Publisher: Atria Books

#BookReview The Night Travelers by Armando Lucas Correa @ArmandoCorrea @SimonSchusterCA @AtriaBooks #TheNightTravelers #ArmandoLucasCorrea #SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview The Night Travelers by Armando Lucas Correa @ArmandoCorrea @SimonSchusterCA @AtriaBooks #TheNightTravelers #ArmandoLucasCorrea #SimonSchusterCA Title: The Night Travelers

Author: Armando Lucas Correa

Published by: Atria Books on Jan. 10, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 368

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Four generations of women experience love, loss, war, and hope from the rise of Nazism to the Cuban Revolution and finally, the fall of the Berlin Wall in this sweeping novel from the bestselling author of The German Girl.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

Havana, 1958: Now an adult, Lilith has few memories of her mother or her childhood in Germany. Besides, she’s too excited for her future with her beloved Martin, a Cuban pilot with strong ties to the Batista government. But as the flames of revolution ignite, Lilith and her newborn daughter, Nadine, find themselves at a terrifying crossroads.

Berlin, 1988: As a scientist in Berlin, Nadine is dedicated to ensuring the dignity of the remains of all those who were murdered by the Nazis. Yet she has spent her entire lifetime avoiding the truth about her own family’s history. It takes her daughter, Luna, to encourage Nadine to uncover the truth about the choices her mother and grandmother made to ensure the survival of their children. And it will fall to Luna to come to terms with a shocking betrayal that changes everything she thought she knew about her family’s past.

Separated by time but united by sacrifice, four women embark on journeys of self-discovery and find themselves to be living testaments to the power of motherly love.


Review:

Compelling, rich, and moving!

The Night Travelers is a heartbreaking, alluring tale that transports you between Germany, Cuba, and the USA from 1931 to 2015 and immerses you in all the oppression, tragedy, emotions, memories, racism, and scars that mar and define the multi-generational women of the Keller family.

The prose is fluid and expressive. The characters are wounded, selfless, and intelligent. And the plot is a tender tale about life, loss, love, grief, forgiveness, sacrifice, friendship, courage, hope, romance, the unbreakable ties that bind us as family, and the horrors of both WWII and the Cuban Revolution.

Overall, The Night Travelers is an atmospheric, absorbing, heartfelt tale by Correa that does a beautiful job of highlighting his exceptional ability to portray complex, memorable characters and historically troubling times in such a way that is not only impactful but stays with you long after you finish the final page.

 

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 gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Armando Lucas Correa

Armando Lucas Correa is an award-winning journalist, editor, author, and the recipient of several awards from the National Association of Hispanic Publications and the Society of Professional Journalism. He is the author of the international bestseller The German Girl, which is now being published in thirteen languages. He lives in New York City with his partner and their three children.

Photograph by Héctor O. Torres.

#BookReview The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford @JamieFord @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #JamieFord #TheManyDaughtersofAfongMoy

#BookReview The Many Daughters of Afong Moy by Jamie Ford @JamieFord @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #JamieFord #TheManyDaughtersofAfongMoy Title: The Many Daughters of Afong Moy

Author: Jamie Ford

Published by: Atria Books on Aug. 2, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The New York Times bestselling author of the “mesmerizing and evocative” (Sara Gruen, author of Water for Elephants) Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet returns with a powerful exploration of the love that binds one family across the generations.

Dorothy Moy breaks her own heart for a living.

As Washington’s former poet laureate, that’s how she describes channeling her dissociative episodes and mental health struggles into her art. But when her five-year-old daughter exhibits similar behavior and begins remembering things from the lives of their ancestors, Dorothy believes the past has truly come to haunt her. Fearing that her child is predestined to endure the same debilitating depression that has marked her own life, Dorothy seeks radical help.

Through an experimental treatment designed to mitigate inherited trauma, Dorothy intimately connects with past generations of women in her family: Faye Moy, a nurse in China serving with the Flying Tigers; Zoe Moy, a student in England at a famous school with no rules; Lai King Moy, a girl quarantined in San Francisco during a plague epidemic; Greta Moy, a tech executive with a unique dating app; and Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to set foot in America.

As painful recollections affect her present life, Dorothy discovers that trauma isn’t the only thing she’s inherited. A stranger is searching for her in each time period. A stranger who’s loved her through all of her genetic memories. Dorothy endeavors to break the cycle of pain and abandonment, to finally find peace for her daughter, and gain the love that has long been waiting, knowing she may pay the ultimate price.


Review:

Sentimental, thought-provoking, and memorable!

The Many Daughters of Afong Moy is an intriguing novel that takes you into the lives of seven generations of Moy women over a two hundred and fifty-year span, from Afong Moy, the first Chinese woman to live on American soil, to Dorothy, a young woman determined to do whatever it takes, even experimental research, to discover the source of her distress and hallucinations in order to protect her daughter from suffering a similar fate.

The prose is expressive and eloquent. The characters are conflicted, fragile, and raw. And the plot told in a back-and-forth, past/future style is a compelling tale of life, loss, love, family, friendship, tragedy, mental illness, discrimination, self-discovery, desperation, heartbreak, self-preservation, anamnesis, and epigenetics.

Overall, The Many Daughters of Afong Moy made me think, made me feel, and resonated long after the final page. It’s a unique, emotional, absorbing tale by Ford that raises some interesting questions about what emotional trauma on top of our physical traits we may actually be inheriting as well as passing down.

 

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 Jamie Ford

Jamie Ford is the great-grandson of Nevada mining pioneer Min Chung, who emigrated from Hoiping, China to San Francisco in 1865, where he adopted the western name Ford, thus confusing countless generations. His debut novel, Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list and went on to win the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature. His work has been translated into thirty-five languages. Having grown up in Seattle, he now lives in Montana with his wife and a one-eyed pug.

Photo by Eric Heidle.

#BookReview The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #LisaJewell #TheFamilyRemains

#BookReview The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #LisaJewell #TheFamilyRemains Title: The Family Remains

Author: Lisa Jewell

Series: The Family Upstairs #2

Published by: Atria Books on Aug. 9, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell comes an intricate and affecting novel about twisted marriages, fractured families, and deadly obsessions in this standalone sequel to The Family Upstairs.

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller, The Family Upstairs, Lisa Jewell proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.


Review:

Suspenseful, gripping and intense!

The Family Remains is a well-executed, intricate thriller that takes us back into the lives of the Lamb family, specifically Lucy, Harry, and Libby, as they continue to struggle with the actions, scars, repercussions, and tragedy from their childhoods and they endeavour to find Libby’s birth father and Harry’s childhood obsession, Phin, whom they haven’t seen since he managed to escape the mansion of horrors more than twenty years ago.

The writing is brisk and tight. The characters are troubled, devious, and vulnerable. And the plot told from various timelines and multiple perspectives unfolds and unravels quickly into a compelling tale of twists, turns, lies, secrets, manipulation, obsession, loyalty, extortion, vengeance, family, and the long-lasting effects of childhood trauma.

Overall, The Family Remains is a creepy, engrossing, complex sequel by one of my favourite authors that once again showcases her exceptional ability to not only delve into the psychological and behavioural actions of the most depraved of society but also those of the victims who have suffered and been permanently damaged by their hands.

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.

#BookReview The Heights by Louise Candlish @louise_candlish @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheHeights #LouiseCandlish

#BookReview The Heights by Louise Candlish @louise_candlish @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheHeights #LouiseCandlish Title: The Heights

Author: Louise Candlish

Published by: Atria Books on Mar. 1, 2022

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 416

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

He thinks he’s safe up there.
But he’ll never be safe from you.

The Heights is a tall, slender apartment building among the warehouses of Shad Thames, its roof terrace so discreet you wouldn’t know it existed if you weren’t standing at the window of the flat directly opposite. But you are. And that’s when you see a man up there – a man you’d recognize anywhere. He’s older now and his appearance has subtly changed, but it’s definitely him.

Which makes no sense at all since you know he has been dead for over two years.

You know this for a fact.

Because you’re the one who killed him.


Review:

Crafty, enthralling, and sinister!

The Heights is an intense, cunning, domestic thrill ride that highlights just how quickly life can spin out of control when you devastatingly lose a child, are driven by a visceral, uncontrollable need for revenge, and will engage in whatever extreme measures are needed to right a wrong.

The prose is dark and twisty. The characters are unreliable, secretive, and consumed. And the plot using flashbacks and a back-and-forth style is a simmering tale of deception, obsession, injustice, despair, family, love, malice, and vengeance.

Overall, The Heights is a taut, relentless, devious tale by Candlish that is unbelievably the first novel I’ve read by this author, but with this kind of imagination, I’m excited to go back and read some of her backlist titles to see what other disturbingly shocking tales she managed to come up with before.

 

This book 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 Louise Candlish

Louise Candlish is the Sunday Times (London) bestselling author of fourteen novels. Our House, a #1 bestseller, won the Crime & Thriller Book of the Year at the 2019 British Book Awards, was longlisted for the 2019 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award. It is now in development for a major TV series with Red Planet Pictures, producers of Death in Paradise. Louise lives in London with her husband and daughter.

Photo by Jonny Ring.

#BookReview One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle @RebeccaASerle @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #OneItalianSummer #RebeccaSerle

#BookReview One Italian Summer by Rebecca Serle @RebeccaASerle @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #OneItalianSummer #RebeccaSerle Title: One Italian Summer

Author: Rebecca Serle

Published by: Atria Books on Mar. 1, 2022

Genres: Women's Fiction

Pages: 272

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

When Katy’s mother dies, she is left reeling. Carol wasn’t just Katy’s mom, but her best friend and first phone call. She had all the answers and now, when Katy needs her the most, she is gone. To make matters worse, their planned mother-daughter trip of a lifetime looms: two weeks in Positano, the magical town Carol spent the summer right before she met Katy’s father. Katy has been waiting years for Carol to take her, and now she is faced with embarking on the adventure alone.

But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.


Review:

Charming, touching, and hopeful!

One Italian Summer is a tender, uplifting tale that takes you into the life of grief-stricken Katy Silver as she embarks on a journey to Positano, Italy, the place her mother loved, and where she will have a chance to revisit the past, face some truths she’d rather not, discover her true self, and start to come to grips with moving on without the one person who has always been her everything.

The prose is heartfelt and smooth. The characters are multilayered, conflicted, and genuine. And the plot is an absorbing tale about life, loss, love, grief, family, friendship, marriage, relationship dynamics, introspection, heartbreak, and the special bonds that exist between a mother and daughter, all interwoven with a thread of magical realism.

Overall, One Italian Summer is one of those books that tugs at the heartstrings, makes you dream of sandy beaches, lazy days, and crystal blue water, and reminds you that love is powerful and everlasting, and that life should always be lived 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 Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Rebecca Serle

Rebecca Serle is the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years, The Dinner List, and the young adult novels The Edge of Falling and When You Were Mine. Serle also developed the hit TV adaptation Famous in Love, based on her YA series of the same name. She is a graduate of USC and The New School and lives in Los Angeles.

Photo by Ann Molen.

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

#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.

#BookReview To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2) by Martha Waters @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #ToLoveandtoLoathe #MarthaWaters #TheRegencyVows

#BookReview To Love and to Loathe (The Regency Vows #2) by Martha Waters @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #ToLoveandtoLoathe #MarthaWaters #TheRegencyVows Title: To Love and to Loathe

Author: Martha Waters

Series: The Regency Vows #2

Published by: Atria Books on Apr. 6, 2021

Genres: Historical Romance

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The widowed Diana, Lady Templeton and Jeremy, Marquess of Willingham are infamous among English high society as much for their sharp-tongued bickering as their flirtation. One evening, an argument at a ball turns into a serious wager: Jeremy will marry within the year or Diana will forfeit one hundred pounds. So shortly after, just before a fortnight-long house party at Elderwild, Jeremy’s country estate, Diana is shocked when Jeremy appears at her home with a very different kind of proposition.

After his latest mistress unfavorably criticized his skills in the bedroom, Jeremy is looking for reassurance, so he has gone to the only woman he trusts to be totally truthful. He suggests that they embark on a brief affair while at the house party—Jeremy can receive an honest critique of his bedroom skills and widowed Diana can use the gossip to signal to other gentlemen that she is interested in taking a lover.

Diana thinks taking him up on his counter-proposal can only help her win her wager. With her in the bedroom and Jeremy’s marriage-minded grandmother, the formidable Dowager Marchioness of Willingham, helping to find suitable matches among the eligible ladies at Elderwild, Diana is confident her victory is assured. But while they’re focused on winning wagers, they stand to lose their own hearts.


Review:

Captivating, light, and entertaining!

To Love and to Loathe is an enemies-to-lovers romance set in England during 1817 that features the flirty Marquess of Willingham, Jeremy Overington and the feisty, widowed Lady Diana Templeton as they navigate a stay in the countryside, a meddling grandmother, an attraction that’s hard to deny, and wagers involving both marriage and the bedroom they’re both confident they’ll win.

The prose is authentic and cheeky. The characters are charismatic, passionate, and endearing. And the plot is an engaging mix of familial responsibility, tender moments, humourous mishaps, witty banter, goals, expectations, friendship, chemistry, and love.

Overall, To Love and to Loathe is an easy, fast-paced, highly amusing read by Waters that is the second novel in The Regency Vows series, that in my opinion, shouldn’t be missed.

 

This novel is available now.

Pick up a copy from your favourite retailer or from the following link.

                 

 

 

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

 

About Martha Waters

Martha Waters was born and raised in sunny South Florida, where she spent her childhood reading lots of British children’s books and scribbling away in notebooks. Wishing for the novelty of seasons, she headed north (relatively speaking) and studied history and international studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she also obtained her master’s degree in library science. She is the author of the historical rom-coms To Have and to Hoax, To Love and to Loathe, and To Marry and to Meddle (scheduled for publication in 2022). By day, she works as a children’s librarian, and loves sundresses, gin cocktails, and traveling.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

#BookReview The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheMemoryCollectors #KimNeville

#BookReview The Memory Collectors by Kim Neville @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheMemoryCollectors #KimNeville Title: The Memory Collectors

Author: Kim Neville

Published by: Atria Books on Mar. 16, 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

Perfect for fans of The Scent Keeper and The Keeper of Lost Things, an atmospheric and enchanting debut novel about two women haunted by buried secrets but bound by a shared gift and the power the past holds over our lives.

Ev has a mysterious ability, one that she feels is more a curse than a gift. She can feel the emotions people leave behind on objects and believes that most of them need to be handled extremely carefully, and—if at all possible—destroyed. The harmless ones she sells at Vancouver’s Chinatown Night Market to scrape together a living, but even that fills her with trepidation. Meanwhile, in another part of town, Harriet hoards thousands of these treasures and is starting to make her neighbors sick as the overabundance of heightened emotions start seeping through her apartment walls.

When the two women meet, Harriet knows that Ev is the only person who can help her make something truly spectacular of her collection. A museum of memory that not only feels warm and inviting but can heal the emotional wounds many people unknowingly carry around. They only know of one other person like them, and they fear the dark effects these objects had on him. Together, they help each other to develop and control their gift, so that what happened to him never happens again. But unbeknownst to them, the same darkness is wrapping itself around another, dragging them down a path that already destroyed Ev’s family once, and threatens to annihilate what little she has left.

The Memory Collectors casts the everyday in a new light, speaking volumes to the hold that our past has over us—contained, at times, in seemingly innocuous objects—and uncovering a truth that both women have tried hard to bury with their pasts: not all magpies collect shiny things—sometimes they gather darkness.


Review:

Intricate, unique, and mystifying!

The Memory Collectors is an imaginative, moving tale that takes you into the lives of two women, Evelyn, a young girl with a harrowing past who is constantly overwhelmed by the darkness and desperation that leaches from the stains objects carry, and Harriet, an elderly recluse who feeds off the positivity and lightness found in all the things that surround her. 

The writing is rich and poignant. The characters are anxious, troubled, and scarred. And the plot sweeps you away into a compelling tale of magical realism involving memories and the importance we place on all the things that remind us of them.

Overall, The Memory Collectors is an intriguing, creative, fantastical tale by Neville that is darker than I was originally expecting and could have had a slightly tighter ending but was nevertheless a thought-provoking, enjoyable read.

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 Kim Neville

Kim Neville is an author and graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop, where she found the first shiny piece of inspiration that became The Memory Collectors. When she’s not writing she can be found heron-spotting on the seawall or practicing yoga in order to keep calm. She lives near the ocean in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband, daughter, and two cats. The Memory Collectors is her first novel.

Photo by Jeremy Lim.

#BookReview Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #InvisibleGirl #LisaJewell

#BookReview Invisible Girl by Lisa Jewell @lisajewelluk @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #InvisibleGirl #LisaJewell Title: Invisible Girl

Author: Lisa Jewell

Published by: Atria Books on Oct. 13, 2020

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 368

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Then She Was Gone returns with an intricate thriller about a young woman’s disappearance and a group of strangers whose lives intersect in its wake.

Owen Pick’s life is falling apart. In his thirties and living in his aunt’s spare bedroom, he has just been suspended from his job as a teacher after accusations of sexual misconduct—accusations he strongly denies. Searching for professional advice online, he is inadvertently sucked into the dark world of incel forums, where he meets a charismatic and mysterious figure.

Across the street from Owen lives the Fours family, headed by mom Cate, a physiotherapist, and dad Roan, a child psychologist. But the Fours family have a bad feeling about their neighbor Owen. He’s a bit creepy and their teenaged daughter swears he followed her home from the train station one night.

Meanwhile, young Saffyre Maddox spent three years as a patient of Roan Fours. Feeling abandoned when their therapy ends, she searches for other ways to maintain her connection with him, following him in the shadows and learning more than she wanted to know about Roan and his family. Then, on Valentine’s night, Saffyre disappears—and the last person to see her alive is Owen Pick.


Review:

Brisk, creepy, and addictive!

Invisible Girl is an unsettling, compelling, psychological thriller that delves into all the deep, dark secrets people keep even from those closest to them and raises the question how well do you really know anyone.

The writing is sharp and crisp. The characters are secretive, cunning, and troubled. And the plot builds quickly creating suspense and intensity as it unravels all the relationships, motivations, personalities, and behaviours within it.

Invisible Girl is, ultimately, a story of suspicious personalities, lies, deception, manipulation, familial drama, abuse, hatred, violence, and the danger-infused incel subculture. And like most of Jewell’s previous novels, this one keeps you on the edge of your seat with its multitude of twists, turns, and surprises right up until the final page.

 

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.

#BookReview Anxious People by Fredrik Backman @Backmanland @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #AnxiousPeople #FredrikBackman

#BookReview Anxious People by Fredrik Backman @Backmanland @AtriaBooks @SimonSchusterCA #AnxiousPeople #FredrikBackman Title: Anxious People

Author: Fredrik Backman

Published by: Atria Books on Sep. 28, 2020

Genres: General Fiction

Pages: 352

Format: Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

This is a poignant comedy about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.

Viewing an apartment normally doesn’t turn into a life-or-death situation, but this particular open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes everyone in the apartment hostage. As the pressure mounts, the eight strangers slowly begin opening up to one another and reveal long-hidden truths.

As police surround the premises and television channels broadcast the hostage situation live, the tension mounts and even deeper secrets are slowly revealed. Before long, the robber must decide which is the more terrifying prospect: going out to face the police, or staying in the apartment with this group of impossible people.


Review:

Thought-provoking, heartbreaking, and exceptionally witty!

Anxious People is a complex, insightful, funny story set on the day before New Year’s Eve that takes you on a journey into the lives of an amateur bank robber, eight unintended hostages, and two police officers with a history of their own.

The prose is amusing and poignant. The characterization is well-drawn with a whole slew of characters that are quirky, sympathetic, and endearing. And the plot is a delightfully clever blend of moral dilemmas, drama, tragedy, skewed perception, oddball shenanigans, relationship dynamics, unlikely friendships, and the importance of compassion.

Overall, Anxious People is an impactful, touching, darkly comedic tale by Backman that once again highlights his innate ability to delve into and expose both society’s weaknesses and ridiculous presumptions and humanities flaws and vulnerabilities in an enlightening, meaningful, and entertaining way.

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 Fredrik Backman

Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove (soon to be a major motion picture starring Tom Hanks), My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, as well as two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime. His books are published in more than forty countries. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children.

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