BOOK REVIEW│The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin

Motherhood in the suburbs is an adventure unto itself. Social systems are constructed on your children’s achievements, your helpfulness in your community and your popularity among your fellow soccer moms. It can be a boring existence and it can be one that is easily shattered when you step out of the Stepford Wives Club.

For Lara Love Hardin, her step out comes when her million dollar home on a quiet cul-de-sac is met by the police who are there to arrest her and uncover what she has been doing behind the Stepford Wives façade. Hardin has been stealing her neighbor’s credit cards to fund her heroin addiction and now she faces being charged with 32 felonies and a lengthy jail sentence as she goes from soccer mom to inmate S32179.

Hardin quickly discovers that much like the intricacies of suburban soccer mom life, prison life also offers it’s own social system where candy is currency and tampon boxes make furniture. Also, there is the sad realization that not even prison can quell the adolescent behaviors that permeate through mom social life. Hardin quickly learns what it takes to climb the prison social ladder and becomes “the shot caller.”

In a memoir of falling from soccer mom social status to numbered prisoner, Hardin shows that even rock bottom doesn’t mean it is the end of your life. After her stint in prison, she goes on to become a ghost writer, writing her way through healing and redemption in a memoir that has you laughing, crying and cursing your way through as Hardin shows you that the hardest part of all is forgiving yourself. Powerfully raw–this memoir made me struggle through her journey with her, as a mother myself, I found it hard to sympathize with her and her return to drug use despite the damage it was doing to her young children. However, what kept me reading and loving her writing and her journey was that she told it with humor and humility and ultimately by having her darkest secrets discovered she was able to find herself, find forgiveness and build a new life.

Book Information

The Many Lives of Mama Love by Lara Love Hardin will be released on August 1, 2023 from Simon and Schuster with ISBN 9781982197667. This review correspond to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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The Hart Home │Life Got Away from Me

There was a time where I was reading and reviewing books every other day here and I LOVED it.

Paris, 2007.

Then, I got pregnant again and over the summer we welcomed our first daughter, Violet. She came fast and fiercely into this world and totally shook up our house after two boys. They just love her and I know even after I am gone, she will always have two older brothers watching her back.

And then I went back to work even though I reached the end of wanting to teach full-time. Never thought it happened, but I would have made a deal with the devil himself if it meant I could be home.

And THEN, I finished writing my novel that I have worked on and off with for years. I just could never get it right and then suddenly it poured out of me in a couple of weeks.

And THENNN, I got offered a publishing contract and now I am in the middle of contract negotiations, trying to hire a publicist and sitting back looking at how my life blew up again.

And THEENNNN, I was offered all of these college-level writing courses to teach which I was so excited to take, but also made me realize that I wasn’t done with full-time teaching completely, but I was just done teaching middle school all day. It’s exhausting.

So I am in the midst of focusing on the part of career that gives me joy and releasing my first novel in seven years. While keeping tiny humans alive and eventually working my way back towards sharing all of the books I love on here.

I am alive. And busy. And grateful.

Hope all is well with you!

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BOOK REVIEW│ATTRIBUTION BY LINDA MOORE

The early 2000’s was a great time for art history books. Of course there was Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code but you also had Tracey Chevalier writing Girl with a Pearl Earring and several other art historical novels. I couldn’t put those books down and in many ways, they helped to further my passion for art history and complete my undergraduate degree in it. I was immersed in their worlds almost immediately and the luscious of the art history periods they were covering just drove me further into the story.

When I first picked up Linda Moore’s Attribution, I was immediately transported into her story the same way I had been in the early 2000’s with other art history novels. Moore starts off her tale by showcasing the misogyny that can plague art history departments if you allow it to. I remember it well as an undergraduate– male professors always loved to tell you you didn’t have what it took, but you overcome it. Moore’s Catherine Adamson is struggling through a similar departmental struggle with her dissertation chair who never is happy with where she is going and inwardly she fears being let out of her graduate program which is why she doesn’t argue with him when her chair sends her down into the basement of the department to catalog any and all works that she finds.

While there, Catherine stumbles across a forgotten room and a stashed away canvas that by the pigment alone tells her is much more valuable than its current surroundings. At first, Catherine is unsure of what to do– leave it? Share the find with her chauvinistic professor? Find a way to catalog it? Catherine is not given much time to decide as her discovery is followed rather quickly by an unnerving meeting with her chair that leaves her rattled enough to forget the painting. Only then, she’s suddenly outside with the painting and unable to get back because the building has gone into lockdown…something very valuable has been stolen!

At first Catherine thinks of the painting, but how would anyone know it was missing since it was uncovered in a secret room, buried in a long forgotten chest? Circumstances and chance quickly push Catherine into the heart of the mystery as she finds herself on a plane to Madrid instead of one home to Michigan for Christmas.

In the vein of Katherine Neville’s The Eight, Moore quickly engulfs us in the mysteries of the past, of women who struggled long ago and of Catherine’s own journey towards her future. Her plot is rich in art world references and lush prose that intrigues you to keep reading. It is an art history fiction that leaves you thinking as Moore teaches us the importance of truth and honesty, even if it was forgotten to the past.

Book Information

Attribution by Linda Moore was published in October 2022 by She Writes Press under ISBN 978-1-64742-253-0. This review corresponds to a paper galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore

the companionIn the same vein as Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, we meet a young woman, accused of a horrible crime, but even when she begins to tell us her story, we can only help but wonder just how innocent and truthful she really is. Kim Taylor Blakemore delivers with The Companion. Set in 1855 New Hampshire, The Companion, follows Lucy Blunt as she is set to hang for a double murder. However, as readers, we are kept in the dark as to who she is actually accused of killing and the events the led up to the murders.

Instead, we spend the novel feeling tense and isolated as the story of Lucy Blunt unfolds. She is a sheltered servant who is spending a winter at a remote estate– the Burton mansion– which is almost as cold and isolating as the winter. Lucy arrives at the estate with a fake letter of reference in pursuit of employment. She is taken in by the Burtons and quickly develops a close bond with Eugenie Burton, the lady of the house who is also blind and hyper-aware of her surroundings. This happens in part because her companion, Rebecca, a rather insufferable woman, falls ill early on. When she recovers, there is a clear jealousy between the two women over the affection of Eugenie. This is further fueled by the ideas of class and placement in society– Lucy is just the kitchen help, who is she to be favored by the lady of the house?

The tension is further fueled by the nuances of a lesbian relationship that begins to unfold in the house. The sex scenes are there and they are not graphic or out of the blue. They align with the overall gothic feel of the book and lend to the tension and bleak excitement of the story. Overall, a solid read that will keep you guessing and immersed in the world of 1855 New Hampshire and the gray winter that surrounds and lends to the emotions of much of the novel.

Book Information

The Companion by Kim Taylor Blakemore was released on January 14, 2020 from Lake Union Publishing with ISBN 9781542006392. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review│A Death in Paris Mystery: The Books of the Dead by Emilia Bernhard

cover163108-mediumThe Books of the Dead by Emilia Bernhard had it all for me: Paris, death and of course, librarians. My inner nerd girl was squealing when I received the galley for this novel. I think I was so drawn to it because it had an air of Jonny Depp’s The Ninth Gate which I have watched probably too many times to count.

 A Double Murder

American sleuth Rachel Levis stumbles upon the body of an employee of the French national library strangled in the bathroom of a cafe. Having solved a murder, with her best friend Magda, only 18 months before, Rachel reaches out to Capitaine Boussicault for help.

She immediately goes undercover as a librarian to try to figure out which one of the man’s colleagues could have offed him. Almost just as quickly as she is undercover, the drama really begins to come into play: first, a priceless antique book is found mutilated and then, her favorite suspect for the first murder is found dead in the stacks. Boussicault pulls Rachel from the investigation. However, she and Magda are dedicated to solving this mystery and take the investigation into their own hands.

A Cozy Mystery

This is definitely a cozy mystery where the amateur sleuths win over the professionals and become part of an unbelievable investigation. You will have to suspend your sense of realistic cream investigations to thoroughly enjoy the novel, it has all the pieces to it: the international setting, the pair of best friends solving crimes and a slightly absurd reason to murder someone. I am excited to see where this series goes and what other kinds of trouble our two girls will get into next!

Book Information

The Books of the Dead: A Death in Paris Mystery by Emilia Bernhard is scheduled to be released on October 8, 2019, from Crooked Lane Books with ISBN 9781643851570. This review corresponds to an electronic galley supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review. To be linked to special pre-order pricing, click the link at the top of this section.

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Book Review│The Mausoleum by David Mark

david markI was immediately drawn to this book and was really excited when the advanced galley was delivered to my kindle. The novel starts out with an elderly man on his death bed wracked with pain with two women standing over him in 2010. The women, Cordelia Hemlock and Felicity Goose have known each other for many years and have been investigating this unfolding historical mystery since the 1960’s when they first met.

A Chance Meeting in a Graveyard

In 1967, Cordelia is a disgraced academic who has recently arrived in a small town in Scotland called Gisland. She is deep in her grief over the loss of her 2-year-old son. She finds solace in the neighboring graveyard and spends her time among the tombstones, perhaps longing to some connection to her deceased son or to death itself. Felicity comes upon her one day, laying among the graves. The two women strike up a conversation just as a storm blows in bringing heavy rain and severe lightning with it. Felicity offers to let Cordelia come back to her cottage with her since it is closer than where Cordelia is staying. Just as the two are leaving, lightning strikes a nearby mausoleum causing it to break open and reveals a body that is only days old. The two women rush to Felicity’s home where they tell her neighbor Fairfax about it. He then rushes out to see the body and get the constable. Only, he is killed and it is found that the body is gone from the mausoleum. Thus begins a long friendship between Cordelia and Felicity that spans decades as they try to uncover the mystery of the body that they found all those years ago.

A Nazi Gestapo & the French Milice

The Mausoleum became an engrossing historical investigation that plunges the two women into the world of Nazi’s and their supporters. This story takes us back to the horrors of World War II and the pervading evilness that the Gestapo enacted on countless victims that for some, continued on even after the war was over. The French Milice are also part of the torture of this novel. While the Nazis dominated Germany, the Milice were a political group in France during the same time that aided in rounding up and deporting French Jews and their families to the concentration and death camps. Also similar to the Nazis who had Hitler Youths, the French Milice also encouraged youth to participate in their youth program known as the Avant-Garde.

The Mysterious Abel

Fairfax, prior to his untimely death, is a writer who records everything that he can get his hands on. One of the things he has recorded is the testimony of a man who describes his life and the torture he endured under the hands of the Nazi Gestapo and the French Milice. The account is horrendous and the abuse and torture seemed to be neverending. The testimony records the Gestapo’s name as being Abel. Could this Abel be the man that the two women found in the grave? The mystery only expands from here, sending the women deep into history to uncover the truth in the present. If you’re looking for a novel that unravels slowly and plunges you deep into a historical investigation then this is a mystery that you will have to pick up.

Book Information

The Mausoleum by David Mark will be released on June 1, 2019, from Severn House Publishers with ISBN 9780727888723. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review. To be linked to special pre-order pricing, click the link above!

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Book Review │Charleston Fancy by Witold Rybczynski

When I was an undergraduate at Rutgers University studying art history, one of my all time favorite books that I continually went back to and even now, will pick up from time to time were any of Peter Mayle’s Provence series. What I loved so much about them was that I was learning about life in Provence as an ex-pat through the life of someone who clearly loved Provence. I was learning through someone else’s passion and in so many ways that is the best way to learn because they will never cease to be an endless treasure trove of information about their subject.

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Charleston, South Carolina

I felt the same concept of learning through someone else’s passion with Witold Rybczynski’s Charleston Fancy. Instead of Provence, we are emersed in the world of Charleston, South Carolina, and its beautiful architecture. Charleston is a town with roots that go back to a time before the 1700’s when it was first occupied by British colonists who had landed on the Carolina coast. The city grew and has attracted varieties of people to its warm climate and abundance of different architecture that is notable throughout the town.

Rybczynski opens the world of Charleston, South Carolina up to his readers as we are informed about the various types of architecture that are present and the different types of people and characters we meet along the way. The novel brings Charleston to life through small vignettes and glimpses of Rybczynski’s cast of characters and homeowners as we are further exposed to the varied world of Charleston and its architecture.

Southern Architecture

When I think of Charleston, my mind immediately wonders off to verandas, wicker chairs and huge porches that are all sprinkled along tree-lined streets with brick sidewalks and beautiful masonry. While some parts of the south are like this, Rybczynski focuses his book on the surprises that Charleston has to bring us. From the small houses that hide beautiful courtyard verandas to Byzantine and Moorish beauties that are tucked away– he takes us on a ride through the surprises and beauty that is the prevailing sense of creativity that abounds throughout Charleston’s homes and architecture. It is detailed and colorful in his approach to bringing the world of Charleston, South Carolina for those of us who aren’t familiar.

Book Information

Charleston Fancy: Little Houses and Big Dreams in the Holy City by Witold Rybczynski will be released on May 28, 2019, from Yale University Press with ISBN 9780300229073. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was supplied by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review │ Unleashed by Diana Palmer

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I was probably a little too young when I first read a Diana Plamer book. I had to have been about 13 or 14 when I fished Magnolia out of a bag of books my grandmother had given to my mom. At that point, I had just started to write and I loved romances. I would just get lost in them and Palmer’s Magnolia did not disappoint. I fell in love with her writing and the steamy romances she whipped up with brooding, handsome men and the strong women they all always seemed to fall in love with. I went on to read all of her mercenary books and dove right into her Long, Tall Texan series of which, Unleashed is number 47 in the series.

Palmer does not disappoint us with her reserved, brooding and strong characters that she is known for. We meet Colter, a man that has been spending his time with women that he knows will never be much of anything. No woman really encapsulates him until he notices his assistant, Clancy who is battling a dark past of her own. Her brother is in jail for having hurt her in his attack on their younger brother. She is terrified that he will be released. She is also pretty smitten with Colter even though he’s not completely into her yet, as he has lingering feelings for his best friend’s former fiancee.

However, the chemistry and drama begin to burn between Colter and Clancy in a way that only Diana Palmer can deliver. The loves scenes are steamy and built with a sensuality that is exclusive to Diana Palmer novels wherein Colter is the older, experienced man while Clancy is blossoming into her own. Paralleled with the few violent scenes that are also present in the novel, Unleashed delivers to its readers a sultry read filled with drama and violence that leave you rooting for Colter and Clancy as the novel works towards its fitting end.

Unleashed (Long, Tall Texans Book 47) by Diana Palmer will be available for purchase on June 25, 2019, with ISBN 9781335659989 from Harlequin. This review corresponds to an advanced electronic galley that was provided by the publisher in exchange for this review.

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Book Review │ Cherry Scones and Broken Bones by Darci Hannah

This is the second book of the Very Cherry Mystery Series. If you are looking for a cozy sort of mystery mixed up with a love triangle then this is one you have to pick up. We meet our main character Whitney, who has returned to her small Wisconsin town to take over control of her family’s bed and breakfast, The Cherry Orchard Inn.

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Whitney is an experienced manager and baker with her signature dish being cherry scones. Everything seems to be going well for Whitney, until, Silvia Lumiere a renowned portrait painter decides to book a two-month stay at the Inn. At first, everyone is extremely excited to have such a celebrity staying there, however, the tides quickly turn when Silvia’s true character comes out. She is the most unhappy of people and will find anything to complain about which gets on everyone’s last nerve.

It’s almost not shocking when she is found dead at the bottom of the stairs of the Inn with a cherry scone jammed in her mouth. Someone has shut her up permanently and everything seems to be pointing to Whitney as her murderer.

Despite being at the center of a murder mystery, Whitney does find time to find herself in the middle of a love triangle between herself, Jake and Jack’s friend Tate. This is where a lot of the drama happens as even though Whitney is a 30-something-year-old woman, she is incredibly immature when it comes to her romantic life. She’s too afraid to turn down Tate, but also too afraid to be rejected by Jack and it lends itself to much of the drama between all of them.

However, the twist at the end really brought this book together for me. While this is not a murder mystery that is littered with clues and it is more of a cozy, quick read than something more substantial, Darci Hannah does deliver a good, shocking end with a murderer that is not our romantically entwined heroin.

Cherry Scones & Broken Bones (A Very Cherry Mystery Book 2) by Darci Hannah will be released on June 8, 2019 from Midnight Ink with ISBN 9780738758381. This review refers to an advanced electronic galley that was shared in exchange for a review.

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Book Review │ Tell No One by Barbara Taylor Sissel

With school winding down for the year and having finally finished writing my doctoral dissertation, I am all about looking for books that offer me an escape from my own reality. I am very much into books that are full of great plot and drama as well as those that take you to places that are far away from your everyday life. I am thoroughly enjoying escapism through reading.

tell no one

Tell No One by Barbara Taylor Sissel gave me all of what I have been seeking in a book lately. At the heart of a novel is an old truth: lies within families will fester and boil over in unexpected and shocking ways. They will trickle down among generations and touch lives that weren’t even yet considered when the lies began.

Beginning with a deathbed wish, family secrets spill over through the voices of two siblings as scandals emerge in the family. Several plots lines run throughout the book involving financial crimes, PTSD, addiction and secrets so scandalous they cannot be spoken about. Sometimes other people’s choices and actions will shape us even though we think we are consciously avoiding being taken in by them. Also, sometimes good and bad go together and are not often so clearcut, but rather survive in our world as a gray area where distance sometimes means the difference between the two.

Overall, Barbara Taylor Sissel delivers with Tell No One. She creates an immersive world where you remain the entire time that you are reading her book. As you read, you feel as though you are part of her story, watching as a family comes to terms with things long buried and ultimately meets a dramatic, action-fueled end at the conclusion of her narrative which in turn, will hopefully lead to what everyone is searching for: forgiveness both of other people and of themselves.

Tell No One by Barbara Taylor Sissel shows the complexities of families and of the demons we both acquire from our families as well as though that we create for ourselves and in turn, unleash onto our families both consciously and unintentionally.

Tell No One by Barbara Taylor Sissel will be available for purchase on May 14, 2019. It will be published through Lake Union Publishing with ISBN 9781542040457. This review was written after receiving an advanced electronic galley from the publisher in exchange for a review.

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