Tag: womensfiction

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#BookReview: The California Dreamers by Amy Mason Doan

Doan Does It Again. I titled my review of Doan’s LADY SUNSHINE “Cinematic” and my review of her THE SUMMER LIST “The Boys Of Summer”, and I can tell you that despite the few years away, Doan has not lost a single step in her storytelling. This tale is just as cinematic and just as evocative as either of those prior books, and does a phenomenal job of showing one particularly extreme lifestyle… and the repercussions it can have as kids raised within it grow up and begin making decisions of their own.

As with much other fiction – and particularly as I write this review on the day that news breaks that, yet again, Augusta, Ga has arrested a parent trying to make a better life for his kids because he placed them in a safe area for a few minutes while going to a nearby spot for a job interview – yes, there are absolutely elements of this story that would not play in the real world of the 2020s. Yet this book also isn’t set in the real world of the 2020s, instead being set decades earlier, in a period where I myself lived at least very certain specific elements of this life both in and out of the trailer park. Identifying which elements goes into spoiler territory, but suffice it to say that it involves what was truly a common practice among working class families of prior eras – even if it may be criminalized by Karens and bureaucrats today.

Still, even with these elements taken as the fiction they are, the story they work to show is itself quite powerful indeed, and Doan truly does an excellent job of showing how halcyon days may not have been as perfect as were remembered… and perhaps we didn’t know all that we thought we did in those days either. Doan just has a way with coming of age stories, clearly, and yet again it truly shines through here in so very many ways.

Come for the beautiful, evocative prose that captures the best of (what I imagine to be, having never actually experienced it) the California summers, both back in the 80s and again in the early 2000s. Stay for the all too relatable story of children confronting what they think they know about their own childhoods and all the family dynamics this brings forth in adult children dealing with their parents.

Very much recommended.

This review of The California Dreamers by Amy Mason Doan was originally written on April 1, 2025.

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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: 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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#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: His Truth Her Truth by Noelle Holten

Slow Front Builds To Frenetic End. This is one of those stories that starts out with a bang in its prologue before going back in time and achieving the pace of… well, probably a tired slug racing an exhausted turtle. In other words, it is rather S L O W in the beginning.

But hang around, because as things start picking up they also begin spiraling, and soon enough your heart is beating faster as your brain is getting a good workout trying to read at the pace of the plot.

There’s a lot going on in these pages, and a lot that a lot of people won’t like – particularly so much domestic abuse, among other issues. But there is also a lot to like overall here, and Holten does a solid job of telling exactly the story she seemingly wants to tell at exactly the pace she seemingly wants to tell it at.

Ultimately, this is one that will have you gripping the final pages, desperate to see exactly how it ends… and that is pretty much what most people want of our thrillers, right?

Very much recommended.

This review of His Truth Her Truth by Noelle Holten was originally written on March 1, 2025.

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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: 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: Collar Me Crazy by Kay Bratt

Quick Introduction To Bratt’s Style. At around 1/2 to 1/3 of the length of a “normal Kay Bratt book” (at least in my experience reading them since 2019’s Dancing With The Sun), this book serves as a perfect quick introduction to Bratt’s (current) style of storytelling, with a solid small town, solid friendships, light romance elements (with about as much spice as a warm glass of milk, for those who need to know these things either direction), and with a central crime (or a few of them) based on real-world cases that Bratt largely expertly fictionalizes to work within the worlds she is creating while also (largely) faithfully recreating the crime inside that world.

In this particular text, the crime element centers around animal abuse, and it is here that Bratt can get a bit more preachy in this book than she normally gets. It is also here that certain elements bring forth wisps of the scent of James Rollins’ books involving Tucker Wayne.

Ultimately this entire series centers around a love of dogs, and dog lovers are in for a true treat as we go through this entire series of largely short story/ novella length books (largely in the 120-160 ish page range), and this is a particularly strong book to kick off the “meat” of the series after Book 1 largely used the first chapters of all of the books to introduce us to the overall town and concept of the series.

Very much recommended.

This review of Collar Me Crazy by Kay Bratt was originally written on January 1, 2025.

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#BookReview: Pick Of The Litter by Kay Bratt, Tammy L. Grace, Barbara Hinske, Ev Bishop, Jodi Allen Brice, Julie Carobini, David Johnson, and Patricia Sands

Excellent Series Introduction For New Series Perfect For Dog Lovers. This is yet another of the multi-author series that have seemingly sprung up in the last few years, mostly in the romance and/ or women’s fiction realms, where multiple authors come together to offer up stories around some common McGuffin such as every book has to feature a cruise (2024’s Sail Away series, featuring many of these same authors) or every book has to feature a snowglobe in some manner (2019’s Snow Globe Christmas MM romance series) or any other common tie in. As in most cases, this introductory book is essentially the first chapters of all of the rest of the books, though this one also has a prologue and epilogue that extend its own story a touch, which actually leads directly into my next main point.

Having now read a few of these as I sit to write this particular review, I can tell you that what sets this particular series apart from all of its predecessors that I’ve read (a handful or so) is just how well everything is integrated. Every author gets their own dog(s) and their own characters and can tell their story their way, but other than slight differences in style one could almost see this entire series written by a singular author – that is how well the storytelling and editing through 4.5 books has been so far. If you know a bit about each particular author and their style and what is going on in their “real” (non-book) lives, you have a better sense of the distinctiveness of each voice, but otherwise the stories fit so seamlessly together, even when borrowing characters from other books, that it really is quite remarkable just how well everything fits together here.

And yes, as the McGuffin for this series is that all of our central characters are getting new puppies, this series really is perfect for dog lovers of all stripes (though to be clear, these are all Labradors in these books). Sorry, cat lovers. Maybe that will be the next project for these authors or perhaps a similar group. 🙂

Ultimately a great introduction to the series, and a very quick read at barely 100 pages to boot. Perfect for those times at the end of the year holidays / beginning of the year ramping things back up when maybe you don’t have as much time to read – or maybe you find yourself like me and trying to finish the back half of this series before it releases on Jan 1, 2025… *and* read 2.5 *other* books before the calendar flips over into 2025 in just over three more days! Eek!

Very much recommended.

This review of Pick Of The Litter by Kay Bratt, Tammy L. Grace, Barbara Hinske, Ev Bishop, Jodi Allen Brice, Julie Carobini, David Johnson, and Patricia Sands was originally written on December 28, 2024.