REVIEW: The Girl From the Sea by Shalini Boland

Title: The Girl From the Sea
Author: Shalini Boland
Narrator: Katie Villa
Publisher: Adrenalin Books
Publication Date: June 2016
Genre: Mystery / Thriller
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: A chilling suspense story of wounded hearts and dark secrets.

Washed up on the beach, she can’t remember who she is. She can’t even remember her name. Turns out, she has an idyllic life – friends and family eager to fill in the blanks.

But why are they lying to her? What don’t they want her to remember?

When you don't even know who you are, how do you know who to trust?

My Thoughts: For a lot of people, getting a start over at life opportunity might be a good thing once all the confusion of the lost past events is overcome. For Mia James, the confusion about her past doesn’t dissipate over time as she begins to piece together what happened to her. Her memory loss causes her more doubts about the man claiming to be her boyfriend, her family and whether her amnesia was really accidental.

This book twisted me around and upside down. I had my own doubts about the boyfriend, not liking him from the start. When Mia learns she inherited 8 million pounds from her father, my doubts increased. I also wondered about Mia’s mother and sister and why their relationship is strained. Mia has to rely on strangers to fill in the blanks. Are they telling her the truth?

This story moved at a perfect pace and flowed seamlessly. I felt like everyone is keeping secrets, including Mia, though she doesn’t know what her secrets are. As the story moves along and it becomes apparent that Mia’s accident was deliberate, the tension spiked into high gear for me. I can’t imagine how frightening it would be to lose all of my memories and then find out that someone close to me means to do me harm.

The story gets darker and more tense as Mia learns more and though she has no memory of anything, she appears to be quite self-reliant and is able to function without difficulty, including driving a car and finding her way around Christchurch. I liked that about Mia. She never comes across as helpless. Frightened, absolutely, but definitely not helpless.

The story was expertly narrated by Katie Villa who breathes life into the characters and expertly conveys their thoughts and speech with raw emotion, which is necessary for readers when listening to an audiobook.

The ending came as a huge surprise for me. It wasn’t the ending I was hoping for, but we can’t always get what we want. Once I picked myself up from the floor after the rug was ripped out from under me, I have to give major kudos to Shalini Boland for giving me a story that was thoroughly enjoyable, shocking, surprising and real.

My Final Verdict: I highly recommend this story to fans of thrillers, mysteries and suspense stories that keep the reader riveted to their seat featuring characters that are not always who they appear to be. If you don’t mind that the line between right and wrong and good and evil isn’t always obvious, this is the book for you.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of The Girl From the Sea from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Ellen the Harpist by Diane Michaels

Title: Ellen the Harpist (Ellen the Harpist #1)
Author: Diane Michaels
Publisher: MiddleRun Press
Publication Date: June 2016
Genre: Chick-Lit / Women’s Fiction
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN

Description: Single. Inept at flirting. But at least she’s got talent and a sense of humor. The problem is, she's often the punch line. Despite her difficulties, Ellen Blum is proud of the cred she has earned serenading brides down the aisle with her harp. Doesn’t being 27 and paying her rent on time prove she’s a grown-up?

Not so much, according to her personal chorus of critics. As she dodges the barbs and petty crimes of her bosses and copes with a family crisis, she feels more like a child than ever. She has her heart set on silencing her critics and teaching them — and maybe herself — a new tune. But becoming more than the person described on her business card is even trickier than moving her harp.

My Thoughts: This book was quite a little surprise. A harp playing protagonist named Ellen who makes a living playing weddings, recitals and concerts trying to earn a living and make a name for herself in the music world. Along the way, she learns a lot about herself and does a lot of growing up.

I liked Ellen right from the start and her best friends Gwen and Chloe were interesting as well, adding depth, humor and sometimes hard to hear advice whether wanted or not. I also liked Josh, felt for Ellen, and shared her disappointment when it appeared they weren’t going to get together. Reading about the different weddings that Ellen performs at was also very interesting. How much planning and work that goes in behind the scenes and what all can go wrong was enlightening.

The story moved at a good pace and held my attention, keeping me guessing about several outcomes…

• Who will Ellen end up with?
• Will someone drop a giant piano on Monica?
• Is the wedding planner a criminal?

My Final Verdict: Overall, this story touches several emotions dealing with life, love and death. Partly chick-lit and partly women’s fiction, I recommend this book to readers who enjoy relationship driven stories, be they romantic, friend or family. This book is the first book in a trilogy and I recommend starting with this one. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series, Ellen at Sea to see what Ellen and her friends and family get up to next.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of Ellen the Harpist from the author in exchange for an honest review.

REVIEW: Unveiling Grace by Lynn Wilder

Title: Unveiling Grace
Author: Lynn Wilder
Publisher: Zondervan
Publication Date: August 2013
Genre: Nonfiction / Religion
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: From a rare insider's point of view, Unveiling Grace looks at how Latter-day Saints are 'wooing our country' with their religion, lifestyle, and culture. It is also a gripping story of how an entire family, deeply enmeshed in Mormonism, found their way out and what they can tell others about their lives as faithful Mormons.

My Thoughts: I had the honor of meeting Lynn and Michael Wilder in 2018 at a conference in Gilbert, AZ where they shared their story about their journey into Mormonism and their journey out thirty years later and into biblical Christianity. This book illustrates how anyone on the face of the Earth can be deceived and misled into a high demand religion and only through the grace of Jesus can they be saved. Lynn, Michael and their family are just like the rest of us, living our lives, trying to be the best people we can be. They were sold a counterfeit Jesus and when their youngest son went on his Mormon mission to Orlando, his eyes were opened to the truth that Jesus is enough.

Lynn’s open and honest depiction of the struggles she and her husband went through trying to reconcile what they were taught in Mormonism against what their son was telling them about Jesus was inspirational and moving. I felt a lot of empathy for what they were feeling and what they were going through.

This book does not persecute, put down or otherwise bash the Mormon people. Instead, it shows love and compassion to those trapped in bondage by the church and offers hope that unconditional love and eternal salvation awaits us all who accept the gift of Jesus’ grace.

My Final Verdict: Having married an ex-Mormon man who found his way out and into relationship with Jesus, the similarities of experiences shared in this book resonated so deeply with me. I recommend this book not just to members of the Mormon church, but also to everyone who seeks knowledge and truth.

REVIEW: The Wrong Man by Kate White

Title: The Wrong Man
Author: Kate White
Narrator: Erin Bennett
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Publication Date: June 2015
Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Suspense
Buy The Book: Amazon | BN | Audible

Description: She wanted to be more daring, but one small risk is about to cost her everything—maybe even her life.

Bold and adventurous in her work as owner of one of Manhattan's boutique interior design firms, Kit Finn couldn't be tamer in her personal life. While on vacation in the Florida Keys, Kit resolves to do something risky for once. When she literally bumps into a charming stranger at her hotel, she decides to make good on her promise and act on her attraction. But back in New York, when Kit arrives at his luxury apartment ready to pick up where they left off in the Keys, she doesn't recognize the man standing on the other side of the door. Was this a cruel joke or part of something truly sinister? Kit soon realizes that she's been thrown into a treacherous plot, which is both deeper and deadlier than she could have ever imagined. Now the only way to protect herself, her business, and the people she loves is to find out the true identity of the man who has turned her life upside down.

Adrenaline-charged and filled with harrowing twists at every turn, The Wrong Man will keep readers riveted until the final page.

My Thoughts: I hate it when a book starts out so promising, but then just falls flat, flounders and then fades away. This is such a book. The entire premise sounded really exciting. Woman looking to have an adventure on vacation meets a charming man and decides to go for it. She agrees to meet up with him upon her return to New York, but the man answering the door is not the man she did the horizontal tango with down in Florida. And worse yet, this man claims his identity was stolen and when he goes to Florida, he is murdered. So, it appears that Kit has gotten herself into one whopper of a mess.

Unfortunately, the story just didn’t carry the intensity or suspense I was expecting. Kit quickly finds herself in over her head, not knowing who she can trust. She is being contacted by law enforcement in Florida and New York. The firm that the murdered man works for starts demanding she meet with them as they have questions and then the mystery man reaches out with a story that is so wild that Kit should have just changed her name, her phone number and moved out of town.

The story weaves all over the place without any clear direction where it’s heading. When things finally get wrapped up, I found the ending to be out of place. I had a challenging time with the audio narration and felt my attention drifting quite a bit, so I’m quite sure I missed a lot of vital details but couldn’t muster up the desire or the initiative to go back and fill in the gaps.

It also drove me up the wall that Kit’s assistant, business partner, whatever is named “Baby” and it seemed like the name was completely overused, like practically in every bloody sentence. I wanted to drive railroad spikes through my ears, I was so tired of hearing the name. In addition, the character spends nearly the same amount of time in the book as the main character, I was beginning to wonder whose story this actually was.

My Final Verdict: Overall, fans of mysteries and thrillers may enjoy this one, but give the audio format a hard pass. For this author, I enjoyed her Bailey Weggins series more.