Tag: meh

Book Review: Night Swimming, by Aaron Starmer 

Image belongs to Penguin Workshop.

Title: Night Swimming
Author: Aaron Starmer         
Genre: YA   
Rating: 3 out of 5

It was just one swim… How could they know it would never end?

It’s the summer of 1994 and Trevor can barely wrap his mind around the fact that he and his friends have graduated high school. The future is a murky thing, filled with a college experience he feels neutral about at best, endless mixtape relistens, and the growing realization that his crush on the enigmatic Sarah isn’t going anywhere.

That is, until Sarah approaches him with a mission: they’re going to swim in all the pools in the neighborhood. Soon, their quest leads to them sneaking into backyard pools every night and continuing to get closer. But not close enough for Trevor, who yearns for Sarah despite her college boyfriend, despite her “not yet”s, despite the way she keeps pulling away the moment things feel real.

So when they learn about a natural pool hidden deep in the woods, it starts off as just another spot to check off their summer bucket list. But once they get there, they soon realize the natural pool has a curious hold on them, and something very strange is happening…

Okay, I’m not going to lie: this book seemed really pointless. The pacing was slow, and I felt like nothing happened. Nothing. The only reason I even finished it was because it was a quick read. The characters felt hazy and indistinct. There was basically no action. And I didn’t feel like the characters grew or changed.

Aaron Starmer was born in Northern California. Night Swimming is his newest novel.

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

Book Review: My Big Fat Fake Marriage, by Charlotte Stein

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title: My Big Fat Fake Marriage
Author: Charlotte Stein        
Genre: Romance       
Rating: 3 out of 5 

Connie has always distrusted nice guys. In her experience, they’re just waiting to reveal some horrible secret. And then she meets big, adorable, Henry Samuel Beckett—editor extraordinaire, lover of bow ties, sweet and so cheery she struggles to believe he’s real.

Until Henry Samuel Beckett—or Beck, as he’s known to most—tells her the secret underneath his sunny surface: He’s been single all his life. But in a moment of panic, he’s told everyone at his publishing house that he’s married. And when Connie, an aspiring writer herself, can’t help defending him, she ends up being the fake wife he doesn’t actually have.

When they head off on a writing retreat, surrounded by people convinced this must be a ruse, both of them can’t help but agree. Until they share their first kiss, their first touch, their first time in only one bed. Side by side, every night, as the simmering tension builds…Connie starts to wonder if this might be real after all.

I have to be honest:  this felt like a badly-disguised, cliched bit of porn. The characters felt more like tropes than actual people—Connie/not really Connie and her extreme skepticism of all men, Beck’s nerdy/oblivious personality—without much of a believable explanation as to why, so I could buy into the whole thing. This just really wasn’t a good fit for me.

Charlotte Stein’s new novel is My Big Fat Fake Marriage.

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

Book Review:  Love Is for the Birds, by Diane Owens Prettyman

Image belongs to She Writes Press.

 Title:   Love Is for the Birds
Author:  Diane Owens Prettyman
Genre: Romance        
Rating:  2.5 out of 3

The Texas Gulf: beautiful yet unpredictable..

A beach town destroyed. Her mother’s candy store swept away. This is what Teddy Wainsworth faces when she returns to Bird Isle. Meanwhile, Jack Shaughness, owner of a popular barbecue restaurant chain and widower still grieving the death of his wife, receives permission to cross over to the island with a smoker full of brisket to feed hurricane survivors. Soon after arriving, he meets Teddy and immediately finds himself drawn to her—which makes him feel he is betraying his wife. When the two find a lost dog, Jack convinces Teddy to take the dog home while they attempt to find the owner, creating a bond that brings them closer.

In the wake of the hurricane, Bird Isle residents fear the Aransas Wildlife Refuge will not be ready for the whooping cranes’ annual migration south. Seeing that Jack has important connections and a love for the island, they enlist him to help restore the habitat of the endangered cranes before they fly to Padre Island for the winter. With their rescued dog always nearby, Teddy and Jack work side by side to rebuild Bird Isle for the return of the whooping cranes. But Jack is harboring a secret that may ruin everything he and Teddy are creating—and he won’t be able to keep that secret forever.

I had high hopes for this, because I love Port Aransas, and that’s what this setting reminded me of. But…this was a disappointing read. This felt very predictable and unrealistic. Teddy’s candy store was wiped out by a hurricane, and mere weeks later, it’s totally rebuilt and open for business? Not believable. Teddy herself was juvenile and indecisive, hung up on Jack’s restaurants’ names and the fact that his wife died five years before.

Jack seemed way too good to be true, and the insta-love aspect really drove me up the wall. Everything seemed really rushed in the amount of time elapsed, and Jack expected Teddy to be over her long-term boyfriend in like a week. The thing that really bothered me the most, though, was Jack and Teddy’s reaction to the teenage girl character’s nose piercing. They acted like it was so horrifying and gross. Was this written decades ago, or was it written recently, when nose piercings are everywhere? Frankly, this made the characters and the author seem judgy and hidebound.

Diane Owens Prettyman’s new novel is Love is for the Birds.

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

Book Review: When I’m Dead, by Hannah Morrissey   

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press/Minotaur Books.

Title:  When I’m Dead     
Author: Hannah Morrissey   
Genre: Thriller    
Rating: 3.0 out of 5

On a bone-chilling October night, Medical Examiner Rowan Winthorp investigates the death of her daughter’s best friend. Hours later, the tragedy hits even closer to home when she makes a devastating discovery—her daughter, Chloe, is gone. But, not without a trace.

A morbid mosaic of clues forces Rowan and her husband to question how deeply they really knew their daughter. As they work closely to peel back the layers of this case, they begin to unearth disturbing details about Chloe and her secret transgressions…details that threaten to tear them apart.

Amidst the noise of navigating her newfound grief and reconciling the sins of her past, an undeniable fact rings true for Rowan: karma has finally come to collect.

I’m not sure why I decided to read this after I DNFed the first book in the series, but I did. I wanted to DNF this for the first third of the book, and probably should have, as I just didn’t care for the characters. Man, the setting here is so absolutely bleak and depressing and the characters are, too. This was an okay read, but I wasn’t a fan of the characters.

Hannah Morrissey lives near Milwaukee.  When I’m Dead is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Highlands Christmas – Wishes Come True, by Amy Quick Parrish

Image belongs to Flying Cactus.

Title: Highlands Christmas – Wishes Come True  
Author:  Amy Quick Parrish   
Genre: Romance    
Rating:  3 out of 5

Christmas wishes do come true.

Melissa MacKenzie is an American interior designer with a seemingly happy life — until her husband Dave reveals he’s been cheating on her and wants a divorce and the house. But when a letter informs her that she will inherit a home in Scotland, things start looking up. At the airport she inadvertently meets Colin McGregor, a charming Scottish-American lawyer who happens to be her husband’s divorce lawyer. She’s taken by his sexy Scottish accent and charm and, as fate would have it, he’s on Melissa’s flight to Edinburgh … and on her train to Inverness, and happens to live in the same town where she’s inherited her home.

As sparks fly between Melissa and Colin, he agrees to help her secure the Scottish home that she believes she’s entitled to. They dive right into Scottish culture — and each other’s arms — as love and a new home seem within reach. Will they be able to succeed in both missions? Or will everything fall apart?

Highlands Christmas is a romantic and delightful story that will set hearts afire. In a fairy tale as captivating as the Loch Ness monster, Melissa and Colin must cross an ocean to end up right where they belong… because home is where the heart is.

This is a novella, so it’s a quick read. And I like the setting. Those are pretty much the only positives I can come up with. This was predictable. Melissa was naïve and clueless to a ridiculous extent—a relative you’ve never heard of dies and you just hop on a plane without determining if the “inheritance” you’ve been emailed about is legit? Really? She comes across as willfully gullible and without an ounce of common sense. Colin is too good to be true, as are the rest of the secondary characters. This just wasn’t a good fit for me. I’m all for HEAs and charming reads, but they have to be believable and well-drawn, which I didn’t find this to be.

Amy Quick Parrish is from Michigan. Highlands Christmas—Wishes Come True is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Bright Lights, Big Christmas, by Mary Kay Andrews

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:  Bright Lights, Big Christmas
Author:  Mary Kay Andrews   
Genre:  Romance   
Rating: 3.5  out of 5

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family,

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

This was an okay read. I think its main goal was to make NYC seem quirky, charming, and safe. I’ve never been there, but I think that may be a bit inaccurate. Kerry’s brother, Murphy, really was a selfish jerk, and that was basically his entire personality:  grouchy jerk. Kerry felt like she flitted from thing to thing, a surface-level person only. I liked the neighborhood and its inhabitants, but this novel didn’t have very much depth.

Mary Kay Andrews is from Florida. Bright Lights, Big Christmas is her newest novel.

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

Book Review:  Wildblood, by Lauren Blackwood

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title:    Wildblood    
Author:   Lauren Blackwood  
Genre:  Fantasy, YA   
Rating:  2.5 out of 5

Eighteen-year-old Victoria is a Wildblood. Kidnapped at the age of six and manipulated by the Exotic Lands Touring Company, she’s worked as a tour guide ever since with a team of fellow Wildbloods who take turns using their magic to protect travelers in a Jamaican jungle teeming with ghostly monsters.

When the boss denies Victoria an earned promotion to team leader in favor of Dean, her backstabbing ex, she’s determined to prove herself. Her magic may be the most powerful on the team, but she’s not the image the boss wants to send their new client, Thorn, a renowned goldminer determined to reach an untouched gold supply deep in the jungle.

Thorn is everything Victoria isn’t – confident, impossibly kind, and so handsome he leaves her speechless. And when he entrusts the mission to her, kindness turns to mutual respect, turns to affection, turns to love. But the jungle is treacherous, and between hypnotic river spirits, soul-devouring women that shed their skin like snakes, and her ex out for revenge, Victoria has to decide – is promotion at a corrupt company really what she wants?

This started off great:  vibrant characters, fascinating setting, interesting backstory. And then, about a third of the way in, it lost most of its cohesion. Everything—characters, actions, reactions, plot—seemed to become just random. Suddenly, Thorn was a “Christian”—when there’d never been any mention of faith in the story at all (And, I have to say, he was a Christian in name only, because he was still okay with murder, violence, and random sex—while claiming to be a changed man.). Dean, who had not shown even a glimpse of being anything other than a jerk, suddenly had noble reasons for his horrible behavior.

We get a revelation (actually, two) about Victoria’s history that changes everything, including the worldview of the setting, yet there’d been no hints of anything before. In short, this just did not work for me. If there’s been some breadcrumbs cropped along the way, this all would have been fine, but I felt like the author kept writing herself into a corner or against a wall and had to just pull something out of a bag.

Lauren Blackwood lives in Jamaica. Wildblood is her newest novel.

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

Book Review and Blog Tour: Lark Ascending, by Silas House  

Image belongs to Algonquin Books.

Title: Lark Ascending    
Author: Silas House   
Genre: Fiction   
Rating: 3 out of 5

As fires devastate most of the United States, Lark and his family secure a place on a refugee boat headed to Ireland, the last country not yet overrun by extremists and rumored to be accepting American refugees. But Lark is the only one to survive the trip, and once ashore, he doesn’t find the safe haven he’d hoped for. As he runs for his life, Lark finds an abandoned dog who becomes his closest companion, and then a woman in search of her lost son. Together they form a makeshift family and attempt to reach Glendalough, a place they believe will offer protection. But can any community provide the safety that they seek?  

Despite the quality of the writing, for me, this was a pointless book. It’s bleak. The plot seemed meandering at best. And the ending didn’t seem to accomplish much. Perhaps it just wasn’t the right choice for me, but the political undertones were narrow-minded enough to make the characters seem very judgmental.

Silas House is a bestselling author. Lark Ascending is his newest novel.

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