Reading was kind of a struggle for me this month. With so many events and thoughts of planning swirling in my head, I had a hard time sticking with any of my books. I started and set aside many, many books that seem to be popular with everyone this month. I did manage to finish four audio books this month. All of them earned a 4 star rating from me, but I have a feeling some might have been higher if I were reading during a normal month!
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This is a sweeping new novel following four women across generations, bound by a beautiful wedding veil and a connection to the famous Vanderbilt family. Four women. One family heirloom. A secret connection that will change their lives—and history as they know it.
Kristy Woodson Harvey is always a hit for me, and I really enjoyed this dual timeline book. The Biltmore setting, along with the thorough historical research, make it a standout. The characters that KWH writes seem so real, like you could sit down for a coffee and chat like old friends. This would make a great beach/pool book for the summer!
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Every marriage has its secrets. Skyla lives alone in the shadow of the defunct drive-in movie theater that she and her husband ran for nearly fifty years. Ever since Hollis’s death in a freak accident the year before, Skyla spends her nights ruminating about the regrets and deceptions in her long marriage. That is, until she rents a cottage on the property to a charming British man, Teddy Cornwell….A thousand miles away, Linelle is about to turn fifty. Bored by her spouse and fired from her job when a questionable photo from her youth surfaces on social media, her only source of joy is an on-line affair with her very first love, a man she’s not seen in nearly thirty years, Teddy Cornwell. While in New York City, Jeremy, a failed and bitter writer, accepts an assignment to review a new restaurant in Providence. Years ago, Providence was the site of his first great love and first great heartbreak—and maybe, just maybe, he’ll look her up when he’s back in town.
This book is a twist-filled adventure that is more complex than it seems at first. I liked the quotes from old movies, since one of the settings for the book is an old drive in theater. This suspense novel read like an old Stephen King book, and it felt different from the many domestic thrillers that are on the market today.
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Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all―until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers. Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate. When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.
If you have enjoyed this author duo's previous novels, you will like this one too. Lots of plots and subplots in this domestic suspense book. It kept me on my toes, and I enjoyed it even though there is not a huge shocker at the end.
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When a woman inherits her estranged mother’s bookstore in London’s Primrose Hill, she finds herself thrust into the pages of a new story—hers—filled with long-held family secrets, the possibility of new love, and, perhaps, the single greatest challenge of her life. When Valentina Baker was only eleven years old, her mother, Eloise, unexpectedly fled to her native London, leaving Val and her father on their own in California. Now a librarian in her thirties, fresh out of a failed marriage and still at odds with her mother’s abandonment, Val feels disenchanted with her life. In a bittersweet twist of fate, she receives word that Eloise has died, leaving Val the deed to her mother’s Primrose Hill apartment and the Book Garden, the storied bookshop she opened almost two decades prior. With Love from London is a story about healing and loss, revealing the emotional, relatable truths about love, family, and forgiveness.
I really wanted to LOVE this book and give it 5 stars. I listened almost nonstop to finish it, and enjoyed the London bookstore setting and the dual timeline. However, there were aspects of the mother character that I just couldn't past. Since it is in the description, I think it is ok to write it here - Eloise the mother leaves her husband and daughter to return to London when the daughter is 12. I won't reveal too much, but they are estranged when the mother dies about 20 years later. In today's modern world, it really bothered me that the mom did not make a bigger effort to reconnect, especially after the daughter reached adulthood. ANYWAY, I do recommend the book and enjoyed it, except for that one character flaw that I couldn't stop thinking about!
What have you been reading lately?
I remember feeling that way about the mother in With Love From London too.
ReplyDeleteWith Love from London sounds great. I'm going to add it to my reading list!
ReplyDeleteI keep hearing so many good things about The Golden Couple and I have never read anything by those authors so I feel like I really need to add it to my list!
ReplyDeleteYou've read some good books for May. I love the books by Kristy Woodson Harvey and I'll be adding these books to my reading list.
ReplyDeleteI want to read The Wedding Veil.
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