No One Aboard

No One Aboard by Emy McGuire

Published by Graydon House ISBN 9781525831621

Trade paperback, $18.99, 368 pages

From the publisher:

The White Lotus meets Laura Dave’s The Last Thing He Told Me in this debut domestic mystery about a luxury sailboat found floating adrift in the ocean and the secrets of the missing family who set sail aboard it weeks before.

"No One Aboard is a riveting, astonishing debut, and Emy McGuire is an important new voice in fiction. I will read anything she writes!" 

—Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Times bestselling author

At the start of summer, billionaire couple Francis and Lila Cameron set off on their private luxury sailboat to celebrate the high school graduation of their two beloved children.

Three weeks later, the Camerons have not been heard from, the captain hasn’t responded to radio calls, and the sailboat is found floating off the coast of Florida.

Empty.

Where are the Camerons? What happened on their trip? And what secrets does the beautiful boat hold?

Set over the course of their vacation and in the aftermath of the sailboat’s discovery, No One Aboard asks who is more dangerous to a family: a stormy ocean or each other?

My thoughts:

I concur that No One Aboard has a White Lotus vibe to it. Much like The White Lotus, it was difficult to find a completely likeable character her to root for. Francis was downright cruel to his son Rylan, who doesn't show his father's aptitude or desire to be a macho seafaring dude. Rylan is quieter, more artistic, and closer to his fading movie star mother Lila. At times you wanted to shake Rylan out of his complacency, to be less meek, to speak up for himself.

Rylan's twin Tia was more like her father- tough, rash, quick to push the limits. She was sent away to a boarding school for her last year of high school because of something that happened at home, something the reader doesn't discover until well into the story. She can't wait to leave her family permanently, and she is trying to convince Rylan to do so as well.

There are many twists and turns in the story, and it is hard to know who is hiding what from whom, but it is fun trying to figure it out. Most of the crew members on the boat have been around the family for years, and they hold shifting allegiances to the various Cameron family members. 

The scenes that lead up to how the boat came to be floating off the coast are harrowing, and very cinematic. (Perhaps a miniseries in the making?) The reader does have to suspend disbelief to accept the ending, and if you can do that, you will enjoy the ride.

Thanks to Harlequin for puttingme on their Fall 2025 Blog Tours.

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West

Saving Ruby King by Catherine Adel West
Published by Park Row Books ISBN 9780778305095
Hardcover, $27.99, 320 pages

I love reading a debut novel from a new author, the excitement of finding a new voice, knowing that the author has poured everything into this endeavor. Catherine Adel West's Saving Ruby King is a debut novel, and it's brilliant.

The novel opens with Ruby King's mother murdered in her own home on the South Side of Chicago. Many people suspect Ruby's father, a man with a bad temper who had spent time in prison for killing a man years ago. People suspected that Ruby's father Lebanon beat his wife, but that was a not so hidden secret.

Ruby's best friend since childhood, Layla, is concerned for Ruby's safety. Ruby is distraught, but won't allow Layla to help. Layla's father, Jackson, the pastor of Calvary Church, has known Lebanon since childhood, and has been secretly giving money to Lebanon for some unknown reason.

Layla wants to help Ruby, but Jackson orders her to stay away from Lebanon. Layla and her father have been butting heads recently, and things that have been simmering under the surface are coming to a head.

The story is alternately narrated by Layla, Jackson, Ruby, Lebanon, and even Calvary Church narrates secrets that have happened within its walls. The two families have grown up in that church, from Lebanon and Jackson's mothers as children, to Layla and Ruby.

Saving Ruby King has elements of a mystery to it- who killed Ruby's mother, why is Jackson giving money to Lebanon- as well as a multigenerational story about secrets and the damage that keeping those secrets can cause down through the generations.

I found myself totally absorbed in this emotional story from the opening pages, and every revelation was another gut punch. The idea of Calvary Church narrating parts of the story worked so well, the church is central to the lives of these people.

I highly recommend Saving Ruby King for anyone who likes a compelling story, with characters that you can empathize with, and a strong sense of setting. I hope to be reading more books from Catherine Adel West in the very near future, she is a wonderful writer. And if you want to read more books by black authors, Saving Ruby King is a good place to start.

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore
Published by Harper Books ISBN 9780062913265
Hardcover, $26.99, 320 pages

Elizabeth Wetmore's debut novel, Valentine, takes place in West Texas in 1976. It's oil country, and a hardscrabble place to be. The story begins with Gloria, a 14 year-old Mexican girl getting into a truck with a man she doesn't know.

Gloria is sexually assaulted all night long and beaten but manages to escape and make it to an isolated ranch house where a very pregnant Mary Rose is alone with her young daughter. Mary Rose takes Gloria in, and when the attacker comes looking for Gloria, Mary Rose holds him at gunpoint until the sheriff arrives.

Valentine tells the story of how this event affects the women in Odessa. Mary Rose moves with her daughter into town, fearful of living so far from anyone else, while her husband stays at the ranch. She has agreed to testify against the young man, who comes from a well-to-do family who has gotten him out trouble more than once. The nightly phone calls threatening her only make her more determined to testify, even though her husband is furious at her for doing that.

Mary Rose moves onto the street where Corrine, a recently widowed retired teacher lives. Corrine and her husband saw Gloria get into the truck with her attacker, and not stopping her haunted Corinne's husband.

Corrine is grieving, drinking hard and avoiding all contact with anyone, except for ten-year-old Debra Ann. Debra's mom ran away and Debra spent a lot of time with Corinne's husband. When the young girl finds a homeless Vietnam vet, she helps him, bringing him food and keeping him company.

Karla is a single mom who works as a bartender at the local bar/restaurant. She began as a waitress, where she was routinely harassed by the many men who came in for lunch and dinner. It's the only job where she can make enough money to support her child, so she must put up with their behavior, dodging the more dangerous men.

Suzanne is a successful Avon saleswoman, the ultimate room mother who knows how to work a room. She came from "trash" and strategized her way to becoming one of the most respected women in town. She has a will of steel, and while people may underestimate her, it is at their own peril.

The characters in Valentine are so compelling, and the story so powerful, it is a remarkable debut. I found myself drawn to Corinne and Mary Rose especially. Corinne's deep grief is palpable on the page, and Mary Rose's anger at what happened to Gloria fuels her desire to get justice for the young girl, and protect other young girls from a similiar fate.

Though the men run the world in Odessa -"You raise a family in Midland, but you raise hell in Odessa" is a common theme- it's the women who must deal with this harsh world the men have created. They face dangerous sexism and racism. Each of these women have to figure out how to survive and thrive, support each other, and make the world better for the young girls coming up behind them.

Valentine gets my highest recommendation, it's one of the best books I have read this year, and it is the Read With Jenna Today Show pick for April. It's suggested for fans of Barbara Kingsolver and Elizabeth Strout, and as I love both of those authors, I highly agree with that.

Thanks to Harper Collins for providing a review copy.

Golden Child by Claire Adam

Golden Child by Claire Adams
Published by SJP/Hogarth ISBN 9780525572992
Hardcover, $26, 281 pages

Actress Sarah Jessica Parker's first book from her SJP Hogarth imprint at Penguin Random House is the brilliant debut novel by Fatima Farheen Mirza, A Place For Us (my review here). The second book from her imprint is also a debut novel, Golden Child, by Claire Adam, and it is another fantastic novel.

Set in Trinidad, we meet Clyde Deyalsingh, a hardworking man, and his wife Joy. They have twin thirteen year-old boys, Peter and Paul, and live in a modest home that they own in a rural area. The boys travel a long way daily to their Catholic school.

Peter is a brilliant young man, and his parents are very proud of him and hope to be able to send him to a good college. When the boys were born, the cord was wrapped around Paul's neck and it has resulted in him being considered mentally challenged by many.

Joy's brother Vishnu believes that Peter could do great things and encourages Clyde to support Peter, even giving him money to do so. Father Kavanagh from the boys' school does not believe that Paul is mentally challenged and is tutoring him.

One day Paul leaves home to go for a walk and doesn't come back. Did Paul wander off and get lost, did he run away, or has something nefarious happened to him, perhaps related to the recent incident when two men came into their home and robbed and tied up Joy, Peter and Paul?

Much of the book takes place as Clyde tries to discover what has happened to his son. Clyde has always been a strong husband and father, and has worked hard to make a good life for his family. As he pieces together what has happened to Paul, he is forced to confront an unimaginable choice, one that puts him at odds with his family.

Golden Child immerses the reader in the countryside of Trinidad. We meet the neighbors and family of the Deyalsinghs. The homes all have dogs and barred windows to protect them, and in the wealthier neighborhoods, (including where Joy's brother Philip, a judge, lives) security guards on site.
The reader senses the undercurrent of danger that surrounds them, where at any moment they may be accosted by someone looking for money.

There are some wonderful food passages here as well. Joy makes a simple dinner for Clyde of "melongene choka, with plenty of onion and garlic, the way he likes it, some cucumber salad, and some warm paratha roti wrapped up in dishcloth."

Clyde eats at the work canteen, "where they have all kinds of food: dhalpuri roti and buss-up-shut, chicken wings and drumsticks, pelau, corn-soup, callaloo." You'll definitely want to look all these dishes up online.

SJP has done it again with  Claire Adams' Golden Child- found a debut novel with a brilliant distinctive voice, one that takes the reader into a culture they may not be familiar with, yet deals with universal theme of what it means to be part of a family, and the joy and heartbreak that can bring. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Claire Adams' tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Instagram Tour:

Monday, January 28th: @hotcocoareads

Tuesday, January 29th: @prose_and_palate

Tuesday, January 29th: @bookstackedblonde

Tuesday, January 29th: @dropandgivemenerdy

Wednesday, January 30th: @jennblogsbooks

Thursday, January 31st: @readingbetweenthe_wines

Thursday, January 31st: @bookishmadeleine

Friday, February 1st: @tbretc

Saturday, February 2nd: @eternalbooks_

Sunday, February 3rd: @bookclubwithbite

Review Tour:

Monday, January 28th: A Bookish Affair

Tuesday, January 29th: Rockin’ Book Reviews

Wednesday, January 30th: BookNAround

Thursday, January 31st: Amy’s Book-et List

Monday, February 4th: Run Wright

Tuesday, February 5th: @booksandpolkadots

Wednesday, February 6th: Book by Book

Thursday, February 7th: Palmer’s Page Turners

Monday, February 11th: Bookchickdi

Tuesday, February 12th: Books and Cats and Coffee

Wednesday, February 13th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, February 14th: Lit and Life

Friday, February 15th: Thoughts from a Highly Caffeinated Mind

Monday, February 18th: Booktimistic and @booktimistic

Tuesday, February 19th: Eliot’s Eats

Wednesday, February 20th: @worldswithinpages

Thursday, February 21st: Wining Wife

Monday, February 25th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, February 25th: @wherethereadergrows

Tuesday, February 26th: Tar Heel Reader and @tarheelreader

Wednesday, February 27th: @thesaggingbookshelf

Friday, March 1st: Thoughts on This ‘n That

Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully

Hotel on Shadow Lake by Daniela Tully
Published by Thomas Dunne Books ISBN 9781250126962
Hardcover, $26.99, 245 pages

Daniela Tully's debut novel, Hotel on Shadow Lake, takes place in more than a few timelines. It begins with in 1990 with an older German woman, Martha Weisberg, receiving a letter from the postman- a letter from 1944. Now that the wall has come down in Berlin, many people have letters delivered to them that just disappeared after the war, and Martha is one of them. (Tully's family actually received one of these letters, the inspiration for her novel.)

The letter is from her twin brother Wolfgang, who died at the end of the war. Martha doesn't want to open the letter, afraid of what may be inside it.

We then turn to 1938 Germany, where Martha lives with her mother and brother, having lost a sister and her father. Wolfgang is becoming more involved in the Nazi party, something that Martha knows her father would be saddened by if he were still alive.

Wolfgang has become friends with Siegfried, another man who believes deeply in the Nazi party and Hitler's rise. They go to the many Nazi rallies and are swept up in the horrible acts that are the beginnings of the atrocities that the Nazis inflict on anyone not throught to be of pure Aryan blood.

In 2017, Martha's granddaughter Maya receives word from her father that the remains of her missing grandmother Martha have been found- in the United States, about an hour away from where Maya studied abroad in 1990.

Martha disappeared in 1990, and no one knew that she had even gone to the United States. Her remains were found in a landslide near a popular resort in the Catskill Mountains in New York State. The Montgomery Preserve Resort has been owned by the Montgomery family for generations, and it has been visited by presidents and wealthy people for many years.

Maya goes to New York and begins snooping around to find out what brought her grandmother to this place, and she gets caught up in secret history of the Montgomery family. She is determined to discover what exactly happened to her grandmother- was it an accident or was she murdered?

One of the reasons I really enjoyed Hotel on Shadow Lake is that the Montgomery Resort is physically closely based on Mohonk Mountain House in the Catskills, a place that my husband worked at when he was in college. The author has vividly recreated the place for the setting of her story, and if you have ever been there, you will recognize it immediately. It is an important character in the story.

There is a lot going on in the story, with multiple timelines and characters, and Tully skillfully weaves them together to create an enthralling story, one that kept me turning the pages. Many times a book will be either character-driven or plot-driven, but Tully has managed to combine the two in writing a story that will keep you guessing until the very end. I highly recommend Hotel on Shadow Lake.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Daniela Tully's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Daniela Tully’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Tuesday, August 7th: @ladyofthelibrary

Wednesday, August 8th: Write Read Life

Thursday, August 9th: Laura’s Reviews

Friday, August 10th: @jennblogsbooks

Saturday, August 11th: Books & Bindings

Monday, August 13th: Diary of a Stay at Home Mom

Wednesday, August 15th: From the TBR Pile

Monday, August 20th: @booksncatsncoffee

Tuesday, August 21st: Cheryl’s Book Nook

Monday, August 27th: bookchickdi

Tuesday, August 28th: Savvy Verse and Wit

Wednesday, August 29th: Girl Who Reads

Thursday, August 30th: @hotcocoareads

Friday, August 31st: Mystery Suspense Reviews

Tuesday, September 4th: Kahakai Kitchen

TBD: @thats_what_she_read

TBD: A Chick Who Reads

TBD: What is That Book About

America For Beginners by Leah Franqui

America For Beginners by Leah Franqui
Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062668752
Hardcover, $26.99, 320 pages

There is nothing more exciting than reading a debut novel and falling in love with the story and characters. That just happened for me with Leah Franqui's America For Beginners.

We begin with Mrs. Pival Sengupta, a recent Bangladeshi widow, planning a trip to America. We learn that Pival had an unhappy marriage to a man who verballly abused her, and banished their only son Rahi for a reason we come to learn later. Pival is "going to America to find her son or his lover. And to kill herself."

Pival has contacted Ronnie Munshi of the First Class India USA Destination Vacation Tour Company to arrange for her visit. Ronnie is an Indian immigrant who worked his way up from dishwasher to owning his own tour company, catering to wealthy Bangladeshis.

Ronnie has hired Satya, a poor young Bengali man pretending to be Bangladeshi, to act as Pival's guide. This will be Satya's first cross-country trip, and he is extremely nervous.

Ronnie also hired an American woman, Rebecca, a young struggling actress who sees this job as a way to earn some money quickly to help her achieve her dream which is slowly becoming out-of-reach, to act as Pival's chaperone.

Each of the above characters narrate chapters of this fantastic road trip story, alternating with Jake and Bhim's story. Californian Jake has fallen in love with Bhim, a young Indian scientist, who is reluctant to admit his love for Jake. Bhim tells Jake that in his home country it is not as acceptable to be gay as it is in America.

We travel America, stopping first in New York City, then on to Niagara Falls, Corning, New York to see the glass factory, Philadelphia, Washington DC, New Orleans, Phoenix, Las Vegas and finally Los Angeles.

As Pival, Satya and Rebecca traverse the country, staying in Comfort Inns and eating in inauthentic Indian restaurants, we visit famous American sights like The Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls, The Liberty Bell, The Lincoln Memorial, and get to know Pival, Satya and Rebecca a little bit better.

I loved this book. Franqui does an amazing job of giving each character room to breathe and tell his or her own story, and each story is more compelling than the next.

But I felt closest to Pival, perhaps because we are both mothers of sons, but what a strong woman she is. She spent much of her life catered to and sheltered, never traveling far from home. Watching her open up was a privilege.

Franqui writes so beautifully too.

"As Tanvi grew upset, her folding became increasingly precise and perfect, until you could have cut onions with the razor-sharp corners of the sari silk."

And this:

"She had thought Ram would be the antidote to the loneliness and longing she had begun to feel. Instead, he became the cause of both." 

I confess to reading the last few chapters through tears. Pival's story was so emotional and beautiful, and yes, sad.

America For Beginners takes us on a road trip across the country, and on the trip that Ronnie, Satya, and Rebecca each take to get their share of the American dream that so many people long for and work to achieve. I highly recommend America For Beginners, and look forward to more from Leah Franqui.

You can listen to excerpts from the book here.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Leah Franqui's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Instagram Features

Tuesday, July 24th: Instagram: @theloudlibrarylady

Wednesday, July 25th: Instagram: @read.write.coffee

Thursday, July 26th: Instagram: @megabunnyreads

Friday, July 27th: Instagram: @shereadswithcats

Saturday, July 28th: Instagram: @absorbedinpages

Sunday, July 29th: Instagram: @sweetbookobsession

Monday, July 30th: Instagram: @oddandbookish

Review Stops

Tuesday, July 24th: Wining Wife

Thursday, July 26th: Broken Teepee

Friday, July 27th: Instagram: @the_need_to_read

Monday, July 30th: bookchickdi

Tuesday, July 31st: Instagram: @Novelmombooks

Wednesday, August 1st: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, August 2nd: 5 Minutes For Books

Monday, August 6th: Jathan & Heather

Tuesday, August 7th: Man of La Book

Wednesday, August 8th: Literary Quicksand

Thursday, August 9th: From the TBR Pile

TBD: Bibliotica

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza

A Place For Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza
Published by SJP for Hogarth ISBN 9781524763558
Hardcover, $27, 400 pages

For actress Sarah Jessica Parker's first book under her SJP imprint at Hogarth, she chose Fatima Farheen Mirza's stunning debut novel A Place For Us. 

Set in California, the novel opens at the elaborate Indian wedding of Hadia, the eldest child of an American Muslim family. Her parents, Layla and Rafiq, and sister Huda are there to celebrate. The youngest child, her brother Amar, is also there, and it is the first time in three years that the family has seen Amar. There is tension, with everyone walking on eggshells around Amar. Layla begs her husband not to say anything that will upset Amar.

The book then moves back in time, and we see the family at different points in their life together. Layla had a special relationship with her son, an easy closeness that escaped Rafiq. Amar was a quiet boy who liked poetry, and he did not have many friends except for Abbas, an older boy who looked out for Amar.

Hadia was the typical eldest child, she worked hard to get good grades and eagerly tried to please her father. She also had a crush on Abbas, the most popular boy in school.

We see their family life through the eyes of each of the family members. Layla and Rafiq are devout Muslims, and pass their strong beliefs onto their children. They expected to arrange marriages for their daughters, and hoped to make good matches for all of their children.

Mirza writes so beautifully, I found it difficult to believe that she is just 27 years-old. She is able to capture the voices of not only the children at various life stages, but she renders the voices of Layla and Rafiq so vividly for such a young person.

Her language is so eloquent it took my breath away, and I had to re-read several sentences to fully appreciate them, like this:

"As she glided between guests and stopped to hug women she had not yet greeted, it occured to Layla that this was what she might have pictured her life to look like once, when her children were young and she knew who her family would contain but not what life would be like for them."

The theme of this brilliant book might best be expressed by something Hadia thinks- "How were they to know the moments that would define them?" A Place For Us is filled with the moments that come to define each of the family members, and the ones that lead to Amar's estrangement from his family.

The truly saddest part of the book comes in part four, which is narrated by Rafiq. Until this point, we don't really know exactly what he is thinking. He pours his heart out, and the scene where he goes to Amar at the wedding had me in tears.

Although the book moves back and forth in time, and even shifts within chapters, Mirza is such a skilled writer that the reader is never confused. She will be a powerful voice in literary fiction for years to come.

 A Place For Us is a compelling story about faith, family, and fathers and sons. I was so moved by it, I didn't want it to end. When I finished it, I wanted to hug it to my chest and just sit quietly and comtemplate it. It is a beautifully rendered story about an American family, and one that I encourage everyone to read. It is the best book I have read this year, period.

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Fatima Farheen Mirza's tour. The rest of her stops are here:

Fatima Farheen Mirza’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, June 11th: The Cue Card

Monday, June 11th: @prose_and_palate

Tuesday, June 12th: Simone and Her Books and @simoneandherbooks

Monday, June 18th: @booksonherbrain

Monday, June 18th: @bookpairings

Monday, June 18th: Booklover Book Reviews

Tuesday, June 19th: @bookoffee

Wednesday, June 20th: Bookchickdi

Thursday, June 21st: @readingbringsjoy

Friday, June 22nd: Literary Quicksand

Monday, June 25th: Broken Teepee

Tuesday, June 26th: @outofthebex

Wednesday, June 27th: A Bookish Affair

Thursday, June 28th: Prose and Palate

Monday, July 2nd: Midwest Ladies Who Lit and @midwestladieswholit

Tuesday, July 3rd: Some Kind of a Library and @somekindofalibrary

Thursday, July 5th: Patricia’s Wisdom

Monday, July 9th: Ink and Fable and @inkandfable

Tuesday, July 10th: Kahakai Kitchen

Thursday, July 12th: 5 Minutes for Books

The Woman In the Window by A.J. Finn

The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn

Published by William Morrow ISBN 9780062678416

Hardcover, $26.99, 448 pages

In A.J. Finn's spine-tingling debut psychological thriller The Women in The Window, Anna Fox sits in the window of her Harlem townhouse watching her neighbors. We learn that she is an agoraphobic and hasn't left her home in ten months. Her husband Ed and eight-year-old daughter Olivia no longer live with her after an incident that has been hinted at, but Anna remains in contact with them.

She rents out the basement of her home to David, a young man who helps around the house in exchange for reduced rent, and Anna gets her groceries delivered by Fresh Direct, and her many medications delivered by the pharmacy. As long as they keep bringing her meds and cases of Merlot, Anna can make it through the day (usually drunk).

She plays chess online (and usually wins) and dispenses advice on an agoraphobic message board. For entertainment, Anna watches old black and white movies, heavy on the Hitchcock thrillers. 

Anna has little physical contact with the outside world until the day a new family moves into the neighborhood- a husband, wife and teenage son. Anna can see inside their home and becomes fascinated by them, even more so when the son and mother stop by separately to see her.

Like Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's "Rear Window", Anna witnesses something amiss at the new neighbors and is drawn into a situation she is unequipped to handle.

The Woman in the Window is a pulse-pounding, heart-stopper of a book. Like blockbusters Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, our protagonist is unreliable. Anna is drunk much of the time, and so what she tells the reader cannot be trusted. The addition of her agoraphobia heightens the tension of the story, and Finn does such a great job making the reader feel the anxiety of her illness.

Finn also unspools important information about Anna a little bit at a time, so that reading The Woman in the Window is like putting together pieces of a puzzle. We learn how Anna got to be where she is, and although the reader may guess a few of the mysteries, the last few chapters of this fast-paced story surprised me, and at one point I actually gasped aloud.

The Woman in the Window is sure to be a bestseller, and fans of both Alfred Hitchcock movies and Agatha Christie novels will be love it.  I liked it better than Gone Girl and The Girl On The Train. I heard all about this book last spring at the Book Expo, and you'll be hearing a lot about it in 2018. It definitely lives up to the hype, and I read it in one sitting, unwilling to put it down.

All the Time In The World by Caroline Angell

All The Time In The World by Caroline Angell
Published by Henry Holt ISBN 978-1-62779-401-5
Trade paperback, $15, 321 pages

There is nothing so exciting as discovering a debut novel.  Caroline Angell's first book, All The Time In The World, brings to life the world of the Upper East Side of New York City, as seen through the eyes of Charlotte, a young woman who is working as a nanny to the two young Maclean boys.

Charlotte is also a music composer who is trying to come to terms with why she is not working in the music business. She finds herself distancing herself from her college friends, and her friends and family worry that she is becoming too attached to the Maclean family and forgoing her own dreams.

She adores Matty and George, the two young boys she cares for. She and Gretchen, the mom, get along well, and she doesn't see Scotty, the dad who works long hours in the finance industry, very often.

When a tragic event occurs that threatens to tear the Maclean family apart, Charlotte is thrust into a different role; she becomes the glue that holds them together. It is up to her to get the boys to school, to deal with their teachers, run the household, and help them understand a world that no longer makes any sense to them.

Charlotte is very close to her sisters and they are becoming more worried for her, afraid that if she doesn't get out and begin her own life now that she never will. But Charlotte loves Matty and George and feels an obligation to them.

I loved the character of Charlotte, and even though I am years older than her, I related to her a great deal. Her sense of responsibility to the Macleans was something I understood in my heart. Her relationship with her sisters felt so true-to-life, I'm sure that Angell must have sisters of her own.

Her connection with Matty and George was so sweet, and yet frustrating as well. I have two sons of my own and I smiled with recognition, thrust right back to the days when they were little guys as I read of Charlotte trying to corral them in their everyday lives.

Charlotte also has a complicated relationship with Scotty, the boys' dad, and Patrick, Scotty's slightly irresponsible playboy brother.

Angell writes some powerful, emotional scenes, such as one set at a hospital that just tore my heart out. All The Time In The World is the kind of book that worms its way into your heart, and you will feel so many different emotions reading it. Charlotte is a woman you will not easily forget. I highly recommend All The Time In The World.

Caroline Angell's website is here.

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris

Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
Published by St. Martin's Press ISBN 978-1-250-12100-4
Hardcover, $25.99, 293 pages

Jack and Grace seem like the perfect couple to their friends. When they give dinner parties, Jack helps Grace in the kitchen. He lavishes her with beautiful clothes, gifts and compliments, and while it's true that Grace frequently cancels plans for lunch or shopping with her friends, well there can't be anything behind that, can there?

Grace met Jack in the park where she takes her sister Millie every weekend. Millie has Down's syndrome and lives in a boarding school near Grace. Millie was dancing to the music in the park and when others were laughing at her, Jack came over to Millie and danced with her. Grace was immediately smitten.

Jack courted Grace fervently. He was a perfect gentleman, a lawyer who represents victims of domestic violence. When he proposed marriage, he told Grace he would like to build her the house of her dreams where they could live with Millie happily ever after. It was a fairytale come true for Grace.

B.A. Paris' novel Behind Closed Doors takes off from there. To say anything more about the plot would be to give away too much, but suffice it to say I spent three hours reading this propulsive thriller without looking up until I finished, finally letting out a long breath. It reminded me of reading Harlan Coben's thrillers.

I'm not one for thrillers because I find them too gory and scary, and while this one did have my heart racing, it wasn't gory. You will get completely lost in Grace and Jack's story, trying to figure out how it will all end.

B.A. Paris has crafted a crackerjack of a thrilling debut novel, and she is an author that I will be looking forward to reading more of in the future.

Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll

 Luckiest Girl Alive by Jessica Knoll
Published by Simon & Schuster ISBN 9781476789637
Hardcover, $25, 338 pages

The one blurb that publishers want on their novel is "Better than Gone Girl!", which is getting a little ubiquitous lately. I'm not a big suspense fan, and Gone Girl wasn't my favorite book, but I have read other books compared to it, like The Girl On The Train.

Jessica Knoll's suspenseful novel Luckiest Girl Alive even has 'girl' in the title. It begins with Ani FaNelli shopping for items to put on her bridal registry. She picks up a Wustof knife and wonders how it would feel if she slid into her fiance's stomach.

Something is off about Ani. She has a fabulous job at a woman's magazine (think Cosmo), and is engaged to a great catch, a man with a great job and who is socially connected. But there is something in Ani's past, something that happened when she was in high school.

Ani grew up on the wrong side of the tracks outside Philadelphia. Her mother wanted Ani to meet the right people and so sent her daughter to Bradley, a private high school for blue bloods. Ani didn't fit in at first, she sat at the misfits' table at lunch.

Until one day, she caught the eye of one of the popular guys at school. Soon she was eating lunch with the cool kids and even attending their parties where, of course, everyone was drinking.

Something bad happened at Bradley, and the reader is not told what. A documentary crew wants to interview Ani about the incident, but Ani's fiance doesn't want her to do the interview. What exactly happened?

The reader is given clues, but when we finally find out what happened, about halfway through the book, the story really takes off. I have to admit that up until that revelation, I was not really taken with the story. But once we get to the incident, Knoll's writing is so tight and tense, I felt like I didn't take a breath for the entire chapter.

I have to admit, I guessed wrong as to what really happened, and so the surprise was shocking, even though as we got closer to the reveal, there are clues given if you want to pick them up.

Knoll's characters are well developed, and anyone who went to high school (which is most of us) felt many of the things Ani did- isolated, fearful of not fitting in, and hoping to make friends. Knoll taps into those feelings so well.

Ani has problems, and in the early chapters when she talks about her sexual desires, I admit to thinking that maybe this book just isn't for me. But I'm glad I continued on, because I was rewarded with a nail-biting story. Ani has to look inside herself to discover who she really wants to be, and her journey to get there is fascinating.

I liked Luckiest Girl Alive better than Gone Girl and better than The Girl On The Train, because Jessica Knoll does a great job of creating suspense and empathy for a troubled character. And even after reading it awhile ago, just thinking about now it is giving me heart palpitations and a dry mouth.

Ballroom by Alice Simpson

Ballroom by Alice Simpson
Published by HarperCollins ISBN 978-0-06-23203-3
Hardcover, $25.99, 320 pages

Ballroom is Alice Simpson's debut novel, and just as its title suggests, it is set in the world of ballroom dancing in 1999 New York City. The Ballroom is a dance hall that is a little bit shabby, and past its prime. We meet some of the people who dance there every Sunday night in Simpson's book and get a bit of their own stories, told in their own voices.

Harry is a 60-year-old retired shoe factory worker who teaches ballroom dancing on the side. He lives a spartan existence in a tiny apartment. Every Friday for years, 20-year-old Maria, his downstairs neighbor, comes for dance lessons at this apartment, lessons her father knows nothing about. Harry is planning on taking Maria to Buenos Aires to live on her 21st birthday.

Maria's dance partner is Angel, a hardworking young man whose dream is to own a dance hall/studio, with Maria as his business and life partner. He is the kindest man in this novel.

Joseph, 60-years-old, works for the telephone company and is umarried. He lives to dance with Sarah, a 38-year-old twice divorced woman who loves 1940's movies and doesn't understand why the men she knows don't act more like the men in those movies.

Sarah would give anything if the handsome Gabriel would choose her as a dance partner. Gabriel is wealthy, drives an expensive car and can have anyone he wants as his dance partner. He uses women like Kleenex and is married to a very unhappy woman.

Ballroom introduces us to this world, one with special shoes and flashy clothes, private lessons and, at least in this story, lonely people looking for a human connection and love.

I wanted to like this novel more than I did. I think it might have worked better for me if it concentrated on just a few people's stories, like Maria and Angel's for example.  The chapters that are longer, where we get a more in-depth look at Gabe and his strange relationship with his smothering, selfish mother or Maria's life with her hardworking father, succeed much more than the two or three page chapters.

The men in the novel (except Angel) are very cruel to women. They berate them while dancing with them or use them for sex and then dump them. They are horribly misogynistic. And Harry's plan to whisk away young Maria on her 21st birthday is just plain creepy.

I did learn a few interesting tidbits, such as you never walk away from a partner during a dance (even if they say rude things to you) and that women pay instructors to dance with them for an evening at dance halls. Who would have thought.

rating 3 of 5

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on this tour. The rest of Alice Simpson's stops are here:

Alice Tour Stops

Wednesday, September 10th: Tutu’s Two Cents

Thursday, September 11th: she treads softly

Monday, September 15th: Kritters Ramblings

Tuesday, September 16th: BookNAround

Wednesday, September 17th: I’d Rather Be At The Beach

Thursday, September 18th: Walking With Nora

Friday, September 19th: Not in Jersey

Tuesday, September 23rd: Drey’s Library

Friday, September 26th: Books, Books Everywhere

Monday, September 29th: Book Loving Hippo

Tuesday, September 30th: Buried in Print

Wednesday, October 1st: Book by Book

Friday, October 3rd: Stephany Writes

Monday, October 6th: Consuming Culture

Wednesday, October 8th: Reads for Pleasure

Wednesday, October 8th: Ms. Nose in a Book

Thursday, October 9th: bookchickdi

Alice Simpson's website is here.

Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro

Cutting Teeth by Julia Fierro
Published by St. Martin's Press ISBN 978-1-250-0402-6
Hardcover, $24.99, 322 pages

When I began reading Julia Fierro's debut novel Cutting Teeth, I thought it was going to be a novel about a bunch of whiny, overprotective, rich, Brooklyn parents and their spoiled (yet gifted or challenged) children. I didn't see how I could relate.

Then as I read the book, I saw how Fierro brought these characters I probably would not befriend to vivid life in her novel. It begins with something I wish more multi-character novels would have - a chart explaining the who the characters are and how they relate to each other. This is so helpful when you begin a book, and if a book is as well-written as this is, you find you don't need it to keep track of the characters, you are invested enough in them to know who is who.

They came together as a playgroup for their four-year-olds. Nicole, who has OCD and is afraid that the world is coming to an end this Labor Day weekend, has invited the four other couples and their children to her parents' Long Island Sound vacation cottage. Nicole's husband is rapidly tiring of Nicole's OCD behavior and her fears, her constant monitoring parenting of message boards, and has trouble relating to their son Wyatt and his behavior issues.

Leigh comes from a wealthy family who has lost much of their fortune in the economic downturn. Her husband works for her family's business, so their livelihood is in jeopardy, which causes Leigh to do something that could cost her everything she holds dear. Her son Chase may be somewhere on the autism spectrum, and she has pinned all her mothering hopes on her baby daughter, who was conceived in vitro.

Rip is the stay-at-home daddy in the group. He is an earth father, making his family organic homemade foods and loves caring for his son Hank, who is shy and wants to dress like a princess. He wants another baby but his wife refuses to consider it. She has a difficult time relating to Hank and Rip.

Rip is attracted to Tiffany, who runs a music class for children and whose daughter Harper, the only girl in the group, is a Queen Bee. Harper orders the boys around and expects them to do as she tells them. Tiffany likes to stir up trouble in the group, and when we get her backstory we see why.

Susanne and Allie have twin boys, Levi and Dash, and Susanne is now hugely pregnant with another baby. Allie is an artist, a photographer, and Susanne has started a home business renting strollers and car seats to parents. Their relationship is strained at the moment.

Maybe the most interesting person in the novel is Tenzin, a Tibetan political refugee who fled her home country leaving behind her loving husband and three children. Tenzin is nannying for Leigh, and Tiffany is trying to bully Leigh into sharing Tenzin with her. Tenzin loves and understands the children and seeing these people through her eyes in a brief chapter is interesting. I wish we had more chapters narrated by her.

There are tensions, sexual and otherwise, among the parents and between various couples, and anyone who has vacationed with a big group may recognize these scenes being played out. The weekend culminates in one big uncomfortable scene where the underlying problems bubble to the surface and explode.

Cutting Teeth is a character study of contemporary parenting in an urban setting. The competitiveness of getting your child into the right preschool, maintaining a expensive lifestyle, trying to sustain a marital relationship in the midst of all this, making friends, and the helicopter parenting that has led to children being labeled and over scheduled is all examined in this terrific novel that fans of Tom Perrotta's Little Children will enjoy.

rating 4 of 5

Thanks to TLC Tours for putting me on Julia Fierro's tour. The rest of her stops are here.

Julia Fierro’s TLC Book Tours TOUR STOPS:

Monday, May 12th:  Books a la Mode – guest post

Monday, May 12th:  Ageless Pages

Tuesday, May 13th:  The Well Read Redhead

Wednesday, May 14th:  Books in the ‘Burbs

Friday, May 16th:  BookNAround

Monday, May 19th:  Bookchickdi

Tuesday, May 20th:  Book Chatter

Thursday, May 22nd:  Must Read Faster

Friday, May 23rd:  Peeking Between the Pages

Tuesdya, May 27th:  Bibliophiliac

Wednesday, May 28th:  My Bookshelf

Wednesday, May 28th:  Snowdrop Dreams of Books

Thursday, May 29th:  Anita Loves Books

Monday, June 2nd:  Literally Jen

Tuesday, June 3rd:  Books in the City

Thursday, June 5th:  Bibliotica

Thursday, June 5th:  Kritter’s Ramblings

Monday, June 9th:  A Lovely Bookshelf on the Wall

Wednesday, June 11th:  River City Reading

Thursday, June 12th:  Sidewalk Shoes

Friday, June 13th:  Luxury Reading