Tag: family

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#BookReview: Young Rich Widows by Kimberly Belle, Cate Holahan, Vanessa Lillie, and Layne Fargo

Wild NYC 80s Romp. I really can’t say enough great about this book. The fact that I was able to read it at least partially in a not-so-smoke-filled cigar lounge made it even better personally, if only because it made it that much easier to get “in character” as a dude of the era. (Btw, even though I *was* born in the early 80s, my God, to have been able to be a young adult in that era… the 2000s of my own 20s were wild, but I’m pretty sure that era would have been even more fun. 🙂 ) Moving on…

Seriously, this starts out with a bang… nearly literally… and while the action itself doesn’t start picking up as much until at least the 1/4 to 1/3 or so mark (and *really* in the back half, when it becomes almost a different book), here really is quite a bit to enjoy here. The ladies are clearly distinguished characters – likely stemming from likely having one author handle each? – and the initial “come together” scenes are done particularly well given the overall setting and specific events that have taken place to this point. From there, it becomes a somewhat classic tale of people who think they know each other – and largely hate what they know – being forced to work together to achieve some common goal… before shifting from that into a more action/ thriller tale that Michael Bay would have loved to shoot.

The entire “New York, 1980s” setting hits particularly well as well, complete with the strippers and the drugs and the largesse of the lowlifes, and… well, what I was going to say there gets a touch too close to spoilers, so let’s just say that truly everything about this book simply SCREAMS “1980s NYC”, to the level that you begin to suspect that at least some of the authors had to have at least a version of lived experience here. Yes, it is *that* real and *that* visceral, at least in the side of NYC in this period that it chooses to show.

Overall a book that starts slow but picks up steam, one that people who don’t like multiple POV stories should check out anyway, as it is truly well done in this particular instance. You’ll be glad that its sequel is now ready – I know I was, as I was able to finally start my Advance Review Copy edition of the sequel moments after finishing this book – and yes, you really are going to want to start it right away as well.

Very much recommended.

This review of Young Rich Widows by Kimberly Belle, Cate Holahan, Vanessa Lillie, and Layne Fargo was originally written on April 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Pity Play by Whitney Dineen

Gilmore Girls Yet Not Gilmore Girls. He’s Luke and he works in a diner. She’s Lorelai and she wants to run a bed and breakfast. Stars Hollow? NOPE! Equally fictional and equally charming Elk Lake. But yes, the Gilmore Girls comparisons, at least at a very high level, are simply too blatant to be completely ignored.

This noted, Dineen *does* do her own thing and *does* manage to tell a tale completely different than anything I remember from Gilmore Girls. (Don’t hate me, but despite Lauren Graham being hot, it just wasn’t a series I could ever really get into. Sorry, ladies!)

Here, the angst is arguably done better than the romance, and indeed it often seems at times that this ostensibly romance book keeps its central couple apart far more than they’re together, with the togetherness coming in very tentative and awkward steps at first before “suddenly out of no where” kind of exploding… after a damn near fatal implosion first, of course.

But truly the most relatable part of this for me personally was in fact Luke’s story, and even his dad’s story. While I know at least *some* of my dad’s story (more than Luke does throughout a large part of the tale here), like Luke, there are absolutely things I don’t know – and will never know – about my dad’s childhood and my grandfather (who in my case died just five weeks after my birth). Like Luke, as an adult I’ve had to try to come to understand my dad through the bits and pieces of his history I’ve learned, and how that has shaped him into the man he chose to become… and thus how it shaped how he raised me and shaped me into the man I chose to become. While I never lost years of our lives due to a misunderstanding, that’s not to say there haven’t been misunderstandings along the way (including one particularly infamous one when I was a teenager that was perhaps the closest we ever got to this level of blowup). So… yeah, Luke’s story absolutely hit a touch harder here.

Overall while this seemed to be probably the most angsty book in the series, there really was quite a bit of fun and self discovery along the way as well, and it really was both a solid entrant in the series and a solid setup for a seeming near-direct sequel.

Very much recommended.

This review of Pity Play by Whitney Dineen was originally written on March 25, 2025.

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#BookReview: Saltwater by Katy Hays

Beautiful Setting. Atrocious People. Maybe Someone Will See The Light. This is one of those tales where there aren’t really too many “good” people – even the people you ostensibly want to root for are doing some very *bad* things! But the imagery of the beautiful Italian islands is absolutely stunning and well done… and even make it a point to play into the endgame, which is always appreciated.

While the book *does* start rather slow, stick with it. It is no Great Gatsby where the first x amount of it is an utter snooze fest that is more apt to put you to sleep rather than keep you up all night… but it *does* get to the “keep you up all night” level. Eventually. And then it keeps you there until damn near the last word of the tale.

Overall a fun book of its type, one with enough to keep you invested and take you to somewhere not where you are. (Unless you happen to be on said Italian islands. Then… maybe read something else if you want to be transported somewhere else? :D) Actually a rather good beach/ cruise read due to the setting at minimum.

Very much recommended.

This review of Saltwater by Katy Hays was originally written on March 25, 2025.

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#BlogTour: The Spanish Daughter by Soraya Lane

For this blog tour, we’re looking at yet another solid entry in this (loose) series. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Spanish Daughter by Soraya Lane.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / PageBound.co / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:

Yet Another Solid Entry In (Loose) Series. This is one of the more standalone entries in this loose series, where all the books share a common starting point – a group of women meeting with a lawyer after boxes are discovered with their family’s names on them when a London building is being torn down, then each woman beginning her own path to discover the significance of her box. While some of the previous stories have more of the story of how those boxes came to be in them and are thus more essential to read in order, this one was one of the more complete standalones that could very well be read immediately after the series introduction and still make 100% sense with virtually no spoilers for the rest of the series at all.

So for those considering this series, this could actually serve as a decent starting point, if you don’t want to start at the beginning/ if this book happens to be on sale when you come across it.

The story itself is the same solid blend of both sides of Soraya Lane (romance) and Soraya M. Lane (historical fiction) tales, while this one perhaps leans a touch more to the romance side given the lack of war dangers given the setting (and also the similarities even in the historical side to some of Lane’s cowboy romances as Soraya Lane in particular). In other words, yet again, if you’ve never read Lane’s work and happen to come into this book completely blind, this really is a solid introduction to her overall style of storytelling in both halves of her writing career.

Ultimately this was likely a much needed break – for both Lane herself and for readers – as I very much suspect that the most difficult, most harrowing book of this series is still to come… the actual origins of Hope’s House and the mysteries therein, which have been hinted at in the prior books to more or less degrees, though it is still unclear exactly how many stories Lane has planned before executing on that particular tale, which I expect to be the finale of this series. (But who knows, I could be dead wrong about that. Not claiming any form of knowledge of Lane’s plans, to be crystal clear.)

Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Spanish Daughter by Soraya Lane”

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#BookReview: Losing The Moon by Kellie Coates Gilbert

Excellent – And Short-ish – Tale Of The Power Of Friendship And Community. In this latest entrant in this saga of four friends living lives in each other’s orbits, we get quite a bit packed into such a smallish page count – there’s intense action as a snowmobile race gets dicy, there’s the drama of unexpected surprises and possible relapses, there’s friends coming together in some of the most difficult circumstances as their entire community rallies around them. All told in a very real yet very relatable way, and again, all completed in a tale that serves as a solid read while the kids are running off steam at the playground or on the ball field or maybe while you’re waiting to pick them up from school or some such. Or, for the childfree/ those with grown children among us, while sitting poolside with a good drink or even standing in line at a theme park or maybe lounging away one lazy Saturday looking out across whatever scenery brings you serenity.

Truly well done, though you’re probably going to want to start earlier in the series and get to this point, rather than jumping into the series here. Which just means you have more to look forward to, in that case. 😉

Very much recommended.

This review of Losing The Moon by Kellie Coates Gilbert was originally written on March 22, 2025.

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#BlogTour: Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a solid tale of friendship and love… that has nothing at all to do with its title. For this blog tour, we’re looking at Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery.

First, the review I posted to the book sites (BookBub.com / BookHype.com / Goodreads.com / PageBound.co / TheStoryGraph.com) and YouTube:

Zero Beach Vibes. Solid Mallery Tale. I normally get a bit into the review before explaining star deductions, but in this particular case the reason for the star deduction is the most critical thing you need to know about this book:

It has *ZERO* beach vibes. Yes, it takes place in Malibu – largely across the street from the beach, at best – but the setting here is largely completely irrelevant to literally anything about the story. Mallery could have changed the location names to almost literally “Anywhere” and the overall story would read and feel *exactly* the same.

Now, with that said, this actually *is* a solid tale of its type = in other words, a women’s fiction/ romance blend that Mallery is so prolific with and does so well. If you’ve never read her works, this is a decent one to begin with – not her worst in my own experiences with her books, yet also not her best, but solidly indicative of her overall style of writing and storytelling.

So if you’re ready for a drama filled tale of two strangers who happen to become friends and who happen to develop an uncommon cross bond with each others’ siblings… this tale will work well for you.

Note that the spice level here is somewhere north of a warm glass of milk yet south of habanero – again, fairly typical of Mallery’s overall style. So those that prefer the warm glass of milk or those that prefer ghost peppers… either direction there, you’re likely going to be left a touch disappointed. Yet the overall tale, outside the bedroom, is actually quite strong in its own right, and you really should give it a chance anyway – there will most likely be other things about this tale that you truly enjoy, and maybe you can glass over the bedroom stuff.

Overall a solid, well told tale… that simply has absolutely *zero* to do with anything remotely associated with its title.

Very much recommended.

After the jump, an excerpt from the book followed by the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: Beach Vibes by Susan Mallery”

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#BookReview: We Are Made Of Stars by Rochelle Weinstein

Surprising And Unexpected Yet Powerful. Following Weinstein on social media, I know she was writing this book shortly after the Hamas attacks on Israel in late 2023. As I finished reading this text (that I’ve had on my Kindle for a couple of months or so even now), Hamas had been parading the caskets of several babies they had murdered earlier in the day. Given that the Surfside Condo collapse in Miami a few years ago now – where Weinstein’s family personally knew a few of the victims – clearly contributed quite a bit of emotional heft to the book she was writing at the time, I expected the same to be true here, as Weinstein is quite vocal (yet, to be clear, not preachy) about her Jewish faith and support of the State of Israel. (Haters, go the fuck away. While I’ve only known Weinstein online to date, she is truly a great person in my own interactions with her, no matter what your own political beliefs may be – and we *do* disagree quite substantially politically.)

So that is the background I approached this story with, my own “baggage” I brought into the Drift, even as I generally approach each and every book with a blank slate – and indeed knew *nothing* about this book beyond its title and that Weinstein had written it when I agreed to read and review it, and even when reading it this remained all that I knew (plus that it releases next week so I needed to hurry up with the reading and reviewing!).

What I actually found here was, as I noted in the title of the review, quite surprising and unexpected – for some reason I expected at least one blatantly Jewish character, if not every single protagonist in the book, to be honest, along with a much more blatantly Jewish plot, along the lines of say Jean Meltzer’s books… even though I know from prior reading that this isn’t really Weinstein’s style. What I *actually* got here was a powerful tale of several flawed duos within families – mostly husbands and wives going trying to work through some level of trauma within their relationship, but also a powerful story (that takes a more prominent role later in the text) between a mother and her daughter.

While there are a total of ten main characters and the story *is* told from multiple perspectives (yes, I know there are readers who don’t like that either – if you’re at least willing to try it, this is a *really* good one to try with), Weinstein (and, perhaps, her editors) made the smart choice of limiting our number of perspectives to just a few, and never both halves of any of the five duos. This helps both story cohesion and progression, as even with chapter based perspective switches, at least this way we aren’t getting first person views of both sides of the dynamic in question.

And the traumas that are happening here… even without being explicitly tied into anything overly “real-world”, they’re at the same time all too real. I don’t want to detail them here due to spoiler potential, but I will note that Weinstein truly shines here in just how real and relatable she manages to make pretty well everything about all of these interweaving secrets and dynamics, and the pacing is done particularly well such that some surprises are tossed in early, others are late and seemingly out of nowhere (yet fit perfectly), and still others are teased well with what becomes for me at least a perfectly satisfactory payoff.

Overall truly a powerful and well written story, exactly what Weinstein is known for, and one that will have the room quite dusty at several different points – you’ve been warned about that too, now. 😉 This is one that will leave you with that beautiful “wow, what did I just read” feeling (in the best possible ways) and will hopefully show you a path through even your own struggles.

Very much recommended.

This review of We Are Made Of Stars by Rochelle Weinstein was originally written on February 21, 2025.

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#BookReview: Come Fly With Me by Camille Di Maio

Perfect Escapism. Even as certain elements of this book are damn near torn from the headlines of the past several weeks – for the record, *long* after Di Maio had completed writing this book, as I’ve had it myself for nearly four months already – this book really is pure, damn near perfect, escapism. For most people. For those in at least one sadly far too common situation – one my own grandmother experienced during the period detailed in this book – it could potentially be triggering. Yet even in this, Di Maio provides a solid set of escapism, and even in this, there is ultimately purpose in the story beyond “you can survive”.

Instead, the vast majority of this tale focuses primarily on one particular lady and the situations she finds herself in during the early 1960s as she attempts a career as a Pan Am stewardess. We see in detail the exacting standards of the position and the more-intense-than-one-may-realize training they underwent. We see the (then) exotic locales that are still wildly different than what most Americans today are accustomed to – and yet those locations have also been increasingly “Americanized” and generally commercialized over the ensuing decades, to the point that this book really hits the nostalgic appeal of the locations in the eras portrayed and, as the text takes place nearly entirely in the early 1960s, largely glosses over all that they have become.

Our other primary narrator from this period is another view of the trials women went through in this period, and here Di Maio does a particularly superb job of showing that looks can indeed be deceiving, and sometimes one must actively seek out the real truth in matters.

Our final perspective – yes, this is technically multi-perspective, but there really are just the three – is a modern day person looking back on the halcyon days portrayed in the rest of the story. It is through her eyes that we see both all that was, story wise, and… even a glimpse of Di Maio herself, as she notes in the Author Note. (No, not even spoiling that here, although that particular tale sounds pretty fucking awesome. 🙂 )

Ultimately this is one of those books that does a truly phenomenal job of providing maximal escapism through exotic travel in a long-gone era… and it is one that is going to tug your heart strings quite a bit at times, both making your heart race from a variety of situations and in making the room quite dusty indeed at points.

For those who may have worried where Di Maio was or if she was coming back at all or if she could come back and stay just as good as she once was, with her last major release being almost exactly three years to the day before the publication date of this book… I’ll tell you now: I’ve now read over half of Di Maio’s major releases, first encountering her with 2019’s The Beautiful Strangers, and at least of the books I’ve read from her… this may well be the best one yet.

Very much recommended.

This review of Come Fly With Me by Camille Di Maio was originally written on February 14, 2025.

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#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.

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#BookReview: Coming Home To Heel by Jodi Allen Brice

More Evidence That Strong Stories Don’t Need High Page Counts. This entire series is testament to this, but this book in particular *really* is. There’s a lot going on here – grief from a somewhat recent loss of a mother and an even more recent loss of a marriage + the son is estranged due to how the marriage broke apart *and* a potential new romance already on the horizon… all of this in not quite 17o pages! And it all works incredibly well!

Indeed, this tale in particular is arguably at its strongest when Nora is using her newfound strength -yes, thanks in part to new puppy Charlie – to handle her divorce and her son’s issues around it.

Truly an excellent and short book, again, this entire series really is great for those who love dogs and who are at least somewhat interested in the women’s fiction/ romance genres who may be looking to start their 2025 reading strong- this will easily get you 9 books potentially on January 1, as I write most of these reviews, if you put an effort in. (Ok, so at that point you’re reading around 1100 pages in a day – which *is* daunting. But 150 ish pages/ day spread out over a couple of weeks? Nearly anyone can find that kind of time. :D)

Very much recommended.

This review of Coming Home To Heel by Jodi Allen Brice was originally written on January 1, 2025.