Tag: Southern fiction

Book Review: The Forget-Me-Not Library, by Heather Webber    

Image belongs to St. Martin’s Press.

Title: The Forget-Me-Not Library
Author: Heather Webber  
Genre: Fantasy  
Rating: 5 out of 5

Juliet Nightingale is lucky to be alive. Months after a freak accident involving lightning, she’s fully recovered but is left feeling that something is missing from her life. Something big. Impulsively, she decides to take a solo summer road trip, hoping that the journey will lead her down a path that will help her discover exactly what it is that she’s searching for.

Newly-single mom Tallulah Byrd Mayfield is hanging by a thread after her neat, tidy world was completely undone when her husband decided that their marriage was over. In the aftermath of the breakup, she and her two daughters move in with her eighty-year-old grandfather. Tallulah starts a new job at the Forget-Me-Not Library, where old, treasured memories can be found within the books—and where Lu must learn to adapt to the many changes thrown her way.

When a road detour leads Juliet to Forget-Me-Not, Alabama, and straight into Tallulah’s life, the two women soon discover there’s magic in between the pages of where you’ve been and where you still need to go. And that happiness, even when lost, can always be found again.

This was such a good read! I truly enjoyed it from the opening scene: looking for a lost little girl and finding her asleep in a tree she calls Bill. I wanted to hang out with every character in the story, and the town of Forget-Me-Not just felt so magical. The exploration of grief and guilt was handled so well, as Juliet ‘s mind lets her finally remember things, and Tallulah’s coming to terms with the truth of her past and letting go of her fears to embrace the future was done with such believable emotion. I highly recommend this!

Heather Webber is a bestselling author. The Forget-Me-Not Library is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: Through an Open Window, by Pamela Terry

Image belongs to Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine | Ballantine Books.

Title: Through an Open Window  
Author: Pamela Terry         
Genre: Fiction    
Rating: 5 out of 5

In the small Southern town of Wesleyan, Georgia, where the air smells of red clay and sea salt, Margaret Elliot has lived a seemingly charmed life—until the recent loss of her beloved husband. Since then, Margaret has been seeing visions of her aunt Edith, the indomitable woman who raised her after her parents died when she was a baby. As these mysterious and undeniable visitations continue, Margaret becomes convinced that Aunt Edith is trying to tell her something important. As she follows the clues that almost magically present themselves, it becomes clear there is a secret from Margaret’s past waiting to be uncovered.

As Margaret grapples with each new revelation, she also worries about her three grown children. Her stoic and inscrutable eldest daughter, Mouse, continues to struggle with the grief of losing her father. Her son Lawrie, always his mother’s favorite, faces life-altering changes that he both longs for and fears—while Tom, Lawrie’s twin, must wrestle with the consequences of a work decision that has blown up his entire life. Despite the tensions among the siblings as they argue about how best to support their mother, the whole family is soon embroiled in uncovering the truth the ghost of Aunt Edith is striving to expose.

I loved this book! The characters are so vivid and realistic—down to the chihuahua in a bowtie. Lots of family dynamics on display here, to go with the small-town drama, and it was so well-written I half forgot I was reading about these people instead of watching them in real life. Such a good read!

Pamela Terry lives in Georgia. Through an Open Window is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine | Ballantine Books in exchange for an honest review.)

Book Review: Southern by Design, by Grace Helena Walz  

Image belongs to HarperCollins.

Title: Southern by Design
Author: Grace Helena Walz     
Genre: Fiction        
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Magnolia “Mack” Bishop is staring down the barrel at single motherhood–thanks to an unsolicited personal picture her husband texted another woman that quickly went viral among every mom group in town. But she’s determined to not let it distract her from the professional victory she’s inches away securing Charleston’s prestigious Historic Preservation Design Fellowship, the apple of every local designer’s eye.

But when the final house tour is undone by a host of calamities, Mack’s shot at the fellowship goes up in flames. Smelling blood in the water, Mack’s mother, the original Magnolia Bishop, breezes in with a project lead–strings attached. If there’s one thing Magnolia lives for, aside from maintaining her station atop the Southern social ladder, it’s to control Mack’s life . . . and that includes keeping the identity of the absentee father Mack never knew in the shadows.

While working for her mother is the professional equivalent of moving into one’s parent’s basement, Mack spots an opportunity to make it her own when a television network puts a call out for local designers. Pitching the home renovation TV pilot of her dreams–one with a historic preservation twist–might just be the way to finally prove herself. Still, she’ll have to do it covertly to avoid her mother’s interference.

Just when Mack finds her professional footing, at home she spots an impossibly familiar figure unloading his moving truck into the newly sold house next door. She is furious, floored, and regrettably flustered because Lincoln Kelly is the one who got away. Fifteen years earlier he was a summer romance she inadvertently fell in love with, and when he left, following his dreams to New York, Mack was broken-hearted.

I love Southern fiction, and this fits the bill. Mack’s mom is…terrible. Her ex-husband is terrible. The thought of living in that world with those people made my skin crawl.

I loved the Charleston setting. It felt so vibrant and real, and I wanted to visit immediately! Mack’s friends/coworkers were also fantastic, and her daughter made me want to hang out with a tiny human. Definitely recommend this read!

Grace Helena Walz lives outside of Atlanta. Southern by Design is her debut novel.

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

What I Read in November (2023)

Books Read in November: 17
Books Read for the Year:  188/200

Topical Books/Monthly Goal Books:

Echo Island, by Jared C. Wilson (TBR). I wasn’t too impressed with this, honestly. An okay read, but that’s it.
The Dead Don’t Dance, by Charles Martin (audio, TBR). Awesome, just like everything else by this author.
The Iron Queen, by Julie Kagawa (re-read). Loved it, again.
Need, by Carrie Jones (re-read). This was an underwhelming re-read, but I think I’ll give the second one a try and see if it gets better.
Shiver, by Maggie Stiefvater (re-read). This re-read was as good as I remembered it.
Dancing on the Head of a Pin, by Robert Benson (TBR). This was an interesting glimpse into a writer’s life.
English Lessons, by Andrea Lucado (TBR). I really enjoyed this narrative nonfiction read!
Till We Have Faces, by C.S. Lewis (TBR). I really enjoyed this re-telling of a myth!

For Review:

The Fiction Writer, by Jillian Cantor. This was a little too meta for me, and the MC kept doing phenomenally stupid things.

Shards of Glass, by Michelle Sagara. I love this series of books, and I was excited to read this one, even if it wasn’t about Kaylin. Another excellent adventure that kept me glued to the page!

The Curse of Penryth Hall, by Jess Armstrong (review forthcoming). I enjoyed this quite a bit. Ruby was a lot of fun to read, and I liked the setting and everything going on in the novel at all times. I never figured out who the killer was, either.

This Cursed Light, by Emily Thiede (review forthcoming). I loved this! Alessa and Dante! They have the best relationship, and I loved how they both grow and change during this story.

Our Cursed Love, by Julie Abe (review forthcoming). I really enjoyed this romance/fantasy/hidden-world-of-magic read.

Just Because:
Spirit of the Wood, by Kristen Britain (TBR). I really enjoy everything in this series.
On Writing, by Stephen King (re-read). I’m not sure how many times I’ve read this, but I still love it.
Dirty Thirty, by Janet Evanovich. Man. Talk about a cliffhanger ending!
gods in Alabama, by Joshilyn Jackson. this is probably one of my top ten favorite books of all time… and it was just as good on this read. This is the book in which I discovered Southern fiction was a thing.

Left Unfinished:

Plot Twist, by Erin LaRosa. I’m not into frivolous and obsessed-with-what-people-think-of-them main characters. This is the second one of LaRosa’s books I’ve DNFed, so I probably should just accept that no matter how appealing her books sound, they’re just not a good fit for me.

Artifacts of an Ex, by Jennifer Chen. I completely appreciated the MC’s obsession with planning, but wasn’t a fan of her careless and juvenile behavior.

Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord, by Celeste Connally. Look, if I’ve read a third of the book and the MC says she doesn’t care about the ton and societal expectations but that’s all she can think about, and if all the male characters seem to be either foolish, demeaning, or borderline evil, well, I have no interest in finishing reading

This Spells Love, by Kat Robb. I liked the idea of this, but Gemma moping around and feeling sorry for herself—and repeatedly getting drunk—just didn’t do it for me. People like that annoy me, so I didn’t want to spend any more time with her.

The Best Books I Read in August (2023)

In August, I read 17 books, bringing my total for the year to 135 books read. Of those books, a few were standouts.

The River Runs South, by Audrey Ingram. This was an excellent Southern fiction read, and a debut novel from this author. I wasn’t too sure if I liked the main character at first, even though she was going through a very tough time, but I ended up loving her—and her adorable daughter. I also loved the setting so much and thought it was portrayed so well.

Touch of Power, by Maria V. Snyder. I’m a big fan of this author and I’d read this before, but I remembered almost none of it. I enjoyed the characters so much! They were so memorable and believable and made the rest of the story truly magical.

The Brothers Hawthorne, by Jennifer Lynn Barnes. I’ve enjoyed this series so much, and I read this entire novel in one session, on release day. It did not disappoint. The Hawthorne brothers and their antics are thoroughly entertaining, and I love the relationship between the three brothers.

The Best Books I Read in February (2023)

In February, I read 16 books, bringing my total for the year to 33 books read. I also DNFed two books. Of those 16 books, three of them were really excellent.

The Record Keeper, by Charles Martin. Y’all. If you haven’t discovered Charles Martin’s books yet, please do yourself a favor and pick one up. This one is the last in a trilogy that started with The Water Keeper, and I inhaled these books. I do not even have words to describe how much I loved these books and these characters. I will automatically buy—in hardcover—anything this author writes. Even his nonfiction is phenomenal.

When the Moon Turns Blue, by Pamela Terry. I love Southern fiction, but I enjoyed this and The Sweet Taste of Muscadines, the author’s previous book, so, so much. The characters in this are just wonderful. I highly recommend.

My most surprising read of the month was Bibi: My Story, by Benjamin Netanyahu. I almost never read biographies (I’ve maybe read two in my entire life), don’t care for politics, and the military also isn’t my thing, yet this autobiography from a world leader who was in the military kept me riveted to the page. And I thought there was drama in the United States’ political system!

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:  A Place to Land, by Lauren K. Denton

Image belongs to Harper Muse.

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: Mother May I, by Joshilyn Jackson

Image belongs to William Morrow.

Title:  Mother May I
Author:  Joshilyn Jackson
Genre:  Fiction, thriller
Rating:   4.5 out of 5

Revenge doesn’t wait for permission.

Growing up poor in rural Georgia, Bree Cabbat was warned by her single mother that the world was a dark and scary place. Bree rejected her mother’s fearful outlook, and life has proved her right. Having married into a family with wealth, power, and connections, Bree now has all a woman could ever dream of: a loving lawyer husband, two talented teenage daughters, a new baby boy, a gorgeous home, and every opportunity in the world.

Until the day she awakens and sees a witch peering into her bedroom window—an old gray-haired woman dressed all in black who vanishes as quickly as she appears. It must be a play of the early morning light or the remnant of a waking dream, Bree tells herself, shaking off the bad feeling that overcomes her.

Later that day though, she spies the old woman again, in the parking lot of her daugh­ters’ private school . . . just minutes before Bree’s infant son, asleep in his car seat only a few feet away, vanishes. It happened so quickly—Bree looked away only for a second. There is a note left in his place, warning her that she is being is being watched; if she wants her baby back, she must not call the police or deviate in any way from the instructions that will follow.

The mysterious woman makes contact, and Bree learns she, too, is a mother. Why would another mother do this? What does she want? And why has she targeted Bree? Of course Bree will pay anything, do anything. It’s her child.

To get her baby back, Bree must complete one small—but critical—task. It seems harmless enough, but her action comes with a devastating price, making her complicit in a tangled web of tragedy and shocking secrets that could destroy everything she loves. It is the beginning of an odyssey that will lead Bree to dangerous places, explosive confrontations, and chilling truths.

Bree will do whatever it takes to protect her family—but what if the cost tears their world apart?

I’m a huge Joshilyn Jackson fan. Her novel gods in Alabama is one of my top 10 favorite books ever. I discovered her quite by accident, fell in love with the voice of her stories, and realized Southern fiction was a thing.

Mother May I is more of a thriller than her other novels, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. The character arc that Bree experiences during the short time period of this novel is incredible to experience, and I was up early finishing up this novel before my day started. Highly recommend! (Also, this cover is perfect!)

Joshilyn Jackson is a bestselling author. Mother May I is her newest novel.

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

Book Review: The Sweet Taste of Muscadines, by Pamela Terry

Image belongs to Random House/Ballantine.

Title:  The Sweet Taste of Muscadines

Author:  Pamela Terry

Genre:  Southern fiction

Rating:  5 out of 5

Lila Bruce Breedlove never quite felt at home in Wesleyan, Georgia, especially after her father’s untimely demise when she was a child. Both Lila and her brother, Henry, fled north after high school, establishing fulfilling lives of their own. In contrast, their younger sister, Abigail, opted to remain behind to dote on their domineering, larger-than-life mother, Geneva. Yet despite their independence, Lila and Henry know deep down that they’ve never quite reckoned with their upbringing.

When their elderly mother dies suddenly and suspiciously in the muscadine arbor behind the family estate, Lila and Henry return to the town that essentially raised them. But as they uncover more about Geneva’s death, shocking truths are revealed that overturn the family’s history as they know it, sending the pair on an extraordinary journey to chase a truth that will dramatically alter the course of their lives.

I love the voice in this! Granted, Southern fiction is one of my absolute favorite genres, but the voice is phenomenal. The author does a wonderful job of portraying life in a southern town—with all its vivid, memorable characters—as well as the beauty of Scotland and its people. Honestly, I cannot say enough good things about this. Just go read it!

Pamela Terry is a lifelong Southerner. The Sweet Taste of Muscadines is her debut novel.

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