WWW Wednesday – June 12, 2019

WWW

Welcome to WWW Wednesday! This meme is hosted by Sam @ Taking on a World of Words. The Three Ws are:

What did you recently finish reading?

Ask Again Yes

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. 

What are you currently reading?

The Other Woman

Emily thinks Adam’s perfect; the man she thought she’d never meet. But lurking in the shadows is a rival; a woman who shares a deep bond with the man she loves.

Emily chose Adam, but she didn’t choose his mother Pammie. There’s nothing a mother wouldn’t do for her son, and now Emily is about to find out just how far Pammie will go to get what she wants: Emily gone forever.

The Other Woman is an addictive, fast-paced psychological thriller about the destructive relationship between Emily, her boyfriend Adam, and his manipulative mother Pammie.

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Educated

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

What are your WWW? Have you read any of my WWW?

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Top 5 Tuesday – Top 10 all time favourites!

T5T

Top 5 Tuesday is a weekly meme that Bionic Bookworm hosts.  Today’s topic is Top 10 all time favourites! I’m glad that we have 10 to pick from this week, instead of the normal 5. It was hard enough to narrow it down to 10!

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The First Mistake by Sandie Jones

The First Mistake

THE WIFE: For Alice, life has never been better. With her second husband, she has a successful business, two children, and a beautiful house.

HER HUSBAND: Alice knows that life could have been different if her first husband had lived, but Nathan’s arrival into her life gave her back the happiness she craved.

HER BEST FRIEND: Through the ups and downs of life, from celebratory nights out to comforting each other through loss, Alice knows that with her best friend Beth by her side, they can survive anything together. So when Nathan starts acting strangely, Alice turns to Beth for help. But soon, Alice begins to wonder whether her trust has been misplaced . . .

Her first mistake could be her last.

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Available Tomorrow – June 11, 2019!

I’m torn on my review for The First Mistake. I’m hoping that a lot of the mistakes in my copy will be resolved for the final copy. I found that the novel was predictable, just because of the lack of characters and the timings of certain events.

It took me a bit to figure out what this novel was about. First, the novel goes into Alice’s life and how she is slowing building doubts against her husband, Nathan. Then the novel goes into Alice’s friend, Beth, history with a man that she thought was the one, but he turned into a dud. And finally switch back to present day, where we still have Alice and her doubts.

I’m very curious to see what other readers thought of the ending. I have to admit, it was quite the ending and I’m still trying to process it. I had to re-read the last 3 pages multiple times to see if I could crack the code.

2 calculators out of a potential 5. I think this novel is coming out at the perfect time. This is truly a pool side summertime read, where you want to get into the drama of others’ lives.

Thank you to Netgallery and St. Martin’s Press for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

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Orphan X by Gregg Hurwitz

Orphan X

The Nowhere Man is a legendary figure spoken about only in whispers. It’s said that when he’s reached by the truly desperate and deserving, the Nowhere Man can and will do anything to protect and save them.

But he’s no legend.

Evan Smoak is a man with skills, resources, and a personal mission to help those with nowhere else to turn. He’s also a man with a dangerous past. Chosen as a child, he was raised and trained as part of the off-the-books black box Orphan program, designed to create the perfect deniable intelligence assets—i.e. assassins. He was Orphan X. Evan broke with the program, using everything he learned to disappear.

Now, however, someone is on his tail. Someone with similar skills and training. Someone who knows Orphan X. Someone who is getting closer and closer. And will exploit Evan’s weakness—his work as The Nowhere Man—to find him and eliminate him.

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I’ve never read anything like Orphan X. It was super addicting right from the beginning of the novel where you learn that Evan Smoak was selected to become part of the Orphan program. I really enjoyed learning what Evan had to go through as part of the program and how he put his trained skills and principles to his current day problems.

I really enjoyed the current day storyline where Evan was being hunted down by someone who was also in the Orphan program. I had no idea who Evan could trust and how things were going to turn out. I loved each twist and turn that the novel put me through.

4 calculators out of a potential 5. Excellent novel that can be read as a standalone, but I’m going to quickly get my hands on the second novel in the series!

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Vulnerable by Mary Burton

Vuluable

The Smallest Mistake

Three went in; one came out. For five years, no trace has been found of two high-school friends who went hiking in the woods near Nashville. The third teen, Amber Ryder, was discovered at the bottom of a ravine with a broken arm, head trauma–and zero memory of the horror that put her there.

Will Put You

What started as a cold case has become a fresh hell for forensic technician Georgia Morgan. Another woman’s body is found in the woods, and it leads to the missing teens’ remains. But while Georgia works with Amber to try and reawaken her memories, her gut tells her the worst is yet to come.

At A Killer’s Mercy

Homicide Detective Jake Bishop can’t be sure whether Amber is an expert manipulator or the killer’s next target. Either way, he’s determined to protect Georgia. Because the deeper she digs into the past, the deadlier the secrets that emerge, and a nightmare years in the making is about to come to a bloody, terrifying end…

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Even though Vulnerable is the 4th novel in the Morgans of Nashville series, it can easily be read as a standalone. Each novel in the series, focuses on one of the Morgan siblings who all work in Nashville law enforcement. In this novel, it focuses on the youngest and only daughter, Georgia Morgan who is a forensic technician.

Even though, this novel is marked as a romantic suspense, there is a lot more suspense/mystery than romance. There are multiple bodies that are discovered at the same time, only they are from different time periods. The main plot, was finding out what happened to two teenagers, five years ago.

I did like the mystery and I really enjoyed Amber, one of the survivors from 5 years ago. Throughout the whole novel, I wasn’t sure if she was lying or telling the truth. Also there was some surprises through in that I didn’t see coming.

3 calculators out of a potential 5. I liked this novel more than the first novel in the series, but I still found it to be an average mystery read.

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