Skip to main content

Reviews

Reviews

by Mary Kay Andrews - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Hattie Kavanaugh went to work restoring homes for Kavanaugh & Son Restorations at 18, married the boss’s son at 20, and became a widow at 25. When Hattie falls head-over-heels for a money pit of a house, she’s determined to make it work. But disaster after disaster occurs, and her dream might cost Kavanaugh & Son their livelihood. When a slick Hollywood producer shows up in her hometown of Savannah, she gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: star in a beach house renovation reality show, cast against a male lead who may be a love interest or the ultimate antagonist. But during the demolition, evidence comes to light that points to the mysterious disappearance of a young wife and mother years before.

by Allison Brennan - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

A bomb explodes on a sunset charter cruise out of Friday Harbor at the height of tourist season and kills everyone on board. Now this fishing and boating community is in shock and asking who would commit such a heinous crime. Was the explosion an act of domestic terrorism, or was one of the dead the primary target? That is the first question Special Agent Matt Costa, Detective Kara Quinn and the rest of the FBI team need to answer, but they have few clues and no witnesses. Accused of putting profits before people after leaking fuel endangered an environmentally sensitive preserve, the West End Charter company may itself have been the target. As Matt and his team get closer to answers, they find one of their own caught in the crosshairs of a determined killer.

by Bonnie Garmus - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Humor

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. It’s the early 1960s, and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans, the lonely, brilliant, Nobel Prize-nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with her mind. True chemistry results. But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later, Elizabeth finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show. Her unusual approach to cooking proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

by Tara M. Stringfellow - Fiction, Women's Fiction

Ten-year-old Joan, her mother and her younger sister flee her father’s explosive temper and seek refuge at her mother’s ancestral home in Memphis. Half a century earlier, Joan’s grandfather built this majestic house in the historic Black neighborhood of Douglass --- only to be lynched days after becoming the first Black detective in the city. Joan tries to settle into her new life, but family secrets cast a longer shadow than any of them expected. As she grows up, Joan finds relief in her artwork. One of her subjects is their enigmatic neighbor Miss Dawn, who claims to know something about curses, and whose stories about the past help Joan see how her passion, imagination and relentless hope are, in fact, the continuation of a long matrilineal tradition.

by Blair Fell - Fiction, Romance

Arlo Dilly is young, handsome and eager to meet the right girl. He also happens to be DeafBlind, a Jehovah’s Witness and under the strict guardianship of his controlling uncle. His chances of finding someone to love seem slim to none. And yet, it happened once before. Many years ago, at a boarding school for the Deaf, Arlo met the love of his life --- a mysterious girl with onyx eyes and beautifully expressive hands that told him the most amazing stories. But tragedy struck, and their love was lost forever. Or so Arlo thought. After years trying to heal his broken heart, Arlo is assigned a college writing assignment that unlocks buried memories of his past. Soon he wonders if the hearing people he was supposed to trust have been lying to him all along, and if his lost love might be found again.

by Jess Montgomery - Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Mystery

Sheriff Lily Ross and her family look forward to the opening of an amusement park created by Chalmer Fitzpatrick. When Lily is alerted to the possible drowning of a girl, she discovers schisms going back several generations, in an ongoing dispute over the land on which Fitzpatrick has built the park. Lily's family life is soon rattled with the revelation that before he died, her brother had a daughter, Esme, and arrangements have been made for Esme to immigrate to the U.S. to live with them. But Esme never makes it to Kinship, and soon Lily discovers that she has been kidnapped. A young woman is indeed found murdered in the fishing pond on Fitzpatrick's property, at the same time that a baby is left on his doorstep. As the two crimes interweave, Lily must confront the question of what makes family.

by Leanne Kale Sparks - Fiction, Mystery, Suspense, Thriller

The only survivor of Denver’s notorious “Reaper” serial murders, FBI Special Agent Kendall Beck grapples with the ghosts of her past by seeking justice for victims of abuse. She’s neck deep in a particularly ugly case involving the disappearance of five-year-old Emily Williams. But her investigation is derailed when her best friend and roommate, Gwen Tavich, turns up dead floating in a nearby lake. Devastated by the news of Gwen’s death, Kendall teams up with Denver detective Adam Taylor to find the killer. With every new clue, Kendall questions how well she really knew her friend. And when Gwen’s dark secrets begin spilling out one by one, she begins to understand the devastating magnitude of her murder.

by David Rosenfelt - Fiction, Mystery

The Paterson Police Department has created a cold case division, and they want to hire the private investigators known as the K Team to look into the crimes. After all, Corey Douglas and his K-9 partner, German shepherd Simon Garfunkel, recently retired from the force. Plus, another K Team member, Laurie Collins, used to be a cop as well. Their first cold case hits home for the K Team. A decade ago, at Laurie's 10th high school reunion, two of their friends simply…vanished. With no leads, the case went cold. As the team starts to delve deeper into the events leading up to that night, the pieces start to come together. But someone wants to stop them from uncovering the truth behind the disappearance, by any means necessary.

by Maggie Smith - Fiction, Women's Fiction

After losing both her job as a reporter and her boyfriend in the same day, Megan Barnes retreats to Chicago and moves in with Helen, her overprotective mother. Before long, the two are clashing over everything from pro-choice to #MeToo, not to mention Helen's run for U.S. Congress, which puts Megan's career on hold until after the election. Desperate to reboot her life, Megan gets her chance when an altercation at a campus rally brings her face-to-face with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jocelyn Jones, who offers her a job on her PR team. Before long, Megan is pulled into the heady world of fame and glamour that her charismatic new mentor represents. Until an anonymous tweet brings it all crashing down. To salvage Jocelyn's reputation, Megan must locate the online troll and expose the lies.

by Claire Cook - Fiction, Women's Fiction

If you live in Marshbury, Massachusetts, that picture postcard perfect seaside town an hour south of Boston and the epicenter of the Irish Riviera, it’s pretty much mandatory to be a little bit Irish for the whole month of March. Preschool teacher Sarah probably should have warned John about that once they bought the Hurlihy family house. And she definitely should have told him that half the town would be watching the St. Patrick’s Day parade from their front yard. In her defense, Sarah has a lot on her plate. Hormones are flying every which way as she and John ramp up their fertility journey, their five rescue cats get spayed and neutered, and assistant teacher-slash-housemate Polly gets ready to give birth with Sarah’s bossy big sister as her labor coach.