Never Smile at Strangers by Jennifer Minar-Jaynes

When nineteen-year-old Tiffany Perron vanishes from rural Grand Trespass, Louisiana, best friend HALEY LANDRY's relationship with her boyfriend becomes increasingly strained. To make ma cvvctters worse, her impressionable younger sister BECKY has begun idolizing an impetuous, seductive 15 year old who's encouraging her to do dangerous things.

Meanwhile, ERICA DUVALL, a reclusive 19-year-old aspiring writer, befriends Haley. Ten years earlier, Erica's mother abandoned her, leaving her with the womanizing used car salesman father she loathes. She's decided to write a novel based on Tiffany's disappearance; a novel that she hopes will lead to a reunion with her estranged novelist mother.

RACHEL ANDERSON, a 36-year-old mother of two, is having trouble coming to terms with her husband, TOM's, affair with the missing girl--a relationship that supposedly ended shortly before Tiffany's disappearance. What's more, she comes to the blood curdling realization that someone is watching her through the large back windows of her house.

A DISTURBED MAN also lives in the area. Ever since his mother's murder four years earlier, he's been raising his insolent teenage sister, ALLIE, who sleeps with truck drivers for money. He considers women to be dangerous--and his world revolves around his fear and hatred for them. He's terrified of his sister, knowing she's intent on pushing him over the edge.




An entertaining read, this book will keep you on the edge of your seat from the moment you pick it up.

aIf you enjoy cleverly handled thrillers, then you’ll probably like this book. It is well done, with a nice sense of pacing that keeps the story moving along while building the required amount of suspense. There are some chilling moments. The killer, with all his psychological traumas is a fascinating character who takes over the pages in which he appears. We slowly start building a sense of who he is, but there are so many surprises that I can promise you won’t know who it is until the end. That, by itself, should be worth the book.

The writing is clear, not flashy but it does what it needs to and, most importantly, it gets out of the way, allowing the story to come through. There are a few editing mistakes, but nothing horrifying so although this is not a “traditionally” published book, there is no reason why anyone should refrain from buying it and reading it.

For all of you who are fans of the big thriller writers out there at the moment, this one is a good choice.

Restoration by Olaf Olafsson

Raised within a cosseted circle of British ex-pats in Florence, Alice shocked her family and friends when she married Claudio. Despite the protests of both families, they found a crumbling villa on a windy Tuscan hilltop, called San Martino, and they poured themselves into the house and the land–and what they built together bound them together. They had a son. They finished the house. They were happy.

But away from her family and the ease of life to which she was accustomed, Alice begins to slip into a vast and encompassing loneliness. She stumbles into an ill-advised affair with a childhood sweetheart that increasingly takes her away from San Martino and into the social swirl of wartime Rome. She is with her lover when her young son dies from meningitis…and her unbearable sorrow is compounded by terrible guilt. Her indiscretion is noticed by a careful pair of eyes–those of Robert Marshall, the master restorer and dealer of renaissance art. In exchange for his silence, he demands Alice hide a priceless Caravaggio at San Martino, a national treasure that he has sold to the Germans. Neither knows, however, that the Caravaggio is, in fact, a fake, painted by Marshall’s assistant as revenge for Marshall’s scorning her as a lover and returning to his pregnant wife. Kristin had merely hoped to privately humiliate Marshall. But his sale of the forgery has placed him in far great danger than she anticipated. Compelled to make things right, she travels to San Martino in an attempt to destroy the painting. Meanwhile, inconsolable at the death of his son and at his wife’s betrayal, Claudio retreats first into silence, and then into an actual absence. He has left, without saying good-bye, without offering the grieving Alice a chance to redeem herself for her ghastly sin. As WWII moves towards its inexorable conclusion, as the front lines sweeps closer and closer to San Martino, Alice and Kristin not only have to confront the onslaught of soldiers and the destruction of everything they hold dear, but also the consequences of their past mistakes.


This book took me by surprise. I really did not expect something so deep and moving, something so well written. I’d actually been reluctant to pick it up, because I thought it would be one of those books focused solely on World War II, but I’m so glad I did end up giving it a chance.

There are two interconnecting plot lines: Kristin’s and Alice’s. The book goes back and forth in time (think The Englishation Patient, not Time Traveler’s Wife) in such a masterful way that the reader is never confused. On the contrary, it’s hard to put the book down once you get past the first chapter. The war is always second stage to the relationships in the book, whether husband between a husband and wife or between two lovers. This is a collection of relationships.

The writing is superb, stark and powerful. Once in a while the dialogue felt a bit stilted, but not enough to frustrate the reader. The way it ends, which I will not reveal, of course, is perfect, tucking in all the loose ends and leaving the reader with a sense of peace.

This is a book I highly recommend to lovers of literary fiction. Beautiful book.

Musing Mondays

This week’s musing asks… What is the last book that you learned something from? What book was it, and what did it teach you?

Well, last week I finished reading a memoir called Triggered. It relates how the author came to realize he had OCD and how he managed, bit by bit, to overcome it. It is a great, honest look at mental illness and I learned lots I didn't know about this particular disease.
If you're interested my review is here.

In My Mailbox

The House of Velvet and Glass by Katherine Howe

Blod Oath by T.L. Clarke

Follow Friday

Q: BeefcakeandBabes Asks: I like unique names for characters and am looking forward to coming up with some when I start writing. What’s the most unique character name you’ve come across?

Well, if we're talking unique names, probably any from the Dragonlance series would work, mainly because it's high fantasy. They include: Tika, Raistlin, Crysania, Flint, Kitiara, etc.
Another one that struck me the first time I heard it was Coraline, from the book by the same name by Neil Gaiman.

Triggered by Fletcher Wortmann

Imagine the worst thing in the world. Picture it. Construct it, carefully and deliberately in your mind. Be careful not to omit anything. Imagine it happening to you, to the people you love. Imagine the worst thing in the world.

Now try not to think about it.

This is what it is like for Fletcher Wortmann. In his brilliant memoir, the author takes us on an intimate journey across the psychological landscape of OCD, known as the “doubting disorder,” as populated by God, girls, and apocalyptic nightmares. Wortmann unflinchingly reveals the elaborate series of psychological rituals he constructs as “preventative measures” to ward off the end times, as well as his learning to cope with intrusive thoughts through Clockwork Orange-like “trigger” therapy.

But even more than this, the author emerges as a preternatural talent as he unfolds a kaleidoscope of culture high and low ranging from his obsessions with David Bowie, X-Men, and Pokemon, to an eclectic education shaped by Shakespeare, Kierkegaard, Catholic mysticism, Christian comic books, and the collegiate dating scene at the “People’s Republic of Swarthmore.”

Triggered is a pitch-perfect memoir; a touching, triumphantly funny, compulsively readable, and ultimately uplifting coming-of-age tale for Generation Anxiety.


This is a fascinating memoir about mental illness. It is neither maudlin nor whinny, but it portrays a life lived under the weight of a serious disease.

What surprised me most about the book was the light tone the author chose to tell his story. It is full of jokes and self-deprecations which makes what could have been a depressing read almost funny. As someone who has dealt with severe depression myself, I know that it is not easy to achieve that kind of levity when recounting one’s illness. This book had me laughing and frowning at the health care’s level of incompetence. It was very interesting to read about OCD and its treatment from someone who has lived his life crippled by it and not just a clinical explanation of what the disease really is all about.

The writing style is fun, although it can, sometimes, get a bit repetitive. Sometimes the voice comes through as self-pitying but I suppose that comes with the territory when writing about mental illness.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who has suffered from any type of psychological trouble and has met with an uncaring world. Even if you haven’t, chances are you know someone close to you who has struggled with mental illness, so I do encourage you to pick it up.

Booking Through Thursday

Have you every written any fan-fiction? If yes, why and for which book(s)? If no, would you like to and for which books(s)?

For that matter, do you ever READ fan-fiction??

No, I don't write fan-fiction. I focus on my own manuscripts, and find little time to mess with anyone else's characters. I guess it's not something that's ever been appealing to me to write or read.