Book Review: The Vengeance of Jasper Daniels by A.K. Lawrence

 

Jasper Daniels, once known as "The Web", has abandoned her outlaw gang and the responsibility of tracking souls. She's settled down with her husband, has helped him build a house and a barn and is in the process of living a calm, ordinary life. That is until said gang tracks her down. Jasper has something they want, and when she refuses to give it up, they burn her house, murder her husband and leave her horribly disfigured.

When Jasper wakes from her horrific ordeal, she is in the care of a neighbor who has put Charlie to rest and tended to all her many injuries. Her hands—which the gang mangled intentionally so that Jasper could not use her magical revolvers—are rendered all but useless, but she's not about to let what her gang has done go unpunished. She dresses in men's pants, chops off her long hair, and gratefully takes the horse her friend and neighbor offers her. Vengeance is the name of the game, and Jasper understands all too well how to play.  

Jasper digs up her husband's body, grinds his bones and makes the charmed bullets for her pistols. Then she sets off to find each woman with whom she used to ride. Her plans are paused when she comes across an orphaned girl named Little Bird who is also all too familiar with violence. Against her better judgement, Jasper becomes attached to the child, and she has to decide if she has anything left to offer her.

This book starts off speeding at hundred miles an hour from the very first page and never slows down. This tale is dark and gritty, sad and touching. It's a western like no other you've ever read. It's brutal and beautiful. It's magical and raw. I can tell you from personal experience that Jasper will make her way into your heart, and she'll be with you long after you finish her story. This one is unforgettable.

Book Review: Killer Comfort Food by Stacey Roberts

 

This book is listed under both mystery and humor, which makes a lot of sense. There is a lot of both in this novel. The author is skilled at crafting both an entertaining story as well as creating interesting and complex characters. I truly enjoyed Amelia and her son, Gene Four, and the recipes that were included before each chapter were a fun and creative touch.

So many of the adults in young Amelia's life left her at a young age. When her uncle George dies, he surprises both of his sons as well as Amelia when he leaves her his farm and a huge amount of land. For a while, Amelia makes her own life incredibly hard with alcoholism. She finally learns how to keep that devil at bay, then all the property she owns begins to cause her a whole heap of trouble. She's a tough woman raising a genius son with an ex-husband who is less than helpful, and ex-in-laws who are even more than less than helpful. She's well versed in the use of her shotgun—and actually finds reason to use it several times throughout the book—and Roberts really had me, hook, line and …

Well, not sinker. There's a bit at the end where he explains how the murders—and there are plenty—were actually carried out, and while it was well written, I struggled with placement. Or something. I'm not even quite sure what the problem was, but it didn't flow for me. Perhaps one issue was that the perspective changed a couple of times without any warning and I had to run to keep up. It wasn't a smooth ride.

Then came the epilogue. I guess the only thing I can think to say about the epilogue is that maybe it went a step too far. I read that this book was the first of a series. I can see where Mr. Roberts might go with a second book, but I'm afraid if it isn't back to the past when Gene is a younger child, I have a hard time seeing how he will capture what he built in the majority of this first novel.

I really did love so much of this book, but I think I can only give it three and a half stars. I really hate that because there was so much to celebrate in the first three quarters of this tale.

Book Review: The Firefly Hour by Annie Rains

 

Grandma Laverne's bed and breakfast, The Shelter Inn, sits in a small town on the North Carolina coast. After a hurricane hits, three siblings come together to repair the inn, but the only thing they seem to have in common is Laverne herself and the reunion ends up in angry words and tears.

Amelia has just gotten a high paying job she's been working towards for years, while Maggie floats from job to job and relationship to relationship. Amelia thinks her sister is only at the inn because she has nowhere else to live. Duncan, who is usually the one who works to bring peace between them has been running the inn since their grandmother's death, and he's a bit preoccupied with something he's not yet ready to share.

There is so much discord and anger, especially between the two women in this novel. They are coming together because their grandmother's inn has weathered a storm, and then Duncan's secret comes to light—at least for the reader if not for his sister's right away. There is much to be sad about in this novel, but Rains has created a story that still feels hopeful even though the characters she writes are carrying so much on their shoulders. The recipe cards Grandma Laverne wrote and kept in a box were a huge bit of levity in this family drama, and even when it becomes clear that this story is heading in a difficult direction, it's almost impossible to be unhappy.

This is a beautiful novel. The family dynamic was convoluted, but realistic, and Rains brought the past into the present so well. Few books have made me feel like this one did. I would definitely recommend this read. I give The Firefly Hour five stars.

Book Review: Gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson

 

Arlene Fleet was born in Possett, Alabama. She lived with her mentally ill mother in her Aunt Florence and Uncle Bruster's house and shared a room with her cousin, Clarice. High school has its ups and downs and life is generally predictable until one night when a date goes horribly wrong. That's when Arlene began wearing all black, and she stopped playing hard to get with the boys. That might not have worried anyone but Arlene's family, but the disappearance of Jim Beverly, star of the football team, throws the whole town into an uproar.

After graduation, Arlene flees to Chicago, leaving Possett behind her. Ten years later, she's got several degrees under her belt and she's working as a teacher in a local college. She's madly in love with Burr, a tax lawyer, but she hasn't been able to fully commit to him because of the trauma she still carries with her. Burr has been more than patient with Arlene—who he calls Lena—and he wants to marry her, but he's handed down an ultimatum. He wants to be introduced to her family or he's gone. When she gets news that her Uncle Bruster is retiring, she knows she'll be expected to show up. She can't imagine taking Burr, who is African American, and placing him in front of her incredibly racist family, but she can't imagine losing him, either.

Lena decides she needs to go and face what made her run away a decade ago. She finds that Clarice married her high school sweetheart. She's a mom to three kids and is every bit as sweet and kind as she was before Lena left. Lena's mom's mental and physical health have continued to decline, and the woman has a knack for stealing meds and helping herself to pills. Her aunt and uncle are much the same as they were ten years ago—at least that's what Lena thinks at first. But things aren't entirely as they might seem at first glance. Things that happened in Possett—the things Lena ran away from—are far from being settled, but she'll have to come to terms with all of it before she can leave again.

I loved the mystery in this novel. Jackson's narrative is sarcastic and funny while being serious and sincere at the same time. There are surprises peppered throughout, and the ending … This title was published twenty-one years ago. I've read her latest, which came out just this year. I'm not sure how I missed this one, but I'm happy to have gotten to experience it. This was definitely a five-star read for me without question. 

Book Review: Mr. Winterbourne by Clara van Houten

 

Debra Cowdry keeps all the rejection letters from literary agents and publishing houses in one specific drawer in her apartment. She works in a law office as a typist, and on her lunch breaks, she often sits at her favorite bookshop. The window display and all the tables are decorated with books written by men. Bestsellers with glossy covers, and a woman's name on only a few of them. When her best friend, Sheila, jokes and says she should send in her manuscript under a male pen name, Debra takes it to heart. What kind of response might her book get if she were to do this?

She receives a letter back from an agent, and when Lisa, the agent's assistant, lets Debra into the room, an unexpected thing happens. The book is picked up by a publishing house with Alec Winterbourne as the author. There are only three people who know Alec Winterbourne isn't a real person. They keep her secret, and Debra publishes more books under this pen name.

Then Debra meets a man named Alec Winterbourne. He's an architect, and he's funny and charming. He's handsome and smart, and in no time at all, Debra has fallen in love with him. When she writes a book that garners a lot of attention, requests for interviews start pouring in. She and Lisa, who has stepped in as her agent, let Alec in on Debra's secret. He begins filling in for Debra, pretending to be the person who wrote her books. Things work—sometimes smoothly, sometimes less so—until they don't.

This was a very entertaining read based on a very interesting premise. I wasn't sure why Lisa—the assistant turned agent—couldn't help Debra when things turned sideways, but maybe there were reasons I didn't have figured out. There were a couple of twists that surprised me. This was very different from van Houten's Everything He Never Told Me, but every bit as engaging.

I gave this book four stars. This title releases on October 6, 2026.

Book Review: The Things You'll Never Know by Ashley Audrain

 

This book is about the weekend Fiona died.

Adam takes their daughter, Astrid, camping for the weekend. Fiona stays home with their precocious six-year-old son, Pepper. She's hoping for a reset. She's hoping she can take this short time to get her head straight again. But when Adam and Astrid arrive home, Fiona is lying on the floor wearing a coat that doesn't belong to her. How long has she been there? What happened, and what did Pepper see? Pepper doesn't have much of a story to tell. You wouldn't expect Fiona to say anything at all, but you'd be wrong. Fiona is the biggest narrator of this tale.

This is a heavy story. There is nothing light here from beginning to end. It's about Fiona; how she sees herself, how she's been seen by her mother, her sister, and her best friend, Leah. It's about how her husband and children see her. The timeline changes throughout, and we see things from different points of view. There are mysteries upon mysteries, and revelations that slowly stitch things into a history that makes sense. It's twisty, and surprising, and I never saw that ending coming. I finished this book several days ago and I'm still thinking about it, so I think it deserves all five stars.

This title releases on January 12, 2027.

Book Review: Until the Next Letter by Hannah Claire

When Rachel and Libby's mom passes away, they are heartbroken. They find a letter that she wrote and left for them, then realize it's the first letter of five. With each letter they read, they learn more about their mother's past, and they uncover some heavy secrets that neither one of them ever suspected.

I'll be honest, I struggled with Linda, the mother who died, a little bit. The girls uncover so many things they had no idea about, and in many instances, I felt as though it would have been much better for her to have just had a conversation with her daughters.  By coming clean after her death, she released herself of the outcome of all the truths the siblings were flooded with. She didn't have to deal with the aftermath of what she had revealed. She didn't have to watch her children come to terms with a new reality because of secrets she'd kept from them.

Still, there's no denying that this is a very sweet novel. It's filled with a lot of love, and the idea that families can be made in a million different ways. Libby was a very likable character. I wasn't sure about Rachel at first, but I grew to like her in short order. The relationship between the siblings, while not terrible to begin with, really bloomed while they took these letters one at a time and fulfilled their mother's wishes. There's romance here, too, and I really liked the obvious love Rachel's husband, Ivan, has for his wife.

This book kept me intrigued throughout. Ms. Claire did a wonderful job of creating characters readers could connect with. I gave this novel four stars. I would recommend this read and am happy I came across it myself.

Why Do I Write So Many Book Reviews???

I've always been a reader. Books are pretty much the first things I can remember about my life. Dr. Seuss was a big deal. I remember the ABC Book. It was white. The A was red, the B was green and the C was blue. There were three strange creatures playing around the letters, and I loved that book. Big A, little A, what begins with a? Aunt Annie's alligator. A … a … A. Perhaps my favorite was Big M, little M … Many mumbling mice are making midnight music in the moonlight ... mighty nice.

It wasn't just the ABC Book. My childhood library was filled with Dr. Seuss, including Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and the crazy tongue twister that is Fox in Socks. One of my most beloved childhood books was The Monster at the End of This Book. Grover. Who doesn't love Grover?

I was an only child for some time. I remember being read to, but I also had to entertain myself a lot. One of the things I liked doing was pulling out my clunky hard plastic turntable—the cover was a boring beige color—and sifting through my collection of Disney Read-Alongs. 

"This is a Disneyland original Little Long-Playing Record, and I am your story reader. I am going to begin now to read the story of [insert title here]. You can read along with me in your book. You will know it's time to turn the page when Tinker Bell rings her little bells like this: (sound of 'chimes' ringing). Let's begin now."

I remember having Cinderella, Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, Pete's Dragon, and my favorite, Alice in Wonderland. I had such a love affair with this story that I wanted an Alice themed cake for my fifth birthday.

Then I went to school and was introduced to the Bookmobile and the Scholastic Book Fair. Oh, my goodness, the Bookmobile. This was a really big deal for my little book loving heart. My mom would tuck a ten-dollar bill in my pocket, and when I stepped inside that big bus, I was in heaven. I would study all the photos of all the books and stickers coloring the newsprint sheets that were handed out in school from Scholastic. I remember getting those every few months, and I would take my money into my teacher and couldn't wait for her to pull out the great big box weeks later and hand out all the goodies my classmates and I ordered.

Books. Seriously. Is there anything better than books?

I read a lot, but I also wrote. In middle school, I began writing short stories and poetry. I asked for a typewriter one Christmas. You could buy little plastic discs that gave you different fonts. I had the standard type font, but I could switch it to italics. That was cool, but you could also buy typewriter ribbon in different colors.

What? I could type poetry in blue italics! My life was complete! 

Then I wrote my first book. Before I'd even finished it, it was well over 600 pages. I began trying to shop it around to publishing houses. This was in the late 90s, and I didn't have tools at my disposal like the internet. I spent hours sitting in the library scribbling down names and addresses of houses that might be interested in my very long family drama. Because the books that had this information in them were in the research section, I was not allowed to check them out. This is what we call determination.

I wrote so many query letters, and many houses requested I send ten pages, a chapter, the first three chapters. And so, I printed what was requested, and I spent money in postage to send it to them. I got a lot of responses back. No one wanted to publish the book, but one literary agent who read it gave me a lot of very helpful feedback. To this day, I'm grateful for what he wrote to me. (Mark Sullivan, you are awesome. Thank you!) I had a stack of rejection letters and to be honest, it took the wind out of my sails. I didn't finish the book. I wound up putting the project to the side after my husband and I had our first child. And then we had child number two. We'd always planned to homeschool, so I jumped into that with both feet. I made myself a promise that I would finish the book someday, and even if it never got published, at least I could say I completed it. I could say I wrote a book.

The list of authors I enjoyed reading was long. In my freshman year of high school, an English teacher I absolutely loved had us read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I was blown away by this book. I loved it so much that for a long time, I reread it yearly. Then, when life happened, and things got rough, I would pull it out again, and reading it consoled me. It's still my favorite book of all time. I also loved reading books written by Dean Koontz. (How many of you read Watchers?) I've never really been a fan of horror novels, but there were a lot of Stephen King books that I loved, too. (Delores Claiborne for example.) I loved mysteries and thrillers and read the Inspector Lynley series by Elizabeth George, the Kay Scarpetta books by Patricia Cornwell, the goofy Stephanie Plum books written by Janet Evanovich, and the magic realism of Sarah Addison Allen's books. James Lee Burke. Wow. I absolutely love the way James Lee Burke writes, and Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson & the Olympians series. I was reading V.C. Andrews at thirteen—yikes, but I certainly wasn't the only tween reading those books—and then there was Judy Blume. Thank God for Judy Blume. There's so many. I'll stop here, but I could keep going. Like I said before, there's nothing better than books. 

When I took on the gigantic responsibility of educating two children, I continued to read, but it was instructive books that sat on my nightstand instead of the latest Michael Crichton. I learned how to build a curriculum that suited the county we happened to live in at the time, and I even took a job with a small publication called Kids 411. I became a homeschool liaison, writing articles and sharing with other parents all the information I had gathered about being a homeschool family. (This was in 2003, and Colorado was not a big homeschool state at that time. Maya had a lot of friends she danced and did gymnastics with, and none of them were homeschooled. I was largely on my own, and I was okay with that. I was good at homeschooling. I absolutely loved being a homeschool mom.)

For many years, the authors I read came from a very different list. Sandra Boynton, Eric Carle, Audrey Wood and Laura Joffe Numeroff. I read Mary Pope Osborne, Marcus Pfister, E.B. White, C.S. Lewis and Jane Yolen. I read Room on the Broom, Sheep in a Jeep, The Mermaid's Baby, Goodnight Moon and Chrysanthemum. The kids and I would go to the library at least twice a week. They didn't have a cap on how many books could be checked out, and neither did I. I read at least four books to them at bedtime every single night. We took books with us everywhere we went just in case there was time during errands or long car rides when they got bored. I read a whole lot of books from the back seat of many cars. Children's books. They are magical.

When our oldest was about twelve, I finally finished writing that first novel. (The finished version was nowhere near 600 pages by the way.) This time, I didn't try to sell it, I published it on my own. I went through a publisher called Xlibris. They taught me a lot, but they charged a great deal of money to do so. If I had to do it over again, I would not have gone this route, but it did make it possible for me to decide to publish and then be published. That was at the end of 2012. I learned a lot that next year about the ins and outs of having a book on the market. This was when I found out how important the almighty review is.

Let me blunt. Reviews are everything. Every author needs them, and they are so very difficult to get. Sites like Amazon advertise books with a lot of reviews, and literary agents and publishing houses look at the number of reviews to gauge how popular—and how financially profitable—a certain title might become. I repeat: REVIEWS ARE EVERYTHING.

As a new author, I had no reviews. I did know how to research, though, and I found a review group on Goodreads. It turned out to be a great group. Books were grouped according to genre, and each reviewing period lasted about two months. In order to get four reviews, you had to be willing to read four books and write and post four reviews. None of the reviews were reciprocal, so I was never asked to review a book by an author who had written a review for me. There was never any crossover. They were honest reviews. (I did this for my first two books, and some of the reviews I received were awful—but they were helpful. I'd rather have an honest review and be able to learn from it than to be told a book is fantastic when it isn't.) I was part of this group for about two years, and I met a lot of great authors. I also got to read many amazing—and some not so amazing—books. I'm not in the group any longer, but it still exists thirteen years after I first discovered it.

There are a lot of authors publishing books. Some of them are traditionally published. Some of them are attached to smaller publishing houses, and some of them—like mine—are published by indie authors. The one thing every single one of these books has in common is that they all need reviews. 

I decided that if I was going to ask for reviews, I was going to write reviews.

One of the reviews I wrote that garnered the most attention was for Blow Fly by Patricia Cornwell. I never write a review hoping someone will comment on it. In fact, at the time, I didn't realize that was a thing, so the response it got took me by surprise. This book is number twelve in the Kay Scarpetta series. I had been an avid reader of this series, until I got to the twelfth book. She chose to do something with her characters that didn't sit well with me, and I was hesitant to read further. I felt guilty about this. I'd been loyal to this writer and this series, but I was struggling with it all. I decided to look at some of the reviews about this book to see what other readers were saying about it—and I was horrified by some of the things I saw.

People, specifically when they have any amount of anonymity, can be incredibly mean and rude. That's not something I believe in. I don't write mean reviews. Does this mean I give four and five stars to every book I read? Absolutely not. Does this mean there haven't been books I chose to skim quickly instead of actually reading because I found no interest in them? Nope. I won't say I thought a book was good if I didn't think it was. But I always find something I liked about a book—perhaps the author's humor, maybe a phrase or two stood out, maybe it was a character, or the premise of the story—it could be something really small, and I'll be sure to write about it. I'll say the book didn't work for me, but that I'm sure there are others who will feel differently. You can say you didn't care for something without being a jerk about it. There were a lot of people being jerks about Blow Fly.

I revisited the Kay Scarpetta series. I reread all the books, including book twelve. I'll be honest—it still hit me the same way it did the first time I read it. I sat and put my thoughts and feelings down—not just about the book, but about the other reviews it had received. I think it would be really amazing if Patricia Cornwell stumbled across my review one day. I'd love to know what she thought of it. 

I write reviews because authors need reviews. I write reviews because I, as an author, desperately need reviews. One of the cool things about it is, by sitting down and putting your ideas about a book into a single sentence or several paragraphs, you're challenging your brain to write in a different way. It's not storytelling. It's a different kind of practice. The more you write, the better you become at it. Writing reviews is a great tool for an author.

You don't have to do anything special to leave a review for an author. You read a book, you jot a few ideas about what you liked and what you didn't about the book. You may not hear a thank you, but I can guarantee that author will be grateful. Authors oftentimes pay companies to help them find people who will read their books and leave reviews. I do. I go through Booksprout. I pay a fee every year to have books listed on that site, and I offer them to readers free of charge in return for honest reviews. It doesn't cost a reader anything to have an account with Booksprout. They get free books, the author gets reviews. It's a win/win. 

There are other companies that do this as well. At the beginning of 2026, I decided I was going to start reading for NetGalley. I look for specific authors, and a lot of my favorites use NetGalley. One of the things I've come to enjoy most about reading for them, though, is finding authors that are new to me, or authors who have just written their first book. It's so cool to stumble across so many brilliant novels that I otherwise would have never found. An author I know decided to use BookSirens to help her get reviews a couple of months ago. I joined to support her, but once I was a member, I just decided to keep reading for other authors on the site. I couldn't possibly name all the companies who offer books for reviews, but I know it wouldn't take much research for anyone to find them.

Honestly, logging into NetGalley or BookSirens today gives me a similar feeling to stepping up into the Bookmobile or looking through the flyers from Scholastic back in elementary school. Do you know how many books there are just waiting to be read??? It's almost more than I can fathom. 

I read on average about three to four books a month, and I review every one of them. When I brought this blog back to life, I decided I would use it to help get the word out on the books I've been able to review. I post them on my Facebook page, as well as on Instagram. Readers are everywhere. Perhaps this post will urge one or two of them to go and find one of my books and leave a review for me. :) 

Book Review: The Version We Kept by Nicole Pigeon

 

The Version We Kept is told from the viewpoint of Eliza Vale who, at the beginning of the novel, is sitting in her car in the parking lot of a funeral home. Inside, the services for Bennett Vale are about to begin. We are introduced to several people all at once, although the relationship between them all is not always clear.  The cast of characters is large—about twelve people—and not all of them are still alive. The author does a good job letting us know that this is a tight knit family, and they are gathering to say goodbye to Bennett. The fact that they are all related is the relevant part, and later, the relationship between a couple of them becomes the heart of the whole story.

Every summer, the Vale family travels to Alder House on Lake Bellweather in Ontario, Canada. Alder House is old and weathered. It is filled with a bunch of bedrooms, a big kitchen, a front porch and an archival room. This room is filled with shelves stacked with boxes of negatives, photographs, cassette tapes containing the voices of the Vale family, videos and files of important documents such as birth certificates, deeds to property, contracts and other necessary things. These things have been meticulously kept over the years, mostly by Eleanor—who is no longer living—and Evelyn. Bennett played the part of archivist sometime in the past, and this year, Eliza is the one who is chosen for the job. She arrives at the lake and prepares to continue the tradition of familial archiving—but finds that negatives have been altered, tapes spliced and several different copies of documents, each one with small differences. It becomes obvious to Eliza that the Vale family history has been carefully edited over the years.

When Eliza finds a cassette tape from Bennett, she realizes that it's not part of the archive but left for the next person who is elected to tend to the collection. Tears came to my eyes just like they did Eliza's. "Promise me if I die, you won't make me prettier than I was. People always do that. I don't want it. If you have to choose, leave the rough parts in. That's what's real." This is the whole idea behind this powerhouse of a novel.

There are other details I'd love to share in this review, but to do so would be revealing too much. This is really a book a reader needs to experience on their own. Pigeon did not simply tell a story, she also created atmosphere. You can hear the sounds of the old hardwoods creaking and feel the way the grain of the wood might feel to the soles of bare feet. You can smell the cedar of the shelves in the archive room and smell the petrichor after a storm while the cooler air surrounds you and envelops you in a cloud of humidity. She is good at pulling in all senses and immersing the reader as she writes.

This was an emotional read. Events that have taken place in the Vale family find no real conclusion—at least not while the reader is part of the story. A bigger revelation, however, is discovered, and the end of this tale brings a quiet kind of satisfaction.

Book Review: Nowhere Safe by Kate Anslinger

 

Sloane Keller is a flight attendant working for Velocity Airlines. The job has its drawbacks—mostly due to troublesome passengers—but she's always on the move, travelling all over the globe. This is a good thing for Sloane because she's got a past she's running away from. Everything seems to be going fine until one of the passengers calls her by her real name. Does this man know what happened that night at the river? Does he know what Sloane did?

Anslinger layers this story in such an interesting way. I was held to the story, and found myself surprised not once, but several times. And she hit me with yet another surprise with the very last line of the book. Anslinger has definitely mastered the fine art of a well-crafted thriller.

I wanted to feel closer to Sloane. I desperately wanted to find out the secrets of her past, but I never felt the emotional closeness to her that I desired. I'm not sure why I couldn't connect, and I don't really know if that took away from the story. I liked all the puzzle pieces that Anslinger clicked into place throughout and would recommend this novel to anyone who enjoys a twisty thriller.

The cover art is worth mentioning. It's so very well done. 

I gave Nowhere Safe four stars.

Book Review: Everything He Never Told Me by Clara van Houten

 

Everything He Never Told Me is a story about Kai Lindholm, a brilliant engineer who wants to build prosthetics for veterans, and Ivy, the woman he loves. Ivy is the daughter of a very wealthy and domineering father who has a plan for her life. Kai is not in those plans. Even though her father wants her to marry another man named Mason, Ivy accepts Kai's proposal, and the two of them get married and begin their lives without the money Ivy has always been used to. The couple both believe in Kai's ability to build a prosperous business, and together they work toward that goal. Life, as it oftentimes does, throws them a curve ball, and things don't quite go according to plan.

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from this book when I started reading but hearing it both in Kai's voice and then in Ivy's was interesting. I knew something wasn't quite right as I read, and I think van Houten did a great job of leading us down the very scary, difficult path of deteriorating mental health and grief. Hearing the story from both sides was a creative way to show readers how things were declining. I don't have firsthand experience with the particular circumstances the characters found themselves in, but from what I do know about it, it feels like the author does her subject matter justice.

I'll be honest. When I finished reading, I needed to be in a quiet place for a while so the story could settle in my head. It was heartbreaking. Oh my goodness. Truly heartbreaking. The relationship between Kai and Ivy is the whole heart of this novel, but honestly, the romance didn't feel much like a romance. As I write this, however, I'm wondering if that was the whole point. The relationship was toxic, and that was illustrated well. I find myself wondering how Ivy is doing now and how much time has passed for her since the end of this part of her story. That right there tells me van Houten was able to tell me a tale that I'm still thinking about after putting the book down. I'd call that a success. 

I gave this book four stars. This title releases on August 18th.

Book Review: Necessary Lies by Diane Chamberlain

 

In this novel, Chamberlain takes readers back to North Carolina in the early sixties. Jane Forrester is a newlywed, married to a pediatrician who is more than a little status conscious. He wants a stay-at-home wife and children, but Jane wants a career. Against his better judgement, he allows this to happen, thinking she will tire of it quickly and they can start their family.

She takes a job as a social worker and is introduced to two families who work and live on a tobacco farm. She is told from the very beginning not to open her heart to the clients she has been assigned to, but this is not in Jane's programming. Immediately, she becomes emotionally involved with fifteen-year-old Ivy Hart, Ivy's diabetic grandmother, her beautiful but mentally challenged older sister, and her nephew, Baby William. When Jane learns that Mary Ella, Ivy's sister, was unknowingly part of a state program that sterilizes what they deem to be “mental defectives,” and others with supposedly undesirable characteristics, she is taken by surprise. Then she is told that because of her epilepsy, Ivy will become part of the program as well. The more she gets to know the girl, the more she learns about her, including Ivy's dream to become a mother one day.

Chamberlain weaves fiction and history together beautifully in Necessary Lies. This topic is a difficult one, and this story is not without pain and struggle. I loved the way things came to a close. It was a happy ending but disturbing at the same time. It was real and sad and lovely all at once. 

Book Review: Getting Away with Murder by Shari Lapena

 

Ted and Jill Westcott bought a Brooklyn Heights brownstone, which they then remodeled and decorated without a second thought to just how much they were spending. Then, Ted—who is overconfident at best—makes a bad investment, not only losing a big chunk of what remained of the Westcott's money but losing some other people's as well. Ted, scared to tell Jill what he'd done, decides to borrow money from a loan shark, but when the reality of the couple's disastrous financial situation becomes too much for him to hide, he begins grasping at any solution he can find.

Greg Westcott is Ted's only sibling. Unfortunately for Ted, Greg has a much better understanding of investments and has grown the large inheritance both he and his brother got after the death of their parents into a forty-five-million-dollar empire. When Ted is unable to pay back the loan shark, he's forced to come clean with Jill. They'll have to put a mortgage on their beloved brownstone if they hope to pay back their debt and have money on which to live. Jill is livid and refuses to do so. As much as both of them hate it, they realize their only other option is to ask Greg for a loan.

Greg is unmarried and has no children. He's haughty, self-important and likes to brag. During one of their conversations, Greg lets his younger brother know that he is Greg's heir. When Greg denies Ted and Jill a loan, the two of them come up with a foolproof plan to kill Greg and inherit the man's millions. Problem is that nothing is foolproof.

It isn't just Greg who pays for Ted and Jill's greediness. Their plan casts a wide net that traps many people, and Lapena delivers a nice little twist at the end. This book is devious, well researched and definitely worth a reader's time.

I gave this book five stars. It more than held my interest, and I enjoyed Lapena's writing style.

Book Review: Brain Damage by Freida McFadden

 

The main character in Brain Damage is Charlotte—or Charly—McKenna. She's a popular dermatologist who has done very well for herself. She owns an apartment near Central Park, her practice is flourishing, she has friends, and her patients love her. She's successful, but she feels plain and unattractive. That's why, perhaps, when a handsome man begins to pursue her, she feels flustered and flattered.

The relationship that builds is, admittedly, not perfect. I was initially frustrated with Charly's ability to bypass obvious red flags. It would have been easy to give into this, but McFadden was good at reminding me of Charly's insecurities. Despite her questionable decision making, it was hard not to feel sorry for her when her life suddenly implodes.

Upon returning home one night, Charly is confronted by a man pointing a gun at her. She survives being shot in the head, but her memories of the incident are fuzzy at best. A good portion of this novel takes us through Charly's recovery time. She goes from barely remembering her own name to diagnosing another patient's skin cancer. It was a slow burn to the final who-dun-it, but it was an entertaining ride.

I gave this book five stars.

Book Review: The Story Keeper by Kelly Rimmer

I believe this story was published by author Kelly Rimmer in July 2025 and was titled The Midnight Estate. The version I have reviewed below titled The Story Keeper is set to release July 21, 2026.

Fiona is embarking upon uncharted territory. She lost her husband and her best friend when she found out the two of them had fallen in love with each other, then she was asked to give up the career she loved for a time period as part of the divorce settlement. Her children are both out of the house, and she's mourning her uncle Tad, who is recently deceased. There has been too much change in too little time, and Fiona finds herself at odds with this new life she's expected to live.

Fiona never knew her own father, who died before she was born. Tad had always filled that role for her, and Tad's biological son, Jon, was not only Fiona's "brother", but her best friend. The two of them grew up in a sprawling house called Wurimbirra in Australia with Ginny, Fiona's mother, who worked for the hopelessly disorganized Tad as the secretary who kept his life—and the house—running. Jon never felt comfortable there and spent most of his time with his mother. Fiona, on the other hand, has nothing but fondness for the old place. She lived there until Ginny married Alan, who owned a neighboring farm when Fiona was sixteen. Wurimbirra is known for its ghosts—ghosts Tad celebrated. When the bestselling novelist passes away, the ghosts are what the residents of the town seem to remember most about the place.

For some time, the house has been abandoned. The property was handed down to Jon when his father died, but he has no interest in it. When Fiona's life implodes, restoring Wurimbirra becomes the one thing that fuels her. Jon isn't excited about Fiona purchasing the property, and neither is Ginny. Fiona has never fully understood the aversion the two of them have to the place, but she arrives on the property, ready to clean all the dust out of it and to begin bringing it back to its former glory.

When Fiona comes across a box filled with a dozen books titled The Midnight Estate, she assumes they've come from either the author or the publisher. It was not unusual for Tad to buy several copies of a book he enjoyed so he could give them to his friends and family. As Fiona reads the novel, however, she starts seeing a lot of parallels in the story that mirror the people and places in her own life. The writing style has become familiar, and it becomes obvious that Tad authored this novel under a pen name. Before she's gotten to the end, she realizes she's inadvertently stumbled across hidden family secrets and finds answers to some long-standing questions. 

This book within a book is intriguing. The mystery is creatively built, and the reader quickly becomes invested in Rimmer's characters and the outcome of their story.   

I gave The Story Keeper an easy five stars. I am eager to read more of this author's work.