Donna's Reading Chair

Book Review: Into The Water @PaulaHWrites #IntoTheWater #Thriller #PsychologicalThriller #PaulaHawkins #Mystery #4stars @PenguinBooks @PenguinUKBooks @riverheadbooks

Thank you to my work colleague for lending me this book! I hate saying this now as I don’t want you all to be jealous of the great reads I get passed through the work place! I just want to highlight my FAVORITE part of this book as I referred back to it A LOT. I wish many books had this and I do know that not every edition of this book has this page…

There were a lot of people to remember in this book. Each chapter was from a different viewpoint of a character. Each chapter I flipped back to that page above so I kept everything straight. Game. Changer.

The reader’s digest summary is that Nel Abbott is discovered dead in the drowning pool. It is believed she killed herself, but the family is not quite buying it. She has been writing all about the drowning pool and the women that have died in those waters. The locals do NOT want her writing anything. They kept warning her to stop. Nel’s daughter’s best friend happens to be one of the victims, but Nel just can’t keep her nose out of what is going on.

This story was suspenseful and had me thinking something different each chapter. I thought there was some crazy secret love affair going on with how 2 sets of characters were acting and turns out…nope…but there were multiple love affairs in the book. I just completely made one up in my head, haha. People do crazy things when they’re in love. People do crazy things to protect their family. What happens in this book is a wild, fun ride. Again, it was super easy to follow thanks to the cheat sheet in the beginning. This would be a difficult story to follow without it!

This is my first book by Hawkins and I am excited to read more from her! The characters were unique and I disliked quite a few, but that the book that much more interesting!

This is a solid 4 star read. It is a suspenseful, mind racing thriller that will have you wanting more and more until all your questions are answered. And yes, all your questions will be answered!! The ending was unexpected yet great! Have you read Hawkins work before? Am I crazy for being so late onto her fan train???

Title: Into The Water

Author: Paula Hawkins

Publisher: Riverhead Books

Release Date: May 2, 2017

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

Book Review: Mine @Court_Writes @Netgalley @GalleryBooks #Revenge #Infidelity #Unfaithful

Thank you to Netgalley and Gallery Books for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!

The author penned a letter to readers on Goodreads and I would like to copy that and put right here for you to read….

Dear Reader,

Before you begin reading this story, I should tell you… this is about every wife’s worst nightmare.
You think it can never happen to you.
It can.
You think you’re impervious to it because you do your best to keep your husband happy.
You’re not.
Trust me, I know.
The title of this story, MINE, has a double-meaning.
Ethan is Tessa’s, so from her point of view, MINE is self-explanatory.
But also… this story… is mine.
At least, parts of it.
My husband was unfaithful. It was a crazy circumstance, a perfect storm of irony and tragedy. It gutted me and brought my world down around me in bits and pieces.
When something like this happens to you, your mind plays tricks on you and turns you into someone you aren’t. I can’t tell you how often I fantasized about terrible things after I found out about the affair— things I would never truly act upon.
Then, one day, I decided to write this story. To unleash the darkness that dwelled in my heart, the things I would never actually do, in a cathartic way to channel my anger.
I’ll let you wonder and decide where reality ends and my dark fantasies begin in this story.

After reading Mine let me tell you what I will never do…and that is to cross Courtney Cole *insert wow face here*. I hope writing this novel was therapeutic for her!

The story is about Tessa, who discovers her husband of 20 years has been having an affair with a young bombshell. She takes the opportunity when her husband is out of town to trap the mistress at her house. How? She sends her a text from her husband’s iPad he left open at home (where she discovered nude pictures and messages). The mistress comes in, finds notes “he” left her, and ends up handcuffing herself to his bed, just waiting for “him…”

The book is told through the perspective of Tessa, the wife, and Lindsey, the mistress. I loved how the story was told in present time with Tessa and Lindsey in the same room with going back to the recent past to tie in to what Lindsey was telling Tessa. At first I felt bad for Tessa, then bad for Lindsey, then really bad for Tessa, and nothing for Lindsey.

I spent most of this book thinking that Tessa is going to end up in jail, if not prison. She goes a little off the wall. Tessa is very intense. Then, the book takes an odd turn. Suddenly Lindsey is free from being handcuffed to the bed and when you think bloodshed would occur, it doesn’t. It almost becomes too surreal and it loses the oomph it had in the beginning. We went from crazy intense to all of a sudden we’ve worked through being the wife and the other woman in a matter of mere hours?? It just seemed unrealistic for what was happening at the beginning.

This was an OK read, very fast paced. I read this book rather quickly and it’s very easy to follow. I think any woman faced with finding her husband in an affair would want to do what Tessa did. I just don’t think I would ever be as gracious as Tessa is in the end. You’ll have to read this one and be the judge for yourself.

Title: Mine

Author: Courtney Cole

Publisher: Gallery Books

Release Date: May 28, 2019

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

Book Review: The First Mistake @realsandiejones #TheFirstMistake #ARC #BookReview #4.5stars #BookBlog @panmacmillan @StMartinsPress @MinotaurBooks

I love getting book mail. As you may have seen awhile ago I received an advance copy of this book, The First Mistake, in the mail. Thank you St. Martin’s Press and Minotaur Books for the opportunity to read this before it hits the shelves tomorrow.

This took me a few chapters to get into. Once I got into it, there was no putting this book down! It reminded me of the country song that goes like this…”Still you wonder who’s cheatin’ who and who’s bein’ true and who don’t even care anymore. Makes you wonder who’s doin’ right to someone tonight and who’s car is parked next door…” or something close to that.

The premise is Alice is (re)married to Nathan. Her first husband tragically died in a skiing accident. She has her best friend Beth by her side…although, they have an odd relationship and not one I would say meets the criteria of “best” friends…but, to each their own! Alice owns her own design company and they are getting ready to take on a HUGE new project. Alice starts to suspect that Nathan may be cheating on her and starts to vent to Beth…the irony is Beth always makes sure that when she comes around, Nathan isn’t there…hmmmmmmm. Let me tell you now, this story is NOTHING what you think it will be! You go on a wild ride.

The story is told in 3 parts; present day Alice, past day Beth, and then back to present day with Alice & Beth. How Sandie Jones ties this one all together was brilliant. I never saw it coming. I just held my breath the entire time while reading the book when one revelation was revealed after the other. I must have gasped out loud at least 5 times!

Personally, Sandie Jones outdid herself in her second novel. There. I said it. I would like to kind of go off track and leave you with one of my favorite quotes from the book (my other favorite is within the featured image)…

“These people’s lives are fake,” says Alice, picking up the offending item. Sophia looks at it as if it’s a baby that her mother is about to throw into a road. “They’re not lives you can aspire to because they’re not real, and I think it’s putting you kids under an awful lot of pressure to be a certain way and look a certain way.”

#TRUTH PREACH ON SANDIE!!

This is a 4.5 star read. It grips you and won’t let go until you reach the end. The only reason I did not give it a 5 star read was BECAUSE of the end. I love my endings tied up nicely and this one…well…it ties it up and I can ASSUME what happens because of the careful word choice in the epilogue; however, we are not 100% certain and for that, it’s a 4.5 star read. Let me tell you if I ever meet Sandie the first question I’m asking is…well, I can’t tell you, it will give the book away. Shoo! Go get this book STAT and then come back and LET’S CHAT ABOUT THAT ENDING!!!!!!!!!

Title: The First Mistake

Author: Sandie Jones

Publisher: Minotaur Books

Release Date: June 11, 2019

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

Sunday Funday: Barnes & Noble Summer Reading For Kids @BNBuzz #Summer #KidsReading #FreeBook

If you have a child that is in grades 1-6 this post is for you! Share this with anyone who my have a child in these grades, it’s a fun summer activity for the kids to do! It’s simple…here is what to do straight from the Barnes & Noble website (and YES, the links WORK)!

1. Read any eight books this summer and record them in your Summer Reading Journal (download here in either English or Español). Tell us which part of the book is your favorite, and why.

2. Bring your completed journal to a Barnes & Noble store between August 1st and August 31st, 2019. Click here to find a Store.

3. Choose your FREE reading adventure from the book list featured in the journal.

That’s it! Just follow the directions above (originally found here). I have 2 little ones so I will be printing out the journal for them and going on some library runs this summer! Will you be partaking in this activity with your kids??

Book Review: The Perfect Girlfriend @Netgalley @Goodreads @KJHAuthor @HarlequinBooks #ThePerfectGirlfriend #4stars

I have a few people to thank for my copies of The Perfect Girlfriend…Netgally, Goodreads, and Harlequin Books! I didn’t realize I had this on Netgalley so I tried to win it on Goodreads…and won. Whoops! However, it did provide for a fun buddy read with my co-worker! I shared the love! Here’s my honest review in exchange for the free copies!

If you were to look up the definition of a crazy psycho ex-girlfriend a picture of Juliette would be what you would find! WOAH. Just when you think she couldn’t be more of a stalker, there she goes, doing something else batshat crazy!

She adores her ex-boyfriend. She will do ANYTHING to make him hers again. The ironic thing is that Juliette thinks she is completely normal and is doing nothing wrong. Put it this way…Nate, the ex-boyfriend, is a pilot so when they break up she decides to become a flight attendant for the same company he flies for.

She keeps track of him through his work schedule. She somehow has an extra key to his house and freely roams about when he’s flying. She also manages to get a spying app on his phone so she can see what he is always doing!!!

I won’t say too much more about the book because I don’t want to give anything away, but I think I read this book with my jaw open the entire time. It was absolutely crazy! Since I was doing this as a buddy read every day the two of us would be, “CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?!?!”

I have to give a lot of credit to Karen Hamilton for what her imagination conjured up…although I have to wonder if she was once a crazy ex-girlfriend herself, haha, just kidding!! I would like to note she is happily married with children (yes, I looked it up) so we can all rest easy!

Juliette is everything a devastated ex-girlfriend is; jealous, envious, and revengeful. The things she does will leave you speechless.

Here’s where it gets tricky…rating. I love a solid ending. The Perfect Girlfriend doesn’t have it. I was left a little miffed with how it ended. On the other side, I know people (one of my good friends included) who would LOVE how it ends. I don’t want to say how it ends, but just know if you read it you’ll understand. Would I say not to read it because of the ending? No, what Juliette does is well worth a read because it’s unimaginable. I think I’m just miffed because what I think should have happened to Juliette didn’t. Looking at it from my friend’s perspective, I get it. It was still a very well written suspenseful, thrilling novel. Well, I guess that settles it then. 4 stars. You will just have to read this one and then come back so we can discuss that ending!

Title: The Perfect Girlfriend

Author: Karen Hamilton

Publisher: Harlequin Books

Release Date: March 26, 2019

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

First Line Fridays: June 7th

As always First Line Friday comes courtesy of Hoarding Books Blog. I discovered this magic thanks to Crystal at Must Love Reviews. This week I have been reading an advance reader copy of the new Sandie Jones book, The First Mistake. I’m pulling this quote from the prologue…

She looked at me with real warmth in her eyes, as if she trusted me with her life, and for a moment I thought I couldn’t go through with it.

Yeah, it has my attention!! What book are you reading this week? Drop me a link to your First Reads Friday blog post and I’ll swing by! Happy Friday!

Thursday Quotables: June 6th #bookquotes

Welcome to Thursday Quotables. Books Kat Likes has joined in on the weekly fun and came up with this great description of what this is…

This feature is the place to highlight a great quote, line, or passage discovered during your reading each week. Whether it’s something funny, startling, gut-wrenching, or just really beautifully written, Thursday Quotables is where my favorite lines will be, and you’re invited to join in! Created by Lisa, over at Bookshelf Fantasies.

You should join in too! Leave the link to your Thursday Quotable post below and I will make sure to check it out!!

I actually put a sticky note in this book while I was reading because this quote hit me like a shark attack…

It’s funny how people have a distinct smell that can immediately transport you back in time. It’s not unlike hearing a favorite song. As a matter of fact, there are times I hear a song on the radio, and not only does it remind me of a specific time, place, and girl, but I swear, I can also smell those memories. I know that sounds completely whacked, but it’s true.

How TRUE is that quote?!?!? Here’s where I snagged it from…

I am so SAD that this trilogy is over now…I fell in love with the characters and just want more of them! These books did leave an amazing imprint on my life so at least I am left with that! What quotes have stuck out at you lately??

Book Review: Between Hello & Goodbye #JodyClark #Vacationland #Maine

*sigh* I have no idea how to begin this. Have you ever read a book that just touched you and has stayed with you? I have. Welcome to my review of Between Hello & Goodbye. The book that has opened my eyes, had me laughing, ugly crying like a baby in public on an airplane, and comforted me all between 312 pages.

Let’s look at a few pictures from places that are mentioned in this book. Get a feel for the setting. All these pictures were taken by me on my latest trip to Maine.

PanoCliffWalk — View from The Cliff Walk

Now I have to talk about the book…ugh…this book hit me in the feels. Just when you think you’re sitting down to read more about Josh and his summer shenanigans the book takes a serious turn and turns into something I needed at that point in time. This is a book we ALL can relate to.

Yes, this book still has the strong language as the first, but don’t let that deter you from this heartfelt novel. Truly this book can be read as a standalone. Don’t ask to read my copy of it because I’m not letting this book leave my side.

We are at a crossroads in Josh’s life. He is turning 30 and is becoming jaded to everything in life. He has come to partner with Doug at his bar, but he still feels empty inside. A summer fling unexpectedly comes along and changes his summer. Will he find the one? You’ll have to read this one to find out…

I want to leave a small passage from this book that slapped me in the face when I read it.

‘Hellos always come so easy…and goodbyes too f***ing fast.’ Scott got up and walked over to the fridge. He grabbed a couple bottles of water and tossed me one. ‘Maybe we should just be happy that hellos come at all.’

Deep. From this point on in the book it takes a serious turn and really drives home to live your life. You have dreams and aspirations, go after them. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow or even today; go out and do what you want to do. Make your life the one you want to live.

I moved from New England to the West Coast and it’s still hard for me even though I’ve been out West 17 years now. I love the life I have and the family that surrounds me here, but I miss the family I feel I left behind. Some things are going on and I had a semi-small break down when I was there and then this book happened. Perfect timing. The inner dialogue I had with myself after I finished this book was therapeutic and well needed. This book gave me that clarity.

Understand that Josh, our main man, went through life always wanting to write a screenplay and thanks to some inspiration, decided to take the horrid screenplays he wrote as a teen and turn them into books. He did it. I would like to note that I absolutely could see Between Hello & Goodbye as one of the ultimate summer/fun comedy/chick flick movie. Truly. If you have any Hollywood connections please get them a copy of this book. Seriously.

This is a 5 star read. Once you dive in to this book there is no turning back. It is very rare to find books like Between Hello & Goodbye, but here it is right in front of you. Do yourself a favor and order this one. If you regret reading it and think it’s the biggest piece of crap you’ve ever read, 1) you’re lying and 2) I’ll pay you back the $15. Because as this book tells us…”Sometimes, it’s not until you realize that nothing ever lasts for long, that you truly appreciate the fact that it ever existed at all.”

Title: Between Hello and Goodbye

Author: Jody Clark

Publisher: Vacationland Books (self-published, buy it here for a signed copy)

Release Date: May 3, 2018

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

Book Review: The Guest Book @flatironbooks #ReadTheGuestBook #TheGuestBook #SarahBlake

Thank you to Flat Iron Books for the advance copy of The Guest Book by Sarah Blake. I know guys, this was released on May 7, 2019 and here we are in June…I promise you I read it myself before the release date…my little fingers just could not connect to the keyboard fast enough!

This is a work of historical fiction. Not my usual genre; however, I happen to occasionally enjoy mixing things up. This books takes us between the 1930s-1950s and present day. This novel tackles racism and the power that families have held in the US for generations.

The family owns an island. The money has run out. The granddaughter does not want to give the island up because of the family history it has to offer. She sets off on a journey to uncover what exactly her family stood for and how they really made their money.

I found myself speed reading this gem. The book is long and a LOT is said throughout the book. The irony is that the book deals with things that are unsaid. I guess we the reader just need a lot to understand everything going on.

I will say, without giving too much away, I really enjoyed the end and how it was all brought together. Sometimes family secrets are best kept a secret and I enjoyed how the author chose to leave the book. I did not enjoy the amount of time it took me to get to that point however.

The story is one that is multi-generational (and told through multi-generational perspectives) and bits and pieces are put together from past to present. It was lovely having the different viewpoints and how we as a society have changed (and haven’t) since the World War II era.

I am going to give this book 3.5 stars (rounding up to 4 on rating sites). It was a long read that felt like a chore at some points for me. I did enjoy how everything came together, but it was just so long. I felt like a huge part of the beginning of the book was only focused on the past and the present day was only there to uncover “secrets” which aren’t really that amazing of a secret. The one secret that would be scandalous isn’t ever outright said, we the reader just need to interpret what the characters are saying. Overall, just an OK read. Have you read this one?

Title: The Guest Book

Author: Sarah Blake

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Release Date: May 7, 2019

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon

Book Review: The Empty Beach #JodyClark #VacationlandBooks #TheEmptyBeach #IndieAuthor

Let me start this post out on a different note. There are places in all of our lives that hold a special meaning…York, Maine is one of those places to me. This little yellow house used to be in my family and we would spend family vacations here each summer. The Empty Beach takes place in this lovely beach community.

When I read this, floods of memories came back of the York I would visit every summer (not so much now, living on the West Coast and all). The descriptions of these locations were spot on so even if you have never visited York, you could still image it!

This story is about Josh and his summer in his beach town. Warning: this book does hold a lot of strong language, however, this book is also absolutely hysterical. Josh ends up managing a local restaurant and falls for one of the wait staff, Elise, but to be fair, he met her BEFORE she started working there.

Josh is a character all in himself. If he likes a girl, he goes on the overkill…flowers, mixtapes, and overly babbles. His friends try to give him guidance, but when one is hooking up with someone new every night and the others in relationships, it leaves little room for trusting romantic advice. The silver lining is that his friends are ridiculously hysterical. It made me wish I grew up in York and spent entire summers here.

We go through this whole book wondering if Josh and Elise will ever be a real thing…the suspense there will kill you. He walks her to her car every night and they even go out on a few wewon’tcallthemdates dates. My heart was pulled out of my chest at the ending and my fist was shaking. Whether it was shaking at Josh or Elise, well, you’ll have to pick this book up yourself and read it to find out!

The story doesn’t stop here though…The Empty Beach is book one in a trilogy. Don’t worry…Jody Clark isn’t a jerk and doesn’t leave us hanging by a thread for the next installment. In fact, you could essentially read each book as a standalone and be ok, you would just miss some minor back stories, almost like inside jokes, that don’t affect the story at all. If you want the ENTIRE story, start here. Is there love for Josh in the cards? We have 3 books to figure it all out!

Solid 4 star read. Yeah, I might be partial because of my connection to York, however, it still could have sucked and it didn’t. This is the perfect time of year to read about the mis-adventures of Josh and his friends…it will have you yearning to be on the beach! I don’t read much from indie authors, but trust me when I say this is worth the read! I’m practically standing on my room shouting to everyone to read this series! Stayed tuned for my review of book two, Between Hello and Goodbye!

Title: The Empty Beach

Author: Jody Clark

Publisher: Vacationland Books (self-published)

Release Date: June 10, 2017

Find it here on Goodreads and Amazon