TLC Book Tours Book Review: I Found You

Author: Lisa Jewell
Title: I Found You
Publisher: Atria
Publish Date: April 25, 2017
Book Blurb: A young bride, a lonely single mother, and an amnesiac man of dubious origin lie at the heart of New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell’s next suspenseful drama that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty and Paula Hawkins.

In a windswept British seaside town, single mom Alice Lake finds a man sitting on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, and no idea how he got there. Against her better judgment, she invites him inside.

Meanwhile, in a suburb of London, twenty-one-year-old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Then the police tell her that her husband never existed.

Twenty-three years earlier, Gray and Kirsty are teenagers on a summer holiday with their parents. Their annual trip to the quaint seaside town is passing by uneventfully, until an enigmatic young man starts paying extra attention to Kirsty. Something about him makes Gray uncomfortable—and it’s not just that he’s playing the role of protective older brother.

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Review: This book left me gobsmacked. It was a wonderful read. 

This story was told from 3 different points of view, Alice and the man who lost his memory, Lily, whose husband has vanished and Gray and his family in flashbacks from 1993.

When you start reading you really wonder how all these people tie in together, because you know they have to, and you really wonder what it is that links these stories.

It takes a long while getting there. I didn't find the pacing of this story to be too fast, which could be a problem at times, but I was too keyed up wondering about what was going to happen next.

Yes, this book made me nervous, especially when I was reading the parts set in 1993.

I feared for Gray and his sister the whole time.

What really surprised me was how much I disliked most of the characters. They were all seriously flawed. Alice was a hot mess. Lily blindly married a man that she really didn't know. Gray and Kirsty were the only ones that you could really like. They were typical teenage siblings. Yet no matter my personal feelings about these characters, I couldn't stop reading. I desperately wanted to know what happened,or what was going to happen.  The last time I found myself invested in characters I didn't like was Gone Girl. (Gah how I hated everyone in that book)

Lisa Jewell writes great suspense. Her books keep you on the edge of your seat, and this one really did that.

Rating: 5 flowers

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TLC Book Tours Book Review: The Girls In The Garden

Author: Lisa Jewell
Title: The Girls In The Garden
Publisher: Atria
Publish Date: June 7, 2016
Buy: Amazon
Review Copy Provided By: TLC Book Tours
Book Blurb: Imagine that you live on a picturesque communal garden square, an oasis in urban London where your children run free, in and out of other people’s houses. You’ve known your neighbors for years and you trust them. Implicitly. You think your children are safe. But are they really?

On a midsummer night, as a festive neighborhood party is taking place, preteen Pip discovers her thirteen-year-old sister Grace lying unconscious and bloody in a hidden corner of a lush rose garden. What really happened to her? And who is responsible?

Review: I've heard a lot about Lisa Jewell and I've heard a lot about this book, so I was really excited to read this one.

The story is a mystery of what happened to Grace on the night of a neighborhood party. The story starts with that party and then goes back to a time shortly after Pip and Grace and their mother moved into this neighborhood as a result of a tragedy involving their schizophrenic father.

There was something about this book that reminded me of other stories that I've read this year, maybe because it involved children and a mystery and that's something that seems to have been written about a lot recently.

I really enjoyed this book, especially Pip. She's probably the most mature of the bunch and she's the youngest. A good portion of the story is told from her point of view. I especially enjoyed the letters she wrote to her father who is in a mental hospital.

There are so many twists and turns with the families in this community and the children that meet in this communal garden. There stories all weave together and when you start to learn about some of the characters early on, you wonder what their connection is going to be in regards to the main plot with Grace.   You'll get a lot of that train of thought when the story focus's on Adele and Leo. That is one strange family, from the homeschooling to the creepy grandfather and Leo.

There are so many people with issues that could have done it, that it will drive you nuts trying to work it out

I really got sucked into this story quickly and once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. u

The only issue I had with the book was the ending. Things got wrapped up quickly and attitudes changed much the same way. The actual resolution left a little to be desired, because you won't quite get the answers you want in the traditional way.

That doesn't stop this from being a fantastic book though. This is one book I think would make an awesome film at some point down the line.

Rating: 5 flowers

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Book Review: Unteachable

Author: Leah Raeder
Title: Unteachable
Publisher: Atria
Publish Date: Oct 14, 2014
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley
Book Blurb:  

Maise O’Malley just turned eighteen, but she’s felt like a grown-up her entire life. The summer before senior year, she has plans: get into a great film school, convince her mom to go into rehab, and absolutely do not, under any circumstances, screw up her own future.

But life has a way of throwing her plans into free-fall.

When Maise meets Evan at a carnival one night, their chemistry is immediate, intense, and short-lived. Which is exactly how she likes it: no strings. But afterward, she can’t get Evan out of her head. He’s taught her that a hookup can be something more. It can be an unexpected connection with someone who truly understands her. Someone who sees beyond her bravado to the scared but strong girl inside.

That someone turns out to be her new film class teacher, Mr. Evan Wilke.

Maise and Evan resolve to keep their hands off each other, but the attraction is too much to bear. Together, they’re real and genuine; apart, they’re just actors playing their parts for everyone else. And their masks are slipping. People start to notice. Rumors fly. When the truth comes to light in a shocking way, they may learn they were just playing parts for each other, too.

Review: Unteachable is almost a Lolita for the modern age, but Maise isn't a naive young thing. She's 18, she's street smart and she's got quite a messed up life.

This is a book that you will be shocked and intrigued by. Maise and Evan aren't your average couple, but there's nothing average about either one of them.

Maise is the daughter of a druggie/drug dealer. Everything she has, she's got on her own. She's pretty much raised herself. So when she hooks up with a much older guy at the fair,  you don't think twice about it. She is 18.  You also don't know Evan's age when they hook up either.

Then they meet again at school, where Evan is Maise's film studies teacher.

I could deal with most of their relationship at the beginning. I mean, the "hot for teacher" thing is quite common, but the fact that their relationship is really rooted in sex made things ultra creepy at times.

And then there's Wesley, the boy her own age, that has a stalker-esque crush on her. I have to say, I was team Wesley throughout the book. I felt Wes would have brought stability to her life, whereas Evan was just going to screw her up, especially when you find out he has secrets of his own.

I loved Leah's writing. It pulled you in, even if you didn't quite agree with what the characters were doing. Maise, in particular. I'm pretty sure there are a lot of psychological things you could say about her behavior, but really, she's just a screwed up kid.

I felt bad for her. There was nothing good about this girl's life, and the choices she makes will have some shaking their heads, but then again, she is only 18.

I often felt that though Maise and Evan had a bit in common, like their love of films and both coming from very dysfunctional families, that their relationship was really rooted in sex. I love you seemed to get tossed in there, because when you are spending that much time "doing it" you should have some emotional attachment. My thought's on their attachment? Someone has daddy issues.

This book is out to push boundaries and take you out of your comfort zone. It took me out of mine, because even though both characters would be legal in any other circumstances, Evan being her teacher made things wrong, and the fact he hooked up with another young girl before makes him a perv in my book. I simply couldn't like him. And I couldn't grasp Maise's actions once she found out about his past either.

The writing was solid and it was a definite page turner, but it creeped me out too much to be a winner.

Rating: 3 flowers

Book Review: Bellman And Black

Author: Diane Setterfield
Title: Bellman & Black
Publisher: Atria Books
Publish Date: Nov 5, 2013
Buy: Amazon

Review Copy Provided By: Net Galley
Book Blurb: 

Bellman & Black is a heart-thumpingly perfect ghost story, beautifully and irresistibly written, its ratcheting tension exquisitely calibrated line by line. Its hero is William Bellman, who, as a boy of 11, killed a shiny black rook with a catapult, and who grew up to be someone, his neighbours think, who "could go to the good or the bad." And indeed, although William Bellman's life at first seems blessed—he has a happy marriage to a beautiful woman, becomes father to a brood of bright, strong children, and thrives in business—one by one, people around him die. And at each funeral, he is startled to see a strange man in black, smiling at him. At first, the dead are distant relatives, but eventually his own children die, and then his wife, leaving behind only one child, his favourite, Dora. Unhinged by grief, William gets drunk and stumbles to his wife's fresh grave—and who should be there waiting, but the smiling stranger in black. The stranger has a proposition for William—a mysterious business called "Bellman & Black"

Review: It says in the blurb that this is a ghost story, but I see no signs of anything that is really ghostly. I see a story that's a bit macabre, but nope, no ghosts here.

Did that bug me?

Yes it did.

I wanted something creepy and what I got was a story of a man who really overcame odds and built many successful business ventures, but who also has had bad things happen to him that change his life.  And it all started with a rock thrown at a rook. (That's a crow...in case you were thinking he got pissed off while playing chess)

This book is neither good nor bad, but unfortunately it isn't what most readers are expecting when they start turning the pages, and that is a big turn off.

The story is well written and engaging and the little tidbits about rooks are very interesting.

I liked William Bellman, even as his losses started to really affect his mind. (He really can't deal with the death of anyone close to him...but in a way, he is obsessed with death...hence the business he creates)

But the most interesting character is Black, because you don't really know what he is until the end of the book

So, it was a good read, just not what I was expecting, which made it disappointing, but the closet goth girl in me can't help but be amused by a guy that builds and empire on items for mourning.

Rating: 3 flowers