Blogging 4 Books

Lullaby Road by James Anderson

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Lullaby Road by James Anderson was a very interesting book.  I loved that this book takes place in the same state that I live in because it seems like books never take place here.  There is one book before this one and I am for sure going to go back and read that now.  You don’t have to read the first one in order to understand what is going on in this one so if the first book doesn’t interest you then you don’t have to worry about reading it.  This book wasn’t one that kept me on the edge of my seat, but it did hold my attention and made me want to keep reading until I finished the book.  I enjoyed this authors writing and he did a great job of making me feel and understand why the characters did what they did.  I can’t think of anything bad to say about this book because I just really enjoyed the entire thing.

About The Book

Ben Jones, protagonist of the glowingly reviewed Never-Open Desert Diner, returns in a devastatingly powerful literary crime novel about parenthood, loss, and the desert in winter.

Winter has come to Highway 117, a remote road through the Utah desert trafficked only by oddballs, fugitives, and those looking to escape the world. So when local truck driver Ben Jones finds an abandoned, mute Hispanic child at a lonely gas station along his route, far from any semblance of proper civilization, he knows something has gone terribly awry. With the help of his eccentric neighbors, Ben sets out to help the kid and learn the truth. In the process he makes new friends and loses old ones, finds himself in mortal danger, and uncovers buried secrets far more painful than he could have imagined.

About The Author

James Anderson was born in Seattle, Washington and raised in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest. He received his undergraduate degree in American Studies from Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and his Masters Degree in Creative Writing from Pine Manor College in Boston Massachusetts.

Undergraduate thesis: Word-man/Poet: The Poetry and Poetics of Lew Welch
Masters thesis: The Never-Entered Kingdom: Beyond Linguistics in the Rendering of the Literary Child in Adult Fiction

His first publication in a national magazine, a poem entitled Running It Down, occurred at age nineteen, in Poetry Northwest. The poem was later anthologized. His poems, short fiction, essays, reviews and interviews have appeared in Northwest Review, New Letters, The Bloomsbury Review, Solstice Magazine and many others.

In 1974, while still an undergraduate, Anderson founded Breitenbush Books, a book publisher specializing in literature and general interest trade titles. From 1974 to 1991 Anderson served as publisher and executive editor. Breitenbush received many awards for its books, including three Western States Book Awards, juried by Robert Penn Warren, Elizabeth Hardwick, N. Scott Momaday, Jonathan Galassi, Jorie Graham, Denise Levertov, William Kittredge and others. Notable authors published include Mary Barnard, Bruce Berger, Clyde Rice, Naomi Shihab Nye, Michael Simms, William Greenway, John Stoltenberg, Sam Hamill and Gary Miranda.

From 1995 to 2002 Anderson co-produced documentary films, including Tara’s Daughters, narrated by Susan Sarandon. The film, which won Best Documentary at the New York Film Festival, chronicled the plight of Tibetan women refugees as carriers of Tibetan culture in the diaspora.

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The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

The Roanoke Girls by Amy Engel was a good book.  I really enjoyed the authors writing and the characters in this book, but there was one thing that really bugged me about this book.  Throughout the book, it went back and forth between now and the past.  So one chapter would be talking about the history, and the next chapter would be taking place at the present time.  This bugged me because I wished that the book would have gone in order, so it wasn’t jumping back and forth between current time and the past.  I wished that I would know everything in order so that I wasn’t left wondering what the entire backstory was.  I understand why the author wrote it like she did but it wasn’t something that I enjoyed reading.  Like I said before I really enjoyed the authors writing and the characters in this book.  I do think I will check out other books by this author in the future as well.  I really enjoyed this book other than that one issue I told you about earlier.  This book didn’t keep me on my end of my seat, but I wasn’t bored while reading it so if you enjoy thriller books than I would give this one a shot.  If you do pick it up, let me know what you think about it.

About The Book

“Roanoke girls never last long around here. In the end, we either run or we die.”

After her mother’s suicide, fifteen year-old Lane Roanoke came to live with her grandparents and fireball cousin, Allegra, on their vast estate in rural Kansas. Lane knew little of her mother’s mysterious family, but she quickly embraced life as one of the rich and beautiful Roanoke girls. But when she discovered the dark truth at the heart of the family, she ran…fast and far away.

Eleven years later, Lane is adrift in Los Angeles when her grandfather calls to tell her Allegra has gone missing. Did she run too? Or something worse? Unable to resist his pleas, Lane returns to help search, and to ease her guilt at having left Allegra behind. Her homecoming may mean a second chance with the boyfriend whose heart she broke that long ago summer. But it also means facing the devastating secret that made her flee, one she may not be strong enough to run from again.

As it weaves between Lane’s first Roanoke summer and her return, The Roanoke Girls shocks and tantalizes, twisting its way through revelation after mesmerizing revelation, exploring the secrets families keep and the fierce and terrible love that both binds them together and rips them apart.

About The Author

Amy Engel is the author of THE BOOK OF IVY young adult series. A former criminal defense attorney, she lives in Missouri with her family. THE ROANOKE GIRLS (March 7, 2017), is her first novel for adults.

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Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2018 Margaret Margaret

The Breathless by Tara Goedjen

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

The Breathless by Tara Goedjen was a book I picked up on a whim because I wanted to step out of my comfort zone.  That being said I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this book and I am glad to say that in the end, I did enjoy the book.  There were times that I was bored with what was going on in the book but those times passed quickly, and I wanted to keep reading so I could figure out what was going to happen next.  I know that one of the main reasons I like this book so much is because I wasn’t able to figure out how it was going to end and what was going to happen next.  This book did make me want to read other books in the genre because I really enjoyed this book.  If you are looking for a book in the horror genre that would be appropriate for teenagers, I would pick this one up and give it to them for Christmas.

About The Book

No one knows what really happened on the beach where Roxanne Cole’s body was found, but her boyfriend, Cage, took off that night and hasn’t been seen since. Until now. One year—almost to the day—from Ro’s death, when he knocks on the door of Blue Gate Manor and asks where she is.

Cage has no memory of the past twelve months. According to him, Ro was alive only the day before. Ro’s sister Mae wouldn’t believe him, except that something’s not right. Nothing’s been right in the house since Ro died.

And then Mae finds the little green book. The one hidden in Ro’s room. It’s filled with secrets—dangerous secrets—about her family, and about Ro. And if what it says is true, then maybe, just maybe, Ro isn’t lost forever.

And maybe there are secrets better left to the dead.

About The Author

Tara Goedjen has a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Alabama and grew up in the South. The Breathless is her debut novel. She lives and writes in Monterey, California. To find out more about Tara and her novel, follow @TaraGoedjen on Twitter.

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Convicted by Jameel McGee & Andrew Collins

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Convicted by Jameel McGee & Andrew Collins was a fantastic book.  When I read the description of this book, I knew I had to read it and review it.  This book talks about things that most people know is going on but it is different when you are reading a story about someone who lived through it.  It also makes me sad that cops do things like this.  I also know that because I am a white person I have no way of understanding how it is really for other people in this country.  I did love seeing how they both changed throughout the book and I would be lying if I didn’t say that I hoped that Jameel would punch Andrew in the face at some point.  I am glad that he never did, but I hoped that he would go through the entire book.  I think this is a book that everyone needs to read because we all can learn from this story.

About The Book

Speaking directly to recent headlines and cultural tensions, this is the poignant account of a crooked white cop who framed an innocent black man–and how their stories later intersected to show a divided nation a way forward to reconciliation and healing. This revealing story explores racism in small-city America and ultimately highlights the power of the gospel to heal the relationship of two of the most unlikely candidates for reconciliation

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Here and Gone by Haylen Beck

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Here and Gone by Haylen Beck was a book that I liked during the first part of the book but by the end of the book I found myself completely bored and read the book to be over.  I had high hopes for this book because of it usually the type of book that I love but after I was about half way through I just got bored and tired of reading this book.  I felt bad for Audra throughout most of this book.  I wasn’t the biggest fan of the plot of this book because it wasn’t something that I could see happening but that being said I am sure it has happened somewhere in the United States at one point or another.  I think that is why I got bored with the book because I had a hard time believing that some of the things that happened in this book could have actually happened.  If you don’t have a problem reading books that the plot probably wouldn’t occur in the real world than I am sure you will love this book.

About The Book

Here and Gone is a gripping, wonderfully tense suspense thriller about a mother’s desperate fight to recover her stolen children from corrupt authorities.

It begins with a woman fleeing through Arizona with her kids in tow, trying to escape an abusive marriage. When she’s pulled over by an unsettling local sheriff, things soon go awry, and she is taken into custody. Only when she gets to the station, her kids are gone. And then the cops start saying they never saw any kids with her, that if they’re gone, then she must have done something with them…

Meanwhile, halfway across the country, a man hears the frenzied news reports about the missing kids, which are eerily similar to events in his own past. As the clock ticks down on the search for the lost children, he too is drawn into the desperate fight for their return.

About The Author

Haylen Beck is the pen name of internationally prize-winning crime writer Stuart Neville. Writing under his own name, Stuart won the LA Times Book Prize for his debut novel and received critical acclaim for his Serena Flanagan detective series set in Belfast. His Haylen Beck novels are set in the US and inspired by his love of American crime writing.

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Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2017 Margaret Margaret

Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love

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FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Blogging For Books in exchange for my honest review. I received no other compensation and the opinions expressed in this review are one hundred percent true and my own.

Lola by Melissa Scrivner Love was a great book, but there are some things that would offend some people because of the content.  I am going to give you a few of the things that might offend you if you get easily offended.  There was a “sex” scene, but they didn’t get into a ton of detail when it came to this scene, but it was in there.  The book is about drug dealers so that may also offend people and there are also some parts where the language used might offend people as well.  Now that I have gotten that all out of the way I want to talk about this book and why I liked it as much as I did.  I love that the gang leader is a female.  I think it is great to make the leader a woman and it also made this book so different from anything else that I have read before.  None of the things I talked about during the first part of this review bothered me, in fact, I ended up liking this book that much more because it wasn’t as boring as some books can be when they don’t have anything “bad” in them.  If you love thriller type books than I think this book might be a good fit for you.

About The Book

The Crenshaw Six are a small but up-and-coming gang in South Central LA who have recently been drawn into an escalating war between rival drug cartels. To outsiders, the Crenshaw Six appear to be led by a man named Garcia . . . but what no one has figured out is that the gang’s real leader (and secret weapon) is Garcia’s girlfriend, a brilliant young woman named Lola.

Lola has mastered playing the role of submissive girlfriend, and in the man’s world she inhabits she is consistently underestimated. But in truth she is much, much smarter–and in many ways tougher and more ruthless–than any of the men around her, and as the gang is increasingly sucked into a world of high-stakes betrayal and brutal violence, her skills and leadership become their only hope of survival.

An astonishing debut crime thriller about an unforgettable woman who combines the genius and ferocity of Lisbeth Salander with the ruthless ambition of Walter White. Lola marks the debut of a hugely exciting new thriller writer, and of a singular, magnificent character unlike anyone else in fiction.

About The Author

MELISSA SCRIVNER LOVE was born to a police officer father and a court stenographer mother. After earning a master’s degree in English Literature from New York University, Melissa moved to Los Angeles, where she has lived for over a decade. During that time, she has written for several television shows, among them Life, CSI: Miami, and Person of Interest. She and her husband, a comedy writer and Los Angeles native, welcomed their daughter in 2014. Lola is her first novel.

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Digiprove sealCopyright secured by Digiprove © 2017 Margaret Margaret