Newlyweds Ethan and Tricia are starting their life together. They’re about to embark on a major milestone as a married couple, purchasing their first home together. They luck out to find a grand home off the beaten path that’s been placed on the market.
When they go to view the home, they are stranded and must spend the night in the home due to a blizzard. The home is the former home of renowned psychiatrist Dr. Adrienne Hale, who disappeared three years prior.
While there, Tricia discovers cassette tapes that Dr. Hale used to record the therapy sessions of her patients. The tapes reveal a roadmap to what may have led to Dr. Hale’s disappearance and so much more.
This was a wickedly good story. In the beginning, I really thought that I had this story pegged. Boy was I wrong. One plot twist kept turning into another plot twist, and yet another. Freida McFadden’s work will regularly be on my TBR list with high anticipation.
Cleo Forsum, a novelist, is relatively successful in most aspects of her life. She writes best sellers, turned those best sellers into a successful TV show, and has a loving husband and extended family. So why does she want to abandon it all to start anew? When people close to her start turning up hurt or dead, it is evident that something sinister is lurking in the shadows beckoning her to leave it all behind. These criminal acts are almost identical to the crimes in her best-selling novels, which gives reason to the police to be doubtful of Cleo’s innocence.
Cleo just wants the violence to end. Will her compliance with the demand from a figure from her past be enough to stop the bloodshed?
This book was a slow burn. The story became predictable quite early on. About the halfway mark, the predictability was laid right out in the open only to twist ever so slightly and on to another trajectory making this a beautifully treacherous ride. My only grievance was that the book was a bit too long, it could have been shorter. I will be reading more from Dorothy Koomson though, she has tickled my fancy for her other work.
Jay Gatsby, an alluring young man with promise, was shot to death at his West Egg, NY home. For all intents and purposes, this is a clear cut case of murder-suicide between local mechanic George Wilson and Jay Gatsby.
Not everyone believes this solid and neatly crafted conclusion to this unfortunate ordeal. Enter Detective Frank Charles, who is called in to find out what really happened. Detective Charles is relentless and is determined to do just that once he finds a diamond hairpin near the murder scene.
During his investigation, three women become persons of interest. Daisy Buchanan, a woman from Gatsby’s past who is currently married to Tom Buchanan, a philandering millionaire. Jordan Baker, an excellent golf player who plays on the national circuit, is Daisy”s best friend and knows Gatsby from earlier years as well. Catherine McCoy, a suffragette, passionate about women rights, whose sister Myrtle Wilson, is in an abusive marriage, is also a familiar acquaintance of Gatsby.
All three women are entangled in an intricate web of deception and obsession, carefully orchestrated by Gatsby himself. Will Detective Charles uncover the truth of who really led Gatsby to his demise?
A brilliant remix on the classic, The Great Gatsby, Beautiful Little Fools, offers a strongly crafted possibility of what happened to J. Gatsby. It is told from the perspectives of the women in Gatsby’s world.
I absolutely loved the reworking of The Great Gatsby. In Beautiful Little Fools, Cantor with much care and respect for the original story, beautifully offered a nuanced retelling of the timeless classic. It brought into focus the women of the Great Gatsby in an interesting way. I thoroughly enjoyed every drop.
Maggie Franklin grew up in a family of ill-repute. Her mother was a former prostitute, while her father was the town drunk. She becomes really fast friends with Hubert Wiggins. Hubert, comes from a prominent family in their community of Lexington, Alabama. Both Maggie and Hubert knows deep things about each other that solidifies their friendship.
As they grow up, Hubert becomes one of the most eligible bachelors in their town. Maggie, on the other hand is not so lucky. Both of their parents however, are pressuring them to get married. Neither of them are interested in marriage at the time. However, in an attempt to stop the parental pressure, they make a pact to marry one another. Their family is complete when their son Claude is born.
The Wiggins become the most revered family in Lexington. Maggie now has a charmed life. She’s the daughter-in-law of a pastor, her husband runs the family funeral business and works part-time at the turpentine mill, and she’s the doting mother to a wonderful son.
All is going great until her son grows up and becomes involved with a young woman named Daisy. Daisy proves to be a very challenging person. Claude’s relationship with Daisy sets a domino effect of events in Mrs. Wiggins life that threatens all that is good in it.
I enjoyed this story a lot. It showed how life can turn out, depending on how the person living it perceives the circumstances that they’re faced with. It was a story loaded with life lessons. I was hooked from start to finish.
Nella Rogers is the only black employee at Wagner, until a new black girl, Hazel McCall enters the scene. Hazel is everything Nella is not. She’s a breathe of fresh air with her bold African-inspired esthetic and fashion and affable ways. She’s a welcoming and friendly face for Nella, who since her beginnings at Wagner, has had to battle microagressions from white people at Wagner all alone. Nella’s only reprieve from shedding the weight of those microagressions was by sharing her true feelings with her good friend, Malaika.
Nella is intrigued and hopeful in Hazel’s presence. Could she finally exhale and enjoy some genuine comradarie with a fellow coworker? Nella shares the inner workings of the office with Hazel, providing to Hazel something she was not privileged to have upon her own arrival at Wagner years ago.
Although, Nella and Hazel are the only black girls employed at Wagner now, years ago there were two black predecessors (author, Diana Gordon and editor, Kendra Rae Phillips) working at Wagner. What were their experiences like? Could they provide some perspective on how to work while black at Wagner?
All seems to be moving along great, until Nella starts receiving threatening notes demanding that she “leave Wagner now”. Nella wonders who is leaving these notes? Even more so, is Hazel also receiving these notes? Nella goes on a quest to learn the truth.
This book was an interesting yet exhausting read for me. I really wanted to connect with the book. There were many characters that showed up frequently throughout the story but there was no character development. I would have liked to see these characters more fleshed out (i.e. Nella, Malaika, Hazel, Jesse Watson, Richard Wagner). When a character did something or a particular viewpoint from a character was introduced it was not expounded on. It confused me often.
I would have liked to see a more concrete and parallel connection shown between Diana and Kendra’s experience against Nella and Hazel’s experience at Wagner. Some positives from the book is that it may spark dialogue about the very real microagressions black people experience being employed in non-diverse work spaces. It also may spark a dialogue among blacks about the different types of black employee and how differences can be embraced and celebrated instead of becoming a breeding ground for unhealthy competition.
I expected much more from the presentation of the story. I do respect the hard work it took for the author to present this body of work. It just wasn’t my cup of tea.
Milton and Yvonne are both on the money train provided to them by their neighbor, Odell. This was made possible due to their knowledge of him living a double life outside of the one he lives with his wife, Joyce. With the money they are pulling in both together and individually from their blackmail of Odell, along with their successful bootlegging business, they’re living the life. They’re looking forward to being on easy street very soon with this arrangement. Odell is fed up with his neighbors blackmailing him. He is determined to get from under their grip by any means necessary. One evening, Odell meets with Yvonne and Milton to finally discuss putting an end to this blackmail. Odell discovers something that will change the course of all of their lives forever. It took a little longer in this book to get to what I wanted to know; but it still was a great conclusion to a trilogy.
Milton and Yvonne Hamilton are former convicts who met each other at a time each of them were trying to turn over a new leaf in life. Fresh out of prison, Yvonne moves in with her man, Lester, who supported her while she was in prison. One night she goes home and discovers that Lester and her best friend Katy is having an affair. After she heaps revenge on the two, she moves forward in her life with Milton. They marry and he gets her a job as a waitress at the restaurant where he is the head cook. Milton’s friend, Willie Frank, gets them into the bootlegging business. The combination of their salaries and profits earned from their bootlegging operation, helped the Hamiltons move to a well-to-do neighborhood. Their business topples out the competition and they do exceedingly well in their new neighborhood.
They meet their next door neighbors, Odell and Joyce Watson. They are upstanding citizens in the neighborhood. Joyce and Odell are role models for Milton and Yvonne. They’re friendly and neighborly with the Watsons. When Milton discovers that Odell is living a double life, he starts blackmailing Odell, simultaneously keeping secrets of his own.
In a drunken stupor one night, he spills the beans of Odell’s double life to Yvonne. She tips her hand to Odell and starts getting paid from him due to her own blackmailing scheme. Things come to a head when the Hamiltons are raided during one of their parties on trumped up charges. Who is responsible for toppling the Hamilton’s bootlegging operation?
What I loved about reading this book is the immediate way it grabbed my attention. The story was entertaining and the pace moved right along without dragging out. I wanted to read more and more to see what was going to happen next. Once again, this is what I love about reading Mary Monroe’s books. This is a great formula and I’m glad she sticks with it. This story ends with a major cliffhanger. I’m ready to read the next installment in the series to see if everything gets revealed. I’m so ready for that.
Louise is a single mother of a young son. She lives a self-proclaimed non-eventful life. One night she goes to a local pub and meets a handsome stranger, who she flirts with to the point of a kiss. The stranger admits he’s married and they go their separate ways. When she goes to work the next morning, she discovers that the stranger, is her new boss, David. She later runs into his wife Adele. They strike up a conversation and a friendship. Adele forces Louise to keep their friendship a secret from David. As time goes on, Louise and David act on their attraction with one another and enters into an affair. Louise is caught in the middle of the husband and wife’s sadistic marriage.
I was excited to read this book. However, it became exhausting after awhile. It was very lengthy, which is not necessarily a bad thing. The story just felt like it dragged through a huge portion of the book. It took beyond the halfway mark for the mystery to unfold. The ending was a twister that I didn’t see coming; which I did enjoy. I only wished that I wasn’t dragged along for this long ride to get to the mystery of it all.
Jocelyn was a young girl born into the aristocratic Holt family. Her parents are Lady Virginia and Lord Alexander Holt of Lake Hall. Her young life is suddenly upended when her nanny Hannah, disappears from her life. When Jocelyn inquires of why Hannah has left, her mother says Hannah has left because Jocelyn was a bad girl. In the years after Hannah’s disappearance, the distance between Jocelyn and her mother Virginia grows deeply. She moves to the U.S, gets married, and has a daughter named Ruby. While she’s away her father dies. She did not attend the funeral. When her husband Chris dies, she reluctantly moves back to England to her childhood home, Lake Hall. When she returns, the distance is almost deafening between Virginia and Jo, a new and shortened name that Jocelyn insists on being called.
Ruby is a spirited young girl who loves her grandmother. Virginia takes to Ruby and admires her spunk. However, Jo does not want Ruby to be influenced by her mother. One day while Ruby and Jo are at Lake Hall, a skull is found in the lake. Jo’s mind turns immediately to wondering if this is her nanny that disappeared all those years ago. Many sinister developments begin to unfold. Jo can’t decide who or what to believe.
It took me longer than I wanted to read this book. It wasn’t boring, it was just slow taking off. Once it got under way, though, it was pretty interesting. As things started coming to light, I got the sense that nothing was as it seemed. My least favorite character would have to be Jo. She kept questioning her intuition. Even her daughter Ruby accepted her own intuitions more than Jo did. It took so long for her to see the writing on the wall, in my opinion. Although the book took a while for me to get into it, it was ok.
FOREVER BOOK FEVER 