Saturday, September 25, 2021

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: All These Bodies, by Kendare Blake {ends 10/2}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

“Marie, do you know where he is?”

“No. But I always thought he might stick around to watch.” She looked at me seriously. “You shouldn’t go off on your own, Michael.”

I almost smiled. I wasn’t going to hide from a make-believe monster. But someone real had killed Steve Carlson.

“You think he’d come after me? Or my family?” I asked. But she didn’t answer. I suppose she couldn’t have known. “Marie, why did he leave you that night after the murders?”

She clenched her teeth.

“Because the bastard wanted me to get caught.”

When a teenage girl is found at a murder scene drenched in blood, how can anyone comprehend the truth behind the murders, or the unharmed girl? 

Official synopsis:
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: All These Bodies, by Kendare Blake {ends 10/2}
Summer 1958. A gruesome killer plagues the Midwest, leaving behind a trail of bodies completely drained of blood. 

Michael Jensen, an aspiring journalist whose father happens to be the town sheriff, never imagined that the Bloodless Murders would come to his backyard. Not until the night the Carlson family was found murdered in their home. Marie Catherine Hale, a diminutive fifteen-year-old, was discovered at the scene—covered in blood. She is the sole suspect in custody.

Michael didn’t think that he would be part of the investigation, but he is pulled in when Marie decides that he is the only one she will confess to. As Marie recounts her version of the story, it falls to Michael to find the truth: What really happened the night that the Carlsons were killed? And how did one girl wind up in the middle of all these bodies?

Marie Catherine Hale is just a year younger than Michael Jenson, so there’s no way he can fathom that someone even younger than him could possibly kill people - especially if it also means leaving them bloodless, as the serial killer plaguing the midwest has been doing! Michael feels safe and curious hanging out with her at the jail where his father is the sheriff, but being given the responsibility of interviewing her for the truth behind the murders is a daunting task.

This was a unique, slow-burning thriller. Michael wasn’t sure whether he believed a lot of what Marie told him, but he also didn’t have any better alternative stories. Regardless, just listening to her version of events was making enemies all over town for Michael and his family. Marie was the closest thing they had to someone for the community to blame for the death of a family they had all liked and respected.

Overall, I’d give this one 3 out of 5 stars. It was surprisingly easy to forget that Michael and Marie were high-school-aged kids. While there were no jump-scare moments, the thrill was almost psychological in nature. The book was definitely about Marie’s telling of the story.
 
{click HERE to purchase}
 
Becki Bayley is a Gemini who enjoys fall, Halloween, and warm blankets to wrap up in while she reads. Check out more of her reviews of books and life at www.SweetlyBSquared.com.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of All These Bodies!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Saturday, October 2nd, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be notified the next day via email, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

All These Bodies, by Kendare Blake

Monday, September 20, 2021

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Cold Snap, by Codi Schneider {ends 9/29}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

While Spencer, Eddy, and Hamlet took Fennec to the kitchen to make him a warm and comforting breakfast, Skunk and I decided to interview the cats upstairs. They may have seen the prowler. After all, their windows looked directly over the backyard.

First up was Miss Tut, who said she hadn’t seen a thing. Not with her cataracts and not with the extra glass of meowsling she’d ordered before bed. “Sorry, dears, I slept like a youth on holiday.” Dots of fuzz from her blanket balanced sleepily on her whiskers. “But check with Betty next door. She’s much more nocturnal.”

Betty, who’d come to the inn two nights ago, was just getting ready to sleep the morning away when we knocked. A fluffy ginger with white paws, she looked at us with annoyance.

“Yes, I was awake all night. I find I sleep much better during the day. But I didn’t see anything unusual.”

“And you didn’t hear anything unusual either?” Skunk asked.

Betty yawned. “Sorry, no. Try Minerva next door.”

Bijou isn’t just a cat, but also a powerful Viking! She’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep her clan safe, and to get her meals on time.

Official synopsis:
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Cold Snap, by Codi Schneider {ends 9/29}
Tucked in the cold Colorado mountains lies the remote village of Gray Birch, a place where outsiders are frowned upon. In this village lives a cat named Bijou. But she’s no ordinary house cat; her ancestors were mousers on Viking longships, and their blood runs through her veins. Since her battle skills are hardly needed in this modern age, however, she spends her energies running the Fox Burrow Pet Inn with her human, Spencer, and her assistant, Skunk, a mentally negligible Pomeranian. Together, the happy trio has created a safe haven for their four-legged guests.

But when Eddy Line, a handsome baker from California, comes to the inn—along with his piglet and pit bull puppy—everything changes. Spencer falls for Eddy, Bijou is unhappy with the sudden changes to her clan, and the townspeople are anything but welcoming; in fact, threats are made against Eddy when he buys the town’s historic firehouse in order to open a bakery.

Then a shocking murder/dognapping occurs on the night of the bakery’s grand opening, and Bijou finds herself thrust into a tangled mystery. To solve it, she will have to summon her inner Viking—and fight tooth and claw for her new clan.

Bijou is a cat with an impressive vocabulary, and she tells the story. It’s easy to forget you’re hearing it all from a cat. In this episode of Bijou’s story, she’s confronted with a pig at the Fox Burrow Pet Inn, which she manages for her human, Spencer. While she’s not pleased with the prospect of sharing her home with a swine at first, she soon learns that pigs play a much more important role in Viking legend than she previously thought.

Soon enough, Bijou, Skunk (Bijou’s assistant at the Inn, a pomeranian), and Hamlet (the pig, of course) are on a vital mission to rescue Fennec (Hamlet’s pit bull brother) from the evil clutches he was in before being adopted by Eddy (his human). 

While the book started a little slow, the rescue action was fun, and the mystery was indeed cozy. I gave it 3 out of 5 stars and would recommend it to animal lovers who like a quirky cast of four-legged characters. 

{click HERE to purchase}

Becki Bayley is the human to two cats who most probably have no Viking blood. Hopefully their bravery will never be tested to know for sure.

GIVEAWAY:

One of my lucky readers will win a copy of Cold Snap!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 29th, at 11:59pm EST, and winner will be notified via email the next day and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!


Cold Snap, by Codi Schneider

Sunday, September 19, 2021

Quick Pick Book Review: Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult

Quick Pick Book Review: Wish You Were Here, by Jodi Picoult
  • Opening lines: March 13, 2020
    When I was six years old, I painted a corner of the sky. My father was working as a conservator, one of a handful restoring the zodiac ceiling on the main hall of Grand Central Terminal—an aqua sky strung with shimmering constellations. It was late, way past my bedtime, but my father took me to work because my mother—as usual—was not home. 
  • Reason I picked up the book: I'm a huge Jodi Picoult fan—all of her books are fantastic, because she does extensive research beforehand. 
  • And what's this book about?
  • From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes “a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit” (Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Malibu Rising)

    Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

    But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

    Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

    In the Galápagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.

  • Recommended for: Anyone who enjoyed Picoult's previous books, or anyone who enjoys well-written books in general. 
  • Favorite paragraph: As we get closer, the mass of land differentiates into individual sensations: hot gusts of wind and hooting pelicans; a man climbing a coconut tree and tossing the nuts down to a boy; a marine iguana, blinking its yellow dinosaur eye. As we sidle up to the dock, I think that this could not be any more different from New York City. It feels tropical and timeless, lazy, remote. It feels like a place where no one has ever heard of a pandemic. 
  • Something to know: At first I was like, ugh, I don't want to read another book set in COVID times—we already have to live it, currently—but then the book ended up winning me over. Also, something MAJOR happens midway through the book that completely changes the course of the narrative. After that I was hooked and had to find out immediately how the book ends.
  • What I would have changed: Not sure I would have changed anything. Maybe the ending but it felt right to me. 
  • Overall rating: 4.5 stars out of 5.
  • Where can I find this book? Click here to purchase on Amazon—it will be out on November 30, 2021.

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The World Played Chess, by Robert Dugoni {ends 9/22}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

I was ten when I accompanied my father to the ACE Hardware store in Millbrae. I don’t recall what he purchased, but I do recall he handed the cashier a ten-dollar bill and she gave him back change for a twenty. I remember thinking we’d hit the mother lode.

“No. That’s not right,” my father said. “I only gave you a ten.” He handed the woman back her ten-dollar bill. She cried.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “We lost our nephew in Vietnam. My sister got the word last night.”

My dad expressed his condolences before we walked to the parking lot. “Why are we in that damn war?” he said.

“Hey, Dad?”

“Huh?”

“Why’d you give her back the ten dollars?”

“Never take anything that doesn’t belong to you or that you haven’t earned,” he said, sliding into the car. “You never know who you’re stealing from, and what that money means to them.”

I had forgotten that moment until that summer, when I worked with William.

This was a powerful coming-of-age story about three different generations of young men. 

Official synopsis:
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: The World Played Chess, by Robert Dugoni {ends 9/22}
In 1979, Vincent Bianco has just graduated high school. His only desire: collect a little beer money and enjoy his final summer before college. So he lands a job as a laborer on a construction crew. Working alongside two Vietnam vets, one suffering from PTSD, Vincent gets the education of a lifetime. Now forty years later, with his own son leaving for college, the lessons of that summer—Vincent’s last taste of innocence and first taste of real life—dramatically unfold in a novel about breaking away, shaping a life, and seeking one’s own destiny.

Vincent tells most of the story—it’s the story of his own year after high school, as well as the story of his own son (40 years later) graduating high school, and the story of him reading William’s journal from his time serving with the Marines in Vietnam. There are also parts of the story that show the relationship between William and Vincent during the time they worked on a construction site together (the year after Vincent’s high school graduation, during William’s decline into PTSD after his return from Vietnam about ten years earlier). 

While this puts Vincent’s and William’s stories in the first person, Vincent tells the story of his son Beau’s last year of high school and transition to college. The perspective seemed right, though, as Vincent had insight for all three stories. He not only told Beau’s story, but compared it to his story and that of William, and the different events that had forced the three young men to mature and move on to new stages of their lives. 

The writing for all of the story lines was empathetic and compelling. The experiences of the three young men were unique, but shared some common themes. Vincent’s narration often led the reader to the commonalities between the three very different lives.

Overall, I’d give this book 5 out of 5 stars. Thought should be given before recommending it, as the war stories could be triggering for some readers. It was a memoir-style literary fiction book that seemed as believable as non-fiction. If the subject matter sounds even a little interesting, the writing made this a fabulous book.

{click here to purchase—currently FREE for Kindle Unlimited members}

Becki Bayley loves rainy nights, supporting the arts, and Cherry Coke with Southern Comfort. She also enjoys sharing snippets of her life and that of her family on Instagram as PoshBecki.

GIVEAWAY:

Two of my lucky readers will win a copy of The World Played Chess!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 22nd, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be notified via email the next day, and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner(s) will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

The World Played Chess, by Robert Dugoni

Wednesday, September 1, 2021

Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Constance, by Matthew FitzSimmons {ends 9/8}

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

Two days after her dinner with Vernon Gaddis, Con left Charles Island driven by a late-model, two-door electric compact with Virginia plates. It was the color of cold oatmeal and not much to look at, but that’s the way she wanted it given where she was headed. The less attention she attracted, the less attention she attracted. In addition to this sweet, sweet ride, Gaddis had also linked her brand-new, out-of-the-box LFD to a bank account that would last her at least a couple of weeks. It was early morning, the sky was clear, and she was in good spirits. The first day after waking in Palingenesis had been a mad scramble to survive. Life reduced to its most basic needs: food, water, shelter. Hard to make a plan when you were hungry, tired, and scared all the time. It had narrowed her focus to navigating safely from point A to point B. Now things felt different. She had a plan. She was on the move.

Constance is almost like a modern-day Rumpelstiltskin. She wakes up with an 18-month hole in her memory, and a body that’s familiar, but not the same one she’s used to. Is she still who she thinks she is?

Official synopsis:
Book Review and GIVEAWAY: Constance, by Matthew FitzSimmons {ends 9/8}
In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.

After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her?

The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.

The last thing Con remembers is going in on the day after Christmas in 2038 to have an upload of her consciousness (required periodically for the clone that was gifted to her by her aunt, the scientific genius behind the clones). Now she needs to try and catch her mind up to the rest of her, figure out most importantly who killed her (causing her clone to come to life)—oh, and stay away from those who don’t think clones should exist.

This is one of those books that’s hard to explain, but it was worth it. The speculation and presentation of the not-so-distant future was interesting and believable. The scientific developments of the future also made the plot even more challenging to predict.

Overall, I gave this book 4 out of 5 stars. The science part of the science fiction wasn’t that hard to comprehend and imagine. The human nature in the story also played a major part, if less science is more to the reader’s taste. 

{Click HERE to purchase}

Becki Bayley likes red meat, bourbon old-fashioneds, and remembering to post pictures of her adventures. Check out what she’s remembered to post lately on Instagram as PoshBecki.

GIVEAWAY:

Two of my lucky readers will win a copy of Constance!

Enter via the widget below. Giveaway will end on Wednesday, September 8th, at 11:59pm EST, and winners will be notified via email the next day and have 24 hours to respond, or an alternate winner(s) will be chosen.

U.S. residents only, please.

Good luck!

Constance, by Matthew FitzSimmons

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