Carries Book Reviews

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Illusion of Stars
Sarah Marie Page
Publication date: July 16th 2024
Genres: Fantasy, New Adult, Romance

She’s stealing more than secrets.

As the royal physician of a tiny, windswept island, Isabel spends her days trying to keep the queen from dying and the mad king from streaking naked down the halls. But when her best friend is found murdered on the beaches, her world is ripped apart. Desperate for answers, she discovers a stash of letters that reveal a terrifying truth: the neighboring kingdom of Volgaard possesses a kingdom-shattering weapon and is poised to conquer everything in its path.

Seeking vengeance, Isabel infiltrates the enemy. Her mission? Woo Erik Lothgarson, the general’s steamy, illusion-magic wielding son, and steal the dangerous weapon. She can bring Volgaard to its knees—if she isn’t caught.

But as Isabel dances along the knife edge of deception, the lines between truth and fiction blur, and she must wrestle her quest for vengeance against her undeniable attraction to the enemy.

Add to Goodreads / Pre-order

 

Author Bio:

I’m Sarah, an award-winning author who writes fluffy fantasy. I live in Phoenix, Arizona with my equally fluffy cat (starting to see a pattern here?) And fine, I have a husband too.

He’s not fluffy.

My debut novel, ILLUSION OF STARS, comes out July 2024. I’m currently working on the (untitled) ILLUSION OF STARS sequel and SERPENT GREEN, VENOM BLUE. I also have a witchy manuscript that lives in a trunk under the bed.

We don’t talk about that.

My work has been featured in Y Magazine, The Advocate, The Crow’s Quill, and Hippocampus Magazine (among others) and I’ve been a guest on a ton of podcasts like The Outspoken Artist, Bookish Flights, Books are Magical and the Author’s Alcove.

If I got some pity laughs out of you, I suggest signing up for my newsletter where I will make you pity laugh some more.

I’m also a frequent flier on Instagram, so if you still can’t get enough of me, you can also follow me there.

Website / Goodreads / Twitter / Instagram

 

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**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Title: Lies Make Perfect

Author:  Ellie Banks

Publisher: Canary Street Press

Publication Date: June 11, 2024

Page Count:  340

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

About the book:

In a web of lies, one mother fights for the truth…

For popular true crime author Margo Box, the past six months have been a waking nightmare. Ever since her five-year-old daughter, Poppy, vanished—abducted by her own father—Margo has tortured herself the way only a mother could: with unrelenting blame. How could she have let this happen? Had she been working too hard to see the signs?

Despite the guilt and unanswered questions, Margo holds on to the hope that Poppy is somehow still alive. Yet after years of solving other people’s cold cases, her own case proves impenetrable.

That is, until she finds a cryptic letter hidden in a secondhand book in her neighborhood library box. In this letter are clues that someone in the community knows something about the disappearance of Margo’s school friend Sarah nearly two decades ago—the disappearance that drove Margo into true crime and haunts her still. To distract from the pain in her life, Margo throws herself into Sarah’s case, desperate for closure of some kind. But as she digs deeper into her friend’s history, she unearths a disturbing connection to her daughter she never expected to find…

Lies Make Perfect by Ellie Banks is a new thriller novel. The story in Lies Make Perfect is one that covers not one, but two cold cases that are close to the main character with one from the distant past and the other from only months before.

Lies Make Perfect also may look to readers as a debut novel by the author however Ellie Banks is the pseudonym for bestselling author Maisey Yates, who has written over one hundred novels which are usually more from the contemporary romance genre with a few romantic suspense being the closest to this new novel.

Margo Box is a popular true crime author having helped solve cases she’s studied. Now however Margo is living her own true crime nightmare when six months ago her husband vanished without a trace taking Margo’s  five-year-old daughter, Poppy, with him. When Margo comes across a clue to the disappearance of an old friend twenty years before Margo dives right in to investigating that case after having no luck finding her own daughter but Margo soon finds that both cases seem to be connected.

Lies Make Perfect was a solid thriller read incorporating the really popular true crime movement of today. This one however wasn’t without a few flaws that I noticed a long the way while reading. One thing was that some of it seemed a little repetitive where I was thinking haven’t we mentioned that a few times, lets get moving. Which then leads to it seemed to really take a while to take off making the beginning very slow moving which may tie both things together. Overall I finished this one at the three and half stars mark and knowing who the author actually is I will undoubtedly read her work again in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:
Ellie Banks is the pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates, who has written over one hundred novels. Whether she’s writing domestic suspense, romantic westerns or multigenerational family sagas, she loves getting lost in fictional worlds. She likes to spend a rainy day knitting and watching true crime documentaries. She lives with her husband and three kids in the Pacific Northwest. You can find more information about Ellie Banks’s stories at elliebanksbooks.com

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Title: Seven Summer Weekends

Author:  Jane L. Rosen

Publisher: Berkley

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

Page Count:  319

My rating: 4 stars

About the book:

A woman inherits a beach house, along with a series of weekend guests, while butting heads with the irritable (and irritatingly handsome) man next door, in this sparkling new escape from Jane L. Rosen.
 
When a Zoom disaster upends Addison Irwin’s decade-long career at a posh Manhattan advertising agency, things look bleak for the thirty-something mid-western transplant. But an unexpected inheritance from an aunt she barely remembers—a property on Fire Island, complete with guest house and artist’s studio—changes everything.
 
While debating whether to stay or sell, Addison learns that she’s also inherited her aunt’s list of eclectic guests, tying her to the island for seven summer weekends. Eager to convince Addison to keep the house rather than let a new buyer build a monstrosity in its place, the neighbors welcome her to their laid-back community. Well, all except the moody guy next door, who seems intent on glowering his way through life.
 
Steadfast in her path since college, Addison is determined not to let this detour on Fire Island throw her off track. But soon, between the revolving door of weekend visitors and the up-and-down relationship with her neighbor (and his adorable dog), she finds herself in unfamiliar territory. Should she try to pick up where she left off—or embrace entirely new possibilities?

Seven Summer Weekends by Jane L. Rosen is a new contemporary romance novel. While Seven Summer Weekends is not listed as a series book this one really is a continuation of the author’s last novel, On Fire Island. One of the central characters here is returning from the last book with some other secondary characters making appearances too. However, that being said Seven Summer Weekends really could be read as a standalone but of course since some characters have appeared before you do get a deeper connection to them by reading both books in order.

Addison Irwin has found herself suddenly without a job after working the last ten years in advertising. Without a clue what is coming next Addison also receives notice that her long lost aunt she barely knew has died and left her estate to Addison. Addison is sure she’ll probably need to sell the property on Fire Island but due to her aunt leaving stipulations for Addison inheriting she decides to spend the summer on the island before making that decision. After arriving on the island Addison begins to enjoy the close knit community around her with the one exception of her infuriating neighbor, Ben.

Well Seven Summer Weekends is the second book I’ve read by Jane L. Rosen having read On Fire Island before picking this one up and boy do both books feel completely different but somehow the same. Yes, we are returning to the charming small island with it’s eccentric characters but this time around there isn’t a supernatural narrator like there was in the first book, and I kind of missed her. However, this book did concentrate more on just a straight forward contemporary romance without a lot of extra the first book had so in a way I did enjoy this one more overall getting to know these two characters and becoming invested in them more. When finished with this second novel by this author I definitely find myself intrigued enough to read more from her in the future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:
JANE L. ROSEN is an author and Huffington Post contributor. She lives in New York City and Fire Island with her husband and three daughters. She often takes inspiration from the city she lives in and the people she shares it with. In addition to her writing she has spent time in film, television and event production and is the cofounder of It’s All Gravy LLC, a web and app-based gifting company.

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Late post this week so I’ll be brief and get to the goodies quickly…. I didn’t have a new addition post last week because I didn’t pick up any new books but I’m making up for that this week with eight new additions to my ever towering TBR. Of course I should still celebrate a whole week of complete behaving last week since I don’t know if that ever happens. 😂

As always clicking the covers will take you to the book on Amazon!**

New additions from Netgalley May 19th  – June 2nd

A woman must learn to take life by the throat after a night out leads to irrevocable changes in this juicy, thrilling novel from the USA Today bestselling author of Such Sharp Teeth and Black Sheep.

Sloane Parker is dreading her birthday. She doesn’t need a reminder she’s getting older, or that she’s feeling indifferent about her own life. Her husband surprises her with a birthday-weekend getaway—not with him, but with Sloane’s longtime best friend, troublemaker extraordinaire Naomi. Sloane anticipates a weekend of wine tastings and cozy robes and strategic avoidance of issues she’d rather not confront, like her husband’s repeated infidelity.  

But when they arrive at their rental cottage, it becomes clear Naomi has something else in mind. She wants Sloane to stop letting things happen to her, for Sloane to really live. So Naomi orchestrates a wild night out with a group of mysterious strangers, only for it to take a horrifying turn that changes Sloane’s and Naomi’s lives literally forever. The friends are forced to come to terms with some pretty eternal consequences in this bloody, seductive novel about how it’s never too late to find satisfaction, even though it might taste different than expected.

Inspired by Jane Austen’s Emma, this joyful Christmas romp tells the story of a meddling widow who can’t stop trying to help everyone around her find their happily-ever-afters—even when all her help leads to disaster.

Fifty-year-old widow Frankie Lane knows what’s best for…just about everyone but herself. Her divorced younger sister, Stef, who is too young to give up on love; her shy employee, Elinor; and her daughter, Natalie, who works in Frankie’s shop, Holiday Happiness, and really needs to start her own business selling the delectable chocolates she makes at home; even her best friend, Viola, who is trying to renovate her old Victorian. Frankie knows she could help all of them, if they’d just let her—and if all of her help didn’t end in utter disaster.  

Then there’s Mitch Howard, the owner of the local hardware store. They’ve been friends ever since she opened her store, nine years earlier. He got her through the nightmare when she lost her husband in a freak accident four years earlier, and he’s her favorite shoulder to cry on. He’s been divorced for years, and it’s such a waste of man! Mitch is the fittest fifty-eight-year-old Jackie knows. He’s easygoing, wise and kindhearted. Mitch needs someone. And she’s determined to help him find that someone—whether he likes it or not.

A Hitchcock fanatic with an agenda invites old friends for a weekend stay at his secluded themed hotel in this fiendishly clever, suspenseful new novel from the international bestselling author of Darling Rose Gold.

Alfred Smettle is not your average Hitchcock fan. He is the founder, owner, and manager of The Hitchcock Hotel, a sprawling Victorian house in the White Mountains dedicated to the Master of Suspense. There, Alfred offers his guests round-the-clock film screenings, movie props and memorabilia in every room, plus an aviary with fifty crows.

To celebrate the hotel’s first anniversary, he invites his former best friends from his college Film Club for a reunion. He hasn’t spoken to any of them in sixteen years, not after what happened.

But who better than them to appreciate Alfred’s creation? And to help him finish it.

After all, no Hitchcock set is complete without a body.

In this spellbinding warm and cozy debut novel, a burned-out witch will need to turn to her friends and trust in herself to find the magic in her own life again.

Belladonna Blackthorn hasn’t lost her magical spark, precisely . . . but she hasn’t seen it in a while either.

With her witchcraft under wraps and a toxic boss making her days miserable, Belle is struggling to keep her beloved Lunar Books afloat and just make it through the day. The last thing she has time for is perfecting her magic. 

So when her thirtieth birthday brings a summons from her coven and a trial that tests her worthiness as a witch, Belle fears the worst. With only the month of October left to prove herself or risk losing her magic forever, Belle will need all the help she can get—from the women in her life, from an unlikely mentor figure and even from an infuriating coven watchman who’s sworn to protect her…

A librarian with a knack for solving murders realizes there is something decidedly supernatural afoot in her little town in this cozy fantasy mystery.

Librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle keeps finding bodies—and solving murders. But she’s concerned by just how many killers she’s had to track down in her quaint village. None of her neighbors seem surprised by the rising body count…but Sherry is becoming convinced that whatever has been causing these deaths is unnatural.

When someone close to Sherry ends up dead, and her cat, Lord Thomas Crowell, becomes possessed by what seems to be an ancient demon, Sherry begins to think she’s going to need to become an exorcist as well as an amateur sleuth. With the help of her town’s new priest, and an assortment of friends who dub themselves the “Demon-Hunting Society,” Sherry will have to solve the murder and get rid of a demon.

This riotous mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Murder, She Wrote is a lesson for demons and murderers alike: Never mess with a librarian.

The unbreakable bonds of family and love are explored in this brilliant and tender story from the author of Guy’s Girl.

On the day she arrives in Canada for her older brother’s wedding, Eliot Beck hasn’t seen her family in three years. Eliot adores her big, wacky, dysfunctional collection of siblings and in-laws, but there’s a reason she fled to Manhattan and buried herself in her work—and she’s not ready to share it with anyone. Not when speaking it aloud could send her back into the never-ending cycle of the obsessive-compulsive disorder that consumed her for years. 

Eliot thinks she’s prepared to survive the four-day-long wedding extravaganza—until she sees her best friend, Manuel, waiting for her at the marina and looking as handsome as ever. He was the person who, when they met as children, felt like finding the missing half of her soul. The person she tried so hard not to fall in love with… but did anyway. 

Manuel’s presence at the wedding threatens to undo the walls Eliot has built around herself. The fortress that keeps her okay. If she isn’t careful, by the end of this wedding, the whole castle might come crumbling down.

College sweethearts reunite to restore more than just an old inn in this new romance by Katie Shepard, author of Sweeten the Deal.

When’s the best time to tell your ex that you want them back?

Probably not in the middle of a Category 3 hurricane. But when Broadway actor Tom Wilczewski is about to dive into the floodwaters to rescue his co-lead, he calls the ex-wife he hasn’t seen in ten years to swear he still loves her and ask for a chance to make things right.

Two months later, Rose Kelly is tired of seeing pictures of her ex-husband Tom rescuing Hollywood darling Boyd Kellagher. Not that she’s jealous. Of course not. She’s far too busy taking care of her elderly aunt and worrying about the storm damage to the family B&B on Martha’s Vineyard to miss the love of her life. But after belatedly hearing Tom’s voicemail, Rosie asks him to follow through on his promises for once by helping her fix the inn. Thinking this is the perfect way to win her back, Tom agrees.

When they get there, things are…less than ideal. Rosie expected the inn to be in better shape. She expected it to have more beds. And she expected more help from her actual family—not from Tom and the rest of his Broadway cast. But Rosie begins to wonder if maybe the life she expected isn’t the one she really wants. If she and Tom can repair the inn together, can they possibly repair the damage to the relationship they both thought was long gone?

Bridal wear designer-turned-entrepreneur Rayne McGrath remains in the Irish countryside ready for some wedding mayhem in this charming and colorful cozy, perfect for fans of Carlene O’Connor and Sheila Connolly.

Rayne McGrath’s efforts to save the rundown family castle she inherited were an epic failure after she accidentally set fire to the tower and tanked the budget. Is the castle haunted, or is she just unlucky? Meanwhile, her cousin, Ciara Smith, is anxiously booking their joint calendar with special events in the hopes of bringing the property around before they lose everything. 

When a bridalwear client from LA asks Rayne for help as her guest list spirals out of control, Rayne nabs the answer to her prayers. McGrath Castle is the perfect destination for the exclusive and intimate wedding party of heiress Tori Montgomery and her fiancé, heartthrob actor Jake Anderson. But this white veil occasion turns into a nightmare when Tori’s best friend’s assistant, Tiffany Quick, is found dead. 

It’s feared Tiffany jumped from the tower, but that theory is quickly put in doubt as secrets within the wedding party come to light. And as the villagers protest this new wedding venue venture, Rayne begins to wonder if she will succeed in her endeavor or lose it all.

**This post contains Amazon affiliate links which will allow me as an associate to earn a small commission on any purchase made through the link of the products I share. This commission in no way changes the pricing of any items for the buyer.**

Title: The Unwedding

Author:  Ally Condie

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Publication Date: June 4, 2024

Page Count:  329

My rating: 3 1/2 stars

About the book:

The White Lotus meets Agatha Christie in this bold novel from a #1 New York Times bestselling author: a recent divorcee’s exclusive Big Sur resort vacation unravels when she discovers a dead body on the day of a wedding, in this “clever, witty and fast-paced whodunit.” (Harlan Coben)

Ellery Wainwright is alone at the edge of the world.
 
She and her husband, Luke, were supposed to spend their twentieth wedding anniversary together at the luxurious Resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California. Where better to celebrate a marriage, a family, and a life together than at one of the most stunning places on earth?
 
But now she’s traveling solo.
 
To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now, she isn’t certain of anything except for her love for her kids and her growing realization that this place, though beautiful, is unsettling.
 
When Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool in the rain, she realizes that she is not the only one whose future is no longer guaranteed. Before the police can reach Broken Point, a mudslide takes out the road to the resort, leaving the guests trapped. When another guest dies, it’s clear something horrible is brewing.

Everyone at Broken Point has a secret. And everyone has a shadow. Including Ellery.

Author Ally Condie is best known for her young adult novels but The Unwedding is now her first attempt at adult fiction. The Unwedding is a locked room mystery of sorts with it being set at a remote luxury resort at Broken Point in Big Sur, California with a contained cast of characters.

Ellery Wainwright was about to be celebrating her twentieth wedding anniversary with a trip planned to Big Sur when her husband, Luke, decided he’d rather get a divorce. It was Luke who then suggested that Ellery go ahead and take the time and the trip to herself to digest this huge bomb in her life.

After arriving at Broken Point though Ellery finds the one thing she really wouldn’t have wanted at all, a wedding taking place while she mourns her own marriage. Trying to make the best of it all though Ellery continues her solo trip doing her best to avoid the wedding until the night Ellery discovers the body of the groom floating in the pool and finds a mudslide has cut off any chance of help arriving to find the murderer.

As much young adult I do read even now into my adult years Ally Condie’s popular Matched series is one that has continued to remain on my TBR so I had no experience with her work going into The Unwedding. The story did seem to be a solid effort at an adult novel with having an intriguing plot to follow. It did seem there were a lot of characters to follow along with which kind of made the pacing seem a little slow getting to know them all. When finished with this story I would rate this first adult effort at three and a half stars overall and definitely give this author another go into he future.

I received an advance copy from the publisher via NetGalley.

Find this book online:

Goodreads  /  Amazon

About the author:

Ally Condie is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Matched trilogy and its companion novel, The Last Voyage of Poe Blythe. She is also the author of the novel Summerlost, an Edgar Award Finalist for Best Juvenile Mystery, the New York Times bestselling novel Atlantia, and the co-author of the Darkdeep middle grade series. A former English teacher, Ally lives with her family outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. She has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and is the founder and director of the nonprofit WriteOut Foundation.