#BookReview: Good Days Bad Days by Emily Bleeker

All Too Real. I’ve been reading Bleeker’s books since her debut, WRECKAGE, many years ago now. I even finally got a chance to meet her IRL at Walt Disney World last year when we both randomly happened to be there. (For what its worth, I’m there frequently, living just 2.5 hrs away. In fact, the reason I’m writing this review less than 24 hrs before this book comes out rather than last week is because I was at Disney yet again late last week.) All of Bleeker’s books have been great, and this one is no exception. Several have hit close to home, either because of her Southern roots showing through or just because we’re similar in age and thus have seen a lot of the same events from similar generational views or for some other random reason.

This one is no different there. Something that despite knowing each other for several years now and despite how public I am about my admiration of one of my grandfathers in particular, I’m not *as* public about is that I actually lost three of the four grandparents I knew in my life – my natural maternal grandmother and grandfather and my maternal step grandfather – to dementia long before we lost their actual bodies. Yes, that includes the WWII hero grandfather that I knew as a simple Southern farmer the last 20 years of his life. The one that I could not bear to see in the nursing home losing his mind, so chose to stay away and preserve those memories of that strong southern farmer I had known before that point.

So yeah, this book, partially about a daughter’s experience with her mother who is now suffering dementia hit as all *too* real, particularly when it came to one particular interaction deeper in the text that is a spoiler to reveal.

Bleeker hits all the perfect notes here, particularly for someone in a more… challenging… relationship with her parents before the dementia strikes. All the anger, the fear, the desperation, the longing, the heartbreak… it is all there and captured so well, and yet done in an overall women’s fiction tale that never gets *too* dark or heavy, instead turning to different issues in other relationships both new and old to more fully flesh out the overall story.

The addition of the historical fiction timeline also works quite well here, as we get to see the grandmother and grandfather in their prime, including several of their own life changing experiences before kids came into the picture.

As someone who has long sought the memories of his grandparents lost long ago to first dementia and then death, the historical timeline – and its intersection with the present day timeline, which was executed to near breathtaking (and very dusty room) perfection – was truly remarkable.

This is one that I could very easily see recommending to my mom and “second mom” – one of my mom’s oldest sisters – as they could most likely identify with this particular tale even more strongly than I did, having done so much of the caregiving for their parents in those years, including frequent nursing home visits. As this is an unfortunately far too common occurrence in the US these days… Bleeker could well have the biggest hit of her career to date on her hands, if that particular community starts spreading this book.

With apologies for making this review have so much of *me* in it. But, two things here: 1) Every review should *always* be about the reader’s experience with the book, and thus I needed to explain my history to explain my experience with this text and 2) my own history here really is far too common these days, at least at the very high “grandson of someone who developed dementia” level, and thus I really do think that explaining that these types of readers in particular will find much here actually does help further a review’s primary purpose: to help authors sell books. So even though so much of *me* is interwoven here, I think it actually both works and, for me, is necessary here. But maybe I’m blinded by narcissism or some such here and am an absolute idiot. You should read this book for yourself and absolutely feel free to call me out when you write your own review if you think that is the case. Let us know *your* experience with this book, even if it differs dramatically from my own. Between all of us, we can begin to get a more clear picture of exactly what this book is and is not, and that is always a beautiful thing to behold.

Very much recommended.

This review of Good Days Bad Days by Emily Bleeker was originally written on October 6, 2025.

#BookReview: A New Leash On Life by Patricia Sands

A Moving Ending. Yet again packing quite a bit of story into such scant page count, this is a great ending to this series that gives an epilogue of our dog breeder Leslie’s adventures while also telling a compelling story of life after your long time husband has been diagnosed with dementia. It *also* manages to spend the most time out of the United States than any other book, and only Collar Me Crazy, book 2 of the series, spends more time outside of Dragonfly Cove itself.

And yet the tale here is still absolutely centered around Dragonfly Cove and this most recent litter of puppies from Leslie. Here, Chance gets his time to star as the central puppy of the story – and yes, once again (as is so often in this series) he tends to steal the scene most times he’s around.

Again using an elderly main character (as the previous book, Teacher’s Pet did), this tale does a remarkable job of showing both blood and found family and how they all come together. Truly a great tale in a small package, and yet again more evidence of how page count doesn’t give any indication of just how good a story is, with this one clocking in just over 150 pages.

Very much recommended.

This review of A New Leash On Life by Patricia Sands was originally written on January 1, 2024.

#BookReview: The Wild Road Home by Melissa Payne

All The Feels – Including A Few Very Dusty Rooms. Payne is very much making a career out of intricate character stories that pack a lot of emotional depth and complexity in with a fair amount of drama and action, and this book is exactly in that vein. Here, we get truly visceral looks at the emotions surrounding death and abandonment, emotions which will be difficult for some and will cause the aforementioned dusty rooms for more. The way Payne can bring these things to life via her words is truly remarkable, and that she can do so in such a story without ever appearing preachy – if anything, pretty much the exact opposite – is even more remarkable.

If you’re looking for a light and breezy “beach read”, this isn’t that. If you’re looking for a “beach read” in that you can read this book while on a beach… and bawl your eyes out in the process… yeah, this is that kind of book.

Very much recommended.

This review of The Wild Road Home by Melissa Payne was originally written on June 25, 2024.

#BookReview: Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier

I Refuse To Be My [Parent]. Yes, a version of the title line of this review is said in the book. And that was the moment the book hit particularly hard for me. Because I’ve lived it. Not directly, but as the child of a person that did. To be clear, it was not the same kind of abuse that my parent endured, but it *was* abuse and it *did* shape that parent in ways that have played out over the course of my own life. So at that moment, this book became very, very real for me and I could see that character’s actions as clear as day and understand them on levels I don’t often get to even in fiction.

The rest of the book, with a present day murder and blackmailing, a secret identity, a true crime podcast looking at a murder years ago and how it all ties together… was all excellently done. Other reviews complain about the backstory, but for me that was the actual story – because it shows everything that caused the person to utter the line I titled the review with. Overall a strong tale that survivors of domestic abuse may struggle with, but which ultimately should prove cathartic indeed even for them. Very much recommended.

This review of Things We Do In The Dark by Jennifer Hillier was originally written on July 10, 2022.

#BookReview: Heart Of The Violist by Maddie Evans

Excellent Start To New Series. With this book, Evans “officially” begins a new series that had a “soft opening” with the novella Faking The Harmony. Here, we really begin to see what makes the Castleton Family click… by having an interloper threaten to destroy all that they hold dear. Except this interloper… may just be exactly what he is claiming to be. Another excellent novelization of the very real-life issues faced with DNA testing, along with some solid discussion with real-world facts about the differences between the various DNA testing companies (all of whom are fictionalized in the text here) and how they operate. This is easily read as just a solid Hallmark-ish romance, the extra commentary just adds a bit of extra depth and real-world gravitas to the already solidly grounded tale. Excellent work, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing how the unresolved threads of the Castleton Family hash out. Very much recommended.

This review of Heart of the Violist by Maddie Evans was originally written on December 12, 2020.