The Heart of the Matter by J.S. Dickson

A special thank you to the author, J. S. Dickson, for the opportunity to review.

"Even time can't keep them apart."

Ella fell in love with Brody when she was 17.  When she was 18, Brody broke her heart.

Fast forward 10 years and Ella now lives in NYC after pursuing her dream job.  No longer the naive girl she once was, she's returning home for her high school reunion where she will come face-to-face with her first love.

The Heart of the Matter is a light, fun, flirty, and captivating read.  Dickson's debut was a page-turner and perfect for a snowy day.  If romance is your genre, you will adore this book.

Congratulations, J. S. Dickson on publishing your first book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

J. S. DICKSON grew up in Whitby, Ontario with her parents in a close-knit family. She now lives in Kitchener, Ontario with her boyfriend.

The Heart of the Matter is J.S. Dickson's first novel.

In her spare time, she enjoys reading every romance book she can get her hands on, and coming up with new and exciting ideas for her next novels!

Keeping Lucy by T. Greenwood

A special thank you to Goodreads First Reads, NetGalley, Edelweiss, Macmillan, and St. Martin's Press for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This heartbreaking story—inspired by true events—is a tale of how far a mother will go for her child.  In 1969, Ginny Richardson gave birth to a baby girl with Down Syndrome.  Her husband's family arrange to have the baby sent to Willowridge, a state-supported institution for children with intellectual disabilities.  Abbott, her husband, tries to convince Ginny that it is for the best and that they should move on after they grieve for her daughter whom, they were going to claim, died at birth.

Two years later, Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her articles about Willowridge—the living conditions are nothing short of horrifying, and the children are severely neglected.  Ginny, Marsha, and Ginny's six-year-old son visit the school to see for themselves if there is any truth to what is being reported and how Lucy is being cared for.  With the circumstances being exactly as described, Ginny takes Lucy and flees.  For the first time in her life, she is in control and in for the fight of her life against Ab and his powerful family.

Greenwood's writing is great, in fact, it's better than great.  She effortlessly draws the reader in and deftly balances the delicate subject matter with the story—based on real events—that needed to be told.  I felt that she kept the writing light on purpose given the horrific reports of institutions, like Willowridge, that actually existed.  It could be argued that this did the novel a disservice however, in this case, I think it worked.  Ginny was naive and passive and this type of character couldn't shoulder a heavier plot with a deeper exploration into both the depression that Ginny experienced as well as the deplorable conditions that Lucy was living in.      

At first, I was a little thrown by the third perspective, and the sentence structure was distracting because every sentence seemed to start with "Ginny".  Once I got past that and into the rhythm of the writing, I devoured this page-turner.

T. GREENWOOD is the author of thirteen novels. She has won three San Diego Book Awards. Five of her novels have been BookSense76/IndieBound picks. Bodies of Water was finalist for a Lambda Foundation award.

She is also a photographer and teaches creative writing for San Diego Writer's Ink and online for The Writer's Center.

She and her husband, Patrick, live in San Diego, CA with their two daughters. 

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.

BUY NOW

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 Embalmer by Anne-Reneé Caillé

A special thank you to Edelweiss, NetGalley, and Coach House Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In the end, we all die, no one is exempt from death.

This fleeting narrative is a collection of vignettes about the dead.  A father—the embalmer—relays the cases to his daughter.  These are the notes of a life spent dealing with death and the aftermath, and a daughter trying to make sense of it all, including trying to make sense of her father.  He speaks of children, of the elderly, of young women, of those marred in death, and of the secrets of his profession, like the powder that is injected into the cheeks for blush, how candle wax is used to reconstruct a skull, and weighing down an empty casket with the right amount of stones.

The retelling of these cases in note format works perfectly—it is  as if the reader is the notetaker.  His daughter is trying just as hard as the reader to make sense of her father's life which was spent staring at death.  In a cruel irony, we learn that cases of brain tumours are more common among anatomists, pathologists and embalmers (they think it's the formaldehyde).

Fascinating, sad, gruesome, and isolating.  This haunting book will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.

ANNE-RENEÉ CAILLÉ lives in Montreal. This is her first novel.