Store 647 - Middletown, New York - "When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book." ~ Christopher Morley
Book Blurb:What am I going to do, God? Who am I? Charlotte Hallaway needs to come to terms with her father's death. He had been her only family, and she wasn't handling her grief well. It was just supposed to be a few weeks of peace and quiet to process it all, but then she saw them-a drug deal and a murder within seconds of each other. And they saw her. Now running for her life, Charlotte boards a bus to escape her pursuers and wakes up the next morning in the woods of Jennings, Georgia, without a memory of how she got there or of who she is. All she knows is an underlying fear she can't seem to shake. When two hunters find her battered and scared, can she put aside the clear confusion she's experiencing to trust them? She wants to trust them, especially Nicholas, but fear is holding her back. Trust is incredibly hard when one is so clearly confused. Could it be he and his friend are not who they claim to be? Who are they really . . . and who is she?
Forget about “Man Crush Monday’s,” here #MCM means Meme Crush Monday! For those who don’t have access or don’t wish to use Instagram, I’ll share a bookish meme right here weekly on the blog.
This Week’s #MCM Meme Crush Monday:
I think we can all relate to losing a book in bed or even worse when you fall asleep reading and get smacked in the face with a book. 😂
What do you think? Share with us in the comments below.
We’re working our way through the alphabet with the A to Z Bookish Survey as created by “The Perpetual Pageturner.” This week’s prompt is: H for Hidden Gem Book.
Rachel: Gossamer by Lois Lowry. I picked it up in the children’s department when I worked at B&N because it had a sparkly cover and ended up hiding behind the desk during my shift to read it 🙊 it was a quick little delightful read and I still think about it every time I wake up from a dream.
Rebecca: The Ordinary Princess by M.M. Kaye - I honestly have no idea where or how I found this book, but it's an adorable fairy tale and I have to reread it regularly, and each time I follow a little more in love with it!
NaomiRuth: Ooh, I find so many hidden gems. I think I'd go with The Expedition to the Baobab Tree by Wilma Stockenström because I just ordered another copy for myself, since I gave my last one away. The Songs of the Russian People by W.R.S. Ralston is also another good one.
Jenn: I stumbled upon this adorable picture book, The Baby Blue Cat Who Said No, by Ainsley Pryor many years ago on vacation. The adorable illustrations and sweet story about a spoiled kitty made for a lifelong favorite.
What about you? What’s your favorite “hidden gem” book? Share with us!
Welcome to the 8th installment of Summer of Fear, a weekly series of posts where I will review/revisit a classic YA Horror/Thriller from the 70s-90s. This week I read The Perfume by Caroline B. Cooney which was originally published in 1992.
When fifteen-year-old Dove Daniel’s friends discover the new perfume called Venom, they become infatuated. They have Obsession and Poison; now they simply must have Venom. When they discover it’s available at Dry Ice, the coolest store in the local mall, they rush over after school. But to Dove, Venom seems inexplicably terrifying, as does the store that carries it. If she breathes in its potent scent, she is sure something terrible will happen. At first whiff, she senses something primitive and dark. Once she’s inhaled the scent, she begins to feel something . . . different . . . and her heart beats in double time. What has Venom’s bite awakened inside her?
-openroadmedia.com
There is a stranger outside Caroline’s house.Her spectacular new beach house, built for hosting expensive parties and vacationing with the family she thought she’d have. But her husband is lying to her and everything in her life is upside down, so when the stranger, Aidan, shows up as a bartender at the same party where Caroline and her husband have a very public fight, it doesn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary.As her marriage collapses around her and the lavish lifestyle she’s built for herself starts to crumble, Caroline turns to Aidan for comfort…and revenge. After a brief and desperate fling that means nothing to Caroline and everything to him, Aidan’s obsession with Caroline, her family, and her house grows more and more disturbing. And when Caroline’s husband goes missing, her life descends into a nightmare that leaves her accused of her own husband’s murder. - michelecampbellbooks.com
Recently graduated from high school, Holland Monroe had no expectations for her last summer before heading off to college to be anything but ordinary.
Until she got a job as a waitress at the local country club to make extra money for school.
Milo Davis was smart, cute, and absolutely not interested in Holland. At least that was what she believed. But the day she started working at the restaurant, everything changed.
Finally together, they were left with only three months to spend time together before she moved away.
Good thing they decided to make their time as memorable as possible.
But will they remain friends? Or will checking off items on their summer bucket list lead them to something they didn’t expect — Falling in love.
I think we can all relate to this one. What’s your TBR pile looking like? 
Welcome to a TBT Throwback Thursday Review. I am working on reviving this blog and catching up on some long overdue book reviews.
After Anna is a stand-alone domestic thriller by Lisa Scottoline and was originally published in April 2018.
Dr. Noah Alderman, a widower and single father, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie Ippolitti, and for the first time in a long time, he and his young son are happy. Despite her longing for the daughter she hasn’t seen since she was a baby, Maggie is happy too, and she’s even more overjoyed when she unexpectedly gets another chance to be a mother to the child she thought she’d lost forever, her only daughter Anna.Maggie and Noah know that having Anna around will change their lives, but they would never have guessed that everything would go wrong, and so quickly. Anna turns out to be a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules, though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at the trouble brewing in a once-perfect marriage and home.Events take a heartbreaking turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused and tried for the heinous crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her daughter, but the realization that Anna’s murder may have been at the hands of a husband she loves. In the wake of this tragedy, new information drives Maggie to search for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined. —lisascottoline.com
This was one of my favorite Scottoline novels. The story is told through Maggie and Nick’s POV before and after Anna’s murder. It was fun trying to discern the truth between the narratives. I actually thought I had the mystery solved but then in the last act of the novel, there’s a twist that I didn’t see coming and made the story all the more heartbreaking. It’s been awhile since an ending truly surprised me. I highly recommend you pick up this book.
🌟🌟🌟🌟/5
After Anna is now available in paperback. Look for it at your favorite local book store or visit the author’s website for more information.
Special Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, St. Martin’s Press, for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Forget about “Man Crush Monday’s,” here #MCM means Meme Crush Monday! For those who don’t have access or don’t wish to use Instagram, I’ll share a bookish meme right here weekly on the blog.
This Week’s #MCM Meme Crush Monday:
Welcome to the sixth installment of Summer of Fear, a weekly series of posts where I will review/revisit a classic YA Horror/Thriller from the 70s-90s. This week I’m changing things up a bit by looking at the 1978 TV film version of Summer of Fear based on the novel by Lois Duncan.
Summer of Fear stars Linda Blair as Rachel with Lee Purcell as creepy cousin Julia and was directed by Wes Craven before he went on to achieve horror legend status with Nightmare on Elm Street. Fran Drescher in one of her earliest film roles plays Rachel’s best friend, Carolyn.
The film follows very close to the book with a few changes that to me actually benefited the story. In the book, Rachel’s beloved pet dog passes away under mysterious circumstances. In the film, it’s established that Rachel is a talented Equestrian whose normally horse timid horse goes wild when meeting Julia. The action with the horse continues to build with a devastating outcome.
An awkward moment in the book for me was Rachel’s brother, Peter’s romantic interest in Julia. It’s even more overt here. Julia ultimately sets her sights on Rachel’s boyfriend whom Julia hilariously referred to as Rachel’s “special feller.” Also unintentionally hilarious was the photo Rachel had of her boyfriend. It wasn’t just framed, he’d signed it like an autograph. My boyfriend was watching this with me and I told him he’s clearly not my “solid feller” as he hadn’t gifted me an autographed portrait of himself yet.
If you loved the novel Summer of Fear, you’d love the film. It’s a faithful but more dramatic adaptation plus the passage of time has added humor by way of corny dialogue and dated hairstyles. The 70s score that sounds straight out of an episode of Charlie’s Angels was a delight. It’s currently availabile for “free” with an Amazon Prime subscription.
🌟🌟🌟.5/5
When Cooper McQueen wakes up from a night with a beautiful stranger, it's to discover he's been robbed. The only item stolen—a million-dollar bottle of bourbon. The thief, a mysterious woman named Paris, claims the bottle is rightfully hers. After all, the label itself says it's property of the Maddox family who owned and operated Red Thread Bourbon distillery since the last days of the Civil War until the company went out of business for reasons no one knows… No one except Paris.
In the small hours of a Louisville morning, Paris unspools the lurid tale of Tamara Maddox, heiress to the distillery that became an empire. But the family tree is rooted in tainted soil and has borne rotten fruit. Theirs is a legacy of wealth and power, but also of lies, secrets and sins of omission. The Maddoxes have bourbon in their blood—and blood in their bourbon. Why Paris wants the bottle of Red Thread remains a secret until the truth of her identity is at last revealed, and the century-old vengeance Tamara vowed against her family can finally be completed. - tiffanyreisz.com
