The Lying Game by Ruth Ware

A special thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After devouring The Woman in Cabin 10, I was excited to get my hands on another Ruth Ware book. Initially I was enjoying this book, especially the parts that take place at the boarding school, but I didn't fully buy in. I don't want to make comparisons, and whether this was on purpose or not, but there were echos of The Secret History by Donna Tartt. Is Donna Tartt not one of the most brilliant literary voices? This seems like a compliment, right? But in fact, this comparison does this book a disservice. Ware is a strong enough writer to stand on her own and does not have to draw on this inspiration. Again, this may be me creating the parallel between the two, but it's there: the exclusivity, the boarding school, the murder, the circumstances, the lasting effects of the death on the group, and that it is a murder mystery in reverse. Moving on...

There is an immediate hook. A woman is walking her dog in the quaint coastal village of Salten along the section of river known as the Reach where the tide meets the stream.  Her dog charges into the water to retrieve what is perceived to be a large stick, when in fact it is a human bone.

The next morning, three women—Isa, Fatima, and Thea—get a text from Kate, the fourth in their exclusive group, that simply says "I need you". Hoping they would never get this request, they drop everything and rush back to Salten. The girls were a fearless foursome at the Salten House boarding school. They used to play the Lying Game which involved telling the most outrageous things to people for points. Only there are rules: tell a lie, stick to your story, don't get caught, never lie to each other, and know when to stop the lie. For some, the lines become blurred with what are actual facts versus what is fantasy. Ware reveals bits and pieces of the girl's time at the Salten boarding school, and how extreme the game got—they were all expelled in their final year under mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of the art teacher, Ambrose, who also happens to be Kate's eccentric father. 

Where this book stumbles is with our narrator, Isa. She is a new mother, and Ware loses the plot because this character is so consumed by this role. The baby proves to be a distraction for both Isa and the reader which ultimately detracts from the story. Without the baby, Isa could still be an unreliable narrator—her memories of events are viewed through the lens of a naive young girl who seems enchanted with Ambrose, Kate, and Luc (the step-son/step-brother).

More of the girls' time at school needed to be written and the other characters needed more attention. I found it a stretch that these girls were only friends for such a short time, yet remained so incredibly loyal over the span of 17 years. There was simply so much more to the story. Ware took a wrong direction, not in using Isa as our narrator, but with hinging so much of her character on being a mother. The boarding school, and the girls' past is paramount to the plot, yet none of the characters were really fleshed out.

RUTH WARE is the international bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood and The Woman in Cabin 10.

Ware lives near Brighton with her family. 

The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman

A special thank you to NetGalley, Edelweiss, and Simon & Schuster Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Hoffman revisits the Owens family in this prequel to Practical Magic.  For hundreds of years, the Owens women have been blamed for everything that has gone wrong in their Massachusetts town.  It all started in 1620 when Maria Owens was charged with witchery for falling in love with the wrong man.  Hundreds of years later in New York City, Susanna Owens knows all too well the dangers of falling in love, and tries to spare her three children from the curse.  This means no walking in the moonlight, no red shoes, no wearing black, no books about magic, and most importantly, no falling in love!  Franny, her most difficult child, has hair the colour of blood, and skin as white as milk; Jet is a dark-haired shy beauty who can read other people's thoughts; and Vincent, irresistible to women, is full of trouble.

The Owens children visit their Aunt Isabelle at her home in Massachusetts where they uncover family secrets, and the truth of who they really are.  Feared and revered, it is made clear that this next generation of Owens will not be exempt from the scorn of the townspeople, that is until they want something that only magic can cure.
Back in New York City, each of the Owens children begins on their own journey of discovery while trying to avoid the family curse by not falling in love.  They cannot escape the magic, just as they cannot escape love and the bonds they share.

Thrilling and magical, this beautiful work sets the table—the sisters grow up to be the aunts from Practical Magic, while Vincent leaves behind the legacy that will define the Owens women.  Rich with imagery and prose, Hoffman sprinkles pop-culture and history in this beautiful story of love, loss, and magic, and I simply did not want it to end.

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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. 

A Tragic Kind of Wonderful by Eric Lindstrom

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

Sixteen-year-old Mel Hannigan has bipolar disorder and she is learning to balance life, relationships, and feelings.  Thinking that she will be abandoned when her friends find out things she has been pushing down, parts of her past, and also parts of who she is—what makes her Mel—she keeps them at a distance, even going so far as to terminate friendships.

This was a mixed bag for me.  While I applaud Lindstrom for tackling such an important topic, especially for this genre, it fell short.  There was a lot going on and this distracted from the beautiful raw emotion that should have been capitalized on.  There were characters that took away from the main story line, and then there were characters, like Nolan, that were not explored enough.

Without sounding harsh, I found Mel to be bright, confident, and honest, but the way she tracked her feelings was incredibly juvenile.  This is where her relationship with the retired doctor could have been fleshed out—this was a flaw in the story in that there was a beautiful and honest relationship that was never explored and this could have been the perfect vehicle to her memories of Nolan.  

All-in-all, a good read, and I would like to read Not If I See You First.

High Tea with Karma Brown and Lainey Lui

Photos by Girl Well Read

"In This Moment is a powerful and evocative story about the life-altering consequences of a single decision. [A] riveting tale." —Emily Giffin, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Karma Brown is one of my new favourite authors.  I had the pleasure of attending an event to celebrate her latest book In This Moment at a high tea and book signing at the King Eddy in Toronto, hosted by BookClubbish.  Guests enjoyed hot tea, finger sandwiches, and decadent desserts.  

Lainey Lui, as in gossip maven, etalk correspondent, co-host of The Social, and founder of laineygossip.com Lainey, joined Karma for a Q&A session.  The women chatted about the writing process—Lainey has also has written a book Listen to the Squawking Chicken: When Mother Knows Best, What's A Daughter To Do? A Memoir (Sort Of)—what it's like being a woman in the publishing industry, and where Karma gets her inspiration. 

In This Moment is an emotional and thought-provoking read that asks readers some challenging moral questions. Brown said of her main character, “I wanted to put Meg in a place where she only had her instincts as a person and as a woman. Meg is trying to be everything to everyone. But all it takes is one small wheel to fall off the bus for things to change.”   

Both ladies were well-spoken and super interesting!  If you have an opportunity to attend an event with Karma, I highly recommend you do so, you won't be disappointed.

In This Moment 

Meg Pepper has a fulfilling career and a happy family. Most days she’s able to keep it all together and glide through life. But then, in one unalterable moment, everything changes.

After school pickup one day, she stops her car to wave a teenage boy across the street…just as another car comes hurtling down the road and slams into him.

Meg can’t help but blame herself for her role in this horrific disaster. Full of remorse, she throws herself into helping the boy’s family as he rehabs from his injuries. But the more Meg tries to absolve herself, the more she alienates her own family—and the more she finds herself being drawn to the boy’s father, Andrew.

Soon Meg’s picture-perfect life is unravelling before her eyes. As the painful secrets she’s been burying bubble dangerously close to the surface, she will have to decide: Can she forgive herself, or will she risk losing everything she holds dear to her heart?

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KARMA BROWN has always loved the written word. As a kid she could usually be found with her face buried in a book, or writing stories about ice-skating elephants. Now that she’s (mostly) grown up, she’s a bestselling author whose debut novel, Come Away with Me, was a Globe & Mail Best 100 Books of 2015. Karma’s next two novels, The Choices We Make and In This Moment, also earned spots on both the Globe & Mail and Toronto Star bestseller lists.

A National Magazine Award winning journalist, Karma has been published in a variety of publications, including SELF, Redbook, Today’s Parent, Best Health, Canadian Living and Chatelaine.

Karma lives just outside Toronto, Canada with her husband, daughter, and a labradoodle named Fred. 

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

A special thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Random House Canada for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Joan and her four-year-old son, Lincoln, have just spent a leisurely day at their local zoo.  Estimating that it is almost closing time, Joan gathers up her son and his toys, and starts their journey towards the exit.  She quickly realizes that something is amiss—there is a shooter.  She gathers Lincoln in her arms and runs back into the zoo.  They are now trapped like the animals.     

Keeping one step ahead, Joan relies on her instincts and previous zoo trips to keep her and her little boy safe.  Her survival instincts kick into overdrive when she discovers there are others that are also trapped, and that there is more than one shooter.  Joan is determined for her and Lincoln to walk out of this alive.  The only communication she has with the outside world and her husband is via her cell phone and she realizes this same lifeline is also putting them at risk.  In a rash, but clever decision, Joan uses her cell phone as a decoy and throws the glowing object into the bushes. 

Phillips' primal and raw novel illustrates the powerful bond between a mother and her child and the lengths a mother will go to in order to protect her child.  This riveting novel pits a mother's love against fear, good against evil, and instinct against rationality.  Spanning three hours, this incredible story will have you mesmerized and your heart pounding until the very last word. 

White Horses by Alice Hoffman

A special thank you to NetGalley and Open Road Integrated Media for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For those of you who read my reviews, you know how much I love Alice Hoffman's words. Hoffman could teach a master class. You know those online seminars that you see advertised on social media sites? Well, Alice Hoffman should lead one.

Teresa's mother, Dina, fills her head with bedtime stories of an Aria—a dark-eyed fearless hero on a white horse who would come and rescue her. Aria's are rule breakers and so is her brother, Silver, who Teresa comes to believe is one of these fabled men. Instead of a fairytale, Teresa and Silver's relationship is dark and dysfunctional, not unlike her mother's relationship with her father, King Connors. The women in this story are swayed by myth and folklore instead of realizing that they can rescue themselves and be their own hero. It doesn't help that women can't seem to resist Silver, this only fuels Teresa's belief of him being an Aria.

This story may not sit well with all readers due to the incestuous relationship that is the underlying current of the novel. There is so much more going on here, Hoffman explores when when fantasy collides with reality and its repercussions. Teresa must change who she loves and rewrite her story into something real and not forbidden and taboo before she loses herself in myth and fantasy.

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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.