Showing posts with label Lisa Jewell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lisa Jewell. Show all posts

Friday, June 29, 2018

The Tip of My Wish List: It's Pre-Order Madness!

If you're anything like me you've got a book wish list so long there is no way you will ever be able to read through it all. And, on top of that, it's never ending because you just can't stop adding more books to it! To try and organize myself I'm sharing 5 books from my wish list that I'm most excited to get to, usually with a common theme, on the last Friday of each month. I know a number of excellent bloggers who will be doing similar posts and I'll be sure to link to their posts as well so you can see all the goodies we're excited about and, hopefully, add a few new books to your own wish list. I'll also link the titles to Goodreads where you can read reviews and find the various ways to purchase a copy of the books if they sound like your style. I really hope you enjoy and let me know if you've read any of these or have others you would add to the list.
 
I very rarely pre-order books as I never seem to find the time to read the books right when they come out. However I recently noticed that I had in fact pre-ordered a number of books from some of my favorite authors, and thus a wish list post was born! I am so excited for these books to come in and am counting down the days for all of them!
 
 
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Why did you do that to me Mummy, don’t you love me?


Kath lives with her husband Adam and daughter Lyla in a desolate stone longhouse deep in Dartmoor National Park. She likes her life the moors are beautiful, if bleak and she counts herself as happy, even if they struggle with money, and work, and her daughter's shyness.

But one day Kath wakes up from a coma, with a vague memory of a near-fatal car accident. She hugs her daughter close, likewise her husband Adam. But there’s something wrong. Adam seems furious with her and Lyla is acting evermore strangely. They should be delighted to see her alive, snatched from certain death. But they won't meet her gaze

Then Kath learns that the car crash wasn't an accident, and her whole life collapses into a world of panic, and danger.



Watching You


Gripping psychological suspense from the number one bestselling author of Then She Was Gone, as what begins as an innocent crush develops into a dangerous infatuation.


You’re back home after four years working abroad with a brand new husband in tow.

You’re keen to find a place of your own. But for now you’re living with your big brother, camped out in his spare bedroom.

And then – quite unexpectedly – you meet the man next door.

He’s the head teacher of the local high school. He’s twice your age. And he’s devastatingly attractive.
Soon you find you’re watching him. All the time.

But what you don’t know is that someone is watching you.

Or that what has started as an innocent crush is quickly turning into an obsession as dark as it is deadly.


Family secrets, illicit passion and an unexplained murder lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell’s gripping new novel. 




The Clockmaker's Daughter


A rich, spellbinding new novel from the author of The Lake House—the story of a love affair and a mysterious murder that cast their shadow across generations, set in England from the 1860's until the present day.


My real name, no one remembers.
The truth about that summer, no one else knows.


In the summer of 1862, a group of young artists led by the passionate and talented Edward Radcliffe descends upon Birchwood Manor in rural Oxfordshire. Their plan: to spend a secluded summer month in a haze of inspiration and creativity. But by the time their stay is over, one woman has been shot dead while another has disappeared; a priceless heirloom is missing; and Edward Radcliffe’s life is in ruins.

Over one hundred and fifty years later, Elodie Winslow, a young archivist in London, uncovers a leather satchel containing two seemingly unrelated items: a sepia photograph of an arresting-looking woman in Victorian clothing, and an artist’s sketchbook containing the drawing of a twin-gabled house on the bend of a river.

Why does Birchwood Manor feel so familiar to Elodie? And who is the beautiful woman in the photograph? Will she ever give up her secrets?


Told by multiple voices across time, The Clockmaker’s Daughter is a story of murder, mystery, and thievery, of art, love and loss. And flowing through its pages like a river, is the voice of a woman who stands outside time, whose name has been forgotten by history, but who has watched it all unfold: Birdie Bell, the clockmaker’s daughter.



Daughters of the Lake


The ghosts of the past come calling in a spellbinding heart-stopper from the “Queen of the Northern Gothic.”


After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together—only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…

One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.

As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.


A Spark of Light


The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center—a women’s reproductive health services clinic—its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage.

After rushing to the scene, Hugh McElroy, a police hostage negotiator, sets up a perimeter and begins making a plan to communicate with the gunman. As his phone vibrates with incoming text messages he glances at it and, to his horror, finds out that his fifteen-year-old daughter, Wren, is inside the clinic.

But Wren is not alone. She will share the next and tensest few hours of her young life with a cast of unforgettable characters: A nurse who calms her own panic in order save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester disguised as a patient, who now stands in the cross hairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.

Told in a daring and enthralling narrative structure that counts backward through the hours of the standoff, this is a story that traces its way back to what brought each of these very different individuals to the same place on this fateful day.


Jodi Picoult—one of the most fearless writers of our time—tackles a complicated issue in this gripping and nuanced novel. How do we balance the rights of pregnant women with the rights of the unborn they carry? What does it mean to be a good parent? A Spark of Light will inspire debate, conversation . . . and, hopefully, understanding.


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Check out these lovely blogs for more books to add to your wish list(updated as they become available):


Holly at 2 Kids and Tired
Stephanie at Layered Pages
Heather at The Maiden's Court
Erin at Flashlight Commentary
Magdalena at A Bookish Swede
 


Tuesday, June 12, 2018

Review: Then She Was Gone by Lisa Jewell

Pub. Date: December 14th, 2017
Publisher: Arrow 
Pages: 448

Genre: Fiction / Mystery / Thriller / Suspense


Synopsis



THEN

She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW

It’s been ten years since Ellie disappeared, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her daughter. And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet. Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter. Poppy is precocious and pretty - and meeting her completely takes Laurel's breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age.
And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?
Who still has secrets to hide?


What Did I Think About the Story? 



It's now been weeks since I finished Then She Was Gone and I'm still thinking about this touching and heartbreaking mystery. It is actually somewhat hard to describe as it's this strange amalgamation of family drama, psychological suspense and thrilling mystery, a story that combines a woman's unending search for the truth of what happened to her daughter and that same woman's heartfelt mission to put her family back together again and move on from her grief.

My absolute favorite part of this story was the dynamic and very real-feeling characters. Lisa Jewell has a remarkable way of writing both the narrative and the dialogue so it feels like the reader is seeing these fully formed, real people living their lives and having conversations. They react like you would anticipate reacting - which is both good at times and bad at times - and have relatable feelings and flaws that drew me into their world as if they were people I really knew. This is great in that it glued me to the story but heartbreaking as well when I discovered some very hard to read truths about what had actually happened to some of these characters. I was upset and angry and sickened, but then calmed and left with a bittersweet appreciation for how other characters reacted to the same discoveries and how they chose to move forward from there. I'm being particularly vague as you need to read the book to experience it yourself, but I will warn you that it is quite the emotional rollercoaster and there are parts of it that might be hard for some readers to read. So "trigger warnings" for those that need it.

The other aspect of the story that I really enjoyed was how uniquely it was presented. The story is broken up into different parts, with various characters adding to the narrative and even presenting their parts to different characters. We've got Laurel in the present, bringing the reader along as she tackles a myriad of issues: trying to keep the memory of her missing daughter, Ellie, alive, while also trying to discover what happened to her; trying to piece back together her fractured relationships with her other daughter and son, her ex-husband, and her dying mother; trying to build back up that piece of herself that seemed to die when her daughter disappeared, that part of herself that allowed her to have love and give love, not only to those already in her life but to a new man. We also get to hear from Ellie, telling the reader what happens and leading them all the way through to a shocking revelation. We hear from Noelle Donnelly, a woman who once tutored Ellie and who also had a relationship with Laurel's new man, Floyd (these parts are particularly interesting as she is presenting her narrative directly to Floyd), and we even get to hear from Floyd's point of view a few times. It all comes together to show the many sides of these complicated characters as well as this complicated mystery, leaving the reader with a fully formed view of this touching and poignant story.

I absolutely loved Then She Was Gone for all of its contradictions and complications. It's both down-to-earth and incredibly complicated; it's heart-warming and heartbreaking; it's a twisty and terrifying mystery but also a family-centered story of loss and rediscovery. It's got so much to appreciate about it and I know that I've not done it justice here explaining why. It just really touched me more than I expected it to and I hope more people read and experience it. If you enjoy a multifaceted story and are not too turned off or aggrieved by severe mental illness that results in bouts of abuse then I highly recommend Then She Was Gone. I now plan on working my way through all of Lisa Jewell's novels (I've already read and really enjoyed both I Found You and The House We Grew Up In but I want to devour them all!).     


What Did I Think About the Cover?



This cover is pretty perfect given the story it represents. The fact that the cover is dark and blue makes you think of sadness and nefarious things happening, as does the shadow of a girl we can't fully see. I love it for this story!


My Rating: 5.0/5.0


I bought a copy of Then She Was Gone for my own library. All opinions are mine alone. To find more information about the book, including other reviews and links to where you can purchase your own copy, see Goodreads HERE.
 
 


Tuesday, May 16, 2017

TLC Book Tours: I Found You by Lisa Jewell + Tour-Wide Giveaway!!

Publisher: Atria Books
Pub. Date: April 25th, 2017
Pages: 352


Synopsis



A young bride, a lonely single mother, and an amnesiac man of dubious origin lie at the heart of New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell’s next suspenseful drama that will appeal to fans of Liane Moriarty and Paula Hawkins.


In a windswept British seaside town, single mom Alice Lake finds a man sitting on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, and no idea how he got there. Against her better judgment, she invites him inside.

Meanwhile, in a suburb of London, twenty-one-year-old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Then the police tell her that her husband never existed.

Twenty-three years earlier, Gray and Kirsty are teenagers on a summer holiday with their parents. Their annual trip to the quaint seaside town is passing by uneventfully, until an enigmatic young man starts paying extra attention to Kirsty. Something about him makes Gray uncomfortable—and it’s not just that he’s playing the role of protective older brother.


Two decades of secrets, a missing husband, and a man with no memory are at the heart of this brilliant new novel, filled with the “beautiful writing, believable characters, pacey narrative, and dark secrets” (Daily Mail, London) that make Lisa Jewell so beloved by audiences on both sides of the Atlantic.


What Did I Think About the Story?



I fell in love with Lisa Jewell's writing after listening to the audiobook version of her novel The House We Grew Up In. In fact it made my top ten list of 2015. Since then I've been picking up her books whenever I find them and jumped at the chance to read and review this newest novel when the tour was announced. While I can't say that I loved it quite as much as The House We Grew Up In I can say that I Found You was still very good and had the added bonus of a mystery at the heart of its complicated cast of characters.

The big mystery at the heart of the story is who the "mystery man" Alice finds at the beach is and how he is connected to the other storylines that are interspersed with his. Told in alternating chapters we get to hear from Alice, "Frank" (the name Alice gives to the mystery man), Lily (the young wife who's husband has disappeared), and Gray (a teenager on a beach holiday with his family in 1993). I will admit that I had my guess down to two people and I'm pretty sure most people will do the same since there is a small enough group of characters to figure that out. Still, it was interesting to see the whole thing unfold and to discover just how the various pieces would finally fall into place. Not exactly a suspenseful thriller but definitely entertaining and twisty enough to keep me guessing.

My favorite aspect of the story has to be the characters. This only being the second book by Lisa Jewell I've had the pleasure of reading I'm not sure if her unique style of developing quirky and conflicted yet delightful characters is a staple of her writing or just a happy coincidence of the two books I've read, but I absolutely fall head over heals for her characters. In I Found You I particularly adored Alice and her ramshackle assortment of children and dogs. She was so free-spirited, kind, and loving - sometimes it seems to her own detriment - and even with all the mistakes she made during and before this particular story takes place it was hard not to sympathize with her and hope that all the frayed pieces of her life would come together in some semblance of steady happiness. In fact all of the characters, with the exception of the "enigmatic young man" mentioned in the synopsis that Gray and Kirsty meet in 1993 (he's horrid), are complex and troubled yet understandable and relatable. I just loved seeing them all develop as the story progressed, which made the mystery of what was really going on between the characters and their varied connections to each other that much more exciting to follow.

The other aspect of the story I found interesting was the idea of how trauma manifests itself differently in people. There's memory loss, violence and hatred, depression, running away from problems in an attempt to escape them and not deal with the issue, a refusal to look at an issue and just ignore it because it's too painful...the responses run the gamut and could represent the responses any one of us might give given the same situations. There are a lot of emotions in this story and you'll be laughing along with their antics one minute and horrified by actions the next!

I Found You was an emotional and intriguing mystery that I would definitely recommend to those that enjoy the genre. While I wouldn't compare it to Paula Hawkins type story I will say that I enjoyed trying to figure out how everything would resolve itself and actually came to really like some of the characters. This story cemented my enjoyment of Lisa Jewell's writing and she's definitely been put on my list of authors to watch.  


What Did I Think About the Cover?



 
I really like it! The dark, cloudy sky not only represents the atmosphere of the seaside town most of the story takes place in but does a good job of representing the overall feel of what the characters go through. The beach and sand and blowing grass are exactly how I would picture the location and I love when a design team does that!


My Rating: 4.0/5.0 


 
Thank you to TLC Book Tours for providing me with a free copy of I Found You in exchange for an honest review. All opinions expressed are my own. Be sure to continue below for more information about the the book, the tour, and how you can enter to win a copy of your own!


Praise for I Found You



“The structure keeps the suspense level high, and Jewell manages surprising revelations all the way up to the ending. The mix of women’s fiction and suspense—plus a no-nonsense 40-something heroine at the heart of the story—makes this a good fit for fans of Liane Moriarty.” - Booklist

“Riveting…numerous twists avoid predictability, and the novel is well-paced as it weaves three narratives together. Dark and moody, this is a mystery with substance.” - Kirkus Reviews


Buy the Book




About the Author



Lisa Jewell was born and raised in north London, where she lives with her husband and two
daughters. She is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA TODAY bestselling author of twelve novels, including The House We Grew Up In and The Third Wife.

Find out more about Lisa on her website, and connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.



It's Giveaway Time!!!



To enter to win 1 of 3 finished copies of I Found You just head on over and enter on the Rafflecopter giveaway form found HERE.

Good Luck!!!


TLC Book Tour Schedule



Monday, April 24th: 5 Minutes for Books

Monday, April 24th: Reading is My Superpower – spotlight

Tuesday, April 25th: A Splendid Messy Life

Wednesday, April 26th: West Metro Mommy Reads

Thursday, April 27th: Kritter’s Ramblings

Monday, May 1st: Caryn, The Book Whisperer

Wednesday, May 3rd: Books a la Mode – author Q&A

Thursday, May 4th: A Chick Who Reads

Friday, May 5th: Chick Lit Central

Monday, May 8th: All Roads Lead to the Kitchen

Wednesday, May 10th: Books ‘n Tea

Thursday, May 11th: Kahakai Kitchen

Friday, May 12th: No More Grumpy Bookseller

Monday, May 15th: Write Read Life

Tuesday, May 16th: A Literary Vacation

Wednesday, May 17th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Thursday, May 18th: Thoughts on This ‘n That



Monday, July 13, 2015

Review: The House We Grew Up In by Lisa Jewell

Original Publication Date: July 18th, 2013

Kindle Reprint Publication Date: August 12th, 2014

Publisher: Atria Books

Page Length: 416

Audible Audio Edition Length: 13 hours, 25  minutes


Synopsis



Meet the Bird family. They live in a honey-colored house in a picture-perfect Cotswolds village, with rambling, unkempt gardens stretching beyond. Pragmatic Meg, dreamy Beth, and tow-headed twins Rory and Rhys all attend the village school and eat home-cooked meals together every night. Their father is a sweet gangly man named Colin, who still looks like a teenager with floppy hair and owlish, round-framed glasses. Their mother is a beautiful hippy named Lorelei, who exists entirely in the moment. And she makes every moment sparkle in her children's lives.

Then one Easter weekend, tragedy comes to call. The event is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. Years pass as the children become adults, find new relationships, and develop their own separate lives. Soon it seems as though they've never been a family at all. But then something happens that calls them back to the house they grew up in -- and to what really happened that Easter weekend so many years ago.

Told in gorgeous, insightful prose that delves deeply into the hearts and minds of its characters, The House We Grew Up In is the captivating story of one family's desire to restore long-forgotten peace and to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.



What Did I Think About the Story?



 Oh how I loved this story! I purchased the book as a Kindle/Audible Audio version but to be completely honest I didn't read a page. The narrator (Karina Fernandez) was so spectacular that I wanted nothing more than to listen to her weave the story with each character's individual personality and voice and had trouble pulling myself away when I had to get anything else done. That isn't to say the story itself isn't as wonderful as the narration. This was a perfect combination of an excellent story and the right narrator able to pull off the complicated emotions and circumstances it presented.

The story weaves back and forth in time, from Meg, the oldest Bird child, her daughter and, eventually, her father, sister and brother Rory, cleaning out their mother Lorelei's home back to various Easter weekends over the course of their lives. When we first meet Meg in 2011 we discover that Lorelei was a hoarder (think of the worst possible episode of Hoarders and you'll have a good idea of how badly she lived). As we go back in time we see her sickness evolve from a sort of whimsical, free spirited quirkiness into a brutal, sometimes aggressive need to keep everything until there is literally walls of junk and only one chair she can sit in. She pushes everyone away and refuses to bend or compromise with anyone. This sickness, along with the tragic incident that happened one Easter, pushes each member of the Bird family in opposite directions and effects how each of them develops as a person. We get to see each character battle with their guilt and lack of control and the author really does an astonishing job of presenting the heartache and damage done to them (and that they do to each other) by the circumstances of their lives. We get to see first hand the vicious cycle of mental and, in some cases, physical damage that can cause generations to pass on this sort of problem even as they swear they will be different.

The story also incorporates the email correspondence between Lorelei and an online romantic interest and it is within this correspondence that we get to peek inside Lorelei's scarred heart and mind and see how her life imploded from her own point of view. We learn what really happened that one horrible Easter and her attempts to try and fight her mental illness as much as she can. These parts really broke my heart! The narrator does such a great job of inflecting a false happiness into Lorelei's words as the listener can hear the pain and sadness crack through. Even though Lorelei had hurt those she said she loved  most, quite badly at times, I couldn't help wanting to give this fictional character a hug and try to help her. Even being done with the story I still can't get her out of my head!

While I know this sounds just horribly sad it isn't all bad. We do get a sense that things could be different in the future for some of the Birds, if they are willing to get help and help each other heal and move on. Regardless of where these characters might have gone after the story technically ended, the time spent with each of them was quite the journey. I'm always amazed when an author can make me truly feel for their fictional characters and Lisa Jewell definitely did that. I am so excited to see what else she has to offer!


What Did I Think About the Cover?


It's perfect! You have the fragile yet beautiful egg with cracks showing in it's shell, not unlike the Bird family. Easter eggs also have a recurring place in the story and sort of represent the innocence of their lives before the kids began to grow up and realize how imperfect their family was. The colors are very soft and soothing as well.


My Rating: 5.0/5.0


 
Has anyone else read The House We Grew Up In? If so, what did you think of Lorelei and her family? Have you read any other books by Lisa Jewell? Any that dealt with this sort of outwardly hidden family unrest?