Detained by D.Esperanza and Gerardo Ivan Morales

 

Publisher: Atria/Primero Sueno Press

On Sale Date: May 13, 2025

Pages: 256

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Detained is the personal story of the author, D.Esperanza. D. was born in a little rural village in Honduras. His aunt and uncle take care of him, as his parents have crossed the border years ago and live in Nashville, USA.

But when he gets in an accident in the van with his uncle, his uncle dies all of a sudden, and later on also his beloved aunt. Now he has no one to take care of him and his cousin Miquelito anymore, and they have no other option to try to cross the border to the USA, at that moment, D. was only thirteen years old.

D. tells the story in diary entries adressed to his late aunt/Tia.

Together with two other cousins, hey depart on the dangerous journey from across Honduras, through Guatemala and Mexico, partly on the roof of a train to get as far as possible.  But when they reach the Mexican-American border, D and Miquelito and their cousins are caught and detained in a detention facility, where he is kept for five months in total, separated from Miquelito and his cousins, not knowing when he ever will get out or where he will stay the next night, as he is frequently moved from one detention center to the other, which repeats many times, and at one night he has to go through four different centers. He makes real friends though at the detention center he stays the longest time, and some of the volunteer mentors of the faciily truly give him hope, especially an advocate who fought on his behalf, and wh named Gerardo Iván Morales, who helped with the creation of this book. Will D. ever get out of the faciilty and be runited with his parents in Nashville?

Detained is a true-life story of the current immigration topic in the United States, and the current state of harsh detention facilities.  It is a raw and real story of Central-America,  border crossing, survival, hardship but also family and friendship. The story reminded me a bit of the books by author Alexandra Diaz, about Santiago who goes on a similar border crossing journey with his cousin Miquel from Guatemala to the USA. I found Detained a very moving , eye opening and most of all very raw and real memoir about a very current topic, about young refugees who truly don't have any other choice than to search for a better life. I truly enjoyed reading it and I recommend it.

Surving Paris : A Memoir of Healing in the City of Light by Robin Allison Davis

 

Publisher: HarperCollins

On Sale Date: September 16 2025

Pages: 304

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Emmy Award winning journalist and television producer, Robin Allison Davis moved to Paris after her ten year television career, to follow her dream of a more international career. She finds a job and an apartment. And a lump in one of her breasts. When she gets it checked, a true cancer diagnosis nightmare starts. Her cancer is treated, but apparently it wasn't really cured, and has to get treated a second time, just as the Covid-19 pandemic also breaks out, and beside battling her cancer, surgeries and  chemotherapy treatments, she also has to self-isolate to prevent getting even more ill. And then there are the side effects of the chemotherapy, losing on of her breast an the reconstruction that goes wrong, terrible itch attacks, and the toxic-positivity comments of people around her  ('if you stay positive, you can win it from cancer..') and the French bureaucratic health insurance system she has to deal with.

But luckily she also finds a new friends community in Paris, with true friends that are beside her during the therapy, especially when her family from the USA can't visit because of the lockdowns.

Surviving Paris is a moving and inspiring memoir. I found it a very open and honest memoir that I think is the best memoir that came out this year. Robin writes it in a beautiful and captivating way, as a reader it is difficult to put this book away. As someone with a chronic kidney illness, I also recognized the toxic positivity people drop on you; ''Stay positive, then you win over your illness''  for example, is something I hear also frequently and I loved it that Robin mentioned this topic in this book. Robin describes everything in great detail, life as an American  in Paris, the bureacratic French system, the side effects of her treatments, the search for new apartments when her Parisian landlords decide to sell her apartment, everything. I loved reading her memoir, and you can only wish as a a reader that Robin will stay cancer-free forever. This is truly one of the very best memoirs of 2025, and I recommend reading it!

Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen

 

Publisher: Knopf

On Sale Date: October 21. 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Loo-Shu-Hsin is born in 1925 in Shanghai in a wealthy family. In a time where women and girls where expected to be obedient and quiet, and when they don't, they are told they are bad bad girls. But Loo-Shu-Hsin is one of the girls that is lucky to get a good education, instead of becoming a mother and housewife. She is sent to a Catholic School for girls, where she is renamed in Agnes and also is baptized. Being a booklover, she is reading her Chinese-English dictionary every night with a flashlight, and studies so well that later departs for the United States to get her Ph.D. She leaves in 1947, just when the cultural revolution is about to start in China, her country she will never return to. Later on, when she lives in Manhattan, she starts dating Chao-Pei, who is also from Shanghai. Together, they set up their new life in the USA, while their families back in China update them on what is going on there during that time in history, and it is not good. They get a number one son, which was their wish as Chinese parents and a daughter, Gish. Agnes bitternes of her forced abandonment of her Ph.D program to become a mother resonates in bitterness and anger towards her children.

Gish always had troubled relationship with her mother, who was emotionally absent and verbally abusive to Gish, as she is always dissapointed in her, and disapproves of everything she does. When her mother passes away, Gen only has a few of her notebooks, the memories her mother told her about and a lot of traumatic guilt. 

It is difficult to tell where in this book the fiction stops and the memoir part starts. There are lot of blurred lines between them, and as a reader it is difficult to tell them apart, especially because the book is so fragmentaric and jumps from one point in history to the next point in the present time. it is not a book that stays long in your memory because of this. I like the writing style though, and the historic parts set in Shanghai of the mother, and I liked how the author wove her difficult relationship with her mother into a book that is part fiction, part memoir. Overal, I liked this book!

The French Honeymoon by Anne-Sophie Jouhanneau

 

Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark

On Sale Date: April 15 2025

Pages: 288

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Taylor Quinn is an American woman who at the start of the book, arrives at her hotel in Paris, alone at the honeymoon suite, without a suitcase. The only thing she has with her are the clothes she has on and stolen cash.

It appears for the reader that Taylor has arrived in Paris alone to spy on and stalk the newly wed couple Cassie and Olivier. What their relation to Taylor is stays unclear untill the middle of the story.

American Cassie and  French Olivier recently ''married' so Olivier could stay in the USA, they don't have a real relationship it seems, it is more a marriage to solve a legal problem. Taylor follows Cassie’s picture perfect Instagram posts, but when she hears an argument between the couple she realises things aren’t what they seem. All three of the characters have their own  agendas, and there are twists to be revealed, that will change all of their lives. And it seem like Taylor is not who she says she is and that her name is not really Taylor too..

The characters and the storyline of The French Honeymoon are anything but likeable. I expected a plot twisting thriller set in Paris, but there wasn't that much thrilling I found in this story. It was quite boring and the storyline fell flat on many points. What I also though was that the relationship between Taylor, Cassie and Olvier was quite weird, especially when we find out who Taylor really is, that really was not a good plot twist and also nothing that kept it interesting.

This was just a book I expexted more from, but it just didn't live up my expectations.

Strangers, a Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

 

Publisher:  The Dial Press

On Sale Date: January 13, 2026

Pages: 256

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

In this moving and gripping memoir, author Belle Burden writes about how her happy marriage with her husband James fell apart all of a sudden, and the impact this had on her life.

Everything in Belle and James' life was perfect. They where 20 years together, they lived in New York City and also had a beachside home in Martha's Vineyard, where they spent the pandemic days, and they both had a very succesfull career at a law firm.

But then a phone call to her from a man unknown to her changed her life forever; the man announces to her that her husband James has an affair with his wife, a woman twenty years younger. After she confronts James with this, he admits and leaves her and the children for good. An icecold and very stressfull divorce process follows. Belle keeps wondering why James changed all of a sudden, he was always a loving and caring husband, it seems like he became a different person overnight that does not even want custody of their three children. She tries to navigate her new life and has to come to terms with the divorce, picking up the mental shards that James put her into, but society also gives her bad looks for, especially after she starts to write about it and gives an interview about it. She wonders if she did miss something along the road of her marriage, or did she do something wrong? James just walked away out of their marriage heartless, telling her that he was done. And a lot of questions remain unanswered for Belle.

Strangers is a very personal memoir about a topic many divorced women can relate too. It happens often that a man walks out of a marriage without a clear reason. The beautiful writing of the author puts the reader in her shoes after the cold divorce and the years after that. She also describes the gender mysogyny she experiences, mostly by men, who see James as the good one and her as the bad one, would the same happen if she had walked out? In this book you feel Belle's pain, worries, and confusion about what happened. This is a very honest personal and sometimes raw memoir, about a topic so many women have experienced. I truly liked how it was written and the pace of the writing, and how Belle tells her story. One of the memoirs to look out for in 2026!

The Fallen Women's Daughter by Michelle Cox

Publisher:  Woolton Press

On Sale Date: February 18 2024

Pages: 417

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Chicago, 1932; All of a sudden, Nora and her younger sister Patsy are brought by a woman unknown to them, to the Park Ridge School for Girls, a strict and horrible orphanage. Nora has no clue why they are brought there, has she and her sister been that bad that her mom wanted to get rid of them? The school's matron, Mrs Morris is strict and mean and locks up the free spirited Patsy often in the dark celler for days and makes hints at them that their mother was a fallen woman and a prostitute. There are visiting hours every other week, but their mother never shows up, not even after all of Nora's letter pleading for her to visit or to take them home again. Nora fears that she will never see her again.

Years earlier, their mother Gertie, who was from a poor rural coal miners town in Iowa. She runs away with Lorenzo, who works at the traveling carnaval that visit town, and seduces her in a bad way, and Gertie falls for it. An abusive marriage with the violent and alcoholic Lorenzo follows, until Lorenzo dies and Gertie lands in another abusive relationship. Gertie has always been told that her two daughters where send to a posh boarding school where they would get a good education and also extra activities like art classes and ballet. Which is not true. Gertie can not read and therefore never knew where Nora and Patsy where sent to, and never could read Nora's letters. She goes on a search though to find them years later and when she finds them Nora and Patsy finally hear why they where send away and find out the false stories they both where told. And now they have to find a way to make peace with each other, but that is not so easy as it seems, and we follow the three women for the next years of their life with ups and downs..

The Fallen Women's Daughter is a gripping, tragic and moving novel. The characters and the storyline are fantastic. Somehow it reminded me a bit of the movie Annie because of the strict orphanage-like school Nora and Patsy where sent to, witch a cruel headmisstress who punishes the girls for the smallest things.  The character of Nora was fabulous, she truly is desperate for her mom to get them back to home, but Gertie, I don't know what to think of her. She was not a responsible woman, and why did she not want to get her daughters back earlier in her life? It was like she did not miss them at all, which was strange. Later in life Nora and Patsy find it difficult to trust her again, which is logical, and their life after they leave the school and with their mother again is anything but easy.

But the novel itself is moving and entertaining, and full unexpected plot twists and turns. I really liked reading it and I recommend reading it!

The Other Woman by Tania Tay

 

Publisher: Headline Accent 

On Sale Date: October 29th 2024

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Jade has always has lead a happy, normal life with her husband Sam and their two young children somewhere around London, altough Sam has a very busy corporate job and is almost never home.

Everything changes when Jade gets in touch with her old roommate from her time in university, Christina. Both are from Chinese and Chinese-Malaysian backgrounds and understand each other since university, but they have lost touch when Christina left university and their room all of a sudden. Christina has no where to live because of issues with her husband, and because Jade wants to work again, she offers Christina to stay at her house for the time being so she can also be a a babysitter when Jade is starting up her career again. In the same week, Jade discovers a suspicious text on his phone, which suggets he is seeing another women behind her back, and she is starting to question her relationship with Sam. Is he really at work during the evening as he says he is? During Christina's stay at her house, more mysterious things start to happen, is Christina really who she says she is? The situation at Jade's house truly falls apart, especially when Christina feeds Jade's son food he is allergic too, and Jade gets mysterious sleepy episodes for no reason, and after she discovers Christina in a compromising position with Sam, things start to get really scary and dangerous, especially when Christina picks up the children from school without Jade's knowledge, and dissappears with them without a trace..

The Other Woman is a thrilling pageturner full of suspence and plot twists, something I truly liked about this book. Further on, I thought the storyline was absouletely brilliant and very entertaining. The characters of Jade, Christina, Sam and the children where also very realistic and believable.You can just imagine them as your next door neighbours. There was also this side character of Mazza who blackmails Sam with text messages after an incident with him that happened at the office earlier. Jade suspects that she is the other woman Sam is seeing, but apparently there is something else going on. There is also this unraveling of Sam's history with Christina in their university days. Jade and Christina point of view alternates in almost every chapter, which Christina's pov is mostly a view into their past uni days together. The ending of the book was truly thrilling and full of danger, it was sad though what happened to Jade's children, one of them tells it from their pov in the last chapter, there where some loose ends too in the end, but overall I liked the ending.

Overall, this is a mystery novel that really was entertaining and full of thrilling plot twists, I really enjoyed reading it, and I certainly recommend reading it!

The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray

 

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: June 27th 2023

Pages: 389

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

The First Ladies by Marie Benedict and Victoria Christopher Murray is an historical fiction novel about the extraordinary friendship between first lady Eleanor Roosevelth and Civil Rights Activist Mary McLeod Bethune and about the important service of both women.

Eleanor was fascinated by the hard and important work of Mary, who was an educated and started schools in the time of horrible racial segregation. She did not stop when white supremist threaten her and want her to stop her work. She was not afraid to speak up and never gave up. SHe becomes close friends with Eleanor. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt becomes president, the two women start working more closely together, and Eleanor start her own agenda seperate from her husband, who had a secret love affair, and they live more seperate lives from then on. Eleanor becomes a strong and opiniated first lady who fights for civil and women's rights particularly. Together with Mary, they battle segregation, the lynching of black Americans and Mary becomes an advisor for president Roosevelt.

The First Ladies is a beatiful novel about two important historical women. Ofcourse I heard about Eleanor Roosevelt, but never about Mary Bethune before. This is a book about a specific time in American history, that even now is actual sadly. Both Eleanor and Mary where of great service of the United States and they broke barriers and opened doors that where closed before. The book may not have a very exciting plot or many twists and turns, this book must have it from it is important historical main characters and to learn about it as a reader, altough it was fiction based on true people and events.

I absolutely enjoyed this book and recommend reading it!

Voices From The Kitchen Personal Narratives from New York's Immigrant Restaurant Workers, edited by Marc Meyer

 

Publisher: Beacon Press

Expected On Sale Date: November 18 2025

Pages: 240

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Voices From The Kitchen is a moving book with personal stories from several immigrant workers in New York City's restaurants.

The people who tell their story in this book come from everywhere, but mostly from Central and South America; Mexico, Honduras, Venezuela, Bangladesh and the Dominican Republic to name a few. They all tell their own personal story that starts back in their homeland, and how they came to the USA and how they started working in the restaurants. Some started at the bottom of the ladder bussing tables or working at the dishwasher, and many of the narrators later owned their own restaurant or became a chef. Some worked 2 jobs  and more than 40 hours per week to provide for their families. 

This is a book that is more actual than ever, New York City's restaurant simply can't function without the hard work and dedication of immigrant workers. The stories in this book makes that you get deep respect for their work, which is nothing more than the American Dream. I truly enjoyed this gem of a book!

It's Different This Time by Joss Richard

 

Publisher: Dell, Penguin Random House

On Sale Date: September 30 2025

Pages: 432

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

June Wood is an LA based actress who just had the notice from her agent Theo that the hit TV show she stars in has been cancelled. At the same time, she gets a message from a legal sollicitor to call her back about the apartment she lived in at 74 Perry Street in NYC, before she moved to Los Angeles. When she meets with the solicitor, it seems like the owner and landlord of the brownstone at 74 Perry Street has passed away, and has left the brownstone to the two people who lived there the last, which is June and Adam Harper. Adam Harper who she shared the house with and who was her last lover, but which she has not seen for years. And now because of a legal loophole, she has to live together with Adam in the brownstone for a month, and if they can, it is theirs. Years ago, June and Adam didn't go their their seperate ways at good terms. There is still a lot of unsolved pain between them. How are they going to be able to live together for a month? While in New York, June tries to get her acting career back on track, which succeeds with her dream role of Eponine in Les Miserables on Broadway, while figuring out where she and Adam stands, are they now strangers for each other, or has their previous relationship a second chance now they share the same roof again?

It's Different This Time is a fast paced novel set in a beautiful New York City brownstone. I found both the storyline and the main and side characters very entertaining. If you love movies like You've Got Mail this is a book that you will certainly like. The characters of June and Adam where fun and also realistic. Their storyline switch between the past and present in the chapters. I also loved that June was an actress and that there where a lot of  realistic references to Broadway musicals, and that June eventually got the role of Eponine in Les Miserables, and in the past also played Mimi in Rent. The relationship between June and Adam that ended when they both left the brownstone years ago gets a second startover when they move in again and that was very cute. Overall, I enjoyed reading this fun novel!

Book spotlight; The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler

 

The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler is a book that is an essential read for everyone who loves New York City. The book is set mostly in the 1980s, a turbulent time in New York history.

New York City entered 1986 as a city reborn, with record profits on Wall Street sending waves of money splashing across Manhattan and bringing a once-bankrupt, reeling city back to life.

But it also entered 1986 as a city divided. Nearly one-third of the city’s Black and Hispanic residents were living below the federal poverty line. Thousands of New Yorkers were sleeping in the streets—and in many cases addicted to drugs, dying of AIDS, or suffering from mental illness. The manufacturing jobs that had once sustained a thriving middle class had vanished. Long-simmering racial tensions threatened to boil over.

Over the next four years, a singular confluence of events—involving a cast of outsized, unforgettable characters—would widen those divisions into chasms. Ed Koch.. Al Sharpton. The Central Park Five. Spike Lee. Rudy Giuliani. Howard Beach. Tawana Brawley. The Preppy Murder. Jimmy Breslin. Do the Right Thing, Wall Street, crack, the AIDS epidemic, and, of course, ready to pour gasoline on every fire—the tabloids. In The Gods of New York, Jonathan Mahler tells the story of these convulsive, defining years. 

The Gods of New York is an exuberant, kaleidoscopic, and deeply immersive portrait of a city in transformation, one whose long-held identity was suddenly up for could it be both the great working-class city, lifting up immigrants from around the world and the money-soaked capital of global finance? Could it retain a civic culture—a common idea of what it meant to be a New Yorker—when the rich were building a city of their own and vast swaths of its citizens were losing faith in the very systems intended to protect them? New York City was one thing at the dawn of 1986; it would be something very different as 1989 came to a close. This book is the story of how that happened.

The Gods of New York by Jonathan Mahler came out this August by Penguin Random House and is a book not to miss!

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor

Publisher: Berkley

On Sale Date: June 17, 2025

Pages: 352

I reviewed a digital review copy from the publisher

Before Dorothy by Hazel Gaynor is a novel from Auntie Em's point of view, before Dorothy's whole Wizard of Oz story. 1932; Emily Gale is Dorothy's aunt, the sister of her mother Annie, who recently died in an accident together with her husband John. Emily has traveled from Kansas to Chicago to take Dorothy home with her to her farm home on the prairie of Kansas, where she lives with her husband Henry, as they now have become Dorothy's legal guardians. Back in the past, Emily moved to Kansas with Henry in 1924, when she left Annie in Chicago. They where once closed but the past years they wher not anymore, all because of a secret about Dorothy only they know.

Life on the Kansas prairie started good for Emily and Henry, soon they learn how to maintain the farm and they also get a place in the local community. But droughts and dust storms and tornado's make life difficult on the prairie, especially when they lose their home in a tornado just shortly before Dorothy starts to live with them. Dorothy has also a difficult time adjusting to her new life. She is a child with a vivid imagination and dreams full of fantasy worlds. When a female pilot lands on their land, their life take another turn as this pilot is working with a man who promised to have the magic trick to make the drought on the prairie go away and make it rain again. This man is someone Emily knew in the past, and she knows his secret that is connected to Dorothy, and Emily fears she will lose her forever..

Before Dorothy is an excellent new book by Hazel Gaynor. I have read several previous books by her and everytime they amaze me. Even if you are not very familiar with Dorothy's story in The Wizard of Oz, this book can be read as a standalone novel, there are small references to it though in the book, like the little toy tin man that Emily's father made for her back in Ireland or the silver dancing shoes of Annie that Dorothy inherits. Just as in her previous books, Hazel Gaynor potrays the background of the Kansas prairie so well that you can almost feel it, this was very well done, even as the historical timeframe it was set in that also felt very real, just like the realistic characters. I also loved how the story changes in chapter from 1924 to 1932. Everything in this book was worked out just fantastic and everything felt in the right place in this magnificent story. I truly recommend this new novel by Hazel Gaynor!

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!