Review: Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews

I’ve made it my mission this year to read more beach reads…..though not necessarily by choice.

In the past, I didn’t read a ton of beach reads, mostly because I didn’t really understand the appeal. If I am going to read, I want to read something with some depth. But then I had a kid and sometimes I just need easy, relaxing plots with a laid back vibe.

Plus after a read one of two beach reads, I discovered that they weren’t all full of  ‘flimsy’ plots that were predictable. In fact many were downright interesting!

When this book came up for review I saw that Mary Kay Andrews is kind of the unofficial beach read queen and I was interested to try out one of her books as I haven’t had the pleasure of reading anything by her before! Continue reading “Review: Sunset Beach by Mary Kay Andrews”

Review: The Silent Woman (Cat Carlisle #1) by Terry Lynn Thomas

Long before this book tour came about, I downloaded this book. I thought the cover was eye catching and I am a sucker for historical mysteries, so I downloaded it on my Kindle…….

And promptly forgot about it. Like everything else in my electronic life, things get buried before I even know they are there! My Kindle is full of great books that I have ordered and forgotten about.

So when this book came up for review as part of the HFVBT tour group, I was eager to join up. I didn’t even realize that I already owned the book until I went to download it again and found that I already had it!

Now I had a reason to actually read it and I was happy that I could unearth it from my Kindle and check out a new to me heroine! Continue reading “Review: The Silent Woman (Cat Carlisle #1) by Terry Lynn Thomas”

Review: The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms

While the title didn’t resonate with me for this one—the second I saw the cover I was interested in reading it.

I’m not sure why, but the title just didn’t stand out to me , I mean it totally should have because it was a fun little library play on words, but for some reason it just didn’t.

Thank god for interesting cover art! This cover totally caught my eye and made me excited about reading it even if the title didn’t. I picked this book up on a random sunny day and instantly fell in love with Amy Byler. Continue reading “Review: The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms”

Review: Naughty in Nice (Royal Spyness #5) by Rhys Bowen

Slowly I am binging this entire series and I hope you have been following along with my reviews on each book. I have no stranger to Rhys Bowen’s books, but this series was one that just kept flying under my radar.

My mom gifted me the first book in this series at least 4 times and I did give in and read the last book in the series—-first, like an idiot. But I decided to finally remedy the situation and started this series from the beginning.

As I said, I am slowly binging the series so that I can be nice and caught up for the new book being released later this summer.

The books are super quick reads and I can usually hammer out one a week in between my other reading commitments, so here we are with number 5! Continue reading “Review: Naughty in Nice (Royal Spyness #5) by Rhys Bowen”

Review: The Great Pretenders by Laura Kalpakian

I decided to review this one because I have zero impulse control when it comes to pretty historical fiction book covers.

I love the eye catching teal and yellow color pallet in this cover and it so clearly screams 1950s Hollywood glamour and as soon as I saw it, I knew I wanted to read it. I didn’t even really read the pitch all the way through, I just eagerly agreed!

This author has written a number of other books but none that I have read or really heard of but she has won a number o literally awards. This book seems to be kind of her ‘break out’ novel in my opinion. Kind of more mainstream and widely appealing.

I also see she lives in the Pac NW (though I don’t know where, does anyone else know?) and one of her son’s, Bear McCreary, is responsible for the outstanding Outlander sound track so I was immediately interested in reading this book for the cover but ultimately my curiosity about the author and her exceptionally talented family drew me in and made me all the more excited to read this book! Continue reading “Review: The Great Pretenders by Laura Kalpakian”