Read your books and enjoy a cupcake… at least that’s the way I like to enjoy some delicious, keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat fiction. This month, I read my first Frieda McFadden book (I know, I know, why has it taken this long?!) Want to Know a Secret is a rerelease of the 2021 self-published novel, and except for the implausibility of the ending (I mean, make it make sense to me, Frieda), I thoroughly enjoy this one.
Next, we have No Matter What, by a new-to-me author, Cara Bastone. This one will pull at your emotions as you root for the couple to work through their new ‘normal’ after suffering a tragic car accident that left them changed forever.
The Storm is by an author you should be familiar with if you’ve been following along for a while. I previously read The Villa and The Inheritance, by author Rachel Hawkins, and the way this book wrapped up… was chef’s kiss.
Finally, we have Once and Again by Rebecca Serle. Centered around the three women of the Novak family, we soon learn that each of the women of the Novak family receives a special ‘ticket’ when they’re born, allowing them to turn back time. They can only use this ticket once, and then it’s gone forever.
Want to Know a Secret | Frieda McFadden
This is my first Frieda McFadden book, and although I’d been told that McFadden’s writing was amazing and I’ve watched the trailer for The Housemaid movie several times, I didn’t expect this book to be so good. So twisted, and just when you think you’ve started to figure it out, you realize you’ve got it all wrong.
The story is primarily told from April’s POV before switching to Julie’s POV (and a third POV at the final part that I’m not going to give away.) McFadden really builds her case for you to align with one character, before you realize maybe, just maybe your allegiances should be elsewhere.
This book was originally published in 2021, and came out again under a new publisher this month. Definitely worth checking out if you need a fast paced read that will keep you guessing.
Rating: A+
Everyone has secrets.
YouTube baking sensation April Masterson knows the secret to the perfect gooey brownies. Or how to make key lime squares that will melt in your mouth. But if you keep watching her offline, you may find out some other secrets about April. Secrets she’d rather you didn’t know.
Like where did her son go when he snuck out of the house? What was she doing with the local soccer coach behind fogged windows?
And what’s buried in her backyard?
Everyone has secrets. Some are worse than others.
April’s secrets are enough to destroy her.
I’ll make sure of that.
No Matter What | Cara Bastone
“You can’t delete a chapter and get the same ending.” That sentence really encompasses all the feelings that this book gives you. Roz and Vin have never recovered from the accident. It’s not only changed their lives, it changed their marriage. They’ve grown apart, and when Roz finds a lease for another apartment, she is scared that their marriage is over… and so she signs up for a figure-drawing class.
We soon discover that Vin is also sharing his story (although we don’t know where he’s sharing it until later in the book), and through sharing his story in front of others, which in turn helps him to start opening up to Roz. There appears to be light and the end of the tunnel, and perhaps their marriage can be saved… you’ll have to read this one to find out.
Rating: A+
Sometimes love sends you back to the drawing board.
After a traumatic accident threatens the foundations of their happy marriage, a couple tries to rebuild and find their way back to each other—and themselves—in this tender, slow-burn romance by the bestselling author of Ready or Not and Promise Me Sunshine.
“Cara Bastone is an absolute master of tender, emotional, soul-charged love stories.”—B.K. Borison, New York Times bestselling author of First-Time Caller
Roz and Vin can’t look each other in the eyes anymore, let alone share a bed. It’s been a year since they survived a life-altering accident, and their marriage hasn’t been the same. But Roz has held out hope that they can fix things, until she discovers Vin has signed a new lease. So she does what any soon-to-be-divorced Manhattanite would do: sign up for a figure-drawing class.
Between Roz’s determined attempts to improve her artistic skills and her adventures with her best friend, Raffi, she can almost ignore Vin’s impending move-out date and his footsteps in their previously unoccupied guest room. But it would all be a lot easier if Vin wasn’t Raffi’s older brother, and if she didn’t still find him incredibly, debilitatingly attractive and kind.
So kind, in fact, that Vin offers to let Roz draw him. What is she supposed to say? It’s probably better than her original plan of finding some random male model online, and she needs all the practice she can get. Plus, that’s sure to make a separation easier, right? Focus on every detail of your estranged spouse’s body while drawing him in the nude? But after the year they’ve spent avoiding each other, it feels good to see and be seen by one another again.
As Roz works to capture the wholeness of the person she fell in love with, will they both be able to draw upon the feelings they buried deep inside to finally heal together?
New Release
The Primrose Murder Society | STacy Hackney
Lila Shaw stopped trusting anyone the minute her husband went to jail for white-collar crime, taking their country club lifestyle with him. Now Lila is broke, friendless, and losing her house—and to make things worse, her true-crime-obsessed daughter, Bea, was just expelled from fourth grade. Desperate for a fresh start, Lila agrees to temporarily move in and clean out an abandoned junk-filled apartment in Richmond’s palatial Primrose building. The luxurious Virginia landmark is filled with retirees who start their days early drinking bourbon and gossiping, in that order.
Soon after Lila’s arrival, the Primrose is thrown into chaos. The owner of the building’s splendid penthouse has died and in his final days he set up a two-million-dollar reward for any resident who helps to solve the 21-year-old murder of his granddaughter at the Primrose. A fan of all detective stories and true-crime podcasts, Bea is inspired to investigate. They really could use the reward money, so Lila reluctantly agrees, in a questionable attempt at family bonding. She’s certain the killer is long-gone after all these years anyway. That is, until another resident is murdered… and Lila becomes the prime suspect.
Now Lila needs to solve both murders to avoid jail, and even worse, losing her daughter to her snobby in-laws. To catch a killer and clear Lila’s name, she and Bea must rely on their elderly neighbors—Jasper, a shy former detective, and Evelyn, an opinionated socialite—along with Nate, a good-looking reporter who keeps appearing at the most inconvenient moments. As the amateur sleuths expose the truth about the Primrose, Lila hopes she can also unravel the trickiest parts of her own life and start fresh.
The Storm | Rachel Hawkins
I really enjoyed this one (so much so that I had to have a ‘book trophy’ too… that’s what I call a physical book when I already have the ebook on my iPad). I’ve previously read both The Villa and The Heiress by Rachel Hawkins, and her latest novel, The Storm did not disappoint. No matter which POV the story is being told from (between Geneva and Lo Bailey) as well as letters in between, you couldn’t help but find yourself completely absorbed in the storyline… and finding out who really killed Landon Fitzroy.
The ending was so completely satisfying, which is something I really look forward to in a book, because a good book with a lackluster ending can be really disappointing to say the least. If you’re a fan of Rachel Hawkins, you won’t want to miss this one!
Rating: A
Hurricane season can be murder.
St. Medard’s Bay, Alabama, is famous for three things: the deadly hurricanes that regularly sweep into town, the Rosalie Inn, a century-old hotel that’s survived every one of those storms, and Lo Bailey, the local girl infamously accused of the murder of her lover, political scion Landon Fitzroy, during Hurricane Marie in 1984.
When Geneva Corliss, the current owner of the Rosalie Inn, hears a writer is coming to town to research the crime that put St. Medard’s Bay on the map, she’s less interested in solving a whodunnit than in how a successful true crime book might help the struggling inn’s bottom line. But to her surprise, August Fletcher doesn’t come to St. Medard’s Bay alone. With him is none other than Lo Bailey herself. Lo says she’s returned to her hometown to clear her name once and for all, but the closer Geneva gets to both Lo and August, the more she wonders if Lo is actually back to settle old scores.
As the summer heats up and another monster storm begins twisting its way towards St. Medard’s Bay, Geneva learns that some people can be just as destructive—and as deadly—as any hurricane, and that the truth of what happened to Landon Fitzroy may not be the only secret Lo is keeping.
Once and Again | Rebecca Serle
The last book I read by Rebecca Serle was back in 2022, One Italian Summer. Once and Again in the story of three women who were born with a gift, they can turn back time, but only once. Lauren spent most of her adult life being told that her mother Marcella used her ‘ticket’ to turn back time to save Lauren’s father’s life after he dead in a care accident. Since then she has spent every waking moment trying to keep her husband safe, knowing that she can no longer turn back time.
Lauren, who has recently moved back home after her husband takes a summer job in New York, falls back in love with surfing, in an effort to take her mind off the fact that she and her husband have been unable to have children, and in the process runs into her first love, Stone, who broke her heard almost a 10 years ago.
How will Lauren use her ticket? And how did her free-spirit grandmother use hers all those years ago? You’ll have to read the book to find out.
Spoiler. This book does end with what I call a ‘Seriously?!’ moment, but still a book you should check out!
Rating: A+
The women of the Novak family were each born with a gift: they can, just once, turn back time.
Lauren has known since she was fifteen that her mother Marcella saved Lauren’s father from a deadly car accident. Dave is alive and happy, and out on the Malibu waves. But ever since, Marcella, her power spent, has lived in fear of what she won’t be able to reverse. Her own mother, Sylvia, is her polar opposite: a free-spirited iconoclast with a glamorous past she only hints at. Lauren has spent her life between these two role models—and waiting for her own catastrophe to strike.
Then one summer, Lauren’s husband takes a job in New York and she moves back to Broad Beach Road, back into her childhood home on the shores of Malibu. Lauren looks forward to surfing with her dad again and perhaps repairing an unspoken fracture in her relationship with her mother. What she doesn’t expect is for the boy next to door to return home as well: Stone, Lauren’s first love, who broke her heart nearly a decade before.
As Lauren falls into familiar patterns, with her family and, more dangerously, Stone, she finds herself thinking about all the choices, large and small, that have brought her to this moment. And wondering, finally, if one of them should be undone.
New Release
It Girl | Allison Pataki
At the dawn of the twentieth century, New York’s streets teem with change: electricity, automobiles, the brash young President Teddy Roosevelt—and the It Girls. As artists’ muses and working models, these independent young women soar to stardom not because of their pedigrees or inherited wealth, but because of their talent, charisma, and irresistible beauty. Pop culture is born, and in a world alight with Mr. Edison’s new bulbs, no one shines brighter than America’s sweetheart, Evelyn Talbot.
But the journey to stardom is not simple or straight. While working as a shopgirl, the young Evelyn is recruited as a studio model and soon catches the eye of the preeminent artists of the age. When Broadway comes calling, Evelyn solidifies her status as the first self-made American female celebrity: the iconic Gibson Girl, the most sought-after figure and face of her time. Enter a parade of powerful and power-hungry men, from world-famous architect Stanley Pierce, the visionary behind Manhattan’s mansions and iconic landmarks, to Hal Thorne, the shockingly wealthy railroad heir and premier “playboy” of high society. Each man promises comfort, glamour, security—even love. But fame and fortune are cruel teachers, and Evelyn learns that the only person she can rely on is herself.
When Evelyn finds herself at the center of a murder of passion declared “the Crime of the Century,” she is blamed for the acts of the men in her life. In the media frenzy that spirals around her, Evelyn realizes that to survive, she will have to write her own ending. But can this artist’s muse, turned showgirl, pull off the greatest act of her life?
