Book Review: The Edge of Summer

By Melissa Amster

Several years ago, I first became captivated by the comforting writing style of Viola Shipman. Since then, I have read all her books and am always excited for a new one to be published. So when I received an advanced copy of The Edge of Summer, I added it to my TBR right away, knowing it would be another dose of TLC. I was not wrong.

Devastated by the sudden death of her mother—a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family—Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she’ll find answers to the lifelong questions she’s had about not only her mother’s past but also her own place in the world.

Recalling Miss Mabel’s sewing notions that were her childhood toys, Sutton buys a collection of buttons at an estate sale from Bonnie Lyons, the imposing matriarch of the lakeside community. Propelled by a handful of trinkets left behind by her mother and glimpses into the history of the magical lakeshore town, Sutton becomes tantalized by the possibility that Bonnie is the grandmother she never knew. But is she? 

As Sutton cautiously befriends Bonnie and is taken into her confidence, she begins to uncover the secrets about her family that Miss Mabel so carefully hid, and about the role that Sutton herself unwittingly played in it all. (Synopsis courtesy of Amazon.)

I was at a gathering recently and my eyes were drawn to a woman's shirt that had all these pretty flower-shaped buttons sewn onto it. I never would have given the shirt much thought if not for this delightful story. I also recently bought a small jar of multi-colored buttons of various sizes to use in my Bookstagram photo. I then gave the jar to my daughter so she could do whatever she wants with the buttons. The Edge of Summer has me appreciating buttons in a whole new way!

This was a sweet story overall. There was a strong air of nostalgia throughout the story, especially with all the flashback scenes. It was also very idyllic, making me long for the summers of my childhood where I spent all day at the pool or going to lots of barbecues. The mystery factor was interesting and kept me wondering. I thought I was right about something, but then wasn't sure and kept going back and forth. There were also some answers that I wasn't expecting at all. I enjoyed the romantic aspect, as well. The descriptions and details brought the story to life so much that I felt like I was right there in Michigan with Sutton. 

My main concern was that it felt too introspective. Sutton asked herself a lot of questions. Tug also would voice a lot of random thoughts about life in general. I also noticed that Sutton got bent out of shape too easily. I appreciated her standing up for herself and for others, but sometimes she could be a bit too extra.

The Edge of Summer was engaging and kept me turning the pages. It publishes this week and I definitely recommend enjoying a summer day (or night) with it, while sipping on a tall, cold glass of lemonade. 

Movie casting suggestions:
Sutton: Melissa Rauch (I think Viola may have wanted me to go with Kristen Bell, based on a comment earlier in the book, but I decided to find someone similar looking instead.)
Tug: Ryan Hansen
Bonnie: Blythe Danner (Viola also made a Helen Mirren mention, which I was actually considering before that happened, but then decided to go a different route.)
Lauralei: Edie McClurg

Thanks to Graydon House for the book in exchange for an honest review.

More by Viola Shipman:

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What's in the (e)mail

Melissa:
Great Sexpectations by Kristen Bailey from Bookouture (NetGalley)

Before I Go by Brian Charles from Kensington (NetGalley)

Confessions of the Other Sister by Beth Harbison from William Morrow (print)

Buck's Pantry by Khristin Wierman from SparkPress (NetGalley)

Meredith, Alone by Claire Alexander from Grand Central Publishing (NetGalley)

Gigi, Listening by Chantel Guertin from Kensington (NetGalley)

A Tale of Two Princes by Eric Geron from Inkyard Press (NetGalley)

How to Excavate a Heart by Jake Maia Arlow from HarperCollins (NetGalley)

Just the Nicest Couple by Mary Kubica from Harlequin (NetGalley)

Beyond the Moonlit Sea by Julianne MacLean from BookSparks (print)

Ugly by/from Kelly Vincent (print)

Season of Love by Helena Greer from Forever (NetGalley)

The Secret Life of an Uncool Mom by Serena Terry from Harper360 (NetGalley)

Circling Back to You by Julie Tieu from Avon (NetGalley)

Well Traveled by Jen DeLuca from Berkley (NetGalley)

Sara:
Ten Years by/from Pernille Hughes (ebook)

What Remains of Love by/from Suzanne Trauth (ebook)

Killer Story by/from Matt Witten (NetGalley)

The Wedding Cake by Isabella May from Rachel's Random Resources (ebook)

Meet Me Under the Mistletoe by Jenny Bayliss from Putnam (NetGalley)

Someone Else's Honeymoon by Phoebe MacLeod from Rachel's Random Resources (NetGalley)

Love and War In The Jewish Quarter by Dora Levy Mossanen from Emi Battaglia PR (ebook)

Listening in the Dark by Amber Tamblyn from Park Row (ebook)

Jami:

That Summer in Berlin by Lecia Cornwall from Berkley (NetGalley)

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Book Review: Reputation

By Jami Denison

The personal is political. The discourse around politics is so divisive, especially on social media, that it’s easy to forget that it’s not just an American problem. Doxxing, bot campaigns, and misogyny are issues all around the world. And it’s the center of British author Sarah Vaughan’s latest novel, Reputation.  Her 2018 release, Anatomy of a Scandal, is now a top series on Netflix. Reputation may earn the same accolade. While her stories take place in England, the plots could easily take place in the United States. If you’re a woman who follows politics and spends time on social media, Reputation will quickly pull you in.

Reputation’s protagonist is Emma Watson, a member of Parliament from the Labour Party who champions women’s rights. A complicated back story – her husband left her for their daughter’s piano teacher, who was a work colleague of Emma’s before she was elected – has Emma more vulnerable than most. And her work on a bill that would strengthen penalties against revenge porn has brought out the trolls in droves—she’s had stalkers, letters threatening to throw acid in her face, and tweeters casually talking about raping her. It’s harrowing. The press won’t leave her alone, either—there’s one particularly snarky right-wing columnist who loves making fun of her, a man who actually taught her in college. 

Worst of all, Emma’s schedule leaves her little time for her fourteen year-old daughter Flora, who now lives with Emma’s ex-husband and the woman who supplanted Emma in her own home. When Flora responds to bullying by committing her own act of revenge porn, Emma is eager to shield her daughter from the consequences of her actions and keep her name out of the press. Then the unthinkable happens: A man dies at Emma’s home. And no one’s reputation can survive.

This synopsis adheres pretty closely to what the publisher has put out, so I’m keeping quiet on a few details that occur early in the book that the publisher might consider spoilers. The structure itself is nonlinear, with the story starting with Emma’s work on the revenge porn bill and Flora’s bullying (they are both point-of-view characters), jumping forward to after the death, and going back and forth a little between those time periods. The death itself isn’t shown till the end, leaving the reader ample time to speculate about what really happened and how it might differ from the story other characters told. 

I found the first half of the book to be “unputdownable.” Emma, as written in first person, is an amazing character. She’s a fearless advocate for women, even while she’s subjected to incredible harassment. She’s beautiful—a magazine cover story leads some in the press to joke that she’s a “MPILF.” But her husband left her for another woman; she’s living with roommates at this stage in her life, and she’s lonely. When she allows herself to be vulnerable and makes a huge mistake, it’s completely understandable.

Flora, too, is being bullied horribly by her former best friend. (Flora’s sections are written in close third-person.) Her mother’s too busy to confide in; her stepmother isn’t close enough. So when Flora takes revenge in a thoughtless but explicable manner, the reader can’t help but root for her, even though the ramifications for her actions are both serious and appropriate. 

For most of the book, I was turning the pages as fast as my Kindle would let me. The action was fast-paced, the characters compelling (even Caroline, the stepmother, gets a few point-of-view chapters that show her as sympathetic), the twists both foreshadowed and surprising.

Then, for me, it all pretty much came to a halt. The second half of the book is dominated by a trial. This may be just my personal preference—I haven’t enjoyed a trial since Karen Wolek on One Life to Live told all of Llanview that she was a common hooker back in 1979—but reading about testimony and lawyers' questions and jurors’ faces was just too slow for me. I skimmed those pages, wondering if a certain bit of intriguing subplot was ever going to come out.

And, similarly, the ending was more of a whimper than a bang, with the aforementioned subplot given a shrug rather than the explosion I’d anticipated. 

As a writer myself, I read the second half of the book thinking about choices I would have made for these characters and this plot rather than how Vaughan told the story. With the emphasis on the trial, I felt she lost opportunities to build on the setups she’d established in the beginning of the book. The irony of her own daughter engaging in revenge porn just after Emma sponsored a bill on the tactic was a genius twist, and it became a detail buried by the courtroom drama. I was just as drawn into Flora’s story as I was Emma’s, and the girl is almost completely missing in the second half of the book.

I am sure there are many other readers who enjoy trials, and they will absolutely love this book. For the rest of us, the book’s first half is strong enough that Reputation is still a good read. And it’s timely: As I write this, Elon Musk has just obtained financing to buy Twitter, with the goal of ending Twitter’s already flimsy protections against hate speech and cyberstalking. If he’s successful, the result will be more hateful discourse and fewer women willing to take the risk to go into politics. Which, of course, has been the goal all along. 

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

Also by Sarah Vaughan:

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Spotlight and Giveaway: Dream On

Today we are featuring Angie Hockman's latest novel, Dream On, which was released earlier this week. The cover is so cute and the premise sounds like a lot of fun. He's literally the man of her dreams! Thanks to Gallery, we have FOUR copies up for grabs!

When law grad Cass Walker wakes up after surviving a car accident, she is flooded with memories of a man named Devin. The only problem? Devin—as confirmed by family, friends, and doctors—doesn’t exist. Everything about him, from his coffee-brown eyes to the slightly crooked angle of his pinkie to his high-wattage charm, is a figment of Cass’s coma-addled imagination. Still, she can’t get him out of her head. 

So when she stumbles into the real Devin a year later in a Cleveland flower shop, she’s completely shocked. Even more surprising is that Devin actually believes her story, and despite his protective older brother’s doubts, they soon embark on a real-life romance. With her dream man by her side and a new job at a prestigious law firm, Cass’s future seems perfect. But fate might have other plans...

"A fast, funny, and sweet read with a positive message about finding what truly gives you purpose and makes you happy. I was hooked immediately and couldn't put it down. The twists and surprises kept coming!"

—Abby Jimenez, New York Times bestselling author of Life's Too Short

"With sharp writing, charming characters, and delightful banter, Dream On pits fate against possibility with a deftness that kept me reading long into the night. Angie Hockman has outdone herself with this one!"

—Lacie Waldon, author of The Layover

Angie Hockman is a 2019 RWA Golden Heart Winner. Her professional background includes stints in law, education, and eco-tourism, but these days you can find her writing romantic stories, enjoying the outdoors with her family, or dreaming of her next travel adventure. She is the author of Shipped and Dream On. 

Visit Angie online:
Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

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 July 12th at midnight EST.

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Book Review: The Displacements

By Jami Denison

When you think of horror, Stephen King is the first name that comes to mind. Vampires, clowns in sewers, haunted hotels… the supernatural scary stuff that keeps us up at night. But the scariest things aren’t events that can’t happen. It’s the events that can.

Author Bruce Holsinger has followed up his satire of helicopter parents, The Gifted School, with The Displacements, a book so realistic and chilling that it should vault his reputation to a whole new level. For residents of Florida like me, read this book at your own peril. You’ll be plotting your move out of state before you’re done.

In the near future, the first-ever Category Six hurricane heads toward Florida’s east coast. While at first it seems it will merely skim the state, a last-minute change in its path puts Miami in the bull’s eye. For Daphne Larsen-Hall, a sculptor and surgeon’s wife, this means a sudden dash toward evacuation with her college-dropout stepson Gavin, her pre-teen daughter Mia, her youngest child Oliver, and the family dog Cricket. Her husband Brantley is valiantly trying to get his patients out of state, and will meet them later. When Daphne accidentally leaves her purse behind, her wealthy lifestyle crumbles more quickly than it takes the hurricane to destroy Miami. With no cash, no credit cards, and no phone, Daphne is forced to abandon the family minivan by the side of the road when it runs out of gas. Soon after, the family’s on a bus to a giant FEMA camp in Oklahoma—and poor Cricket gets left behind at an animal shelter. In the camp, things go from bad to worse as Daphne gets an up-close look at life for those in America who have almost nothing, and each of her children adjusts in their own way. Racism, drug addiction, violence—it’s all here. 

Who hasn’t seen footage of those miles-long traffic jams, full of people stranded in an ice storm, fleeing a sudden wildfire, or on the run from a hurricane? I’ve been there myself, fleeing Hurricane Irma in 2017, staying up all night and praying that its path would move from my hometown of St. Pete. Holsinger’s descriptions are so vivid, and Daphne is so real, that it’s impossible not to imagine yourself in her shoes. One small mistake at the wrong time was all it took to completely derail her life. 

Daphne is not the only point-of-view character, however. Her stepson and daughter’s perspectives are shown, as well as the local drug dealer, Tate, and Rain, the FEMA administrator in charge of the camp. Beyond the characters, Holsinger also includes interviews, maps, news articles and Congressional testimony, implying that this hurricane and the events at the Oklahoma FEMA camp will reverberate widely for years. 

As the story progressed, however, Daphne became less universal. Her situation gets worse due to her husband’s secret actions; her mistake wasn’t leaving the purse behind as much as it was trusting the wrong man—a different type of story. And while there are lots of hints that the climax could be literally earth-shattering, I felt the book ended more on a whimper than a bang.

Still, the horror genre is a genre about resiliency. At the end of the day, the heroes have fought the big bad. Some have died in the effort. But the monster has been defeated, and sometimes the protagonists go on to live another day. The Displacements is no different. Whether this hope for our planet is earned or misguided is something that remains to be seen. 

Thanks to Riverhead Books for the book in exchange for an honest review.

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Book Review and Giveaway: Acts of Violet

By Melissa Amster

Back in 2020, Margarita Montimore's twisted time travel novel, Oona Out of Order, made its way to my favorites list. So when I saw that she had a new one out this year, I was eager to check it out. Thankfully, Acts of Violet did not disappoint and it was a fascinating page-turner.

Nearly a decade ago, iconic magician Violet Volk performed her greatest trick yet: vanishing mid-act. Though she hasn’t been seen since, her hold on the public hasn’t wavered. While Violet sought out the spotlight, her sister Sasha, ever the responsible one, took over their mother’s salon and built a quiet life for her daughter, Quinn. But Sasha can never seem to escape her sister’s orbit or her memories of their unresolved, tumultuous relationship. Then there’s Cameron Frank, determined to finally get his big break hosting a podcast devoted to all things Violet—though keeping his job hinges on an exclusive interview with Sasha, the last person who wants to talk to him.

As the ten-year anniversary approaches, the podcast picks up steam, and Cameron’s pursuit of Sasha becomes increasingly intrusive. He isn’t the only one wondering what secrets she might be keeping: Quinn, loyal to the aunt she always idolized, is doing her own investigating. Meanwhile, Sasha begins to experience an unsettling series of sleepwalking episodes and coincidences, which all lead back to Violet. Pushed to her emotional limits, Sasha must finally confront the most painful truths about her sister, and herself, even at the risk of losing everything.

Alternating between Sasha’s narration and Cameron’s podcast transcripts, interspersed with documents that offer a tantalizing peek at Violet herself, Acts of Violet is an utterly original, propulsive story of fame, deception, and forgiveness that will make you believe in magic. (Synopsis courtesy of Amazon.)

I love how the story felt like a puzzle that needed to be solved. The pieces were delivered in different ways and it was up to the reader to figure out what really happened. I loved the use of emails, articles, and podcast episodes to paint a picture. I also enjoyed getting to know Sasha and wanted to see what was really happening when she had her sleepwalking episodes. The signs she kept receiving were so fascinating too. I felt bad for her with being forced into the spotlight when she didn't want to be, and when it was clear that her relationship with Violet was tumultuous. However, I was hoping she'd be able to find Violet somehow. 

The characters were so quirky and interesting, and the dialogue felt genuine throughout. I was also able to easily visualize people and places the entire time. 

The only thing that didn't work for me was the way some things were explained, like we're expected to understand how any of that even worked. I don't want to go into detail as to not spoil anything. You will need to have a suspension of disbelief to appreciate this novel for all it's worth, as there's a lot of elements that feel like fantasy to me. I was reminded of The Night Circus during some of the magic descriptions.

I love that Rocky Horror was referenced a couple of times and she even mentioned Magenta at one point. I played Magenta in front of the screen at a local theater when I was younger. 

Overall, a worthwhile and enjoyable read!

Movie casting suggestions:
Violet: Emma Stone

Sasha: Katherine Waterston
Quinn: Cazzie David
Gabriel: John Krasinski
Cameron: Lou Taylor Pucci
Antoinette: Carol Kane
Renatta: Taraji P. Henson
Ace: Stephen Root

Sally: Caitlin FitzGerald

Benjamin: Nicholas Gonzalez

Thanks to Flatiron for the book in exchange for an honest review. They have one copy for a lucky reader!

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 July 10th at midnight EST.

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Book Review: Out of the Clear Blue Sky

By Jami Denison

They say that living well is the best revenge, but honestly, a skunk in the middle of your ex-husband’s new house is a great idea, too. Especially when that ex-husband is living in a mansion with his rich fiancée, the woman he dumped you for.

The latest book by New York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins, Out of the Clear Blue Sky, is a burningly accurate look at the stages of grief involved when your husband has a midlife crisis and leaves you. At first, Lillie Silva is in denial. Her son Dylan is going away to college, and she thought it was time for her and her husband Brad to recommit to each other—in fact, she’d already planned a vacation to Europe! But instead, Brad is leaving her for Melissa, the wealthy much younger widow that Lillie introduced him to! And Brad, a therapist, has turned into a complete jerk, prioritizing “my joy” instead of his family and rubbing in his new life at every chance he gets. It’s no wonder that Lillie’s denial turns to devastation, and then anger. 

It's easy to root for Lillie, who is an involved mother, a caring friend, and a top mid-wife in their Cape Cod town. But Higgans throws readers a curveball by including Melissa’s point-of-view as well. Born to lower-class “hillbillies” in Appalachian Ohio, at a young age Melissa realized her looks could be her ticket out. Her plotting for a better life seems almost sociopathic, and makes Lillie seem even better by comparison. But eventually, Melissa becomes more human, and Lillie is forced to realize that this woman will be a permanent part of her life.

There is so much collateral damage in a divorce, and Higgins highlights all the harm: the son forced to choose which parent to spend the holidays with. The in-laws who felt like family who’ll never be seen again. The pity from well-meaning friends. 

And the anger. There is so much anger toward the person who destroyed your life in search of “his joy.” 

Warning: If you’ve gone through something similar in your life, Out of the Clear Blue Sky will bring back all those painful feelings. Still, I gobbled up the book in two days. Lillie is a hoot to spend time with, and her friends and complicated extended family complete the picture. Even Melissa won me over after awhile. My only quibbles were about the subplots: One about Lillie’s past that did not fit the comedic tone of the book and seemed out of place, and another about a workplace rivalry that felt unnecessary.

But the characters are fabulous, and the Cape Cod setting is alluring, too. If you’re got plans to visit the Cape this summer, be sure to bring Out of the Clear Blue Sky along with you. But maybe don’t read it while your husband’s in hitting distance. 

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

More by Kristan Higgins:

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