A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Heat Wave is the first novel I've read by Nancy Thayer.  She lives and writes on Nantucket, and the setting for this novel is Nantucket.  In the beginning of the book the story of Carley and her daughters is what captured my interest as opposed to the writing (which nearly made me ditch it)--there were several pages that I skipped/skimmed over because they were a little boring.  Several chapters in is when the major drama starts. In the wake of her husband's sudden death, Carley is struggling--with her finances, with the tension that occasionally blooms into conflict with her eldest daughter, and with the increasing tensions between herself and her in-laws, especially her meddling and interfering mother-in-law.  After Gus' death, Carley discovers that due to some bad investments her husband made, she's left penniless to raise their two daughters.  A stay-at-home mother, Carley never went to college, never pursued a career, has no job skills to speak of, and...

Between the Tides is the second book I've read by Patti Callahan Henry.  I previously read and reviewed her book Coming Up For Air here on the blog (click the link to read that review).  I really enjoyed Between the Tides, and it was a quick read.  This is a lyrically written family drama steeped in the south and the mystery of a childhood tragedy that revealed a devastating family secret. Catherine Leary is a woman who believes she's moved on from the childhood tragedy that ripped up her roots in the family's beloved Seaboro, South Carolina, but if moving on means not allowing herself to feel joy or love, has she really moved on?  Catherine reluctantly returns to Seaboro, the seaside village her family fled in the wake of a childhood tragedy for which Catherine has accepted and carried the guilt, shame and grief for nearly twenty years.  In Seaboro, Catherine is determined to make a short trip--in and out before her old friends know she's there--to toss...

The Haunting of Maddy Clare is Simone St. James' first novel; it's a ghost story set in 1920's England.  It was a page turner and hard to put down, and it was suspenseful and scary, and there was a ghost, a mystery, and a romance, and I loved it, and no library in Lebanon County has An Inquiry Into Love And Death , St. James' follow up to her debut!  So now I'll have to see if I get it from outside the county.  Her third novel will drop in April 2014.   The Haunting of Maddy Clare is a historical/period drama combined with a ghost story mystery (which basically means, it's right up my alley because ENGLISH PERIOD DRAMA and GHOST STORY) populated by characters each in their own way equally damaged and scarred by tragedy. 1922.  Rural England.  London city girl, Sarah Piper, comes to the English countryside in the employ of the young, handsome and charming Alistaire Gellis.  Gellis, a veteran of World War I, has parlayed a lifelong fascination with...

It's been a while since I posted here.  I was reading Letters from Skye then I got distracted by Storm Front (which I am reviewing here), and now I've started an Elin Hilderbrand book, but I've not been reading very much of it because I've been distracted by other things (mostly Christmas).   Storm Front is the new installment in the Virgil Flowers series.  It has a Da Vinci Code -esque plot of which I was extremely skeptical.  It's like really, another mystical Bible mystery that could turn the world's religions on their heads AGAIN?  Even Virgil was, like, whoa, dude, really?  (It said so on the jacket blurb, okay?  HE AGREED WITH ME.)  However, this reads like any other Virgil Flowers novel.  This book also reiterated for me that Virgil has seriously questionable taste in women.  I mean, starting up a fling with the broad you're investigating for fraud?  Not.  Smart. No sooner is a piece of rock bearing the name of th...