Hello everyone! Happy Friday! I hope everyone enjoys their weekend. The last two days here have been nice and warm and we finally got to spend some time outside and even cleaning up our garden. My health issues are still there, but I am not letting them get in the way of living my life. My son has been enjoying the trips to the park and this weekend we are heading out to the city for more birthdays.
New Releases Round Up will be something new to try on my blog to feature new releases coming up that I am currently really excited about and why I am excited about them. What are you patiently waiting to come out?
The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner Series: Standalone
Published by Berkley on March 19, 2019
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stripped of everything beloved and familiar, including her own identity.
The only thing that makes the camp bearable is meeting fellow internee Mariko Inoue, a Japanese-American teen from Los Angeles, whose friendship empowers Elise to believe the life she knew before the war will again be hers. Together in the desert wilderness, Elise and Mariko hold tight the dream of being young American women with a future beyond the fences.
I love Susan Meissner and her writing. I have read and reviewed several of her novels before and I feel like they are just getting better and better. She is currently one of my favorite writers. Her novels just really have a way to draw me in. This one is set during WWII it sounds just as amazing and emotional and I cannot wait to read it.
The Things We Cannot Say by Kelly Rimmer Series: Standalone
Published by Graydon House on March 19, 2019
Genres: Historical Fiction
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
In 1942, Europe remains in the relentless grip of war. Just beyond the tents of the Russian refugee camp she calls home, a young woman speaks her wedding vows. It’s a decision that will alter her destiny…and it’s a lie that will remain buried until the next century.
Since she was nine years old, Alina Dziak knew she would marry her best friend, Tomasz. Now fifteen and engaged, Alina is unconcerned by reports of Nazi soldiers at the Polish border, believing her neighbors that they pose no real threat, and dreams instead of the day Tomasz returns from college in Warsaw so they can be married. But little by little, injustice by brutal injustice, the Nazi occupation takes hold, and Alina’s tiny rural village, its families, are divided by fear and hate. Then, as the fabric of their lives is slowly picked apart, Tomasz disappears. Where Alina used to measure time between visits from her beloved, now she measures the spaces between hope and despair, waiting for word from Tomasz and avoiding the attentions of the soldiers who patrol her parents’ farm. But for now, even deafening silence is preferable to grief.
Slipping between Nazi-occupied Poland and the frenetic pace of modern life, Kelly Rimmer creates an emotional and finely wrought narrative that weaves together two women’s stories into a tapestry of perseverance, loyalty, love and honor. The Things We Cannot Say is an unshakable reminder of the devastation when truth is silenced…and how it can take a lifetime to find our voice before we learn to trust it.
Girls with Sharp Sticks by Suzanne Young Series: Girls with Sharp Sticks,
Published by Simon Pulse on March 19, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Dystopia
Pages: 400
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
The Girls of Innovations Academy are beautiful and well-behaved—it says so on their report cards. Under the watchful gaze of their Guardians, the all-girl boarding school offers an array of studies and activities, from “Growing a Beautiful and Prosperous Garden” to “Art Appreciation” and “Interior Design.” The girls learn to be the best society has to offer. Absent is the difficult math coursework, or the unnecessary sciences or current events. They are obedient young ladies, free from arrogance or defiance. Until Mena starts to realize that their carefully controlled existence may not be quite as it appears.
As Mena and her friends begin to uncover the dark secrets of what’s actually happening there—and who they really are—the girls of Innovations will find out what they are truly capable of. Because some of the prettiest flowers have the sharpest thorns.
To Best the Boys by Mary Weber Series: Standalone
Published by Thomas Nelson on March 19, 2019
Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy
Pages: 352
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Every year for the past fifty-four years, the residents of Pinsbury Port receive a mysterious letter inviting all eligible-aged boys to compete for an esteemed scholarship to the all-male Stemwick University. Every year, the poorer residents look to see that their names are on the list. The wealthier look to see how likely their sons are to survive. And Rhen Tellur opens it to see if she can derive which substances the ink and parchment are created from, using her father’s microscope.
In the province of Caldon, where women are trained in wifely duties and men are encouraged into collegiate education, sixteen-year-old Rhen Tellur wants nothing more than to become a scientist. As the poor of her seaside town fall prey to a deadly disease, she and her father work desperately to find a cure. But when her Mum succumbs to it as well? Rhen decides to take the future into her own hands—through the annual all-male scholarship competition.
With her cousin, Seleni, by her side, the girls don disguises and enter Mr. Holm’s labyrinth, to best the boys and claim the scholarship prize. Except not everyone’s ready for a girl who doesn’t know her place. And not everyone survives the maze.
Desperate Paths by E.C. Diskin Series: Standalone
Published by Thomas & Mercer on March 19, 2019
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
In Eden, the truth can have deadly consequences.
Brooklyn Anderson knows it looks bad. She was found wiping down a gun. Her father now dead. His blood on her hands. The incomprehensible nightmare has started.
Seven days earlier, Brooklyn had returned to Eden to care for her beloved father, who lay helpless in a hospital bed. Her estranged sister, Ginny, said he fell. But as Brooklyn soon realizes, Ginny is prone to lying.
Former Eden resident Darius Woods was in the hospital too. The famous actor had written a screenplay that would lay bare all the secrets of the town, but within hours of his return, someone shot him.
As the Woods investigation proceeds, and Brooklyn starts to question everything she believes about her family, her neighbors, and her home, secrets and lies begin to unravel. But nothing can prepare her for where those lies will finally lead.
And sharing the truth of what happened the night her father died might just make things worse.
Best Day Ever by 
