This book is a true story of a young girl who disappeared after a night of drinking and partying with her friends. She is presumed dead & her body has never been found. No one has ever come forward with information about her disappearance but there were 3 young men who were with her that night who are featured in the book. It has to be very sad for her parents to still never know what happened to their daughter on that fateful night.

I am a fan of Viola Shipman books but I have to say this book did not pull me in at the beginning. However since I am a fan I kept reading and really came to like the story. A young woman is trying to find herself and through a special recipe box that has been passed down through the generations she not only finds her place in the world but also comes to a better understanding of her place in her family history.

This is my book club book for this month. I enjoyed reading it but here‘s the weird part. The book ended in the middle of the chapter that was the turning point of the story. There was about 25 pages & 3 chapters that were completely left out. There was no indication that the pages had been torn out. I had to borrow the book from a friend to finish it. I also ended up taking it back to the store & they did tell me that this does sometimes happen.

I am a big fan of Elin Hilderbrand books and this one did not disappoint. I thought the premise of the story was good. A widow decides to invite 4 other friends from different times of her life to enjoy a weekend at her home in Nantucket. The story takes off with all the joy and problems each of her friends bring with them. It was a really fun and enjoyable book and perfect for the summer.

This was my 2nd book by this author. I really liked it. I thought the ending might be a little far fetched but overall it was a good story. I like all the Jewish references. Also I know the author lives with a chronic illness & she writes her main character with one as well.

This book is a collection of essays written by Jewish authors & advocates on what it means and how it feels to be Jewish since the Hamas attack on Israel October 7, 2023. It is some wonderful and very thought provoking reading.

Overall I liked this book. It held my interest. The main character‘s life is in ruins when she is offered a job as a housekeeper/caretaker at a private estate. She slowly sees that all is not right with the situation. The deeper she gets the more unbelievable it becomes. There are hints along the way and you can see how it is going to end. It would be a good book to take on vacation.

I‘ve had this book in my tbr for a long time & I finally read it & I‘m so glad I did. It held my interest to the point that I couldn‘t wait to get back to reading it. Four good friends take a vacation in France to celebrate their 40th birthdays. They bring their husbands & children along with them. As the week goes on lies & secrets are exposed and there is even a death. There were several twists & turns along the way. I really like this book.

This is the 3rd book in the housemaid series. I have enjoyed them all. This story takes place about 10 years after the previous book. Millie is now married to Enzo & they have 2 children. They move out to Long Island into a house where the neighbors have many secrets. The book was an easy read that kept me interested & had a twist at the end that I really didn‘t see coming.

I have read all of Lynda Cohen Loigman‘s books and have loved every single one of them. This story is told in 2 time frames. It‘s about a young woman who learns that her great aunt makes elixirs that help people get the help they may need whether it is physical or emotional. Then we see her as an older woman who meets her long ago love at her retirement home. The story tells how her life led to this moment & how he left her all those years ago.

It‘s been a long time since I have read a John Grisham book and this one did not disappoint. It was about a lawyer who works to get innocent people out of prison. This was a good story and held my attention. I really liked the main character.

This wad my second book by Freida McFadden and the second in the series. I really like this one. It is an easy quick read with a twist you never see coming. I will continue to read her books and I highly recommend this one.

I have to say this book didn‘t pull me in. It was a decent story about a woman who wanted to be a scientist at a time when women were mostly seen as housewives with no career aspirations. I will say I liked how the story ended but overall I would only give it a 3 out of 5.

This was a cute rom-com story. It was told from each of the 2 main character‘s points of view. They meet on a dating website and have never had much luck beyond the first date. This time they have an encounter with a psychic and they set out to prove that their first date will turn into a love story.

This is a relatively short book but it told such a brave story. It is basically an autobiography by Sophie Kinsella who is currently fighting the same cancer that the main character is fighting. She writes of her experience with diagnosis, acceptance, telling her children, and undergoing treatment. I can‘t imagine going through this and then writing a novel about it. It is definitely a book worth reading and I would highly recommend it.

I was pleasantly surprised by this book. A widow who lost her son 30 years before works nights cleaning at the aquarium. She connects with an octopus who lives there. The octopus takes it upon himself to help the woman figure out what happened the night her son disappeared. I personally had no idea about octopuses and based on my reading they really are remarkably bright creatures. It really was a beautiful story.

Elin Hilderbrand is one of my favorite authors. This is a short story which is written as a backstory to her novel A Beautiful Day. It was good but her full novels are so much better.

I‘ve always meant to read this book but never got around to it until now. It really was worth reading. It is truly a story that tells how a decision made in a single moment has consequences that last a lifetime. It is also about how that decision affects all those around you. It‘s very thought provoking. It takes place in the 1960‘s through the 1980‘s. I think it is a story for that time period. Overall I think it was a very good book.

I really liked this book. Evelyn chooses Monique to write her story as she dictates it to her. Evelyn has truly lived a remarkable life as a movie star. She tells Monique about her 7 husbands and how she came to marry each of them. Underlying this is a forbidden love that Evelyn carries throughout her life. As the story is winding down we find out that there is a huge connection between Evelyn and Monique‘s story.

Elin Hilderbrand wrote this short story. It was good but her novels are so much more enjoyable to read.

I am late to the party but I‘m really glad I finally read it. It was very good & kept me interested to see how it would all play out. There were some twists & turns and I think a predictable ending but it was a very good story. I liked it & now I want to watch the show.

Maybe because I grew up in Ohio I thought I would like this book & maybe relate to it. It was hard for me to get into. The writing was very descriptive and somewhat confusing to me. I have to say that the climax was very disturbing. I hate to give it a thumbs down but I really wouldn‘t recommend it.

This was such a good book. It told the story of a grandmother who was a matchmaker in the early 1900‘s til her death. With a dual storyline it told about her granddaughter who was a divorce attorney but who may have also had the matchmaking gift. It was a fast easy read and a great story from start to finish. Also the cover of this book was one of the most beautiful I‘ve seen.

I am a big Elin Hilderbrand fan but I am very behind in reading her books. This one was different from her others in that the main character died at the start of the book and she was able to watch her family and friends from above to see how they handled their loss. She was allowed 3 “nudges” to help them along through their grief.

I enjoyed the story and got connected to the main character. She wanted so much to be somebody that she got mixed up with the wrong man. She gave up her job, apartment, and friends to be with this man. She accepted his marriage proposal. But as time went on there were too many questionable things that she learned about him. She eventually broke free of him. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This was such a sweet book. Lillian Boxfish is 85 years old and takes a walk through New York City on New Year‘s Eve 1984. The story is about the people she meets on her walk but also includes stories about her life as she remembers them.

This book was ok. My book club chose to read it but it had been on my tbr list for a while. It was a good story but it just didn‘t pull me in like I want a book to do. It was pretty much the consensus of my book club. We really didn‘t seem to have much to discuss about it.

I liked this book. It was a twisty psychological thriller. Many of my friends have talked about it so I jumped on the bandwagon. Frieda McFadden is a new author to me but I plan to read more of her books.

I received an ARC of this book and I loved it. Keaton never knew her grandparents but she goes to Beaufort to get their house ready to put on the market. She learns about their beautiful relationship and along the way about herself and what she wants in her life.

I have always enjoyed Danielle Steele books but I do find them very predictable. They are usually a fast read and sometimes that is good. I did really like this book. It centered on Faith and 3 of the weddings that she planned. She grew attached to those couples and became involved in their lives in some way. It also included her twin sister and mother as characters. Overall this was a good story and I would recommend it.

I really liked this book. It had so many topics to think about. I was really absorbed by the characters and how it would all end. I think it was very well done. I read it for my next book club meeting and I certainly look forward to our discussion.

This book is one of the best that I have read recently. It was written so beautifully. It was a story involving gay men in 1980‘s Chicago in the midst of the AIDS crisis and alternated with the art world in Paris in 2015. It was so touching about a very scary time when nobody really knew what AIDS was about. Then it brought the reader full circle to show how it affected those involved with it. I highly recommend reading it.

Years ago I saw the author of this book on a tv show with his daughter talking about how this idea came to be. I was impressed & wanted to read more about it. They believe that if you give away half of what you have those who have little can have more. It is a good & thought provoking story but the book itself didn‘t impress me as much as the family did when I saw them on tv.

I read this book for my Book Club. It was a mystery within a historical fiction story. It was about a Japanese family that had lived in an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. When they were released they were sent to Chicago to start their new life. The older daughter went first to get everything ready. When the others arrived they found out she had died. The younger daughter went on a mission to find out what happened to her.

I really liked this book. It had a good premise: a plane going to Seattle crashed and Will was supposedly on it. However, he had told his wife that he was flying to Orlando to speak at a conference. So now Iris is not only mourning him but on a quest to find out why he lied to her about where he was going. At every turn Iris finds out there were more lies Will told her. There are many twists and a predictable ending but it was still a good book.

I thought this book would be better than it was. The story never really pulled me in. I found the writing to be confusing because it was hard to tell whose point of view I was reading. I give it a 3 out of 5.

Interesting story about an American woman who moves to Mumbai with her Indian-born husband. It is culture shock to her, as she knew it would be. It gets worse when her mother-in-law who she barely knows moves in with them after she leaves her husband. Both women have to get to know each other as well as learn to live with each other. As they do they also learn about themselves, with very surprising results.

I have read many of Kristin Harmel‘s books and have loved them all. Her books feature a perspective of World War II that many of her readers know little if anything about. In this book two young mothers become friends during the start of the war. As conditions worsen one mother realizes that she must leave and asks her friend to take her daughter to live with her family so that she‘ll be safe. The rest of the book describes what happened.

I thought this was a good book. If you like to read family drama this book definitely had it. Two cops live next door to each other with their families. Their son and daughter are very close. A tragedy occurs between the two families that changes all of their lives. The son and daughter eventually marry and what happened many years earlier continues to affect them.

This was a really good book. A young woman becomes the personal librarian for J. P. Morgan and his Pierpont Morgan Library. She becomes a fixture in New York society. The only problem is that this young woman is a light skinned black woman passing as a white woman. This is her story of how she became so successful at what she did while at the same time going to great lengths to protect her secret.

I have watched Good Morning America for years and I like to read memoirs. Ginger Zee writes a story about how she became interested in meteorology and her climb to ABC news. I enjoyed reading it and I think it would be especially good for a young girl who may be interested in science but isn‘t sure if she could succeed in it as a career.

One day the author took a DNA test and found out that her father was not her biological father. Her parents never told her and now they were no longer living. She set out to find her biological father and understand her history better. This was her story about that journey. I can‘t imagine what that must have been like for her.

I liked this book. It was fun to read. I had read another book by this author and enjoyed it too. I like her style and the humor that she puts into the stories.

Another book written by one of the stars of the show. I loved watching The Waltons when I was younger. It was fun to read this behind the scenes story of growing up on the show. She had some challenges as an adult but she seemed to overcome them and be stronger for it.

I used to watch All My Children when it was on. When I came across this book I thought it would be fun to read. It was interesting but not great. I did enjoy all the little stories she told about behind the scenes of the show.

This book was good. I liked the connection to the Biltmore which I visited a few years ago. The author mostly writes women‘s fiction and I have liked the ones that I have read. In this book she writes in 2 timelines about an heirloom wedding veil that has been passed down to family members through the years. The story wraps up at the end bringing both both timelines and families together.

I liked this book. A younger woman was engaged to an older man. The problem was that he was still married to his wife who was in a nursing home due to her dementia. His daughters thought that she was moving in on him for his money. As the story progressed he was found to be a spouse abuser. He was able to hide it very well and no one could believe he would do such a thing. The woman and his daughters tried to get to the bottom of the mystery.

I really liked this book. It was a thriller about a woman whose 1st husband left her and their 2 children and was presumed dead. Two years later she was in a relationship with a new man. As the story developed so did the reasons for the woman to question who this man really was. As I got further along in the story it was hard to put down. I needed to see what happened next. The story came to a fairly predictable ending but it was a good book.

I read this book with my book club. I liked it but it was not a favorite. The basic premise is that if you knew the date of your death, how would you live your life. There were four siblings who each went to a fortune teller who predicted their date of death. Each section was about one of them and how they led their life until their eventual death. There didn‘t seem to be any real connection between each section.

I wanted to read this book because I wondered how someone could live life in an iron lung. Martha Mason was 10 tears old when she contracted polio. Her doctor believed that she wouldn‘t live for longer than a year. Not only did she live, but with the devoted care of her mother, she was able to graduate from high school and college. She lived for over sixty years in that iron lung.