family relationships

Pretend with Me by Emily Mayer

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I was asked by my friend at Author Marketing Experts if I’d like a copy of this book, and, to be honest, the cover didn’t catch my eye as much as the description did:

Description:

One phone call was all it took to upend my entire life in completely unexpected ways.

Whoever said that you can’t go home again was a liar. After the senior year from hell, I had spent a decade trying to avoid Beacon Hill and its residents. My luck came to a sudden end after daddy had an incident with a rotted floor. In and out, I promised myself. I was just there to help my parents for a week or two tops.

Things in Beacon Hill hadn’t changed much since I’d been home last. Mama still worked at the hub of gossip known as Trixie’s, Mrs. Thomas still made the best chicken salad in all of Georgia, and my sister was still the devil in a pushup bra. And of course, the St. James family was still local royalty. Our very own version of the Kennedys.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered that, not only is my sister back in town after a failed modeling career, she’s also engaged to Macon St. James. The golden boy of Beacon Hill, and the star of every single one of my teenage fantasies.

The biggest surprise of all was Holden St. James. I thought he would be one of the villains in this story, but I was learning that I had been wrong about a lot of things. And Holden just might be worth coming home for….

This story was laugh out loud funny. I thought perhaps it took place in Beacon Hill, Boston – but it takes place down south and it looks to be the start of a series. The characters are at times a little wacky and the main character’s inner dialogue was quite humorous. I don’t read many romantic comedies, but I did enjoy this one.

Here’s a bit about the author:

Emily Mayer is a best-selling author and a book lover with a capital L. When she isn’t writing, you can usually find her in the kitchen burning dinner with a book in her hand or tucked away in one of her favorite reading spots promising “just five more minutes.” In addition to books, Emily is addicted to coffee, dogs, and cat videos. She lives in the Midwest with her husband and dog, both of whom are very good boys.

You can find her at http://www.EmilyMayerBooks.com

Thank you for my copy!

Veil of Doubt by Sharon Virts

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Ms. Virts’ publicist offered me an e-galley of Veil of Doubt and I’m so glad that I said yes! What an intriguing and captivating read! I could not help but be amazed that this story is based in fact. Sometimes truth really is stranger than fiction! I could not put this book down as I struggled with “did she? Or didn’t she?”

This is my first opportunity to read Ms. Virts’ writing and I could tell that she had spent hours researching this true court case. Her story immerses you into the 19th century and the morés of that time. Her characters have a rich depth to them; and even though they are not perfect, I sympathized with them.

Here’s the scoop:

When a mother is charged with murder in a town already convinced of her guilt, can defense attorney Powell Harrison find truth and justice in a legal system where innocence is not presumed? 

Emily Lloyd, a young widow in Reconstruction-era Virginia, is accused of poisoning her three-year-old daughter, Maud. It isn’t the first death in her home—her husband and three other children all died of mysterious illnesses—so when Maud succumbs to an unexplained malady, the town suspects foul play. Soon Mrs. Lloyd is charged not only with poisoning the child but also with murdering her children, her husband, and her aunt. 

Enter Powell Harrison, a soft-spoken, brilliant attorney who recently returned to his Virginia hometown to help his brother manage their late father’s practice. Approached to assist in Mrs. Lloyd’s defense, Harrison initially declines, worried that an infanticide case might tarnish their family’s reputation. But as details about the widow’s erratic behavior and her reclusive neighbors emerge, Harrison begins to suspect that an even more sinister truth might lurk beneath the family’s horrible fate and finds himself irresistibly drawn to the case.  

Based on a shocking true story, Veil of Doubt is part true-crime thriller, part medical and legal procedural. Perfect for fans of Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and filled with rich period detail gleaned from exhaustive research, Veil of Doubt delves into the darkness of the South during Reconstruction, exposing intrigue, deception, and death. 

Here’s a super book trailer that the author created that does a great job giving the background of this story and her personal connections to the characters:

About the Author:

Photo from SharonVirts.com

Sharon Virts is a successful entrepreneur and visionary who, after more than twenty-five years in business, followed her passion for storytelling in the world of historical fiction. She has received numerous awards for her work in historic preservation and has been recognized nationally for her business achievements and philanthropic contributions. She was recently included in Washington Life Magazine’s Philanthropic 50 for her work with education, health, and cultural preservation.

Sharon’s passion truly lies in the creative. She is an accomplished visual artist and uses her gift for artistic expression along with her extraordinary storytelling to build complex characters and craft vivid images and sets that capture the heart and imagination. She is mother to four sons—James, Lucas, Zachary, and Nicholas—stepmom to Ben and Avery, and “Nana” to ten-year-old Charlie and toddler Bodhi. She lives in Virginia with her husband, Scott Miller, at the historic Selma Mansion with their three Labrador retrievers Polly, Cassie, and Leda.

I discovered that Sharon has a historical fiction bookclub through her website with some of my favorite reads already on there! I signed up immediately (even though I know that I will not always be free to join in) at SharonVirts.com.

Thank you so much for including me on this latest release and giving me the opportunity to read and review!

Harper-Collins Blog Tour for: The Roaring Days of Zora Lily by Noelle Salazar

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Harper-Collins had SO MANY great choices for tours for this fall that I could hardly restrain myself! As you know, I love historical fiction, so I was drawn to this novel about a young seamstress during the 1920’s who is learning to navigate life as a young adult. I loved the character of Zora and I loved a glimpse into life during that time. I read a lot of WWII novels, and WWI, but I haven’t read a lot about the Roaring 20’s and/or Prohibition times. I also know next to nothing about sewing and fashion design, so this was interesting to me, too. This book toggled in time, but only at the beginning and end (can be helpful if you find a lot of time switching confusing!).

Noelle Salazar is such an engaging writer! If you love her books, you will love this one, too. Thank you so much for my e-galley and for letting me be part of the tour.

Here’s the scoop:

The Roaring Days of Zora Lily

Author: Noelle Salazar

ISBN: 9780778305200

MIRA Paperback Original 

Publication Date: October 3, 2023

Buy Links: Not affiliated with BBNB

HarperCollins.com: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-roaring-days-of-zora-lily-noelle-salazar?variant=41016586567714 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-jazz-girl-original-noelle-salazar/19574911?ean=9780778305200 

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-roaring-days-of-zora-lily-noelle-salazar/1143092714?ean=9780778305200 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0778305201/keywords=historical%20fiction?tag=harpercollinsus-20 

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780778305200 

Social Links:

Author Website: https://www.noellesalazar.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/noelle__salazar/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/noellesalazar 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/noelle_salazar 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18424925.Noelle_Salazar 

Author Bio: 

Noelle Salazar was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s been a Navy recruit, a medical assistant, an NFL cheerleader, and always a storyteller. As a novelist, she has done extensive research into the Women Airforce Service Pilots, interviewing vets and visiting the training facility—now a museum dedicated to the WASP—in Sweetwater, Texas. When she’s not writing, she can be found dodging raindrops and daydreaming of her next book. Her debut The Flight Girls, was an instant bestseller, a Forbes Hypable book of the month, and a BookBub Top Recommended book from readers. Her second novel, Angels of the Resistance: A Novel of Sisterhood and Courage in WWII was also published to wide praise including an Amazon Editors’  Fiction Pick of the Month. Noelle lives in Bothell, Washington with her family.

Book Summary: 

Set during a period of rapid social and technological change, The Roaring Days of Zora Lily follows a struggling young seamstress from her long nights sewing costumes in the smoke-filled speakeasies of Seattle to designing gowns for Hollywood’s biggest starlets.

2023, The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History: A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer’s label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?

1924, Seattle: Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive. But at night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, she secretly dreams of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin.

When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in by her stories of music, glittering dresses and boys. She follows her friend to the underground speakeasies that are at once exciting and frightening—with smoke hanging in the air, alcohol flowing despite Prohibition, couples dancing in a way that makes Zora blush and a handsome businessman named Harley. It’s a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she’s always dreamed of. But as Zora’s ambition is challenged by tragedy and duty to her family, she’ll learn that dreams come with a cost. 

Unsettled by Patricia Reis

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I really enjoyed reading this novel of a family’s experience as settlers in the Midwest and the secrets that got passed down through generations. I loved the main character, an independent, women’s studies researcher, who is searching a bit for herself as she searches for clues to her family’s history by using a photo and information that her recently deceased father left for her. The story toggles in time and you get to know the story of those in the picture and what lay behind their seemingly placid façades. “Aunt Kate” provides an interesting parallel to Van and their stories highlight the role of women in the family and in our society, both now and in the past.

Here’s the overview:

Family Secrets. A genealogical quest takes Van back 100 years to the Iowa prairie in search of an ancestor no one has claimed.

As Van Reinhardt clears out her father’s belongings, she comes across a request penned by her father prior to his death. Examining the family portrait of her German immigrant ancestors that he has left her, Van’s curiosity grows about one of the children portrayed there.

Meanwhile in the 1870s, Kate is a German immigrant newly arrived in America with only her brother as family. When she and her brother split, she eventually finds her way back to him, but with a secret.

Van revisits the town and the farm of her ancestors to discover calamitous events in probate records, farm auction lists, asylum records and lurid obituaries, hinting at a history far more complex and tumultuous than she had expected. But the mystery remains, until she changes upon a small book – sized for a pocket – that holds Tante Kate’s secret and provides the missing piece.

A big thank you to my friends at Sibylline Press (who publishes “brilliant women over 50”) for sending me this one!

Here’s some info on the author – who is having her fiction debut with this novel!

Author Patricia Reis is a Midwesterner at heart. In the mid-1800s, her German immigrant ancestors pioneered a farm in southwestern Iowa and their portrait gave her this story. She has lived on both coasts and currently resides in Portland, Maine where she is active in Maine Writers and Publishers. She spends six months of each year in Nova Scotia. Reis holds a BA in English Literature from the University of Wisconsin, an MFA from UCLA and a degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara. She also maintains a private practice of psychotherapy for women. Reis’s memoir, Motherlines: Love, Longing, and Liberation (SheWrites Press, October 2016) won a gold medal for memoir from Independent Press Publishers. Along with numerous essays and reviews, she has published several nonfiction books.

The Spectacular by Fiona Davis

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I just love the writing of Fiona Davis (The Lions of Fifth Avenue among others) so I was excited to get her latest read off Net Galley. This was a fun story for me since we love the Rockettes and the Holiday Spectacular, and my mother used to tell me stories of seeing them in NYC in the 1940’s (she wanted to be one but at 5’0 was too short!). This story was an interesting mix of mystery, romance, and historical fiction. And it has quite a bit of truth to it (beyond the Rockettes!) in that there really was a “mad bomber” in NYC at that time who was a disgruntled worker from an electrical company.

Thank you for my e-galley. I’ll be recommending this one to others who enjoy historical fiction of this period. Ms. Davis has a way of making the past come alive through her attention to details. You won’t be disappointed!

From the New York Times Bestselling Author of The Magnolia Palace: A thrilling story about love, sacrifice, and the pursuit of dreams, set amidst the glamour and glitz of Radio City Music Hall in its mid-century heyday.

New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion Brooks knows she should be happy. Her high school sweetheart is about to propose and sweep her off to the life everyone has always expected they’d have together: a quiet house in the suburbs, Marion staying home to raise their future children. But instead, Marion finds herself feeling trapped. So when she comes across an opportunity to audition for the famous Radio City Rockettes—the glamorous precision-dancing troupe—she jumps at the chance to exchange her predictable future for the dazzling life of a performer. 

Meanwhile, the city is reeling from a string of bombings orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the “Big Apple Bomber,” who has been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a yearslong manhunt, the police turn in desperation to Peter Griggs, a young doctor at a local mental hospital who espouses a radical new technique: psychological profiling. 

As both Marion and Peter find themselves unexpectedly pulled in to the police search for the bomber, Marion realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. In doing so, she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.

Bookouture Blog Tour for THE HOTEL by Emily Shiner

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I’m happy today to be part of Bookouture’s tour for a new thriller by Emily Shiner: The Hotel. I found this story a little hard to get into at the start as the pacing seemed a tad slow. Then I felt that things sped up about a third of the way in. The last quarter of the book was filled with twists and turns and surprises! I thought at first I liked the characters, but by the end I disliked everyone but the toddler.

While I enjoyed the novel (I do love suspense!), I had to suspend disbelief a bit for the last part of the book. This story did keep me on the edge of my seat and I look forward to more from Ms. Shiner.

Thank you for my copy and for having me as part of the tour!

Book Description:

As we welcome the Rowe family to our beautiful clifftop hotel, a shadow passes over my husband’s face. In that moment I see it: my husband is hiding a terrible secret. Has he put us all in danger?

Mark and I pride ourselves on giving visitors to our hotel, high on the rugged Maine cliffs with views of the ocean, a vacation they won’t forget. But the Rowes arestrangely over-familiar when they arrive with their teenage daughter. The wife puts a hand on Mark’s forearm and her husband meets my eyes with a knowing look as I hold my little son tight. They gush that they loved their previous stay here… But I’m certain I’ve never seen them before.

Mark reassures me that the Rowes are just being friendly. We have so many visitors, maybe we forgot meeting them. When I am locked in the master bedroom for over an hour, he later soothes my panic and says it was just an accident. But I know one of the Rowes was out in the hallway listening to me cry for help. I hear one of them whispering a lullaby to my baby on his monitor. I cannot trust these people.

But as the relentless icy rain gives way to the biggest blizzard of the season and we become cut off, I realize my son and I are trapped. Mark knows more about the Rowes than he’s letting on. I’ll do anything to protect my gorgeous baby boy. But how far will I have to go, to keep him safe?

The Hotel is a totally twisty locked room thriller that you won’t be able to put down. Fans of Shalini Boland, Freida McFadden and Jeneva Rose will be glued to the pages!

Author Bio:

Emily Shiner always dreamed of becoming an author. After spending years devouring stacks of thrillers, she decided to try her hand at writing them herself. Now she gets to live out her dream of writing novels and sharing her stories with people around the world. She lives in the Appalachian Mountains and loves hiking with her husband, daughter, and their two dogs.

It’s nice to meet you!

https://www.facebook.com/authoremilyshiner/

https://www.instagram.com/authoremilyshiner/

Sign up to be the first to hear about new releases from Emily Shiner here: https://bookouture.com/subscribe/emily-shiner/

Buy Link: NOT affiliated with BBNB

Amazon: https://geni.us/B0C9JM4CBTsocial

Audio:

UK: zpr.io/3EXY2dAGiijD
US: zpr.io/Q7Np6PrNsgYA

Listen to a sample here: https://soundcloud.com/bookouture/the-hotel-by-emily-shiner-narrated-by-lauryn-allman-john-chancer

Harper-Collings Blog Tour for: Main Character Energy by Jamie Varon

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I’m starting off my fall blog tours participation with a feel-good story about a young woman whose life is pretty much going nowhere until she has the chance to find herself and create her future when her aunt leaves her a villa in southern France.

Here’s the scoop:

Main Character Energy 

Author: Jamie Varon

ISBN: 9780778334200

Park Row Books Paperback Original 

Publication Date: September 5, 2023

Buy Links: NOT affiliated with BBNB

HarperCollins.com: https://www.harpercollins.com/products/main-character-energy-jamie-varon?variant=40992983482402 

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/main-character-energy-original-jamie-varon/19278298?ean=9780778334200 

Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/main-character-energy-jamie-varon/1142651724? 

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0778334201  

Books-A-Million: https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9780778334200?AID=10747236&PID=7310909 

Social Links:

Author Website: https://www.jamievaron.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamievaron/ 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jamievaron 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/jamievaron 

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21746179.Jamie_Varon 

Author Bio: 

Jamie Varon is an author, branding expert, course creator, and graphic designer living in Calabasas, California. Her nonfiction book Radically Content was published in 2022 with Quarto and is currently being adapted into a feature film with Camilu Productions LTD. Main Character Energy is her debut novel.

Book Summary: 

“This book absolutely dazzled me from the opening scene until the very last page. Highly recommend!” 
—Jenn McKinlay, New York Times bestselling author of Summer Reading

“a sparkling debut” -PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

Poppy Banks would rather be writing mysteries than writing listicles for her dead-end job at Thought Buzz. But after a series of rejections, she’s ready to accept life on the sidelines as a plus-size woman. Her aunt Margot is the one person unwilling to give up on her niece’s dreams and tells her so at their secret yearly lunches.

But all of Poppy’s beliefs about herself are challenged when her beloved aunt dies and leaves her niece a grand surprise—a trip to her villa in the French Riviera. There, she learns her aunt intends to leave her stunning villa and secretive writer’s residency to Poppy—if she can finish her novel in six months.

When the writing countdown begins, Poppy realizes she has more to confront than her writer’s block. Family drama, complicated romances and self-doubt all threaten to throw her off course. In this fun and heartwarming debut, Poppy must decide if she can live up to her aunt’s—and her own—desire to be the main character in her own life.

I loved this story of Poppy, but I honestly did not like Poppy at the start of the book. She was so self-centered and throwing a big pity party for herself that it was a bit annoying; but she changes, and that was great to see. I liked the romance in the story and I particularly liked that Poppy was described as plus-size so she seems authentic and real, and her problems and self-doubt and self-pity seemed believable.

This is Varon’s debut novel, so I look forward to others in the future from her!

Thank you for my copy and for making me part of the tour!

California Golden by Melanie Benjamin

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If you know me, you know I really enjoy Melanie Benjamin’s novels. My very favorites of hers were The Aviator’s Wife (about one of my heroes, Anne Morrow Lindbergh) and The Swans of Fifth Avenue. This novel was slightly different for me as she was writing about people who didn’t really exist. The read felt like historical fiction, but there was no nonfiction for me to hang my hat on, if that makes sense. So this read more like a novel set in the past (1960/70s) in California. Once my mindset was in that space, I easily latched on to the characters and storyline. This was a moving story: at times I wanted to cry for how neglected these young girls were, and I found that storyline very engaging. I loved reading about California as I grew up there (though I’m a wine country girl, not a SoCal beach person).

Melanie Benjamin’s prose is always a treat. She writes artfully, placing the reader into the character’s head and helping us to understand their motivations and desires. I look forward to seeing what she brings to us next!

Thank you for my review copy via Net Galley!

Description

Two sisters navigate the thrilling, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and the tangled ties between mothers and daughters from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife.

“A shimmering rendering . . . pairs the surf culture of the Beach Boys with the sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll of Daisy Jones & The Six.”—Entertainment Weekly (“Best Books of the Summer”)

Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky a Go Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donnelly breaks the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport—and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of Carol’s unconventional lifestyle.

The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother’s absence—physically, when she’s at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she’s at home. To escape questions about Carol’s whereabouts—and to chase her elusive affection—they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy is a natural, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water.

As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger’s relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and a USO tour in Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger, desperate for a community of her own, is tugged into the dangerous counterculture of drugs and cults. But through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood.

A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves.

IMMORTALISED TO DEATH by Lyn Squire

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I received a copy of this novel from Lyn Squire’s publicist. What an intriguing and fun read! I love Dickens and this story builds on his death and its cause, as well as the unfinished story of The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

Here’s the scoop:

Death strikes England’s foremost novelist, his latest tale only half told. Was he murdered because someone feared a ruinous revelation? Or was it revenge for some past misdeed? Set in the Kent countryside and London slums of 1870, Immortalised to Death embeds an ingenious solution to Charles Dickens’s unfinished The Mystery of Edwin Drood within the evolving and ultimately tragic consequences of a broader mystery surrounding the author himself. Debut author Lyn Squire kicks off his fascinating Dunston Burnett Trilogy with legendary Victorian novelist Charles Dickens dead at his desk, pen still in hand. Convinced that the identity of Dickens’s murderer lies in the book’s missing denouement, Dickens’s nephew and unlikely detective, Dunston Burnett, sets out to complete his uncle’s half-finished novel. A stunning revelation crowns this tale about the mysterious death of England’s greatest novelist, and exposes the author’s long-held secret.

I really enjoyed reading this one and it kept me guessing and pondering and wondering how much could be true! I liked the character of Dunston Burnett and it looks like this is the first in a trilogy so we’ll be hearing more from him.

Thank you for my copy!

Here’s a bit about the author:

LYN SQUIRE was born in Cardiff, South Wales.  He earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Wales, his master’s at the London School of Economics and his doctorate at Cambridge University.  Lyn is now an American citizen living in Virginia. During a twenty-five year career at the World Bank, Lyn published over thirty articles and several books within his area of expertise. Lyn also served as editor of the Middle East Development Journal for over a decade, and was the founding president of the Global Development Network, an organization dedicated to supporting promising scholars from the developing world.

Lyn has always been an avid reader of whodunits and has reviewed scores of mysteries for the City Book Review (Sacramento, CA), but it was the thrill of solving Charles Dickens’s unfinished ‘Mystery of Edwin Drood’ that convinced him to put aside his development pen and turn to fiction. Finding a solution to the mystery has attracted massive interest since the author’s death in 1870.  A 1998 bibliography lists over 2,000 entries, with continuations ranging from the obvious (a Sherlock Holmes pastiche) to the absurd (The Mysterious Mystery of Rude Dedwin).  Lyn’s version of what happened to Edwin is revealed in his first novel, Immortalised to Death. The adventures of his protagonist, Dunston Burnett, a non-conventional amateur detective, continue in Fatally Inferior and The Séance of Murder, the second and third stories in The Dunston Burnett Trilogy. Find more about Lyn on his website. 

MAGDALENA by Candi Sary

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I received a PDF offer of this book to read and I’m so glad I said yes! Magdalena is a beautifully written story that felt like magical realism to me, reminding me a bit of the writing of Isabel Allende (especially her earlier works). I loved the character of Magdalena and I found Dottie so interesting and complex. I especially liked the ending.

This is a short read (about 200 pages) but it’s packed full of things to ponder and discuss.

Thank you for my copy!

Here’s the scoop:

MAGDALENA is a swirling and mystical debut that has been compared to the writings of Shirley Jackson, a perfect read for these stormy summer nights!

In a small secluded town that thrives on gossip and superstition, Dottie offers plenty of both when the scandal breaks about a missing girl, a ghost, and the affair that started it all. Having suffered a history of miscarriages, reclusive Dottie develops a strange motherly interest in her 15-year-old neighbor, Magdalena. Somewhere between fantasy and reality, Dottie finds new life in her relationship with the mysterious girl. But Dottie’s entanglements with Magdalena, a curious centenarian, a compelling stranger, an ex-mobster, and a murder of crows thrusts this once cloistered woman into a frenzy of public scrutiny. To quell the rumors, Dottie puts pen to paper and discovers something as frightening as it is liberating – her voice.


ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Candi Sary is an award-winning writer and graduate from the University of California, Irvine. Her writing has won Reader Views Literary Award, a Chanticleer International Book Award, and was First Runner-Up in the Eric Hoffer Book Award. A mother of two adult children, Sary lives in Southern California with her husband, a dog, a cat and several ducks. She can often be found surfing and paddling boarding in the waters of Newport Beach. She is a proud steward of a Little Free Library.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR MAGDALENA:

“I was transfixed by this novel set in a town suffused with ghosts figurative and literal, and moved deeply to witness an eccentric woman’s grief transmuted into a gripping testament to the power of the individual imagination.”-Antoine Wilson, author of Mouth to Mouth


“Beautifully written and satisfyingly creepy, this is one of the most poignant and original ghost stories I’ve ever read.” –Mark Haskell Smith, author of Blown

“Sary’s tale of love, loss and maternal devotion pulls hard at the heartstrings and is impossible to -put down.”  –Diane Haeger, best-selling author of Courtesan

“Candi Sary’s astonishing fable locates us inside Dottie’s mind as she traverses the ghostly underworld of Sam’s Town and discovers her own power to rescue herself, teenage Magdalena, and the entire town.”-Stephanie Golden, author of Slaying the Mermaid: Women and the Culture of Sacrifice

“Sary draws us into a paranormal tale that feels absolutely real, heavy and creepily familiar.”-Dominic Carrillo, author of Acts of Resistance

“Sary’s instinct for the miraculous is indeed strong in this tender novel that lovingly captures the yearning for human connection.”-Donia Bijan, author of The Last Days of Cafe Leila

“Is it possible to write a modern day ghost story that’s also a poignant tale about love, loss, and redemption? Candi Sary has done just that with her second novel, Magdalena. Shirley Jackson fans will be kicking up their heels.”-Barbara DeMarco-Barrett, author of Palm Springs Noir (Akashic) and host of Writers on Writing

“Ghostly and mysterious yet rooted in the claustrophobic reality of a small town, Magdalena investigates a woman’s search for connection to the idiosyncratic people who cross her path, and most of all, to herself. This dark and delicate novel is a mesmeric read.”-Siel Ju, author of Cake Time

“Candi Sary lured me into the heart of Dottie, her misfit narrator whose loyalty carries her up and out of loneliness and tragedy. Once you get started, you won’t put it down and you won’t want it to end.”-Mary Castillo, author of The Dori O. Paranormal Mystery Series

“Executed with enchanting prose, the story unfolds with such a captivating sequence of events that it is hard to put down and even harder to forget.”-Amy R. Biddle, author of The Atheist’s Prayer and co-founder of Underground Book Reviews

“Sary’s mesmerizing writing style envelopes the reader in the dreamlike reality of Dottie’s nontraditional ways of overcoming grief.”-Nancy Klann-Moren, Author of The Clock Of Life