Shelley's Book Nook

  ☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 326 pages Expected Publication: March 16th 2021 by Berkley Publishing Group About the Book: Alice Sullivan feels like she’s finally found her groove in middle age, but it only takes one moment for her perfectly curated life to unravel. On the same day she learns her daughter is struggling in second grade, a call from her son’s school accusing him of bullying throws Alice into a tailspin. When it comes to light that the incident is part of a new behavior pattern for her son, one complete with fake social media profiles with a lot of questionable content, Alice’s social standing is quickly eroded to one of “those moms” who can’t control her kids. Soon she’s facing the very judgement she was all too happy to dole out when she thought no one was looking (or when she thought her house wasn’t made of glass). Then her mother unloads a family secret she’s kept for more than thirty years, and Alice’s entire perception of herself is shattered. As her son’s new reputation polarizes

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 183 pages Expected Publication: February 28th 2021 by BooksGoSocial About the Book: Dinah Spencer is back in her childhood home for one stressful weekend: it’s her father and stepmother’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Those years haven’t all been easy ones for middle child Dinah, but she’s getting ready to put the past behind her - until her beloved dad collapses in the middle of a startling anniversary speech. Now, with their father in critical condition, Dinah and her younger sister Lottie must find a way to keep their crumbling family afloat. But everyone’s got demons of their own to battle, and secrets of their own to protect. Not to mention the box Lottie finds in the attic which belonged to her father's first wife. A box whose explosive secrets Lottie is just starting to unravel. My Review: It’s life, I guess. Sometimes the gifts we’re given aren’t given for very long. This was not a book. This was a beautiful story told so eloquently by the author. The charac

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 262 pages Expected Publication: February 16th 2021 by Macmillan-Tor/Forge About the Book: I’m embarrassed, still, by how long it took me to notice. Everything was right there in the open, right there in front of me, but it still took me so long to see the person I had married. It took me so long to hate him. Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be. And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband. Now, the cheating bastard is dead, and both Caldwell wives have a mess to clean up. Good thing Evelyn Caldwell is used to getting her hands dirty. My Review: She wasn’t even legally a human being, much less a friend. This book was so freaky in the best possible way. I would call it science fiction with a twist of domestic thriller and I loved it. Sci-Fi is not usually my bag but this was right up my alley. The writing really sucked me in and I rea

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 297 pages Expected publication: March 9th 2021 by Andrews McMeel Publishing About the Book: Olive is many things. Independent. Driven. Loyal. And a little bit adrift. She’s okay with still figuring it all out, navigating her world without a compass. But life comes with expectations and big choices to be made. So when her best friends’ lives branch away towards marriage and motherhood, leaving the path they’ve always followed together, she starts to question her choices—because life according to Olive looks a little bit different. Moving, memorable, and a mirror for anyone at a crossroads, OLIVE has a little bit of all of us. Told with humor and great warmth, this is a modern tale about the obstacle course of adulthood and the challenges of having—and deciding not to have—children. My Review: Two women, one result, two totally different responses whirring around in our heads,  I could feel them clashing in the air. Emma Gannon captures so many emotions in this book. I truly

  ☆☆☆ ☆ ☆ .ePUB, 294 pages Publication Date: May 7th 2019 by Quill Tree Books About the Book: With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free. My Review: Some days, when my feelings are like this, like a full pot of water with the fire on high, I don’t know what to cook. Plans and ideas escape my mind and instead I

☆☆☆☆ .PDF, 329 pages Expected Publication: March 9th 2021 by Thomas & Mercer About the Book: From the outside looking in, Sibley Sawyer has a perfect life. As a successful attorney, she’s worked hard to get to the top of her game—but when her personal and professional lives implode, Sibley looks for a way to turn the page. Unable to shake the tragic circumstances that caused her to flee her rural Midwestern hometown, Sibley wants nothing more than to reunite with her estranged mother, Deborah, and bury their past tensions. But as she reenters the life she left behind, she realizes her mother isn’t the same person she remembers, and she’s not the same daughter either. As both women struggle to piece together a tangled web of deceit and lies, and the shocking circumstances that caused Sibley to leave in the first place, it becomes clear there are secrets rooted deeper than either mother or daughter could ever have imagined. Can you really deceive your past and those around you? My

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 310 pages Publication Date: February 8th 2021 by Bookouture About the Book: I watched in awe as Miz Rosa stopped those men on the bus with her clear, calm “no” and I thought about that word. What if I said no? What if I refused to follow the path these White folks wanted for us? What if I kept this precious baby? Montgomery, Alabama, 1955 On a cold December evening, Mattie Banks packs a suitcase and leaves her family home. Sixteen years old and pregnant, she has already made the mistake that will ruin her life and disgrace her widowed mother. Boarding the 2857 bus, she sits with her case on her lap, hoping that the driver will take her away from disaster. Instead, Mattie witnesses an act of bravery by a woman named Rosa Parks that changes everything. But as Mattie strives to turn her life around, the dangers that first led her to run are never far away. Forging a new life in a harsh world at constant risk of exposure, Mattie will need to fight to keep her baby safe. Atlanta

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 328 pages Expected publication: March 2nd 2021 by Atria Books About the Book: When Kevin Gogarty’s irrepressible eighty-three-year-old mother, Millie, is caught shoplifting yet again, he has no choice but to hire a caretaker to keep an eye on her. Kevin, recently unemployed, is already at his wits’ end tending to a full house while his wife travels to exotic locales for work, leaving him solo with his sulky, misbehaved teenaged daughter, Aideen, whose troubles escalate when she befriends the campus rebel at her new boarding school. Into the Gogarty fray steps Sylvia, Millie’s upbeat home aide, who appears at first to be their saving grace—until she catapults the Gogarty clan into their greatest crisis yet. My Review: The first thing to say about this book is that it is funny and I really loved it. It is told from three points of view and how the author manged these VERY different points of view is beyond me....I believe she did a bang up job though. One is a teenage girl, o

☆☆☆☆☆ .ePUB 310 pages Publication Date: December 31st 2019 by G.P. Putnam's Sons About the Book: In the midst of a family crisis one late evening, white blogger Alix Chamberlain calls her African American babysitter, Emira, asking her to take toddler Briar to the local market for distraction. There, the security guard accuses Emira of kidnapping Briar, and Alix's efforts to right the situation turn out to be good intentions selfishly mismanaged. My Review: I now understand why this book won the 2020 GoodReads Choice award for debut novel. This is a very timely story and was such an easy read. It sucked me right in and didn't let go, I managed to read it in a day (stayed up till 4am!). It is a story of class and race but it is also a story of friendship, family and love. I loved the main character Emira and her charge, Briar. How Kiley Reid wrote from a three year old child's point of view blew me away and I adored that little girl. I highly recommend this book and I lo

☆☆1/2 .ePUB, 245 pages Expected publication: March 2nd 2021 by Macmillan-Tor/Forge About the Book: In Burning Girls and Other Stories, Veronica Schanoes crosses borders and genres with stories of fierce women at the margins of society burning their way toward the center. This debut collection introduces readers to a fantasist in the vein of Karen Russell and Kelly Link, with a voice all her own. Emma Goldman—yes, that Emma Goldman—takes tea with the Baba Yaga and truths unfold inside of exquisitely crafted lies. In "Among the Thorns," a young woman in seventeenth century Germany is intent on avenging the brutal murder of her peddler father, but discovers that vengeance may consume all that it touches. In the showstopping, awards finalist title story, "Burning Girls," Schanoes invests the immigrant narrative with a fearsome fairytale quality that tells a story about America we may not want—but need—to hear. My Review: This rating is based on my personal enjoyment of

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 294 pages Expected publication: March 2nd 2021 by St. Martin's Press/Minotaur Books About the Book: After a late night of partying, NYU student Matt Pine returns to his dorm room to devastating news: nearly his entire family—his mom, his dad, his little brother and sister—have been found dead from an apparent gas leak while vacationing in Mexico. The local police claim it was an accident, but the FBI and State Department seem far less certain—and they won’t tell Matt why. The tragedy makes headlines everywhere because this isn’t the first time the Pine family has been thrust into the media spotlight. Matt’s older brother, Danny—currently serving a life sentence for the murder of his teenage girlfriend Charlotte—was the subject of a viral true crime documentary suggesting that Danny was wrongfully convicted. Though the country has rallied behind Danny, Matt holds a secret about his brother that he’s never told anyone: the night Charlotte was killed Matt saw something th

☆☆☆☆☆ .PDF 368 pages Expected Publication: April 13th 2021 by Thomas Nelson About the Book: The summer of 1936 in Parsons, Georgia, is unseasonably hot, and Opal Pruitt can sense a nameless storm coming. She hopes this foreboding feeling won’t overshadow her upcoming eighteenth birthday or the annual Founder’s Day celebration in just a few weeks. As hard as she works in the home of the widow Miss Peggy, Opal enjoys having something to look forward to. But when the Ku Klux Klan descends on Opal’s neighborhood of Colored Town, the tight-knit community is shaken in every way. Parsons’s residents—both Black and white—are forced to acknowledge the unspoken codes of conduct in their post-Reconstruction era town. To complicate matters, Opal finds herself torn between two unexpected romantic interests, awakening many new emotions. She never thought that becoming a woman would bring with it such complicated decisions about what type of person she wants to be. My Review: This world we living in

☆☆☆1/2 .ePUB 235 pages Expected Publication: January 28th 2021 by The Book Guild About the Book: For the last two decades, Jane has been trying for a baby. She knows all about surviving the agonising two-week wait between ovulation and test. Increasingly desperate, Jane opens her laptop, clicks, ‘TWW Forum: New Thread’, and types. ‘Anyone else starting their two-week wait? Shall we wait it out together?’ Four women respond to Jane’s message online; all strangers, all embarking on the same emotional two-week journey. All wanting just one thing. A baby. This fast-paced, light-hearted read explores the heartache of infertility through the bittersweet stories of five women; - Mandi is young and eager. She needs all the help she can get. - Becks already has one child and is stuck in the hellish limbo of secondary infertility. - Instagram sensation, Star, is living and selling a false dream, online and off. - Finally, feisty Fern is scheduling a pregnancy in between film shoots. Five women,

☆☆☆ ☆ ☆ Paperback, 288 pages Expected publication: March 1st 2021 by Lake Union Publishing About the Book: Until she discovers the truth of her sister’s death, no one will rest in peace. New Hampshire, 1865. Marion Abbott is summoned to Brawders House asylum to collect the body of her sister, Alice. She’d been found dead after falling four stories from a steep-pitched roof. Officially: an accident. Confidentially: suicide. But Marion believes a third option: murder. Returning to her family home to stay with her brother and his second wife, the recently widowed Marion is expected to quiet her feelings of guilt and grief—to let go of the dead and embrace the living. But that’s not easy in this house full of haunting memories. Just when the search for the truth seems hopeless, a stranger approaches Marion with chilling words: I saw her fall. Now Marion is more determined than ever to find out what happened that night at Brawders, and why. With no one she can trust, Marion may risk her ow

☆☆☆☆1/2 .ePUB, 317 pages Expected Publication: February 18th 2021 by Boldwood Books About the Book: When a tragedy forces the family Amy works for as a nanny to retreat to a small lakeside cottage, she realises they desperately need her help and support, so she agrees to go with them. But Amy finds the cottage by the lake unsettling, even sinister. The house is where the children’s mother spent her childhood – and the place where her seventeen-year-old sister disappeared mysteriously. Before long, ominous truths begin rising to the surface, and Amy becomes bewitched by the missing sister’s story. Can Amy unlock the secrets of the past before they repeat themselves? My Review: Making someone keep a secret is the same as building a wall around them. I’d seen some quite mixed reviews for this book and wasn’t quite sure what to expect. Being a new  Louise Douglas fan, I went with my gut and I’m glad I did. Although it starts out at a slow burn the more you read the better it gets. Whilst T

  ☆☆☆1/2 .ePUB, 415 pages Expected Publication: February 18th 2021 by Boldwood Books About the Book: Having escaped to the south coast of Sicily to recover from a broken heart, Sarah is immediately drawn to charming and mysterious Alex. He too is looking for a fresh start after the end of his marriage, and Sarah can’t resist Alex’s offer of a new life together. But when Sarah joins Alex in a tiny Somerset village, something doesn't add up. Alex's beautiful wife Genevieve was adored by all who knew her. And by all accounts, she and Alex had a successful marriage complete with a gorgeous son, Jamie. Why would Genevieve walk out on her perfect life? And why has no one heard from her since she did so? Genevieve's family and friends think that Alex knows more about her disappearance than he's letting on. But Sarah's fallen in love and just knows Alex couldn't have anything to hide. Or could he? My Review: With vibes of Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier The Secrets Between

☆☆☆☆1/2 .ePUB, 337 pages Expected Publication: February 9th 2021 by Random House Publishing Group - Ballantine About the Book: A dark history lingers in Chapel Croft. Five hundred years ago, Protestant martyrs were betrayed—then burned. Thirty years ago, two teenage girls disappeared without a trace. And a few weeks ago, the vicar of the local parish hanged himself in the nave of the church. Reverend Jack Brooks, a single parent with a fourteen-year-old daughter and a heavy conscience, arrives in the village hoping for a fresh start. Instead, Jack finds a town rife with conspiracies and secrets, and is greeted with a strange welcome package: an exorcism kit and a note that warns, “But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known.” The more Jack and daughter, Flo, explore the town and get to know its strange denizens, the deeper they are drawn into the age-old rifts, mysteries, and suspicions. And when Flo begins to see specters of girls ablaz

  ☆☆☆1/2 .ePUB, 318 pages Expected Publication: February 18th 2021 by Boldwood Books About the Book: Annie Howarth is living an anxious life in an anxious town. Her mining community in South Yorkshire is feeling the pinch and tensions are running high. Then a murdered girl is found on the moors and the agitation in the community is pushed to a dangerous breaking point. As the wife of the chief of police, Annie should feel safe – her husband William can be secretive, but she’s sure whatever he's hiding is for her own good, isn’t it? But Annie is keeping her own secrets. Ten years ago, the man she loved was ripped from her life in a scandal that still haunts them both, and now his return will put her family, her marriage, even her life, at risk. My Review: I would call this book a literary mystery because the writing is so descriptive and beautiful. I especially loved the descriptions of the Annie's home on the edge of the Yorkshire moors. I have read two other books by Louise Do

☆☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 326 pages Expected publication: February 23rd 2021 by Lake Union Publishing About the Book: Chesapeake Bay, 1980. Eighteen-year-old Verity Vergennes is the captain of the USS Nepenthe, and her seven younger siblings are her crew. The ship—an oyster boat transformed into a make-believe destroyer—is the heart of the Vergennes family, a place both to play and to learn responsibility. But Verity’s had it with being tied to the ship and secretly applies to a distant college. If only her parents could bear to let her go. Maeve and Arthur Vergennes already suffered one loss when, five years earlier, their eldest son, Jude, stormed out and never returned. Now Maeve is pregnant again and something’s amiss. Verity yearns to follow her dreams, but how can she jump ship now? The problem, and perhaps the answer, lies with Jude. When disaster strikes and the family unravels, Verity must rally her sibling crew to keep the Nepenthe and all it symbolizes afloat. Sailing away from home, s

☆☆☆☆ .ePUB, 347 pages Expected Publication: February 18th 2021 by Boldwood Books About the Book: In the long, hot summer of 1995, twenty-two-year-old Alice Lang rents a caravan on a holiday park on the outskirts of the lively holiday resort of Severn Sands. She befriends Marnie, a shy, damaged little girl whose father is the park's caretaker and whose mother died a few months earlier. Will, whose mother runs the bar, falls in love with Alice, and is unbearably jealous of anyone else she sees. Tensions rise until one evening Alice disappears from her caravan. She's never seen again, and only her scarlet dress is found washed up on the shore. A quarter of a century later, the town is run down and nobody comes there anymore. Mr and Mrs deVillars, former owners of the holiday park, have passed the failing business onto their son Guy, who promptly sells the land for development. Builders clearing the land to create an expanse of executive homes uncover human bones. It has to be Ali