What I Read in Quarantine

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

On an island off the coast of Ireland, guests gather to celebrate two people joining their lives together as one. The groom: handsome and charming, a rising television star. The bride: smart and ambitious, a magazine publisher. It's a wedding for a magazine, or for a celebrity: the designer dress, the remote location, the lux party favors, the boutique whiskey. The cell phone service may be spotty and the waves may be rough, but every detail has been expertly planned and will be expertly executed. 
But perfection is for plans, and people are all too human. As the champagne is popped and the festivities begin, resentments and petty jealousies begin to mingle with the reminiscences and well wishes. The groomsman begin the drinking game from their school days. The bridesmaid not-so-accidentally ruins her dress. The bride's oldest (male) friend gives an uncomfortably caring toast.
And then someone turns up dead. Who didn't wish the happy couple well? And perhaps more important, why?

Characters that are intertwined in unexpected ways and unforeseen twists! You never quite know who's going to turn up dead and what actually happened until the very end. Read it!

Happy & You Know It by Laura Hankin

After her former band shot to superstardom without her, Claire reluctantly agreed to a gig as a playgroup musician for over-privileged infants on New York's Park Avenue. Claire is surprised to discover she is smitten with her new employers, a welcoming clique of wellness addicts with impossibly shiny hair, who whirl from juice cleanse to overpriced miracle vitamins to spin class with limitless energy.

There is perfect hostess Whitney who is on the bring of social media stardom and just needs to find a way to keep her prefect life from falling apart. Caustically funny, recent stay-at-home mom Amara who is struggling to embrace her new identity. And old money, veteran mom Gwen who never misses and opportunity to dole out parenting advice. But as Claire grows closer to the cool women who pay her bills, she uncovers secrets and betrayals that no amount of activated charcoal can fix.

Quick read. Love the NYC setting. I was happy the author included back stories on the women. So witty - get a copy now!

Regretting You by Colleen Hoover

Morgan is determined to prevent her daughter from making the same mistakes she did. By getting pregnant and married way too young. Morgan put her own dream on hold. Clara doesn't want to follow in her mother's footsteps. Her predictable mother doesn't  have a spontaneous bone in her body.

With warring personalities and conflicting goals, Morgan and Clara find it increasingly difficult co coexist. The only person who can bring peace to the household is Chris - Morgan's husband, Clara's father, and the family anchor. But that peace is shattered when Chris is involved in a tragic and questionable accident. The heartbreaking and long-lasting consequences will reach far beyond just Morgan and Clara.

While struggling to rebuild everything that crashed around them, Morgan finds comfort in the last person she expected to, and Clara turns to the one boy she's forbidden to see. With each passing day, new secrets, resentment, and misunderstanding make mother and daughter fall further apart. So far apart, it might be impossible for them to ever fall back together.

Family drama at it's finest! Throw in young love, rebellion, and betrayal and it's another interesting, moving book by Colleen Hoover. Put this on your to-read list!

The Life Lucy Knew by Karma Brown

One woman is about to discover everything she believes - knows - to be true about her life... isn't.

After hitting her head, Lucy Sparks awakens in the hospital to a shocking revelation: the man she's known and loved for years - the man she recently married - is not actually her husband. In fact., they haven't even spoken since their break up four years earlier. The happily ever after she remembers in vivid detail - right down to the dress she wore to their wedding - is only one example of what her doctors call false memory: recollections Lucy's mind made up to fill in the blanks from a coma.

Her psychologist explains the condition as honest lying, because while Lucy's memories are false, they still feel incredibly real. Now she has no idea which memories she can trust - a devastating experience not only for Lucy, but also for her family, friends, and especially her devoted boyfriend, Matt, whom Lucy remembers merely as a work colleague. 

When the life Lucy believes she had slams against the reality she's been living for the past four years, she must make a difficult choice about which life she wants to lead, and who she really is.

Really interesting topic that made me stop and think - what if this happened to me? I enjoyed following the character through her journey and waiting to find out what decisions she was going to make! Worth a read!

Last Day by Luanne Rice

Years ago, Beth Lathrop and sister Kate suffered what they thought would be the worst tragedy of their lives the night both the famous painting Moonlight and their mother were taken. The detective assigned to the case, Conor Reid, swore to protect the sisters from then on.

Beth moved on, throwing herself fully into the art world, running the family gallery, and raising a beautiful daughter with her husband Peter. Kate, instead, retreated into herself and took to the skies as a pilot, always on the run. When Beth is found strangled in her home, and Moonlight goes missing again, Detective Reid can't help but feel a sense of deja vu. 

Reid immediately suspects Beth's husband, whose affair is poorly kept a secret. He has an airtight alibi- but he also has a motive, and the evidence seems to point to him. Kate and Reid, along with the sisters' closest childhood friends, struggle to make sense of Beth's death, but they only find more questions. Who else would have wanted Beth dead? What's the significance of Moonlight?

Twenty years ago, Reid vowed to protect Beth and Kate - and he's failed. Now solving the case is turning into an obsession...

Part mystery, but mostly contemporary fiction about fractured family relationships and inner demons. Entertaining with an exciting twist! Pick it up if you have the chance.

Whose Waves These Are by Amanda Dykes

In the wake of WWII, a grieving fisherman submits a poem to a local newspaper: a rally cry for hope, purpose... and rocks. Send me a rock for the person you lost, and I will build something life-living. When the poem spread farther than he ever intended, Robert Bliss's humble words change the tide of a nation. 

Decades later, Annie Sawyer is summoned back to Ansel-by-the-Sea when she learns her great uncle Robert, the man who became a refuge during the hardest summer of her youth, is now the one in need of help. What she didn't anticipate was finding a wall of heavy boxes hiding in his home. Long ago memories of stone ruins on a nearby island trigger her curiosity, igniting a fire in her anthropologist soul to uncover answers.

She joins forces with the handsome and mysterious harbor postman, and all her hopes of mending the decades old chasm in her family seem to point back to the ruins. But with Robert failing fast, her search for answers battles against time, a foe as relentless as the ever-crashing waves upon the sea.

There was a really good story underneath it all somewhere. I ended up skimming through it, but felt I hit all the important parts elements. It had the potential to be so good which made it so disappointing. Skip this one.

Currently reading...

Only Ever You by Rebecca Drake

Jill Lassiter's three-year-old daughter disappears from a playground only to return after 40 frantic minutes, but her mother's relief is short-lived - there's a tiny puncture mark on Sophia's arm. When the doctors can find no trace of drugs in her system, Jill accept she'll never know what happened, but at least her child is safe.

Except Sophia isn't. Someone is watching the Lassiter home in an affluent Pennsylvania suburb, infiltrating the family's person and profession lives. While Jill struggles to balance building her photography business with parenting high-spirited Sophia, and David is distracted by the pressure to make partner at his law firm, both of them are holding on in a marriage that's already been rocked by loss.

Three month after the incident in the park, Sophia disappears again, but this time Jill and David become the focus of police and media scrutiny and suspicion. Facing every parent's worst nightmare a second time, Jill discovers that someone doesn't just want Sophia for her own, she wants to destroy the entire family.