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I have been totally swamped with work and haven't been able to update this site as much as I want to, but I've been reading every day. Now that my schedule has eased up, I have some unexpected stuff to take care of so I'll be away from my computer! Insert sad face.
I wanted to make sure I shared the following books. All of them are fantastic!
Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens was just as amazing as I hoped it would be. I wondered when Chevy was going to come out with a new novel, I have been eagerly anticipating this one and it didn't disappoint.
Take a look:
For decades, people have been warned about the Cold Creek Highway. Hitchhikers have vanished along it over the years, and women have been known to have their cars break down… and never be seen again. When Hailey McBride decides to run away from an unbearable living situation, she thinks that her outdoor skills will help her disappear into the Cold Creek wilderness, and she counts on people thinking that she was the victim of the killer.
One year later, Beth Chevalier arrives in Cold Creek to attend a memorial for the victims of the highway, but it might as well be one week for the amount of pain that Beth is still dealing with after her sister, Amber, was murdered the previous summer. Beth has quit university, is lying to her parents, and popping pills like Tic Tacs. Maybe this will finally bring her peace.
When she gets a job at a local diner where Amber once worked, she connects with people who knew her sister. Beth wants to find who killed her sister and put her own life back together, but as she gets closer to the truth, she learns that there is more than one person lying in Cold Creek.
Do yourself a favor and pre-order this one now! Due out in August.
I wasn't sure what to expect with this one; I went into The Wedding by Ruth Heald not knowing the plot. I knew the author from another novel; I Know Your Secret. This novel captured my attention from the first chapter and I was hooked right up until the end.
I particularly enjoy books that keep the tension tight and make me wonder what will happen next!
I've been dreaming about this day – marrying Adam, my childhood sweetheart, who I've loved for eighteen years.
I didn't realise the perfect day would turn into the perfect nightmare.
I was so excited to send out the wedding invitations, carefully writing everyone's names on thick cream paper in beautiful cursive script.
I had no idea I was inviting someone to destroy our marriage.
I couldn't wait to say 'I do' surrounded by loved ones clinking champagne glasses.
I couldn't imagine that one of them would try to hurt me.
It was meant to be the first day of the rest of our lives.
I never thought it would be the end of my life as I knew it.
We were meant to share our vows, to toast our future. But when the truth comes out, shocking the onlooking guests and ripping my heart out, is a happy ever after possible?
Due out on March 3!
Whew! What a story! Very good from start to finish, with a plot that flowed nicely and characters I couldn't trust. The Good Lie by A.R. Torre is a must-read for those who enjoy suspense. You should absolutely read Every Last Secret by this author, available now. That was another very good suspense/thriller too.
Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.
Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She's spent a decade treating California's most depraved predators and unlocking their motives—predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning—and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development…
Defense attorney Robert Kavin is a still-traumatized father whose own son fell prey to the BH Killer. Convinced of Thompson's innocence, he steps in to represent him. Now Robert wants Gwen to interview the accused, create a psych profile of the killer and his victims, and help clear his client's name.
As Gwen and Robert grow closer and she dives deeper into the investigation, grave questions arise. So does Gwen's suspicion that Robert is hiding something—and that he might not be the only one with a secret.
Out in July. But Read Every Last Secret right now!
Yes we all loved Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. This book, Malibu Rising, is not like Daisy Jones. But take heart, Taylor is a fabulous author who paints a vivid picture of Malibu that puts you on the California coast during the 1980s.
This story is about the children of a famous aging rocker. There is an annual party, a huge blowout bash, held by the daughter of infamous Mick Riva. I kept thinking of Mick Jagger while reading this story.
The kids all have their issues and underlying feelings and emotions towards their father who basically abandoned his children. Everything comes to a head on the night of this party.
Here's the scoop:
Malibu: August 1983. It's the day of Nina Riva's annual end-of-summer party, and anticipation is at a fever pitch. Everyone wants to be around the famous Rivas: Nina, the talented surfer and supermodel; brothers Jay and Hud, one a championship surfer, the other a renowned photographer; and their adored baby sister, Kit. Together the siblings are a source of fascination in Malibu and the world over—especially as the offspring of the legendary singer Mick Riva.
The only person not looking forward to the party of the year is Nina herself, who never wanted to be the center of attention, and who has also just been very publicly abandoned by her pro tennis player husband. Oh, and maybe Hud—because it is long past time for him to confess something to the brother from whom he's been inseparable since birth.
Jay, on the other hand, is counting the minutes until nightfall, when the girl he can't stop thinking about promised she'll be there.
And Kit has a couple secrets of her own—including a guest she invited without consulting anyone.
By midnight the party will be completely out of control. By morning, the Riva mansion will have gone up in flames. But before that first spark in the early hours before dawn, the alcohol will flow, the music will play, and the loves and secrets that shaped this family's generations will all come rising to the surface.
As always, the writing is very good; the story flows and the escape to Malibu was a fun adventure.
Coming out on June 1.
Here's the Reese Witherspoon book club pick of the month, The Sanatorium by Sarah Pearse. I knew I HAD to read this novel when I first read the synopsis. This is the kind of story I absolutely love, one in a snowy place where people can't leave. It's creepy and chilling and nail-biting. AND it takes place in a former sanitorium. What could be better?
Look here:
Half-hidden by forest and overshadowed by threatening peaks, Le Sommet has always been a sinister place. Long plagued by troubling rumors, the former abandoned sanatorium has since been renovated into a five-star minimalist hotel.
An imposing, isolated getaway spot high up in the Swiss Alps is the last place Elin Warner wants to be. But Elin's taken time off from her job as a detective, so when her estranged brother, Isaac, and his fiancée, Laure, invite her to celebrate their engagement at the hotel, Elin really has no reason not to accept.
Arriving in the midst of a threatening storm, Elin immediately feels on edge–there's something about the hotel that makes her nervous. And when they wake the following morning to discover Laure is missing, Elin must trust her instincts if they hope to find her. With the storm closing off all access to the hotel, the longer Laure stays missing, the more the remaining guests start to panic.
Elin is under pressure to find Laure, but no one has realized yet that another woman has gone missing. And she's the only one who could have warned them just how much danger they are all in. . .
I loved this atmospheric story and know you will too.
This is out now!
I loved Michele Richmond's book, The Marriage Pact. In fact, that was a five-star read for me. So I was super excited to get my hands on The Wonder Test.
This book is about a former FBI agent named Lina. She heads to California to move into a house she's inherited. With her son, she hopes to overcome some things from her past. When students at her son's school go missing, she is determined to figure out what is going on. The whole book centers on this grueling. high-stakes test that schools in the book use called The Wonder Test. Everyone and everything is about getting the highest possible scores on this test.
This isn't a quick thriller but more of a 'slow burn' type mystery.
Check out the synopsis:
Escaping New York City and the espionage case that made her question everything, recently widowed FBI Agent Lina Connerly returns home to sell the house she has inherited in tony Greenfield, California. With her teenage son Rory, Lina hopes to reassemble her life, reevaluate her career, and find a clear way forward. Adrift and battling insomnia, she discovers that her father's sleepy hometown has been transformed into a Silicon Valley suburb on steroids, obsessed with an annual exam called The Wonder Test.
When students at her son's high school go missing, reappearing under mysterious circumstances on abandoned beaches, Lina must summon her strength and her investigative instincts, pushing her own ethical boundaries to the limits in order to solve the crimes. Meanwhile, an old espionage case called Red Vine keeps calling her back into the fold. While Lina struggles to balance her new role as a single mother and the complex counterintelligence puzzles she is so adept at solving, Greenfield's shadowy dangers creep closer to her own home.
A searing view of a culture that puts the wellbeing of children at risk for advancement and prestige, and a captivating story of the lengths a mother will go for her son.
I liked this book, the writing is excellent and I will be looking forward to the author's next book! The Wonder Test comes out on July 6.
FIVE STAR BOOK!
The Social Graces by Renee Rosen was SO GOOD. I loved living in this world for a while; I loved reading about the Vanderbilts and the Astors. Renee has done an outstanding job of showing us high society in the late 1800's in Newport RI and Manhattan.
I've been drawn to historical fiction lately, and I didn't want this book to end. When I finished reading, I quickly looked online to see what the real Alva Vanderbilt and Caroline Astor looked like and saw their beautiful homes and families.
Here's the plot:
1876. In the glittering world of Manhattan's upper crust, women are valued by their pedigree, dowry, and, most importantly, connections. They have few rights and even less independence—what they do have is society. The more celebrated the hostess, the more powerful the woman. And none is more powerful than Caroline Astor—the Mrs. Astor.
But times are changing.
Alva Vanderbilt has recently married into one of America's richest families. But what good is dizzying wealth when society refuses to acknowledge you? Alva, who knows what it is to have nothing, will do whatever it takes to have everything.
Sweeping three decades and based on true events, this is the mesmerizing story of two fascinating, complicated women going head to head, behaving badly, and discovering what's truly at stake.
A fun story, well written, multi-faceted characters based on real people, plus opulence and wealth, The Social Graces is a must-read. Due out on April 20!
I know Tori Telfer from her podcast which I enjoy listening to each week. Now she is coming out with a book called Confident Women. This is a book all about women who are artists in the deal of the con!
What a fun read, especially if you are into true crime as I am.
From Elizabeth Holmes and Anna Delvey to Frank Abagnale and Charles Ponzi, audacious scams and charismatic scammers continue to intrigue us as a culture. As Tori Telfer reveals in Confident Women, the art of the con has a long and venerable tradition, and its female practitioners are some of the best—or worst.
In the 1700s in Paris, Jeanne de Saint-Rémy scammed the royal jewelers out of a necklace made from six hundred and forty-seven diamonds by pretending she was best friends with Queen Marie Antoinette.
In the mid-1800s, sisters Kate and Maggie Fox began pretending they could speak to spirits and accidentally started a religious movement that was soon crawling with female con artists. A gal calling herself Loreta Janeta Velasquez claimed to be a soldier and convinced people she worked for the Confederacy—or the Union, depending on who she was talking to. Meanwhile, Cassie Chadwick was forging paperwork and getting banks to loan her upwards of $40,000 by telling people she was Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter.
In the 1900s, a 40something woman named Margaret Lydia Burton embezzled money all over the country and stole upwards of forty prized show dogs, while a few decades later, a teenager named Roxie Ann Rice scammed the entire NFL. And since the death of the Romanovs, women claiming to be Anastasia have been selling their stories to magazines. What about today? Spoiler alert: these "artists" are still conning.
Confident Women asks the provocative question: Where does chutzpah intersect with a uniquely female pathology—and how were these notorious women able to so spectacularly dupe and swindle their victims?
An awesome book, so interesting, and if you enjoy misbehaved women who make bad choices, you will want to get this immediately. Its out on February 23!
Float Plan by Trish Doller is coming out soon, and you don't want to miss it. This is a beautiful and heart-warming story that I immediately connected to from the opening pages. You will experience a full gamut of emotions as you read this well-written book … and you'll love it!
Since the loss of her fiancé, Anna has been shipwrecked by grief—until a reminder goes off about a trip they were supposed to take together. Impulsively, Anna goes to sea in their sailboat, intending to complete the voyage alone.
But after a treacherous night's sail, she realizes she can't do it by herself and hires Keane, a professional sailor, to help. Much like Anna, Keane is struggling with a very different future than the one he had planned. As romance rises with the tide, they discover that it's never too late to chart a new course.
Trish Doller's unforgettable adult debut, Float Plan, reminds readers that starting over doesn't mean forgetting: you can build a new home, right alongside the old.
Awesome book, coming out on March 2!
Books To Read If You Love Historical Fiction
Path to Publication: Jeneva Rose
RUN DELIA RUN
Cindy's books
The Night Swim
by Megan Goldin
by Joanna Schaffhausen
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by Christian White
by Albert Camus
by Yann Martel
Share book reviews and ratings with Cindy, and even join a book club on Goodreads.