Thursday, June 29, 2023

It All Started With You

  ~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~



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Book Summary:  I always thought I was going to be a girl who did something. I was going to run my own business and find fame and fortune! Fall in love…

But here I am. Still waiting for it all to happen, sitting on the floor, surrounded by lilies and roses, trying to do my best friend’s wedding flowers because – in her words – ‘how hard can it be, Frankie?’. The answer is actually ‘very hard’ but it’s not the only thing that’s tough right now. My boyfriend won’t commit, I barely have a job, and once again I have the hangover from hell…

What I don’t know is that life’s about to throw me a curveball a new friend I will make with a beautiful, sad-eyed little boy who is so very tragically ill. I still don’t know about that heartbreak.

Even so, in this moment, I know that it’s time for some changes. Maybe it’s time to make my dreams come true? To try to become a marathon-running, healthy-living, wildly-in-love florist-to-the-stars!

Because I’m beginning to realise that you only get one chance at life. I don’t yet how you change everything, all at once, but what I do know is it all starts with me…




Thoughts: I wasn't sure the direction It All Started With You was going to take based on the first few chapters. Once you get passed the out-of-control Frankie and get into the story, it is hard to put it down.  Her best friend, a powerhouse lawyer, loans her starter funds to purchase a flower shop.  As she learns how to run a business she develops amazing friends, grows into a fabulous person, and falls in love.  I loved the characters and together they made the story. 

My great-grandfather started a flower shop/greenhouse and it was passed down to my grandfather and later to my mother. I loved the magical part of the flowers in the story and how certain flowers impact the outcome of an event. 

Great read and I look forward to more books by Debbie Howells.





Debbie Howells’s first novel, a psychological thriller, The Bones of You, was a Sunday Times bestseller for Macmillan. Four more bestsellers followed, including most recently The Vow, published by Avon. Fulfilling her dream of writing women’s fiction, she has found a home with Boldwood and her first title with them, The Life You Left Behind was published in February 2022.

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Wednesday, June 28, 2023

The Llama Farm on New Moon Lane

   ~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~



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Book Summary:  Young and quiet, Lucy Granger leads an introverted life in Reading, living in a flat and working in design at a graphics company—until it is upended when she both sells her idea for a mobile game and suffers an unexpected medical diagnosis shortly afterwards.

Facing a mandated medical rest period, she decides to use her windfall earnings to take a year's holiday, renting a farm on New Moon Lane in a country village in Yorkshire. As Lucy settles into her holiday home for some tranquility, she soon learns that she is not the only tenant, when a llama named Llarry strolls out of the farm's supposedly-derelict barn. He is shortly followed by others in a menagerie of abandoned animals left behind—from a sickly donkey who likes eating crisps to a flirtatious cockerel sleeping in the back garden.

To Lucy's consternation, no one is willing or able to take them on, leaving her with a strange mix of furry and feathered friends to find homes for. Reluctantly adapting to her circumstances in order to deal with this problem, Lucy will discover other surprises about the animals in her care, and the place she is temporarily calling home. About herself, as well.

Will her ordinary life ever be the same after her experience on New Moon Lane? More importantly, should she really want it to be?



Purchase Link -https://mybook.to/newmoonlane



Laura Briggs is the author of several feel-good romance reads, including the Top 100 Amazon UK seller 'A Wedding in Cornwall'. She has a fondness for vintage style dresses (especially ones with polka dots), and reads everything from Jane Austen to modern day mysteries. When she's not writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, caring for her pets, gardening, and seeing the occasional movie or play.

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Author Twitter: http://bit.ly/1ME9ivJ


Giveaway – Win an e-copy of The Llama Farm on New Moon Lane (Open Internationally)

*Terms and Conditions –Worldwide entries welcome.  Please enter using the Rafflecopter box below.  The winner will be selected at random via Rafflecopter from all valid entries and will be notified by Twitter and/or email. If no response is received within 7 days then Rachel’s Random Resources reserves the right to select an alternative winner. Open to all entrants aged 18 or over.  Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties, with the exception of the winners’ information. This will passed to the giveaway organiser and used only for fulfilment of the prize, after which time Rachel’s Random Resources will delete the data.  I am not responsible for despatch or delivery of the prize.



Excerpt From the Author: Very happy to be sharing about my newest read with everyone at Seaside Book Nook today. It’s called The Llama Farm on New Moon Lane, and features a quiet young heroine named Lucy who’s in need of a holiday in the countryside. In the short extract below, Lucy discovers the first of a series of surprises in store for her at the little farm cottage.

Up early, Lucy filled the kettle and put it on the stove. She made three notes and lined them up on the counter — first, to call the realtor to find out about the utilities, second, to buy some fresh food to eat, and third, to light the boiler. All three felt extremely challenging at present. Sometimes a cup of tea helped her feel more like facing them.

The old blue cupboard in the kitchen was grimy, so Lucy wiped it out, then stacked the new blue and white dishes on its shelves. She sipped her tea, looking at the darkness through the kitchen window, imagining the lonely fields and woods. She put the cup into the sink, wiped the counters, and opened the back door to scatter breadcrumbs from the late night toast snack. 

The squeaky hinges disturbed a cluster of black and white settled on the back of the sheltered bench, and a little cockerel sprang down from its back, making chattering noises as soon as he saw her, as if making an appeal against her rudeness. 

An escapee from the neighboring farm, Lucy reasoned. She shut the door, then went to dress for her first task of settling in for the next few weeks, that of getting the hired car back to the service. 



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Sunday, June 25, 2023

The Night It Ended

   ~ I received no compensation and opinions are 100% my own or my family. ~

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Book Summary:  

“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of You're Invited 



Finding the truth seems impossible when her own dark past has her seeing lies everywhere she looks...

From the outside, criminal psychiatrist Dr. Madeline Pine's life appears picture-perfect--she has a beautiful family, a successful mental health practice and a growing reputation as an expert in female violence. But when she's called to help investigate a mysterious death at a boarding school for troubled girls, Madeline hesitates. She's been through tragic cases before, and the one she was entangled in last year nearly destroyed her...

Yet she can't turn away when she hears about Charley Ridley. After the girl was found shoeless and in pajamas at the bottom of an icy ravine on campus, the police ruled it a tragic accident. But the private investigator hired by her mother has his doubts. And if it were Madeline's daughter who died, she'd want to know why.

Arriving at the secluded campus in upstate New York, Madeline's met by an unhelpful skeleton staff and the four other students still on campus during winter break. Each seems to hold a piece of the puzzle. And everyone has secrets--Madeline included. But who would kill to protect them?

Intertwining the narrative with the transcript of an anonymous interview, this stunning suspense debut from Katie Garner will take you on a twisting path where nothing--and no one--is what it seems.


The Night It Ended

Author: Katie Garner

On Sale June 27, 2023

Publisher: MIRA

Paperback Original

ISBN 978-0778334453

Price: $18.99


Buy Links:

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Reviews


"The ending was pretty shocking and definitely not what I was expecting" —Novel Gossip

"Standing ovation for the brilliant Katie Garner! Captivating, ingenious, and absolutely audacious, this tour de force in structure and storytelling kept me turning the pages as fast as I could. Yes,  The Night It Ended is a dark gothic murder investigation at a mysterious school for troubled girls—but don’t judge, don’t assume, don’t try to figure it out—just let Garner's masterful sleight of hand carry you away through the gasp-worthy twists and turns. Do not miss this!" —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of The House Guest


“A gorgeously atmospheric dark academic thriller set at a snowy boarding school so vividly rendered you can practically feel the frost freezing your blood. Garner centers female rage in the most delicious and page-turning of ways, plunging readers into a world where women’s machinations, conspiracies, anger, and even violence rule all. The Night It Ended is a twisty, frantically-paced story you’ll be desperate to devour all the way to the ice-cold ending.” —Ashley Winstead, author of The Last Housewife


“Set at an exclusive school for trouble teenaged girls, The Night It Ended by Katie Garner is dark, twisted, and utterly compelling. Impossible to put down, you won’t know who or what to believe and the creepy location will have you looking over your shoulder more than once. One heck of a debut with an ending that left me speechless.” —Hannah Mary McKinnon, internationally bestselling author of Never Coming Home


“Disarmingly sensory, with plot twists that are sure to give readers whiplash, Garner has done a phenomenal job of giving us just enough information to think we know where the story is going, only to pull the rug out from under us—over and over again. A nail-bitingly spectacular debut!” —Amanda Jayatissa, author of You're Invited


“Wow. I loved this. Compulsively readable. I flew through it. Brilliant use of the unreliable narrator. I enjoyed the police interviews interwoven with the present-day mystery. It kept me on my toes. And that last plot twist…amazing. I did not see it coming.” –Amber Garza, author of When I Was You


“Katie Garner's debut novel is a chilly, twisty ride—think dark academia meets Gillian Flynn. The Night It Ended is both a brooding Gothic mystery set at a boarding school for wayward girls and a jittery domestic thriller and just when you think you've got a handle on the story, Garner pulls the rug out from under you. I couldn't put it down.”—Halley Sutton, author of The Lady Upstairs






Katie Garner was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. She has a degree in Art History from Ramapo College and is certified to teach high school Art. She hoards paperbacks, coffee mugs, and dog toys and can be seen holding at least one of those things most of the time. 


​Katie lives in a New Jersey river town with her husband, baby boy, and shih-poo where she writes books about women and their dark, secret selves. The Night It Ended is her debut novel.

Excerpt: Friday, December 16

I’m speeding home when the phone rings, persistent and angry, demanding to be heard. I know I should answer it, even though I want nothing more than to throw it out the window. I could let the call slide into voice mail, delete it, never hear the voice on the other side.

But I can’t.

I jerk to the side of the icy road to a chorus of blaring horns, dig the phone out from the cavernous tote bag resting on the passenger seat beside me. The phone is sleek and black, brand-new—opposite of the cracked, chunky white one I’m used to shoving in my back pocket.

A sweet little chime and the ringing ends.

1 new voice mail.

Quickly, I glance in the side mirror. Car exhaust melts away into the morning winter sky. Nothing is behind me, nothing but air. I exhale a deep sigh of relief, press the phone to my ear.

“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine—”

A siren wails in the distance. The phone slips through my fingers, lands mutely in my lap. A knot swells in my throat. I glance in the side mirror again, feel my heart pound, each breath shrinking to tiny gasps. The sirens near. An emergency vehicle speeds past.

It’s only an ambulance.

My body wilts. I take a deep breath. In. Out. The knot in my throat loosens.

I hate the person I’ve become. I’ve never been this nervous, this afraid, anxiety and fear clinging to my every move. I wish I could escape—step into someone else’s life, if only for a moment.

Just twelve short months ago everything was different. I was different. Any other December, I would’ve been home, prepping for the holidays, shopping online for last-minute deals on things none of us needed. My husband, Dave, would be staying too late at work, his dinner wrapped in a blanket of aluminum foil, kept warm on the stove. My teenage daughter, Izzi, would be upstairs in her room, scrolling noiselessly through her phone, feet kicked up on the bed behind her.

The house would’ve hummed with the steady softness of disjointed home life, but instead here I am, lurched to the side of the road, the air frigid in the tiny cabin of my car, listening to a voice mail I never thought I’d hear.

I replay the message:

“H-hi, this message is for Dr. Madeline Pine. If you get this, I’m Matthew Reyes, a private investigator working on behalf of a family. Listen, I was hoping you could please call me back at this number, I—I’d really appreciate it. We have a sixteen-year-old female who died on school property. The police believe it’s an accident, but the mother hired me to be sure. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill. No witnesses. I thought you might be able to help—given your expertise. Please call me back. Thanks.”

I repeat his words in my head. The girl was found at the bottom of a hill—I can picture it, picture her. She’s there, fallen sideways, her body splashed across the woodland floor. Moss and stones, skin and blood, leaves and twigs. I don’t know her, but I don’t have to. I already feel as if she were mine.

The man who left the voice mail, Matthew Reyes, has a voice both gravelly and weary, and I know what he wants the moment he mentions the school. Police often believe they can demand anything they want and get it immediately—even psychological evaluations—but it takes time to gain trust from strangers, and even more time to tease out the truth. Especially from teenage girls.

I start weighing my options. I’m not sure I’m capable of this, of anything. Especially after last year…especially after what just happened in that too-hot office during this morning’s disastrous therapy session.

My face flushes at the memory of the woman who’d been sitting cross-legged in front of me. Her beautiful face. Her pink silk shirt blurring out of focus. Her condescending tone—as though the therapy sessions weren’t all for her benefit to begin with.

That’s what I have to remind myself. That’s what I have to hold on to. They’re for her. Not me. I’m the one who’s fine. I should be taking comfort in that, taking comfort in the fact that I never have to see her beautiful face again, never have to be reminded of—

It’s over. I didn’t have a choice before. Now I do. I have lots of choices. An avalanche of choices. My life before today was preprogrammed for me. Not anymore. I fixed it.

Tears slip down my cheeks. I bite them back, strangle the phone in my lap, squeeze it so tight I wonder how it fails to snap in two. Choices. Possibilities.

My mind whirls as I punch the gas, merge into traffic, race home. I run inside, slam the door, bolt the lock. Gazing around my gloom-infested house, I shrivel back as wind blows branches of a nearby tree, scraping the side of the house like fingernails.

Peering at the bulging paper bag of prescriptions on the kitchen island, my eyes prick with tears. My glasses fog. I take them off, rub the lenses clean on my turtleneck.

After so many months, the pills should be working. I should stop taking them altogether. Just throw them all in the toilet, flush them down, watch them whirl around the porcelain bowl.

I think of words my daughter, Izzi, said to me: Mom, please just stop.

Stop.

I don’t know the person I’ve become, too empty, too full, all at once. I need to change. I want to be different. Every day, I think of ways I can be. It can still happen. I’m free now. I have choices now, possibilities. Maybe it’s never too late to change everything. Maybe I just need to escape.

Besides, wiggle room is all it takes for a snake to get out of its skin.

The phone rings again. I snuff the urge to hurl it across the room before glancing at the screen. It’s the same number as before. The same number as the voice mail. I hold my breath and answer.

“Hello?”

“Hello—is this Dr. Madeline Pine?”

“Um—yes. It is.” My heart thuds. “Who’s this?”

A sigh of relief, deep and heavy, into the phone. “This is private investigator Matthew Reyes. Thank you so much for answering, Dr. Pine. I—I know it’s a chaotic time of year and you’re probably busy with family but…would you be able to make a trip up to Iron Hill?”

“I—I don’t know where that is.”

“It’s about two hours north of Poughkeepsie. Upstate New York.”

“Right, okay.” Far. Very far. Too far for my ailing car to make it. I know I should just buy a new one, but I can’t. My husband Dave always said the color perfectly matched my eyes. Now I can’t even remember the last time we looked at each other.

“So, are you busy this weekend?” Reyes asks, then pauses. “I mean, you’re sure you don’t mind ditching your family right before the holidays?”

“When you put it that way, it sounds horrible.” Awkward laugh. “But, um, my husband and daughter aren’t home now, anyway—they’ve gone away to visit my in-laws.”

“You have no idea how grateful I’d be if you could make it,” he says, sounding hopeful. I don’t know what he looks like, but I can imagine him smiling. “I mean, I’ve been calling around to different psychologists all day, and—well, it should only be for a couple of days. You’d definitely be back by Christmas, the latest.”

I wince, feel a surge of sorrow. I’m too embarrassed to admit that Dave and Izzi have no intention of spending the holidays with me this year. It’s what I deserve after what I did.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “please refresh my memory. Have we ever met? You said you’re a private investigator hired by the victim’s—er, the deceased’s—family?”

“Yes, I mean, we haven’t met, but I read about the work you did on the Strum case last year. I believe one of the victims was around the same age as our current victim. And I pulled up your book online—Dark Side: A Psychological Portrait of the Criminal Female Mind. You specialize in women. Just so happens the case is at an all-girls boarding school.”

My stomach clenches. Focus. Deep breath. I shift my gaze to the calendar hanging in the kitchen. I don’t even know why I bother to keep one anymore. I have the same schedule now, week in, week out. Before, the month of December would’ve been filled with holiday office parties, Izzi’s end-of-year school activities, Dave’s plans for winter break, which I’d always beg him to change.

I glance up. Friday, December 16. This morning’s therapy session slashes across my mind again. I see her face. Blank, empty. Her lips begin to curl around a word. I see myself in the reflection of her eyes. I’m close. Closer. I swallow hard.

“The, um, the students don’t go home for the holidays?” I ask, slumping down to the floor.

“Winter break is Saturday, the tenth to New Year’s. A few students stayed behind.” Reyes pauses. “The students who either couldn’t travel for various reasons or chose not to go home.”

I lean the back of my head against the wall.

Reyes continues. “The school is asking me to wrap up my investigation before students and staff return January 2.”

“Okay…”

He senses my discomfort, keeps talking. “Please. Please say yes. You mentioned you have a daughter. How would you feel if it were her?” he asks. “If she was found dead, you’d want closure, right? To be sure everything was done by the book and no stone was left unturned.”

My stomach flips. “Of course I would.”

“So, please. Please say you’ll help.”

I think of my daughter, Izzi, the lengths I’d go to if she was found at the bottom of a hill. Even if it was an accident, I’d want to know why. I’d want to know how she got there. 

If she was alone. Afraid. Or if someone else was responsible. I’d want to know. I’d find them, I’d—

“I don’t know if I can do this,” I confess.

I shut my eyes, see her face again, legs crossed, sitting prim in that too-hot office, the heat blasting, the furniture too big for the tiny space. I tug at the neck of my sweater, suddenly tight, see my reflection in her eyes—close, so close.

No. Stop. I suck up a big breath, blow it all out.

“I don’t know if you’re aware, but after that case last year—” My voice cracks.

“The Strum case?” A note of curiosity in Reyes’s question.

“Yeah. Since then, things have been difficult. I ended up taking some time off—”

“I—I wasn’t aware. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It just—it makes cases like this difficult.”

“Oh—”

“But before I say yes or no, can you give me an overview? What, exactly, I’ll be doing when I get there? I want to be sure I know what I’m stepping into.”

Reyes lets out a breath. “Yeah—yes, of course,” he says, a hint of desperation in his voice. “Well, it happened at a private, all-girls boarding school called Shadow Hunt Hall. They have a very small student body on a very large campus. It’s densely wooded and incredibly isolated. It’s one of those ‘back-to-nature, no technology on campus’ sort of places. The girls are mostly… I guess the best word for it is—troubled?”

“Isn’t that the best kind of girl?”

“Uh, here,” he says, ignoring my attempt at a joke. “I’ll send you some info.”

I glance at the screen, see he’s texted a link to the school’s website. I tap it open, swipe down the page. The school is ancient. Giant and stone, with iron gates and actual turrets, like a possessed fairy-tale castle. The curriculum looks interesting.

Definitely nontraditional. It’s all music and arts and dance. I skim the mission statement:

We believe in a holistic, individual approach to learning and rehabilitation, focusing on a curriculum centered on nature, group trust, and a healthy mind-body connection.

Code words for no junk food or internet.

Reyes waits patiently on the other end as I peruse the site. I click on the Tuition & Financial Aid page and flinch. A single term is more than twice the down payment we put on the house.

“You there? Dr. Pine?”

I lick my lips. “I’m here.”

He pauses. “I’m having trouble getting any of the students to even talk to me,” he admits. “That’s why I need you.”

I think of Izzi, chewing on her fingernails, avoiding eye contact when I ask how her day went. Ever since she started high school it’s been all one-word answers—good, fine—before she’d bound upstairs, not to be seen again until dinner.

So I can’t imagine how the girls at this boarding school would react to a male private investigator showing up out of nowhere, prodding them with questions right after their classmate died. No doubt they’d recoil, want nothing to do with him.

“Okay… I’ll help you,” I whisper.


Excerpted from The Night It Ended. Copyright © 2023 by Katie Garner. Published by MIRA, an imprint of HarperCollins.


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