The Truth and Other Lies

The Truth and Other Lies
by Sascha Arango
*received book in exchange for fair review














You know what I love? I love a book that makes me gasp! This book made me gasp out loud, and more than once. If you can do that for me when I'm reading, then I'm one happy girl.

Henry Hayden seems like quite the unremarkable person when you first meet him. Oh, rest assured, there's a lot more to this man than meets the eye. Henry met fell in sort of love with and married Martha. Martha is quite shy, quiet, almost invisible. She's also the reason he's such a successful author. Henry is a ladies man, and Martha stays in the shadows just looking the other way. That is until she gets a look at his editor.

His life starts crumbling when his editor/lover tells him she's pregnant. How in the world is he going to take care of this mess? Well, Henry is quite resourceful to say the least. Unfortunately he makes a life changing error that has the police breathing down his neck, and a past that is trying to break through to the present.

Pick this book up! I loved the mystery of it, I loved the unexpected twists, and while Henry is just unlikable, you can't look away to see what he'll do next. Enjoy!

4 cannolis

The Fixer

The Fixer
By Joseph Finder
book given by publisher in exchange for fair and unbiased review














Amazon Blurb -

When former investigative reporter Rick Hoffman loses his job, fiancée, and apartment, his only option is to move back into — and renovate — the home of his miserable youth, now empty and in decay since the stroke that put his father in a nursing home.

As Rick starts to pull apart the old house, he makes an electrifying discovery — millions of dollars hidden in the walls. It’s enough money to completely transform Rick’s life — and everything he thought he knew about his father.  Yet the more of his father’s hidden past that Rick brings to light, the more dangerous his present becomes. Soon, he finds himself on the run from deadly enemies desperate to keep the past buried, and only solving the mystery of his father — a man who has been unable to communicate, comprehend, or care for himself for almost 20 years — will save Rick... if he can survive long enough to do it.

*****

I found this book to be a great thriller. It struck the perfect balance of bad guys, characters that you just hate and wanting to see the good guy come out on top.

Rick Hoffman used to have it all, gorgeous girlfriend, fantastic job as a reporter, living a cushy envious life. Suddenly he loses everything and has to move back home in his empty dilapidated old  home of his youth. 

Realizing that the house is a mess and in need of major reno-ing, his neighbor who is also a contractor offers to take on the job. With his father in a home due to a stroke, Rick finds the house just a burden, he agrees and a discovery is made inside the walls, a few million dollars that could put Rick and his sister if he's inclined to share, on easy street.

Where did all this cash come from? What was his father, an attorney, really dealing in, and how can he hide this money not only from the tax-man, but from his neighbor Jeff who just might not be so neighborly anymore. 

Suddenly thrust in the middle of a dangerous game of cover up, Rick finds himself having to look if he's being followed. Some very powerful people will go to some severe ends to keep certain secrets just that.

If you love to wonder what's going to happen next, pick this book up for sure. Great page turner, you keep wondering just who's going to be at the root of this whole mess. Great read, Joe has an easy writing style that makes the pages just go.

4 cannolis

Let Me Die In His Footsteps

Let Me Die In His Footsteps
Lori Roy
Read by publisher request
in exchange for fair review













Amazon Blurb -

On a dark Kentucky night in 1952 exactly halfway between her fifteenth and sixteenth birthdays, Annie Holleran crosses into forbidden territory. Everyone knows Hollerans don’t go near Baines, not since Joseph Carl was buried two decades before, but, armed with a silver-handled flashlight, Annie runs through her family’s lavender fields toward the well on the Baines’ place. At the stroke of midnight, she gazes into the water in search of her future. Not finding what she had hoped for, she turns from the well and when the body she sees there in the moonlight is discovered come morning, Annie will have much to explain and a past to account for.

It was 1936, and there were seven Baine boys. That year, Annie’s aunt, Juna Crowley, with her black eyes and her long blond hair, came of age. Before Juna, Joseph Carl had been the best of all the Baine brothers. But then he looked into Juna’s eyes and they made him do things that cost innocent people their lives. Sheriff Irlene Fulkerson saw justice served—or did she? 

As the lavender harvest approaches and she comes of age as Aunt Juna did in her own time, Annie’s dread mounts. Juna will come home now, to finish what she started. If Annie is to save herself, her family, and this small Kentucky town, she must prepare for Juna’s return, and the revelation of what really happened all those years ago.
*****

This was a good read.  I enjoyed the turns it took, a nice surprise in it, good characters throughout. It took you back and forth to past and present, but it doesn't get choppy or stilted.  A nice mystery to keep you wondering.

Annie Holleran has the "know-how" a tingling feeling of what's going to come. Just like her Aunt Juna who's gone away leaving a mess behind. She also has her Aunt Juna's black as coal eyes. It makes people scared of her, won't look at her head on. She's 15 1/2 now and it's her ascension, that time all girls look forward to, approaching womanhood and looking down the Fulkerson's well to see the face of their husband to be. All but Annie, she's feeling dread, the know-how is swelling in her, filling her with unease.

Sneaking out at midnight to the neighbors well, all alone so no one knows what she's doing she runs through her families lavender field to the Baine's  property. Her family doesn't get along with the Baines, the bad blood goes back to her mama and aunt's teen years. She's worried about being on their property but pushes past it and gets to the well. What she see's that dark night sets in motion things she never expected.

Annie is a sweet character. Lori Roy has crafted a great Southern mystery. You can smell the lavender floating in the air! There is one part that actually had me gasp out loud. Love when a book just catches me off guard. I definitely recommend this read.

4 cannolis