The Couple Next Door is a fast read which will pull you in as it quickly twists and turns throughout the rest of the story. Anne and Marco, our young, married couple, have a new baby to love. Marco is the classic smart, hard-working boy who excelled and won the rich girl. He now has his own successful company and is trying to give Anne the life style she is used to. Anne grew up as the only daughter of wealthy parents. After the birth of their six-month-old daughter, Cora, Anne has struggled with postpartum depression.
Their childless neighbors have invited them over for a small dinner party but the babysitter has bailed out. The couple next door do not like children and want an adult only get-together. Anne and Marco decide to leave the baby home alone and take turns checking on her every thirty minutes.
As you can tell, something is going to happen - the baby disappears! The rest of this mystery involves the actions of each of the characters after the kidnapping and their interaction with Police Detective Rasbach. He is trying desperately to untangle this web
in time to save Cora. Every character has a secret to reveal to you during the story and it will surprise you along the path. No one needs to tell you that this is a read you will not want to start and then put down. It will go quickly and keep you guessing until close to the end.
What happened to Cora? Are Anne and Marco as happy as they seem? Does the wealth of Anne’s parents play a role in the kidnapping? Are their neighbors hiding anything?
I rated this book a 4.5 stars. Make sure you have time to finish it before you pick it up because you will not want to stop!
"Are you sleeping" by Kathleen Barber is definitely a book you don't want to miss! The book centers around two twin sisters whose father's murder will change their every relationship. My book club had a lot of good discussion about this one! The book lays out the story via multiple points of view and from podcast texts. This makes the book very enjoyable to read.
The book centers around the murder of the twins, Josie & Lanie's, father which took place in their teenage years and changed both of their lives forever. A young neighbor, Warren Cave, was convicted for the crime but everyone involved has a different memory of that night. After the murder, the once inseparable sisters grow apart. The effect of the murder reverberates through their lives. As the book starts, they are no longer best friends, they don't even talk to each other or know where they live.
Their mother ran off shortly after the murder and joined a cult once the trial was over that convicted Warren Cave. Warren's mother is never convinced that her son committed the crime and has been trying all avenues to get the case reconsidered and her son set free. Thus enter the want-to-be-notorious Poppy Parnell, who will dig into the case on her podcast and stir everything up again for them all.
As Josie is deciding whether to tell her live-in boyfriend about her past, her mother dies and she is forced to return to her hometown to confront the murder, her sister, her lies about herself and her memories of that night. This psychological thriller explores the murder and what each twin remembers from that night. They must come to terms with what happened after the murder and the secrets each sister have from the other and from themselves.
This book is unique in the format and told in a quick pace that kept me turning the pages with surprises happening frequently. You will be rooting for Josie to find her truth and hope she can figure out a way to tell Caleb about her real self and past. She and Lanie will find the truth and figure out what happened the night her father was murdered. A solid 4 stars!
John Hart became one of my favorite authors when I read his first book, "The King of Lies". He had my attention and the fact that he is a North Carolina author kept my attention. I couldn't wait to see if his next book lived up to the first, and it did. Now I cannot wait to read his new book, "The Hush" which came out February 27, 2018.
Recently I read “Redemption Road”. The story is centered around the two main characters, this time a woman and a man. Elizabeth Black, a police officer on the brink of losing her career and maybe her freedom is fighting for both when her ex-partner, Adrian Wall, walks out of prison a free man. They have a very complicated history. Adrian, out of prison after serving a thirteen year sentence, left a prison ran by a very corrupt warden and his staff. They are not ready to leave Adrian alone to tell tales.
Elizabeth likes to rescue children at risk. She feels that her parents let her down and she wants to help the ones she can save. She is trying to save Gideon, a local child, whose mother has died when she is pulled into the kidnapping of Channing Shore. Channing, the rich daughter of a powerful local family, was kidnapped and tortured. Elizabeth saves Channing and their relationship develops throughout the story. The characters interweave their stories and leave you, the reader wanting to know more.
This book is filled with rich, full characters that will draw you in or make you want to run as far as possible from them as you can go. Oh, by the way, there is a serial killer in the town looking for his next young woman victim. The characters will be trying to decipher the answer to what is going on in different ways and their reactions will guide them in their interactions with each other. It will keep you guessing what is coming on the next page and leave you reading as quickly as possible until the last word. If you take away anything from a John Hart novel, it is the thirst for more of his writing and you will remember them for a long time. A resounding 5 Stars!
Earlier this year, I impatiently looked forward to the next novel by Wiley Cash. So you can imagine my excitement to hear that he would be the keynote speaker at the NC Writers Network 2017 Fall Conference. The fact that his next book would be published right before the conference made it even more of a reason not to miss his keynote address. I really enjoyed the conference, learned a lot, and met some amazing writers. I ordered "The Last Ballad" from my local bookstore, Page 158 Books in Wake Forest. We all need to support our local bookstores. They are so valuable and important to our communities. Wiley Cash was kind enough to sign it and I was thrilled to hear his address to the conference, a win-win.
The novel portrays the life of Ella Mae Wiggins based on true accounts of her life. Ella Mae was a special woman who was ahead of her time. She fought for many rights including the right to be home with her children when they were sick and to make a fair wage in her job at the local mill. She was not a radical communist as some parts of society portrayed her at the time of the Loray Mill strike which took place in Gastonia, North Carolina in 1929. The fact that I, a native North Carolinian, have never heard of this strike and social unrest in the early 1900's seems unbelievable to me. No state likes to advertise their messy history, so these type of events seem to be swept under the table of history and not widely discussed.
Ella Mae was a poor young woman working in Tennessee with her parents when they both died and left her with no one at the age of 16. With a small amount of money in her pocket, she drew the interest of a swindler who took her money and her virginity. After she became pregnant they moved to find work at the textile mills in South Carolina. Struggling with her loss and uneducated she found work in several mills, but was left alone to provide for herself and her children. Living in a shack, working 70 hours a week at her job, she took a chance and went to hear a union organizer. From there she would become one of the most influential people in the struggle to organize the workers, both white and black. She wrote and performed songs, organized her fellow workers and attended rallies. The mill owners and their minions did not like the largely Northern group of union organizers who came down South to stir up trouble and they fought hard to put down the organizer's ideas by using fists, clubs, guns and other ruthless tactics.
Ella Mae's story, while true, is a fictional account written by the wonderful storyteller, Wiley Cash. His novel, as usual, provide a vivid picture of life in North Carolina when this was taking place. You can feel Ella Mae's pain and we mourn along with her losses. You can't go wrong reading any of Wiley Cash's books. The stories they tell and characters you meet will stay with you long after the last page is turned. A solid 5 stars!
The following are some of the best books I read in 2017. They are from different genres and authors. They are by no means a complete list. The books that I have on my list for 2018 are also a small faction of the ones I want to read. But what I want to read and actually have time to read are always two different things. Here's wishing you all the best reading year in 2018 and let me know which ones you read and how you like them.
Happy New Year! And be Present in your life.
2017
The Blackbird Season by Kate Moretti
The Last Ballad by Wiley Cash
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
If the Creek Don't Rise by Leah Weiss
Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate
All the Missing Girls by Megan Miranda
Redemption Road by John Hart
The Orphan's Tale by Pam Jenoff
Little Black Lies by Sandra Block
The Choices We Make by Karma Brown
Flight Patterns by Karen White
When We Were Sisters by Emilie Richards
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance
Small Great Things by Jodi Picoult
2018
The Alice Network by Kate Quinn
The Woman in the Window by AJ Finn
The Optimist's Guide to Letting Go by Amy E Reichert
Daughters of the Night Sky by Aimie K Runyan
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
The Glass Forest by Cynthia Swanson
No Place I'd Rather Be by Cathy Lamb
Lilac Girls by Martha Hall Kelly
The Immortalists by Chloe Benjamin
Still Me by Jojo Moyes
Sunburn by Laura Lippman
All the Beautiful Lies by Peter Swanson
The Couple Next Door is a fast read which will pull you in as it quickly twists and turns throughout the rest of the story. Anne and Marco, our young, married couple, have a new baby to love. Marco is the classic smart, hard-working boy who excelled and won the rich girl. He now has his own successful company and is trying to give Anne the life style she is used to. Anne grew up as the only daughter of wealthy parents. After the birth of their six-month-old daughter, Cora, Anne has struggled with postpartum depression.
