What would you do if you lived your entire life thinking you were someone other than who you were? Would you want to find out the truth.

“The Nowhere Child” is the debut novel by Christian White and tells the story of Kim Leamy, a photography professor in Australia. Kim is approached by a man from the US who shows her a photograph of a two year old girl, Sammy Went. He tells Kim that he thinks she is this girl who was kidnapped 30 years prior. Kim goes to the US to uncover the truth, but is the truth really worth finding out?

Christian White did a great job of creating an interesting take on a kidnapped child storyline by giving it some twists. The setting in Kentucky was interesting, and I learned about the Pentecostal church and some of their beliefs. It gave this story a unique twist. I definitely look forward to reading more of White’s novels once they are released.

Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, Minotaur Books, and Christian White for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

4.5 stars for “The Red Address Book” by Sofia Lindbergh. What a charming and heartwarming story.

Doris is 96 and currently living in Stockholm with nurses checking on her. The only family she has is Jenny, her grand-niece, who lives in San Francisco so they only Skype once a week. Doris is lonely, and begins to look through her red address book, a gift given to her from her father when she is a child. There are many names of people she has met throughout her life, most crossed out with the word “dead” written next to them.

Doris wants to leave Jenny the story of her life so reminisces while looking through the red address book. She tells stories of her time as a maid when she was just a teenager in Stockholm and her friend, Gosta, that she met there. She tells stories of when she moved to Paris and became a living mannequin. Paris is also where she meets Allan, the love of her life. There are so many great and some not so great stories of her life and her travels all over the world.

When Doris has a fall, she ends up in the hospital, and Jenny rushes to Stockholm to be by her side for her last few days. Jenny finds the notes Doris has written for her and some letters and photographs throughout Doris’s life. She learns so much from her grand-aunt, but the most important lesson she learns from her is love.

This really was a lovely story. It was well written and kept a good pace, I thoroughly enjoyed it and honestly wanted to learn more about Doris’s life as if she was a real person. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a feel good story with a little heartbreak, but a lot of living and loving throughout.

Thank you NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for an ARC in exchange of my honest review.

This was a cute story about a group of women who meet on Friday night to socialize and knit. I liked the characters and felt a connection with them. Some of them had more interesting stories than others, but that’s okay. I still liked learning about them.

I don’t knit, but needed a book about a hobby for a reading challenge and someone recommended this one. I listened to it on audio and enjoyed the narrator. The Friday night knitting club made me think of my book club which was nice.

Wow! That was great! This book was picked for my book club, and I’m so glad it was. What a great thriller. I was able to figure out the twists, but it still had me wanting to read more.

I listened to the audio version and thought the narrator was perfect for his character!

I highly recommend this for fans of thrillers!

My rating is based on the audio book which I did not enjoy. I don’t think this was the best format format for this book. I feel like I should read the actual book to see if my rating changes

Although this book is about kids who are battling cancer, I found it a quick and easy read. Don't get me wrong, I cried a lot while reading this book, but I also laughed. I thought the story of Hazel and Augustus was sweet and liked reading along as their relationship grew from friendship into love. I wanted them to beat cancer, but this book came out a while ago so I was aware that it wasn't the happiest of endings.

This book was well written, however I did have one issue - Hazel and Gus were teenagers, yet they spoke with a vocabulary that was well beyond their age. I had to look up a lot of the words they used, and I'm in my forties! Maybe the author thought their wisdom was due to their illness and the lives they've been forced to live, but it wasn't completely realistic to me. Other than that I really enjoyed this book (is enjoyed the right word for a book about kids with cancer?) and recommend it to anyone looking for a heartbreaking yet funny read.

3.5 stars rounded up.

Natalie is a struggling art student in Manhattan. She lives in Brooklyn with two roommates that she doesn’t get along with, barely able to pay her rent and other bills. She has no money for food and loses her job. She’s desperate. When she notices that her art school classmate has designer clothes and a great apartment in Chelsea, she asks her how. That’s when her friend tells her about being a Sugar Baby. There’s a website where older men or Sugar Daddies will meet younger woman, Sugar Babies, and pay them for dates and other things if they are interested. Although she is skeptical and a little turned off by the idea, Nat decides to just go on a few meet-ups for $500 each so she can pay her bills.

Nat meets Gabe through the Sugar Babies website, and they immediately hit it off. Gabe is a corporate lawyer who has a wife and daughter in the Hamptons, but an apartment in the city so it’s easy to make these Sugar Babies believe he’s divorced when in fact he isn’t. He lies to Nat as well and asks her to make their arrangement official – regular dinners and Broadway shows throughout the week and sleepovers, maybe even a getaway.

Nat develops feelings for Gabe and believes that he has them for her as well. When he decides to end their arrangement, Nat becomes obsessed with him. She’s will do anything to get him back, even befriend his 18 year old daughter. Things take a turn for the worse when Gabe is murdered and Nat is arrested. She doesn’t remember shooting him in the face, but she was in a downward spiral, drinking out of control, after he ended things. Could she have murdered him?

The Arrangement by Robyn Harding is an interesting concept. I didn’t know much about the Sugar Baby lifestyle prior to reading this except what I’ve seen on Law & Order: SVU! I think that I would have liked this book better if the characters weren’t all so unlikable. Nat started off okay. She seemed like any other struggling college kid, but then her character became a complete psycho. Gabe was just an awful person. He was misogynistic and a complete narcissist. He had no care for the Sugar Babies that he paid for. They were another business transaction for him, and he didn’t care if he hurt them or his family at all.

I had one other big issue with this book. When using Facebook, if you block someone you can’t see their profile, but Nat was able to see her ex-boyfriend’s profile even though she blocked him. The author should have researched better and hopefully will fix this before the book is released.

Overall, I found the story interesting and the author definitely kept me wanting to read more. It was a hard book to put down. I did figure out the big twist, but it didn’t make me want to stop reading. I just wish I felt more for the main characters.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery Books for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

3.5 stars rounded up.

This was a cute summer romance. Gigi is a 27 year-old who lives in Manhattan and was working as a fashion designer before being fired. She's also in love with her best friend's fiance and with their wedding coming up in a few months, she decides to escape for the summer - to the summer camp she went to as a child, but this time as a counselor. Gigi spends the summer competing with her rival camp counselor, Perry, until sparks start to fly between them. Gigi realizes that she can't escape the present by returning to her past and decides to reexamine her life and hopefully find the true meaning of love.

This is book one in a series and was a very easy read. This is a great option for a beach book and was a lot of fun.

Grab a bottle of water or two before starting this book!

When we’ve lost the strength to save ourselves, we somehow find the strength to save each other.

The drought in Southern California, otherwise known as the Tap-Out, has been going on for a while. Everyone is used to the rules – don’t take long showers, don’t water your lawn, don’t fill up your pool, etc. – then one day the taps run dry.

Alyssa and her family are living through the tap out. When Alyssa’s parents head to the beach to find water, but don’t return it’s up to her to do whatever it takes to save herself and her brother, Garrett. She enlists the help of her neighbor, Kelton, who lives in a survivalist family so he has water. He also has a crush on Alyssa so wants to help her. When they go to look for her parents, they meet Jacqui who saves their lives so they decide to try to save hers in return.

When the neighborhood families turn against Kelton and his parents, the four children escape and are on their own. They learn that sometimes you can’t do the right thing when it comes to saving yourself and the people you love.

I honestly did not know what to think of this book when I decided to read it for a challenge. “Cli-fi” is not my normal genre and not something that I thought I would like. I was wrong! This book was excellent in my opinion. Neal Shusterman did a fantastic job of making you feel like this could happen which is scary especially because it really could. I listened to the audio version of Dry and really loved how it was told from the different characters perspectives. There are some other characters thrown in who don’t have primary roles, but they help to move the story along. I definitely recommend this even if you don’t think it’s a genre you would like.

Oh, and this book definitely makes you thirsty!