Book Spotlight Friday! The Souls of Lost Lake

Book Beginnings and Friday56

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading. Friday 56 is hosted by My Head is Full of Books and asks you to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader and share a non-spoiler sentence or two.  First Line Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Reading is my Superpower that asks you to share the first sentence of the book you're reading.

Jaime Jo Wright's gothic novels are always suspenseful with light breaking through the darkness.

The Souls of Lost Lake

About the book:

Wren Blythe has long enjoyed being among the Northwoods, helping her father with programming at a youth camp. But when a little girl in the area goes missing, an all-out search ensues, reviving the decades-old campfire story of Ava Coons, the murderess, who still roams the woods. Joining the search, Wren stumbles upon the Coons cabin ruins and a rotting porcelain doll. But even more terrifying is seeing her name etched on the doll's foot like a sinister omen.

In 1930, Ava Coons has spent the last ten years carrying the mantle of mystery since she emerged from the forest as an eight-year-old girl, spattered with blood, dragging a logger's axe. She has accepted she'll never remember what happened to her family. When a member of the town of Tempter's Creek is murdered, rumors spread that Ava's secret is more malicious than previously imagined.

Both women discover that to save the innocent, they must face an insidious evil.

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Book Beginnings

Campfires were meant to be places of shadows.

Friday 56

"I left her behind."

My thoughts so far

This one is really good!

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Can't Wait Wednesday! The Perfect Rom-Com

Can't Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings that spotlights and discusses the books we're excited about that we've yet to read. Generally, they're books that are yet to be released. It's based on Waiting on Wednesday, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

This will be a new to me author. The cover drew me to the story which will be hopefully a light and fun read.

About the book: The Perfect Rom-Com

She's written dozens of smash hit novels as a ghostwriter. Too bad no one knows it.

Aspiring author Bryony Page attends her first writers conference bursting with optimism and ready to sell her manuscript with long-shot dreams of raising awareness for The Bridge, her grandmother's financially-struggling organization where she teaches ESL full-time. But after a disastrous pitching session, she stumbles into correcting another author's work in a last-ditch attempt to make a good impression with the agent. And she, as it turns out, is spot on.

No one is more surprised than Bryony when the agent offers her the opportunity to be a ghostwriter for Amelia Benedict, popular rom-com novelist. Bryony agrees on one she'll write books for this vain, demanding woman just as long as Jack Sterling, literary agent of the legendary Foundry Literary Agency, works to sell her own book too.

What nobody predicted, however, was that Bryony's books would turn Amelia Benedict into the Amelia Benedict, household name and bestselling author with millions of copies sold around the world.

And just like that, the Foundry Agency can't let her go.

But on a personal note, Jack is realizing he can't either.

What are you waiting on this week?

Review: On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor

On the Cliffs of Foxglove Manor by Jaime Jo Wright
My rating: 💛💛💛

Rating 3.5

If you are new to Jaime Jo Wright’s stories, at first glance it will feel at the darker side with the missing treasure and ghost girl.

However, keep on reading, because her reading fans know that she has a talent to bring forth the light to shine on the darkness and to bring the worldly beliefs in ghosts back to what God says in his word. This time she used the faith and wisdom of Axel in the modern day thread to shine the truth.

“Whether or not ghosts exists, or spirits, or demons, or however you want to label it, I believe God is the one I’m going to spend my time focusing on. The others steal the attention otherwise, and really, He usurps them all. I mean, I’d pit God against a ghost any day.”

There were a lot of questions and possible scenarios in this story and with a lot of twists and turns readers will be wanting to turn pages fast and late into the night (with or without little ghost girls keeping you up).

But keep on reading, there are always answers to the mysteries of the dark in this author's stories.

View all my reviews

About the book:

1885.
Adria Fontaine has been sent to recover goods her father pirated on the Great Lakes during the war. But when she arrives at Foxglove Manor--a stone house on a cliff overlooking Lake Superior--Adria senses wickedness hovering over the property. The mistress of Foxglove is an eccentric and seemingly cruel old woman who has filled her house with dangerous secrets, ones that may cost Adria her life.

Present day.
Kailey Gibson is a new nurse's aide at a senior home in a renovated old stone manor. Kidnapped as a child, she has nothing but locked-up memories of secrets and death, overshadowed by the chilling promise from her abductors that they would return. When the residents of Foxglove start sharing stories of whispers in the night, hidden treasure, and a love willing to kill, it becomes clear this home is far from a haven. She'll have to risk it all to banish the past's demons, including her own.

About the author:

Daphne du Maurier and Christy Award-Winning author, Jaime Jo Wright resides in the hills of Wisconsin writing suspenseful, mysteries stained with history's secrets. Jaime lives in dreamland, exists in reality, and invites you to join her adventures at jaimewrightbooks.com! 

Weekend Wrap-up: January 26th

 

 It’s Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Book Date.

After a could we it was nice to enjoy a bit of warmer weather with the sun breaking through!

Finished

(Reviews can be found under Book Review tag)

Currently reading

Next up:

What are you reading this week?

Blog Posts Recap:

Here is my past week's Blog Posts.

Top Ten Tuesday

Can't Wait Wednesday

Book Spotlight Fridays!

Saturday Series Discovery

Adding to the Bookshelf:

Which Avid Reader do not add to their shelves! I try to limit mine to review books since I have so many owned on my TBR to read.  So did I add to my shelf this week? 

Nne this week.

Bought: None

Book Spotlight Friday! Guilty Until Innocent

 

Book Beginnings and Friday56

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading. Friday 56 is hosted by My Head is Full of Books and asks you to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader and share a non-spoiler sentence or two.  First Line Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Reading is my Superpower that asks you to share the first sentence of the book you're reading.

Just started this one so still early days.

Guilty Until Innocent

About the book:

When an old case is reopened, two lawyers work to prove a man's innocence despite the odds stacked against them.

After being fired from his last two jobs, Ryan Clark lands an associate position with a law firm run by his distant cousin, Tom, in a small North Carolina town. Over twenty-five years earlier, Tom represented local man Joe Moore when he was convicted of murder in the deaths of a prominent young couple. Even though the evidence was circumstantial, Joe was high on drugs and doesn't remember the details of the crime. He never seriously questioned his own guilt, even when he was originally accused. Not only has he adapted to life in prison but he's become a different person there and has a significant ministry to fellow inmates.

But Joe's family remains unconvinced of his guilt, and they hire Ryan and Tom to file a motion to obtain Joe's release. The resulting investigation uncovers layers of dark secrets in the local community. It will result either in Joe's vindication--or expand the number of people who should join him behind bars.

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Book Beginnings

The air-conditioning in the Blanton County Courthouse was fighting a losing battle against the oppressive July heat of the eastern North Carolina summer.

Friday 56

"I assume that's blood,"

My thoughts so far

Hoping for a thrilling read over the weekend.

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Review: The Winter Rose

The Winter Rose by Melanie Dobson
My rating: 💛💛💛

This was a story which started out slow but at the end held my attention in such a way that I didn’t care that I forgot to focus on what I was doing while listening to what is going on.

The author did not only provide historical details which taught me something new about WW2, but brought two lifetimes together in smooth and beautiful writing.

Sometimes dual-time stories can feel like two separate stories which only connects at the end, but for me the two stories would be incomplete without the other.

The narrator also had a beautiful voice and delivered the story to keep me invested.

*I listened to the audiobook on Everand.*

View all my reviews

About the book:

In this gripping split-time novel, Grace Tonquin is an American Quaker woman who works tirelessly in Vichy France to rescue Jewish children from the Nazis. After crossing the treacherous Pyrénées, Grace returns home to Oregon with a brother and sister whose parents were lost during the war. Though Grace and her husband love Élias and Marguerite as their own, echoes of Grace's past and trauma from the Holocaust tear the Tonquin family apart.

More than fifty years after they disappear, Addie Hoult arrives at Tonquin Lake, hoping to find the Tonquin family. For Addie, the mystery is a matter of life and death for her beloved mentor Charlie, who is battling a genetic disease. Though Charlie refuses to discuss his ties to the elusive Tonquins, finding them is the only way to save his life and mend the wounds from his broken past.

About the author:

Writing fiction is a fun excuse for Melanie to explore ghost towns and old houses, travel to unusual places,

and spend hours reading dusty books and journals. She writes both contemporary and historical fiction with threads of romance and suspense.

Melanie is the award-winning author of almost thirty time-slip, historical romance, suspense, and contemporary novels including Catching the Wind, The Winter Rose, and The Wings of Poppy Pendleton. Five of her novels including Chateau of Secrets have won Carol Awards, Catching the Wind won the Audie 2018 Inspirational Fiction award, and Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana won Best Novel of Indiana. Catching the Wind and Memories of Glass were both finalists for Christy Awards in historical fiction.

Melanie and her husband, Jon, have two daughters. After moving numerous times with Jon's work, the Dobsons have finally settled near Portland, Oregon, and they love to travel and hike in both the mountains and the cliffs above the Pacific. When Melanie isn't writing or researching, she enjoys line dancing, biking, and making up stories with her kids.

More information about her and her books is available on her website at www.melaniedobson.com. You can also connect with Melanie at www.facebook.com/melaniedobsonfiction.

Review: Serial Burn

Serial Burn by Lynette Eason
My rating: 💛💛💛💛💛

I love Lynette Eason and am never disappointed by one of her novels and this was another great suspense story. The only reason why it took me so long to finish this book was due to spending more time with family on vacation.

Both main characters experienced loss through fire, and for me it created a special bond between them, but I enjoyed Jesslyn’s plot of finding the truth of past events and also trying to know what her identity is after this major part of her focus is resolved.

It was only a few days after I finished the book that I actually realised how clever the first line of the plot is. It totally threw my idea of how the story would develop.

I am excited for the fourth and final book in this series.

*I received a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.*


View all my reviews

About the book:

When Jesslyn McCormick was just seven years old, a devastating house fire killed her parents and two younger sisters. Now the fire marshal of Lake City, Jesslyn is determined to find the person who started the fire that robbed her of her family. As the 25th anniversary of her family's deaths approaches, a string of fires--including at Jesslyn's church--brings up all those old feelings and offers new evidence.

Because church fires are considered a hate crime, FBI Special Agent Nathan Carlisle is called in to work with local law enforcement. Nathan has his own past--one he'd prefer not to revisit. And focusing on helping Jesslyn track down the arsonist is a great distraction.

As both the case and the chemistry between Jesslyn and Nathan heat up, memories will come flooding in from the past to bump up against hopes for the future. And when Jesslyn comes face-to-face with her worst nightmare, she'll have to confront her fears and rely on Nathan and her community of friends in order to survive.

About the author:

Also see Author Discovery: Lynette Eason

Lynette Eason grew up in Greenville, SC. She graduated from the University of South Carolina, Columbia, and then obtained her masters in education from Converse College. Author of twenty inspirational romantic suspense books, she is also a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and Romance Writers of America (RWA). In 1996, Lynette married "the boy next door" and now she and her husband and their two children make their home in Simpsonville, South Carolina."

Weekend Wrap-up: January 19th

 

 

 It’s Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Book Date.

Haven't done one of these in a while.  A new job resulted in new routines which took me some time to adjust and finds gaps!

Finished

(Reviews can be found under Book Review tag)

Currently reading

Next up:

What are you reading this week?

Blog Posts Recap:

Here is my past week's Blog Posts.

Top Ten Tuesday

Can't Wait Wednesday

Book Spotlight Fridays!

Saturday Series Discovery

Adding to the Bookshelf:

Which Avid Reader do not add to their shelves! I try to limit mine to review books since I have so many owned on my TBR to read.  So did I add to my shelf this week? 

One this week.

Bought: One

Review: With This Ring

With This Ring by Amy Clipston
My rating: 💛💛💛💛

The writing was written in such a smooth way, that I found myself flying through this story, even when the male lead character was frustrating with his focus on money and how that will solve everything.

Only in the last third of the story, we were able to dig deeper into what was behind Hudson’s drive to provide financially to those he loves.

I enjoyed the roller rink scenes - it brought some adventure, fun and sport spirit to the story.

The writer delivered a story where I could feel the characters' emotions and frustrations with each other and the struggles they faced each day. There were moments where I just wanted to shake the characters to make them talk to each other and finally be honest.

I enjoyed this story more than expected, which is always a good surprise after finishing the story.

*I received a complimentary copy from the publisher. All opinions expressed are my own.*


View all my reviews

About the book:

Bestselling author Amy Clipston transports readers back to the picturesque town of Flowering Grove, North Carolina, in this heartwarming contemporary romance.

Dakota Jamison is living her dream running Fairytale Bridal Shop in her hometown of Flowering Grove, NC. But despite helping others find their Happily Ever Afters, getting married and settling down isn't on her radar. In fact, she decided she'd never get engaged again after Hudson Garrity broke her heart and left her to pursue a career in New York City. Besides, she doesn't have time for a relationship between running her shop and giving roller skating lessons at the local rink.

Hudson Garrity made his dream a reality when he started his own software company in the big city, but now that he's sold it, he's at a crossroads. He's finally made enough money to provide a comfortable life for his younger sister and the aunt who raised them after their parents died. Hoping that a return home will help return his focus, he's instead thrown into family chaos and roped into helping his sister plan her wedding . . . bringing him once more into contact with the one who got away.

As Hudson's sister's wedding date draws closer, he starts to remember how much he loved Flowering Grove and the smalltown life. And as he and Dakota start to wonder what could have been, they reevaluate what went wrong between them.

Will Dakota and Hudson find it in their hearts to forgive each other and forge a new life together?

About the author:

Hi! I'm a bestselling author of heartwarming romance and happily ever after.

Review: Things I Never Told You

Things I Never Told You by Beth K. Vogt
My rating: 💛💛💛💛

I delayed reading this story and I am not yet sure why. This was a difficult but beautiful story about loss, broken relationships and characters trying to find their way in life through all these challenges, but above all also hope

The relationships between these sisters were hard to see, because there was so much promise of a deeper relationship between them all.

I hope to see more growth in these characters throughout the series.


View all my reviews

About the book:

It’s been ten years since Payton Thatcher’s twin sister died in an accident, leaving the entire family to cope in whatever ways they could. No longer half of a pair, Payton reinvents herself as a partner in a successful party-planning business and is doing just fine—as long as she manages to hold her memories and her family at arm’s length.

But with her middle sister Jillian’s engagement, Payton’s party-planning skills are called into action. Which means working alongside her opinionated oldest sister, Johanna, who always seems ready for a fight. They can only hope that a wedding might be just the occasion to heal the resentment and jealousy that divides them . . . until a frightening diagnosis threatens Jillian’s plans and her future. As old wounds are reopened and the family faces the possibility of another tragedy, the Thatchers must decide if they will pull together or be driven further apart.

Includes discussion questions.

About the author:

Beth K. Vogt is a non-fiction author and editor who said she’d never write fiction. She’s the wife of an Air

Force family physician (now in solo practice) who said she’d never marry a doctor—or anyone in the military. She’s a mom of four who said she’d never have kids. Now Beth believes God’s best often waits behind the doors marked “Never.” The Best We’ve Been, the final book in Beth’s Thatcher Sisters Series with Tyndale House Publishers, releases May 2020. Other books in the series include Things I Never Told You, which one the 2019 AWSA Award for Contemporary Novel of the Year, and Moments We Forget.
Beth is a 2016 Christy Award winner, a 2016 ACFW Carol Award winner, and a 2015 RITA® finalist. Her 2014 novel, Somebody Like You, was one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Best Books of 2014. A November Bride was part of the Year of Wedding Series by Zondervan. Having authored nine contemporary romance novels or novellas, Beth believes there’s more to happily-ever-after than the fairy tales tell us.
An established magazine writer and former editor of the leadership magazine for MOPS International, Beth blogs for Learn How to Write a Novel and The Write Conversation and also enjoys speaking to writers group and mentoring other writers. She lives in Colorado with her husband Rob, who has adjusted to discussing the lives of imaginary people. Connect with Beth at bethvogt.com.

Review: Perennials

Perennials by Julie Cantrell
My rating: 💛💛💛

Perennials was a charming southern novel about characters who had to face their past and decisions they made. It was also about communication and second chances.


*I listened to the audiobook on Everand.*


View all my reviews

About the book:

When two estranged sisters reunite for their parents’ 50th anniversary, a family tragedy brings unexpected lessons of hope and healing amid the flowers of their mother’s perennial garden.

Eva—known to all as Lovey—grew up in Oxford, MS, surrounded by literary history and her mother's stunning perennial gardens. But a garden shed fire and the burns suffered by one of her best friends seemed to change everything. Her older sister Bitsy blamed her for the fire—and no one spoke up on her behalf. Bitsy the cheerleader, Bitsy the homecoming queen, Bitsy married to a wealthy investor. And all the while, Lovey blamed for everything that goes wrong.

At eighteen, Lovey turns down a marriage proposal, flees from Oxford and the expectations of attending Ole Miss, and instead goes to Arizona—the farthest thing from the South she can imagine. She becomes a successful advertising executive, a weekend yoga instructor, and seems to have it all together. But she's alone. And on her 45th birthday, she can't help but wonder what's wrong.

When she gets a call from her father—still known to everyone as Chief from his Ole Miss football days—insisting that she come home three weeks early for her parents' 50th wedding anniversary celebration, she's at wits end. She's about to close the biggest contract of her career, the one that will secure her financial goals and set her up for retirement. But his words, "Family First," hit too close to home. Is there hope for her estranged relationship with Bitsy after all this time?

Eva's journey home, to the memory garden her father has planned as an anniversary surprise for her mother, becomes one of discovering roots, and truth, and love, and what living perennially in spite of disappointments and tragedy really means. Eva thought she wanted to leave her family and the South far behind . . . but she's realizing she hasn't truly been herself the whole time she's been gone.

About the author:

Julie Cantrell is a multiple award-winning, New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author, editor,

story coach, TEDx speaker, and ghostwriter. She served as editor-in-chief of the Southern Literary Review and has received the Mississippi Arts Commission Literary Arts Fellowship, the Rivendell Writer’s Colony Mary Elizabeth Nelson Fellowship, and the Pat Conroy Writer’s Residency Fellowship.

Her novels have earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Library Journal and have been featured in Top Reads lists by LitHub, Redbook, Southern Living Magazine, REAL SIMPLE, BookBub, HuffPost, USA TODAY, and more.

As a novelist, she’s received two Christy Awards, two Carol Awards, and the Mississippi Library Association Fiction Award. She was named a short-list finalist twice for the Mississippi Arts & Letters Fiction Award as well as a two-time short-list finalist for the Pat Conroy Southern Book Prize.

In addition to her work with survivors of abuse and her service as a literacy advocate, she’s a member of the Tall Poppy Writers and Her Novel Collective, two organizations that promote the power of story and elevate female voices.

With published works across a diverse range of genres and numerous languages, Julie currently writes, coaches, and edits fulltime from her home in Houston, Texas where she finds great pleasure in helping to shepherd other people’s stories to shelves.

She also teaches creative writing students through the MFA program at Drexel University.

Learn more at www.juliecantrell.com and www.bluesparked.com or follow on Instagram for all things story.

Or find all her links: https://linktr.ee/juliecantrell

Monthly recap: December 2024

 

 I first saw this monthly reflections idea on: Christian bookshelf reviews

I am totally late on this one and will only recap what I've read.  I did not manage to get all my challenges completed, but had fun trying.

My main objective goal for 2025 is to read a bit less, enjoy what I read and have more of a focus to get to specific books or series I wanted to read for a while.

 

What I've read:

(Reviews can be found under Book Review tag)

Kindle:

Audio:

Paperback:

Book Spotlight Friday! Serial Burn and Where I Found You

 

Book Beginnings and Friday56

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading. Friday 56 is hosted by My Head is Full of Books and asks you to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your e-reader and share a non-spoiler sentence or two.  First Line Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Reading is my Superpower that asks you to share the first sentence of the book you're reading.

Loved this third book in Lynette Eason's latest suspense series.

Serial Burn

About the book:

When Jesslyn McCormick was just seven years old, a devastating house fire killed her parents and two younger sisters. Now the fire marshal of Lake City, Jesslyn is determined to find the person who started the fire that robbed her of her family. As the 25th anniversary of her family's deaths approaches, a string of fires--including at Jesslyn's church--brings up all those old feelings and offers new evidence.

Because church fires are considered a hate crime, FBI Special Agent Nathan Carlisle is called in to work with local law enforcement. Nathan has his own past--one he'd prefer not to revisit. And focusing on helping Jesslyn track down the arsonist is a great distraction.

As both the case and the chemistry between Jesslyn and Nathan heat up, memories will come flooding in from the past to bump up against hopes for the future. And when Jesslyn comes face-to-face with her worst nightmare, she'll have to confront her fears and rely on Nathan and her community of friends in order to survive.

*************************************************************

Book Beginnings

Someone had to stop her.

Friday 56

The simple one-word answer punched the air from her lungs and it took her a moment to recover.

My thoughts so far

This was an exciting and thrilling story.

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This was a sweet and great start to a new series.

Where I Found You

About the book:

From beloved author Betsy St. Amant comes an enemies to more, Hatfields and McCoys swoon-worthy contemporary romance set in a small beach town that reminds us that true love is worth fighting for.

Noah Hebert recently inherited the Blue Pirogue Inn—along with all its problems. He needs money to keep his beloved childhood home from being shut down by his family’s longtime nemesis, Isaac Bergeron. So when Noah’s lawyer approaches him about an additional segment of his late grandfather’s will, it’s just in the nick of time. But even from beyond the grave, his grandfather is up to his usual games. In order to receive the last portion of inheritance, Noah must follow the clues. But there’s one condition…

Magnolia Blossom Cafe manager Elisa Bergeron is shocked to discover an acquaintance from the local Puzzlers Club left her something in his will—and even more surprised to discover they are clues to a portion of his estate. When she learns she must work with introverted inn-owner Noah Hebert to solve the puzzle, she’s torn. Growing up in the middle of a multi-generational feud between their families, she’s been taught by her father Isaac that Heberts can’t be trusted.

When these two exes must work together to save their future, will love get a second chance or will the longstanding family feud claim another generation?

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Book Beginnings

Noah Hebert needed to get back home - he didn't have time to watch paint dry.

Friday 56

She believed him - about her shoes, anyway. 

No so much her heart.

My thoughts so far

A sweet story set in a small town.

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