Thank you Bookbrowse and the publisher for sending an advance reading copy of this book.
Using a mundane topic about working in a big box store and turning it into a very interesting storyline in Help Wanted, worked! I enjoyed seeing the relationships between co-workers and bosses, with the myriad of reasons behind each character working for that company, and their exchanges between each other, held my attention throughout this story. In my opinion, it shows every life is worthwhile and every job is important, to both themselves and the people one may work with, as well as the company itself. For a company to survive and thrive within a neighborhood, it is only as good as its employees, no matter what the job description may be.

I believe that books and stories, once read, will somehow leave a piece of them inside you. This one surely did, and will stay with me awhile. If one enjoys magical realism, this one is for you. For me, this began in slow motion and finally picked up speed midway through the book. That is when the 3 main characters, Opaline, Martha, and Henry really came to life along with the tale of the bookshop and its existence. I especially enjoyed the very last sentence! Don't read that sentence until you actually get there, part of the entire book could be a spoiler.
I enjoyed it and will read more by Evie Woods.

Family, love, hate, sibling rivalry, and paranoia all told through the eyes of sisters Minna and Kaija using witches and witch spells as the backdrop for this novel was ingenious. Could the author use any other type of theme to present family dynamics? Maybe, but the witch theme added suspense for both sisters and their views about their village life they abruptly left. Snippets are gleaned about their childhood living in that same village with their parents from a neighbor named Tante Tllde, a past neither Minna nor Kaija can really remember. It's from part of that past one sees how and why they act, and react to circumstances that occur once they become adults. The story flowed easily to a fitting ending in my opinion. This one gave me a bit of a Salem, Massachusetts vibe, and I think there is enough within this novel to be discussed in a book club.

Delicate Condition is the perfect title for this book.
Unsettling? at times.
Hysteria? possibly.
Gaslighting? maybe.
A hint of the "supernatural" sprinkled throughout? read this and decide for yourself.
This one has it all, desperation, suspense, lies, and even the myriad of emotions while being pregnant. Yes, there are some darker passages, one may need to hurry beyond those, but beyond that, this one I believe is worth the read.

With an historian’s eye for detail and accuracy, Jennifer Coburn shines a light on a lesser known despicable program established in 1935 by Nazi socialists to further the 3rd Reich’s goal of a pure Aryan race. The goal of the program Lebensborn, founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1935, was to advance the growth of the Aryan race by selecting ”perfect” young women to mate with “elite SS officers” to bear “perfect” Aryan babies that the state could distribute to good German families. By time of this novel, 1938-39, the Reich had resorted to kidnapping babies from occupied territory and even murdering parents to seize their babies. By the end of the war there were estimates that some 200,000 babies passed through Lebensborn facilities similar to Coburn’s Heim Hochland.

The author weaves her tale through three women: Gundi and Hilde are young and pregnant while Irma is a nurse employed by the facility. The reader shares the emotional inner thoughts of the women as they try to find their place in the program and in the 3rd Reich. The three face different but terrifying choices as they grapple with their decisions and subsequent consequences.

In her “Author Notes”, Jennifer Coburn writes, “I love reading historical fiction because it allows me to learn about history through the more personal lens of personal relationships.” This book fits her expressed thought.

This is not your "run of the mill" coming -of-age story. "In this captivating English-language debut, three generations of women must face their secrets and regrets when an old family curse awakens" is a blurb used to describe this novel, yet for me, it didn't read that way. I am not sure what the significance the "Curse" makes for this family, and I am also not sure why the entire town feels the women aren't "normal". The story moved along well enough but I felt certain circumstances were arbitrarily thrown in to keep it moving. Nonetheless, I will pick up her next novel and see if has improved from this one.

Good drama with a hint of suspense! The format, having each wife tell their own story about the letter and their respective husbands, worked for me. The story moved easily throughout. I think having a touch more information about the past lives of the husbands would have added to my opinion of how I felt about each one of them. This one was worth reading, I enjoyed it.

Like a train leaving a station, Erin Young's debut novel starts slowly as she introduces myriad threads that require a reader's focus because as the story progresses and picks up speed, the characters and plots begin to mesh accelerating to a wild and surprising conclusion. She successfully creates two voices in partners Sergeant Riley Fisher and Deputy Logan Wood as they unravel a number of seemingly unrelated violent crimes. The reader is provided subtle hints as the story progresses and all loose ends are tied up in the final two chapters. It is impressive that Erin Young, an Englishwoman, is so knowledgeable of farming issues and life in America's farm belt.

I was looking forward to reading this book. It discusses immigration, family relationships and the lives of the women within this story through the decades. Unfortunately, the story is not told in chronological order and becomes choppy when going from one chapter to the next, nor is there much information given about each woman within those chapters. One gets snippets, at best, about their individual circumstances and their connections to one another. There is a family tree included in the beginning of the story. Thank you for including that information sheet, I needed to view it at the start of every chapter just to get an inkling about which woman was speaking. Also, an entire mother/daughter relationship, not part of the family tree was added for a purpose I wasn't sure was needed, was it to tie together the neighbors? For me, the book was not cohesive enough to get a clear picture about each woman or their relationship to each other, nor a deeper understanding about immigration. I will be curious to see other reviews because this one was okay at best.

Not your usual husband/wife thriller - one husband, three wives, with more wives on the way? One may never know because Blake is dead and all three wives are suspects. Through the story, with each wife telling their version, both with Blake and each other, their respective pasts are revealed. All three are untrustworthy, so which one comes closest to actually telling the truth. The subject matter about polygamy, and the parts about Homestead, a cult like living compound, where Rachel the first wife grew up, are somewhat uncomfortable to read. Yes, some sex is discussed, yet I did not find it too graphic. The chapters are short and the story moves along very smoothly. It is not hard to say "just one more chapter!" I would recommend this one and will read more from this author.

Great premise. Oh, what the harlot will do. Oh, what the wife will do. Oh, what the husband will do between the two!
a MUST read!

A literary mystery inspired by the Madoff Ponzi scheme. The author has once again intertwined characters having been swept up by Jonathan Alkaitis and his investment firm or the periphery of his actions. We also come across a message having been scrawled on a 5 star hotel window meant to scare one of the guests. The mystery here is which one and why. We are also having to deal with ghosts being seen on occasion by a couple of the characters. All of these scenarios come together to end the story and the relationships between the characters. This one kept me turning pages I finished the book in one day. I really enjoy reading Emily St. John Mandel and will definitely be reading her earlier novels.

Interesting premise - if one needed to disappear would the choice be to leave quickly, book a flight and hope to find someone at the airport needing to do the same thing? This psychological thriller does just that, Claire and Eva each need to find ways to vanish. They happen to meet at the airport and create a scheme to switch their tickets. This well written story gives enough details about the past and present of both characters to see how they parallel and intertwine throughout, enough to keep my wanting to turn the pages. Although this is being labeled as a psychological thriller, I found it to be a simmering, suspenseful story I enjoyed reading.

This is a debut novel and it felt that way. I felt like I was reading snippets of a story not the whole story, it didn't flow smoothly. I didn't get a real feel for any of the characters, they seemed shallow, and with the school being considered its own character, it fell flat. The school years are rushed and seem a bit repetitive with nothing new being learned about any of the characters. The story didn't actually move until the last quarter of the book and then it ended. My expectations were high before starting, and unfortunately with this feeling like a young person's book, it didn't meet that expectation. With this being in development for television I will give the show a chance, it could improve my opinion of this book.

Excellent story. This is my first experience reading a Simone St. James novel and I enjoyed every minute of it. The storylines of the past and present, told through Carly and Viv, were easy to follow. The creepiness of the motel adds to both storylines. Something happened to Viv back in 1982 at the Sun Down Motel. Move forward to 2017 when Carly decides, she herself, is going to Fell, NY and the motel to find out exactly what happened to Viv back then. Once she gets to the Sun Down Motel she sees that nothing has changed at all from when it was first built, and the creepiness of the motel hasn't changed either.
The suspense just keeps building as the pages are turned.
This one was worth it and I will read more by this author.

On a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the best, I rate his book an average 3. The story gave me a New York City feel while reading it. I kept getting "The Kennedys" and "Camelot" vibe and I did feel the "WASPYness" of the story. I didn't relate to any of the characters in this story, yet it kept me interested enough to keep reading. I usually enjoy family sagas, yet this story felt a little disjointed. It took me awhile to figure out the timeline and characters involved once I started each new chapter. Although I did enjoy the story, I felt like I was only getting glimpses of each character and their beliefs. I think this one may be a "take it or leave it" type novel.

WOW, what a story. Maurice Swift has one single ambition, to become an award winning writer. He has such extreme ambition that nothing and no one will stand in his way, not even death. He uses every method imaginable to be that writer and leave a legacy in his field. We hear from three different characters on how Maurice strives to climb up the "ladder" to get there. Maurice is an unlikeable character, one that becomes more and more appalling as he climbs that "ladder", yet one needs to continue reading to see if he can somehow redeem himself.
Mr Boyne does a masterful job of drawing the reader into the despicable life of Maurice Swift, keeping the reader in suspense and seeing if Maurice will eventually get his comeuppance. It is definitely worth picking up this novel.

give it 3.5 stars. Falk and his partner, Carmen, have been assigned to obtain contracts from a company they are investigating. The one problem they are dealing with is that Alice, the woman helping them, has disappeared in the woods during her business team building weekend getaway. Do any of her coworkers know what happened, or did she do this on her own? This is the 2nd Falk book in the series and can be read on its own. Not very riveting, yet a good mystery story. There are a good number of characters mentioned with two storylines being told and the chapters are easily identified in keeping track of the two character groups. I will read the first book, The Dry, to get the back story for Aaron Falk.

Paris Echo is the story of two people looking to discover the "secrets" of their past in order to understand and resolve their present-day inner conflicts. A young man leaves his Algerian life for Paris in his search for adventure, meaning, and love while a middle-aged American woman revisits the City of Light to study the lives of Parisian women during World War II. Set both in the past and the present, Faulks weaves a historically accurate picture of French behavior during the World War and the subsequent Algerian War. As Tarik and Hannah's personal relationship grows, so does their understanding and acceptance of themselves and their personal histories which leads to the story's masterful conclusions.

Falk and his partner, Carmen, have been assigned to obtain contracts from a company they are investigating. The one problem they are dealing with is that Alice, the woman helping them, has disappeared in the woods during her business team building weekend getaway. Do any of her coworkers know what happened, or did she do this on her own? This is the 2nd Falk book in the series and can be read on its own. Not very riveting, yet a good mystery story. A book I enjoyed, and one that would work well for those who like clean mysteries. There are a good number of characters mentioned with two storylines being told and the chapters are easily identified in keeping track of the two character groups. I will read the first book, The Dry, to get the back story for Aaron Falk.