whatsleahreading

  Sam is months away from sealing the deal on the life of her dreams. Her HR consulting career is rock-solid and no nonsense. Her fiancé, Jack, is an even more rock-solid, no nonsense doctor, and their upcoming wedding is slated to be the ultimate elegant affair at Sam's family's beach haven in Long Island. As the summer opens, there's nothing that could throw Sam's carefully-orchestrated plans out of orbit. With the exception, however, of her first summer love. Wyatt. When Sam and Jack return to Long Beach to iron out the final details of their wedding, Wyatt's unexpected and seemingly untouched-by-time presence on the shore is enough to throw Sam headfirst into a reverie of untapped, painful memories from their teenage summers together, and the time Wyatt broke her heart for good. An ode to first loves set against the sweet backdrop of summertime on Long Island, "Same Time Next Summer" is an easy, breezy read to kick of the season. While I loved Monag...

  Montserrat has a gift. And not just any gift, but one for bringing films to life through sound editing. Despite the bustling backdrop of Mexico City, finding inspiring film work is difficult in the 90s for a woman, and Montserrat is more than a little rough around the edges. Unexpectedly, Montserrat's childhood friend Tristan--a once-great but since-washed up soap opera heartthrob--discovers that his new neighbor is none other than Abel Urueta, a revered horror film director. Unable to stay away, Montserrat and Tristan strike up a friendship with Urueta, and before long, find themselves bewitched by his stories of old films shot on silver nitrate, occultists, and a mysterious, cursed movie he never got the chance to finish. As her dedicated readers know all too well, Silvia Moreno-Garcia has incredible range as a writer. From gothic horror (huge fan of "Mexican Gothic" here) to 70s thrillers, I'll be the first admit that while not all of her novels have appealed t...

  For as long as Catherine Sterling can remember, it's been her and her mother Ruth against all odds. Together, they live a quiet and ordinary life, and as Catherine grows older. she's begun dreaming of a life outside of their tiny pocket of the world. Then, seemingly overnight, startling changes emerge in Ruth that Catherine cannot ignore. As her concern for her mother deepens, it becomes clear that Catherine can't go anywhere--not in Ruth's time of need. After all, what kind of daughter would she be if she abandoned her own mother? A slow burn, dual-POV thriller that ebbs and flows between past and present, "Gone Tonight" overpromise and underdelivered for me. Despite an intriguing premise that suggests deception and secrets between mother and daughter, I found the pacing too slow, the characters underdeveloped, and the whole story lacking a clean, cohesive resolution. While I wanted to love this, "Gone Tonight" suggests that Pekkanen and Greer...

  In the quiet town of Rock Harbor, Maine, young women are disappearing. There one moment and gone the next, word has it they go missing during the "vanishing hour," where witnesses are scarce and the quaint, coastal town is long asleep. Among the community of Rock Harbor is Grace, a young woman with a chilling past who now runs the town's inn and rarely leaves its premises; Aden, whose unexpected return home isn't under the best of circumstances; and Kira, whose young daughter Brooke is the most recent one to be claimed by the vanishing hour. Little do Grace, Aden, and Kira know, the threads of their stories are far more intertwined than they could ever know. As Kira plunges headfirst into the search for her missing daughter, it becomes clear that something dark is lurking within the limits of Rock Harbor. And just like that, "The Vanishing Hour" solidifies Seraphina Nova Glass as a permanent auto-buy author for me. After being left breathless by "On...

  Within the archaic confines of The Community in Western Massachusetts, runaway Ivy Jacobs and her daughter Mia are dreaming of a better life--a life of freedom in which their every thought isn't decided for them. In The Community, children are shared by all, contact with the outside world is prohibited, and books are forbidden. As Mia grows up under the oppressive eye of The Community's leader, her rebellious spirit and love for books--particularly "The Scarlet Letter" by Nathaniel Hawthorne, grows as well. Before long, Mia's trips to the library lead to that life she's been dreaming of after all. And so much more. "The Invisible Hour" is--somehow--my first venture into the magical world of Alice Hoffman. Despite it coming in under 300 pages, it's a well-crafted, wide-sweeping story that surpasses the boundaries of time, place, and generation. Hoffman's descriptive, transportive writing certainly bears an enchanting quality; and, despi...