Book Review: "Kate & Frida" by Kim Fay

“…books aren’t anchored in one place like a building which means you can read a book that holds your memories anywhere. And food. If you can get your hands on the right ingredients, you can eat a dish that holds your memories anywhere too. If memories are inherent to our sense of identity, does that mean it’s possible to reassemble parts of your identity no matter where you are in the world?”

This was such a heartwarming and thought-provoking epistolary novel. I found myself smiling and tearing up while reading it.

In 1991, Frida is an aspiring war correspondent living in Paris. She is ready to take on the conflicts of the world and share the stories people don’t see. One day she writes to a bookstore in Seattle to request a book. Her letter is received by Kate, one of the store’s booksellers, who is also an aspiring writer.

Kate is immediately drawn to Frida’s letter, and loves having the opportunity to help a customer. Her reply to Frida sets off a correspondence that builds into one of the most important relationships either young woman has ever had. They recount their days, share their dreams and fears, and talk about books, food, family, and their romantic relationships.

Frida goes to Bosnia to cover the war there and is shaken by all she sees. She searches within herself to find her story. Kate is a highly emotional person who loves her job as a bookseller and loves her family, but so desperately wants to leave her mark on the world.

Epistolary novels are such a terrific change of pace, and I felt the difference between both characters. Kim Fay said in her Author’s Note that this book was inspired by the advice she wanted to give her younger self. This really was a beautiful and memorable book.

Book Review: "I'll Come to You" by Rebecca Kauffman

This book is one of those slice-of-life novels that is more character-driven than plot-driven. And much like everyday life, it is made up more of quiet moments than overly dramatic ones.

Spanning the course of one year (1995), I’ll Come to You is the story of a family, connected by blood and marriage. Ellen is recently divorced and doesn’t really understand why her marriage ended. She gets set up on a date—which convinces her she’s not ready for another relationship—but it does spark a friendship.

Meanwhile, Ellen’s son Paul and his wife Corrine are expecting a baby, after a long period of trying to get pregnant. They are understandably nervous about what’s to come and how their lives will change.

Corrine’s mother, Janet, is one of those women who is always finding something to complain about, some instance in which she gets less than others. Her husband Bruce is facing a health crisis that she’s been less than forthcoming about with her children.

Corinne’s brother Rob is a car salesman who is navigating a divorce and watching his twin sons grow up differently than he would have raised them. Rob’s penchant for lying, a habit he’s had since childhood, has eroded his relationships with his family, and one person in particular.

I think Kauffman’s storytelling is excellent. She created a web around which all of these characters revolve, and there’s enough nuance to keep it all interesting. I thought this book had an Anne Tyler-esque feel to it, in that Tyler specializes in creating irascible characters who wind up somewhat endearing.

Book Review: "A Reason to See You Again" by Jami Attenberg

Post-Thanksgiving and pre-holidays, here’s a healthy dollop of family dysfunction in book form!

Rudy was a Holocaust survivor who traveled the country speaking to groups about what life was like in the camps. His traveling secretary, Frieda, becomes his wife, and together they raise two daughters, Nancy and Shelly. Rudy is the peacemaker, the one who smooths Frieda’s rough edges, as she becomes increasingly critical of her daughters. (It intensifies more when she drinks, which is becoming a nightly activity.)

When Rudy dies, the three women are adrift without a buffer. Frieda’s drinking becomes more of a problem, Nancy leaves for college, and Shelly throws herself into her schoolwork in the hopes she can get as far away as possible. But Frieda’s abuse takes its toll on the self-esteem of both her daughters.

As the years pass, Nancy marries young and has a daughter, but isn’t really sure that this is the life she wants. Shelly moves to the West Coast and becomes a driving force in the rapidly growing field of mobile phone technology. The sisters don’t see other much, and when they do, their interactions are affected by uncertainty, envy, and resentment.

Meanwhile, Frieda has moved to Miami, and continues her self-destructive ways. She also has some guilt about how she treated her daughters when they were growing up, and she mourns the life she had before her husband died. But at some point, all three women realize that you can only blame others for your misery for so long before you need to take responsibility for your own life.

The story spans four decades, beginning in the early 1970s, and is narrated by all three women and Rudy. I felt the story had promise early but lost its way; there’s only so long you can read about people unhappy and not interested in changing things.

Book Review: "The Lake of Lost Girls" by Katherine Greene

“It’s hard to escape the memory of someone who has become perfect through the very act of remembering them.”

In 1998, Jessica was a freshman at Southern State University in North Carolina. Like many new college students, she was struggling academically and emotionally, and partying a little too much.

The university was rocked by the disappearance of three female students. One evening, when Jessica was home (she lived in the same town as the university) for her younger sister’s 6th birthday, she went out to get the cake from her car, and disappeared. No trace was ever found.

Now, 24 years later, a new true crime podcast starts looking into Jessica’s disappearance as well as those of the three other students. Her sister Lindsey, whose life was forever changed the night her sister went missing, is hoping the new attention to the mystery might finally lead to answers.

When bodies are found at a local lake, Lindsey hopes they may find Jessica’s remains. But the discoveries highlight the ineptitude of the initial investigation, as well as some secrets that might have been better left submerged.

The book is told in dual timelines: by Lindsey in the present day and Jessica in 1998. The pacing was a bit slower than I would’ve liked, although there were some good twists. But I think it’s time to put the true crime podcast story angle to bed for a while. I’ve read at least four mystery/thrillers this year with this gimmick, and IMHO, that’s three too many.

Book Review: "This Motherless Land" by Nikki May

How much are our lives defined by the choices our families make? Are we doomed to follow the same paths or can we forge our own? These are questions that came to mind for me when reading This Motherless Land.

Funke is growing up in Nigeria, the daughter of an English mother and an African father. She loves her life, even loves school, and tolerates her annoying brother, although she doesn’t love that because he is a boy he’s considered more important.

When tragedy strikes, Funke is sent to England to live with her mother’s estranged family. Everything is much different than she imagined from the stories her mother told, and her aunt is often rude and condescending to her. But the one bright spot in her life is her cousin Liv, who appoints herself Funke’s protector.

The two cousins become the closest of friends, and that friendship continues into their adulthood. But when another tragedy strikes, the ramifications of the decisions made by Funke’s mother and aunt impact her and Liv. Accusations are thrown and actions are taken which shatter their relationship, leaving them both without their closest friend.

The story takes place from the mid-1970s through the late 1990s, and shifts between Funke and Liv, as well as between Nigeria and England. It’s a story of family, both blood and chosen, and how breaking free of expectations can actually enhance your life.

I enjoyed May’s storytelling, and I also enjoyed her debut novel, Wahala. The book is referred to as a decolonial retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, but my understanding is it’s a VERY loose retelling. I found certain characters very difficult and their behaviors irritated me, but I really enjoyed Funke and Liv.

Book Review: "A Lovely Lie" by Jaime Lynn Hendricks

I used to read more thrillers and crime novels than any other genre. But I grew disillusioned because so many thrillers seemed fairly similar, with common themes and tropes. However, since so many of my Bookstagram buddies love thrillers, I’ve waded back in this year. While they all haven’t been great, I’ve found some fantastic thrillers so far in 2024, and Jaime Lynn Hendricks’ new book is on that list! (This is also the fourth thriller I've loved that has "Lie" in the title.)

Pepper and Scarlett were best friends in high school. Pepper was the star, the leader, and Scarlett was her follower. In 1999, the two were involved in a car accident that killed two of their classmates. They coordinated their alibis and lied to the police, and the next morning, Pepper disappeared, never to be heard from again.

More than 20 years later, Scarlett lives in St. Petersburg, Florida, with her husband Vince and their teenage son. She is shocked when Zoey, Pepper’s daughter, shows up, telling Scarlett that Pepper is dead. Zoey knows that Scarlett kept Pepper’s secrets; she demands to know who her father is and what happened the night of the senior picnic, as she found a letter Pepper wrote to Scarlett mentioning an accident.

Zoey’s arrival turns Scarlett’s life upside down. She is determined to keep digging into what happened that night 22 years ago, to find out who her father is and what secrets and lies have been kept hidden. But even Scarlett doesn’t know what she thinks she does…

This was an excellent thriller that definitely surprised me. Hendricks threw in lots of twists and turns, and I didn’t know which characters to trust and which to despise. The book shifts back and forth between 1999 and the present, and is narrated by several of the characters.

This was my first book by Hendricks; it will absolutely not be my last!!

Book Review: "Anita de Monte Laughs Last" by Xochitl Gonzalez

A dual-timeline book that examines the art world as well as the sexual, racial, and power dynamics it stirs up, Anita de Monte Laughs Last was a very thought-provoking read. I really loved Xochitl Gonzalez’s debut, Olga Dies Dreaming, so I was really looking forward to this.

In 1985, a rising young artist, Anita de Monte, died under mysterious circumstances. Anita was married to famed artist (and womanizer) Jack Martin, but as her raw talent started gaining notoriety, it provoked Jack’s envy and his anger. While Anita’s death proved to be a scandal, the buzz was short-lived, and it wasn’t long before Anita’s talent was forgotten and Jack's career continued to flourish.

In 1998, Raquel Toro is an art history student at Brown University. Being one of only a few minority students, she felt ostracized, like she needed to work three times as hard to get the breaks her fellow students got. When she starts a relationship with Nick, an older, wealthy art student, she does reap the advantages—but at the expense of her pride, her independence, and her self-respect.

She plans to write her final thesis about Jack Martin, but while interning at a museum over the summer, she is introduced to the life and work of Anita de Monte. She realizes this artist, her talent as well as her tragic end and the influences she had over those in her cycle, is the real story that needs to be told.

The parallel narrative is an interesting one, shifting back and forth through Anita’s short career and her death, alternating with Raquel’s struggles and her discovery of Anita’s work. It’s fascinating and sad how both women felt the need to compromise themselves in order to make the men in their lives happy, and how their minority status often made them “exotic.”

While the pacing felt a little slow at times, I really liked this book. I’d imagine the struggles Anita and Raquel dealt with were very realistic, not just within the art world.

Book Review: "Mercury" by Amy Jo Burns

This was so good! As I've said numerous times before, I love stories about family relationships and dynamics, and Mercury definitely fit the bill.

Marley and her mother, Ruth, came to the small town of Mercury, Pennsylvania in 1990. Marley was 17, used to spending lots of time by herself while her mother works as a nurse, and it's always been the two of them against the world. But she's wanted to belong, wanted to be a part of something bigger.

Not long after her arrival in town, Marley encounters brothers Baylor and Waylon Joseph, when they get into a fight at the end of a baseball game. The young men are the sons of Mick, the blustering, egotistical owner of Joseph & Sons Roofing, and both are expected to follow in their father's footsteps, as is their younger brother, Shay. It's not long before Marley is drawn into their orbit, chosen by one brother but longed for by another.

Things change rapidly, and it's not long before she is a young wife and mother. But as the boys' own mother slowly starts to disappear from their lives, Marley steps up, taking charge of the family and helping with the business, even becoming somewhat of a surrogate mother to Shay. And at the same time, she becomes privvy to a set of secrets that could shake not only the Josephs, but the entire town of Mercury.

Years later, when the church attic is found to be home to a gruesome discovery, all of the Josephs get drawn into the web that exposes old wounds and threatens to destroy the entire family. Each must decide whether their relationships, the business, and the family itself are worth fighting for, and what the future holds.

While this is definitely a slow-burn story, I was hooked from the very start. Amy Jo Burns created layered characters that were so much more complex than I initially believed, and I really enjoyed her storytelling ability. There was a richness to this story that definitely will keep it in my mind for some time.

Book Review: "The Most Likely Club" by Elyssa Friedland

It’s never too late to achieve your high school dreams.

In 1997, four best friends—Melissa, Suki, Priya, and Tara—were determined to set the world on fire after high school. Their classmates thought so, too, voting them Most Likely to Win the White House, Join the Forbes 400, Cure Cancer, and Open a Michelin-Starred Restaurant, respectively.

But as their 25th reunion approaches, while Suki has built a business empire and Priya is a doctor, no one is quite satisfied with the trajectory their lives took. Rather than let that get them down, they decide—with the support and help of each other—to finally achieve the superlatives they received in high school, or at least some success that truly brings them satisfaction.

They call themselves The Most Likely Club. But they’ll find that the path they most want to take might not be the easiest or the best, and it may take coming to terms with truths they’ve kept hidden. At least they’ll do it together.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved the nostalgic feel of looking back on your life since high school and seeing how different it is from what you thought it might be. I’m a fan of Elyssa Friedland’s books and the warmth and humor she brings to her stories—not to mention a touch of zaniness.

Thanks to Get Red PR for sending me a copy! I already have Friedland’s next book on my TBR for when it’s published!

Book Review: "The Rewind" by Allison Winn Scotch

The Rewind is a cute second-chance rom-com about what happens when old college friends reunite for a wedding.

The last thing Frankie wanted was to be a bridesmaid at her college roommate’s wedding. And having to wear some horrible dress isn’t even the worst part—it’s that she will probably see Ezra, her college boyfriend. They had an angry breakup 10 years ago and haven’t spoken since.

Ezra is a little anxious about seeing Frankie, too, but he has a plan, anyway: his girlfriend Mimi is coming to the wedding and he intends to propose to her right after, as the clock strikes midnight and 1999 turns to 2000.

And yet the morning before the wedding Ezra and Frankie wake up in bed together in their freshman dorm. They both have pounding headaches, Frankie is wearing the engagement ring Ezra intended for Mimi, and he’s also wearing a wedding ring.

Of course, neither of them have any idea how they got there or what happened the night before. Did they get married? Why does Frankie's head hurt if she doesn't drink? As they try to figure out the events of the previous night, both are also reminded of everything that went wrong—and what was right—with their relationship in college. Have they changed enough to want a second chance with one another, or is there too much baggage from the past?

This was a fun, sweet book, infused with late-90s nostalgia. I felt like the “figuring out what happened” piece took longer than anything else, but I’m definitely a fan of second-chance love stories!

Book Review: "When You Call My Name" by Tucker Shaw

Gorgeous and emotional, When You Call My Name evoked such memories for me.

It’s 1990 in New York City. Adam is 17 and has just been asked out on a date by Callum, an aspiring conductor. Adam quickly falls for Callum, who is a few years older than him, but something seems to be holding Callum back.

Ben left his upstate New York home after his mother discovered his secret stash of gay magazines, and he heads to NYC to live with his brother, who is a doctor. Fashion-obsessed Ben gets a glimpse into the world he wants to be a part of, and he falls in love with the city and its possibilities, even if his brother doesn’t quite get him.

When Callum disappears, Adam desperately searches for him, until he finds that he’s in the hospital, slowly declining from AIDS. Adam devoted himself to caring for Callum until he reaches the end, and the toll that AIDS has taken on the gay community overwhelms him.

One night, when Adam is at his most vulnerable, he meets Ben near Callum’s hospital. Ben realizes that Adam is in pain and needs help, and although their connection is brief, they begin seeing each other at random times. Sometimes their encounters are meaningful, sometimes they say the wrong things, but both start to depend on one another more than they’re prepared to admit.

This is such a beautiful book, one that so accurately captures the mood of 1990, the sadness, defiance, anger, and fear that pervaded the LGBTQ community at that time. It’s a book about the power of friendship, love, chosen and blood family, and finally finding yourself. This reminded me a little of The Prettiest Star by Carter Sickels (a favorite of mine from a few years ago) in the emotions and nostalgia it evoked.

Thanks so much to Fierce Reads, Storygram Tours, and Tucker Shaw for inviting me on the tour for this book and providing a complimentary advance copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

Book Review: "The Night Shift" by Alex Finlay

I haven’t raced through a thriller this quickly in years, so thanks to Alex Finlay for The Night Shift!

Yes, this one has been everywhere on Bookstagram since it was officially released last week, and I’ve been dying to read it, so I jumped on it shortly after I bought it. And while it’s not really a book that evoked the spirit of 1999 like I expected, I thought it was great (despite guessing the killer very early in the book).

New Year’s Eve before 1999 turns to 2000. No one knows what to expect from Y2K, but the staff at a Blockbuster Video in New Jersey just wants to get home before midnight. Yet tragedy strikes: four employees are murdered, while one young woman miraculously survived. Although a suspect is quickly identified, he disappears shortly afterward he is released from prison.

Fifteen years later, several employees of an ice cream shop in the same New Jersey town are murdered, with only one bystander surviving. Is this a copycat crime, or could the killer have returned after all these years? The investigation will bring together a lot of people, including the sole survivor of the Blockbuster murders, the brother of the accused killer, who has believed in his brother’s innocence all these years, and a very pregnant FBI agent trying to figure out whether the two tragedies were connected.

The Night Shift had lots of great twists and turns, and there were so many places I didn’t know whom to trust or what might happen. While I was sad about one thing that happened in the book and had a few unanswered questions, I thought this was great. I'll definitely be picking up Finlay's previous book, Every Last Fear!

Book Review: "Vanish Me" by Lee Matthew Goldberg

In Vanish Me, a teenage girl’s search for her missing mother, a former musician, helps her find herself, too.

One great reading discovery I made last year was the Runaway Train trilogy by Lee Matthew Goldberg. I read the first two books, Runaway Train and Grenade Bouquets, last year, and this was the last book in the series.

The first two books took place in the mid-1990s and followed Nico, a rebellious teenager who leaves home following her older sister’s death and, after some fits and starts, becomes a musician. She falls prey to the pitfalls of fame and drug and alcohol addiction, but she becomes a real star as well. The books really captured the music and feel of the 1990s.

Vanish Me takes place in 2014. Nico has gone missing and her estranged teenage daughter, Love, decides to try and find her mother after finding her old diary. She and her two best friends set off for Los Angeles in an attempt to track down anyone who might know where Nico could have gone.

The story alternates between Nico’s journal entries before and after Love was born, and Love’s attempts to find her mother. In trying to understand the challenges Nico faced and the pain she inflicted on others along the way, Love also begins to understand herself a little better, and tries to figure out what she might want from her own life as well as her mother, if they find her.

This was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. I really enjoyed Love’s character and how her journey tied up a lot of loose ends from the previous book. Nico’s journal entries definitely gave more insight into why she was the way she was, but still underscored her selfishness. This was a well-told, poignant, fun journey, with lots of good music references thrown in.

Thanks to Suzy Approved Book Tours, Wise Wolf Books, and Lee Matthew Goldberg for inviting me on the tour for this book and providing a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review!!

Book Review: "What the Fireflies Knew" by Kai Harris

Kai Harris' latest novel is a poignant, emotional coming-of-age story.

KB (short for Kenyatta Bernice) is nearly 11 years old and growing up in Detroit in the mid-1990s. She wants to be treated as older than she is and always wants to know what’s going on around her, but she’s utterly unprepared for the death of her father due to a drug overdose.

Unable to cope, KB’s mother sends her and her teenage sister Nia to spend the summer in Lansing with their estranged grandfather. KB is having trouble making sense of her drastically changed world, from wondering why their mother left and whether she’ll ever come back, to trying to understand her grandfather’s mercurial moods. More than that, she’s losing her connection with Nia, who believes she’s more mature than she is and doesn’t have patience to be saddled with her immature little sister.

At the same time, KB has to deal with the fickle nature of the kids across the street, who often aren’t allowed to play with her, and the unwanted attention of others when she tries to act older. It’s a summer of laughter and tears, fears and victories, a summer of learning things about her mother—and herself—that she never knew.

“In life, we’re going to get hurt. If we stay focused on that hurt, and nothing else, then we won’t ever be able to heal. But if we focus on the healing, well, then we’ll start to notice that hurt disappear. It’s all a matter of what you choose to focus on.”

What the Fireflies Knew was one of my February Book of the Month picks, and I thought it was sweet, sad at times, and inspiring, too. I enjoy coming-of-age novels, and this is a worthy new inclusion to the genre.

Book Review: "The Wish" by Nicholas Sparks

With his new book, The Wish, the master of the romantic tearjerker is back to tug at your emotions!

Is there anyone else who stays up super late to finish a book and it seriously rips you apart? Well, I wasn't surprised, but Nicholas Sparks’ new book definitely did that to me. It reminded me of some of his classics like The Notebook.

Maggie is 16 in 1996 when she is sent away to live with her aunt in the remote village of Ocracoke, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It’s a fairly solitary life—she mostly does her schoolwork and helps keep the house clean—and she misses her friends. But it’s not long before she strikes up a friendship with Bryce, one of the few other teenagers on the island.

Bryce starts tutoring Maggie to help her keep up with her schoolwork. He starts to show her things he loves about the island and he introduces her to photography, which becomes a love of hers. And little by little, the two fall hard for one another. But Maggie knows she’ll be headed home to Seattle in May, and she knows they’re both too young to derail the course of their lives.

In 2019, Maggie is a famous photographer who co-owns an NYC gallery, where she works when she’s not traveling the world. But faced with a serious medical diagnosis, she needs to hire an assistant for the gallery. As her condition worsens, she and the young man she hires develop a friendship, and she tells him the story of that Christmas in 1996, and its impact on her life.

Not much in The Wish surprised me (there was one twist that threw me) but I was fully immersed in it, falling in love with the characters and the love story. My eyes are still puffy this morning, but boy, it was a good cry!!

Book Review: "When the Stars Go Dark" by Paula McLain

Paula McLain's latest book, When the Stars Go Dark, is powerful, poignant, and utterly amazing.

To paraphrase that mid-90s jam, this is how you do it. What a fantastic book Paula McLain has written.

San Francisco detective Anna Hart specializes in missing persons work, and often deals with cases involving children and young adults. It’s always been hard for her to separate from the trauma and brutality she sees, but when personal tragedy strikes, she can’t figure out what to do with her grief.

With nowhere else to go, she returns to Mendocino, the village where she spent some of her childhood with her foster parents. It’s the closest thing she can call home.

When she arrives home, she learns that a teenage girl has gone missing. Her childhood friend is now the sheriff, so she agrees to help him try and figure out what happened. The case triggers memories of a similar case from when they were growing up, and between that and the trauma Anna has been bearing, it’s a lot to handle. But Anna understands the mind of the abductor and tries to figure out what has happened to the girl before it’s too late—and before she falls apart herself.

There’s so much to say but the beauty of When the Stars Go Dark—other than the mesmerizing writing—is letting all the pieces slowly click into place. Interestingly, the book takes place in 1993, so McLain intersperses this case with a real-life child abduction case, so it gives the story more emotional weight.

I’m so glad I finally got to this one. What a fantastic book—it reminded me a tiny bit of Rene Denfeld’s books but it’s a story all its own.

Book Review: "Grenade Bouquets" by Lee Matthew Goldberg

A teenage girl learns that chasing after your dreams can have a downside in Grenade Bouquets, the second book in Lee Matthew Goldberg's Runaway Train series.

Having read Goldberg’s earlier book, Runaway Train, I was excited to read the sequel. But perhaps what excited me even more was to discover that the book’s epigraph was the first stanzas of a poem (Arthur O'Shaughnessy's Ode) which contains one of my favorite lines of all time, “We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams.” So cool!!

It’s 1995 and Nico has finally pulled herself together a bit after spiraling out of control following the sudden death of her sister. She’s convinced her parents to let her spend the summer touring the country as a backup singer for her boyfriend Evan’s band, Grenade Bouquets.

The thrill of performing onstage is like a dream for Nico, and her presence and her one solo start to get the band increased attention. Before they know it, doors are open to the band that previously were closed, but it’s Nico that is becoming the focus, which doesn’t sit well with the other members, especially Clarissa, the lead singer and Evan’s ex.

Nico starts to discover the downside of being a musician, too. Not only is the band a hotbed of tension which she tries to avoid by drinking excessively, but the stress is also affecting her relationship with Evan. She’s also still grieving her sister and having issues with her best friend back at home. It’s a lot for anyone to take, much less a teenager.

I’ve really enjoyed these books. Goldberg so effectively captures the 1995 setting (all of the chapter titles are song titles from that period) and he does a great job conveying the feelings and actions of a teenage girl. Nico isn’t the easiest character to love, however, and she and her friends make some really impulsive decisions, so it’s essentially like hanging out with teenagers at times, lol.

Thanks to Suzy Approved Book Tours, Lee Matthew Goldberg, and Wise Wolf Books for inviting me on the tour and providing a complimentary advance copy of Grenade Bouquets in exchange for an unbiased review!

Book Review: "Lady Sunshine" by Amy Mason Doan

Lady Sunshine, Amy Mason Doan's newest novel, is a beautifully written, nostalgic story of friendship and family secrets.

The summer Jackie was 17, in 1979, she went to live with her musician uncle at The Sandcastle, his sprawling, campground-like, coastal estate in California. Friends, acolytes, and fellow musicians would flock there and live a bohemian lifestyle in the cabins and on the grounds, bringing and finding merriment, love, and musical inspiration.

Jackie took all of this in earnestly, marveling at the coastal beauty of the estate and the love and intensity her uncle radiates. She becomes fast friends with her free-spirited cousin Willa, and each shares their unique life experiences with the other. It’s an idyllic summer until one fateful moment ends it all, and Jackie leaves abruptly as Willa vanishes.

Twenty years later she gets the surprise of her life when she learns she has inherited The Sandcastle, despite not having set foot there since 1979. As she plans to get the compound ready to be sold, the process of packing reawakens memories and reopens questions about the past.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Jackie, her estranged aunt had agreed before her death to let a music producer create a tribute album to her uncle and produce it at The Sandcastle. While she is first reluctant to share the space, his presence, and that of his musicians and their families, rekindles the spirit of those days of Jackie’s youth.

How reliable are our memories? How indelible are the friendships and relationships we form as teenagers? How much can the trajectory of our lives change in an instant? Lady Sunshine addresses these questions in a story that feels nostalgic and yet timeless in many ways.

I’m not one of those people who reads books based on seasons but this really was a great summer read. Amy Mason Doan's imagery is particularly evocative and gorgeous, and this is definitely a book I’d love to see on the big or small screen someday.

Book Review: "Survive the Night" by Riley Sager

In thriller author Riley Sager's latest book, Survive the Night, a troubled young woman thinks she may be stuck in a car with a killer, but her mind might be playing tricks on her.

Charlie is obsessed with movies. I mean, she's even named for a character in Shadow of a Doubt. In her tragedy-filled life, they’re the only thing that have given her comfort. Until she met Maddy, her brash, confident roommate, who tried to drag her out of her self-imposed loneliness. And sometimes she succeeded.

But when Maddy is murdered by a serial killer who has been preying on young women near their college campus, Charlie falls apart, her grief and guilt taking her down. She needs to leave college and go home to Ohio, to try to pull herself back together, if such a thing is possible.

She meets Josh at the campus ride board. He's handsome, wearing a college sweatshirt, and he’s looking for someone to drive with him to Ohio, since he needs to care for his sick father. Even though driving in a car for 9 hours with a man she doesn’t know, especially in the wake of a serial killer on campus, may not be the wisest choice, Charlie agrees to ride home with him.

It’s not long into the ride that Charlie starts wondering if Josh really is who he says he is. As she starts catching him in little lies, she knows he’s hiding something—but what? Could it be possible that Josh is the Campus Killer? And if so, what should she do—try to escape or stay and fight?

The entire book takes place over the course of one night in November 1991. Sager certainly captures the mood of that time well and creates a sense of tension throughout the book.

That being said, I thought it took a really long time for Survive the Night to get going, although when it did, it took off quickly. And while there are lots of twists, I cynically predicted whom the killer would be early on, and I really hate being right. (In thrillers, lol.)

Lots of people are loving this and if you’re one of them, I’m glad! Thrillers and me, we just don’t mesh all the time.

Book Review: "Runaway Train" by Lee Matthew Goldberg

Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom in order to find your way back up. That's one of the messages conveyed in Lee Matthew Goldberg's new YA novel, Runaway Train.

“My sister Kristen died the same day as the actor River Phoenix, October 31st, 1993, he from a drug overdose in the middle of the night outside the Viper Room, her on an early morning run through Laurel Canyon, two days before her seventeenth birthday.”

Although 16-year-old Nico and her sister were very different, she’s still devastated by her sudden death. With her parents ignoring her because of their own grief and dysfunctional relationship, Nico spends her days with her two best friends, Winter and Jeremy, getting high, drinking, cutting school, and listening to grunge music.

Nico is full of anger and angst, and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Her friends encourage her to run away for a while, maybe cross some things off her bucket list, and ultimately wind up at her musical idol Kurt Cobain’s house in Seattle.

The journey she goes on is eye-opening in many ways, full of beautiful, sad, and disappointing moments. Her sister’s spirit accompanies her, as does a mixtape she made for Kristen, which provides music for the journey. She meets an interesting crew of people along the way, some who show her that life is worth being present for and that it’s still worth living, despite her grief.

But before she can figure out what’s next, she’s on a collision course with sadness and her self-destructive, anger-filled behaviors. Will she be able to appreciate the good things she’s experiencing on this trip? Can she save herself before it’s too late?

Runaway Train so perfectly captured teenage angst and the spirit that pervaded the mid-1990s. Nico isn’t an entirely sympathetic character but her emotions and her attempts to manage them felt very real.

As a fan of grunge music of that era, I loved all the references to bands and songs. (Even before I started reading this, I found myself singing Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train." Little did I know some of the lyrics would appear in the book's epigraph!) I’m looking forward to Goldberg’s second book in this series.

Suzy Approved Book Tours, Wise Wolf Books, and Lee Matthew Goldberg provided me with a complimentary advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making it available!!