Girl Falling follows the first person narration of Finn, a hiker in her mid-twenties who has recently begun dating a new girlfriend with a best friend that appeared to have her 'own' agenda. I read almost all of this book in one sitting. It's a crime novel, a psychological thriller and an exploration of grief. Told through chapters that alternate between the present and the past we slowly see the tale of twisted, complicated and toxic relationships. This book will have you at the edge of your seat with a very unexpected ending. All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It was well-written, easy to read and pulled me right in. I finished it in less than two days. I would definitely recommend it for anyone who likes to read crime fiction.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Beaird's novel, the Divorcees. I liked this author's writing style especially since I had no prior knowledge of Reno's famous 'divorce ranches'. So, I was intrigued from the start. Add in interesting characters, especially Greer Lang and this book becomes very hard to put down. It was definitely a page turner for me! I'm looking forward to reading Rowan's next book.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. And if you like thrillers, you'll want to rush out to pick up a copy. Once I started reading it, I had a very hard time putting it down; literally finishing it in two days! A word of caution if you're pregnant or if you're struggling through rounds of IVF, you might want to wait and read this book at a later time. In the meantime, I know I will anxiously be waiting for the next Danielle Valentine book!

I absolutely LOVED this book. It was a bizarre storyline about a woman who wins the lottery and uses the money to recreate the "Three's Company" set to live in. However, unlike Three’s Company characters, Bonnie throughout the book experiences severe responses to the trauma she has endured - constant exhaustion, confusion, sadness, anxiety, and agitation just to name a few. I doubt that you’ll be able to put this book aside until you finish it. I highly recommend picking up a copy of Ashley Hutson’s ONE’S COMPANY to see for yourself!

I really enjoyed Nan Fischer's writing style and was kept in suspense for most of the book. Sylvie and Thomas were such adversaries most of the time, but was surprised how it all ended. I believe readers will be focused on this story until the very end because it has many clever twists!

I found Florence Williams' exploration into the realm of heartache to be enthralling. She turned her personal heartbreak into a research project that helped her endure the loss. This book balances personal memoir, scientific research, nature, and humor. It's overlaps with several books I've read recently being a Marriage Family Therapist. It's a great book and one that I would recommend for anyone that is looking to understand how love and loss impacts so much of how our bodies work.

Honor was well written, with a compelling storyline. Heartbreaking and anger inducing. As a reader, I was filled with admiration for the bravery, selflessness, and empathy of the main characters. The contrast between old and modern India was well portrayed. All in all, an excellent and important book. Highly recommended.

The courageous and determined Rae with dog Splinter by her side won me from the first page. This beautiful story grabbed my attention and I loved the way each chapter was a new day in Rae's battle to stay afloat while her Mum was missing. This debut will burrow deep into your chest and stay there long after the last page. Rae's story of grief, love and resilience is both heartbreaking and inspiring.

The story of Pru and Spence starts with a young girl falling in love with her teacher, a brilliant professor. They marry and embark on a relatively typical life together with Pru in the role of supportive partner and Spence continuing his role as the creative, successful teacher whose students clamor to take his classes. Over the course of the marriage, Spence develops Alzheimer's and Pru's role changes to be his caretaker as the disease becomes more and more debilitating.. The story of Pru and Spence evolves into Pru's story as she cares for and works to help Spence through difficult days, engages with their daughter and Spence's son from a previous marriage, and navigates through an opportunity for a new relationship. This book shows you just how much one person having Alzheimer's truly affects everyone.

I enjoyed this book from beginning to end. The author does an excellent job of describing the life of the homeless from their perspective. Her characters are believable; some more likable than others. The plot is simple and straightforward - not too many characters or issues. And there is no opinion or judgement on a polarizing issue. Kudos to the author. She successfully touches on several volatile issues that homeless deal with every day. While many books promise to give readers an insider's view, the author Katherine Seligman artfully avoids warning against bad choices, bad parenting, and a bad society. Instead, this novel empathetically pulls the reader into a realistic portrayal of homelessness and dumpster diving for food, along with sorrows of families who have lost someone to life on the streets.

Siblings Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan, the sole survivors of an extremely dysfunctional family with violent, even criminal tendencies, reunite for a road trip. The at-first likable Beth tells the story, sharing truly odd details about the others that draws us to her, an intimacy that slowly dissolves with revelations of Beth's own unstable self. The siblings wealthy grandfather has died, and to collect their inheritance, they must re-create the cross-country trip they took together as children after grandpa abducted them from their parents. Childhood issues resurface and it gets nasty quickly, but they drive on fueled by their greed, with a black truck in pursuit. It's difficult to relate more without endangering a chillingly dark reading experience or spoiling the shocking conclusion. Suffice to say that the family's obsession with the game of Risk has conditioned each of them to betray one another as easily as they once conquered continents on the game board.

Brooke Fossey shows how age underlines the experiences and interactions of the characters in the story and the varying portrayals of society's treatment of the elderly. Throughout the book, various themes are presented. Friendship being one. Though Duffy and Carl are very different men, they've managed to form an inseparable bond. The theme of fatherhood shows how the absence of fathers impact different characters' lives. God's existence is also another reoccurring question. Grief another. Alice tells Duffy, "Whatever it is you're mourning from back when, don't. It brought you here, now, to do what you're doing, and what you're doing is honorable and right." I agree with Alice's positive outlook when it comes to playing life's long game. Josie's journey to sobriety is unfinished at the book's close and I'm left wondering if Anderson will play a lasting part in it. I really enjoyed this book. It got me wondering at the end of my life, what will my big finish look like. The Big Finish shows that it's never too late to start living your life. This book will be a great book club pick. Lots to discuss here!

Colleen Oakley writes an emotional and intriguing novel. She describes her dramatic characters as complex and complicated.

Mia, happily married to a surgeon seems to have 'the perfect life". The book opens with the couple trying to have a baby after two miscarriages. Mia and her husband move to a new community hoping for a new beginning – a family. While settling in, she meets the man she has been dreaming about. And, when they start talking, he tells her that he has had dreams with her in his as well. As they try to discover what the dreams mean, they have no idea what lies ahead. Mia throughout the rest of the novel, emerges with a single question—what if?

How many of us remembers a dream, a recurring one that keeps us wondering why this means? Is this from our subconscious? Something perhaps, predicting a future event? I very much enjoyed the way the author vividly describes the characters, landscape, and setting. I also appreciate the importance of thinking things through such as: following your heart, the importance of family, friends, love, and hope. I would highly recommend this thought-provoking novel.

On her 70th birthday, Georgianna receives a letter from the only other person from the 1941 canoe trip who's still alive. At the time, Roosevelt McCrary was an 11-year-old child who had been hired, along with his mother, to work at the camp despite being black. As an adult, Roosevelt became a part owner of the camp and has retired there. Hoping he has information to exonerate William, Georgianna decides to revisit the camp and nearby murder site for the first time. She drags along her family—grown children Venus, Rosie, and Nicolas, whose work on Barack Obama's campaign hovers in the background; Rosie's 13-year-old son, Thomas, in the throes of grieving his own father's recent death; Nicolas' son, 15-year-old Jesse, and 4-year-old daughter, Oona, coincidentally Georgianna's age in 1941. Georgianna discovers that her parents' lives and deaths were more complex and mysterious than she thought and not truly knowable. I especially liked the story line/ relationship Shreve developed between Georgianna and her grandson, Thomas. I could not put this book down once I started it. It's a real page turner!

Louis Bayard fictionalizes the early days of Mary Todd and Abraham Lincoln's relationship in this entertaining embellishment of American history. When Mary, seeking a husband, moves into the home of her brother-in-law in Springfield, Ill., she meets the awkward yet principled Lincoln, a lawyer and local politician. Chapters are alternatively narrated by Mary and Lincoln's witty roommate and friend, Joshua Speed, who grooms and guides Lincoln on his road to romance. The story shows two sides of Lincoln: a young, self-educated politician attempting to make sense of high society and a romantic attempting to pursue a serious relationship. As Mary becomes the belle of Springfield, Lincoln makes fumbling attempts to woo her and awkward appearances at fancy dinner parties. I enjoyed reading the entries of Joshua and Mary, who provided unique reflections on a man who is deeply troubled about the path his country is on. After Mary and Lincoln get over initial hurdles, they begin to steal away for "unchaperoned visits," but when their liaisons are discovered, the upper society of Springfield is temporarily scandalized by their secret courtship. This charming love story delicately reveals the emotional roller coaster of two inexperienced adults traversing the unknown realm of love while trying to meet the demands and expectations of society. It's an exceptionally pleasant read - one that keeps the pages turning despite time and necessities!

Daniel Mooney has written a story of grief, loss, mental health, friendship, and love. He presents Denis' vulnerability while also delivering doses of humor.

The main character, Denis is fighting with his inner demons and it's horrible, fascinating, touching and frightening to behold. The author handles this delicately and with compassion. For a book that I took a while to get into, I ended up absolutely loving it. You won't have read anything like this before and by the end I had a tear in my eye.

It's truly an unusual, quirky and bizarre novel, but only in the best possible way. It's a debut novel and perhaps one that I wouldn't have chosen ordinarily. And, more so one would expect a book on men's mental health to be somewhat depressing, but not this book. It's funny, heartbreaking, sincere, enlightening. I highly recommend it.

Jean is an interesting narrator. She's a neuro-linguistic scientist, studying how to enable repair of the speech centers of the brain after traumatic injury. Because of the word limit for women, we spend a good deal of time in Jean's head. A place where she not only informs the reader of what is happening, but what she sometimes believes, or wishes, is happening. It's a variant of an unreliable narrator, except where you're never quite sure what the truth is, Jean herself tells you very soon after the imagined scenario. I quite liked that about her. Because I often think in the same way, of possibilities, best- and worst-case scenarios.

She's far from perfect. I actually loved that. She doesn't make excuses for herself, and you're presented with a unvarnished truth of her. I appreciated that she acknowledges that part of the reason this happened is because she didn't get active when things were less dire, she didn't even vote. And she is experiencing the consequences of those lack of actions on her and others.

Vox ended up being provocative read that made me think more than once. The only thing that could have made this better for me is more of how they got to that point, and more drama/suspense/action with the resolution.