Category: Monday Book Review

Most of the books I review are given to me by the author or their publishing company and sometimes the library! I’m not required to post a good review.

However, my momma raised me to to say nice things, and if I can’t then I shouldn’t say anything. I’ve adopted that policy for my reviews. If I don’t like the book doesn’t mean it isn’t someone else’s favorite.

I am required by some strange law to let you know that I didn’t buy the book.

Diana Lesire Brandmeyer

Monday Review of Penance on the Prairies

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

Penance on the Prairies by R.L. Syme was next up in my to be read pile.

Is it possible to ever get to the end of the to-be-read pile? Every time I finish a book I tend to add two or three more to my list to read. And that’s what happened after reading Penance on the Prairies. The test will be is — can I wait to read the rest of the series? It’s going to be hard since I’m attempting to read and review on the blog I don’t want to review every book in a series.

Ah, I suppose I could do that or I can read more books in a month so I can have something fresh for you to discover and add to your own to-be-read pile.

Back to this book.

This was fun. I suffer from the “I know who did it” problem I think because I am a writer and know what to look for but… I didn’t see the way R. L. Syme would have it all play it. I was surprised. And I love that! I was still right but Syme did not take the easy way out. Her ending was great for those of us who want to have a bit of “I didn’t see that coming.”

This is book 1 and it is .99 and not in Kindle Unlimited which is sad for me but I will still get the rest of the Vange Vale series because I like it.

Vange is a part-time pastor and the rest of the time she runs a bakery. I wanted to make macaroons after reading this book. In fact, when you get this book have some macaroons available to eat. 🙂 Pinterest has tons of recipes if you don’t know how to make them. They are easy.

All Vange did was give an irritating person the wrong directions… and life spiraled out of control. Actions do have consequences, even those simple ones!

This book has excitement, danger but not the kind that stops your heart, and a small town. All necessary ingredients for a good cozy mystery.

Here’s the back of the book information.

One part Vicar of Dibley, one part amateur sleuth who loves pastries, set in the mountains of Montana where no one’s business is her own…Between the police scanners, the coffee ladies, and the senior center, no secret is safe for long. But Vangie Vale wants nothing more than to stay under the radar…especially the police radar. So when her new business is linked to a murder investigation, nothing will stop the gossip mill from connecting her to the dead body.

Can’t have that.

In order to clear her good name and keep her face off the front page, this part-time-baker-part-time-pastor becomes extra nosy…with a little side of breaking-and-entering. But when she comes face-to-face with the Sheriff, Vangie can’t ignore the fact that one of her macarons was involved in a murder. She has to find the real murderer.

Get Penance on the Prairies here!

Monday Book Review of The Cedar Key

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

The Cedar Key by Stephenia H. McGee

neckalce with two-toned wooden ornament heart with a cross, white flowers

This was a pleasure to read. While it is a small southern town contemporary it almost feels like a historical read. That ticks both of my love to read genre boxes.

It starts with the inheritance of a Victorian house and a very broken character, Casey Adams. She’s been fighting her whole life looking to belong to someone. This is her second chance but before she can find out much about her past her grandmother, the one person who could tell her dies.

But her grandmother leaves her clues through letters delivered to her by her neighbor.

Casey hasn’t had an easy past and it looks like the future of a good one may very well disappear like sugar in rain.

It’s a book that surprises in a gentle way. Perfect for afternoon reading on a swing while you sip iced tea.

I enjoyed the way it entertained but didn’t stress me while reading and yet I couldn’t stop reading it.

It has a great spiritual thread that doesn’t preach at you but fits into the story the way it should in a Christian book.

Casey’s journey will stick with me for a long time.

Get it here https://amzn.to/2TNyyek

Casey Adams unexpectedly inherits an old Victorian house full of other people’s memories. Stuck in a quirky little Mississippi town, Casey’s hope for a fresh start died as soon she had to lay the grandmother she’d just met to rest.

But Grandma Ida carried secrets beyond the grave.

Before her death, Ida carefully planned a trail of clues to help Casey unlock the Macintyre family secrets and finally explain why they abandoned her. But each of Ida’s letters will only come from Casey’s handsome—and often frustrating—new neighbor. As Casey pieces together the stories behind the objects filling her grandmother’s house, she embarks on a heart-stirring journey that rattles her foundations, ignites her faith, and leads her to a startling discovery that will reshape her future. But only if she can face the lies that have been slowly tearing her apart.

Monday Review of The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury

woman with short brown hair wearing a blue dress standing in front of colorful buildings

Isn’t that a great title? The book is by Marc Levy, a French writer but the book is translated well into English.

This is one of those writer moments when you read a book and think you wish you would have written it. 

It’s a bit different from what I normally read. I do try to read in my genre so I know what my readers expect when they pick up my books. 

The Strange Journey of Alice Pendlebury is a bit more literary and I found it refreshing because I had to work a bit harder at reading it. I didn’t know how it would end, I suspected but I think that is because I am a writer and I know the ‘things’ that make a book work. You don’t want to watch a movie with me. I can tell you how it will end almost every time within five minutes of watching it. 

Alice is a Nose. She creates perfume and sees the world through smells.

One evening Alice’s friends tease her into seeing a fortune teller at the fair. She doesn’t believe in such things of course but she goes to get them to leave her alone and that they can catch the train back to London on time. 

That is when her life shifts, memories she doesn’t believe are hers infiltrate her dreams and eventually sends her on a trip to Istanbul with her neighbor Mr. Daldry.

This is not a paranormal book, it’s historical and takes place in 1950. I want to make that clear because of the fortune teller comment earlier.

This book…with the way the author brings in smells and taste it feels as if you are in Istanbul.

I wanted to take my time and savor every page but Marc Levy has a way with words. I kept turning the page until it was early in the morning.   

Get it here!

From international bestselling author Marc Levy comes a witty and beguiling novel of one woman’s unexpected journey to follow her destiny.

Alice Pendelbury believes everything in her life is pretty much in order—from her good friends to her burgeoning career. But even Alice has to admit it’s been an odd week. Not only has her belligerent neighbor, Mr. Daldry, suddenly become a surprisingly agreeable confidant, but he’s encouraging her to take seriously the fortune-teller who told her that only by traveling to Turkey can Alice meet the most important person in her life.

What’s more, the peculiarly insistent Mr. Daldry has even agreed to finance Alice’s trip—one that against all reason seems to be predestined. It’s on this journey, crazy from the outset and strangely irresistible, that Alice will find out that nothing in her life is real, that her past is not true, and that the six people she’s about to encounter will shape her future in ways she could never have dreamed.

Monday Review of Broken Lines

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

Broken lines by Kelsey Gietl is not a book for the faint of heart. It definitely does not fall into the category of rainbows and puppies. This book comes with a sensitivity warning for those readers who are triggered by alcohol-related stories or domestic abuse.

That being said, Gietl’s book Broken Lines is a terrific read with a satisfying ending, one I wasn’t sure would happen.

What if just before you board a ship back home to Germany, your brother informs you that you can’t come with him. Instead, he insists that you don’t. He hands you a ticket to St. Louis, tells you to change your name and to marry an American? That’s what happens to Amara. When she tries to do as her brother requested she is rejected and abandoned on a street in a city she doesn’t know.

The main characters of this book struggle with what side of the war they favor. How do you give up what you know and embrace what is new or has been your life for only a few years? There is an identity struggle that was common before and during the war. Are you German or American? There is not an in-between and if your name sounds German then there will be trouble.

The story begins just before America joins the allies fighting against the Germans. It is set in St. Louis, Missouri during 1916. A familiar city to me as I grew up in a small town close by as did the author. A lot of the landmarks and history in the story were familiar, making the reading the descriptions of back then even more intriguing to me.

Emil works as a morality police officer. He along with his partner frequently breaks the moral laws that he is supposed to be upholding.  He wrestles with this throughout the book knowing that what he is doing is not right. He’s not willing to change until he meets Amara a woman he must decide to change his life for, or let go. It is not an easy decision for him.

Amara has her own demons to fight, an abusive ex-fiancé, and a man she thinks she could love but wants nothing to do with her. How will she be able to stay safe if she can’t find an American citizen to marry?

Emil and Amara’s journey is intense with action and filled with secrets. Broken Lines is book 1 in this series but it is a complete story. If you like books where characters have a chance at redemption this one is for you. 

Broken Lines is a terrific read and will likely keep you up until you finish it. Geitl knows her history and she weaves it throughout the book with an intricacy that doesn’t shout here’s a historical fact that you need to know. She slips in those details where they make the most sense helping the reader feel the story.

woman in red dress, long necklace, short pearl necklace, elbow length gloves standing in front of stone house

Monday Review of All That Was

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

All that Was by Tanya. E. Williams

half a woman from the past and half a woman from now equally standing on cobblestones or concrete in front of Church in Seattle

I picked the perfect day to read this book. It was raining and gloomy with a chill in the air. Perfect for a book set in Seattle.

This book isn’t a quick light read. It’s one where you sink down into your reading chair with a cup of tea and a soft blanket and shut out the world kind of read.

When we meet Emily it doesn’t take long to realize she’s bottled up her grief over losing her parents so tight that it has taken over her life. Despite help offered and then refused she gets through her days thinking she is fine, though nothing will ever be good again.

Take heart reader, Emily embarks upon a life-changing experience when she agrees to archive the records of a historic church in Seattle. Hired by her law company as a first-year lawyer she gets the job to comb through centuries of old documents in a dark windowless room.

Emily doesn’t mind doing the work until memories of her parents begin to invade the space. How will she handle them when they won’t stop coming?

Elizabet, a spirit who has refused to move forward takes the reader on a journey similar to Emily’s. It’s not to be missed. Because of Elizabet the reader gets a view of what this church meant to people throughout the decades. The research on this book must have been time-consuming but every detail adds to the ambiance of the setting.

When Emily is forced to look back on her life, she has choices to make moving forward. That’s what this book is about, being afraid for a minute and having the courage to move forward.

There is much to enjoy about this book, so I don’t wish to give away much. It is a good literary women’s fiction book. This is a book about two worlds, but not fantasy, scary type fiction.

All that Was has a happy ending which is important to me.

Separated by a century. Bonded by loss. Will examining all that was invoke comfort or calamity?

Seattle, 2015. Emily Reed refuses to dwell on her emotions. When the first-year attorney is assigned a church archival project, she dives into the records to hide from her own heartache. But when she discovers her parents were married in this very chapel, she is forced to confront the grief she buried a decade ago.

After she died in 1935, Elizabet Thomas was devastated when her beloved husband wasn’t waiting for her on the other side. A lost soul, she’s wandered their church for the past eighty years, desperate to find him. And now she must persuade a young, living lawyer that the historic building needs to be preserved rather than sold and torn down.

Discovering a diary among the disarray in the building’s basement, Emily is first engrossed and then moved by the dead woman’s words. And as the fate of her home unravels, Elizabet realizes she and the grieving archivist have more in common than she ever would have guessed.

Can Emily and Elizabet save themselves and their cherished sanctuary?

Get your copy!

Monday Review of The Great Alone

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

Is there someone in your life that is also a reader?

Do you share the same love for certain genres?

My mom is responsible for helping me learn to read at an early age. She spent hours reading to me, helping me pick out the words for myself and even walking with me to the bookmobile because we didn’t have a car. I was four or maybe five when we did that. At the time, for someone who couldn’t leave her yard, the trip there was exciting. We had to walk along the side of the road and cross a bridge!

The way back was harder. I was hot, tired, thirsty and couldn’t wait to read my books. How long was that walk? Round trip about a mile. That used to impress me until I had kids and realized just how far they will walk if they are having fun.

Mom loves reading true crime, mysteries, and things that make me want to hide under the covers. Stories were people do terrible things to each other. She says it’s human nature. I think in a different time she might have been a forensic psychologist.

I love the puppies and rainbow kind of books. Happy endings give me great joy, books with endings that end with possible good in the character’s future are my second favorites.

We have found a few places where we connect. The books aren’t true (for me) and the story is well-written and could have happened in real life.

When I finished reading Kristin Hannah’s book The Great Alone I knew it was one of those books mom and I could connect over. I ordered a paperback for mom. She’s reading it now and we are having our own little book club moment discussing it every day.

It’s set in the 1970s so that decade is a familiar one to me as I was in high school then. The angst of being a teenager and moving to another state and not having the right clothes is universal but what follows in this book I pray isn’t a normal life for anyone.

While the relationship between Leni and Cora is unhealthy it brought me back to living with my own mom. The closeness that grows between a mother and daughter when there is sadness and problems they can’t control is what kept me reading page after page. Peas in a pod is her mother’s favorite saying.

If stories of abuse are a trigger for you then please give this book a pass. If not, it’s a book full of relationships, the beauty, and roughness of Alaska, and the possibilities of hope.

Alaska, 1974. Ernt Allbright came home from the Vietnam War a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes the impulsive decision to move his wife and daughter north where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Cora will do anything for the man she loves, even if means following him into the unknown. Thirteen-year-old Leni, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, has little choice but to go along, daring to hope this new land promises her family a better future.

In a wild, remote corner of Alaska, the Allbrights find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the newcomers’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own.

The book is $9.99 for ebook or paperback but it is also in KindleUnlimted if you have a subscription this book almost pays for your month, read one more and you’ve saved money. 🙂

Monday Review of A Most Inconvenient Wedding

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

I’m taking a small break from reading contemporary books and reading historicals again while my hands recover from too much typing. I’m also learning to dictate so any oddness in this post will be from that. It’s a difficult skill for me to learn to speak words instead of thinking and letting my fingers talk.

A Most Inconvenient Wedding by Regina Jennings

Abigail Stuart Thought She was Jeremiah Calhoun’s Widow.
But Jeremiah Calhoun Is Very Handsome, Very Alive, and Very Perplexed.
Most Inconvenient Indeed.

Doesn’t that make you want to read this book? I can tell you it does not disappoint. And if you are looking for a book that fits the rainbows and puppies desire in you, this is it.

Did I say rainbows and puppies? I did. That wasn’t a dictation error. My author friend Tanya E. Williams who likes to say that the world is not made up of rainbows and puppies but we both wish it were.

Back to An Inconvenient Marriage, it is such a hoot! It takes place in the Ozarks a place I love to visit but it’s right after the Civil War so Silver Dollar City has not yet opened. 😉

Can you imagine marrying a man who you buried only to find out he isn’t dead and he’s pretty mad about you living in his house? And to make matters worse his mother and sister love her.

I loved this book. It was a sweet relaxing read. Now I didn’t say boring because it wasn’t. There was action, mystery, and some suspenseful moments to enjoy.

woman in white dress with lace sleeves1860s, wearing a cameo pin tossing horseshoe over her shoulder

Monday Review of Room at the Top

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

Room at the Top by Kristin Billerbeck can only be described as non-stop reading pleasure.

I’m a Billerbeck fan, no doubt about it. I devoured her first books and wanted so much to be able to write like her. I can’t and that’s okay because now I read her books for pleasure.

Room at the Top is funny, witty, and has a bit of a who-done-it feel. Relax, this is not a book that will keep you up for hours check out noises outside your door. This is a fun read, think Murder She Wrote kind of story. Or if you’ve seen the movie Knives Out and enjoyed it, you will love Room at the Top.

This Italian family will steal your heart. Sophie touched my soul in so many ways, one of them is the way she dresses, and her love to help others.

This is a great beach read, on the couch read, and just because you need a break read.

Get it here!

“What a Girl Wants” comes with a funny and romantic new series that celebrates family and sisterhood, even when the relationship seems impossible. Sophia Campelli likes the structure of her predictable life in a rundown Victorian house in the San Francisco neighborhood of North Beach.

She’s always told herself her father can keep his wealth and his acknowledgment of her and her twin sister. She’s surrounded by her noisy but lovable Italian family, and that’s all she needs. When she and Gia receive the news their fraternal grandfather has left them something in his will, they meet their three half-sisters for the first time—and receive the astounding news of a massive inheritance. But Sophia can’t celebrate yet, not when she and her sisters hear the conditions attached to the money. The “real” daughters loathe Sophia and Gia on sight—and the feeling is mutual. But they have to work together if any of them hope to inherit the obscene amount of money left to them. They must live together and restore the large mansion in Pacific Heights for an entire year. Otherwise, the entire estate will go to charity. Gia tries to convince Sophia they have to walk away, but Sophia isn’t so sure.

For once, their mother might get a chance to rest instead of working every minute. She could help a lot of families in her job as a social worker too. It’s tempting. And once she catches sight of Joel Edgerton, she can’t resist the temptation to get involved in her unwanted family. The path to happily-ever-after is fraught with missteps and the treacherous waters of sisterly undercurrents.

Can Sophia persevere when everyone seems to be against her, even her own twin?

Ha! You have to read the book to find out!

Diana

Monday Review of All that Was

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

I think this is going to be a new thing for me. I’m a writer but I read a lot of books and not all of them are in the genre I write in. I’m wondering if you are that way too.

Do you only pick one type of book to read?

Do you avoid certain books? That I do. I avoid any heavy-duty crime books that have details that won’t let me sleep. Otherwise, I read a lot of genres.

I read this book A Man Called Smith after meeting the author Tanya E. Williams at a writing convention. We spent a break sitting by the pool discussing writing and our careers. She’s from Canada and I’m from Illinois. (USA). It was fun to discover what we both liked or disliked. She’s a planner and a plotter. I was neither at the time but I can say after meeting her I now plan.

This time period spoke to me as it’s about the time my own mother was searching for her place in the world. The details are spot-on as Tanya is an excellent researcher. You’ll feel the desperation and splendor of the settings.

Woman split between the past and the future, one side in early 1900s dress the other in jeans and shirt. Standing in front of a church in Seattle

A battle-scarred father. A disillusioned daughter. Can a grieving widower rebuild his splintered family to find peace at last?

South Dakota, 1949. WWII veteran John Smith longs for the life he lost after the tragic death of his wife during childbirth. But in the desperation to provide for his two small children, he is manipulated into an unsuitable marriage by a young woman with a dark neurosis. Tormented by his own grief and the ravages of war, John is blind to his children’s turmoil and pain.

Washington State, 1964. John’s sixteen-year-old daughter Calla dreams of a life beyond her vindictive stepmother. Forced to care for her younger siblings with a list of household demands larger than she is tall, Calla knows it’s only a matter of time until she can escape the abuse and begin anew at college. But her dreams crumble when her heartless stepmother claims the college fund for her own selfish purposes.

As John fears he is too late to stop the war within his home, Calla vows to build a new life worth living.

Can John survive the consequences of war on the home front? Can Calla find the strength to rediscover the meaning of family?

A Man Called Smith is the heartwarming and heart wrenching story following the life of John Smith. If you like courageous characters and narratives told over multiple generations, then you’ll love Tanya E. Williams’ emotional tale.

Get it here https://books2read.com/amancalledsmith

Binge Reading The Montana Ranches

Posted on by Diana Brandmeyer

It’s been a great month for reading. Lots of rainy days and nights is a good reason to hang out in a chair with my Kindle. Except for nights when the hockey playoffs are on and then my attention goes to our local team. The St. Louis Blues. I’m not a big sports fan except for hockey. For some reason I like it. I think it’s because I’m amazed at the agility of the players. I can not stand up on ice at all.

I’ve jumped into KindleUnlimited with gusto and have had fun tracking down good books to read.

A series I started and can’t stop reading is by Valerie Comer. The Montana Ranches Christian Romances

There is something about modern-day cowboys that captures my attention.

Start with the first one The Cowboy’s Christmas Reunion and see what you think.

From Book 1: The Cowboy’s Christmas Reunion A jilted cowboy gets a second chance at love when his ex-fiancée returns with her small daughter.

From Book 2: The Cowboy’s Mixed-Up Matchmaker Friends become more in this romance with a matchmaker bent on finding dates for the cowboy she believes doesn’t return her love.

From Book 3: The Cowboy’s Romantic Dreamer Opposites attract in this romance with a grumpy cowboy burned by love and a bubbly romance editor with (almost) all the answers!

From Book 4: The Cowboy’s Convenient Marrage. Rivals form a marriage of convenience in this contemporary cowboy romance but plan not to fall in love.

From Book 5: The Cowboy’s Belated Discovery. In this epiphany romance, all she asks is one shot at winning his heart, but he can’t take one more chance at love.

From Book 6: The Cowboy’s Reluctant Bride. In this unexpected pregnancy romance, they’ve both had a change of heart, but secrets make it hard to trust.

3 book cover Cowboys with white hats, one with black. A red barn.

What are you reading this month?