Tag: friendship

Book Review: The Last One to Fall, by Gabriella Lepore

Title: The Last One to Fall
Author: Gabriella Lepore
Genre: YA
Rating: 4 out of 5

Six friends. Five suspects. One murder.

Savana Caruso and Jesse Melo have known each other since they were kids, so when Jesse texts Savana in the middle of the night and asks her to meet him at Cray’s Warehouse, she doesn’t hesitate. But before Savana can find Jesse, she bears witness to a horrifying murder, standing helpless on the ground as a mysterious figure is pushed out of the fourth floor of the warehouse.

Six teens were there that night, and five of them are now potential suspects. With the police circling, Savana knows what will happen if the wrong person is charged, particularly once she starts getting threatening anonymous text messages.

As she attempts to uncover the truth, Savana learns that everyone is keeping secrets—and someone is willing to do whatever it takes to keep those secrets from coming to light.

This was an interesting read—I read it in a single sitting, so it kept me engaged until midnight, when I really should have been sleeping. I liked Savana a lot, except for her propensity to go off to dangerous locations in the middle of the night…when some masked figure had been stalking her. That didn’t seem like a smart choice.

The author did a great job of dropping red herrings with all the characters, so the reader—or at least me—was never really sure who the murderer was. It was easy to feel empathy for all of the characters, too—except Raf—although the one thing that did not make sense to me was Jesse’s mom, and the way she completely vanished without contacting her kids.

Gabriella Lepore is from South Wales. The Last One to Fall is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Five Fortunes, by Barbara Venkataraman

Title: Five Fortunes
Author: Barbara Venkataraman
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4 out of 5

When five fourteen-year-old girls get their fortunes from an arcade machine just for kicks, it turns their world upside-down and their close-knit group of friends starts to fall apart.

Misunderstandings abound as allegiances shift and outsiders start to come between them. The fortunes seem to be self-fulfilling prophecies – whether the girls believe in them or not.

Do our beliefs color our perception of the world? Do we ever see ourselves the way others see us, and why is change so hard?

This was a quick read. I liked the friendship dynamics of the group—and how those changed throughout the story. The fortunes were specific to each girl, but weren’t quite what the girls expected, which added some nice depth to the story. This was a nice young YA novel with some good lessons scattered throughout.

Barbara Venkataraman is an attorney and author. Five Fortunes is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: You Wouldn’t Dare, by Samantha Markum

Title: You Wouldn’t Dare
Author: Samantha Markum
Genre: YA
Rating: 4.5 out of

When Juniper Nash Abreheart kissed Graham Isham for the first time, she had no idea it would nearly be the end of their friendship.

More specifically, she had no idea that the terrible, unforgivable thing she did to keep their summer fling a secret wouldn’t just ruin their friendship, but also Graham’s entire life. Now, months since the fallout, Junie and Graham spend most of their time sidestepping conversational landmines on the journey back to normalcy.

Junie is sure the strangeness between her and Graham is her biggest problem – until her mom hires Tallulah, her boyfriend’s surly teenage daughter, to work at their family café, and then announces they’ll all be moving in together at the end of the summer. The only bright spot ahead is Junie’s dad’s upcoming visit, just in time for her community theater production. And then poor turnout soon threatens that.

But when Junie starts to realize the feelings she swore to take care of last summer have lingered, saving her production and managing her hostile relationship with Tallulah might be the least of her problems. Graham isn’t just off limits – their friendship has been mended to barely withstand a breeze, and the gale force of Junie’s feelings could be just what breaks them.

The friendships in this story are what made the book so great! Juniper is…a very self-absorbed, selfish, and dramatic person. In short: not someone I could stand to be around very long. She is verbally manipulative and says terrible things without thinking (Okay, pretty sure we’ve all done that at some point, but she rarely seems to regret what she’s said—until someone gets mad at her. And usually she just gets defensive, not remorseful.). Did she learn and grow in this book? Maybe, but I’m not sure. This is still very much worth reading, just don’t expect Junie to be entirely likable.

Samantha Markum was born in St. Louis. You Wouldn’t Dare is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: When the Moon Turns Blue, by Pamela Terry

Image belongs to Random House/Ballantine.

Title: When the Moon Turns Blue
Author: Pamela Terry
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

On the morning after Harry Cline’s funeral, a rare ice storm hits the town of Wesleyan, Georgia. The community wakes up to find its controversial statue of Confederate general Henry Benning destroyed—and not by the weather. Half the town had wanted to remove the statue; the other half wanted to celebrate it. Now that the matter has been taken out of their hands, the town’s long-simmering tensions are laid bare.

This conflict is especially personal to Harry’s widow, Marietta, who’s never been a fan of the statue. Her brother, Macon, the top defense attorney in the Southeast, is representing Old Man Griffin, the owner of the park where the statue stood. Despite Marietta’s pleas to let the matter rest, Macon is determined to find those responsible for the damage and protect the Griffin legacy—and he’s far from the only person Marietta stands to lose over a statue. Without Harry beside her, Marietta longs to salvage those connections, but the world is changing, and the divide can no longer be ignored.

I loved Terry’s The Sweet Taste of Muscadines, so I was eager to read this. And it did not disappoint! The characters are so….I don’t know, cool? They’re people I would love to hang out with and learn from. Their personalities and histories are so different, but so well-realized I truly feel like they (the main four characters) exist and are out there really living life to the fullest somewhere. It was very hard to put this down for sleep and work, and I loved seeing how things played out. Highly recommend!

Pamela Terry is a lifelong Southerner. When the Moon Turns Blue is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House/Ballantine in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Son of the Poison Rose, by Jonathan Maberry

Title: Son of the Poison Rose
Author:   Jonathan Maberry
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

The Silver Empire is in ruins. War is in the wind. Kagen and his allies are on the run from the Witch-king. Wild magic is running rampant everywhere. Spies and secret cabals plot from the shadows of golden thrones.

Kagen Vale is the most wanted man in the world, with a death sentence on his head and a reward for him—dead or alive—that would tempt a saint.

The Witch-king has new allies who bring a terrible weapon—a cursed disease that drives people into a murderous rage. If the disease is allowed to spread, the whole of the West will tear itself apart.

In order to build an army of resistance fighters and unearth magical weapons of his own, Kagen and his friends have to survive attacks and storms at sea, brave the haunted wastelands of the snowy north, fight their way across the deadly Cathedral Mountains, and rediscover a lost city filled with cannibal warriors, old ghosts, and monsters from other worlds. Along with his reckless adventurer brothers, Kagen races against time to save more than the old empire… if he fails the world will be drenched in a tsunami of bloodshed and horror.

I enjoyed this read a lot! It took a while to read, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The first book, it took me a bit to get into. This one did not. Kagen’s banter with his friends is the best part to me, but I loved all the action and trying to guess what would happen next. This is a very solid epic fantasy—and I can’t wait to read the next one.

Jonathan Maberry is a bestselling author. Son of the Poison Rose is his newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: When We Had Wings, by by Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner

Title: When We Had Wings (audio book)
Author: Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner
Genre: Historical fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

The Philippines, 1941.

When U.S. Navy nurse Eleanor Lindstrom, U.S. Army nurse Penny Franklin, and Filipina nurse Lita Capel forge a friendship at the Army Navy Club in Manila, they believe they’re living a paradise assignment. All three are seeking a way to escape their pasts, but soon the beauty and promise of their surroundings give way to the heavy mantle of war.

Caught in the crosshairs of a fight between the U.S. military and the Imperial Japanese Army for control of the Philippine Islands, the nurses are forced to serve under combat conditions and, ultimately, endure captivity as the first female prisoners of the Second World War. As their resiliency is tested in the face of squalid living arrangements, food shortages, and the enemy’s blatant disregard for the articles of the Geneva Convention, the women strive to keep their hope— and their fellow inmates—alive, though not without great cost.

In this sweeping story based on the true experiences of nurses dubbed “the Angels of Bataan,” three women shift in and out of each other’s lives through the darkest days of the war, buoyed by their unwavering friendship and distant dreams of liberation.

I really enjoyed this! The narrator was personable and clear, and I was drawn into the story from the very beginning. I loved all three main characters, and even the secondary characters were well-done and became people I cared about. I couldn’t wait to find out how everything worked out for these three women! This is well-worth reading.

Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris and Susan Meissner are bestselling authors. When We Had Wings is their newest novel.

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

Book Review: A Place to Land, by Lauren K. Denton

Title: A Place to Land
Author: Lauren K. Denton
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

A hidden past isn’t past at all.

Violet Figg and her sister Trudy have lived a quiet life in Sugar Bend ever since a night forty years ago stole Trudy’s voice and cemented Violet’s role as Trudy’s fierce and loyal protector. Now, Trudy spends her days making sculptures from found objects and speaking via notes written on scraps of paper, while Violet runs their art shop, monitors the bird activity up and down the water, and tries not to think of her one great love she gave up in order to keep her sister safe.

Eighteen-year-old Maya knows where everyone else belongs, but she’s been searching for her own place ever since her grandmother died seven years ago. Moving in and out of strangers’ houses has left her exhausted, so when she sees a flyer on a gas station window for a place called Sugar Bend, she follows the strange pull she feels and finds herself on the doorstep of an art shop called Two Sisters.

When a boat rises to the surface of Little River in the middle of the night, the present and the no-longer-buried past clash, and the future is at stake for Maya, Violet, and Trudy. As history creeps continually closer to the present and old secrets come to light, the sisters must decide if it’s time to face the truth of what happened forty years ago, or risk losing each other and newly formed bonds with those they’ve come to love.

I loved this book! Parts of it are very sad—what Violet and Trudy went through 40 years ago and what Violet had to give up—but the entire story was so immersive and lovely. Lauren K. Denton makes small-town life sound appealing, verging on wonderful. The characters, as always for this author, are fascinating and believable, and the reader just feels at home in the story.

Lauren K. Denton is a bestselling author. A Place to Land is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: The Winners, by Fredrik Backman

Title: The Winners
Author: Fredrik Backman
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 5 out of 5

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. Everyone has tried to move on, but there’s something about this place that prevents it. The residents continue to grapple with life’s big questions: What is a family? What is a community? And what, if anything, are we willing to sacrifice in order to protect them?

As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?

This book. I was up until 2 a.m. finishing it, if that tells you anything. Beartown took me completely by surprise. I don’t really care about hockey, and small towns usually give me the creeps, but it was my first introduction to Backman’s writing and I was blown away. Us Against You was the same experience, and so was The Winners.

I loved these characters and was completely enthralled by the story. Even the seemingly minor characters are compelling in the hands of a master storyteller like this. He is so, so good at creating believable characters that you care about and feel like you’ve met. I’m not super thrilled by what happened to one of my favorite characters, but I laughed, cried, and was in turn awed by the occasional absolutely perfect sentence that truly captured the moment. Go read this.

Fredrik Backman is a bestselling author. The Winners is his newest novel.

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

Book Review and Blog Tour: Would You Rather, by Allison Ashley

Title: Would You Rather
Author: Allison Ashley
Genre: Romance
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Noah and Mia have always been best friends, and their friendship is the most important thing to them. Life is going great for Noah and he’s up for a promotion in a job he loves. But Mia’s life is on hold as she awaits a kidney transplant. She’s stuck in a dead-end job and, never wanting to be a burden, has sworn off all romance. So when the chance of a lifetime comes to go back to school and pursue her dream, it’s especially painful to pass up. She can’t quit her job or she’ll lose the medical insurance she so desperately needs.

To support her, Noah suggests they get married—in name only—so she can study full-time and still keep the insurance. It’s a risk to both of them, with jobs, health and hearts on the line, and they’ll need to convince suspicious coworkers and nosy roommates that they’re the real deal. But if they can let go of all the baggage holding them back, they might realize that they would rather be together forever.

I thoroughly enjoyed this read! The dynamic between Mia and Noah was wonderful, and their banter makes their friendship even more fun to read. I loved how their relationship slowly changes—after they get married—and they both admit to themselves they’ve had feelings for each other for years. It was so much fun to read about their lives and everything they’ve been through together. I highly recommend this!

Allison Ashley works in oncology. Would You Rather is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Lucy Checks In, by Dee Ernst

Title: Lucy Checks In
Author: Dee Ernst
Genre: Romance
Rating: 5.0 out of 5

Lucia Giannetti needs a fresh start. Once the hotel manager of a glamorous NYC hotel and intimately involved with the hotel’s owner, Lucy had her entire future planned out. But when the owner disappears, taking millions of dollars with him, Lucy’s life as she knows it falls apart.

Two years later, forty-nine years old and unemployed, Lucy takes a job in Rennes, France to manage the Hotel Paradis. She pictures fur quilts and extravagant chandeliers, but what she finds is wildly different. Lucy is now in charge of turning the run-down, but charming hotel into a bustling tourist attraction. Between painting rooms, building a website, and getting to know Bing, the irritatingly attractive artist, Lucy finds an unexpected home. But can she succeed in bringing the Hotel Paradis to its former glory?

I would like to say: I’ve never had a desire to visit France—except when I read books that make it seem so magical I absolutely must go. This was one of those books. Except the setting was really the Hotel Paradis, not France itself, so really, I want to go to this hotel and live.

I enjoyed this book immensely. I love that the main character was not a woman in her 20s or early 30s, but one almost 50. I love Lucia’s journey back to finding herself and confidence in herself just as much as the journey to restore the hotel. I also loved that romance took a backseat, not the driver’s seat in this story. This is just a wonderful book!

Dee Ernst is from New Jersey. Lucy Checks In is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an honest review.)

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