I don't know why I was browsing Netgalley's "read now" books before I fell asleep last night, but I'm glad I did! I love Snoopy and this is the perfect way to end the year. In this one, we spend a lot of time with Sally as she crushes on her sweet babboo and with Peppermint Patty as she struggles in school. And of course, with that lovable beagle, Snoopy, and his cute little friend, Woodstock, as they fight with the cat next door. A fun way to spend an afternoon for young and old alike!  Thank you to Netgalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for an ARC. 5/5.

The year was 1928. The Great War was over. America was optimistic. What better time to launch an expedition to Antarctica? Not a whole lot was known about the planet's final frontier. Almost everybody wanted to join Admiral Byrd on his journey, even the Rockefellers and Vanderbilts begged to be taken on as mess boys. Young Billy Gawronski was no different. The skinny New York City high-schooler begged his father to sign the paper to let him go, but it wasn't happening. Billy didn't want to go into the upholstery business with his father. So he did the only thing he could think of that might work - he jumped into the Hudson River and snuck aboard.  I would love to go to Antarctica. But not as much as Billy because there's no way I'd do what he did. I admired his tenacity. Nothing deterred this young man from getting what he so desperately wanted which was a place alongside Richard Byrd on his exciting and highly publicized expedition to Antarctica. This doesn't r

If you've ever wondered if a certain animal farts, look no further. There's sea cucumbers, unicorns and lots in between. Even if an animal doesn't fart, we learn why not and what takes place instead. We also learn about their diets and why their farts smell and sound the way they do, and if their farts are a defense mechanism or not. There's a glossary, illustrations, and a surprising amount of information. A quick and interesting read. Thank you to Netgalley and Hachette Books for an ARC. 4/5.

Elsie is a young waitress at the Betsy Ross Diner. She hopes her nickel and dime tips will take her away from her small town of Waterbury, Connecticut. Instead, she becomes pregnant to Bashkim - a married man from Albania who works at the Diner as a line cook. Elsie doesn't quite know what's going to happen once the baby comes. Will Bashkim stay or will he go back to his wife? Fast forward seventeen years and we have headstrong, independent Luljeta who has just received a rejection letter from NYU and her first ever suspension from school both on the same day. She desperately wanted a new life in New York but she's stuck in Connecticut with her mother. Now she's determined to uncover the truth about the father she never knew.  The chapters alternate between Elsie when she was younger, and her daughter, Luljeta, when she's almost the same age. I really enjoyed the writing. The author has the ability to transform a mundane sentence into something mesmerizing. Sadly, a

Emma Hazelton has just buried her grandfather. And she buried her son on the same day one year earlier. She's still grieving her little boy who passed away due to a rare genetic disease and she feels as though her husband wants to move on, to try to have another baby even though there's a 1-in-4 chance that baby will have Canavan's. Emma decides to get out of the house. She needs time and space to think. While going through her grandfather's things, she begins to untangle the web of her family's past and dig into the roots of her son's disease. And she learns that it isn't blood that connects a family, it's love. I won a copy of her debut novel (Root, Petal, Thorn) and it was really good and, like this one, it has a beautiful cover. So when I saw this as a "read now" on Netgalley I had to click the button. But I couldn't get into it then and I tried over the months but it just wasn't holding my attention. I knew it was going to be a g

Take a trip across Canada with Taggart and Torrens as they share their tales from the road, their observations and their best places to eat, drink and hang out in each province. They take us on a stroll down memory lane as they share their lists of top bands, tv shows and athletes from this great country. I really enjoyed reading about Jeremy's father's antics and Jonathan's embarrassing moments (sorry!) but everything in between was interesting too. I'm a proud Canadian and I always love hearing/reading about all the great people that came from here and what they've achieved. They don't even have to be famous - I loved the story about people helping others when the Fort McMurray wildfire took over. I grew up listening to Our Lady Peace and, of course, J-Roc is my favourite on Trailer Park Boys so it was cool to meet these two and find out they're just a couple of down-to-earth bahds. Great book! 5/5.

Martin Reese is a family man, but he has a dark secret - he's obsessed with murder and has been for years. He's been illegally buying police files on serial killers. He studies these files in depth and uses them as guides to find the missing bodies. He never takes anything except pictures that he stores on an old laptop. He calls the police and tells them where to look and he does it anonymously. When a crooked cop goes missing Detective Sandra Whittal zeroes in on the mysterious caller. She doesn't see the caller as helpful. She knows he isn't the killer, but she believes he'll start killing sooner rather than later. While on his latest dig, Martin digs himself into a hole that he may not be able to get himself out of. I love the cover. This book gripped me from the very first page and didn't let go until the very end. The concept is interesting - a husband and father leaves home for a bit every now and then to dig up bodies of missing women that the cops nev

Ship of Theseus is the final book written by V. M. Straka and published in 1949. It's about a man who has no idea about his past or who he is. He's shanghaied onto a strange ship with a strange crew and thrown onto a perilous journey. The writer himself, Straka, is enigmatic. Nobody knows what he looks like or exactly who he is. Even his translator had never seen him face-to-face. When a young woman named Jen picks up this book, left behind by a stranger, she discovers margin notes. She, too, becomes entranced by the story and responds with notes of her own and leaves the book for its owner. While Jen is a college senior, Eric, the owner of the book, is a disgraced grad student. But they're both facing crucial decisions about who they are and who they want to be. And how much they're willing to trust another person. And they're both trying their hardest to figure out the hidden secrets of Ship of Theseus. Oh. My. God. This book was so good. It's easy to be intim

James Whitehouse is a loving father. He's handsome, charismatic, and he's a successful public figure. But he's been accused of a terrible crime. His wife, Sophie, is convinced he's innocent and will do anything to keep their family from being torn apart by lies. But Kate Woodcroft, the lawyer hired to prosecute the case, is certain that he's guilty and determined to make him pay for his crimes. I was looking forward to reading this one and was excited to get an early copy. Unfortunately, I hated everything about this book. I didn't like it from the very beginning, but I figured it would turn into something really good later on. I was wrong. I found it very boring and repetitious. I didn't like the characters or the writing. Even the twist didn't do anything for me. Around the halfway mark I started skimming. This one was a big disappointment. Thank you to Netgalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for an ARC. 1/5.

Cephlapods are interesting and often overlooked in the intelligence department. This book mainly focuses on the octopus - evolution, nervous system, behaviour, memory, their skin and how and why they change colour. There are some funny stories along the way as well as some cool pictures. I definitely enjoyed my time in Octopolis where octopuses hang out, mate, fight and eat scallops.  It was also interesting to read about how the first living things lived during the Ediacaran period and how things evolved and came to be what they are today. As the book went on I found it a bit repetitious and boring as some things did not tie in with cephalopods. Once I got a taste of octopus that was all I wanted. But still an enjoyable read overall. 4/5.

Amber Patterson is tired of being a plain Jane and a nobody. She deserves a life of luxury and power. She wants the life Daphne Parrish takes for granted. Daphne's handsome husband Jackson is a philanthropist and a real estate mogul. They have two lovely daughters. They live in a mansion on the water in the exclusive town of Bishop's Harbor, Connecticut. It seems as though they're straight out of the pages of a fairytale. Amber has a plan - she's going to worm her way into their lives by using Daphne's younger sister who passed away from cystic fibrosis. Pretty soon Amber is Daphne's best friend and closest confidante. She's traveling to Europe with family and spending Christmas with them. And she's growing closer to Jackson. But something from Amber's past is threatening to destroy everything she's worked so hard to take away from Daphne. I was hooked from page one. The writing was great. Lots of manipulation, dark secrets, envy (maybe even fr

This is a collection of eight short stories. Each one is solid and thought-provoking. They're tales about the frustrations of romantic love. For me, nothing seemed to be missing from any of the stories. I really liked "Prisoners of the Multiverse" which tells the tale of a suicidal physicist and his top student, and "The Summer of Interrogatory Subversion" which is about a young girl turning eighteen and her mother renting out their basement to a graduate student who looked like a medieval shepherd and who was deemed creepy by the girl's best friend. Thank you to Netgalley and Black Lawrence Press for a copy of this book. 5/5.

Lily Michaels-Ryan is a highschooler with ADHD. When breaking something lands her in detention with Abelard, a beautiful and brilliant guy who has Asperger's, she can't help but feel intrigued. He seems thirty seconds behind in a conversation while she's thirty seconds ahead. When a paper gets posted online - one that never should have been posted in the first place - Lily and Abelard discover that they both love old novels, especially The Letters of Abelard of Heloise. The two fall for each other hard but their relationship isn't going to be an easy one.  Those black lines through the hearts got my attention. I was hooked from the very first page. The writing is so good - the whole book flowed smoothly, the characters were three-dimensional and they were interesting. We get a glimpse of what it's like for Lily being a teenager with ADHD. School is hard for her and nobody understands her. She feels like she's dragging her mother down. She has to make some tough

An explosion has just taken down a building in Chicago, killing 513 people. Cecily Grayson was supposed to be inside that building but was running late. She watched the explosion knowing her husband and her best friend were both inside. Kate escaped disaster and is now living thousands of miles away, praying her past won't catch up with her. Franny is a young woman who is searching for her birth mother. While watching the morning news that day she knew that the woman she was desperate to meet was inside the building. The tragedy once again dominates the news now that it's the one-year anniversary. And these three women have their own secrets and lies that are becoming impossible to keep hidden. Another five star read by Catherine McKenzie. She's one of those authors that I don't really have to read what the book is about because I already know it's going to be great, whatever it is. She creates such vivid characters and lives for those characters that it's imp

Grace Foley is a seventeen-year-old prankster and risk-taker. The only thing she's afraid of is losing. One night she accepts a challenge as part of a feud between the two local schools, but things don't go as planned. Something she can't explain happens and now she's haunted by voices and visions. She's drawn into a twenty-year-old mystery surrounding a missing girl named Hannah Holt, and she's having trouble figuring out what's real and what's imagined. Grace is losing herself and she doesn't know if she's uncovering the truth or if she's going mad.  I don't know what made me request this book. Reading the blurb now it doesn't interest me at all. I found this book extremely hard to get in to. The writing was disjointed, it was hard to follow along. I did not like any of the characters. I just don't care. DNF @ 43. Thank you to Netgalley and Text Publishing for a copy of this book. 1/5.

When Ali is nineteen she begins college at St. John's and meets charismatic, attractive Will and they become inseparable. Ali is shocked when she learns that Will is the Canal Killer - having stalked and drowned five young women in the muddy waters of the Grand Canal, including Ali's best friend, Liz. Will has been sentenced to life in jail. But it's been ten years and Will is locked up in the city's Central Psychiatric Hospital, so when a young woman is found in the Grand Canal the Garda detectives visit Will in hopes that he can help them solve the copycat killing. But Will won't speak. The only way he will is if Ali comes to see him. The last thing Ali wants is to leave her anonymity and the Netherlands to return to a time she's worked so hard to forget. But the right thing to do is to go back and so she does. I really had to think about what to rate this. The first chapter was great, it was strong, it pulled me in. I loved the setting. I really enjoyed the

Liza has thirty days to write a thriller that could put her back on the bestseller list. Her real life isn't going so well - she desperately wants a baby and her and her husband are struggling with that and he's distracted by the disappearance of his best friend, Nick. Liza focuses on her latest heroine, Beth. Beth is a new mother. She suspects her husband has been cheating on her while she's been taking care of their newborn. She sets out one night to catch them together and the next thing she knows she's throwing the body of his lover into the river. When Nick's body has been found in the Hudson River and Liza's husband is arrested for his murder, she realizes that the lines between reality and fiction are blurred. I read Holahan's last book, The Widower's Wife, and loved it! So when I saw this on Netgalley I had to request it. I didn't even care what it was about; I knew it'd be good. This was one of those books I had to stay up late to finish

Karen and Tom Krupp are happily married, they live in a nice house in a nice neighbourhood, Tom is a successful accountant. But one night when Tom comes home from work he notices Karen's car isn't in the driveway, the front door is unlocked, supper has been left on the counter waiting to be cooked. And no sign of Karen anywhere. She didn't even take her phone or her ID. When the police arrive on their doorstep Tom learns that his wife has been in an accident - she lost control of her car as she sped through a rough part of town. Karen is in the hospital with a concussion that leaves her with a pounding headache and no memory of what happened to her. The cops think that's convenient. They think she was up to something and doesn't want her husband to know.  There are lots of secrets and lies in this book. Trust no one. I couldn't wait to find out exactly what happened the night of Karen's accident. The writing itself isn't spectacular, but it's not awf

Corey has moved away from the small town of Lost Creek, Alaska, and her best friend, Kyra. It's been seven months and she's just days away from going back to visit. But Kyra has died. Corey is devasted and confused. How could this have happened? Kyra promised to wait for her. When Corey returns to Lost, it isn't the same small community who accepted her and talked about Kyra, saying she didn't belong because of her mental illness. It's the opposite - Corey is the outsider now and Kyra is praised for her talent. The people of Lost say her death was meant to be. But Corey knows it wasn't meant to be. She knows Lost is keeping secrets and she's going to find out what they are. When I started this book I thought it was so good! The writing was wonderful, the bond between the two girls was strong, the Alaskan setting was beautiful. I put this down just after the halfway point because I needed sleep. I couldn't understand how this book was getting such low r

Wonderland is the biggest amusement park in the Northwest. It's located in the small town of Seaside, has a giant ferris wheel and a creepy Clown Museum, and has generated a lot of money over the years. It seems everyone in Seaside has worked there at one time or another. So when a dead, decaying body is left in the midway for the Wonder Workers to see, Vanessa Castro begins to unravel Wonderland's secrets. Vanessa is new to Seaside and is the new Deputy Chief. It's her first day on the job and she has to find the missing teenage employee of Wonderland whose picture of himself at the very top of the Wonder Wheel went viral just before daybreak - around the same time the unidentifiable man was left near the bottom of it.  This took me a while to get into. It feels as though there was something missing - large chunks of the book had nothing really happening. The twists weren't really surprising; they seemed, for lack of a better word, planned. I loved the amusement park i

Quincy Carpenter and five of her friends were celebrating a birthday at Pine Cottage, but things didn't go as planned and only Quincy made it out of there alive. That was ten years ago, but she will always be a member of a club she does not want to belong to - the Final Girls. Lisa lost nine sorority sisters and Sam was the only survivor during her shift at the Nightlight Inn. Despite the media's attempts the three never meet in person. Quincy is doing well. She has an understanding and supportive boyfriend, they live together in a beautiful apartment, she runs a popular baking blog, and the police officer that saved her life is still there for her any time of day or night. And she'll need him when she learns that Lisa has committed suicide and Sam comes out of hiding and shows up at her door. Since Quincy never could remember the details of what happened that night in the woods, Sam is intent on making her relive the past so those memories finally come to light. I had to s

On the Outskirts of Mexico City lies Isla de las Munecas - a reportedly haunted island that is home to thousands of dolls. A group of people are going to film a documentary on this island against the boatman's better judgement to wait until the storm passes. While stranded there overnight, the wind and rain add to the already spooky atmosphere but when they discover a dead body they begin to realize that something evil really is lurking on the island. This was a fast-paced read. I really liked the setting and felt as though I was there. Most of the characters were unlikable but they did feel real and I liked that they were different from one another and had their flaws. A lot went on during the last couple of chapters but overall I was happy with the ending. Another good read from the World's Scariest Places series! 4/5.

Box of Terror contains four stories. The first one immediately drew me in. I liked the writing and the content was interesting - a man finds himself inside a supermarket that sells a different assortment of food than other supermarkets and it was too late to escape the second he entered the store but he will stop at nothing to return to his family. Then I found the story dragged on and I wasn't as invested as I was at the first, but overall this one was good.  The second story started off good, I liked the concept - a family has just moved to the middle of nowhere and they keep losing their power and the man stays and waits for the repairman while his wife and child go to stay with her mother before it gets dark. But then the author started to lose me with those made up words and I also found this one too long.  I did not like the third story - a man hides himself away from the world and is obsessed with numbers. In no way did this one interest me.  I did like the fourth story - a

DNF @ 70%. I'm in a bad mood and I feel like shitting all over this book. Some books I request from Netgalley then wonder what I was thinking after I've been accepted and go back and read the blurb. A guy punches another guy out of a door who falls three storeys to his death. How is the author going to make a whole book out of this and not be boring? Well, he didn't. I'm not a fan of long chapters so when I got to chapter four and saw it was 19% of the book, things only went downhill from there. I got some boring voice on my phone to read this to me while I puttered around the house. Then I started aggressively skimming, skipping a chapter completely about the past. I don't care. I want to know what happened to Ryan. And then I read that their cat was decapitated. That was the end for me. I didn't read another word after that. I couldn't care less what happened to Ryan or anyone else. The writing wasn't that great. Boring, tedious, repetitious. I hated a

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High end up in detention together. None of them are friends and they're all completely different from one another. Bronwyn is the smart girl, over-achiever and she never breaks a rule. Addy is the pretty girl and homecoming princess, and she has the hottest boyfriend at Bayview. Cooper is the athlete and an all-star pitcher. Nate is the criminal who is on probation for dealing drugs. And Simon is the social outcast and creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app. Simon has posted some very juicy stuff on that app and has hurt a lot of people in the process. He never makes it out of that classroom alive. According to investigators Simon had planned to reveal something major about each of the four people in that classroom the day after he died. So those four students are suspects in his murder. This was a compulsive read. It was well-written, suspenseful (who killed Simon?!) and had a diverse group of people who all had one thing i

Camille Preaker is a reporter in Chicago. Her boss thinks it would be a good idea for her to return to her hometown in Missouri to cover the murder of two preteen girls before someone else gets hold of the story first. To say Camille does not get along with her mother is an understatement - she is a neurotic, hypochondriac who never showed her daughter any love. And she doesn't know her half-sister, Amma - a popular, mean girl who seems to run the town. But here she is back at her childhood home, staying in her old bedroom. And she uncovers one ugly truth after the other. Wow. What a messed up family. Something definitely was not right within the walls of the Crellin's old mansion, you could feel it. I really liked Camille, I felt sorry for her having to grow up like that and the actions she took to try to cope or punish herself. And I did like Amma. She felt very three-dimensional to me. The pace of the story was great. We get clues here and there. But I did not expect that

A suitcase has been found washed up on the shore of the river Thames. When Detective Erika Foster opens it she sees that it contains the dismembered body of a young man. This is identical to another suitcase that was found two weeks ago only that one held the body of a woman. Erika realizes she's looking for a serial killer but when she begins to dig into the case she is brutally attacked. She has no choice but to take time off but her mind is still on the case. When she learns that the twin daughters of her colleague have been kidnapped, she will stop at nothing to get those girls back home safe and sound. When I find out another Erika Foster book is coming out I feel like I have to read it. I know it's going to be the same as the ones before it - Erika goes through hell and then saves the day. I know the descriptions of people are going to drive me nuts again (horse-faced girl, jowly face with several chins), and there's going to be so many convenient things that will hap

After the sudden death of her young son, Charlie Cates begins to have vivid dreams involving children. But she soon realizes that these are not dreams - they are messages sent to her so she can help those who need it. One of these children is a little boy in a boat. This takes her from Connecticut to Louisiana where she has an invitation to stay at Evangeline - the sprawling estate belonging to the Deveau's. Thirty years ago Gabriel Deveau went missing in the middle of the night never to be found. Charlie believes the boy in her vision is Gabriel and while trying to find him, she uncovers many long-buried secrets within the Deveau famiy. This book has been on my tbr list for years. I'm sorry I waited so long because this book was great! It was well-written, the whole story flowed smoothly and the characters were three-dimensional. I especially liked Keegan, Charlie's son who passed away. I enjoyed the mystery and secrets surrounding a family who has been in Louisiana for hu

It's a stormy night and Cass Anderson is taking an isolated shortcut back to her house. She finds it odd that there's another vehicle on the lane and while Cass does stop to see if they need help all kinds of bad scenarios come to mind and plus the driver never indicted they needed help, so off she goes. Only to learn the next day that the driver of that car has been murdered. And Cass knew her. She can't confide in her husband because he told her not to take the shortcut and she promised him she wouldn't. She's convinced the murderer knows who she is. Ever since the murder she's been getting calls from an unknown number, she feels as though she's being watched and that someone has been inside her home. And she's been very forgetful - she couldn't find her car, she doesn't remember ordering things from the shopping channel, she can't remember the code for the alarm, or how to work the washing machine. Something's going on and Cass wants t

Fifteen-year-old Seda thought it was cool to spend the summer at the old mansion her mother inherited, but now it's starting to snow and she just wants to go back to Boston, back to school and her best friends and her crush, back to civilization. The mansion is in the middle of nowhere, it's falling apart, there's no cell service, no landline and it's just plain creepy especially since it was last used as a murder mystery hotel. And Seda's mother won't sell it unless the new owners will keep it as a murder mystery hotel. When a group of teenagers show up as a result of their car going in a ditch and nowhere else to go, Seda has no choice but to offer them shelter - even though she knows something bad is going to happen. I was at the halfway point when I crawled into bed, thought I'd read a chapter before I fell asleep. I was beyond tired. I ended up finishing the book before I could go to sleep that's how good it was. It was so well-written that everyt

The Lycée is celebrating its 100th anniversary and not only has Kersti Kuusk been invited back to the elite boarding school in Switzerland where she spent four years of her life, she has been selected as one of their "One Hundred Women of the Lycée." But for Kersti this opens up an old wound. Almost twenty years ago Kersti's best friend, Cressida, fell from her fourth-floor balcony just before graduation. This was quickly deemed an accident and the whole thing was over and done with before any publicity. But Kersti can't help but dig around especially with the anniversary coming up and after receiving a letter from an old friend of theirs from Lycée. Kersti never forgot Cressida's obsession with a secret club that was banned years before their arrival, a secret club that had two of its members expelled from the school - something that had never happened before or since. Kersti is determined to get answers about the club and about what happened to her best friend t

The Bodine ranch and resort in western Montana is a family owned business that is home to four generations. Sitting on over thirty thousand acres it's kept busy by lots of vacationers and kept running by a large staff which includes big boss Bodine Longbow. Although the family is very close, Bodine's aunt Alice ran away before she was even born and never came back. She hasn't been heard from in over twenty-five years and she's not often talked about. No one ever imagined that she'd been close by for so long, kept prisoner in a basement, having unimaginable things happen to her. When one of the bartenders from the resort is found dead, it's the first sign that danger is close by. This is a big book! It took me a long time to get into it. It's mostly all about the ranch and resort - what goes on during work days with the horses and who is going to work where on whatever day. There's lots of cooking. I was confused the whole time (and still am) about who

The time has come for young Mukta to fulfil her destiny of becoming a temple prostitute. It's what happens when you're from the lower caste of Yellamma cult of temple prostitutes. Mutka's mother wants desperately for her to have a better life. Eventually she ends up in a foster family in Bombay where she becomes friends with eight-year-old Tara, the tomboyish daughter of the family. Mukta treasures their friendship and when she is kidnapped one night in Tara's bedroom, she knows that Tara will find her. Eleven years after the kidnapping, Tara is still blaming herself for what happened. But she will not give up searching for her long-lost friend and she will uncover some interesting secrets along the way. I thought this was going to be a solid read filled with strong characters. But I was wrong. I feel bad because this covers a serious topic - human trafficking - but from cover to cover this was boring. I can't believe I read every page until 43% when the idea finall

Tom Hanks has written seventeen stories all of which have at least one typewriter in them. Sadly, for me, most of these stories were VERY boring. They're long and filled with nothing memorable. I loved the first story, "Three Exhausting Weeks" which is about friends who have known each other since high school who suddenly take things to the next level. I thought it was jam-packed with adventure and I did like the characters (who are in two other stories as well). And I liked "A Month on Greene Street" which is about a single mother and her three children moving into a new house and at first she thinks her neighbour is weird, desperate and unemployed and she does whatever she can to avoid him, but it turns out she was wrong about him. I found all the other stories extremely painful to get through and I'm so happy I'm done! I won an ARC through a Goodreads giveaway. Thank you to Knopf for my copy. 2/5.

Twenty-three-year-old Tess DeMello is engaged to the love of her life. Their wedding day is getting close. So it doesn't make sense to her fiancé when she abruptly ends their engagement and runs off to marry a stranger. Tess leaves Baltimore and moves to Hickory, North Carolina. Her husband, Henry Kraft, is secretive and distant and he often stays out late or doesn't bother to come home at all. She doesn't fit in with the people of Hickory. They all love and respect the Kraft's and view Tess as an outsider, someone who's after his money. Unhappy in Hickory and trapped inside a loveless marriage, Tess is desperate to get her old self back which happens when a sudden polio epidemic erupts and their small town is selected as the perfect spot for a hospital. Everyone in Hickory helps build this hospital in just over two days. Against her husband's wishes Tess begins helping out as a nurse and soon finds herself very happy to be of help to the young victims. But her

Edwin Stith lives in Ithica, New York, where he is a college professor. He has returned home to Richmond, Virginia, for his mother's wedding to a man who's slightly older than Edwin himself. Edwin is an enigma. He has an ex-wife and he may or may not have killed her. He may or may not be sleeping with one of his students. He's about to have a stepsister and he may or may not have killed her.  I found this hard to get into and I think it's because Edwin actually talks to us, the readers, throughout the book. I did not like that. But once the story gets going it was hard for me to put the book down. Edwin's trip home lasts three days and those days are jam-packed with drama. There's a diverse bunch of characters and I enjoyed them all. I had no clue how it would end and I couldn't wait to find out. I was really surprised! Looking back on the book now that I've finished it I would say it's actually quite clever. I feel as though I've known Edwin for

Charlotte is waiting for her flight back home to England after spending a semester in New York. Her boyfriend has just ended their relationship and now her flight is cancelled due to a blizzard. To make matters worse it's Christmas Eve. But she's not the only one having a bad day - Anthony, a native New Yorker, is surprising his girlfriend at the airport after spending three months apart. But it's him who's surprised when he gets dumped in the middle of the crowded airport. Anthony doesn't want to go home, and Charlotte isn't able to go home, so together they end up following the steps in a book found in the airport gift shop - Ten Easy Steps for Getting Over Your Ex - in the hopes that their broken hearts will be mended. This is a cute, short read. The story is predictable, of course, and I'm taking it for what it is which is just a fluffy, feel good read. But these two met not even 24 hours ago and they already love each other! Anthony was in a relations

A notorious child abductor, known as the Marsh King, has just escaped from a maximum security prison and Helena immediately knows that she and her two young daughters are in danger. Helena is the Marsh King's daughter. She was born into captivity and didn't leave the cabin or the surrounding area until she was twelve.  I won this through a Goodreads giveaway and was so looking forward to reading it once I got my hands on it. But after reading about SO MANY dead animals and every excruciating detail about every little thing, especially the chapters about when she was a kid growing up in the wilderness, I had to set it aside. I would pick it up every now and then but it wasn't holding my attention and at a third of the way through I didn't care anymore. It was too tedious so I skimmed. While skimming I came across more dead animals and decided to just skip to the end, which came as no surprise to me.  1/5.

Sinful Pleasures consists of eleven steamy short stories. The good thing about short stories about sex is that things don't get stale and repetitious. Of course there's probably going to be at least one you don't like but all in all it's fun to read something different and get a glimpse inside someone else's imagination. I really enjoyed The Dream Feeder - I thought it was well-written. The story was weird but in a good way; it was creative. I also enjoyed On The Line - I thought the writing was really good and I liked the two young characters who were inexperienced with each other but were a little bit bolder through the phone. And I also enjoyed Lazy Sunday - there was a lot of depth to their relationship. They don't take what they have for granted, and they're spontaneous and fun even after fifteen years together. And I love that cover!  Thank you to Sinful Press and LibraryThing. 4/5.

Heather was immediately drawn to Edie. Edie was new in town, she was beautiful and creative, and she didn't know Heather was an outcast. But their friendship gradually starts to deteriorate when Edie falls in love with a handsome bad boy named Connor. All that is in the past now. They're no longer teenagers and they're no longer friends. Edie works as a waitress. She's pregnant and alone. When the baby arrives she becomes overwhelmed and sinks into a depression. There's no one she can turn to for help. Until Heather suddenly shows up at her door and begins to take care of the baby with no questions asked. But there's so much that has been left unspoken, too much has happened when they were teenagers for their friendship to ever go back to the way it was when they first met all those years ago. This book goes back and forth between before the incident and after. Edie's perspective is told in the present and Heather's is told in the past. I couldn't wa

Sara Smyth is working her way up to head housekeeper in a posh London hotel when she's offered the opportunity of a lifetime. Theodore Camden, one of the architects of The Dakota - a new apartment house in New York - offers her a job. This is a big deal for a woman in 1884. It also gives her the chance to see more of Theo as he lives in The Dakota with his wife and three children. It's 1985 and Bailey Camden is fresh out of rehab and struggling to stay sober. The former party girl and interior designer is homeless, jobless and has no money. Her cousin Melinda offers to let Bailey oversee the renovation of her Dakota apartment as well as stay there for a while. Bailey doesn't agree with Melinda's vision for the old apartment that was once owned by Melinda's own great-grandfather Theodore Camden, the same apartment where he was stabbed to death by a madwoman and former Dakota employee named Sara Smyth.  Even though one hundred years separate Sara and Bailey, they

Nora Brown lives a quiet life with her husband and six-year-old daughter in Seattle. She's an English teacher at a high school. It's the last day before Thanksgiving break and she'll be going away with her family, but before she leaves her classroom she sees a girls face floating on top of the drapes. She's terrified - does this mean she's going crazy or is she just tired? Over Thanksgiving vacation she sees the face again, and this time the girl whispers "remember the Valentine's dress." Nora eventually talks to a psychiatrist where a secret that was hidden deep within is revealed.   The best part of this book, to me, is that it's short. I feel bad for saying all this but the characters weren't really fleshed out, the writing was just okay and I couldn't really get into the story. I figured when I read in the blurb about Nora seeing a face there would be a little bit of a thrill, some tension, SOMETHING! But what happened in the book was

Marion Zetland is a shy spinster who still lives in her childhood home. It's a crumbling, filthy old mansion set on the edge of a seaside resort. Her domineering older brother, John, still lives there as well. It's easier to live by her brother's rules and so she remains blissfully ignorant to the sounds she hears deep down in the cellar. But when John can no longer look after the women downstairs, Marion has no choice but to go down there and see the extent of John's secret life. I love the cover. I did enjoy this book and thought it was very well-written but it's not quite what I was expecting. I figured the book would be a little darker than it was, but instead it's more character driven. Sometimes we travel back in time to Marion's childhood, and we see that she was picked on, had no friends, and that her parents didn't pay a whole lot of attention to her and if they did they weren't supportive of her. We can kind of understand how Marion turned

Headstrong Virginia Fortescue leaves her home and what's left of her family behind in New York City and begins driving an ambulance in France during World War I. While there she falls in love with a charismatic British army surgeon and as they begin a passionate love affair, she learns that Captain Simon Fitzwilliam is hiding secrets of his own. Five years later and newly widowed Virginia Fitzwilliam has just arrived in Cocoa Beach, Florida to settle her husband's estate. There was a house fire, and while his brother confirmed it was indeed Simon inside the house, Virginia has her doubts that he's really dead. After all, Simon was cunning and kept his share of secrets from her - secrets that ruined their marriage and had Virginia fleeing back to New York very early on. But now she needs to uncover the truth, not for herself, but for the sake of their daughter. I didn't find this one as good as her others. It goes back and forth between when Virginia met and fell in love

Liz McCall loves running her father's vintage toy shop. They're getting ready for the big Train and Toy Show but things don't go as Liz envisioned when she learns that her childhood bully and now local business rival, Craig McFadden, has set up a booth right next to hers. And things only get more complicated as Craig plummets from the ceiling in a publicity stunt gone wrong. What was thought of as an accident turns out to be murder. Liz's father is a retired police chief who still can't resist getting in on the action. Combine that with her feelings for Ken, the police chief, and Jack, her high school sweetheart whose brother has been in jail before and is one of the prime suspects, Liz can't help but getting drawn into the investigation herself. This is the second book in the Vintage Toyshop series. I haven't read the first one yet, but didn't really have any problems reading this one first. We're introduced to lots of characters and almost any on

Jancy Wilson is broke, unemployed and now she's without a car. Her plans of going to stay with her cousin in Louisiana go up in smoke when her car catches fire in the tiny town of Pick, Texas. She notices a Help Wanted sign in the window of the quaint Strawberry Hearts Diner. She used to live in Pick when she was a teenager and her memories, along with the diner's famous strawberry tarts, draw her in to the diner and into a job. She only wants to save enough money to get a decent car and continue on her way. Her parents moved from place to place, so Jancy doesn't know what it's like to settle in one place. But as the close-knit community, and an old crush, welcome her with open arms, she's beginning to feel as though this little place in Texas could be home. The cover caught my eye, it's gorgeous. And though this isn't the typical type of book I go for, it sounded cute and mushy and I thought I'd give it a try. The writing is good. The setting, the cha

Eleanor Oliphant is what society would deem "weird" - she is socially inept and tends to say exactly what she is thinking. She has a scarred cheek and wears the same practical clothes year after year. She is a creature of habit. She eats pizza and drinks vodka on the weekends. She has no friends. She's had the same (and only) job since she graduated college. She likes being average. But her world is turned upside down when the new IT guy, Raymond, walks out of work with her one day and they save an elderly mans life. Raymond and the old man, Sammy, teach Eleanor what it's like to have friends. They show her kindness and include her in their plans. They save her from a life of isolation. This was a good book from start to finish. Eleanor has been through a lot and we see how her childhood has made her into the woman she is today. It gives us a reminder to not be so quick to judge someone; everyone has their own story. I enjoyed reading about her life and seeing her t

Darby Thorne is an art student at CU-Boulder. It's almost Christmas. She's on her way to visit her sick mother but a blizzard has stranded her at a desolate highway rest stop. While outside looking for a signal, Darby happens to notice a little girl locked up in the back of a van. Now she has to go back into the building and try to figure out which one of the strangers could be the kidnapper. And she has to figure out how she's going to save the little girl when there is no cell phone reception, no working telephone and nowhere else to go. This book was intense. It gripped me from page one and did not let go until the very last page. I could not get enough. There was no shortage of twists and turns. There were characters written to make you either love or hate them and it was all very well done. I loved it! Thank you to Netgalley and Joffe Books for a copy of this book. 5/5.

Billie Flanagan is a beautiful, charismatic wife and mother. One day while hiking alone in a place called Desolation Wilderness Billie vanishes. It's coming up on the one year anniversary since the incident and her body has still never been found. But her teenage daughter Olive begins seeing her. She takes this as a sign that her mother is still alive and that she wants her to find her. Jonathan is worried about his daughter but as he uncovers secrets about Billie's past he thinks that just maybe Billie is alive out there somewhere. And they're going to find out once and for all what happened.  This book was really good! It has lots of layers - the characters are complex, Billie especially - she was a completely different person before she met Jonathan and she only allows him to have a glimpse of who she was and who she is even well into their marriage. The story flowed well. There was never a dull moment. We'd be trying to figure out what happened to Billie and then we

Zen Starling and Nova have travelled all over the Network Empire, but they've never passed through a new gate - one that should not exist at all. They've been through a lot and can't go back so their only option is to go through.  There is a new Empress of the Great Network who has just chosen to take a criminal named Chandni Hansa out of the freezer and into her world to help find Zen Starling. But railwar erupts and they're running for their lives.  Everyone ends up at the mysterious Black Light Zone - a world no longer in use with secrets to uncover. This is the sequel to Railhead and it picks up where book one left off. The creativity is still strong and we have some of the same characters we saw in the first book. This is action-packed as Zen and Nova race through new worlds, avoiding bad trains and bad people, and hoping to make it home alive. I found this book just a teensy bit long, but overall it was really good. And like the first book there is a glossary in t

Zen Starling is a petty thief. He thinks he has just been caught stealing but instead he has been chosen for a mission by a mysterious stranger named Raven. Zen has to infiltrate the Emperor's train and steal something Raven desperately wants. He has always wanted to traverse the Great Network - a vast place of a thousand gates leading to very different places, of Station Angels, drones, maintenance spiders and many different trains all with their own personalities. Zen Starling jumps at the chance to see the worlds and steal something big. I'm not really into made up worlds and stuff like that but this book sounded interesting enough to give it a go. And I must say it was really good! There is a very helpful glossary at the back. I really enjoyed going into these weird new worlds and meeting different types of creatures and trains. I was fond of Uncle Bugs. He is a Hive Monk which is a million bugs clinging together to form a human-shaped skeleton by using old junk like a cloa

Meg Ashley is the daughter of famous author Frances Ashley. Frances wrote a book called "Kitten" and everyone is gearing up for the fortieth anniversary of its publication. This bestselling horror novel became a cult favourite and the Kitty Cult has been trying to solve the murder which has been based on real people at a real location. Meg and her mother have never gotten along. Although she lives a life of privilege, Meg's childhood had been a solitary one and her mother has always been a manipulator. Now Meg wants to be free of Frances Ashley and decides a tell-all memoir is the way to do it. She travels to Bonny Island, Georgia, to dig into her mother's past. She starts investigating the murder herself and talking to the woman who was the inspiration for her mother's book. As Meg begins asking questions and sorting through all the lies, the disturbing truth is finally uncovered. I loved the setting. Bonny Island was swarming with people after Kitten came out

Peter Harper is a world-renowned composer. He's taking some time to clear the cobwebs after a recent divorce and dry spell in creativity and he's spending the summer on the Irish coast. Tremore Beach is beautiful and isolated. His neighbours are good people. He's involved with a wonderful woman. And his kids are coming to visit. But after he's struck by lightning one stormy night, Peter starts getting wicked headaches and having strange dreams; dreams that are so real Peter doesn't know where they end and reality begins. But he soon figures out that these dreams may be warnings of things to come. I liked the setting. I liked the concept - a man struck by lightning begins having vivid dreams about his loved ones being hurt by strangers. But then the other part of the story, the one that wraps everything up, just didn't do it for me. It left me disappointed. 3/5.

Joan and her four-year-old son have been playing in a secluded part of the zoo, but now they're cutting it close as the zoo is about to close for the day. As they hurry toward the exit Joan immediately turns around, Lincoln in her arms, and races back into the zoo. Those pops she heard earlier weren't balloons bursting or fireworks - they were gunshots and there is a man with a gun at the exit. Joan loves the zoo and it's her knowledge of this place - the hidden pathways and what exhibit is empty - that keeps them one step ahead of danger for the next three hours. She will do whatever it takes to protect her son. With a cover like that and especially after reading the blurb I desperately wanted to read it right away. As an animal lover it pains me to read about fictional animals being hurt and killed and since this takes place in a zoo I figured it would happen. (I skimmed over those parts and I'm pretending they didn't happen!) But this book is so good! I couldn

This book is packed with facts all about Canada and Canadians. The author covers a variety of subjects from geography, sports, disasters, war and heroes. What I enjoyed reading about the most - baseball, war, explorers and those who weren't afraid to lead the way and stand up for what they believed in. It was fun to read about some of the brave Canadians who helped shape this country into what it is today! Thank you to Netgalley and Dundurn for a copy of this book. 4/5.