Hi there, friends! I read both of these awesome books back in July as a part of the Reading Rush, but I never got around to posting my reviews! Since I read them both so close together, practically one right after the other, I decided to just include both reviews in the same blog post. Let me know if you like this format for series that I may fly through like that in the future as well!
Now, without further ado, let’s jump into those reviews!
All opinions are entirely my own. All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
Get a Life, Chloe Brown – Review: 5 stars
TW: chronic pain, discussion of emotional abuse
This was such a fun enemies-to-lovers read! I think my favorite thing about this read was the characters. Chloe was such a charming female lead! She is a young woman dealing with chronic pain, and trying to reinvent her life after a near death experience. And sure, maybe we can’t all relate to that exact story line, we’ve all gone through some sort of reinvention throughout our lives, which made hers a really fun and sweet story to follow. I also really loved the brief interactions that we got with Chloe’s sisters. They seemed like the three of them would have been hilarious to grow up with! All three of them are sassy, witty, and strong women that honestly, I kind of wished I was related to. I’m so glad that the next two books in the series follow her sisters, so that I get to spend time with each of them!
I do want to say that I love how it handles the diversity of it’s characters – basically never is the fact that the female lead, Chloe, is a person of color a main plot point in the way that a lot of stories make it when they are aiming to tell diverse stories. And I don’t mean that in a negative way at all – the stories with race at the center are also incredibly important, and I think that people should be reading more of them. But this wasn’t one of those stories, it was a contemporary romance. Her race wasn’t something that seemed like it needed to be explained or made relevant, she just was who she was, and looked how she did, and it felt subconscious as I was reading it, just like it would if you were reading a similar story with a white character in the lead. And while I love reading black stories where the race of the person in the lead may be a key factor in the plot (and again, I think it is important to read those stories as well to get more perspective), I also love this sort of diversity and representation. I think both types of representation are incredibly important – the struggles that people of color face every day, and stories like this that could just as easily be about our own best friend.
All in all, I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a next contemporary romance read! You may be able to guess how the story goes before you necessarily get to the ending, but the journey to get there is so sweet and engaging that I don’t think they would regret the read at all. I think that the perfect setting to read this book would be taking a page out of Chloe’s book – some really comfy pajamas (maybe even a onesie!) and with lots and lots of dark chocolate at the ready.
Take a Hint, Dani Brown – Review: 5 Stars
TW : character processing grief, anxiety attacks
Oh. My. GOSH. I think I’m in love with the Brown sisters. Truly. I really loved Get a Life, Chloe Brown and thought that there was no way the sequel could top it (I mean, sequels are never as good, right?) but I almost think I might like Take a Hint, Dani Brown even better! Or maybe I just want to be Danika Brown when I grow up. Yeah, that might be part of it too.
Dani Brown is a bisexual, full-figured, bad-ass of a woman of color, and dang if she doesn’t know it! She is such a strong and confident character that she was almost addicting to read about – I absolutely needed to know what was going to happen to her next, and I needed to immediately get to the end to make sure she would get her Happily Ever After. Now throw Zafir into the mix, and it was a really great friends-to-lovers and fake-dating story! I think Zafir is definitely my latest book boyfriend. He is a former professional athlete and hopeless romantic with a heart of gold, who reads romance novels and runs his own charity. Ummm what? I loved him. And getting to see this story from both of their perspectives was so much fun, getting to see all of their sassy banter and clashing personalities meld with their intense sexual tension to create a really charming and steamy romance that I just couldn’t get enough of. And I mean it when I say steamy. I would say it is about a 4 out of 5 on the steamy scale.
I also really loved the parts of this story that circled around social media, since that is why they initially start their fake-dating journey. We get to see a couple of the comments that people are leaving on posts about them, and watch them give an interview to see if they are really #CoupleGoals, and it was all just so very sweet. I honestly just devoured this book.
Overall I would definitely recommend this book to anyone and everyone looking for a fun contemporary romance that they could potentially read and finish in a weekend. I can’t wait for the last book in the series to come out! You know I’m going to be buying and reading it that same night! I would say that the perfect way to read this book would be with a big cup of tea (or glass of wine, both good) in your favorite over-sized t-shirt and in your favorite spot on the couch. Just make sure that you get comfy, because if you’re like me you won’t want to put it down!
Thanks so much to the author, BookSparks, and Chronical Prism Publishing for the complimentary finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts and participation in this blog tour. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my Goodreads.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
In just seven years, Jaime Schmidt went from making natural products in her Portland, Oregon kitchen to turning her brand into a household name and selling her company in a nine-figure acquisition. Supermaker is her guide to business and career development on your own terms.
Through unfiltered storytelling and instructive takeaways, the acclaimed entrepreneur, founder of Schmidt’s Naturals, and icon of the Maker Movement shares how you too can start or grow your own business with her secrets on marketing, sales growth, product development, customer engagement, scaling operations, and partnerships.
Following Jaime’s journey from market stand to global brand, readers will take away:
• The keys to establishing a financially successful business for entrepreneurs and professionals ready to go from maker to magnate. • Tactical approaches to branding, PR, sales, marketing, culture development, and team management. • Candid advice and storytelling from an industry disruptor and proven executive.
Following her growth from kitchen to acquisition, Supermaker is a riveting mix of inspiration, the honest airing of mistakes, and indispensable instruction.
• A go-to guide for the passion-to-profit journey. • The perfect read for aspiring entrepreneurs, makers, creatives, and anyone with an interest in selling their products online, retail strategy, or digital marketing. • Great for anyone who enjoyed Start Something That Matters by Blake Mycoskie, Craft, Inc: Turn Your Creative Hobby into a Business by Meg Mateo Ilasco, and The Girls’ Guide to Starting Your Own Business: Candid Advice, Frank Talk, and True Stories for the Successful Entrepreneur by Caitlin Friedman.
Review: (3 Stars)
I was so excited to jump into this book! Last year, in December 2019, I started my own small shop on Etsy, and it has been a crazy just under a year trying to figure it out as I went along. So I was so excited to be chosen to be a part of the blog tour for this book, and learn all of the things that Jaime had done early on in her business’s life, and how she made it what it is now.
I flew through the first half of the book, because I found it all so fascinating. The stories about her starting at craft fairs and farmers markets, to going in to her local shops to learn the process of getting her products on those first store shelves. Watching her in the middle of the learning process that is a constant once you pass the moment of “I like making this product, and I think that people would be interested in buying it” and are trying to figure out what comes next and what you would like the future of that business to look like. I got some answers to a few questions that I have had in my own experiences, and some answers to a few questions that I didn’t know that I had, and even a few answers to questions that I haven’t gotten far enough in my process yet to have been curious about.
All of that being said, once I got into about the second half of this book I hit a bit of a wall that I found myself really having to push through to the finish line and the last chapter. And that is nothing against the book, but I think that at this point in my own process only the first half of the book was really aimed at me and my business. Let me start off this portion by saying that we have very different types of businesses, Jaime and I, so it wasn’t like the whole book was going to be a one to one comparison. But more so than that, about halfway through the book is when she and her business really started to blow up – being able to shop it at target, moving into really large production spaces, hiring more and more staff members, etc. And that just isn’t a place that I see myself ever going with my own business. The biggest I could ever see my shop, in my absolute wildest dreams for my business, would be a small storefront with myself and at most one other person selling things that are still each made by my own hand. So by the time the book was all about her bringing in business partners and giving interviews on television, or being mentioned by celebrities in magazines, it just became a little bit more difficult for me to get through and I ended up finding myself putting it down in favor of my other reads.
Overall I would say that this was a fairly interesting book, written very narratively, and with lots of categorized tips and tricks from someone who made something really huge and international truly out of nothing. I would say that this book may be more interesting for you if you see yourself wanting to really take your business and make it something very big like Jaime did. Otherwise, if you’re a small business like me, maybe you’ll get more out of the first half than the second half. I am very glad that I read it, and there are a few tips and bits of inspiration that I have taken from the book since having read it. So if you are in that situation, it will just be up to you to decide for yourself if it is something worth picking up and reading, if you will potentially only be getting the information out of that one half.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
Jaime Schmidt is the acclaimed entrepreneur, investor, and Maker Movement icon that started out making natural products in her kitchen, and in short time, grew her brand into 30,000+ stores and sold it in a nine-figure acquisition.
Suffice to say, she’s got quite the story to tell. Not only about how she did it, but all the unbelievable twists and turns along the way that threatened to sink her business.
Through unfiltered storytelling and instructive takeaways learned during her growth from maker to magnate, Supermaker shares Jaime’s secrets to financial success, marketing, operations, sales growth, product development, PR, partnerships, and customer engagement.
Following Jaime from kitchen to acquisition, Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms is a riveting mix of inspiration, the honest airing of mistakes, and indispensable instruction.
Thanks so much to the author and BookSparks for the gifted finished copy of this book in exchange for my honest review and participation in the end of summer #SRC2020 blog tour. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog
TW : attempted murder, kidnapping, self-harm, death of a child, childhood trauma, gaslighting
This was a really interesting and thrilling read – a read that kept me up way past my bedtime on my last night because I needed to finish it and know how it ended before I went to sleep. It started out as a bit of a slow burn, and it took me a little while to really feel drawn in, but once the hook really got me the pages practically turned themselves, and I devoured the last half of the book.
Lets talk characters. Basically none of the characters in this book (aside from Aurelia, she’s just a child) seemed like objectively good people all the way through. Not even Emily, who is the heroine of the story. Even if the intentions had been good from the beginning, everyone had things going on, things they had done or ways that they were treating people, that seemed a bit questionable. And I think that this made all of the characters that much more interesting to read. Now obviously Emily is the most “traditionally good” character (I just think she could have been better to her parents. She was kind of a jerk to them every time we saw her interact with them, and I don’t know that I think they deserved that), and I enjoyed getting to see the story unfold through her eyes. But it isn’t only told through her point of view, we also get the husband Scott’s perspective as well, which made some of the slightly slower parts read a bit faster than they could have. His chapters felt a little bit like a peak at the wizard behind the curtain, since you know from the beginning that he is at the very least aware of whatever is happening, but at the same time he doesn’t really reveal anything so you still get to uncover the secrets along with Emily.
Now, I will say that I guessed the ending pretty early on. About 1/3 of the way into the book I turned to my husband and said “I feel like its either going to be A or B” and it ended up being the second option that I gave him. So if you are a reader that doesn’t like being able to guess the ending, then know going in that it may be a problem for you with this particular book. But that being said, I personally didn’t find that it drastically changed my enjoyment of the reading process. It just felt more like the book was confirming my theories, rather than being surprised by what was happening.
All in all, I would recommend this book to my friends. There are a few pretty serious trigger warnings attached to this read (see above), and I even found myself a bit affected by some of them closer to the end of the book while I was reading (even though none of them related to anything I have personally experienced, so I wasn’t quite sure why) so just be aware of that before jumping in. I think that the perfect way to read this book would be with a delicious, fancy wine (possibly a glass, possibly the whole bottle) by a pool or some other beautiful body of water. I mean, come on. Ignoring all of the crazy, thriller-y shenanigans, Querencia seems like a perfect place to spend a summer.
Thanks so much to the author, Libro.fm, and Dreamscape Media for the complimentary advanced audio copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog
TW : estranged parent, discussion of cancer
This book was so much fun! As far as tropes go, fake-dating to real-romance isn’t one that I typically go out of my way to reach for, but I tend to read a good amount of them anyway. And this was a really fun example of it! This book made me laugh out loud in more than one place, and it gave me feels in a few other places as well.
The characters are far from perfect, but that is what I loved so much about them. Luc is a deeply flawed and troubled character, but it made him so much for fun to read than someone that you can only aspire to relate to. As for Oliver, he is the type of character that on the surface seems perfect but slowly becomes less perfect as the book goes on, which was also really fun. I thought that the chemistry was pretty believable, even if the arrangement that began the relationship seemed less than realistic. But as less-than-realistic as it could be, there were enough moments that felt really, truly raw and human that it made the relationship so much more believable, and that made it something that as I listened I needed to learn more about and see what happened next for them.
Let’s talk secondary characters. Luc’s mom (and his mom’s curry, equally a character in my eyes) almost stole the whole show for me. The scenes at her house were just so funny! It really felt like I remember feeling when I would bring boys home for dinner with my family – it was embarrassing, it was silly, and sometimes it was even difficult to get through. These scenes read just those same ways, and made them some of my favorite parts of the whole book!
Luc’s friends are also very big parts of the story, but they weren’t always quite as much fun as his mom was, at least in my opinion. You could tell that Luc had pushed his friends to the side a bit in recent years, and maybe hadn’t fostered those relationships in a healthy way, and so his friends seemed a bit “over it” with everything until the end of the story. I think we’ve all had at least one friendship where that has happened – maybe you or your friend got really drawn in to a relationship, and by the time that relationship ended the friendship had suffered because of it. That made the friendships feel fairly realistic, but it just wasn’t as much fun to read as the mom scenes. And that’s nothing against the writing, only saying that until the relationships with his friends thawed a bit (I would say about 3/4 of the way through the book) they just weren’t the characters whose scenes I looked forward to. Except for Alex, Luc’s innocent and incredibly gullible co-worker. He was hilarious and I want to know everything there is to know about him.
Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this story! I would recommend reading it, but I might specifically recommend the audiobook – the narrator’s voice was so soothing and nice to listen to, and his different voices to make each of the characters distinctly different were really great. Also, bonus point, if you listen to the audio you get to listen to the British accents. Which is always a good thing in my book! I think that the perfect setting to listen to this book in would be on an afternoon that you decide to take a long drive through somewhere beautiful just for the fun of it.
All opinions are entirely my own. All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
TW: loss of a loved one, depression, use of medications, mention of miscarriage, grief
This book was a roller coaster of emotions that I was not quite prepared for when I picked it up. Sometimes when I am reading a book for a book club discussion, or if I’ve heard enough of my friends telling me that I have to read it, then I won’t always look much into the book before I read it. And sometimes, like was the case with Lydia Bird, I barely even read the synopsis on the back before I picked it up. So I wasn’t necessarily prepared for all of the emotional turmoil that this book would bring up. So what I would say for anyone who hasn’t read it yet, is read the description before you decide to read it, and make sure it’s something that you’re in the mood for!
I thought Lydia was a really interesting character, and I enjoyed getting to see the different sides of her depending on what she was feeling or experiencing. This book is split into chapters of when she is awake and in the real world, and chapters of when she is asleep and experiencing some sort of parallel version of reality. Because of that we got to meet two different versions of almost all of the other characters as well. Sometimes it was hard to decide if I was enjoying the asleep or awake chapters better, and every once in a while I even had to remind myself that they were two separate “worlds” and storylines. But they were written in such a way that it wasn’t usually too difficult to remember which reality she was in.
Overall I would recommend this book to anyone who is in the mood for a bit of a heavier read. This is definitely a book that you will want to take your time with, to really think about and sink your teeth into as you read, so I wouldn’t recommend that people try to read it entirely in a weekend. It was a beautiful and interesting story about a woman’s journey through loss and grief, her great love, and if she will be able to get that part of her back again. I would say the perfect setting to read this book would be cuddled under a blanket with your love, and with a very large glass of wine. With all of the emotions in this book, you’ll probably need it!
Thanks so much to the authors and publishers of these amazing books, as well as to Booksparks, for these complimentary finished copies in exchange for my honest thoughts and participation in this blog tour. { partner } All opinions are entirely my own. All of my reviews and tours can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
Emily Proudman just lost her acting agent, her job, and her apartment in one miserable day.
Emily is desperate.
Scott Denny, a successful and charismatic CEO, has a problem that neither his business acumen nor vast wealth can fix. Until he meets Emily.
Emily is perfect.
Scott offers Emily a summer job as a housekeeper on his remote, beautiful French estate. Enchanted by his lovely wife Nina, and his eccentric young daughter, Aurelia, Emily falls headlong into this oasis of wine-soaked days by the pool. But soon Emily realizes that Scott and Nina are hiding dangerous secrets, and if she doesn’t play along, the consequences could be deadly.
Superbly tense and oozing with atmosphere, Anna Downs’s debut is the perfect summer suspense, with the modern gothic feel of Ruth Ware and the morally complex family dynamics of Lisa Jewell.
Welcome to paradise…will you ever be able to leave?
About the Author (From Goodreads):
ANNA DOWNES was born and raised in Sheffield, UK, but now lives just north of Sydney, Australia with her husband and two children. She worked as an actress before turning her attention to writing. She was shortlisted for the Sydney Writers Room Short Story Prize (2017) and longlisted for the Margaret River Short Story Competition (2018). The Safe Place was inspired by Anna’s experiences working as a live-in housekeeper on a remote French estate in 2009-10.
Link to Purchase on Amazon:
Friends & Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan
(Check back here for my full review, to be added later!)
Book Description from Goodreads:
An insightful, hilarious, and compulsively readable novel about a complicated friendship between two women who are at two very different stages in life, from the best-selling author of Maine and Saints for All Occasions (named one of the Washington Post‘s Ten Best Books of the Year and a New York Times Critics’ Pick).
Elisabeth, an accomplished journalist and new mother, is struggling to adjust to life in a small town after nearly twenty years in New York City. Alone in the house with her infant son all day (and awake with him much of the night), she feels uneasy, adrift. She neglects her work, losing untold hours to her Brooklyn moms’ Facebook group, her “influencer” sister’s Instagram feed, and text messages with the best friend she never sees anymore.
Enter Sam, a senior at the local women’s college, whom Elisabeth hires to babysit. Sam is struggling to decide between the path she’s always planned on and a romantic entanglement that threatens her ambition. She’s worried about student loan debt and what the future holds. In short order, they grow close. But when Sam finds an unlikely kindred spirit in Elisabeth’s father-in-law, the true differences between the women’s lives become starkly revealed and a betrayal has devastating consequences.
A masterful exploration of motherhood, power dynamics, and privilege in its many forms, Friends and Strangers reveals how a single year can shape the course of a life.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
J. Courtney Sullivan is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Commencement, Maine, The Engagements, and Saints For All Occasions. Maine was named a Best Book of the Year by Time magazine, and a Washington Post Notable Book for 2011. The Engagements was one of People Magazine’s Top Ten Books of 2013 and an Irish Times Best Book of the Year. It is soon to be a major motion picture produced by Reese Witherspoon and distributed by Fox 2000, and it will be translated into 17 languages. Saints For All Occasions, was named one of the ten best books of the year by the Washington Post, a New York Times Critic’s Pick for 2017, and a New England Book Award nominee. Her fifth novel, Friends and Strangers, will be published in June 2020. Courtney’s writing has also appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Chicago Tribune, New York magazine, Elle, Glamour, Allure, Real Simple, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among many others. She is a co-editor, with Courtney Martin, of the essay anthology Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists. In 2017, she wrote the forewords to new editions of two of her favorite children’s books: Anne of Green Gables and Little Women. A Massachusetts native, Courtney now lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband and two children.
From Michele Campbell, the bestselling author of It’s Always the Husband comes a new blockbuster thriller in The Wife Who Knew Too Much.
Tabitha Girard had her heart broken years ago by Connor Ford. He was preppy and handsome. She was a pool girl at his country club. Their affair should have been a summer fling. But it meant everything to Tabitha.
Years later, Connor comes back into Tabitha’s life—older, richer, and desperately unhappy. He married for money, a wealthy, neurotic, controlling woman whom he never loved. He has always loved Tabitha.
When Connor’s wife Nina takes her own life, he’s free. He can finally be with Tabitha. Nina’s home, Windswept, can be theirs. It seems to be a perfect ending to a fairy tale romance that began so many years ago. But then, Tabitha finds a diary. “I’m writing this to raise an alarm in the event of my untimely death,” it begins. “If I die unexpectedly, it was foul play, and Connor was behind it. Connor—and her.”
Who is Connor Ford? Why did he marry Nina? Is Tabitha his true love, or a convenient affair? As the police investigate Nina’s death, is she a convenient suspect?
As Tabitha is drawn deeper into the dark glamour of a life she is ill-prepared for, it becomes clear to her that what a wife knows can kill her.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
Michele Campbell is a graduate of Harvard College and Stanford Law School and a former federal prosecutor in New York City who specialized in international narcotics and gang cases.
A while back, she said goodbye to her big-city legal career and moved with her husband and two children to an idyllic New England college town a lot like Belle River in IT’S ALWAYS THE HUSBAND. Since then, she has spent her time teaching criminal and constitutional law and writing novels.
She’s had many close female friends, a few frenemies, and only one husband, who – to the best of her knowledge – has never tried to kill her.
A hilariously heartfelt novel about living life at full force, and discovering family when you least expect it, influenced in part by the author’s time as Carrie Fisher’s beloved assistant.
Charlie Besson is about to have an insane job interview. His car is idling, like his life, outside the Hollywood mansion of Kathi Kannon. THE Kathi Kannon, star of stage and screen and People magazine’s worst dressed list. She needs an assistant. He needs a hero.
Kathi is an icon, bestselling author, and an award winning actress, most known for her role as Priestess Talara in the iconic blockbuster sci-fi film. She’s also known for another role: crazy Hollywood royalty. Admittedly so. Famously so. Fabulously so.
Charlie gets the job, and embarks on an odyssey filled with late night shopping sprees, last minute trips to see the aurora borealis, and an initiation to that most sacred of Hollywood tribes: the personal assistant. But Kathi becomes much more than a boss, and as their friendship grows, Charlie must make a choice. Will he always be on the sidelines of life, assisting the great forces that be, or can he step into his own leading role?
Laugh-out-loud funny, and searingly poignant, Byron Lane’s A Star is Bored is a novel that, like the star at its center, is enchanting and joyous, heartbreaking and hopeful.
In the tradition of audacious and wryly funny novels like The Idiot and Convenience Store Woman comes the wildly original coming-of-age story of a pregnant pizza delivery girl who becomes obsessed with one of her customers.
Eighteen years old, pregnant, and working as a pizza delivery girl in suburban Los Angeles, our charmingly dysfunctional heroine is deeply lost and in complete denial about it all. She’s grieving the death of her father (who she has more in common with than she’d like to admit), avoiding her supportive mom and loving boyfriend, and flagrantly ignoring her future.
Her world is further upended when she becomes obsessed with Jenny, a stay-at-home mother new to the neighborhood, who comes to depend on weekly deliveries of pickled covered pizzas for her son’s happiness. As one woman looks toward motherhood and the other towards middle age, the relationship between the two begins to blur in strange, complicated, and ultimately heartbreaking ways.
Bold, tender, propulsive, and unexpected in countless ways, Jean Kyoung Frazier’s Pizza Girl is a moving and funny portrait of a flawed, unforgettable young woman as she tries to find her place in the world.
Link to Purchase on Amazon:
The Vanishing Sky by L. Annette Binder
(Check back here for my full review, to be added later!)
Book Description from Goodreads:
For readers of Warlight and The Invisible Bridge, an intimate, harrowing story about a family of German citizens during World War II.
In 1945, as the war in Germany nears its violent end, the Huber family is not yet free of its dangers or its insidious demands. Etta, a mother from a small, rural town, has two sons serving their home country: her elder, Max, on the Eastern front, and her younger, Georg, at a school for Hitler Youth. When Max returns from the front, Etta quickly realizes that something is not right-he is thin, almost ghostly, and behaving very strangely. Etta strives to protect him from the Nazi rule, even as her husband, Josef, becomes more nationalistic and impervious to Max’s condition. Meanwhile, miles away, her younger son Georg has taken his fate into his own hands, deserting his young class of battle-bound soldiers to set off on a long and perilous journey home.
The Vanishing Sky is a World War II novel as seen through a German lens, a story of the irreparable damage of war on the home front, and one family’s participation-involuntary, unseen, or direct-in a dangerous regime. Drawing inspiration from her own father’s time in the Hitler Youth, L. Annette Binder has crafted a spellbinding novel about the daring choices we make for country and for family.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
L. Annette Binder was born in Germany and grew up in Colorado Springs.
Her first novel The Vanishing Sky (Bloomsbury, July 2020) is inspired by events in her own family history.
Her story collection Rise came out in 2012. Her short stories have been included in the Pushcart Prize anthology and the PEN/O. Henry Prize anthology and have been performed on Public Radio’s “Selected Shorts.”
Link to Purchase on Amazon:
The Lost Girls of Devon by Barbara O’Neal
(Check back here for my full review, to be added later!)
Book Description from Goodreads:
From the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids comes a story of four generations of women grappling with family betrayals and long-buried secrets.
It’s been years since Zoe Fairchild has been to the small Devon village of her birth, but the wounds she suffered there still ache. When she learns that her old friend and grandmother’s caretaker has gone missing, Zoe and her fifteen-year-old daughter return to England to help.
Zoe dreads seeing her estranged mother, who left when Zoe was seven to travel the world. As the four generations of women reunite, the emotional pain of the past is awakened. And to complicate matters further, Zoe must also confront the ex-boyfriend she betrayed many years before.
Anxieties spike when tragedy befalls another woman in the village. As the mystery turns more sinister, new grief melds with old betrayal. Now the four Fairchild women will be tested in ways they couldn’t imagine as they contend with dangers within and without, desperate to heal themselves and their relationships with each other.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
Barbara O’Neal is the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and #1 Amazon Charts bestselling writer of women’s fiction. She lives in Colorado with her partner, a British endurance athlete.
Thanks so much to the author and to Kate Rock Book Tours, NetGalley, and Central Avenue Publishing for the complimentary e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts and participation in this blog tour. All opinions are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
Synopsis from Goodreads:
ALONE TOGETHER: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 (September 1, 2020, Central Avenue Publishing) is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline into connecting and thriving during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come. All net profits will be donated to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation (Binc).
“I was looking for some way to make a dent in the overwhelming grief and devastation, and I hoped other authors would feel the same way,” says Jennifer Haupt, editor and curator of ALONE TOGETHER, who put out a call for submissions on Facebook a month after the quarantine began. “The book came together in astonishingly short amount of time—just two months. It was inspiring to see how it snowballed, with my publisher and the book distributor donating their services.”
The diverse roster of 76 bestselling and up-and-coming contributing authors (55 in the print book and another 21 in the digital edition) includes: Faith Adiele, Kwame Alexander, Jenna Blum, W. Ralph Eubanks, Jamie Ford, Nikki Giovanni, Jane Hirshfield, Pam Houston, Major Jackson, Jean Kwok, Devi S. Laskar, Caroline Leavitt, Ada Limón, Dani Shapiro, Garth Stein, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Lidia Yuknavitch.
This book is divided into five sections: What Now?, Grieve, Comfort, Connect, And Don’t Stop. The overarching theme is finding grace and humanity in this devastating time. “Some might argue that the private sector is all about survival of the fittest, but I see booksellers as existing in this place between the public and private sector,” says Michelle Halket, publisher, Central Avenue Publishing. “Bookstores are akin to our libraries; collectors and curators of our culture, and the hubs our local communities. I’m proud to help bookstores survive the COVID19 economy, while bringing forth more of the prose and poetry we all need.” All authors, the publisher and book distributor are donating their time, talent, and expertise, so the contribution to Binc is expected to be significant.
Review: (4 Stars)
TW : COVID-19 pandemic, loss of loved ones, sickness
I will say, first and foremost, that if I wasn’t on the blog tour for this book I likely would not have picked it up or read it when I did. This virus, and the time we have been living in hasn’t been easy for anyone – there is so much fear in the world right now, and being basically locked into your houses for a full quarantine was really hard on a lot of people’s mental and emotional health, myself included. And so diving right into a book about the world seemingly falling apart while we are still very much in the middle of it was a bit strange for me.
That being said, I am so incredibly glad that I read it.
This book, and all of the poems, short stories, etc. that make it up, were so powerful. And not every story will speak to every reader, but I think every reader can find at least a handful of stories that really will speak to them, and will possibly stick with them after they’re done reading. More so than anything else, this book was amazing to show me that I am not alone while I’m locked in my house all day having conversations with my pets. To show me that all of my really big feelings that I’m feeling are not only valid, but I’m not the only one feeling or experiencing them.
I would say that at this moment in time this book might not be a healthy read for every single person, and that maybe some people would do better to wait and read it once it feels like we have, as a country, come out on the other side of all of this. But I do think that more people should read it, either now or then. As I said, it felt wonderful to read some of the stories that were so similar to my own – so if that is something that you have been craving, that connected, togetherness with other people, then I really think you need to read this book. And if you can’t intake media right now because we are still too close to the situation, maybe consider buying the book to read later on. You’ll be supporting the book-ish community with your purchase, and then if nothing else 10 years from now you will have this very real, very raw look back at this crazy time in history that we will have all lived through.
About the Author (from Goodreads):
Jennifer Haupt is the editor of ALONE TOGETHER: Stories of Love, Grief, and Comfort in the Time of COVID-19. Her essays and articles have been published in O, The Oprah Magazine, Parenting, The Rumpus, Spirituality & Health, The Sun and many other publications. Her debut novel, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills was awarded the Foreword Reviews Bronze Indie Award for Historical Fiction. Her second novel, Come as You Are, a contemporary family drama, will be published in July 2021.
Thanks so much to the author, NetGalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the complimentary advanced e-copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. And thanks as well to BookSparks and St. Martin’s Press for the gifted finished copy, also in exchange for an honest review. All opinoins are entirely my own. { partner } All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
This book jumps right into the story and the intrigue right from the word go, and works to hook you from page 1. This story is mostly told from Tabitha’s point of view, but we also get a few chapters from Nina Levitt’s point of view, both from her as a narrator and through a few of her diary entries. And the first entry that we see very clearly says “If you find that I’ve died unexpectedly, my husband and his lover have planned it.” Talk about drawing you in early! So we spend the whole story with the new wife, Tabitha, trying to figure out if Connor really is responsible, or if he’s innocent and someone else is to blame, or if Nina simply commited suicide.
I know there were some mixed reviews on whether readers enjoyed Tabitha as a character, but I really enjoyed her. She makes plenty of mistakes, and there are a few choices that she makes throughout the story that you’d like to believe that you’d be smarter than in the same situations, but I think that’s what I liked about her the most. I love reading a flawed character. And Tabitha, while she has a really great heart and a pretty solid moral compass, she is definitely flawed. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to spend this time in her head trying to figure out the mystery of who to trust. Especially as she was so suddenly thrust into this crazy world of money that is brand new to her, and watching her try to navigate it. I will say, I also really enjoyed the character of Nina, and I wish we could have gotten a few more chapters of her story. I know, she’s the supposed victim, and dies right at the start of the story, so we can’t get too much time in her head, or there wouldn’t be a mystery for the readers. But still, I said what I said. I enjoyed her as a character, and I wanted to get to know her better.
For the story, there were plenty of twists and turns to keep me hanging on until the very last page. There were a few littler twists that I guessed might happen, or that I slightly saw coming, but none of them were big enough that I found myself less invested in the story or how it got from point A to point B. This book had me staying up late and reading in bed past my bedtime, because I wanted to get to the end and see what happened next! I definitely felt the “fine, just one more chapter” draw over and over again while reading this one.
I would definitely recommend this book to my friends, and especially to anyone who, like me, was a fan of A Stranger On the Beach which is also by Campbell. This book had me hooked and feeling invested right from the beginning, and I didn’t feel like it let me go until the last page. I think if I were to reread this book I would want to read it in the evening by a fireplace with a large glass of red wine!
All opinions are entirely my own. All of my reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on my blog at tacklingtbr.home.blog
I read The Simple Wild last summer, and it was one of my very favorite books of 2019. So naturally when the sequel came out I was equally ecstatic and terrified. What if it didn’t live up to the first one? Well, Wild at Heart was everything that I wanted it to be and more. It is a true sequel, following the story of the first and picking up right where the first left off, so I’ll try not to give too many spoilers. But know that you should definitely read the first book before diving into this one.
At the beginning of this story, we find Calla moving to Alaska to be with Jonah and to start their company (and their lives) together. So throughout the story Calla is dealing with having moved so far away from her family, and her friends (who always say they’re going to come and visit, but they very rarely do), and Jonah working long hours each day, and feeling like she is lonely and doesn’t know what her purpose in Alaska is yet. Sometimes not even being able to get out of the house becuse she doesn’t drive. I have to say, at times this book was almost difficult for me to read, because I have so recently been going through those same emotions in my own life. My husband is in the military, and I moved to be with him, and it has been the first time that I haven’t been living within about 25 minutes from my family. The friends don’t get to visit as often as they say they will, and when your husband is out working every day but you haven’t been able to get a job, your days spent in this new place and this new house can be very quiet and lonely. I was even relating to Calla on the part about not being able to leave the house, as there were a few months after the move when I didn’t even have a car to go out and explore.
This book did an amazing job portraying those emotions, that I was so familiar with in a way that was honest and at times truly heartbreaking. And while at times it was still feeling too fresh for me, and at times felt a little bit difficult for me to read, it was really amazing getting to read this story with these characters that I already knew and loved going through them, and seeing how they got through them together. It has been a big, ongoing discussion between my husband and I for this early part of our marriage, and it was really nice to feel like I was going through it with these characters too, and seeing Calla learn about herself through it and come out on the other side stronger for it.
This book absolutely, 200% lived up to my hopes and expectations for it that were set by The Simple Wild, and I can’t wait to get my hands on the next chapter in Calla and Jonah’s story. Honestly I think I would read about these two until Calla and I were both old and grey if K. A. Tucker kept writing about them. I would recommend this book to anybody at all, though as I said I would make them read The Simple Wild first. Although I keep reading them in the summer, the stories and wintery Alaskan settings of these books make them perfect to curl up with in front of a fire in the dead of winter, maybe with a mulled wine in hand, and your love close by.
All opinions are entirely my own. All of my full reviews can also be found on Instagram @Tackling_TBR and on Goodreads.
Listen to me discuss this book more in depth on the new The Same Page Podcast, due to be released on Sunday, 8/30/2020!
TW: stalking, murder, discussion of suicide, violence, explicit sexual language
Well you guys, I broke the bookworm rule. No, I didn’t dog-ear any pages. The other bookworm rule. I watched the show/movie before I read the book. But I finally got around the reading this one, even after seeing and loving the show, and I am so glad that I did! The book and the show are both so wild and compelling on their own, as well as together, and they are just different enough that I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything in the reading experience just because I had already seen the show.
Now with that out of the way, let’s get in to it.
This is a really different and fascinating read – it is all told through the eyes of Joe Goldberg, who sees himself as the hero of his own perfect romantic comedy. Meanwhile, the reality of the situation is that he is stalking a woman that he met at work, and eventually drives her into a relationship with him. What made this so interesting, in my opinion, is that I had to remind myself not to be rooting for this guy to get his way – while yes, he is an unreliable narrator, listening to him justify his actions (both to himself and to the audience) automatically makes you feel like you want to be on his side. Spending time in the character’s head and listening to him convince himself that everything he is doing is out of love, and that they are the things that romantic comedies are made of, he charmed me as a reader enough that I was almost surprised every time he committed his worst crimes. Until closer to the end, that is. After a while it is impossible to forget that he is a bit of a monster.
Our two main characters are Joe and Beck, the woman that he has fallen in love with. There are a hand full of other important secondary characters as well, but these two are the cornerstones of this story. And, as stated above, this whole story is told through Joe – we are seeing what he is seeing, and hearing what he is thinking. And as such, Joe comes across as a very charming guy, and Beck is the ideal of a perfect young woman, just how Joe sees her. That being said, none of the characters are perfect people, and honestly very few of the characters are even all that likable by the time that the book is over. Including Joe and Beck. Obviously Joe starts off pretty rough. You know, stalking and hurting people. But even Beck – as the book goes on and Joe is learning flaws about her and having his vision of her tarnished, the same thing is happening for the reader. I would say that all of the main characters were written in a way that I was able to feel about them exactly how the author seemed to intend in each moment without feeling like any of those emotions were forced, or that we were supposed to change an opinion of someone without cause.
Over all, I would highly recommend this book, even if you have already seen the show. As I said in the beginning, they are both different enough that I think they can be enjoyed separately or together. I would recommend this book, or the show, specifically to fans of true crime and psychological thrillers who want to get a different spin on a type of story that they already enjoy. This book is a perfect read on a chilly autumn day with a big glass of wine, maybe wrapped up in a comfy sweater. But maybe not in front of any big open windows. You know. Just in case.
