Tropical Delusions……

Jessica Lovat has just finished up with a client when she receives a call she has been dreading for years.  A Detective from Port Agatha is on the other end of the line, requesting interviews with Jessica and her foster sisters, Norah & Alicia. A body,  just bones remaining, has been found buried at the site of the former Wild Meadows Farm homestead – the foster home of the three girls many years ago, run by a manipulative, abusive, cruel woman named Holly Fairchild. Norah & Alicia have received similar calls, and the girls convene at Jessica’s home to discuss the situation – torn between needing to know what happened at the old homestead, yet dreading return to the place that still haunts their dreams. 

As they make the journey together, they soon have a confrontation with their old foster mother, quickly realizing that she still – even now, has an ability to manipulate the girls, provoking behaviors they’ve worked hard to overcome.  They also meet some other children (now adults) whom were also cared for in the home, and are equally befuddled as to whom might have died there, and when…but all will be revealed, both truth and lies, in time… 

Told in then and now perspectives of each of the sisters, the reader learns of how they came to be placed in Miss Fairchild’s home, the struggles they endured and the unbreakable bond they formed in the face of significant psychological and physical abuse.  

This was a great read! As the story evolves, the potential identity of the body found becomes even more of a mystery – every theory I came up with was ultimately wrong – before the unexpected reveal – and even then, there’s a twist or two to go!  This is my second novel by the very talented Sally Hepworth and I eagerly await her next work!! 

Available from your favorite bookseller on April 23rd.

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & Random House Publishing Group in exchange for an objective review. Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

It’s May of 1966 and 20-year-old Frances “Frankie” McGrath of Coronado Island, California and her family are celebrating, as her brother Finley prepares to follow in the family footsteps and head off to war – in Vietnam.  As she gazes at the Hero Wall in her father’s study – a tribute to those male family members who have served their country in wars past, she has a chance encounter with her brother’s best friend, Rye – who tells her how the world is changing. Women can be heroes too.  A comment that will prove to be life changing for Frankie. 

With Finley off to war, Frankie finishes nursing school, starts her first nursing job and corresponds faithfully with her brother. One night on rounds, she meets a young patient who had lost a leg in the war and was still struggling to recover. He tells Frankie about a nurse who cared for him in ‘Nam and how she got him through the worst. As she holds his hand while he falls asleep, she makes her decision – she too, is going to join the military and serve her country – as a nurse.  

When Frankie finishes up basic training, she receives her orders and heads in-country, where nothing is remotely as she anticipated.  As she settles into her lodgings, she meets roommates Ethel and Barb, and the three women soon become one another’s lifelines in a world of sheer chaos. As Frankie slowly adapts to her surroundings, and ultimately excels, she finds equal amounts love, loss, heartbreak and hope… 

With her tour finally complete, she returns stateside – to derision, apathy and disrespect. The public has become increasingly anti-war; her own father lied about her whereabouts to friends. No one understands what she’s been through, and even worse, her own family doesn’t want to hear about it and cannot understand why it haunts her so.  It will take a hard fall, a visit to rock bottom, and the love of family and her two Vietnam hooch mates to help her find her find the light once more. Complete with an unexpected (or maybe not) ending, that I absolutely loved!

This novel was absolutely amazing!!! The scenery was described so vividly, the characters so…real! I felt like I was in the wings, watching! I laughed, I cried, I learned a lot about a war that was before my time – and I mourned…I simply could not stop reading!  So, grab some Kleenex, a snack, a beverage and a nice comfy place to settle in for a few hours because you will not be able to put this one down.  

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an objective review. Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

This is an action packed, suspenseful novel that is loosely based on the 2021 apartment building collapse in south Florida; it takes the reader right into the heart of such a disaster, with vivid description from the scene – the exuberance of a rescue, the fear of an imminent collapse, the horror of realizing that the survivors are few – and the desolation of working that scene, day in and day out, until everyone is found. 

It’s a chilly December morning when Meg Jennings, a member of the FBI’s Human Scent Evidence Team, gets word that a building has collapsed without warning in downtown DC, in the vicinity of the White House. Details are slim, but she knows she’ll be needed at the scene, so, quickly mobilizing, she and K-9 Hawk, along with close friend and news reporter McCord head to the scene.   

Upon their arrival, it is every bit as bad as Meg had feared. A 12-story building has partially collapsed, each floor pancaking atop the other, with rubble extending into the roadway of a busy thoroughfare and countless victims trapped within the debris.  The remainder of the building looks as if it will fall at any moment. Even worse, Meg knows her fiancé, firefighter Todd Webb is on scene amidst the chaos and likely in the wreckage searching for survivors. 

As multiple disciplines converge on scene to gauge scene safety and to stabilize the area, Meg & Hawk await their orders. They are soon joined by her partner Brian & his K-9 Lacey – and are quickly cleared to begin working the debris pile, a three-story mountain of shattered concrete. Victories are few and far between, and the work quickly takes its toll on both human and canine searchers.   

Readers learn of the incredible efforts put forth to find and save lives – from running simulations of where people may have been in their apartments at a particular time, to episodic quiet times, where rescuers deploy equipment looking for heat signatures & calls or tapping for help.  We follow Webb and his fellow firefighters as they risk their lives to go door to door, clearing units in the portion of the building still standing and securing any pets that may have survived.  

Webb risks his life to pull a lone survivor out of a deep pocket beneath the very unstable building, and in doing so he also finds something covertly tucked into a support beam. With suspicions mounting that this was not a structural collapse, McCord, an investigative journalist, digs deep into the possibility of resident being targeted, or worse a terrorist attack – but can they identify the culprits before they strike again. 

This book was phenomenal!! I love all of the books in this series, but this one was stellar!  I was fascinated by all the technology described, the work of the K-9’s, the ability of multijurisdictional teams to come together, working seamlessly to retrieve survivors and to bring home those who perished.  The depictions of emotions, both high and low, human and canine…just an amazing read! 

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & Kensington Books in exchange for an objective review. Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!

Oh my goodness, I absolutely LOVED this book and did NOT want it to end! 

Sonya MacTavish is drowning in wedding preparations, when she decides to forego a meet with the florist and heads home instead, only to find her fiancé, Brandon, in bed with her cousin.  Furious, she tosses them both out of her home and calls her bestie, Cleo, for moral support. To add insult to injury, she and Brandon are both employed by the same advertising agency, so run ins with him are inevitable.  But when work starts disappearing from her computer and her vehicle is vandalized, Sonya knows it’s time to move on and to start her own solo business. 

Soon after she splits from her employer, Sonya receives a visitor. He claims to be the attorney for her late father’s twin, Collin – an uncle she, nor the rest of her family, knew she had.  The attorney spends some time telling her an incredible story and tops it off with her inheritance – the family home in a small coastal town in Maine – and all that comes with it. The caveat – she needs to reside there for so many months a year.  She is astonished at the photos the attorney shows her – and even more perplexed when her mother recognizes the home from her late father’s sketches. With nothing to lose, Sonya decides to move to Maine to give the home a try. 

Once she settles in, with assistance from the attorney’s son Trey, it quickly becomes apparent that she is not alone. Beds that turn themselves down & fireplaces that seemingly light themselves become a daily occurrence, as does a runaway tablet – that seems to play random songs to fit Sonya’s mood at certain moments.  As she begins to research her newfound family’s ancestry, she slowly begins to learn the identity of the ghosts she lives with – and the dreams start; dreams of the Poole brides of the past, and their untimely demises – with the brides urging Sonya to find the rings – and end the curse…

This is the first book of a trilogy, and I absolutely fell in love with the characters. Having lived in small-town Maine, I can almost envision the ancestral home and its widow walk overlooking the sea. Ghosts, lost loves, family lore, a centuries-old curse, and present day romance – this book is pure magic, I just could not put it down, and I fervently hope Nora doesn’t make us wait too long for the rest of the story.  A fantastic read from a master storyteller! 

I received this book as an Advance Reader Copy from Netgalley & St. Martin’s Press in exchange for an objective review. Do you love to read?? Visit netgalley.com and start reviewing books today!!