The Martha’s Vineyard Beach and Book Club: A Novel by Martha Hall Kelly #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday #histfic

Book Blurb:

2016: Thirty-four-year-old Mari Starwood is still grieving after her mother’s death as she travels to the storied island of Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She’s come all the way from California with nothing but a name on a piece of paper: Elizabeth Devereaux, the famous but reclusive Vineyard painter. When Mari makes it to Mrs. Devereaux’s stunning waterfront farm under the guise of taking a painting class with her, Mrs. Devereaux begins to tell her the story of the Smith sisters, who once lived there. As the tale unfolds, Mari is shocked to learn that her relationship to this island runs deeper than she ever thought possible.

1942: The Smith girls—nineteen-year-old aspiring writer Cadence and sixteen-year-old war-obsessed Briar—are faced with the impossible task of holding their failing family farm together during World War II as the U.S. Army arrives on Martha’s Vineyard. When Briar spots German U-boats lurking off the island’s shores, and Cadence falls into an unlikely romance with a sworn enemy, their quiet lives are officially upended. In an attempt at normalcy, Cadence and her best friend, Bess, start a book club, which grows both in members and influence as they connect with a fabulous New York publisher who could make all of Cadence’s dreams come true. But all that is put at risk by a mysterious man who washes ashore—and whispers of a spy in their midst. Who in their tight-knit island community can they trust? Could this little book club change the course of the war . . . before it’s too late?

My Review:

As mentioned before, I do enjoy dual timelines—and it would seem, the older one. It appears to me that sometimes the more detailed development of characters occurs in the past characters, while the more contemporary characters barely get fleshed out enough to count as a character.

That said, I really enjoyed the characters of 1942, particularly sixteen-year-old Briar, who cried wolf once too often regarding the sighting of German U-boats. I did wonder, however, why the older girl determined she’d hide the fella washed ashore and his too convenient connection to the US.

On the whole, while a bit of a slow burn to get off the ground, it was a cute, almost cozy, narrative and often led right down the road expected. Descriptions of the island and the inhabitants, history, are fun; just wish the pace was more evenly distributed.

It won’t make classic Potato Peel Pie level book club, but it is a sweet story and weaves in a variety of appealing characters. Interspersed in the novel are Cadence’s columns that she writes for the local Vineyard Gazette, which eventually leads to greater writing possibilities.

I must admit to being caught off-guard by the mystery, as it was reading so benign, it snuck up on me, I didn’t see a dark side coming to the war time story that sees their brothers and others off to war with the devastation when they don’t return. The plot builds with added hooks including our own soldiers who arrive to set up coastal military training.

The denouement gives a satisfying close to the story and manages to come up with solutions to any remaining threads.

On the whole, a sweet read, well plotted. You’ll no doubt enjoy it if you like timeline switches, historical WWII life, and well-crafted characters in the setting.

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: World War II & Holocaust Historical Fiction, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
Narrators: Martha Hall Kelly, Mary Elizabeth Kelly, Mia Hutchinson-Shaw, Imani Jade Powers, EJ Lavery

Title Links:

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

The Author: Martha’s debut novel LILAC GIRLS, about socialite Caroline Ferriday and her fight to help a group of concentration camp survivors, became an Instant NY Times bestseller in 2016 and went on to sell over two million copies. Once the paperback stayed on the NYT list for fifty-four weeks, and became published in fifty countries she wrote two more novels: LOST ROSES about Caroline’s mother, and SUNFLOWER SISTERS about her great grandmother, which also became Instant NY Times best sellers. Her latest novel, THE GOLDEN DOVES, which returns to WWII, arrives in bookstores April 18th, 2023.

Martha grew up in Massachusetts and now splits her time between Connecticut and New York City.

You’ll find more info about the incredible, true stories behind all of her books at her website: http://www.marthahallkelly.com, on Instagram: @marthahallkelly, Facebook.com/marthahallkelly, Twitter: @marthahallkelly and on her ever-changing Pinterest page.

#Audiobooks

Submarine graphic courtesy clipart.com

Midnight on the Potomac by Scott Ellsworth #AudiobookReview #ThrowbackThursday #USCivilWarHistory

Midnight on the Potomac by Scott Ellsworth

The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the ReBirth of America

Best History

in History of the US Confederacy

Book Blurb:

From the author of The Ground Breaking, longlisted for the National Book Award, comes a riveting saga of the last year of the Civil War—and a revealing new account of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln

Told with a page-turning pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North. Taking us behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents, Lincoln walks these pages, as do Grant and Sherman. But so do common soldiers, runaway slaves, and an unknown but intrepid female war correspondent named Lois Adams. Rarely, if ever, has a book about the Civil War featured such a rich and diverse cast of characters.

Midnight on the Potomac will also shatter some long-held myths. For more than a century and a half, the Lincoln assassination has been portrayed as the sole brainchild of a disgruntled, pro-South actor. But based on both obscure contemporary accounts and decades of long-ignored scholarship, Ellsworth reveals that for nearly one year before the tragic events at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth had been working closely with agents of the Confederate Secret Service. And the real Booth is far from the one we’ve long been presented with.

Deeply researched yet captivatingly written, Midnight on the Potomac is a new kind of book about the Civil War. In it you will read about the Confederate attempt to burn down New York City, how Lincoln almost lost the presidency, about the Rebel general who nearly captured Washington, and how thousands of enslaved African Americans freed themselves—and helped secure their nation’s survival. In an age of deep political division such as our own, Scott Ellsworth’s book is an eloquent and gripping testament to the courage, grit, and greatness of the American people.

My Review:

Well, okay, we have a book here that does its best to deliver many new stories delivered to the reader, maybe in a recliner and smoke-filled room with a small tumbler of brandy nearby. Enjoy.

Ah, the good ole boys and their stories.

So much to digest here, so many scenes and scenarios, historical figures, as well as a timeline under that bridge. Stories I’d not heard before, theories not considered (Booth’s considerable success as an actor and then his connections and clandestine meetings with Confederate sympathizers.

There is an awful lot of territory covered here, but less on a few of the larger focal points and more information on little known men and women heavily contributing to the time and effort, particularly women—and African Americans.

It is the first I’ve read on the more human details of Lincoln, his children, the battle scenes, the political scene in Washington—with the huge influx of free and escaped slaves—to the conflict within his party and the turmoil with his generals, as well as his death.

You can’t deny the evidence of a ton of research here into all the behind-the-scenes activities. Of course, I might still question some of the interpretation. I have, more than once, wondered how in the world were some of these major life-changing outcomes managed when it seemed to be handled in general chaos. There’s a military term for that.

On the whole, it was interesting and kept the pace moving, even at the point of slight confusion when it switched topics. It was well written but in this particular instance, I might have enjoyed it more if I’d read it rather than listened to the audiobook, as the voice came across a bit monotone, giving it more a “text” than story sound.

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: US Civil War History, American Civil War Biographies, American Civil War
Publisher: Penguin Audio
ASIN: B0DNKWBJN1
Listening Length: 9 hrs 51 mins
Narrator: Scott Ellsworth
Publication Date: July 15, 2025
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Scott Ellsworth is an American writer and the author of four books.

DEATH IN A PROMISED LAND was the first comprehensive history of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. “This splendid book belongs in any library serving readers in American history,” Library Journal.

“A historian with the soul of a poet” is how Booklist described the author of THE SECRET GAME. Winner of the 2016 PEN/ESPN Book Award for Literary Sportswriting, it is a riveting account of a clandestine, integrated college basketball game that took place in North Carolina in 1944–and of a nation on the verge of historic change.

THE WORLD BENEATH THEIR FEET resurrects the Great Himalayan Race of the 1930s, when mountain climbers from Great Britain, Nazi Germany, and the United States vied to become the first to summit the great peaks of the Himalayas. ‘It works brilliantly,” The Sunday Times.

In THE GROUND BREAKING, Scott returns to the Tulsa massacre and its legacy. Longlisted for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction. “This eloquent, deeply moving history isn’t to be missed,” Publishers Weekly.

Scott’s next book, MIDNIGHT ON THE POTOMAC: THE LAST YEAR OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THE REBIRTH OF AMERICA, will come out in 2025.

©V Williams

#ThrowbackThursday

Wild by Cheryl Strayed #AudiobookReview #bookclub #TBT

Best Books of the Year 2012

Award Winner for Readers’ Favorite Memoir & Autobiography (2012)

The selection for the first book of the year, read in December (no meeting in December) for the Y Book Club was Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. This was a departure from some of the literary fiction we’ve read, certainly more profane.

My Thoughts

Guess I’m going to be attracted to novels about extraordinary hiking trails, particularly the affectionately known as the AT, or Appalachian Trail, which runs almost 2,200 miles through fourteen states. No, this memoir recalls the experience of the author on an eleven-hundred-mile hike of the Pacific Crest Trail—newer, longer (at 2,650 miles)—and runs from Mexico to Canada over the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges.

By herself.

Cheryl was twenty-two when she found herself at the end of a marriage and having recently lost her mother. She was lost. A serendipitous discovery of a book regarding the PCT, however, fired her imagination and with little more than a burning desire to experience the trail and “find herself,” set a course.

She did do some planning, from packing and arranging boxes of necessities (including a twenty-dollar bill in each box) to be delivered to designated post offices along the route by a kind soul who agreed to mail them. Unfortunately, she didn’t train for the hike and left with gear she hadn’t actually tried, boots still to be broken in, and a backpack which proved to be almost intolerably heavy to heft.

Wild by Cheryl Strayed - UK cover — Wild – UK cover

I’m of an older generation that does not need unnecessary profane language to engage; however, this is liberally peppered with it, not to say the least of it. She reflects heavily on her life, her relationships (particularly with her mother) throughout most of the book almost to the point of skipping over the land she is trudging through with little thought other than how much her feet hurt.

Actually, if the experience is to be taken as read, she confronts relatively little wildlife, which particularly in bear, deer, and elk country I’d have expected more. She did note one bear and handled the encounter remarkably well, also witnessing a large herd of elk at one point. Lots of snakes in the deserts, particularly rattlesnakes and, again, must have been dumb luck not to have been bitten.

I loved the hiking community as described, and found most she encountered, usually men, to be friendly and supportive with only one or two incidents of a severely vulnerable situation. Fun that each hiker is given a “trail name” and there is a “trail angel” community that provides some hospitality and support. So there is some info I could enjoy. Some hikers even starting solo, meet someone along the way with whom they can compatibly pair off at a comparable hike rate.

Cheryl steadfastly determined to remain solo. There were periods of time, however, when she had to get off the trail to claim a box waiting for her at the post office or experience a little wayside town. It was during those times she hitched a ride that I thought at most risk (from other people rather than animals).

Still, there were a number of shocking revelations, one in particular that had me gagging and putting the book down for a while. She was not a person I could identify with or in whom I could engage—her character alien to me and not sympathetic. I was shocked by some of her stupid decisions and inexcusable actions.

I was surprised to learn that Reese Witherspoon starred in the making of this movie. Not too surprised to hear it was better than the book. I appreciated my library for providing me with the opportunity to listen to and review this audiobook though and these thoughts are my own, including the interpretation of the Book Club thoughts below.

Book Club Thoughts

The publisher provides pointed questions for discussion at the book club, ably kept on topic by the facilitator. Because of the severely inclement weather the morning of the meeting, we had a very small group but most were as stunned as I was by the admission of so many of societal no-nos.

We all found the narrative to be openly honest and a few thought it was not unusual in her circumstances to be that hung up on the death of her mother or who her mother actually was to her. Few had heard of the trail and fewer still with the idea of backpacking, hiking, or even camping, much less solo. Consensus thought her idea too spontaneous, lack of experience, or preparation to make sense, and a stupid idea. It was widely agreed that more than a few salient points might have been edited out, if they’d existed at all.

Items specifically examined were:

►Discussion on why she decided to change her name and how she managed to land on Strayed—it’s definition being a person lost, moved “aimlessly from a group or the right course or place.”

►Possibly writing the book was more of a catharsis for the author than the actual hike.

►The “totems”—among which was a bracelet with the name of a Vietnam casualty, and a feather, the sole totem not lost or destroyed on the hike.

Book Details:

Publisher: Random House Audio

Narrator: Bernadette Dunne

Publication Date: March 20, 2012

Title Link(s):

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

The Author: Cheryl Strayed is the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide and was made into an Oscar-nominated major motion picture. Her book Tiny Beautiful Things is currently being adapted for a Hulu television show that will be released in early 2023. In 2016, Tiny Beautiful Things was adapted as a play that has been staged in theaters around the world. Strayed is also the author of the critically acclaimed debut novel, Torch, and the collection Brave Enough, which brings together more than one hundred of her inspiring quotes. Her award-winning essays and short stories have been published in The Best American Essays, the New York Times, the Washington Post Magazine, Vogue, Salon, and elsewhere. She has hosted two hit podcasts, Sugar Calling and Dear Sugars. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

The YMCA Book Club

The Widow by John Grisham #AudiobookReview #legalthrillers

Amazon Charts #7 this week

Nominee for Readers’ Favorite Mystery & Thriller (2025)

Book Blurb:

Simon Latch is a lawyer in rural Virginia, making just enough to pay his bills while his marriage slowly falls apart. Then into his office walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly widow in need of a new will. Apparently, her husband left her a small fortune, and no one knows about it.

Once he hooks the richest client of his career, Simon works quietly to keep her wealth under the radar. But soon her story begins to crack. When she is hospitalized after a car accident, Simon realizes that nothing is as it seems, and he finds himself on trial for a crime he swears he didn’t commit: murder.

Simon knows he’s innocent. But he also knows the circumstantial evidence is against him, and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. To save himself, he must find the real killer….

My Review:

What? A dyed-in-the-wool devotee of legal thrillers and I haven’t read a John Grisham book lately? Is it because I equated too closely a Grisham novel with another (which shall remain unnamed) author? I suspect that might be it, but I’m certainly glad I broke down and listened to this one.

The Widow by John Grisham — The Widow cover – US

I do love me a good legal thriller (witness how many David Rosenfelt books I’ve read/listened to with his Andy Carpenter series). Even discounting a good Carpenter legal thriller, I love the courtroom scenes. The rules of the courtroom, details of the law, and the nonsense that has to be plowed through with resulting massive losses of valuable time.

Being an attorney is not all that profitable or glamorous. Just ask Simon Latch, scraping by with his one office assistant, personal life with his marriage in ruins, and a small but significant gambling problem on the side.

Just when he’s wondering how much longer he can keep the door open on bankruptcies (BORING!), in walks Eleanor Barnett, an elderly woman looking to have her will re-written.

I have to admit that at first I took umbrage to that same old gravely, imperious, and high-pitched grating voice and dialogue always attributable to anyone over 65. But Simon’s boredom vanishes immediately when she appears to present as a wealthy widow—whose miserly husband stashed millions in stocks prior to his untimely death.

OMG, I couldn’t believe the way Eleanor plays Simon. And Simon, always keeping his eye on the carrot, hangs in there, using his own money to play along, betting on the come. He’s supposed to be smart, but so many stupid decisions have me wondering how he ever passed the bar.

Still, as the plot turned dark, my earlier judgment of Eleanor turned to one of antipathy while that same feeling regarding Simon turned to one of empathy.

As a result of many of his faulty decisions and the suspicious timing of her death, he is brought to trial and once again, I thoroughly enjoyed the courtroom scenes and the character of his attorney. Grisham can develop a character down to the southern accent and off-hand sense of humor.

The courtroom tap dance, however, in this case doesn’t work and now he’s in seriously hot water. He must, absolutely must, find the real killer if he is to be exonerated.

So, yeah, it might begin as a slightly slow burn, hover a bit long in the honeymoon period with Eleanor’s perceived millions, but overall, it’s a strongly engaging storyline. The pacing is over-shadowed by the development of the characters, the scenes, and the twists that catch off guard.

The tension escalates toward the reveal. I loved the combination of both the legal thriller and the whodunit. Michael Beck does an excellent job of narrating and I’d recommend the audiobook.

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: Legal Thrillers, Suspense Thrillers
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B0F1BGY2PF
Listening Length: 14 hrs 23 mins
Narrator: Michael Beck
Publication Date: October 21, 2025
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: John Grisham is the author of more than fifty consecutive #1 bestsellers, which have been translated into nearly fifty languages. His recent books include The Boys From Biloxi, The Judge’s List, Sooley, and his third Jake Brigance novel, A Time for Mercy, which is being developed by HBO as a limited series.

Grisham is a two-time winner of the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction and was honored with the Library of Congress Creative Achievement Award for Fiction.

When he’s not writing, Grisham serves on the board of directors of the Innocence Project and of Centurion Ministries, two national organizations dedicated to exonerating those who have been wrongfully convicted. Much of his fiction explores deep-seated problems in our criminal justice system.

John lives on a farm in central Virginia.

Happy Thursday

Before She Was Helen by Caroline B Cooney #AudiobookReview #DomesticThrillers

Book Blurb:

Her life didn’t turn out the way she expected―so she made herself a new one

When Clemmie goes next door to check on her difficult and unlikeable neighbor Dom, he isn’t there. But something else is. Something stunning, beautiful and inexplicable. Clemmie photographs the wondrous object on her cell phone and makes the irrevocable error of forwarding it. As the picture swirls over the internet, Clemmie tries desperately to keep a grip on her own personal network of secrets. Can fifty years of careful hiding under names not her own be ruined by one careless picture?

And although what Clemmie finds is a work of art, what the police find is a body. . . in a place where Clemmie wasn’t supposed to be, and where she left her fingerprints. Suddenly, the bland, quiet life Clemmie has built for herself in her sleepy South Carolina retirement community comes crashing down as her dark past surges into the present.

From international bestselling author of The Face on the Milk Carton Caroline B. Cooney comes Before She Was Helen, an absorbing mystery that brings decades-old secrets to life and explores what happens when the lie you’ve been living falls apart and you’re forced to confront the truth.

My Review:

Well, this is an unexpected treat. It appears to start as a cozy mystery, but no, it proves to be a multi-layered mystery, only part of which you’re introduced to. It might begin with a whimper, but it’ll finish with a bang…and a chuckle.

I enjoyed the good-natured pick at the seniors and the descriptions of the agers populating this tale.

Helen is living in a villa in Sun City in South Carolina. Sun City’s are rather exclusive. They are lovely senior communities. The one we lived near in Surprise, Arizona, was a great source of lovely furnishings at the consignment store where I found pieces to fill the apartment I’d found upon selling our RV.

I’m aware that senior communities tend to be much like represented in the novel. When we visited my mother in her senior mobilehome community, the news (gossip) was more about the people in the park rather than any world news.

So this narrative provides a few chuckles—some close to guffaws—and many hit close to home.

Clemmie is the feisty, sharp senior who can take charge of the situation until it comes to her own. In this case, the unwitting share of a piece in a neighbor’s home where she shouldn’t have been. And in this day and age of the internet, didn’t take long to get way out of hand. Especially when the police find the neighbor deceased.

I love it when the main character is taken back some decades ago—back before she was Helen. Clemmie has quite the history! The characters past and present drive the mystery and the plot becomes complex. Solving one thread may only lead to the next.

Will the two versions of Helen collide? This is one of those stories that becomes a delightful round of entertainment while assessing the next possible twist you won’t see coming. There are references to the 50s most seniors will identify with, which may bore the socks off the younger generations. For us, just pleasant memories.

A nicely paced, engaging, and well-plotted storyline. Fun audiobook! Recommended to me and I’m happy to recommend it to you. (You’re welcome!)

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, Women Sleuth Mysteries, Women’s Fiction
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B085K92P1N
Listening Length: 11 hrs 13 mins
Narrator: Kimberly Farr
Publication Date: September 8, 2020
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Caroline B. Cooney is the bestselling author of teen suspense, mystery, and romance novels that have sold over 15,000,000 copies and are published in several languages. Of all her books, she is best known for the young adult novel The Face on the Milk Carton that has sold over 3,000,000 copies and was made into a television movie.

Caroline grew up in Greenwich, Connecticut, and spent most of her life on the shoreline of that state. She currently resides in South Carolina. She enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, playing piano, walking near her home, pottery, jewelry-making, and, of course, reading.

Find Ms Cooney at http://carolinebcooneybooks.com/

#TuesdayBookBlog

Worse Than A Lie by Ben Crump – #BookReview #thrillersuspense #NetGalley

A Beau Lee Cooper Novel

Book Blurb:

It’s the night of November 4, 2008. America’s first Black president has just been elected. And fifty-three-year-old Hollis Montrose—a Black ex–police officer from the suburbs of Chicago—has become the latest victim of a brutal attack. As the result of a traffic stop gone wrong, Hollis is shot ten times in cold blood, by four white men who could have been his colleagues back in his police days.

Beau Lee Cooper was born serious, as if on an urgent mission with little time to waste. Raised in the tumultuous world of 1970s Texas, he always dreamed of becoming a lawyer and fighting for what’s right, ever since he was a little boy reading To Kill a Mockingbird. And now, ten years into running his own law firm with his best friend and partner in crime, Nelson “Nellie” Rivers, and his suave right-hand-man, Brent “Cape” Capers, he feels he’s finally making a difference. When Beau Lee learns about Hollis’s situation, he’s determined to help.

Miraculously, Hollis survives the encounter, but the Chicago police department has already spun the narrative in its favor, and Hollis is given a wrongful prison sentence with an unreasonable bail. What really happened that night the car was pulled over? Was it random or was Hollis targeted? Beau Lee knows he’s treading in dangerous waters, and finding evidence of the truth will be his biggest challenge yet, but with troubling powers at play, one innocent man’s life hangs in the balance.

His Review:

Being a police officer in Chicago has never been an easy or safe job. One would think being a security officer might be safer. Also, the pay for a policeman in Chicago wasn’t enough to properly care for a family. Hollis Montrose was a policeman supplementing his income with two other jobs, one as a security guard. It was late at night behind a Macy’s department store when he was pulled over by a fellow white police officer. Hollis was held face down on the pavement and his license was never checked.

It appears that Chicago police have never strayed far from the days of Al Capone. Shoot first and ask questions later. This was Hollis’s fate. Ten slugs were found in his body as he struggled to stay alive after being rushed to the hospital. This book shares the adjustment to life after the election of Barack Obama. The chapters are at times very gruesome but the end result is apparent. White officers had little regard for their African American fellow officers. The south was not dead in Chicago! 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

Add to Goodreads

Book Details:

Genre: Black & African American Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction, Legal Thrillers
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN-13: 978-0593875711‎
ASIN: B0FKG23528
Print Length: 368 pages
Publication Date: February 17, 2026
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

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

The Author: Through a steadfast dedication to justice and service, renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has established himself as one of the nation’s foremost lawyers and advocates for social justice. He has worked on some of the most high-profile cases in the U.S., representing the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, and Stephon Clark, among others. He has been nationally recognized as the 2014 NNPA Newsmaker of the Year, the National Trial Lawyers Top 100 Lawyers, and Ebony Magazine Power 100 Most Influential African Americans. In 2016, he was designated as an Honorary Fellow by the University of Pennsylvania College of Law. He is the founder and principal owner of Ben Crump Law.

Have a great day!

The Bone Garden: A Novel by Tess Gerritsen #AudiobookReview #FlashbackFriday #HistoricalMystery

Book Blurb:

Unknown bones, untold secrets, and unsolved crimes from the distant past cast ominous shadows on the present in the dazzling new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Present day: Julia Hamill has made a horrifying discovery on the grounds of her new home in rural Massachusetts: a skull buried in the rocky soil–human, female, and, according to the trained eye of Boston medical examiner Maura Isles, scarred with the unmistakable marks of murder. But whoever this nameless woman was, and whatever befell her, is knowledge lost to another time. . . .

Boston, 1830: In order to pay for his education, Norris Marshall, a talented but penniless student at Boston Medical College, has joined the ranks of local “resurrectionists”–those who plunder graveyards and harvest the dead for sale on the black market. Yet even this ghoulish commerce pales beside the shocking murder of a nurse found mutilated on the university hospital grounds. And when a distinguished doctor meets the same grisly fate, Norris finds that trafficking in the illicit cadaver trade has made him a prime suspect.

To prove his innocence, Norris must track down the only witness to have glimpsed the killer: Rose Connolly, a beautiful seamstress from the Boston slums who fears she may be the next victim. Joined by a sardonic, keenly intelligent young man named Oliver Wendell Holmes, Norris and Rose comb the city–from its grim cemeteries and autopsy suites to its glittering mansions and centers of Brahmin power–on the trail of a maniacal fiend who lurks where least expected . . . and who waits for his next lethal opportunity.

With unflagging suspense and pitch-perfect period detail, The Bone Garden deftly interweaves the thrilling narratives of its nineteenth- and twenty-first century protagonists, tracing the dark mystery at its heart across time and place to a finale as ingeniously conceived as it is shocking. Bold, bloody, and brilliant, this is Tess Gerritsen’s finest achievement to date.

My Review:

Not my first rodeo with Tess Gerritsen as my last foray into her popular books was Die Again (part of her popular Rizzoli and Isles series) last year. I learned to quickly appreciate her writing style and obvious personal knowledge of the human body, having been an active physician herself. Oh my stars, can she hook the interest and then run rampant over it!

This standalone narrative runs a timeline between 1830s Boston and the present day with Julia Hamill, although the real main character proves to be Rose Connolly, a seamstress. Julia has bought an old fixer-upper and working in her garden discovers a body that is discovered to have been buried more than a century before. The lucky lady gets to meet an aging relative of the owner of the home and together they begin the task of discovering to whom the body might have belonged.

Yes, once again, I find myself bonding with the earlier MC rather than the current one, although you have to give Julia some points for doggedly working on the mystery as well as plowing through all the stories of the ancient residence.

Rose is Irish and living and working under horrid conditions when she watches her older sister die of childbirth fever. The baby is saved but then must be saved again as she is destined to be whisked off to an orphanage for eventual adoption.

The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen — The Bone Garden cover – UK

Rose is fast. Smart. She pays a wet nurse to care for the baby safely. In the meantime, she meets a medical student attending the birth sympathetic to her situation. But his situation is almost as precarious as hers. It’s good he has trusted friends.

I listened to the audiobook and couldn’t wait to shop for groceries, start breakfast or dinner, so I could listen to more of the book. The pace goes frenetic at times, there are medical accounts of the time that has you gasping with shock and a growing romantic thread that even I could enjoy. The thirst for cadavers in medical universities created a cottage industry best not known about.

Loved the characters brought to life by the author’s skillful descriptive craft and the plot, although the climax was a surprise and a bit difficult.

Thoroughly enjoyed and totally recommended. 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: Historical Mystery, Historical Mysteries, Suspense
Publisher: Random House Audio
ASIN: B000W7E5FM
Listening Length: 12 hrs 56 minutes
Narrator: Susan Denaker
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Source: Local Library (Audiobook Selections)
Title Links: Amazon-US
Amazon-UK
Barnes & Noble
Kobo

The Author: Internationally bestselling author Tess Gerritsen took an unusual route to a writing career. A graduate of Stanford University, Tess went on to medical school at the University of California, San Francisco, where she was awarded her M.D.

While on maternity leave from her work as a physician, she began to write fiction and in 1987, her first novel, Call After Midnight, was published. It was just the first of 32 suspense novels that she’s written over a 36-year writing career. She also wrote a screenplay, “Adrift,” which aired as a 1993 CBS Movie of the Week starring Kate Jackson.

Tess’s 1996 medical thriller, Harvest, marked her debut on the New York Times bestseller list and her novels have hit bestseller lists around the world ever since. Among her titles are Gravity, The Surgeon, Vanish, Listen to Me, and her upcoming spy thriller, The Spy Coast, which has just been optioned by Amazon Studios for a television series. Her books have been translated into 40 languages, and more than 40 million copies have been sold around the world.

Her series of novels featuring homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series “Rizzoli & Isles,” starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

She lives in Maine.

For more information on Tess Gerritsen and her novels, visit her website: http://www.tessgerritsen.com or http://www.tessgerritsen.co.uk.

Welcome to 2026

Killing Me Softly: A Novel by Sandie Jones #BookReview #TuesdayBookBlog

Killing Me Softly by Sandie Jones

Book Blurb:

What do you do when love turns deadly?

THE PERFECT COUPLE

Charlie and Freya used to be the picture-perfect couple. Happy and in love, Freya enjoyed a rewarding job heading up a charity’s fundraising efforts, and Charlie was fast becoming one-to-watch on the London culinary scene—if you couldn’t be them, you wanted to be with them.

A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY

They had it all . . . until one night a devastating accident tears their lives apart, and they’re awoken by police at their door, asking whether they are aware that their car had been involved in a hit and run.

A BITTER FEUD

Torn apart by accusations and guilt, the trust that Freya and Charlie once shared is shattered as they turn on each other, looking for someone to blame for the fallout. Told from both Freya and Charlie’s perspectives, a cat and mouse game ensues, both of them desperate to have someone to point the finger at. But is it more important to be right, or to win? Can Freya stay one step ahead of the man who knows her best? Or will Charlie’s stoic conviction to get what he wants be the death of her?

Sandie Jones’s next addictive novel is a wickedly twisty tale of obsession, and the deadly consequences of loving someone too much.

My Review:

Can you say, “unreliable narrator?”

Many threaded, POV flips back and forth between Charlie and Freya, neither of which are truly engaging characters and I flat didn’t like Freya. Actually, I found few characters in which I could engage and I’m still scratching my head over Nina.

A fragile marriage between two damaged individuals treading water. With what happens following a row at Charlie’s boss’s house, any life jackets holding them up begin to take on water. Neither is particularly trusting of the other and with good reason. Charlie has his secrets and Freya a chilling history.

I struggled with a good portion of the book, slow pace and chaotic. Flipping between POVs kept me trying to catch up and I’m no longer interested in going back to find the linking thread. The characters are toxic and the drama is over the top. It’s confusing and the big reveal is just overkill and eye-rolling. “It’s what?” “She’s what?” No. Just–no.

I know this author has a fan base and I appreciate that they may find this one of interest. My first experience, however, and I’m not sure I’ll be looking for another with this author very soon.

I received an invitation to read the Uncorrected Digital Galley from Angelica at Minotaur Books. Many thanks to her and NetGalley for providing me with the opportunity to read and review this book. The thoughts expressed here are my own.

Rosepoint Rating: Three Stars

Book Details:

Genre: Domestic Thrillers, Psychological Thrillers
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 978-1250910080
ASIN: B0F5PDVKLN
Print Length: 320
Publication Date: March 31, 2026
Source: Publisher and NetGalley

Title Link(s):

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

The Author: Welcome to my Amazon Author Page which I’m guessing you’ve stumbled upon in the search for your next thrilling read, and I hope you find something here that whets your appetite. My debut novel, The Other Woman, is a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick and a New York Times Bestseller. But I’ve got five other titles to choose from; each of them offering something a little different from the other – though with one thing in common; they’ll all have you questioning who you should trust and who’s taking you for a ride! From husbands to sisters, and work colleagues to mother-in-laws – you could be forgiven for thinking that they’re all perfectly ordinary people…..until something extra-ordinary happens!

My next novel, I Would Die For You, is a dual timeline suspense novel alternating between the present day in California and 1986 in London, back when I was a 16 year old, obsessed with Duran Duran. I truly believed Simon Le Bon was going to see me in the front row of a concert and instantly fall in love. Sadly it didn’t happen for me, but it does for Nicole, when the lead singer of Secret Oktober spots her and they embark on a clandestine affair. But where there’s cloak and daggers, there’ll invariably be blood – but whose will it be?

Pre-order now for delivery on publication day and click the ‘follow’ button for special deals. Catch me on Instagram @sandiejones_author and Facebook @realsandiejones for updates, recommendations and author chat.

Have a merry Tuesday!