A Sweet Read

 

Let’s say you were stuck in your house for some crazy global pandemic and needed something to distract yourself for an afternoon….then this is the book for you.   This is a story of 30-year old Piper who has not led the most carefree life.  Her parents were killed when she was 13, and she was left in charge of her younger brother and sister (with the help of her grandparents).  She has put her education, social life, and love life on hold in order to support them.   She is now ready to go back to school, sell their childhood home, and move away from their home.  Yet it will not be that easy, Gavin and Winnie (brother and sister…whom I love)…have moved back with other plans and to unleash some secrets that they have been harboring.   Not only that but there is a new man who has come to town and he may be a bit of a distraction for Piper.

A fun, sweet read to take your mind to a time where we could socially interact with others.

The Lucky One by Lori Rader-Day

I have finished this mystery/thriller novel, and I am still processing some of it.   It is about a 30 something woman, Alice, who was kidnapped when she was 3 years-old.   She has a few memories of the kidnapping and everyone considers her “the lucky one”.  Her father who was a policeman was able to rescue her from the kidnapper quite swiftly and return her to the safety of her home.  However, this experience has left Alice obsessed with missing people/cold cases.  She is part of an online group of people who research missing people and Jane and John Doe cases.   It is while she is on the site that someone posts a picture of a man who has gone missing….this man is easily recognizable to Alice.   He is the man who had kidnapped her all those years ago.

This begins Alice’s quest to track down this man along with two other women in the online group.   They begin to find a paper trail that leads to more unanswered questions than she could have anticipated. And when it turns dangerous, there is nothing left for Alice to do, but keep digging.  Does she really want to learn the truth about what had happened all those years ago?

Everybody talks…everybody talks….

 

In  small town Wooster, Ohio in the 1950s, Vivian Dalton works as a telephone operator.  Everyone knows it is against the ethical code to listen in on conversations as a telephone operator.  But it is the age before social media and Netflix, so entertainment is hard to find.  So what harm is it in listening to a few conversations between the women of Wooster?   Vivian is about to discover just what could unravel from one phone call that she decides to listen in on late one night….a call that will lead to a chain of events that will rock not only her world, but many in the small town.

Vivian has been married for 15 years to Edward Dalton, and they have one teenager daughter….Charlotte.   Vivian has always had dreams of living a more glamorous life like that of Betty Miller.   Betty Miller has three children, married well, and is the daughter of the town mayor and bank president.  She wants for nothing.   Vivian did not graduate from high school and shies away from books and learning in favor of fashion and Fire and Ice lipstick.   Charlotte, on the other hand, loves books and knowledge, and dreams of a better life for herself.  Unfortunately, a gossipy phone call late one night changes this all….

 

Eight Perfect Murders

Wow!  It has taken me quite a few months to write a review..a global quarantine has done the trick.  Now that we all are sequestered in our homes, we have plenty of time to read.  May I recommend Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson?   The good is that you will be so engrossed in this book that you will forget all about the surreal reality going on outside your home.   The bad is that you will read this quite quickly and need another book to help you escape from it all. I an help you with that as well.

This book revolves around bookseller Malcolm Kershaw.  A 40-something widower who lives alone in Boston when he is approached by a FBI agent about a few unsolved murders in the area.   She is interviewing him because years ago he wrote a blog post for the book store called EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS.  The post was a list of the best and most perfect murders in mystery novels.   And now someone seems to be copying it.

I was hooked from the beginning….I loved the writing style, the characters, and the plot.   I highly recommend this book!!!  Stay safe and remember reading takes you places when you are forced to stay inside (or something like that).