The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase

 

Publisher: Ballantine Books

On Sale Date: August 5, 2025

Pages: 320

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The Midnight Hour by Eve Chase is a story that takes you to London's Notting Hill in 1998 and twenty years later in 2019. In 1998, Maggie is a 17 year old teenager that lives with her eccentric and not very stabile celebrity mother Dee Delancey and her younger brother Kit, who is adopted, in a house in Notting Hill. Everything goes normal, until one day when Dee doesn't return home and Maggie and Kit have no clue where she could be. The next weeks she also doesn't return and has to seem vanished without a trace.Maggie doesn't plan to call the police, afraid they will take Kit away. A friend from the neighborhood named Wolf, a guy who works in his uncle's antique shop keeps a bit of an eye on Maggie and Kit and Maggie and Wolf stay friends, also when Maggie and Kit move to Paris all of a sudden because a man unknown to them starts threatening her and Kit, and claims that he is Kit's father and can take him away any minute. Maggie has to do everything to protect her brother now her mom is missing, even if it means fleeing to Paris to her aunt. Will her mother ever surface again??

Twenty years later in 2019 now novelist Maggie is back in London from Paris, and apparently her mother has passed away. She gets a call from Wolf that their old house is renovated, and immediately she goes into panic mode; what if the renovators discover the secret that is buried there, she could get in big trouble..

She also meets up again with her aunt Cora, who they escaped to in Paris after things got out of hand back in 1998. Aunt Cora knows more about Kit's history, and during the story, the reader gets to learn all the secrets of Maggie's mother and about Wolf and aunt Cora too, secrets that better stay buried...

The Midnight Hour bt Eve Chase is a book that completely surprised me! I started reading it blankly, not knowing what to expect. I truly like the storyline of it and the characters as well. Everything in this novel was in the right place at the right time. It also had a thrilling mystery aspect to it, and at almost every page there was an unexpected twist and turn that truly kept it very entertaining. As a reader you truly want to know how this story, that truly had some tragic parts, ends.

The characters where portrayed well and are very realistic, they truly can be your neighbors or friends. The shifting in time between 1998 and 2019 was also done very well, it alternates in the chapters, and for this book this works perfectly.

Overall, this is a book I truly like and I found it highly entertaining and a true pageturner! This is a book I highly recommend.

Blog Tour; book spotlight on The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch

Today I am taking part in the blog tour of The Hong Kong Widow, the new novel by Kristen Loesch that comes out on October 7, with a book spotlight!

Hong Kong, 1953: In a remote mansion, witnesses insist a massacre took place. The police see nothing but pristine rooms and declare it a collective hallucination. Until decades later, when one witness returns…from the Edgar®-nominated author of The Last Russian Doll.

In 1950s Hong Kong, Mei is a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation—to take part in a competition in one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses, pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six séances over six nights, until a single winner emerges—she has every reason to refuse. Except that the hostess, a former Shanghainese silent film star, is none other than the wife of the man who once destroyed Mei’s entire life.It is promised the winner will receive a fortune, but there is only one prize Mei wants: revenge. 

Decades later, the final night of that competition has become an infamous urban legend: The police were called to the scene of a brutal massacre but found no evidence, dismissing it as a collective hallucination. Mei knows what she saw, but now someone else is convinced they know what she did. She must uncover the truth about the last night she ever spent in that house—even if the ghosts of her past are waiting for her there. . . .

When We Meet Again by Caroline Beecham

 

Publisher: Putnam

On Sale Date: July 20, 2021

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

1943, London: Alice Cotton is a young woman who works as an editor at publishing house Partridge Press She is a beloved editor, who is also highly appreciated by her coworkers, as she has a good eye for books that distract the readers from the harsh war going on. But when Alice get unexpectedly pregnant, her live changes forever. To prevent getting a bad name as an unwed mother, she tells the made up story at her work that she has to take care  of her cousin, who just had baby up in the country. In real life, her mother kicks her out of the house to a small town, to deliver her baby there, and where her mother takes the baby away  without Alice's consent to be given to baby farmers, people who take the baby in and sell them to couples for adoption. Alice is devastated when she finds the crib of the baby empty with a note from her mother that it is ''better this way''.

Meanwhile at Patridge Press, her coworker friends are more and more missing Alice, who seem to have vanished without a trace, while Alice goes on a search to find her stolen daughter.

Theo Bloom works at the American department of Partridge Press as an editor in New York City, where he lives with his fiancee Virginia. He is asked though to go to London to help Partridge Press there, as there are difficulties in the company because of the war. He hears from her coworkers that Alice is missing, but soon Alice returns to the publishing house and meets Theo, and a friendship starts that turns into romance. Alice continues on her search for her daughter Eadie, and steps into the world of the baby farmers, which leads to a tragic find of her daughter in the end of the book.

When We Meet Again is a beatiful and very moving novel, set in London during World War Two. The story of Alice and her stolen daughter was very sad, but still Alice remained a very strong and interesting character that stays interesting till the end of the book, where she has to make truly difficult choices. The story reminded me a bit of the novel Looking For Jane by Heather Marshall, which is a book also about stolen babies that where sold for adoption against the will of their mothers. The friendship and romance between her and Theo was very sweet, and they truly where meant to be together. I found this book just very beautiful, very entertaining with fantastic plot twists, and I truly recommend reading it!

Blog Tour Post; The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: September 30, 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

2024; Margo Reynolds is an American woman who lives and works in London. She is hired to source a historic book that was written hundred and twenty years ago by and authior named Eva Fuentes. When she goes on a search for it for her client, with the help of a friend who is local bookseller specialised in antique books, she finds out soon enough she is not the only one on the hunt for the book. A man seems to shadow her wherever she goes, and not much later, the booktore of her friend is rampaged and the bookseller found dead in the store by her, and also her own office gets destroyed. And soon Margo not only is in search of the book, but also who is behind all these incidents..

1900; Eva Fuentes is a teacher from Havana, Cuba. She is working on a novel, when she takes part in a cultural exchange program between Cuba and the USA, and she gets the chance to study at Harvard University during her time in Boston. She also meets a man there, and a secret love starts, but when she figures out the man's real intentions, her heart is shattered, and this changes her life, and the course of her novel forever.

In Havana in 1966, Pilar Castillo works as a librarian during the harsh regime of Fidel Castro. Her husband Enrique is imprisoned because his resistance against the regime. Pilar misses him terribly, and in her own way, she tries to resist the regime, but it gets more dangerous for her as she comes in the posession of the book by Eva Fuentes, and she must fight to protect her library and herself.

This is a beautiful and gripping story about three women  over different decades, who don't know each other, but whose lives  connect because of Eva's mysterious book. I found the story of Margo the most thrilling, as there was truly a sleuthing and mystery part that kept you wanting to know who was behind all the incidents while she was searching for the book of Eva Fuentes for her client. The stories of Pilar and Eva where very moving, and gave a good historical insight in the times the two women where living in. As a reader I kept wondering what it was that was in Eva's novel that was so daunting that people wanted to have it so bad and that could cause so many trouble. I found the style it was written in truly beautiful and breathtaking, and I absolutely loved the whole storyline and the three main characters. This new novel by Chanel Cleeton is truly a book that I recommend reading!

Upcoming blog tour posts on my blog this month..

On september 30 and October 7 I am taking part in two blog tours of books of PenguinRandom House; 

The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes by Chanel Cleeton and The Hong Kong Widow by Kristen Loesch, two very good new titles!

London, 2024: American expat Margo Reynolds is renowned for her talent at sourcing rare antiques for her clients, but she’s never had a request quite like this one. She’s been hired to find a mysterious book published over a century ago. With a single copy left in existence, it has a storied past shrouded in secrecy—and her client isn’t the only person determined to procure it at any cost.

Havana, 1966: Librarian Pilar Castillo has devoted her life to books, and in the chaotic days following her husband’s unjust imprisonment by Fidel Castro, reading is her only source of solace. So when a neighbor fleeing Cuba asks her to return a valuable book to its rightful owner, Pilar will risk everything to protect the literary work entrusted to her care. It’s a dangerous mission that reveals to her the power of one book to change a life.

Boston, 1900: For Cuban school teacher and aspiring author Eva Fuentes, traveling from Havana to Harvard to study for the summer is the opportunity of a lifetime. It’s a whirlwind adventure that leaves her little time to write, but a moonlit encounter with an enigmatic stranger changes everything. The story that pours out of her is one of forbidden love, secrets, and lies… and though Eva cannot yet see it, the book will be a danger and salvation for the lives it touches.

In 1950s Hong Kong, Mei is a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation—to take part in a competition in one of the city’s most notorious haunted houses, pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six séances over six nights, until a single winner emerges—she has every reason to refuse.

Except that the hostess, a former Shanghainese silent film star, is none other than the wife of the man who once destroyed Mei’s entire life.

It is promised the winner will receive a fortune, but there is only one prize Mei wants: revenge. 

Decades later, the final night of that competition has become an infamous urban legend: The police were called to the scene of a brutal massacre but found no evidence, dismissing it as a collective hallucination. Mei knows what she saw, but now someone else is convinced they know what she did. She must uncover the truth about the last night she ever spent in that house—even if the ghosts of her past are waiting for her there. . . .

The Paris Agent by Kelly Rimmer

 

Publisher: Graydon House

On Sale Date: July 11 2023

Pages: 368

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The Paris Agent is a book set in 1970 and the 1940's, in the UK and France, during WWII.  In 1970's Liverpool, Noah Ainsworth is a man who was a British operative in France during the war. During his last mission there, he got severerly wounded with a head injury that left him with memory gaps, and not knowing who saved him then. His daughter Charlotte is starting a search for answers for her father; she finds the stories of Chloe and Fleur, who during the war, where spies for the resistance, but there is also a double agent from the war who lives close to them, and a lot of secrets and shocking stories from the war are unveiled.

The Paris Agent is a moving book. It has a lot of main characters that switch in every chapter, which takes a bit of finding out who is who in relation to who. I found the overall story starting well, but during the parts that take place during the war, the story sands a bit in a very technical resistance story, in which it is at many points what the resistance agents and spies are doing exactly and for which specific case.  I truly missed some background information during these parts.  I found the ending okay, but the story has some flaws that makes it sometimes uninteresting for the reader, and this was a bit of a dissapointment. 

Overall I found this a book about and important topic, but the story was further on the story missed out on certain points.

Nowhere Girl by Carla Ciccone

Publisher: The Dial Press

Expexted On Sale Date: September 9, 2025

Pages: 288

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Freelance journalist Carla Ciccone became a mother at the age of thirty-nine when she found out that she was different. For her whole life until then, she had trouble keeping jobs, and she also had trouble managing her intense emotions. Now, as she had to raise her child, she decided to see a therapist, and found out that for her whole life, she had undiagnosed ADHD.

In this book, Carla tells her personal story together with academic research into ADHD, and tells the reader why ADHD is so often un- and misdiagnosed in women, and the gender expectations and stereotypes behind this.

This is a book that I have mixed feelings about. It was good, but not great. It is a personal memoir and an research into ADHD blended in one book, and it leans to much on both of these two sides to stay interesting. I thougt both lacked depth and wat was told about ADHD was sometimes very repetitive, at many points I thought that I had read something similar in a previous chapter. The personal story parts of Carla's life where okay, but it never truly kept me interested as a reader.

Overall this was an okay read, but I found it at some points not entertaining or interesting.

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau by Kristin Harmel

Publisher: Gallery Books

On Sale Date: June 17, 2025

Pages: 384

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Paris, 1940; Annabel Marceau is the mother of Colette and her younger sister Liliane. For centuries, Annabel and Colette are jewel thieves. They steal from people who are on the wrong side of life, like the Nazi's, and the funds of the jewels are for the support of the French resistance. But in 1942, everything went wrong. Annabel was arrested by the Nazi's and Liliane went missing in the chaos of the violent house raid and together with her, exquisite diamond bracelet sewn into the hem of her nightgown for safekeeping went missing too. Annabel was executed by the Germans, and Liliane was thrown into the seine, as neighbours saw her nightgown floating in it. Colette is devastated and heartbroken by the loss of her mother and sister, and later on, the bond with her father breaks too.

Seventy years later, when she lives in Boston, Colette still steals jewels and diamonds from the people who are on the wrong side of life, and her funds that she raised with has resulted in a Holocaust Organisation in Boston.  But her life changes when the long lost missing bracelet that was sewed in Liliane's nightgown shows up in a museum exhibit in Boston. Together with her best friend lawyer Aviva, she goes on a search how the bracelet landed in the museum, who owned it before it landed there? Was its the German who killed her sister and her mother? Or is it someone else? With this search her past comes up again, and this leads to a very thrilling and unexpected unraveling in the end..

The Stolen Life of Colette Marceau is a very good new novel by Kristin Harmel. I have read most of her previous novels who, as also this one, are  also set in Paris during World War II. The story is again a beautiful, thrilling and sad one, and is has everything in it to be a great new novel. I absolutely loved both the storyline and the characters. As in her other books, the cruelty and horror of the war where again portrayed very realistic, and truly give you the cold chills at many points, and the jewel stealing moments of Colette kept you at the edge of your seat. And the final parts of the book truly where very emotional, as Colette finds out what happened to Liliane after so many year, and I truly didn't expect this ending, but it was just the perfectly right ending!

Overall, this is a perfect new novel by Kristin Harmel that I truly recommend reading!

When Sleeping Women Wake by Emma Pei Yin

 

Publisher: Ballantine Books

On Sale Date: June 17 2025

Pages: 336

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The Tang family is a wealthy family that exists of husband Wei, his first wife Minghzu and his second wife, and Wei and Minghzu's teenage daughter Qiang and their maid Biyu. The story is set in 1942, and recently the Tang family has fled Shanghai after the invasion of the Japanese Army, and settled in Hong Kong, where they assume they are safe from the Japanese as Hong Kong was protected by the British army. But they couldn't be more wrong. Japan also invades Hong Kong as most of South East Asia. And the Tang family is ripped apart, and Minghzu and Qiang lose each other. Minghzu is a translator, and this helps her to survive in the Japanese camps.Qiang and Biyu escape to Sai Kung and work long hours in a uniform factory and Qiang joins the East River Column Resistance, to hopefully stop the Japanese invasion and to fight against them, which is ofcourse, not without danger. For years Minghzu and Qiang have lost each other, to find each other back in the end of the book in a tragic way. But before that, they fight and do everything they can to survive, until the Japanese war is over.

The story of the Tang family is moving and thought out well by the author. But I do have to mention that a big part of the book, after the Japanese army invades Hong Kong, the story becomes somewhat of a technical war story, in which the Tang family story gets lost. The story switches in POV from Minghzu, Qiang, and some of the Japanese soldiers they have to deal with. The war parts took over most parts and that felt a bit dry and uninteresting for the reader at a big part of the book.  The final part of the book was more interesting, especially when Minghzu and Qiang find each other back, and when the war finally ends. This is a book that has some strong parts, and some lesser stronger parts. It was okay, nothing really groundbreaking,  it was a good in between read but nothing more than that.

The Satisfaction Café by Kathy Wang

Publisher: Scribner

On Sale Date: July 1 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Joan Liang is a woman from Taiwan who has moved to California. She marries a man named Bill, an older, wealthy American man who she gets to children with. During her marriage with Bill she truly questions if she fits in with his family, who truly are opiniated about Asian woman and in particularly her, as Joan was married before with an abusive man. She sometimes struggles also with motherhood, as Bill is almost always away for work, and she is mostly on her own in the grand expansive house.

Later on in the story, Bill sadly passes away due to illness, and even more later in the book Joan opens the Satisfaction Café. Altough this is also the title of the book, the café part only plays a very tiny part in the book.

Most of the story is about the Joans daily struggles in life, and later on, the struggles in life of her two children. Mostly this is the overal tone of the book, and more or less the whole storyline, and the opening and managing of her Satisfaction Café truly didn't add anything specific to the story or made a change in Joan's life. 

The end of the story takes a tragic turn though as Joan is getting dementia, that was more or less besides Bill passing away the only two mayor plot twists. So this is also why I have mixed feelings about this book. The storyline didn't have enough plot development or twist, turns or changes to stay interested as a reader in the character of Joan. I think a better title of this book would have been '''The life of Joan before and after the opening of the Satisfaction Café.

I truly expected more of this story, and this is not a book that I particularly recommend.