Friday, May 31, 2013

The Apple Orchard by Susan Wiggs

4 Star

Tess Delaney makes a living restoring stolen treasures to their rightful owners. People like Annelise Winther, who refuses to sell her long-gone mother's beloved necklace—despite Tess's advice. To Annelise, the jewel's value is in its memories.

But Tess's own history is filled with gaps: a father she never met, a mother who spent more time traveling than with her daughter. So Tess is shocked when she discovers the grandfather she never knew is in a coma. And that she has been named in his will to inherit half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre apple orchard in the magical Sonoma town called Archangel.

The rest is willed to Isabel Johansen. A half sister she's never heard of.

Against the rich landscape of Bella Vista, Tess begins to discover a world filled with the simple pleasures of food and family, of the warm earth beneath her bare feet. A world where family comes first and the roots of history run deep. A place where falling in love is not only possible, but inevitable.

And in a season filled with new experiences, Tess begins to see the truth in something Annelise once told her: if you don't believe memories are worth more than money, then perhaps you've not made the right kind of memories.


Kathryn - 4 Star

A mysterious family, a love story and a bit of historical education is what makes up The Apple Orchard. It was a slow grow on me but by the end I was hooked and entranced by everything from the characters to the actual orchard (although I haven’t been so entranced as to try any of the recipes scattered throughout the story- perhaps I’ll leave that to the world’s actual cooks and bakers). 

It took some time for me to warm up to Tess- she obviously had an unusual upbringing without the perceived warmth of her mother and the added frustration of knowing nothing about her father or his family. Although we know she’s looking for stability and love, when it’s suddenly thrown at her, just when her career is finally reaching the pinnacle, she struggles to keep one foot in each part of her life.  Her fascinating job of returning treasures to their owners is a part of her mother and maternal grandmother’s history so it was easy to understand how it would be hard to leave it aside. But the draw of a possible family she’s never met is overpowering.  Tess grew on me the instant she arrived at Bella Vista- her sister Isabel is quietly soft and welcoming and immediately treats her as if she’s always been around.  I found their relationship’s evolvement a bit strange, it seemed to me as if there should have been more talking and less cooking, but Isabel’s personality is so accepting that perhaps she didn’t feel talk to be necessary.  As the reader though I feel Isabel hasn’t been properly defined yet.  It looks like it might be the first in a series so I could happily read the next one and find out some more about Isabel and their father Eric too.

Tess’ grandfather’s history during the Nazi occupation of Denmark was fascinating and well woven into the present. I gradually came to feel as if I knew him from his past as we are not given any present contact with him.  I’m so glad Susan Wiggs included this piece of the past in her novel.  

Our love story between Tess and Dominic was sweet and honest- I liked him immensely but there’s not much to dislike about a handsome single father with altruistic tendencies!

I really enjoyed The Apple Orchard and hope that there will be more to come- with as many twists and turns as the first novel.

Thank you to Etch Communications for our review copy. All opinions are our own. 

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Z: A Novel by Therese Anne Fowler

5 Star

When beautiful, reckless Southern belle Zelda Sayre meets F. Scott Fitzgerald at a country club dance in 1918, she is seventeen years old and he is a young army lieutenant stationed in Alabama. Before long, the “ungettable” Zelda has fallen for him despite his unsuitability: Scott isn’t wealthy or prominent or even a Southerner, and keeps insisting, absurdly, that his writing will bring him both fortune and fame. Her father is deeply unimpressed. But after Scott sells his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to Scribner’s, Zelda optimistically boards a train north, to marry him in the vestry of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and take the rest as it comes.

What comes, here at the dawn of the Jazz Age, is unimagined attention and success and celebrity that will make Scott and Zelda legends in their own time. Everyone wants to meet the dashing young author of the scandalous novel—and his witty, perhaps even more scandalous wife. Zelda bobs her hair, adopts daring new fashions, and revels in this wild new world. Each place they go becomes a playground: New York City, Long Island, Hollywood, Paris, and the French Riviera—where they join the endless party of the glamorous, sometimes doomed Lost Generation that includes Ernest Hemingway, Sara and Gerald Murphy, and Gertrude Stein.

Everything seems new and possible. Troubles, at first, seem to fade like morning mist. But not even Jay Gatsby’s parties go on forever. Who is Zelda, other than the wife of a famous—sometimes infamous—husband? How can she forge her own identity while fighting her demons and Scott’s, too?


Lydia - 5 Star

I found Z: A Novel compelling to read. I am ashamed to admit I did not know much about Scott F. Fitzgerald, let alone his wife, Zelda, so I found this book interesting on many levels. Of particular interest to me were the personal struggles and challenges both Zelda and Scott experienced individually and how these impacted their marriage as well as the history and their life of grandeur.

There are many of these types of novels out there now.  ‘The Paris Wife and ‘The Aviator’s Wife’ come immediately to mind, and I think they provide an interesting viewpoint on the these infamous men, as well as their wives, giving us a glimpse of their lives behind closed doors – from the wife’s perspective. I haven’t read either of the above (okay, I got a quarter of the way through The Aviator’s Wife before my netgalley copy archived, but I enjoyed it until then), but I may seek them out as I find this type of read more than entertaining, I find it educational.
A writers lifestyle in the roaring twenties (an era I love) was eye opening. That they lived like celebrities do today fascinated me. I thought this was written so well, I felt I was right alongside the Fitzgeralds as they drank and danced and were merry. It was delightful to see the excitement of their new relationship juxtaposed alongside this exuberant time, making it all seem even more grand.

I was really surprised at the depiction of both Scott F. Fitzgerald and his ‘friend,’ Hemingway. I had no idea they could each be so nasty, both to the women in their lives, and each other. But, I didn’t know much about them other than a few of their novels in the first place so I don't kno wwhy I was so surprised.
Zelda’s and Scott’s relationship could probably mirror many tumultuous relationships today. The two seemed to fuel each other’s fire and encouraged and discouraged in all the wrong places. One wonders whether they would have ended up where they did if they had married other people.

Zelda’s struggles, including living with her husband’s alcoholism, their depleting bank account, and what would now be called bi-polar disorder, are portrayed well. Also poignant is her struggle to maintain her own identity. She wrote her own pieces of fiction, but found it difficult to be taken seriously in Fitzgerald’s shadow and as a wife and mother. I think Zelda’s struggle for self is one that women can still identify with and relate to, regardless of the famous writer husband and lavish lifestyle.

I think what I liked most about this type of novel is that it bursts open other viewpoints. After I finished this book, I did some google research and discovered that Zelda was considered a crazy alcoholic, and portrayed with ruining her husband’s career. One reads Z: A Novel and realizes that maybe there is a different perspective to the story. Maybe it was the other way around. It makes you realize that if one takes all perspectives into account, you may come to some sort of truth, or at least the potential that one viewpoint does not tell the entire story.

All in all, I think fans of the era, and Fitzgerald will enjoy Z: a novel, as will anyone looking for a different perspective, or someone, like myself, who was barely informed in the first place.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for our review copy. All opinions are our own. 

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

The Banks of Certain Rivers by Jon Harrison

4.5 Star
Neil Kazenzakis is barely holding his life together: ever since an accident left his wife profoundly disabled, he's been doing his best as a single dad and popular high school teacher. He's also been dealing with Lauren Downey, his sort-of girlfriend of the past two years who's pushing for a commitment—and for Neil to finally tell his son Christopher about their secret relationship.

Neil's carefully balanced world begins to fall apart when some questionable footage of him is anonymously posted to YouTube...just as Chris learns about Lauren in the worst possible way. Doubting his own recollection of the events in the online video and threatened with the loss of his job and the ability to care for his wife, Neil must find a way to prove the truth to his family, his community, and himself as he struggles to regain the splintered trust of his son.


Lydia - 4.5 Star

The Banks of Certain Rivers is a fresh, fun, easy read with fantastic characters you can’t help but root for. I became immersed immediately in Neil’s life and found myself worrying whether everything would work out for him in the end.

Harrison creates such strong empathy for Neil straight out of the gate. He is so kind, compassionate, and stuck in a really, really, crappy predicament. He’s in love with a girl that is not his wife, which sounds really bad. But it’s not in the way you think. It’s actually much, much worse. Neil’s wife suffered a tragic accident and remains brain dead. He’s half in one life and half in another. And then there’s his son, Christopher, to consider, who has no clue about Neil's girlfriend of several years and his mother in law whose dementia is worsening and to whom his girlfriend, Lauren, is a part-time caregiver. And if all that wasn’t complicated enough, a video surfaces involving one of his students, causing even more chaos.

You can’t help but empathize with Neil because of the above, and well, because he’s such a good guy. Really. I was a smidgen jealous of Lauren. She is one lucky lady.  All of the characters are wonderful and how much they all care about each other is magnificently portrayed. It is clear how loving Neil is and the fantastic job he did raising Christopher alone is clearly evident. Although the two make mistakes, love abounds and I really liked this as well as how they end up coming to terms with their situation.

Another thing I really enjoyed is that the ‘video’ isn’t what we are led to believe from the outset and this made the novel unique and not as cliché to me. There were some other unexpected things that popped up and even things I anticipated seemed fresh and interesting so I never rolled my eyes and went 'saw that coming.' Because even if I did, I still enjoyed it.

The Banks of Certain Rivers was very real for me, like I was walking alongside the characters - and feeling so completely immersed is such a wonderful way to read a novel.

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Saturday, May 25, 2013

The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards by Kristopher Jansma

4 Star

From as early as he can remember, the hopelessly unreliable—yet hopelessly earnest—narrator of this ambitious debut novel has wanted to become a writer.

From the jazz clubs of Manhattan to the villages of Sri Lanka, Kristopher Jansma’s irresistible narrator will be inspired and haunted by the success of his greatest friend and rival in writing, the eccentric and brilliantly talented Julian McGann, and endlessly enamored with Julian’s enchanting friend, Evelyn, the green-eyed girl who got away. After the trio has a disastrous falling out, desperate to tell the truth in his writing and to figure out who he really is, Jansma’s narrator finds himself caught in a never-ending web of lies.


Sabrina-Kate - 4 Star

I liked The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards from the first page because the synopsis made it impossible to tell what the book was about and I found myself pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed the unique format of the book a lot as well. This novel is an interconnected set of short stories that follow some characters around and the story progresses with gaps between each story which don't distract from the important parts. That is to say that even if the story doesn't flow from day to day, it is still easy to follow along and not feel like anything was missed.

There were, however, some short stories that I found less interesting than others. The characters are all creative types, and when the author went into too much detail over the creative process or a detail like getting published, I felt my eyes start to glaze over. I am not sure why it seems to be so a la mode these days to write about writing but I don't find it to be an interesting plot twist in the least.

All in all The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards is an interesting book set all over the world that has great detail and really made me feel like I was traveling in different countries and times right along with the characters involved.

Thank you to Viking for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

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Thursday, May 23, 2013

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey by Wendy Wax

3.5 Star

When the concierge of The Alexander, a historic Atlanta apartment building, invites his fellow residents to join him for weekly screenings of Downton Abbey, four very different people find themselves connecting with the addictive drama, and—even more unexpectedly—with each other…

Samantha Davis married young and for the wrong reason: the security of old Atlanta money—for herself and for her orphaned brother and sister. She never expected her marriage to be complicated by love and compromised by a shattering family betrayal.

Claire Walker is now an empty nester and struggling author who left her home in the suburbs for the old world charm of The Alexander, and for a new and productive life. But she soon wonders if clinging to old dreams can be more destructive than having no dreams at all.
And then there’s Brooke MacKenzie, a woman in constant battle with her faithless ex-husband. She’s just starting to realize that it’s time to take a deep breath and come to terms with the fact that her life is not the fairy tale she thought it would be.

For Samantha, Claire, Brooke—and Edward, who arranges the weekly gatherings—it will be a season of surprises as they forge a bond that will sustain them through some of life’s hardest moments—all of it reflected in the unfolding drama, comedy, and convergent lives of Downton Abbey



Lydia - 3.5 Star

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey is quick, fun read about friendship, love, and loss. Even though it has been on my ginormous to-do lists for ages, I haven’t watched Downton Abby yet, so I’m not sure if my less than five star enjoyment was because I couldn’t compare the book to the series, but I suspect it had a bit more to do with the novel itself.

I felt While We Were Watching Downton Abbey had a very British chick lit feel, particularly the small town novels where everyone knows one another and is all up in your business-probably like Downton Abbey itself. I’m not sure it translated that well to a condo though, all cold and concrete, as opposed to the lush British countryside.

Unfortunately, it took me a really, really long time to become invested in the story lines and the characters and I have had a difficult time figuring out why. I don’t think I found the characters as engaging as I wanted them to be and thought them a bit one dimensional. I liked all them all well enough and enjoyed the story, and laughed out loud, but I’m not sure it hit hard enough for me. Instead it seemed to bob along and I found myself wanting more.

I suspect that because it took the characters a really, really long time to let down their guards and become friends didn’t help. For much of the story, the three women were closed off to others. They spent much of their time alone and I craved more interaction between the women because when they did actually begin spending time together, I became fully invested in the characters and the outcome, so it is unfortunate it didn’t happen sooner.

One thing I really didn’t enjoy were the Downton Abbey spoilers. Now that it’s been a few weeks since I read the novel, some of them have faded. But some haven’t. So be forewarned, if you haven’t seen the series, brace yourself for these if you hate spoilers or skip over them. Thankfully, many referenced the early part of the series, but it still aggravated me, particularly since I hate spoilers of any kind-so much so that I love selecting books and then waiting to read them so I have no idea what they are about.

If you’re looking for novel about friendship and love Downton Abbey, this book is probably for you. There are many rave reviews out there, so maybe it was just me.

Thank you to NAL for our review copy. All opinions are our own. 

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Starting Now by Debbie Macomber

2.5 Star

For years Libby Morgan dreamed only of making partner in her competitive, high-pressure law firm. She sacrificed everything for her career—her friends, her marriage, her chance at creating a family. When her boss calls Libby into his office, she assumes it will finally be good news, but nothing can prepare her for the shocking reality: She’s been let go and must rebuild her entire life...starting now. 

With no job prospects in sight, Libby reaches out to old friends and spends her afternoons at A Good Yarn, the local knitting store. There she forms a close bond with Lydia, the sweet-natured shop owner; Lydia’s spirited teenage daughter, Casey; and Casey’s best friend, Ava, a shy yet troubled girl who will shape Libby’s future in surprising and profound ways. 

As A Good Yarn becomes a second home—and the women a new kind of family—Libby relishes the different person she’s become. She even finds time for romance with a charming and handsome doctor who seems to be her perfect match. But just as everything is coming together, Libby must make a choice that could forever change the life she holds so dear.


Kathryn - 2.5 Star

Libby is a strong woman career wise but has let her personal life fall to pieces because of the deep rooted pain of losing her mother as a child.  I think if I was as strong-minded as Libby appears to be in business I would have pushed harder to form some kind of relationship with my father or other family.  It seems as if Macomber just let that part of her past go almost entirely unexplained. At one point there is mention of a step-mother that Libby seems to like but there’s no exploration of their possible relationship and I would have felt more attached to Libby had I been able to see how that part of her life was lacking.

The new friendships Libby formed when she finds herself without a job had potential. They were intriguing and interesting and some of them were unique (I particularly liked the two teenage girls.) However, except for her love interest and the teen she takes under her wing none of the other characters seemed to move Libby forward in the next stage of her life.  The oddest relationship for me though was her best friend Robin who came off as chilly and unemotional and frankly I would have let her go on her merry way if she’d been my best buddy!

I really liked the exploration of Libby personally though, through her desire to get in shape to her new joy in rocking newborns in the hospital. There was development of her emotionally at those points that I appreciated.

To be truly, truly honest this story wasn’t very me and I say this with difficulty because there’s not a lot I can say about Starting Over that’s truly negative. Starting Now is well laid out, the characters are good and could draw you in-I was certainly rooting for some more than others and I wanted to finish the book to see how it all turned out. But I wasn’t moved by the way it read, or the plot or the end result.  Possibly The Blossom Street Novels by Macomber just isn’t my thing which I think is fine because there are lot of fans out there already!

Thank you to Random House for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

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Tuesday, May 21, 2013

When She Was Gone by Gwendolen Gross

3.5 Star

Seventeen-year-old Linsey Hart disappears the day before she’s due to leave for college. As her neighbors piece together what they saw and what they think they know about the missing girl, their long-held secrets, prejudices, and entanglements become rudely evident.

There’s Linsey’s mother, Abigail, whose door-to-door searching makes her social outcast status painfully obvious; stay-at-home mom Reeva, whose primary concern is covering up the affair she’s been having with the Starbucks barista; Mr. Leonard, a reclusive retired piano teacher—and the last person to see Linsey alive; George, an eleven year-old gifted loner who is determined to find out what happened to Linsey; and Timmy, Linsey’s ex-boyfriend, who is left grieving as he embarks on his own college career.

A keenly observed portrait of a small town under duress, When She Was Gone is a searing portrayal of the bonds that hold a community together—and the secrets and lies that threaten to rip it apart.


Jen - 3.5 Star

What does a novel have to accomplish in order to keep my attention? Apparently, do exactly what Gwendolyn Gross did in her novel, When She Was Gone, because I was riveted from beginning to end. 

Linsey Hart is being watched. By her mother, by her boyfriend and by a strange neighbor who keeps a keen eye on everyone in Linsey’s neighborhood from the safety of his piano dress, where he plays for hours, wearing his late mother’s dresses.

So when Linsey slips into the night, leaving a note tucked into the door and disappears, questions start arising through the cracks of the fences that separate the neighbors’ yards. What Linsey doesn’t plan on is that her note gets carried away in the wind where her parents will never find it.

If they had read the note right away, her mother wouldn’t be sick with worry and dealing with the loss of another child. Or the boy next door wouldn’t be overcome with curiosity and a yearning to help. Linsey’s disappearance sets the neighborhood into an interesting tailspin. Everyone is watching, waiting and wondering.

When She Was Gone is about Linsey’s disappearance, but for me, that wasn’t the most important part of the story. What was, however, were the other characters. Gross has done a phenomenal job creating these complex and passionate people. I wanted to meet them, hug them, tell them to relax. I almost forgot I was supposed to be worried about where Linsey was because I was so involved with the individual storylines of her neighbors.

If you are looking for a mystery thriller, this isn’t what I would recommend, as Linsey’s situation isn’t as complex as most missing children cases are. I would recommend this book to someone who loves strong character development and more than one element and point of view in a story. 

Thank you to Gallery Books for our revew copy. All opinions are our own.

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Thursday, May 16, 2013

Table For Seven by Whitney Gaskell

4 Star

On New Year’s Eve, Fran and Will Parrish host a dinner party, serving their friends a gourmet feast. The night is such a success that the group decides to form a monthly dinner party club. But what starts as an excuse to enjoy the company of fellow foodies ends up having lasting repercussions on each member of the Table for Seven Dinner Party Club.

Fran and Will face the possibility that their comfortable marriage may not be as infallible as they once thought. Audrey has to figure out how to move on and start a new life after the untimely death of her young husband. Perfectionist Jaime suspects that her husband, Mark, might be having an affair. Coop, a flirtatious bachelor who never commits to a third date, is blindsided when he falls in love for the first time. Leland, a widower, is a wise counselor and firm believer that bacon makes everything taste better.

Over the course of a year, against a backdrop of mouthwatering meals, relationships are forged, marriages are tested, and the members of the Table for Seven Dinner Party Club find their lives forever changed.


Kaley - 4 Star

Table for Seven is one of those books that leaves you feeling happy as you turn the last page. Does that mean everything ends with a perfect happily ever after? Not necessarily. Whitney Gaskell has written a lovely novel about friendships and relationships and how important those things are in life.

This was a really good ensemble novel. I got to take a peek into several different lives and I felt like I really got to know the characters. I think the alternating perspectives helped me enjoy the novel more than I would have had the story only focused on one person or couple. That being said, as is the case with most ensemble books, there were characters that seemed to be at the centre of the novel. In this book that couple was Fran and Will. Unfortunately, Fran drove me a little crazy. She seems to think Will doesn’t care about her or their marriage anymore so she embarks on an emotional affair. It was frustrating because she didn’t have any reason to doubt Will’s feelings for her. This was one of those cases of a couple being too comfortable and not bothering to communicate. Even though I liked getting the insight into all of the couples’ lives, I wanted more focus to be put on Audrey and Coop. Also, Leland was such a fun character but he didn’t play a huge part in the novel. The only time I really got to read about him was when he was at one of the dinners and I felt like he had more to offer to the story.

The monthly dinner parties provided a unique element to the novel. It was a fun way to get all the characters together and allowed personalities to be exposed a little more. For example, we can tell how important the dinner is to Jaime and she wants to make sure everything is perfect. Her husband, on the other hand, can’t usually be bothered to show up on time. It’s telling and gives a hint to the others, and the reader, that everything is not always as it seems.

I finished Table for Seven with a smile on my face. I was really happy with the journey that all the characters went through and how they dealt with the issues they faced and how they changed because of those issues. If you’re looking for a feel good novel with heart, pick up Whitney Gaskell’s latest novel. As for me, I’m going to keep an eye out for her next novel as well as taking a look at her previous books.


Thank you to Bantam for our review copy! All opinions are our own.

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Sunday, May 12, 2013

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

3 Star

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle—and people in general—has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence—creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.


Lydia - 3 Star

Where'd You Go Bernadette has received wonderful reviews since its release and has been on my want-to-read list for a while. So, when I knew I was going on vacation, I decided to take a break from my ever-expanding, must-review pile and picked up a few novels I’ve been wanting to read for a while. Sadly though, Where Did You Go Bernadette disappointed me and I found myself speed reading through it so I could finish and move on. I suspect this in part is due to the fact that I had no idea I was going to be reading a satire, so my expectation of a serious read left me confused and by the time I figured it out, I wasn’t as interested as I might have been.

When I first read the description of Where'd You Go Bernadette, I thought the novel was about a girl searching for her mother who disappeared. This is true, but I became confused when I found myself reading Bernadette’s emails without an explanation about why we were privy to them. Narrative was sparse in this novel, and the majority of the book was correspondence via emails, letters and even articles, interviews and reports. It took me some time to figure out what was going on, and by the time I was told that this was what Bee pieced together after her mother disappeared, I was kind of over it. Once I clued in that I was reading a satire I could sit back and enjoy it a little more, but I still remained disappointed.

There were a few surprises and some character growth, but I never really warmed to any of the characters and found Bernadette to be really whiny and very negative. The intense dislike of Canadians the author portrayed, satirical or not was disheartening. Again, this is all probably because I wasn’t expecting the novel to be humourous. Sometimes Bee seemed much younger than her age to me, but I’ve seen some less mature fifteen year olds, so it didn’t surprise me, but at times I wondered about it and it then her real age would confuse me. The few scenes I really enjoyed were the actual scenes, the ones between Bee and her parents. 

Pick this one up if you're looking for something a little different. 

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Thursday, May 9, 2013

What a Mother Knows by Leslie Lehr

5 Star

An unsettling, emotional and suspenseful novel of the unshakable bonds of motherhood, in which Michelle Mason not only loses her memory after a deadly car crash, but can't find her 16-year-old daughter, the one person who may know what happened that day. But the deeper Michelle digs, the more she questions the innocence of everyone, even herself. A dramatic portrayal of the fragile skin of memory, What a Mother Knows is about finding the truth that can set love free.







Sabrina-Kate - 5 Star

I really enjoyed What a Mother Knows for it's unpredictability. The story flowed very well, yet I couldn't figure out what was going to happen next especially the ending which really came from out of nowhere but tied a lot of things together very nicely.

The main character definitely had a lot of struggles following her car accident and what I found to be probably very realistic yet very sad was the fact that people around her felt it alright to hide truths from her or to change details about what had happened in her past. Easy to do with someone whose has lost part of their memory and I wonder if it is a natural reaction for others to do that if given the opportunity.

The novel was full of suspense, very emotional and well thought out. It really held my interest very deeply and made me long to keep going to find out if Michelle would ever find out what really happened and find her daughter, two things that may or may not be connected and if so, how.

I loved the cover of What a Mother Knows, finding it absolutely gorgeous and I also loved the title, however I don't find that either one represented the contents very well, which seemed a bit darker and nefarious. Despite that little hiccup, I would absolutely recommend this to anyone who likes a good suspenseful plot twisting read.

Thank you to Sourcebooks for our review copy. All opinions are our own.

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