Review: Drop Dead Gorgeous

Drop Dead Gorgeous by Rachel Gibson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book was one of the most riveting books I have read in a while. When you read the synopsis, it might seem that this may be a depressing book. However, I didn't find this to be depressing at all. Sad, yes, for sure, but also quite humorous in spots.

The idea of dying and then being sent back to earth but in someone else's body and life was just astonishing to me. But in an excellent way.

Brittany/Edie's character was very well fleshed and more profound than you could have expected. If I had to try to get everyone to believe I had amnesia and could most likely never see my living family again, well, I don't think I could do it and stay sane. However, Ms.Gisbson writes this book so realistically that I found myself playing the 'what if game' while reading. Yes, I admit that you have to suspend your disbelief quite a bit, but with all the garbage happening in real life nowadays, I found balancing between believing and not believing was easier to do than I thought.

This is the perfect book to curl up with in front of a roaring fire or to curl up with on a hot sandy beach.

*ARC supplied by the publisher Gallery Books/Simon & Schuster, the author, and Edelweiss.

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SYNOPSIS: "This hilarious fish-out-of-water tale—from the New York Times bestselling author of the “endearing, funny, and heart-tugging” (Karen Hawkins, New York Times bestselling author) novel How Lulu Lost Her Mind—explores what happens when a small-town Texas girl swaps bodies with a filthy rich socialite.

On her way from singing in church to hooking up with a Tinder date, Brittany Lynn Snider crashes her momma’s minivan, and her life is changed forever. One moment she’s texting HotGuyNate, and in the next she’s at a hospital in El Paso watching doctors operate on her near-lifeless body. If that wasn’t bad enough, she finds herself trapped in the Limbo Lounge where patients await their fate, playing cards and watching reruns of 7th Heaven and Heaven Help Us.

When a shimmering portal appears, it pulls Brittany upward toward heaven—until the lounge’s resident bully, a wealthy socialite named Edie, leaps through first and steals Brittany’s place. Brittany now has a second chance at life on Earth, but with a catch: she must inhabit Edie’s body.

Waking up as Edie in a mental facility where doctors try to cure her alleged retrograde amnesia, Brittany resumes a life of privilege in Grosse Pointe, Michigan. Yet even as she basks in luxury and reconnects with Edie’s old flame, Brittany plans to return to her old life in Texas. But when things don’t go according to her plan, she must ask herself: Who is Brittany Lynn Snider, and what does she want now?

And where’s Edie? Did she manage to make it past the pearly gates?"

Review: The Wise Women: A Novel

The Wise Women: A Novel by Gina Sorell
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Everything you need to know before buying this book is explained perfectly in the synopsis. This book is about three women, well, four if you count Barb's girlfriend and their difficulties in their lives.

This is a story about a true-to-life family. Unfortunately, this family seems to have it all, including major financial problems, a missing husband, a possible pyramid scheme, and an eviction.

This is also a book about the rising housing costs in cities (and suburbs) and what needs to be done to keep neighborhoods reasonable without over-building. We've been dealing with that in my own little city, so this aspect really resonated with me. I believe that it will resonate with many younger first-time home buyers too. But enough with my preaching!

The characters are fully fleshed, the story is told without repetition, the descriptions of the neighborhoods are spot on, and the resolution to this story is spot on. There are unique nuances and a lot of synchronicity to this book!

I loved this book and firmly see this as a wonderful book for book clubs and the perfect women's fiction beach read.

*ARC provided by the publisher Harper, the author, and Edelweiss.

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SYNOPSIS: "A witty and wildly enjoyable novel, set in New York City, about two adult daughters and their meddling advice columnist mother, for readers of Meg Wolitzer, Cathleen Schine, and Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney.

Popular advice columnist Wendy Wise has been skillfully advising the women who write to her seeking help for four decades, so why are her own daughters’ lives such a mess? Clementine, the working mother of a six-year-old boy, has just discovered that she is actually renting the Queens home that she thought she owned, because her husband Steve secretly funneled their money into his flailing start-up. Meanwhile, her sister Barb has overextended herself at her architecture firm and reunited semi-unhappily with her cheating girlfriend.

When Steve goes MIA and Clementine receives an eviction notice, Wendy swoops in to save the day, even though her daughters, who are holding onto some resentments from childhood, haven’t asked for her help. But as soon as Wendy sets her sights on hunting down her rogue son-in-law, Barb and Clementine quickly discover that their mother has been hiding more than a few problems of her own.

As the three women confront the disappointments and heartaches that have accumulated between them over the years, they discover that while the future may look entirely different from the one that they’ve expected, it may be even brighter than they’d hoped."

Review: Empty Vows

Empty Vows by Mary Monroe
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This book just didn't have the same impact as the first book did. Mrs. Wiggins  (If you have Amazon KU, then this book is free to borrow.) The first book had an interesting plot, proved how lies and deceit can lead down the wrong path, it explained how and why Maggie and Hubert got together. It had some historical inaccuracies, but that was not a big issue for me. I felt I had to read that book because I knew that THIS book was second in this series, and I received it as an ARC.

This book was just plain dull. It was filled with chapters of Hubert trying to find a new lover while Jessie was trying to snag Hubert. However, the best part of the book comes in the last two chapters when Blondeen shows her true colors.

ARC supplied by the publisher Kensington Books, Dafina, the author, and NetGalley books.

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SYNOPSIS:"In this scandalous follow-up to the Depression-era tale Mrs. Wiggins, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Mary Monroe delivers even more drama to the Deep South, as a proper church-going woman determined to snare Alabama’s most-sought after widower finds his secret desires and righteous lies come as a package deal…

Forty-something widow Jessie Tucker is beloved throughout Lexington, Alabama, for her kind heart and endless generosity. But she feels it's past time she rewarded herself—especially when upstanding Hubert Wiggins tragically loses his wife and son. Making herself indispensable, yet discouraged by Hubert’s lack of romantic interest, Jessie cooks up a deception she knows will make pious Hubert do right by her...

Hoax or not, Hubert couldn’t be happier. The passionate self he’s long hidden from everyone has a new, much-riskier secret love. And the unsuspecting second Mrs. Wiggins will help him maintain his ever-so-devout image in the community . . .

But when Hubert is not the ardent lover Jessie always dreamed he was, she turns her desires to handsome younger man Conway. Suddenly the “good church wife” can't resist temptation at all. And someone is watching: Conway’s new girlfriend—and Jessie's longtime rival—Blondeen. Now Blondeen has the perfect opportunity to harass Jessie, destroy her reputation, drive her out of town—then become the real wife Hubert should have had all along...

In one shattering night, Jessie, Blondeen, and Hubert will each go too far. And when their web of deceit threatens to drag them under for good, they will have only one chance to erase the past and claim everything they've ever wanted. If their secrets don't destroy them first ..."

Review: Immortal Rising

Immortal Rising by Lynsay Sands
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow-what a read! I know that many reviewers and long-time readers are going to be telling 'newbies' that they really should read some of the other books first. In my opinion, you do not have to do so. As it is, the first part of this series is written quite differently; lighter, funnier, a tad less descriptive sexually. That might make you feel the author needs to grow, but she already has. The series has changed as time went on.

The second reason is that this book has enough necessary back-story that makes reading some of the later works in this series unnecessary. I myself was in a quandary when I didn't remember some essential past issues that were being discussed in this book. However, to my delight, just as I was beyond frustrated, everything was explained. So now I don't have to do a considerable re-read of the whole series. Not that I won't LOL!

What we have here is one of the best Argeneau books that I have read in a long time. The characters are fresh, sexy, and quite interesting. They have a lot more going on than just pining for each other.

Stephanie is a non-fang vampire, and Thorne is the result of a DNA experiment by his nutsy cuckoo father. Thorne has come to this remote area to see if he can have an operation that would make him "normal. Stephanie is in the same area because she hears thinner and outer voices of everyone in her vicinity. She needs to be alone. But fate is going to lead them on a wonderful trip filled with excitement, fighting, and a ton load of know-it-all vampires!

*ARC supplied by Avon and Harper Voyager, NetGalley, and the author.


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SYNOPSIS: "The Argeneaus are back! Filled with love, passion, and adventure, New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands returns with another sexy romance about everyone's favorite immortals.

Stephanie McGill was attacked and turned when she was just a teenager. Worse, her abilities are unlike any other immortal. Now 13 years later, with the help of her adopted Argeneau family, Steph has carved out a new - if not lonely - life for herself. Until a new neighbor arrives...

Thorne is also one-of-a-kind. The result of a genetic experiment, he's not an immortal, but he's not mortal either. He's looking for a place to hide, to get some peace and quiet so he can figure things out, and Stephanie's sanctuary is perfect. In fact, Stephanie is perfect. For the first time, Thorne is free to be himself and he's falling for her.

But if they're going to have a future together, they'll first need to deal with their past...because the mad scientist who created Thorne is now after Stephanie."

Review: The Summer Place

The Summer Place by Jennifer Weiner
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This is a gloriously typical beach read sure to entertain fans of authors like Mary Kay Andrews (with a lot more spice), Kristen Higgins, or Susan Mallery. It has a little more hanky-panky (very descriptive) than I like, but the rest of the book is just filled with enough angst, affairs, family secrets, lies, and illness to make a beach-read lover swoon.

Intrigue, the questioning of sexuality, the wokeness, possible incest (or not!), father/or not father. Oh my, I could just keep going on, and that is just the first half of the book!

The last part of this book starts with more adultery, questioning of parenthood, and wedding plans. Then even more adultery.

It is interesting that the author chose to make the pandemic and its aftermath part of the story and to blame a few of the family problems on it.

This book has mostly exceptionally long chapters, which is a bit of a problem for someone like me who just has to read to the end of a chapter before doing anything else!

You might be asking yourself why I didn't give this book a better rating when so many other early reviewers loved it, the fact is that I saw this book for what it was (but this is only MY opinion) and I felt that what it was was a bunch of people that couldn't keep their reproductive organs in their pants. Okay, so some of them weren't lying; they just were volunteering the entire truths!!!

It wasn't a horrible book and as I said it will make someone with a different outlook on life than mine, a wonderful beach read.

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SYNOPSIS: "From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of That Summer comes another heartfelt and unputdownable novel of family, secrets, and the ties that bind.

When her twenty-two-year-old stepdaughter announces her engagement to her pandemic boyfriend, Sarah Danhauser is shocked. But the wheels are in motion. Headstrong Ruby has already set a date (just three months away!) and spoken to her beloved safta, Sarah’s mother Veronica, about having the wedding at the family’s beach house on Cape Cod. Sarah might be worried, but Veronica is thrilled to be bringing the family together one last time before putting the big house on the market.

But the road to a wedding day usually comes with a few bumps. Ruby has always known exactly what she wants, but as the wedding date approaches, she finds herself grappling with the wounds left by the mother who walked out when she was a baby. Veronica ends up facing unexpected news, thanks to her meddling sister, and must revisit the choices she made long ago, when she was a bestselling novelist with a different life. Sarah’s twin brother, Sam, is recovering from a terrible loss, and confronting big questions about who he is—questions he hopes to resolve during his stay on the Cape. Sarah’s husband, Eli, who’s been inexplicably distant during the pandemic, confronts the consequences of a long ago lapse from his typical good-guy behavior. And Sarah, frustrated by her husband, concerned about her stepdaughter, and worn out by challenges of life during quarantine, faces the alluring reappearance of someone from her past and a life that could have been.

When the wedding day arrives, lovers are revealed as their true selves, misunderstandings take on a life of their own, and secrets come to light. There are confrontations and revelations that will touch each member of the extended family, ensuring that nothing will ever be the same.

From “the undisputed boss of the beach read” (The New York Times), The Summer Place is a testament to family in all its messy glory; a story about what we sacrifice and how we forgive. Enthralling, witty, big-hearted, and sharply observed, this is Jennifer Weiner’s love letter to the Outer Cape and the power of home, the way our lives are enriched by the people we call family, and the endless ways love can surprise us."

Review: The Great Alone

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh my, the triggers in this book, there are just soo many for me to warn you of. PTSD, wife Abuse, Alcoholism, irrational behavior, child abuse-the list can go on and on. Yet I found this one of the most un-put-downable books I've read this month.

I will point out that this is a historical novel, starting in 1974 and continuing to 1978 then on to 1986.

This novel is about POW Ernt Allbright, his wife Cora, and their 13-year-old daughter Leni. Ernst comes home from the war, a changed man. He is volatile, prone to drink, and eventually uses his fists to voice his feelings. He impulsively moves his family to a very remote part of Alaska (remember this is the '70s) with no electricity, no plumbing, no phone, and no training on how to
live in the wilderness.

I lived through this time period, and you need to remember that PTSD didn't become recognized until the 1980s. Nor did a wife really have the right to defend herself from her abusive husband.

Quoted from research ----" The Supreme Court of Canada set a precedent for the use of the battered women defense in the 1990 case of R. v. Lavallee."

"In the mid-1970's the first battered women's shelters were opened in the United States and old ideas about women in the criminal justice system were challenged. The case of Yvonne Wanrow, decided by the Supreme Court of the State of Washington in 1977, was a pivotal advance for women in self defense cases."

This was a heart-rending book, and I must have been in the mood for something like this since I could not put it down and finished it in about 6 hours.

If you can handle the issues, then I fully recommend this book.

Spoilerish---->


And just in case you want to know, there is a bit of a happily ever after ending.


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Review: Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese

Sonny: The Last of the Old Time Mafia Bosses, John "Sonny" Franzese by S.J. Peddie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the true story of one of our longest-lived mobsters, John "Sonny" Franzese. It is about him and his rise in the Columbo family. However, this book is more than just about his criminal career; I found it to be so much more. Of course, his two marriages were something else, but you have to remember the time period that this book was most devoted to; the 1930s was the start, the 1960s took up a lot of this book, and then the downward spiral of the '90's to 2020.

I admit that this guy and his sons were criminals of the worst kinds, but I did manage to feel compassion for Sonny. Imagine having your beloved son testifying against you and your other son leaving the Mafia and leaving his father in the lurch.

So many informants. So many wearing wires. So much blood and shakedowns.

This was a fascinating read that I found I was unable to put down no matter what bloody coupe was taking place.

*ARC provided by the publisher Citadel Press - Penguin Random House Canada, the author, and NetGalley.

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SYNOPSIS: "Based on exclusive interviews before his death in 2020 at age 103, SONNY is the first and only authorized biography of legendary mob boss John "Sonny" Franzese, the head of the Columbo crime family and financier of the infamous film Deep Throat. An old school Mafioso, he kept silent on his nine decade career in organized crime, remaining loyal to the Mafia oath throughout 30 years in prison, until he finally agreed to talk to award-winning Newsday reporter S.J. Peddie for this groundbreaking, never-before-revealed account.

John "Sonny" Franzese reportedly committed his first murder at the age of fourteen. As a "made man" for the Colombo crime family, he operated out of his Long Island home specializing in racketeering, fraud, loansharking, and other illicit deeds he would deny to his dying day. His career in organized crime spanned over eight decades--and was sentenced to fifty years in prison for robbery charges. But even behind bars, Sonny Franzese never stopped doing business...

This is the true story of an old-school Mafioso as it's never been told before. Newsday reporter S.J. Peddie interviewed Franzese in prison--and uncovered a lifetime of shocking secrets from the legend himself:

* How Sonny became friends with celebrities Frank Sinatra Jr., Rocky Graziano, and Sammy Davis Jr.
* Why FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover had a very personal interest in Sonny.
* How Sonny managed to juggle numerous affairs with women, including a famous model.
* How Sonny spent a third of his life in prison--and still managed to earn untold millions for the mob.
* How Sonny accidentally revealed some of his worst crimes--to a "friend" wearing a wire.

Through it all, Franzese refused to break the Mafia's code of silence. Authorities believe he may have murdered, or ordered the murders of, forty to fifty people. Yet he earned a grudging respect from law enforcement and an absolute reverence from his fellow gangsters. Eventually he managed to outlive them all--until his death in 2020 of natural causes, a rare event in the Mafia. Thanks to a series of exclusive first-hand interviews with Newsday reporter S.J. Peddie, the astonishing life story of John "Sonny" Franzese can be told in all its bold, brutal, and blood-spattered glory. This is a must-read for anyone fascinated with Mafia history--and a rare look inside a criminal mind that has become the stuff of legend"

Review: Mad for a Mate

Mad for a Mate by MaryJanice Davidson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I have already read this book twice-once for my pleasure, and then I re-read the series (three books so far) to review this one with everything fresh in my mind.

This should have been a solid 4.5/5 book for me, but Verity (the female protagonist) just annoyed me in the beginning with all her "just kidding" stuff. But that is just me.

If you have read the first two books, you will know just how this book will go.

Bear shifter Magnus Berne meets someone unusual (in this case, it's a Squib named Verity Lane).
The shifter has been depressed for a long time and thinks he will never find love.

The Squib? The same as the shifter-angsty about her future, had a difficult childhood (not as complicated as most of the others in this series, though) and sort of resents what she is.
These two will eventually come together (in more ways than one!) when they are forced to investigate the murder of one of Verity's friends from a squib club she belongs to. This book will also connect with the past two books and the mystery that was started with the first book.

I loved seeing all the characters from the first two books (although I did miss Pat), the mystery was fascinating and the romance was steamy, but not porn steamy!

*I received this book as an ARC but I have already preordered another copy.


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Synopsis:" Beloved and bestselling author MaryJanice Davidson is back with a hilarious and heartfelt shifter romance:

A delightful cast of shifters and supernatural creatures

Side-splitting hijinks that'll make you snort-laugh

A slow-burn romance that's still sexy as hell

Verity Lane might be a Shifter who can't shift (known as a "squib")—but woe betide anyone who tries to tell her who she is or what she's capable of. She's a proud member of a club for squibs out to prove themselves by participating in dangerous stunts. Which is probably how she ended up on this strange island...

Bear shifter Magnus Berne wants two things: to connect with his motherless goddaughter, and to find out who keeps dumping dead bodies on his property. When he discovers Verity on his island, he's determined to get some answers—but it's clear that whoever has been killing squibs is just as resolved to keep it quiet. And now that Verity is in the crosshairs, they'll have to move quickly to stay ahead, stay alive, and stay together."