Wayward Girls by Susan Wiggs

 In 1968 we meet six teens confined at the Good Shepherd—a dark and secretive institution controlled by Sisters of Charity nuns—locked awaymerely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly.

Mairin— free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants, committed to keep her safe from her stepfather.

Angela—denounced for her attraction to girls, sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator.

Helen—the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, she saw her “temporary” stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years.

Odessa—caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, she found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence.

Denise—sentenced for brawling in a foster home, she dared to dream of a better life.

Janice—deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay—except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency.

Sister Bernadette—rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.

Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                     Amazon.com: Wayward Girls: A Novel: 9780063118270: Wiggs, Susan: Books

I like to believe I am the person my dogs think I am.

I phone my parents every day, as they are elderly and adorable, and they read me stories every day of my freakishly normal childhood. I was a writer before I learned to read, by creating scribbles on paper and dictating the stories to my saintly mother. You can see examples here: https://plus.google.com/u/1/photos/104585203815605467940/albums/5587379107269629729?banner=pwa&partnerid=pwrd1.

Untold eons later, I still read and write everyday and I've gotten very good at it. I live in a ridiculously gorgeous place in the world--an island in Puget Sound, Washington where we have a lot of the same flowers you grow in the UK. But bigger slugs. Much bigger slugs.

I have lots more to tell you, so please join me on Facebook and check out pictures of my dogs and tell me what's on your mind. https://www.facebook.com/susanwiggs

Second Chance at Sunshine Inn by Amy Clipston GIVEAWAY!

 Two polar opposites, one cozy inn--and one sweet and surprising chance at unlikely love.

When Everleigh Hartnett, a cheerful traveling NICU nurse who can't sit still, inherits half of her godmother's beloved seaside bed-and-breakfast, she dreams of selling the place to fund the nonprofit she and her godmother always envisioned. But there's one tiny problem: her new co-owner. Rugged, grumpy, and fiercely loyal to the inn, Cade Witherspoon isn't about to let his peaceful life--and his new start--be sold off so easily.

Everleigh and Cade are opposites in every way. She's sunshine and laughter, while he's all rough edges and quiet brooding. Their clash of wills over the inn soon has them wondering what on earth Everleigh's godmother was thinking when she left them both in charge.

As Everleigh gets to know Cade's softer side--and Cade finds himself drawn to Everleigh's optimism and kindness--their disagreement over the inn becomes something sweeter. But with the arrival of Cade's long-lost brother and the looming threat of a developer sniffing around the property, they'll have to make some hard choices--together.

Can Everleigh and Cade let go of their expectations and build something lasting together? Or will the Sunshine Inn be the place they both leave behind?

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                     Second Chance at Sunshine Inn: A Sweet Contemporary Romance: Clipston, Amy: 9780840716354: Amazon.com: Books

Amy Clipston has been writing for as long as she can remember. Her fiction writing "career" began in elementary school when she and a close friend wrote and shared silly stories. She has a degree in communications from Virginia Wesleyan College and is a member of the Authors Guild, American Christian Fiction Writers, and Romance Writers of America. She is the author of the bestselling Kauffman Amish Bakery series with Zondervan, which is part of HarperCollins Christian Publishing. An advocate for organ and blood donation, Amy donated a kidney in 2011 at Johns Hopkins Hospital. Through her donation, her husband received a second kidney transplant. Amy and her husband matched another couple and swapped kidneys with them. Amy's memoir, A Gift of Love, will be available in early 2014. She hopes her story inspires others to become organ and blood donors. Amy lives in North Carolina with her husband, two sons, mother, and four spoiled rotten cats. You can find her on the web at www.AmyClipston.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AmyClipstonBooks. 

My thoughts...                                                                                                   This was an interesting read. The writing didn't feel like Clipstons it was choppy and short but as the story goes on it sounds more like Clipstons. I love small town reads; I would love to live a small town where everyone is friends and feels like family.                                                                    This is a 3.5 star read it gets better so don't give up on this one.                Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.   

The White Python World Tour by Travis Kennedy

 

It’s Los Angeles, 1986, and metal rules the world. For aspiring drummer Rikki Thunder, life is beautiful, just like his hair—even if he is sleeping in a condemned paint store and playing with a band that’s going nowhere. But when Rikki gets a shot to join L.A.’s hottest up-and-coming club band, Whyte Python, his young life takes a mind-blowing turn. Soon he and his new band mates have a hit single rocketing up the charts, Whyte Python is selling out major clubs, and Rikki has a gorgeous girlfriend in the audience and in his life. He literally could not ask for anything more.

But good fortune can be deceiving. As the band gets a deeper taste of success in the US, the late-80’s Cold War is breathing its last gasps around the world. American music is blasting through the Iron Curtain and a youth revolution is taking hold—with a hair band unknowingly playing host to the final battle for the hearts and minds of young people everywhere. Rikki Thunder soon questions the forces that are helping to propel Whyte Python, and he realizes the stakes of his musical journey—to spread peace, love, and epic shredding across the globe—might be far more dangerous than he had ever imagined.

Crafted on the satirical knife-edge between high-suspense and head-banging hilarity, The Whyte Python World Tour is a raucous, uplifting, and refreshing debut. Travis Kennedy’s adrenaline-charged novel is delightfully steeped in ’80s music and cultural nostalgia, delivering one of the most entertaining reads of the year.

Pick up your copy here...

The Whyte Python World Tour: A Novel: Kennedy, Travis: 9780385551335: Amazon.com: Books

TRAVIS KENNEDY's work has been featured in the Best New England Crime Stories and Best American Mystery Stories anthologies, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. He is the grand prize winner of Screencraft’s 2021 Cinematic Book Contest for “Sharks in the Valley,” to be published as Welcome to Redemption. He lives in Scarborough, Maine, with his wife and their two children. The Whyte Python World Tour is his debut novel.

Ablaze by Jessica lawson

 Deanne loved being outdoors.

With her family, she spent summers sailing the Salton Sea and backpacking the Sierra Nevada Mountains. As she grew older, her love of nature only grew. So when the heat rose each fire season and the blazes burned near and far, she noticed. Deanne knew she had to do her part in fighting the fires. She spent years on woodland crews, clearing brush and branches that could make the fire spread, and on hotshot crews where she fought faster fires and took bigger risks, spending weeks in one-hundred-degree heat working twenty-four-hour shifts. But what Deanne really wanted was to be a smokejumper, to jump from planes and parachute into dangerous wildfires that no truck could ever reach. To be the first line of defense. The only problem? There had never been a female smokejumper before.

With lyrical text from Jessica Lawson and striking illustrations from Sarah Gonzales, Ablaze tells the story of Deanne Shulman’s groundbreaking work with the United States Forest Service as she fought against unfair rules and blazed the way for women in firefighting.

Pick up your copy here...

Ablaze: The Story of America's First Female Smokejumper: Lawson, Jessica, Gonzales, Sarah: 9780593463659: Amazon.com: Books

Jessica Lawson enjoys living in Pennsylvania, where she and her family spend weekend hours exploring backroads and searching for old stone houses. She likes pizza. A lot.

She is the author of The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher, a book that Publishers Weekly called “a delightfully clever debut” in a starred review, and Nooks & Crannies, a Junior Library Guild Selection and recipient of three starred reviews. Her latest middle grade novel, Waiting for Augusta, is also a Junior Library Guild Selection. Her books are published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

She fell in love with storytelling at an early age, and is a sucker for Roald Dahl, Maurice Sendak, Linda Sue Park, RL LaFevers, Charles Dickens, Karen Cushman, Barbara Park, Amy Tan, Maryrose Wood, Barbara Cooney, Anne Ursu, Christopher Paul Curtis, Gail Carson Levine, Rita Williams-Garcia, Arnold Lobel, Isabel Allende, Sharon Creech, Eva Ibbotson, Shannon Hale, Maeve Binchy and many, many, many other wonderful authors and illustrators.

She writes middle grade fiction, lots of to-do lists, and songs about lost socks.

Our Kind of Game by Johanna Copeland

 2019. Stella Parker has the life she’s always wanted: a loving husband, two happy children that she gave up her thriving law career to raise, and a beautiful house in the tony suburbs of Washington, DC. But when her neighbor Gwen shows up at her door, claiming to know things about her, Stella’s life is thrown into turmoil and she’s forced to reckon with the dark secret upon which she’s built her life.

1987. Julie Waits yearns to be a cheerleader—a gateway to a world of normalcy with best friends and sleepovers, and an escape hatch from life with her widowed mother, the terrible men she attracts, and the upheaval caused by their abrupt and constant moves. But when her mother decides those relationships are over, the past becomes a forbidden subject that Julie can never revisit.

As Stella probes deeper into what brought Gwen to her door, the answer—and who Julie is to her—become increasingly, terrifyingly, clear.

Filled with shocking twists and turns, this is a book that both asks what it means for a woman to be in control of her life while also highlighting the impact of small daily violences upon women, and the connection between physical and psychological harm.

Pick up your copy here...

Our Kind of Game: A Novel: Copeland, Johanna: 9780063329720: Amazon.com: Books

Johanna Copeland is the author of Our Kind of Game. A native Oregonian and former corporate attorney, her writing has also been featured in various publications, including the Washington Post, Electric Literature, Stonecoast Review, Literary Mama and xoJane. She lives in McLean, Virginia where she is currently working on her next novel.

My thoughts...

This one was alright but very confusing at times. It was a fast read but the best part of the whole book were the flashbacks.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

Ray by Emily Kate Moon

 Meet Ray. He's light! And he's been shining since time began. Wherever there's life on Earth, there's Ray, helping everything under the sun thrive. And Ray can really move—fast. Have you ever hurtled through space? Become a rainbow? Made food for plants? Ray has! With brilliant wit and sparkling one-liners, Ray introduces readers to a light show like no other. Filled with awe-inspiring artwork, funny asides, and a spotlight on kid-enticing facts, Ray invites us to bask in his warmth, as he illuminates our world.

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                   Ray: How Light Works (A Science Pals Book): Moon, Emily Kate, Moon, Emily Kate: 9780593857984: Amazon.com: Books

Emily Kate Moon is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Her published works include RAY: How Light Works (2025); PUFF: All About Air (2024); DROP: An Adventure through the Water Cycle (2021); and JOONE (2013).

DROP is a Blue Ribbon Selection of the Dolly Parton Imagination Library for 2022 and 2023.

JOONE is the winner of the 2014 CLC Book Award for compassion, love, and courage.

Summer on Lilac Island by Lindsay Macmillan Giveaway!

 A witty and heartwarming escape about mothers and daughters, small-town dating, and the surprising ways we find our way home.

When Gigi Jenkins finds herself broke, unemployed, and out of options, she has no choice but to return to Mackinac Island, the horse-and-buggy hometown she swore she'd left behind forever.

Living under the same roof with her meddling, divorced mother, Eloise, feels like a recipe for disaster--especially when Eloise hatches a scheme to set Gigi up with the island's charming new doctor.

Determined to call her mother's bluff, Gigi agrees to the date on one condition: she gets to play matchmaker for Eloise in return.

What begins as a battle of wills spirals into a summer of small-town antics, unexpected sparks, and plot twists neither woman saw coming.

But the greatest love story of the summer isn't about romance--it's about the bond between mother and daughter. Through late-night date debriefs, outfit consultations, and learning to laugh (and forgive), Gigi and Eloise begin to bridge years of misunderstanding, moving from adversaries to confidantes.

With Lindsay MacMillan's signature wit and warmth, Summer on Lilac Island is a joyful, tender tale of second chances, new beginnings, and the countless forms love can take.

Pick up your copy here...

Summer on Lilac Island: A Novel: MacMillan, Lindsay: 9781400348077: Amazon.com: Books

Lindsay MacMillanis an author, speaker, and creative entrepreneur. A Dartmouth graduate and four-time TEDx speaker, she left her role as a vice president at Goldman Sachs to follow her passion for writing. This is her third published book and her debut women’s fiction novel. Visit her online at lindsaymacmillancreative.com

My Thoughts...

I was looking for a fast fun summer read, and this one hit the spot. It was a good mother- daughter story. I enjoyed it for something different.
Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

To Kiss a Knight by Grace Hitchcock

 Vivienne Poppy's plans are working out quite well. She's run away from her family and the prospect of a horrid marriage of convenience and plans to spend her time writing under her pseudonym, Lady Larkby. Until she discovers the old Larkby title is not as dead as she thought.

Yeoman of the Guard and recently knighted Sir Sebastian Larkby is stunned to discover a Lady Larkby that he does not remember marrying. Suddenly Vivienne is left with a choice: relinquish her pen name, expose her true identity, and break Sebastian's dying grandmother’s heart—or feign marriage to Sebastian to keep the title and fulfill the old woman's wishes.

This witty novel from award-winning author Grace Hitchcock is filled with scandal, mishap, and just the right amount of romance.

Pick up your copy here...                                                                                                                                     To Kiss a Knight: A Novel of Best Laid Plans (2): Hitchcock, Grace: 9780825448102: Amazon.com: Books

Grace Hitchcock is the award-winning author of multiple historical novels and novellas. She holds a Masters in Creative Writing and a Bachelor of Arts in English with a minor in History. Grace lives in the New Orleans area with her husband, Dakota, sons, and daughter. Connect with her online at GraceHitchcock.com.

When I should've Stayed by Max Monroe

 

Josie: Before The Moment
There are ghosts at every corner. In the stolen kisses while I waitressed at the diner, in the town festivals in the square, in the many jokes about Betty Bagley and her pie at the Fall Farmer’s Market, and in countless nights spent watching Clay make drinks with that handsome smile of his plastered on his face while I sat on a stool at the bar.

It should all feel familiar and comforting, and yet, it makes it hard for the person I am now to breathe at all.

I wish I’d been stronger. I wish I’d been wiser. I wish I didn’t have to do this.
I wish.

Tonight will be a defining moment for the rest of my life.

I have to end it now…
…before it ends me.

Clay: After The Moment
When Josie and I said, ‘I do’, I thought it’d be us against the world forever. But I wasn’t expecting the world to be so against us.

I know I should’ve stayed that night, and I should have gone back a heck of a lot sooner.

Because I don’t know how to be here. I don’t know how to be anywhere.

Truth is, I don’t know how to be without Josie at all.

She might think we’re done, but I’m going to spend the rest of my life making sure we’re not.

Pick up your copy here...

When I Should've Stayed (Red Bridge, 2): Monroe, Max: 9781649379047: Amazon.com: Books

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New release text alerts ➜ Text MAXMONROE to 21000

Many moons ago, a dynamic duo of romance authors teamed up under the pseudonym Max Monroe, and, well, the rest is history...

Max Monroe is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author of over thirty contemporary romance titles (with Romantic Comedy being their jam), Favorite writing partners and long time friends, Max and Monroe strive to live and write all the fun, sexy swoon so often missing from their Facebook newsfeed. Sarcastic by nature, their two writing souls feel like they’ve found their other half. This is their most favorite adventure thus far. 

My Thoughts...

​A great host of Characters which really helped, with me not connecting with Josie and all. But I loved the back-and-forth timeline of events. This is one you might want to add to your nightstand to read.

Mary Reader received this book from the publisher for review. A favorable review was not required, and all views expressed are our own.

The Dirty Version by Turner Gable Kahn

 Tash was thrilled when the dramatic rights to her surprise-hit feminist novel were snapped up by an indie film studio. But no one warned her that a Hollywood shuffle could land her smart, literary epic in the hands of a huge action-movie franchise director more famous for his machismo than his artistry.

And now this big shot director wants “the dirty version” of her book, demanding Tash transform the strong, complex female warriors she created into eye candy. Despite her best efforts to stall, the studio assigns Tash to its golden-boy intimacy coordinator to help her add spice to the script. Tash resents Caleb from the first word of the first sentence they write together, certain he's the enemy and too handsome to be trusted. But the longer they collaborate on her characters, the more she's attracted to his firm grasp of emotional (and fine, physical) nudity. Soon they're burning up the bedsheets along with their new pages, blurring romantic storylines.

But just when Tash feels it’s all coming together, the whole plot falls apart. Can she find a narrative that saves her show and her own love story, or are both lost forever?

Pick up your copy here...

The Dirty Version: A Novel: Kahn, Turner Gable: 9780063414969: Amazon.com: Books

Turner Gable Kahn grew up in the extra-hold-hairspray ribbon of sunshine between the Everglades and the Atlantic’s best beach. Her higher education took place along the banks of the Schuylkill, and then the Hudson. She commuted endlessly across the East River in the blood, sweat and tears of a design career, before leaving her heart on Victoria Harbor’s dance floors and the South China Sea’s cliff hikes. She now writes in the bright heat near the Singapore Strait during the school year; in the summer she greets the sunset with her family, on a back deck overlooking the Puget Sound.

Thus with Kiss I Die by Christina Dodd

 “Woe, for I am the bug that meets the windshield's might,

No longer the speeding glass, smooth, clean and bright . . .”

You’re right. I, Rosie Montague of Verona, am lousy at iambic pentameter and Shakespeare speak, but you get the point: Sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug. I, who for my whole life, have cruised along, unruffled by life’s trials, am suddenly smashed flat and speeding recklessly up the WhattheHellHappened Highway.

Why? you ask . . .

I’m 20-years-old and by my own design, never been wed, free as no married woman ever is. I’m beautiful, but without conceit, for Juliet, my legendary Mamma is the most gorgeous creature to ever walk the earth. Just ask Romeo, my legendary Papà. (Rumors of their deaths were premature.) I was heartwhole until I fell (literally) in love with Lysander of the House of Beautiful. But our love was not to be, for I was thwarted by Escalus, the Prince of Verona . . . who had designs on me.

I’m trapped.

Then! I’m presented with a solution. Escalus’s father, Prince Escalus the Elder, appears to me. He tasks that I find his killer. Did I mention Elder is a ghost?

Given that I only recently dispatched Verona’s first serial killer, I’m less than pleased. Yet Elder promises to unite me with my One True Love, so I gather clues. Meanwhile, revolution threatens, for beneath Verona society’s glittering surface lurk dark shadows—and an enemy eager to make me a tragic heroine in my own right . . .

Pick up your copy here...

Amazon.com: Thus with a Kiss I Die (Daughter of Montague): 9781496750198: Dodd, Christina: Books

Christina Dodd is a New York Times bestselling author whose suspense, paranormal, and historical mystery novels have been translated into 30 languages and sold more than 15 million copies in print. Praised for her “brilliantly etched characters, polished writing, and unexpected flashes of sharp humor that are pure Dodd” (Booklist), her award-winning books have landed on numerous Best of the Year lists and, much to her mother's delight, Dodd was once a clue in the Los Angeles Times crossword puzzle. She lives with her family in the Pacific Northwest, where her 700 lavender plants share the yard with her husband’s various “Big Projects,” including a treehouse, zipline, and their very own Stonehenge.

Enter Christina’s worlds and join her mailing list for humor, book news and entertainment (yes, she’s the proud author with the infamous three-armed cover) at the Christina Dodd website and the special Daughter of Montague website. Follow Christina on Amazon to receive notices about her upcoming and new releases. Her legions of fans know that when they pick up a Christina Dodd book, they'll find the story, "Wildly entertaining, wickedly witty!"