Summary: Twenty-six year old Lucy is frustrated with her life. She keeps dating losers, she isn’t making any progress at work and her ceiling leaks bathwater onto her bed as she sleeps. After one really awful night out she makes a wish a Wish Granting Machine {think the Tom Hanks movie Big} and immediately skips to the good part of her life. It’s sixteen years later – she’s happily married with two children and running a successful business. As Lucy settles into this new life {with some laugh out loud and teary eyed moments along the way} she has a choice to make. Should she stay in the good part of her life or return to her struggling 20’s?
My thoughts: I loved this book! Anything set in England is going to grab my interest but the story held my attention, made me laugh, made me tear up and made me think. Our lives are made up of our experiences good and bad. Would you want to skip some of the bad to get to the good?
Thank you to Netgalley and G.P. Putnam’s Sons for the advanced reader copy of this book. Please click on the affiliate links below to purchase this book.
This was a delightful story from the very beginning! If you’re familiar with Katherine Center, you know what to expect by now – strong female lead meets cute boy, there’s some confusion and conflict and then a good “happily ever after” finish.
Hello Stranger introduces us to Sadie. She’s a portrait artist with a big problem. Due to a recent brain surgery she has a condition called face blindness. Again, Sadie paints portraits for a living so this is a problem for her in many ways. We also meet Joe, Peanut, Mr. Kim, Sue and the rest of Sadie’s group of family and friends – even though she doesn’t recognize any of them except Peanut. Thank goodness, Prosopagnosia doesn’t apply to dogs – at least Sadie’s doesn’t.
Sadie must prepare to win a huge portrait contest while learning how to paint {and see} faces again. Along the way she deals with dysfunctional family issues, a geriatric dog and his very attractive {maybe?} vet, a cute {again, maybe?} neighbor who might be a little overly helpful to the whole building, and oh yeah, recovering from brain surgery.
This was a very enjoyable read – so enjoyable I finished it in 2 days! Definitely grab this one if you’re looking for a fun, easy escape with a little bit of seriousness {brain surgery!}
The following are affiliate links. I earn a small commission when you make a purchase using these links.
A great read with my least favorite rom-com trope.
My thoughts:
I have to admit the “fake dating” trope is my least favorite. Knowing a relationship starts off with lies just really bothers me – even if it’s not real as in fictional. But this story and these characters and Katherine Center’s writing style won me over. Hannah is a tough cookie Executive Protective Agent assigned to protect Jack Stapleton – Hollywood’s golden boy. In order to protect him and help deal with family issues they have to pretend to be boyfriend and girlfriend. Normally, this would turn me off in a second but the way these characters are written and their dialogue kept me engaged and even laughing out loud. I loved this story and these characters. I definitely recommend this one for a beach read or just an escape into the worlds of Hollywood and Texas.
“…I wondered if having faith in yourself was just deciding you could do it – whatever it was – and then making yourself follow through. So I decided something right then: Every change you take is a choice. A choice to decide who you are.”
*Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the advanced digital copy of this book.
Publisher’s Synopsis:
Katherine Center’s The Bodyguard is “My perfect 10 of a book. As funny and sweet as all the very best nineties rom-coms, but with Center’s signature heart-tugging depth. I wish I could erase it from my mind just to read it again for the first time. A shot of pure joy.”—Emily Henry, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Book Lovers
She’s got his back. Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka “bodyguard”), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.
He’s got her heart. Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.
They’ve got a secret. When Jack’s mom gets sick, he comes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, like a jerk, says no one will believe it.
What could possibly go wrong??? Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done.
“Great rollicking fun! Prepare to laugh and swoon and grin your pants off.”—Helen Hoang, New York Times bestselling author of The Heart Principle
“Absolutely, unequivocally delightful!”—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here
Who could have predicted this? Being at the same wedding. In Ireland. There’s a reason one-night stands are one-night stands. You’re not supposed to see each other again, especially not when you’re the maid of honor, and he’s the groom’s brother…
Sarah Anderson has never been more excited about anything in her life. She’s going to her best friend’s wedding. And not just any wedding. An Irish wedding. Goodbye New York, hello rolling green hills and men with beautiful accents and twinkling eyes.
But Sarah should have known that not all guests are fairy-tale princes…
There’s the chinless Uncle Trevor, whose idea of small talk is to claim climate change is a conspiracy.
Then there’s Great Aunt Eileen, who doesn’t talk at all (she’s too busy replacing the hotel cutlery with her own set).
Worst of all, there’s Declan Murphy. Best man. Brother of the groom. And the man Sarah last saw naked.
Is there anything more mortifying than bumping into a one-night stand halfway across the world? Especially as Declan seems determined to embarrass Sarah at every turn. At least when the wedding’s over she’ll never have to see him again.
But, back in New York, Sarah finds the more she tries to forget Declan, the more she can’t shake the thought of that infuriatingly charming smile and the way he wears a tux…
Was he really just for one night only, or might Declan Murphy be The One?
Prepare to laugh until you cry with this perfect feel-good romantic comedy about taking a chance on love. Fans of Sophie Ranald, Sophie Kinsella and Marian Keyes won’t be able to put this down!
My Thoughts: This was such a fun read. We’re given two great main characters with complex feelings and expectations. I literally laughed out loud during some moments. This would make a great beach read for your next vacation or just short imaginary trip to Ireland if it’s on your bucket list. 😉
Georgetown, Guyana 1970. Seven-year-old Rita is running wild in her ramshackle white wooden house by the sea, under the indulgent eye of her absent-minded father. Surrounded by her army of stray pets, free to play where she likes and climb the oleander trees, she couldn’t feel more alive.
But then her new stepmother Chandra arrives and the house empties of love and laughter. Rita’s pets are removed, her freedom curtailed, and before long, there’s a new baby sister on the way. There’s no room for Rita anymore.
With her father distracted by his new family, Rita spends more time alone in her bedroom. Desperate to fill up the hollow inside her, she begins to talk to the only photo she has of her mother Cassie, a woman she cannot remember.
Rita has never known what happened to Cassie, a poor farmer’s daughter from the remote Guyanese rainforest. Determined to find the truth, Rita travels to find her mother’s family in an unfamiliar land of shimmering creeks and towering vines. She finds comfort in the loving arms of her grandmother among the flowering shrubs and trees groaning with fruit. But when she discovers the terrible bruising secret that her father kept hidden from her, will she ever be able to feel happiness again?
A beautiful and inspiring story that will steal your heart and open your eyes. Fans of The Secret Life of Bees, The Vanishing Half and The Other Half of Augusta Hope will be captivated by The Far Away Girl.
Author Bio:
Sharon Maas was born into a prominent political family in Georgetown, Guyana, in 1951. She was educated in England, Guyana, and, later, Germany. After leaving school, she worked as a trainee reporter with the Guyana Graphic in Georgetown and later wrote feature articles for the Sunday Chronicle as a staff journalist.
Her first novel, Of Marriageable Age, is set in Guyana and India and was published by HarperCollins in 1999. In 2014 she moved to Bookouture, and now has ten novels under her belt. Her books span continents, cultures, and eras. From the sugar plantations of colonial British Guiana in South America, to the French battlefields of World War Two, to the present-day brothels of Mumbai and the rice-fields and villages of South India, Sharon never runs out of stories for the armchair traveller.
Y’all know I love a story to takes me to a new place! This novel did just that. I couldn’t tell you where Guyana is located on a map but I loved learning about it through Rita, Jita and Cassie’s story. This story has all the feels and gives you great characters to root for and to loathe. I definitely recommend this story to anyone who loves a multi-generational story or who enjoys learning about far off places.
Thank you to Bookouture and Netgalley for the ARC for this novel!
Book Description: Alex crossed to the bed, where the only woman he had ever loved lay immobile. There was an ugly dark bruise along her jaw, but far more shocking was the plastic breathing tube protruding from between the lips he’d kissed only hours earlier. Despair and fear rose in Alex’s throat. ‘We have a little boy. His name is Connor. He still needs his mother… We both do.’
When Lisa married Alex, she gave his life meaning. She was a professional astronomer: a stargazer. And when she gazed at Alex, she saw that behind his tough exterior was a man she could love.
Alex, Lisa and their young son Connor made a happy little universe. But then Lisa dies in a train crash, and their perfect world is destroyed. Alex is shattered by loss, and overwhelmed by the difficulties of being a single father to a six-year-old. How can he and Connor carry on without Lisa lighting up their lives?
But throughout her life Lisa touched the hearts of more people than just her family. And as those people whose fates were changed come forward after her tragic death, Alex hears their stories and begins to realise the world may not be as cruel and senseless as it seems. If you can find the strength to start over, there are new beginnings in even our most heartbreaking moments…
Million-copy bestselling author Dani Atkins returns for this gripping, powerful and emotional page turner that fans of Jodi Picoult, Diane Chamberlain and Kate Hewitt will find completely unputdownable.
Author Bio: Dani Atkins is an award-winning novelist. Her 2013 debut THEN AND ALWAYS (published as FRACTURED in the UK) has been translated into seventeen languages and has sold more than half a million copies globally. Dani is the author of five other bestselling novels (THE STORY OF US, OUR SONG, THIS LOVE, WHILE I WAS SLEEPING and A MILLION DREAMS) and PERFECT STRANGERS, a standalone eBook novella. In 2018, THIS LOVE won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award at the RNA awards in London. Dani lives in a small village in the English countryside, in a 300 year old cottage, with her husband, one Siamese cat and a very soppy Border Collie. https://www.facebook.com/DaniAtkinsAuthor/ https://twitter.com/AtkinsDani
My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this story. It’s full of characters with great depth living lives that definitely are not boring. I’ll be honest, the beginning of the book had me so sad. But as I watched each character overcome their hardships and move on from horrible tragedy, I really enjoyed the journey. Grief is such a crazy thing and seeing how some of the characters survived it was very uplifting.
You know when you’ve just finished a book and you know it’ll stay with you for a long time? The characters will pop into your head days or weeks down the road or you’ll keep wondering just exactly how that setting looks and fells and smells. This was that book for me! Set across two different generations we meet Sage and Florence – two incredible women living in very different times. I loved each woman’s story and how they both overcome impossible odds to help themselves, the people they love and the world around them.
If you enjoy a great sweeping story full of love, adventure and great settings, I can’t recommend An American in Paris enough!
Synopsis provided by Bookouture:Paris, 1940: Walking through Montmartre that morning was like the eerie calm right before a storm. The roads were deserted. We carried on, arm in arm, and then finally, we saw them. Columns and columns of soldiers, spreading through the streets like a toxic grey vapour. ‘You must write about this,’ he whispered to me. ‘You must write about the day freedom left Paris.’
As Nazi troops occupy the City of Lights, American journalist Florence is determined to do everything she can to save her adopted home and the man she loves.
Florence had arrived in Paris in 1937 and on a beautiful summer’s day, met and fell in love with Otto, a Jewish artist from Austria, who had fled persecution in his homeland. But as swastikas are draped along the city’s wide boulevards, everything Otto was running from seems to have caught up with him.
Both Florence and Otto begin lending their talents to the Resistance, working to sabotage the Germans right under their noses. Florence’s society columns that, before the war were filled with tales of glamorous Parisian parties, now document life under occupation and hide coded messages for those fighting outside France for freedom. While Otto risks arrest in order to pin up the anti-Nazi posters he designs by candlelight in their tiny apartment.
But with every passing day, things become more dangerous for Otto to remain in Paris. If Florence risks everything by accepting a secret mission, can she ensure his survival so that they can be reunited once the war is over?
A sweeping wartime story that will capture your heart and never let it go. Fans of The Alice Network, The Lost Girls of Paris and My Name is Eva will be absolutely gripped from the very first page.
Author bio: Siobhan Curham is an award-winning author, ghost writer, editor and writing coach. She has also written for many newspapers, magazines and websites, including The Guardian, Breathe magazine, Cosmopolitan, Writers’ Forum, DatingAdvice.com, and Spirit & Destiny. Siobhan has been a guest on various radio and TV shows, including Woman’s Hour, BBC News, GMTV and BBC Breakfast. And she has spoken at businesses, schools, universities and literary festivals around the world, including the BBC, Hay Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Bath Festival, Ilkley Festival, London Book Fair and Sharjah Reading Festival.
From bestselling author Ella Carey comes an utterly gripping and sweeping historical novel about terrible choices and heartbreaking family mysteries. The past holds more secrets than we can ever imagine…
1946. Young, beautiful artist Rebecca survived the devastating war that claimed the lives of so many of the men and women she grew up with. Her friends have returned as empty shells or not at all. But although peace has been declared, Rebecca is still fighting at home. Her controlling mother will stop at nothing to prevent Rebecca from following her dream to become a painter.
When Rebecca meets dashing young Edward, a pilot during the war, she discovers both love and an escape. Edward makes her feel truly loved, alive and excited about her future and art. But when Edward takes Rebecca to visit his childhood home on the sweeping coast, their trip ends in tragedy. Edward’s father commits suicide and, consumed by grief, Edward is faced with a terrible choice: love or family?
Utterly distraught, Rebecca goes out to the shore by moonlight to paint. Under the stars, she stares into the waves, thinking about her life. The next morning she has disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only a pencil on the sand. Finding the truth will change everything for those who were left behind…
Fans of My Name is Eva, Rhys Bowen and Lucinda Riley will fall head over heels in love with Secret Shores.
Author Bio:
Ella Carey is the international bestselling author of The Things We Don’t Say, Secret Shores, From a Paris Balcony, The House by the Lake, and Paris Time Capsule. Her books have been published in over fourteen languages, in twelve countries, and have been shortlisted for ARRA awards. A Francophile who has long been fascinated by secret histories set in Europe’s entrancing past, Ella has degrees in music, nineteenth-century women’s fiction, and modern European history. She lives in Melbourne with her two children and two Italian greyhounds who are constantly mistaken for whippets.
My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this novel! Set in two different eras, we see how two people in love have to choose between their passions and their responsibilities. Rebecca is a young, talented artist who has fallen in love with Edward, a writer with enormous responsibility hanging over his head. I loved getting to know these characters along with their friends and family.
We also meet Tess, a modern woman who is constantly fighting that glass ceiling in the 1980’s Manhattan publishing world. It seems the more she learns about her latest author, the more she learns about herself.
Secret Shores was a wonderful escape into the settings of New York City, Australia and Greece. The story kept me intrigued while the characters and their choices had me happy, frustrated, sad and excited all in one novel.
As the snow flutters down in the little village of Linnetford, escape to a cosy farmhouse kitchen, scented with the rich aromas of fruitcake and gingerbread, where a love of baking is about to unite two lonely hearts…
Cathy cooked at her mother’s side her whole life and could bake a fairy cake before she could ride a bike. Now she is facing her first Christmas without her beloved mother, she’s determined to use her memories for something positive. She decides to organise a weekly cooking class, sharing her mother’s precious recipes with other lonely souls.
There’s just one small spanner in the works: teenager Tansy, who attends Cathy’s classes even though she’s rude to everyone there and seems to hate every minute. Cathy is poised to ask Tansy to leave, but her uncle, physiotherapist Matt, begs her to give the teenager another chance. And Cathy can’t resist Matt’s sparkling hazel eyes and incredibly kind heart…
But just as Cathy is feeling she might find joy again, her ex returns to Linnetford, desperate for a second chance. With Matt becoming distant as his life gets more complicated, it seems so easy to return to the safe embrace of someone she knows so well. Can Cathy avoid the temptation of falling back in love with the man who broke her heart and let Christmas bring her the greatest gift – that of happiness?
My Thoughts:
I had high hopes for this one – baking, romance, Christmas…it sounded like a great escape. I did enjoy the setting and all the secondary characters were a lot of fun. And I definitely craved more baked goods that I should as I was reading. But the main character, Cathy was sorely lacking in self-confidence and that really bothered me. It also felt as though the story had trouble focusing on one plot line – maybe it was just me because the book gets great reviews on Goodreads. =)
Three months after four-year-old Holly Gebhardt was kidnapped, she was inexplicably returned to the same park from which she’d vanished…with no memory of the ordeal. Though a local handyman was convicted, suspicion also fell on his friend—Holly’s mother, Cecily. The troubling doubts about her involvement shattered the family, forever driving a wedge between mother and daughter.
Twenty years later, another girl goes missing under eerily similar circumstances. It’s just the latest in a series of kidnappings that Detective Jason Guidry thinks Holly can help solve. Though Holly has tried to move on with her life, a young girl’s life hangs in the balance. All she has to do is try to remember…
With her memory still mostly blank, Holly is missing vital pieces of the puzzle, and she believes her mother can put them in place. In desperation and fear, Holly and her mother come together again. But in a chilling rush toward the past, Cecily still has secrets she’s yet to share with her daughter. Should she dare to breathe a word, she could lose Holly all over again.
My Thoughts:
I’m not a huge fan of thrillers – they send to cause me more anxiety than reading should. 😉 But the description of this one on Netgalley suckered me in. I really enjoyed meeting these characters and learning about their relationships. The relationship between Holly and her mother was especially interesting – how in the world does a mother continue a “normal” life after her child has been kidnapped? This novel kept me guessing almost until the end and I definitely recommend it if you’re looking for something in the thriller category.
Adventures in Reading, Travel, Life 