Always With a Book

Title: The Sweeney Sisters Author: Lian Dolan Published: April 2020, William Morrow Format: ARC E-copy, 304 pages Source: Netgalley via Wunderkind PR Summary:  An accomplished storyteller returns with her biggest, boldest, most entertaining novel yet—a hilarious, heartfelt story about books, love, sisterhood, and the surprises we discover in our DNA that combines the wit of Jonathan Tropper with the heart of Susan Wiggs. Maggie, Eliza, and Tricia Sweeney grew up…

Title: The Love Story of Missy Carmichael Author: Beth Morrey Published: April 2020, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Format: ARC E-copy, 352 pages Source: Netgalley Summary:  For readers of Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine and A Man Called Ove, a life-affirming, deeply moving “coming-of-old” story, a celebration of how ordinary days are made extraordinary through friendship, family, and the power of forgiving yourself–at any age. Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. Woman…

Title: Strike Me Down Author: Mindy Mejia Published: April 2020, Atria/Emily Bestler Books Format: ARC E-copy, 352 pages Source: Negalley via Publisher Summary:  From the critically acclaimed author of Leave No Trace, the “nail-biting page-turner that grabs you early and never lets go” (The Real Book Spy), comes a visceral thriller where a high stakes crime triggers a woman’s complicated and potentially deadly search for the truth. Nora Trier catches…

Title: Little Secrets Author: Jennifer Hillier Published: April 2020, Minotaur Books Format: ARC Paperback, 352 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  From the author of Jar of Hearts, a mother driven to the edge by the disappearance of her son learns her husband is having an affair with the woman who might have kidnapped him. Four hundred and eighty seconds. That’s how long it took for someone to steal Marin Machado’s four-year-old…

Title: Hold Your Breath Author: B.P. Walter Published: April 2020, Avon Books UK Format: ARC E-copy, 400 pages Source: Publisher via Netgalley Summary:  If you go down to the woods today, you’re in for a big surprise… Kitty Marchland has always known that her family aren’t like others. But when her father uproots them to a remote cottage in the woods, she realises that her parents are keeping secrets from…

Title: Sister Dear Author: Hannah Mary McKinnon Published: May 2020, MIRA Format: ARC Paperback, 384 pages Source: Author Summary:  Beauty. Wealth. Success. She’s got it all. And it all should’ve been mine. When Eleanor Hardwicke’s beloved father dies, her world is further shattered by a gut-wrenching secret: the man she’s grieving isn’t really her dad. Eleanor was the product of an affair and her biological father is still out there,…

Title: Sunrise on Half Moon Bay Author: Robyn Carr Published: April 2020, MIRA Format: ARC E-copy, 336 pages Source: Netgalley via Little Bird Publicity Summary:  Sometimes the happiness we’re looking for has been there all along… Adele and Justine have never been close. Born twenty years apart, Justine was already an adult when Addie was born. The sisters love each other but they don’t really know each other. When Addie…

Title: The New Husband Author: D.J. Palmer Published: April 2020, St. Martin’s Press Format: ARC Paperback, 384 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  What makes Simon Fitch so perfect? -He knows all her favorite foods, music, and movies. -Her son adores him. He was there when she needed him most. -He anticipates her every need. -He would never betray her like her first husband. The perfect husband. He checks all the boxes.…

Title: In Plain Sight Author: Laurie Holbrook Series: Mabel Peters, #2 Published: April 2020, Frisson Publishing Format: ARC E-book, 314 pages Source: Author Summary:  Across Colorado, girls are disappearing. Mabel Peters and her partner, Frankie Dowdy, have dedicated their lives to bring them home before they are gone for good. Thirteen-year-old Isabel Dumel is no longer a child, but not yet an adult. Her mom is dead and her dad…

Title: The Secret Admirer Author: Carol Wyer Series: Detective Natalie Ward, #6 Published: April 2020, Bookouture Format: ARC E-copy, 413 pages Source: Netgalley Summary:  ‘I tried to talk to you today but you snubbed me and walked away. It wasn’t wise to give me the brush-off, Gemma. I can be a truly good friend but I also make the perfect enemy.’ Sasha’s eighteen-year-old daughter Gemma was all she had in…

Title: Watching From the Dark Author: Gytha Lodge Series: DCI Jonah Sheens, #2 Published: February 2020, Random House Format: Hardcover, 352 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  One crime. One witness. One question . . . Why didn’t he call the police? When a vibrant young woman is murdered while on a video chat, a small-town detective wades into a circle of friends and lovers with dangerous secrets—in the new novel from…

Title: A Mother’s Lie Author: Sarah Zettel Published: April 2020, Grand Central Publishing Format: Paperback, 416 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  Beth Fraiser finally has her life together. She’s built a successful career in the tech sector, has a bright fifteen-year-old daughter, and she’s completely put all evidence of her troubled past behind her. At least that’s what she thought. Dana Fraiser loves her mom. But the backup phones, emergency drills,…

Title: The Third Sister Author: Sara Blaedel Series: Ilka/Family Secrets series, #3 Published: April 2020, Grand Central Publishing Format: Hardcover, 304 pages Source: Publisher   Summary:  Family drama, deadly secrets, and deception come to a head in the explosive conclusion of #1 internationally bestselling author Sara Blaedel’s Family Secrets trilogy. Ilka Jensen’s life is in chaos following the tumultuous events of Her Father’s Secret. The funeral home she inherited after…

Title: The Last Bathing Beauty Author: Amy Sue Nathan Published: April 2020, Lake Union Publishing Format: Paperback, 304 pages Source: Author Summary:  A former beauty queen faces the secrets of her past—for herself and the sake of her family’s future—in a heartfelt novel about fate, choices, and second chances.   Everything seemed possible in the summer of 1951. Back then Betty Stern was an eighteen-year-old knockout working at her grandparents’…

Title: Summer of ’79: A Summer of ’69 Story Author: Elin Hilderbrand Published: February 2020, Little, Brown & Company Format: E-book, 61 pages Source: Personal copy Summary:  AVAILABLE FOR A LIMITED TIME ONLY! Elin Hilderbrand’s brief, irresistible postscript to her #1 New York Times bestselling novel Summer of ’69.   Catch up with Blair, Jessie, and Kirby ten years after the summer everything changed. This “Summer of ’69 story” by…

Title: Darling Rose Gold Author: Stephanie Wrobel Published: March 2020, Berkley Format: ARC E-copy, 320 pages Source: Netgalley Summary:  Sharp Objects meets My Lovely Wife in this tightly drawn debut that peels back the layers of the most complicated of mother-daughter relationships… For the first eighteen years of her life, Rose Gold Watts believed she was seriously ill. She was allergic to everything, used a wheelchair and practically lived at…

Title: Miss Austen Author: Gill Hornby Published: April 2020, Flatiron Books Format: ARC E-copy, 288 pages Source: Netgalley via Publisher Summary:  Whoever looked at an elderly lady and saw the young heroine she once was? England, 1840. For the two decades following the death of her beloved sister, Jane, Cassandra Austen has lived alone, spending her days visiting friends and relations and quietly, purposefully working to preserve her sister’s reputation.…

Title: Please See Us Author: Caitlin Mullen Published: March 2020, Gallery Books Format: ARC E-copy, 352 pages Source: Netgalley Summary:  In this sophisticated, suspenseful debut reminiscent of Laura Lippman and Chloe Benjamin, two young women become unlikely friends during one fateful summer in Atlantic City as mysterious disappearances hit dangerously close to home. Summer has come to Atlantic City but the boardwalk is empty of tourists, the casino lights have…

Title: Problem Child Author: Victoria Helen Stone Series: Jane Doe, #2 Published: March 2020, Lake Union Publishing Format: ARC Paperback, 266 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  She’s cold, calculating, and can deceive with a smile. Jane Doe is back in the Amazon Charts bestselling series—and this time she’s met her match. After a brutal childhood, Jane Doe has been permanently wired to look after herself and only herself. Now, looking next…

Title: Lying in Wait Author: Liz Nugent Published: February 2019, Gallery/Scout Press Format: Paperback, 336 pages Source: Personal copy Summary:  From the author of the international bestseller Unraveling Oliver comes a “truly outstanding” (Crime by the Book), brilliantly plotted, utterly immersive novel lauded by A.J. Finn—#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window—as “extraordinary…crackles and snaps like a bonfire on a winter’s night.” My husband did…

Title: No Bad Deed Author: Heather Chavez Published: February 2020, William Morrow Format: ARC Paperback, 312 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  Packed with the electrifying pacing and pulse-pounding suspense of Harlan Coben and Lisa Gardner, a thrilling debut about a mother desperate to find the connections between her missing husband and a deadly stalker who knows too much about her own dark family history. Driving home one rainy night, Cassie Larkin…

Title: The Operator Author: Gretchen Berg Published: March 2020, William Morrow Format: Hardcover, 352 pages Source: Publisher via TLC Booktours Summary:  A clever, surprising, and ultimately moving debut novel, set in a small Midwestern town in the early 1950s, about a nosy switchboard operator who overhears gossip involving her own family, and the unraveling that discovery sets into motion. In a small town, everyone knows everyone else’s business . .…

Title: What It Seems Author: Emily Bleeker Published: March 2020, Lake Union Publishing Format: ARC Paperback, 284 pages Source: Publisher via BooksForward PR Summary:  A page-turning novel of suspense about the perfect family, and the perfect lies, by the bestselling author of When I’m Gone and The Waiting Room.   Adopted by her controlling foster mother at the age of eight, twenty-year-old Tara has seen little of the outside world.…

Title: The Forgotten Letters of Esther Durrant Author: Kayte Nunn Published: March 2020, William Morrow Paperbacks Format: ARC Paperback, 400 pages Source: Publisher via TLC Booktours Summary:  A cache of unsent love letters from the 1950s is found in a suitcase on a remote island in this mysterious love story in the tradition of the novels by Kate Morton and Elizabeth Gilbert . 1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed…

Title: Grace is Gone Author: Emily Elgar Published: January 2020, Harper Paperbacks Format: ARC Paperback, 336 pages Source: Publisher Summary:  From the bestselling author of If You Knew Her comes this harrowing tale of suspense—a story ripped from today’s headlines—of a tight-knit English community, who’s rocked by the murder of a mother and the mysterious disappearance of her daughter, and the secrets that lie concealed beneath a carefully constructed facade.…

Title: Black Out Author: Ragnar Jonasson Series: Dark Iceland, #3 Published: July 2016, Orenda Books Format: Paperback, 247 pages Source: Personal copy Summary:  On the shores of a tranquil fjord in Northern Iceland, a man is brutally beaten to death on a bright summer’s night. As the 24-hour light of the arctic summer is transformed into darkness by an ash cloud from a recent volcanic eruption, a young reporter leaves…