Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

I received a sample for this review/feature. Opinions expressed are my own.

I hope you enjoyed your quiet time reading last week and I hope my reading suggestion helped you out as well.  This week I am sharing Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.  As you can tell I love a good mystery or suspense novel to keep me on the edge of my seat. Where the Crawdads Sing is a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising  tale of possible murder.  What a great way to spend your time to yourself getting all excited over a new novel.

For years, rumors of the "Marsh Girl" have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life--until the unthinkable happens. Perfect for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Karen Russell, Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world,

a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

She was know to the locals as The Marsh Girl, someone to be talked about, someone to blame. A story that will grip your heart and twist. The book is the story about Kya’s life in the marsh, the ocean and the nature surrounding it. She was someone from outside of the town looking in, who pieced together a life with nature and not many people. A moving story, that does a good job of showing how people can react to people who are different from them. One of the best books I’ve ever read.

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons; Later Printing edition (August 14, 2018)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0735219095
• ISBN-13: 978-0735219090

June 29, 2021June 24, 2021 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Book Review, Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing Leave a comment

Hidden Summit by Robin Carr

The product/s shown were provided to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own, and I will be compensated if you purchase this book from my Amazon Affiliated link.

Virgin River is Leslie Petruso second chance at a happy life, for Connor Danson it’s a chance to stay alive. Neither is looking to start a new relationship. Leslie recently divorced just wants to get on with her life. Connor is in witness protection and been told NOT to get involved with anyone. But working together for a construction company, they do become involved. Hidden Summit by Robyn Carr is part of the Virgin River Series and it is book 17.

Brie Valenzuela finished her large latte and looked into the empty cup. She’d been waiting in this coffee shop for over an hour, trying to look engrossed in her newspaper, but as the time ticked by, she only grew more concerned. The man she was meeting was a witness to a murder and needed a place to hide out. She’d be hooking him up with a place to stay and a job in Virgin River as a favor to one of her colleagues from the Sacramento District Attorney’s office, and when a witness was late in meeting his contact, there was reason to be concerned.

Brie wanted to make a phone call to Sacramento but didn’t want to alarm anyone. Instead, she asked the barista for another latte.

Who doesn’t like to curl up with a good murder mystery novel? Hidden Summit also has a romance to intertwined within the mystery.

Product details

• Item Weight : 4.8 ounces
• Mass Market Paperback : 320 pages
• ISBN-10 : 0778318702
• ISBN-13 : 978-0778318705
• Product Dimensions : 4.17 x 0.85 x 6.58 inches
• Publisher : MIRA; Reissue Edition (February 23, 2016)
• Language: : English

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November 3, 2020November 3, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Book Review, Hidden Summit, Murder Mystery, Robyn Carr Leave a comment

Beach Town by Mary Kay Andrews

The product/s shown were provided to me for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own, and I will be compensated if you purchase this book from my Amazon Affiliated link.

Mary Kay Andrews recent addition to her beach series is Beach Town. If you have enjoyed reading Andrew’s beach series then this is a must read.

• 

Greer Hennessy is a struggling movie location scout. Her last location shoot ended in disaster when a film crew destroyed property on an avocado grove. And Greer ended up with the blame.

Now Greer has been given one more chance—a shot at finding the perfect undiscovered beach town for a big budget movie. She zeroes in on a sleepy Florida panhandle town. There’s one motel, a marina, a long stretch of pristine beach and an old fishing pier with a community casino—which will be perfect for the film’s climax—when the bad guys blow it up in an all-out assault on the townspeople.

Greer slips into town and is ecstatic to find the last unspoilt patch of the Florida gulf coast. She takes a room at the only motel in town, and starts working her charm. However, she finds a formidable obstacle in the town mayor, Eben Thinadeaux. Eben is a born-again environmentalist who’s seen huge damage done to the town by a huge paper company. The bay has only recently been re-born, a fishing industry has sprung up, and Eben has no intention of letting anybody screw with his town again. The only problem is that he finds Greer way too attractive for his own good, and knows that her motivation is in direct conflict with his.

Will true love find a foothold in this small beach town before it’s too late and disaster strikes? Told with Mary Kay Andrews inimitable wit and charm, the New York Times bestseller Beach Town is this year’s summer beach read!

Product details

• Item Weight : 12.8 ounces
• Paperback : 448 pages
• ISBN-10 : 125006595X
• ISBN-13 : 978-1250065957
• Product Dimensions : 5.52 x 1.2 x 8.26 inches
• Publisher : St. Martin’s Griffin; Reprint Edition (May 3, 2016)
• Language: : English

October 21, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Beach, Beach Town Leave a comment

The Vacation by T. M. Logan

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If you like a to be kept on the edge of your seat The Vacation by T. M. Logan is the book for you. What was supposed to be the perfect vacation turned into every woman’s nightmare. What will Kate do?

It was supposed to be the perfect getaway: Kate and her three best friends, spending a week with their families in a luxurious villa in the south of France. Through the decades they’ve stayed closer than ever, and seven days of drinking crisp French wine and laying out under the dazzling Mediterranean sun is the perfect celebration of their friendship. But soon after arriving, Kate discovers an incriminating text on her husband’s cell phone.

A text revealing that he’s having an affair.

And that the other woman is one of her best friends.

But which one?

Trapped in paradise with no one to trust, Kate is determined to find out who has put her marriage―and a lifelong friendship―in jeopardy. But as she closes in on the truth, she realizes that the stakes are higher than she ever imagined. Everyone on the trip has secrets…and someone may be prepared to kill to keep theirs hidden.
It should have been perfect. Four best friends and their family’s on vacation together in France. The villa is beautiful, but everyone has a secret. Kate is afraid her husband is having an affair with one of her friends. She puts everyone under the microscope trying to figure out which one it is. What is she missing? There’s drama every where, every relationship seems to be a lie. How much does she know? Does she know enough? One person is afraid she may know everything, and that will not do. No one can know.

Great book full of clues. By the time you’re at the end you’re thinking “Brilliant!!”

Make sure to buy your copy of The Vacation by T. M. Logan today!

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September 9, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Book Review, T. M . Logan, The Vacation Leave a comment

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate Book Review

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Memphis, 1939. Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings live a magical life aboard their family’s Mississippi River shanty boat. But when their father must rush their mother to the hospital one stormy night, Rill is left in charge—until strangers arrive in force. Wrenched from all that is familiar and thrown into a Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage, the Foss children are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents—but they quickly realize the dark truth. At the mercy of the facility’s cruel director, Rill fights to keep her sisters and brother together in a world of danger and uncertainty.

Aiken, South Carolina, present day. Born into wealth and privilege, Avery Stafford seems to have it all: a successful career as a federal prosecutor, a handsome fiancé, and a lavish wedding on the horizon. But when Avery returns home to help her father weather a health crisis, a chance encounter leaves her with uncomfortable questions and compels her to take a journey through her family’s long-hidden history, on a path that will ultimately lead either to devastation or to redemption.

Based on one of America’s most notorious real-life scandals—in which Georgia Tann, director of a Memphis-based adoption organization, kidnapped and sold poor children to wealthy families all over the country—Lisa Wingate’s riveting, wrenching, and ultimately uplifting tale reminds us how, even though the paths we take can lead to many places, the heart never forgets where we belong.
A moving fictional story based on the history of the Memphis Children’s Home Society.  The reader becomes deeply involved in the lives of the Foss children. A story that is heart breaking to read as the reader understands we live in a society that allowed a place like the Memphis Children’s Home Society to stay in business for over 10 years. But the story is also up lifting in how the information of who they are and were is dealt with in a the way on a family can. This was a book that had long been on my to read list and I was not disappointed.

Please click the above image to purchase your copy.

August 21, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Before We Were Yours, Book Review, Lisa Wingate Leave a comment

The Wicked Redhead By Beatriz Williams Book Review

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The dazzling narrator of The Wicked City brings her mesmerizing voice and indomitable spirit to another Jazz Age tale of rumrunners, double crosses, and true love, spanning the Eastern seaboard from Florida to Long Island to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

1924. Ginger Kelly wakes up in tranquil Cocoa Beach, Florida, having fled south to safety in the company of disgraced Prohibition agent Oliver Anson Marshall and her newly-orphaned young sister, Patsy. But paradise is short-lived. Marshall is reinstated to the agency with suspicious haste and put to work patrolling for rumrunners on the high seas, from which he promptly disappears. Gin hurries north to rescue him, only to be trapped in an agonizing moral quandary by Marshall’s desperate mother.

1998. Ella Dommerich has finally settled into her new life in Greenwich Village, inside the same apartment where a certain redheaded flapper lived long ago…and continues to make her presence known. Having quit her ethically problematic job at an accounting firm, cut ties with her unfaithful ex-husband, and begun an epic love affair with Hector, her musician neighbor, Ella’s eager to piece together the history of the mysterious Gin Kelly, whose only physical trace is a series of rare vintage photograph cards for which she modeled before she disappeared.

Two women, two generations, two urgent quests. But as Ginger and Ella track down their separate quarries with increasing desperation, the mysteries consuming them take on unsettling echoes of each other, and both women will require all their strength and ingenuity to outwit a conspiracy spanning decades.

The story moves back a forth between two women set in different times. When Ella tells her husband she’s found a magical place to live, the reader wonders how magical. Little, by little, Ella finds the pieces to Ginger’s life. The reader hangs on to every word, as you wonder what will happen next. I especially loved the trip to Cumberland Island. A family of secrets.

Be sure to get your copy by clicking on the above link.

June 22, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Beatriz Williams, Book Review, The Wice=ked Redhead Leave a comment

My One True Cowboy by Soraya Lane Book Review

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Who doesn’t want to curl up with a good book about a strong, gorgeous cowboy?  My One True Cowboy by Soraya Lane will keep you on the edge of your seat.  This is Soraya Lane’s fourth installment in her River Ranch series.

Billionaires, cowboys, and romance collide when best friends turn to lovers in My One True Cowboy, the next book in Soraya Lane’s River Ranch series.

The Ford family’s eldest daughter returns to the ranch with nothing left to lose―except her heart…

HOME IS WHERE…
Angelina Ford is heading back to Texas hiding the biggest secret of her life: bankruptcy. The business she created in L.A. is shuttered, as are her hopes and dreams. Facing her family with her big, bad news isn’t going to be easy. Which is why bumping into Logan Brody is an unexpected gift. Instead of facing her failure―and future―she can play catch-up with her old childhood friend. . .who happens to have grown up to be a strong, gorgeous man.

…THE HOPE IS
Logan was always a responsible boy. It’s no surprise that the brawny ex-soldier has decided to return from active duty to run his family’s ranch. Still, Angelina can’t help noticing the changes in Logan, from the haunted look in his eyes to the retired military dog who never leaves his side. He puts up a good front, acting as Texas-tough as can be. But Logan is carrying a secret of his own―one that could bring him closer than ever with his tried-and-true Angelina. . .or tear them both apart.
They were best friends growing up, now time and problems in their lives have brought them both home at the same time for the first time in 10 years. They’re both happy to see each other but they’re are  hanging on to their problems trying to hide them form the world and each other. After a little time together they’ve become what they never were before, friends with benefits. Angelina moving forward at a faster spend than Logan solving her problems. Logan’s  problem is something he’ll have to live with the rest of his life. 

A great book with romance and enough tension to keep you wondering it they’ll ever be a real couple.

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June 10, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Book Review, Cowboy, My One True Cowboy, Soraya Lane Leave a comment

Chosen by Kiersten White Book Review

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I was a HUGE Buffy the Vampire fan.  Chosen by Kiersten White is a continuation of the original Buffy the Vampire series.  Don’t worry if you’ve never watched or read the Buffy series you will still love this new series by Kiersten White.  Chosen is the second book in her series.

Nina continues to learn how to use her slayer powers against enemies old and new in this second novel in the New York Times bestselling series from Kiersten White, set in the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now that Nina has turned the Watcher’s Castle into a utopia for hurt and lonely demons, she’s still waiting for the utopia part to kick in. With her sister Artemis gone and only a few people remaining at the castle—including her still-distant mother—Nina has her hands full. Plus, though she gained back her Slayer powers from Leo, they’re not feeling quite right after being held by the seriously evil succubus Eve, a.k.a. fake Watcher’s Council member and Leo’s mom.

And while Nina is dealing with the darkness inside, there’s also a new threat on the outside, portended by an odd triangle symbol that seems to be popping up everywhere, in connection with Sean’s demon drug ring as well as someone a bit closer to home. Because one near-apocalypse just isn’t enough, right?

The darkness always finds you. And once again, it’s coming for the Slayer.  Nina was chosen to be a Slayer, her sister Artemis wasn’t. Both sister’s are working toward an ending, but the reader isn’t sure who will win. Nina is dealing with a lot of problems, people, demons and Slayers. She’s trying to figure out why her Slayer powers feel so much different and more aggresive . Everyone’s relations seems to be on the line and the reader wonders if all of the relationships should survive or will they. Nina’s not even sure why her Slayer dreams are so challenging.  A great book on it’s own, even if you don’t know who Buffy is. If you are a Buffy fan this Young Adult book is a must read.

Click on the above link to purchase your copy of Chosen by Kiersten White.

June 1, 2020October 24, 2020 by uniquelyyoursbyshay Categories: Book ReviewTags: Book Review, Buffy the Vampire, Choosen, Vampires Leave a comment