Hosted by Sheila at Book Journey.

A Turn in the Road by Debbie Macomber

From Amazon – “In the middle of the year, in the middle of her life, Bethanne Hamlin takes a road trip with her daughter, Annie, and her former mother-in-law, Ruth.
They’re driving to Florida for Ruth’s 50th high-school reunion. A longtime widow, Ruth would like to reconnect with Royce, the love of her teenage life. She’s heard he’s alone, too…and, well, she’s curious. Maybe even hopeful.
Bethanne herself needs time to reconnect, to ponder a decision she has to make. Her ex-husband, Grant—her children’s father—wants to reconcile now that his second marriage has failed. Bethanne’s considering it….
Meanwhile, Annie’s out to prove to her onetime boyfriend that she can live a brilliant life without him!
So there they are, three women driving across America. They have their maps and their directions—but even the best-planned journey can take you to a turn in the road. Or lead you to an unexpected encounter—like the day Bethanne meets a man named Max who really is a hero on a Harley. That’s when Bethanne’s decision becomes a lot harder. Because Grant wants her back, but now there’s Max….”

This book started out with two strikes against it for me. First of all this woman’s husband left her for another woman and then when the new wife left him he wants to come back – and she’s seriously considering it! That plot line just infuriates me. Don’t be such a doormat. I hate all the “We spent 20 years together so I have to give that some consideration” bull. No you don’t. He obviously didn’t when he went off with someone else.

Then there was the poor old doddering grandmother who everyone thinks is too frail to drive cross country by herself. I was imagining her as a 90 year old woman. Then I realized that she was 68. Seriously? I couldn’t even put that in the story. I had to keep imagining her as a sheltered 90 year old. It was the only way everyone’s attitude towards her and her views on life made any sense at all.

Then there was the spoiled brat of a grownup daughter that just wanted her mother and father back together no matter what anyone else wanted. I wanted them to ditch her somewhere far from home and make her grow up.

The Fine Art of Insincerity by Angela Hunt

“Three grown Southern sisters have ten marriages between them—and more loom on the horizon—when Ginger, the eldest, wonders if she’s the only one who hasn’t inherited what their family calls “the Grandma Gene”: the tendency to like the casualness of courtship better than the intimacy of marriage. Could it be that her two sisters are fated to serially marry, just like their seven-times wed grandmother, Mrs. Lillian Irene Harper Winslow Goldstein Carey James Bobrinski Gordon George? It takes a “girls only” weekend, closing up Grandma’s treasured beach house for the last time, for the sisters to really unpack their family baggage, examine their relationship DNA, and discover the true legacy their much-marrying grandmother left behind . . .”

It seems like my books are determined to annoy me this week. I was upset that I hadn’t realized that this was Christian fiction until I started reading it but since there is multimarrying and abortions and divorces going on it didn’t seem to matter – until the end. That’s when the woman whose husband has just gotten his girlfriend pregnant decides that she needs to go apologize to him for driving him to another woman and ask him to come home because that’s what her faith requires her to do.

Lost Voices by Sarah Porter

From Amazon
“Fourteen-year-old Luce has had a tough life, but she reaches the depths of despair when she is assaulted and left on the cliffs outside a grim Alaskan fishing village. She expects to die when she tumbles into the icy waves below but instead undergoes an astonishing transformation: she becomes a mermaid. A tribe of mermaids finds Luce and welcomes her in. All of them, like her, are lost girls who surrendered their humanity in the darkest moments of their lives. Luce is thrilled with her new life–until she discovers the catch: mermaids feel an uncontrollable desire to drown seafarers, using their enchanted voices to lure ships into the rocks. Luce possesses an extraordinary singing talent, which makes her important to the tribe–she may even have a shot at becoming their queen–however, her struggle to retain her humanity puts her at odds with her new friends. Will Luce be pressured into committing mass murder?”

I don’t know how I feel about this book. It is very dark and since it is the first book in a trilogy there isn’t any resolution. They do murder a whole lot of people for the fun of it which is bad, to put it mildly. Sure she decides that she doesn’t really want to do that but keeps killing.

Honor ThyselfContemporary Romance Books) by Danielle Steele

Famous actress Carole Barber travels to Paris where she is caught in a terrorist attack. For two weeks she is unidentified and in a coma. She is finally found by her assistant and ex-husband. When she wakes up she has no memory of her life. The people in her life tell her their memories of her as she tries to rebuild her life.

I listened to this audio and it got a bit repetitive. That may not have been as noticable if I was reading it over a day instead of listening for over a week. It was an interesting premise that a woman has to view her life through the perceptions of those around her. I liked most of the story except for her daughter. She was always complaining about how her mother had neglected her as a child. The poor thing. Her mother had taken her on the sets of all her movies for her whole life and now she can afford to shop whenever she wants which seems to be her life goal. Oh, the terrible abuse! She was only satisfied when her mother would taken her on vacation with just the two of them or let her sleep in her bed with her. What kind of 20something woman wants that? I wanted her dropped off in the desert with the whiny girl from the Macomber book! At least everyone kept explaining that the girl was a spoiled brat who was never satisfied with anything.

Between by Jessica Warman

Liz woke up dead on the morning after her 18th birthday party. Now she is stuck watching her friends and family try to cope with her death. Her only company is Alex, a boy from her school who died a year earlier. They didn’t know each other in life so why are they together now? Why can’t Liz remember how she died?

I really liked this book. Liz remembers almost nothing about her life at first so she travels randomly through memories finding out how she appeared to others. There is a mystery surrounding her death. I figured it out pretty quickly but the book still kept my interest.

Promises to Keep by Jane Green

From Amazon: “Callie Perry lights up every room she enters, and adores her settled family life in tony Bedford, New York. Steffi is Callie’s younger sister. At thirty, she’s still a free spirit bouncing between jobs and boyfriends in Manhattan. Their long-divorced parents, Walter and Honor, share little besides their grown daughters. But when Callie receives a difficult diagnosis, the family will come together for one unforgettable and ultimately life-changing year.”

I liked this book. I can’t think of a whole lot to say that doesn’t give away the whole story so I’ll leave it at that.

Cursor’s Fury (Codex Alera, Book 3)Epic Fantasy Books) by Jim Butcher

From Amazon: “Gaius Sextus, the First Lord of Alera, plants his nephew Tavi in a new legion, where Tavi can gather information on the rebellious High Lord of Kalare. Tavi, now a full-fledged Cursor, or spy, infiltrates the legion under the assumed identity of an officer, a station the green young man has not yet actually achieved. Treachery from a supposed ally opens the legion to attack from its bestial enemies, the Canim, incapacitating the captain and catapulting Tavi to the rank of the legion’s commanding officer. Cut off from contact with the First Lord and with few seasoned officers to guide him, he must lead the troops in a defense of the Imperium against a horde of frenzied Canim warriors set on annihilating the Aleri people.”

This book revealed a few more secrets of the series. I’m looking forward to reading the rest.