Author: Danielle Olson

Book Review | The Occupation Secret by Mario Reading

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BOOK REVIEW | THE OCCUPATION SECRET

TITLE: The Occupation Secret

AUTHOR: Mario Reading

PUBLISHER: Canelo

RELEASE DATE: August 12, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Historical Fiction

BUY LINKS: AMAZON

Relegated to an isolated provincial town in France after years spent fighting on the Eastern Front, German commander Maximilian von Aschau finds unexpected distraction in the form of beautiful and reserved Lucie Léré.

He’s seen every horror of the human experience. She’s never left her village. Opposites in every way, Max and Lucie manage to find common ground. But love is the most dangerous element of war. It makes you vulnerable… and careless.

With the Allied invasion imminent and tensions high, Max and Lucie will have to turn their backs on everything they’ve known and anyone they once trusted in order to protect their secret – and their lives.(Description from NetGalley.com) 

MY THOUGHTS

Unfortunately, I was several chapters in and couldn’t really get into the book. I thought it was going to have more romance based on the description and the cover. I was also waiting for the female character to be introduced and stopped reading because she never emerged. Of what I did read it seemed more about the politics and intensity of war than anything else.

Overall, this book may be more for those who want more about the gore and politics of war. Personally, I like to have more emotion and female perspective in historical fictions.

OVERALL RATING

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What’s your reading challenge for 2020?

~ Danielle Olson ~ 4 Comments

I’ll be honest and say I haven’t been reading as much as I’d like these days. There’s so much do to and so little time in the day to do everything.

But I still make sure I give myself a reading goal every year and this year I’m aiming for 12. That’s one book per month. I feel like that’s doable. I was able to read 10 last year.

What’s your reading challenge for 2020? Set a goal on Goodreads like I did.

Book of the Week | You Have to Believe Me by Sunday Tomassetti

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TITLE: You Have to Believe Me

AUTHOR: Sunday Tomassetti

RELEASE DATE: September 19, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller

BUY LINKS: AMAZON

She has every reason to hate her ex … it doesn’t mean she wants him dead.

Every day on her way home from work, Dove Damiani drives past her ex-house, where her ex-husband lives with her ex-dog and her ex-yoga instructor, next to her ex-neighbors and the ex-life she once affectionately described as “frighteningly perfect.”

To outsiders, Dove is bitter and resentful. The divorce left her alone, with nothing but a set of car keys and 50% of a paltry savings account.

So when the lifeless body of her former husband is discovered in the birch grove outside Dove’s apartment on what would have been their fifth wedding anniversary, investigators waste no time making Dove a person of interest.

She swears she didn’t do it. She’s never so much as killed a spider in her thirty-four years.

But as evidence mounts against her, Dove finds herself questioning her memory, her sanity, and finally—her innocence. (Description from Goodreads) 

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Book of the Week | The Poison Garden by A.J. Banner

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TITLE: The Poison Garden

AUTHOR: A.J. Banner

PUBLISHER: Lake Union Publishing

RELEASE DATE: October 22, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Suspense, Mystery, Thriller

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND

A woman’s idyllic life becomes a deceptive hall of mirrors in a thriller of exquisitely constructed psychological suspense by A. J. Banner, bestselling author of The Good Neighbor.

Elise Watters seems to have it all—a blissful marriage, a gorgeous Victorian home surrounded by lush gardens, and a dream job running her late mother’s herbal boutique.

But on the eve of her first wedding anniversary, Elise makes a shocking discovery that turns her life upside down and casts doubt on everything she thought she knew—about her marriage, her friends, and even herself. As she treads into dangerous territory, Elise is forced to wonder: Is her whole future at stake? Or is paranoia getting the best of her?

If she is to believe what she sees, Elise has every reason to fear for her life… (Description from Goodreads) 

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Book of the Week | Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry by Mary Higgins Clark

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TITLE: Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry

AUTHOR: Mary Higgins Clark

PUBLISHER: Simon Schuster

RELEASE DATE: November 5, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Suspense, Mystery

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N | INDIEBOUND

An electrifying new thriller from “Queen of Suspense” Mary Higgins Clark!

When investigative journalist Gina Kane receives an email from a “CRyan” describing her “terrible experience” while working at REL, a high-profile television news network, including the comment “and I’m not the only one,” Gina knows she has to pursue the story. But when Ryan goes silent, Gina is shocked to discover the young woman has died tragically in a Jet Ski accident while on holiday.

Meanwhile, REL counsel Michael Carter finds himself in a tricky spot. Several female employees have come forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. Carter approaches the CEO, offering to persuade the victims to accept settlements in exchange for their silence. It’s a risky endeavor, but it could well make him rich.

As more allegations emerge and the company’s IPO draws near, Carter’s attempts to keep the story from making headlines are matched only by Gina Kane’s determination to uncover the truth. Was Ryan’s death truly an accident? And when another accuser turns up dead, Gina realizes someone—or some people—will go to depraved lengths to keep the story from seeing the light. (Description from Goodreads) 

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Book of the Week | Black Rock Bay by Brianna Labuskes

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TITLE: Black Rock Bay

AUTHOR: Brianna Labuskes

PUBLISHER: Thomas & Mercer

RELEASE DATE: October 29, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Suspense

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | INDIEBOUND

A detective returns to her haunted past, with deadly consequences, in an icy novel of psychological suspense by the Washington Post and Amazon Charts bestselling author of Girls of Glass.

Detective Mia Hart never planned to return home. One terrifying summer night, Mia lost two of her closest friends to suicide. Scarred and broken, she fled St. Lucy’s, a small island off the coast of Maine.

Now fifteen years later, when the body of a journalist is fished out of the bay near St. Lucy’s cliffs, Mia is forced to help with the case—and face all she’s been running from. As she approaches the island, the wintery winds of Black Rock Bay usher Mia home again.

When Mia digs into the reporter’s death, she finds he left behind a written clue: It wasn’t suicide. Mia soon discovers it’s her own tragic past he was referring to. Now, as she tries to untangle a web of lies, Mia realizes that solving this case means becoming the next pawn in someone’s blood-chilling game of truth or die. (Description from Goodreads) 

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Book of the Week | Unverified by Kristin Giese

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TITLE: Unverified

AUTHOR: Kristin Giese

PUBLISHER: All Moxie Ink

RELEASE DATE: June 15, 2019

GENRE: Fiction, Contemporary, Romance

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | INDIEBOUND

Matthew Milles-Lade, a rich kid whose trust fund is suddenly in question, and Margo Valentine Melon, a writer whose career fizzled before it sparked, are two twenty-something strangers stuck living at home, trying to figure out their lives. When they each come across a real estate listing for a palatial (and significantly underpriced) guest house in one of LA’s toniest neighborhoods, their lives get turned upside down. What happens next has them racing to catch the truth before it catches them.

Unverified has all the magic and making of the rom coms you love, set in the world of social media stardom and online fame, with just enough real world stakes to make it a page turner you won’t be able to put down. (Description from Goodreads) 

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Book of the Week | 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz by Heather Dune Macadam

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TITLE: 999: The Extraordinary Young Women of the First Official Jewish Transport to Auschwitz

AUTHOR: Heather Dune Macadam

PUBLISHER: Citadel Press

RELEASE DATE: December 31, 2019

GENRE: Nonfiction, History

BUY LINKS: AMAZON | B&N

On March 25, 1942, nearly a thousand young, unmarried Jewish women boarded a train in Poprad, Slovakia. Filled with a sense of adventure and national pride, they left their parents’ homes wearing their best clothes and confidently waving good-bye. Believing they were going to work in a factory for a few months, they were eager to report for government service. Instead, the young women–many of them teenagers–were sent to Auschwitz. Their government paid 500 Reich Marks (about $200) apiece for the Nazis to take them as slave labor. Of those 999 innocent deportees, only a few would survive.

The facts of the first official Jewish transport to Auschwitz are little known, yet profoundly relevant today. These were not resistance fighters or prisoners of war. There were no men among them. Sent to almost certain death, the young women were powerless and insignificant not only because they were Jewish–but also because they were female. Now acclaimed author Heather Dune Macadam reveals their poignant stories, drawing on extensive interviews with survivors, and consulting with historians, witnesses, and relatives of those first deportees to create an important addition to Holocaust literature and women’s history. (Description from Goodreads) 

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