Here and Gone By: Haylen Beck

Here and Gone is a gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother’s desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities.

It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she’s pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they’re gone than she must have done something with them…

Meanwhile, halfway across the country a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

My Review:

This was an outstanding psychological thriller.  You know what is happening the whole time with all sides of the story but it is impossible to know if everything will be resolved at the end.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and could not put it down.   I highly recommend this novel.  I did not know anything about the author until I finished the story and saw that the author was a pseudonym for acclaimed author, Stuart Neville.

I gave this book 5 crowns.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review from http://www.bloggingforbooks.com

Sisi Empress on Her Own By: Allison Pataki

This is the concluding book in a duology.  I really am not a historical fiction reader but this duo of books was fantastic.  I loved the depth of character of Sisi.  She was exceptionally honest in her feelings and her words.

This book tied up lose ends very nicely without leaving the feeling of it being done just to be done.  The story is very descriptive and transports the reader to the empress’ reign and the surrounding times.

I am looking forward to reading more books by Allison in the near future.

I gave this book 5 crowns.

Nowhere to Lay My Head by: Craig Daliessio

Craig suffered a major blow to his life when the economy collapsed in 2008.  He lost everything; his job, his house, his ability to truly care for his daughter…gone.  He lived in his car for 6 years trying to get some version of his life back.  He didn’t move to another state because he wanted to be close to his daughter.  He needed to be a phone call and a short drive away.

I thought Craig’s story was a sad one.  I can’t imagine not having a place to sleep at night.  What I didn’t like was the political rage that was exhibited in this book.  I am not saying that I was a supporter of the Obama presidency but I was a bit surprised at the blatant resentment shown.  I get that Craig was hurt by the policies and procedures of those terms but I didn’t really want to hear about it.  I was also angered about the way he spoke of government assistance programs.  They were designed to be used in situations like his.  I do not believe that if he accept support that he would become lazy and not continue on his path to a better life.  Yes, the system itself is a mess and it allows for people to take advantage of it.  However, for those who honestly need it, it is a blessing.

What this book needed was a good editor.  There were many parts of this book that were repeated and revisited using the same words.  I was wondering if I had flipped back in the book accidentally.  I found a lot of grammatical errors and that just made me feel as if this was rushed to publication.

All in all, I understand the therapeutic process of writing about these years.  Craig did suffer and his daughter did as well.  I just had a hard time relating some of the decisions that were made.

I gave this book 2 crowns.

I received this book in exchange for an honest review.

Wrap Up

Books Read/Listened to:  14

5 crown reads: 7

4 crown reads: 3

3 crown reads: 2

2 crown reads: 1

1 crown reads: 1

DNF: 2

 

Another great month.  I read a lot of new releases but also a few from my own shelves.  Yes, I bought more books.  I would be surprised if I didn’t.

How was your reading month?

Happy Reading!

The Party by: Robyn Harding

 Publication date: June 6, 2017

Description from the publishers through Netgalley:

In this stunning and provocative domestic drama about a sweet sixteen birthday party that goes horribly awry, a wealthy family in San Francisco finds their picture-perfect life unraveling, their darkest secrets revealed, and their friends turned to enemies.

One invitation. A lifetime of regrets.

Sweet sixteen. It’s an exciting coming of age, a milestone, and a rite of passage. Jeff and Kim Sanders plan on throwing a party for their daughter, Hannah—a sweet girl with good grades and nice friends. Rather than an extravagant, indulgent affair, they invite four girls over for pizza, cake, movies, and a sleepover. What could possibly go wrong?

But things do go wrong, horrifically so. After a tragic accident occurs, Jeff and Kim’s flawless life in a wealthy San Francisco suburb suddenly begins to come apart. In the ugly aftermath, friends become enemies, dark secrets are revealed in the Sanders’ marriage, and the truth about their perfect daughter, Hannah, is exposed.

Harkening to Herman Koch’s The Dinner, Christos Tsiolkas’s The Slap, and Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies, The Party takes us behind the façade of the picture-perfect family, exposing the lies, betrayals, and moral lapses that neighbors don’t see—and the secrets that children and parents keep from themselves and each other.

My Review:

I read this book in one day.  I kept turning the pages quickly because I was invested in this story.  It is the type of situation that could happen to anyone.  The drama was intense.  The relationships of the parents and children were realistic.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  This had an interesting way of telling the story.  You read a part from an adult’s viewpoint and then a teen’s point of view.  It was like reading an adult novel and a YA novel at the same time.  I liked that.

It was a great story until the last chapter.  I was so annoyed with the ending that I had to knock it down a crown.

I gave this book 4 crowns.

 

I received an E-ARC of this book from the Publishers through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Give a Girl a Knife by: Amy Thielen

Description from the Publishers through Netgalley:

A beautifully written food memoir chronicling one woman’s journey from her rural Midwestern hometown to the intoxicating world of New York City fine dining—and back again—in search of her culinary roots

Before Amy Thielen frantically plated rings of truffled potatoes in some of New York City’s finest kitchens—for chefs David Bouley, Daniel Boulud, and Jean-Georges Vongerichten—she grew up in a northern Minnesota town home to the nation’s largest French fry factory, the headwaters of the fast food nation, with a mother whose generous cooking dripped with tenderness, drama, and an overabundance of butter.
Inspired by her grandmother’s tales of cooking in the family farmhouse, Thielen moves north with her artist husband to a rustic, off-the-grid cabin deep in the woods. There, standing at the stove three times a day, she finds the seed of a growing food obsession that leads her to the sensory madhouse of New York’s top haute cuisine brigades. But, like a magnet, the foods of her youth draw her back home, where she comes face to face with her past and a curious truth: that beneath every foie gras sauce lies a rural foundation of potatoes and onions.
Amy Thielen’s coming-of-age story pulses with energy, a cook’s eye for intimate detail, and a dose of dry Midwestern humor. Give a Girl a Knife offers a fresh, vivid view into New York’s high-end restaurants before returning Thielen to her roots, where she realizes that the marrow running through her bones is not demi-glace but gravy—thick with nostalgia and hard to resist.

My Review:

I completely loved this book.  Along the lines of Ruth Reichl and other foodie books, Amy has mastered the art of descriptive writing.  I read sentences aloud to my husband because the details were making my mouth water.

This isn’t just a book about cooking and food, it is about her life and the interesting ways in which she lives.   Not many people, let alone ones with a passion for cooking, would be able to live off the grid and still be content and thrive.

This was so good and I didn’t want it to end.  I gave this book 5 crowns.

I received an E-ARC from the publishers through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Sunshine Sisters by: Jane Green

Description from the Publishers through Netgalley:

The New York Times bestselling author of Falling presents a warm, wise, and wonderfully vivid novel about a mother who asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life.

Ronni Sunshine left London for Hollywood to become a beautiful, charismatic star of the silver screen. But at home, she was a narcissistic, disinterested mother who alienated her three daughters.

As soon as possible, tomboy Nell fled her mother’s overbearing presence to work on a farm and find her own way in the world as a single mother. The target of her mother’s criticism, Meredith never felt good enough, thin enough, pretty enough. Her life took her to London—and into the arms of a man whom she may not even love. And Lizzy, the youngest, more like Ronni than any of them, seemed to have it easy, using her drive and ambition to build a culinary career to rival her mother’s fame, while her marriage crumbled around her.

But now the Sunshine Sisters are together again, called home by Ronni, who has learned that she has a serious disease and needs her daughters to fulfill her final wishes. And though Nell, Meredith, and Lizzy have never been close, their mother’s illness draws them together to confront the old jealousies and secret fears that have threatened to tear these sisters apart. As they face the loss of their mother, they will discover if blood might be thicker than water after all…

My Review:

I have read a few of Jane Green’s books in the past and I think this one is completely different from what I expected.  This is a tough subject matter to handle and Jane did it well.  I don’t think that this is my favorite book that she has ever written but it was good.

The relationships between the three Sunshine sisters and their mother was one of discord and anger.  They grew up resenting their mother and not feeling loved and cared for.  As each of the daughters grew up they moved away from their mother and their sisters.

***Spoilers:  This book tackles subjects such as parental abandonment,  terminal illness, adultery, negative body image, single parenthood, questioning sexuality, divorce and the main one: dying a dignified death.

I gave this book 3 crowns.

   

I received an E-ARC from the publishers through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.