The Lost Ticket by Freya Sampson (★★★★☆)
Audiobook • Libby • Contemporary Fiction • 2022
Short synopsis: Libby arrives in London with her life in disarray. She’s brokenhearted and job-less. It’s a chance encounter on the bus that sparks new life in her. She meets an elderly man named Frank who has been riding this bus route for 60 years to try to find the woman he met on this very bus in 1962 and who changed the course of his life. Libby decides: She’s going to help Frank find this woman, with the help of an unlikely partner and some willing strangers.
This book was so heartwarming! It’s not going to change your life, but if you’re looking for a nice palette cleanser between heavier books, I highly recommend this one. There was a plot device used in this book that I normally really, really hate, and I was very tempted to abandon the book after the reveal, but I kept pushing through and, I have to say, the author made it work. It added a new layer of complexity to the novel, but in a way that made sense and helped to propel Libby’s character into a new direction, which was much needed. A sweet story all-around!
The Lies I Tell by Julie Clark (★★★★☆)
Print • Library • Thriller • 2022
Short synopsis: Meg Williams is a con artist who has made it her mission to make people pay. She finds her mark, assumes an alias, involves herself in the mark’s life, and then she’s gone before the mark finds out they’ve lost everything. Kat Roberts is a reporter who has made it her life’s mission to expose Meg, and she’s getting closer and closer to doing so.
What a fantastic thriller! I really loved that it didn’t rely on typical thriller theatrics with lots of twists and turns, unreliable narrators, and a crazy ending. Instead, it was more about the two women at the heart of the thriller. Watching these two women come together and try to out-con one another was really fun, and I think the ending was just perfection. Was it believable? Eh, not really. But I had so much fun reading this book and getting into the psyche of a con artist that I didn’t really care that much. This book was just so satisfying!
Lucky Star by Susannah Nix (★★★☆☆)
E-Book • Owned (Amazon) • Contemporary Romance • 2022
Short synopsis: Boone Sheridan is a TV star who is currently involved in a public relations firestorm. What he needs is a nice, normal girlfriend to “fake date” for a bit of time. Enter Eve, the barista at his local coffee shop. She’s down on her luck and needs a break, and surprisingly, she’s up for the challenge. But what happens when fake dating starts to feel real?
I have complicated feelings about this book. Let’s start with the good: It was a fun contemporary romance that was hard to put down! I loved these characters and wanted the best for them. It was also fun getting a glimpse into celebrity life. The chemistry between these characters was crackling and the sex scenes were… *chef’s kiss*.
Now for the bad. The ending was completely unrealistic and disappointing. It felt like such a cop-out from the author, as if she had written herself into a corner and couldn’t figure her way out, so she just gave up. Secondly, it was so, so obvious that Boone needed to be in therapy and that he should not have entered into a relationship with Eve so soon after getting out of a toxic relationship. The way he relied on Eve was unhealthy, and I’m very angry at this author for not addressing that at all. There is no way this ends well for Eve and Boone. I also found the way Eve and Boone dealt with a negative situation early in the relationship to be incredibly immature and silly. It didn’t shine a good light on these two characters.
While I did enjoy this romance novel, there are many issues with it and, as such, I don’t think it’s one I can wholly recommend.
What are you reading?
I’m doing something I rarely do, and that is read two books simultaneously. One is a re-read of Alice Munro’s Hateship Friendship Courtship Loveship Marriage, which I LOVE, and the other is Remarkably Bright Creatures, which I’m about halfway through and am finding very subpar. It’s not bad enough that I’m going to abandon it, but I sure am not loving it.
I am always reading multiple books at once! I like being able to jump back and forth between a romance and a non-romance. But it’s not for everyone!
I will have to pick up The Lost Ticket when I need a light pallet cleanser!
I just finished the latest Gamache novel which was sooo good! I loved the flashback of how Gamache and Jean-Guy met. Now I am reading ‘Best of Friends’ which I think I read about on NGS’s blog. It’s literary fiction about a friendship. I’m enjoying it so far!
Wasn’t that Louise Penny book so, so, SO good? Ahhh! I just loved it. How does she consistently write such amazing books where we uncover even MORE about these characters we’ve read about for so long? She is a true genius.
I’ve been very into nonfiction lately, so I’m reading a book about Mussar, a Jewish spiritual self-help practice, and I’m also in the midst of Viola Davis’s memoir. Both are great so far, but I’d love to find a solid YA thriller to pull me back into fiction for a bit.