FTC: I received a free copy of this book from the author 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 Good Luck Sister by Jill Shalvis was a sweet story. I read this book in a few days because I had to know how it all worked out. I have read several books by this author and I have liked them all, so it wasn’t a shock that I liked this book as well. I loved that this had a dog into it because I am such a huge animal lover. It also makes the gook easier for me to relate too. I fell in love with Dylan right from the start. I also loved watching as they both grew throughout the book. At times I did find this book was predicable but that is what happens for me because I have so many books in this genre. I felt bad for Dylan because of how hard his childhood had to have been. I had a rough childhood, so I felt like I was able to relate to him and that made him come alive while I was reading this book. I know that anyone who love chick lit will love this book just as much as I did.
About The Book
After a difficult few years, Tilly Adams is ready for life to start going right. Though she has a case of first-day nerves teaching art at the local community college, she knows it isn’t anything a few snuggles from her rescue puppy won’t cure. Until she sees Dylan Scott again, her one-time BFF and first love sitting in the front row. Dylan knows he should’ve left well enough alone, but when he sees Tilly living her dream, he can’t help but make contact. Ten years ago, he left Wildstone and everything in it behind, including Tilly. He had his reasons, but now he wants her back in his life, anyway he can get her. When Tilly agrees to design the logo for Dylan’s new helicopter touring company, it’s business only . . . until she finds herself falling into his arms once again. Can she possibly open her heart back up to the only man who’s ever broken it? But soon they’re both realizing the truth—love always deserves a second chance.
About The Author
New York Times bestselling author Jill Shalvis lives in a small town in the Sierras full of quirky characters. Any resemblance to the quirky characters in her books is, um, mostly coincidental. Look for Jill’s bestselling, award-winning books wherever romances are sold and visit her website, http://www.jillshalvis.com, for a complete book list and daily blog detailing her city-girl-living-in-the-mountains adventures.
“I’ve finished my free trial of adulthood and am no longer interested, so please cancel my subscription.” From The Mixed Up Files of Tilly’s journal.
Tilly Adams sat in the vet’s office staring at the doctor in shock. “Say that again?”
Dr. Janet Lyons smiled. “I think Leo faked being sick. Probably so you’d stay home from work today.”
Tilly looked down at Leo. “You do know he’s a dog, right?”
All six pounds of him smiled up at her. About a month ago, she found him on a street corner hiding beneath a bus bench; wet, dirty, cold, hungry and matted. He’d been Dobby meets Gremlin meets neglected, abused Care Bear. Tilly had looked around for an adult, and then had to remind herself that at twenty-five years old, she was legal herself. So then she’d searched for an adultier adult, but she’d been the only one in sight.
So she’d scooped the little guy up and had brought him to the SPCA, who’d said he was about five weeks old, a possible Maltipoo, which meant he came by his care bear look naturally. He was malnutritioned and suffering from mange. They’d said they’d do what they could, and Tilly had turned to go. That had been when she’d seen all the eyes on her from an endless row of cages … and she’d realized her care bear would soon be sitting in one too. Then she’d heard herself offer to foster him until they found him a forever home.
They’d found him one too. Tilly had signed the adoption papers last weekend in spite of the fact that just that morning he’d escaped his crate, eaten her favorite sneakers, destroyed her favorite pillow, and then yakked up the stuffing from the pillow.
He was a destructo of the highest magnitude, and something else too. He had no idea how small he was. He went after her sister Quinn’s twenty-plus pound cat and her neighbor’s hundred pound black lab with the same fierce, fearless gusto. Turned out, the little guy had a bad case of small-man syndrome, which was how he’d earned his name.
Leo, short for Napoleon.
And now on top of Leo’s impressive chewing skills, his escape artist skills, and his ability to get up on her bed and yet still not understand why stepping in his own poop was annoying, he had a new skill.
He’d faked being sick.
Proud of himself, Leo smiled up at her. Smiled. An hour ago he’d been coughing and limping and acting all sorts of odd. Now he just kept smiling up at her while sending her meaningful glances at the open dog biscuit bin between her and the doctor.
Dr. Lyons laughed and gave him one.
“Dogs can’t fake sick,” Tilly said while Leo inhaled the biscuit whole before licking the floor to make sure he got all the crumbs. “Can they?”
Dr. Lyons scooped him up and gave him a kiss on his adorable snout. “Yours did.”
Tilly sighed. It was too early for this. She’d had a crazy late night. Not hanging at Whiskey River, the local bar and grill. Not at a club with friends. Not working on her designs for he upcoming graphic art showing.
Nope, she’d been on a serious stress bender — a marathon of Game Of Thrones. She hadn’t fallen asleep until after two and her alarm had interrupted her in the middle of a really great dream starring Jon Snow.
Dr. Lyons handed Leo over. He immediately snuggled into the crook of Tilly’s neck and dammit, her cold heart melted on the spot and she hugged him close. “You’re sure he’s okay? He was coughing. And then he limped funny. And then he wouldn’t eat.”
“But he hasn’t coughed once that I’ve seen. And he’s not limping either. And you said all his food vanished while you took a quick shower.”
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Pump Up Your Book 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.
At Shutter Speed by Rebecca Burrell was an interesting book. I was left wondering how often stuff like this really happens because I have no doubt that our government does do stuff like this but that isn’t what this review is on. This is the first book I have read by this author and I will for sure be picking up more books by her in the future. This book did take me awhile to get through because I really had to pay attention to what was going on so that I didn’t get lost. It wasn’t hard to follow per say but it did skip around the time periods and characters, so I just had to make sure that I knew would was talking and when the events were taking place. I fell in love with Leah and Matty right from the start and I felt so bad for both throughout the book. I loved watching Leah do everything that she could to find her husband and that she never let anything stop her. If you love books that have strong female leads I know you will love this book just know that it may take a little while to read because you really have to pay attention to what is going on, so you don’t get lost.
In the click of a shutter, #Resistance becomes more than just a hashtag.
Pass the bar exam. Convince someone—anyone—in the Egyptian government to admit they’ve imprisoned your husband. Don’t lose your mind. For fledgling human rights attorney Leah Cahill, the past six months have been a trial by fire, ever since Matty, a respected but troubled war photojournalist, disappeared during a crackdown in Cairo.
Leah, the daughter of a civil rights icon, grew up wanting to change the world; Matty was the one who showed her she could. Though frustrated by the US government’s new fondness for dictators, she persists, until a leaked email reveals a crumbling democracy far closer to home.
Risking her own freedom, she gains proof Matty’s being detained at a U.S. ‘black site’, stemming from his work covering the refugee crisis in Syria. Armed with his photo archives, Leah plunges into their past together, a love story spanning three continents. She uncovers secrets involving Matty’s missionary childhood, her own refugee caseload, and the only story the deeply principled reporter ever agreed to bury. It’s what got him captured—and what might still get him killed. With Leah’s last chance to save him slipping away, Matty’s biggest secret may be one he’s willing to die to protect.
About The Author
In her own fictional world, Rebecca Burrell is a secret Vatican spy, a flight nurse swooping over the frozen battlefields of Korea, or a journalist en-route to cover the latest world crisis. In real life, she’s a scientist in the medical field. She lives in Massachusetts with her family, two seriously weird cats, and a dog who’s convinced they’re taunting him.
With a click of the shutter, he captures a life—beginning, middle, or end. His photos tell tales, expose truths, open worlds. If journalism is a dying profession, I’ve been watching it kill my husband for years. But at the same time, it’s keeping us alive.
A sea of humanity undulates through Tahrir Square, respiring with simmering fervor. Sirens have been blaring since evening prayers, punctuated by dull explosions from police-fired smoke bombs. Casualties, mostly students, litter the streets. Their luckier peers are staunching head wounds with T-shirts and flushing each other’s eyes with Maalox cocktails. Hissing canisters snake through the gardens near the Egyptian Museum. Masked protestors hurl them back. Death to the dictator, death to the regime!
The museum’s been closed for ages. No one in the immediate vicinity gives a damn about antiquities, so I’ve got a front row seat in the Grand Saloon between a statue of Amenhotep and an arched window facing the square. The air tastes flinty, like gunpowder. Pinpricks of fire are creeping down my throat from the gas. In theory, I’m studying, but you can’t exactly study in the middle of a crackdown.
“Dear me, Leah.” A bespectacled face pops up beside Amenhotep—the curator, Yusef Hafez. In his cream linen suit, with a perma-smell of aged vanilla and musk, he’s something of an antiquity himself. “He hasn’t returned?”
“Soon, I’m sure,” I say. Though I’m not. Matty is somewhere in the chaos outside. Which means he has his eye to the lens, so he’ll be the last to notice when the police don their masks for another round. It means he’ll come home coughing, clothes reeking of smoke, on a rush that’ll keep him from sleeping for weeks. Weeks he’ll spend restless, wandering from room to room because he keeps imagining the smell of tear gas. Where he’ll lose ten pounds because he’ll forget to eat. Where he’ll catch one whiff of a Lucky Strike or diesel fumes and it’ll be as if someone opened a window to some long ago and far away hell. It means being locked in a constant state of vigilance, watching for signs, so I can run to the icebox for the frozen orange I keep in there, because sometimes, something cold and fragrant can bring him back before it gets worse.
It means he’ll be unfocused and get lost doing simple things, then pick fights with me over stupid crap because it’s easier than letting me help. But then he’ll finish the story and—poof— he’ll be himself again, the guy who holds me close and promises me that someday, the world will be what we both desperately want it to be. It’s our thing. We’re broke and spend our lives dodging bullets or sleeping under the stars, and time was, I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. He’s the adrenaline junkie. These days, I just hang on at the fringe.
It wasn’t always this way—I spent my twenties as a humanitarian aid worker in Sudan and Uganda. The short version is that I got spooked, left the field, and went running for law school. Now I stay behind while he takes crazy risks. I should be out there too, but when one’s husband has been killing himself to put one through law school, one has no excuse for failing the bar exam. At least not twice.
“It was kind of you to let us stay here,” I say to Yusef, blinking as the dots swim on my practice test. Hours ago, as the clashes intensified, the government declared all foreign journalists ‘purveyors of fake news’, the new favorite epithet of authoritarian regimes everywhere. After they yanked our hotel permit, Yusef, an old friend of Matty’s, offered us a spare room in the basement.
Jowls turned down, he strokes the bristles of his beard. “You may need to make other arrangements. The museum is at risk. The Night Hotel has been set ablaze.”
Outside, a flickering orange glow lights the square. I tuck my study guide behind me, then stand on pins-and-needles legs for a better look. Even the palm trees are in flames. There goes the best fourteen-dollar-a-night hotel in Cairo. “When did that happen?”
“Some time ago.”
Students dance in front of the burning building, bare seconds before being swept away by police water cannons. “They could put it out if they wanted,” I say. “Guess it’s more fun to squirt protestors.”
“This is Egypt.” Frustration courses through Yusef’s voice. “We say ‘God will take care of it’. Then we do nothing.”
The last time we’d been in Cairo was during the 2011 revolution, and so much has changed. Shop windows once filled with honeyed cakes and risqué clothes are burned and boarded. Once, students danced on the rooftops, because where else would you go when the world tipped on its head? Now, if you dare go outside, you watch the rooftops for the glint of a sniper rifle sight. Revolution isn’t binary, it isn’t an endpoint, it’s a fluid state of mind, and Egypt’s has been dark for years.
“Maybe that’s what the people outside are trying to change.”
It’s not that I think arson is a good way to solve problems, but I grew up with a giant of the civil rights era telling my bedtime stories. What’s happening outside goes beyond buildings and things. Matty’s photos of sheet-wrapped corpses prove it.
Yusef clings to the crimson ropes around the colossus, contemplating his world, the hieroglyphs of Isis, the soaring majesty of Horus, the gold in Tut’s death mask. “Egypt’s greatest treasure is her history. In their anger, youth forget such things. They forget the past contains the answers.”
To me, it’s simple. These clashes are rooted in three things: power, money, and sex, which are pretty much all that people ever fight about anyhow. The men in power have all the money, and this being Egypt, they’re damned determined to control the sex, too. No one under thirty has a job, which means they can’t get married, which means they can’t get laid. So instead, shit gets lit on fire.
Someone—a teenage girl—slams the window, crazing the glass. A dozen cops in riot gear give chase, shields and batons raised. We will be free, she screams at them in Arabic, scampering into the crowd. The police start beating everyone near her.
I toss the world of contracts and torts aside. The way I should’ve done four years and a shit-ton of money ago. “That’s it.”
Yusef eyes his mummies. “Where are you going?”
“Out.” I wrap a scarf around my face, then make sure the long skirt I’m wearing covers my ankles. ‘Out’ is where people need help. ‘Out’ is where the old Leah would be. “I’m not doing any good sitting here.”
“Your husband will not like if you leave.”
Too damn bad. I snap a pair of swimming goggles on my forehead. Yusef’s been hovering all night. I figure Matty asked him to babysit, which is ironic for any number of reasons. “Probably not.”
Maybe I look like a bug-eyed Calamity Jane, but my dad, the Honorable Dale Atkins, Esq., would be ashamed if his daughter sat on her ass while thugs in riot gear form ranks across Tahrir Square.
While I’m doing the one-foot hop with my sneaker, my phone dings. Twice.
Stay put Leah
And get away from the goddamn window
I peer outside. A line of armored vehicles stretches to the cornice at the Nile end of the square. Matty is perched on the wall of the lotus pond, wearing faded jeans and a flak vest, a checkered scarf over his mouth and nose. With his wheat-colored hair and dishwater-grey eyes, he’s the kind of guy who stands out in any crowd, but it’s really damn obvious here.
It’s different for me—my Mom’s French and my Dad’s roots are Igbo, which makes guessing my race some weird game show for strangers, who seem to think I’m either Mediterranean, Hispanic, or ‘wow, for a white girl, you can really tan’. The good news is that at this time of year, I can pass for a local in Cairo. The bad news is that the secret police are out in force, so nobody’s safe out there tonight.
I dial Matty’s mobile, to remind him to cover his head, but then shots start popping and he hits the deck. The crowd scatters. He scrambles away, and I hang up, fast.
Banging my temple with the phone, I watch him scurry into an alley behind the museum. My mobile rings a few seconds later.
“Hey, babe.” His breathing is labored. “How’s the studying?”
“Are you okay?”
“Far as you know.”
A wiggle of relief hits my belly. “Butthead. I’m coming out.”
The crowd sounds go quiet. “Leah, it’s bad. There’s nothing you can do.” He sounds defeated, which is never a good sign.
“Is anyone with you?”
“Reuters has a couple stringers out here. Or maybe they’re AP. Not sure they know either.”
“Not what I meant.” Matty’s parents were missionaries who dragged him from one godforsaken hotspot to the next, and it messed him up pretty good. What I care about is whether he’s working with someone who knows him. Knows what his mind can do to him when things are ‘bad’. Which they have been. For months, ever since he got injured on his last job in Syria. On the outside, he’s still healing, but something worse is eating him from the inside, something he won’t talk about. Which isn’t exactly unusual, but it’s never been this bad for so long. We’re doing our best to smile through the pain and pretend everything is getting better. It’s killing me that it’s not.
In the background, I hear a wolf whistle. “Cahill, is that your wife? Man, I had no idea she had tits like that.”
Matty swears. “Christ, Sal.”
Saleh is Yusef’s son, a producer for CNN’s Africa desk, and I can guess what he’s looking at. A normal guy would carry a wedding photo. Maybe a vacation snap. Something that involves, say, clothes, but this is a photo of me that Matty took the first night we made love. Like…right after, and he’s been schlepping it around ever since.
He comes back on the line. “Sorry.”
“Since when are you showing that to people?”
“I wasn’t, Leah, I just…needed to see it, okay?” His voice sounds distant. Sad.
“Matty, come home. You can have the real thing.”
He exhales. “God, you have no idea. As soon as things calm down, I’m yours.”
“Hope that’s a promise.”
“It is.” He coughs, away from the receiver. “How’s your stomach? Did that tea I brought help?”
It’s a loaded question. The water in Egypt never agrees with me, and as far as he knows, that’s all it is. The two pregnancy tests I took before we came agreed, and then there’s the get-it-while-you-still-can-because-fuck-the-patriarchy IUD I had put in after the election. None of which does a damn thing to explain why I can’t even remember the last time I had a period. Or make me feel any less jumbled up inside.
“Yeah, better,” I finally say.
“Liar.” He pauses. “How about I scrounge up some of that honey candy you like?”
All I need is him. Screw that. I need him to be him—the guy who lets me help when he’s messed up, not the one who shuts me out and keeps secrets, who feels like he’s one bad day from giving up. Because from the minute we landed, my body has been doing its damnedest to convince me those stupid pregnancy tests were wrong. “I’m okay.”
Water jets sweep the crowd. The line of black uniforms holds. Fresh volleys of smoke burst forth. “Hey listen,” he says, “rumor has it the government is shutting down the internet. Can you get to my website?”
Matty, who’s a freelance journalist these days, likes to joke that he got kicked out of the Fourth Estate and into a trailer park. We met at an Iraq War protest, and even then, the news orgs were refusing to print some of the photos he took—too controversial, or they didn’t fit the narrative somebody wanted to spin. His blog is his voice, in all its raw, unfiltered glory.
“It’s been loading like a ninety-year-old turtle with a piano on its back,” I say, waking the tablet beside me. Truth told, I’ve been paying more attention to that than my review books.
Mizaru’s Window, reads the site’s header. The letters twine around a graphic of the Three Wise Monkeys—See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, a copy of one tattooed on his arm. All I know is it was some kind of farewell screw-you to his dad.
“Check your flights while you’re at it,” he says.
Originally, they were ‘our’ flights, but one of us is in the middle of documenting a war and the other has the bar exam in four days. “They’re looking for observers down in Suez. The military says eleven dead, but Amnesty thinks it’s higher. Maybe we should—”
“No.”
“I could fly out tomor—”
“I’m not going to be the reason you miss that damn test again.”
Okay, so I didn’t exactly fail the bar the first time. Long story. This time, I have a job waiting for me in DC, which I have to take if we have any hope of paying back my loans. It’s immigration law instead of human rights, which means diving into a system I know nothing about, which I’m only doing because the way things are going at home, it feels as if I have to. Except taking it means an office instead of the front lines, which comes with the guilty reminder of the moment I walked away. When we started out, Matty and I were a team, and deep down, I’m scared to admit those days are gone forever. But something has to change.
Yesterday, before we left to come here, I found him naked on the beach by my parents’ house—in February, no less—throwing sheaves of story notes and photos onto a campfire he’d started. High as a kite to boot. Once he’d sobered up, I told him that unless he got his act together, he wasn’t coming with me to DC. In hindsight, getting on a plane with him to Cairo wasn’t the best way to convince him I’m serious about leaving, but I was terrified of what might happen if I didn’t. If there’s a baby involved, I can’t bear to think what it means.
Maybe my stomach…thing…is just stress. People who accidentally get pregnant don’t have to take the bar, or soul-sucking law jobs. They get to dress up their baby girls in frilly outfits and drink Starbucks all day, don’t they?
Right Leah. Keep telling yourself that.
“I got a one-ninety-one on my practice Bar today,” I say. “Finished in under two hours. With a twenty-minute Angry Birds break.”
“Funny that your staunch opposition to the death penalty stops with cartoon pigs.”
“The evil green porkers deserve it.” And like he’s any different. “You realize two hundred is perfect?”
“I heard you,” he replies. “I’m sure the Egyptian military will be impressed if they decide to detain you for a few weeks.”
Or Borders and Customs. Sighing, I click refresh. “You realize I’m going to make a shitty lawyer if I can’t even negotiate with you.”
“You only suck at negotiating when you’re wrong.”
The cursor keeps spinning. “They must’ve pulled the plug.”
He curses. “The US producer must be having a fit. He wanted a live feed ready as soon as Jake Tapper finished feeding some White House Nazi his own nutsack.”
“Which one?”
“I can’t keep them straight. The dude who looks like his mother fucked a lightbulb.”
That’s my Matty. “I bet Jake Tapper would tell me to stay.”
“Don’t get me in the middle of your unholy crush on JT.” His voice grows muffled. “Hey listen, let me go take care of some things, then I’ll come find you.”
“Will you be long?”
“I’m staring at a nekkid picture of my gorgeous wife. Part of me is.”
“I happen to like that part. Try not to get it shot off.”
Even the happiest couples have secrets. When we met, I saw him as this exotic world traveler—born in Brazil, he spoke five languages. He grew up in places like Mozambique and Iraq; I’m an attorney’s daughter from P-town, Massachusetts, who’d dreamed of seeing the things he’d seen, and yet to realize they’d nearly killed him. He says he fell in love with me because I proved to him the world could change. I fell in love with him because he showed me what had to.
Billows of sweet, noxious smoke cloud the air as I slip out of the rear service door, needing to see for myself that he’s okay. The goggles and my scarf protect me, though I can’t stay out long. His silhouette is visible through the haze. Head tilted a little to the left, elbow raised, camera ready. I’d know it anywhere.
I’ve always loved watching him work, getting to look through his photos at the end of a day. Matty has this desperate search for humanity, but he sees it in things that are fleeting and hard to find. He lives in the infinitesimal space between the best and worst of human nature, and some days, the camera is all that keeps it from crashing down on him. Even in the worst situations, he manages to find some shred of hope. Dignity. But it’s rare to see him this at peace while he’s doing it, and I can’t help but wonder what’s changed.
Near the American University, students hold vigil beside a stone church which is set up as a makeshift field hospital. Mourners gather around a lifeless body, surrounded by others who form a solidarity wall, protecting them from the riot troops. Matty moves to an alcove by the front gate, transfixed by something on his camera LCD.
All he wants is one photo that changes the world. Nobody but journalists and history buffs remember who took the Kim Phuc photo, the naked girl running from her napalmed village, but it altered the course of the war. Nobody remembers who got the shot of the guy staring down the tanks in Tiananmen Square, but the world still wonders what happened to him. It took a while before I understood why Matty lets life take so much from him. He rejected the life his parents led, but parts stuck with him nonetheless. The need to see justice done, to give a voice to the voiceless. He keeps searching for that one seismic photo because it’s the only way he’ll ever figure out how to live with himself.
A woman with a dark, shiny braid comes over to Matty. Thirtyish, she’s dressed in a loose olive pants and a black tunic, with a rose print scarf over her hair, an Assyrian-style cross around her neck, and a downcast expression on her face. A few words pass between them. He opens the memory slot on his camera and gives her the card, which she reluctantly accepts. After that, he draws her into an embrace, planting a tender kiss on her forehead.
Just like that, I can’t breathe.
At the same moment, she glances across the square to where I’m standing, and a flicker of recognition lights her eyes. Matty notices me then too, and freezes. I catch a musky smell, a man’s smell, and I realize someone is standing behind me.
Before I can even turn, the man slides into the crowd. Western clothes. Dark, flowing hair, and a pair of silver sunglasses perched on his head, though I can’t see his face. He circles the mourners like a great cat guarding a kill. Or stalking the next.
His expression flits between bemusement and rage, the latter directed at the woman with Matty, who’s now kneeling in prayer inside the circle. “Come out, whore,” he taunts. “Do you think I can’t see you?”
Her gaze lifts. The fear is gone, replaced with anger and grief. She shifts off her knees and exits the circle, towards a young father and son standing at the gate. The boy, ragged and rail-thin, holds out a shaggy brown mongoose, which hops onto her shoulder.
The father steps protectively in front of his son. “Leave us in peace. We have beaten you. You lost.” His accent is Syrian, not Egyptian, which likely explains the haunted look on his kid’s face. “You have no power over us now. Or this woman.”
With a bemused smirk, the jerk flicks ash from his cigarette. “This is the thanks I get? Perhaps I should not be surprised.” He flashes a knife. “Offer her a place to sleep and she’ll fuck you too.”
The mourners break up in a chorus of peace-be-with-yous and as-Salamu Alaykums. The jerk shoves the father aside, then lunges for the woman. A pop-pop- pop comes from the rooftops. The crowd screams and scatters. And then my idiot husband goes and tackles the jerk.
Matty barely dodges the knife on the first swing. On the second, the mongoose leaps, sinking its teeth into the man’s neck. The knife clatters to the pavement, and the mongoose prances away, chittering triumphantly.
The woman grabs the boy by the hand and runs down an alley. The jerk gut-punches Matty, shoving him off. Inaudible words pass between them. Matty gapes at me, white-faced and startled. Grinning, the jerk flips his knife, then stalks off after the others.
Matty is slow to get up, clutching his ribs, which got broken six months ago during an airstrike in Syria. I run over and help him out of the line of fire. “You’re hurt.”
He’s got this lost, anguished expression on his face, sweat mixed with ash, greasy black smudges running from temple to chin. “She’s just someone I know, Leah—that guy…”
Mixed with the pain, there’s guilt, and I’m not sure I want to know where it came from, so I replace the lens cap. “It’s fine, you can tell me later.”
The crowd swells as we make for the safety of the museum. Smoke and flames leap through the roof of the building across the alley. “I told you to stay put,” he grouses, as a tank rumbles past.
“You know me better than that.” I stab Yusef’s spare key into the service entrance door. “What were you thinking, going after that guy?”
“I was having another goddamn flashback, okay?” He squeezes his eyes shut. “Can we not talk about it?”
Something hits me hard, deep in the stomach. We’ve spent half our marriage dealing with his flashbacks. It’s not why he did it.
“Fine,” I say, struggling to figure out what he’s not telling me. Which seems to be how I spend most of my time these days. “Then let’s talk about her.”
He peels the goggles off my head, hands coming to rest on my face. His skin feels raw, about a million degrees. “Stop looking at me like that.” He walks me into the darkness of the unlit entryway. “You know I’m no cheat. She’s a source. A friend.”
What I want him to say is why the ‘friend’ with the jealous eyes and curvy figure was acting if she knows me. Why he was comforting her. I’d settle for some hint of why she’s in trouble in the first place, but if she’s a source, with Matty, that’s the end of it. I know he’s no cheat, sure, but he’s never been as secretive and self-destructive and just plain messed up as he’s been the last few months either.
I want to blurt out I think I’m pregnant, but the words won’t come. I’ve seen too much of the world to want to bring a child into it, and any time it’s come up, he jokes that his brain should be donated to science, not inflicted on another generation. Kids were never in our plan. But here we are, and I need him to tell me he’ll find a way to crawl out from whatever he’s under, that he’ll do it for me and the baby because he loves us. Yet I love him enough to know it’s not that simple.
The basement smells of must. A strange, sweet salt tickles my nose. Down here, it’s a maze of painted metal boxes and shelves, filled with dusty artifacts collected god knows when. He’s wandering between them, lost and unfocused, so I take his camera and set it on a nearby crate. “Matty, where are we?”
He blinks, scanning around. “Cairo, right?”
Anxious, I step between his knees, resting my forehead on his, but when I move my hand to his arm, he flinches. My hand comes away warm and sticky. I grab his wrist and pull up his sleeve, revealing a two-inch dig right below the monkey tattoo on his biceps. I know it’s from a bullet, which is bad enough, but he’s written his name and my cell phone number in thick, permanent marker on his arm. Suddenly I’m fighting tears.
“Hey, ssh, ssh,” he says. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I’m here, right?”
Over our years together, I’ve watched him bury a dozen friends, sometimes nothing more than memories in empty coffins. I’ve been stuck half a world away when the internet discovers the latest video of some fuckwit beheading a journalist. Worry isn’t a choice, it’s something that tattooed itself onto my heart long ago.
“C’mon, tough guy. You and I have a date with the first aid kit.”
He buries his face in my neck and slips his hands under my skirt, cupping my rear. “Leah, I don’t need a damn Band-Aid. I need you.”
His kiss swallows the night, deep, wet, and lingering. He wants me to let this go, but we both know I can’t. “What’s wrong?” I say, caressing his temple. “Are you in trouble?”
“Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t handle.” He nudges my knees apart with his hip, shucking his T-shirt. “Though I’ve got something else for her to handle instead.”
I count the scars on his torso, making sure there are no new ones. Darfur above his left hip, Kirkuk across his left pec, Aleppo all down his right side. “You’re burning up.”
“Can’t help it.” He lifts my top over my head. “Is this okay?”
He asks, because once, someone didn’t. It’s not something I think about much these days. “It is if you tell me what’s going on.”
A kiss, a nibble, a caress of my hip. “I’m making love to my wife.” He peels down the cup of my bra, flicking his tongue over my nipple. “Who should know I’m completely mad about her.”
“Completely mad about something.” I say, surrendering in a swirl of emotion, dust, and our own tangled history. Fine, I need him too.
But then comes a commotion upstairs. Smashing glass, running footsteps. Bitter, angry shouts. Looters. Yusef’s muffled shouts rise above the fray.
Matty’s weight drops onto me. With a groan of frustration, he rolls off, contemplating the ceiling. “He’s about to get himself killed over some clay pot, isn’t he?”
As he buttons his jeans, I sit up. “Where’s my skirt?”
Leaning over for a quick kiss, he snags his shirt. “Stay. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
I snag it back, draping it over my breasts. “Seriously—what’s got you so spooked?”
He stops, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Does that mean he knows? I bite my lip. “For starters, you could tell me how you feel about it.”
His brow furrows. “Are we talking about the same thing?”
I can’t make myself say it, so I put my hand over my midsection. His jaw goes slack, and a rush of breath escapes from his lungs. “God, Leah, I—”
There’s another crash, a scream. Eyes closed, he kisses my forehead. “I love you, but right now I am scared to death. I’ll be right back. Then we’ll talk. I swear.”
Scared to death is better than I expected. “Okay. Go.”
As the sound of his footsteps fades, I slip on his shirt, and while I’m buttoning it up, I notice he didn’t take his camera. Given that it’s his sixth appendage, it’s odd. Not to mention the frustrated way he tossed it onto his bag. As if he’s tired of it ruling his life.
When I turn it on, an error comes up on the display, and that’s when I remember him passing the card to that woman.
Who is she? What did she want with it?
The looting upstairs reaches a fever-pitch. Ear-splitting scrapes, floor-shaking thuds, triumphant shouts. It’s either looters or a herd of zebras dancing Swan Lake.
My phone buzzes. Matty’s number comes up on the display. I hit answer. “Hey, where are you?”
“Out,” he says, breathing heavily. “Needed a smoke.”
Everything inside me goes cold. We have a code phrase. In case something ever goes bad. That was it.
Adrenaline puts a tremor in my hands. My legs. My pulse poundsin my ears, loud enough I can hear it. Forcing down the panic, I try to remember the questions we worked out, the ones we agreed to use if someone could be listening. “Could you get some ibuprofen while you’re out?” Can you get away?
Muffled sirens, people shouting. “Stores are closed, babe.”
My legs go weak. “Matty—”
“Check my bag,” he says. “Side pocket. Should be some in there.”
I dive on his old green duffel, hands trembling. The pocket is empty, but the lining is ripped. Inside, I find a Brazilian passport in my name. He has dual citizenship—there are places he goes where being American is a bad idea—but if I have it too, it’s news to me.
“What’s going on? Where did this come from?”
“I got your back, baby.”
“Is this about—?”
“Stop.” A rush of breath comes out of the receiver. “You don’t know anything. I haven’t told you a thing, right?”
“Matty please…”
Echoing sounds, like footsteps off an alley. More than one pair. “Say it, Leah.”
“Would I be asking if you had?”
He drops his voice low. “Listen to me. Put on my sweats. Tie the biggest goddamn knot in the waist you can because there are gangs out here who will make you regret it if you don’t. Then get your ass to the embass—”
A low pi-too sound, like gas escaping in a rush. He gasps and drops the phone. My heart stops. “Matty, say something, please.”
When he picks it up again, his voice is slurred. “I love you—you know that, right?”
I lose it. “You’re supposed to come home, Matty. You promised you’d always come home.”
“No choice,” he murmurs again. “You’re the only home I ever knew.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from the author 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.
My Oxford Year by Julia Whelan was an interesting book. While I was reading this book, I wanted to go to England because I was interested because of this author writing. I loved following along as Ella went through her year and how she grew and changed as the book progressed. I am not going to give any spoilers because the ending of this book did surprise me which doesn’t usually happen with this genre of books. When I first started reading this book I wasn’t that into it because I was so sure that I knew how it was going to end but once I realized that I was wrong I didn’t put it down until I knew how it was going to end. I think that is one of the reasons that I fell in love with this book because I wasn’t able to figure out what was going to happen even if I did figure out some of the events before they happened. I know if you love this genre of books that you will love this book as much as I do.
About The Book
American Ella Durran has had the same plan for her life since she was thirteen: Study at Oxford. At 24, she’s finally made it to England on a Rhodes Scholarship when she’s offered an unbelievable position in a rising political star’s presidential campaign. With the promise that she’ll work remotely and return to DC at the end of her Oxfordyear, she’s free to enjoy her Once in a Lifetime Experience. That is, until a smart-mouthed local who is too quick with his tongue and his car ruins her shirt and her first day. When Ella discovers that her English literature course will be taught by none other than that same local, Jamie Davenport, she thinks for the first time that Oxford might not be all she’s envisioned. But a late-night drink reveals a connection she wasn’t anticipating finding and what begins as a casual fling soon develops into something much more when Ella learns Jamie has a life-changing secret. Immediately, Ella is faced with a seemingly impossible decision: turn her back on the man she’s falling in love with to follow her political dreams or be there for him during a trial neither are truly prepared for. As the end of her year in Oxford rapidly approaches, Ella must decide if the dreams she’s always wanted are the same ones she’s now yearning for.
About The Author
JuliaWhelan is a screenwriter, lifelong actor, and award-winning audiobook narrator. She graduated with a degree in English and creative writing from Middlebury College and Oxford University. While she was in England, her flirtation with tea blossomed into a full-blown love affair, culminating in her eventual certification as a tea master.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Tours 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.
Hiding by Jenny Morton Potts wasn’t my favorite book. I say that because I had a hard time following what was going on and who was talking. I am not sure why that was, but it made reading the book super hard for me. I did enjoy the authors writing but I just couldn’t stay interested in the plot of this book. It also could be because this isn’t a genre that I usually read so I just wasn’t super interested. I really liked Rebecca from the start and I couldn’t stand Keller right from the start. He just acted super strange though out the book and because of that he just got on my nerves. I had no idea how this book was going to end so that was a good thing because I get tired of being able to figure out how the book is going to end. If you are interested in this genre than I would give this book a shot but it wasn’t a good fit for me.
Book Details
Genre: Psychological Thriller Published by: Cahoots Publishing Publication Date: February 2018 Number of Pages: 323 ISBN: 1976862817 (ISBN13: 9781976862816) Check out Hiding onAmazon | Goodreads
Keller Baye and Rebecca Brown live on different sides of the Atlantic. Until she falls in love with him, Rebecca knows nothing of Keller. But he’s known about her for a very long time, and now he wants to destroy her.
This is the story of two families. One living under the threat of execution in North Carolina. The other caught up in a dark mystery in the Scottish Highlands. The families’ paths are destined to cross. But why? And can anything save them when that happens?
About The Author
Jenny is a novelist, screenplay writer and playwright. After a series of ‘proper jobs’, she realised she was living someone else’s life and escaped to Gascony to make gîtes. Knee deep in cement and pregnant, Jenny was happy. Then autism and a distracted spine surgeon wiped out the order. Returned to wonderful England, to write her socks off.
Jenny would like to see the Northern Lights but worries that’s the best bit and should be saved till last. Very happily, and gratefully, settled with family.
There was a walk now. They passed doors, like random choices. They all looked the same, all the colour of pale nicotine. But some of those doors were in the business of living and some were not. As you walked past them, you could feel hope slipping away. Which door? Which one? It was like a game the devil might play as you entered hell. Eventually the passengers reached the end of their journey and were shown into another room which was similar in size to the last but with what looked like a window on one side. The window was dark for the moment, with a black blind pulled down and opposite, there was a gallery with seating. The seating was slightly raked, like a theatre. They were here for a performance.
‘That’s 11.30 gone now,’ someone said from the far end.
‘Show must go on.’ Keller mumbled.
There was a crackle and then an audio test from the speaker in the corner. Keller imagined that President Descher had arranged a televised viewing and that all over the State the people could see and hear this: factory workers, grandmothers, schoolchildren, stopping what they’re doing and watching. From the audio speaker, Keller recognised words from the phonetic alphabet, then the date, today, June 23rd 2021, the location, the prisoner’s name and number HCI 72259-931 and the time scheduled for execution.
Keller knew that the duration for the poison to act was ten minutes maximum and that the ratio to be injected was set against the inmate’s weight and height.
Somewhere behind him, Keller could hear mumbling about the victims’ families and an officer explained that they were seated separately, in another viewing room. He imagined that the families’ room was crowded, since eight victims had lost their lives that day.
At 11.45 am, the time was announced once more on the speaker and the blind was pulled up manually, revealing the execution chamber. Keller had forgotten who was seated directly next to him now, but whoever it was flinched.
The prisoner was already strapped onto the gurney. There was a sheet over his body but you could see where the constraint buckles jutted up into the clean white cotton. His left arm was exposed however and the intravenous tube was already in. He was clean shaven. Keller had never seen him without a beard. He could almost pretend he did not know him.
Three Harfield guards came into the chamber now. They did not look at the window, which to them was a mirror. Who would want to see themselves doing what they were about to do, even if it was their duty. The three guards were each handed a syringe. The content of one of the syringes was deadly and the other two contained a harmless fluid. The guards would never know who among them administered the lethal injection.
The condemned man’s chest began to rise and fall. He blinked rapidly and his Adam’s apple bulged in his throat, as he struggled to find an impossible place between dignity and the screaming of his nerves to stay alive.
Keller murmured, ‘There is nothing to do now but die.’
A man in the chamber who had been out of their view, moved into sight. He was dressed in a plain dark suit. He identified himself as Warden James and held up a chart. His hand was steady enough, his white knuckles though suggested a very tight grip on that chart.
Keller stared down at the inmate who seemed to be staring back, though Keller knew that the glass was one way and that all the condemned could see was a reflection of his own final scene. All the same, their eyes met.
Warden James turned to the prisoner. ‘Is there anything you would like to say or read before we administer this lethal injection?’
‘Yes.’
Keller frowned down at the neighboring lap. It was the redhead next to him, the PhD student, twisting that engagement ring. The girl who more than likely had it all, the girl who could not cope without her cell, was barely coping at all. Keller could feel her trembling against the length of his torso and the anger in his veins burned. The young woman held her hand up to her mouth and whispered into it, ‘God, dear God.’
The Warden lowered his eyes to Prisoner HCI 72259-931 on the gurney and blinked several times. He said to the inmate, ‘Go ahead, what do you want to say.’
‘I would like to ask a question.’
‘What is your question?’
‘I would like to ask a question and have it answered.’
Warden James looked around the room at the other officials.
‘Go ahead and ask your question.’
‘Not until you tell me that I will have an answer.’
Keller smiled and nudged the redhead. ‘You see? Make the most of every goddamned moment.’
The young woman was on the edge of her seat and on the edge of tears.
In the chamber, the suits and uniforms huddled and muttered amongst themselves and the Warden came free of the pack once more.
‘We shall try to answer your question. And cannot commit beyond that. I ask you therefore again, is there anything you would like to say?’
The inmate tried to lift his head but the strap across his brow was held tight. He cleared his throat and said in that thick Carolina accent that Keller thought he’d forgotten but which now reignited in his memory and ripped through his heart.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from the publishing company 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.
Primary Suspect by Laura Scott was a very predictable type book, but it was well written, and I enjoyed the characters. This was a shorter book, so I was able read it in a few hours which I also enjoyed because I can read it fast and move on to another book. I knew what was going to happen without knowing all the details in this book. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Mitch through most of the book but by the end of it he had grown on me, but I loved Dana right from the start. She seemed like someone I would get along with and I know I will check out more books by this author in the future because I enjoyed her writing. This book would be great if you are looking for something to read that isn’t super intense and a quick read.
About The Book
Wrongfully Accused
A Callahan Confidential story
When fire investigator Mitch Callahan is attacked at a crime scene, he’s shocked to uncover the body of a slain ex-girlfriend—and realize someone’s framing him for murder. Widowed ER nurse Dana Petrie believes Mitch is innocent, and not just because he makes her feel alive again after tragedy marred her past. But is she willing to risk everything only to love and lose again?
About The Author
Laura Scott is honored to write for the Love Inspired Suspense line, where a reader can find a heartwarming journey of faith amid the thrilling danger. She lives with her husband of twenty-five years and has two children, a daughter and a son, who are both in college. She works as a critical-care nurse during the day at a large level-one trauma center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and spends her spare time writing romance. Visit Laura at http://www.laurascottbooks.com.
FTC: I received a free copy of this book from Partners In Crime Book Tours 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 Victim of the System by Steve Hadden was a great book. I chose to review this book because the plot seemed different from books I have read lately, and I am so glad that I decided to review this book. I know I will be checking out more books by him in the future because I really enjoyed his writing. I felt so bad for Jack in this story. I don’t think he should get away with what he did but I did understand why he did it. This book left me thinking about how our justice system is and how things like this might happen in the world. This book was one that made me think and I enjoyed that about it. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Ike through the entire book and even after I finished the book I didn’t like him. He is just one of those characters that I don’t like. I know you will enjoy this book if you love thrillers and are looking for something different to read.
About The Book
Genre: Thriller Published by: Telemachus Press Publication Date: April 3rd 2018 Number of Pages: 330 ISBN: 9781948046039 Purchase Links:Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Goodreads
Twenty-two years ago, Ike Rossi’s life was shattered when his parents were murdered in cold blood. He surrendered his football scholarship and returned home to find their killer and raise his nine-year-old sister. Now, the crime of a local ten-year-old genius, Jack Cole, threatens to unearth old wounds rather than provide the closure Ike desperately wants.
When Ike meets Jack inside the Pittsburgh courthouse, he doesn’t see a murderer but instead a boy who has been victimized by a system that has left them both without justice. Despite knowing the case will resurrect the painful demons of his parents’ unsolved murders, Ike agrees to clear Jack’s name. The court of public opinion and the district attorney have an airtight case. Worse, taking Jack’s side thrusts Ike into the crosshairs of the most powerful family in Pittsburgh, the Falzones.
Now, with only days before the trial, Ike confronts the Falzones’ crumbling empire to find the shocking evidence that could save Jack. At the same time, he races to decipher a series of cryptic clues from Jack’s dead father that could hold the key to his son’s freedom. But each step closer to the truth draws them further into danger, and as three fractured families collide, Ike is forced to choose between saving Jack-and saving himself.
The Victim of the System is an intriguing and entertaining thriller about the justice system, closure and the abyss between them.
About The Author
Steve Hadden was born in Columbus, Ohio but spent much of his childhood in North Severna Park, Maryland. Building a short-wave radio with his father (an electrical engineer), frequent trips to the US Naval Academy, and the gift of a chemistry set, sparked his interest in chemistry and mathematics at an early age. At the end of elementary school, Steve’s family moved to Columbus, Indiana where he developed his love for basketball and where his favorite book was Stranger Than Science by Frank Edwards. Two years later, Steve moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where his junior high school creative writing teacher sparked his interest in writing. Steve attended North Allegheny High School and fell in love with Clive Cussler’s Raise the Titanic.
He attended Penn State, graduated with a degree in chemical engineering, and began a career in the oil and gas business, where he’s worked in engineering, management, and advisory roles. He’s traveled to intriguing places around the world and met fascinating people. His experience in the oil and gas business ultimately led to the idea for his first thriller, The Sunset Conspiracy. His interest in biology and science formed the foundation for his next four thrillers, Genetic Imperfections and The Swimming Monkeys Trilogy. He returned to his hometown of Pittsburgh with his latest thriller, The Victim of the System, a story with a mind-bending scientific twist.
Steve now lives in the foothills of the Cascades outside of Seattle. When he’s not working on his next intriguing thriller, Steve is hiking the trails with his wife and two Labrador retrievers, playing guitar or piano, reading great books, listening to music and consulting on business matters.
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