Please Come Home for Christmas. Kahillah Fox. 2016. 65 pages. HeartBeat Press. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] So, I love all things Christmas. Sure, I grumble about the cold, the stress of decorating and gift buying, and dinner planning.  But I also permanently change my radio station to 97.1fm the day after Thanksgiving because that’s when the Christmas music starts. So when I came across Please Come Home For Christmas last night on Kindle Unlimited, I said why not have a little Christmas in April. I’m clearly a glutton for punishment. This book is centered around Zahara, who reluctantly returns home to Maryland for Christmas.  She’s been living the life in California, and the slow, cold style of Maryland just doesn’t fit her. When she arrives home, she finds her parents have invited over her ex-boyfriend, Adrian, and he’s on a mission to win back her heart.  Throw in some drama with her younger sister and a surprise pop-up from her boyfriend Christian, and you’ve got all the makes of a holiday (maybe) romance that will at least entertain you while you sip your egg nog.

The Lies: The Lies We Tell About Love, Life, and Everything In Between. Christina C. Jones. 2017. Amazon Digital Services. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] After months of teasers through her “Sample Sundays” feature, Christina C. Jones released her latest, The Lies:The Lies We Tell About Love, Life, and Everything in Between, on March 30.  I’ve been a fan since discovering Jones last year, and her newest boasts the same drama spliced with hot sex and humor as her other books. The characters in The Lies aren’t new; they were actually introduced in The Truth: His Side, Her Side, and The Truth About Falling in Love.  Brandi is a single mom who’s raising a teenager while still struggling to love again after rejection from her son’s father. Ex-ball player Kyle has an back-and-forth cycle with his son’s mother that he just can’t seem to shake. The two have always had a flirtatious rapport, but never acted on it … until now. 

The Heart Don’t Lie: Jewels’ Dilemma. Yasheca Lasha. 2016. 220 pages. Yasheca Lasha Publishing. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] I’m not sure where to even begin, which I genuinely believe was the author’s main problem with this novel. A hard to follow plot, too many characters, and bad editing were the main issues, yet I think the true problem was the author tried to combine every novel she’s thought of and read into this one book. As an avid urban lit fan, I find the characters to be believable – in the “I can’t relate but I’m sure there’s people out there living this life” way. Perhaps an outline and some unbiased editors would have helped filter through the inconsistencies 16and awkward dialogues that made this book so taxing.

The Woman on the Orient Express. Lindsay Jane Ashford. 2016. Lake Union Publishing. 332 pages. [Source: ARC provided courtesy of NetGalley.] I selected this because I love Agatha Christie. I fell in love with her writing as a teenager and was excited to read a fictionalized account of her tumultuous life.   The Woman on the Orient Express doesn’t disappoint. It is based on several high-profile aspects of Christie’s life, such as her failed first marriage and her subsequent trip to Baghdad on the Orient Express.  Despite being fiction, it manages to fill in gaps that are not only believable but seem authentic. As noted by Ashford, these events simply form a frame for the book. The author’s take at recreating the experiences Christie had on her trip and the people she encountered are frighteningly believable.   Agatha is still reeling from her failed marriage and the reality of her ex-husband moving on so quickly to start a new family.  Her two-month trek is meant to give her a boost in moving forward; she goes as far as to travel under an assumed name to do so.  An unexpected bunk-make, Katherine, has her own secrets as she mourns the death of her husband and…

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.