Tuesday, April 7, 2020

One Perfect Summer by Brenda Novak






ome families we’re born into

Some we find for ourselves


When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for 23andMe, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

The women decide to dig into the mystery together at Serenity’s family cabin in Lake Tahoe. With Reagan navigating romantic politics at work and Lorelei staring down the collapse of her marriage, all three women are converging at a crossroads in their lives. Before the summer is over, they’ll have to confront the past and determine how to move forward when everything they previously thought to be true was a lie. But any future is easier to face with family by your side.


Amazon


About The Author







It was a shocking experience that jump-started Brenda Novak’s bestselling author career.
“I caught my day-care provider drugging my children with cough syrup and Tylenol to get them to sleep while I was away,” Brenda says. “It was then that I decided that I needed to do something from home.”
However, writing was the last profession she expected to undertake. In fact, Brenda swears she didn’t have a creative bone in her body. In school, math and science were her best subjects, and when it came time to pick a major in college, she chose business.
Abandoning her academic scholarship to Brigham Young University at the age of 20 in order to get married and start a family, Brenda dabbled in commercial real estate, then became a loan officer.
“When I first got the idea to become a novelist, it took me five years to teach myself the craft and finish my first book,” Brenda admits. “I learned how to write by reading what others have written. The best advice for any would-be author: read, read, read….”
Brenda sold her first book, and the rest is history. Many of her novels have won or placed in contests such as the National Reader’s Choice, the Bookseller’s Best, the Write Touch, the Award of Excellence and the Beacon Award for Published Authors.
Brenda and her husband, Ted, live in Sacramento and are the proud parents of five children—three girls and two boys. When she’s not spending time with her family or writing, Brenda is usually raising money for diabetes research. Her youngest son, Thad, has diabetes, and Brenda is determined to help him and others like him. She also enjoys traveling, watching sporting events and biking — she rides an amazing 20 miles every day!

Website


My Review

When Serenity submits her DNA to be analyzed, she never expected the results she received, and how the author's mind worked as the pieces of this book fell together!
Can you imagine finding a sister you never knew you had, actually not one, but two, and now these young woman are meeting each other at Lake Tahoe for the first time.
They come with a lot of baggage, but seem to form an instant connection, sisterhood, and a bonus of a four year old niece!
We are kept guessing here, and when the final facts unfold, wow, never ever saw it coming, will you be blindsided like me, or have an idea what happened here?
Loved the epilogue at the end, there is a completion, but we could continue here!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Harlequin, and was not required to give a positive review. 

 


A Beautiful Arrangement (An Amish Journey #3) by Beth Wiseman






Can Lydia and Samuel find love in their marriage of convenience?

Lydia still can’t believe that she is Mrs. Samuel Bontrager. Or that she is seventeen with  a six-month-old daughter. As Baby Mattie grows fussier by the day, Lydia wonders how she will survive a lifetime of marriage to a man she doesn’t love—at least not in the way she wants.

Samuel knows that he and Lydia did the right thing by marrying when Lydia became pregnant. He has even grown to love Lydia, though he never seems able to say the words out loud. What if she doesn’t love him back? After all, she pushes him away whenever he tries to draw closer.

When Lydia and Samuel introduce their mutual friends Beverly and Joseph to each other, they are as envious as they are delighted to watch their friends fall in love. But just as Samuel thinks Lydia might be softening to him, she gets involved in investigating the mysterious past of a local homeless woman—a curiosity that threatens to drive the couple further apart.

The third and final novel in the Amish Journeys series by bestselling author Beth Wiseman explores how wounds from the past must come to light before they can hope to heal.


Amazon 


About The Author




Beth Wiseman is the best-selling author of the Daughters of the Promise series, the Land of Canaan series, the Amish Secrets series and the Amish Journeys series. Having sold over two million books, her novels have held spots on the Publisher’s Weekly Bestseller List, the ECPA (Evangelical Christian Publishers Association) Bestseller List and the CBA (Christian Book Association) Bestseller List. She was the recipient of the prestigious Carol Award in 2011 and 2013. She is a three-time winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice Award, and an INSPY Award winner. In 2013 she took home the coveted Holt Medallion. Her first book in the Land of Canaan series—Seek Me With All Your Heart—was selected as the 2011 Women of Faith Book of the Year. Beth and her husband are empty nesters enjoying country life in Texas.

Website


My Review

The author gives us two Amish couples to focus on, and we get to be part of their lives, and things may look wonderful on the outside, but not so in reality.
The married couple are very young, the wife being only 17 and already have a child, but they skipped an important part of their life together, and we are witnesses to their attempts to make it right.
The other couple meet as a result of the first married parents, but we are with them as they journey to be with one another. What a bumpy ride you are about to experience as they travel towards life long commitments.
There is so much compassion offered here for the less fortunate, made me want to become friends and know them personally.
Some things are not how we perceive them to be and there are many examples offered here, but answers are forthcoming, and this is a book that you will get lost in and not want to put down until you know what happens!
I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Zondervan, and was not required to give a positive review.

The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate





A new novel inspired by historical events: a story of three young women on a journey in search of family amidst the destruction of the post-Civil War South, and of a modern-day teacher who rediscovers their story and its connection to her own students' lives.

Lisa Wingate brings to life stories from actual "Lost Friends" advertisements that appeared in Southern newspapers after the Civil War, as freed slaves desperately searched for loved ones who had been sold off.

Louisiana, 1875 In the tumultuous aftermath of Reconstruction, three young women set off as unwilling companions on a perilous quest: Lavinia, the pampered heir to a now-destitute plantation; Juneau Jane, her illegitimate free-born Creole half-sister; and Hannie, Lavinia's former slave. Each carries private wounds and powerful secrets as they head for Texas, following dangerous roads rife with ruthless vigilantes and soldiers still fighting a war lost a decade before. For Lavinia and Juneau Jane, the journey is one of inheritance and financial desperation, but for Hannie, torn from her mother and eight siblings before slavery's end, the pilgrimage westward reignites an agonizing question: Could her long-lost family still be out there? Beyond the swamps lie the seemingly limitless frontiers of Texas and, improbably, hope.

Louisiana, 1987 For first-year teacher Benedetta Silva, a subsidized job at a poor rural school seems like the ticket to canceling her hefty student debt--until she lands in a tiny, out-of-step Mississippi River town. Augustine, Louisiana, seems suspicious of new ideas and new people, and Benny can scarcely comprehend the lives of her poverty-stricken students. But amid the gnarled oaks and run-down plantation homes lies the century-old history of three young women, a long-ago journey, and a hidden book that could change everything.


Amazon 


About The Author




Lisa Wingate is a former journalist, an inspirational speaker, and the bestselling author of more than thirty books. Her blockbuster "Before We Were Yours" was on the NYT best seller list for over one year. Her work has won or been nominated for many awards, including the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, the Utah Library Award, the Carol Award, the Christy Award, and the RT Reviewers’ Choice Award. Lisa believes stories can change the world. 

Website  


My Review




True grit, stamina, and complete determination, along with hidden family skeletons. We are given two young woman over hundred years apart, one a struggling teacher in a hard school, the other a freed slave who used to live on the property that our teachers renting.
Of course, they never meet, but what a connection is formed here, I felt like I was living history. These woman go to great extremes to help those they are now in charge of, and you wonder where they get the fortitude to continue.
The story has a great amount of history, showing a great deal of injustice, and if you try and put yourself in Hannie's shoes, I couldn't. There are tears and smiles, and be sure to read the notes at the end, full of information, and completion!

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher Ballentine Books, and was not required to give a positive review.  

The Lost Orphan by Stacey Halls






A mother’s love knows no bounds…

London, 1754. Six years after leaving her newborn, Clara, at London’s Foundling Hospital, young Bess Bright returns to reclaim the illegitimate daughter she has never really known. Dreading the worst—that Clara has died in care—the last thing she expects to hear is that her daughter has already been reclaimed. Her life is turned upside down as she tries to find out who has taken her little girl—and why.

Less than a mile from Bess’s lodgings in a quiet town house, a wealthy widow barely ventures outside. When her close friend—an ambitious doctor at the Foundling Hospital—persuades her to hire a nursemaid for her young daughter, she is hesitant to welcome someone new into her home and her life. But her past is threatening to catch up with her—and will soon tear her carefully constructed world apart.

Set against the vibrant backdrop of Georgian London, The Lost Orphan explores families and secrets, class and power, and how the pull of motherhood cuts across them all.


Amazon 


About The Author




 Stacey Halls grew up in Rossendale, Lancashire, as the daughter of market traders. She has always been fascinated by the Pendle witches. She studied journalism at the University of Central Lancashire and moved to London aged 21. She was media editor at The Bookseller and books editor at Stylist.co.uk, and has also written for Psychologies, the Independent and Fabulous magazine, where she now works as Deputy Chief Sub Editor. The Familiars is her first novel.

Website 


My Review

1754 England was a different place and times were hard, a lot of people didn’t survive, and as you begin turning the pages of this book you will begin walking in two different woman’s shoes.
One gives birth and surrenders her child all in one day to a foundling home, for what she is hoping to return and get her in about six years.
The other has had a lot of tragedy in her life, including the death of her husband. She does not have to worry about where her next meal is coming from, having been left well off after the death of her parents.
Both endeavor to be parents to Charlotte/Clara, and we are along to see how this unfolds, and the heartache, and yes, the loving of others to help.
This book quickly became a page-turner for me, and I finished in one sitting!

I received this book through Net Galley and the Publisher MIRA, and was not required to give a positive review.










 

Monday, April 6, 2020

The Third to Die A Novel






An edgy female police detective…An ambitious FBI special agent. Together they are at the heart of the ticking-clock investigation for a psychopathic serial killer. The bond they forge in this crucible sets the stage for high-stakes suspense.

Detective Kara Quinn, on leave from the LAPD, is on an early morning jog in her hometown of Liberty Lake when she comes upon the body of a young nurse. The manner of death shows a pattern of highly controlled rage. Meanwhile in DC, FBI special agent Mathias Costa is staffing his newly minted Mobile Response Team. Word reaches Matt that the Liberty Lake murder fits the profile of the compulsive Triple Killer. It will be the first case for the MRT. This time they have a chance to stop this zealous if elusive killer before he strikes again. But only if they can figure out who he is and where he is hiding before he disappears for another three years. The stakes are higher than ever before, because if they fail, one of their own will be next.

Amazon


About The Author

Allison Brennan is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling and award winning author of three dozen thrillers and numerous short stories. She was nominated for Best Paperback Original Thriller by International Thriller Writers, had multiple nominations and two Daphne du Maurier Awards, and is a five-time RITA finalist for Best Romantic Suspense. Allison believes life is too short to be bored, so she had five kids and spends all her non-writing time as a sports spectator, chauffeur, and short-order cook for her munchkins. She has a dog, two cats, and three chickens. Allison and her family live in northern California.


My Review





This book will have you riveted and page turning quickly, and when the last page is turned you will be wanting more, and it looks like you might get your wish!
Hard to imagine being on vacation, mandatory, and then being dragged rather willingly into a serial murder case. That is exactly what happens to LAPD Detective Kara Quinn, she finds a body and the rest is what you need to find out as you look for answers. We also meet FBI Special Agent Matt Costa, as he tries to save lives as the next murder of what he expects will be three happens.
You never know what will set someone off, and the perpetrator here has lost touch with reality, but will he be stopped, and when you see the length of what he is prepared for, well, be safe!
A book that will linger with you long after the last page is turned!
I received this book though Net Galley and the Publisher Mira, and was not required to give a positive review.



Friday, April 3, 2020

Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours Presents: The Missing Sister by Elle Marr


The Missing Sister
by Elle Marr

About The Missing Sister

THE MISSING SISTER  

 The Missing Sister
Thriller
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer (April 1, 2020)
Paperback: 299 pages
ISBN-10: 1542006058
ISBN-13: 978-1542006057
Digital ASIN: B07QYMXX41
In Paris, her twin sister has vanished, leaving behind three chilling words: Trust no one.

Shayna Darby is finally coming to terms with her parents’ deaths when she’s delivered another blow. The body of her estranged twin sister, Angela—the possible victim of a serial killer—has been pulled from the Seine. Putting what’s left of her life on hold, Shayna heads to Paris. But while cleaning out Angela’s apartment, Shayna makes a startling discovery: a coded message meant for her alone…

Alive. Trust no one.

Taking the warning to heart, Shayna maintains the lie. She makes a positive ID on the remains and works to find out where—and why—her missing sister is hiding. Shayna retraces her sister’s footsteps, and they lead her down into Paris’s underbelly.

As she gets closer to the truth—and to the killer—Shayna’s own life may now be in the balance…

About Elle Marr

elle marr

Originally from Sacramento, Elle Marr explored the urban wilderness of Southern California before spending three wine-and-cheese-filled years in France. There she earned a master’s degree from the Sorbonne University in Paris. Now she lives and writes outside Portland, Oregon, with her husband and one very demanding feline. When she’s not busy writing her next novel, she’s most likely thinking about it. Connect with her online at ellemarr.com, or on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
Author Links
Website – ellemarr.com
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/ellemarr1/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/ellemarrauthor/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/ellemarr_
Purchase Links – AmazonB&NIndieBound 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


TOUR PARTICIPANTS March 25 – I’m All About Books – SPOTLIGHT
March 26 – Baroness’ Book Trove – SPOTLIGHT
March 26 – The Book Diva’s Reads – SPOTLIGHT
March 27 – FUONLYKNEW – SPOTLIGHT
March 27 – Elizabeth McKenna – Author – SPOTLIGHT
March 28 – A Wytch’s Book Review Blog – SPOTLIGHT
March 28 – Escape With Dollycas Into A Good Book – SPOTLIGHT
March 29 – Diane Reviews Books – REVIEW, AUTHOR INTERVIEW
March 30 – StoreyBook Reviews – REVIEW
March 30 – Literary Gold – SPOTLIGHT
March 31 – Gimme The Scoop Reviews – SPOTLIGHT
March 31 – The Pulp and Mystery Shelf – SPOTLIGHT
April 1 – Christy’s Cozy Corners – REVIEW
April 1 – Laura’s Interests – SPOTLIGHT
April 2 – eBook addicts – REVIEW
April 3 – Rosepoint Publishing – REVIEW
April 3 – Maureen’s Musings – REVIEW
April 4 – MJB Reviewers – SPOTLIGHT
April 5 – Socrates Book Reviews – REVIEW
April 6 – That’s What She’s Reading – REVIEW
April 7 – Ruff Drafts – SPOTLIGHT


My Review







This book begins with a young woman, an identical twin, arrives in Italy, and has to identify the body of her murdered sister. Can’t even imagine, and there are a pile of hurts and family dynamics all hang out here, but there is also the twins special bond and language.
There is a lot of history here, and we experience some of it, in a rather scary way, the underground, the burial ground for thousands, and brothels. A rather scary place, and a lot of the story takes place in this dismal place.
There are answers here, but I kept changing my mind as to whom to trust, and when I finally made up my mind, wow, I was surprised, and along with the reason why bodies are appearing, and with the markings.
While the book wasn’t what I was expecting, and was a bit drawn up, I did keep reading to the end for answers.
I received this book though Great Escapes Virtual Book Tours, and was not required to give a positive review.


Thursday, April 2, 2020

Celebrate Lit Presents: Capsized by Death by Catherine Finger


About the Book

Book:  Capsized by Death
Author: Catherine Finger
Genre:  Christian Mystery/Thriller
Release Date: December 2019


As Police Chief Jo Oliver prepares for her dream wedding in Maui, she and her team must keep a serial killer with ties to her past from derailing her plans for the future.


Click here for your copy!




About the Author



Catherine Finger loves to dream, write, and tell stories. Retired from a wonderful career in public education, she celebrates the ability to choose how to spend her time in a new way during the second half of life. So far, she chooses to write books, ride horses, serve others, and generally find her way into and out of trouble both on the road and at home.  She lives in the Midwest with a warm and wonderful combination of family and friends.
Capsized by Death, the fourth novel in her Jo Oliver Thriller series, will be released by Elk Lake Publishing in December, 2019. Anchored by Death, the third novel in her Jo Oliver Thriller series, received the Bronze Medal for the 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards, was a finalist for the National Indie Excellence Awards, and  Her second Jo Oliver Thriller, Shattered by Death, was a finalist in the International Book Awards and the National Indie Excellence Awards. Catherine and her novels have been featured on radio stations, blogs, and in numerous articles—all posted at www.CatherineFinger.com.
Catherine loves to interact with her readers at www.CatherineFinger.com Follow her on Facebook at Catherine Finger, Author, and on Twitter at CatherineFinger@BeJoOliver.

More from Catherine

In writing my Jo Oliver Thriller series, I find myself driven by passion. The genesis of the series—Cleansed By Death—was fueled by a passion to create a story about strong women embedded in a male-dominated profession, facing difficulties they could only solve through faith and community. I was vacuuming when I was hit by the idea of pitting two strong women against each other and seeing which one would win, the theme of book 2, Shattered by Death. Information gleaned during an FBI writers workshop on techniques for tracking criminals, superimposed over the mitten map of Wisconsin formed the bones for Anchored By Death, the third book in the series.
My latest novel, Capsized By Death, contains all of my favorite elements. The astute series reader will note that the foundation for the killer’s appearance in this book was introduced years ago in Cleansed By Death. But he first appeared to me during one of my many solo writing vacations on an island.
At the end of a fairytale day spent kayaking, snorkeling and listening to the sound of whales singing under water in Maui, the gorgeous male host of my day trip stood silhouetted in the setting sun. This man was beautiful in every way, and had the sort of personality that describes the essence of attractive—he pulled you into his beautiful ocean world. At that moment, I knew I had found my perfect killer for my next book! It became my goal to create a killer who was beautiful on the outside and evil on the inside. I used the New Testament book of Jude as my guide for the internal workings of my killer and thus the skeletal framework for Jude, my killer in Capsized By Death—book 4 of the Jo Oliver Thriller series—was born.

Blog Stops

Mary Hake, March 28
Betti Mace, April 1
Pause for Tales, April 4
Artistic Nobody, April 9 (Guest Review from Donna Cline)

Giveaway

To celebrate her tour, Catherine is giving away the grand prize package of a copy of the book and an Amazon gift certificate for $25!!
Be sure to comment on the blog stops for nine extra entries into the giveaway! Click the link below to enter.


My Review






Now this is the fourth book in this series, and the first I had read, while the author did a great job of letting me know about the characters, I was lost at times.
From the first page forward there is danger and action, and we are part of it. What should be the most wonderful time in her life, Police Chief Jo Oliver, is soon caught up in murders and attempted murders, and maybe of herself. She is on Maui to be married, and yes, we get to experience some of the beauty here, along with the plush and ritzy place they are staying in the Penthouse. We are also given some great characters including a new daughter, to go along with the new husband!
If you like action, suspense, and non-stop action, this book will fit the bill!
I received this book though Celebrate Lit, and was not required to give a positive review.

A Stunning Betrayal by Terence J Davis

  A violent home invasion in Beverly Hills leaves a man dead and draws the FBI into Emily and Ben Miller’s past. Agent McBride, upon seein...