Jencey's Corner

The second book of the Nantucket Christmas series is Winter Stroll by Elin Hilderbrand.   I love her books and how she shares the annual traditions that take place on Nantucket.   This time she brings us back for Christmas and the Quinn’s family during the Winter Stroll.   What   how eventful could one Christmas really be? Facebook   Twitter    Instagram “A second Christmas on Nantucket finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn reflecting on the past year as he writes a holiday letter to friends and family. Though the year has had its share of misfortune and worry, the Quinns have much to celebrate. Kelley, now single, at least is on better terms with his first wife Margaret, who is using her celebrity to lure customers to the inn in record numbers. Their son Kevin has a beautiful new baby, Genevieve, with the Inn's French housekeeper, Isabelle; and their daughter, Ava, is finally dating a nice guy--her devoted colleague, Scott. Now the Quinns are looking forward to

Thank you to Goodreads and Penguin for give me a copy of Secrets of a Charmed Life by Susan Meissner.   I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.   It was also a Goodreads First Read book. Imagine that you were separated from your sister and you might never see her again.   What questions might you have? Would they be something like where did she go?   How do I find her?   Is she still alive?   These questions not only included all siblings but a nation as English parents who sent their children away from the front of the war, in London.   Then the debilitating losses of the London Blitz struck and   permanently tore families apart.    Are you ready for the journey in Secrets ofa Charmed Life by Susan Meissner? Facebook      Twitter          Pinterest “Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secre

I was sent a copy of The World Breaks Everyone   by Create Space Press.   I was given this book in exchange for an honest review. What happens when the world does not seem to be the way you thought?   What if the very people you referred to as family   suddenly became people   you didn’t recognize?   Then what if it happened to a teenager whose world is totally rocked   by their circumstances?   In The World Breaks Everyone by Lauren Clark,   these   circumstances describe Olivia Jacob’s   life.   Facebook                Twitter                 Pinte rest Every day, I wake up certain of only three things: I am responsible for my mother’s death. My father has vanished. Someone wants me dead. I’m on the run. It’s me against the world. I cannot let it break me. When sixteen-year-old Olivia Jacobs and her celebrity chef father are brutally attacked after his French Quarter restaurant opening, the shell-shocked Olivia finds herself on the run on the streets of New Orleans

Thank you to Thomas Nelson for giving me a copy of Castle on the Rise by Kristy Cambron.   I was given this copy in exchange for an honest review.   I have always wanted to travel to the United Kingdom.   Ireland would be one of the countries on my bucket list to visit.   In Castle on the Rise , readers continue with the characters that they fell in love with in The Lost Castle .   Let’s meet the next castle located in Ireland. Facebook        Twitter            Instagram “When Laine Forrester travels overseas to attend her best friend’s vineyard wedding, she expects to find the bride on the brink of a fairy-tale life. But after a series of unforeseen setbacks, it seems the storybook lives they’d imagined are suddenly ripping apart. With hopes of resurrecting a happy ending, Laine agrees to accompany the newlyweds to the groom’s home in Ireland—never expecting she’d be the one drawn in by its wide-open moors, backroads bordering the Irish Sea, and a mysterious castle

Please welcome Milly Johnson to Writer's Corner. Today I am featuring her latest novel The MAGNIFICENT MRS. MAYHEW.  It should also be considered for your next summer read.  I have an excerpt below of this novel.    Here are what others have said about her work.  "Milly Johnson, the Queen of Feel-Good Fiction and  The   Sunday Times  bestselling author, is back with a "glorious, heartfelt novel" (Rowan Coleman,  New York Times  bestselling author) about a woman trying to find her own place in the world, who through love, loss, and the kindness of strangers, discovers everything she needs in a village by the sea. " Purchase a copy of The MAGNIFICENT MRS. MAYHEW here.    Chapter 1 DOORSTEPGATE, 11 A.M. As Sophie stood in the middle of them all, the moment strangely crystalized for her, as if time had frozen solid and she was able to study everything at leisure, appreciate how odd it was to be surrounded by familiar people in the house she ha

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press for giving me a copy of Exposed by Lisa Scottoline.   I was given this copy in exchange for an honest review. I have not read many of Lisa Scottoline novels.   H er Rosato and DiNunzio series might have a new fan.   For those of you who have not read this series.   It chronicles the relationship between Mary DiNunzio and her partner Bennie Rosato.   What happens when a new client causes a division in the firm?   Where will loyalties   lie between the neighborhood   and the firm? Facebook          Twitter              Instagram “Mary DiNunzio wants to represent her old friend Simon Pensiera, a sales rep who was wrongly fired by his company, but her partner Bennie Rosato represents the parent company. When she confronts Mary, explaining this is a conflict of interest, an epic battle of wills and legal strategy between the two ensues―ripping the law firm apart, forcing everyone to take sides and turning friend against friend. SOMETIMES LOYAL

What if you were born with an allergy that would not allow you to touch another human being?   And they could not touch you? How would you survive?   How could you participate within society?   In Colleen Oakley’s novel Close Enough to Touch her main character Jubilee Jenkins lives with these issues.   Can one truly understand this journey? Facebook             Twitter                   Instagram “Jubilee Jenkins has a rare condition: She's allergic to human touch. After a nearly fatal accident, she became reclusive, living in the confines of her home for nine years. But after her mother dies, Jubilee is forced to face the world - and the people in it - that she's been hiding from. Jubilee finds safe haven at her local library, where she gets a job. It's there she meets Eric Keegan, a divorced man who recently moved to town with his brilliant, troubled adopted son. Eric is struggling to figure out how to be the dad - and man - he wants so desperately to be. Jub

Are you ready for one juicy tale?   I promise to take you to Nantucket where there are some nice beaches.   You might also learn a little about the culture of Nantucket.   Then you might meet the people, and it only takes one to spread a rumor!   The Rumor by Elin Hilderbrand shares what a big impact small secrets can have on one community. Facebook     Twitter    Instagram “Nantucket writer Madeline King has a new novel coming out, and it's got best seller potential. But Madeline is terrified, because in her desperation to revive her career she's done something reckless: reveal the truth behind an actual affair involving her best friend, Grace. And that's not the only strain on Madeline and Grace's friendship. One fateful night the two women argue, voicing jealousies and resentments that have built for 20 years. Bereft of each other, they get caught in the snares of a mysterious and destructive stranger.”(Amazon) My Thoughts: I liked this novel.   It was

It is that time of year again when Mary Alice Monroe sends out a new story into the world.  This year her story is The Summer Guest .  You will see some familiar characters and some new ones.  The story focuses this year on animals escaping a hurricane, or more specifically horses.   Pull up a chair and sit back with a glass of tea and escape to  North Carolina.  Late August is a beautiful time on the Southern coast—the peach trees are ripe, the ocean is warm, and the sweet tea is icy. A perfect time to enjoy the rocking chairs on the porch. But beneath the calm surface bubbles a threat: it’s also peak hurricane season. When a hurricane threatens the coasts of Florida and South Carolina, an eclectic group of evacuees flees for the farm of their friends Grace and Charles Phillips in North Carolina: the Phillips’s daughter Moira and her rescue dogs, famed equestrian Javier Angel de la Cruz, makeup artist Hannah McLain, horse breeder Gerda Klug and her daughter Elise, and island r

It would not be summer without including a thriller.   Last Summer’s hit by local author Kimberly Belle will leave readers turning pages for more.   This time in Three Days Missing , two boys go missing on a school field trip.   Or did they? Facebook         Twitter        Instagram “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare: the call that comes in the middle of the night. When Kat Jenkins awakens to the police on her doorstep, her greatest fear is realized. Her nine-year-old son, Ethan, is missing—vanished from the cabin where he’d been on an overnight class trip. Shocked and distraught, Kat rushes to the campground, but she’s too late; the authorities have returned from their search empty-handed after losing Ethan’s trail in the mountain forest. Another mother from the school, Stef Huntington, seems like she has it all: money, prominence in the community, a popular son and a loving husband. She hardly knows Kat, except for the vicious gossip that swirls around Kat’s traumatic p

Thank you to Goodreads for a copy of Home Front by Kristin Hannah.   I was given this copy in exchange for an honest review.   Kristin Hannah explores what it is like for a women to go over to the war in Iraq.   What is the impact on their family?   What is her relationship like with her husband?   How will her children fare while she is gone?    Or the real question who is the community that she can count on in this story? Facebook        Instagram      Goodreads “Like many couples, Michael and Jolene Zarkades have to face the pressures of everyday life ― children, careers, bills, chores ― even as their twelve-year marriage is falling apart. Then a deployment sends Jolene deep into harm's way and leaves defense attorney Michael at home, unaccustomed to being a single parent to their two girls. As a mother, it agonizes Jolene to leave her family, but as a solider, she has always understood the true meaning of duty. In her letters home, she paints a rose-colored ver

I know many times reminiscing about   the past and my choices or   how I could have made betters.   Choices often affect people around us in various ways.   Circumstances can also be a factor.   In All We Ever Wanted by Emily Giffin, the choices of her characters take center stage when an inappropriate photo is found on someone’s phone.   What will the consequences of those choices be? Facebook   Twitter   Instagram “Nina Browning is living the good life after marrying into Nashville’s elite. More recently, her husband made a fortune selling his tech business, and their adored son has been accepted to Princeton.  Yet sometimes the middle-class small-town girl in Nina wonders if she’s strayed from the person she once was. Tom Volpe is a single dad working multiple jobs while struggling to raise his headstrong daughter, Lyla. His road has been lonely, long, and hard, but he finally starts to relax after Lyla earns a scholarship to Windsor Academy, Nashville’s most prest

Thank you to Tandem Literary and Random House for a copy of Becoming Mrs. Lewis .   I was given this copy in exchange for an honest review. C. S. Lewis has been a familiar author to me since I was little with books such as the Chronicles of Narnia.   When I was in high school, I remember meeting my friends at the movie theater at Manassas Mall.    The four of us were trying to decide what movie we wanted to see and we ended up picking Shadow Lands.    The movie that tells the story of C.S. Lewis’s wife Joy.    I did not realize there is more to the story.   Facebook    Twitter    Instagram ”When poet and writer Joy Davidman began writing letters to C. S. Lewis—known as Jack—she was looking for spiritual answers, not love. Love, after all, wasn’t holding together her crumbling marriage. Everything about New Yorker Joy seemed ill-matched for an Oxford don and the beloved writer of Narnia, yet their minds bonded over their letters. Embarking on the adventure of her life, Joy travel