Book Review: How Not to Die Alone by Richard Roper

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“Music was my refuge. I could crawl into the space between the notes and curl my back to loneliness.” 

― Maya Angelou

How Not to Die Alone 

by Richard Roper

My review:

Have you ever told a lie so big that you felt there was no way out of it? This is precisely what Andrew’s world has become. What started as an innocent lie turns his world upside down when asked to host a dinner party for his co-workers.

First of all let me just be honest and say I had no idea a thing called a ‘council’ existed. A Public Health branch where people search for next of kin for those who have died alone. It turns out there is such a thing and this book takes us into this sad world where a person could be given a funeral for no one to attend. But Andrew, our wonderful hero of this amazing story, does his best to make this sad world a better place -one lonely funeral at a time.

On the surface Andrew seems to have the perfect life. A lovely wife, two wonderful children, a beautiful home and a job where he knows he’s making a difference. In reality things are much more different and complicated for him. At 42, Andrew is aware that his life is not what it could be but has no desire to change.

As we get to know Andrew, we begin to see just how lonely he is. He hides his emotions behind Ella Fitzgerald and his miniature trains. There is something in his past that torments him every time he hears the song ‘Blue Moon,’ by Fitzgerald, which causes panic attacks. It’s heart-breaking to see this wonderful person go through life in such pain!

There he meets Peggy, who is starting a job at the council. Andrew likes to do his job alone so when he is chosen as Peggy’s trainer, he’s not very pleased. This is where his life begins to change. Soon they become friends but Andrew has too many secrets preventing him from living the life he so desperately wants.

This is a wonderful story of friendship and loss. A story about strength, acceptance and the resilience of the human spirit. It will make you laugh and cry. It will break your heart and put it back together. I love how simple yet complicated each character is and how each is developed in a way that works perfectly with Andrew’s story. I wish I had an Andrew in my life, that’s for sure. Beautifully written.

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My Top 5 Books by Catherine Ryan Hyde

“The value of your life is your own choosing,” 

― Catherine Ryan Hyde, When I Found You

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My Top 5 Books

by

Catherine Ryan Hyde

Catherine Ryan Hyde writes some of the most touching and inspiring books that I have read. With over 30 books published it’s very difficult to pick out favorites but I must! I’m in love with her style and memorable stores that are basically created with relatable characters. Lives of ordinary people that feel real simply because we could easily be found in the situations she creates. Therese are my top 5 CRH books:

1. When I Found You 

This book has been my number one of all time and I have read some great books.

When Nathan McCann discovers a newborn baby boy half buried in the woods, he assumes he's found a tiny dead body. But then the baby moves and in one remarkable moment, Nathan's life is changed forever.

The baby is sent to grow up with his grandmother, but Nathan can't forget him and is compelled to pay her a visit. He asks for one simple promise - that one day she will introduce the boy to Nathan and tell him, 'This is the man who found you in the woods.'

Years pass and Nathan assumes that the old lady has not kept her promise, until one day an angry, troubled boy arrives on his doorstep with a suitcase . . .

2. Take me With You

This was the very first CRH book I read and holds a very special place in my heart.

August Shroeder, a burned-out teacher, has been sober since his 19-year-old son died. Every year he's spent the summer on the road, but making it to Yellowstone this year means everything. The plan had been to travel there with his son, but now August is making the trip with Philip's ashes instead. An unexpected twist of fate lands August with two extra passengers for his journey, two half-orphans with nowhere else to go.

What none of them could have known was how transformative both the trip and the bonds that develop between them would prove, driving each to create a new destiny together.

3. Say Goodbye for Now

On an isolated Texas ranch, Dr. Lucy cares for abandoned animals. The solitude allows her to avoid the people and places that remind her of the past. Not that any of the townsfolk care. In 1959, no one is interested in a woman doctor. Nor are they welcoming Calvin and Justin Bell, a newly arrived African American father and son.

When Pete Solomon, a neglected twelve-year-old boy, and Justin bring a wounded wolf-dog hybrid to Dr. Lucy, the outcasts soon find refuge in one another. Lucy never thought she’d make connections again, never mind fall in love. Pete never imagined he’d find friends as loyal as Justin and the dog. But these four people aren’t allowed to be friends, much less a family, when the whole town turns violently against them.

With heavy hearts, Dr. Lucy and Pete say goodbye to Calvin and Justin. But through the years they keep hope alive…waiting for the world to catch up with them.

4. Where We Belong

Fourteen-year-old Angie and her mom are poised at the edge of homelessness... again. The problem is her little sister, Sophie. Sophie has an autism-like disorder, and a tendency to shriek. No matter where they live, home never seems to last long.

Until they move in with Aunt Vi, across the fence from a huge black Great Dane who changes everything. Sophie falls in love immediately, and begins to imitate the "inside of the dog," which, fortunately, is a calm place. The shrieking stops. Everybody begins to breathe again. Until Paul Inverness, the dog's grumpy, socially isolated owner, moves to the mountains, and it all begins again.

Much to Angie's humiliation, when they're thrown out of Aunt Vi's house, Angie's mom moves the family to the mountains after Paul and his dog. There, despite a fifty-year difference in their ages, Angie and Paul form a deep friendship, the only close friendship either has known. Angie is able to talk to him about growing up gay, and Paul trusts Angie with his greatest secret, his one dream. When the opportunity arrives, Angie decides to risk everything to help Paul's dream come true, even their friendship and her one chance at a real home--the only thing she's dreamed of since her father was killed. A place she can never be thrown out. A place she can feel she belongs. 

5. Allie and Bea

Bea has barely been scraping by since her husband died. After falling for a telephone scam, she loses everything and is forced to abandon her trailer. With only two-thirds of a tank in her old van, she heads toward the Pacific Ocean with her cat—on a mission to reclaim what’s rightfully hers, even if it means making others pay for what she lost.

When fifteen-year-old Allie’s parents are jailed for tax fraud, she’s sent to a group home. But when her life is threatened by another resident, she knows she has to get out. She escapes only to find she has nowhere to go—until fate throws Allie in Bea’s path.

Reluctant to trust each other, much less become friends, the two warily make their way up the Pacific Coast. Yet as their hearts open to friendship and love from the strangers they meet on their journey, they find the courage to forge their own unique family—and begin to see an imperfect world with new eyes.

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Review: The Night Before by Wendy Walker

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“There's nothing stupid about wanting to be loved. Believe me.”
― Nina LaCour, Everything Leads to You

The Night Before

Wendy Walker

The last few pages of this one were a lot more intense than I predicted. What a crazy, twisty read this was! I love a good thriller, especially when I it has me thinking I’ve got it all figured out only to throw me off the path completely. 

This is a story of an emotionally broken woman who is looking for a man who is willing to love her even when she believes she’s unlovable. All her life, Laura Lochner has looked for love in the wrong places and has decided it’s time for a change. She decides to look for love using a dating website. Her fear of finding the wrong man is constantly in her mind but knows she will one day find the one. 

Her decision to meet up with Jonathan Fields, a man she men online, will trigger a series of events which make this book extremely difficult to put down. When Laura doesn’t return home, her sister Rosie begins to worry about what might have happened. Do to Laura’s past; Rosie begins to feel concern not only for Laura but for the man named Jonathan Fields. 

A fast paced read with some great twists. Excellent.

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My Top Ten Books of 2018

“So many books, so little time.” 

― Frank Zappa

My Top Ten Books of 2018

2018 was possibly my most literary busy year in quite some time. I discovered new authors and continued to read some of my favorite ones. There were some great ones and others left me disappointed. Some made me laugh out loud and others simply left me shattered. Here is my list of my top ten reads of 2018. 

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10. Three Days Missing 

          by Kimberly Belle

When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight field trip with his class. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground where he was last seen. But she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest.

Another mother from the school, Stef Huntington, seems like she has it all: money, prominence in the community, a popular son and a loving husband. She hardly knows Kat, except for the vicious gossip that swirls around Kat’s traumatic past. But as the police investigation unfolds, Ethan’s disappearance will have earth-shattering consequences in Stef’s own life—and the paths of these two mothers are about to cross in ways no one could have anticipated.

9. Bring Me Back 
       by B.A. Paris

Finn and Layla are young, in love, and on vacation. They’re driving along the highway when Finn decides to stop at a service station to use the restroom. He hops out of the car, locks the doors behind him, and goes inside. When he returns Layla is gone—never to be seen again. That is the story Finn told to the police. But it is not the whole story.

Ten years later Finn is engaged to Layla’s sister, Ellen. Their shared grief over what happened to Layla drew them close and now they intend to remain together. Still, there’s something about Ellen that Finn has never fully understood. His heart wants to believe that she is the one for him...even though a sixth sense tells him not to trust her.


8. How to Stop Time 
       by Matt Haig

Tom Hazard has a dangerous secret. He may look like an ordinary 41-year-old, but owing to a rare condition, he's been alive for centuries. Tom has lived history--performing with Shakespeare, exploring the high seas with Captain Cook, and sharing cocktails with Fitzgerald. Now, he just wants an ordinary life.

So Tom moves back to London, his old home, to become a high school history teacher--the perfect job for someone who has witnessed the city's history first hand. Better yet, a captivating French teacher at his school seems fascinated by him. But the Albatross Society, the secretive group which protects people like Tom, has one rule: never fall in love. As painful memories of his past and the erratic behavior of the Society's watchful leader threaten to derail his new life and romance, the one thing he can't have just happens to be the one thing that might save him. Tom will have to decide once and for all whether to remain stuck in the past, or finally begin living in the present.


7. The Woman in the Window 
       by A.J. Finn

Anna Fox lives alone—a recluse in her New York City home, unable to venture outside. She spends her day drinking wine (maybe too much), watching old movies, recalling happier times . . . and spying on her neighbors.

Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother, their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble—and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.




6. After Anna 
      by Lisa Scottoline

Noah Alderman, a doctor and a widower, has remarried a wonderful woman, Maggie, and for the first time in a long time he and his son are happy. But their lives are turned upside down when Maggie’s daughter Anna moves in with them. Anna is a gorgeous seventeen-year-old who balks at living under their rules though Maggie, ecstatic to have her daughter back, ignores the red flags that hint at the trouble that is brewing. Events take a deadly turn when Anna is murdered and Noah is accused of the crime. Maggie must face not only the devastation of losing her only daughter, but the realization that her daughter's murder was at the hands of a husband she loves. New information sends Maggie searching for the truth, leading her to discover something darker than she could have ever imagined.





5. Leverage in Death (In Death #47) 

      by J.D. Robb

47 books in and the In Death series continues to be my favorite of all time. If you are not yet familiar with this crime series, please check it out! I highly recommend it.

Lieutenant Eve Dallas puzzles over a bizarre suicide bombing in a Wall St. office building in the latest in the #1 New York Times bestselling series…

For the airline executives finalizing a merger that would make news in the business world, the nine a.m. meeting would be a major milestone. But after marketing VP Paul Rogan walked into the plush conference room, strapped with explosives, the headlines told of death and destruction instead. The NYPSD’s Eve Dallas confirms that Rogan was cruelly coerced by two masked men holding his family hostage. His motive was saving his wife and daughter―but what was the motive of the masked men?



4. The Dream Daughter 
       by Diane Chamberlain

When Caroline Sears receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated. It is 1970 and there seems to be little that can be done. But her brother-in-law, a physicist, tells her that perhaps there is. Hunter appeared in their lives just a few years before—and his appearance was as mysterious as his past. With no family, no friends, and a background shrouded in secrets, Hunter embraced the Sears family and never looked back. 

Now, Hunter is telling her that something can be done about her baby's heart. Something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Caroline has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage that Caroline never knew existed. Something that will mean a mind-bending leap of faith on Caroline's part.




3. Watching You 
       by Lisa Jewell

Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you.

As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.




2. The Kiss Quotient
      by Helen Hoang

Stella Lane thinks math is the only thing that unites the universe. She comes up with algorithms to predict customer purchases — a job that has given her more money than she knows what to do with, and way less experience in the dating department than the average thirty-year-old.

It doesn't help that Stella has Asperger's and French kissing reminds her of a shark getting its teeth cleaned by pilot fish. Her conclusion: she needs lots of practice — with a professional. Which is why she hires escort Michael Phan. The Vietnamese and Swedish stunner can't afford to turn down Stella's offer, and agrees to help her check off all the boxes on her lesson plan — from foreplay to more-than-missionary position.






1. As Bright as Heaven
      by Susan Meissner 

In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters--Evelyn, Maggie, and Willa--a chance at a better life.

But just months after they arrive, the Spanish Flu reaches the shores of America. As the pandemic claims more than twelve thousand victims in their adopted city, they find their lives left with a world that looks nothing like the one they knew. But even as they lose loved ones, they take in a baby orphaned by the disease who becomes their single source of hope. Amidst the tragedy and challenges, they learn what they cannot live without--and what they are willing to do about it.


Indeed 2018 was a memorable years in books. Did our favorite make my list? What are your top 10?

Book Review - Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

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“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.” 

― Viola Davis 

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My review of

Everything I Never Told You  

by Celeste Ng

This book was emotionally draining and that is a good thing (as far as I’m concerned). A book that makes me sob always gets 5 stars from me. What a powerful story of family, love and heartbreak. It is one thing to pretend to be someone you are not. But pretending to be someone you don’t want to be must be utterly exhausting.  

I’m one of those people who doesn’t bother to read the blurb on a book if I know the author. This book was one of those so I went in not knowing what this book was a bout (I like surprises). This one starts you off in a typical house with a typical school morning. Kids having breakfast, lunches being fixed, parents rushing out the door and so on. The scene of homely moments suddenly changes when Lydia, the middle child of James and Marylyn Lee, doesn’t come down for breakfast. Soon they find out that their beautiful daughter was found dead in the lake behind their home and the family begins to fall apart.

In a beautifully written story, Celeste Ng takes us on an amazing and intertwined journey of family and loss. Read from different perspectives and times, this book touches on many important family and social issues which  give the reader a perspective of what it’s like to be and feel different when everyone around you expects you to be the same as everybody else. This is a burden James, Lydia's father has carried with him his entire life which he then passes on to his children.

This novel gives a powerful lesson of what happens when parents place too much pressure on their children’s shoulder and at times have unrealistic expectations. 

This one will stay with me for a long, long time.

Review: I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

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“One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family.” 
― Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

My Review

I Owe You One by Sophie Kinsella

Oh, Sophie Kinsella, you’ve done it again! I am smiling as I write this because this book made me feel absolutely wonderful! I was dealing with a weeks long, heartbreaking, reading slump when I saw this up for request on NetGalley. I cannot tell you how bad I needed a good read –not only a good read but a feel-good, stress reliever of a book! 

Sophie Kinsella is my go-to author when I need a good laugh and I Owe You One did not disappoint! The story follows Fixie, a late twenties-family-loving girl living a simple life working at her family shop.  Fixie knows that family is what matters most but can’t seem to get along with her siblings. She lives her life as her late father had, dedicated to the business and of course family.

Fixie has been in love with her childhood friend, Ryan, and is excited to learn that he has returned to London after a long stay in Hollywood. Fixie’s life, however, changes when she meets Sebastian at a coffee shop and she’s immediately intrigued by him. When Sebastian steps out of the coffee shop for a moment, he leaves Fixie in charge of his laptop. As tragedy is about to strike, she steps in to save the day! She protects the laptop from doom and Sebastian feels he is in debt to Fixie for saving his bacon. Fixie must find herself, her purpose and maybe even love while juggling  family and the business.  

This story has it all! You’ll laugh and cry and will give you a wonderful outlook!

Review: Watching You by Lisa Jewell

5 STARS

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"Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. 

There's no better rule."

-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

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Watching You

by Lisa Jewell

Book Review

By Sofie Hern

There are books that feel like you read and read and they never seem to end. There others you wish would never end.  'Watching You' is one of those books you just want to keep reading. My fascination with mystery/thrillers led me to this amazing book. I was so happy to have received this ARC but kept putting off reading it for a few days. What was I thinking? This is such an adrenaline rush of a read! Every page reveals a stunning new detail which is why it’s so difficult to put down! 

'Watching You' is one of the best thrillers I’ve read this year. Written in different perspective and outstanding voices, Lisa Jewell has created her best work yet! Because of my love for thrillers I believe there are times and books that feel too simple for me and a lot of the times the story reveals itself to me half way through the book. This is such a different and refreshing story that grips you from the first page and it does not relent! Twist after twist and turns. I was blindsided so many times that I had to stop reading just to catch my breath!

One of the things I enjoyed most about this book is how very wrong I was when I thought I knew it all. Jewell leads you to believe one thing while something entirely different is about to happen in the next page. Some characters you’ll love and others you’ll hate but then it all twists in a way that makes you question everything!

Each of the characters plays a very special and important role in the story. This book also made me realize that we are often too quick to judge and that not everything you hear or imagine or even see is the truth. While you start to hate a certain set of certain characters, you begin to unravel the mess and end up with a completely different idea of them. Definitely a memorable book and one I recommend without hesitation. Loved it!