thoughts on books

Author: Angie Miale

  • the survivors by caroline mitchell

    This was a kidnapping/birth origin mystery/thriller with mainly female characters.

    Maura- a middle aged lady who is somewhat odd and keeps to herself. She lives alone on a big cliff that has had multiple fatal accidents. She is always the first on the scene.

    Finn- Maura’s niece, who is bringing her baby girl and coming to visit. But she gets in an accident (this is obviously a very dangerous hill)

    Catherine- the other driver in the accident- another single mom with another 2 month old infant girl.

    That’s kind of coincidental, right?

    And so the blurb tells you that both mothers and one baby survives. And you can probably see the first twist coming, no?

    Anyway, the twists and turns in this felt laborious to me. The ending and many of the “secrets” seemed vaguely misogynistic. I do like a mystery with twists and turns but these big reveals at the end kind of felt like whiplash.

    I did like the narrator, the audiobook was well acted and kept my interest, but the story was not my favorite. Perhaps I will try a different one by this author.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @brillianceaudio for the audiobook ARC in exchange for an honest review. Opinions are my own.

  • the usual family mayhem by helenkay dimon

    A funny and engaging cozy mystery for fans of The Maid and Vera Wong. We love funny women solving mysteries.

    In an impulsive moment, Kasey pitches her DC consulting firm on buying and flipping a pie shop run by grandmas in Winston Salem. She doesn’t mention that it’s HER grandma. Or that they are wholly uninterested in selling. But naturally they send her to NC for two weeks to “seal the deal.” Kasey’s grandmother Mags and her partner Celia run the pie shop, and often see Celia’s nephew and Kasey’s long term crush, Jackson.

    That is when she notices that bad men have mysteriously died after their wives get a pie delivery.

    A charming mystery with a dash of romance, it was easy to love these characters. Although the author has many spicy romances, the romance in this book is “fade to black,” so to not take away from the lighthearted tone of the rest of the book. It’s very easy to know who to root for and root against, getting to know the motivations of the characters was a delight.

    If you like lighthearted mysteries with strong female leads about correcting injustice, this is a great title for you.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @avonbooks for the ARC. Book to be published March 10, 2025.

  • rental house by weike wang

    Millennials are so whiny. This is a book about two Manhattanites who love each other very much, but also struggle with anxiety despite their privileges. Keru is a first general immigrant, coming to the US from China with her parents at age 9. Nate is a poor white kid who happened to be kind of brilliant and hard working. They meet at Yale in their senior year and start dating, then marry. It essentially explores the experience of creating a partnership and a life together despite having a different experience. Racial micro-aggressions, the decision to remain child-free, the decision that Keru will be the higher income, high powered consultant. The way they manage the relationship with their parents is very different and strained by politics.

    This book has some stunningly powerful observations, it is all character development and commentary about millennial malaise, and short on plot. Again; it’s not really a story, more of a testimonial. It is in no way “heartwarming.” It’s very intelligent and well written but honestly doesn’t have a lot to say. But it’s short. If you like adjectives and generational tension, this is the book for you!! If you are a Millenial DINK living in Manhattan, you are going to feel SO seen.

  • mirror me by Lisa Williamson rosenberg

    This book was totally crazy. I think I liked it a lot, but I think it will stay with me for awhile. I am writing this as I finished it, but the last 50 pages haven’t hit me yet. It takes a TURN.

    Eddie is a young man with Dissociative Identity Disorder. He is also adopted. He is also bi-racial, his biological father was black and biological mother was Swedish. This has a heavy theme and symbolism about identity. I listened to the audiobook which I thought may be difficult to follow but it was not, at all. The audiobook narrator did a wonderful job of voicing his different personalities and inner dialogue.

    He also has kind of thing for his brother’s fiancé, Lucy. I didn’t love the narrator’s voice for Lucy. Side note: As a woman I absolutely HATE when the men in my life repeat what I said back to them in a “mocking” tone, I find it completely unnecessary and misogynistic. And because of this I usually have a hard time with male narrators switching voice to a female character. But honestly, what are you going to do. But I digress.

    The story is fascinating; it’s the definition of unreliable narrator.

    But the last few turns- wow. I wasn’t even close. I guarantee it will surprise you.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @brilliancepublishing for the audio ARC. Opinions are my own.

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  • parents weekend by Alex findlay

    In the typical style of Alex Findlay, this is a fast paced mystery/thriller set in a private expensive west coast college during parents weekend. A student has been found dead, drowned in the ocean near campus. The parents descend upon the college for the weekend; most of them are one-dimensional unlikable and annoying caricatures.

    This is a common style of mystery- the “five” end up missing and unreachable, the police, an FBI agent and all the parents go looking for them and to figure out how they can help.

    The climax/ending seemed very rushed and wrapped up all the storylines really abruptly. I can say I liked this book, but I didn’t love it. Honestly the problem with Parents Weekend is that it has entirely too many characters. Five college kids and a menagerie of parents. It was just too many. It was difficult for the author to really develop any of the characters so they ended up flat, and there just wasn’t time for any development or good background information.

    If you are caught between audiobook and physical book, I wouldn’t recommend audio because it will be difficult to keep everyone straight.

    This could be a good, quick read for someone looking for an exciting story. The best part took place at a FedEx hub. I worked at FedEx for 18 years so this scene was pretty perfect and capture the culture of FedEx and transportation culture in general. I actually scoured the acknowledgment to see if Alex Findlay thanked someone I know, he had to have done research.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @minotaur_books for the ARC. Book to be published 5/6/25.

  • the silent watcher by victor methos

    A thoughtful, slow burn mystery thriller from a legal POV. Creepy and disturbing at times, the reader is brought into the murder slowly and ask questions along with Piper, a guardian ad litem, which is a lawyer representing children. Typically these types of lawyers deal with a lot of custody disputes, but this is a story of a mass murder at a home where a young girl – Sophie- was the only survivor by jumping out the window.

    The story’s characters have very symbolic names- Sophie means wisdom. Piper makes me think of the Pied Piper who led all the children out of the country. The detective she worked with is Lazarus, symbolic of being risen from the dead or a second chance at life. The judge in the case is Hope, which speaks for itself. The audiobook narrator is good with a nice speaking voice and easy to follow over audio. Some books are difficult over audio but I found this to be very engaging and kept my interest.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @brilliancepublishing for the audio ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book published December 1, 2024.

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  • nothing to see here by Kevin Wilson

    Somewhere Beyond the Sea meets Margo’s got money troubles.

    Wow, what a wonderful surprise. I saw this book on a libro.fm sale for $3.49 and I couldn’t pass it up. Kevin WIlson has a book due to launch in the next year, and so I thought I would read this 2019 release to catch up and see if this author was for me.

    Bessie and Roland are the step children of Madison, who married a powerful senator from Tennessee. The book is written from the POV of Madison’s best friend LIllian, who doesn’t have a lot going on. A former basketball star, she has no childcare experience, but she has a lot of heart and lived through a diffifult childhood with multiple stepdads. Bessie and Roland’s mom died by suicide in a very dramatic and traumatizing way. The big surprise here is that the kids- when upset- tend to catch on fire. Reminiscent of Elsa’s ice powers, they are not hurt by the fire but can’t much control their emotions and the fire, which can hurt others.

    Lillian has great instincts and the plot and relationship between the kids and their nanny builds over time. The way they grow to trust her and she grows to be protective of them is so well done and most unusual. It gave me hope; I laughed and cried. It is quite an endearing book.

  • Beautiful Ugly by Alice Feeney

    Our story unfolds with Grady’s conversation with his wife, Investigative journalist Abby. Grady is getting the call that he is officially a New York Times bestselling author on his latest novel. As he chats with Abby, she puts the phone down to look at a woman lying in the road, at which point she disappears off the face of the earth. The narrative then jumps to a year later, Abby is still missing and Grady can no longer write, wallowing in his grief. His literary agent, Kitty, is Abby’s godmother, and is willing to give Grady a second chance to get his life and his career back on track. He takes a ferry to a tiny island off the coast of Scotland called Amberley, population 25. He sees a woman who is the spitting image of Abby wearing the very red coat she was wearing when she disappeared. He chalks it up to grief, knowing that when you have lost someone you see them everywhere. But is that what happened?

    Narrative surrounding Grady and Abby’s relationship builds a transparency and trust in their connection and the sense of his grief. As the story unfolds we learn more and more twists and turns-I am keeping this review spoiler free…..but buckle up! The local flair of Amberley is creepy and sweepingly descriptive. I love the way that Grady asks questions that an author, not an investigator, would ask. Amberley comes alive little bit by little bit, and you want to fully understand Grady’s mind. Is he losing it? But the Amberley town keeps muttering, “people always see ghosts on this island.”

    A slight British accent on the male narrator. Frenzied and hurried pace as the action intensifies. Excellent Scottish accents on the Scottish characters. Short, descriptive sentences are PERFECT for audio, and the build up in this novel is filled with them. There are even a few “sound effects” telephones jangling, church bells, etc. I found this added to the story instead of detracted from it.

    Thank you to @netgalley and @macmillan.audio for the Audiobook ARC. Book to be published January 14, 2024.

  • Last Night Was Fun by Holly Michelle

    A cute holiday baseball romance, enemies to lovers with some serious “You’ve got Mail” vibes. It is lighthearted and fun, and about finding love in unexpected places. Emmy Jameson is a baseball data analyst for a Major League Baseball team, she is outstanding at her job but has to face many hurdles at work being a female in a male-dominant industry. She is up for a promotion and in competition with the other strong analyst, Gabe Olson. Emmy holds her personal life close to the vest and doesn’t share personal details at all with her coworkers. She has sworn off dating, but one fateful night, she gets a text from a mystery number saying “Last night was fun.” It turns out that some girl at a bar gave a guy a fake number, which just so happened to be Emmy’s number!

    What are the odds? (I mean, Emmy and Gabe could probably calculate the odds, but we couldn’t.)

    They exchange texts over the course of a few weeks and start to develop feelings for each other, to the point where Emmy is ready to invite the mystery man to her sister’s wedding in Cancun. Now, this isn’t technically a spoiler since it is in the blurb, and you can see it coming a mile away, but of COURSE the mystery man is Gabe. There is so much built up anticipation about the identity of the texter, who Emmy has listed as “Axe murderer” in her phone. I promise you, the witty text banter is worth it, and you will love seeing Emmy and Gabe feel safe sharing their lives with each other on text and falling in love. All of us want to believe that if we share ourselves with someone, that they will still be able to love us.

    The narrative accurately and infuriatingly describes being a woman in the workplace, and how much harder women, especially in male dominant fields, have to work in order to be taken seriously.

    If you enjoy a sports romance, witty banter and a good rivals-to-lovers storyline, this is a great summer beach read for you!

    Thanks to @netgalley and @avonbooks for the ARC in exchange for an honest review. Book to be published June 10, 2025.

  • The Many Lives of Cate Kay: a novel by Kate Fagan

    book to be published January 6, 2025

    Literary fiction wrapped up in a mystery; this book follows Cate Kay, the anonymous and elusive best selling author who writes of a post apocalyptic Manhattan and how the human race rebuilds through the POV of low level surviving journalists. Cate has had many different identifies since leaving her hometown and her best friend Amanda behind. It becomes clear that she must return to her hometown and come to terms with the reality of who she once was.

    This book is a wonderful story; it has many points of view- SO many that you may lose which ones are actually Annie and which are not. There are a few mysteries that are interwoven in a compelling way. Although I was a bit confused around the middle, the story came together at the end. And I LOVE a somewhat ambiguous ending- the last couple paragraphs are chefs kiss

    The main character is a gay woman, with a theme of having different identifies over the course of her life. I love the theme of becoming different people as you are in different parts of your life. There is a theory of reincarnation that says when the most important people in your life from one time frame don’t recognize the most important people from another time frame… then that means you are in a different “life.” And as tempting as it is to start over in your youth, the more likely you will need to return to a former identify to get closure.

    My favorite thing about this book was the quirky observations, the storytelling and the rich characters. A solid effort from a celebrated journalist to become an outstanding debut novel.

    Thanks to @netgalley and @atriabooks for the ARC. Book to be published January 6, 2025.

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