St. Martin’s Press

Bethlehem by Karen Kelly

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

bethlehem

Pages: 294

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: July 9, 2019

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My Review: I have had Bethlehem on my NetGalley list since early 2019. I have tried multiple times to read it but I would lose interest very quickly. I finally took the time to read and listen to the audiobook this summer. I liked it but it was not a favorite.

The first half of the book is character development and there are a lot of characters. Almost too many. I would get very lost very easily and have to go back and look at my notes on who was who and how they fitted in the family.

I love reading books that go back and forth between current and past and I pride myself on being able to keep everything straight but I could not with Bethlehem. I think I would have preferred to have a two-book series with book one in the past and book two the present.

If you like family sagas this is a great read to fulfill that like but be prepared there are a lot of characters and the book does not pick up until the second half.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. All opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: With the atmospheric storytelling of Kate Morton and Lisa Wingate, Karen Kelly weaves a shattering debut about two intertwined families and the secrets that they buried during the gilded, glory days of Bethlehem, PA.

A young woman arrives at the grand ancestral home of her husband’s family, hoping to fortify her deteriorating marriage. But what she finds is not what she expected: tragedy haunts the hallways, whispering of heartache and a past she never knew existed.

Bethlehem is a multigenerational saga that weaves together the lives of two prominent families during the historic steel boom era of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Inspired by the true titans of the industry, Bethlehem is a mystery, a love story, and a tragedy. It is a story of temptation and regret; a story of secrets and the cost of keeping them; a story of forgiveness. It is the tale of two complex women: the dynamic and beautiful Susannah Parrish Collier and her daughter-in-law, the outsider Joanna Rafferty Collier. Thrown together in the name of family, they will unravel mysteries long hidden and complex that have threatened to tear apart a dynasty.

What You Wish For by Katherine Center

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

wish

Pages: 306

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: July 14, 2020

Rating 4 1/2 out of 5 stars

My Review: Do you need a book that inspires you to keep moving forward when the chips are down? Do you need a book to encourage you to let love in? Do you need a book to tell you it is ok to be you?

If so, then What You Wish For is the book for you! I didn’t want to put this book down. It is a fast read but has a lot of depth.

Every Katherine Center book I have read has left me with something I can use in my own life. This book was no exception. I have a feeling I will be drawing from its wisdom for many years. It is a book that will stay with you.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: From the New York Times bestselling author of How to Walk Away comes a stunning new novel full of heart and hope.

Samantha Casey is a school librarian who loves her job, the kids, and her school family with passion and joy for living.
But she wasn’t always that way.
Duncan Carpenter is the new school principal who lives by rules and regulations, guided by the knowledge that bad things can happen.
But he wasn’t always that way.

And Sam knows it. Because she knew him before—at another school, in a different life. Back then, she loved him—but she was invisible. To him. To everyone. Even to herself. She escaped to a new school, a new job, a new chance at living. But when Duncan, of all people, gets hired as the new principal there, it feels like the best thing that could possibly happen to the school—and the worst thing that could possibly happen to Sam. Until the opposite turns out to be true. The lovable Duncan she’d known is now a suit-and-tie wearing, rule-enforcing tough guy so hell-bent on protecting the school that he’s willing to destroy it.

As the school community spirals into chaos, and danger from all corners looms large, Sam and Duncan must find their way to who they really are, what it means to be brave, and how to take a chance on love—which is the riskiest move of all.

With Katherine Center’s sparkling dialogue, unforgettable characters, heart, hope, and humanity, What You Wish For is the author at her most compelling best.

A Week at the Shore by Barbara Delinsky

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

shore

Pages: 416

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: May 19, 2020

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: A Week at the Shore is a story of family complexities and love in its many forms. Follow the winding shore to an ending that leaves you shocked and content at the same time.

Barbara Delinsky gives you a great novel to sink your teeth into. A perfect read for a long, relaxing weekend.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: In A Week at the Shore, New York Times bestselling author Barbara Delinsky explores how lives and relationships are forever changed when three sisters reunite at their family Rhode Island beach house.

One phone call is all it takes to lure real estate photographer Mallory Aldiss back to her family Rhode Island beach home. It’s been twenty years since she’s been gone—running from the scandal that destroyed her parents’ marriage, drove her and her two sisters apart, and crushed her relationship with her first love. But going home is fraught with emotional baggage—memories, mysteries, and secrets abound.

Mal’s thirteen-year-old daughter, Joy, has never been to the place where Mal’s life was shaped and is desperate to go. Fatherless, she craves family and especially wants to spend time with the grandfather she barely knows.

In just seven watershed days on the Rhode Island coast, three women will test the bonds of sisterhood, friendship, and family, and discover the role that love and memory plays in defining their lives.

Meet Your Baker (A Bakeshop Mystery #1) by Ellie Alexander

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

baker

Pages: 321

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: December 30, 2014

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: A delightful start to a new-to-me series. You have recipes, drama and a murder mystery. I was completely thrown on the killer. Looking back on it, I am like “duh, I should have seen that clue.”

Juliet “Jules” Capshaw has returned home for a “few weeks” to heal after learning disturbing news about her husband. What she thinks will be a quiet few weeks soon turns into questions regarding her mom’s skittishness when discussing Torte, the family business. Before she can fully question her mom, Jules stumbles upon a dead body inside of Torte. What follows is an intriguing recipe filled with smoke and mirrors.

I am hooked on this series. There are ten published so far with an eleventh scheduled for this year. No promises but I think I might move this series up the read very soon list. I am getting ready to complete a few series and need a new one.

Bookbub: Reeling from a broken heart, pastry chef Juliet Capshaw returns home to lend a hand at her mom’s bakery — including solving the suspicious death of a customer!

Egg Drop Dead (A Noodle Shop Mystery #5) by Vivien Chien

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

egg

Pages: 320

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: February 25, 2020

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: The Noodle Shop Mystery series has quickly become one of my favorite new series. I get so excited when I get approved by NetGalley for the newest addition to the series. I cannot explain why but when I am reading I am smiling even when someone gets murdered. Strange, right?

I would love to be Lana for even one day especially on a Sunday when she eats dim dum with her family. I have never had dim sum but she makes it sound oh so yummy. Get your belly full of yummy deliciousness and go home curl up with your love and read the afternoon away. Sigh…sounds like a perfect Sunday.

I was shocked at who the villain was and why in Egg Drop Dead. Red herrings abound and keep you on your toes throughout the book. Every book has been excellent at this.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: In the fifth in Vivien Chien’s Noodle Shop delectable mystery series, Egg Drop Dead, the Ho-Lee Noodle House takes its business to the next level—only to end up in hot water.

It was supposed to be a fancy, intimate dinner party by the pool. Instead, Lana Lee’s first-ever catering event turns into full-course madness when a domestic worker is found dead. Is the party’s host Donna Feng, the sweet-and-sour owner of the Asia Village shopping plaza where Ho-Lee is situated, somehow to blame? That’s what Lana—whose plate is already plenty full with running the restaurant, pleasing her often-disapproving mother, and fretting over her occasionally-serious boyfriend Detective Adam Trudeau—must find out.

Before the police arrived at the crime scene, Donna had entrusted an odd piece of evidence to Lana: a thumb drive shaped like a terra-cotta soldier. Now it’s up to Lana to lead her own investigation, digitally and in real life, into a world of secrets involving Donna’s earlier life in China, whether the victim had a dark agenda, and if the killer is still out there…and plans to strike again.

The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

dream

Pages: 381

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: October 2, 2018

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: I tried reading this when it came out but never could get past the first few chapters. Every time I went to the library the cover kept pulling me towards it saying open me and read. Finally the other day I succumbed to the call and brought it home. I fell instantly in love with Carly’s story and hated to stop to be an adult and take care of my family.

Personally, I don’t believe in the time travel theory and that there are portals all around us but as I was reading The Dream Daughter I found myself thinking what if you could? Would you be brave enough to do as Carly did to save your child?

I highly recommend The Dream Daughter.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: From bestselling author, Diane Chamberlain comes an irresistible new novel.

When Caroline Sears receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970 and there seems to be little that can be done. But her brother-in-law, a physicist, tells her that perhaps there is. Hunter appeared in their lives just a few years before—and his appearance was as mysterious as his past. With no family, no friends, and a background shrouded in secrets, Hunter embraced the Sears family and never looked back.

Now, Hunter is telling her that something can be done about her baby’s heart. Something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Caroline has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage that Caroline never knew existed. Something that will mean a mind-bending leap of faith on Caroline’s part.

And all for the love of her unborn child.

A rich, genre-spanning, breathtaking novel about one mother’s quest to save her child, unite her family and believe in the unbelievable. Diane Chamberlain pushes the boundaries of faith and science to deliver a novel that you will never forget.

The Look-Alike by Erica Spindler

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

look

Pages: 315

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: January 28, 2020

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: I could not put this book down. I was sure I had the killer all figured out then Spindler would throw something out there and make me question myself all over again. Every time I was ready to stop for a moment I’d turn the page and Id find myself 50 more pages in the book. I was right on my initial assumption of the killer but had no clue as to why. So, if you figure it out early I promise you it is worth it to finish the book. You will be surprised as to why.

I have not read an Erica Spindler book for many years. I know my mom used to gobble them up like hot chocolate chip cookies on a snowy day. After reading The Look-Alike I have decided to get my mom’s books and read them. I will definitely be getting this one for her.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above are entirely my own.

NetGalley: From Erica Spindler, the New York Times bestselling author of The Other Girl and Justice for Sara comes The Look-Alike, a thrilling psychological drama about a woman who believes she escaped a brutal murder years ago—but does anyone else believe her?

Sienna Scott grew up in the dark shadow of her mother’s paranoid delusions. Now, she’s returned home to confront her past and the unsolved murder that altered the course of her life.
In her mother’s shuttered house, an old fear that has haunted Sienna for years rears its ugly head—that it was she who had been the killer’s target that night. And now, with it, a new fear—that the killer not only intended to remedy his past mistake—he’s already begun. But are these fears any different from the ones that torment her mother?

As the walls close in, the line between truth and lie, reality and delusion disintegrate. Has Sienna’s worst nightmare come true? Or will she unmask a killer and finally prove she may be her mother’s look-alike, but she’s not her clone?

Big Lies in a Small Town by Diane Chamberlain

/ kentuckybooklover / 2 Comments

big

Pages: 400

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: January 14, 2020

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

My Review: Wow, what a story told by two main characters 78 years apart. I was so captivated that I read 60% of the book in one day. Every moment I could I was stealing time to read a few pages here and there until I could sit down with the book and read until the end.

As I read, I would forget that both Anna Dale and Morgan were only in their early twenties’ They both seemed so much older. They both experienced such tragedies at a young age that forever changed their futures. I don’t think I had that much bravery at their age.

Big Lies in a Small Town has a few triggers for sensitive readers. It deals with mental illness, alcoholism, rape, suicide, and foul language (the F word). Everything pertained to the story and made it the excellent book it is.

This book is available from your favorite retailer on January 14, 2020. I am already getting it for my mama to read.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: North Carolina, 2018: Morgan Christopher’s life has been derailed. Taking the fall for a crime she did not commit, she finds herself serving a three-year stint in the North Carolina Women’s Correctional Center. Her dream of a career in art is put on hold—until a mysterious visitor makes her an offer that will see her released immediately. Her assignment: restore an old post office mural in a sleepy southern town. Morgan knows nothing about art restoration, but desperate to leave prison, she accepts. What she finds under the layers of grime is a painting that tells the story of madness, violence, and a conspiracy of small-town secrets.

North Carolina, 1940: Anna Dale, an artist from New Jersey, wins a national contest to paint a mural for the post office in Edenton, North Carolina. Alone in the world and desperate for work, she accepts. But what she doesn’t expect is to find herself immersed in a town where prejudices run deep, where people are hiding secrets behind closed doors, and where the price of being different might just end in murder.

What happened to Anna Dale? Are the clues hidden in the decrepit mural? Can Morgan overcome her own demons to discover what exists beneath the layers of lies?

Hems and Homicides (Apron Shop #1) by Elizabeth Penny

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

 

hems.jpg

Pages: 288

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: December 31, 2019

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

My Review: I am in love with this series already. Grammie and Iris make a great team. Add the adorable cat, Quincy and we have a winner.

The author has done an excellent job of keeping the reader involved with plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing. There is a hint of romance but it doesn’t overtake the story at all. Plus, big bonus, no love triangle.

Aside from murder (after all it is a cozy mystery), a clean read that can be enjoyed by many.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and all opinions expressed in the above review are entirely my own.

NetGalley: Welcome to the first in the Apron Shop mystery series by Elizabeth Penney, set in the quaint village of Blueberry Cove, Maine where an expert seamstress turned amateur sleuth is getting measured for murder. . .

Iris Buckley is sew ready for a change. After the death of her beloved grandfather, Iris decides to stay in her Maine hometown to help out her widowed grandmother, Anne—and bring her online hand-made apron designs to real-time retail life. Her and Anne’s shop, Ruffles & Bows, is set to include all the latest and vintage linen fashions, a studio for sewing groups and classes, and a friendly orange cat. The only thing that they were not planning to have on the property? A skeleton in the basement

Anne recognizes the remains of an old friend, and when a second body shows up in the apron shop—this time their corrupt landlord, whom Anne had been feuding with for decades—she becomes a prime suspect. Now, it’s up to Iris to help clear her name. Enlisting the help of her old high-school crush Ian Stewart who, like certain fabrics, has only gotten better-looking with age and her plucky BFF Madison Morris, Iris must piece together an investigation to find out who the real killer is…and find a way to keep her brand-new business from being scrapped in the process.

Cilka’s Journey (The Tattooist of Auschwitz #2 by Heather Morris

/ kentuckybooklover / Leave a comment

cilka.jpg

Pages: 349

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Published: October 1, 2019

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Best Book of 2019

My Review: Cilka’s Journey is a story that will change your life. I didn’t think I could be more astounded and moved than I was after I finished The Tattooist of Auschwitz but I was.

The horror and tragedy that Cilka faced daily for 15 years, starting at age 16, will tear you apart as you read. You will find yourself angry at humanity but then have your faith in humanity restored just as quickly.

Cilka’s Journey is book two but can be read as a standalone.

I received a complimentary copy from the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, through NetGalley. Any and All opinions expressed above are entirely my own.

NetGalley: From the author of the multi-million copy bestseller The Tattooist of Auschwitz comes a new novel based on a riveting true story of love and resilience.

Her beauty saved her — and condemned her.

Cilka is just sixteen years old when she is taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp in 1942, where the commandant immediately notices how beautiful she is. Forcibly separated from the other women prisoners, Cilka learns quickly that power, even unwillingly taken, equals survival.

When the war is over and the camp is liberated, freedom is not granted to Cilka: She is charged as a collaborator for sleeping with the enemy and sent to a Siberian prison camp. But did she really have a choice? And where do the lines of morality lie for Cilka, who was sent to Auschwitz when she was still a child?

In Siberia, Cilka faces challenges both new and horribly familiar, including the unwanted attention of the guards. But when she meets a kind female doctor, Cilka is taken under her wing and begins to tend to the ill in the camp, struggling to care for them under brutal conditions.

Confronting death and terror daily, Cilka discovers a strength she never knew she had. And when she begins to tentatively form bonds and relationships in this harsh, new reality, Cilka finds that despite everything that has happened to her, there is room in her heart for love.

From child to woman, from woman to healer, Cilka’s journey illuminates the resilience of the human spirit—and the will we have to survive.