EVERYTHING YOU ARE by Kerry Anne King

If she could die quietly, just close her story as if it’s a book she started reading and decided she didn’t like, she would welcome that. But she has to keep turning the pages; she’s not allowed to quit, because this is her fault and it’s the punishment she deserves.

Sometimes a book comes into your life and you never look at things the same. This is such a book. It’s so well written. So touching. Heartfelt. Filled with so many emotions. It’s like something you never expected. Nothing is the same from start to finish and yet every single word, page, chapter, just fits perfectly. From the death of a mother and son to the lives of a daughter and father. A promise to a grandfather. From alcoholism to drugs. From love to hate and back again. This book is filled with emotions you may not even know you have. Laughter, sadness, death, tears(lots of tears), life, music. Oh the music. You can feel that in your heart. I could at least.

Love is such a fantastic feeling. True love that is from your heart. The language of love. From a woman to a man. A daughter to a father. Family to family. This book has many characters in it and they all feel such deep things. They are all fighting something. Something that is almost to strong to bear. Phee, the luthier, has to made a promise to her grandfather that is almost impossible for her to keep. Does she believe in curses or was that all just something in his head? Allie, lost her mother and brother and blames herself. Braden, a first-chair cellist for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, lost his ability to play and became a drunk. Left his wife and children eleven years earlier. After the death of his wife and son he has to go be there for Allie. He’s always loved her but she hates him so bad. There are other characters, ones who have problems. Drinking problems. They are all there for each other no matter what though and keep each other on the straight way to being sober.

Can anything fix these broken people. Can music be the salve that mends them? This is the story you have been waiting for. It’s going to grab you by the heart and pull you deep inside and won’t let go until you find the answers to every question. Until you read the very last word and believe me the ending of this book will make you weep. I wish I could think of the perfect words to describe how much this book touched me. The love that exists between people. The empathy, the heartfelt true caring of each other. A near tragedy that brings them all together to help mend. A cello that needs to be played. The music that touches you.

This book is one that I will not forget to soon. It’s a pure piece of poetry that will make you so happy you read it. From start to finish you will love this book. You’ll cringe in places too. Hold your breath when you wonder what is going to happen next. Will they make it or will they all turn against each other. It’s just a story that I felt inside. The love, laughter, sadness, heartache and tears. So many feelings. It’s one of those books that give you all the feels. That in my opinion is a great novel.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #LakeUnionPublishers for this ARC. This review is from my heart and told in my own words.

A million stars for this but alas I can only give it 5. I highly recommend this book. A must read by a wonderful author. I look forward to more from her.

THE POISON GARDEN by A.J. Banner

From the time Elise gets home to the end of this book you will be on edge. Not know exactly what to believe or think. I had lots of theories about what was going to happen and what happened but the twists and turns in this book through me for a huge loop. I was way wrong about who did what to whom. Elise comes home to surprise her husband the day before their first wedding anniversary and she gets more surprises than she ever bargained for.

Some of the characters in this book I loved. I loved Elise and even Chantal finally. At first I thought Chantal was just a tramp who had no feelings at all for what her friend was going through. But she proved to be a very good friend and was there when it counted. She had her own sorrows and was able to finally come to “terms” with things that happened in her life.

This book will definitely keep you turning the pages until the very ending. The ending was done powerfully and oh so good. I loved all the things that happened to those that got what they deserved. I thought it was perfect justice. This book will pull you right in from the very beginning and will not let you go until the sweet ending. The ending is very sweet too. Right before the ending you find out why different things happened and who did what. I usually figure these things out but this book was a surprise to me. I loved that.

A. J. Banner is a wonderful author of thrillers. I’ve read a couple and always look forward to more. This one in my opinion is the best one yet. It’s definitely one that you won’t want to put down until the very last page.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #LakeUnionPublisher’s for this book. This review is mine and mine alone.

A huge 5 stars and highly recommend this book to everyone that loves a great thriller.

THE PATIENT by Steena Holmes

Not every woman deserves to be a mother. But every child deserves to be loved, to feel loved.

Children shouldn’t learn to hate their parents. When they do, it destroys their soul. It forces them to become someone they were never intended to be.

She wept at my stories, about how my mother would turn the other way when my stepfather tucked me into bed.
Excerpts from this book.....

This is a very complex psychological thriller. While I did figure it out early on it was one I had a very hard time putting down. I had to know who did what and why. It’s full of so much that if you are not careful you will get a bit lost. It has some parts that made my skin crawl. Children being abused both emotionally and sexually. Nothing explicit but it touches on that. It’s like the context of this story is about children and the parents who do not deserve them.

I thought every single character in this book was likable and they all felt so real. It was set in an Alice in Wonderland town and made you feel like you was there. I felt fear in so many places for the main character, Danielle Rycroft. It seemed like she put herself in so many scary situations. Not of her own making but from her lack of sleep then when she did sleep her sleep walking. It was very intense. Her best friend, Tami Sloan was right there for her through most everything. Tami was a cop investigating the murders.

There are several characters in this story. Each has a key part to play in how things turn out. You should like each one as they appear. The only person that I didn’t like at all was UNCLE!!

You will truly love this book. It will keep you one edge so much and every now and then maybe a tiny chuckle. Mostly it made me angry at the way some parents treated their children.

I think this may be one of Steena’s best books to date and I’m so hoping there is going to be a sequel. I need a sequel bad here.

Thank you #NetGalley #LakeUnionpublisers. This is my honest review of a very good edge of your seat thriller.

I gave this book 4 big stars. I recommend it highly.

CILKA’S JOURNEY by Heather Morris

The first thing I have to say about this book is it will without a doubt make you weep deep hard ugly heartfelt tears. If it doesn’t you don’t have a heart or empathy for anyone. It’s a very sad but also true story of a young girl, Cilka,who had more compassion, love, honor, selflessness, heart, grit and the gift to give than anyone I have ever read about. This is also the first book I have ever read about someone who was in a concentration camp then prison for being in said camp. I’ve seen a couple of movies about concentration camps and the Nazi hells, but this is the first book. It’s a hard one for sure. It’s so well written and so emotional. You feel the pain of this young girl.  What she went through  and endured at the hands of men who thought of a race as property. Thought they were not worthy of living. This is the sequel to THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ but can be read as a stand alone. Thank goodness because right now I don’t believe I could handle reading the TATTOOIST.

This book takes you into the depths of a hell that a girl lived through. I have to admit I’m not at all sure I would have survived. She was given choices that kept her alive. To down her for accepting these choices is awful. For anyone to say that these people had choices has no idea what living in hell is like. This book makes you feel like you were there. At least it did me. It was beyond anything I could ever imagine happening yet it did. One day you are a child worrying about getting your license to drive and the next you are dragged away from everything you ever knew and treated like you are the lowest form of life. Cilka was such an inspiration. She was such a king young woman/child. She had a chance to leave and gave it to her friend and that friends child. She did these things many times. Put others before herself. She was forced to sleep with officers in charge in Auschwitz. Raped. Then she was sent to prison for conspiring with the enemy for being a survivor. For choosing to live instead of giving up and dying. She did what she had to do. She found happiness after so much hardship. She learned that she was not a horrible person for things she did that was out of her control. She found love and lived. Cilka was a very strong person whom I admire greatly. This book was so well written. It was so well put together.

At the end of this book keep reading. Read the NOTE FROM HEATHER MORRIS thru the very end of the book. You will learn even more about this amazing author and what research she put into this book. I’m so happy that I read every single word even though I had to lay this book down several times and get up and walk around because of weeping so hard. This is truly a great read. Sad yes. Very very sad but it’s one that I think everyone should read. Everyone should know what happened.

Thank you #NetGalley and #StMartin’sPress for the honor of reading this book. Also to Heather Morris for researching and writing this book.

I would give this book a million stars if I could. It’s definitely a 5 kleenex and 5 star book that I highly recommend.

COLD WOODS by Karen Katchur

This book is definitely one of the best I have read. Though it’s a very touchy subject matter. Full of heartbreaking violence(between the lines so to speak) and family who are in a way hiding horrendous things behind closed doors. This book touches on alcoholism, domestic abuse, child molestation, and in my opinion pure evil. It shows what happens when a person has had enough. When you think you are going to die, actually know beyond a doubt that you will die if you don’t do something. This book can trigger things so be warned, but it’s also a fantastic story of how things played out. Filled with such a great ending. I figured out part of the, who did what, but not all by any means. I actually just had an idea of who may or may not have killed Lester.

Trisha comes home after being gone thirty years. One of her best friends mother had died and she wanted to reconnect and help her friend, Dannie. She was also running from her very sick and abusive husband. She was use to the best of things but she also had a bad problem with drinking. It helped to ease the pain she was in and from what I read it seems her husband may have helped to turn her into an alcoholic. He’s a very bad man and Trisha wants nothing more than to get away from him. She’s never told him about where she lived with her mother so she felt she was safe. Trisha and her mother didn’t have the best relationship either. Her mother did quite a bit of drinking also and had always been working when Trisha was young and needed her most. She was alone with her stepdad, Lester. Lester was a full on alcoholic who loved putting his sorry hands on young girls. Trisha felt it was all her fault. That she deserved what happened to her. This is unfortunately the way victims do feel. Lester had called her a tease and other things and she was afraid to tell anyone, even her best friends.

Trisha, Dannie and Carlyn met the day Trisha’s family moved to Bangor, Pennsylvania. On second street in a side by side house. They had left Chicago for this new start. The three girls because best friends right off and it seemed they would do anything for each other. They had a bond and were as different as any three could be. But they were there for each other up until each went their own way after high school.

A whole lot happens in this book. A lot of it very ugly yet told in a way that made the story what it was. When the story starts a body has been found and eventually identified as Lester. There are two main cops in this story who keep on the case until the very end when someone finally admits to the crime and tells why. Believe me they had every reason to do it.

Things had changed so much between the three friends that when Trisha came back it seemed they would never be friends again. But they are there for each other despite the distance and time. Dannie and Carlyn never left the town other than Carlyn going to college. Trisha of course had run fast and far to escape everything. Even though there were problems the three girls, grown women not, stand together. Dannie’s mother had died and they helped her, along with their mothers, clean out the house. They eventually seem to get over the hurt and resentment that started way back in the mid eighties. Their mother’s had become the best of friends also over the years. Sharon, Trisha’s mother and Linda, Carlyn’s mother were still very upset over losing their friend Evelyn, Dannie’s mother. Each of them had been left single mothers who would do anything for their girls.

This book is one that will definitely make you do some serious crying. It also has a couple of funny parts but not many and they are small. I cringed in so many places. From the young Trisha’s abuse at the hands of her stepdad to the awful horrible cruel treatment at the hands of her husband. The only one who truly loved Trisha was Scott, her high school sweetheart. But that ended also when she left town. She just didn’t feel she was good enough for him. He was a very kind and good boy who grew up to be a policeman and a great dad.

This book had some great characters in it. I didn’t read the first book, River Bodies, but will now. This is a stand-alone but from what I read it would be great to read the first one to get to know Detective Parker Reed more. To find out exactly what happened that made him the way he was. He’s a good cop and a very good human being. He seems to honestly care about what happens to Trisha and her mother. Even to her friends. He tries hard to get Trisha to not go back with her husband. Will he succeed with that. There is no romantic feelings between these too, Parker and Trish. He just knows that in domestic violence cases things don’t always end well. He wants to help. He’s fighting demons of his own yet always seems to reach out and help others. To me he is an all around good man who started liking a character in the first book.

Even with all the hurt and heartache in this story it’s well worth the read. The thriller/mystery of this book will keep you turning pages until the very surprising arrest and ending. The who and what will surprise you. It did me mostly. One I did think of but was not sure. It was so well written and had me hooked from the very first page. It’s told from different time periods and settings or from what is happening at the time. You will want to know who did what and what is going to happen to Trisha.

I am very glad I read this book. It is one that in many ways haunted me and will for a while. I cried so hard in places. If you have ever had an alcoholic stepdad who loved to touch you it may trigger those feelings. I personally was able to cry and work my way through it. I rooted for Trisha and actually all the characters who were touched by the things Lester did to prevail.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #Tomas&Mercer for the ARC of this book in exchange for my complete and honest review.

I give this one 5 stars. I also recommend it to anyone that loves a good mystery/thriller.

WILDFLOWER HOPE (Wildflower House book 2) By Grace Greene

WILDFLOWER HOPE (The Wildflower House book 2) by Grace Greene

Another beautifully written book by Grace Green. The sequel to Wildflower House is every bit as wonderful and poetic as the first book.

Filled with such hope, love, promise, laughter, pain, tears, forever after, this book will pull you in and not let go. The love that is in this book is so obvious yet Kara Lange Hart had to go through so much to find it. Losing her husband, child, mother and father she’s pretty much afraid to hope for anyone to be her forever. She has lots of great friends and two guys who both seem interested but she knows that she can only love one.

Losing her father was one of the hardest things Kara has gone through. After finding out the whole truth about his life growing up she wanted nothing more than to help him find his lost family. He two siblings who went missing when they were just toddlers. It was not to be though. When he passed Kara decided to go ahead and finish his dream of completing Wildflower House. Turning it into a type of retreat for artist of every kind was also her dream. She has put her heart and soul into this. Will it be a success? Will people come? Will she be able to see it through to the end? Kara is a fighter even though at times she thinks she is weak.

With help she finally is able to forgive her best friend, Victory, for a huge misunderstanding. Victory truly just wanted things to be good for Kara. It took Kara quite a while to accept that though. With Victory’s help she’s able to do some things that she would most likely not have done alone.

This book is so heartwarming. You will feel like you are there. From the inside of the house to the land surrounding it, it’s like I was there. The bench at the water. The trail to the old house where her father lived as a young boy. The trees and flowers all seem so real and alive to me. I could almost smell the beauty. This book is so touching and well written. You will fall in love with this community and people. The wonderful surprises along the way will make your heart feel so happy.

This is such a good series and I am sure there will be another. I have to find out what happens next for Kara. For all the characters. I picture what I think will happen but until I can read it I won’t know for certain. It’s truly a wonderful heartfelt loving story of love, loss, heartache, hope, finding and trusting people and love again. It has it all. This story made me laugh and cry. It made me have many feelings but mostly hope.

Two sentences stood out to me strongly: (1) Time. It recurred every second. On and on. And each second was an opportunity to do life better. Or worse. Unless you were to busy mourning the past seconds to see the opportunity-or the danger.

(2) “You can’t choose where you’re born, but you can choose where to grow”

I loved those. They fit perfectly.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #LakeUnionPublishing for the ARC of this wonderful book. I truly loved it from start to beautiful finish.

A big giant 5 stars and I highly, highly recommend this book and the first one Wildflower Heart to everyone.