Books, Books, Books, and a Cat

 "The Locked Ward" by Sarah Pekkanen held me captive as I did not want to stop reading.  A fast moving thriller told from two points of view.   This story is about two twin sisters who have never met.  Georgia, had a life of privilege having been adopted by a wealthy family.  Only her family loved her younger sister Annabelle more since she was the biological daughter.  Now Georgia is held in a psychiatric ward as she awaits trial for murdering Annabelle.  Mandy has no idea she is a twin or that Georgia exists until she receives a call that Georgia wants to see her. At the psych ward, Georgia asks for Mandy's help and Mandy is intrigued to know more about her long lost twin sister.  Mandy begins to investigate and finds that there is so much more to this story.   I enjoyed reading about both sisters.  Georgia's story was told using the second person point of view which I found to be really interesting.  I felt more a part ...

This was an excellent thriller that I absolutely did not figure out until the very end.   Olivia Dumont, a ghostwriter is tasked with writing her father's  memoir.  He is a horror author suspected of murdering his own siblings. This is not something Olivia wants to write but due to mounting debts she agrees to take it on.  She has been estranged from her father since she was a teenager and most people do not even know they are related.  Olivia now must uncover what is really true and find out if her own father is a murderer.   What really shines here is the intricate dance between Olivia and her father.  After decades of silence, Vincent is finally ready to tell his story, and Olivia finds herself caught in a web of half-truths, buried secrets, and the gnawing question of her father's guilt or innocence.  The tension throughout the book keeps simmering.  There are tantalizing clues and red herrings that will keep you guessing until ...

  This was an incredible historical fantasy novel.  It is a retelling of the classic "The Little Mermaid" but has its own unique spin. Hester Fox's A Magic Deep and Drowning just swept me away like a rogue wave!  Clara van Weiren is a young woman who yearns for more.  Her life is a set routine and when her parents announce she is going to get married she is excited to finally have some independence.  However before she gets married, she meets a young man called Maurits.  There is an instant spark and now Clara wants nothing to do with her fiance.  What Clara doesn't know is that Maruits is not what he seems and their romance might be doomed from the start. Clara must forge her own path and discover hidden depths of strength to deal with the many strange twists and turns her life is about to take. This was an incredible story filled with fantastic fantasy elements. There is the thrill of the unknown, ancient promises, magical creatures, self discovery, ...

 This was another great addition to this series.  This time everyone is in the Scottish Highlands for a wedding.  The groom has set up traps for wild cats along his estate and one was found dead with its kittens nearby.  It turns out that it is not so much the groom who did it but his newly hired game keeper. There is something odd and suspicious about the gamekeeper.  It also comes to light that it wasn't the trap that killed the wild cat but the cat was poisoned.  Soon after that someone is murdered.  It turns out to be a very tangled web and a great mystery! Mallory is a great character and I love that she is a modern woman in a Victorian woman's body.  She absolutely makes this series.  I love historical fiction and a good mystery.  The fact that you add a strong modern woman to the mix makes this series stand out.  My only complaint would be that I wish something more would happen with Gray.  This is the fourth book and I ...

I would not qualify this as a romance book but one about self discovery.  Durga lives in Ireland after leaving her large family in India.  She is shy and has social anxiety.  She is attracted to one of her co-workers, Jacob, and ends up renting  part of her apartment to his sister, Joy.  Joy becomes her best friend and she enters a two year relationship with Jacob.  This is not what the novel is about though.  The novel starts with her break-up with Jacob.  They broke up because she is embarrassed to tell her family about Jacob since he is mixed race.  I don't want to spoil the novel but then something shocking happens and the rest of the novel is about Durga trying to find her way.   This was only OK to me.  It felt very slow and honestly I really didn't want to read about someones break up.  The book did get better near the end.  I really like the Durga at the end of the story and I enjoyed reading about her sister ...

This was an enjoyable thriller set at a lake in Vermont. The novel is told from two perspectives, Izzy, a nanny, and Julia, a mom who has been going to the lake for years. Julia has been going to Lake Timmeny with her best friends, David and Erika, since they were children. They've been through many ups and downs over the years including the disappearance of a girl their age when they were teens. It turns out that two women have disappeared over the past 30 years. This summer David's girlfriend also disappears. There is so much more to discover at the lake as secrets begin to emerge and not everyone is who they say they are. Julia and Izzy were great characters and I loved that they had two very different perspectives. Even though they were years apart, both were strong females who went through a lot. They really made this book for me. Julia's life is literally falling apart at the seams but I loved reading what she was going to do about it. I also loved reading about Izzy ...

  stars- This felt a little like reading someone's diary but in third person. It definitely made me nostalgic for my college days. Cora takes us back to her time in college when she first fell in love with Lincoln.  The first half of the novel is about her relationship with him and trying to fit in her new world, making friends, and finding connections.  Cora grew up without a mom and often felt lonely as she was the only black girl at a private school that her dad taught at.  In college she makes her first real friends and also falls in love.  All is well until one day it isn't.  Flash forward twenty years and Cora is in a similar situation that she was in her senior year of college.  She has to decide if she will repeat history or forge a new path.  I did like this book and it definitely brought me back.  There were many parts of the story I could relate to or knew people in similar situations.  It was interesting to see what choices ...

The Last Ferry Out by Andrea Bartz, is about a young woman named Abby, who travels to Isla Colel to uncover the truth about her fiancée Eszter’s mysterious death. The  secluded island, a tight-knit expat community, and a missing key witness all help to create suspense however this fell a little short for me.  The story begins with Abby arriving on the island, seeking answers that might help her make sense of her fiancée’s tragic death. Isla Colel, once a thriving tourist destination, is now a hauntingly quiet place, decimated by a hurricane and almost entirely cut off from the mainland. Abby quickly becomes involved with a group of expats, but things take a sinister turn when she learns that one of them knows more about Eszter’s last days. However, when the man vanishes before she can confront him, Abby’s search for the truth becomes even more dangerous and complicated. There were moments I enjoyed but this book was slow.  I just didn't make the connections I wanted with ...

I love a good library so I will be honest that I don't really understand the controversy in this book about not wanting a library built.  In this cozy mystery, a house is built into a library but many people oppose it.  To make matters worse, while planning a murder mystery dinner and escape room, someone is really murdered.  Tempest works with her fellow murder mystery players to figure out who is the killer and why did it happen.  I was given this book to read by the publisher and I have not read the three books before this.  However, the author did a great job explaining the back story so I never felt lost in the story.  I do think I would have better appreciated this story if I had read the first three books.  This was a perfectly fine mystery.  I did not figure out who the killer was so job well done by the author.  However, I just didn't love this story.  There was a slight hint of a romance between Tempest and Gideon but it didn't...