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.

With a Twist. Staci Hart. 2015. 386. Promise Socks Publishing. [Source: Kindle Unlimited.] This is a cute enough story about a group of friends and their trial​s/tribulations in love. It focuses on professional ballerina Lily as she navigates what she hopes will be a whirlwind romance with her longtime crush and fellow principal dancer Blane (insert dreamy eyes here). Sadly, all that glitters is not gold, and she’s stuck trying to figure out whether to put her efforts into Blane or fly solo. Her close-knit group of friends is there to support her either way, especially her neighbor West, whose own love life is as complicated. With a Twist is definitely a simple read, one you can get through in a few hours. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a remarkable read to me. I found nearly all of the relationship trajectories predictable. This is partially a mix of the author’s blatant foreshadowing and my having read one too many romance novels. As it was, I felt like I knew what the outcome of the book would be and just needed to trudge through the book to prove myself right. Along the way, peripheral relationships tended to play out how I expected, though they…

Maybe Baby. Andrea Smith. 2014. 500 pages. Meatball Taster Publishing. [Source: personal copy.] I wanted to like this book, but it fell short in a lot of ways for me. The premise was intriguing for me – Tylar has a strained relationship with a mom who was more interested in her own romantic life than the well-being of her child; her father was never in the picture. Now, she’s on her own and pursuing her dreams in equine science, thanks to a trust fund from her absent dad. She’s working at the Sinclair ranch, which is being run over the summer by tightly-wound Trey Sinclair. Within the first chapter, I began to dislike Tylar. She comes across as incredibly timid to the point of being a push-over (no pun intended). Her youth, both in age and maturity, is shown right off the bat when she chugs a bunch of coolers, plays a drunken game of chicken in the Sinclair pool, and ends up with a concussion. That starts a running theme for me – she’s a borderline alcoholic before the book is even half-way done, and generally seems to have piss-poor judgment in everything she does. Even when I wanted…