📚Life As An Empty-Nester. Sherry Reviews #Contemporary Fiction Finding Verity by @jenloudonauthor, for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Sherry.

Sherry blogs here https://sherryfowlerchancellor.com/

Rosie’s Book Review Team

Sherry has been reading Finding Verity by Jenny Loudon

The story of Verity is beautifully written and deals with a woman who made choices as a young lady that led her to a marriage where her own dreams were put on hold to raise her family and grow a business. She had an artistic soul and wanted to be like her father and be a landscape painter but went into interior design as a way to make a living.

Before her marriage, she met a man named Edward who was a free spirit. She was attracted to him but ultimately made the decision to marry a man named Matt. A man who subsumed her and her spirit.

The journey of Verity as she approaches fifty and becomes an empty nester is the bulk of the book. She and her husband live in London in the Fulham area. They had discussed for many years moving to the countryside when their children left home so she could follow her dream of being a painter. Now that the time is at hand, her husband is balking at the idea.

While I enjoyed the beautiful prose of the author and the story was well-told, (Ms. Loudon also has a lovely gift for description), I absolutely hated the character of Matt. And got pretty annoyed at Verity for her personality and how she allowed him to get away with treating her as he did. I don’t want to give any spoilers so I’ll leave it at that.

I did begin to skim through some of the story as I was so upset over the relationship between Verity and her husband. I think my own strong personality and innate sense of justice led me to the anger I felt for her and at him and that may have interfered with my 100% enjoyment of the story.

If you like stories of women finding themselves even at a later time in their lives, this one could be right up your alley. It didn’t fully sit well with me but it was well written and for the right reader, it’s probably a gem. I am giving it 4 stars as it was a nicely done novel.

Book description

The heartwarming bestseller from this exciting debut novelist. An unhappy woman. An unfinished romance. A sense that time is running out…

Verity Westwood is a successful London businesswoman whose husband is handsome but selfish.

When Edward Farrell, a nomadic American journalist from her past, returns unexpectedly, she is swept by the irresistible desire to fulfil her dreams of working as an artist, like her famous father before her. After being caught in a storm on the Cote d’Azur, she vows to change her life.

What she does not foresee is the struggle involved, the ultimate price she will pay, and the powerful force of enduring love that changes everything.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS

📚#ContemporaryFiction @SandraFirth3 Reviews Finding Verity by @jenloudonauthor for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT #BookTwitter

Today’s team review is from Sandra.

Sandra blogs here https://www.firthproof.co.uk/index.php/book-reviews

Rosie’s Book Review Team

Sandra has been reading Finding Verity by Jenny Loudon.

This is the story of Verity trying to follow her dream to be an artist, despite her husband Matt’s unwillingness to compromise. They had long been planning to move to the countryside when their daughters left home, or so she thought, but now Matt is only thinking of how it all affects him and refusing to sell their London house. As the story is told entirely from Verity’s point of view, we don’t get his perspective and can only guess what he is up to.

Right from the start, it is obvious that all is not well in the marriage – we can see what Verity can’t. It is a long way into the story before we even find out what Matt does for a living, and this adds to his general air of untrustworthiness. Verity is a successful businesswoman so why does she sign the papers he puts in front of her without reading them? On the other hand, I really liked Edward, the American journalist Verity first met before she married Matt. They made an lasting impression on one another. Over the years they meet up every now and then – just as friends – and he is always there in the background. The characters are well drawn and believable, and the writing is very assured considering this is Jenny Loudon’s debut novel. The setting is split mainly between London and the south of France, which only serves to emphasise why Verity is so keen to get out of London and find somewhere to inspire her art. Even though her interior design business is successful, something is missing from her life. She needs to find out if she is good enough to make a living from her paintings, and is not prepared to put it off any longer. Her husband’s lack of support and selfish behaviour make her doubt herself, but in the end she must follow her heart. I found it a bit odd that Edward was said to be living in Burma, when it has officially been called Myanmar since 1989, but this made no difference to my enjoyment of Finding Verity.

Book description

The heartwarming bestseller from this exciting debut novelist. An unhappy woman. An unfinished romance. A sense that time is running out…

Verity Westwood is a successful London businesswoman whose husband is handsome but selfish.

When Edward Farrell, a nomadic American journalist from her past, returns unexpectedly, she is swept by the irresistible desire to fulfil her dreams of working as an artist, like her famous father before her. After being caught in a storm on the Cote d’Azur, she vows to change her life.

What she does not foresee is the struggle involved, the ultimate price she will pay, and the powerful force of enduring love that changes everything.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS

📚#ContemporaryFiction Rosie’s #Bookreview of The Strange Inheritance Of Leah Fern by @RitaZoeyChin @melvillehouse #TuesdayBookBlog

The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern by Rita Zoey Chin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars

The Strange Inheritance Of Leah Fern is contemporary fiction. Leah’s twenty-first birthday gift to herself was going to be suicide; she’d been planning it for years. However, a knock at her door changed everything.

Until she was six, Leah lived in a carnival with her mother who was a magician. One day her mother took Leah on an adventure which ended with Leah being left with a man called Edward Murphy. The stranger at the door gave Leah a box which contained a letter from Essie East; someone who claimed to know Leah’s mother. Essie laid a trail; nine letters posted to specific places in North America for Leah to collect, each one would tell more of her mother’s story.

Mingled with the road trip are chapters from the past; snippets from Leah’s time at the carnival and her early years living with Edward. While the road trip sprinkles details about places, people and the contents of Essie’s letters. Every letter paints a larger picture of Leah’s mother and where she might be now.

I liked this story with its touches of magical realism. The author wove a wonderful tale which I was invested in almost as much as Leah. I needed to open each letter and find the next instalment just as much as Leah. The ending was a little unexpected, but it suited the rest of the story, leaving me pondering, which is not a bad thing.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

 

Book description

A luminous coming of age story about a fiercely lonely young woman’s quest to uncover the truth behind her mother’s disappearance.

Born in a carnival trailer, Leah Fern begins her life as the “The Youngest and Very Best Fortuneteller in the World,” taking strangers’ hands and feeling the depths of their emotions. Her mother Jeannie Starr is a captivating magician, but not always an attentive mother, and when Leah is six, Jeannie upends their carnival life with an unexpected exit. With little fanfare and no explanation, she leaves her daughter at the home of Edward Murphy, a kindly older man with whom Leah shares one fierce wish: that Jeannie Starr will return to them.

After fifteen years as a small-town outcast , Leah decides to end her life on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday. But the intricate death ritual she has devised is interrupted by a surprise knock on her door. Her mysterious neighbor, the curmudgeonly and reclusive art photographer Essie East, has died and left Leah a very strange inheritance. Through a series of letters, Essie will posthumously lead Leah on a journey to nine points on the map, spanning from South Carolina to Canada to the Arctic Circle—a journey that, the first note promises, will reveal the story of Leah’s mother.

Driven by a ferocious resurgence of hope, Leah embarks on this bizarre treasure hunt, Essie’s ashes in a jeweled urn in the passenger seat of her truck. Along her way, she visits islands, libraries, diners, and defunct ice cream parlors, meeting a charming cast of eccentric characters and immersing herself in wonders of the natural world.

An enchanting novel about the transcendent powers of the imagination, the magic of the threshold between past and present, and the courage it takes to love, The Strange Inheritance of Leah Fern explores the unlikely, at times adversarial, and ultimately redemptive relationship between a young woman who has forgotten how to live and a dead woman who summons her to remember.

AmazonUk | AmazonUS (Due to be published October 6th)

Living With Amnesia. @em_banks reviews Small Forgotten Moments by @AnnalisaCrawf, for Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT

Today’s team review is from Elanor.

Elanor has been reading Small Forgotten Moments by Annalisa Crawford

Small Forgotten Moments is the story of Jo Mckye, an emerging artist celebrating her debut exhibition. But her fictional subject, Zenna, has become an obsession. We see Zenna infiltrating every part of Jo’s life and her unconscious as Jo increasingly struggles with telling the real from the fictional. She is driven to return to her childhood home and learn about her past in an effort to understand Zenna’s origins, and try to rid herself from this malevolent influence.

We are told early on that Jo suffers from amnesia, meaning she can’t remember any of her life before 3 years ago. Amnesia is a trope that is fairly well explored in the psychological thriller genre but I felt that the perspective here is interesting and stays on the right side of cliche. I occasionally asked myself “How would that even work?” – only to be given some insight and a whole bunch of new questions in the next chapter.

The novel focuses not on a disorientating early confusion stage of amnesia, but on Jo’s long-term experience, asking what it means to try to live a normal life, to create and plan without reference to a past – “I know I’m not who I’m supposed to be. How can I be, with so much of myself nestled so deeply within?“. In this context, Jo’s art appears as both therapy and a feverish necessity, as she wrestles unconsciously with her past.

The first person narration is so tight and unreliable that I felt some secondary characters were robbed of airtime. I wanted more of the best friend and the housemate, and in particular I felt I didn’t get a handle on Jo’s mum – though this probably reflects Jo’s own uncertainty and mental fog during her time at home.

The Cornish sea is almost a character in its own right. I loved the way Annalisa Crawford illustrates Jo’s confused mental state using the language of water as primal, uncontrollable and dangerous – foreshadowing a dramatic, psychological climax that was definitely not what I expected.

I read this book so quickly! It kept me entertained and guessing to the end. I would absolutely recommend it to fans of the genre.

4 stars.

Is Zenna a muse, a sleep-deprived apparition, or something much more sinister?

Suffering long-term amnesia, artist Jo Mckye is ready to start a fresh, new project after the success of her debut exhibition. But the fictional subject of the collection, Zenna, won’t let go so easily. Infiltrating Jo’s dreams—and increasingly, her waking hours—Zenna is fast becoming a dangerous obsession.

Jo is confident the answers lie at her childhood home, an idyllic Cornish village on the south-east coast; she just doesn’t know why. Only when she walks into the sea and almost drowns does the past start to unravel.

Haunting and melodic, fans of Daphne du Maurier and Daisy Johnson will adore this.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS

Rosie’s #Bookreview Of #NewRelease THREE WEDDINGS AND A PROPOSAL by @sheilaoflanagan

Three Weddings and a Proposal by Sheila O’Flanagan

4 stars

Three Weddings And A Proposal is a contemporary story set in Ireland in a post-pandemic time. Delphie is the personal assistant of a successful businessman and the story opens with her being in charge of buying a very expensive bracelet for her boss’s girlfriend.

In her personal life Delphie needs a plus-one partner for her brother’s wedding; she’s running out of time to find a single man. Luckily, while returning from a business trip she bumps into an ex-boyfriend who kindly agrees to attend the wedding with her.

Fast forward a few weeks and Delphie’s life has been turned upside down, both on the work and domestic front. She has a lot of decisions to make and while her family think they know what she wants, Delphie needs to discover where her true feelings lie.

This was an easy read in a popular genre; much of the story was quite predictable, though, so some readers may be a little disappointed. I particularly enjoyed the Irish setting, and Delphie’s organisational skills were quite inspiring. I also liked how this was set just after the current pandemic, giving me some hope for a return to normality.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

At the first wedding, there‘s a shock

The second wedding is unexpected

By the third, Delphie thinks nothing could surprise her. But she’s wrong . . .

Delphie is enjoying her brother’s wedding. Her surprise last-minute Plus One has stunned her family – and it’s also stopped any of them asking again why she’s still single. But when she sees all the missed calls that evening, she knows it can’t be good news. And she’s right.

Delphie has been living her best life, loving her job, her friends, her no-strings relationships and her dream house by the sea. Now she has to question everything she believed about who she is and what she wants. Is her mum right – is it time to settle down? Or does she want to keep on trying to have it all?

Each wedding of a glorious summer brings a new surprise. And as everything Delphie thought she had is threatened, she has the chance to reshape her future.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS

Rosie’s #BookReview Team #RBRT Domestic Abuse Story GRACE AND SERENITY by @AnnalisaCrawf

Today’s team review is from Alison. She blogs here https://alisonwilliamswriting.wordpress.com/

Alison has been reading Grace And Serenity by Annalisa Crawford

This is a really well-written novel, full of emotion, and it’s good to read a story involving domestic abuse that doesn’t hold back, and that really traces Grace’s story from an innocent and hopeful young girl to someone manipulated into making decisions that ruin her life.

Grace is very well-drawn and her feelings and frustrations are depicted clearly, making the reader really care about her and what is happening to her.

However, I found it quite difficult to accept that Grace’s parents would react the way they did towards the man who treated their daughter so badly. They are supportive and loving and interested in their daughter, so it didn’t seem realistic at all that they would behave the way they do – this really spoiled the story for me, unfortunately. While I could completely understand and believe that Grace could be so manipulated, I didn’t believe that her parents could be, and that they would trust a man who had hurt their daughter.

That said, this is a thought-provoking, sensitive and well-written novel.

Four stars

Living on the streets is terrifying and exhausting. Grace’s only comforts are a steady stream of vodka, and a strange little boy who’s following her around.

At nineteen, Grace has already had a child and endured an abusive marriage. But she’s also had her baby abducted by her vengeful husband and been framed as a neglectful mother. Even her own parents doubted her version of the story. So she did the only thing that made sense to her—run away.

The streets are unforgiving. Winter is drawing in. And Grace isn’t prepared for the harsh realities of survival. At her very bleakest, a Good Samaritan swoops into her life and rescues her. With a roof over her head and food in her stomach, she longs to see her baby again.

But nothing ever comes for free.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS

Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT @elgeereviews The Corner Office by @KaterinaBaker

Today’s team review is from Gayathri, she blogs here http://musings-over-nothing.blogspot.co.uk/

Gayathri has been reading The Corner Office by Katerina Baker

Tara Johnson is a hard working woman who fights hard to win her place in the male dominated executive room. She has no personal life other than visiting her ailing mother because her work consumes her entire day. She takes joy and pride in making her work place better for the other women there, the support she didn’t have when she started.

Her work life is still not an easy place, even though she is one of the top executives of a Fortune 500 company, thanks to her nemesis Richard Boyd. They started together fresh out of college and the past fifteen years have done little to ease the competition between them. Their boss John believes their rivalry brings the best out of them, thus helping the company and begins their final race towards their ultimate prize – the Managing Director position.

Everything changes when Tara finds herself attracted to her subordinate Aidan, who is every woman’s fantasy. How does this love change Tara’s life? Does she realize that work place romances are not as easy as it seems before it is too late? You should grab The Corner Office to know what find the answers.

I requested the book looking for an easy read with the plot about interoffice romance with a dark twist. But it proved to be more than I bargained for and it is not your typical love triangle. The plot has a steady pace, and the intimate scenes are refreshingly well written. I finished it in about three hours which is my new best.

I liked the premise and the ending which is what we were rooting for. I loved everything about the book except its lead characters. I know what I said sounds confusing. Let me explain.

I tried so hard to like Tara. She is hard working. She is at the top. She has her priorities. She treats other women with respect and encourages them. And yet I failed to like her at all.

Was it because she talks so much about work life balance, while she didn’t have any? Was it because she talks about sexual harassment and then suffers abuses and threats from an ex silently? Or is it about her work place romance? Well, on the whole, I gave up. I don’t like Tara, the lead.

Though two of the lead characters have been trying to beat each other for more than a decade, there is a very little back-story to support that, except that Tara had turned Richard down when he asked her out. And he is supposed to be a playboy, and you are supposed to dislike him. Because he is a serial womanizer; he does not respect others privacy.

But the problem I had with disliking him was that all these reasons were what Tara tells us. There is not one instance, (okay there is one scene – the very first one) that he behaves like a creep. And given the history of Tara’s men (man), I lost the trust on her calling him creep. SoI ended up liking Richard, not in a mushy way but in a ‘thank God he is not what Tara presumed to be’ way.

Despite all these, I kinda liked the undertone of the story that spoke about feminism and women empowerment, without making it preachy. If you want to read an interoffice romance with just a perfect dose of violence, flirty and steamy scenes, The Corner Office should be your pick.

Book Description

Tara Johnson’s sacrifices are about to pay off: a senior executive at thirty-five at a Fortune 500 company, she’s one of the two finalists in line for a Managing Director position. Unfortunately, her rival of fifteen years, the charming, infuriating Richard Boyd, is just as qualified, and unlike her, he’s willing to cross pretty much every line to get what he wants.

Of all the things Tara stored in the attic to make it to the top, it’s her personal life she misses the most. That is, until she starts a steamy affair with sex god Aidan, her direct report. Interoffice relationships with a subordinate can mean the end of a career, and when Richard finds out, it’s the perfect opportunity to take his high-heeled nemesis out, especially since he’s still nursing a grudge against Tara for rejecting him years ago.

But Tara’s increasingly domineering lover has his own dark secrets, endangering more than just her career. As her liaison spirals out of control, salvation will come from the man she always thought she hated, and perhaps the only one to truly understand

About the author

Katerina Baker is a lucky gal who still attempts to have it all: full-time project management job that she enjoys, crazy family of four (with the ongoing threats of getting a pet to upset the family equilibrium) and writing.

Although on some days she is much more successful at managing her life than on the others, she still claims that she doesn’t want it any other way.

Katerina is represented by Sharon Belcastro from Belcastro Agency, and has a contract with Lachesis Publishing, who will be publishing her Romantic Suspense novel Under the Scrubs.

Goodreads | AmazonUK | AmazonUS | Twitter

SOUPER MUM by Kristen Bailey #Contemporary #WomensFiction @baileyforce6

Souper Mum by Kristen Bailey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Souper Mum is a contemporary women’s fiction novel about mother of four Jools Campbell and her showdown with celebrity TV chef Tommy McCoy.

On a disastrous Monday morning Jools is accosted in the supermarket by Tommy as he sources participants for his TV show where he shows ordinary people healthier ways to cook and eat. Jools isn’t in the mood for this and tells him straight what she thinks of him and his show. That evening she discovers she is a YouTube sensation as someone filmed her supermarket rant. The newspapers run articles on her verbal fight and the social media machine snowballs the situation.

Chaos abounds in Jools everyday life and her new life as a media star. The battle with Tommy culminates in a live TV cook-off, will Jools and her family recipes win over Tommy and his insistence that only organic foods should be fed to families?

This is a fun dialogue lead book which leaves the reader breathless at the end of its galloping pace.

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Book Description

A fantastic debut novel that takes a refreshing look at family, modern life, and the joyless merits of quinoa. Monday morning can’t get any worse for harassed mum-of-four Jools Campbell when, after a frantic school run, she’s cornered in the supermarket by pompous celebrity chef Tommy McCoy, who starts criticising the contents of her trolley. Apparently the fact that she doesn’t make her own bread or buy organic is tantamount to child abuse. In a hurry and short of patience, she berates McCoy for judging her when she hasn’t the time or the money to feed her family in line with his elitist ideals. Unbeknownst to Jools, her rant has been filmed and immediately goes viral on YouTube, making her a reluctant celebrity overnight. With McCoy determined to discredit her by delving into her personal life, Jools decides it’s time to fight her corner in the name of all the fraught mums out there who are fed up with being made to feel bad by food snobs like him. Armed with some fish fingers and her limited cooking repertoire, Jools must negotiate the unfamiliar world of celebrity while staying true to her instincts as a mum.

About the author

Mother-of-four, gin-drinker, binge-watcher, receipt hoarder, hapless dog owner, enthusiastic but terrible cook. Kristen also writes. She has had short fiction published in several publications including Mslexia & Riptide. Her novels are her own take on contemporary women’s fiction and are published by the very excellent Accent Press.

AmazonUK | AmazonUS | Goodreads | Twitter also free with Kindle Unlimited

GRIND by Edward Vukovic @RutegerJones Australian setting for a #coffee themed book.

Grind by Edward Vukovic
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Grind is a contemporary piece of literature set in Melbourne, Australia and follows five different characters towards an end when it is revealed how they are all connected. Throughout the story coffee is a common thread linking them all. The book is primarily written in first person from multiple points of view.

Ziva is Eastern European, with a gift of sight, she reads the signs left by the dregs in strong Turkish cups of coffee. She has come to Australia, following her brother and his wife, but she struggles to make friends and fit in.

Isaac owns a bar, he mourns the loss of his wife who died several years ago, he owns a dog he names Dante and he writes poetry.

Simon is a struggling estate agent, when he’s late for work one day a colleague takes the call about a property he’s been trying to sell for ages and makes the deal. His day gets worse when he finds the others in the office have also stolen his supply of precious coffee and it tips him over the edge, sending him on a dangerous drinking spree.

Michel is a mysterious homeless man with a shocking past and one he tries to escape, fearing violence from the bosses he stole from, he hopes his new life will keep them away, instead his past deeds return in an innocent form to haunt him.

Danielle is a schoolgirl who brushes the lives of all the other characters as they meet her one by one at a traffic light crossing.

This book takes a bit of getting into, especially as there is no indication which character each new chapter is about. The first person narrative is not necessarily the fault, but perhaps helpful chapter headings with just the character’s name would ease the reading experience. As it is, each new chapter takes a bit of time to work out who is talking and it interrupted the flow of the story for me.

The good thing is that there is plenty of rich writing to indulge in and the coffee theme is fun and well done. I particularly enjoyed Ziva’s coffee cup readings. Harder for me was the teasing out of the characters, it took a long while to understand that there were several characters and that the story had changed to someone new, meaning I had to re-read sections. We got to know the characters from their background story build ups but not from any striking dialogue or minds-eye visualisation.

AmazonUS | AmazonUK | Goodreads | Twitter

View all my reviews on Goodreads

Book Description

“Ziva’s love of coffee is double-edged. Throughout her life, she gives her talent freely to those desperate for a glimpse into destiny’s promise. Predicting the future with chilling accuracy, she understands the cost and has sworn never to divine her own truth. Having fled the economic aftershocks of the Balkan war, she struggles adjusting to her new life and clings to the remnants of her past, until she meets Isaac. Against her better judgement, Ziva ‘reads’ for herself and what she sees will change her life irrevocably.

Told from the perspective of multiple characters, Grind follows the plight of Ziva, an ordinary immigrant with an extraordinary gift, and highlights the impact we have on each other through the interconnectedness of chance encounters.”

About the author

Edward Vukovic is a Melbourne-based writer and novelist. He has work published across numerous publications including The Journal, The Adviser, The Roar and Shoot Farken. When he’s not writing about his poor parenting skills or fantasy football you will most likely find him hurling instructions at the television, steadfast in his belief that the players of whatever sport he’s watching at the time are actually listening to his ranting.

Edward is married to his wonderful and talented wife Vesna and is a proud, if sometimes bewildered, father to his amazing son Oliver.

B-SIDE (Arielle Lockley #2.5) by @ellefie #Contemporary novella #wwwblogs

B-Side by Elle Field
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

B-Side is a contemporary novella and book #2.5 in the Kept series. It takes on the character of Etta Millhouse. This book is best read in conjunction with the others in the series.

Etta is a bad-ass wannabe singer with a drug habit. The goddaughter of Felicity Farrell, she is used to doing what she wants, when she wants to, but Felicity has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and is gradually getting more forgetful.

When she asks Etta to oversee Arielle’s new pop-up shop plan it is with great reluctance that Etta sets foot in Arielle’s world. Meanwhile the chance of a record signing looms, Etta’s big dream , but any sign of fear and Etta is snorting drugs to boost her confidence.

Will she ever admit she’s addicted or can she stay clean for Felicity and her new found fame?

A fun quick read, the style is chatty and well paced.

Find a copy here from Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com available free from Kindle Unlimited

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