#Goodreads – Rosepoint Publishing

Dear Debbie by Freida MFadden #AudiobookReview #DomesticThrillers

in Domestic Thrillers

Book Blurb:

Sometimes, enough is enough . . .

Debbie Mullen is losing it. For years, she has compiled all of her best advice into her column, Dear Debbie, where the wives of New England come for sympathy and neighborly advice. Through her work, Debbie has heard from countless women who are ignored, belittled, or even abused by their husbands. And Debbie does her best to guide them in the right direction. Or at least, she did.

These days, Debbie’s life seems to be spiraling out of control. She just lost her job. Something strange is happening with her teenage daughters. And her husband is keeping secrets, according to the tracking app she installed on his phone. Now, Debbie’s done being the bigger person.

She’s done being reasonable and practical. It’s time to take her own advice.

And now it’s time for payback against all the people in her life who deserve it the most.

My Review:

Sometimes, you just deserve something fun. I’ve read a number of McFadden books in the last few years. Admittedly some better than others. This one had my head swimming.

No way can my head swing that far out without needing a straight jacket. This protagonist is off her rocker. I stopped questioning what I was hearing and just listened for the pure joy of it. The narrators did a great job and I’m sure they enhanced the book somewhat but this plot was really going to keep my drop-jawed attention regardless.

Debbie can really think up some weird stuff. You’ve got to keep reading or listening just to see if she’s going to get away with it. But then it gets worse. She is seething with all the emotional baggage she’s been holding in and once the match is lit, she is ready to dispense with the rage and impotence. She will find a way to mete out some karma.

Oh, that delicious dark humor! It’s a great balance for the more serious scenes in the foreground. She is dealing with thieving neighbors and teenagers, one of whom has a despicable boyfriend, a husband doing mysterious things (an affair?), a lecherous boss who fired her over a questionable advice column she wrote, and a friend at the gym who is bizarrely interested in all things Debbie’s family.

And did I mention she is extraordinarily good at designing apps, one of which she’s installed on her family’s cell phones. There is just a heap of those little things careening out of Debbie’s psyche, including the one that happened while she was at MIT. That one was hard to overcome. Or did she?

It’s a bit insane. If you’ve read McFadden books before, you know the hit and miss, the characters that carve out a persona so real, you want to help, and the ones who don’t elicit more than a casual glance. This plot is fast. It’s almost criminally over the top—yeah—just enjoy that part. It’s engaging, entertaining, and a wild ride. The only part that let me down just a bit was the ending—the epilogue. Was that overkill? You be the judge.

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Four point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Narrators: Julia Whelan, January LaVoy, Scott Brick
Release Date: January 27, 2026

Title Links:

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

The Author: #1 New York Times, Amazon Charts, USA Today, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Sunday Times, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author Freida McFadden is a physician who has penned multiple bestselling psychological thrillers and medical humor novels. Freida is the winner of the International Thriller Writer Award for Best Paperback Original, the Goodreads Choice Award for Best Thriller, and was honored as one of TIME 100’s most influential people in the world for 2026. Her novels have been translated into more than 45 languages.

Freida lives with her family and cat in a centuries-old three-story home overlooking the ocean, with staircases that creak and moan with each step, and nobody could hear you if you scream. Unless you scream really loudly, maybe.

To hear Freida talk about herself more in the third person, check out her website freidamcfadden dot com.

Have a great day!

Mad Mabel: A Novel by Sally Hepworth #AudiobookReview – Dark Humor Literature & Fiction

in Dark Humor Literature and Fiction

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

Meet Mad Mabel.

Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She’s lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years–longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else’s business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.

When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie’s past start coming to light. Who was “Mad Mabel” fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?

Told with Sally Hepworth’s twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is novel that weaves past and present together–through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press

My Review:

Oh I have greatly enjoyed this author previously in deeply suspenseful literary novels, the last one being Darling Girls. The lady can write. This one doesn’t carry that tension-filled nail-biting thriller genre quite like that one, but nonetheless, was unique and quite entertaining.

Yes, once again, a protagonist near my age—I loved it! And of course I was listening to the audiobook and expected to hear that querulous voice so often attributed to an octogenarian, but, thank you, while just a little sharp, it merely reflects the woman’s no-nonsense personality. She’s had it tough and the book will explain why. But not right away.

I loved Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick. She’s a great main character and oozes personality. It’s one of those tough hide, soft heart things and it almost immediately bumps up against the latter when seven-year-old Persephone moves into the neighborhood with her single and struggling mother, Roxanne.

Persephone drove me nuts and for awhile, I had the same go away reaction to her as did Mabel. Long after I was ready to kick Persephone to the curb, Mabel was grudgingly beginning to hide obvious tender feelings for the poor thing, needy and lonely as she was.

In the meantime, Mabel discovered her neighbor in his little home…dead. This will not go well with her history and as there was a bit of antagonism between the two, it won’t take long for that bit to be discovered. Mabel’s background includes a murder conviction when she was fifteen. Even in her old Australian neighborhood, will she never be able to outrun that history?

The author does a fine job of weaving dual timelines with little twists that tease the imagination and beg the question—was Elsie the unfortunate child of deadly circumstances, bad timing, questionable coincidences and circumstantial evidence? Can anyone have this much bad luck? Is she, after all, innocent?

I enjoyed the sense of humor, the dialogue, and the build of empathy for Elsie…and the kid, as well as the contradictions in how her neighbors perceived her. No one believed this. She took in the victim’s dog? She didn’t like that dog. This is some great storytelling and the twists at the end truly caught me by surprise. Loved it. Yeah, I’ve got to recommend this one to my book club.

Recommended for anyone who enjoys a good satirical plot that will keep you flipping pages and forgetting the main character’s age. As my good motobuddy used to say, “age is just a number.”

Many thanks to Lynne at Fictionophile for her recommendation and to my local library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Details:

Genre: Dark Humor Literature & Fiction, Domestic Thrillers, Dark Humor
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Narrator: Hannah Fredericksen, Jenny Seedsman
Release Date: April 21, 2026

Title Links:

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

The Author: Sally Hepworth is the New York Times bestselling author of nine novels, including The Good Sister and The Soulmate. Her latest novel, Darling Girls, was released in Australia in September 2023, and will be released in North America in April 2024.

Drawing on the good, the bad and the downright odd of human behaviour, Sally writes incisively about family, relationships and identity. Her domestic thriller novels are laced with quirky humour, sass and a darkly charming tone. They are available worldwide in English and have been translated into twenty languages.

Sally lives in Melbourne, Australia, with her three children and one adorable dog. She has recently taken up ocean swimming (or to put it more accurately, ocean dipping).

5 stars

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday

Editors’ Pick Best Books of the Year 2011

Book Blurb:

The beloved New York Times bestseller from acclaimed author Eleanor Brown about three sisters who love each other, but just don’t happen to like each other very much.

Three sisters have returned to their childhood home, reuniting the eccentric Andreas family. Here, books are a passion (there is no problem a library card can’t solve) and TV is something other people watch. Their father—a professor of Shakespeare who speaks almost exclusively in verse—named them after the Bard’s heroines. It’s a lot to live up to.

The sisters each have a hard time communicating with their parents and their lovers, but especially with one another. What can the shy homebody eldest sister, the fast-living middle child, and the bohemian youngest sibling have in common? Only that none has found life to be what was expected; and now, faced with their parents’ frailty and their own personal disappointments, not even a book can solve what ails them…

My Review:

OMG! A book club book and I missed the meeting! I’ll never know if I’m the only one who found the book dull as gray paint! Surely, there must have been some kind of consensus on the characters (or lack thereof) and the plot (so trope).

A storyline quickly recognized by anyone who ever had a sibling or read about them, particularly of the feminine variety. Three sisters who couldn’t be more different in looks (were they described?), size, temperament, or intelligence. With a slight spread in ages, a deeper division of experience not only with home life, but all aspects of education as well. Basically, a plot of the difference in the experience of how each saw their position in the family. Their relationships all varied with each other as well as their parents.

The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown — The Weird Sisters – UK cover

The father is a well-educated Shakespearean scholar. The younger sisters can’t wait to escape their small Ohio town, the school experience, or the books. Cordelia, the youngest and a wild child pregnant with an unknown donor, is ostensibly back to help with an ailing mother. (Not) Rose, the oldest and the one who thinks it’s up to her to run the household—it’ll positively shrivel up without her control. And Bianca—a middle child as messed up as she can get. Does it even make sense to try?

Nope. I didn’t care for any of them. I did have serious sympathy for the mother, trying to survive cancer, but really for what? She was curious about the grandchild? As it was, the plot plods along, through months, through years. Was it years? Seemed like it. And thank heaven it does end. Everyone finds her happy ever after (maybe I shouldn’t always hope for that), and even the mother survives and the father goes on to continue quoting Shakespeare. I wonder if anyone cared.

The star rating at Amazon is currently 4 of five and at Goodreads 3.37. Once again, I have a difficult time understanding how it was picked as the best book of the year. I think it’s a solid 2 stars, but then again, I admit to getting bored easily and perhaps others saw it as classic family drama. I’ll have to go the extra half star for the fact that it’s been chosen as fodder for book clubs. Including mine. I’m sure sorry I missed that one!

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Two point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Family Life Fiction, Coming of Age Fiction, Literary Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Narrator: Kirsten Potter
Release Date: January 20, 2011

Title Links:

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

The Author: Eleanor Brown is the New York Times, national, and international bestselling author of The Weird Sisters, Any Other Family, and The Light of Paris.

#ThrowbackThursday

If Walls Could Talk by Jean Grainger #BookReview #HistoricalIrishFiction #TuesdayBookBlog

The Dunmara Series – Book 1

in Historical British & Irish Literature

Book Blurb:

Dunmara, County Clare, Ireland

Orla can’t believe the bombshell her husband of thirty years has just dropped. The future she imagined is gone, and she’s forced to redefine her entire life while grappling with something from her past that doesn’t quite add up. An opportunity to attend a wellness retreat with her best friend at Dunmara House seems like exactly what she needs to find her way forward.

Connecticut, USA, 1969

Jeannie is part of the first ever intake of women to Yale University. Her father thinks it’s a waste of money, but Jeannie knows she has what it takes to be a novelist—she just needs a chance. While America is at war in Vietnam, and all over the country people are clashing, her life unexpectedly takes her to Ireland, where a course is set that will ripple through generations.

Standing since 1689, the stately Dunmara House in Ireland has seen life in all its guts and glory. Now, as two women’s lives become entwined across time, the old house slowly reveals its secrets.

Perfect for fans of Kate Morton, Lucinda Riley, and Diana Gabaldon, this evocative time-slip novel weaves past and present into an unforgettable story of love, secrets, and resilience that will stay with you long after the final page.

My Review:

One of the reasons I enjoy Ms Grainger’s novels so much is her obvious love of her country and its ancient history. I’m in awe that you could have a several-thousand-year-old ruin behind your home. There are descriptions of the ancient origins of decaying walls and Celtic traditions throughout.

Another reason would be the witticisms and sense of humor that grace the pages that lighten the load of even a solemn or sad occasion.

“A lack of organization on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.”

“…her face will take her further than her feet.”

“Oh, that guy, honest to God, if there was work in the bed, he’d sleep on the floor.”

This narrative follows several women and trades off chapters between them as they are developed. Orla, Jeannie, and Safira have vastly different life experiences and each harbors a secret which is dribbled out in tiny spoonfuls.

Jeannie wanted to be a writer but her college career was interrupted by an unexpected turn of events that ended with her family sending her to Dunmara House in Ireland and just like that becomes Margot. The time frame around Vietnam held a different moral compass back then.

Orla finds her life upended with the announcement of her husband’s leaving for younger pastures.

Safira, from Bali, is still baffled by many of the traditions of the Irish, but works her heart out over a goal she is secretly working for. It’s to the point where she begins the cleaning process. That, after cleaning at her day job.

There are several other close support characters, but the main character really is the Dunmara House. Once she has it cleaned and positioned for operation, she’ll need help. Not the oily antagonist who also envisions the property.

This book started out a bit slow for me and for some reason I had a bit of a problem really getting into it. The characters become interconnected in a positive way that will easily slide into Book 2, and I suspect there will be further development among the characters but felt moments of déjà vu with the plot. The names may have changed, but I think I recognize these ladies.

The author is quite the storyteller and can weave in elements of family drama, love and betrayal, but the descriptive scenes and that Irish sense of humor keep me coming back. A nice start to a new series.

Many thanks to the author 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: Historical British & Irish Literature, Historical Irish Fiction, Women’s Historical Fiction
Publication Date: April 22, 2026

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Amazon-UK

The Author: Jean Grainger is a USA Today bestselling author with over 100,000 5* reviews of historical and contemporary Irish fiction. She is acclaimed for her authentic portrayal of Irish life and history. Born in Cork, she draws from her experience as a history lecturer, teacher, and tour guide to craft characters that feel like friends, and sometimes foes. Grainger’s works span multiple series and standalone novels, covering significant periods in recent Irish history, but told from the perspective of families, the humans behind the headlines. Her stories often intertwine historical events with personal journeys, exploring themes of family, friendship, and human resilience. Grainger’s writing style, characterized by its warmth and authenticity, has earned her comparisons to renowned Irish authors like Maeve Binchy. Her dedication to research and character development has resulted in a loyal readership who feel deeply connected to her stories and characters.

Trust No One: A Thriller by James Rollins #AudiobookReview #InternationalMystery&Crime

Book Blurb:

Knowledge can be magic—until it falls into the wrong hands.

The ritualistic murder of a British professor at the University of Exeter points to a startling cast of suspects: his own students. All are enrolled in a postgraduate program covering the history of witchcraft, folklore, and spiritualism.

All evidence points to Sharyn Karr—an American student. Prior to the professor’s death, he had thrust a centuries-old book upon her. It appears to be the handwritten and encrypted diary of an eighteenth-century mystic and occultist, the Comte de Saint-Germain. The professor begged her to keep the text safe, ending with a warning: Trust no one.

Such a responsibility forces her into cooperation with Duncan Maxwell, a fellow postgrad and the sixteenth in line to the British Crown. Already, Duncan has proven himself a savant with encryptions. Unfortunately, the pair clash at every level, but they both need one another. Especially when they discover the book’s opening words: Herein lies the secret to my immortality. Come find me, if you dare.

As dark forces close upon the pair, she and her friends are forced to flee, pursued by law enforcement and hunted by a powerful cabal. In an explosive chase across Europe—from the Tower of London to Parisian chateaus to a fortress in the Italian Alps—Sharyn must learn the true secret hidden in Saint-Germain’s text. It will send her and the others across history and deep into the heart of one of the world’s greatest mysteries, a secret buried at the roots of Western Civilization, a discovery that could topple empires and change humanity forever.

For what lies at the end of Saint-Germain’s diary is as shocking as its opening words.

My Review:

Definitely not what I expected. I read the author’s name and downloaded. Then I read the blurb. So, my month continues.

This one reminded me of the wild movie series Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code but in this particular novel there is that history of witchcraft and folklore, which usually draws me in. I found this novel to start in a rather slow to set-the-scene kind of way.

But it never hooks like Indiana Jones or achieves the pace. The plot is interesting and poses several questions. (Treasure?) The main character is a young woman carefully chosen to protect a book too valuable to leave with the professor who knows his ownership may warrant violence.

Realizing she may be in over her head, Sharyn Karr (American) enlists the aid of Duncan Maxwell (British). Predictably, they mix like oil and water, but with their heads together, they do present an indomitable force. The problem is, I didn’t really get invested in either. I’m not sure they were developed sufficiently for that—the focus is on the search for the secret in the book.

It doesn’t take long before the professor has turned up dead and the two postgrads realize they are in a world of hurt. They’ll flee with the book as they also try to decrypt it and determine that it is far more important than either initially thought. Are they looking for treasure, or is the treasure more a biological secret? Both?

I did enjoy the narrator who did a fine job with the French language. It was a fun little European jaunt sampling Paris and the Italian Alps until the two find themselves trying to survive against both factions (the black-hearted Brotherhood and the Guardians) deep in the limestone caverns of the Alps escaping through subterranean chambers of ice caves.

And I can tell you from experience that ice caves are no fun.

Perhaps lacking the visual thrill of the Indiana Jones flick, it didn’t always keep my rapt attention, although I give credit to the narrator for inflicting as much ferocity as he could.

Are they able to discover the secrets hidden in the book? Wait. What happened to it? While some found it fast-paced and fascinating, I listened with half an ear sometimes. If you are a solid fan of the author, go for it.

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Three point Five Stars

Book Details:

Genre: International Mystery & Crime, Action Thriller & Suspense Fiction, War & Military Fiction
Publisher: William Morrow
Narrator: Simon Vance
Release Date: February 24, 2026

Title Links:

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

The Author: James Rollins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of international thrillers. His writing has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold more than 20 million books. The New York Times says, “Rollins is what you might wind up with if you tossed Michael Crichton and Dan Brown into a particle accelerator together.” NPR calls his work, “Adventurous and enormously engrossing.” Rollins unveils unseen worlds, scientific breakthroughs, and historical secrets matched with stunning suspense. As a veterinarian, he had a practice in Sacramento for over a decade and still volunteers at local shelters. Nowadays, Rollins shares his home up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains with two furry companions, Echo and Charlie. He also enjoys scuba diving, spelunking, kayaking, and hiking. Of course, he loves to travel and experience new places around the world, which often inspire his next globe-trotting adventure.

Audiobooks

This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum #AudiobookReview #DomesticThriller

Best Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Book Blurb:

Benny Abbott and Joy Moore host one of the most beloved podcasts in the world. Each week, they delight listeners with a different “against all odds” survival story, gleefully finding the weird, life-affirming humor in near-death experiences. Since their first episode on Joy’s experience with severe narcolepsy, they’ve been the best friends everyone wants to befriend—and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy’s husband, Xander, they’ve built a lucrative empire.

The problem is, their next survival story may be their own. When Benny arrives at Joy and Xander’s one morning to record, he finds shattered glass and an empty house. The one clue shedding light on the couple’s disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy’s memoir. Benny will stop at nothing to find them, even as the police zero in on him as their prime suspect.

Millions of devoted listeners think they know the “real” Benny and Joy. But as the hours tick by, and the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive, not even the most devoted fans could guess the terrible secrets their favorite famous BFFs have hidden from the world—and from each other.

My Review:

Maybe this just isn’t my month for five-star reads. I’m thinking perhaps I had too high expectations for this one. The title is intriguing; I like mysteries, and thought this is supposed to be one. I seem to be getting romance novels under the guise of mystery and by now you all know I’m not a fan of romance.

Joy and Benny host a podcast exploiting survival stories, the first of which was her own stemming from Joy’s experience with narcolepsy—an interesting little side device in the plot. Joy met and married Xander, who ends up managing the podcast and their direction.

Benny is not a childhood friend of Joy’s as they met later and formed a very close relationship. It was discovered early that they sparked off each other to the delight of everyone around them and found a way to utilize that gift.

This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum — This Story Might Save Your Life – UK cover

The “mystery” starts when Benny arrives one morning at Joy’s home to find what appears to have been a break-in and both Joy and Xander missing. He finds a memoir Joy has left behind as a way to leave him clues and hides it before the police can discover it. This is where the storyline splits with Benny periodically reading another portion of the memoir and the ability to peer into Joy’s life with Xander—not the dream boat she’d imagined. (Enter domestic abuse theme.)

Eventually, Xander is found deceased and suddenly the police are looking at Benny. (Enter reader rolling her eyes.)

Okay. For the record, I was unable to invest in any of the characters, though Joy was well developed, found her relationship with Benny a bit much, the romance becoming a bore. The dialogue was rather immature, the pacing already slow being interrupted with the investigation to return to the romance. (Inner groan)

While some of it not already divulged in denouement, it wasn’t a surprise. All of a sudden everything was fine again. End.

It annoyed me throughout that both characters refused to acknowledge their friendship had gone deeper. Why weren’t they just honest with each other?

I’m aware that because I’m such a romance snoot and in the minority the majority of the time, I have to acknowledge that with so many enjoying the book, perhaps there again just not a book I should have attempted. If you enjoy romance, then maybe you’ll enjoy a predictable romance with an ending you already guessed.

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Romantic Suspense
Publisher: Macmillan Audio
Narrator: Julia Whelan, Sean Patrick Hopkins
Release Date: March 10, 2026

Title Links:

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

The Author: Tiffany Crum grew up on a dairy farm just down the road from a maximum-security prison. A longtime Californian, she worked a variety of jobs in the film industry before earning her MFA in creative writing. She now lives in Atlanta with her husband, sons, and dogs, and spends her free time trying to keep her vegetable garden alive. This Story Might Save Your Life is her debut novel.

Audiobooks with headphones — Graphic books and coffee courtesy Freepik.com

The Colonel’s Revenge by Jeffrey K Schmoll – #BookReview #AdventureThriller #TuesdayBookBlog

A Mateus de Silva Adventure Book 2

Rosepoint Publishing: Five Stars

Book Blurb:

The prison is sealed. The vault is wired. But history always collects.

On the scorched battlefields of 1980s Angola, Colonel Juan Mateus de Silva survives a brutal ambush that costs him everything. His men. His command. His closest friend. When his general abandons them to die, de Silva answers in blood. Marked for execution, he flees across the border into Namibia. He is not running from justice. He is hunting it.

With a South African deserter at his side, he disappears into the shadows of Cape Town. But betrayal follows.

Decades later in California, his grandson uncovers an impossible truth. The colonel is still alive, buried deep inside an illegal gold mine in South Africa. Getting him out will take a crew, a flawless plan, and absolute precision under fire. The trail leads back to Cape Town, where a fortified casino holds the key to finishing what was started years ago.

The Colonel’s Revenge is a high-stakes thriller of war, betrayal, and a heist built on debts that refuse to die.

His Review:

The Colonel had been a star in Castro’s Cuba. However, Castro sends him all over the world to influence third-world countries. He began to live an expansive life style with a woman in every country he operated in. Meanwhile, his wife back in Cuba was raising a son and daughter by herself and the Colonel was no longer welcome in his birth country.

South Africa is a very dangerous country. People from all over Africa and Europe go there for the gambling. There is no table limit, and Juan Mateus de Silva quickly learns that this is better than robbing banks. He and his companions began to develop strategies to relieve the gambling houses of their earnings. He is targeted for elimination. Instead of killing him, however, he spends nearly 40 years as a prisoner working in the gold mines. Any attempt to escape earns 40 lashes and Juan’s back is a scarred testimony to this result.

As time goes by, the son has a son who discovers his grandfather is not dead. And he begins a plan.

The fast-pacing of the storyline as well as the setting keeps the interest throughout. The characters consist of some scoundrels; the main character being well developed.

This story can be brutal in its descriptions and the cruelties that exist in South Africa. Once in the system, there is no escape. Gold and diamonds are not worth the reward meted out by the mine owners and controllers of the economy. 5 stars – CE Williams

This is Book 2 of the Mateus de Silva series but can be read as a standalone. Many thanks to the author and publisher for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this ebook. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Book Details:

Genre: Adventure
Publisher: Koehler Books
Publication Date: July 31, 2026
Source: Author request

Title Link(s):

Amazon-US | Barnes & Noble

The Author: Jeffrey K Schmoll is the award-winning author of The Treasure of Tundavala Gap. He grew up among the tumbleweeds of Bakersfield, California, then spent years living and working on four continents and in seventeen homes with his wife and two children. From the rugged landscapes of Scotland to the vibrant cultures of Australia, Texas, and Louisiana, each place shaped him. None more than Angola, where his love for its people and landscape was born. Today he balances a deep faith, community service, competitive tennis, jewelry making, and epic adventure hikes that include summiting Mount Whitney and Half Dome each in a single day.

Man reading on his cell phone — Photo generated by Gemini

Where the Wildflowers Grow by Terah Shelton Harris #AudiobookReview #SouthernUnitedStatesLiterature

Book Blurb:

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF THE YEAR BY Goodreads, Essence, Sunset Magazine, SheReads, BookBub, and more!

From acclaimed author Terah Shelton Harris comes a poignant story of survival and redemption that questions what it means to stop existing and start living.

Leigh is the last of the Wildes. She knows this because she watched them all die.

Grief never truly fades and even as the tragedy haunts her, Leigh carries on, because survival is in her blood. So, when the transport bus taking her to prison careens off the road, killing everyone onboard except her, she does what’s in her nature. She survives.

While searching for a place to hide, Leigh stumbles upon an unexpected sanctuary: a flower farm in rural Alabama tucked away from the world. What Leigh doesn’t expect is the found family there who have built something from the wreckage of their own lives. Especially Jackson, the farm’s owner, who sees through Leigh’s defenses, offers her small moments of tenderness, encourages her to face her own tragedies. Slowly, Leigh finds peace with the hard pace and soft nature of the farm, taking comfort in the life blooming around her. Maybe she’s not beyond redemption, not too broken for something good. And maybe, just maybe, Leigh starts to heal.

But the past isn’t so easily buried.

No matter how far she runs, the truth of who she is and the ghosts of the Wildes follow. And when those secrets catch up to her, threatening everything she’s come to love, Leigh will have to truly face what she can survive.

My Review:

My first book with this author had me hanging breathless on every word when Leandra struggles to evacuate the prison bus that crashes into water. Not the first time she has witnessed death, not the first time she is unable to save the one person on the bus that she tried to repay the compassion shown her. She knows the crushing feeling of survivor’s guilt.

But that’s the point, isn’t it? She is now, has always been, the survivor.

So I was pretty well hooked by the time Leandra found the wildflower farm and became Leigh. For some time, she is skiddish as a wild horse and almost as onery. But the men, from a wild divergence of life experience and ages, take her in and show her nothing but kindness and patience.

There are some lengthy flashbacks to Leigh’s life, her family, her father, and the sister she was unable to save, but the full story of how she ends up in prison is dribbled out in tantalizing tidbit by tidbit.

When the book goes from suspense, thriller, literature, to romance, the reader is already hooked and hungry for how this will all play out. As a reader, it’s difficult to walk in those shoes unless your experience mirrors the main character. The mental and emotional toll on the MC is almost unfathomable and the writing is sensitive enough to convey the weight of it. It weighs on the reader as well.

It’s assumed that even as you are pretty sure you know where this is going, you might still be surprised. Would she stay long enough to get the money to move on? Or risk staying and eventually be found.

Jackson on audiobook remains steadfastly quietly spoken, philosophical, and patient throughout. His audiobook voice is lovely, soothing. Would it quell the savage beast that Leigh assumed she must be to survive, or is the land, the men, the work and philosophy enough to turn that person around? And it espouses lots of philosophy, beautifully written prose, and Jackson, smart as he is, can’t always know what’s in her heart. She has secrets.

Themes of abuse (mental and physical), poverty, family drama and dark relationships, racial prejudice.

I wasn’t a fan of the book flipping between the story I thought we started and the romance that ends it. Not a fan of romance in general, so I was disappointed when it seemed to resort to a default genre. Leigh amazes me with her decision at the end of the book, and it was a testament to how much she’d grown, the only real answer. Happy doesn’t always come ever after and this time not for a long time.

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

Rosepoint Publishing: Four Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Southern United States Literature, Southern Fiction, Black & African American Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Narrator: Tracie Thoms, Diontae Black, Terah Shelton Harris
Release Date: February 17, 2026

Title Links:

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

The Author: TERAH SHELTON HARRIS is an author and former librarian, who now writes upmarket fiction with bittersweet endings. She is the author of One Summer in Savannah and Long After We Are Gone. Her books have been chosen as a Target Book Club pick, LibraryReads pick, Kobo Best Book, Together We Read pick, Publisher’s Marketplace Buzz Book, and a Goodreads Choice Awards nominee for Best Debut. Terah was also named Target’s first Author of the Year. Her third book, Where the Wildflowers Grow, will be published in October 2025.