A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Title:  A Mother Always Knows

Author:  Sarah Strohmeyer

Narrated by:  EJ Lavery, Karla Serrato, and Reena Dutt

Publisher: Harper Perennial

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 31 minutes

Source: Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @harperperennial for the review copy of A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer. Audiobook purchased from Audible.

Do you like reading about cults?  I do, I always find them fascinating.

Stella O’Neill is a librarian living a normal life until a true crime obsessive posts her current name and address online.  Suddenly everyone knows that as a child she lived in a Vermont commune of “diviners” and that her mother, Rose, was murdered when she was ten years old.  Her murder has remained a cold case. Will Stella be ablet to solve her mother’s cold case?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The cover of this novel is great and fits in well with the story!

·       This was a riveting thriller and I enjoyed listening to the audiobook.  Great narrators.

·       Multiple narratives between Rose in the past right before her murder, Stella in the future, Priti the wife of a suspect in future.

·       The three POV’s worked well together.  Priti is the outsider trying to piece things together.

·       Rose’s chapters detailed the inner workings of the cult.

·       Stella has vague memories of living in the cult from age three to ten.

·       I enjoyed the novel, We Love to Entertain, from this author previously.

·       There was a great twist at the end of the book that I did not guess.

·       The parts of the story in the commune were creepy.  Radcliffe MacBeath is the guru in charge.  Rose has started to realize that he is fake and a hypocrite.  She wants out, but how can she escape with her daughter?

·       Stella may have divining powers where she can sense dead bodies by walking over their graves.

·       There were great twists and turns in the book.

·       I was only annoyed with one item when Rose wouldn’t leave the commune when the opportunity arose, and she had a way out. 

Overall, A Mother Always Knows by Sarah Strohmeyer was a twisty thriller with a unique premise.

The Summer that Changed Everything by Brenda Novak

 

Title:  The Summer that Changed Everything

Author:  Brenda Novak

Narrated by:  Courtney Patterson

Publisher: Harlequin Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 39 minutes

Source: Thank-you to @netgalley for review copy.

Do you have one summer that was more memorable than the rest?  Why?  I’ve had a few the summer I was at college in grad school, the summer I got married, etc.

As a teenager, Lucy Sinclair’s father was tried and convicted of murdering three people that she knew, including a teenage girl that was described as her rival, Aurora, for her boyfriend, Ford.  The town shunned her, and Lucy moved away.  Now fifteen years later, she has returned, and she wants to figure out if her Dad was really guilty or not.  Ford is also back for the summer and sparks fly.  Who killed Aurora and why?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was a Brenda Novak Book Group Read for June, and it was another great book club meeting on Facebook.  I finished it up in early July.

·       The plot for this novel was intriguing.

·       Lucy and Ford had a second chance romance, a trope I usually enjoy.  Ford was expecting a baby with his not quite ex-wife, which threw me off from this romance.

·       I just overall couldn’t get behind the romance.  I don’t like married leads dating people while saying that their spouse just doesn’t get them.  Get divorced, spend some time on your own, and then date. 

·       There was good suspense in the story.

·       I liked the small-town Virginia coastal town setting.

·       The audiobook was interesting to listen to.  It had a good narrator.  She acted out all the parts.  There were multiple POVs including males.  It would have been nice to have additional narrators.

·       The mystery was slow burn.

·       There was a good wrap-up and ending.  I really liked the suspense at the end.

Overall, The Summer That Changed Everything by Brenda Novak was a good romantic suspense novel.  I liked the story and mystery, but I didn’t care for the romance.

Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

What is your weirdest reading habit? I used to like to read in trees when I was a teen.

Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @blackstonepublishing for the review copy of Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino.

Ghosts of Hiroshima is a brand-new non-fiction book published for the 80^th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  It’s based on forensic archaeology and over two hundred interviews with survivors and their families.  It gives the reader a first-person perspective of the events.  This is soon to be a movie by James Cameron.

My thoughts on this book:

·       Ghosts of Hiroshima vividly describes the horrible times for those on the ground in the A-bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 

·       It was amazing how many people survived both Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombings.  After Hiroshima they fled to Nagasaki for various reasons, only to experience it again. 

·       There were interesting quotes at the start of each chapter.  Each chapter is long but broken up into segments to discuss different key players experiencing the bomb.

·       There were nice drawings with descriptions throughout the book to give detail.

·       There are notes and a great index at the end of the book to help those looking for specific details.

·       The pages are edged in black, which along with the cover, make it a striking book.

·       There is also discussion of the internment camps in the United States and how some Japanese Americans were deported back to Japan.  Many died when the A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, but some survived to tell the tale.

·       American prisoners of war were also killed in Nagasaki, and some witnessed it all and were able to tell their experiences.

·       I can’t stop thinking about this book.  It’s a horrible part of history that I hope we never repeat.  Many of the people in the book wanted to tell their stories to make sure history does not repeat itself.

·       As a parent, I can’t imagine making it through the worse thing to happen to your family and being grateful your kids made it, only for them to come down with leukemia ten or so years later.  It was so sad reading about the rash of leukemia amongst the youngest survivors.

·       It’s interesting that there were still those who didn’t want to surrender after the A-bombs and fire carpeting.  They held the Emperor captive.  I wish they would have let the Emperor surrender before the A-bombs or right after Hiroshima.  So many people would have been saved.

·       I didn’t know much about the strike on Nagasaki.  The book states that this was kept quiet as the largest Catholic church in the country was at ground zero or the center of the strike.

·       It was strange how randomly people survived by being the right place at the right time, having the right instincts to duck, or wearing white clothing.

·       It was horrific trying to live through the aftereffects of the bombs for years to come.  I didn’t realize there was prejudice in Japan against A-bomb survivors and their children.

·       I was struck that those that were flying the plane that dropped the bombs experienced a strange electrical feeling in their teeth and the taste of lead.  I don’t remember ever learning that before.

Favorite quotes:

“The false sunrise did not only smash factories and crack concrete in Hiroshima.  It sometimes left a crevice in one’s soul.”

“This year [2010] came the rise of radiation denial and shadow people denial, and even claims in America [in its media] that I, and my experience of Hiroshima, did not exist.  The realities of nuclear war are so horrible that there are people who claim Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not happen this way and what I lived to tell is all lies.  What do they want?  Do they really want a sleep of forgetfulness?  So the whole world becomes hypocenters?  Don’t forget.  Never forget.  I saw it.  We all saw it.  No one should ever see if again, for any reason whatsoever.” – Keiji Nakazawa, Hiroshima artist.

Overall, Ghosts of Hiroshima by Charles Pellegrino is an important nonfiction book about horrifying events in human history that should never be repeated.  I will be thinking about this book for a long time.

This book was published on August 5, 2025.

 

The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay (Get Red PR Book Tour)

 

Title:  The Harvey Girls

Author:  Juliette Fay

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 47 minutes

Source: Thank you, Partner @getredprbooks and Gallery Books for the review copy of physical book copy of The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay.  Thank-you to @simonaudio for the audiobook and @netgalley for e-book review copies.

What is your favorite restaurant?  I have a lot of favorites but tend to favor local restaurants that are family owned.

Two young women from very different backgrounds start work as “Harvey Girls” in the 1920s.  Harvey Girls were well paid female employees that worked for a chain of restaurants that spread through the west every one-hundred miles or so and served quality, inexpensive meals.  Charlotte was born into a wealthy blue-blooded family, but after she ran away to marry her husband, she feels she has no where to turn to escape him when he turns abusive.  She changes her name and strikes out on her own as a Harvey girl.  Billie needs the money to support her family with eight younger siblings.  She pretends to be older than her years to get a job as a Harvey girl and sends her money back to her family.  As both girls are assigned to a restaurant in the Grand Canyon, will they be able to keep their secrets and their jobs?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Cassandra Campbell is an audiobook narrator that I enjoy, and I thought she did a great job narrating this book.  It was enjoyable to listen to.

·       I loved how a large part of the book took place at the Grand Canyon as it developed into a tourist destination.  It was interesting.

·       Both main characters had very interesting love stories in this novel, and I enjoyed them.  The book was told through their dual POVs.

·       Violence against Catholics was portrayed in the book as Billie attended mass with Hispanic friends who are attacked.  She is also dismayed when she is assigned to work at the Grand Canyon and discovered there is not a Catholic church in the area for her to attend.  She also has much to decide when she realizes that her potential beau is not Catholic.

·       This novel also took a hard look at abusive marriage.  It was hard to divorce at that time and to support yourself as a woman.  When a woman was trapped in an abusive marriage, what could she do?  A job as a Harvey girl was a very well-paying job at the time for a woman.

·       Charlotte as a learning moment as well as she realizes her inadvertent racism towards Native Americans at the Grand Canyon.

·       The novel has an interesting Part II which flashes forward to 1996 and the reader learns what happened to the characters in the novel.

·       There is a great foreword and Author’s Note at the end which give details about Fred Harvey’s empire and other historical details in the novel.

Overall, The Harvey Girls by Juliette Fay was an interesting historical fiction novel about a unique time and place in American history.

Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie

 

What has been your favorite memoir?

Come, Tell Me How You Live is a lighthearted memoir about Agatha Christie’s adventures in Syria while her husband, Max, was on an archaeological dig in the1930s.  She gathered together her notes and vignettes afterwards to put together this interesting memoir.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I read Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie in July as part of #ReadChristie2025.  The overall theme this year is to explore Christie’s works through the canon of characters and their careers.  The career for July was archeologists.

·       Christie’s second husband Max Mallowan was a renowned archaeologist.  He was thirteen years younger than her, and they traveled the world together.  I love this for Agatha Christie after her disastrous first marriage.

·       There was not much in the memoir on actual archaeology, but more on the people, places, and trying to make a home in a new and foreign place.

·       My favorite vignette was unforgettable and disturbing.  Christie woke up one night to find her and her husband covered with mice.  He could sleep fine, but she could not so their beds were moved outside.  A cat was hired the next day who efficiently and methodically killed the mice.  Christie called it a “professional cat.”  I would have loved to see this cat.

·       Christie chronicled a lot of hatred between different groups of different religions against each other.  Some were told with humor such as driver that tried to run over people of a particular religious group whenever he saw them, but I didn’t think it was funny.  Sadly, this conflict hasn’t changed with time in the Middle East.

·       Christie did write this memoir with a lot of wit and humor throughout.  It was nice to read a different genre from Christie rather than a mystery.

·       I wanted to travel with Christie as she seemed like a very fun and charming person.  The site conditions didn’t sound so fun, however.

·       It was sad thinking about all these archaeological treasures being found and carted away from their homeland.

Overall, Come, Tell Me How You Live by Agatha Christie was a great memoir filled with wit and humor.  This book gives one the experience of what it would have been like to live through an archaeological dig in the 1930s.

Book Source:  The Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

Don’t Let Him In by Lisa Jewell

 

Which genre often takes you out of your comfort zone?  Thrillers also take me out of my comfort zone, but I love it.

Nina Swann lost her husband a year ago.  She receives a card from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of her husband.  They connect and Nina feels like she may have a second chance at love.  Her daughter, Ash, feels, that something is wrong and starts digging into Nick’s past.  Is he who he says he is?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The story has three primary points of view – Ash, Nina, and Martha.  Martha is a florist with the perfect husband, Alistair, who seems not so perfect as he keeps disappearing.  Other points of view, also pop up include Nick’s and other various people that he interacts with.  It could be confusing at times, but I thought it was very intriguing.

·       This novel was a bit repetitive and slow in the middle, but I couldn’t put it down for the last 1/3 of the book.

·       I really liked the ending.  Everything came together at the end and there were a few surprises left.

·       It’s a disturbing story about love and trust.  What happens in your life if your lift partner is not the person you think they are?

·       The villain in this novel was one of the best villains I’ve ever read.  One that seems like the nicest guy you’ve ever met until you let him into your life.

·       I don’t want to give too much away on the plot as I really enjoyed it!

Overall, Don’t Let Him in by Lisa Jewell was an intriguing domestic thriller that kept me reading too far into the night.  Can you trust the one you love?

Book Source: Thank-you to NetGalley for a review copy of this novel.

 

Mob Queen by Erin Bledsoe (Bibliolifestyle Book Tour)

 

Title:  Mob Queen

Author:  Erin Bledsoe

Narrated by:  Brittany Pressley

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 3 minutes

Source: Thank you, Partner @bibliolifestyle @blackstonepublishing for the review copy of physical book copy of Mob Queen by Erin Bledsoe.  Thank-you to NetGalley for the audiobook and e-book review copies.

Are you addicted to a particular genre, or you read all sort of genres?  I read all sorts of genre, but historical fiction is my addiction.

Virginia Hill is struggling to make ends meet in 1930s Chicago.  She has recently divorced her husband and is looking for her missing friend, Madeline.  Madeline disappeared into the Mafia.  Virginia is recruited into the Mafia but has her own secret mission to find Madeline.  As she climbs the ranks, she finds the type of power she never realized she wanted.

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I loved how the intriguing man she met at the beginning of the novel, Ben, turned out to be Bugsy Siegel.  I had heard the name Bugsy Siegel before, but I didn’t know anything about him.

·       The reality of what the mafia actually did (horrific murders, kidnapping girls from the country into prostitution, etc.) was hard for Virginia to deal with.

·       Brittany Pressley was a great audiobook narrator.  She was Virginia to me.

·       Virgina was very sassy and had great comebacks.

·       Now I want to watch the movie Bugsy.  Virginia Hill is known for being Bugsy’s girlfriend, but she had a fascinating history of her own. 

·       There was intense chemistry between Virginia and Ben.  They seemed to go from desire to hate to desire to hate throughout their entire relationship.

·       A brief author’s note about the real Virginia Hill was interesting.

·       The book had a nice epilogue.

Overall, Mob Queen by Erin Bledsoe was a fascinating look at one powerful woman as she made her way in the man’s world of the mob. 

The Communist’s Secret by Suzanne Parry (Get Red PR Book Tour)

 

What is the most action-packed book that you have read lately?

Katya Karavayeva has a secret.  In a moment of weakness, she complained about her husband at work.  Little did she know that this information would be used to arrest her husband and throw their entire family out of the communist party.  Katya joins the war effort to prove her loyalty.  Her camp is attacked, and she escapes with Svet, a young woman also working at the camp.  Will they be able to survive in the wild and keep themselves save from the Nazis?  Will Katya be able to forgive herself for the betrayal of her husband?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The author of this novel, Suzanne Parry was a former Pentagon arms control negotiator and studied Russian in Moscow.

·       This historical fiction novel was action packed.  It pulled me into the story right away and kept me enthralled throughout the book.

·       This is book two in the Leningrad series.  I haven’t read the first novel.  This can be read as a stand-alone.  I need to read the rest of this series!

·       I always enjoy stories of living off the land, but also trying to hide from the Nazis and keeping yourself on the right side of your own government really pushed up the thrill level of this book.

·       There were themes of betrayal and forgiveness throughout this novel.

·       Katya really grows as a character throughout the story to realize that her own government isn’t perfect and doesn’t treat its citizens with care.  It also looks at the communist system.  For example, a successful farmer had their farm taken away and it no longer produces as well under the new communist system.

·       The ending was perfect.  It was unexpected and hopeful.

·       This book really got me thinking – how did families that were split up in WWII find each other again?  Katya’s daughter and mother-in-law were in Leningrad while Katya was all over the place.

·       It also made me think - what would I do to stay alive?  Katya has a relationship with a Nazi commandant at one point in the novel.  Would you be friendly with the enemy?

The Communist’s Secret by Suzanne Parry was a unique and very engaging WWII story set in Russia with an unforgettable main character in Katya.   

Book Source: Thank-you to She Writes Press for a review copy of this novel as part of the Get Red PR Book Tour.

Six Weeks by the Sea by Paula Byrne (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Do you like to vacation by the sea?  Do you have any favorite seaside vacation spots?  I don’t really vacation by the ocean, but by the Great Lakes. I live in a Lake Michigan community in Wisconsin with a seasonal view of Lake Michigan.  I love to walk by the water.  Growing up in Michigan, I loved South Haven and Holland, also on Lake Michigan. 

In Six Weeks by the Sea by Paula Byrne, Jane Austen has just had to leave her beloved family home in Steventon after her brother takes over as the rector.  Before her family settles in Bath, they spend six weeks by the sea in Sidmouth, Devon, England.  There with her mother, father, and sister Cassandra, they are reunited with her beloved brother Frank who has a brief break from his naval adventures in the Royal Navy.  He has also brought along his friend, Captain Parker.  While sparks begin to fly between Captain Parker and Jane, Jane also feels herself very annoyed by a new young lawyer in town, Samuel Rose.  As she gets to know Mr. Rose and Captain Parker better, will she find true love?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was a short, but beautifully written novel.  It had almost a dream like quality to it as I read it.

·       I was intrigued to discover that Paula Byrne had written the nonfiction book, Belle:  The Slave Daughter and the Lord Chief Justice.  I had watched the movie Belle in the past and just recently rewatched it.  Six Weeks by the Sea had elements in it that reminded me of Belle.

·       Reverand Swete’s son has returned home with his child, a daughter who doesn’t speak and who is half black.  Jane is intrigued by the girl and uses her skills as an aunt to get to know her better and draw her out.  She also notices the kind behavior Mr. Rose has towards the young girl.  This also had shades to me of Miss Georgiana Lambe, Austen’s biracial character in her unfinished novel, Sanditon.

·       Jane has prejudice against Mr. Rose at first because he is a lawyer, and she hates lawyers.  She learns over the course of the novel just what types of cases that Mr. Rose works on, and it aligns with her own opinions on the fight against slavery.  I loved how Jane’s feelings on Mr. Rose changed through the course of the novel.

·       I loved the inclusion of William Cowper’s poetry.  I didn’t know that he had written anti-slavery poetry.

·       This time period has always been a mystery in Jane Austen’s life.  Did she have a mysterious love who died?  I loved how this story filled in the gaps.  I would love to imagine that even though she never married, she had a great love of her own.

·       I always enjoy a good love triangle.  I also love thinking about Austen finding love with someone who could match her wit. 

·       This novel had small moments with the family getting together for meals, going for walks, balls, etc.  The pacing and these small moments reminded me of a Jane Austen novel.

·       I enjoyed quotes showing up from Austen’s letters and novels within this book.  Even the fictional conversations carried the same sparkle and wit one sees in an Austen novel.

·       There is a great author’s afterword at the end of the book that delves into what was real and what was fictional.  Captain Parker was a fictional character, while Samuel Rose was a real person.

Overall, Six Weeks by the Sea by Paula Byrne was a fascinating novel and look into a period of transition and change for Jane Austen that may have also included love.  I enjoyed the look into social issues at the time that Austen cared about and wrote subtle about in her novels.

Book Source: Thank-you to @paulajaynebyrne @pegasus_books @austenprose for a review copy of this novel as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour.

The Shakespeare Secret by D.J. Nix (Austenprose PR Book Tour)

 

Was Shakespeare a woman?  Author D.J. Nix’s son pitched the idea to him and he then read Elizabeth Winkler’s article in the June 2019 edition of The Atlantic, “Was Shakespeare a Woman?”  This inspired D.J. Nix into writing a compelling story.

Three women in Elizabethan England share a secret – they are the true authors of Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays.  Mary Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke is a frustrated poet who has suffered a loss.  Emelia Bassano is a court musician and mistress to the Lord Chamberlain.  Jane Daggett is a seamstress for the Queen’s men’s players and invents stories of her own.  As one of the Queen’s spies (Robert Cecil) zeroes in on them, they hire an actor named Will Shakespeare to be their “face.”  Will they be discovered?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I’ve been down and out without my computer for the past couple of weeks, so I am sadly behind on reviews.  Now that my computer is repaired, I will work on getting caught up.

·       The Shakespeare Secret has short engaging chapters and was a fast-paced historical fiction read.

·       Robert Cecil thinks the three ladies are plotting to kill Queen Elizabeth.  How do they get out of this accusation?

·       I really loved the Elizabethan time period and setting.

·       This novel made me want to read Shakespeare.  I took a Shakespeare class in high school and in college, but it has been a while.  We have a play slotted for next year for my Back to the Classics Book club.  I am looking forward to it.

·       I loved the strong women characters during this perilous time in history.

·       It was fun to read the process of them writing the plays, such as Taming of the Shrew.  I can get behind the reimagining of a terrible play and making it into a better story.  It sounds like fun.

Overall, The Shakespeare Secret by D.J. Nix was a great historical suspense novel with a feminist twist.

Book Source: Thank-you to @david.nix.author @alcovepress @austenprose for a review copy of this novel as part of the Austenprose PR Book Tour.