This is the first of Kristan Higgins books I've read. I definitely enjoyed it. It's not high brow literature but it includes great believable characters that are easy to like (or not like in the. case of Lorenzo Santini). The romance is not hot and heavy which I enjoy. I really liked this book.

This was an intriguing read that kept me involved from page 1. It is a family story dealing with Ruth, a woman who made it out of small town America and is living the "American Dream" with her husband Xavier. But Ruth has a secret that is alluded to early in the book. For reasons from her past, she avoids discussions of a future with children and leaves Xavier completely in the dark regarding her lack of interest in family. Her secret eats away at her and she eventually goes back to her childhood house and family to try to make things right. The struggle to right wrongs from one's past is probably a theme that we all deal with in one way or another. But Ruth's secret is huge and how she handles it has the possibility of hurting many people. The book was great in the way Ruth follows basic human instinct to right a wrong, when maybe that "wrong" wasn't all bad. I couldn't put the book down and highly recommend this book to others. Aren't family secrets always food for good fiction?

This book was a story of two sisters, a young native boy adopted by the older sister and the husband of that older sister. The bulk of this book takes place during the end of the 18th century during a long (long long) trip from Canada across numerous Seas to deliver good sold and purchased in various countries and back again, eventually to Canada. The last portion of the book deals with the younger sister and her time traveling back to the islands in the area near New Zealand with her "cousin" or "step brother" who went back to visit his homeland. It was more like a Travelogue than a novel. The settings were beautifully described, but my reading definitely went slowly. I found myself even preferring ironing to reading the book. I liked the characters and the descriptions of the islands and life on the boat were interesting but far from gripping. I hung in there assuming something would eventually happen in the plot, but it was so slow to develop that I somewhat lost interest. I give the book two stars instead of one because it wasn't bad enough for me to quit reading, but I just can't speak highly of a book that moved so slowly. Maybe reading it during a time that didn't include Covid Quarantine might have improved my experience because I am enjoying plot heavy but well written books right now, but I must say, I was very anxious to get on to my next book club selection which, fortunately, was fantastic.

This story brought forth depression era US so vividly that I felt I was involved in the poverty which became the main story in the early 1930's in this country. The book's cover intrigued me with a picture of a little child leaning over a suitcase along with a sign on the back cover on which was printed "2 Children for Sale." I really couldn't put the book down, basically because of the intriguing story. I've needed to look back to think about the author's ability to build believable characters and create setting because the story itself was compelling enough that I didn't take the time on first read to look at the parts of the whole. Ellis Reed, a struggling young reporter takes a picture of this sign with two young children sitting by it. The picture moves the narrative forward in directions Ellis and his eventual partner in research, Lillian Palmer, could never anticipate. There are many lessons to be learned from this novel. First would be the huge consequences that any of us might face when at first we tempt fate with even a tiny but very public lie. Ellis gets caught up in those type of consequences and in trying to right the wrongs he inadvertently helped snowball, he risks his own life as well as the life of two little children. Lillian plays the role of a motivated "wanna be reporter" who prods Ellis into doing what is moral and right. They develop into a team that searches in dangerous places for the truth of the mess which Ellis set into motion. Kristina McMorris does a great job of gradually revealing the main character's backgrounds. They both have secrets to keep and those secrets are believable and clearly lead both Ellis and Lillian to the ways they deal with the narrative's twists and turns. I read that the novel was inspired by an actual newspaper photo from depression era USA. In the end I feel I just finished a great story by a good author who tells a tale of ambition clouding judgement and the long armed effects of some of our actions that might be good to consider before we make choices which not only effect our own lives, but those of innocent others.

It took me quite a while to figure out whether or not this was a novel (the title includes an asterisk which leaves the reader wondering and "A Note on Methodology" which must have been tongue in cheek but made me question further) or non-fiction. Because of its style, I assumed it was non-fiction and therefore excused some of the early extended introduction of character's families that I still think were a bit unnecessary. The book dragged this way at times but the story was good. It's about a paralyzed Afghanistan veteran who after being in a wheel chair for years stands up and walks. The story begins with Cameron's first walk and is followed by very realistic responses from doctors, pastors, priests, reporters, family all with questions and ideas as to how this all took place. We dig into Cameron's life and little by little learn disturbing stories of what he has survived that placed him in the situation he faced prior to the accident in Afghanistan. I'm glad I read the book but I wouldn't describe it as the best I have reviewed through First Impressions.

The opening quote to Jessica Keener's novel from "The Rolling Stones, 'Moonlight Mile'" truly described my feelings after a trip 25 years ago to Budapest, "Oh I'm sleeping under strange strange skies." Thus, I was fascinated to order, receive and read this book. I had just finished "Return to Budapest" and "Invisible Bridge" both entirely different books taking place basically in the same fascinating city, so for many reasons Buda and Pest were not new to me. In this book the city itself is not a character but it definitely adds to the haunting nature of the plot. Being this far away from home in a culture so different from that in the US adds to the fears the reader might have with the decisions Annie, the main protagonist, makes regarding her relationship with and the help she tries to give to Mr. Weiss, an extremely independent elderly man who asks for Annie's assistance in a plan the reader realizes early on may become quite dangerous. Annie has a young child who I could not help but think might be put in danger by his now and then somewhat reckless mother. Annie's husband Will, an American in Budapest trying to involve locals in a tech start up, definitely doesn't support Annie's interest in helping Mr. Weiss (and on the side some Roma, Gypsies, along the way) but she is a true curious care taker and can't seem to help herself. The novel deals with love, hate, grief,revenge, guilt, and memory and its power ...truly human issues. There are a couple of reasons I chose "good" instead of "very good" in rating this novel. I truly enjoyed it, but my reasons would include spoilers so I'll say it was on the plus side of good and leave others to read and judge.

To know or not to know seems to be the question considered in this book by author Gina Kolata. The reader is introduced to a family trying to discover the illness which they think may be plaguing more than one of the family members. The book takes us to research done by a doctor in New Guinea and combines his knowledge with gradual discoveries by this multi-generational family of professionals in a town in South Carolina. With close to unbelievable persistence they name a disease now called GSS and we learn to know each member of this family and see the love, joy, pain and heartache of dealing with this life changing illness they find is caused by a mutated gene. The question is asked on the book back..."would you want to know." The story grabbed me from the first page and I'm still not sure if I'd want to know, but I do think I would. I identified with and admired Amanda, the woman we follow throughout the story. Some of the specific medical research caused me to hit my computer for explanation, but it certainly didn't stop me from reading. I was fascinated and truly moved from the first page to the last. I soon realized my own search for term definition wasn't necessary because the difficult medical concepts were explained quite clearly. The book read like a novel and haunts me now two weeks after I finished it. I have since read extensively about this disease. I know people with Parkinsons and I have family members who have dealt with Alzheimers, but this degenerative illness is beyond anything I could ever imagine. Thank you Gina Kolata for a thought-provoking and moving story.

I love mysteries and this was an excellent mystery. I struggled between a 4-5 for this book and if there was the option, I would give it a 4. The characters were believable and the personal relationships felt real and natural. There was never a time that I didn't believe the characters could be real, from 15 year old young people to their parents to a 65 year old on line crime solver who just wanted to help. I would say the main characters were Jenna a single mom with all the identity problems a single mom has (I've been one and a person constantly questions themselves regarding what problems of one's children have to do with your divorce from his/her father.) Jenna and her son Jared are deeply involved in mysteries of two missing people. One is Jenna's best friend from childhood and the other Jared's "girlfriend" a troubled but beautiful young woman. The teenage angst of a new relationship rings true and so does the absolute obsession Jared has regarding this first girlfriend. The mystery has twists and turns. Most clues lead to a few different characters, and through clever twists the final solution isn't easily guessed. The chapters are short and it was very hard to put down between those chapters so the emotional human elements along with the family drama and a true mystery kept me reading when I should be doing a multitude of tasks. This isn't high level literature but it is an excellent read and I highly recommend it to lovers of family based crime mysteries.

Wendy Walker's book lived up to its cover quote ,"The most stunning psychological thriller I've ever read...I loved it!" I was reading another novel when the book arrived, so my husband grabbed it and two days later reported, "it's great!" So Walker drew in both the husband and wife in this family.

I was hooked from the first paragraph: "He followed her into the woods behind the house....She may have turned and seen him, wearing the black wool mask whose fibers were found beneath her nails." The story continued with that degree of intrigue to the final pages.

I spent time trusting the narrator then thinking he/she might be crazy. In the first few chapters, I couldn't stop wondering who the narrator could be and when that narrator's name was revealed I cringed and felt the author's joy in revealing this truth so slowly.

The characters are believable, the plot, plausible. The victim seemed to be a typical teenage girl. The mother and father of the victim both suffer in their own way, which causes the type of pressure the reader might expect in the marriage of the parents of a daughter, Jenny, who was brutally raped. But their treatment by those in the hospital where Jenny was first taken, and their treatment later by a psychologist is anything but normal. And, as the mother and father's secrets, in fact as the secrets of all the characters are slowly revealed we see that just as in living, breathing people, what is behind their actions and interpretations of their daughter's rape goes back to their own childhoods which are also artfully revealed to the reader.

The story weaves back and forth between memories revealed to the counselor and his interpretation of those memories. Some of this began to feel now and then like malpractice...and the plot thickens!

I recommend this book without hesitation. I'm anxious to see what Reese Witherspoon can do with it as a film.

I received this book and within the next two days found time to read it whenever I could squeeze in the chance. My husband saw how engrossed I was and picked it up the second I was done and he chose it over tv or any other interruptions too. Now we are both planning to buy "The Edge of Normal" the last book by Carla Norton. This book had my heart beating faster from the first chapter to the last. The mystery is real and believable and I absolutely had to know whether or not the protagonist, Reeve, made it to the end of the story. The antagonist is extremely creepy and also believable, "He chooses a seat next to the window, where he can watch the fitness center's front door and parking lot. Even better, he can see inside, where all the young bodies are jogging and bouncing on rose of exercise equipment...so close." The climax found me at the time of night I should have been asleep but I was holding one eye open as I continued reading. The protagonist was brave, tender and real and the suspense remained through every page of this book. That ending wove the pieces together leaving me satisfied and so very glad that I have been introduced to Ms. Norton's work. If you like suspense, buy this one. You'll love it!

I was attracted to this book because of personal history. In both family and friends I have been touched by Bi-Polar Disorder through three individuals. The family suffering and pain as well as the pain to the individuals diagnosed has truly marked my life. My heart already ached for the disarray I saw this cause in families. Therefore the subtitle "The Madness and Medical Genius of Dr. Perry Baird, and His Daughter's Quest to Know Him" hooked me. Mimi Baird is one brave woman. She reveals to the reader the confusing love, fear, hate, pity and confusion that any mental illness, but specifically Manic-Depression, brings to a family, and in her case, to a daughter kept from the truth of her father's illness until very late in her life. Dr Perry Baird was a brilliant physician lost to his world of success and accomplishment, to mental illness, in a time that the first solution was incarceration in Mental "Hospitals" and the final "solution" was lobotomy. The inclusion in the first half of the book of the handwriting of Perry Baird through his varying submissions to his "future book" along with doctor's comments and Mimi's memories was a stroke of genius. There was something compelling about reading the words, "I am caught, caught, caught" in Dr. Baird's own handwriting. The psychological effect on the reader multiplied over what it would have been had those words only been included in the book's normal font! Much of Perry Baird's narrative while hospitalized sound like anything but a crazy person, yet the reappearing sense of grandeur and need to work around the clock, interspersed with times of crippling sadness and depression spoke volumes. To realize that this man, with all he had working against him, came close to understanding the biological nature of his malady, again was heartbreaking. Dr Baird's own words, "And so the story unravels itself. A story predestined to take the course it has followed, a character on the stage of life, seemingly driven along by strange compulsions beyond his understanding. So much happened so quickly, so much to remember forever, so much to haunt the corridors of memory...We are only to such a limited degree the pilot of our soul, the captain of our ship," left me in tears. These are the last words we hear from Dr. Perry Baird before his daughter Mimi, our author, begins again her story of her search for a father, who was removed from her life at age six. I was greatly moved by this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in medicine, mental illness, family love and lore. It was quite a read!

This book tells the story of a young Honduran girl, Carla, and her brother (with a mother in the US) and of a woman named Alice who lives in the US with her husband Jake. The story weaves back and forth between these two protagonists, leaving the reader convinced that their paths will cross, but with very little clues at first as to how that could possibly happen. Carla decides to take off to the US from Honduras. She wants to get her little brother away from extremely bad circumstances in their village. She faces many realistically portrayed problems that would make most people turn back. But Carla, has a goal, and, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that she will reach that goal or die trying. Alice and Jake own a barbecue restaurant and seen to have a good marriage except that Alice is not able to have a child. The characters are well drawn, and believable. The plot moves quickly and keeps the reader's interest. It reminds me a bit of Boyle's Tortilla Curtain and is every bit as impactful as that book. I highly recommend this book and am anxious for its publication.

This was one of those books I couldn't put down, except to hit my computer to help me discover what life was really like in Paris of 1909-1910. What I found in my research was that I was receiving a colorful, accurate description of Paris during that winter of those years from the author Imogen Robertson. The heroines (and I believe there are three, Maud, Tanya and Sylvie) are believable and extremely likable. Friendships form at a realistic pace. Relationships come and go as trust builds and then sometimes wanes through the characters believable experiences with one another and their environment. The real mystery doesn't begin until close to half-way through the book, but by that point the reader is engrossed in the life of the city, of the rich, of the poor and of the woman trying to make a mark, on their own, in the art community of 1909. The author uses descriptions of paintings (written in "museum sounding" terms and said to be from the de Civray Collection, Southwark Picture Gallery, London, 2010) as a transition from one chapter to the next. My assumed meaning of these paintings changes in a fascinating surprise when revealed. The collection is fictional (it sounded so real I was "forced" to leave my reading to check this out on Google also) but the paintings became very real in my mind. An attempted murder, these paintings existing in the future, a woman seeking revenge and a truly sociopathic couple create a second half of the book so gripping that I found myself carrying the book into the kitchen to read while I prepared dinner. I couldn't put it down! And the ending didn't disappoint. Every unbelievable strand became believable as characters' backgrounds and idiosyncrasies were revealed. There were a couple of times I might have moaned a little at the innocence of Maud, but in reality, she probably very accurately depicted a well bred young English woman of her period in history. Great job Ms. Robertson

Laura Hemphill tells a great story. If I had more than just one category with which to rate this book I would have given Ms. Hemphill a 5 for story, a 4 for quality writing and a 2 because of use of details that are quite hard to follow for a non-wall-street-wise reader. I struggled through overuse of long sections telling of subprime lending, along with a plethora of terms that are more than likely easily understood by stockbrokers and bankers but definitely not understood by me. The father/daughter relationship was believable and familiar to me as a mother of daughters who struggle to be different than their parents. However again, I had to spend too much time plodding through the wall-street terminology to understand the whole picture. The ending didn't improve my take on the book.

I won't ruin it for readers, but the ending was disappointing yet believable to me. All in all, I did keep reading but there were definitely parts that I really wanted to skip through, so an average rating seems realistic.

I am a huge Jess Walter fan so when I read his comments regarding this book I was excited. However, the book was a forced read for me. I felt I owed it to the publisher to read a book that was given to me free of charge, so I did. The main character was clearly a tortured soul who was filled with sadness woven with guilt regarding her husband's death. But, she didn't earn my respect or curiosity. I read with confusion her thoughts and imaginings. The angst of the characters was real, but hard to follow. I feel like my husband's description of the University of Chicago graduate philosophy program fits this story line: obtuse and arcane. I finally got into the book enough to be interested in how it ended. I definitely enjoy a book that presents deep, real characters. These characters were deep and somewhat realistic, but the action was just too hard to follow. I'm making it sound terrible, and it wasn't that. The voyeurism of the narrator was creepy and real along with sad. But all in all, I had to work too hard to follow the plot. It seems to be a novel that will attract those who love to enjoy their own intellect.

I was glued to this book from the first page. Period mysteries are my favorite, but so often the murderer is either obvious or a ridiculous character added at the last second to fulfill the author's need for a culprit. This was neither of those. The characters were well developed, the setting, believably 17th century London, and the plot was intriguingly believable. I'm not sure there were many serving women like Lucy in London at that time, but I'd love to believe that there were.

I couldn't put down this book from the minute I picked it up. The period was displayed in a fascinating manner, the characters were true to life and well written and the mystery itself took me in and kept me reading. It was a book that I was sorry to see come to an end. I would highly recommend this book to lovers of historical fiction and of mystery. The strong character of Lucy will remain in my mind as a wise brave heroine.

I am from the Pacific Northwest and spent some years living on the Yakima reservation where I enjoyed museums, discussions and classes focusing on Native American culture. Megan Chance caught the slow moving sense of the tribes of the Northwest in the narration of a late thirties female resident of Shoalwater Bay in Washington Territory. Leonie, the heroine, struggles with her past, present and future as layers of her reality slowly peal away to reveal a past that is much different from the false past that those she has trusted and loved dearly created for her. Leonie's mystical connection to a mummy she finds in a riverbed brings about conflicts within her psyche and within her household. The book is a mystery, a love story, and a psychic journey which moves very slowly while the river, the Sound, and the Pacific Northwest, as well as local Native Americans and lastly the mummy all become characters that influence Leonie's discoveries of self. She is a 19th century woman struggling to become who she is "meant to be." I struggled with my rating: should it be 4 or 5? But the pace of the novel, which bothered me when I wanted to move fast, did what studies of Native American cultures has done for me also. One must slow down and listen to find one's own truth.

The two days I spent reading A Simple Murder by Eleanor Kuhns brought me racing back to the book anytime I had a chance. I'm a former high school English teacher and a lover of just about any genre, but my pet peeve is a mystery book that ends with the committer of the crime being an unknown so-and-so of whom the reader hears of for the first time when the brave hero solves the mystery. I detest being "hooked" for 300 pages only to be greatly upset by a simplistic ending.
This was certainly not the case with Ms. Kuhn's novel. I was truly "hooked" from about the 5th page even before I became aware that there was a mystery to solve. The protagonist, who traveled as a weaver and amateur sleuth during the 17th century in New England, along with all the other characters he meets, are believable and fascinating. I truly enjoyed every page of this book and was reminded of my positive reaction to the last mystery I read about two months ago entitled Mistress of Death. In both books the amateur detectives, who eventually solves some very complicated mysterious deaths, live in times of the past. Both protagonists must rely on observation, experience, gut response and an understanding of the human body, because modern forensic techniques would be of help only for detectives of the future.
In A Simple Murder, William Rees, our protagonist, is an "outsider" living in a "Shaker" community, a world very closed to outsiders. His son, whom he has abandoned, previously joined this community, so intriguing side-stories develop around this relationship as well as others. The characters are strong and believable and I became entranced with the colorful history of the Shakers included in this text. The plot truly thickens and I begin to mistrust numerous characters, thus, I absolutely couldn't put the book down. I now find myself unable to get the novel out of my husband's hands. I told him he'd enjoy it, but when I asked if I could borrow it to write this review, he responded, "well, I'm really into this book...I'd rather not put it down."

Amy Ephron's new book of 18 essays brought chuckles and tears to me, a woman who had lived through similar times. I'm a mother of four, wisely divorced, happily remarried, a daughter of a mother who would never dream of putting a milk bottle on the table, and a somewhat ADD adult who loves to laugh at the absurdities of life. Amy Ephron fits my style perfectly. I've wobbled back and forth between a 4 and a 5 on this rating, basically because I think that someone who wants to read a writer who gets right to the point and who writes equally for males and females, might not like this book. But, what the heck...I loved it! Each essay was a story in and of itself, so it was perfect summer reading. I could read one while waiting outside the bank for my place in line and read another just before nodding off to sleep. In the end, I want to be friends with Amy Ephron, so doesn't that mean her book was a success?