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text 2020-04-12 14:50
Changing my book for Snakes and Ladders
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight
A Bad Day for Sunshine - Darynda Jones,Lorelei King

I need to read a book where the main character is a woman. Actually, that describes most of the books i read. Except I picked out "Reconstructing Amelia". I've read two chapters and it's very good but it's also about a teen suicide or at least an alleged teen suicide and I've discovered I'm just not up for that at the moment. 

 

So, I've dropping that book until after the world has stopped being in the grip of a pandemic and gone for "A Bad Day For Sunshine" in the hope that it will be light and because I like listening to Lorelei King.

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review 2019-02-26 00:00
Reconstructing Amelia: A Novel
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight

One of the best books I have read this year. I couldn't put it down from the minute I picked it up. The book received an excellent review in Entertainment Weekly so I gave it a try and am glad I did. I look forward to more from this author

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review 2017-06-20 02:53
Reconstructing Amelia
Reconstructing Amelia - Kimberly McCreight,Khristine Hvam

 

 

Kate Baron is in an important meeting with a law client when she receives a call from her daughter Amelia's private school, Grace Hall.  Amelia is being suspended from school, and Kate must pick her up immediately.  Any further information about the situation will not be given over the phone.

 

When Kate arrives at the school, something terrible has clearly happened.  Police are present, and Kate sees a pair of girls' boots near a sheet that covers something--or someone.  A police officer tells her there has been an "accident"; her daughter has fallen from the roof.  The death is quickly ruled a suicide, but Kate has doubts.  Receiving an anonymous text that "Amelia didn't jump" convinces her to ask police to take another look into her daughter's death.

 

Along with Kate's perspective, the story is told from Amelia's point of view and also through texts, email, journal entries, and Facebook status updates.  10th-grader Amelia has had certain secrets she's kept from her mother and from her best friend Sylvia, though she has also wanted to reveal them.  Amelia has been "tapped" to join a secret club that requires certain hazing-type activities and its leader knows just how to emotionally manipulate the students she "taps" to follow through on them.  The stakes grow, and amid them, Amelia receives troubling texts from a blocked number, dropping hints about the identify of her father, who has never been a part of her life.

 

Without giving anything away, I will say that I enjoyed the way the mysteries are unraveled and Amelia is "reconstructed" via her mother's process of pursuing the facts.  There are some interesting twists and turns, as expected in this genre, and well-rounded characters it's easy to care about.

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text 2017-05-01 19:25
22 Top Must Read New Books Coming May 2017
Before the Rain Falls: A Novel - Camille Di Maio
The Stranger Inside - Jennifer Minar-Jaynes
Not a Sound: A Novel - Heather Gudenkauf
Into the Water - Paula Hawkins
All the Best People - Sonja Yoerg
In This Moment: A Novel - Karma Brown
It's Always the Husband - Michele Campbell
The Scattering (Outliers) - Kimberly McCreight
I Am Death (A Robert Hunter Thriller) - Chris Carter
The Girl Who Knew Too Much - Amanda Quick

 

Before the Rain Falls  

 

By:  Camille Di Maio 

ISBN: 9781503939974

Publisher: Lake Union 

Publication Date: 5/16/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 5 Stars +

After serving seventy years in prison for the murder of her sister, Eula, Della Lee has finally returned home to the Texas town of Puerto Pesar. She’s free from confinement—and ready to tell her secrets before it’s too late.

She finds a willing audience in journalist Mick Anders, who is reeling after his suspension from a Boston newspaper and in town, reluctantly, to investigate a mysterious portrait of Eula that reportedly sheds tears. He crosses paths with Dr. Paloma Vega, who’s visiting Puerto Pesar with her own mission: to take care of her ailing grandmother and to rescue her rebellious younger sister before something terrible happens. Paloma and Mick have their reasons to be in the hot, parched border town whose name translates as “Port of Regret.” But they don’t anticipate how their lives will be changed forever.

 

Moving and engrossing, this dual story alternates between Della’s dark ordeals of the 1940s and Paloma and Mick’s present-day search for answers—about roots, family, love, and what is truly important in life.

 

Buy the Book

 
 
 
 

The Stranger Inside 

 

By:  Jennifer Jaynes 

ISBN: 978-1477817919

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer

Publication Date: 5/9/2017 

Format: Other

My Rating: 5 Stars 

"…intricately plotted… The action builds to a jaw-dropping conclusion."—Publishers Weekly


In this tautly crafted tale of psychological suspense, a recently widowed mother resorts to the unthinkable to protect her shattered family. But does she go too far?

After mystery author Diane Christie loses her husband to suicide, she and her son move to the small coastal town of Fog Harbor, Massachusetts. Her daughter is attending college nearby, and Diane hopes that her family can now begin to heal. But rebuilding their lives after the tragedy isn’t so simple.

 

Diane’s depressed college-age daughter, Alexa, still avoids her, critical of everything Diane does, and even her generally amiable teenage son, Josh, has started acting out. Diane pushes forward, focusing on her writing and her volunteer work at a local crisis hotline. She knows that healing takes time.

 

But then a girl from Alexa's college is found strangled. Worse still, the murderer uses the crisis hotline to confess to Diane . . . and claims she is the only one who can stop the killing. And just when the glow of new love from an attractive admirer begins to chase away some of the darkness, more girls turn up dead, and Diane races to solve a mystery she fears will hit terrifyingly close to home.

 

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Not a Sound 

 

By:  Heather Gudenkauf 

ISBN: 0778339998

Publisher: Park Row

Publication Date:  5/30/2017 

Format: Other 

My Rating: 5 Stars ++

Top Books of 2017

New York Times bestselling author Heather Gudenkauf has been described as "masterful" and "intelligent" and compared to Lisa Scottoline and Jodi Picoult.

 

Introducing her most compelling heroine yet, she delivers a taut and emotional thriller that proves she's at the top of her class. 

When a tragic accident leaves nurse Amelia Winn deaf, she spirals into a depression that ultimately causes her to lose everything that matters—her job, her husband, David, and her stepdaughter, Nora. Now, two years later and with the help of her hearing dog, Stitch, she is finally getting back on her feet. But when she discovers the body of a fellow nurse in the dense bush by the river, deep in the woods near her cabin, she is plunged into a disturbing mystery that could shatter the carefully reconstructed pieces of her life all over again. 

 

As clues begin to surface, Amelia finds herself swept into an investigation that hits all too close to home. But how much is she willing to risk in order to uncover the truth and bring a killer to justice?

 

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Into the Water  

 

By: Paula Hawkins

ISBN: 0735211205

Publisher: Riverhead

Publication Date: 5/2/2017 

Format: Other

My Rating:  5 Stars


The author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and global phenomenon The Girl on the Train returns with Into the Water, her addictive new novel of psychological suspense.

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.

 
Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother's sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she'd never return.
 
With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.
 
Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

 

Buy the Book

 

 

 

All the Best People 

 

By:  Sonja Yoerg

ISBN: 0399583491

Publisher:  Penguin/Berkley

Publication Date: 5/2/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 5 Stars

An intricately crafted story of madness, magic and misfortune across three generations from the author of The Middle of Somewhere and House Broken...

Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else. 
 
But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange. So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother. 
 
An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives.

 

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In This Moment 

 

By: Karma Brown 

ISBN: 978-0778329916

Publisher: Park Row Books 

Publication Date: 5/30/2017 

Format: Other

My Rating: 4 Stars 

Bestselling author Karma Brown is back with a morally infused and emotionally riveting exploration of one woman's guilt over an unexpected—yet avoidable—tragedy 

 

Meg Pepper has a fulfilling career and a happy family. Most days she's able to keep it all together and glide through life. But then, in one unalterable moment, everything changes. 

 

After school pickup one day, she stops her car to wave a teenage boy across the street…just as another car comes hurtling down the road and slams into him. 

 

Meg can't help but blame herself for her role in this horrific disaster. Full of remorse, she throws herself into helping the boy's family as he rehabs from his injuries. But the more Meg tries to absolve herself, the more she alienates her own family—and the more she finds herself being drawn to the boy's father, Andrew. 

 

Soon Meg's picture-perfect life is unraveling before her eyes. As the painful secrets she's been burying bubble dangerously close to the surface, she will have to decide: Can she forgive herself, or will she risk losing everything she holds dear to her heart?

 

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It's Always the Husband 

 

By: Michele Campbell 

ISBN: 9781250081803

Publisher:  St. Martin's Press  

Publication Date: 5/16/2017 

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 4 Stars

Kate, Aubrey, and Jenny first met as college roommates and soon became inseparable, despite being as different as three women can be. Kate was beautiful, wild, wealthy, and damaged. Aubrey, on financial aid, came from a broken home, and wanted more than anything to distance herself from her past. And Jenny was a striver—brillliant, ambitious, and determined to succeed. As an unlikely friendship formed, the three of them swore they would always be there for each other.

But twenty years later, one of them is standing at the edge of a bridge, and someone is urging her to jump.

 

How did it come to this?


Kate married the gorgeous party boy, Aubrey married up, and Jenny married the boy next door. But how can these three women love and hate each other? Can feelings this strong lead to murder? When one of them dies under mysterious circumstances, will everyone assume, as is often the case, that it’s always the husband?

 

A suspenseful, absorbing novel that examines the complexities of friendship, It’s Always the Husband will keep readers guessing right up to its shocking conclusion.

 

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The Scattering 

 

By: Kimberly McCreight

Outliers (Book 2)

ISBN:  0062359126

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Publication Date: 5/2/2017 

Format:  Hardcover 

My Rating: 4 Stars

New York Times bestselling author Kimberly McCreight raises the stakes in the second book of the heart-pounding Outliers trilogy, a uniquely speculative story about secrets, betrayal, and a world where one small group of people are blessed—or cursed—with an incredible power.


Wylie may have escaped the camp in Maine, but she is far from safe. The best way for her to protect herself is to understand her ability, fast. But after spending a lifetime trying to ignore her own feelings, giving in to her ability to read other peoples’ emotions is as difficult as it is dangerous.

 

And Wylie isn’t the only one at risk. Ever since they returned home, Jasper has been spiraling, wracked with guilt over what happened to Cassie. After all, they’ve been through together, Wylie and Jasper would do anything for each other, but she doesn’t know if their bond is strong enough to overcome demons from the past.

 

It is amid this uncertainty and fear that Wylie finds herself confronted with a choice. She was willing to do whatever it took to help Cassie, but is she prepared to go to the same extremes to help complete strangers . . . even if they are just like her?

 

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I Am Death 

 

Robert Hunter #7

By: Chris Carter

ISBN: 9781476765716

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler 

Publication Date: 5/30/2017 

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 4 Stars

In Top 10 Sunday Times (UK) bestselling author Chris Carter’s electrifying follow-up to his “chilling” (Daily Mail) thriller An Evil Mind, the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit lead detective, Robert Hunter, races to stop a serial killer whose past secrets rival those of Hunter’s himself.

Seven days after being abducted, the body of a twenty-year-old woman is found on a grassy area by the Los Angeles International Airport. She has been left with her limbs stretched out and spread apart, placing her in a five-point human star.

 

The autopsy reveals that she has been tortured and murdered in a bizarre way but the surprises don’t end there. The killer likes to play, and he left something behind for the cops to find. Detective Robert Hunter is assigned to the case but almost immediately a second body turns up. Detective Hunter quickly realizes that he is chasing a monster—a predator whose past hides a terrible secret, whose desire to hurt people and thirst for murder can never be quenched—for he is DEATH.

 

Fast-paced, action-packed, and filled with suspense, I Am Death is perfect for fans of Jeffery Deaver, Thomas Harris, and Chelsea Cain.

 

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The Girl Who Knew Too Much  

 

By: Amanda Quick 

ISBN: 978-0399174476

Publisher:  Berkley

Publication Date: 5/9/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 4 Stars

The author of the New York Times bestseller ’Til Death Do Us Part enters a new historical era, the 1930s, with her latest historical hardcover romance set in Burning Cove, California, an idyllic small town on the coast that has become a refuge for Hollywood moguls and stars seeking privacy for scandalous trysts and wild parties…

Amanda Quick, the bestselling author of ’Til Death Do Us Part, transports readers to 1930s California, where glamour and seduction spawn a multitude of sins…
 
When Hollywood moguls and stars want privacy, they head to an idyllic small town on the coast, where the exclusive Burning Cove Hotel caters to their every need. It’s where reporter Irene Glasson finds herself staring down at a beautiful actress at the bottom of a pool…
 
The dead woman had a red-hot secret about up-and-coming leading man Nick Tremayne, a scoop that Irene couldn’t resist—especially since she’s just a rookie at a third-rate gossip rag. But now Irene’s investigation into the drowning threatens to tear down the wall of illusion that is so deftly built around the famous actor, and there are powerful men willing to do anything to protect their investment. 
 
Seeking the truth, Irene finds herself drawn to a master of deception. Oliver Ward was once a world-famous magician—until he was mysteriously injured during his last performance. Now the owner of the Burning Cove Hotel, he can’t let scandal threaten his livelihood, even if it means trusting Irene, a woman who seems to have appeared in Los Angeles out of nowhere four months ago…
 
With Oliver’s help, Irene soon learns that the glamorous paradise of Burning Cove hides dark and dangerous secrets. And that the past—always just out of sight—could drag them both under…

 

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Woman No. 17
 

 

By:  Edan Lepucki 

ISBN: 9781101904251

Publisher: Crown 

Publication Date: 5/9/2017 

Format: 9781101904251

My Rating:  4.5 Stars

A sinister, sexy noir about art, motherhood, and the intensity of female friendships, set in the posh hills above Los Angeles, from the New York Times bestselling author of California.

High in the Hollywood Hills, writer Lady Daniels has decided to take a break from her husband. She's going to need a hand with her young son if she's ever going to finish her memoir. In comes S., a magnetic young artist, who will live in the secluded guest house out back, care for Lady's young toddler son, and keep a watchful eye on her older, teenage, one. S. performs her day job beautifully, quickly drawing the entire family into her orbit, and becoming a confidante for Lady. But as the summer wears on, S.'s connection to Lady's older son takes a disturbing, and possibly destructive, turn. Lady and S. will move closer to one another as they both threaten to harm the things they hold most dear. Darkly comic, twisty and tense, this mesmerizing new novel defies expectation and proves Edan Lepucki to be one of the most talented and exciting voices of her generation.

 

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Allie and Bea 

 

By:  Catherine Ryan Hyde 

ISBN:  978-1477819715

Publisher:  Lake Union 

Publication Date: 5/23/2017 

Format: Paperback 

My Rating: 4 Stars

Bea has barely been scraping by since her husband died. After falling for a telephone scam, she loses everything and is forced to abandon her trailer.

With only two-thirds of a tank in her old van, she heads toward the Pacific Ocean with her cat—on a mission to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, even if it means making others pay for what she lost.

 

When fifteen-year-old Allie’s parents are jailed for tax fraud, she’s sent to a group home. But when her life is threatened by another resident, she knows she has to get out. She escapes only to find she has nowhere to go—until fate throws Allie in Bea’s path.

 

Reluctant to trust each other, much less become friends, the two warily make their way up the Pacific Coast. Yet as their hearts open to friendship and love from the strangers they meet on their journey, they find the courage to forge their own unique family—and begin to see an imperfect world with new eyes.

 

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The Book of Summer

 

 

By: Michelle Gable 

ISBN: 9781250070623

Publisher: St. Martin's Press 

Publication Date: 5/9/2017 

Format: Hardcover 

My Rating: 5 Stars

Physician Bess Codman has returned to her family’s Nantucket compound, Cliff House, for the first time in four years. Her great-grandparents built Cliff House almost a century before, but due to erosion, the once-grand home will soon fall into the sea. Though she’s purposefully avoided the island, Bess must now pack up the house and deal with her mother, a notorious town rabble-rouser, who refuses to leave.

The Book of Summer unravels the power and secrets of Cliff House as told through the voices of Ruby Packard, a bright-eyed and idealistic newlywed on the eve of WWII, the home’s definitive guestbook, and Bess herself. Bess’s grandmother always said it was a house of women, and by the very last day of the very last summer at Cliff House, Bess will understand the truth of her grandmother’s words in ways she never contemplated.

 

The bestselling author of The Paris Apartment and I'll See You in Paris, Michelle Gable now transports readers to Nantucket.

 

Buy the Book

 

 

 

The Beach Inn 

 

By: Joanne Demaio

ASIN: B06XRHJCX9

Publisher: Joanne Demaio

Publication Date: 5/16/2017 

Format: Kindle

My Rating:  5 Stars 

 

Blog Tour Host June 13

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Breeze comes a novel as sweet as the salt air by the sea.

It was going to be exquisite: a rambling, shingled New England cottage converted into a grand beach inn. Nestled among hydrangeas and swaying dune grasses, this seaside haven would welcome guests on the Connecticut shore. Except the little beach town of Stony Point is no longer feeling like a haven to its residents. Residents including a brooding Jason Barlow, the esteemed architect in charge of the inn's renovation--until a stubborn, grief-induced For Sale sign puts an end to that.

 

But with a little help from the beach friends, anything is possible. In an effort to save the inn and convince its cherished owner to stay, the friends' band together to stage an inn-tervention, shaking up their own lives in the process.

 

A new season of love, adventure, and heart-healing awaits in the quaint seaside village of Stony Point. So pull up a sand chair and book your stay for a page-turning getaway in The Beach Inn.

 

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Same Beach Next Year 

 

By:  Dorothea Benton Frank 

ISBN: 978-0062390783

Publisher: William Morrow

Publication Date:  5/16/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 4 Stars

New York Times bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank returns to her magical Lowcountry of South Carolina in this bewitching story of marriage, love, family, and friendship that is infused with her warm and engaging earthy humor and generous heart.

 

One enchanted summer, two couples begin a friendship that will last more than twenty years and transform their lives. A chance meeting on the Isle of Palms, one of Charleston’s most stunning barrier islands, brings former sweethearts, Adam Stanley and Eve Landers together again.

 

Their respective spouses, Eliza and Carl, fight sparks of jealousy flaring from their imagined rekindling of old flames. As Adam and Eve get caught up on their lives, their partners strike up a deep friendship—and flirt with an unexpected attraction—of their own.

 

Year after year, Adam, Eliza, Eve, and Carl eagerly await their reunion at Wild Dunes, a condominium complex at the island’s tip end, where they grow closer with each passing day, building a friendship that will withstand financial catastrophe, family tragedy, and devastating heartbreak. The devotion and love they share will help them weather the vagaries of time and enrich their lives as circumstances change, their children grow up and leave home, and their twilight years approach.

 

Bursting with the intoxicating richness of Dorothea Benton Frank’s beloved Lowcountry—the sultry sunshine, cool ocean breezes, icy cocktails, and starry velvet skies—Same Beach, Next Year is a dazzling celebration of the infrangible power of friendship, the enduring promise of summer, and the indelible bonds of love.

 

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The Broken Road 

Series: Broken Road #1

By: Richard Paul Evans

ISBN:  1501111647

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Publication Date: 5/2/2017

Format: Audio

My Rating:  4 Stars

A broken man. A twist of fate. A second chance. From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Mistletoe Promise and The Walk comes the first novel in a riveting new trilogy that explores the tantalizing question: What if you could start over?

Chicago celebrity, Charles James can’t shake the nightmare that wakes him each night. He sees himself walking down a long, broken highway the sides of which are lit in flames. Where is he going? Why is he walking? What is the wailing he hears around him?

 

By day, he wonders why he’s so haunted and unhappy when he has all he ever wanted-fame, fans and fortune and the lavish lifestyle it affords him. Coming from a childhood of poverty and pain, this is what he’s dreamed of. But now, at the pinnacle of his career, he’s started to wonder if he’s wanted the wrong things. His wealth has come legally, but questionably, from the power of his personality, seducing people out of their hard-earned money. When he learns that one of his customers has committed suicide because of financial ruin, Charles is shaken. The cracks in his façade start to break down spurring him to question everything: his choices, his relationships, his future and the type of man he's become.

 

Then a twist of fate changes everything. Charles is granted something very remarkable: a second chance. The question is: What will he do with it?

 

The Broken Road is the first book in a much-anticipated new trilogy by beloved storyteller Richard Paul Evans. It is an engrossing, contemplative story of redemption and grace and the power of second chances. It is an epic journey you won't soon forget.

 

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Non-Fiction  

 
 

The Beach House Cookbook

 

By: Mary Kay Andrews

ISBN: 978-1250130440

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: 5/2/2017 

Format: Hardcover

My Rating: 5 Stars

You don’t have to own a beach house to enjoy Mary Kay Andrews’ recipes. All you need is an appetite for delicious, casual dishes, cooked with the best fresh, local ingredients and presented with the breezy flair that make Mary Kay Andrews’ novels a summertime favorite at the beach.

From an early spring dinner of cherry balsamic-glazed lamb chops and bacon-kissed green beans, to Fourth of July buttermilk-brined fried chicken, yuppie potato salad, and Coca-Cola cake, to her New Year’s Day Open House menu of charcoal-grilled oysters, home-cured gravlax, grits n’ greens casserole, and Meyer lemon bar trifle, this cookbook will supply ideas for menus and recipes designed to put you in a permanently carefree coastal state of mind all year long.

 

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The Radium Girls 

 

The Dark Story of America's Shining Women

By: Kate Moore

ISBN: 9781492649359

Publisher: Soucebooks Landmark

Publication Date: 5/2/2017

Format: Other

My Rating: 5 Stars 

The incredible true story of the young women exposed to the “wonder” substance of radium and their brave struggle for justice...

As World War I raged across the globe, hundreds of young women toiled away at the radium-dial factories, where they painted clock faces with a mysterious new substance called radium. Assured by their bosses that the luminous material was safe, the women themselves shone brightly in the dark, covered from head to toe with the glowing dust. With such a coveted job, these “shining girls” were considered the luckiest alive—until they began to fall mysteriously ill. As the fatal poison of the radium took hold, they found themselves embroiled in one of America’s biggest scandals and a groundbreaking battle for workers’ rights.

 

A rich, historical narrative written in a sparkling voice, The Radium Girls is the first book that fully explores the strength of extraordinary women in the face of almost impossible circumstances and the astonishing legacy they left behind. 

 

Kate Moore is a Sunday Times best-selling writer with more than a decade’s experience writing and ghosting across varying genres, including memoir, biography, and history. In 2005 she directed a critically acclaimed play about the Radium Girls called ‘These Shining Lives.’ She lives in the UK.

  

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The Con Man's Daughter 

 

A Story of Lies, Desperation, and Finding God

By:  Candice Curry 

ISBN: 9780801019616

Publisher: Baker Books 

Publication Date: 5/16/2017 

Format:  Paperback 

My Rating:  5 Stars

When Candice Curry was a little girl, she put her hand in her father's back pocket so that she wouldn't get lost in large crowds. Little did she know that as she followed him, he was plying his trade: conning people. Her family drove stolen cars, lived in stolen houses, and shopped with stolen credit cards. Drug use was regular, as were visits from strange people who were trying to track her father down. Though she eventually cut ties with her father, Candice could not ignore the scars that were left from her childhood.

 

This is her story, one steeped in secrets but one that, ultimately, led her to a place of forgiveness and freedom. As she struggles to understand her criminal father, as well as her own imperfect life, Candice comes to realize that we are not defined by our circumstances but rather by how we react to those circumstances. She's found peace in the knowledge that God doesn't love us because we're perfect--but because he is.

 

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The Fact of a Body 

 

A Murder and A Memoir

By:  Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

ISBN: 9781250080547

Publisher: Flatiron 

Publication Date: 5/16/2017

Format: Hardcover

My  Rating: 5 Stars ++

"This book is a marvel. The Fact of a Body is equal parts gripping and haunting and will leave you questioning whether any one story can hold the full truth."
Celeste Ng, author of the New York Times bestselling Everything I Never Told You


Before Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich begins a summer job at a law firm in Louisiana, working to help defend men accused of murder, she thinks her position is clear. The child of two lawyers, she is staunchly anti-death penalty. But the moment convicted murderer Ricky Langley’s face flashes on the screen as she reviews old tapes—the moment she hears him speak of his crimes—she is overcome with the feeling of wanting him to die. Shocked by her reaction, she digs deeper and deeper into the case. Despite their vastly different circumstances, something in his story is unsettlingly, uncannily familiar.

 

Crime, even the darkest and most unsayable acts, can happen to any one of us. As Alexandria pores over the facts of the murder, she finds herself thrust into the complicated narrative of Ricky’s childhood. And by examining the details of Ricky’s case, she is forced to face her own story, to unearth long-buried family secrets, and reckon with a past that colors her view of Ricky's crime.

 

But another surprise awaits: She wasn’t the only one who saw her life in Ricky’s.

 

An intellectual and emotional thriller that is also a different kind of murder mystery, THE FACT OF A BODY is a book not only about how the story of one crime was constructed—but about how we grapple with our own personal histories. Along the way it tackles questions about the nature of forgiveness, and if a single narrative can ever really contain something as definitive as the truth. This groundbreaking, heart-stopping work, ten years in the making, shows how the law is more personal than we would like to believe—and the truth more complicated, and powerful, than we could ever imagine.

 

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Whispers of Rest 

 

40 Days of God's Love to Revitalize Your Soul

By:  Bonnie Gray 

ISBN: 9781455598205

Publisher: FaithWords / Center Street

Publication Date:  5/23/2017 

Format: Paperback 

My Rating: 5 Stars

Life is noisy. But what would happen if every day - for the next 40 days - you soaked in God's love as He intimately whispered words of rest just for you?

WHISPERS OF REST is a 40-day devotional detox for your soul, a spiritual journey to refresh you and guide you to greater peace, while helping you discover who God truly made you to be: His beloved. Renew your spirit with powerful affirmations of God's love with uplifting words of Scripture, journaling prompts for reflection, and practical challenges to spark joy. Bonnie will lead you to places of rest, where you can deeply experience the Savior's presence in your everyday life. 

 

This beautiful guidebook will create space for your soul to breathe:


Soul Care Tips & Trail Notes - Reduce stress and nurture your body and spirit.Daily Beloved Challenges - Brighten your day by taking simple soul care actions. A Simple Prayer Practice - Deepen your intimacy with God through easy-to-enjoy prayer prompts, inspired by classic devotional practices.

 

A lot can happen in 40 days. A new rhythm. A new heart. A renewed faith.

Transform your life as you take the journey to say yes to God, embrace your true identity, rediscover your dreams, and begin your healing. Dare to enjoy each day fully and celebrate your calling as the beloved.

 

Buy the Book

 

 

 

 

Trophy Son

 

By:  Douglas Brunt

ISBN:9781250114808

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Publication Date: 5/30/2017

Format:  Hardcover

My Rating: 4 Stars

A compelling, provocative novel about a father, his son, and the cost of early excellence in our achievement-obsessed society.

The third novel by New York Times bestselling author Douglas Brunt, Trophy Son tells the story of tennis prodigy Anton Stratis, from an isolated childhood of grueling practice under the eye of his obsessed father, to his dramatic rise through the intensely competitive world of professional tennis. Written with an insider knowledge of the tennis circuit, Trophy Son explores a young man striving to find balance in his life, navigating moral compromises, performance-enhancing drugs, and the elusive lure of wealth and celebrity.

 

From Wimbledon and the U.S. Open to the off-court life of elite players, Anton finds exhilarating highs and desolate lows as he searches for an identity apart from his achievements

 

Buy the Book

 

 

 

Click on Covers to visit my Main Blog and learn more about the books, advance praise, the author, plus more!  

 

Source: www.judithdcollinsconsulting.com/book-blog/tag/may-2017
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review 2017-03-03 13:07
Where They Found Her ★★★★☆
Where They Found Her - Kimberly McCreight

I did not have high expectations for this book. It was an impulse purchase as part of an Audible 2-for-1 sale and I knew nothing about the book or the author going in. So it was a pleasant surprise to find an engaging mystery/thriller with interesting characters and enough twists to keep me guessing until near the end. My only real disappointment is in the way some of the loose threads tied up in the end

(too obvious and not at all original)

(spoiler show)

. I will note that there are so many characters with relationship details revealed throughout the story that it was difficult for me to keep up with them and the related clues on audio. The same with the story timeline, which is not linear. I had to make notes via Audible bookmarks & clips to keep up. This probably would not have been a problem had I been reading a text format instead of audio.

 

The audio was performed by multiple narrators, all of whom were effective.

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