Josie Silver – Stephanie Caffrey, Author

September 2023 Reads

October 1, 2023Posted in Book RecommendationsTagged As Long As You Love Me, Between Us, Book Recommendations, Book Review, Books, Counting the Cost, Erin Hahn, Floyd Collins, Jill Duggar, Josie Silver, Kiss the Girl, Love Holly, Reading, The Keeper of Lost Causes, The Takedown, Thornhedge, Vampires of El NorteLeave a comment

Fun retelling of The Little Mermaid. I loved the family aspect, for both Ariel and Eric, and the music aspect. The downside to books about music is the music isn’t real. Ariel and Eric were great together.

I really enjoyed this book. The romance between Matt and Roisin felt natural. The Friends to Lovers was so warm and cute. I didn’t like Joe at all. He felt slimy from the beginning.

I reviewed this book here.

Very interesting story, but also very tragic. Listening to Floyd’s life, I at first thought, “man, of course this dude was trapped.” Also, the use of the word “cave” to describe where he was trapped felt very generous. I would have described it as “tunnel.” But the real tragedy is how everyone bungled his rescue. I think if the media didn’t become involved, and outside people, Floyd would have been rescued.

I reviewed this book here.

This book reminded me of the show Cold Cases, which I loved. The duel timelines was a great storytelling aspect. I enjoyed the detective and his partner. The pace was good, and the whole thing had me at the edge of my seat. Minus one star because I figured out the whodunit and the motive pretty early on. It was pretty heavy handed foreshadowing.

Spooky, romantic, and set in Mexico during the Mexican-American war, a time period I would love to know more about, this book was nearly impossible to put down. I would describe it more of a historical fiction with a friends to lovers trope that happens to be spooky rather than horror, but that didn’t bother me one bit.

I really enjoyed this short retelling. I liked the new perspective. It was really unexpected in many ways, and I loved the freshness of this novella.

I liked Jill Duggar’s honesty, in the ways she felt comfortable in opening up. While I’m sure there is a lot more she could have said, but while I look forward to her being ready to do so, what she wrote was still upsetting. I wanted to punch Jim Bob in the face by the end.

I reviewed this book here.

Book Review: A Winter in New York by Josie Silver

September 30, 2023Posted in Book RecommendationsTagged A Winter in New York, ARC, Book Recommendations, Book Review, Books, Josie Silver, Netgalley, Reading1 Comment

A WINTER IN NEW YORK by JOSIE SILVER

RELEASE DATE: October 3, 2023

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

After reading A Winter in New York by Josie Silver, all I want to do is eat gelato. And after you read it, you will too.

The book follows Iris in her first year living in New York after previously living in London. She has left an abusive relationship behind, and is still grieving the loss of her mother. The one constant in her life is the secret gelato recipe her mom had made her her entire life. As she attends an Italian festival, she finds a door that looks familiar. Turns out, it’s the gelato restaurant from her mom’s past, the source of the secret gelato recipe.

Enter Gio, the handsome widower, and son of the gelato owner. There’s been a family tragedy, and they don’t have the recipe…but Iris does. What follows is the gradual falling in love between these two lost souls as they work to find the lost recipe.

While I really liked this book, the characters were amazing, I felt the secrets Iris kept from Gio were kept for much too long, and I felt the ending was very rushed. I feel like Silver could have drawn it out a little bit more. However, that minor gripe aside, the book was an emotional rollercoaster. It had me smiling, crying, and sighing at the romance of it all.

Josie Silver is one of my favorite romance authors and look forward to reading her books every year. I was not let down with this book. It had every element I love in a Silver book: realistic characters, realistic problems, a tad of a tragic background, overcoming grief, romance, and hope.

A Winter in New York is the perfect addition to your holiday TBR list.

April 2022 Reads

May 1, 2022February 22, 2023Posted in Book RecommendationsTagged Book Recommendations, Books, Hell of a Book, Henna Artist, I Must Betray You, John Green, Josie Silver, JR Ward, Meet Me in the Margins, One Italian Summer, Reading, Summer Book, Tessa Bailey, The Night Shift, The Suite Spot, Wheel of TimeLeave a comment

Powerful book. I honestly don’t even know how to describe what I read. The book is a great discussion on Race and what it means to be a Black man in America. That’s about all I can say without giving too much away.

5 Stars

A cute romance. Loved the setting and the premise. Rachel and Mason had a lot of chemistry right out of the gate. Really loved the slowburn aspect. Maisie was also a delight.

4 Stars

I wasn’t sure about this series after the first book, but I’m now hooked. It was a little slow and dragged a bit, but the last quarter was exciting and pushed the plot along. Loial is my favorite character.

4 Stars

Finishing this book (book 19 in the main series) only made me want next year’s book so much more. While this was Balz and Erika’s book, Lassiter was clearly the star. I loved this book so much, I couldn’t put it down. I love the world of the Black Dagger Brotherhood.

5 Stars

Great book with a cute premise. I don’t read a lot of clean, sweet romance so it felt like a lot was missing, mostly swoonworthy passion. But, Will and Savannah were cute together and the premise was clever.

4 Stars

Heartbreakingly romantic. What else could I expect from Josie Silver? Cleo’s growth into a strong, fierce woman, Mack’s growth into the man and father he wants to be — *chef’s kiss* Salvation was even a character all on its own. A slow, soft book that made me cry. Loved every second of it.

4 Stars

A beautiful story about Katy as she learns to find herself without her mother. Until she finds her mother 30 years in the past. A subtle time travel novel centered on a love between a mother and daughter. Could have done without the cheating storyline, it knocked a star off for me. (BOTM)

4 Stars

Powerful story about a time period I honestly didn’t know very much about. I loved the choice to tell the story of Romania’s Revolution through the eyes of teenage revolutionaries, it made the story so much more powerful and heartbreaking. (BOTM)

5 Stars

Loved. It. Fox and Hannah had the best chemistry. Their love story moved at the exact right speed. I devoured this book in one sitting.

5 Stars

This book was a little “meh” for me, which I’ve found with a lot of Reese Witherspoon books. Everything just felt “blah.” I didn’t care for the characters, they were okay, but I felt no emotional attachment to them and the plot just felt empty.

3 Stars

Everything about this book was amazing: The plot, the characters, the pacing. Finlay knows how to write a thriller and do it well. I could not put this book down. Kept me guessing the whole time. Loved it. Cried at the end.

5 Stars

Re-read this book almost one year later for book club. Still love this book, but my favorite essays have changed. It makes me wonder if my favorite essays have to do with where I am in my life at the moment when I read the book. Since this is not only my favorite John Green book, it is easily in my top 5 of all time, I can see myself re-reading this again in the coming years. I wonder which essays will be my favorite then? (BOTM)

5 Stars

A wonderful collection of vignettes. I loved Sophia and Grandmother and their relationship to each other and the island. The descriptions of the island were breathtaking.

I am firmly entrenched in this series. Honestly, this was my favorite of the books so far. I really loved the focus on the characters other than Rand in this book. I felt it was more of a character building book rather than a world building, and I’m glad we can finally focus on plot rather than explaining what everything is.

4 Stars