Happy Wife by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores

 

Title:  Happy Wife

Author:  Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores

Narrated by:  Saskia Maarleveld

Publisher: Random House Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 43 minutes

Source: Audiobook from Amazon Music and physical copy checked out from the Kewaunee Public Library.  Thank-you!

What genre of books do you like to read for your book clubs?

Nora Davies at twenty-eight is married to a prominent forty-six-year-old lawyer, Will Somerset.  They live in Winter Park, an elite coastal town in Florida.  Nora is having a hard time fitting in with the old guard, but she throws a birthday party for Will inviting them all.   The party goes well, but Will disappears after the party. Where is Will?  Is he working a case or has something nefarious happened to him??

My thoughts on this novel:

·       This was the July read for the Rogue Book Club.  I think everyone enjoyed it as a fun summer read type of book. It had great characters and an interesting mystery.

·       This is a Read with Jenna selection.

·       I listened to the audiobook in July, and it was an engaging story with a good narrator.

·       My favorite quote from the audiobook was something like “I’ll have to add a category of friends made while looking for my husband’s killer to my Christmas card list.”

·       The story switches from the present time frame to flashbacks showing how Nora and Will first got together.

·       I did like the inner look into high society in this domestic thriller.

·       As the story progresses, it is discovered that not everything is always as it seems.

·       This was a fast faced light and entertaining mystery.

·       I did not guess the ending.  It seemed rather random.

·       I liked how Will swept Nora off her feet but as time went on, she discovered that not all that glitters is gold.

·       I liked being surprised by the plot, so I don’t want to get into too many details and ruin it for others.

Overall, Happy Wife by Meredith Lavender and Kendall Shores was a light and fun domestic thriller perfect for a summer read.

Cruel Summer by Maisey Yates

 

Title:  Cruel Summer

Author:  Maisey Yates

Narrated by:  Nancy Peterson

Publisher: Harlequin Audio

Length: Approximately 10 hours and 38 minutes

Source: Thank you @netgalley for the review copy. 

What is your favorite song of the summer?  I do love the song “Cruel Summer” by Bananarama so this title caught my eye.  I finished this book up at the start of last week, which is perfect with summer coming to an official end today.  Our weather in Northeast Wisconsin also warmed back up this week so we have more summer weather.

Samantha Parker has a comfortable life with marriage to her high school sweetheart, Will, and three kids. They are ready to start on their empty nest phase when Samantha is blindsided by Will stating that he wants an open marriage.   She proposes that they have a summer apart with no contact to determine how they want to move forward.  Samantha wants to spend summer finding herself.  Will’s best friend, Logan, asks her to go with him to deliver restored class cars across the country as a part time summer job.  Will Samantha find herself?  Will she and Will reunite?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       The audiobook was good.  The Narrator was pleasant to listen to and the story was engaging.  I just had a hard time listening to it at the end when it took a turn into steamy romance.

·       This was not a breezy summer book as it tackled many hard topics.

·       I can’t imagine my husband coming home one day and asking for an open marriage.  What a shock – especially are they are just coming empty nesters with more time to spend together.

·       It was really Will wanting cake and to eat it too.  He didn’t want a divorce, but wanted to screw around since they married so young and never had another relationship.

·       I had a hard time with the romance.  On her adventures with Logan, it comes out that Logan has loved her since high school and she was attracted to him too.  How does this work?

·       Overall, in the book, Samantha is working on finding herself and what she wants in life instead of trying to please everyone else.

·       I love vintage cars so the descriptions of the cars and taking them cross country was fun for me.

·       This book had spicy scenes, forced proximity, 2^nd chance romance, and opposites attract.

Overall, Cruel Summer by Maisey Yates was an interesting summer read that tackled a lot of hard topics.

Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title:  Beach House Rules

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Suehyla El-Attar Young

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 4 minutes

Source: Thank-you to @simonaudio for the review copy.

Do you like to visit the beach?  I love the beach, but I live on Lake Michigan so the beach to me is the Great Lakes rather than the ocean.  I am trying to finish up my summer beach reads this week.

Charlotte’s husband has been arrested for a white-collar crime.  She and her daughter Iris are locked out of their home during the investigation.  A kind woman from church, Alice, invites them to stay with her.  She lives in a B&B on the beach and has a community of mothers living with her.  Will Charlotte and Iris be able to move on?  What links all the mothers living in the “momune” together?  Is Charlotte’s husband guilty?

My thoughts on this book:

·       I liked the mystery woven throughout the story.  It was tied up perfectly at the end.

·       The story is told through the viewpoints of Charlotte, Iris, and Alice, which was interesting.

·       I liked the two different generational viewpoints of a mother and a teenage daughter.

·       @JuniperShoresSocialite has a snarky Instagram account which details all of the goings on of both the moms and the teenagers in the Juniper Shores community.  Who is running the account?

·       I enjoyed all the characters.

·       Alice is a widow with three husband who died in accidents.  Is she a black widow or can she move on with handsome Elliot?

·       The narration of this audiobook was great with three narrators.  It was enjoyable to listen to.

·       I also liked the second chances in this book for life and love.

·       This book was light and entertaining.

·       It was not spicy.

·       I loved the beautiful setting on the coast of North Carolina.

·       I loved the “momune” and women helping each other and their kids working through difficult times.  I always enjoy stories of found families.

Overall, Beach House Rules by Kristy Woodson Harvey was a great story of second chances and found family.  It was a great summer beach read but is also a great read for any time of the year.

A Summer for the Books by Michelle Lindo-Rice

 

Do you like to read summer themed books?

Jewel Stone is a best-selling author, but she has been experiencing writer’s block.  Her husband has also recently lost his job and finances are tight.  When her estranged best friend, Shelby, is in an accident and has amnesia, Jewell is her emergency contact.  She drops everything to help Shelby and is inspired by her life to write again.  As secrets from the past threaten to overtake them, will Shelby and Jewell be able to repair their friendship and confront their past?  Will Shelby’s adoptive daughter Lacey be able to find her birth mom?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       A Summer for the Books was the August pick for the Brenda Novak Book Group.  I just finished it this month and listened to the Facebook Book Group meeting when I was done.  I enjoyed the meeting and the interview with the author.  She was delightful!

·       This novel does have romance, but it is closed door.

·       I liked hearing how the author based the characters on herself and family members.

·       I loved that the book explored friendships of both mothers and daughters, as well as mother / daughter relationships.

·       The book is narrated through Lacey, Jewel, Shelby, journals form the past, and a book within the book.  It is a dual timeline book.

·       The story overall was good, and the characters were interesting, but I found it confusing at times especially as the characters were referred to by different names in the past.  It was also repetitive at times and could have been trimmed down to make the storyline move quicker.

·       I liked the bookstore and beach settings.

·       The book had a good ending.

Overall, A Summer for the Books by Michelle Lindo Rice was a good story with great characters, friendships, and setting, but it did move slowly at times.

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

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.

The Page Turner by Viola Shipman

 

Title:  The Page Turner

Author:  Viola Shipman

Narrated by:  Katharine Chin

Publisher: Harlequin Audio

Length: Approximately 9 hours and 49 minutes

Source: Audiobook and ebook review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!

 

Where is your favorite setting for a book?  The Page Turner by Viola Shipman is set in South Haven Michigan with action also taking place in the Hamptons and New York City.  I loved the South Haven, Michigan, setting as I grew up in southwest Michigan.  Our family loved to visit South Haven and swim at the beach.  My Great Uncle and Aunt lived in a beautiful historic home in South Haven.  It’s a beautiful community.  I now live in a Lake Michigan Community in Wisconsin.  The lake vibes in this novel were very relatable.

 

Emma Page has just graduated from the University of Michigan and is trying to figure out what to do with her life.  Her parents own The Mighty Pages publishing house, which prints literary fiction.  Emma has secretly written a romance novel and loves romance just as her grandmother did.  When Emma discovers a family secret, how will it affect them and the man who is trying to take their family down?

 

My thoughts on this novel:

·       Viola Shipman is the pen name of Wade Rouse in honor of his beloved Grandma.  He writes the best female characters that really speak to me.  His Grandma taught him well!

·       I read this novel in May as part of the Brenda Novak Book Group.  I loved Wade Rouse’s interview as part of the Brenda Novak Book Group.  He is delightful and his interview was so interesting.

·       GiGi, Emma’s Grandmother, was a wonderful character.  She is the type of loving and sassy Grandma everyone should have.  I was blessed to have one myself.  I loved how she loved to foster the love of reading in her kids and grandkids.

·       There were interesting literary discussions and allusions throughout the novel.  Who gets to decide what is the great American novel?  Why is romance always looked down upon as a genre?

·       The novel was a love letter to Michigan with blueberries, the state flag, roadside farms, lighthouses, Lake Michigan beaches, etc.

·       Jonathan Livingston Seagull is mentioned a lot.  I have never read it, but it has been on my TBR forever.  Have you read this novel?  If so, what do you think?

·       This novel also highlighted family dysfunction and pulling together to protect your family overall.

·       I am looking forward to his next book that will be set in Palm Springs.  It is called Thank-you for Being a Friend and seems to be Golden Girls inspired.

·       I enjoyed listening to this book on audiobook.  It was entertaining and captured my interest on long drives.

Overall, The Page Turner by Viola Shipman was a perfect summer read with great characters, a love of literature, beaches, and a sinister villain.

A Happier Life by Kristy Woodson Harvey

 

Title: A Happier Life

Author:  Kristy Woodson Harvey

Narrated by:  Cassandra Campbell, Devon Sorvari, Fred Sanders

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 12 hours and 16 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you!

What could you do to have a happier life?  I loved a previous job, but the work hours prevented me from spending time with my family.  To have a happier life, I made a job change.

Keaton Smith loses her job due to personnel complications at work.  Work tip – don’t date your co-workers!  Her mother asks her to travel to Beaufort, North Carolina to clean out her grandmother’s house.  Her grandparents (Rebecca and Townsend) died in a car crash in 1976 and her mom and uncle shut up their house and never came back.  Did they really die in a car crash (their bodies were never found)? Will Keaton discover her place in life?

·       This was the July pick for the Brenda Novak Book Club.  I read it in August.  I enjoyed listening to Brenda Novak’s conversation with author Kristy Woodson Harvey about the book.

·       This novel was a good look into life and how decisions can impact your life and generations that follow you.

 

·       I had a hard time at first with the timeline and the ages of everyone.  The grandparents are my great-grandparents’ age and the main character is thirteen years younger than me.  It was explained later that they were older mothers.

·       It is mostly told from Keaton and Rebecca’s points of view, but some chapters are narrated by Townsend, especially from his journal.

·       The narrators were great, and this was a fun audiobook to listen to.

·       I love the story of a granddaughter discovering the story of her grandmother.

·       I enjoyed Rebecca “Becks” St. James’s chapters about being the perfect hostess, falling in love with Townsend, her troubled relationship with her mother, and becoming a mother.  I thought it was fun for their grandkids to find their journals and discover who they were.

·       The characters and community in Beaufort were excellent.

·       I loved when Keaton’s Mom told her that life is not like a Hallmark movie, and she shouldn’t leave the big city for a man.  I laughed out loud.

·       There was a great mystery in the story of what happened to the grandparents, although I did figure it out early on.

·       What makes a happier life?  Becks thinks she couldn’t have had a happier life and loves everything about her life.  Keaton is trying to figure out how to have a happier life.

·       I LOVED the 1970s-time capsule vintage house.

·       I want to host a Beck St. James perfect party.

·       It was interesting that the story was inspired by the mysterious disappearance of the author’s great aunt and uncle and her experience opening a house that had been closed for fifty years.

 

Overall, A Happier Life was a feel-good story with a great ending.  It was a perfect beach read.

The Summer Pact by Emily Giffin

 

What was your last summer read?  I finished up The Summer Pact earlier this month for my last summer book read of the year.

The Summer Pact is about four individuals that meet at college and form a lifelong friendship.  One when tragically dies, the others promise to always get together to help each other if any of the three of them are in a time of need.  When Hannah finds her fiancé in bed with another woman, she finds herself in crisis.  When the friends gather together to help out Hannah, will they all make changes to their own lives and move forward?

My thoughts on this novel:

·       I have enjoyed Emily Giffin’s books in the past and especially enjoyed Something Borrowed, Something Blue, and Baby Proof.  This one was not as good as her other novels.

·       The story was slow in the middle, and it took me a long time to finish it.

·       This novel is a look at friendship and the lengths we will go to for our friends.  It also delves into grief and how everyone deals with it differently and how friends can help.

·       The story is told through the three point of views of the three friends.  I didn’t feel like I liked or connected with the characters.

·       The romance came very late in the novel and then it seemed to be immediately tied up in the epilogue.   I did not feel the romantic connection between the love interests.

·       I really didn’t like the character Lainey.  She was an actress that acted very immature for a thirty something.  She needed more of a growth story to me.  I also didn’t like how she very obviously was an alcoholic, but her friends did not help her with this problem at all.

·       I thought we would get more of Summer’s story and her untimely death and there would be a bit of a mystery.  It just remained a sad unexplained traumatic death from their college days.

Overall, I was disappointed by The Summer Pact, but I will definitely try another Emily Giffin book.

Book Source:  Review copy from NetGalley. Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

All the Summers in Between by Brooke Lea Foster

 Title: All the Summers in Between

Author:  Brooke Lea Foster

Narrated by:  Emily Ellet

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Length: Approximately 11 hours and 27 minutes

Source: Review Copy from Simon & Schuster Audio.  Thank you!

What is your favorite thing about summer?  I love so many things about summer – camping, bonfires, flowers, water, vacations.  I also love to read summer themed books in the summer.

In 1967, Thea and Margot meet each other while working in a record store in a seaside vacation town in the Northeast.  Thea is a poor local girl while Margot is part of a wealthy family.  They bond and dream of leaving to travel to San Francisco.  In 1977, Margot came back and asks Thea to hide her.  Thea is a housewife with a young daughter, while Margot has married the wrong guy and has lost it all.  Will Margot and Thea be able to determine what makes them happy in life?  What happened in 1967 that broke apart their friendship?

My thoughts on this book:

·       The narrator, Emily Ellet, of this audiobook does a good job of having a different voice for the two main characters.

·       Thea is struggling with what she wants from life in 1977.  She wants more than being a housewife.  I was frustrated with her at times as I wanted her to just talk to her husband about her thoughts.  Luckily, she finally does.  In 1967, you can see her and her husband’s relationship blossom.

·       I liked that while Thea had a troubled relationship with her stepdad, they were able to have a better relationship in 1977.  Thea understood him better and helped him out.

·       I didn’t understand why Thea thought Margo was a better friend than Midge in 1977.  Margo was only her friend for a few months in 1967 while Midge had been her friend for years.

·       This book was a mellow book for me which was interesting to listen to, but I didn’t feel tied to the characters if that makes sense. 

Overall, All the Summers in Between is a story of friendship and family relationships through good and bad times.  It was a good summer audiobook and an interesting historical suspense novel.

The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan

 

Do you prefer a window seat or aisle seat when you fly?  I always love sitting in a window seat and getting to see what is happening when I am on an airplane.  I’m finishing up my summer reads and read The Summer Skies by Jenny Colgan earlier this month. I always love reading Jenny Colgan’s novels.  I get swept away by the stories.

The Summer Skies is set in far northern Scotland.  Morag McGinty has been born into a family of pilots.  She works for a major airline, but after a near accident, she is working on being ready to fly again.   During this situation, she has finally found a man she thinks she has a future with, Hayden.  Together they plan on relocating to Dubai.  Morag decides she can be the co-pilot on long haul flights and won’t have to face her fear of being the pilot in charge again. The family business is flying a plane service from island to island in northern Scotland. When Morag’s grandfather falls ill, she helps out by coming back home to help with the flying.  Will she be able to overcome her fears of flying as the primary pilot again?

I always love how in Jenny Colgan’s novels, the primary character is a woman who is trying to find her way in the world.  What does Morag really want for her future?  She is not sure herself and it takes coming home and being put into a precarious situation that really makes her realize what is important.  I love her side characters too – as there were many new and unique characters in this book.  Another great element is the food. There is a mouth-watering description of bread in this book that made me want to go out and make my own home made loaf.  The settings are also wild and wonderful as well.  I really want to visit northern Scotland now.  I wasn’t sure where this story was going, and I enjoyed the journey. I also have always loved aviation and enjoyed the elements in this story. I hope that it is the start of a lovely new series.  I enjoyed reading this novel.

Book Source: Review Copy from NetGalley.  Thank-you!  Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.