#awardwinningauthor – Page 3 – Rosepoint Publishing

The Winemaker’s Wife by Kristin Harmel #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Book Blurb:

From the author of the “engrossing” (People) and “poignant” (Booklist) international best seller The Room on Rue Amélie comes a remarkable and moving story of love, danger, and betrayal: two women in France in the darkest days of World War II and another in present-day America on a quest to uncover the secret that connects them.

At the dawn of the Second World War, Inès is the young wife of Michel, owner of the House of Chauveau, a small champagne winery nestled among rolling vineyards near Reims, France. Marrying into a storied champagne empire was supposed to be a dream come true, but Inès feels increasingly isolated, purposely left out of the business by her husband; his chef de cave, Theo; and Theo’s wife, Sarah.

But these disappointments pale in comparison to the increasing danger from German forces pouring across the border. At first, it’s merely the Nazi weinführer coming to demand the choicest champagne for Hitler’s cronies, but soon, there are rumors of Jewish townspeople being rounded up and sent east to an unspeakable fate. The war is on their doorstep, and no one in Inès’s life is safe – least of all Sarah, whose father is Jewish, or Michel, who has recklessly begun hiding munitions for the Résistance in the champagne caves. Inès realizes she has to do something to help.

Sarah feels as lost as Inès does, but she doesn’t have much else in common with Michel’s young wife. Inès seems to have it made, not least of all because as a Catholic, she’s “safe.” Sarah, on the other hand, is terrified about the fate of her parents – and about her own future as the Germans begin to rid the Champagne region of Jews. When Sarah makes a dangerous decision to follow her heart in a desperate bid to find some meaning in the ruin, it endangers the lives of all those she cares about – and the champagne house they’ve all worked so hard to save.

In the present, Liv Kent has just lost her job – and her marriage. Her wealthy but aloof Grandma Edith, sensing that Liv needs a change of scenery before she hits rock bottom, insists that Liv accompany her on a trip to France. But the older woman has an ulterior motive – and some difficult but important information to share with her granddaughter. As Liv begins to uncover long-buried family secrets, she finds herself slowly coming back to life. When past and present intertwine at last, she may finally find a way forward, along a difficult road that leads straight to the winding caves beneath the House of Chauveau.

Perfect for fans of Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale and Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network, The Winemaker’s Wife is an evocative and gorgeously wrought novel that examines how the choices we make in our darkest hours can profoundly change our lives – and how hope can come from the places we least expect.

My Review:

Well, I really enjoyed the description of the Champagne area of France during WWII. The characters not so much, but then one of the characters becomes the main thrust of the switch between time periods and the book takes off.

Liv is the granddaughter who accompanies Grandma Edith back to France where it’s anticipated she’ll reveal a secret too large to divulge in the US. Since the blurb covers pretty much the entire story, there is little to speak of the storyline, although the characters (both WWII and contemporary) still suffer under heavily weighted romance threads, which quickly become tedious.

I enjoyed the historical aspects of the Champagne area under German occupation as well and their need to enjoy the fruits of the French countryside. Loved the information regarding the massive tunnel system and the stashes of wine and champagne. The resistance, mentioned in the blurb, gets very little elaboration beyond what is already noted and it would have been nice to have had a little more of their exploits.

The contemporary story has Liv embroiled in an “instalove” situation as well, and the romance angle seems to overshadow the earlier time plot of the Germans in occupied wine country.

Can you say twisty? There were quite a number of them, crafting a narrative that quickly layers complexity. I didn’t understand Grandma Edith’s gnarly attitude or her relationship with Liv, and with all the affairs going on in, wasn’t crazy about the WWII generation.

Having read The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau in September, I thought I’d try another of the author’s novels. I think I see a common plot device here using an octogenarian in present day with historical time line sub-plot. I found that narrative strangely compelling, almost more so than this one.

If you can overlook all the romance entanglements, there is a story there and the plot moves at an even pace. Extensive research is obvious and the denouement satisfies sufficiently to add back a star.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The narrators do quite the job with accents and added authenticity. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: World War II & Holocaust Historical Fiction, World War II Historical Fiction
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
ASIN: B07NJFDHYH
Listening Length: 11 hrs 32 mins
Narrators: Robin Eller, Lisa Flanagan, Madeleine Maby
Publication Date: August 13, 2019
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Kristin Harmel is the New York Times bestselling, USA Today bestselling, and #1 international bestselling author of The Paris Daughter, The Forest of Vanishing Stars, The Book of Lost Names, The Winemaker’s Wife, and a dozen other novels that have been translated into more than 30 languages and are sold all over the world.

Kristin has been writing professionally since the age of 16, when she began her career as a sportswriter, covering Major League Baseball and NHL hockey for a local magazine in Tampa Bay, Florida in the late 1990s. In addition to a long magazine writing career, primarily writing and reporting for PEOPLE magazine (as well as articles published in numerous other magazines, including American Baby, Men’s Health, Woman’s Day, and more), Kristin was also a frequent contributor to the national television morning show The Daily Buzz. She sold her first novel in 2004, and it debuted in February 2006.

Kristin was born just outside Boston, Massachusetts and spent her childhood there, as well as in Worthington, Ohio, and St. Petersburg, Florida. After graduating with a degree in journalism (with a minor in Spanish) from the University of Florida, she spent time living in Paris and Los Angeles and now lives in Orlando, with her husband and young son. She is also the co-founder and co-host of the popular weekly web show and podcast Friends & Fiction.

Impostor Syndrome: A Thriller by Andrew Mayne #BookReview #TerrorismThrillers

The Specialists Book #2

Book Blurb:

Two fearless investigators unite to stop a media-savvy serial killer from carrying out a cataclysmic crime for all the world to see in a riveting thriller by a Wall Street Journal bestselling author.

The FBI calls on former agent Jessica Blackwood to look at a puzzling crime. A wildlife officer has found the body of a popular YouTuber encased in an obelisk made of salt in a remote refuge. When the agency is tipped off to a second body, that of a TikTok star chained to the bottom of Nevada’s Pyramid Lake—her hands clasped in prayer—Jessica recruits a trusted colleague of her own: Floridian underwater investigator Sloan McPherson.

It appears to be the work of a ritualistic serial killer preying on influencers. That tracks when a third victim—a fantasy-game live streamer—barely survives a pipe bomb attack. But in navigating the social media world of instafame, manipulation, and deception, Jessica and Sloan know how illusory appearances can be. As the threats multiply across the country, they fear they’re playing with something more extreme than they imagined: a killer’s endgame that could be nothing less than apocalyptic.

His Review:

Bodies are showing up in very unusual places! Two are found in Pyramid Lake area east of Reno, Nevada. One of the two bodies was found in the lake, and one was encased in a couple of tons of salt! Why would anyone encase a body in a couple of tons of salt and then dump it where it could be found? Could this be a sign of witchcraft or a cult?

The FBI calls in Jessica Blackwood to help the investigation into this bizarre event and she in turn calls underwater investigator Sloan McPherson. Has a new cult been formed to fight perceived witches in the West? Why would the FBI be called in to this remote area of Nevada to help with such an investigation? And can the purchase of such a large amount of salt be easily tracked?

The author has developed a very interesting insight into some of the strange rituals that are secret. Old ranches and barns dot many areas in this part of the country, but some of these events cannot be hidden by burning the evidence or facilities.

The investigation leads to a faction cloaked in mystery with Jessica and Sloan working together. Then a third victim is found—alive. The victims do have a connection and the team works solidly to build a suspect pool. Plot and pacing move smoothly and the storyline is clever and keeps interest.

This tome is well written but begs the question, why? I found myself wanting more answers to this and other questions! Secrecy is a main pillar of any cult and many religions. This seems true and the story raises more questions than it presents answers. Read and be bewildered! 4 stars – CE Williams

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. Any opinion expressed here is my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Terrorism Thrillers, Conspiracy Thrillers, Police Procedurals
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
ISBN-13: 978-1662522499
ASIN: B0DSLW8Z39
Print Length: 287 pages
Publication Date: October 21, 2025
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Andrew Mayne is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author whose books include The Naturalist, a Thriller Award finalist and Black Fall an Edgar Award finalist Black Fall. He’s the star of the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week special Andrew Mayne: Ghost Diver, where he swam alongside great white sharks using an underwater invisibility suit he designed and also was the star of A&E’s Don’t Trust Andrew Mayne. He currently serves as the Science Communicator for OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT and GPT-4.

@AndrewMayne
AndrewMayne.com

Mature man with glasses reading a book on his cell phone. — AI graphic courtesy Gemini

Our Souls at Night: A Novel by Kent Haruf #AudiobookReview #bookclub #TBT

Editors’ pick Best Literature and Fiction

Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Fiction (2015)

I attended the Y Book Club in our area yesterday for their September selection: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf. This book club meets once a month and is very popular. I can see why—the moderator does a great job keeping us to script—and the group is active and friendly.

My Thoughts

An unusual book for the book club in that it’s under 200 pages long. Not so unusual is that it’s a rather sad literary peek at the state of love in aging seniors.

The loneliness in seniors is a theme rapidly becoming popular, although this was written back in 2015, released as I understand it, after the death of the author. This is an in-your-face confrontation with that popular theme, suffered by two who’ve survived the death of their spouses in rather unhappy marriages but now find their homes and lives rather lonely and empty.

Amazingly, it’s Addie Moore who surprises her neighbor, Louis Waters, with an unusual request. They live in a small town, so of course, they will know each other, their families, and history. It’s the solitude of the evening hours that propels Addie to make the proposal to Louis. Shocked, he is rather slow to agree, but does so. The first few nights are awkward.

Frankly, I struggled through the book though the narrator’s delivery was spot on conveying the misery of loss, solitude, and isolation. I loved their little adventures, and particularly when Addie’s grandson was introduced to the narrative, then was crushed by the conclusion, even with the little ray of connection offered at the end.

Book Club Thoughts

The Y Book Club is exclusively made up of women, most of them seniors, a few of them widows. It’s a novel that strikes to the heart of most and as always provided for lively discussion.

Once again, an emotional wallop, depressing, depending on who read and their own stories. It would appear seniors are either portrayed as having too much free fun, food, and adventure, or depressing scenes of the end of years. Ugh.

This was apparently a very successful author who solicited help from his wife for this, his final book, before he died young at age 71. Particularly the last quarter of the book appears to have her heavy contribution to the manuscript.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Club rating 3.5 stars

Book Details:

Genre: Literary Sagas, Romance Literary Fiction, Contemporary Literary Fiction
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 978-1101875902
ASIN: B00PP3DNDI
Print Length: 184 pages
Publication Date: May 26, 2015
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

Kent Haruf - author — Photo courtesy Goodreads

The Author: Haruf was born in Pueblo, Colorado, the son of a Methodist minister. He graduated with a BA from Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1965, where he would later teach, and earned an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1973.

Before becoming a writer, Haruf worked in a variety of places, including a chicken farm in Colorado, a construction site in Wyoming, a rehabilitation hospital in Denver, a hospital in Phoenix, a presidential library in Iowa, an alternative high school in Wisconsin, as an English teacher with the Peace Corps in Turkey, and colleges in Nebraska and Illinois. He lived with his wife, Cathy, in Salida, Colorado until his death in 2014. He had three daughters from his first marriage.

All of Haruf’s novels take place in the fictional town of Holt, in eastern Colorado. Holt is based on Yuma, Colorado, one of Haruf’s residences in the early 1980s. His first novel, The Tie That Binds (1984), received a Whiting Award and a special Hemingway Foundation/PEN citation. Where You Once Belonged followed in 1990. A number of his short stories have appeared in literary magazines.

Plainsong was published in 1999 and became a U.S. bestseller. Verlyn Klinkenborg called it “”a novel so foursquare, so delicate and lovely, that it has the power to exalt the reader.”” Plainsong won the Mountains & Plains Booksellers Award and the Maria Thomas Award in Fiction and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction.

Eventide, a sequel to Plainsong, was published in 2004. Library Journal described the writing as “”honest storytelling that is compelling and rings true.”” Jonathan Miles saw it as a “”repeat performance”” and “”too goodhearted.””

On November 30, 2014, Haruf died at his home in Salida, Colorado at the age of 71. He died of interstitial lung disease.

(Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia courtesy Amazon bio.)

Book Club meeting — AI generated graphic courtesy Gemini

After You: A Novel by Jojo Moyes #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog #contemporarywomensfiction

Me Before You Trilogy Book 2

Award nominee

Book Blurb:

“You’re going to feel uncomfortable in your new world for a bit. But I hope you feel a bit exhilarated too. Live boldly. Push yourself. Don’t settle. Just live well. Just live. Love, Will.”

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?

Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.

Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .

For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

My Review:

Okay, I’ll say it: I’m grudgingly become a Moyes fan, though I have to say I wasn’t thrilled when she immediately followed The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek with her own version she called The Giver of Stars.

After You by Jojo Moyes — After You-UK cover

Louisa manages to fall off a multi-story building and survive with the help of hunky, single Sam. (I don’t think that’s a spoiler here as this is an aging trilogy and I’m obviously the last to read it.) She’s survived the death of Will, barely, but now lives a mundane life in a sad job with a crappie boss and stupid dress code.

“Surprise, surprise. It’s only us girls who have to work looking like porno Munchkins.”

Her family feels she didn’t do enough to rally against Will’s suicide. She can’t stop mourning and is trying to move on by going to a support group of others who’ve experienced a catastrophic loss.

“…recalling the words of the Moving On Circle. Allow yourself moments of happiness.”

Then Lily appears at her door. She presents as the daughter of Will of whom he was unaware. Estranged from her mother and the family she created after the college affair that resulted in a baby, Lily is sixteen and the epitome of a teenager. (Gees, don’t those descriptions cause flashbacks!!)

The problem is: Lou is a mess. She’s not really handling her own situation, much less caring for a petulant, difficult teenager, alienated from her mother and most everyone else in her circle. (Reminds me of another book I just read with somewhat the same plot, except it’s a boy, not a girl teenager.)

Throw in a lip-licking offer of a job in New York, something to truly salivate over, and she definitely wrestled with a few sleepless nights. How would she take care of Lily and go to NY? She couldn’t. What about Sam—where was their relationship going? Can she truly chill the mourning over Will and be ready to proceed into the next chapter of her life?

So, anyway…given the circumstances, she does the best she can—which isn’t bad really having no experience with a child of her own and in the meantime, gets a little closer to Sam. Sam is an additional problem for her as her feelings have grown stronger for him and her fears multipled with conflict regarding Will and a possible new loss.

I enjoyed the dialogue, frequently including odd bits of humor dropped in to lighten the mood: “Oh, my God,” I said. “You’re like the ultimate female fantasy. “
“Shelves,” he said, deadpan. “You need shelves.”
”Oh, baby. Keep talking.”
”And home-cooked food.”
“That’s it. I just came.”

I was beginning to love how I perceived Book 2 would close. But no, wrong again. Seems like that also happened in Book 3 for me. Not into the whole rooftop scene, trying to imagine all ages climbing those fire stairs. And then the ending? I loved the Lily thing—nice compromise, but the job and Sam thing. Kind of a let-down for me.

Was it also for you?

In typical fashion around here, I read Still Me, the third in the trilogy, before I read either the first or second. I’m thinking I still preferred Someone Else’s Shoes, released in 2023, but this book, and the two parts I read of the trilogy is sadly, oddly compelling.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Contemporary Women Fiction, Contemporary Women’s Fiction, Women’s Domestic Life Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Books
ISBN: 978-0698152045
ASIN: B00TY3ZKG8
Print Length: 353 pages
Publication Date: September 29, 2015
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: Jojo Moyes is a novelist and journalist. Her books include the bestsellers Me Before You, After You and Still Me, The Girl You Left Behind, The One Plus One and her short story collection Paris for One and Other Stories. The Giver of Stars is her most recent bestseller and Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick. Her novels have been translated into forty-six languages, have hit the number one spot in twelve countries and have sold over thirty-eight million copies worldwide.

Me Before You has now sold over fourteen million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major film starring Sam Claflin and Emilia Clarke. Jojo lives in Essex with her family.

#TuesdayBookBlog

The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

The first installment in Jeffery Deaver’s Colter Shaw series. The son of a survivalist family, Colter Shaw is an expert tracker. Now he makes a living as a “reward seeker,” traveling the country to help police solve crimes and locate missing persons for private citizens. “You’ve been abandoned. Escape if you can. Or die with dignity.” Hired by the father of a young woman who has gone missing in Silicon Valley, Shaw’s search takes him into the dark heart of America’s cutthroat billion-dollar video-game industry. When another person goes missing, Shaw must Is a madman bringing a twisted video game to life? Encountering eccentric designers, trigger-happy gamers, and ruthless tech titans, Shaw soon learns that he isn’t the only one on the someone is on his trail and closing fast….Named a Crime Novel of the Year by The New York Times Book Review, The Never Game proves once more why “Deaver is a genius when it comes to manipulation and deception” (Associated Press). [Goodreads blurb]

My Review:

OMG! Are you an older person with no concept of those crazy games the kids play on their devices with all kinds of paraphernalia so they are capable of speaking to other players on the other side of the world as they wipe out all the baddies with blasters?

I joined that club some years ago and have never caught up, at one point even trying to look into a “mature” game I could likewise play.

Not going to happen.

The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver — The Never Game – US cover

The Never Game featuring Colter Shaw plunks you square into that scene and explains it in a suspenseful mystery. Mercy! Shaw is not your average game player. He was raised off-grid with his brother and sister with their survivalist parents but with keen knowledge of his environment. Now he uses his skills as a gifted forensic tracker.

Shaw is making a living “finding” people and largely taps into an apparently lucrative rewards market. He lives in a Winnebago and has a small but effective support group. It’s fun the way he works “the percentages” whether or not the mission or question is viable. In this, the first in a new series, he is drawn into the gaming world.

Okay, I loved all the insights he discovers and explains, most of which blew me away. Did I retain any of it? You know I didn’t, but it was sure fun to read. There are theories and premises that, unfortunately in the six years it’s been since this was published, are eerily becoming the world in which we now live. AI scares the devil out of me, while fascinating me as well.

Is there any romance? Just a touch for those who need that in their novels. Have you heard of The Whisper Man? (The Whispering Man?) I have. There was a 2019 movie, right? And I believe another is coming to your screens soon. Well, there is an interesting and popular game with the same basic idea…and it’s incorporated into the narrative.

Don’t take my word for it. This is a book you might have missed but shouldn’t have. Check it out.

The CE read a Deaver novella in January of this year, Downstate, and greatly enjoy it. I’m gonna have to start paying more attention. Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Crime Thrillers, Mysteries, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B07N317FK9
Listening Length: 11 hrs 20 mins
Narrator: Kaleo Griffith
Publication Date: May 14, 2019
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)

Title Links: Amazon-US

Amazon-UK

The Author: Jeffery Deaver is an international number-one bestselling author. His novels have appeared on bestseller lists around the world. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into over twenty-five languages. He has served two terms as president of Mystery Writers of America, and was recently named a Grand Master of MWA, whose ranks include Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, Mary Higgins Clark and Walter Mosely.

The author of over forty novels, three collections of short stories and a nonfiction law book, and a lyricist of a country-western album, he’s received or been shortlisted for dozens of awards. His “The Bodies Left Behind” was named Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers association, and his Lincoln Rhyme thriller “The Broken Window” and a stand-alone, “Edge,” were also nominated for that prize. “The Garden of Beasts” won the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers Association in England. He’s also been nominated for eight Edgar Awards by the MWA.

Deaver has been honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, the Strand Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and the Raymond Chandler Lifetime Achievement Award in Italy.

October

Peter Pulaski Must Pay: A Novel by Jen Lancaster #BookReview #WomensHumorousFiction #TuesdayBookBlog #

Book Blurb:

In this twisty, hilarious novel, New York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster explores what happens when a marriage, friendship, revenge, and the human capacity for deception collide.

Call to order the Friday Night Doom Crew.

They’re an eclectic group of true-crime enthusiasts—a forensic psychologist, historian, and popular Instagram presence among them—dedicated to sleuthing out nefarious offenders and doing whatever it takes to set things right. But when dark secrets threaten one of their own, the Doom Crew grapples with how far they are willing to go to protect her.

Diana Pulaski is the crew’s meticulously organized beating heart whose physician husband, Peter, is secretly a swindler behind an illegal pill mill, not to mention a loathsome cheater involved in an online romance. When they discover the truth, the amateur vigilantes have a plan to make Peter pay. Unfortunately, the closer Diana’s friends are to hunting Peter down, the closer they get to discovering a secret Diana has been hiding.

As the fumbling Doom Crew’s wild ride of vengeance goes awry, they must navigate the consequences of their actions. And Diana, forced to confront the past, must decide to whom she will remain loyal—no matter the cost.

My Review:

I’m not sure what to think or say about this one. And reading many of the reviews, apparently those who’ve read her before are not sure about this one either. It’s supposed to be funny—hilarious even. A suspense mystery? Kinda like the Thursday Murder Club, except that this one is the Friday Night Doom Crew.

I guess the author has a solid, loyal following, but reading those reviews leads me to believe I’m not the only one excited about a premise with promise only to discover that Pulaski plummeted.

Basically, it’s a disparate group of individuals who met on Reddit, clicked, and eventually formed a physical group of true crime enthusiasts. Okay, I’m good so far. But these people start talking or thinking in first person, and although the chapter heading tells me who is speaking, it starts becoming blurry. Who is speaking in this chapter? They each have a deeply developed background and there are some distinctions between characters. There is a wide range of experiences and ages, but I began to get antsy waiting for something, anything to happen.

“…people use the word “irregardless” all the time, “irregardless” of it being incorrect. In which case it’s so commonly misused that it’s kind of okay, like how “whoa” is so commonly misspelled as “woah” that people totally use it now and it’s fine.”

The culture, generations previous to mine, got a bit weary with all the snark, sarcasm, references, and acronyms. The focus gradually points to Diana (within their own group), married to Peter, who is found to be the type of criminal in which they craft a just dessert. Diana is supposed to be a sympathetic character, but I was ready to slap her up side the head more than once. She has a daughter, Lilly, who will not be following in mom’s footsteps—thank heaven.

“…adore my daughter, despite the fact that she is a bona fide energy vampire.”

“…it’s never the wife’s fault but always her problem.”

It gets to be too much:

Sarcasm disguised as humor,
Clichés,
Negative energy,
Slower pace owing to over-descriptive flashbacks,
Age-shaming,
Twisted but stupid plot device,
Juvenile ending in disbelief…really?!

Don’t ask me why I hung in there—desperate for something to read and too busy to look for another book? I guess there is that curious tickle, gotta see where it’s going?

My first novel by this author. Interesting writing style I’m sure many younger readers might enjoy. It’s just not for me.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Two point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Women’s Humorous Fiction, General Humorous Fiction, Amateur Sleuths
Publisher: Little A
ISBN: 978-1662530715
ASIN: B0DTJBS579
Print Length: 311 pages
Publication Date: September 2, 2025
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Jen Lancaster is a New York Times bestselling author who has sold well over a million books. From Bitter Is the New Black to The Tao of Martha, Jen has made a career out of documenting her attempts to shape up, grow up, and have it all – sometimes with disastrous results. Her NYT bestselling novel Here I Go Again received three starred reviews (Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers Weekly). Her memoir I Regret Nothing was named an Amazon Best Book of the Year, and she’s regularly a finalist in the Goodreads Choice Awards. She loves bad TV, terrible wine, and will die before she gives up her Oxford comma.

Jen can often be seen on The Today Show, as well as CBS This Morning, Fox News, NPR All Things Considered, among others. She lives in the Chicago suburbs with her husband and her many ill-behaved dogs and cats. Visit her website: jenlancaster.com, Twitter: @altgeldshrugged, Instagram: @jennsylvania, or Facebook.com/authorjenlancaster.

Hear the stories behind Jen’s books on The Stories We’d Tell in Bars podcast, available on iTunes, Podbean, Spreaker, GooglePlay, and iHeartRadio, among other entities.

#TuesdayBookBlog

News of the World: A Novel by Paulette Jiles #AudiobookReview #bookclubs #TBT

Editors’ pick Best Literature & Fiction

Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Historical Fiction (2016)

My participation with The Y Book Club in our local area has been a lot of fun. Their August selection was News of the World which I discovered was also turned into a major motion picture with Tom Hanks in the lead role. I am anxious for that movie to come to Netflix.

The book club meets once a month and is very popular. Members are limited as to the number of physical books they can get for book clubs. Fortunately, I do audiobooks. The moderator does a great job keeping us to book club questions.

My Thoughts:

Quickly acknowledged that the book had been made into a movie starring Tom Hanks, the ladies in the Y Book Club who had seen the movie agreed it was excellent. I can’t wait to see it, as I disagreed that the book was excellent. Oh, yes, it was good, and not to say I didn’t enjoy it. Short, descriptive, chock full of historical majesty, from bandits to Native Americans, it’s a feast for the ears.

Yes, I listened to the audiobook narrated by one of my favorite narrators, Grover Gardner, who better to read the book whose setting is 1870 in Texas? The Civil War has officially ended, but not for Texas. (Tom Hanks, by the way, narrated The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.)

Extensive research went into this novel, no question. Questions arose regarding those children who had been captured by Native Americans, which led to additional research on my part and also contributed to lively discussion among the book club members.

As the ten-year-old Johanna and Captain Kidd travel the distance from Witchita Falls to San Antonio to return the girl to an aunt and uncle she doesn’t remember, they confront the extent of a lawless society that post-war chaos can offer. Johanna is rooted in the Kiowa language and spiritual traditions. She remembers nothing of her life prior to her capture at age six and thinks and acts as a Kiowa. Furthermore, she wants nothing to do with white society. It becomes apparent, however, that she is very clever.

Captain Kidd has managed to survive three wars, earning him the status of Captain, and has a reputation for being a strong, level-headed, and astute man, trustworthy in all endeavors. He is a widower whose payment will be sufficient to bring his two daughters from the east to live with him. He earns his living now by reading pertinent news articles to a paid audience from various papers as he wanders the countryside.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story through to the epilogue. Then the reader is suddenly fed the future of the characters in large clumps of sequel material that would have created another satisfying story—rather than the crushing end to this otherwise beautifully written narrative with powerful characters.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Club Thoughts

The members found a lot of grist for lively discussion as usual. Although short at just a little over 200 pages or less than 7 hours audiobook narration, the storyline packed an emotional wallop that left an indelible imprint on many of the ladies. Again, another reason so many of us are fascinated with historical fiction books is the revelation of a great deal of factual info and eye-opening material that most of us were unaware.

Book Club star rating vote

Book Details:

Genre: Westerns, Western Fiction, Historical Fiction
Publisher: HarperAudio
Narrator: Grover Gardner
Listening Length: 6 hrs 42 mins
ASIN: B084JJ9K3J
Release Date: August 25, 2020
Source: Local Library

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

The Author: My website is paulettejiles.com. I review books and say shocking things and include outrageous pictures.

Paulette Jiles was born in Salem, Missouri, in the Missouri Ozarks. Raised in small towns in both south and central Missouri, she attended three different high schools, an exhausting process of social dislocation and fashion wobbles, and with relief graduated from the University of Missouri (KC) in Romance Languages. After graduation she worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto and in the far north of Ontario and in the Quebec Arctic, helping to set up village one-watt FM radio stations in the native language, Anishinabe and Inuktitut. She became reasonably conversant in Anishinabe but Inuktitut was just too much. Very hard. Besides she was only in the eastern Arctic for a year. Work in the north lasted about ten years all told.

She taught at David Thompson University in Nelson B.C. and grew to love the British Columbian ecosystems and general zaniness. She spent one year as a writer-in-residence at Philips Andover in Massachusetts and then returned to the United States permanently when she married Jim Johnson, a Texan. Has lived in Texas since 1995.

She and her husband renovated an old stone house in the San Antonio historic district and amidst the rubble and stonemasons and ripped-out electrical systems she completed Enemy Women. She now lives on a small ranch near a very small town in the Texas Hill Country with a horse and a donkey. If you want a free donkey, please let her know. She plays Irish tin whistle with a bluegrass group, sings alto in choir, rides remote trails in Texas with friends. Her horse is named Buck. News of the World (William Morrow) was a finalist for the National Book Award.

©V Williams

Book Club — AI generated graphic courtesy Gemini 2.5 Flash

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau: A Novel by Kristin Harmel #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Book Blurb:

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Kristin Harmel, the New York Times bestselling author who “is the best there is at sweeping historical drama” (Kelly Harms, author of The Seven Day Switch), returns with an electrifying new novel about two jewel thieves, a priceless bracelet that disappears in 1940s Paris, and a quest for answers in a decades-old murder.

Colette Marceau has been stealing jewels for nearly as long as she can remember, following the centuries-old code of honor instilled in her by her mother, Annabel: take only from the cruel and unkind, and give to those in need. Never was their family tradition more important than seven decades earlier, during the Second World War, when Annabel and Colette worked side by side in Paris to fund the French Resistance.

But one night in 1942, it all went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Germans, and Colette’s four-year-old sister, Liliane, disappeared in the chaos of the raid, along with an exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping. Soon after, Annabel was executed, and Liliane’s body was found floating in the Seine—but the bracelet was nowhere to be found.

Seventy years later, Colette—who has “redistributed” $30 million in jewels over the decades to fund many worthy organizations—has done her best to put her tragic past behind her, but her life begins to unravel when the long-missing bracelet suddenly turns up in a museum exhibit in Boston. If Colette can discover where it has been all this time—and who owns it now—she may finally learn the truth about what happened to her sister. But she isn’t the only one for whom the bracelet holds answers, and when someone from her childhood lays claim to the diamonds, she’s forced to confront the ghosts of her past as never before. Against all odds, there may still be a chance to bring a murderer to justice—but first, Colette will have to summon the courage to open her own battered heart.

My Review:

A fascinating dual timeline plot featuring Colette Marceau, now late 80s. During the war, her mother Annabel was arrested by the Germans for theft. The family tradition was modeled under the Robin Hood tradition of robbing the rich to give to the poor, only in her family it was to steal from the despots and give to a worthy cause. In this instance, give back the matching bracelet to her mother’s best friend who owned the matching set that completed a butterfly design.

In the melee of the arrest, Colette’s little sister is kidnapped and her body found later floating in the Seine. Colette has blamed herself all her life for not watching her sister more closely as she was supposed to do.

Colette is now astonished to see the missing half of the bracelet sewn into the hem of her sister’s gown long years ago. It is to be on display in an exhibition. No one knows of Colette’s past, the jewels she’s stolen to continue family tradition or causes but it’s about to be fully exposed.

Perhaps she’ll finally discover who took her sister, what happened to the bracelet. In the meantime, she is forming a new “family,” not all of blood relatives. However, they’ll all have a role in piecing together how the jewels came to be in Boston seventy years later.

The prose and writing style are beautifully laid out and I greatly enjoyed the dual timeline, living the part of the Nazi occupation with mother and daughter’s assistance to the French Resistance. There are numerous quotables throughout:

“The more years one lived, the more indignities one was forced to endure.”

“…caring for someone wasn’t about fitting them into spaces that you’d already cut out. It was about allowing them to exist in their own way.”

“There is a difference between a life that honors the past and a life dictated by it.”

It’s a war fiction mystery and suspense that takes place over decades and for the most part plausible. Except for that one final denouement, I could believe it all happened—just as written.

Many thanks to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: War Fiction, Historical World War II Fiction
Publisher: Gallery Books
ISBN: 978-1982191757
ASIN: B0DHV7V1B4
Print Length: 384 pages
Publication Date: June 17, 2025
Source: Local Library