Hello, Tartlets! I'm so excited to be part of the blog tour for Hidden Pictures. Because I seriously loved this book. (Whew! What a relief. It would've been totally awkward to be part of a blog tour for a book I hated.) Billed as "The Haunting of Hill House meets The Perfect Nanny," this supernatural thriller by Jason Rekulak surpassed all the expectations I had for it. I ripped through Hidden Pictures in just two days. TWO...
Let's jump right into it: I loved The Candid Life of Meena Dave. Like, really loved it. As in, I give it all the stars! You guys know my fondness for the "unexpected inheritance" trope, so when Kaye Publicity asked me if I wanted an ARC of The Candid Life of Meena Dave, I was like, You had me at "inherits a Victorian brownstown in historic Back Bay, Boston." I love Boston, and, like most people, my favorite area of the city is Back Bay...
A (Not So) Lonely Planet: Italy by Karina Kennedy is the crazy, sexy, fun-filled Eurotrip-esque romp that most women dream of but will probably never experience. Because let's be real, ladies -- most of us don't have the balls (or figa) to let ourselves actually have THIS. MUCH. FUN. What's A (Not So) Lonely Planet: Italy about? This feisty travel comedy follows writer Marina Taylor on her solo adventure around Italy. Marina's main...
I suppose that when Emma Donoghue wrote The Pull of the Stars in 2018, the premise of a story set during the 1918 influenza pandemic was pretty darn unique. Not to mention a great way to celebrate the world being free of a crippling epidemic for 100+ years. Enter 2020, the year that The Pull of the Stars was published -- a.k.a, the year COVID-19 overtook the world. Ummm, yeah. Scratch that statement about being epidemic-free.
What's The...
Sunrise by the Sea is the fourth installment of the Little Beach Street Bakery series, and boy, was it worth the wait. Much like one of the “red thinks” (a.k.a., strawberry tarts) from character Polly’s bakery, I devoured this Jenny Colgan novel that brought me back to the fictional Mount Polbearne, a quaint and remote fishing village on an island off the Cornish coast. A note about the Little Beach Street Bakery series If you’re...
The Bone Houses has one of the best first lines I've ever read: "The evening air smelled pleasantly of a fresh grave." I mean, come on. HOW CAN YOU NOT GET SUCKED IN BY THAT? Talk about imagery. Take notes, fellow writers. This is just one example of author Emily Lloyd-Jones's beautiful writing in this young adult historical fiction/ fantasy / horror novel mash-up. What's The Bone Houses about? The Bone Houses follows Ryn, a...
You're getting two books in one with The Plot, Tartlets, with the newest fiction release from Jean Hanff Korelitz. What's The Plot about? The Plot is about fictional novelist Jacob Finch Bonner, who steals an idea from one of his writing course students and uses it to become a bestselling author. Later in his career, Bonner's stalked by someone who wants to reveal "the truth" about the idea behind his life-changing novel....
J. Courtney Sullivan is one of my “auto-buy” authors (okay, “auto-borrow,” since I use the library), so the minute I heard about Friends and Strangers, I added it to my “must read list”. What's Friends and Strangers about? Friends and Strangers is about the powerful but transitory nature of relationships, which has always fascinated me. I’m so intrigued by how people can go from being strangers to being friends to...
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue was another different type of read for me: fantasy. This creative story by V.E. Schwab is rich and complex; it’s detailed and emotional; it’s sweet and exciting. There are SO many things going on in this behemoth of a novel. What's The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue about? The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue is about a 1700s French peasant woman, Addie, who makes a deal with a demon to escape an...
"To the Women." Author Liza Rodman dedicated her memoir, The Babysitter: My Summers with a Serial Killer, "to the women." I always read dedication pages, and when I saw this phrase at the beginning of the book, I thought the sentiment was sweet. But, that's about it. Because I didn't know yet. I didn't know what I was about to read. By the time I finished reading The Babysitter, the full impact of "to the women" hit me like a brick. ...
