Review: Before We Were Yours

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I can truly see why this book won the best historical fiction for 2017 on Goodreads. It reads like a true story and actually could be a compendium of true life stories for many people.

It opens with Avery, a senator's daughter, accompanying her father to a nursing home appearance. During the visit Avery meets and sees quite a few people. One elderly lady shakes her hand and manages to remove an heirloom bracelet from Avery. She doesn't notice this bracelet missing until an attendant calls her later in the week to tell her they "found" her bracelet. Avery returns to the home and asks to see the resident who had the bracelet. On visiting the elderly lady's room she spies a photo that is very much a close likeness to her grandmother who is in a retirement home for memory.

The story takes us back to the thirties and a riverboat family with five children and the mother expecting twins.

I won't give away any of the powerful story, but I must say that I have hardly ever actually cried, boo hoo, cries like I did in reading this book. Oh, I have shed a tear or two but nothing like this book.

An excellent read as well as learning about a part of history that we should be a shamed of.




View all my reviews

Review: Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight

Game On: Tempting Twenty-Eight by Janet Evanovich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When Stephanie Plum is woken up in the middle of the night by the sound of footsteps in her apartment, she wishes she didn’t keep her gun in the cookie jar in her kitchen. And when she finds out the intruder is fellow apprehension agent Diesel, six feet of hard muscle and bad attitude whom she hasn’t seen in more than two years, she still thinks the gun might come in handy.

Turns out Diesel and Stephanie are on the trail of the same fugitive: Oswald Wednesday, an international computer hacker as brilliant as he is ruthless. Stephanie may not be the most technologically savvy sleuth, but she more than makes up for that with her dogged determination, her understanding of human nature, and her willingness to do just about anything to bring a fugitive to justice. Unsure if Diesel is her partner or her competition in this case, she’ll need to watch her back every step of the way because Oswald is a killer.

Review: Where the Crawdads Sing

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life's lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.

Review: The Lie Maker

The Lie Maker by Linwood Barclay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In this twisty, fast-paced thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Find You First and Take Your Breath Away, a man desperately tries to track down his father--who was taken into witness protection years ago--before his enemies can get to him.

Your dad's not a good person. Your dad killed people, son.

These are some of the last words Jack Givins' father spoke to him before he was whisked away by witness protection, leaving Jack and his mother to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives as best they could.

Years later, Jack is a grown man with problems of his own. He's a talented but struggling author, barely scraping by on the royalties from his moderately successful first book. So when the U.S. Marshals approach him with a lucrative opportunity, he's in no position to turn them down. They're recruiting writers like Jack to create false histories for people in witness protection--people like Jack's father.

The coincidence is astonishing to Jack at first, but he soon realizes this may be a chance to find his dad. Only there's one problem--Jack's father hasn't made contact with his handlers recently, and they have no idea where he is. He could be in serious danger, and Jack may be the only one who can find him.

But how will he find a man he's never truly known? A man who has done terrible things in his lifetime and made some deadly enemies in the process--enemies who wouldn't think twice about using his own son against him.

I did enjoy this story but there were parts in the middle where it seemed a bit convoluted. The story was good though if you could get past those parts.

Review: Six Years

Six Years by Harlan Coben
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Six years have passed since Jake Fisher watched Natalie, the love of his life, marry another man. Six years of hiding a broken heart by throwing himself into his career as a college professor. Six years of keeping his promise to leave Natalie alone, and six years of tortured dreams of her life with her new husband, Todd.

But six years haven’t come close to extinguishing his feelings, and when Jake comes across Todd’s obituary, he can’t keep himself away from the funeral. There he gets the glimpse of Todd’s wife he’s hoping for…but she is not Natalie. Whoever the mourning widow is, she’s been married to Todd for almost two decades, and with that fact everything Jake thought he knew about the best time of his life—a time he has never gotten over—is turned completely inside out.

As Jake searches for the truth, his picture-perfect memories of Natalie begin to unravel. Mutual friends of the couple either can’t be found, or don’t remember Jake. No one has seen Natalie in years. Jake’s search for the woman who broke his heart, who lied to him, soon puts his very life at risk as it dawns on him that the man he has become may be based on a carefully constructed fiction.

Review: Road Ends

Road Ends by Mary Lawson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the third book I have read by this author
and I am eager for more. Her writing is so smoothly
down to earth and human. Absolutely beautiful.

Megan is the only girl in a family of about nine
boys. They live in rural Ontario, very small town.
Father is a bank manager so money is not a problem
and mother is a very strange person who seems to be
addicted to having babies, but once they start
growing, she loses interest and neglects them completely.

I recognize some characters from her other book, Crow
Lake and it was wonderful to visit them again.

Excellent read, couldn't put it down.

View all my reviews

Review: The Other Side of the Bridge

The Other Side of the Bridge by Mary Lawson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A beautifully written novel. A book about duty and friendship, hardship and understanding. Emotionally satisfying. When you are finished you feel like you have just lost your best friend.

View all my reviews