The Chemistry of Love. Sariah Wilson. 2023. Montlake. 347 pages. [Source: personal copy.] The Chemistry of Love was a no-brainer for me to check-out. I love a good fake relationship trope, and this one seemed especially messy.  Anna is a mousy cosmetic chemist who feels stuck in a role that doesn’t allow her to explore her innovative ideas for beauty products.  Instead, she’s stuck pining over one of her bosses, hoping he’ll figure out that she’s in love with him. Lucky for her, he’s got an older brother who’s the CEO of the company. One who’s hatched a plan to fake a relationship with Anna in a play against his competitive nature … for the sake of business, naturally. Sadly, my initial impressions of Anna were negative. In fact, I spent a nice chunk of the book actively disliking her, and questioning exactly how delusional she was for her views toward Craig. She also lacked assertion in her relationships at work and home, which made her come across as unreasonably weak and insecure. But what stood out to me was her obsession with her company CEO. She frequently references being in love with him, but she’d only had one substantive…

Everything We Keep. Kerry Lonsdale. 2016. 306 pages. Lake Union Publishing. [Source: Kindle First.] On our wedding day, my fiance, James, arrived at the church in a casket. Well, that’s certainly a way to start a book. Everything We Keep is a poignant story that follows Aimee as she seeks to find some sense of normalcy after her fiancee goes missing for nearly two months, then suddenly washes ashore, dead.  When a mysterious woman approaches her after the funeral with enigmatic messages that allude to James still being alive, Aimee is wary and keeps her distance, too stricken with grief to process whether the woman means well or wants to exploit her. But when the woman returns after more than a year with evidence that seems to back up her claims, it’s impossible for Aimee to ignore. Reading Everything We Keep is an emotional roller-coaster. The journey Aimee goes on is definitely interesting, and finds her leaving the cocoon of her hometown to explore a seaside town in Mexico.  

Evelyn After. Victoria Helen Stone.  2016. 258 pages. Lake Union Publishing. [Source: Kindle First Program.] A girl was dead. A marriage was ruined. And the world just kept going on as if that were all okay, when it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay. Evelyn lived a tidy, suburban life. Until the one evening when her husband revealed that he’d been in an accident, one of his patients was involved, and nobody could know a thing about it.  That evening sparked a change in Evelyn and the way she interacted with the world around her. Once a super-PTA parent, she becomes a sulking shell of herself, bent on finding out truth about the husband she thinks she knows.

The Things We Wish Were True. Marybeth Mayhew Whalen. 2016. 209 pages. Lake Union Publishing. [Source: Kindle First Program.] Have you ever read something that can only be described as being on the tracks when a slow-motion train wreck is about to happen? The constant feeling of “it’s going to happen, I can’t stop it, and it’s going to be really bad” gripped me while I read The Things We Wish Were True, but in the best way. I was compelled to finish reading nearly as soon as I started, and I wasn’t disappointed along the way. On its face, this is a story of a quiet southern town, Sycamore Glen, N.C., where families spend all year looking forward to afternoons spent together at the neighborhood pool. Everything has its place, and everyone knows what to expect. But this town is gilded, and its secrets bubble just below its surface. What is more enticing, however, is the intricate way in which each family’s secrets are intertwined with the others.