🟣 :::READING THREAD::: Week of May 19th

I read The Wives (a memoir) by Simone Gorrindo.
This book started out promising and I soon became disheartened with it.
Rated ⭐ and I pretty much hated even giving it that.

At 27, newly married and working her dream job as editor in New York City, Simone thought she had found the home and sense of belonging she'd always yearned for. Then, when her husband joined an elite combat unit in the army, she quit her job to follow him a town in Georgia and two weeks later, he deployed to Afghanistan. Home had never felt so far away.
Enter the wives.
There is an old adage in the Army:"If we wanted you to have a family, we would have issued you one." But in Simone's husband's unit, family was a borderline essential, the soldier's gravitational force. "They can do what they do because of you," the commanding officers told the spouses. The women were given memos on how to be wives during and after deployments. Their primary assignment was silence. Don't let on where your husband is, or what he is doing for a living. On monitored phone calls. Don't ask when he will be home, or why he seems so distant. And so, their lives became secrets they shared only with one another. Despite their radical differences, the other wives became Simone's unlikely home.

The author dislikes America, the flag, The Army and you are led to believe everything is supposed to be secretive but she gives alot information out not only about her life but the other wives, their husbands jobs.

I haven't been in the reading thread for two weeks so I have some catching up to do. 

Hao by Ye Chun. One of the prompts for this month in my book group is a book written by an Asian author. I just randomly searched around my library's website and found this book of short stories. "Hao" means "good" in Mandarin, although apparently it's used for a lot of things. These stories all had the themes of women, language, family. They were all okay, but depressing. 

The Housemaid by Freida McFadden. Her books are not available in ebook format at libraries because she has an agreement with Amazon for Kindle Unlimited. I can't read the font in regular books. But, Amazon was offereing a three-month free trial of KU so I got it. Read "The Housemaid" in two days. lol. It was pretty good. Downloaded the second one but then got sidetracked by the next book....

Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros. I LOVED LOVED the first one, "Fourth Wing" which grabbed me on the very first page. "Iron Flame" was almost as good, but omg the ending! And now we have to wait until JANUARY for the third book. 

Fudge Cupcake Murder by Joanne Fluke. Another prompt from my book group is "author's 5th book or 5th in a series". "Fudge Cupcake" is Fluke's 5th book. I do like cozy mysteries if I'm in the mood, but any time I've tried to read Fluke I give up halfway through because they just don't grab me. This one was no exception, although I did read quickly through the whole thing so I could get the points for my team. But nope, no more Fluke.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal. Another nope. Vaguely science fiction, about life after a meteorite hits the earth, and the race to space so we can set up colonies on the moon and Mars. The funny thing is that it takes place in the 1950s. Apparently this is the first in the "lady astronaut" series. I won't be checking out the other books.  

Only 1 for me this week (and half way through another):

What I Would Do to You by Georgia Harper
This caught my attention was I was browsing new releases in the library.
Set in Australia 20 years in the future where capital punishment has been recently reintroduced. Now if someone is sentenced to death, the family of the person killed are permitted to (if they wish) carry out the death penalty in a locked room with no legal repercussions.
It revolves around a family 5 years after their 10yo daughter & sister who was murdered and how they each deal with the question of if they want to be involved in death penalty.
I think this has the potential to be a really great thought-provoking book, and it definitely made me think about what I would do (or if I could do it). However I think the author got too bogged down by other aspects of the family's life and I got bored with that. Plus there was way too much animal death mentioned and I had to skip some of those parts.
It didn't give me enough of the "moral dilemma" I was expecting because there was far too much filler story and the ending was too abrupt for my liking.
2 stars.

AFTER DARK (‘23 - READ ‘24 - 3 STARS) BY MINKA KENT
DESCRIPTION : Afton Teachout has been an outcast in her small town for twenty years—ever since she was accused of murdering her mother’s lover in a blackout fit of rage. That is, if one believes the malicious lies. Living with her grandmother, working a hotel night shift, and relying on pills to get a day’s sleep, Afton is due a little luck. It comes in the form of an unexpected financial windfall. With her newfound wealth, Afton sets a secret plan in motion to help her only friend, Sydney, flee a toxic husband. But the best intentions soon spin out of control. Afton is getting unsettling calls from a restricted number, and someone has been lingering outside her home. As Sydney’s troubled marriage comes into focus, so does Afton’s past. Her second chance—for herself and for Sydney—isn’t what she dreamed of at all. In fact, it’s becoming a nightmare.

REVIEW :

Previous books by this author were Gone Missing (‘23 - Only 239 Pgs - 4 Stars), Unmissing (‘22 - 3 Stars), The Watcher Girl (‘21 - 3 Stars) which was a spin-off of The Memory Watcher (‘20 - 4 stars), When I Was You (‘20 - 4 Stars) and The Thinnest Air (‘18 - 3 Stars).

This authors writing always keeps me turning the pages, even if I’m not quite sure where the plot is going. A slow burn to 50% then picked-up. Even though I was entertained by this book, I was disappointed that there was no justice in the end which kept this book at 3 Stars for me instead of 4.



THE MAID’S DIARY (‘23 - READ ‘24 - 4 STARS) BY LORETH ANNE WHITE 
DESCRIPTION : Kit Darling is a maid with a snooping problem. She’s the “invisible girl,” compelled to poke into her wealthy clients’ closely guarded lives. It’s a harmless hobby until Kit sees something she can’t unsee in the home of her brand-new clients: a secret so dark it could destroy the privileged couple expecting their first child. This makes Kit dangerous to the couple. In turn, it makes the couple—who might kill to keep their secret—dangerous to Kit.
When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

REVIEW :

First book by this author for me. pjaye recommended to me since I loved The Maid by Nita Prose and she gave 4 stars; I gave The Maid 5 stars.

I like the authors writing right away. She has a way to keep you connected to all the characters from chapter to chapter. Definitely a very original tale unlike any other “maid” books I’ve read. A great mystery thriller; very clever. I didn’t see where this was going until well into the book. The characters kept “growing”. I will definitely look into reading more books by this author.

Just curious pjaye if you have have read any other books by this author?  Quite a few people on Facebook’s Psychological Thriller Readers group recommend Beneath the Devil’s Bridge (‘21 $2.99), The Patient’s Secrets (‘22 $5.99) had lots of 5 Stars; also In The Deep (‘20 $4.99) and Beneath Devil’s Bridge (‘21 $2.99). Quite a few reviews did not like her new one - The Unquiet Bones (‘24 $5.99).



Hope everyone picks a great read for Memorial Day Weekend !

mnmloveli Glad you enjoyed it!
This is the only book I've read by her, this one got my attention because it wasn't just a straightforward 'serial killer' or 'girl is missing' book, the snoopy maid with a past sounded like something a bit different.  

In addition to my list above, I just finished A Court of Thorns and Roses. SO not my genre. But, several people in my book group suggested it after I loved "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame" so I thought why not? And I really liked it! Not quite as much as "Fourth Wing" and "Iron Flame" but enough to read the next one in the series. Not quite sure what's happened to me, lol, but the only fantasy I've ever enjoyed reading is Lord of the Rings, and Narnia.