Lots to like about Hannah Orenstein...plus a book giveaway

Photo by Elyssa Maxx Goodman

Today we welcome Hannah Orenstein to CLC. Her latest novel, Love at First Like, was published this week. Melissa A enjoyed her debut, Playing With Matches (reviewed here), and is excited to dig into this one. Thanks to Atria, we have one copy of Love at First Like to give away!

Hannah Orenstein is the senior dating editor at Elite Daily and the author of two novels. Her debut, Playing with Matches (Touchstone Books, 2018), is a rom-com about a young matchmaker at a top dating service, inspired by Hannah’s experience as exactly that. She’s currently at work on a third novel set in the world of elite gymnastics, forthcoming from Atria Books in 2020.

She has written for the Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Refinery29, BuzzFeed, and Bustle. Her work has been featured in the Boston Globe, The New York Post, The Cut, Us Weekly, and many more.

Hannah is a speaker and panelist, appearing at TEDxNYU, The Strand, on HLN, Bold TV, Sirius XM radio shows You Up w/ Nikki Glaser and At Least You Woke Up with Jill Kargman, Her Campus’s Her Conference, and more. Previously, Hannah was the assistant features editor at Seventeen.com. At 21, she became the youngest matchmaker at a top dating service. She lives in Brooklyn. Visit Hannah at her website, Twitter, and Instagram. (Bio adapted from Hannah's website.) 

Synopsis:
Eliza Roth and her sister Sophie co-own a jewelry shop in Brooklyn. One night, after learning of an ex’s engagement, Eliza accidentally posts a photo of herself wearing a diamond ring on that finger to her Instagram account beloved by 100,000 followers. Sales skyrocket, press rolls in, and Eliza learns that her personal life is good for business. So she has a choice: continue the ruse or clear up the misunderstanding. With mounting financial pressure, Eliza sets off to find a fake fiancé.

Fellow entrepreneur Blake seems like the perfect match on paper. And in real life he shows promise, too. He would be perfect, if only Eliza didn’t feel also drawn to someone else. But Blake doesn’t know Eliza is “engaged”; Sophie asks Eliza for an impossible sum of money; and Eliza’s lies start to spiral out of control. She can either stay engaged online or fall in love in real life.

Written with singular charm and style, Love at First Like is for anyone growing up and settling down in the digital age. (Courtesy of Amazon.)

What is a favorite compliment you have received on your writing?
After my first book was published, a few readers reached out to say that it helped them get through a breakup. That was really meaningful to me. Breakups are awful and I'm glad I could help, even just a little bit!

How are you similar to or different from Eliza?
While Eliza and I have made some pretty significantly different life choices, she and I are similar in a lot of ways: We're both career-driven New Yorkers who spend too much time on Instagram and love a good piece of jewelry. I probably wouldn't have the courage to pull off a PR stunt of a relationship, though!

If Love at First Like were made into a movie, who would you cast in the lead roles?
Leighton Meester would do an amazing job as Eliza.

What is the last movie you saw that you would recommend?
I loved Always Be My Maybe on Netflix, starring Ali Wong. It was so incredibly funny, heartwarming, and moving.

What is the strangest date you have ever been on?
Definitely the time I accidentally bumped into the guy I was dating at a Halloween party. I had no idea that we were going to the same one! I was worried that I looked like such a creep.

What is the most exciting thing you have done this summer?
Ha, besides my book launch? I took a trip to Barcelona with my boyfriend and we had the most incredible time! Some highlights were learning to make paella (and eating so much paella), taking in the incredible architecture at Sagrada Familia, and sailing around the city at sunset.

Thanks to Hannah for chatting with us and to Atria for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends August 13th at midnight EST.

The Secret Life of a Book Blogger Tag

By Melissa Amster

I saw this tag on Book Coffee Happy (one of my favorite book blogs) and decided to give it a whirl. Since it's book blog related, it's going here instead of my personal blog.

Here are some book tags I participated in at my personal blog:
A-Z Book Tag
The Reader Problems Tag

How long have you been blogging?
A little over nine years!

At what point do you think you’ll stop blogging?
When people stop writing books. Seriously, I don't know. Maybe when I decide to actually write my own book and only have time for that.

What is the best thing about blogging?
All the review copies! Also, coming up with fun interview questions and getting to connect with authors, publishers, readers, etc.

What is the worst thing? What do you do to make it okay?
Feeling overwhelmed by my review queue or getting into a slump. I work through the slump (or "just keep swimming"). In regards to my review queue, I always designate the next five books I'm going to read for both my print and Kindle TBRs. That seems to help with the anxiety over how many books there are to read. I also read books in audio format that I might not have gotten to otherwise because they weren't designated for my blog. (Such as Where the Crawdads Sing.)

How long does it take you to make/find pictures to use?
I just use pictures of the authors and book covers. I keep it simple for the most part.

Who is your book crush?
Too many to name! Declan from In the Swim of Things by Tracie Banister sounds dreamy. I'm also enjoying Daniel from Natalie Tan's Book of Luck & Fortune at the moment. My tastes change from week to week!

Which author would you like to have on your blog?
Jennifer Weiner. I've been wanting to do an interview with her for years. I have met her in person several times and she has called me by name at a book event.

What do you wear when you write your blog posts?
Clothes. Or pajamas. Depends on what time of day it is.

How long does it take you to prepare?
Each interview post takes maybe 30 minutes to put together between sending the questions, setting everything up, and putting together a Rafflecopter if there's a giveaway. For reviews, much less time, since they're usually written by one of our fabulous review associates.

How do you feel about the blogging community?
I love it. Everyone is supportive of each other and we all like to talk about books!

What do you think one should do to create a successful blog?
Be passionate about it and stay consistent with posting. Also, don't treat blogging as a competitive sport. Everyone is in this together and we all have something unique to add to the blogiverse.

I'm not tagging anyone to participate. If you want to do the same kind of post, go right ahead! Please share the link in the comments section if you do!

Book Review: The Perfect Son

By Jami Deise

Most domestic thrillers deal with one of two common plots – a child is missing, or a husband has died and his widow learns he was not the man she thought he was. Debut author Lauren North has combined these elements in The Perfect Son, which releases August 13th. While shaky at times, the book is a solid mesh of these story lines.

The novel kicks off with widow Tess Clarke being questioned in the hospital. She was stabbed on her son Jamie’s eighth birthday; now the boy is missing and the police officer she’s talking to seems more interested in Tess’s life since her husband Mark died in a plane crash than in finding the boy. Structurally, the book goes back and forth between interviews with Tess, her brother-in-law Ian, and her grief counselor Shelley, to narrative in which Tess describes the days after Mark’s plane crashed and her discoveries that Mark had secrets. Her grief is overwhelming, and needing to take care of Jamie is the only thing that gets her out of bed.

North has a background in psychology that is obvious in her descriptions of grief-stricken Tess, who literally cannot think straight after the loss she’s suffered. Mark speaks to her in her head, constantly recalling memories of special days, like the day they met, Jamie’s birth, a trip to the beach. While these scenes are convincing and heartbreaking, they also drag down the pacing of the book. Tess differs from the protagonists in similar stories in that she is unable to go galloping off after clues that would reveal what Mark was really up to before the plane crashed. The result is a much more realistic protagonist but a story that meanders along when it should be speeding.

Tess gets threatening phone calls. The airline investigation into the crash continues. Her brother-in-law, Ian, insists that Mark owed him money (what did Mark borrow money for?) and wants Tess to fulfill her executor duties. Shelley, who lost her son several years ago (he would have been the age Jamie is now), seems too good to be true. As for Jamie himself, at times he seems understanding of his mother’s grief; at others, he lashes out and wishes Shelley were his mother. These elements all work well together, but with the missing child in the present part of the narrative, they were also distracting. I wanted action in the present, not questioning.

To be honest, the ending did not work for me – it felt cliched; something I’d seen before. But the denouement made up for it, delivering a new twist on an old story that makes the book stand out from others with the same big reveal.

Grief is complicated, and even though Tess’s grief kept The Perfect Son from being a breathless thriller, it delivered a punch that resonated to the book’s last page.

Thanks to Berkley for the book in exchange for an honest review.

Book Review: Truth or Die

By Becky Gulc

‘Their darkest secrets won’t stay buried forever…

The butchered body of a professor is found in a private office of Exeter University. It is the first in a spate of horrific murders that shakes the city to its core.

Who would target a seemingly innocent man, and why? DS Imogen Grey and DS Adrian Miles turn to his students for answers, but their investigation turns up no leads. Someone must know more than they’re letting on…

As the body count rises, the police have to look into the past to uncover the person responsible before it’s too late.

But are they brave enough to face up to the truth?’ (Synopsis from the back cover.)

So as you can tell from the synopsis, Truth or Die isn’t a chick-lit novel but crime fiction! It’s always good to try and mix up genres once in a while though, so I embraced reading something a bit different. So, what did I think?

This novel has a lot of strengths. The opening chapter stirred my interest, I immediately felt for student Toby who experiences an untimely and unfortunate death. We’re then quick to move on to meeting the main characters of Adrian and Imogen, the detectives assigned with investigating the murder of a university professor. These two characters, and the dynamic between them, were key factors in my enjoyment and interest in the novel. I found them both to be flawed; strong but at the same time, vulnerable. The fact that we learn (in time) they are keeping a secret which could jeopardize their careers added to the intrigue of how it would all pan out.

I admit it took me a while to get into the crime investigation itself, I didn’t always feel the burning desire to solve the case with the characters which I wanted to. I think this changed when something happened to a more vulnerable character in the novel, someone we’d met, then I wondered who did it. In this respect, I enjoyed the last third of the novel the most. As a reader I started to feel vested in some of the characters (even if none are particularly likable as such!) and what the conclusion would be. I just didn’t find it to be edge-of-your-seat reading that I maybe thought would come with this kind of novel.

I learnt afterwards this is one book in a series of novels featuring Adrian and Imogen and that some of the other characters have featured in previous novels, whilst this book can be read as stand-alone, on reflection I would certainly be intrigued to have started at the beginning to see how the characters have evolved. If you want to try something different and don’t mind some graphic descriptions at time this one may be worth a read.

Thanks to Avon for the book in exchange for an honest review. Check out the other stops on Katerina's blog tours.

Robyn Harding keeps us on our toes....plus a book giveaway

We're pleased to welcome Robyn Harding back to CLC. She last visited when our blog was new to the scene, and we featured one of her contemporary women's fiction novels. Since then, she's written a few suspense novels. We have enjoyed The Party (review) and Her Pretty Face (review) and we are excited to feature The Arrangement today, as well as devour it soon. Robyn has one signed hardcover copy for a lucky reader!

Robyn Harding is the internationally bestselling author of The Arrangement, Her Pretty Face, and The Party, which was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for best crime novel. She has also written four novels of contemporary women’s fiction, a young adult novel, and a comedic memoir with an environmental focus. Robyn is the screenwriter and executive producer of the independent film The Steps, which premiered at TIFF and was the closing gala film at the Miami International Film Festival. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her husband, two kids, and a seven-pound dog with no teeth. (Bio adapted from Robyn's website.)

Visit Robyn online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

Synopsis:

Natalie, a young art student in New York City, is struggling to pay her bills when a friend makes a suggestion: Why not go online and find a sugar daddy—a wealthy, older man who will pay her for dates and even give her a monthly allowance? Lots of girls do it, Nat learns. All that’s required is to look pretty and hang on his every word. Sexual favors are optional.

Though more than thirty years her senior, Gabe, a handsome corporate finance attorney, seems like the perfect candidate, and within a month, they are madly in love. At least, Nat is…Gabe already has a family, whom he has no intention of leaving.

So when he abruptly ends things, Nat can’t let go. But Gabe’s not about to let his sugar baby destroy his perfect life. What was supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement devolves into a nightmare of deception, obsession, and, when a body is found near Gabe’s posh Upper East Side apartment, murder.

Emotionally powerful and packed with page-turning suspense, The Arrangement delves into the sordid, all-too-real world of shadowy relationships between wealthy, powerful men and the young women who are caught in their web. (Courtesy of Amazon.)

What is a favorite compliment you have received on your writing?
A friend recently told me that my book Her Pretty Face ruined her vacation. She said, “My husband and kids wanted to go out and do things and all I wanted to do was read!” I was really flattered because I’m always looking for a book that will suck me in like that!

How is Natalie from The Arrangement similar to or different from you?
Natalie and I are both from small towns and we both had absent fathers (my dad died suddenly when I was ten years old). I know the feeling of wanting to survive and belong in a city where you are over your head. And I know that a father’s absence can have a huge impact on a young woman’s development and choices. But Nat is a bit psycho and I am not. (Or at least I am less psycho.)

If The Arrangement were made into a movie, who would you cast in the lead roles?
The Arrangement has been optioned by Oscar winning producers so I’m excited by the possibility! I think Lily Collins would be great as Nat. She’s a bit older but she plays young. Zendaya would be the perfect Violet Turnmill. And I’d love to see Daniel Craig as Gabe, the sugar daddy.

What TV show are you currently binge watching?
I just finished (and loved) Big Little Lies. And I’m watching The Handmaid’s Tale and Euphoria.

What is your go-to summertime beverage?
I’m addicted to kombucha; it’s so thirst quenching. My favorite flavor is cayenne. I also enjoy a glass of rosé in the summer.

What is the strangest thing currently residing in your purse/handbag?
A big yellow tape measure. We’re moving into a new house and doing some renovations. I keep it with me at all times in case I need to measure something!

Thanks to Robyn for visiting with us and for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 


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Giveaway ends August 11th at midnight EST.

Book Review: The Escape Room

By Jami Deise

Escape rooms have been a fad for awhile now. I did one a few years ago, and one was enough for me. I liked the concept more than the experience. But I appreciate the industry’s creativity in constantly creating new scenarios for the puzzles. As for me, I’d rather read a book.

Luckily, Australian novelist Megan Goldin has written a thriller that takes place in an escape room, and reading The Escape Room is definitely a more appealing option than doing an escape room. It’s a taut thriller that readers will want to gobble in a single gulp.

Goldin begins at the ending, letting readers know that something nearly indescribably horrible has happened in an elevator. Then she pulls back a few days to reveal that Vincent, Jules, Sylvie, and Sam – who all work together as a team at investment bank Stanhope under Vincent’s leadership – are on that elevator, which they believe is taking them to an escape room as part of a team-building exercise… an exercise that may lead to all or some of them getting fired. When the elevator stops suddenly in the shaft of an express chute, they realize that the elevator itself is their escape room… and whoever wrote the clues knows them intimately. And hates them passionately.

The elevator chapters alternate with the first-person account of Sara Hall, who tells readers how she joined Vincent’s team at Stanhope and what happened to her there. From a blue-collar background, with sick parents and plenty of debt, Sara is easy to root for even as she’s seduced by Stanhope in a manner reminiscent of the John Grisham classic The Firm. When Sylvie casually reveals near the beginning of the book that “Sara Hall died years ago,” it’s a hard blow for the reader.

The Escape Room is a terrific revenge fantasy, and anyone who has enemies will picture them trapped in an elevator and ruminate about the type of clues they should be forced to de-code. The book’s biggest appeal is also one of its drawbacks – because the four bankers are so horrible, the reader doesn’t care if they suffer; in fact, she wants to see it. Goldin makes a halfhearted attempt to soften them somewhat – an overbearing wife here; a divorce there – but these details actually heighten the characters’ lack of dimension rather than softening it. The authorial voice lacks sophistication, which makes the book easy to digest but adds to the characters’ superficiality.

While the book moves along at an impressive clip – years fly by in Sara’s telling while the reader braces herself for the protagonist’s death – it seems like Goldin ran out of space before she ran out of story. The ending devolves into a pages-long telling of how the escape-room plotter pulled off the elaborate game, which includes not just the elevator set-up, but additional machinations worthy of an Oceans Thirteen-type movie. I would have liked to see these games happen in real time, rather than reading a summary of them at the end, but others might feel that the action in the elevator was enough.

The Escape Room has been named one of the best beach reads of the summer by Bookbub and other media. With its claustrophobic location, it’s gripping no matter what time of year it’s read.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the book in exchange for an honest review.

Excerpt: Life and Other Inconveniences...plus a book giveaway

Today we're featuring a excerpt from Kristan Higgins's latest novel, Life and Other Inconveniences. To celebrate this upcoming release, Berkley has a copy of her previous novel, Good Luck With That, to give away! This was one of Melissa A's 2018 favorites. (See her review.)

Emma London never thought she had anything in common with her grandmother Genevieve London. The regal old woman came from wealthy and bluest-blood New England stock, but that didn't protect her from life's cruelest blows: the disappearance of Genevieve's young son, followed by the premature death of her husband. But Genevieve rose from those ashes of grief and built a fashion empire that was respected the world over, even when it meant neglecting her other son.

When Emma's own mother died, her father abandoned her on his mother's doorstep. Genevieve took Emma in and reluctantly raised her--until Emma got pregnant her senior year of high school. Genevieve kicked her out with nothing but the clothes on her back...but Emma took with her the most important London possession: the strength not just to survive but to thrive. And indeed, Emma has built a wonderful life for herself and her teenage daughter, Riley.

So what is Emma to do when Genevieve does the one thing Emma never expected of her and, after not speaking to her for nearly two decades, calls and asks for help? (Synopsis courtesy of Amazon.)


Excerpt:
When I called Genevieve back and told her we were coming—including Pop, who would be staying elsewhere—there’d been a long pause. “Thank you,” she finally said.
“On one condition, Genevieve,” I said. “You do not mention money or inheritance to Riley. Not a whisper, not a hint. I don’t want you dangling your bank accounts in front of my daughter and snatching them away if she uses the wrong fork.”
“By which I assume you’re referring to the fact that I didn’t fund your teenage folly.”
“Teenage folly? You mean your great-granddaughter? Yes. This summer isn’t about the money. It’s us giving you a chance to make amends, and you making me Hope’s guardian.”
“How very gracious you are, my dear,” she said, and I heard a slurp. Five o’clock somewhere.
But she agreed, and here we were.
My clients, the ones I saw in person, were fine with me leaving for two months. I’d TheraTalk with most of them; two were about done anyway, and said they’d call me if they needed me. I’d had to give up my office space, though; luckily, a classmate from my PhD program had sublet it. Once I got back, I’d have to find another space, but I’d deal with that later.
Pop had found himself a little apartment over an antiques shop on Water Street. I was unspeakably grateful that he’d be nearby. He’d always hated Genevieve, who had viewed my mother as insufficient wife material for her wretched son.
Then again, she had a point. My mother had taken her own life. Maybe Genevieve had sensed something, even back then. She was many things, but she wasn’t stupid.
We crossed the Connecticut River, then the Thames. “There’s the Coast Guard Academy, Pop,” I said, pointing. He was an Air Force man himself, but he nodded. We went through Mystic, and I remembered going to the aquarium with Jason on a date. Or a field trip, maybe, but we’d held hands. Kissed in the dim light of the myriad fish tanks, and it had felt like the most romantic thing in the world.
He knew we were coming, of course. He was excited, he’d said on the phone. Talked about being separated, wasn’t sure where things were headed there. The boys couldn’t wait to meet Riley in person, though they knew her from Skype and phone calls.
My heart leaped into overdrive when, just before we hit Rhode Island, Charles exited the highway and entered the land of stone walls and gracious houses, tall oaks and two-hundred-year-old farms. The woods and fields gave way to narrower streets, and we went over the bridge that led to the borough.
Welcome to Stoningham, the sign said.
I found that I was holding my grandfather’s thumb, same as I had when I was little, back before my mother died, when seeing my grandparents was the happiest thing ever. He gave my hand a squeeze.
“Oh, my gosh, this town is so cute!” Riley said.
And it was. The sky was Maxfield Parrish blue, the lights of the Colonials that lined the streets glowing in what seemed to be a welcome. People were out, walking their dogs. At the library green, some kids tossed a football. As we came onto Water Street, Riley exclaimed over the little shops and restaurants. “There’s a café, Mom! Hooray! Oh, and an ice cream place! Even better!”
I smiled, but my stomach cramped again. It felt like I had never left.
The town hadn’t changed much. Still adorable with its colorful buildings and crooked streets. I caught glimpses of Long Island Sound as we drove, smelled garlic and seafood. Would Genevieve have dinner for us? Would she hug me? I swore if she made Riley feel one iota of shame, we’d be out of Connecticut forever.
Charles turned onto Bleak Point Road, where the most expensive houses in town sat like grand old ladies, weathered and gracious. All had names, which Riley read aloud as we passed.
“Thrush Hill. Summerly. Wisteria Cottage. Cliff View. Pop, we have to name our house when we get back!”
“Name it what? Crabgrass?” Pop asked.
“That’s kind of perfect, actually,” I murmured, having gone to war many times with weeds in our small yard.
“Oh, Sheerwater! We’re here!”
The iron gates (yes, gates) opened, and we turned onto the crushed shell drive. Sheerwater had ten acres of land, the very tip of Bleak Point, and it looked like a park, with beautifully gnarled dogwood trees on either side of the driveway, their intertwined branches making a tunnel of white blossoms. Spring was late this year.
We rounded the gentle curve, and my hands were sweating now.
“Holy guacamole,” my daughter breathed. “It’s even prettier than the pictures!” In the rearview mirror, I saw Charles smile. Beside me, Pop stiffened. He’d never been here, of course.
There it was—my grandmother’s twenty-room cottage, pristine and gracious and lit up like the fires of hell.

Kristan Higgins is the New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of 18 novels, which have been translated into more than two dozen languages and sold millions of copies worldwide. Her books have received dozens of awards and accolades, including starred reviews from Kirkus, The New York Journal of Books, Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist. Her books regularly appear on the lists for best novels of the year. Kristan is also a cohost of the Crappy Friends podcast, which discusses the often complex dynamics of female friendships, with her friend and fellow writer, Joss Dey.

The proud descendant of a butcher and a laundress, Kristan lives in Connecticut with her heroic firefighter husband. They own several badly behaved pets and are often visited by their entertaining and long-lashed children. (Bio courtesy of Kristan's website.)

Visit Kristan online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Pinterest

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

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Giveaway ends August 6th at midnight EST.