Searching for John Hughes: Or Everything I Thought I Needed to Know about Life I Learned from Watching '80s Movies by Jason Diamond

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

What a great read!  Growing up binging on John Hughes' movies myself, I loved the premise of this book and thought, why didn't I think of this?

Diamond's childhood is dismal at best, often times his narrative is painful to read as I'm sure it was to recount.  He uses Hughes' movies as lenses to filter his life through, as well as an escape/coping mechanism.  He is searching for John Hughes, to write an autobiography of sorts, but gives up on his search and in doing so, sets himself free and finally sheds his past.

Her Every Fear: A Novel by Peter Swanson

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

Kate Priddy, a Londoner, swaps apartments with Corbin, a distant cousin, in Boston.  She suffers from anxiety and panic attacks as a result of an ex-boyfriend that kidnapped her and nearly ended her life.  Kate thinks that a change in scenery is just what she needs.  

Soon after her arrival to Corbin's apartment, Kate learns that Corbin's neighbour was murdered.  Questioned by the police, Kate realizes how little she knows about Corbin.  She is left shaken and with more questions.

Kate makes the acquaintance of another tenant, Alan Cherney, as well as the grief-stricken former boyfriend of the victim who thinks Corbin is responsible for what happened.  Her jet lagged mind and fragile state begin to wreak havoc, things are not what they appear to be.

Hearing great things about Swanson's previous works, I was excited to get my hands on this book but, it fell a little flat.  There was so much more that could've been done to to really flesh out the main character.  She has a pivotal life event in her backstory that seemed to be disconnected. It is here that Swanson falls down—he doesn't connect this to the character so it comes off as weak and being filler.  This is a life-changing event that should really define who she is.

The ending was predictable.  I wanted suspense and where's the twist?  I did have it all figured out unfortunately.  That being said, his writing is good as is the pace.  The premise was also good, and I will definitely check out his other works (I haven't given up on him yet).

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.

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

Daughters of the Dragon by William Andrews

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't know anything about 'comfort women'; the women and girls that were forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army before and during WWII.  The name is a euphemism for prostitute(s).  Women were either abducted from their homes in countries that were under Japanese rule, or lured with promises of work in factories — our character, Ja-hee and her sister were told they were going to work at a boot factory.  I was completely immersed in the flashbacks, but not vested in Anna.  As a main character, I felt that she was underdeveloped and flat.  

This was an ambitious topic, not only is Andrews writing historical fiction, about another culture, but also as a female.  For the most part, I would say he pulls it off.  The difference in the rating for me between a four and a five star review is that the narration was made up of short choppy sentences and this abrupt writing style between the passages of dialogue was distracting for me as a reader and the story then became a bit forced.

The Perfect Girl by Gilly Macmillan

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

Our "perfect" girl is Zoe Maisey, a 17-year-old musical prodigy. Zoe and her mother Maria have been ostracized from their former community after Zoe was found guilty of a drinking a driving accident that claimed the life of three teenagers, including her best friend.

Zoe has served time in a juvenile rehabilitation facility and Maria is determined to not only put the past behind her, but to keep the tragedy under wraps from her new husband, Chris, and his teenage son, Lucas.

Ready to embrace her "Second Chance Life", Zoe has recommitted to music and is giving a recital that Maria has been planning for months. But tragedy strikes again and by the end of evening on the day of the recital, Maria is dead and the thread holding everything together begins to unravel.

Because of her past, Zoe fears that she will be the prime suspect. Everyone—police, family, Zoe’s former lawyer—including Zoe, tries to piece together what actually happened. What Zoe knows for sure that the truth can be deceiving and the closer we are to someone, the less we are willing to see.

Told in multiple points of view—Zoe, Tessa and Sam—Macmillan's novel explores the complexities of relationships. The characters were well-developed and engaging. While not a seize-you-by-the-throat, heart palpitation thriller, The Perfect Girl is more of character study/psychological thriller and incredibly clever. Macmillan's pace is spot on, she reveals just enough to secure interest and move the story. She tasks her reader with unravelling the dysfunction—it's a slow burn, but worth your patience.

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.

Macmillan lives in Bristol, UK.

Faithful by Alice Hoffman

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Alice Hoffman is my favourite author. I can't even wait to get my hands on her books the second they come out! To be given the opportunity to read and review this book was truly thrilling for me.

Hoffman's writing is a living thing. Her stories breathe and grow and as the reader, you transcend. Her characters are layered and complex, her writing is rich and incredibly moving, it is fluid.

That being said, I missed the magical realism associated with Hoffman because I don't think that this novel had enough of it, or rather didn't seem to have any other than the reference of an angel which unfortunately for this book, becomes a character—this is not classic Hoffman.

While this story was not one of my favourites that she has written, it was indeed a page-turner and I'm so glad I got to read it because everything she writes is gold.

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ALICE HOFFMAN has a BA from Adelphi University and an MA in creative writing from Stanford University.

Hoffman's first novel, Property Of, was written at the age of twenty-one, while she was studying at Stanford, and published shortly thereafter by Farrar Straus and Giroux. Since that remarkable beginning, Alice Hoffman has become one of our most distinguished novelists. She has published over thirty novels, three books of short fiction, and eight books for children and young adults.

Her novel, Here on Earth, an Oprah Book Club choice, was a modern reworking of some of the themes of Emily Bronte’s masterpiece Wuthering Heights. Practical Magic was made into a Warner film starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Her novel, At Risk, which concerns a family dealing with AIDS, can be found on the reading lists of many universities, colleges and secondary schools. Hoffman’s advance from Local Girls, a collection of inter-related fictions about love and loss on Long Island, was donated to help create the Hoffman Breast Center at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, MA.

Hoffman has written a number of novels for young adults, including Aquamarine, Green Angel, and the New York Times bestseller The Ice Queen. In 2007 Little Brown published the teen novel Incantation, a story about hidden Jews during the Spanish Inquisition, which Publishers Weekly has chosen as one of the best books of the year.

Her works have been published in more than twenty translations and more than one hundred foreign editions. Hoffman's novels have received mention as notable books of the year by The New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, The Los Angeles Times, Library Journal, and People Magazine. She has also worked as a screenwriter and is the author of the original screenplay “Independence Day,” a film starring Kathleen Quinlan and Diane Wiest. Her teen novel Aquamarine was made into a film starring Emma Roberts. Her short fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe Magazine, Kenyon Review, The Los Angeles Times, Architectural Digest, Harvard Review, Ploughshares and other magazines.

She currently lives in Boston and New York. 

The Velvet Hours by Alyson Richman

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A Parisian flat that has been untouched for over 70 years is the inspiration for this story.  The owner left Paris for the south of France before the outbreak of WWII, never to return again.  The apartment, miraculously in tact, unscathed from the war and thieves, quietly lay in waiting and gathering almost a century's worth of dust.

There is a further twist, there was a painting of a lady in pink, and love letters tied with coloured ribbons amongst the items inventoried.  The painting is believed to be Ms. de Florian's grandmother, Marthe, a beautiful French actress and socialite.  It is thought that she is the artist Giovanni Boldini's muse.    

Richman's fictitious tale of the events of the apartment's occupants is told by Marthe de Florian, and her granddaughter, Solange in alternating points of view.  Their relationship develops through the novel as we shift in time from the past, starting in 1888, and what is present day, 1938.

A must read!  This book would be an excellent choice for a book club.

ALYSON RICHMAN is the international bestselling author of The Garden of Letters, The Lost Wife, The Last Van Gogh, The Rhythm of Memory, The Mask Carver’s Son, and Grand Central.

She lives in Long Island, New York, with her husband and two children.

The Muse by Jessie Burton

A special thank you to Edelweiss and The Reading Society for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Although I'm new to Burton's writing, I was aware of her successful debut The Miniaturist and was anxious to read her sophomore effort.  This book is incredibly well written and I thoroughly enjoyed Odelle's story.  She is a young, bright Trinidadian immigrant who accepts a job at a London art gallery that houses a cast of eccentric and mesmerizing characters.  The focus of the story is a painting by Isaac Robles, which brings the reader to 1937 in Spain, a few months before the artists mysterious death.

The novel takes place over a 40-year span with parallel stories that eventually intersect;  Odelle is a immigrant to London, Olive is a foreigner in Spain.  Both women create art, Odelle through the written word, and Olive paints–both woman protect their work from others and end up having their work exposed without their prior knowledge or consent.

My one criticism of the book, I found the parts of the story set in Spain were too long, and the story line wasn't as intriguing than the one in London.  I found Olive was not as enchanting as Odelle, although equally gifted, I found her self-centred and naive.

Burton is a great writer, I can't wait to check out The Miniaturist.

The Girls in the Garden by Lisa Jewell

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really enjoyed this book and found Jewell's writing rich, descriptive, and complex. There was the right amount of suspense and an interesting setting—a secret picturesque communal garden that is pivotal to the story and becomes one of its characters.

After a family tragedy, Clare and her daughters, Grace and Pip, move to a London neighbourhood where all the flats are connected and share a garden. With this type of neighbourhood, relationships are fluid, boundaries are lacking, and children come and go with little to no supervision. The reader is also privy to Pip's letters to her father which offer a further glimpse into their new surroundings—although take this information with a grain of salt, Pip is an unreliable narrator seeing the world through twelve year-old eyes.

The book opens part way through the story, a midsummer's night party that goes horribly wrong. Thirteen year-old Grace is attacked the night of her birthday and is found beaten and unconscious by her twelve year-old sister, Pip. The attack mirrors another from the past that is tied to the characters, most of which are suspects in Grace's attack.

Disturbing at times, and often quirky, Jewell's highly developed characters make this book a success. They are written with enough detail to outline their motivations which propels the story.

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LISA JEWELL is the internationally bestselling author of I Found You and The House We Grew Up In.

In total, her novels have sold more than two million copies across the English-speaking world and her work has also been translated into sixteen languages so far.

Lisa lives in London with her husband and their two daughters.

The Blue Bath by Mary Waters-Sayer

A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

The cover of this book is spectacular, just gorgeous.  Unfortunately, the story not so much.  Waters-Sayer ticks several boxes—Paris, London, art—but the actual story fell flat through characters that were not likeable and underdeveloped.  The best writing of the book is the descriptions of the city, she creates some lovely visuals with her prose.

The premise, Kat Lind, an expat living in London with her successful husband and son, attends a gallery opening only to find that she is the subject in the paintings that stemmed from her past relationship with the artist, Daniel Blake.  She is drawn back to Daniel and and must decide if she should leave the past as part of her history or make it her future.

I liked the juxtaposition of the historic home renovation against her relationship; the past colliding with the modern of the architecture and the premise that the past simply cannot be erased because the bones of the home will always be there, just like her past choices have made her who she is.