review: i know my name by c.j. cooke

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C.J. Cooke's debut is a stunner. I Know My Name opens with a woman waking up after washing ashore on a remote island near Crete. A few pages later, a man receives a phone call from his neighbor who has discovered his two young children have been left alone. Lochlan rushes home where he finds his wife has indeed vanished with only her old Swiss passport missing. There are a number of directions Cooke could've gone with I Know My Name, but the reveal was quite unexpected. This tightly crafted psychological thriller delves into dark subject matter, but Cooke handles it brilliantly.
5/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: sweet tea and sympathy by molly harper

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Molly Harper's new series kicks off with a hilarious scene involving shrimp, flamingos, and the trampling of rare orchids. It's a big enough disaster to cause Margot Cary to be fired from her job and not be able to get another suitable position. Making matters worse, she didn't renew her lease because she was buying a condo, which is out of the question now. So even though she hasn't had any contact with her father's family since her mom left him when Margot was a toddler, Margot agrees to her Great Aunt Tootie's job offer. The adjustment to life in small town Georgia after living in Chicago makes for more hilarity.

Sweet Tea and Sympathy is a sweet story of family. And does Margot have quite the family! They are a colorful bunch to say the least. This first in a series is filled with the hijinks of a close family and all sorts of small town gossip and rivalries. There's also a Hallmark movie-style romance between Margot and the widowed elementary school principal.
4/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Gallery.

review: beyond scandal and desire by lorraine heath

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Mick Trewlove is a self-made man with a vendetta. He was given up to a baby farmer by the Duke of Hedley, whose legitimate son has a gambling problem. Mick's plan for revenge is two-fold--he'll win the Duke's property through the son's poor gambling decisions and also gain the affection of the son's betrothed, who happens to be Hedley's ward. But Mick didn't count on actually falling for the kind-hearted Lady Aslyn.

The first in a new series, Beyond Scandal and Desire has a fantastic plot and tremendously enjoyable characters. The secondary characters (who in some cases will be main characters in future books) were just as multi-dimensional as the main characters. Despite taking place in 1871, Aslyn is a headstrong young woman. In keeping with the time, she's been sheltered, but Lorraine Heath makes sure she has agency when it comes to the romance. There's also an excellent twist that causes Mick to rethink everything.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Avon.

review: hit so hard by patty schemel

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The child of two recovering alcoholics, Patty Schemel (best known as the drummer for Hole) experienced AA meetings in her living room, but also a significant amount of underage drinking (starting at age 12) and pot smoking with her siblings. Schemel also found a love for music and playing the drums. As someone who loved the grunge scene, I found the details of playing shows and recording particularly interesting. Unfortunately some of the details have been lost to a heroin haze. She doesn't shy away from revealing the lows she sank to while struggling with her addiction to heroin and later, crack as well.

Schemel (alongside Erin Hosier) is an excellent storyteller with a narrative style that's a bit like a friend sharing her story. Her descriptions of the horrors of heroin, the fast times with Hole, and the failed times in rehab make the all too familiar tale of an addicted rock star into an engrossing memoir.
5/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: hiding out by tina alexis allen

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Tina Alexis Allen had quite the childhood. The youngest of 13, she grew up with an alcoholic father who was abusive to her mother. In an incredibly candid memoir, Allen reveals she began drinking at a young age and alleges two of her brothers sexually abused her. And although Allen doesn't characterize her first sexual relationship as abuse, it was with one her middle school teachers while Allen was that teacher's student. Allen says this is her "younger self's truth" which seems to explain why she doesn't outright say that her teacher's actions were a crime and that her nights of partying with her father were inappropriate. The Allen of today may know all this, but the Allen of the time seemed to just be happy to be out as a lesbian to someone in her family. She and her father bonded not only over drinking, but regarding their sexuality. Despite a long marriage to a woman and 13 children, Allen's father was gay. And it would turn out that wasn't her father's only secret--he also had a clandestine job that Allen still hasn't completely uncovered. Hiding Out is a shocking, but powerful read.
5/5
Review copy provided by the publisher, Dey Street.

review: little monsters by kara thomas

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After moving to Broken Falls to live with the dad she never knew, Kacey is quickly befriended by two girls who have been best friends for years. Sometimes they're a bit distant though, like the night they don't pick up Kacey for the party. That might not have been a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but it ends up being the night Bailey goes missing. As the cops investigate, it starts to look like Kacey, the outsider, knows more than she's sharing.

This young adult thriller was amazing! It reminded me a lot of a recent headline-grabbing news story (link is to the story which will spoil the plot), but Kara Thomas puts her own spin on it to make the story even more shocking. The writing is superb as the mystery unfolds. There are plenty of good suspects to keep the reader guessing, but not so many as to overwhelm. The inclusion of some of Bailey's diary entries is a nice touch that allows the reader to get to know Bailey while also letting Thomas reveal some important plot details.
5/5
Review copy from Amazon Vine.

review: the sisters of glass ferry by kim michele richardson

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In Kentucky in 1952 twins Patsy and Flannery are high school students. Flannery is quite serious while Patsy is more adventuresome and excited about an upcoming school dance. By 1972 (The Sisters of Glass Ferry is told in alternating timelines), Patsy has been missing for 20 years and Flannery is visiting her hometown when what happened to Patsy and her boyfriend is finally revealed. There is a lot of set up with nothing much happening until the end of the seventh chapter. It takes a few more chapters for the reader to find out what happened to Patsy and even more for Flannery to learn the truth.

While some stories lend themselves well to the alternating timeline form, all it did for The Sisters of Glass Ferry was make a potentially thrilling story boring. The Sisters of Glass Ferry suffers from a lot of backstory as well as unnecessary information about Flannery's life 20 years after her twin's disappearance. Furthermore, Kim Michele Richardson extends the story well beyond what was needed by time-jumping to 2012 with a new revelation that harkened back to a previous plot point hardly developed at all. It all seems to be done to make the female characters experience one huge tragedy after another.

About the audiobook: Marguerite Gavin is the narrator for The Sisters of Glass Ferry by Kim Michele Richardson. She does a good job with the content she was given placing the right emphasis on words and using appropriate inflections. She changed tone to show that Patsy was more carefree than Flannery. The audio version was published November 2017 by Blackstone Audio. It runs 8 hours.
2/5
Review copy provided by Audiobook Jukebox.