Skip to main content

Posts

Review: Incidentals by Sheila Yasmin Marikar

Incidentals by Sheila Yasmin Marikar Blurb from Goodreads : A couple’s luxury vacation in the Maldives takes a sinister turn when they’re befriended by two strangers in a twisty and darkly comic novel by the author of Friends in Napa. Sarah and Sam have lost the very spark that brought them together. In an effort to save their marriage, they embark on an anniversary trip to the Maldives where a week at a luxury resort might remind them of why they fell in love. On the plane, they meet Krista and Kevin, a happy older, exceptionally generous couple headed to the same destination and eager to make vacation friends. They could be just the marriage mentors Sarah and Sam need. But when a dead body is pulled from the crystalline waters only days into the vacation, a dark pall is cast over the sunny coral isles. The official story is a tragic accident. But ...
Recent posts

Review: A Novel Crime by Deborah Vadas Levison

A Novel Crime by Deborah Vadas Levison Blurb from Goodreads : She wanted to write the perfect novel. Instead, she became the perfect villain. Struggling romance writer and recent divorcée Marcy Jo Codburn feels like a failure. She’s green with author envy and longing for a book deal, a launch party with cupcakes, and the admiration of her daughter. But her dream of literary success is fading faster than her beige hair dye. When she witnesses celebrated author Francesca Barber in a compromising position, Marcy sees her chance. Transforming into Summer Branigan, her bolder, blonder pen name, she leverages Francesca’s secret to secure the ultimate coauthor. As their collaboration spirals from Marcy’s modest Connecticut home to Francesca’s lavish Hamptons estate, both women discover that in the cutthroat world of publishing, every story has its price. With...

Review: Hooked: A Novel of Obsession by Asako Yuzuki, Translated by Polly Barton

Hooked: A Novel of Obsession by  Asako Yuzuki, Translate by  Polly Barton Blurb from Goodreads : From the author of the international bestseller Butter comes a chilling and perceptive novel about obsession, female friendship, and the slow unraveling of two lives. Eriko’s life looks perfect—from her prestigious job at a Japanese trading firm to her spotless apartment and devoted parents. Her newest project, to reintroduce the controversial Nile Perch into the Japanese market, is as ambitious as she is. But beneath her flawless surface lies a consuming loneliness. Eriko has never been able to hold on to a real friend. Enter a popular lifestyle blogger whose work Eriko follows obsessively. Shoko lives a life of controlled chaos—messy apartment, take-out dinners, a kind, easy-going husband. She writes about daily contentment, though her fractured relationship with her father gnaws at the edges of her happiness. Wh...

Review: Nonesuch by Francis Spufford

Nonesuch by Francis Spufford Blurb from Goodreads : A spellbinding tale about an ambitious young woman who must thwart an occult plot by time-traveling fascists during the chaos of the London Blitz—from “one of our most powerful writers of wayward historical fiction” (The Washington Post). Following the acclaim of his previous novels Golden Hill and Cahokia Jazz, Francis Spufford delivers a masterpiece of literary fantasy, hailed by Joe Hill as “a book that scoops up all the wonder and hope and pleasure of the Narnia novels, and pours it into a story for grown-ups.” It’s the summer of 1939, and the air in London is thick with the tension of impending war. Iris Hawkins, a fiery young financial secretary, has a chance encounter with Geoff, a genius engineer from the new technology of television. What was supposed to be one night of abandon draws her...

Audiobook Review: Westward Women by Alice Martin, Narrated by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Mia Wurgaft, and Saskia Maarleveld

Westward Women by Alice Martin,  Narrated by Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Mia Wurgaft, and Saskia Maarleveld Blurb from Goodreads : It starts with an itch. In homes across the country, women ages eighteen to thirty-five begin to slow down. Tired. Blank. Restless. Drawn to the Pacific Ocean like it’s calling them home. They abandon their lives—jobs, families, their very selves. And once they reach the West, they vanish forever. At the center of the story are three young women caught in the pull of something unstoppable. Aimee follows the trail of her missing best friend to a man called the Piper—known for leading infected women West. Teenie, afflicted and unraveling, clings to a single memory as she looks out the window of the Piper’s van. And Eve, a former journalist, is chasing the story that might just consume her. Each on the edge of transformation....

Review: She Fell Away by Lenore Nash

She Fell Away by Lenore Nash Blurb from Goodreads : A State Department diplomat must confront the ghosts of her past as she searches for a missing American woman in New Zealand in this pulse-pounding and unputdownable thriller. Lake Harlowe may not appear to be your typical State Department diplomat. With the number of skeletons in her closet exceeding the tattoos on her skin, she moves to a new country every few years to keep one step ahead of her personal demons. After two grueling years working in Cambodia, Lake’s desperate for a break and a new posting to sleepy Wellington, New Zealand, seems like a dream come true. That is, until eighteen-year-old singer-songwriter Bowie Bishop mysteriously vanishes shortly after American NFL player Bruce Walter is found dead in his hotel room. An exchange student from Las Vegas, Bowie was a world away from her possessive, washed-up stage mom who won’t stop calling until Lake find...

Review: Once and Again by Rebecca Serle

Once and Again by Rebecca Serle Blurb from Goodreads : The women of the Novak family were each born with a they can, just once, turn back time. Lauren has known since she was fifteen that her mother Marcella saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella, her power spent, has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. Her own mother, Sylvia, is her polar a free-spirited iconoclast with a glamorous past she only hints at. Lauren has spent her life between these two role models—and waiting for her own catastrophe to strike. Then one summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York and she moves back to Broad Beach Road, back into her childhood home on the shores of Malibu. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture...