toward the actress known in the story only as “The Actress”. As she watches the actress and her family relentlessly from the stoop in front of her house she creates envious imaginary scenarios about them and she begins to sink deeper into madness.

We watch, as the reader, as this troubled woman finally breaks from reality at the annual neighborhood block party where the actress has finally noticed her, only to have her soon to be ex-husband appear and humiliate her in front of everybody. And then we watch, trying in our own mind, to look away, embarrassed for her, as we feel her desperation as she begins to succumb to the madness.

Looker will give your heart palpitations from beginning to end. I highly recommend this book. It will be out January 8. Thank you for the advanced copy #NetGalley #Simon&Schuster #Looker

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh is a very sad love story. But read it anyway!!

The story begins with Sarah meeting Eddie during a walk. They end up spending the week together and begin to fall in love. Then something happens. We don’t know what and neither does Sarah.

When their time together ends Eddie disappears. He disappears from social media, and Sarah’s life. She knows something has happened because he would never intentionally block her…would he? Her friends think she just needs to let him go and move on but Sarah just can’t.

Then their world’s collide making their love impossible.

There are so many twists and turns to the story and the reader is constantly feeling they know where this is going only to be shocked when it moves somewhere else.

Ghosted was a little slow to start but stick with it. I promise you will be glad you did!

Diane Setterfield’s first novel, The Thirteenth Tale has to be one of my favorite books, so when I heard she had written another novel I was overjoyed! Although Once Upon a River is very different from Setterfield’s first novel, it was still very good and quite enjoyable…only in a different way.

The main character in the story is the Thames River which is a very windy river with villages on either side. The other characters are the residence of some of the villages and how a river can somehow bring out the best (and worst) in people.

The story begins with an injured man and a dead young girl collapsing at the doorstep of a local watering hole in one of the small villages adjacent to a riverbank late one night. Hours later the child who had been pronounced dead by the local nurse/doctor suddenly awakens to everyone’s surprise. She is mute and no one knows who she is or where she has come from.

Locals from towns along the river believe her to be, well, who they want her to be. A child who has gone missing. A married couple who’s daughter was kidnapped years prior believe her to be their missing daughter. An older woman believes her to be her young sister who she believes had died.

But this young girl cannot be everyone’s missing person. So who could she possibly be? And how do they decide just whose she really belongs to?

This novel has romance, sadness, many mysteries and is quite suspenseful with a conclusion worth waiting for.

Once Upon a River is a fairytale carpet ride down a magical river and along its special water. I enjoyed the ride very much!

Thank you #NetGalley #Once Upon a River #Atria/Emily Bestler Books. The book will be out in December.

Number One Chinese Restaurant is Lillian Li’s first attempt at a novel.

The story follows the family who own the Duck House, the best Chinese restaurant in Rockville, Maryland, as well as some of the staff who have worked there for years.

The matriarch father has died and sons Jimmy and Johnny have taken ownership of the restaurant along with their mother who since her husband’s death has lost her desire for life.

Jimmy and Johnny each have troubled lives which include addictions and unhappy marriages. Their mother belittles both of them as much as she can and treats them both as employees of the restaurant rather than her children. Johnny has a teenage daughter Annie, whom he was once close to but finds little time for now that he is in charge of the Duck House. Annie misses her father and has sunk into a deep depression.

Jimmy decides to open his own restaurant which he believes will rival his father’s and will perhaps finally make his mother respect him. But he needs the capital for his plan to succeed.

Then we have the staff members Nan and Ah-Jack who have worked at the Duck House for decades and have been best friends from the moment they laid eyes on each other. Nan has a teenage son, Pat who has been expelled from school for setting a fire. Ah-Jack has a wife, Michelle, who is recovering from cancer and never leaves the house.

Although employer and employees, these people are all family and what affects one affects them all. The sense of desperation and sadness in their lives is palpable.

Although a good read, I felt a bit frustrated at the ending, feeling not every character had the closure I expected (or perhaps I needed). I don’t think I would recommend this book, but perhaps it just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Haunted: Horror of Haverfordwest by G.L. Davies in not for the faint of heart! Which I clearly am!

This book is a true horror story where things REALLY did go bump in the night. Haunted is the prequel to author G.L. Davies’ own experiences in a house in Haverfordwest, Wales in which he stayed and almost died in. His first book A Most Haunted House came out in 2013 and was an e-book bestseller which chronicles his paranormal experiences, depression and drinking problem while living there.

After his book began to get noticed, a couple contacted him and said they had bought and lived in the same house back in 1989 and had similar experiences which nearly broke them up. After getting approval from the current owner of the house who does not actually live there, but rents it out, and under condition that the house and street would never be divulged, Davies confirmed the information of the couple only known as Dai and Anne, and their ownership of the house in the ’80’s. This is their story.

There experiences in the house range from a bathroom which was so cold you could see your breath, to noises coming from different rooms which would leave one to believe there were other people in the house. There is a tall shadow figure who seems to border on demonic who they call “The Angry Man”. Their radio and TV become filled with static for no reason and voices seem to be heard when the radio has this static. There are also visions Anne has of people who they believe to have lived in the house centuries prior and are trapped there.

I don’t want to give away anymore than I feel I should as I believe the reader should experience what the couple does first hand. This story gave me chills while reading it and chills as I thought about it as I walked my own house at night.

Haunted: Horror of Haverfordwest is just plain creepy! You have been forewarned! The book comes out December 1. Thank you #NetGalley #Haunted: Horror of Haverfordwest

Golden Child by Claire Adam is a book which will haunt you for days, as it has me. So much so I needed time to decompress and really think hard about the multifaceted story.

Set in Trinidad, the story follows the lives of twin boys, Peter and Paul, born to parents Clyde and Joy in a very rural area of the country. One twin, Peter, develops into an extraordinary child who excels at everything he does and with the temperament of a saint. The other twin, Paul, is seen as slow and odd with much social anxiety. Although unable to keep up with his brother in school, their mother insists on keeping the twins together in the accelerated classes so Peter can protect Paul.

One day Paul does not come home from a walk. Hence begins the disturbing, heart stopping climax to the story when their father must make a decision no parent would ever imagine ever having to make. A decision which when presented with life or death how does one choose? and can you ever be ready for the consequences of those actions.

I would highly recommend this book.

A special thank you to SJP for Hogarth on the advanced read. The book will be out on January 29, 2019. If you enjoyed this review please visit my blog at http://www.lisascubby.com for more reviews. Thank you and happy reading!

The Whispered Word by Ellery Adams is Book 2 in the Secret, Book & Scone Society series.

I am new to author Ellery Adams and came across her accidently last Christmas when I read Secret, Book & Scone Society.  She is also the author of a few other series books which when time permits I would love to delve into.  I enjoyed both books as well as her writing style and how she is able to combine a good cozy mystery with an uplifting feel good story.

The series is about Nora Pennington who arrived in Miracle Springs, North Carolina after fleeing her old life after a tragic accident occurred which not only changed who she is on inside, but she also carries the scars of her old life on the outside.

She opened a bookstore called Miracle Books and became friends with a group on women who each had their own sad or tragic past.  They named themselves the Secret, Book & Scone Society.

In The Whispered Word, Nora finds a girl named Abilene hiding in her bookshop.  Frightened and physically abused, she and her friends in the Society take her in and try to heal her.  They get her a job and find her a place to live.  The story of how she came to be in Miracle Springs is a mystery in itself.

In the meantime, one of Nora’s customers is found dead by suicide just as an antique dealership arrives in town. Residents, who just had a massive economic downfall are eager to sell their wares at the on-line store. Then another death occurs.  Who is Abilene? Was the first death really suicide? Could they possibly be connected? We begin to see the pieces of a very complex puzzle begin to fit together.

The Whispered Word does not disappoint.  It is a terrific mystery with lots of heart.  Each of the women in the Society have had pasts which they are still running from.

I would recommend reading the first book of the series first, although the second book does relay some of the details from the first.

Look for the book on November 27.  Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy.