Author: tamaramorning

Book Review: The Garden Girls, by Jessica R. Patch   

Image belongs to Harlequin/Love Inspired.

Title:  The Garden Girls
Author:  Jessica R. Patch      
Genre: Mystery, romance, Christian     
Rating:  5 out of 5

On a remote Outer Banks island, a serial killer collects his prized specimens. And to stop him, an FBI agent must confront his own twisted past.

FBI agent Tiberius Granger has seen his share of darkness. But a new case sets him on edge. It’s not just the macabre way both victims—found posed in front of lighthouses—are tattooed with flowers that match their names. There’s also the unsettling connection to the woman Ty once loved and to the shadowy cult they both risked everything to escape. 

Bexley Hemmingway’s sister has gone missing, and she’ll do anything to find her—including teaming up with Ty. That may prove a mistake, and not just because Ty doesn’t know he’s the father of her teenaged son. It seems the killer is taunting Ty, drawing everyone close to him into deeper danger.

As the slashing winds and rain of a deadly hurricane approach the coast of North Carolina, the search leads Ty and Bex to an island that hides a grisly secret. But in his quest for the truth, Ty has ignored the fact that this time, he’s not just the hunter. Every move has been orchestrated by a killer into a perfect storm of terror, and they will need all their skills to survive…

I enjoyed this so much! The stories of the creepy cult really weirded me out, but I love the interactions on the team and between Bex and Tiberius. I really had no idea who was truly going to be the crazy killer, so that part was well-down. A bit of sadness at the end, but this was an excellent read.

Jessica R. Patch is a bestselling author. The Garden Girls is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Harlequin/Love Inspired in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays are for Writing #277

Despite this being a bit of a chaotic week at work, it was a good writing week. I got in five fiction sessions, and also wrote three book reviews, The Sicilian Inheritance, by Jo Piazza, Bless Your Heart, by Lindy Ryan, and A Burden of Ice and Bone, by Kyra Whitton.

Happy writing!

Book Review:  Bless Your Heart, by Lindy Ryan     

Image belongs to MacMillan Audio.

Title: Bless Your Heart (audio)   
Author: Lindy Ryan       
Genre: Fiction, mystery    
Rating: 4 out of 5

Rise and shine. The Evans women have some undead to kill.

It’s 1999 in Southeast Texas and the Evans women, owners of the only funeral parlor in town, are keeping steady with…normal business. The dead die, you bury them. End of story. That’s how Ducey Evans has done it for the last eighty years, and her progeny―Lenore the experimenter and Grace, Lenore’s soft-hearted daughter, have run Evans Funeral Parlor for the last fifteen years without drama. Ever since That Godawful Mess that left two bodies in the ground and Grace raising her infant daughter Luna, alone.

But when town gossip Mina Jean Murphy’s body is brought in for a regular burial and she rises from the dead instead, it’s clear that the Strigoi―the original vampire―are back. And the Evans women are the ones who need to fight back to protect their town.

As more folks in town turn up dead and Deputy Roger Taylor begins asking way too many questions, Ducey, Lenore, Grace, and now Luna, must take up their blades and figure out who is behind the Strigoi’s return. As the saying goes, what rises up, must go back down. But as unspoken secrets and revelations spill from the past into the present, the Evans family must face that sometimes, the dead aren’t the only things you want to keep buried.

As hard as it is for me to call this historical fiction, it did feel like that, and historical fiction in small-town Texas, which is my own history. This felt like a cozy mystery, but it was really bloody, too. Like, really bloody. I enjoyed the audiobook and thought the narrator did a great job on style with this read.

Lindy Ryan is a professor at Rutgers University. Bless Your Heart is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of MacMillan Audio in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: A Burden of Ice and Bone, by Kyra Whitton    

Image belongs to Sword and Silk Books.

Title: A Burden of Ice and Bone  
Author: Kyra Whitton       
Genre:  Fantasy    
Rating:  4 out of 5

In the village of ice and darkness, Dira Cloon’s entire existence relies on her ability to pull the trigger. But when she faces a majestic white bear, her resolve falters. The bear’s presence stirs something deep within her – a force stronger than her love for her family, who believe that the only safe polar bear is a dead one.

It goes beyond the village legends of a lost world and a vanished civilization, the whispered tales of magic, and the ursine king’s enchantment. This force resonates with Dira’s heart, shattered and lonely. If she shoots the bear, her life will continue as it always has, with a piece of her soul and dreams forever lost. But if she lays down her weapon and follows the bear into the vast, frozen realm of snow, she may transform her people and their bloodlust.

This was an interesting dystopian/fantasy read. More than a bit depressing, frankly. I don’t like cold weather, so that was a me thing, but the society itself was pretty bleak—and I wasn’t a fan of the people. The author did a great job with the setting, though, and I enjoyed the story itself. What happened when Dira broke the curse wasn’t surprising at all, but I did enjoy this read.

Kyra Whitton is from Georgia. A Burden of Ice and Bone is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Sword and Silk Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The Sicilian Inheritance, by Jo Piazza     

Image belongs to Penguin Group Dutton.

Title: The Sicilian Inheritance
Author:  Jo Piazza      
Genre: Historical fiction     
Rating: 4.0 out of 5

Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage. On top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft with grief. But Aunt Rosie’s death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret. Rosie believes Sara’s great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.

Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and prove her birthright. Flashing back to the past, we meet Serafina, a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly it isn’t long before a woman challenging the status quo finds herself in danger.

As Sara discovers more about Serafina she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother.

This was a pretty solid read, although Sara was the only character I really liked. I was suspicious of everyone else, including Serafina. I honestly didn’t feel much of a connection to any of the characters, but the writing was solid, and the setting was appealing.

Jo Piazza lives in Philadelphia. The Sicilian Inheritance is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Penguin Group Dutton in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: The One That Got Away with Murder, by Trish Lundy    

Image belongs to Macmillan/Henry Holt and Co.

Title:  The One That Got Away with Murder     
Author:  Trish Lundy      
Genre:  YA, thriller  
Rating:  4 out of 5

Be careful who you fall for…

Robbie and Trevor Cresmont have a body count—the killer kind. Handsome and privileged, the Crestmont brothers’ have enough wealth to ensure they’ll never be found guilty of any wrongdoing, even if all of Happy Valley believes they’re behind the deaths of their ex-girlfriends. First there was soccer star Victoria Moreno, Robbie’s ex, who mysteriously drowned at the family lake house. Then, a year later, Trevor’s girlfriend died of a suspicious overdose.

But the Crestmonts aren’t the only ones with secrets. Lauren O’Brian might be the new girl at school, but she’s never been a good girl. With a dark past of her own, she’s desperate for a fresh start. Except when she starts a no-strings-attached relationship with Robbie, her chance is put in jeopardy. During what’s meant to be their last weekend together, Lauren stumbles across shocking evidence that just might implicate Robbie.

With danger closing in, Lauren doesn’t know who to trust. And after a third death rocks the town, she must decide whether to end things with Robbie or risk becoming another cautionary tale.

I enjoyed this thriller! (It kept me entertained throughout a day of boring meetings.) The people of Happy Valley—especially the soccer girls—were pretty mean, and they were horrible to Lauren. I liked how the author interspersed chapters from Lauren’s past with the present-day storyline, without giving away what really happened. I thought the mystery was well-done, and I didn’t figure out who the killer was until just a little bit before Lauren found out.

Trish Lundy lives in California. The One that Got Away with Murder is her debut YA novel.

(Galley courtesy of Macmillan/Henry Holt and Co. in exchange for an honest review.)

Sundays are for Writing #276

This was a great writing week—and I was out of town Monday-Friday for training. I wrote three book reviews: The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple, by Joanna Davidson Politano, What’s Eating Jackie Oh?, by Patricia Park, and The One That Got Away with Murder, by Trish Lundy. The first and last books are worth reading. The middle one…not so much. I also got in five fiction sessions.

Happy writing!

Book Review:  What’s Eating Jackie Oh?, by Patricia Park   

Image belongs to Random House Children’s.

Title: What’s Eating Jackie Oh?   
Author: Patricia Park    
Genre:   YA   
Rating:  3 out of 5

Jackie Oh is done being your model minority.

She just hasn’t told her second-gen Korean American parents yet. They would never understand her unconventional dream to become a professional chef. Just ask her brother Justin, who hasn’t heard from them since he was sent to Rikers Island.

For now, when she isn’t avoiding studying for AP World History, Jackie is improving her French cooking techniques and working at her grandparents’ Midtown deli Melty’s.

Then the most unexpected thing: Jackie gets recruited for a casting audition for the teen edition of Burn Off!, her favorite competitive cooking show. Even more unexpected, Jackie becomes a contestant.

Jackie is thrown headfirst into the cutthroat competitive TV show world filled with psych outs, picky mom critiques, and dreaded microaggressions to lean into her heritage.

All Jackie wants to do is cook her way. But is her way to cook traditional French cuisine? Lean into her heritage? Or is it something more? To advance through the competition, Jackie must prove who she is on and off the plate.

Jackie Oh herself just didn’t work for me. I didn’t like her much at all. She had the whole I’m-a-special-snowflake mentality—but God forbid anyone treat her like a special snowflake—just let her do whatever she wants, already. It was perfectly fine for Jackie to judge everyone around her based strictly on appearances, but when someone dared judge her? Then they were narrow-minded, ignorant, and racist. While the things Jackie was so against are real issues, she was unlikable enough to make me skim over them.

The only reason I kept reading this was because of the food. Not all the food, but Jackie’s menus sounded fascinating and tasty, and I liked how she eventually got her act together and showcased the different cultures she was surrounded by. The ending was a total dud, as there was no resolution, merely a transcript of a social media posting. As a reader, I feel like the author broke my trust by leaving this story without a resolution.

Patricia Park is from Queens. What’s Eating Jackie Oh? is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House Children’s in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review:  The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple, by Joanna Davidson Politano   

Image belongs to Revell.

Title:  The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple      
Author: Joanna Davidson Politano       
Genre:  Historical fiction    
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Peter Driscoll, an underground investigator to the wealthy, has never met anyone like Lily Temple. The beautiful silent-film actress spins fairy tales and plays frivolous roles in front of the cine-camera, but beneath the costumes and stage makeup is a woman with a quick wit–and a murky past.

Peter has been tasked with locating the legendary Briarwood Teardrop, an exquisite sapphire, which Lily wears beneath her gown. In order to stay close to her and hopefully unravel the mystery of her story–and the sapphire–Peter employs Lily’s help on a case, which leads to a useful partnership. But as they are investigating together, Peter is also investigating Lily. The closer he gets to the truth, the more danger they face. And the closer he gets to Lily, the clearer it is that he needs her even more than she needs him.

This started out a bit slow—maybe leisurely is a better word for it. Lily was a fascinating character to me, and I completely forgot, for most of the book, that she was telling a story for the group of officials. Parts of this felt like a fairy tale, or like one of Lily’s short films, all hazy and out-of-focus.

Peter was, basically, my dream guy:  honorable, funny, strong, smart, and a believer. I really loved ho Lily’s opinion of him changed as she got to know him, and he was so reliable and trustworthy for her. Really enjoyed this historical fiction read!

Joanna Davidson Politano lives near Lake Michigan. The Elusive Truth of Lily Temple is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Revell in exchange for an honest review.)

The Best Books I Read in April (2024)

In April, I read 20 books, bringing my total for the year to 66. I’m behind, but I’m catching up! Of those, several were really excellent reads, but I narrowed it down to three favorites.

The Last Bloodcarver, by Vanessa Le. I really liked the unique magic system here that was combined with an early scientific culture. The characters were great, and I enjoyed even the secondary characters a lot. Can’t wait to read more in this world.

Remarkably Bright Creatures, by Shelby Van Pelt. A POV character is a curmudgeonly octopus named Marcellus? Are you kidding me? That’s all I needed to know to buy this. In hardcover. And it was worth it! I had to ration this and only read a few pages a day, because I loved it so much1

The Bourbon Thief, by Tiffany Reisz. First of all, this cover is gorgeous. Secondly, a friend suggested this after we were talking about the voice of a story I’m writing and how I felt like it should be more of a Southern fiction feel. And she was 100% correct! Beautiful Southern fiction feel, although parts of this were truly horrifying. I was fully invested from the very beginning.