Book Club Reporter Book Reviews

Thirteen Across - Action Novel - Action-Packed FBI Thriller

Quote:"Katherine be mindful of origins and the clock. The puzzle is greater than riddles and pain. The quest for truth is not for the faint at heart. Survive if you can."

Thirteen Across Book Review:

• Hang on for a terroristic rollercoaster ride! Thirteen Across is an action novel, and an FBI thriller adventure, hurtling readers through Washington, D.C.
• FBI Special Agent Kate Morton somehow manages to survive her early morning railway commute after the commuter-packed train is bombed and derailed. Philip Barnes, a government lab rat, is the domestic terrorist responsible for the bombing. Philip’s super power is extraordinarily high intelligence. Kate soon discovers the evil-minded Barnes is hell bent on revenge and has thrust her into a frantic race against time to solve a cryptic crossword puzzle (with a violent solution) before the stroke of midnight.
• Kate is determined to thwart Philip’s plan and she is quick to accept that she cannot accomplish this goal on her own. The Thirteen Across storyline flies towards midnight at a hurried pace. The crossword puzzle, and its possible solutions, takes the characters through the nation’s capital city searching for victims in churches, underground tunnels and more. Barnes’ high-tech weaponized autonomous/driver-less vehicles travel the city undetected.
• Thirteen Across reads like an action-packed spy movie. I can just picture Jennifer Garner as Katherine Morgan. And I can see Kate's team of strange bedfellows, with Steve Carell as William Shortz, a NY Times crossword editor/master crossword puzzle solver, and Gal Gadot as Rachel Pratt, whose super power is self-healing. I can imagine all three of them in Thirteen Across scrambling at a frenzied pace to save lives and prevent disaster.
• I found Thirteen Across to be unputdownable. The storyline is an original page-turner with plenty of plot twists to keep it moving ever forward to its ultimate conclusion. And yet when the story ended, it left me yearning for a great action-packed sequel. And I think that's outstanding! If you like action adventure novels, I believe you will love Dan Grant’s Thirteen Across!

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Read my full book review of Thirteen Across and lots more book reviews on my blog site BookClubReporter.com

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How to Start a Book Club the Right Way

Today, let’s talk about how to start a book club.

So, if you are listening in today, I will assume that either you have recently, and possibly for the first time, created your own book club,

Or maybe you are in the planning stages of creating a new book club, and you are wondering how to make a success of it.

Well if that’s the case, good for you, because it does take some careful planning to make your book club a success.

Can I guarantee your book club will be a success, heck no! We are dealing with people, so kind of like a rodeo, anything can happen.

And today I am onlytalking about actual in-personbook club groups and notvirtualbook clubs. And I am only talking about a reading group that you plan to lead.

The Silent Patient written by Alex Michaelides.

The author has delivered a psychological thriller with twists and turns that leave the reader truly surprised! Without giving anything away, I can say that there will come a moment in The Silent Patient when you will say, “What the …? Hmm ... I did not see that coming! If you’re tired of reading thriller books with predictable endings, this book is for you.

Alex Michaelides has written a well-crafted suspense novel. All the praise surrounding this smart, authentic psychological thriller novel is well deserved. The last time I looked The Silent Patient was on the New York Times bestseller list for over six months! The Silent Patient has an intricate and skillfully written plot. Alex has expertly woven together well-developed characters, along with the twists and turns thriller fans love. And by doing so he has created a special gift that will excite and please thriller fans everywhere! I highly recommend the The Silent Patient for psychological thriller fans.

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Please like and/or subscribe to Book Club Reporter Book Review Podcast. For more book reviews or to read the full book review, please visit my book blog site: BookClubReporter.com

Things You Save In A Fire Book Review Podcast by Book Club Reporter - Laura Jay

About The Author - Katherine Center

• In addition to her latest book Things You Save in a Fire, Katherine Center is also the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling Author of How to Walk Away which is novel reviewed on my website: BookClubReporter.com. And I will create a podcast for How to Walk Away in the near future.

Katherine Center has also written five bittersweet comic novels about love and family, including:

• The Bright Side of Disaster
• Happiness for Beginners
• And, The Lost Husband, which went into production in 2018, as a feature film, unfortunately I was unable to find a release date at this time.

Things You Save in a Fire

A Story About Letting Go and Learning to Begin Again

In this "good for the soul" story, fans of How To Walk Away will fall in love with female firefighter, Cassie Hanwell. Cassie is an intelligent and capable young woman following her dream to be successful at what she loves. And what Cassie loves is firefighting. At fire station eleven in Austin, Texas, Cassie can pretty much do everything the men firefighters can do…and sometimes even better.

While twenty-six-year-old, Cassie is tough, strong and determined, she is also carrying a couple of gigantic emotional scars. Her mother, Diana, left Cassie and her dad on the evening of Cassie’s sixteenth birthday. In addition, it soon becomes clear, Cassie is suffering the memory of an unspeakable occurrence in her past, the nature of which we have yet to learn. Everyone deals with adversity in their own way. Cassie’s coping mechanism seems to be the development of a stoic and tough exterior. She doesn’t believe in love. And when it comes to her mother, Cassie has no forgiveness in her heart.

With Captain Harris, an African-American female, in charge at the progressive Austin fire station, the amount of flack that Cassie might be subjected to from male counterparts, is virtually non-existent. However, that might change as Cassie is faced with moving to Massachusetts, to help out her ailing mother.

As fate would have it, Cassie lands a job with an all-male fire station in Lillian, Massachusetts. To make matters even worse, Cassie learns the Lillian fire station doesn’t want a female firefighter. They are only taking her on because they are desperate. Warned by Captain Harris, back in Austin, Cassie has a good idea of what she can expect from the Lillian fire station male crew.

When Cassie arrives for her first day at the Lillian fire station, she is welcomed with anything but open arms. She quickly realizes she will need to heed the tough advice of Captain Harris. That advice, in a nutshell, is don’t dress or act like a woman, and whatever a man can do, make sure to do it better. Cassie recognized that she was now a part of a fire station where she would be ignored, excluded and resented; and that no amount of hard work on her part would matter. The first thing Cassie learns on her first day on the new job is that being fifteen minutes early, means you’re half an hour late. The second thing she discovers is, Captain Murphy, of the Lillian fire station, proclaims meetings by announcing: “Attention, please. There’s a stripper at the kitchen table.”

As Cassie settles into her new job, she does her best to fit in. She is a pro and an outstanding firefighter. When faced with obstacles, Cassie creates methods and techniques to accomplish the tasks as well as, if not better and faster than the men. Ah, but Cassie is not the only new firefighter in Lillian. A rookie firefighter started work the same day as Cassie. Everyone calls him "The Rookie" and not by his actual name, Owen. Cassie and the fire statio

Mother Knows Best is an extraordinary psychological thriller! Completely captivated by the story, I was frantically flipping the pages from start to finish.

Talented fertility doctor, Robert Nash, and his attractive and younger, over-achieving scientist/assistant, Jillian, have developed a unique technique to help prospective parents avoid passing down certain genetic mutations to their children. The main concept at play here is a, still mostly hush-hush, procedure of creating a child with three parents.

Kudos to author, *Kira Peikoff, for expertly writing Mother Knows Best with just enough clinical detail for lay people to grasp the medical concepts and the scientific technology. I never felt like the medical/scientific details were over my head or overwhelming.

Claire and Ethan Abrams lost their eight-year old child to a genetic mutation inherited from Claire. While Claire and Ethan are both hopeful that someday they may have another child, they differ on how to make that happen. Ethan prefers to hold out hope that he and Claire have a chance to have a healthy child. He has it in his mind that they will love the child regardless of any health issues.

Claire, on the other hand, is searching for any new techniques that will guarantee her a healthy child who should have every opportunity to live a normal healthy life. Claire and Ethan have been advised that there is a more than likely chance that any child they bring into the world will have the same genetic mutation as their late son, Colton. The death of Colton, deeply affected Claire. Her heart and her now fragile mind hold out no hope of ever having a healthy child. Claire understands the reality of her situation. She knows that she cannot contemplate bringing another child into the world only to watch it slowly deteriorate and die an early death.

I very much enjoyed how each character is a uniquely fascinating personality. With multiple viewpoints battling for what they each believe is right and fair, the tension in Mother Knows Best is nerve-racking. Let’s face it, if the main characters in this story decided to agree to disagree, we wouldn’t have such a tension-filled and emotionally-charged story in Mother Knows Best. Even ten-year old Abby has a mind of her own. She’s like a little Captain Marvel with the physical and emotional energy to plan out her own objectives and successfully carry them out to fruition. But not even Abby can triumph every time.

Mother Knows Best is an extraordinary novel! I was totally invested in this story as evidenced with how fast I was turning the pages! Even the cover grabbed me before I even had a chance to open the book. I was mesmerized by the red-haired braid that is twisted across the book cover—like the twisted strands of DNA.

If you would like more info about today's book review, or a copy of the book, visit BookClubReporter.com

*I erred in the spelling of the author's last name in the podcast audio. The correct spelling is Peikoff.-Laura Jay

Another You - A Story About Letting Go and Learning to Begin Again - Author Jane Cable

Romance love story-women’s fiction Another You is a haunting love story made up of many “moving parts.” The story is one of historical-fiction, romance, family-drama, and is mostly focused on Marie, the protagonist. Marie lives in a small building that also houses the seaside pub she runs alongside her husband, Stephen, and their teenage son, Jude.

Jude is a budding young artist faced with making the all-important decision whether to follow his dream, or to take what others see as the safer and more sensible route. And Jude is in love with a girl who has not yet told her parents about him. While Marie and Stephen remain married on paper and continue to run the business together, their marriage has gone by the wayside.

The storyline of Another You takes on some serious issues such as mind-numbing migraines, abusive relationships, post-traumatic stress disorder, futile relationships, as well as the emotional stress and anxiety that accompanies the realization of imminent divorce. It seems the greatest factor holding Marie back from living her best life— is a serious amount of fear-based avoidance behavior.

Take heart dear readers, Another You is also a story about friendship, budding new relationships, romance, young love and mature second-time around love. It’s about acceptance—letting go and learning to begin again. The characters are brought to life through courage, anticipation and hope for a better tomorrow.

With so much going on, readers may tend to feel Another You is a great deal like real life...it is! Much like the jigsaw puzzle featured in the story, Jane Cable spreads out the puzzle pieces of the story, then sensitively assembles all the pieces of Another You with loving care. I highly recommend Another You as a moving and complex love story. I would so love to read a sequel to Another You.

Find Another You and more Book Club Reporter Book Reviews at BookClubReporter.com

Hello, Welcome to Book Club Reporter - Book Review Podcast This is Episode 3, dated September 1, 2019. And I’m your host, Laura Jay.

Today I am bringing you my book club reporter book review of All the Lovely Pieces written by author, J.M. Winchester (and you may already be familiar with this author, as she also writes romance novels as Jennifer Snow). But, All the Lovely pieces is not a ‘happy-ever-after” romance novel. All the Lovely Pieces is a chilling and an unputdownable, psychological thriller suspense novel.

• All the Lovely Pieces is the intensely gripping story of Drew Baker. Drew has been badly beaten by her husband, Adam. And that fateful night was not the first time. As it turns out, Adam is a serial abuser and his form of abuse knows no bounds. But Adam is also a powerful billionaire business man. I would go so far to say that Adam “takes no prisoners,” but, actually, that wouldn’t be true. In fact, Adam is holding his pregnant wife, Drew, prisoner at home.
• With no explanation, Adam seizes the newborn baby boy from Drew, as soon as she gives birth to him. He takes the baby down the hall and places him in the nanny’s arms. The nanny, Catherine, understands that Adam expects her to take care of the baby, because according to Adam, Drew is mentally disturbed. And that is exactly what Adam tells everyone who comes into or around his palatial home. As a powerful billionaire, it seems that no one questions his words.
• Drew is shocked that her baby was taken from her. Desolate and bewildered, Drew remains a prisoner locked in her room. There are no words to describe the desperation and emotional state of this battered, imprisoned mother who isn't allowed to bond with her baby. Nearly anything and everything Drew says to Adam earns her another battering.
• Finally, when an opportunity presents itself, Drew seizes the moment and escapes with her baby. But her escape isn't pretty...and it isn't without violence. Drew's memory of how she escaped on that frantic day is blurry. But, now Drew is on the run as not just as a kidnapper but as a murderer too. And although her recollection of that struggle over her baby is as clear as mud, Drew believes she may well have committed murder during her escape. With the belief that Adam will never stop searching for her and his son, Drew is living life on the run with her son Michael. She moves them frequently, afraid to stay anywhere for too long.
• After nine years of running, Drew moves them to the small town of Liberty. I couldn’t help wondering if the town, Liberty, might hold a more positive future for Drew and Michael. And things do start out pretty well for them. Drew finds herself almost ready to believe that she and Michael actually have friends, yet she continues to live her life consumed with fear. Drew is determined that once she accomplishes what she believes she needs to do in Liberty, she and Michael will once again move on. It becomes crystal clear that Drew lives an anxiety-filled life with little hope for a better future.
• All the Lovely Pieces is told from the viewpoints of Drew, Michael and Catherine (the nanny). And we begin to put the pieces of the past together mostly through the viewpoints of Drew and Catherine. While Michael's viewpoint contributions are brief, we learn enough to be concerned for him. Drew has kept all the terrible details of the past from Michael. She told him his father passed away. But as Michael gets older, he has more questions in his mind about why they are on the run. And he wants to know more about his father.
• All the Lovely Pieces propels us through the story on an intense, unstoppable and emotional rollercoaster ride. It’s impossible to actually want to put down this all-consuming story. But, be ready as this story does involve the serious subject matter of physical and emotiona

Hello, welcome to Book Club Reporter - Book Review Podcast. This is Episode 2, dated August 31st, 2019. And I’m your host, Laura Jay. Today I am bringing you my book club reporter book review of Haunting Paris, written by author, Mamta Chaudhry.

Oh! And be sure to check out all my book reviews, reading lists and more on: BookClubReporter.com, and you can follow me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram too.

• But right now, I invite you to sit back and relax, as I review Haunting Paris. Haunting Paris is a sensitive and heart-wrenching romantic historical novel, and the evocative story line enhances the narrative. From the onset, readers will welcome the characters as each one struggles to overcome the reality of the powerful and disturbing events that take place. The characters become caught up in a mission to discover their own individual, personal truths. The American, Will, longs for a different kind of life. While Isabelle must learn to accept he0r husband, Julian, has left her for Sylvie, a younger woman. Sylvie will become driven to discover the meaning behind a mysterious note left behind by her lover, the now ghostly, Julian.

• The author, Mamta Chaudry, expertly creates an accurate setting derived from World War II German-occupied France history books as well as her imagination. The cast of characters is well-rounded, especially the forlorn ghost, Julian. However, it is the grieving, ever-faithful and determined, Sylvie, who spellbinds the reader as she diligently works to solve the mysterious fate of her deceased lover’s sister and nieces. Loaded with emotion, fans will not want to put down this haunting romantic historical history novel.

• The author has written Haunting in such a way to immerse the reader into “City of Light,” Paris. If you’ve ever been to Paris, Haunting Paris will tug lovingly at your memories. If you’ve never been there, Haunting Paris will have you planning your first visit to the extraordinarily endearing city. To quote Ernest Hemingway, “There are only two places in the world where we can live happy: at home and in Paris.” That being said, I believe that Haunting Paris is a beautiful and eloquent valentine gift from the author to the city of Paris.

• So, here’s my personal take on this deeply moving debut novel from Mamta Chaudry. Haunting Paris is a memorable and unique telling of the abject horrors of the Nazi occupation of France. While the story is set in 1989 Paris, the mystery of the missing child takes us on an incredibly emotional journey back to the 1942 streets of Nazi-controlled Paris. The reader is helpless to stop the massive tragedy in which Jewish men, women, and children are rounded up and exterminated as part of the Nazi murderous policy known as the Final Solution.

• I believe Haunting Paris is one of many stories that must be retold time and time again. Every generation should know the horror of what happened, and understand that it should never be forgotten. As human beings we must learn from the mistakes that history provides to us. We should be as the ghost in Haunting Paris, “And now I consider my new state with a similar doubleness, observing how as I am slowly being absorbed into the past, the past is also being absorbed into me.” Let us remember together. And let us never forget. Haunting Paris has deeply affected me and will stay with me forever.

• I hope you will read Haunting Paris soon. The world is changing so fast! Just think, the iconic Notre Dame Cathedral (which, of course, was mentioned in Haunting Paris) was burning on April 15, 2019.* We all saw the videos of the raging fire and huge plumbs of smoke engulfing the Parisian sky. I myself have never been to Paris, but I had just finished reading my advance review copy o

Book Club Book Review Women's Fiction Romance Novel

Book Club Reporter Book review of the 2019 women's fiction romance novel, The Year I Left written by author, Christine Brae.

• In The Year I Left, Carin Frost has a great career and a ten-year-old son. Her husband is a stay-at-home dad, leaving Carin to act as family bread-winner. Carin works long hours to stay successful and feels the pressure of knowing her family depends on her income.

• Carin seems to be on-the-fence about where her marital relationship is headed…and/or whether or not it fulfills her as a woman. On top of that, Carin’s mother has recently passed away. To add insult to injury, Carin’s beloved dog dies. And if you are an animal lover, you can probably understand how that might, quite literally, be the straw that broke the camel’s back.

• At this point in her life, Carin seems to be emotionally adrift. Although there is no actual financial issue, Carin simply stops paying the bills. She just keeps working and pretty much nothing else. It is now clear that Carin is breaking down mentally and feels alone and bereft. She is under extreme emotional pressure and is in trouble. Carin loves her son. But her feelings about her husband are mixed. I would say she loves him, but not in the way she should. And, to me, it does not appear that he even realizes how far gone Carin is at this point. He's not a bad guy...just probably not the right guy for Carin.

• In the midst of Carin’s overwhelming emotional distress, Matias comes into Carin’s life. Matias is a man who, much like Carin, is feeling family pressure. His prominent, wealthy family expects him to marry the woman to whom he is engaged. However, he is not in love with his fiancé and does not want to marry her. Matias is completely taken with Carin and begins to pursue her. Carin and Matias go on a business trip together on the other side of the world. Tragedy strikes the area, with Carin and Matias caught up in the panic. It is within these tense moments that Matias presents Caring with a life-changing choice. And in that very moment, one that may never present itself again, they make a heart-wrenching decision to grab on to life with all that they have.

• It will take all the sensitivity the reader can muster to understand the things that come next in The Year I Left. The deep impact of Carin's decision is driven across the world, like a giant wave moving from east to west, growing ever stronger, bringing bad news to her family— crashing over them like a devastating tsunami. In order to truly understand The Year I Left, the reader must come with an open and non-judgmental mind.

• I hope the author will not mind if I share with my readers what she said to me about The Year I Left: "This story is ours—Every wife and mother who has somehow lost herself along the way." I agree that Carin is lost. And the question here is, will Carin find a way to find herself? Can she become her true self? Will she stick with the decision she made in a moment of extreme stress? My answer is: Read on gentle readers...read with an open heart...read with the understanding we reserve solely for those we love without limits.

• The Year I Left storyline affected me deeply. There is so much more to say about The Year I Left, but that is better left for the reader to discover and explore. The Year I Left is suffused with quandary and emotion—overwhelming indeed. I can't say for sure what you will think and what emotions you will feel, as you read The Year I Left. What I can promise you is, you will think, and you will feel. And after all, is not a great story one that makes the reader think and feel?