Book Review: Brake Failure by Alison Brodie

I received a copy of this eBook for free in exchange for a review. I was happy to get the opportunity after reading another of Ms. Brodie's books. 

Truncated Goodreads Blurb:

"Is it too late to tell him you love him when you're looking down the barrel of his gun?"

Ruby Mortimer-Smyth is upper-class English, rigidly brought up to marry a man from the pages of Burke’s Peerage. She knows the etiquette for every occasion and her soufflés NEVER collapse. She is in control of her life, tightly in control. Until …she ends up in Kansas.

Ruby, far from home, is making Unsuitable Friends and "finding herself" for the first time. She falls in with a gang of Hells Angels and falls foul of the law. At every turn, she comes up hard against Sheriff Hank Gephart, whose blue eyes seem to look deep into her soul. She desperately wants him, but knows she can never have him. As the clock strikes midnight of the new Millennium, she's on a freight train with three million dollars, a bottle of Wild Turkey and a smoking gun.

What happened to Miss Prim-and-Proper? And why did she shoot Mr Right?”

What I have to say about it:

Book Review: The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I read this book because it’s been on my Overdrive #TBR list forever and when I was looking for a book it was available. Yay! It also seemed liked a good “counterbook” because I had crammed 10 young adult books into my head the week before to meet a challenge goal.

Here’s the Goodreads summary:

There is no problem that a library card can't solve. 

The Andreas family is one of readers. Their father, a renowned Shakespeare professor who speaks almost entirely in verse, has named his three daughters after famous Shakespearean women. When the sisters return to their childhood home, ostensibly to care for their ailing mother, but really to lick their wounds and bury their secrets, they are horrified to find the others there. 

See, we love each other. We just don't happen to like each other very much. 

But the sisters soon discover that everything they've been running from -- one another, their small hometown, and themselves -- might offer more than they ever expected.

My tuppence:

Book Review: One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

I read this book because a member of my book club said that I had to. I’ve heard great things about the author but hadn’t gotten around to reading anything by her.

Here’s the Goodreads Summary:

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages... maybe ever.

What can I add to that:

Book Review (Blog Tour): Friday Night, Eight O'clock by Nino Gugunishvili

I received a copy of the ebook for free in exchange for a review and participation in the blog tour, going on right now!

What Goodreads had to say:

Tasha is a dreamer in search of a new dream.

She's bored with Pilates. She's never tried yoga. She doesn't even have a driver's license. She lives a pretty ordinary life as a freelance writer who battles the occasional flow of melancholy with the regular flow of martinis. Nestled into her couch, her television remote in one hand and a cold adult beverage in the other, she's found a favorite way to pass the hours on a Friday evening. It's comfortable and familiar, but it's not exactly an exciting way to live. With two of her closest friends, a bossy mother, an eighty-two-year-old grandmother, and Griffin, her fat yellow Labrador at her side, she knows that there has to be something better out there.

But where?

When she gets an unexpected offer to relocate to France to write a magazine column, she thinks her circumstances are improving. But life in a new country isn't all pêches et la crème. Now far away from her comfort zone, Tasha must find the inner strength to start a new career and navigate the bizarre and unknown world of professional jealousy, intrigue, and conflicting personalities in a very foreign land.

It's enough to make a girl yearn for those quiet nights on the couch.

My two cents:

Book Review: The Double by Alison Brodie

One of my blog goals for 2016 is to do more “book community” stuff. Ergo. I signed up with I Heart All the Books to participate in a couple of book tours! Yay, me. Isn’t it amazing how easy it is to get involved with writers and their work these days!? Anyway, I received a free copy of the book in order to provide a book review and to participate.

  

Here's the book's official (and much too detailed) blurb:

A night she can’t remember. A week she won’t forget. 

Beth is mistaken for rock star, Sonita La Cruz, and ends up on a billionaire-dollar yacht. As a shift-worker in Glasgow, Beth has only known hardship. Now she's in a world of uniformed stewards, French cuisine and rows of gorgeous designer frocks. Beth keeps quiet about the mix-up, determined to wear every outfit in her wardrobe before she's sent home. What's wrong with a little play-acting? Beth takes to the role of rock diva like a duck takes to water.

The captain arrives. Aleksandr sees a raven-haired girl in tiara and diamond-studded bikini lying on deck issuing orders through a megaphone. Aleksandr realizes what’s happened: His smuggling pals, knowing he needs to speak to Sonita about a kid’s crisis, have grabbed this lookalike and brought her here to meet him. Sadly, the girl is not Sonita. Aleksandr is desperate. Sonita promised to help the children but she’s disappeared.

Beth rises to the challenge. She looks like Sonita, so why not BE Sonita? Beth does a magazine interview for one million dollars, and ransoms herself for another million. Beth saves the children but can she save herself? Too late, Beth discovers the reason why Sonita disappeared.

 *

A full-bodied romance that sweeps across the globe, from a civil war in the Eastern Bloc, to a luxury yacht on the Côte d'Azur, to a poor housing estate in Glasgow.

  

Here’s what I had to say about it:

Book Review: Let Me Just Say This by B. Swangin Webster

I was asked if I would be interested in reading this book as part of a blog tour hosted by The Notebook Blogairy. I was super flattered to be considered for this blog tour and accepted a free copy of the book to participate.

Let Me Just Say This by B. Swangin Webster.

Goodreads Description:

"Let Me Just Say This is an urban drama depicting the struggles one woman goes through to get out of her abusive marriage and how she finds the strength to begin the search for love with another."

Not a hell of a lot to go on, is it? I like fiction that depicts realistic people, relationships, and drama. This book certainly does that. The story is mostly about Cheryl, a woman who married a handsome young man despite her misgivings