Review: The Other Family - Wendy Corsi Staub - January 2022 Kia ora, bookworms! Pour yourself a strong cuppa,  maybe a proper flat white if you're feeling fancy  because oh my goodness, do I have a read for you today. I finished Wendy Corsi Staub's The Other Family in one sitting, curled up on the couch with my cat on my lap and the wind rattling the windows outside, and honestly? That might be the most perfectly atmospheric reading experience I've had all year. Right, let me set the scene for you. Nora and her family are packing up their lives and heading to New York,  new city, fresh start, all that exciting energy of beginning again somewhere unfamiliar. They find a house. They move in. And then, as you do when you're settling into a new place and getting a bit nosy with the neighbours, they discover that their lovely new home was the site of a horrific family slaughter years ago. Naturally, they're gutted. Why weren't they told? Who keeps something like...

Review: If the Sun Never Sets - Book #2 If Love Series - Ana Huang - July 2020 Ana Huang does it again with If the Sun Never Sets , the heart-tugging second installment in the If Love series. Picking up five years after If We Ever Meet Again , this book throws us right back into the whirlwind chemistry between Farrah and Blake — this time in the hustle and bustle of New York City. Farrah has come into her own as a passionate interior designer, but her career is stagnating thanks to a toxic workplace dynamic. When her colleague-slash-competition (who also happens to be sleeping with the boss) nabs the promotion she deserves, Farrah finally snaps — and quits. Enter Landon, Blake’s best friend, who unknowingly sets the wheels of fate back in motion by hiring Farrah to furnish Blake’s home. What neither man realizes is this Farrah is that Farrah — the one Blake left behind in China. Now a successful and more grounded version of the heartbreaker we met in book one, Blake is determined...

Review: Holmes is Missing - Book #2 Holmes, Margaret and Poe Mystery Series - James Patterson and Brian Sitts - January 2025 James Patterson has long been one of my go-to authors, and with each new release, I’m always eager to see if it will be a hit or a miss. His Holmes, Margaret and Poe series quickly became one of my favorites, blending classic literary inspirations with modern detective work. Holmes is Missing continues this thrilling saga with high stakes and a gripping mystery. The story kicks off with the shocking disappearance of Holmes, the sharp-minded detective of the trio. While Margaret and Poe attempt to carry on without him, they are soon pulled into a heart-wrenching case—the abduction of six newborns from a private hospital in New York. As they investigate, disturbing links to similar disappearances in London surface, prompting Margaret to follow the clues across the Atlantic. Meanwhile, Holmes has his own dangerous mission, delving into a decades-old cold case known ...

Review: The Getaway List - Emma Lord - January 2024 Today was another nice day outside and so it meant, sitting on my outside porch swing and reading and when I get undisturbed reading time then that's the time, I love to get stuck into my Book Shoppe Book Boxes. I had 5 sitting on my pile and so I asked my partner to pick a number between 1-5 and he picked number #4 which happened to be Emma Lord's The Getaway List which was February's YA Book Box. After reading a mystery this morning, reading a sweet YA romance was right up my alley. In The Getaway List, we have Riley and Tom - best friends since childhood. In a world where most people their age would be going off to college, they are both stuck in the "what to do next stages". Riley decides on a whim to visit Tom in New York for the weekend and start the Getaway List they wrote before Tom moved away. What turns from a weekend ends up being the whole summer and with a few more friends chucked into the mix, their...

The Vampire Jack Townson Publication date: January 23rd 2024 Genres: Adult, Paranormal, Thriller Trade your entire life for fame, fortune, and eternal beauty. The only thing have to lose is your soul… Magic is real. And real damn scary . A man down on his luck trips and stumbles into a world of bloodthirsty monsters hidden among the precipices of New York City. A chance encounter with illustrious vampire Alexander LaMont ensnares the clumsy yet hopeful James Donovan in shadow and treachery, thrusting James into his new identity, The Vampire Jack Townson. Will Jack survive the vampiric politics of Manhattan, or will final death come to claim him at the next sunrise? Welcome to New York. We bite. Jack Townson’s contemporary fantasy series, The Vampire Jack Townson, is a perilous tale about the dangers of love, deception, and vampiric grit where the action of Jay Kristoff meets the decadence of Anne Rice. Goodreads / Amazon / Barnes & Noble / iBooks / Kobo — EXCER...

Review: Playing Keira - Book #1.5 You Look Different in Real Life Series - Jennifer Castle - May 2013 As someone who has lots of books to choose from, I often go through stages where I just need something quick to hit the spot. Something like a short story/novella read. That's where Jennifer Castle's book Playing Keira came into play. This is a spin-off of one of the characters that is featured in her book You Look Different in Real Life which I read and reviewed back in August 2016. The original title followed 5 children every 5 years showing their lives on film. A bit of a documentary/reality-styled show. Their best and worst moments were put out for the public to see and forever captured on film. For Keira, her worst moment was when her mother walked out and left them and went on to create her own life away in New York. On a bus, Keira decides to become someone else and create a new character called Rayanne and meets Garrett who lets her live in a little fantasy. This was ...