Format: ARC, Paperback

#BookReview A Little Christmas Spirit by Sheila Roberts @_Sheila_Roberts @uplitreads @HarlequinBooks #ALittleChristmasSpirit #SheilaRoberts #UplitReads #gifted

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#BookReview A Little Christmas Spirit by Sheila Roberts @_Sheila_Roberts @uplitreads @HarlequinBooks #ALittleChristmasSpirit #SheilaRoberts #UplitReads #gifted Title: A Little Christmas Spirit

Author: Sheila Roberts

Published by: MIRA on Sep. 28, 2021

Genres: Contemporary Romance, Women's Fiction

Pages: 320

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Uplit Reads

Book Rating: 9/10

Single mom Lexie Bell hopes to make this first Christmas in their new home special for her six-year-old son, Brock. Festive lights and homemade fudge, check. Friendly neighbors? Uh, no. The reclusive widower next door is more grinchy than nice. But maybe he just needs a reminder of what matters most. At least sharing some holiday cheer with him will distract her from her own lack of romance…

Stanley Mann lost his Christmas spirit when he lost his wife and he sees no point in looking for it. Until she shows up in his dreams and informs him it’s time to ditch his scroogey attitude. Stanley digs in his heels, but she’s determined to haunt him until he wakes up and rediscovers the joys of the season. He can start by being a little more neighborly to the single mom next door. In spite of his protests, he’s soon making snowmen and decorating Christmas trees. How will it all end?

Merrily, of course. A certain Christmas ghost is going to make sure of that!

Review:

Bighearted, festive, and uplifting!

A Little Christmas Spirit is an amusing, tender tale set in the quaint town of Fairwood, Washington, that takes you into the lives of two main characters. Lexie Bell, a young single mother whose main focus is raising her son and making their first Christmas in their new home as memorable as possible, and Stanley Mann, an elderly widow who prefers his own company and is still struggling to adapt to living each day without the love of his life.

The prose is light and sweet. The characters are lonely, considerate, and kind. And the plot, using a back-and-forth, past/present style, is a delightfully touching tale about life, loss, love, marriage, parenthood, family, friendship, a touch of romance, happiness, and grief.

Overall, A Little Christmas Spirit is another cosy, uplifting, delightfully enchanting story by Roberts that reminds us to surround ourselves with those we love, especially during the holidays, and to always live life to the fullest.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Uplit Reads for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sheila Roberts

Sheila Roberts is happily married and lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her books are best-sellers, and have been made into movies for the Lifetime and Hallmark channels. When she’s not speaking to women’s groups or at conferences or hanging out with her hubby or girlfriends, she can be found writing about those things near and dear to women’s hearts: family, friends, and chocolate.

Photography courtesy of Author's Website.

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#BookReview We Know You Remember by Tove Alsterdal @harperbooks #WeKnowYouRemember #ToveAlsterdal #HarperBooks

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#BookReview We Know You Remember by Tove Alsterdal @harperbooks #WeKnowYouRemember #ToveAlsterdal #HarperBooks Title: We Know You Remember

Author: Tove Alsterdal

Series: High Coast #1

Published by: Harper on Sep. 28, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 448

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 8.5/10

A missing girl, a hidden body, a decades-long cover-up, and old sins cast in new light: the classic procedural meets Scandinavian atmosphere in this rich, character-driven mystery, awarded Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year, that heralds the American debut of a supremely skilled international writer. 

It’s been more than twenty years since Olof Hagström left home. Returning to his family’s house, he knows instantly that something is amiss. The front door key, hidden under a familiar stone, is still there. Inside, there’s a panicked dog, a terrible stench, water pooling on the floor. Upstairs in the shower, the father Olaf has not seen or spoken to in decades is dead.

For police detective Eira Sjödin, the investigation of this suspicious death resurrects long-forgotten nightmares. She was only nine when Olof Hagström, then fourteen, was found guilty of raping and murdering a local girl. The case left a mark on the town’s collective memory—a wound that never quite healed—and tinged Eira’s childhood with fear. Too young to be sentenced, Olof was sent to a youth home and exiled from his family. He was never seen in the town again. Until now. 

An intricate crime narrative in which past and present gracefully blend, We Know You Remember is a relentlessly suspenseful and beautifully written novel about guilt and memory in which nothing is what it seems, and unexpected twists upend everything you think you know. 

Review:

Tight, sinister, and murky!

We Know You Remember is a gritty, menacing thriller that sweeps you away to the Swedish countryside and into the life of Eira Sjödin, a young detective who inadvertently finds herself investigating and unravelling what seems to all intents and purposes to be the solved case involving the rape and murder of a teen twenty-three years ago when the convicted felon Olaf Hagström finally returns home only to stumble across the murdered body of his reclusive father.

The prose is methodical and gritty. The characters are diligent, troubled, relentless, and multilayered. And the plot is an ominous tale full of twists, turns, secrets, red herrings, deception, manipulation, desperation, deduction, mayhem, violence, and murder.

Overall, We Know You Remember is an unsettling, atmospheric, taut whodunit by Alsterdal that has all the qualities you look for in a Swedish Noir novel and is a promising US debut for this new-to-me author.

 

This book is available on September 28, 2021.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Harper Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Tove Alsterdal

Tove Alsterdal burst upon the Swedish book scene in 2009 with The Forgotten Dead and won the Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year Award in 2014 for The Disappeared. In the fall of 2020, she launched the High Coast Series, a classic procedural crime series featuring investigator Eira Sjödin and set in the stunning coastal region of northeast Sweden. The first book in the series, We Know You Remember, won the 2020 Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Swedish Book of the Year Award. For more on Tove Alsterdal, visit: http://ahlanderagency.com/authors/tove-alsterdal/

Photo courtesy of Harper Collins.

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#BookReview What Passes as Love by Trisha R. Thomas @_TrishaRThomas @OverTheRiverPr @AmazonPub #WhatPassesasLove #TrishaRThomas #LakeUnion

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#BookReview What Passes as Love by Trisha R. Thomas @_TrishaRThomas @OverTheRiverPr @AmazonPub #WhatPassesasLove #TrishaRThomas #LakeUnion Title: What Passes as Love

Author: Trisha R. Thomas

Published by: Lake Union Publishing on Sep. 1, 2021

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 336

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Amazon Publishing, OTRPR

Book Rating: 8/10

A young woman pays a devastating price for freedom in this heartrending and breathtaking novel of the nineteenth-century South.

1850. I was six years old the day Lewis Holt came to take me away.

Born into slavery, Dahlia never knew her mother—or what happened to her. When Dahlia’s father, the owner of Vesterville plantation, takes her to work in his home as a servant, she’s desperately lonely. Forced to leave behind her best friend, Bo, she lives in a world between black and white, belonging to neither.

Ten years later, Dahlia meets Timothy Ross, an Englishman in need of a wife. Reinventing herself as Lily Dove, Dahlia allows Timothy to believe she’s white, with no family to speak of, and agrees to marry him. She knows the danger of being found out. She also knows she’ll never have this chance at freedom again.

Ensconced in the Ross mansion, Dahlia soon finds herself held captive in a different way—as the dutiful wife of a young man who has set his sights on a political future. But when Bo arrives on the estate in shackles, Dahlia decides to risk everything to save his life. With suspicions of her true identity growing and a bounty hunter not far behind, Dahlia must act fast or pay a devastating price.

Review:

Multilayered, atmospheric, and alluring!

What Passes as Love is a vivid, captivating tale that sweeps you away to Virginia during the 1850s and into the life of Dahlia Holt, a young woman of mixed race who struggles to find her true place in a world where her skin is too light to be comfortable amongst her fellow slaves and a little too dark to be confident in her own home with a husband who mistakenly believes she is white.

The prose is clear and precise. The characters are determined, impulsive, and lonely. And the plot told from dual POVs unravels quickly into an intriguing tale of life, loss, love, friendship, injustice, jealousy, guilt, self-identity, loneliness, family drama, and survival.

Overall, What Passes as Love is an immersive, tender, engaging story by Thomas that doesn’t pack quite the emotional punch of some of the other Antebellum-era novels I’ve read recently but is still nevertheless an absorbing, satisfying tale.

 

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

         

 

 

Thank you to OTRPR and Amazon Publishing for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Trisha R. Thomas

Trisha R. Thomas has been featured in O, The Oprah Magazine’s Books That Made a Difference. Her work has been featured and reviewed in Cosmopolitan, the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Essence, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Her debut novel, Nappily Ever After, is now a popular Netflix original film. She is also a reviewer for the Los Angeles Review of Books. Trisha is a recipient of the Literary Lion Award from the King County Library System Foundation, was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, and was voted Best New Writer by the Black Writers Collective.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com.

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#BookReview Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty @HenryHolt #ApplesNeverFall #LianeMoriarty

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#BookReview Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty @HenryHolt #ApplesNeverFall #LianeMoriarty Title: Apples Never Fall

Author: Liane Moriarty

Published by: Henry Holt and Co. on Sep. 14, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 480

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Henry Holt and Co.

Book Rating: 8.5/10

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty comes a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest

The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want to murder each other . . .

If your mother was missing, would you tell the police? Even if the most obvious suspect was your father?

This is the dilemma facing the four grown Delaney siblings.

The Delaneys are fixtures in their community. The parents, Stan and Joy, are the envy of all of their friends. They’re killers on the tennis court, and off it their chemistry is palpable. But after fifty years of marriage, they’ve finally sold their famed tennis academy and are ready to start what should be the golden years of their lives. So why are Stan and Joy so miserable?

The four Delaney children—Amy, Logan, Troy, and Brooke—were tennis stars in their own right, yet as their father will tell you, none of them had what it took to go all the way. But that’s okay, now that they’re all successful grown-ups and there is the wonderful possibility of grandchildren on the horizon.

One night a stranger named Savannah knocks on Stan and Joy’s door, bleeding after a fight with her boyfriend. The Delaneys are more than happy to give her the small kindness she sorely needs. If only that was all she wanted.

Later, when Joy goes missing, and Savannah is nowhere to be found, the police question the one person who remains: Stan. But for someone who claims to be innocent, he, like many spouses, seems to have a lot to hide. Two of the Delaney children think their father is innocent, two are not so sure—but as the two sides square off against each other in perhaps their biggest match ever, all of the Delaneys will start to reexamine their shared family history in a very new light.

Review:

Simmering, cunning, and cleverly intricate!

Apples Never Fall is a compelling, character-driven, domestic thriller that takes you into the lives of the Delaney family as they each grapple with sibling rivalry, enduring jealousy, resentments, and long-buried secrets when their matriarch disappears one day leaving behind only a garbled text message and a husband who seems suspiciously guilty of her murder.

The writing is crisp and tight. The characters are envious, secretive, and troubled. And the plot told using a mixture of narrative, police interviews, and alternating timelines, before-and-after the incident is a mysterious tale full of well-timed twists, unforeseen surprises, red herrings, deception, insecurities, and a whole slew of quirky, eccentric personalities.

Overall, Apples Never Fall is another addictive, astute, tragically comedic tale by Moriarty that highlights once again her innate ability to delve into all the messy psychological and emotional entanglements that exist between family members and is definitely worthy of its spot on everyone’s must-read list this fall.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

           

 

 

 

Thank you to Henry Holt and Company for providing me with a copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Liane Moriarty

Liane Moriarty is the author of the #1 New York Times bestsellers Big Little Lies, The Husband’s Secret, and Truly Madly Guilty; the New York Times bestsellers Nine Perfect Strangers, What Alice Forgot, and The Last Anniversary; The Hypnotist’s Love Story; and Three Wishes. She lives in Sydney, Australia, with her husband and two children.

Photo by über photography

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#BookReview The Living and the Lost by Ellen Feldman @StMartinsPress #TheLivingAndTheLost #EllenFeldman #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview The Living and the Lost by Ellen Feldman @StMartinsPress #TheLivingAndTheLost #EllenFeldman #SMPInfluencers Title: The Living and the Lost

Author: Ellen Feldman

Published by: St. Martin's Press on Sep. 7, 2021

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: St. Martin's Press

Book Rating: 8/10

From the author of Paris Never Leaves You, a gripping story of a young German Jewish woman who returns to Allied Occupied Berlin from America to face the past and unexpected future

Millie Mosbach and her brother David escaped to the United States just before Kristallnacht, leaving their parents and little sister in Berlin. Now they are both back in their former hometown, haunted by ghosts and hoping against hope to find their family. Millie works in the office responsible for rooting out the most dedicated Nazis from publishing. Like most of their German-born American colleagues, the siblings suffer from rage at Germany and guilt at their own good fortune. Only Millie’s boss, Major Harry Sutton, seems strangely eager to be fair to the Germans.

Living and working in bombed-out Berlin, a latter day Wild West where the desperate prey on the unsuspecting; spies ply their trade; black markets thrive, and forbidden fraternization is rampant, Millie must come to terms with a past decision made in a moment of crisis, and with the enigmatic sometimes infuriating Major Sutton who is mysteriously understanding of her demons. Atmospheric and page-turning, The Living and the Lost is a story of survival, love, and forgiveness, of others and of self.

Review:

Thoughtful, moving, and immersive!

The Living and the Lost is an intriguing, poignant tale that sweeps you away to Berlin, post-WWII and into the life of Millie Mosbach, a young Jewish woman who, after escaping to America with her brother in 1938 and graduating from Bryn Mawr College, returns to war-torn Germany in 1945 to work for the de-Nazification program, removing Nazis from the publishing industry, and to hopefully find her missing parents and little sister who were taken as prisoners before they were able to get away.

The prose is nuanced and attentive. The characters are scarred, strong, and brave. And the plot using flashbacks and a back-and-forth style is an enthralling tale about life, love, strength, deception, bravery, injustice, hope, guilt, grief, loss, shame, survival, and the aftermath of war.

Overall, The Living and the Lost is an intriguing, heart-tugging, pensive tale by Feldman that does a lovely job of reminding us that nothing is as ever clear cut or as black and white as it may, on the surface, appear to be.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

               

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Ellen Feldman

Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow in fiction, is the author of Scottsboro, which was shortlisted for the UK’s prestigious Orange Prize, Next to Love, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, which was translated into nine languages, Terrible Virtue, The Unwitting, and Lucy.

In addition to her novels, she writes articles on social history and has published numerous book reviews and blogs. She has lectured extensively around the country and in Germany and England.

She grew up in northern New Jersey and attended Bryn Mawr College, from which she holds a B.A. and an M.A. in modern history. After further graduate studies at Columbia University, she worked for a New York publishing house.

She lives in New York City and Amagansett, New York, with her husband and rescue terrier Charlie.

Photograph by Laura Mozes.

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#BookReview The Missing Hours by Julia Dahl @juliadahl @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #JuliaDahl #TheMissingHours #iykyk #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview The Missing Hours by Julia Dahl @juliadahl @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #JuliaDahl #TheMissingHours #iykyk #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers Title: The Missing Hours

Author: Julia Dahl

Published by: Minotaur Books on Sep. 14, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 288

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 7.5/10

From a distance, Claudia Castro has it all: a famous family, a trust fund, thousands of Instagram followers, and a spot in NYU’s freshman class. But look closer, and things are messier: her parents are separating, she’s just been humiliated by a sleazy documentary, and her sister is about to have a baby with a man she barely knows.

Claudia starts the school year resolved to find a path toward something positive, maybe even meaningful – and then one drunken night everything changes. Reeling, her memory hazy, Claudia cuts herself off from her family, seeking solace in a new friendship. But when the rest of school comes back from spring break, Claudia is missing.

Suddenly, the whole city is trying to piece together the hours of that terrible night.

From the critically acclaimed author of Invisible City and Conviction, The Missing Hours is a novel about obsession, privilege, and the explosive consequences of one violent act.

Review:

Intricate, dark, and disturbing!

The Missing Hours is a provocative, compelling thriller that takes us into the life of Claudia Castro, an NYU freshman who, after waking up one morning beaten and raw with no recollection of the night before, heads out on a mission of vengeance and justice after she receives a video depicting the harrowing event that clearly identifies the two men who assaulted her.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are scarred, self-obsessed, and impulsive. And the plot, including all the sub-plots, builds nicely to create tension and suspense as it unravels all the violent actions, manipulative personalities, despicable behaviours, and parasitic relationships within it.

The Missing Hours is ultimately a novel about consent, violation, obsession, overindulgence, scandal, revenge, corruption, deception, social status, and rape, and even though it had me a little more riveted in the first half of the novel than the second, it is still overall a taut, gritty, compelling thriller by Dahl.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

                

 

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for providing me with a copy of this story in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Julia Dahl

Julia Dahl is the author of Conviction, Run You Down, and Invisible City, which was a finalist for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel, one of the Boston Globe’s Best Books of 2014, and has been translated into eight languages. A former reporter for CBS News and the New York Post, she now teaches journalism at NYU.

Photo by Chasi Annexy.

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#BookReview The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheNightSheDisappeared #LisaJewell

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#BookReview The Night She Disappeared by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheNightSheDisappeared #LisaJewell Title: The Night She Disappeared

Author: Lisa Jewell

Published by: Atria Books on Sep. 7, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 416

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

2017: 19-year-old Tallulah is going out on a date, leaving her baby with her mother, Kim.

Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.

The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah’s friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

She never returns.

2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.

‘DIG HERE’ . . .

A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s remarkable new novel.

Review:

Well-crafted, addictive, and sinister!

The Night She Disappeared is a creepy, clever, compulsive mystery that takes you into the life of Kim Knox as her world suddenly gets turned upside down when her teenage daughter, Tallulah, goes out one night to the pub and vanishes without a trace, and suspiciously no one present at the ”Dark Place” afterparty seems to have heard or seen anything.

The writing is intricate and twisty. The characters are distraught, troubled, and vulnerable. And the plot told from multiple perspectives and alternating between timelines quickly unravels into a menacing tale of manipulation, obsession, jealousy, secrets, unforeseen twists, well-timed surprises, violence, and complex relationships.

Overall, when I think about all the thrillers I’ve loved, at least one or two of Lisa Jewell’s books always come to mind, and this latest title, The Night She Disappeared, will certainly now be included on that list. It has everything I look for in a good thriller, nice intensity, great drama, and a storyline that not only keeps me guessing and on edge from start to finish but steadily makes me more and more unnerved as the story unfolds.

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Lisa Jewell

Lisa Jewell is the internationally bestselling author of sixteen novels, including the New York Times bestseller Then She Was Gone, as well as I Found You, The Girls in the Garden, and The House We Grew Up In. In total, her novels have sold more than two million copies across the English-speaking world and her work has also been translated into sixteen languages so far. Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

Photograph by Andrew Whitton.

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#BookReview The Night We Burned by S.F. Kosa @sarahfinebooks @RaincoastBooks @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheNightWeBurned #SFKosa #bookmarkedbylandmark

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#BookReview The Night We Burned by S.F. Kosa @sarahfinebooks @RaincoastBooks @Sourcebooks @sbkslandmark #TheNightWeBurned #SFKosa #bookmarkedbylandmark Title: The Night We Burned

Author: S.F. Kosa

Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark on Aug. 10, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 368

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Raincoast Books, Sourcebooks Landmark

Book Rating: 8/10

A new psychological thriller from suspense powerhouse S.F. Kosa featuring a decades-old secret, a mysterious cult fire, and a woman looking to outrun the ashes of her past…until they come roaring back once more.

Dora is always aware of the line between fact and fiction. As a fact checker at an online magazine, her job depends on it. And as a woman outrunning her secrets, so does her life. But when a murder crops up in her old town, one linked to a deadly fire at a cult compound twenty years prior, suddenly all of Dora’s carefully spun deceptions are at risk.

Because she’s seen a murder like this before. She knows what the police missed.
And if she doesn’t stop the story, she may be next.

As Dora follows the journalist, altering facts to hide her identity along the way, she’s thrown back into a world she tried desperately to leave behind. One of ritual and belonging, of danger and darkness. A world where two girls promised to help each other through…until it all went up in flames.

And Dora knows, she won’t be lucky enough to escape twice.

Review:

Simmering, eerie, and intense!

The Night We Burned is a gripping, suspenseful thriller that takes you to Bend, Oregon and into the lives of multiple acquaintances, including journalist fact-checker Dora Rodriguez as their pasts come back to haunt them twenty years after they first crossed paths as fellow members of the Oracles of Innocence cult before it all went up in flames.

The writing is edgy and tight. The characters are consumed, deceitful, and troubled. And the plot using flashbacks and a back-and-forth style immerses you in an ominous tale full of twists, turns, secrets, obsession, mayhem, deduction, abuse, violence, childhood trauma, swirling emotions, shocking revelations, and murder.

Overall, The Night We Burned is a twisty, unpredictable, sinister page-turner that transports you into the darkest corners of the human psyche and takes you on a roller coaster ride of psychological manipulation, control, indoctrination, corruption, and deviant ideologies.

This book is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

 

Thank you to Raincoast Books and Sourcebooks Landmark for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About S.F. Kosa

Sarah Fine/SF Kosa is the author of twenty-three trade-published novels, including twelve YA novels, three adult urban fantasy trilogies, and most recently, two adult psychological suspense novels: The Quiet Girl (which received a starred review from Publishers Weekly) and the upcoming The Night We Burned (Sourcebooks, August 10, 2021). With a PhD in clinical psychology, Sarah has a penchant for exploring the darker side of human nature and experience in her books, which range from fantastical to poignantly realistic. When she’s not writing or psychologizing, she enjoys hiking, cooking, and playing countless rounds of One Night Werewolf with her husband and five rapidly growing children (okay, they’re actually teenagers and young adults now).

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#BookReview The Show Girl by Nicola Harrison @NicolaHAuthor @StMartinsPress #ShowGirlNovel #NicolaHarrison #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview The Show Girl by Nicola Harrison @NicolaHAuthor @StMartinsPress #ShowGirlNovel #NicolaHarrison #SMPInfluencers Title: The Show Girl

Author: Nicola Harrison

Published by: St. Martin's Press on Aug. 10, 2021

Genres: General Fiction, Historical Fiction, Women's Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: St. Martin's Press

Book Rating: 8.5/10

It’s 1927 when Olive McCormick moves from Minneapolis to New York City determined to become a star in the Ziegfeld Follies. Extremely talented as a singer and dancer, it takes every bit of perseverance to finally make it on stage. And once she does, all the glamour and excitement is everything she imagined and more–even worth all the sacrifices she has had to make along the way.

Then she meets Archie Carmichael. Handsome, wealthy–the only man she’s ever met who seems to accept her modern ways–her independent nature and passion for success. But once she accepts his proposal of marriage he starts to change his tune, and Olive must decide if she is willing to reveal a devastating secret and sacrifice the life she loves for the man she loves.

Review:

Stylish, dramatic, and absorbing!

The Show Girl is a captivating, passionate, coming-of-age tale that takes you into the life of Olive McCormick, an unwed, determined young woman, who after being tricked into sexual relations and having to regretfully give up her baby girl for adoption, moves from Minneapolis to Manhattan to reinvent herself, forget the past, and hopefully, achieve her dreams of becoming a famous performer for a successful, vaudeville-inspired show running in NYC.

The prose is eloquent and fluid. The characters are well-drawn, genuine, and endearing. And the story sweeps you away to New York during the 1920s when women were gaining independence and cutting their hair short, prohibition was in full force, and the Ziegfeld Follies was the place to be with its lavish sets, elaborate costumes, high-class productions, and beautiful chorus girls.

Overall, The Show Girl is ultimately a story about friendship, loyalty, familial relationships, secrets, prosperity, ambition, life, loss, and love. It’s a vivid, rich, engaging tale by Harrison that has just the right amount of drama, romance, and intrigue to be a satisfying, highly entertaining treat for historical fiction lovers everywhere.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from one of the following links.

            

 

 

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Nicola Harrison

Born in England, Nicola Harrison moved to CA where she received a BA in Literature at UCLA before moving to NYC and earning an MFA in creative writing at Stony Brook. She is a member of The Writers Room, has short stories published in The Southampton Review and Glimmer Train and articles in Los Angeles Magazine and Orange Coast Magazine. She was the fashion and style staff writer for Forbes, had a weekly column at Lucky Magazine and is the founder of a personal styling business, Harrison Style.

Photo by Erwin List.

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#BookReview Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen @slipperywhisper @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #JoannaSchaffhausen #GoneforGood #DetectiveAnnalisaVega #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers

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#BookReview Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen @slipperywhisper @MinotaurBooks @StMartinsPress #JoannaSchaffhausen #GoneforGood #DetectiveAnnalisaVega #MinotaurInfluencers #SMPInfluencers Title: Gone for Good

Author: Joanna Schaffhausen

Series: Detective Annalisa Vega #1

Published by: Minotaur Books on Aug. 10, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller, Police Procedural

Pages: 304

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Minotaur Books

Book Rating: 10/10

Gone For Good is the first in a new mystery series from award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen, featuring Detective Annalisa Vega, in which a cold case heats up.

The Lovelorn Killer murdered seven women, ritually binding them and leaving them for dead before penning them gruesome love letters in the local papers. Then he disappeared, and after twenty years with no trace of him, many believe that he’s gone for good.

Not Grace Harper. A grocery store manager by day, at night Grace uses her snooping skills as part of an amateur sleuth group. She believes the Lovelorn Killer is still living in the same neighborhoods that he hunted in, and if she can figure out how he selected his victims, she will have the key to his identity.

Detective Annalisa Vega lost someone she loved to the killer. Now she’s at a murder scene with the worst kind of déjà vu: Grace Harper lies bound and dead on the floor, surrounded by clues to the biggest murder case that Chicago homicide never solved. Annalisa has the chance to make it right and to heal her family, but first, she has to figure out what Grace knew―how to see a killer who may be standing right in front of you. This means tracing his steps back to her childhood, peering into dark corners she hadn’t acknowledged before, and learning that despite everything the killer took, she has still so much more to lose.

Review:

Dark, disturbing, and exceptionally entertaining!

In this latest novel by Schaffhausen, Gone for Good, we are introduced to Chicago PD Det. Annalisa Vega, a complex, tenacious young woman who finds herself investigating the death of Grace Harper, a member of a group of online amateur sleuths, whose investigation into the murder of seven women in the 1990s may have just triggered the reappearance of a serial killer from the past.

The writing is bold and tight. The characters are committed, persistent, and vulnerable. And the plot starts off with a bang and then quickly unravels into an ominous tale full of twists, turns, red herrings, secrets, lies, obsession, deception, emotion, violence, and murder.

Gone for Good is the first book in the new Detective Annalisa Vega series, and once again, Schaffhausen has written a highly suspenseful, intricately woven mystery with superb character development that gives the story a touch of human frailty and authenticity that takes it from being just a good thriller to a great one!

 

This book is available now.

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Thank you to St. Martin’s Press – Minotaur Books for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Joanna Schaffhausen

JOANNA SCHAFFHAUSEN wields a mean scalpel, skills developed in her years studying neuroscience. She has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain—how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. Previously, she worked for ABC News, writing for programs such as World News Tonight, Good Morning America, and 20/20. She lives in the Boston area with her husband and daughter. She is also the author of The Vanishing Season and No Mercy.

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