The Day After the Party by Nicole Trope

 

The plot:  Saturday night, Katelyn throws a party for her thirty-sixth birthday; Monday morning, she wakes up in the hospital unable to remember anything about the party, or what happened that night. And her husband, Toby, and her best friend, Leah, aren't talking. Katelyn suspects they're keeping secrets, maybe even lying to her. And when her memory starts to come back, she doesn't know who to trust or what to believe.

My thoughts:  This is the first book by Nicole Trope that I've read, but it won't be my last. It reads fast. (I read it in a day.) And I liked the unease and slow build of suspense as Katelyn starts to piece together the truth about that night, as well as the flashback scenes with her and Leah growing up. Their relationship is complicated. Katelyn and her husband also have their struggles. It kept me guessing about who was lying and why. There was one small twist at the very end that I didn't think was necessary...in fact, I would have liked the book even more without it...but all in all I enjoyed this quiet psychological/domestic thriller. It's what I would label a fun summer popcorn read. 

My rating:  3.5/5 stars.

Happy Reading!

Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis

 

From the blurb:  "It's bad enough waking up in a half-destroyed evil wizard's workshop with no eyebrows, no memories, and no idea how long you have before the Dread Lord Whomever shows up to murder you horribly. It's a lot worse when you realize that Dread Lord Whomever is...you.  Gav isn't really sure how he ended up with a castle full of goblins, or why he has a princess locked in a cell. All he can do is play along with his own evil plan in hopes of getting his memories back before he gets himself killed. But as he realizes that nothing is quite what it seems, Gav will have to answer the hardest question of all--who does he want to be now?"

A few favorite quotes:

• So, this was shock. It seemed terribly inconvenient that the brain's reaction to being placed in mortal jeopardy was to become much stupider. 
• He was a coward, there was no way around it, and he was pretty sure he could live with that. Fundamentally brave people didn't become Dark Wizards.
• He didn't know what that made him, if he wasn't evil enough to be a villain or good enough to be a hero.
• He wasn't a hero. And he'd failed again. But that didn't mean he couldn't keep trying. So he could look himself in the eye, even if no one else would.

My thoughts:  This book is a magical adventure with humor and heart. Gav (formerly known as the Dread Lord Gavrax) knows he's not hero material, but he doesn't want to be a dark wizard any more either. So where does that leave him? Gav is such a great character! I loved his interactions with his scared goblin servants, as well as the banter between him and the spunky and disdainful princess. And seeing him trying to figure out how not to be a dark wizard any more without ending up getting murdered by all the other dark wizards, or all the heroes trying to rescue the princess, was very entertaining. There's just so much to like about this book including a very funny garlic festival and some great magic.  ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy Reading!

A Christmas Romance...

 

Title & Author:  A Christmas Bride by Jo Ann Ferguson

Genre:  Regency Romance

First line:  "All we need to do is find you a fiancee by tomorrow."

Plot summary:  All Timothy Crawford's grandfather wants for his 70th birthday is to meet his grandson's fiancee, Serenity Adams. The only problem is that she doesn't exist; Timothy made her up. He's on his way to York to tell Lord Brookindale the truth when he happens upon an overturned carriage with an injured young woman inside who looks remarkably like his imaginary Serenity. She appears to be an abigail, but she doesn't remember her name, or who she works for, or where she's from. When Timothy's cousin explains Timothy's situation to her, she agrees to pretend to be his fiancee over Christmas. In return, he promises to help her figure out who she really is.

My thoughts:  Sweet and frothy are two words that perfectly describe this novel. And I don't mean that in a bad way. Serenity seems to fit right in with Timothy's family, and he quickly finds himself falling in love with her. But he also doesn't want to take advantage of her situation. Besides their romance, there's the intrigue surrounding Serenity's accident and true identity. Though that mystery is NOT the main focus of the story, it does add a little twist at the end. Ferguson also throws in a lot of time period slang throughout the book, words like betwattle and skimble-skamble. I felt it was a little overdone at times, but it was a small thing and easily overlooked. For the most part, this is a completely predictable bit of light-hearted fluff. But it's also a fun read. And knowing a happy ending is coming isn't a bad thing when it comes to a Christmas romance.

Happy Reading!

Similar reads:

The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig 

Christmas-y Haiku Reviews

The White Christmas Inn by Colleen Wright

Reading the Alphabet...

The W shelf has been good to read. I was wandering the library stacks the other day and ran across a book written by an author I've never read before; I picked it up on a whim and quickly got caught up in a very well-written thriller. Talk about bookish serendipity!

Before I Go To Sleep by S. J. Watson tells the story of Christine Lucas, a woman in her forties who has a rare form of amnesia--whatever pieces of her life that she manages to remember while she's awake, she forgets all over again when she goes to sleep. Her husband, Ben, has to tell her who she is each morning. But he doesn't know about the journal she's been keeping; only Dr. Nash, the psychologist she's been working with in secret, knows that. It is a journal with a warning on the first page: Don't Trust Ben. It's a journal that holds the truth.

"My own truth, one I have not been told but have remembered. And it is written now, etched in this journal rather than my memory, but permanent nevertheless. I know that the book I am writing may be dangerous, as well as necessary. It is not fiction. It may reveal things best left undiscovered. Secrets that ought not to see the light of day."

But they are secrets that Christine is determined to figure out, no matter the cost.

This is a hard book to put down. Not knowing whether or not to trust Christine's memory as she begins to uncover her husband's lies one by one makes this novel even more chilling. Which version of her life is the truth? And the mystery surrounding her loss of memory deepens with each journal page that she reads. This novel, with its unexpected twists, especially at the end, is quiet suspense at its best. I'm so glad I spent another week reading from the W shelf.

Happy Reading!