Publisher: Simon & Schuster

#BookReview Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall @HMarshallAuthor @SimonSchusterCA #LookingforJane #HeatherMarshall #SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall @HMarshallAuthor @SimonSchusterCA #LookingforJane #HeatherMarshall #SimonSchusterCA Title: Looking for Jane

Author: Heather Marshall

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Mar. 1, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

For readers of Joanna Goodman and Genevieve Graham comes a masterful debut novel about three women whose lives are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.

Tell them you’re looking for Jane.

2017

When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession in a stack of forgotten mail, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane…

1971

As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite harrowing police raids and the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.

1980

After discovering a shocking secret about her family history, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.

Weaving together the lives of three women, Looking for Jane is an unforgettable debut about the devastating consequences that come from a lack of choice—and the enduring power of a mother’s love.


Review:

Absorbing, poignant, and heartrending!

Looking for Jane is a harrowing, moving novel set in Toronto between 1960 to 2017 that introduces you to three young women as they navigate the torment and fallout of a world where unwed mothers are sent to homes, deprived of basic necessities, coerced into relinquishing their parental rights, and unnecessarily punished viciously, babies are bought, adoption information is sealed, abortion is not legal and expensive back alley butchering is often the only choice, and an incredible network of caring professionals endanger themselves in order to provide safe options while rallying for change.

The prose is vivid and rich. The characters are strong, vulnerable, determined, and brave. And the plot told from multiple perspectives, is a compelling blend of life, loss, secrets, surprises, heartbreak, abuse, survival, motherhood, female friendships, pregnancy, infertility, and the history and legalities of abortion.

Overall, Looking for Jane is a compassionate, enlightening, timely tale inspired by true-life events that is a haunting reminder of just how much physical, psychological, and emotional abuse young unwed women endured and shockingly highlights that even though we’ve come so far in respect to women’s rights and body autonomy, in some respects, we still have a long way to go. It’s a book that ultimately needs to be read to appreciate just how well-researched, beautifully written, and extremely memorable it truly is.

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 Heather Marshall

Heather Marshall lives with her family near Toronto. She completed master’s degrees in Canadian history and political science, and worked in politics and communications before turning her attention to her true passion: storytelling. Looking for Jane is her debut novel.

Photograph by Amanda Kopcic.

#BookReview The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson @Sadeqasays @simonschuster @SimonSchusterCA #TheHouseofEve #SadeqaJohnson #SimonSchuster #SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson @Sadeqasays @simonschuster @SimonSchusterCA #TheHouseofEve #SadeqaJohnson #SimonSchuster #SimonSchusterCA Title: The House of Eve

Author: Sadeqa Johnson

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Feb. 7, 2023

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 384

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster

Book Rating: 10/10

From the award-winning author of Yellow Wife, a daring and redemptive novel set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s Philadelphia: fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college, in spite of having a mother more interested in keeping a man than raising a daughter. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his par­ents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.


Review:

Insightful, thought-provoking, and memorable!

The House of Eve is a compelling tale that sweeps you away to Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., during the early 1950s and into the lives of two Black women; Ruby Pearsall, a high school junior who dreams of winning one of only two scholarships so she can attend university and become an ophthalmologist until her love for a local Jewish boy puts a little wrench in her plans, and Eleanor Quarles, a Howard University sophomore whose love for a wealthy medical student and an unexpected pregnancy opens her eyes to a world she never knew existed and a social hierarchy she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to climb.

The prose is eloquent and expressive. The characters are genuine, multilayered, and vulnerable. And the plot is a beautifully written, poignant tale about life, loss, courage, hope, dreams, motherhood, poverty, racial discrimination, inequality, forbidden love, adoption, familial drama, and the heartbreak and struggles of infertility.

In 2021, Johnson’s previous novel, The Yellow Wife, was one of my favourite novels of the year, and it’s safe to say The House of Eve will be on that list for 2023. It’s a powerful, emotional, masterfully woven tale that transports you to another time and place and immerses you so thoroughly into the personalities, feelings, and lives of the characters you can’t help but be completely absorbed and fully invested.

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 for gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Sadeqa Johnson

Sadeqa Johnson is the award-winning author of four novels. Her accolades include being the recipient of the National Book Club Award, the Phillis Wheatley Award and the USA Best Book Award for best fiction. She is a Kimbilo Fellow, former board member of the James River Writers, and a Tall Poppy Writer. Originally from Philadelphia, she currently lives near Richmond, Virginia, with her husband and three children.

Photograph courtesy of Author's Website.

#BookReview The White Hare by Jane Johnson @JaneJohnsonBakr @SimonSchusterCA #TheWhiteHare #JaneJohnson

#BookReview The White Hare by Jane Johnson @JaneJohnsonBakr @SimonSchusterCA #TheWhiteHare #JaneJohnson Title: The White Hare

Author: Jane Johnson

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Oct. 4, 2022

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 400

Format: ARC, Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

For fans of Alice Hoffman and Kate Morton, The White Hare is a spellbinding novel about mothers and daughters finding a new home for themselves, the secrets they try to bury, and the local legends that may change their lives.

In the far west of Cornwall lies the White Valley, which cuts deeply through bluebell woods down to the sea at White Cove. The valley has a long and bloody history, laced with folklore, and in it sits a house above the beach that has lain neglected since the war. It comes with a reputation and a strange atmosphere, which is why mother and daughter Magdalena and Mila manage to acquire it so cheaply in the fateful summer of 1954.

Magda has grand plans to restore the house to its former glory as a venue for glittering parties, where the rich and celebrated gathered for cocktails and for bracing walks along the coast. Her grown daughter, Mila, just wants to escape the scandal in her past and make a safe and happy home for her little girl, Janey, a solitary, precocious child blessed with a vivid imagination, much of which she pours into stories about her magical plush toy, Rabbit.

But Janey’s rabbit isn’t the only magical being around. Legend has it that an enchanted white hare may be seen running through the woods. Is it an ill omen or a blessing? As Mila, her mother, and her young daughter adjust to life in this mysterious place, they will have to reckon with their own pasts and with the secrets that have been haunting the White Valley for decades.


Review:

Atmospheric, mysterious, and intriguing!

The White Hare is a rich, eerie, gripping tale that transports you to Cornwall during 1954 and into the lives of three generations of Prusik women as they move to a dilapidated new home and try to come to terms with all the powerful emotions, spooky folklore, traditions, long-buried secrets, strange behaviours, tragedy, and magic that surrounds them.

The prose is tight and intense. The characters are multilayered, vulnerable, and scarred. And the plot is an unsettling tale of life, loss, trauma, tragedy, desperation, familial drama, legends, folklore, secrets, supernatural phenomena, new beginnings, and the complex relationships that exist between mothers and daughters.

Overall, The White Hare is an ominous, vivid, gothic tale by Johnson that undoubtedly kept me engaged and invested from start to finish and was truly a delight to 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 gifting me a copy in exchange for an honest review.

 

About Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson is from Cornwall and has worked in the book industry for over 20 years, as a bookseller, publisher and writer. She is responsible for the publishing of many major authors, including George RR Martin.

In 2005 she was in Morocco researching the story of a distant family member who was abducted from a Cornish church in 1625 by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa, when a near-fatal climbing incident caused her to rethink her future. She returned home, gave up her office job in London, and moved to Morocco. She married her own ‘Berber pirate’ and now they split their time between Cornwall and a village in the Anti-Atlas Mountains. She still works, remotely, as Fiction Publishing Director for HarperCollins.

#BookReview The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave @SimonSchusterCA #TheLastThingHeToldMe #LauraDave

#BookReview The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave @SimonSchusterCA #TheLastThingHeToldMe #LauraDave Title: The Last Thing He Told Me

Author: Laura Dave

Published by: Simon & Schuster on May 4, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

We all have stories we never tell.
Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her.

Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely nothing to do with her new stepmother.

As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered; as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss; as a US Marshal and FBI agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. And that Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.

Hannah and Bailey set out to discover the truth, together. But as they start putting together the pieces of Owen’s past, they soon realize they are also building a new future. One neither Hannah nor Bailey could have anticipated.


Review:

Sinister, sharp, and engrossing!

The Last Thing He Told Me transports you into the life of Hannah Hall, whose world gets turned upside down when her husband suddenly disappears one day, and she reluctantly must delve into his past that seems to be a lot more complex and contain more long-buried secrets than she ever could have imagined.

The writing is tight and intense. The characters are mysterious, troubled, and multilayered. And the plot intertwines and unravels quickly into a suspenseful, intricate tale of lies, secrets, manipulation, parenthood, familial drama, unexpected twists, heart-wrenching motivations, violence, and deception.

Overall, The Last Thing He Told Me is a tortuous, clever, heartbreaking page-turner by Dave that keeps you guessing from the very first page and, ultimately, leaves you shocked, surprised, and thoroughly entertained.

 

This novel is available now.

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

              

 

 

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

 

About Laura Dave

Laura Dave is the international bestselling author of several novels including The Last Thing He Told Me and Eight Hundred Grapes. Dave’s fiction and essays have been published in The New York Times, ESPN, Redbook, Glamour and Ladies Home Journal.

Dubbed “a wry observer of modern love” (USA Today), Dave has appeared on CBS’s The Early Show, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends and NPR’s All Things Considered. Cosmopolitan Magazine named her a “Fun and Fearless Phenom of the Year.”

Several of her novels have been optioned for film and television with Dave adapting The Last Thing He Told Me for Hello Sunshine and Apple.

Photo courtesy of Author's Website.

#BookReview The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn @SimonSchusterCA #TheGirlsAreAllSoNiceHere #LaurieElizabethFlynn

#BookReview The Girls Are All So Nice Here by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn @SimonSchusterCA #TheGirlsAreAllSoNiceHere #LaurieElizabethFlynn Title: The Girls Are All So Nice Here

Author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Mar. 9, 2021

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 320

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

Two former best friends return to their college reunion to find that they’re being circled by someone who wants revenge for what they did ten years before—and will stop at nothing to get it—in this shocking psychological thriller about ambition, toxic friendship, and deadly desire.

The Girls Are All So Nice Here opens when Ambrosia Wellington receives an invitation to her ten-year college reunion. Only, slipped in with all the expected information about lodging and the weekend’s schedule is an anonymous letter that says: “It’s time to talk about what we did.” Instantly, Ambrosia realizes that the secrets of her past—and the people she thought she’d left there—aren’t as buried as she’d thought. Amb can’t stop fixating on what she did—and who she did it with. Larger-than-life Sloane Sullivan (“Sully”), who could make anyone do anything. The game they played to get a boy who belonged to someone else, and the girl, Amb’s angelic roommate, who paid the price.

Amb had thought that she and Sully had gotten away with what they did their first semester at Wesleyan. But as Amb receives increasingly menacing messages during the reunion, it becomes clear that she’s being circled by someone who wants more than just the truth. Amb discovers that her own memories don’t tell the whole story, and that her actions and friendship with Sully had even more disturbing consequences than she ever imagined.

Told in alternating timelines between the reunion and Ambrosia’s turbulent first months of college, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a gripping rollercoaster ride of a novel that examines the dark complexities of female friendship and the brutal lengths girls can go to take what they think they are owed.


Review:

Sinister, atmospheric, and disturbing!

The Girls Are All So Nice Here transports you into the life of Ambrosia Wellington as she reluctantly heads to her ten-year reunion at Wesleyan College, where the past will collide with the present, long-buried secrets will finally be unearthed, and her freshman year, mean-girl behaviour may at long last be punished.

The writing is tight and intense. The characterization is spot on with a cast of characters that are selfish, secretive, insecure, and unlikable. And the plot, using a past/present, back-and-forth style, is a suspenseful, twisty tale filled with friendship, drama, deception, jealousy, hatred, abuse, callousness, desperation, cruelty, and revenge.

Overall, The Girls Are All So Nice Here is a tortuous, clever, creepy page-turner by Flynn that keeps you guessing from the very first page and leaves you chilled, surprised and thoroughly entertained.

 

This novel is available now.

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

              

 

 

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

 

About Laurie Elizabeth Flynn

Laurie Elizabeth Flynn is a former model who lives in London, Ontario, with her husband and three children. She is the author of three young adult novels: Firsts, a YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults pick, along with Last Girl Lied To and All Eyes on Her, under the name L.E. Flynn. Her adult debut, The Girls Are All So Nice Here, has sold in nine territories and has been optioned for television by AMC.

Photo by Sandra Dufton.

#BookReview The Woman Outside My Door by Rachel Ryan @rachelryanbooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheWomanOutsideMyDoor #RachelRyan

#BookReview The Woman Outside My Door by Rachel Ryan @rachelryanbooks @SimonSchusterCA #TheWomanOutsideMyDoor #RachelRyan Title: The Woman Outside My Door

Author: Rachel Ryan

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Nov. 24, 2020

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 288

Length: 6 hrs and 15 mins

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8/10

From an unforgettable new voice in suspense fiction, The Woman Outside My Door is a thrilling page-turner about a young mother who can’t shake the feeling that her son’s “imaginary” friend is putting him in very real danger, and she will stop at nothing to keep him safe—perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Mary Kubica.

All children have imaginary friends, Georgina tells herself. It’s perfectly normal, and they all grow out of it in the end. But when her seven-year-old son, Cody, tells her about New Granny, the new friend he’s met in the park, Georgina is instantly suspicious. Something—call it maternal instinct—tells her he isn’t making it up.

But maybe Georgina is losing her mind. It wouldn’t be the first time, after all. And with her own mother’s recent death leaving her bereft and trying to cope with life as a busy working mom, it’s no wonder she’s feeling paranoid that Cody has invented a “New Granny” to replace his beloved grandmother.

Her husband, Bren, becomes the voice of reason, assuring Georgina that it’s just a game, the product of their son’s overactive imagination. But what if Cody’s imaginary friend is not so imaginary after all?


Review:

Tense, ominous, and clever!

The Woman Outside My Door is a suspenseful, psychological thriller that introduces us to Georgina, a young wife struggling with the loss of her mother who becomes even more unhinged when her seven-year-old-son appears to have a new imaginary friend that phones him and gives him treats.

The writing is crisp and edgy. The characters are vulnerable, unreliable, and distressed. And the plot unfolds subtly into an eerie tale of secrets, obsession, heartache, shame, loneliness, deception, familial drama, and utter desperation.

Overall, The Woman Outside My Door is a crafty, engaging, sinister tale by Ryan that kept me engaged from the very first page and is without a doubt an exceptionally promising debut.

 

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 Rachel Ryan

Rachel Ryan was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland. She can usually be found writing in coffee shops, hanging around libraries, or walking the streets of Dublin, making up stories. The Woman Outside My Door is her first novel.

Photograph by Ailish Kerr.

#BookReview The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson @JaneJohnsonBakr @SimonSchusterCA #TheSeaGate #JaneJohnson

#BookReview The Sea Gate by Jane Johnson @JaneJohnsonBakr @SimonSchusterCA #TheSeaGate #JaneJohnson Title: The Sea Gate

Author: Jane Johnson

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Nov. 17, 2020

Genres: Historical Fiction

Pages: 416

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 10/10

A broken family, a house of secrets—an entrancing tale of love and courage set during the Second World War.

After Rebecca’s mother dies, she must sort through her empty flat and come to terms with her loss. As she goes through her mother’s mail, she finds a handwritten envelope. In it is a letter that will change her life forever.

Olivia, her mother’s elderly cousin, needs help to save her beloved home. Rebecca immediately goes to visit Olivia in Cornwall only to find a house full of secrets—treasures in the attic and a mysterious tunnel leading from the cellar to the sea, and Olivia, nowhere to be found.

As it turns out, the old woman is stuck in hospital with no hope of being discharged until her house is made habitable again. Rebecca sets to work restoring the home to its former glory, but as she peels back the layers of paint and grime, she uncovers even more buried secrets—secrets from a time when the Second World War was raging, when Olivia was a young woman, and when both romance and danger lurked around every corner…

A sweeping and utterly spellbinding tale of a young woman’s courage in the face of war and the lengths to which she’ll go to protect those she loves against the most unexpected of enemies.


Review:

Rich, mysterious, and incredibly absorbing!

The Sea Gate is an alluring, dual-timeline tale set in Cornwall during WWII, as well as present-day, that is told from two perspectives; Olivia, a young girl struggling to survive in a world driven by insecurity and fear and ravaged by war, and Becky, a young woman who unexpectedly stumbles across a slew of long-buried family secrets and an offensive parrot after travelling to the home of her mother’s 90-year-old cousin to help fix it up and prepare it for her return.

The prose is vivid and expressive. The characters are resilient, brave, and determined. And the plot, along with all the seamlessly intertwined subplots, is an impressive blend of drama, emotion, family, secrets, mystique, love, loss, courage, passion, heartbreak, and self-discovery.

Overall, The Sea Gate is an evocative, immersive, moving tale that sweeps you away to another time and place and immerses you so thoroughly into the personalities, feelings, and lives of the characters you never want it to end. It is undoubtedly one of my favourite novels of the year and another fine example of Johnson’s extraordinary ability to write exceptionally memorable storylines.

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 Jane Johnson

Jane Johnson is from Cornwall and has worked in the book industry for over 20 years, as a bookseller, publisher and writer. She is responsible for the publishing of many major authors, including George RR Martin.

In 2005 she was in Morocco researching the story of a distant family member who was abducted from a Cornish church in 1625 by Barbary pirates and sold into slavery in North Africa, when a near-fatal climbing incident caused her to rethink her future. She returned home, gave up her office job in London, and moved to Morocco. She married her own ‘Berber pirate’ and now they split their time between Cornwall and a village in the Anti-Atlas Mountains. She still works, remotely, as Fiction Publishing Director for HarperCollins.

#BookReview Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent @lizzienugent @SimonSchusterCA #LittleCruelties #LizNugent

#BookReview Little Cruelties by Liz Nugent @lizzienugent @SimonSchusterCA #LittleCruelties #LizNugent Title: Little Cruelties

Author: Liz Nugent

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Nov. 10, 2020

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 384

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

All three of the Drumm brothers were at the funeral.
Only one of us was in the coffin.

William, Brian, and Luke: three boys bound by blood but split by fate, trained from birth by their wily mother to compete for her attention. They play games, as brothers do…yet even after the Drumms escape into the world beyond their windows, those games—those little cruelties—grow more sinister, more merciless, more dangerous. And with their lives entwined like the strands of a noose, only two of the brothers will survive.

Crisply written and quickly paced, perfect for readers of both sophisticated literary fiction and breathtaking suspense, Little Cruelties gazes unflinchingly into the darkness: the darkness collecting in the corners of childhood homes, hiding beneath marriage beds, clasped in the palms of two brothers shaking hands. And it confirms Liz Nugent, whose novels have been celebrated as “captivating” (People) and “highly entertaining” (The Washington Post), as one of the most exciting, perceptive voices in contemporary fiction.


Review:

Tragic, intricate, and twisty!

Little Cruelties is a dark, compelling, character-driven, domestic thriller that takes you into the lives of three brothers, Wiliam, an arrogant film producer, Brian, an unmotivated leach, and Luke, an emotionally fragile pop star as they each grapple with sibling rivalry, enduring jealousy, devastating secrets, and exceptionally cruel decisions that will change their lives forever.

The prose is tight and intense. The characters are selfish, deceptive, and troubled. And the plot told from multiple perspectives unfolds gradually into a murky tale full of twists, turns, surprises, familial drama, lies, greed, resentments, scandal, wickedness, deception, tragedy, and murder.

Overall, Little Cruelties is another sophisticated, creepy, gloomy tale by Nugent that does a fantastic job of delving into all the complex, dysfunctional dynamics that can occur between family members and reminds us just how evil and toxic some of these relationships can truly be.

 

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 Liz Nugent

Liz Nugent has worked in Irish film, theater, and television for most of her adult life. She is an award-winning writer of radio and television drama and has written critically acclaimed short stories both for children and adults, as well as the novels Unraveling Oliver and Lying in Wait. She lives in Dublin.

Photograph by Beta Bajgartova.

#BookReview Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey @sbaileybooks @SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview Woman on the Edge by Samantha M. Bailey @sbaileybooks @SimonSchusterCA Title: Woman on the Edge

Author: Samantha M. Bailey

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Nov. 26, 2019

Genres: Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 272

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 9/10

A moment on the subway platform changes two women’s lives forever—a debut thriller that will take your breath away.

A total stranger on the subway platform whispers, “Take my baby.”

She places her child in your arms. She says your name.

Then she jumps…

In a split second, Morgan Kincaid’s life changes forever. She’s on her way home from work when a mother begs her to take her baby, then places the infant in her arms. Before Morgan can stop her, the distraught mother jumps in front of an oncoming train.

Morgan has never seen this woman before, and she can’t understand what would cause a person to give away her child and take her own life. She also can’t understand how this woman knew her name.

The police take Morgan in for questioning. She soon learns that the woman who jumped was Nicole Markham, prominent CEO of the athletic brand Breathe. She also learns that no witness can corroborate her version of events, which means she’s just become a murder suspect.

To prove her innocence, Morgan frantically retraces the last days of Nicole’s life. Was Nicole a new mother struggling with paranoia or was she in danger? When strange things start happening to Morgan, she suddenly realizes she might be in danger, too.

Woman on the Edge is a pulse-pounding, propulsive thriller about the lengths to which a woman will go to protect her baby—even if that means sacrificing her own life.


Review:

Feverish, intense, and engrossing!

Woman on the Edge is a well-crafted, gripping novel that takes you into the lives of Nicole Markham, a successful businesswoman who finds herself completely paralysed by fear and anxiety after the birth of her baby girl, Quinn, and Morgan Kincaid, a woman with her own traumatic past whose life is suddenly turned upside down when she finds herself a suspect in a crime she inadvertently becomes entangled in. 

The writing is edgy and crisp. The characters are vulnerable, anxious, and troubled. And the plot told from alternating timelines and perspectives keeps you on the edge of your seat as it immerses you in an ominous tale full of twists, turns, deception, red herrings, secrets, obsession, violence, mayhem, and murder.

Overall, Woman on the Edge is a fast-paced, thrilling, sophisticated tale by Bailey that keeps you enthralled from the very first page and is undoubtedly an exceptionally promising debut.

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 Samantha M. Bailey

Samantha M. Bailey is a Toronto-based novelist, freelance editor, and journalist who has written extensively for Now Magazine, Oxford University Press, and many other publications. She is the co-founder of “BookBuzz,” a promotional and interactive author event held in New York City and Toronto. She holds a Master of Education in Applied Linguistics and credits that degree with her writing career because she wrote her first (unpublished) novel after taking a course on imagination. Now her imagination leads her to create dark and twisty stories, and her debut psychological thriller, WOMAN ON THE EDGE, will be published by Simon and Schuster Canada and Headline UK, and translated into seven languages. She loves reading as much as writing, so when not tapping away on her computer, she’s probably curled up with a really good book.

Photograph by Dahlia Katz Photography.

#BookReview The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal @esmacneal @SimonSchusterCA

#BookReview The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal @esmacneal @SimonSchusterCA Title: The Doll Factory

Author: Elizabeth Macneal

Published by: Simon & Schuster on Aug. 13, 2019

Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery/Thriller

Pages: 386

Format: Paperback, ARC

Source: Simon & Schuster Canada

Book Rating: 8.5/10

The Doll Factory, the debut novel by Elizabeth Macneal, is an intoxicating story of art, obsession and possession.

London. 1850. The Great Exhibition is being erected in Hyde Park and among the crowd watching the spectacle two people meet. For Iris, an aspiring artist, it is the encounter of a moment – forgotten seconds later, but for Silas, a collector entranced by the strange and beautiful, that meeting marks a new beginning.

When Iris is asked to model for pre-Raphaelite artist Louis Frost, she agrees on the condition that he will also teach her to paint. Suddenly her world begins to expand, to become a place of art and love.

But Silas has only thought of one thing since their meeting, and his obsession is darkening . . .


Review:

Gothic, evocative, and eerie!

The Doll Factory is a riveting, gritty tale set in London in the mid-1800s at a time when the city was bustling, scavenging was prevalent, respectability meant everything, The Great Exhibition was a structural marvel, and the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was redefining visual art.

There are three main memorable characters in this novel; Iris Whittle, a young red-headed girl who dreams of becoming an artist and unconsciously catches the eye of many; Silas Reed, a strange fellow with a morbid fascination with taxidermy and a macabre, obsessive nature; and Albie, a young guttersnipe who spends his days traipsing the streets for a shilling and dreaming of a mouth full of pearly whites.

The prose is ominous and rich. The supporting characters are multilayered, flawed, and believable. And the plot is an insightful, compelling tale of familial responsibilities, strength, duty, coming-of-age, art, friendship, passion, desire, obsession, loss, love, survival, and the roles of women in Victorian England.

Overall, The Doll Factory is an intense, creative, menacing read by Macneal that does a beautiful job of interweaving historical facts and compelling fiction into a sinister, suspenseful mystery that is deliciously atmospheric and highly entertaining.

 

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 Elizabeth Macneal

Elizabeth Macneal was born in Edinburgh and now lives in East London. She is a writer and potter and works from a small studio at the bottom of her garden. She read English Literature at Oxford University, before working in the City for several years. In 2017, she completed the Creative Writing MA at UEA in 2017 where she was awarded the Malcolm Bradbury scholarship.

The Doll Factory, Elizabeth's debut novel, won the Caledonia Noel Award 2018. It will be published in twenty-eight languages and TV rights have sold to Buccaneer Media.

Photography by Mat Smith.

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