The Women of Ambrose Estate Box Set

This is a fabulous box set of this series. All four books included. 

I think my only complaint was that I wanted to see all of the sisters love stories. I hope they'll get added on. 

Great storytelling and all the feels by these two talented authors. 

AMAZON

Generations of secrets and an ancient curse keep the sisters of Ambrose Estate from following their hearts.

Join each heir of the Ambrose family as they work to overcome their dark legacy and break the deadly curse that threatens any happiness for their futures.

MOSTLY DANGEROUS Sofia Ambrose might be falling in love with Gavin Spencer while they work together on saving the estate’s oil well, but an old family curse discovered in a long-lost journal from a hundred years ago stands like a burning fire between them and true love.

MOSTLY PERFECT Lauren Ambrose knows that millionaire investor Nick Matthews might be perfect for her, but money has no power over the curse that haunts her every relationship.

MOSTLY RISKY When Amelia Ambrose accepts that co-worker Grigg Edison is the man she wants in her life, it’s a whole other matter to risk that love against a curse that’s more powerful than both of them.

MOSTLY PERILOUS Emma Ambrose didn’t plan on falling for the local county coroner, and if Ian Phelps should know anything, it’s to stay away from a family with empty graves and centuries of secrets. But together can they finally find the hidden secrets to break the Ambrose curse once and for all?

If you like enchanting romance, intriguing legacies, and moody mysteries, then you’ll adore these smoldering love stories.

Saving Ceecee Honeycutt

 I had the good fortune of my book club selecting this novel, otherwise I would've missed it. 

If you're looking for a slice of life story with solid writing, lots of heart, and plenty of growing up struggle, then this is the right book for you. 

Love the immersion into the Southern culture and feeling I was in the story. So powerful. 

AMAZON

Twelve-year-old CeeCee Honeycutt is in trouble. For years, she has been the caretaker of her psychotic mother, Camille-the tiara-toting, lipstick-smeared laughingstock of an entire town-a woman trapped in her long-ago moment of glory as the 1951 Vidalia Onion Queen. But when Camille is hit by a truck and killed, CeeCee is left to fend for herself. To the rescue comes her previously unknown great-aunt, Tootie Caldwell.

In her vintage Packard convertible, Tootie whisks CeeCee away to Savannah's perfumed world of prosperity and Southern eccentricity, a world that seems to be run entirely by women. From the exotic Miz Thelma Rae Goodpepper, who bathes in her backyard bathtub and uses garden slugs as her secret weapons, to Tootie's all-knowing housekeeper, Oletta Jones, to Violene Hobbs, who entertains a local police officer in her canary-yellow peignoir, the women of Gaston Street keep CeeCee entertained and enthralled for an entire summer.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.

Project Hail Mary

Wow. I mean wow. 

I liked the Martian. I was interested to read Hail Mary. But I wondered if it was going to be repetitive of the concept of lone man in space and not live up to Mr. Weir's previous success. 

I didn't need to be concerned. Mr. Weir isn't a one hit wonder. 

This book took many unexpected twists and turns that I didn't see coming. 

There's a reason the story is told between present day and flashbacks, and the seamlessness of the two is well executed. 

Everything on the page is related and drives the plot. 

The science boggles the mind by doesn't bog down the story if you're not a science-minded person. 

Highly recommend. 

AMAZON

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish.

Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?

Persuading the Billionaire

This is a fun romantic read. 

Escape to Hawaii, learn the heartbreak and sorrows that bring these different people together, and have a blast while reading. 

The characters are well formed, the story hits all the right notes, and you'll keep turning pages to the satisfying conclusion. 

AMAZON  

They weren't looking for love, but it found them in Hawaii anyway.

Alexis Robinson is alone on what should have been her honeymoon. It's just her luck that she gets knocked over by a car door before she even steps foot inside the Hawaiian resort. The man who hit her offers to pay her, but she refuses. It reminds her of what her ex would have done - throw money at everything. But when she witnesses his assistant quit her job, she persuades him to let her take over, desperate to keep her mind off her cheating ex.

Maxwell King is only at the Maui Royal Resort to decide whether or not to purchase it. His wealth has only grown over the years, but it's time for him to step into a different role and take on something more challenging. Little does he know that looking for one challenge might lead him to an even bigger one: not falling in love with the woman he's hired as his assistant for the week.

A jilted bride alone on her honeymoon.
A stubborn billionaire in need of an assistant.
And a resort in paradise for a week.

When the lines of their working agreement blur, will Alexis and Maxwell keep it strictly business? Or will the sparks flying between them be enough to persuade the billionaire?

The Slow March of Light

I was both excited and anxious about reading this book. 

Excited because I've been favorably impressed by Ms. Moore's work before. Anxious because of the war and imprisonment aspect, even though I trusted the author. War is hard for me to see or read about, and I shy away from it. 

It took me far longer to read this book than it should have. I read slowly and little bits at a time, holding my breath, waiting to see what would happen to Bob and how the difficult and delicate parts would be handled. 

I needn't have worried. Ms. Moore used emotion to convey Bob's prison time rather than graphic description of the torture he underwent to portray that period in his life. 

This is an excellent book, well researched, and told with loving care and concern. 

AMAZON

Based on a true story. Inspired by real events.

A riveting and emotionally-gripping novel of an American soldier working as a spy in Soviet-occupied East Germany and a West German woman secretly helping her countrymen escape from behind the Berlin Wall.

In the summer of 1961, a wall of barbed wire goes up quickly in the dead of night, officially dividing Berlin. Luisa Voigt lives in West Berlin, but her grandmother lives across the border and is now trapped inside the newly- isolated communist country of East Germany. Desperate to rescue her grandmother and aware of the many others whose families have been divided, Luisa joins a secret spy network, risking her life to help bring others through a makeshift, underground tunnel to West Germany. Their work is dangerous and not everyone will successfully escape or live to see freedom.

Bob Inama was an outstanding university student, with plans to attend law school when he is drafted into the US Army. Stationed in West Germany, he is glad to be fluent in German, especially after meeting Luisa Voigt at a church social. As they spend time together, they form a close connection. But when Bob receives classified orders to leave for undercover work immediately, he does not get the chance to say goodbye.

With a fake identity, Bob's special assignment is to be a spy embedded in East Germany. His undercover job will give him access to government sites to map out strategic military targets. But Soviet and East German spies, the secret police, and Stasi informants are everywhere, and eventually Bob is caught and sent to a brutal East German prison. Interrogated and tortured daily, Bob clings to any hope he can find from the sunlight that marches across the wall of his prison to the one guard who secretly treats him with kindness to the thought of one day seeing Luisa again.

Author Heather B. Moore masterfully alternates the stories of Bob and Luisa, capturing the human drama unique to Cold War Germany as well as the courage and the resilience of the human spirit.

The Midnight Library

It's my good fortune that this book got picked for book club. 

This is such a great idea to explore for what happens in the moment between living and dying. The author took the concept and ran with it. 

Loved seeing how the regrets could be righted, fantasies could be lived, dreams could be found, and possibilities could be endlessly explored. 

I think the construct for the library is genius. 

Satisfying ending. 

Would make a great film. 

AMAZON

Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig's enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

Emma Smith

A friend recommended this book in preparation for an event. 

I learned a lot about Emma's life and got some questions about the end of her life answered. 

She was an amazing woman and lived through some really tough circumstances. I learned great lessons from her example. 

The author repeats a few things but that's not a big deal. 

A concise history that can be read quickly. 

AMAZON

From acting as a scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon to founding the Relief Society, Emma Hale Smith was a key figure in the Restoration. She was also her husband's anchor and the love of his life. But how much do we really know about her role, teachings, and leadership?

Drawing upon letters written by Emma to Joseph and to many others, along with minutes from Relief Society meetings and other artifacts, this book sketches a more complete portrait of this elect lady. It allows each of us to become personally acquainted with Emma as we learn more about her essential work as a leader, a wife, and a mother in the early days of the Church.