Jean Kwok in Conversation

Photo credit: Girl Well Read. Do not use without permission.

Jean Kwok visited the North York Central Library in Toronto to talk about her new book, The Leftover Woman. 

A young Chinese woman gives birth to a baby girl and is told shortly after delivery that the baby has died. Jasmine grieves deeply for her daughter. A few years later she learns that her husband put their baby up for adoption—another casualty of China’s One Child Policy. Jasmine flees from her controlling husband to track down her daughter in New York City. The parallel narrative also involves the adoptive mother, Rebecca. She is a wealthy white woman who has a doting husband, high-profile career, and beautiful home. 

Publishing plays a paramount role in the story. Rebecca is an editor-in-chief at a legacy publisher who is dealing with an imminent scandal in order to save her career. Kwok gives her readers a glimpse of the world of publishing and uses it as one of the bridges to the theme of the patriarchy which Jasmine also faces in both China and the west.  

Jean explained that the title of the book is a play on the term “leftover woman” which refers to the women in China who are in their late twenties and are unmarried. It carries a negative connotation as it implies that they are somehow “leftover,” or undesirable. Jasmine: “In China, I'd seen posters warning girls of the danger of becoming leftover women, women that no one wanted. Leftover like scraps on a table, uneaten food, both a sacrilege and wasteful, something that should have nourished our country squandered and turned into rubbish: unwarned, purposeless, of no use to anyone. I was a leftover woman, I realized. After everyone else had carved away what they wanted to see in me and taken what they desired, I was all that was left." 

Kwok's writing is often praised for its authentic portrayal of the immigrant experience and the complexities of navigating different cultures. She often brings her own experiences into her books having come from a very traditional Chinese family where she is the youngest of seven. In terms of gender and age, she is at the bottom of her family hierarchy much like Jasmine. Jean also said that there is a lot of her in Rebecca as well—a modern woman trying to do it all. 

The Leftover Woman is about two mothers, two worlds, and one impossible choice.

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JEAN KWOK is the author of the bestselling Girl in Translation, Mambo in Chinatown, and Searching for Sylvie Lee, which was chosen as The Today Show Read with Jenna Book Club Pick. Jean received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia. She worked as an English teacher and Dutch-English translator at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and now writes full-time.

Kwok was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Brooklyn as a young girl. 

Second First Impressions by Sally Thorne

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Ruthie Midona has dedicated her whole adult life to the residents at Providence Retirement Building where she works the front desk, maintains the property, and guards the endangered tortoises that live on the grounds. But somewhere along the way, she's forgotten that she’s young and that there is a world beyond the villa. That is until she meets the son of the property developer who just acquired the retirement centre.

Teddy Prescott has spent the last few years partying, sleeping, and giving himself tattoos. His father wants Teddy to be his his successor and can’t understand his son's inability to take anything seriously. When Teddy needs a place to crash, his father comes up with the idea of having him stay in one of the on-site cottages and work to earn his keep. Teddy agrees—how hard can it be to do a few odd jobs? But Ruthie has plans for Teddy too! You see her two wealthiest and most eccentric residents need a new personal assistant to torment after another one quits. Truth be told, they never last more that a week. It's the perfect plan and will surely get rid of the handsome man that keeps getting under her skin.

What Ruthie doesn't count on is that the the Biddies may have finally met their match. Teddy will do anything for them as well as do repairs around the property all while charming everyone in his path—even Ruthie. But when she finds out that Teddy’s father is only fixing up the retirement home just to sell it, jeopardizing everything she cares about, Ruthie can't help but wonder if Teddy’s magic was all just an act.

I have thoughts… Lots of them. This book was a total seesaw for me between things I loved and things I hated—I felt like I was just going up and down. The good news, it was better than 99 Percent Mine. But the bad news is that it was only marginally better. 

Where Thorne excels is with the ability to completely draw the reader in and not let go until the end—she is incredibly engaging. There is an ease to her writing and she has such an ear for conversation and banter which translates extremely well on the page. 

While this book might not have been everything I had hoped it would be, there are going to be those that love it. I just didn't love it as much as The Hating Game. I mean, Josh Templeman... Enough said. 

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SALLY THORNE believes that romance readers are always searching for intensity in their next favourite book—and it isn't always so easy to find. The Hating Game was her first novel.

Thorne lives in Canberra, Australia. 

Our Darkest Night by Jennifer Robson

A special thank you to HarperCollins Canada for a copy of the book and the author, Jennifer Robson, for the interview.

Our Darkest Night is a WWII story about a young Jewish woman, Antonina Mazin, who aspires to be a doctor, just like her father. When the political situation worsens, Antonina's father arranges for her to go into hiding as a farmer's wife in a remote village—she will now be known as Nina, the Catholic wife of Niccolò Gerardi. 

Nico was studying for the priesthood until circumstances forced him to leave the seminary and return home to run his family’s farm. He is a moral and just man who vows to keep Nina safe while keeping secrets of his own.

At first, their relationship is only for show. Nina is struggling with her new life on the farm and especially with Nico's sister, Rosa. While working for the Resistance, they fall in love. But when a Nazi officer discovers Nina's true identity, their lives become fraught with danger. 

Inspired by her inlaw's family history, Our Darkest Night has Jennifer Robson deviating from her usual setting of England to that of the countryside in Italy. 

Through her meticulous research, Robson deftly balances a romance against the historical accuracies of WWII. In spite of the horrors of war, there is a great beauty that can be found in both the setting and the well-developed characters. Nina and Nico are both strong as individuals, but it is their bond that is truly inspirational. This book is proof of the power of love. 

Moving and poignant, Robson is a historical fiction force. Her attention to detail, and the beautiful and lyrical prose, makes these characters leap off the page right into the reader's heart. Our Darkest Night is a story of sacrifice, love, survival, and above all, hope. 

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JENNIFER ROBSON is the internationally bestselling author of Somewhere in France, After the War Is Over, Moonlight Over Paris, Goodnight from London, and The Gown. She studied French literature and Modern History as an undergraduate at King’s University College at Western University, then attended Saint Antony’s College at the University of Oxford, where she obtained her doctorate in British economic and social history. While at Oxford, she was a Commonwealth Scholar and SSHRC Doctoral Fellow.

Robson lives in Toronto with her husband and children. 

---

Q & A with Jennifer Robson*

GWR: What was the inspiration behind Our Darkest Night?

JR: In 2016 my husband and I learned that his mother’s parents had helped to shelter Jews, most of them fellow Italians, during the Second World War. When I finally got around to digging into this family history—my son had asked me if it was true and I had to admit I wasn’t sure—I unearthed the true story of Father Oddo Stocco, the parish priest in my in-laws’ hometown of San Zenone degli Ezzelini, who was named Righteous Among the Nations for helping to save more than fifty innocent people from arrest, deportation and near-certain death. Although I wasn’t able to definitively prove my husband’s grandparents helped Father Stocco (I believe they did, but in all honesty I cannot prove it), I was inspired to write a novel in which a young Jewish Italian woman is forced into hiding during the war. What must life have been like for the innocent people who were robbed of so much in those years? And how did they manage to survive? Our Darkest Night is my attempt to answer those questions.

GWR: Are you a pantser/gardener or a plotter/architect?

JR: I am a plotter/architect down to my toes! I do a ton of planning, to the point where my detailed outlines are nearly as long as a first draft, but it’s only after working out the structure of my book, and ensuring it accords with the history of its setting, that I can begin to tell my story. 

GWR: I’m always amazed at the level of detail in your books—tell me about the research you did for Our Darkest Night.

JR: Because my area of expertise centres on Britain and France in the two world wars, I had to do a lot of background reading on the history of Italy in the first half of the 20th century—its political history as well as the history of Italy’s Jews, and with it the disheartening rise of antisemitism in those years. I then worked my way through a number of more specialized works—the sort of books that often originate as a scholar’s doctoral thesis—before coming to the really fun part: digging into first-hand accounts of life in Italy in the 1940s. Here I relied on memoirs, diaries, recorded oral history interviews, and mass media from the period such as newspapers and magazines, advertisements, movies, and popular fiction. I also interviewed a number of people who lived through those years, most of them elderly relatives of my husband, in the hopes of unearthing the sort of details you mention. It was from his aunts and uncles that I learned about mattresses stuffed with cornhusks, laundry that was rinsed in the stream, warm polenta and milk for breakfast, mice in the granary, and pinza cake cooked on the hearth. To be honest, I probably have enough material from them to write another entire book!

GWR: How did you balance crafting a good story against historical accuracy in terms of character development?

JR: I always ask two questions when I’m deciding what will happen to my characters. First: is what occurs to them possible? That is, could it have taken place according to what is known about the time and place where the book is set? If it isn’t possible, then I know I have to adjust the action of the book so it aligns with known historical events. Then I ask a second, and possibly more important question: Is it plausible? Is what I am doing to my characters not only possible given the context, but also believable and realistic and understandable? Only if I’m able to answer yes to both questions do I proceed.

GWR: Did any minor characters become major characters over the course of the novel?

JR: Nico’s sister Rosa, in my first outline of the book, was a peripheral character, but she became so much more by the time I was finished writing Our Darkest Night. Now she is one of the figures in the book that readers seem to love the most! I think they’re drawn to her incredible courage and resilience, as well as the core of kindness that she hides so well behind a somewhat crusty exterior.

GWR: What was the hardest scene to write?

JR: I don’t want to introduce any spoilers here, but it’s clear from the description of the book that it involves the Holocaust. And anything that involves the Holocaust is going to be difficult—if it isn’t difficult, then as a writer you are missing some key part of the equation. It is critically important not to minimize or diminish the suffering of the innocent people who were tortured and murdered, but it’s also important, I believe, to do so without fetishizing or in any way glorifying the violence and savagery of the malefactors. The solution was for me to focus exclusively on my protagonists and their point of view. Making their humanity my focus was essential to my understanding of those events, and consequently my fictional interpretation of them.

GWR: If you could tell your younger self something about writing and becoming an author, what would it be?

JR: I think it would be to not doubt myself so much. I spent most of my twenties and a good part of my thirties utterly convinced that I was a failure. What I was actually doing in those years, however, was learning everything that I rely on now: I was discovering how to think like a historian, I was learning the discipline required to be a full-time writer, and I was doing a lot of reading. In essence, I was setting the groundwork for what came next. If only I’d known it at the time!

GWR: What are you reading now?

JR: This year I’ve had the chance to read some early copies of books that will be published over the coming months, and there were a few that really stood out for me. Among them are Courage, My Love by Kristin Beck, which is set in WWII-era Rome and has two incredibly strong women as its central characters; Surviving Savannah by Patti Callahan, which is a wonderfully moving dual-timeline book centered on the tragedy of the doomed steamship Pulaski; and The Woman at the Front by Canadian author Lecia Cornwell, which tells the story of a female physician working at the front lines in the Great War.

GWR: What are you working on now?

JR: I’m working on my next book, which has the working title of Coronation Year and is set in a small London hotel in 1953. While the backdrop is the runup to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the focus is on the people who work at and live in the hotel. I have a huge map of the procession route for the coronation pinned to the wall next to my desk, and right now I’m spending a lot of time daydreaming about life in that city and that year.

*A version of this post was published on STYLE Canada.  

If I Never Met You by Mhairi McFarlane

A special thank you to HarperCollins Canada, Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Fauxmance: a fake, arranged relationship that's comprised of the trappings of a romantic relationship.

Laurie Watkinson is left reeling when Dan, her partner of over ten years, breaks up with her citing he's not ready to settle down and start a family. Not only do they work at the same law firm and she will be forced to see him every day, but she's just found out that Dan's new girlfriend is pregnant.

Hoping for a bit of revenge, Laurie agrees to pose as the office womanizer's girlfriend. Jamie Carter is not only charming, he's also gorgeous. If he can prove that he has settled down, Jamie will better his chances at a promotion. And what better way to do that than to date the office golden girl?

The couple make it official by staging their romance on social media. They are so convincing that the line between pretending to be in love and reality becomes blurred. Will Laurie get her heart broken again?

What I adore most about Mhairi's books is that you feel like you are actually there, and that the characters are your best mates. Her writing is effortless and inclusive to her reader—she's also the right amount of cheeky and has a great sense of humour. McFarlane's ear for dialogue is impeccable and everything just flows.

Laurie is smart and has an incredible wit. But instead of playing to these strengths, she uses these traits as a means of deflection—she's been wounded by her father and her ex and her confidence has taken a big hit. But because of the fake romance, Laurie is forced to view her life through a different lens and as a result, she experiences tremendous growth. This is truly remarkable given the lack of support she's received from those closest to her.

If I Never Met You was utterly charming and I had a massive book hangover.

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MHAIRI MCFARLANE is a Sunday Times bestselling author from Scotland. McFarlane has written five novels and a book series.

Her name is actually pronounced Vah-Ree and she lives in Nottingham. 

Searching for Sylvia Lee by Jean Kwok

A special thank you to LibraryThing Early Reviewers and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Kwok's latest work begins with a mystery. The oldest Lee daughter, Sylvie, vanishes while on a trip to the Netherlands where she was visiting with her dying grandmother one last time.

Amy is the shy and sheltered baby of the Lee family who has always looked up to her sister. Sylvie fiercely loves her little sister even though she is seven years younger and they weren't raised together. She was raised in the Netherlands by her grandmother because her new immigrated parents were too poor. That choice weighed heavily on Sylvie's parents, even after she had returned.

Deeply distraught and wracked with grief, the Lees want answers as to what happened to their daughter. Amy visits the last place that Sylvie was seen alive, and instead of uncovering answers, she learns of hidden secrets that speak to their complicated and delicate family dynamic.

Searching for Sylvie Lee is a portrait of an immigrant family and an exploration of cultural constraints —even within the same family. Throughout the book, there is an overarching theme of loss as well as the high cost of keeping secrets.

Told by Amy, Sylvie, and their mother, the narrative shifts back and forth in time. The woman reveal the emotions that they've been hiding as well as the truths that they have been guarding with the fear of being found out. Each character is thinking in their native tongues of English, Dutch, and Chinese—the distinctive voices, culture, and language shield each character.

There is a tremendous amount of growth for Amy. She must overcome her crippling shyness in order to find her sister. A sister she is realizing that she actually knows little about. It is here where Kwok excels. Her writing has incredible purpose where Amy is concerned and it is some of the best in the book.

My only issue was with the pacing of the book—I did find it slow overall, and that the narrative kept stalling because of too many flashbacks. That being said, this is an incredibly thoughtful and beautifully written book. There is such an innate and ingrained sadness to Kwok's words. If you do enjoy more of a literary type thriller, then I would definitely recommend this book.

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JEAN KWOK is the author of the bestselling Girl in Translation and Mambo in Chinatown. Jean received her bachelor’s degree from Harvard and completed an MFA in fiction at Columbia. She worked as an English teacher and Dutch-English translator at Leiden University in the Netherlands, and now writes full-time.

Kwok was born in Hong Kong and immigrated to Brooklyn as a young girl. 

The Nanny by Gilly Macmillan

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Seven-year-old Jocelyn Holt is devastated when Hannah, her beloved nanny, suddenly leaves and vanishes without a trace. This monumental loss in Jo's life haunts her to this day. She grew up bitter and distant from her parents, eventually leaving Lake Hall, the family's aristocratic residence.

Thirty years later, Jo confronts her complicated relationship with her mother when she is forced to return to Lake Hall after the death of her husband. To add to the sting, Jo's daughter, Ruby, seems to be enamoured with her grandmother, Lady Victoria Holt.

In an attempt at mother-daughter bonding, Jo takes Ruby on a boat ride because it was something she loved to do as a child. The pair make a grisly discovery of some human remains in the lake that is on the grounds of the estate. Jo begins to question her past and everything she thought she knew may not be as it once appeared.

An unexpected visitor comes calling and sends Jo into a tailspin. She is desperate to piece together the mystery of who her nanny really was, why she left Jo all those years ago, and what role her mother played in all of it. The only problem is she can't seem to trust her memories.

The Nanny is a diabolical tale that exposes the dark impulses and lengths people will go to not only protect themselves, but to hurt one another. Sometimes the truth hurts so much that you live the lie instead.

Gilly is quickly becoming one of my go-to authors. When I read the synopsis for this dark and twisty Mary Poppins, I was smitten! Macmillan is an accomplished and methodical writer. This book is equally as polished as her other four novels, but more of a psychological thriller/character study versus a classic thriller type story.

Opening with the sudden disappearance of Jo's beloved nanny, Hannah, Macmillan hooks her reader right away. The strained relationship between Jo and her mother (if it's not one thing, it's your mother) adds another layer to the plot and ratchets up the tension. Gilly expertly plays this off the dynamic between Victoria and Ruby.

A slow burn, The Nanny is a a tale of secrets, lies, betrayal, and revenge. I highly recommend this book.

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GILLY MACMILLAN is the New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew (previously published as Burnt Paper Sky in some territories), The Perfect Girl, Odd Child Out, and I Know You Know.

Gilly is Edgar Award nominated and an ITW award finalist. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages.

She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and also lived in Northern California. She studied History of Art at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK with her husband, three children and two dogs and writes full time. She’s currently working on her sixth novel.

The Golden Hour by Beatriz Williams

A special thank you to Edelweiss, William Morrow, and HarperCollins Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Budding journalist Lulu travels to the Bahamas in 1941 to investigate the Duke of Windsor—the former King Edward VIII—and his wife, whose love affair caused the Duke to abdicate the British throne. Her assignment becomes complicated when the Duke's shady politics become apparent and when she falls in love with Thorpe, a scientist, who disappears without a trace.

From the opening chapter, Beatriz Williams captivates her reader. This sweeping novel is beautifully written with elements of mystery and intrigue. She effortlessly weaves together dual plot lines each richly crafted with meticulous details. With her elegant and awe-inspiring prose, Williams is one of those authors whose writing completely transcends.

The difference between four and five stars was simply because I wanted more scenes with the Duke and Duchess of Windsor and more from the other historical cast. Is that even a criticism, wanting more? Give this slow burn a read, you will not be disappointed.

BEATRIZ WILLIAMS is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of The Summer Wives, The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and several other works of historical fiction, as well as the screenwriter for the television adaptation of The Summer Wives, currently in development.

She is a graduate of Stanford University with an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, and her books have won numerous awards, have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and appear regularly in bestseller lists around the world.

Williams was born in Seattle, Washington, and now lives near the Connecticut shore with her husband and four children.

The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters by Balli Kaur Jaswal

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is about three British-born sisters—Rajni, Jezmeen, and Shirina—who do not get along very well, especially now that they are adults. The sisters embark on a pilgrimage to India in order to fulfil their mother's dying wishes, and to lay her to rest.

Rajni is a school principal. She is serious in nature and is always trying to maintain some form of control, especially over her teenage son. Jezmeen is a struggling actress, who at thirty, fears she'll never make it. Shirina is the peacemaker in the family. She is the good girl who has married into a traditional, yet very wealthy, family.

When Rajni was a child, she visited India with her mother, Sita, and vowed never to go back. But being a dutiful daughter, she must cary out her mother's last wish. For Jazmeen, the timing is perfect. She has just been publicly fired from her job in television. The timing also seems to agree with Shirina, who is having trouble at home with her overbearing in-laws. They are pushing her to make a decision that will have a lasting impact on her married life—she needs to decide whether to obey as expected, or for once, stand up for herself.

Travelling to India brings the sisters together and it is also a voyage of self-discovery. The girls learn more about their mother, as well as what really happened on the trip that she and Rajni took and why Sita could never return to India.

After reading the hilarious and heart-warming Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows, I was sincerely thrilled to be selected to review The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters. What I enjoyed (again) about Jaswal's writing is the humour that is sprinkled throughout—there are a lot of wonderful comedic bits to this story that balance out the more weightier parts that surface over the course of the narrative.

This book is a female take on the Indian travel narrative. Women have to be more aware and alert when travelling, especially in a male-dominated society. Balli does women a great service by writing about some of these challenges and considerations. These dangers also contributed to the palpable tension that is present throughout the story; there is tension between the sisters because of their shared history, as well as the tension between tradition and modernity. The Shergill girls are the first generation in their family to be raised outside of India. They struggle with straddling both worlds, especially returning to a country that is tied to their past—they can identify with the culture, however, they don't fully belong there. In The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, this plays out in moments of confusion, humour, misunderstanding, and conflict.

Jaswal's writing is powerful, yet thoughtful, and of course, charming. What amazes me how she can shine a spotlight on issues that Indian women face, but is so graceful and engaging, striking the perfect tone. Another gem!

BALLI KAUR JASWAL has written four novels to date, as well as short fiction and non-fiction. Her third novel, Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows was a Reese Witherspoon’s book club and The Girly Book Club selection in 2018. The book has also been optioned for film.

She was born in Singapore and has lived all around the world, including Australia, Japan, Russia, the Philippines, Turkey, the US and the UK, where she was a writer in residence at UEA.

She now lives in Singapore.

99 Percent Mine: A Novel by Sally Thorne

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Darcy Barrett has travelled the world and can safely say that there is no man that measures up to Tom Valeska.  Tom's only flaw is that Darcy's twin brother, Jamie, claimed him first and that he is 99% loyal to her brother.  

When the twins inherit a rundown cottage from their grandmother, they are tasked with restoring it and selling it.  Before Darcy can set sail on her next adventure, house-flipper Tom has arrived in a tight t-shirt with his power tools (and hot tool belt) and he's single.

Darcy decides to stick around for a while.  It's not because she's been in love with Tom since she was eight-years-old, or that his face has inspired her to pick up her camera after her failed stint as a wedding photographer left her doubting her talent, it's to make sure that Jamie doesn't ruin the cottage's aesthetic with his modern taste.  Right?

Can Darcy's delicate heart take being this close to Tom?  And can she turn the tables and make Tom 99 percent hers?

I loved The Hating Game. It was clever, sharp, and cheeky! But this book...umm...I only liked it. Okay so here's what I think happened: Thorne fell down with her character development. Take Darcy for example, she's honest, and raw, but uses sarcasm and snark to hide behind her perceived tough exterior. But this felt a bit forced and clichéd, and then she just ends up being difficult and unlikeable. Tom is your classic 'boy next door' type and although endearing, he was almost too good and dare I say...flat? It felt like he was written to be the polar opposite of Darcy to make their relationship more layered and complicated, but again, this seemed to be a plot device. You never actually get a sense of who he really is—he seems to be constantly eclipsed by those closest to him (his mother, his best friend, and now Darcy). And can we just talk about Jamie for a second? What an absolute jerk. I have the sneaking suspicion that he was underdeveloped because he will be a main character in another book.

Also, the plot came off as formulaic and basic. I don't want to get into too much detail here as to not give anything away, but I'm sure you can guess what happens. I wanted the goods—I wanted more of their childhood, more about Tom and his mother, about Darcy's travels and the "Felicity" moment of cutting her hair, and more about Jamie (maybe then I wouldn't think he was such a tosser).  These relationships are the framework of the character development but they were underdeveloped and therefore produce some underwhelming characters.        

Where Thorne excels is with her ability to completely draw the reader in and not let go. She is an incredibly engaging writer and I devoured both of her books in one sitting. It is for this reason that she is quickly becoming one of my favourite authors and I will read anything she writes. There is an ease to her writing and she has such an ear for conversation and banter which translates extremely well on the page.

While this book might not have been everything I had hoped it would be, there are going to be those that love it. I just didn't love it as much as The Hating Game. I mean, Josh Templeman... Enough said.

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SALLY THORNE believes that romance readers are always searching for intensity in their next favourite book—and it isn't always so easy to find. The Hating Game was her first novel.

Thorne lives in Canberra, Australia.  

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hen (short for Henrietta) and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new neighbourhood just outside of Boston, Massachusetts.  Hen is an illustrator that works out of a studio close to her new home and she is finally feeling a sense of peace and stability after finding the right medication to control her psychotic episodes.

At a block party, Hen and Lloyd are relieved to meet the only other childless couple, Mira and Matthew Dolamore.  It turns out they live next door in a matching Dutch Colonial.  The Dolamores extend a dinner invitation and while on a tour of their home, the sense of peace that Hen feels starts to dissipate after she recognizes a trophy in Matthew's office that went missing from the home of a young man that was killed two years prior.  Hen knows this because she has a secret obsession with this unsolved murder.

Is Matthew a killer?  Or is this just another one of Hen's psychotic episodes?

The more she watches Matthew, the more she not only suspects him, but that he is planning something terrifying that she may not survive.

I read All the Beautiful Lies as an early reviewer and was impressed at Swanson's character development—he has a gift for writing characters that boarder on being psychotic, yet believable.  Each of these characters are flawed, yet it is these flaws that help drive the narrative.  Hen is the perfect unreliable narrator and given her history, nobody believes her, even when she figures things out.

There is a cleverness and preciseness with just enough plot twists to not be predicable or confusing.  If you like psychological thrillers, I encourage you to pick up this book, Swanson is at the top of his game.

PETER SWANSON'S debut novel, The Girl With a Clock for a Heart (2014), was nominated for the LA Times book award. His second novel The Kind Worth Killing (2015), a Richard and Judy pick, was shortlisted for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger and named the iBooks Store's Thriller of the Year, and was followed by two more critical and commercial hits, Her Every Fear (2017) and All the Beautiful Lies (2018).

He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts.

The Summer Wives by Beatriz Williams

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Beatriz Williams' latest novel is mesmerizing.  Set in the 1950s and '60s, it is a tempestuous story of romance, class, power, secrets, and murder set on picturesque Winthrop Island.

It is the the summer of 1951 and Miranda Schuyler arrives on the elite, yet secretive Winthrop Island in Long Island Sound.  She is a naive eighteen year old who is still reeling from the loss of her father in the Second World War.

Miranda is a graduate of the exclusive Foxcroft Academy in Virginia and has always been on the cusp of high society. When her beautiful mother marries the dashing Hugh Fisher at his family summer home, Miranda is thrust deeper into the world of the elite with their pedigrees and cocktail hours.

Isobel Fisher is Miranda’s new stepsister and she takes Miranda under her wing to educate her on the clandestine ways of the Winthrop upper crust.  She is long-legged, blonde, a bit brash, and adored by her fiancé, Clayton Monk.

The other residents of the island are not wealthy summer families; they are the working class made up of Portuguese fisherman and domestic service people who earn an honest days work from the seasonal inhabitants.  Miranda finds herself attracted to  the lighthouse keeper's son, Joseph Vargas, a lobster fisherman.  He is also a childhood friend of Isobel's and attends Brown's in the hopes of bettering himself.

Almost two decades later, Miranda, now a famous actress, finally returns to the Island.  She is nursing a heartbreak and secrets of her own.  On the surface, the Island appears to be the same, but Miranda quickly realizes that things are not as they appear.  For one, the Fisher family no longer wields the same power and prestige it once did and Greyfriars, the Fisher family summer home, is in complete disrepair.  Also, Joseph has escaped from Sing Sing where he has been serving a sentence for the murder of her stepfather eighteen years earlier.  Miranda makes it her quest to bring justice to the man she once loved and still loves.

This was my first Beatriz Williams' book and I was utterly enchanted!  Williams is extremely seasoned with her character development—she lets the plot unfold through these rich, complex characters and her execution of this tumultuous story was flawless.  The setting was gorgeous as is her writing.  Speaking of gorgeous, can we take a moment to appreciate the beautiful cover?  I love the whole vintage aesthetic and it also comes through in Williams' writing.  The story was perfectly paced and just as visually stunning as the cover.  This book will be THE book of the summer.

BEATRIZ WILLIAMS is the New York Times, USA Today, and internationally bestselling author of The Secret Life of Violet Grant, A Hundred Summers, and several other works of historical fiction.

She is a graduate of Stanford University with an MBA in Finance from Columbia University, and her books have won numerous awards, have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and appear regularly in bestseller lists around the world.

Williams was born in Seattle, Washington, and now lives near the Connecticut shore with her husband and four children.

Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

How well do you know those closest to you?  What if the person you thought you knew best was someone you actually didn't know at all?

Andrea Cooper thinks she knows her mother, Laura, a speech therapist who is a pillar of the community.  While out for lunch at the mall for a birthday celebration, an act of violence sets a chain of events in motion and in the face of danger, Laura becomes a completely different person.

Only twenty-four hours later, Laura is shot by an intruder that has spent the better part of thirty years tracking her.  Andrea must go out on her own and put together the pieces of Laura's past before time runs out for both of them.

Fans of Slaughter have made it apparent that this was a bit of a departure for her—there is a note from the author added to the synopsis on Goodreads, and it explains why.  I enjoyed the development of Andy from a thirty-year-old girl into a strong and mature woman.  We need more of these characters!  Slaughter also capitalizes on the fragile, tense, and complex relationship between mothers and daughters.  She also examines the shift from Laura's upbringing of limited choices for women to what many young people face, which is the overwhelming abundance of too many choices that as Slaughter puts it, can be completely paralyzing.      

This was my first foray into Karin Slaughter's writing and I was impressed, although I was expecting more by way of mystery.  Even though it was slow in parts, I found the writing sharp and clever and it did ultimately pick up about two thirds of the way through.  I'll definitely be visiting her back catalogue, she had me hooked when she mentioned Depeche Mode!

Under a Dark Sky by Lori Rader-Day

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Eden Wallace is a widow that is suffering not only with grief, but suffers from a phobia of the dark.  She is a shell of her former self—she doesn't work, has given up on photography, and experiences night terrors so severe that she cannot sleep unless all of the light are on.

In her late husband's effects, Eden finds paperwork for a reservation at a dark sky park.  She decides to face her fear of the dark and go on the anniversary trip he had planned for them.  But when she arrives at the cabin, instead of a private retreat, she finds herself among a group of friends that have gathered for a reunion.  Eden can't believe her bad luck and decides she will leave first thing the next morning.  In the middle of the night, a scream wakes the group, one of their friends has been murdered, and everyone is a suspect.

Eden must unpack her fears to learn who is lying, who is telling the truth, and to find out who is the killer.

I enjoyed The Day I Died and was thrilled to be among the first to read Under a Dark Sky. Rader-Day pens some interesting characters in an Agatha Christie type story.  Eden is a flawed character dealing with a traumatic event that has left her damaged and fragile.  Her complexity and fear, coupled with grief and vulnerability make her the perfect unreliable narrator.

The story unfolds and exposes secrets and lies about all of the characters—none of them are who they appear to be.  The narrative plays out with the blame and focus shifting from one person to the next.  Beyond the thriller/mystery aspects of the story, Rader-Day explores relationships, grief, loss, and how dangerous perception is.  

I Know You Know by Gilly Macmillan

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Twenty years ago, two eleven-year-old boys were murdered in Bristol. The bodies of Charlie Paige and Scott Ashby were found near the dog racing track. Sidney Noyce was convicted of the brutal crime and died in prison—some people perceive him to be the killer and others think he was a convenient scapegoat because he was mentally challenged and could be easily coerced into a confession. There are still lingering questions after all this time.

There was a third boy, Cody Swift, who was supposed to be out with Charlie and Scott the night they were killed, but he got in trouble and had to stay home. It turns out that this punishment actually saved his life. He is now an indie filmmaker and has haunted by the death of his best mates all these years. The unanswered questions and loose ends bring him back to Bristol in search of answers. To help document the information, he starts a podcast which are a series of interviews he conducts with individuals attached to the case. It turns out that there are many people who don't want to visit the past. The one who has the most to lose from Swift's fixation is Charlie's mother, Jess. She is forced to take matters into her own hands in order to protect her daughter from hearing about this horrific crime—she doesn't even know she had a half brother, let alone that he was killed.

A body that has been dead for quite some time is discovered in the same location where the boys were found. Another investigation is opened and Detective John Fletcher who was on the original case must revisit his files to see if the two crimes are related.  

This book was absolutely riveting from the first sentence! I have been on a tear of British mystery/suspense books lately and this one did not disappoint. Having reviewed Macmillan's Odd Child Out, I was hoping to check in again with Detective Jim Clemo. But this book, this book was all its own, and in my opinion her best yet (I have also reviewed The Perfect Girl). It was perfectly executed with enough twists to propel the narrative without becoming predictable or clichéd. And as my followers know, any book that mentions Depeche Mode is a winner!

This page-turning, clever novel is filled with complex and layered characters. Congratulations, Gilly on another wonderful accomplishment!

GILLY MACMILLAN is the New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew (previously published as Burnt Paper Sky in some territories), The Perfect Girl and Odd Child Out.

Gilly is Edgar Award nominated and an ITW award finalist. Her books have been translated into over 20 languages.

She grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and also lived in Northern California. She studied History of Art at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK with her husband, three children and two dogs and writes full time. She’s currently working on her sixth novel.

Odd Child Out by Gilly Macmillan

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Macmillan's second instalment in the Jim Clemo series is about inseparable best friends. Despite their vastly different cultures—Noah Sandler is British and Abdi Mahad a Somali refugee—their loyalty sees no boundaries. After what appears to be a prank gone wrong, Noah is found floating unconscious in a canal in Bristol, and Abdi has been shocked into silence.

Detective Jim Clemo is just back from a mandatory leave as a result of his last case. Because the investigation seems cut and dried, it is assigned to him. After tragedy strikes, it is apparent that the case it is more than just an accident. Social tensions begin to rise as the families fight for their sons and seek the truth.

Told from alternating perspectives, Macmillan's story is a slow, tense burn with a deep plot. She effectively and deftly captures how relentless the press are. This is especially relevant and relatable in today's climate—whether they print facts, fiction, or a little of both, people will believe it if it is spun the right way.   

All-in-all, a good read and I will definitely be checking in with Detective Clemo again.  

GILLY MACMILLAN grew up in Swindon, Wiltshire and also lived in Northern California. She studied History of Art at Bristol University and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.

Gilly lives in Bristol, UK. 

Look for Her by Emily Winslow

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The fourth in a series, Winslow is getting better with each book.  Told from various points of view in first person narrative, this case is about a cold case of a beautiful missing girl from a small English village.

In 1976, Annalise Wood, a teenage girl disappears on her way home from school.  Her body was later discovered, the person responsible for the crime was never found.  Decades later, Annalise is a celebrity of sorts to the small town and for one woman especially.  Named after the dead girl, Annalise Williams believes that sharing the same name has bonded her to the dead girl.

DNA linked to the Annalise murder surfaces and investigator Morris Keene enlists the help of his former partner, Chloe Frohmann to finally solve the mystery and bring closure to the residents of Lilling.  As the investigation progresses, more questions arise rather than answers, the body that was perceived to be the missing girl may be someone else and that a recent drowning also has connections to the cold case.

The partnership between Keene and Frohmann is what great detective series are made of.  These characters are flawed, but endearing, and just so likeable.  The perspective of Dr. Laurie Ambrose added to the story giving it more of an edge and pushing it more into the psychological thriller genre.

My only criticism is how Winslow ties up some of the storyline.  Again, her downfall is linking too many of the supporting cast—it feels a little forced and sometimes convenient.

Finally, finally the marketing team at William Morrow has stopped using Donna Tartt to advertise these books.  

The Fortunate Ones : A Novel by Ellen Umansky

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is about two women that are generations apart are connected by a famous Chaim Soutine painting.  Umansky's debut moves from WWII to contemporary Los Angeles.  In 1939, we meet Rose Zimmer who is being sent out of Austria to live with strangers in England.  When the war ends, Rose is grief-stricken and seeks comfort in trying to find her mother's favourite Soutine painting but unfortunately for Rose, the painting has ended up in America.

In modern-day LA, Lizzie Goldstein is in mourning for her recently deceased father.  She carries around extreme guilt that she cannot shed; as a teenager, Lizzie threw a party at her father's house and the cherished Soutine painting that offered her comfort after her mother's death was stolen and has yet to be found.

This work of art will bring the two women whom are seemingly adrift in their own lives, together.  They forge a friendship that is marred by secrets and painful truths.  Each woman is forced to examine her own life through longing, devastation, and ultimately forgiveness.

Umansky's writing is rich and wonderful although I quickly fell out of like with Rose.  There were a few spots in the plot that could've been tighter, but overall, this is a good book and I would certainly recommend it.  I look forward to her next book.    

The Keeper of Lost Things : A Novel by Ruth Hogan

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Forty years ago, author Anthony Peardew loses a keepsake from his fiancee, Therese, and on that very same day she dies.  As a result, Anthony becomes the keeper of lost things.  He picks up objects he finds, random things people leave behind, or have dropped, and writes stories about them.  As he nears the end of his life, Anthony continues to catalogue the items and worries that he has not lived up to his undertaking of reuniting the items with their owners.

Laura, Anthony's assistant, is a divorced middle-aged lonely woman that unbeknownst to her is one of Anthony's lost things.  He bequeaths everything to her, including the daunting task of his life's mission of reconciling the lost items to where they belong.  She moves into the house and with the help of the gardener Freddy, and the neighbour's daughter Sunshine, embarks on a remarkable journey of self-discovery, new beginnings, and of completing a final request.

The characters are rich and warm and are all lost objects in one way or another.  Hogan weaves them together in a wonderful tale.  I absolutely adored this book and felt like I had lost a friend when it was over.

RUTH HOGAN was born in the house where her parents still live in Bedford, England. She was a veracious reader as a child and studied English at Uni.

Hogan lives in a Victorian house with her husband and an assortment of rescue dogs.

The Color of our Sky by Amita Trasi

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Did I just read that correctly, that this is a debut novel?  Seriously?  Outstanding.  This is an emotional story of two childhood friends—one a victim of the human slave trade, the other on a mission to save her after she is kidnapped from the room they share.

In 1996, Mukta at the age of ten has come of age to become a prostitute like her mother and grandmother.  In an effort to escape her fate, she is sent to be a house girl for a family in Mumbai.  There she forms a strong bond with Tara, the eight-year-old daughter of the family and the girls become like sisters.    

One fateful night in 1993, Mutka is kidnapped from the room she shares with Tara and disappears.  Tara ends up in America but never recovers from losing her best friend and cannot settle in LA.  She blames herself for Mukta's kidnapping and embarks on a journey to bring her home.  What she is not prepared for are the secrets that are uncovered about her own family along the way.

For fans of Khaled Hosseini, Nadia Hashimi, and Shilpi Somaya Gowda, you will not be disappointed that you picked up this book, you will be disappointed when you finish it.     

The Day I Died: A Novel by Lori Rader-Day

A special thank you to Edelweiss and William Morrow for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

We meet Anna Winger, a handwriting analyst with a messy past, who is called upon to use her talent on a high-profile case in the small town that she is currently living in.  As a handwriting expert, she is able to identify the writer's personality traits and psychological state.  Some believe in her craft and use her to profile individuals, while others consider her to be a charlatan.  For Anna, her profession allows her to keep people at arms-length and keep her anonymity while supporting her son.

She immerses herself into the case of a missing boy.  Unfortunately for her, the case awakens elements of her past, things she's tried to keep hidden, and she is unable to outrun it any longer.          

This is my first book by Rader-Day and it won't be my last.  I enjoyed this story and would like to read more about Anna.  She is a well-writen character with an interesting talent, this would make a great series.