Tag: reunion

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#BookReview: With Friends Like These by Alissa Lee

Strong Tale Of The Travails Of Friendship After College. This is one of those tales where, as someone in his 40s who graduated college 20 yrs ago this year himself and who has maintained at least a couple of friendships since that era, I get it. Now, my friends and I were nowhere near as complicated as these ladies. There were no secret houses or anything remotely like that at our then-commuter school that was just on the cusp of creating its first actual dorms as I was graduating. Our football team was “still undefeated”… because it didn’t exist yet. And yet, as I type this review just a couple of weeks before Selection Sunday 2025, there is a chance that that very same football team goes to a bowl for the first time in school history this year! (Go Kennesaw State Owls!)

Even so the book, for me, evokes the fireside scene in the 2017 Power Rangers movie (and particularly the soundtrack playing in that scene) and even elements of the John Knowles classic A Separate Peace or the more obscure One Bullet Away by Nathaniel Fick. Those beautifully tragic moments when you realize that all that you thought you knew, you never really had a clue, and yet there is still that essence there that is exactly what you always knew, that essence that drew you to these people to begin with, that was truly the foundation of your friendship.

Now, there is a lot going on in this book, and yes, there are elements of both ‘literary fiction’ and thriller that make for an interesting merger, but I actually thought Lee did a solid job with said merger. The tale gets chaotic at times, even though told from a single perspective… but I almost think that was the very intent. Lee *needed* the reader to *feel* the chaos around these characters in these situations, and this was the best vehicle to really bring that out.

Overall, this is truly a book that won’t work for everyone. I suspect Lee knows that, or at least I hope she does. But for those it works for, I think it has the potential to *really* work for. Will it be remembered and studied ala A Separate Peace? Unlikely. Is it an enjoyable short ish (sub 250 page) book that can be a fun yet cathartic diversion during the cold winter months? Absolutely.

Very much recommended.

This review of With Friends Like These by Alissa Lee was originally written on November 19, 2025.

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#BookReview: Lie In The Tide by Holly Danvers

You Think You Know Me. I fully cop to being one of those people that avoids my hometown in my adult life (other than visiting family members who continue to live there) specifically because high school was hell and I don’t care to catch up with pretty well anyone from that era of my life. (To be fair, the feeling is largely mutual. :D)

So for me, a group of former HS friends deciding to catch up by spending a weekend together to celebrate the upcoming 40th birthday of one of them is… weird.

And yet… Danvers absolutely makes the idea work. The first part of the tale is largely “establishing shots”, with each of our four friends introducing themselves and where they currently are in life as they begin to travel to the meeting point on Cape Cod. This section is admittedly slow… but then, so is this section in many of the best thriller/ horror/ disaster movies or stories.

Once everyone begins catching up, the action begins to pick up – including a scene that reminded me of a long ago college Service Spring Break incident, but to reveal that tale here would get into spoiler territory for the book. Hell, I didn’t even connect it until I began writing that last sentence. 😉 From here, the tale goes less introspective and, eventually, more into “what the hell is going on” / “who can we trust” territory, with a fair amount of exploration of the common theme of “who we are on social media isn’t always who we are in real life” that has been explored so much over the last decade. While Danvers doesn’t really add much to that particular discourse with this tale, she does use it to add a touch of depth to her own story.

I will note that the mystery, once it arrives, was perhaps given away a touch too early with one particular detail that one of the characters revealed in her opening monologue. So for those that just cannot stand solving the mystery before the author reveals it… well… “you think you know me”. In other words… there may yet be more to this tale…

The epilogue in particular offers a stinger that takes this seeming one-off tale and offers the possibility that it could in fact become a series, which those of you who pick this book up with the “Book 1” on its title would already know. (I had received an Advance Review Copy of the text months before publication, though I only read the book about 2 weeks before due to other ARC commitments.)

Ultimately, this actually has a blend of the approaches used in say the “Widows” series by Kimberly Belle, Cate Holahan, Layne Fargo, and Vanessa Lillie – where each author seemingly takes one of four widows and they combine to craft an intriguing and rompy series – and the meta-publishing discussions of say Romantic Friction by Lori Gold – among others – and yet still manages to be fairly uniquely its own thing even with those similarities. It will be interesting to see where Danvers takes this budding series and how long she intends to have it run.

Very much recommended.

This review of Lie In The Tide by Holly Danvers was originally written on May 20, 2025.

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#BlogTour: The Summer Reunion by Leah Mercer

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a book where *everyone* has secrets… and even the secrets have secrets. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Summer Reunion by Leah Mercer.

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

Their Secrets Have Secrets. Easily a great line in The Avengers (the Marvel version, you Imperialists) is when Tony Stark is speaking of Nick Fury and says “his secrets have secrets” – which is absolutely true, both in The Avengers and this book. If you enjoy semi-slow burn (to start) almost disaster movie type suspense, where everything starts off a touch slow and normal ish before completely fucking unravelling… this is exactly the kind of book you’re going to enjoy.

The other great thing about this, to me, was how well Mercer used the setting she created to create an atypical emergency situation. Without giving anything away, let’s just say that it put an interesting spin on a couple of fairly worn concepts and made everything seem newer and much more intriguing in the process.

Ultimately one of those books you’re going to be reading deep into the night, because “one more chapter” will never be enough.

Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details” – book info, description, author bio, social links, and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Summer Reunion by Leah Mercer”

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#BlogTour: The Lighthouse Girls by BR Spangler

For this blog tour, we’re looking at a solid yet unexpected entry in this great police procedural series set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. For this blog tour, we’re looking at The Lighthouse Girls by BR Spangler.

Another Solid Entry In Series. With Book 5 (The Memory Bones) wrapping up the core long-term mystery of the series (and this book spoiling that reveal early, so be forewarned if you haven’t read that book yet), I wondered then if Spangler was closing out the series, not really seeing how it could move forward. Here, in a sense Spangler is offering more closure, with former teammates returning and (without going *too* far into spoiler territory) another teammate’s death in this tale – while not yet offering any hint of any further long term mystery. Still, this is a murder mystery series with heart, and I’m absolutely along for the ride in Book 7, whatever Spangler decides to do with that. Start earlier in the series if you’re new to it – possibly all the way back at Book 1 (Where Lost Girls Go), but I personally started at Book 4 (The Crying House) and found that to be a reasonable entry point as well. When you do, you’re going to want this book on hand anyway, just to come back to a now-favorite storyline. 🙂 Very much recommended.

After the jump, the “publisher details”, including book description, author bio, and social media and buy links.
Continue reading “#BlogTour: The Lighthouse Girls by BR Spangler”

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#BookReview: Alaska Reunion by Jennifer Snow

Unanswered Prayers. This is another solid continuation of this loosely-coupled series where the couples in each book may show up in the others, but the focus of each story is its leading couple. Here, we get a great and fun forced proximity / fake relationship romance… that of course (because it *is* a romance novel) becomes a real one. Solid fun in the Alaskan setting, including getting out on the multitudinous waterways of the region and even some climbing and other more adventuresome activities. For the clean/ sweet crowd… ummm… maybe sit this one out. 😉 For those that like intense sex scenes (nothing particularly kinky, just enough steam to drive a dang electric generator), I think you’ll like this one. 🙂 Snow knows her genre very well, and this is a perfect example of that. Very much recommended.

This review of Alaska Reunion by Jennifer Snow was originally written on August 1, 2021.