Shelley's Book Nook

☆☆☆☆ ebook Edition, 336 pages Expected publication: May 7th 2019 by Random House About the Book: Nestled in the Hudson Valley is a sumptuous retreat boasting every amenity: organic meals, private fitness trainers, daily massages--and all of it for free. In fact, you get paid big money--more than you've ever dreamed of--to spend a few seasons in this luxurious locale. The catch? For nine months, you belong to the Farm. You cannot leave the grounds; your every move is monitored. Your former life will seem a world away as you dedicate yourself to the all-consuming task of producing the perfect baby for your überwealthy clients. Jane, an immigrant from the Philippines and a struggling single mother, is thrilled to make it through the highly competitive Host selection process at the Farm. But now pregnant, fragile, consumed with worry for her own young daughter's well-being, Jane grows desperate to reconnect with her life outside. Yet she cannot leave the Farm or she will lose ...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 304 pages Expected publication: April 30th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books About the Book: Everyone says Lauren Tranter is exhausted, that she needs rest. And they’re right; with newborn twins, Morgan and Riley, she’s never been more tired in her life. But she knows what she saw: that night, in her hospital room, a woman tried to take her babies and replace them with her own…creatures. Yet when the police arrived, they saw no one. Everyone, from her doctor to her husband, thinks she’s imagining things. A month passes. And one bright summer morning, the babies disappear from Lauren’s side in a park. But when they’re found, something is different about them. The infants look like Morgan and Riley―to everyone else. But to Lauren, something is off. As everyone around her celebrates their return, Lauren begins to scream, These are not my babies. Determined to bring her true infant sons home, Lauren will risk the unthinkable. But if she’s wrong about what she saw…she’ll ...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 320 pages Expected publication: March 5th 2019 by Forever About the Book: My dearest daughter, I will never forget the day I nearly lost you. The day you learned the secrets that would tear our lives apart. Time stops for Jen when her beloved daughter, Gracie, is involved in a terrible car crash. After the little girl is pronounced dead at the scene, it's a miracle when paramedics manage to then resuscitate her. The relief Jen feels at Gracie's recovery is matched only by her fury at the driver of the car-her ex-husband's new girlfriend, Ella. Jen has never trusted Ella, and now her worst fears have been confirmed. But then Gracie begins to tell strange stories about what she heard in the car that day, and what she saw in those moments near death. It's clear that there's something shocking hidden in Ella's past...but exposing it could tear all their lives apart. This book wasn't what I was expecting at all, and that turned out to be a very...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 320 pages Expected publication: July 9th 2019 by Sourcebooks Landmark About the Book: Judith Kratt inherited all the Kratt family had to offer—the pie safe, the copper clock, the murder no one talks about. She knows it's high time to make an inventory of her household and its valuables, but she finds that cataloging the family belongings—as well as their misfortunes—won't contain her family's secrets, not when her wayward sister suddenly returns, determined to expose skeletons the Kratts had hoped to take to their graves. Interweaving the present with chilling flashbacks from one fateful evening in 1929, Judith pieces together the influence of her family on their small South Carolina cotton town, learning that the devastating effects of dark family secrets can last a lifetime and beyond. I wonder what made our house a home for me. Was it my family? Or was it the things in their proper places? Oh how I love southern fiction, especially when it fa...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 320 pages Expected publication: May 7th 2019 by Sourcebooks Landmark About the Book: The hardscrabble folks of Troublesome Creek have to scrap for everything—everything except books, that is. Thanks to Roosevelt's Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, Troublesome's got its very own traveling librarian, Cussy Mary Carter. Cussy's not only a book woman, however, she's also the last of her kind, her skin a shade of blue unlike most anyone else. Not everyone is keen on Cussy's family or the Library Project, and a Blue is often blamed for any whiff of trouble. If Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, she's going to have to confront prejudice as old as the Appalachias and suspicion as deep as the holler. Inspired by the true blue-skinned people of Kentucky and the brave and dedicated Kentucky Pack Horse library service of the 1930s, The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek is a story of raw courage, fierce strength, and one ...

☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 302 pages Expected publication: February 27th 2019 by Bookouture About the Book: “There’s no place like home” – that’s what I tell myself as I pull another flawless meal from the oven. This perfect house on a quiet street was supposed to be my sanctuary, a place to recover. But everything changed the moment I saw that woman in the charity shop. She triggered something dark, buried deep within my memory. Now I’ve started forgetting small things, like locking the front door. And bigger things, like remembering to pick my little girl up from nursery. I feel terrified every time I pass through a particular spot in our living room. And sometimes, when I’m alone, I’m sure I can hear a baby crying. I think the woman in the shop knows what happened to me. But if I can’t trust myself to believe she’s real, who will? This one failed to reel me in. Am I getting harder and harder to please, thriller wise? Because yet another book with raving reviews from a reliable aut...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 308 pages Expected publication: May 23rd 2019 by Atria Books About the Book: Daphne, the plump one in a family of model-thin women, learned early on that slimness earns admiration. Alice, skinny when she met her husband, now risks losing her marriage if she gains any more weight. Though both are successful working mothers, they harbor a secret: an obsession with their weight that overshadows concerns about their children, husbands, work—and everything else of importance in their lives. That’s where Privation comes in. Located in a remote Vermont mansion, the program promises fast, dramatic weight loss and Alice, Daphne, and five other women, are desperate enough to try it. They’ve left behind their families for this once in a lifetime opportunity. The catch? They must agree to being filmed; afterwards, the world will see Waisted: The Documentary. Alice and Daphne soon discover, however, that the filmmakers have trapped them in a cruel experiment to test how far they wi...

☆☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 384 pages Expected publication: April 16th 2019 by HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing & Park Row About the Book: For twelve-year-old Cora Landry and her friends Violet and Jordyn, it was supposed to be an ordinary sleepover--movies and Ouija and talking about boys. But when they decide to sneak out to go to the abandoned rail yard on the outskirts of town, little do they know that their innocent games will have dangerous consequences. Later that night, Cora Landry is discovered on the tracks, bloody and clinging to life, her friends nowhere to be found. Soon their small rural town is thrust into a maelstrom. Who would want to hurt a young girl like Cora--and why? In an investigation that leaves no stone unturned, everyone is a suspect and no one can be trusted--not even those closest to Cora. Before She Was Found is a timely and gripping thriller about friendship and betrayal, about the power of social pressure and the price of needing to fit in. It is about th...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 320 pages Expected publication: February 26th 2019 by Crown Publishing About the Book: In 2009, in a loft complex in Bushwick, Edie was the shining star of a group of recent college graduates. Seductive, mercurial and beguiling, she had the social world in her thrall, and she and her best friends treated New York like a playground. When she committed suicide at the end of a long, drunken night, no one could quite believe it. But an overwhelming mix of grief, shock, and long-standing resentment drove each friend into their own corner, and for years, that's where they stayed. A decade later, Lindsay has come a long way from the drug-addled world of Calhoun Lofts. She has a thriving career in magazines as a chief researcher, a cozy apartment, and true adult friendships. But when a chance reunion leads Lindsay to discover an unsettling video from that terrible, hazy night, she starts to wonder if Edie was actually murdered--and, worse, if she herself was invol...

☆☆☆ ebook, 221 pages Expected publication: July 9th 2019 by Crooked Lane Books About the Book: A young woman encounters the killer she accused years earlier—and finds herself drawn back into a vortex of evil she thought she’d left far behind her. A decade after Cadence Lawrence accused the perpetrator in the brutal murder of her high school friend, she’s finally put the nightmare to rest. But the ghosts of her past won’t rest, and an unexpected encounter with the killer reawakens demons she thought were long dead. Gripped by paranoia, Cadence fears she’s being stalked, and suspects that the murderer has invaded the sanctity of her home. Could her chance encounter have rekindled the savage rage that claimed the life of her friend and now threatens Cadence herself? Half-crazed with fear, Cadence takes flight, but instead of finding sanctuary, she runs headlong into one of the worst snowstorms to blast northern Wisconsin in years. Stranded, freezing, and alone, Cadence confronts her ...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 307 pages Expected publication: June 4th 2019 by Atthis Arts About the Book: Chelsea is determined to make it to her brother’s wedding. And she’s not going to let the fact that she’s been dead for two years stop her. Joining with her mime friend from a New York City park and her ghostly mentor with forty years of afterlife under her belt, the three women set out on foot for San Francisco. Along the way, they are faced with joy, sorrow, and the haunting surprises of the open road. This humorous and lightly macabre journey explores relationships, personal burdens, and what it means to keep moving, even when your heartbeat has stopped. Who would figure that a story about a mute mime and a couple of ghosts could turn into such a thoughtful read? I loved spending time meeting Chelsea (who happens to be very dead...I'm sorry, un-dead) and her friends Carmen and Cyndricka. I totally loved this book. I wasn't expecting anything deep, I was looking for a good, fun rea...

☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 273 pages Published August 27th 2018 by BooksGoSocial About the Book: The hidden ties that bind our lives together are the most intriguing. This is a story full of secret, silken threads between many people. Meet Violet. She was stunningly beautiful. She was like a grandmother to Ronni. She inspired her every day. She spent her final years in a nursing home, surrounded by men who worshiped her as a girl. They still did. Everybody loved her. And now that she’s gone, she’s challenged Ronni to be the author she always wanted to be, by writing Violet’s life story. That’s when the threads start to unwind. You have a knack for painting pictures with words. Youʹre obliged to use it. This wonderful book alternates between the past and present. Ronni's is trying to write a book about Violet's life and her loves and losses. Ronni's side of the story also includes a little romance and her job working in a nursing home, where she met Violet. I especially e...

☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 336 pages Expected publication: March 5th 2019 by St. Martin's Griffin, St. Martin's Press About the Book: Chloe Daniels regains consciousness in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. She doesn't recognise the strangers who call themselves family. She can't even remember her own name. What if your past remained a mystery? As she slowly recovers, her parents and sister begin to share details of her life. The successful career. The seaside home. The near-fatal car crash. But Chloe senses they're keeping dark secrets—and her determination to uncover the truth will have devastating consequences. Hope resides in the darkest of places. You just have to be prepared to search in the shadows, because alongside them you will always find the light. The story was suspenseful and emotional. This plot was emotional, heartbreaking, raw and expertly woven. I enjoyed this book. It was an easy read, characters were realistically flawed and a...

☆☆☆1/2 ebook, 312 pages Expected publication: March 1st 2019 by Trafalgar Square Publishing About the Book: When Paula Gadd’s husband of almost thirty years dies, just days away from the seventh anniversary of their son, Christopher’s death, her world falls apart. Grieving and bereft, she is stunned when a young woman approaches her at the funeral service, and slips something into her pocket. A note suggesting that Paula’s husband was not all that he seemed. When the two women eventually meet, a series of revelations challenges everything Paula thought they knew, and it becomes immediately clear that both women’s lives are in very real danger. Both a dark, twisty slice of domestic noir and taut, explosive psychological thriller, After He Died is also a chilling reminder that the people we trust the most can harbour the deadliest secrets. I read this book in one sitting, because I really wanted to find out what happened. I read some great reviews about this book and one reviewer ...

☆☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 350 pages Expected publication: March 1st 2019 by Bookouture About the Book: Meet Eliza Bloom: She likes to live life by the rules: long, blue skirt on Thursdays, dinner with mother on Fridays and if someone tells you a Valentine should be anonymous, give your new husband a blank card. Nothing is out of place in her ordered life. But last night her teenage daughter found something in a hidden shoe-box that no-one was supposed to see and started asking questions. Questions that might just change everything in Eliza’s carefully constructed world. Aliza Bloom is of the Jewish faith and has newly arrived in the "Real World". Throughout it all, readers are provided with a first person point-of-view that is different from any other narrator I have ever read. Eliza views the world in fairly black and white terms. She does not understand many pop culture references, and I found her reactions quite delightful. Her difficulty understanding the real world wa...

☆☆☆☆ ebook, 368 pages Expected publication: February 26th 2019 by Simon & Schuster About the Book: After the death of their absentee father, Aaron and Bridge Quinlan travel to a vast rainforest property in the Pacific Northwest to hear the reading of his will. There, they meet up with their mother and troubled sister, Franny, and are shocked to discover the will’s terms: in order to claim their inheritance they must all remain at the estate for thirty days without any contact with the outside world. Despite their concerns, they agree. The Quinlans soon come to learn their family has more secrets than they ever imagined—revelations that at first inspire curiosity, then fear. Why does Bridge have faint memories of the estate? Why did their father want them to be sequestered there together? And what is out there they feel pulling them into the dark heart of the woods? It was like we were acting at being a family instead of living as one. This was my first book by Andrew Pyper,...

☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 384 pages Expected publication: February 21st 2019 by HQ Digital About the Book: When Jess and Rupert parted ways, it was the end of a great love story that might have been. Now ten years later, the very different paths they have taken in life will bring them back together for a chance meeting. But with so much left unsaid about the break up neither ever recovered from and with each keeping their own devastating secrets, will they finally be able to make the fractured pieces of their love for one another whole again? There’s no such thing as fate, we are all responsible for our own happiness. This is a book that is difficult to put down once you have begun reading it. It holds the reader as the plot unfolds. The author has done an excellent job in creating characters that are multidimensional. The fear of having your body unexpectedly betray you and the struggles to overcome resultant difficulties are well delineated. This great story highlights that rela...