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Showing posts from January, 2020

Been There, Married That by Gigi Levangie Grazer

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☆☆ Kindle Edition, 336 pages Expected publication: February 11th 2020 by St. Martin's Press About the Book: When he changes the locks, she changes the rules. Agnes Murphy Nash is the perfect Hollywood wife – she has the right friends, the right clothes, and even a side career of her own as a writer. Her husband Trevor is a bigshot producer, and from the outside it looks like they’re living a picture-perfect celebrity life, complete with tennis tournaments and lavish parties. But the job description of a Hollywood wife doesn’t cover divorce, which is the way Agnes’ life is headed after she comes home one day to find her credit cards cancelled and the security passwords to get into her enormous LA home changed. Oh, and there’s a guy there whose job it is to tase her if she tries to enter…which she does. Needless to say, Agnes’ husband is dead set on making sure she loses big time, but Agnes isn’t the type to just lie down and take it. In a world of fremenies and hot nannies, per

The Girl from Paradise Alley by Sandy Taylor

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☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 348 pages Expected publication: February 5th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: Ireland, 1924. For thirteen-year-old Nora Doyle every day is a fight for survival. In the rural Irish village she calls home, she is no stranger to funerals or feeling the cold wind blowing through the windows of the small cottage where she lives with her family. Somehow Nora manages to keep smiling, but she longs to escape the poverty surrounding her. One day, Nora’s life changes when her sense of adventure leads her and her best friend, Kitty, through a hole in the wall of the huge house on the top of the hill. In the secluded, carefully tended garden they discover on the other side, Nora and Kitty meet Edward, the young boy who lives there, and they instantly form a strong bond. Soon Nora is spending every moment she can spare in the secret garden. But in escaping from her life in the village, Nora is going against the wishes of her family, who have forbidden any contact with th

Watch Over Me by Jane Renshaw

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☆☆☆1/2 ebook, 345 pages Expected publication: February 3rd 2020 by Inkubator Books About the Book: Flora always dreamed of the day she’d become a mother. But some dreams turn into nightmares. Flora and Neil are happily married, but they can’t have children so decide to adopt. And when Flora meets little Beckie it’s love at first sight. Deep in her heart, she knows they’re meant for each other, destined to be mother and daughter. When Flora officially becomes Beckie’s mum, it’s like a part of her that’s always been missing is finally in place. She is complete, every day filled with purpose and joy. There’s only one problem. Beckie was taken from her birth family, the Johnsons, because they have a history of violence and criminal behaviour and so are judged to be unfit to care for a child. But the Johnsons don’t agree. As far as they’re concerned, Flora has stolen their little girl and they are determined to get her back. They’re very smart, utterly ruthless – and they have a plan.

The Perfect Sister by Sheryl Browne

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☆☆ ebook, 398 pages Expected publication: January 29th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: Claire is shocked when she receives a message out of the blue from Sophie, a beautiful young woman who tells Claire that she’s their father’s secret child. Having spent years nursing her sweet little daughter Ella through a life-threatening illness whilst dealing with the emotional fall-out of a devastating marriage breakdown, Claire feels tentatively excited to meet Sophie. Perhaps she might finally have someone in the family to lean on. As Claire welcomes her sister into her life, she’s delighted to see just how much Ella loves her new Aunt Sophie. But as the pair spend more time together, Claire begins to wonder where exactly her perfect new sister came from and what kind of person she really is. With their elderly father’s mind rapidly deteriorating, is it possible that he’s hiding something from Claire about Sophie’s sudden appearance in their lives? When Sophie suggests a family day at

My Best Friend’s Royal Wedding by Romy Sommer

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☆☆1/2 ebook, 628 pages Expected publication: January 29th 2020 by One More Chapter, Harper Impulse and Killer Reads About the Book: Cocktail waitress Khara Thomas never expected to trade the dazzling lights of Vegas for European aristocracy but as maid of honour in the royal wedding of the decade she’s forced into an unexpected spotlight when her best friend marries a prince. Luckily for Khara, gorgeous but infuriating best man Adam Hatton is happy to show her the ropes. Khara knows Adam’s entitled rich guy type but as their connection grows she realises there’s more to this playboy than meets the eye. And when she learns his royal secret? She might just find that fairytales do come true. I found the plot of this book formulaic. It was a fairly enjoyable read, the characters were predictable though which I always find ho-hum. Every book in this series is generally the same...Male characters are too good to be true....but nice to wish they were and the actual story lines are mini

The Accident by Gillian Jackson

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☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 225 pages Expected publication: January 27th 2020 by Sapere Books About the Book: England, February 2018: ‘The Beast from the East’ – a deadly combination of below-freezing temperatures, torrential rain and flurries of snow – has swept across the British Isles. Most people are merely inconvenienced by it, but for some, the deadly storm will change their lives forever. With the icy conditions on the roads making navigating rush hour more perilous than ever, it only takes a moment for an accident to occur. Hannah Graham wakes up in hospital, suffering a life-changing injury – but she has no memory of the crash. Joe Parker escapes the accident but the person he loves most is not so lucky. Alan and Cassie Jones receive the worst news a parent can imagine a few hours after the collision. Three families have been affected, but who was to blame? As they struggle to piece their lives back together, can anything good come out of something so devastating? I liked the p

The Nowhere Girl by Nicole Trope

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☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 518 pages Expected publication: January 28th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: If you passed Alice on the street, you couldn’t help but smile. At how she holds hands with her husband, Jack, who she has been with since she was at university. At the adoring way she admires her three beloved boys, the centre of her universe. But if you looked very closely, you’d see how tightly she holds Jack’s hand, afraid to let go. You’d see how carefully she watches her boys, scared to look away. You’d see her smile fading in a matter of seconds, and the secret she hides behind her chestnut-brown eyes. She has told Jack that she ran away from home when she was younger – but she didn’t tell him the whole story. Her husband doesn’t know about the guilt she bears about the little sister she failed to save, the secret that torments her. Now, after a lifetime of fresh starts, Alice receives a message spelling out her past. Everything she cherishes, the world she has lovingly bui

The Family Next Door by Fiona Cummins

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☆☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 400 pages Expected publication: January 28th 2020 by Pinnacle and Kensington Books About the Book: For Sale: Lovely family home, ready for your updates. Friendly neighborhood setting close to park; secluded. If not for the bodies discovered in the woods behind their new home, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood couldn't have afforded to buy number 25 The Avenue. It's the fresh start they and their two children badly need. Soon, these terrible crimes will be solved, they tell themselves, and once Garrick has remodeled, he's confident they'll sell the house for a profit. But the darkest secrets can reside on quiet, ordinary streets like this--behind the doors of well-kept houses and neighbors' friendly faces. Secrets that can destroy a family, or savagely end a life, and will surface just when they're least expected. Oh my gosh, this book literally had me holding my breath! This book was amazing, disturbing and suspenseful. The writing was sup

The Forgotten Wife by Emma Robinson

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☆☆☆1/2 Kindle Edition, 277 pages Expected publication: January 27th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: It was a wooden box, white with yellow and green flowers. Shelley ran a finger over the embossed lettering – Memories – pressed her lips tightly together, feeling her heart pounding in her chest… and opened it. When Shelley first met Greg, her life had been full of possibility. A whirlwind romance, a dream wedding, moving into their first house together, thinking about starting a family. But now it’s ten years since their wedding. Greg has gone. And there’s a room in the house where Shelley has shut a baby blanket away. In a box, under a bed, in a spare room, behind a door that she never opens. If it’s there, she can forget about it. Just like everything else in that room. Just like her other memories. Of a marriage that perhaps hadn’t been perfect. Of a life that hadn’t gone the way she had expected. She’s been managing to hide from her past. Every day she acts like everything i

The Liar’s Daughter by Claire Allan

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☆☆☆1/2 ebook, 372 pages Expected publication: January 23rd 2020 by Avon Books UK About the Book: Joe McKee – pillar of the Derry community – is dead. As arrangements are made for the traditional Irish wake, friends and family are left reeling at how cancer could have taken this much-loved man so soon. But grief is the last thing that Joe’s daughter Ciara and step-daughter Heidi feel. For they knew the real Joe – the man who was supposed to protect them and did anything but. As the mourners gather, the police do too, with doubt being cast over whether Joe’s death was due to natural causes. Because the lies that Joe told won’t be taken to the grave after all – and the truth gives his daughters the best possible motive for killing him. This was an highly emotional read, often uncomfortable due to the subject matter of abuse, but Claire Allan does a fantastic job of dealing with things in a sensitive and genuine manner. Sexual abuse is never an easy subject to discuss or read about

Her Daughter's Cry (Detective Jo Fournier #3) by M.M. Chouinard

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☆☆ Kindle Edition, 357 pages Expected publication: January 23rd 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: Someone wants her dead, and she can’t remember why. Zoe is a wife and a mother. Or so she’s been told. Ask her for more than that and she couldn’t tell you. The blow to her head wiped her memory clean. Zoe knows the blood on her shirt isn’t just her own. After she was found stumbling out of the woods, the police ran tests. They say it belongs to her missing daughter. Zoe is trying to piece together what her daughter’s face looks like, but all she can conjure up is a white-hot panic. A fear that her child is in desperate need of her help. When a man claiming to be her husband turns up looking for her, she knows she can’t trust him. Until she gets her memories back, she can’t trust anyone. Not the stranger, not the police investigating, not even herself. This book is very character driven and heavy on the dialogue but I had a hard time getting into it. A lot of the plot is just too u

No Sister of Mine by Vivien Brown

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☆ ebook, 317 pages Expected publication: January 17th 2020 by Harper Impulse, Killer Reads and One More Chapter About the Book: Two sisters, both emerging into womanhood, but they couldn’t be more different; Eve, the mature and sensible one. Sarah, headstrong and eager for a taste of life. Eve is struggling to recover from a bad experience with a boy at a party and embarks on university life determined that nothing like that will happen to her again. Sarah can’t wait to grow up, she’s sick of Eve’s lectures and is determined to make a grab at life despite being barely out of school. When Eve brings a new face home for the holidays, Sarah does something that will change both of their lives forever. Something that Eve can never forget – or forgive. But life won’t keep them apart forever and decades later, one of them will have to choose whether to put the past behind her, or to hold on to hate forever. I hated every main character in this book, the three of them were selfish and n

The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore

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☆☆☆☆ ebook, 272 pages Expected publication: January 14th 2020 by Lake Union Publishing About the Book: They say she’s a murderess. She claims she’s innocent. But Lucy has been known to tell lies. 1855, New Hampshire. Lucy Blunt is set to hang for a double murder. Murderess or victim? Only Lucy knows the truth. In the shadow of the gallows, Lucy reflects on the events that led to her bitter downfall—from the moment she arrived at the rambling Burton mansion looking for work and a better life to the grisly murders themselves. In a mysterious household of locked doors and forbidden affections, Lucy slips comfortably into the shadows, where she believes the indiscretions of her past will remain hidden. But when Lucy’s rising status becomes a threat to the mistress’s current companion, the delicate balance of power and loyalty begins to shift, setting into motion a brewing storm of betrayal, suspicion, and rage. Now, with her execution looming closer, Lucy’s allies fight to have her se

The Perfect Mother by Caroline Mitchell

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☆☆ ebook, 313 pages Published January 14th 2020 by Amazon Publishing UK About the Book: Roz is young, penniless and pregnant. All she wants is to be the perfect mother to her child, but the more she thinks about her own chaotic upbringing, the more certain she is that the best life for her baby is as far away as possible from her hometown in Ireland. Determined to do the right thing, Roz joins an elite adoption service and can’t believe her luck. Within days she is jetting to New York to meet a celebrity power couple desperate for a child of their own. Sheridan and Daniel are wealthy and glamorous—everything Roz isn’t. Her baby will never go hungry, and will have every opportunity for the perfect life. But soon after Roz moves into their plush basement suite, she starts to suspect that something darker lurks beneath the glossy surface of their home. When Roz discovers she isn’t the first person to move in with the couple, and that the previous woman has never been seen since, alar

The Stranger's Wife (Detective Dan Riley #3) by Anna-Lou Weatherley

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☆☆☆☆1/2 ebook, 305 pages Expected publication: January 16th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: Beth and Cath are leaving their husbands. This is a story about two very different women. One is wealthy and having an affair with a man who gives her the kind of love that her cold, detached husband does not. One is living hand to mouth, suffering at the hands of a violent partner who would rather see her dead than leave him. You may think you know these women already and how their lives will unfold. Beth will live happily ever after with her little girl and her soulmate. Cath will go back to her abusive husband. And these two women will never cross paths. But you will be wrong. On the 3.15pm train from London to Bristol, Beth and Cath are about to meet and discover they share one shocking thing in common. This book reminded me SO much of Strangers on a Train! And I LOVED it! He wasn’t born a monster, monsters are made. When I requested this on NetGalley I didn't realize it wa

The Man She Married by Alison James

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☆☆☆3/4 ebook, 467 pages Expected publication: January 13th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: How well do you know your husband? Since Alice’s fiancé walked out on her, she never thought she’d meet ‘The One’. But all that changes when she meets Dominic. Handsome, charming and kind, Alice can’t believe her luck when he proposes a few months later and moves into her West London home. Three years on, Alice’s catering business is thriving and she is married to a man she adores. So when she sees that little blue line, it should be the happiest moment of her life: they’re going to have a baby. But then the police knock on her door and Alice’s whole world is turned upside down… Dominic is dead. Distraught, Alice goes to identify the body. There’s no doubt that it’s her husband. Yet when his estranged brother comes to view the coffin, he insists the man lying there is not Dominic. Alice refuses to believe it at first, but when confronted with irrefutable proof, she finally has to face the

The Girls with No Names by Serena Burdick

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☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 336 pages Expected publication: January 7th 2020 by HARLEQUIN – Trade Publishing and Park Row About the Book: Not far from Luella and Effie Tildon’s large family mansion in Inwood looms the House of Mercy, a work house for wayward girls. The sisters grow up under its shadow with the understanding that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters accidentally discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen older sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. But her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has made good on his threat to send Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s escape from the House of Mercy seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and

The Place We Call Home by Faith Hogan

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☆☆☆☆ ebook, 455 pages Expected publication: January 9th 2020 by Aria About the Book: Welcome to Ballycove, the home of Corrigan Mills. Set against the backdrop of the beautiful Irish countryside the famed mills have created the finest wool in all of Ireland. Run by the seemingly perfect Corrigan family, but every family has its secrets, and how the mills came to be the Corrigan's is one of them. Miranda and her husband were never meant to own the mills, until one fateful day catapults them into a life they never thought they'd lead. Ada has forever lived her life in her sister's shadow. Wanting only to please her mother and take her place as the new leader of the mill, Ada might just have to take a look at what her heart really wants. Callie has a flourishing international career as a top designer and a man who loves her dearly, she appears to have it all. When a secret is revealed and she's unceremoniously turfed out of the design world, Callie might just get what

The Daughter's Promise by Sarah Clutton

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☆☆☆☆ Kindle Edition, 333 pages Expected publication: January 8th 2020 by Bookouture About the Book: Two years after a family tragedy, and still consumed by her grief, Willa receives a strange letter from halfway across the globe. She has inherited a house in Australia, in a town she’s never heard of, from a woman she doesn’t know. Following the mystery to the inviting shores of Sisters Cove, Willa is entranced by the dilapidated old Chapel House she now owns, perched high on a windy cliff within the grounds of Merrivale Estate. As Willa’s suspicions grow about her connection to the place, she begins to look amongst the dusty artwork and sealed boxes of papers left to her, and it becomes clear that the truth is not at all what she expected. At Merrivale, social butterfly Annabelle is alarmed by Willa’s arrival. Why did her old friend and confidante Lillian leave her home to this stranger? As the two women’s lives intersect in the small, insular world of Sisters Cove, neither realis

Lean on Me (Family Is Forever #1) by Pat Simmons

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☆☆1/2 ebook, 320 pages Expected publication: January 7th 2020 by Sourcebooks Casablanca About the Book: Tabitha Knicely loves her career as a pharmaceutical rep, but even her health care knowledge isn't much help with the daily challenges she now faces caring for her aunt with Alzheimer's. Her once organized lifestyle is in disarray and her patience is tested. On Sunday mornings, when Aunt Tweet drags her to church, though Tabitha isn't a believer, the peaceful presence of faith is a welcome relief. Marcus Whittington believes in second chances, so he hires former inmates to staff the industrial cleaning service he owns with his brother. When a mystery woman who keeps showing up on his porch turns out to be an elderly neighbor, Marcus is outraged at what he perceives as neglect on the part of her caregiver. Marcus soon learns that being a caregiver is a demanding, compassionate act of kindness that he has never experienced before. After several encounters with Aunt Twe

The Moonshiner's Daughter by Donna Everhart

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☆☆☆☆☆ ebook, 368 pages Published December 31st 2019 by Kensington Publishing Corporation About the Book: Generations of Sassers have made moonshine in the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County, North Carolina. Their history is recorded in a leather-bound journal that belongs to Jessie Sasser's daddy, but Jessie wants no part of it. As far as she's concerned, moonshine caused her mother's death a dozen years ago. Her father refuses to speak about her mama, or about the day she died. But Jessie has a gnawing hunger for the truth--one that compels her to seek comfort in food. Yet all her self-destructive behavior seems to do is feed what her school's gruff but compassionate nurse describes as the "monster" inside Jessie. Resenting her father's insistence that moonshining runs in her veins, Jessie makes a plan to destroy the stills, using their neighbors as scapegoats. Instead, her scheme escalates an old rivalry and reveals long-held grudges. As she endeavo

The Wives by Tarryn Fisher

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☆☆☆☆ ebook, 256 pages Expected publication: December 30th 2019 by HARLEQUIN - Graydon House Books About the Book: Imagine that your husband has two other wives. You’ve never met the other wives. None of you know each other, and because of this unconventional arrangement, you can see your husband only one day a week. But you love him so much you don’t care. Or at least that’s what you’ve told yourself. But one day, while you’re doing laundry, you find a scrap of paper in his pocket—an appointment reminder for a woman named Hannah, and you just know it’s another of the wives. You thought you were fine with your arrangement, but you can’t help yourself: you track her down, and, under false pretenses, you strike up a friendship. Hannah has no idea who you really are. Then, Hannah starts showing up to your coffee dates with telltale bruises, and you realize she’s being abused by her husband. Who, of course, is also your husband. But you’ve never known him to be violent, ever. Who exact