The Almost Sisters by Joshilyn Jackson: A Review

Leia is famous in the comic book world for creating a superhero and has just discovered that she is pregnant after an encounter with one of her fans.  One of the first people that she wants to tell is her grandmother, Birchie, but before she can do so, she discovers that Birchie is suffering from dementia.  Birchie's best friend, Wattie, has been keeping Birchie's illness a secret until Birchie has an outburst at a church function that reveals dirty town secrets.  Leia travels to Birchie's lifelong home to clean it out and find an assisted living facility for Birchie and Wattie to stay in but soon discovers that the women hold deeper secrets than Birchie's dementia.  

I love Southern Fiction and I liked this book but I did not love this book.  With the exception of Birchie and Wattie, the characters in this book really didn't seem southern.  It seemed like Leia really wanted to be southern but there was no true insight into what southern was really like.  There were a lot of assumptions made about the south that simply were not true in this point and time.  I also felt that there was too much emphasis on Leia's story when I would have rather heard more about Birchie and Wattie's story.  This wasn't a historical fiction novel where the past and the present are interwoven.  The historical parts of this book were almost an afterthought.  It felt like I was reading about Leia and her baby and Batman (Leia's baby's father) and Birchie and Wattie's story, which was so much more interesting, was rushed through.  While I enjoyed the book, I would have preferred more of the history behind the bones.  That being said, I think those who enjoy Women's Fiction will find this more to their taste.  Those looking for Historical Fiction or Southern Fiction may be somewhat disappointed.

My rating:
★★★☆☆

Watch the book trailer here:

Reviews of books like this one:
If The Creek Don't Rise by Leah Weiss
The Education of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart
The Shark Club by Ann Kidd Taylor

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.  Until January 31, 2018, the kindle version of this book will be $1.99 on Amazon.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind.

The Wife Between Us by Greer Hendricks & Sarah Pekkanen

"Soon she will step into her white dress.  She will smooth makeup over her clear young skin.  She will wear something borrowed and something blue.  The musicians will lift their instruments to serenade her as she slowly makes her way down the aisle, toward the only man I ever truly loved."

A woman is about to marry the man of her dreams as he is moving on from his old life with another wife.  The man she loves, Richard, cheated on his divorced wife with her and the scorned woman is so not over it.  We watch as Richard prepares to marry a new woman while the old woman desperately tries to prevent the marriage.

I had a lot of high hopes for this book.  It just did not meet my expectations.  I liked the book and enjoyed reading it but it did not live up to the hype that surrounded it.  It was held up as an intense psychological thriller but the twists and turns, while surprising, were not that exciting.  There was suspense but I found that many of my questions were left unanswered at the end.  I do want to say that this book is a good one.  Many people will enjoy it.  I think that my expectations were just built way too high for it.  There are plot twists and they are hard to anticipate.  The characters are very well written and incredibly complex.  I think fans of psychological thrillers will like this book but just be forewarned that there are some holes in the plot.  A psychological thriller about a marriage gone wrong that I enjoyed much more would have the be The Breakdown by B.A. Paris.

Watch the book trailer here:

My rating:
★★★☆☆

Reviews of similar books:
The Stolen Marriage by Diane Chamberlain
The Breakdown by B.A. Paris
What's Become of Her by Deb Caletti

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind.

The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor: A Review

"... despite the best efforts of all the detective's and all the town's men, her head was never found, and the girl in the woods was never put together again."

Eddie and his friends use chalk drawings in different colors to communicate with one another.  One of their chalk pictures will signal that they should all meet in the park while another will lead the others to the woods.  One day, the boys follow their chalk drawings to the body of a young woman that has been murdered.  When the boys grow up and drift apart, they are all drawn back together when they begin to receive creepy chalk drawings again. They begin to wonder if the person accused of the crime was really the person who killed the girl.

The ending to this book shocked me.  I had no idea what really happened until the very last chapter.  There was so much suspense that I felt myself reading another page and another until I finished the book and found out the truth.  I frequently read books that are suspenseful and some that are creepy but rarely do I find one that is truly scary.  This book is truly scary.  Tudor is wonderfully descriptive in her writing, which added to the frightful scenes.  Some of the scenes will be able to cause nightmares!  The characters are vague in such a way that the reader kind of suspects everyone.  There are enough twists and turns to keep one interested but not too many that the book does not make any sense, either.  I loved this book and think that anyone that enjoys thrillers or horror novels will, too.    

Reviews of books like this one:
Everything You Want Me To Be by Mindy Mejia
Every Last Lie by Mary Kubica
The Breakdown by B.A. Paris

My rating:
★★★★★

Watch the book trailer here:

This book is currently available and can be purchased from major booksellers.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.  Visit the publisher, Penguin Random House, for booksellers and information about the book.

I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am not associated with Goodreads in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 

I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

Britt-Marie Was Here by Fredrik Backman: A Review

I loved Britt-Marie but Britt-Marie Was Here was not my favorite Fredrik Backman book.  I still loved the book but I have come to expect a certain story when I read a Backman book and this one didn't hit the spot in the same way as the others did.  This book was still a wonderful book, though.

Britt-Marie has spent her life taking care of everybody and everything around her.  She has become invisible until the day that she decides to leave her cheating husband and take a job as a caretaker in the small, neglected town of Borg.  She tries to make the best of it and make her time there as orderly as possible.  She locates a container of baking soda and begins to clean.  When the children of Borg ask her to be their soccer coach, a sport of which she knows little about, she agrees and learns what it is like to be accepted and make an impact on a place and its people.

Like other stories by Backman, the cozy writing style and characters really make up this book.  Britt-Marie was such a great character.  I actually found myself wondering if the characters from this book and Backman's And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer were intertwined in some way.  Britt-Marie is so very set in her ways.  She has trouble even using a different brand of cleaner than the one she is used to.  Though she is rigid in her ways, she is still such a kind, likeable person.  The story was a very refreshing one but it could drag on a bit in some areas.  Nonetheless, I still enjoyed reading it and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Backman's wonderful writing style or an easy, cozy read.

My rating:
★★★★☆

More reviews of books like this one:
The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 1/4 Years Old
A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer by Fredrik Backman 

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind. 


I do not track activity of visitors beyond that which blogger already does.  If you click on an outside link, those websites may track your activity but I do not actively share any information with third-party websites.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate: A Review

Rill and her siblings, along with their parents, are river people.  They live on a boat and travel with the river.  They don't have a lot of money but they love each other immensely.  When Rill's mother, Queenie, begins to have trouble during one of her deliveries, Rill's father takes Queenie to the hospital to give birth to the twins and leaves the children at home, with Rill in charge.  Before her parents can get home, Rill and her siblings are kidnapped and brought to Georgia Tann, a woman who brokers adoptions.  Georgia Tann runs the Tennessee Children's Home Society and many of the children that she claims are orphans are very much loved children to alive, but usually poor, parents.  Rill struggles to keep her siblings together while fighting off the abuses that she experiences at the boarding house she is entrusted to.

Avery Stafford is a gifted District Attorney who has traveled home to help out with her senator father after he has been diagnosed with cancer.  She is about to fulfill the promise of marrying her childhood sweetheart and stepping into her father's shoes when she meets an older woman at a senior care facility who claims to know her grandmother, a woman who is suffering from dementia.  When Avery brings up the encounter with the woman with her grandmother, her grandmother begins to act as if she remembers something but can't express what it is.  Avery works to uncover the story of the Tennessee Children's Home Society.

The saddest part of this book is that it is based on a true story.  Georgia Tann was a real woman who used her position to kidnap children from loving homes and then adopt them out to rich people in order to earn a hefty fee.  I had no prior knowledge of this heartbreaking story before reading Wingate's book but I learned a lot reading it and her story encouraged me to do more research.  Ms. Tann earned, in today's dollars, millions brokering adoptions with wealthy families and pocketing the adoption fees while ignoring abuse in the boarding houses that she left the children in.

Wingate's wonderful storytelling abilities made reading such a tragic story interesting and enjoyable.  All of the characters have unique voices with Rill's being my favorite.  Rill is such a strong girl, holding up her family at 12-years-old when the rest of her family is falling apart.  I did not think that Avery's story added very much to this book and would have been happy with just the stories of Rill and her siblings.  I would have liked to hear more about them and it seemed as if the book ended somewhat abruptly, without as much information as I would have liked to have.  This could have just been because I fell so much in love with the characters, though, that I felt like I had to know everything about them.

I loved this book and believe anyone who enjoys historical fiction would also like this book.  It was not a depressing book.  It was a sad story but it had enough hope to keep me interested.  This is a sad part of our history that I think people should learn more about.  I would recommend it to anyone that enjoys historical fiction or southern fiction.

My rating:
★★★★★

Watch this video for more information on the Tennessee Children's Home Society:

Reviews of more books like this one:
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood
If the Creek Don't Rise by Leah Weiss
The Education of Dixie Dupree by Donna Everhart

This book is currently available and can be purchased from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.  Read more reviews on this book on Goodreads.

I received an advanced copy of this book from the publisher in order to review it but that did not have an effect on my review of the book.  This is my honest opinion of this book.  I am a participant in the Amazon Affiliates program.  By clicking on the Amazon link and purchasing this product, I receive a small fee.  I am not associated with Goodreads or Barnes and Noble in any way and the links provided are available strictly for your convenience and not to imply a relationship of any kind.