I can’t wait for … Never Have I Ever by Joshilyn Jackson (Can’t-Wait Wednesday)

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a meme hosted by Tressa at Wishful Endings to spotlight and discuss the books we are excited about that we have yet to read. The book I can’t wait to read is this week is:

Amy Whey is proud of her ordinary life and the simple pleasures that come with it—teaching diving lessons, baking cookies for new neighbors, helping her best friend, Charlotte, run their local book club. Her greatest joy is her family: her devoted professor husband, her spirited fifteen-year-old stepdaughter, her adorable infant son. And, of course, the steadfast and supportive Charlotte. But Amy’s sweet, uncomplicated life begins to unravel when the mysterious and alluring Angelica Roux arrives on her doorstep one book club night.

Sultry and magnetic, Roux beguiles the group with her feral charm. She keeps the wine flowing and lures them into a game of spilling secrets. Everyone thinks it’s naughty, harmless fun. Only Amy knows better. Something wicked has come her way—a she-devil in a pricey red sports car who seems to know the terrible truth about who she is and what she once did.

When they’re alone, Roux tells her that if she doesn’t give her what she asks for, what she deserves, she’s going to make Amy pay for her sins. One way or another.

To protect herself and her family and save the life she’s built, Amy must beat the devil at her own clever game, matching wits with Roux in an escalating war of hidden pasts and unearthed secrets. Amy knows the consequences if she can’t beat Roux. What terrifies her is everything she could lose if she wins.

What novel are you excited to read? Let me know in the comments below!

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Top 5 Tuesday – Top 5 “main males”

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme that Bionic Bookworm hosts.  Today’s topic is Top 5 “main males”. I’m going to pick my top 5 favourite male detectives/crime solvers.

1. Myron Bolitar in Deal Breaker
2. Robert Langdon in The Da Vinci Code
3. Harry Bosch in The Black Echo
4. Pierce Quincy in The Perfect Husband
5. Roy Grace in Dead Simple

Who is your top main male?

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Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope are two NYPD rookies assigned to the same Bronx precinct in 1973. They aren’t close friends on the job, but end up living next door to each other outside the city. What goes on behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the stunning events to come.

Ask Again, Yes by award-winning author Mary Beth Keane, is a beautifully moving exploration of the friendship and love that blossoms between Francis’s youngest daughter, Kate, and Brian’s son, Peter, who are born six months apart. In the spring of Kate and Peter’s eighth grade year a violent event divides the neighbors, the Stanhopes are forced to move away, and the children are forbidden to have any further contact.

But Kate and Peter find a way back to each other, and their relationship is tested by the echoes from their past. Ask Again, Yes reveals how the events of childhood look different when reexamined from the distance of adulthood—villains lose their menace, and those who appeared innocent seem less so. Kate and Peter’s love story is marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.

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I wished I had picked this for my book club. Not because I loved it, it’s because there is so much to talk about. How you feel about the violent event? How do you feel about Kate and Peter? Their relationships with their families? What would do you in this situation? You could talk for hours and hours!

I really enjoyed the first half of the novel. I wanted to know more about the Gleesons and the Stanhopes.  I like how the author provided some of the narration from the children (Kate and Peter) and how you got to see their views on what was happening between their families.

The second half of the novel didn’t impress me as much as the first. I found that it was a lot of filler, which I know was to build the characters and their relationships. But I just found it to be boring. I wanted drama.

3 calculators out of a potential 5. Check this one out, especially if you are looking for your next book club read!

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Run Away by Harlan Coben

You’ve lost your daughter.

She’s addicted to drugs and to an abusive boyfriend. And she’s made it clear that she doesn’t want to be found.

Then, by chance, you see her playing guitar in Central Park. But she’s not the girl you remember. This woman is living on the edge, frightened, and clearly in trouble.

You don’t stop to think. You approach her, beg her to come home.

She runs. 

And you do the only thing a parent can do: you follow her into a dark and dangerous world you never knew existed. Before you know it, both your family and your life are on the line. And in order to protect your daughter from the evils of that world, you must face them head on.

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Harlan Coben knows how to write novels that just hooks you and then finishes with an unexpected, twisty ending. I took a break from his novels since I found them to be a similar format (a successful father has an event happen to his family, which causes him to go into detective mood, putting himself in danger in the process). Even though, Run Away did follow the same format, I did enjoy the ride that the novel took me on.

I did enjoy the main character, Simon Greene, who will do anything to protect his wife and children. His eldest daughter, has run away from home with her boyfriend and is homeless and doing drugs in NYC. When Simon sees her one day, he fights to get her to come home, but that drives her further away. He then sees that world that she is living in and it is much different than his own.

Even though you think you may know what happens, Coben knows how to throw the reader off and catch them off guard. I liked going on the journey with Simon to see what is really happening with his daughter.

3 calculators out of a potential 5. Not the best, but not the worst Harlan Coben novel. If you are looking for a quick paced novel that will have you guessing, check out Run Away!

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Here We Lie by Paula Treick DeBoard

Megan Mazeros and Lauren Mabrey are complete opposites on paper. Megan is a girl from a modest Midwest background, and Lauren is the daughter of a senator from an esteemed New England family. But in 1999, Megan and Lauren become college roommates and, as two young women struggling to find their place on campus, they forge a strong, albeit unlikely, friendship. The two quickly become inseparable, sharing clothes, advice and their most intimate secrets.

The summer before their senior year, Megan joins Lauren and her family on their private island off the coast of Maine. The weeks go by, filled with fun and relaxation, until late one night at the end of the vacation, something unspeakable happens, searing through the framework of the girls’ friendship and tearing them apart. Many years later, in the midst of a political scandal, Megan finally comes forward about what happened that fateful night, revealing a horrible truth about Lauren’s family and threatening to expose their long-buried secrets.

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I bought this novel at a local book sale just based on the cover and a brief skim of the back of the novel. I went in with low expectations and I ended up being very surprised on how much I liked Here We Lie.

The novel starts in present day with Megan and Lauren and right away we can tell it’s not very good news. It’s a bit unclear what the scandal is, but it’s bad. Then the novel shifts back in time and goes into Megan and Lauren’s lives and what brought them together.

Both Megan and Lauren have their flaws, but it’s easy to warm up to them and get caught up in their stories. The only part that I wasn’t fully invested in was Megan’s and Lauren’s friendship. It didn’t seem that it was too genuine since there was a lot of secrets and lies from both of them.

4 calculators out of a potential 5. Check this out as a summertime read. It has secrets, scandals with a touch of seriousness that makes you think about your own friendships!

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