Book: The Widow's House

Author: Carol Goodman

Genre: Fiction/Thriller/Mystery

Summary: When Jess and Clare Martin move from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to their former college town in the Hudson River Valley, they are hoping for rejuvenation - of their marriage, their savings, and Jess's writing career. They take a caretaker's job at Riven House, a crumbling estate and the home of their old college writing professor. While Clare once had dreams of being a writer, those plans fell by the wayside when Jess made a big, splashy literary debut in their twenties. But it's been years, now, since his first novel, and the advance has long been spent. Clare's hope is that the pastoral beauty and nostalgia of the Hudson Valley will offer him inspiration. But their new life isn't all quaint town libraries and fragrant apple orchards. There is a haunting pall that hangs over Riven House like a funeral veil. Something is just not right. Soon, Clare begins to hear babies crying at night and see strange figures in the fog at the edge of their property. Diving into the history of the area, she discovers that Riven House has a dark and anguished past. And whatever this thing is - this menacing force that destroys the inhabitants of the estate - it seems to be after Clare next . . . - William Morrow, 2017.

Book: Hawthorn

Author: Carol Goodman

Genre: Young Adult/Fiction/Fantasy/Romance

Summary: All Avaline Hall wants is to enjoy her senior year at Blythewood Academy, the boarding school where she's been trained to defend humankind from forces of dark magic. But when Ava is shown a glimpse into the future in the enchanted Blythe Wood, she discovers that the evil Judicus van Drood is rallying nations into a war that seems destined to destroy both the human and faerie worlds. Only Ava and her allies have a chance at stopping van Drood, but how many must die in the process? And how can Ava and the boy she loves be together when everything around them is falling apart? -Viking, 2015.

Book: River Road

Author: Carol Goodman

Genre: Fiction/Present Day/Thriller/Mystery

Summary: Nan Lewis - a creative writing professor at a college in upstate New York - is driving home from a faculty holiday party after finding out she's been denied tenure. On her way, she hits a deer, but when she gets out of her car to look for it, the deer is nowhere to be found. Eager to get home and out of the oncoming snowstorm, Nan is forced to leave her car at the bottom of her snowy driveway to wait out the longest night of the year - and the lowest point of her life . . . The next morning, Nan is woken up by a police officer at her door with terrible news - one of her students, Leia Dawson, was killed in a hit-and-run on River Road the night before. And because of her damage to her car, Nan is a suspect. In the days following the accident, Nan is shunned by the same community that rallied around her when her own daughter was killed in an eerily similar accident six years prior. When Nan begins finding disturbing tokens that recall the death of her daughter, Nan suspects the two accidents are connected. As she digs further, she discovers that everyone around her, including Leia, is hiding secrets. But can she uncover them, clear her name, and figure out who really killed Leia before her reputation is destroyed for good? -Touchstone, 2016.

While the book description seemed intriguing I couldn't imagine how much I would enjoy this book. This book follows Daphne Marist who takes her baby Chloe with her to a job in a remote area to escape from her husband. At the beginning you don't really know why she felt the need to escape but the further you read the more everything is revealed. 

Daphne before she moved with her daughter had a friend named Laurel. Laurel also happens to have a baby named Chloe. The more Daphne gets to know Laurel the more she realizes just how alike she and Laurel really are.

This book had quite a few twists and turns that I really enjoyed. I really loved that not only do you get to see just what happens with Laurel and Daphne but also get to see previous events that happened at the mental institution that is next door to where Daphne takes a job as an archivist. The ending really showed how certain things were connected and I enjoyed it.

I received this book from a Librarything Early Reviewers giveaway. My review is not affected by that in any way.

Book: The Ghost Orchid

Author: Carol Goodman

Genre: Fiction/Thriller/Mystery/Historical

Summary: For more than one hundred years, creative souls have traveled to Upstate New York to work under the captivating spell of the Bosco estate. Cradled in silence, inspired by the rough beauty of overgrown gardens and crumbling statuary, these chosen few fashion masterworks–and have cemented Bosco’s reputation as a premier artists’ colony. This season, five talented artists-in-residence find themselves drawn to the history of Bosco, from the extensive network of fountains that were once its centerpiece but have long since run dry to the story of its enigmatic founder, Aurora Latham, and the series of tragic events that occurred more than a century ago.

Ellis Brooks, a first-time novelist, has come to Bosco to write a book based on Aurora and the infamous summer of 1893, when wealthy, powerful Milo Latham brought the notorious medium Corinth Blackwell to the estate to help his wife contact three of the couple’s children, lost the winter before in a diphtheria epidemic. But when a séance turned deadly, Corinth and her alleged accomplice, Tom Quinn, disappeared, taking with them the Lathams’ only surviving child.

The more time she spends at Bosco, the more Ellis becomes convinced that there is an even darker, more sinister end to the story. And she’s not alone: biographer Bethesda Graham uncovers stunning revelations about Milo and Corinth; landscape architect David Fox discovers a series of hidden tunnels underneath the gardens; poet Zalman Bronsky hears the long-dry fountain’s waters beckoning him; and novelist Nat Loomis feels something lingering just out of reach.

After a bizarre series of accidents befalls them, the group cannot deny the connections between the long ago and now, the living and the dead . . . as Ellis realizes that the tangled truth may ensnare them all in its cool embrace. -Ballantine Books, 2007