Reviews – Page 7 – Books Dani Likes

Murder in the Storybook Cottage by Ellery Adams

Hello Kittens! I continue to read up a storm from my quarantine conditions and I have got a treat for you today. It’s the sixth book in a series, so if you haven’t read the Book Retreat Mystery Series by Ellery Adams, now would be a good time to get started. I’ll be honest with you about this one: it saved the series for me. I found the fifth book to be a little underwhelming and I was starting to lose faith in the storyline. There’s a fantastic subplot that goes along with the series and I felt like the fifth book stretched the believability too far. That being said, “Murder in the Storybook Cottage” was amazing! It is a cozy quick read that will be available in less than two weeks and I think it may be just what someone people need to help deal with the stir crazy nature of staying at home.

Title: Murder in the Storybook Cottage

Author: Ellery Adams Murder in the Storybook Cottage (Book Retreat Mysteries #6)

Author website: https://elleryadamsmysteries.com/

Publisher: Kensington

Publish date: April 28^th, 2020

ISBN: 9781496715675

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

***If you are unfamiliar with the Book Retreat series, this review will contain some spoilers.***

This is the sixth installment in the Book Retreat Mystery series by Ellery Adams following Jane Steward, her sons, and her loyal friends and staff at Storyton Hall. I discovered this series a few years ago after devouring Adams’ Books by the Bay series and fell instantly in love with the book-themed resort located in the mountains of Virginia. This book restored my faith in the series after a somewhat disappointing (in my opinion) 5^th book.

We join the action as Jane prepares Storyton Hall to host a children’s book themed weekend for both book industry insiders and families. She is especially excited to be hosting her first Golden Ticket family, a program Jane initiated to bring a deserving family to Storyton who would not normally be able to afford a vacation to Storyton. Things are going well for Jane and her friends, especially as she continues to sell off the contents of the secret library in order to keep her family safe. All seems well as Jane and the staff prepare for a magical weekend, but even with their efforts to mitigate the danger at Storyton, a Rip Van Winkle (code for a deceased guest) is found on the property. The victim is unknown to Jane, her staff, or seemingly any of the arriving guests, which complicates the efforts to explain this death.

Adams has taken this series in a completely new direction with this addition and I am completely supportive of it. Jane is a strong woman, managing a business, taking care of two boys, and setting boundaries on her relationship. But this time, we see the toll that so many years of fighting to protect everyone in her life has taken on her. Jane wants nothing more than for everyone to be safe at Storyton, and she can’t believe that even with all of her efforts, there is still danger afoot. Fortunately for Jane, she never has to stand alone. With her friends the Cover Girls, her steadfast Fins, and her family surrounding her, we know that she will get to the bottom of the mystery while ensuring that all her guests have a weekend they will never forget.

The shining star of this series is truly the setting. When I get to the end of each story and remember that Storyton Hall is not a real place, I am always disappointed. Adams has designed a world that cherishes readers in all forms and she introduces characters that represent the diversity of literature. The books don’t shy away from the tough subjects: this one addresses racism and the lack of diversity in children’s literature. I am really looking forward to seeing where this series will go next…especially with the information that was set up in the epilogue! I can’t believe I have to wait to see how two of my favorite series are going to come together.

Disclaimer: I received an electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

You have no idea how badly I wanted to give this book a 5-glass rating, but it has a few scenes that could be upsetting to some readers. There is mention of an accident that results in the death of a child, and there are also two somewhat grisly murders. While the details aren’t too explicit, there’s enough there that could put someone off. I would almost move this addition to the series out of the cozy category because of the manner of the deaths. Nonetheless, the murders themselves take place off of the page and there are no spicy scenes, so this is a series I will continue to widely recommend to mystery readers.

The Bromance Book Club by Lyssa Kay Adams

Update 5/14/20: The Bromance Book Club has been optioned by Netflix, according to the author: https://twitter.com/lyssakayadams/status/1255857707405529088

Hello Kittens! Quarantine is weird y’all. The one positive is that I am catching up on some long overdue reading. I was granted access to our next book several months back on NetGalley and it ended up languishing on my E-reader for the next few months. In fact, by the time I got around to it, the second book in this series had already come out, but better late than never. This book combined something that I love: baseball, with something that I don’t read a lot of: romance. While the book is light on the baseball and heavy on the romance, it was still a refreshing change in my reading game, and I’ll be picking up the next book in the series whenever my library re-opens. It’s a strange sensation for a librarian to be without a library for so long.

Title: The Bromance Book Club The Bromance Book Club (Bromance Book Club, #1)

Author: Lyssa Kay Adams

Author website: http://www.lyssakayadams.com/

Publisher: Berkley

Publish date: November 5, 2019

ISBN: 9781984806092

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Gavin Scott has screwed up his marriage. He’s not sure how, but he has, and now his wife wants him out of the house. We meet him as he overindulges in drink at the hotel where he now resides. A group of his professional baseball teammates and few as yet unknown-to-him extras tag along and offer him a chance to get his wife, Thea, back. He doesn’t believe that is really possible at that point, but he’s willing to try anything. He truly loves Thea and he doesn’t want to lose his two beautiful twin daughters either. His friends let him in on a secret club that’s been operating right under his nose: a book club for men that exclusively reads romance novels. These guys have discovered the shocking truth of romance novels: that they are written for women and contain nuggets of wisdom that might be useful to men in terms of understanding what women want. At first Gavin is hostile and skeptical of the idea, but he wants Thea back, and he’s willing to give it a try.

Thea has put up with a lot since marrying Gavin. Being a professional baseball players wife comes with significant social expectations, and Thea really doesn’t fit it. Fed up with the way that the other wives and girlfriends have treated her and frustrated with Gavin’s absences, both physically and emotionally, she has drawn her line in the sand. Thea is ready to move on from that life and embrace the dreams that she put on hold when she met Gavin. With the support of her sister, Thea agrees to an ultimatum with Gavin that will get him out of her life for good.

This story was both humorous and extremely sexy. There’s a lot of description of what goes on in the bedroom, especially since that is a central conflict in the story. There’s also a story within the story, which is the romance novel that Gavin is reading while trying to remedy the situation with Thea. In addition to the romance storyline, we also get to know Thea as she embraces her new life and comes to terms with the past that made her so hesitant to live out a fairytale. Of the two main characters, I definitely preferred reading about what was going on with her embracing her own power as opposed to Gavin getting over his ego to understand that he neglected her. It’s always nice to see a romance novel tackle the bigger issues in relationships, and complacency in marriage, while not unique, is certainly important.

I loved the concept of men treating romance novels as though they were textbooks. To a certain extent, it’s a realistic option for men who are trying to figure out how to communicate with women. I like that Adams is addressing the problems that arise when women think relationships are going to turn out like romance novels and then are disappointed in reality. By the time I got around to reading this galley, the second book in the series had just released, and according to Amazon, there’s going to be a third addition to the series releasing in October. Adams definitely isn’t wasting any time, and it looks like the second book in the series extrapolates a romance that was hinted at in the first book.

All in all, I think romance readers are going to enjoy this addition to the canon. The book got great reviews when it came out and has topped several recommended romance reading lists since then.

Disclaimer: I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My rating:

1 glass of lemonade= a book that can only be recommended to someone whose reading taste you know well, like a best friend. There may be a fair amount of curse words, spicy sex scenes, or potentially morally repugnant behavior. This does not mean that the book is bad, just that the audience might be a little more limited.

It was a good read, but there are sex scenes every few chapters, so you need to really know what someone is looking for in a book before you recommend this one. Also be aware that there is a little bit of emotional abuse from one of the character’s childhoods.

Sisters by Choice by Susan Mallery

Hello Kittens! I hope everyone is adjusting to life under quarantine as best as they can. I have to admit that I am starting to go a little stir crazy. As much as I love reading, eye-strain is real, so even I have to take a break every now and again. Things are so off-balance for me that I did something that I have not done in a really long time…two things actually. I accepted a book recommendation from someone who’s tastes I know are different from mine and I started a book that was in a series without knowing anything about the series or having read any of the previous books. It turned out to be a great move. Readers, I stayed up all night to finish this book. I literally read the whole thing in a 12 hour span with a few breaks in between. I was up until 4am because I couldn’t make myself put it down (although it probably didn’t hurt that I knew I didn’t have to worry about going to work that morning). This one came out a little over two months ago now and it wasn’t really on my radar, but it is a sweet and simple read that I think is just the ticket for these stressful times. Pick it up if you get the chance.

Title: Sisters by Choice Sisters by Choice (Blackberry Island, #4)

Author: Susan Mallery

Author website: https://www.susanmallery.com/

Publisher: Mira (imprint of Harlequin)

Publish date: February 11, 2020

ISBN: 9780778310020

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

I should start off by revealing that I am not a Susan Mallery fan. I don’t have anything against her, I just tend to prefer a grittier kind of writing and I’m not a huge romance reader. That being said, i’ll be giving her releases a little more of my attention in the future. I don’t know why, but I had pegged her in my mind as more of a Danielle Steel-type writer. This book actually reads more like a Jenny Colgan novel, so if you like her work, definitely give this one a try. Also, if the world is just all too much right now, this is a great escape.

We start off by meeting Sophie Lane, a type-A personality who is on an unimaginative and fairly uninteresting second date. Then she gets a phone call that changes her entire life. The business that she has built from the ground up has just gone up in flames. No one was hurt, but she’s going to have to start all over again, and to make matters worse, when she relocates to a new factory to get started, none of her former employees are willing to go with her. Fortunately for Sophie, the new location is in her hometown, a sweet little coastal area of Blackberry Island, Washington. Who needs loyal employees when she’s got family, right?

Kristine Fielding is Sophie’s cousin and long-time Blackberry Island resident. She is married with three young sons and seemingly has the perfect home life. She also has a small successful baking business on the side that she runs out of her home kitchen. She does it all… but her boys are growing up and she’s starting to want more. When a local property that’s perfect for a bakery storefront comes on the market, she desperately wants to expand her baking dream. She does the research and prepares to discuss the plan with her husband. She’s supported his dreams for their entire marriage, so he’ll be happy to help her build hers, right?

Amber Sitterly is Sophie’s cousin. Amber and her daughter, Heather, begin working for Sophie once she gets her factory up and running, but just because they’re family doesn’t mean all is right in paradise. Amber has a victim mentality about all aspects of her life, nothing is good enough for her, she deserves more than she gets, and she shouldn’t have to work hard for any of it. Heather supports her mother, depleting her savings to give her mother what she wants, but Heather has bigger dreams. She wants to get away from her mother and her negative influence and make something more of her life. Heather works hard and sees working for Sophie as an amazing learning opportunity, as long as Amber doesn’t screw it up for both of them. Amber wouldn’t do anything to undermine Heather or hurt Sophie’s business, right?

And then there’s Dugan. He’s a sexy tai chi instructor who might be just the relaxing no-strings man that Sophie needs. He’s simple and good in bed and seems to be willing to keep their relationship in the “with benefits but no emotional attachments” category. At the same time, he seems to know a lot about her business, and he’s always butting in with advice that she didn’t ask for. When it turns out that Dugan’s more than a pretty face, Sophie has trouble fighting the urge to cut her losses and move on.

This is book 4 in the Blackberry Island novels, and despite having not read any of the other novels, I was able to follow the story line without confusion. Actually, this book was so engaging that I may be picking up the other books in the series the next time that I get a chance. My one issue, if you can call it that, is that these characters are prone to making the same mistakes over and over again, which stretches the believability aspect a little. But that was it. If you are looking for a good escapist novel over the next few weeks, this one would be a good option.

Disclaimer: None needed this time. I picked up this title from the library pre-quarantine.

My rating:

lemonade_icon 2 glasses of lemonade= a book that you could probably recommend to family and close friends. They may not like everything that’s in it, but they’re not going to start sending you cards with holy scripture written in them as messages to get you back on the path of righteousness after reading them either.

This was a great book but it definitely has a few steamy scenes. Unless you know the person, I would be cautious about a recommendation without a heads up about the steam-factor.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Hello Kittens! I hope everyone is staying as well as they can. I know that for many people these are scary and uncertain times and I hope that you are finding comfort in any small ways that you can. I have been finding some small solace in reading. I’ve only been home for a few days but I’ve managed to immerse myself in my TBR pile and plow through a few books that had been lounging without the attention they deserved over the last few weeks. Reading allows me to get out of my head. I only know that things have gotten to be too much in my life when I can no longer focus on a book. Fortunately, I have not reached that point yet. This book is a creepy one that just might take your mind off of the real world for awhile. I know that it did the trick for me.

Title: The Sun Down Motel

Author: Simone St. James

Author website: http://www.simonestjames.com/

Publisher: Berkley (Penguin Random House imprint)

Publish date: February 18, 2020

ISBN: 9780440000174

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Simone St. James came on my radar last year when I read The Broken Girls as part of my PopSugar Challenge and it blew me away. She’s now on my must-read list, so when her newest book, The Sun Down Motel was offered as one of the options for the January Book of the Month Box, I jumped on it. St. James sets the scenes for creepy mysteries like no one else that I have ever read. She integrates more supernatural elements in this story than she did in The Broken Girls but still creates plenty of scary moments with her earthly characters as well. The story opens with two narratives, separated by 35 years, following Vivian Delaney in 1982 and Carly Kirk in 2017.,

In 1982 Viv Delaney has run away from home and is on her way to New York City to start a new life. She ends up only making it as far as Fell, New York, a sleepy town with limited opportunities. Viv finds work as the night desk clerk at the Sun Down Motel. The job doesn’t require too much of her, since the motel only has a few customers at a time. Soon after starting work, Viv begins to notice some strange happenings at the Sun Down. The more she works there, the more it seems like some of the hotel’s guest checked in…and never left. As Viv begins to unravel the mysteries of the Sun Down, both past and present, she puts herself in real danger. By the end of the first chapter we know one thing for sure about Viv Delaney: by 3am on November 30, 1982, she will vanish.

In 2017, Carly Kirk makes her way to Fell, seeking purpose in her life after the death of her mother. She is drawn to Fell because of an unsolved family mystery, the disappearance of her aunt Viv in 1982. No one in the family would talk about what happened to her aunt, and Carly doesn’t want to live with that mystery hanging over her any longer, so she travels to Fell to find out what really happened. Carly settles into town and starts investigating, ultimately following in her aunt’s footsteps and taking the night desk clerk job at the Sun Down Motel. Along the way she meets a cast of characters who are both helpful and unnerving, including the Sun Down’s long-term residents. She begins putting all of the pieces together and finds herself following the same trails that her aunt did. Carly discovers the truth. Viv Delaney wasn’t the first woman to go missing in Fell. In fact, the town has a history of women meeting violent ends…but Viv was the last.

Told in alternating narratives between Viv and Carly, the reader gets deeply inside the heads of both women. The setting of Fell, New York is eerie, with everyone in town seeming to acknowledge that bad things happen to women in their town. The ambivalence of the townspeople and the local police force in light of these facts only adds to the novel’s tension. Viv’s old-school armchair detective work contrasts sharply with the information that is available to Carly with modern technology. Even as both women are leading the reader to the same conclusion, the story holds so many twists that the reader is going to be flying through the pages, unable to put the book down for fear that they’ll miss something. St. James has a knack for adding supernatural elements that don’t bog down the story. When the final conclusion comes to bear, the real monsters are all too human.

The story is excellent entertainment, but it doesn’t shy away from addressing the very real nature of gender disparity in the 70s. It also succinctly covers issues like mental health and the need to disengage from the facts when they get too dark. The thing that makes this story so good for me, is the fact that Fell, New York, could have been almost any town in the 70s and the story still could have played out this way. Those were dark times, but in all honesty, the story translates well into 2017’s narrative as well. The high point of this story comes when the reader learns how little has actually changed in all those years.

It’s a fast-paced read that mystery readers will love unraveling. Figuring out the whodunnit is only half the battle in this story, where the why and the how is so much more compelling than the who. I would recommend this read to anyone who likes their mysteries a little spooky and isn’t afraid of a little gore. Most of the violence is left off of the page, with the reader left to imagine based on descriptions of the injuries, but it could definitely be a trigger for those who are sensitive to violence against women. Fair warning.

Disclaimer: No disclaimer needed. I got this one through the Book of the Month service that I subscribe to. It’s pretty neat and if you’re an avid reader, I recommend trying it out. You get your choice of books each month across a variety of genres. Some of them are pre-release titles. If you don’t like that month’s offerings, you can pause and choose a book the next month. The prices are reasonable and the titles are top-tier.

My rating:

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

Most of the violence takes place off of the page. I think this would be a great book group selection because it is going to spur discussion of why society has so much trouble taking the endemic problem of violence against women seriously. It’s also pretty thought provoking when it comes to the nature of justice. There is a very minimal amount of foul language in the book, primarily spoken by villains, which I feel makes it more palatable to readers. Overall, I will be recommending this book to several of my patrons and most of my co-workers.

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Hello Kittens! I hope that wherever you are, the weather is not awful. We have continued the trend of basically skipping Winter here in the South and going straight into Spring. My primary complaint about that is that without snow days, I don’t get bonus days to read where I’m still being paid unless I actually start using my PTO for these things. I’m not that desperate. Yet. In any case, I did manage to finish a stellar novel last month that is starting to get some buzz, but that I still want to recommend to all of you. It’s called Oona Out of Order and it came on my radar a few months back. I was fortunate enough to win an advance copy in a giveaway from the publisher, and I flew through it once it arrived. This novel would be a great selection for book groups because it deals with the practical complications of time travel as well as the emotional complications of growing up. It deals with all sorts of relationships and is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. I think y’all will like this one if you give it a read.

Title: Oona Out of Order

Author: Margarita Montimore

Author website: https://www.montimore.com/

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Publish date: February 25^th, 2020

ISBN: 9781250236609

Buy the Book: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

The book opens with Oona Lockhart getting ready to celebrate her 19^th birthday, which also happens to fall on January 1st. She is excited, but also anxious, because she is on the cusp of making some very important decisions about her life, her future, her relationship with her boyfriend, her place in her band, and her acceptance to a prestigious university. She is faced with a series of choices, because she can’t have everything that is available to her.

As the party really gets started at midnight, Oona is suddenly transported. She wakes up in a different time, and in a different body…or at least a different-aged body. She comes to with the mind of a now 19-year-old, in a body that is significantly older. There is a young man in the room, who tries to help her understand what has just happened. She comes to find out that this is a part of her life in the future. Every year on her birthday she will be transported to a different year of her life. The leaps will be random and very few people will ever be able to know about them. Every year, Oona starts over. In theory, her future self leaves her a letter each year, trying to prepare her for what the next year holds without letting her know too much.

In theory, it all sounds great, but in practice, it’s a bit like making a wish with a genie…it rarely turns out the way that you expect it to. Even when her future self warns her, Oona often finds herself in difficult situations. The story revolves around how she lives her life with the next year’s leap constantly overshadowing the current year’s life. Oona falls in love, loses important relationships, is betrayed by the people closest to her, and she constantly has to worry about doing or saying the wrong thing.

This book was a phenomenal read for me. Time travel can be a very tricky subject to tackle, and Montimore does it in a way that is seamless, while not bogging the reader down with the “whys” of it all. Oona reacts the same way that I think anyone would if they suddenly found themselves transported into the future. I particularly like when she adjusts to having certain modern comforts, like cell phones and the internet, but then the following year is transported back in time and has to re-learn what life is like before they were invented. Oona is the centerpiece of the book, of course, but it is her relationships with her mother and her trusted assistant that really make this story something special. Her relationships understandably morph throughout her time, but since Oona is unable to tell most of the people in her life about what is going on, these two relationships become so important to her development as a character.

If I had to come up with a negative comment about this book, I would say that it ended too soon. If you’re the kind of reader who likes to have all of the loose threads tied up by the end of the story, you’re going to be disappointed. That’s not to say that the ending was bad. I personally thought it was beautiful, but I wasn’t done with the character of Oona. We end up getting a few snapshots of her life, but we don’t get the full story, and I would love for Montimore to write a follow-up.

Disclaimer: I won an Advanced Reader Copy of this book in a giveaway from the publisher, but there was no expectation of a review in exchange.

My rating:

lemonade_icon 4 glasses of lemonade= a book you could recommend to a book group or anybody who reads. You might find controversial subject matter, but it is handled delicately.

I would have loved to have given this one 5 glasses of lemonade, but it does have a few scenes that some readers might object to. Oona gets involved briefly with drug and alcohol abuse. She also has friends with differing sexual preferences and she engages in a drug-infused sexual escapade at a club. All in all, it’s not extremely graphic, but I still might hesitate to recommend it to everyone who comes in to the library.