Waiting on Wednesdaty / And She Was by Jessica Verdi

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme started by Breaking the Spine blog to spotlight exciting new releases.

 Dara’s lived a sheltered life with her single mom, Mellie. Now, at eighteen, she’s dreaming of more. When Dara digs up her never-before-seen birth certificate, her world implodes. Why are two strangers listed as her parents?

Dara confronts her mother, and is stunned by what she learns: Mellie is transgender. The unfamiliar name listed under “father”? That’s Mellie. She transitioned when Dara was a baby, shortly after Dara’s birth mother died.

But Dara still has more questions than answers. Reeling, she sets off on a road trip with her best guy friend, Sam. She's determined to find the extended family she’s never met. What she discovers—and what her mother reveals, piece by piece over emails—will challenge and change Dara more than she can imagine.

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Blog Tour Book Review / Come a Little Closer by Rachel Abbott

They will be coming soon. They come every night.
 
Snow is falling softly as a young woman takes her last breath.
 
Fifteen miles away, two women sit silently in a dark kitchen. They don’t speak, because there is nothing left to be said.
 
Another woman boards a plane to escape the man who is trying to steal her life. But she will have to return, sooner or later.
 
These strangers have one thing in common. They each made one bad choice - and now they have no choices left. Soon they won’t be strangers, they’ll be family…
 
When DCI Tom Douglas is called to the cold, lonely scene of a suspicious death, he is baffled. Who is she? Where did she come from? How did she get there?
 
How many more must die? Who is controlling them, and how can they be stopped?

Published:     15th February 2018
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Series or Stand-Alone:  Book 7, DCI Tom Douglas
Source:  Review Copy from Publisher

MY REVIEW

Normally, I don't like to start reading a series from the middle.  Always starting from book 1.   I made an exception here because this book just sounded so good.    Although I would imagine I would get a lot more out of this book had I read the first few books in this series, I had no trouble picking it up, learning all the characters (some of whom I assume are the 'regulars' in the series) and following the plot.  I liked how the author changed character perspectives on most chapters, that was one of the reasons why it was easy to follow because of the reasons above and because there are quite a few characters in this story.   We follow the detectives investigating a murder, a woman who is a trapped somewhere, a woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and a woman who has had a run of bad luck and looks to some newly found friends for help. 

A very creepy novel that really highlights the fact that you should really not trust anybody apart from your nearest and dearest! 

Book Review / This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales

Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing.

Told in a refreshingly genuine and laugh-out-loud funny voice, This Song Will Save Your Life is an exuberant novel about identity, friendship, and the power of music to bring people together.

Published:     17th September 2013
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Series or Stand-Alone:  Stand-Alone
Source:  Library
 

MY REVIEW

What I liked about this story...  We follow Elise in this story where at the beginning she is very depressed and contemplates (and nearly succeeds) in committing suicide.  As the story goes along, we see Elise discover her love for DJing and see her learning to love herself and to live her life.


What I didn't like about this story...   Elise is 16 years old.  She is clearly depressed to the point of suicide yet none of her family seem aware of how unhappy she is. That said, she may have been good at hiding how she feels but I found it odd that none of her family noticed anything.  Elise then turns to sneaking out of the house every night once everyone has gone to sleep and that is when she discovers the nightclub where she starts to be a DJ.  Again, surely she would have got caught out sooner or later for sneaking out?  Lastly, at the point in the story where the parents find out what she has been doing, yes there is a slight punishment but that was soon waived to allow her to continue what she has been sneaking behind their backs to do all along and everyone lives happy ever after. 

I am afraid that I have to put this book in the category of 'this book was not for me but I might have liked it more if I had read it when I was younger'.

Waiting on Wednesday / Finding Felicity by Stacey Kade

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme started by Breaking the Spine blog to spotlight exciting new releases.

Caroline Sands has never been particularly good at making friends. And her parents’ divorce and the move to Arizona three years ago didn’t help. Being the new girl is hard enough without being socially awkward too. So out of desperation and a desire to please her worried mother, Caroline invented a whole life for herself—using characters from Felicity, an old show she discovered online and fell in love with.

But now it’s time for Caroline to go off to college and she wants nothing more than to leave her old “life” behind and build something real. However, when her mother discovers the truth about her manufactured friends, she gives Caroline an ultimatum: Prove in this first semester that she can make friends of the nonfictional variety and thrive in a new environment. Otherwise, it’s back to living at home—and a lot of therapy.

Armed with nothing more than her resolve and a Felicity-inspired plan, Caroline accepts the challenge. But she soon realizes that the real world is rarely as simple as television makes it out to be. And to find a place where she truly belongs, Caroline may have to abandon her script and take the risk of being herself.

Goodreads Link:  Click Here

Waiting on Wednesday / The Wicked Deep by Shea Ernshaw

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme started by Breaking the Spine blog to spotlight exciting new releases.

Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem Witch trials in this haunting story about three sisters on a quest for revenge—and how love may be the only thing powerful enough to stop them.

Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow…

Where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town.

Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under.

Like many locals, seventeen-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters’ return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives; unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into.

Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters.

But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo, or save herself.

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Waiting on Wednesday / Blood Water Paint by Joy McCullough

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme started by Breaking the Spine blog to spotlight exciting new releases.

Her mother died when she was twelve, and suddenly Artemisia Gentileschi had a stark choice: a life as a nun in a convent or a life grinding pigment for her father's paint.

She chose paint.

By the time she was seventeen, Artemisia did more than grind pigment. She was one of Rome's most talented painters, even if no one knew her name. But Rome in 1610 was a city where men took what they wanted from women, and in the aftermath of rape Artemisia faced another terrible choice: a life of silence or a life of truth, no matter the cost.

He will not consume
my every thought.
I am a painter.
I will paint.

Joy McCullough's bold novel in verse is a portrait of an artist as a young woman, filled with the soaring highs of creative inspiration and the devastating setbacks of a system built to break her. McCullough weaves Artemisia's heartbreaking story with the stories of the ancient heroines, Susanna and Judith, who become not only the subjects of two of Artemisia's most famous paintings but sources of strength as she battles to paint a woman's timeless truth in the face of unspeakable and all-too-familiar violence.

I will show you
what a woman can do.

 

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