#BookReview: Before I Saw You Emily Houghton

Synopsis: For fans of Close Enough to Touch and Me Before You comes a poignant and moving novel about two patients who fall in love as they recover from traumatic injuries in the same hospital ward…all without seeing each other.

Alice Gunnersley and Alfie Mack sleep just a few feet apart from one another. They talk for hours every day. And they’ve never seen each other face-to-face.

After being in terrible accidents, the two now share the same ward as long-term residents of St. Francis’s Hospital. Although they don’t get off to the best start, the close quarters (and Alfie’s persistence to befriend everyone he meets) brings them closer together. Pretty soon no one can make Alice laugh as hard as Alfie does, and Alfie feels like he’s finally found a true confidante in Alice. Between their late night talks and inside jokes, something more than friendship begins to slowly blossom between them.

But as their conditions improve and the end of their stay draws closer, Alfie and Alice are forced to decide whether it’s worth continuing a relationship with someone who’s seen all of the worst parts of you, but never seen your actual face.

A tender novel of healing and hope, Before I Saw You reminds us that connections can be found even in the most unexpected of places—and that love is almost always blind.

#BookReview: Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

Synopsis: Vern - seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised - flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world.

But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes.

To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future - outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it.

#BookReview: The Second Bell by Gabriela Houston

Synopsis: In a world which believes her to be a monster, a young striga fights to harness the power of her second heart, while her mother sacrifices everything to stop her...

In an isolated mountain community, sometimes a child is born with two hearts. This child is called a striga and is considered a demon who must be abandoned on the edge of the forest. The child's mother must then decide to leave with her infant, or stay and try to forget.

Nineteen year-old striga, Salka, and her mother, Miriat, made the choice to leave and live a life of deprivation and squalor in an isolated village. The striga tribe share the human belief that to follow the impulses of their other hearts is dangerous, inviting unspoken horrors and bringing ruin onto them all.

Salka, a headstrong and independent young woman, finds herself in a life threatening situation that forces her to explore the depths of her true nature and test the bonds between mother and child...

#BookReview: It Had to Be You by @georgialouclark

Synopsis: The author of the novel The Bucket List returns with a witty and heartfelt romantic comedy featuring a wedding planner, her unexpected business partner, and their coworkers in a series of linked love stories—perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Casey McQuiston.

For the past twenty years, Liv and Eliot Goldenhorn have run In Love in New York, Brooklyn’s beloved wedding-planning business. When Eliot dies unexpectedly, he even more unexpectedly leaves half of the business to his younger, blonder girlfriend, Savannah. Liv and Savannah are not a match made in heaven, to say the least. But what starts as a personal and professional nightmare transforms into something even savvy, cynical Liv Goldenhorn couldn’t begin to imagine.

It Had to Be You cleverly unites Liv, Savannah, and couples as diverse and unique as New York City itself, in a joyous Love-Actually-style braided narrative. The result is a smart, modern love story that truly speaks to our times. Second chances, secret romance, and steamy soul mates are front and center in this sexy, tender, and utterly charming rom-com.

#BookReview: Chains Carried on Wings (Clydian Chronicles, #1) by @marina_erving

Synopsis: Saig had always lived on the edge of acceptance. Unlike a proper daughter of the head family, she longed for the freedom of the open woods over the confinement of her home. It was enough to drive away the two people who should, by rights, have been her closest companions. 

But her perfect, responsible cousin Auris--destined to be the city's headwoman and resentful of Saig's inability to conform--would never be her friend again. 

And her surly cousin Trei--aware of how his foreign ancestry undermined his own standing in society--would always look at her as a reminder of their shared differences. 

Until a series of mysterious disappearances forces all three of the cousins onto the same side. Driven to protect their city and prove themselves, they join the effort to hunt down the perpetrators. What they find is a trap designed to bring their society crashing down, and the power to reshape their city's future. There's just one problem--the three of them have always bitterly disagreed on what that future should look like.

#BookReview: The Umbrella Lady by V.C. Andrews

Synopsis: A young girl who has lost her father finds herself at the mercy of a mysterious woman who is not quite what she seems.

Left on a train platform in an unfamiliar village, little Saffron Faith Anders is certain her father will return shortly, just like he promised. She holds out hope even as the hours pass and the station grows dark. When a strange old woman with a large umbrella approaches and inquiries about her situation, Saffron doesn’t immediately trust the imposing do-gooder, but with the chances of her father returning growing ever slimmer, she agrees to rest at the old woman’s house.

Her stay was supposed to be for a few minutes, hours at most, but soon, Saffron soon realizes she has been confined to a house of dark secrets and is now at the mercy of the enigmatic Umbrella Lady. One minute grandmotherly and the next wickedly cruel, she shears Saffron’s hair, burns all the clothes she had in her suitcase, and pretends that the photo of a young girl hanging on her bedroom wall is no one in particular. When strange letters arrive from Saffron’s father, claiming that he will send for her shortly, hope returns to her young heart. But Saffron soon discovers that those who claim to love you will often hurt you the most....

#BookReview: The Life and Deaths of Frankie D. by Colleen Nelson

Synopsis: Could a hundred-year-old circus sideshow be the key to Frankie’s mysterious past?

Seventeen-year old Frankie doesn’t trust easily. Not others, and not even herself. Found in an alley when she was a child, she has no memory of who she is, or why she was left there. Recurring dreams about a hundred-year-old carnival sideshow, a performer known as Alligator Girl, and a man named Monsieur Duval have an eerie familiarity to them.

Frankie gets drawn deeper into Alligator Girl’s world, and the secrets that kept the performers bound together. But a startling encounter with Monsieur Duval when she’s awake makes Frankie wonder what’s real and what’s in her head.

As Frankie’s and Alligator Girl’s stories unfold, Frankie’s life takes a sharp twist. Are the dreams her way of working through her trauma, or is there a more sinister plan at work? And if there is, does she have the strength to fight it?