lisibee815's reviews
800 reviews

Books like this make me glad I'm a reader because it was such fun to read! Creative and witty, with just the right amount of action and tension. Charlie is a fantastic protagonist, decent and outwardly semi-clueless but also surprisingly savvy. And I'll never look at the cat distribution system in the same way again! Not my usual read but highly recommend!

Claire is a schoolteacher and a contestant on the newest season of a famous British baking show. Jonathan is a viscount and the owner of the estate where the show is being filmed. He is very protective of the estate's image and history, but when events start happening that mirror a famous murder in his family's past, he and Claire must work together to stop a murderer before they strike again. There is a large cast of characters from which to choose a murderer, and thankfully the inciting incident happens fairly early on so it was easier to focus on guessing who the murderer was. (The flip side/downside to that is that character development wasn't extensive before jumping into the murder, so the characters didn't feel very complex and it was a little harder to invest in them.) Claire and Jonathan had instant attraction and bonded fast and early, which I found endearing but also a little anticlimactic in a romance. I enjoyed the context of the baking show and I loved the inclusion of recipes at the end. There was an abundance of likeable characters in this quick read, which seems like it's the start of a series. But both the murder plot and the romance were somewhat lacking in tension, and the motive and the resolution of the murder mystery seemed underdeveloped. I was interested enough to keep reading to the end, but ultimately I found the story to be fine but nothing extraordinary. Publishes February 4, 2025. Thank you to NetGalley and Shadow Mountain Publishing for providing an ARC of this book, this is my objective review.

Current-day Jenn is a best-selling author and mother to two distracted and bratty children. She's in the process of divorcing her entitled husband, and mired in a sea of transactional emotional relationships. Childhood Jenni grew up on Pearl Island, where her best friend Timmy mysteriously disappeared in the ocean 30 years ago. (For 10-year-old Jenni, it had been the best summer ever until suddenly it wasn't.) Returning to the island with her children after her mother's death, ostensibly to clear out her mother's  house, Jenn inexplicably encounters Timmy. Frozen in time at age 10, he claims he was sent back on a mission to save the world. But from what, exactly? What really happened to Timmy? And what, exactly, is that lurking out in the water?

Holy cow, what a ride. The book sometimes seemed like it didn't know what it wanted to be, it was a mash-up of sci-fi and mid-life existential crisis with a dash of romance. It also had more of a horror story element than I expected, especially as the book went on. There was a lot of underlying tension and a persistent feeling of foreboding, and I was unsure what or who to trust after awhile.  (Much like adulthood, I guess.) The wistfulness is strong in this story (especially in the first half), and there's a palpable mournfulness for all  things lost. Jenn seemed adrift, and also deeply unhappy. In fact, there's a distinct thread of unhappiness in all of the current-day characters. I'll be honest, I do think that the ennui and emotional listlessness of the first part of the book went on too long. It started to feel like a bit too much, because for a large part of the story there wasn't lot of hopefulness and the narrative and interpersonal detachment among the characters constantly kept me on edge to some degree. This definitely served as a distinct juxtaposition to the final chapters of the book, but I think the author took a risk that she'd lose readers to all of the free-floating emotional misery that hung over a large part of the book. Overall the writing was very well done and the mystery of Timmy's disappearance and return, as well as the looming danger that kept snowballing (and an endearing hope that everything would turn out okay), was enough to keep me reading.

I did not see this story coming and I don't think the book description really does it justice. I haven't read this author before and I am in awe of her imagination, that she created such an off-kilter and fantastical story that blended together such a punch of emotions by the end. I did struggle a bit with the layers of this complex story, which kept shifting my expectations of what it was, especially when things took a dark turn. Events didn't really pick up speed until after the halfway mark so I was glad I kept reading. I did eventually enjoy this book, even though I'm still not 100% sure what I read. My best advice to you is to stick with it and suspend disbelief, you'll be very glad you did. Thank you to NetGalley for providing an ARC of this story, this has been my objective review. Publishes January 28, 2025.

Being the villain of someone else's story isn't as straightforward as you'd think. Adult Natalie has had  dysfunctional family relationships, with her mother and siblings, and a 15-year estrangement from all of them. (Thank goodness the explanation for what happened 15 years ago was revealed early on, I'm not sure my anxiety could have taken any more ambiguity.) I have a hard time holding an 18-year-old responsible for having to make a hard, split-second decision that so negatively affected her siblings, who not only were older than her but were also not blameless for what happened. I'm mad at her emotionally unstable mother for holding her responsible and for the child neglect and dysfunction in the first place. But how do you heal when the person who initially inflicted the damage isn't there anymore? And can an olive branch extended after death be enough? I guess the answer is that you heal as best as you can with those who are left, and decide if forgiveness is one of the things that heals you. 

This book made me feel all sorts of ways. It was a thoughtful read focusing on family and forgiveness, and it's a nice mix of tension/conflict and hope. Pay attention to trigger warnings as there's a lot going on here. So many great, well-rounded supporting characters, right down to the cat. Natalie spoke to me, on the brink as she was between her current life and an enhanced return to her old one. I really enjoyed her journey, and the presence of a hot scientist absolutely didn't hurt. :) New-to-me author, I really like her voice and would definitely read more from her!

• Grumpy-sunshine 
 • Ex-beauty queen with something to prove
 • Identical but opposite twin brothers
 • Lots of chips on shoulders
 • A little white lie that snowballs 
 • Ethical conundrums
 • Chaotic potato dog 

Cute and quick read, with humor and likable main and supporting characters. Open-door but nothing over-the-top. An enjoyable story with a semi-predictable HEA.

 Joannie is a divorced single mother to Lucy. She's on a post-lockdown first date with Johnny when a hot air balloon crashes into Johnny's pool, immediately derailing their date in unexpected ways. The balloon is coincidentally (and inexplicably) carrying a childhood acquaintance from Joannie's past (John the philandering billionaire) and his wife Julia. But after that unusual inciting incident the story seemed to turn into a series of justifications for bad behavior and poor choices. This was a story about a group of unhappy people who didn't quite know what would make them happy, all of them seemed simultaneously stuck but also in flux. There was tension surrounding everyone's behavior, which helped a bit to keep the reader's attention. 

That said, ultimately I wasn't the right audience for this book. I had to DNF at 30% because everyone was increasingly unlikable (minus the children) and I couldn't fully engage with the story. The book was described as satire and "blisteringly funny" but I think I missed a lot of the nuances that made it funny. The satire I could see, though, and there was a clear class divide between Joannie and the others. The writing was simplistic and straightforward, and clearly expressed each character's thoughts and motives. The story was pretty easy to follow even with multiple POVs. If you enjoy reading books in which unhappy people try to ease their ennui by making impulsive and self-serving decisions then this is the book for you. It's possible that the book improved further in, and because it's an ARC it also may be different from the published book. Publishes March 18, 2025. I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary ARC of this book, this was my honest and objective opinion.