- Expectation

Expectation

by Anna Hope

Lissa, Hannah, and Cate are the three main character of the story, portraying female friendship over time.

A beautiful story of their friendship, life, happiness, and dreams. And how life changes their relaxed, carefree, and cheerful days as they start their career, relationship, and their family, they get to sense the real life and how it was against their expectations and fantasies of perfect life.

I really enjoyed Hannah’s character. A moving story that I could easily relate to and was very emotional reading it.

The book has a lot of talking point, the characters are perfectly developed and very engaging. It is written beautifully with a significant descriptive language. Melancholy I always pay attention to how the details are being depicted and have to admit that she has penned the story with a beautiful descriptive language.

Many thanks to Harper Perennial for sending me a copy of this wonderful book.

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- Dark August

Dark August

by Katie Tallo

A heart-racing work of fiction and mystery. Augusta is 20 years old and she lives on the fringe of society with her boyfriend.

She finds out that her great grandmother, who was her only relative, has passed away and she is now in possession of her Old car, house and dog.

Going through what was in that old house she finds memories and stuffs belonged to her mother, who was a police officer and died 10 years ago. going through her stuff Gus found several clues for the case her mother was working on when she died. Looking into all the clues Gus decides to solve the case that her mother was working on.

The story had a slow start for me, couple of chapters into the book the story picked up and became a surprising multifaceted mystery. the story is well-written, setting details were so vivid that didn’t want to stop reading it. Characters are fully developed., this murder mystery has too many characters that I could keep track of them all, but Gus remained the main character all through the book and that is what I really like about this book.

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- The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne

The Cabinets of Barnaby Mayne 

by Elsa Hart

The story is set in London early in 1703, it’s about Sir Barnaby Mayne who is a collector and his home is filled with his cabinets of things.

The first one hundred pages moved very slow for me, until I got to know the characters then it moved a little faster.

Lady Cecily Kay arrived at Sir Mayne’s house to study his plant collection. when Sir Mayne is murdered in his house while there are people touring his house and an innocent man is being sent to prison for his murder. That’s when Lay Kay and her childhood friend Meacan Barlow, whom she accidentally met at Mr. Mayne’s house after a long time, get involved investing the murder of Sir Mayne. While rebuilding their old friendship they study obsessed collectors in order to solve this murder mystery.

This Victorian murder mystery was very well-written, the vivid description of the scenery and well-developed characters, once you get to know then, made this story suspenseful.

One thing that I really liked about this book was that the main two characters were two strong and well-crafted females.

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-The Boatman And Other Stories

The Boatman and Other Stories

by Billy O'Callaghan

This is my first book by Billy O'Callaghan. The book offers twelve remarkable and astonishing stories, explaining the depth of different bitter and sweet feelings that humanity experience during lifetime. It explores the depth of love, loss, regret, relationships, and tragedies in life.

I enjoyed every single one of them. O’callaghan’s storytelling skill is amazing. With intense an emphasis, each story describes and portrays a moment in people’s lives O’callaghan have chosen ordinary characters and what they have gone through in life. Their life stories made me very emotional since I felt strong grief and heartbreak. And I don’t recommend it to those who can not easily handle these feelings.

I would like to share these quotes from my two favorite stories, the first one from Love is Strange and the second one from A Death in the Family:

- “‘Love shouldn’t be anybody’s business’, I sighed. ‘what lives between to people doesn’t belong to anyone one else. And maybe we don’t always have to understand what it is about.’

- “Time passes but doesn’t get far, and maybe for some of us, for some of us nearing our own precipice, the dead still sing.”

No matter how much I try to review this book I can not express my feeling, I think it’s a must read book.

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-The First Emma

             

The First Emma

by Camille Di Maio

The First of Emma is a very well-researched historical fiction. The story is based on true events, covering the life of Emma Koehler, a powerful woman called the first Emma, she was Otto Joehler’s wife. Otto was a very powerful businessman and was killed by one his mistresses in 1914. This was when Emma took over their brewery business.

We get to know another powerful woman in this story, Mabel who lives in Baltimore. She responds to an ad of an old lady wanting to write her memoir, and that is how she gets to know Emma.

I discovered a lot about these two time periods, described from each of these two empowering women’s perspectives. What I really enjoyed about this book was the very well-developed characters.

 I highly recommend reading this book to readers of historical fiction. Especially those looking to read about powerful women.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Wyatt-MacKenzie Publishing for the digital copy.

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- The Art of Deception

The Art of Deception

By Leonard Goldberg

The Art of Deception is book 4 of “The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Mysteries”.Since this book was my first read by this author, I had to read the previous books summary.

Its 1912, the story is taking place in London, where Dr. Watson, his son and Joanna (Sherlock Holmes daughter) are investigating their recent case. Someone is breaking into private homes and different art galleries and rips paintings. As if he is looking for something hidden behind these canvases. 

In one of the swift escapes of the Hawk and Evans Art Gallery the suspect loses his scarf and leaves it on the floor. this scarf becomes a lead their investigation.

 Joanna finds the answer to so many questions by examining this shabby scarf. Facts like financial status, characteristic and size of the suspect.

We also get to know Joanna’s son, John, he is away at school. There is Cholera Epidemic going on at Johns school that gave me a lot of anxiety since we are dealing with a similar situation right now during Covid Pandemic.

 I enjoyed reading this detective story. I liked how close he Watson family members were. The affluent explanation of the artworks and mentioning different well-known artists in the story.

What I hope to see in the next book is more developed characters. I do recommend this book to the reader of detective and mystery stories.  

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- A Taste of Sage

 A Taste of Sage

by Yaffa S. Santos

Lumi Santana, grew up with a mother who believed that love and dreams are fairy tales.  But She never gave up on her dreams and opened her Dominican restaurant. the story introduced me to the culture and food which I found remarkably interesting. Things did not work out at her restaurant and her venture fails. Trying to make her ends meet, she takes a position as a sous chef with Julien Dax who is a renowned chef at a traditional French restaurant.

Lumi is amazingly gifted and she can guess people’s sentiment when she tastes the food they cook.

Working with Julien, she is surprised with the disconnect between the mean, arrogant, practically intolerable Julien and the feeling he spread into his food.

Dax (Julien) and Lumi have quite different cooking styles. Dax is all about classic where as Lumi enjoys modernization. Our main characters gradually get to know each other and start to fall in love.

We also get to know Esme, Dax’s obsessed Secretary who is in love with him. But for me it was like a commercial ad, she was there and then she was gone.

Overall, I liked the fast-paced story line and I think it has potential. I really enjoyed the recipes and I think it was very brilliant to add them to the story.

The dual perspective (Julien and Lumi’s perspective) storyline was really attractive

I found Lumi’s character was likable and at times naïve. While Dax’s character made me feel bored at times. The characters where not fully developed and were superficial. And that is why I have a 3-star rating for this book.

 

Many thanks to Harper Collins Publishers for the gifted copy.

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