Meanwhile, Keira’s beloved 17-year-old niece, Kirsten, has just discovered an unwanted pregnancy. Her boyfriend, Jose, is bound for college and Kirsten does not know what to do. As the family comes together for a reunion, Keira and Kirsten struggle with their fractured pasts and jumbled present. Will truth and honesty be the catalysts that allow the entire family to find peace?

Inspired by events in Lauraine Snelling’s own life, REUNION is the author’s finest novel to date.

–Marisa de los Santos, New York Times bestselling author of Falling Together

For her previous novels (Things We Didn’t Say, The Life You’ve Imagined, Real Life & Liars), author Kristina Riggle has garnered fabulous reviews and established herself as a rapidly rising star of contemporary women’s fiction. In Keepsake, she explores that most complicated of relationships, as two sisters raised by a hoarder deal with old hurts and resentments, and the very different paths their lives have taken. As always, Riggle approaches important topics poignantly and honestly–including hoarding and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in her remarkable Keepsake–while writing with real emotional power and compassion about families and their baggage. For readers of Katrina Kittle and Elin Hildenbrand, Kristina Riggle’s Keepsake is a treasure.

Author:  Charity Shumway
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Pages: 368
Genre:  Women’s Fiction
Source:  Atria Books Galley Alley

Goodreads:  A radiant debut novel about stumbling through the early years of adulthood— and a love letter to the role models who light the way. Like so many other recent graduates, Dawn West is trying to make her way in New York City. She’s got an ex-boyfriend she can’t quite stop seeing, a roommate who views rent checks and basic hygiene as optional, and a writing career that’s gotten as far as penning an online lawn care advice column.

So when Dawn lands a job tracking down the past winners of Charmmagazine’s “Ten Girls to Watch” contest, she’s thrilled. After all, she’s being paid to interview hundreds of fascinating women: once outstanding college students, they have gone on to become mayors, opera singers, and air force pilots. As Dawn gets to know their life stories, she’ll discover that success, love, and friendship can be found in the most unexpected of places. Most importantly, she’ll learn that while those who came before us can be role models, ultimately, we each have to create our own happy ending.

Author:  Lisa Hilleren
Publisher:  Self published
Pages:  305
Genre: Fiction
Source:  Lisa Hilleren



Goodreads:      Imagine you’re forty-four, you live in Jersey, your name is Eve—and a shiny red apple (in the form of thirty-one year old Aidan Wharton) has just been dropped into your lap. Do you resist the temptation or go for it?

Eve Merritt used to believe that being the perfect daughter, perfect wife, and perfect mom was her ticket to living happily ever after. When the good girl routine doesn’t pay off as expected, Eve vows that from now on, she’s having her apple and her Eden, too!

But right from the start, there’s trouble in paradise: Eve finds herself falling hard for Aidan, but with her family in an uproar over their affair and a stalker from Aidan’s past bedeviling them, it takes all of Eve’s courage to overcome the decades’ old conditioning of putting everyone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of her own.


Ope’s Opinion:  The story in this book is a good one.
                            The foul language and detailed sex, greatly limit who I could recommend to read this book.



Rating:  Two Chairs – I may have one friend who might like this book.

Author:  Susan May Warren
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Pages:  386
Genre:  Christian / Suspense
Source:  Litfuse Publicity




Goodreads:   To everyone who knows her, Annalise Decker is a model wife and mother. She’s a permanent member of the PTA, never misses her kids’ sporting events, and is constantly campaigning for her husband’s mayoral race.No one knows that Annalise was once Deidre O’Reilly, a troubled young woman whose testimony put a dangerous criminal behind bars. Relocated through the Witness Security Program to the sleepy town of Deep Haven, Deidre got a new identity and a fresh start, which began when she fell in love with local real estate agent Nathan Decker. Twenty years later, Annalise couldn’t be more unprepared for her past to catch up with her. When Agent Frank Harrison arrives with news that the man she testified against is out on bail and out for revenge, Annalise is forced to face the consequences of her secrets. Will she run again, or will she finally find the grace to trust those she loves most with both her past and her future?


Ope’s Opinion:  An amazing read!  From the beginning this story will draw you in.  You won’t want to do anything else but flip to the next page!  At times I found myself holding my breath while reading as fast as I could.
                                     
                                     Each person had a story line of their own, which intertwined with everyone else.  The maze that Susan May Warren wove was impressive.   You just couldn’t wait to see what would happen next to each one of them.  They became family to me.  I was wanting what was best for them.

                                    When you get half way through, make sure you have plenty of time to read because you will not want to put it down.  I was up very late reading, wanting to know how it ended.  It was worth every minute I stayed up.  The ending does NOT disappoint! 

Rating: Five Chairs – This book is so good it will be passed on and on and on …..

   Summer vacation on Great Rock Island was supposed to be a restorative time for Kate, who’d lost her close friend Elizabeth in a sudden accident. But when she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth’s journals, they reveal a woman far different than the cheerful wife and mother Kate thought she knew. 
   The complicated portrait of Elizabeth—her troubled upbringing, and her route to marriage and motherhood—makes Kate question not just their friendship, but her own deepest beliefs about loyalty and honesty at a period of uncertainty in her own marriage. 
   The more Kate reads, the more she learns the complicated truth of who Elizabeth really was, and rethinks her own choices as a wife, mother, and professional, and the legacy she herself would want to leave behind. When an unfamiliar man’s name appears in the pages, Kate realizes the extent of what she didn’t know about her friend, including where she was really going on the day she died. 
   Set in the anxious summer after the September 11th attacks, this story of two women—their friendship, their marriages, private ambitions and fears—considers the aspects of ourselves we show and those we conceal, and the repercussions of our choices.

Ope’s Opinion:  I struggled at the beginning of this book.  I kept reading and was just not getting connected to the characters.  I kept reading.  It did improve, but I never really felt strongly about the decisions Kate was trying to make.  

                                     The only thing that kept me reading was curiosity to see how it ended.
                                      If someone really likes journals or memoirs – they may like this book.  
                                      Read other reviews – some people really liked it.
                                      

Rating:  Two Chairs – I may have one friend who might like this book.

Author:  Karen Kingsbury
Publisher:  Zondervan
Pages:  304
Genre:  Christian Fiction
Source:  Purchased

Goodreads:  Coming Home is a novel about tremendous victory and unprecedented loss, a story of faith and a forever kind of love, love that will stay with you long after the last page. This stand-alone novel will serve as either a grand introduction or a beautiful conclusion in the saga of the Baxter Family. The Baxters make plans to come together for a summer lakeside reunion, a celebration like they haven’t had in years. But before the big day, the unthinkable happens. As the Baxter Family rallies together, memories come to light in the grief-stricken hours of waiting and praying, memories that bring healing and hope during a time when otherwise darkness might have the final word. In a season that changes all of them, the brilliance of family love overshadows even the valley of heartache as the Baxters draw closer to God and each other. Along the way, secrets are revealed and the truth about the Baxter Family history is finally made known. Ultimately, in this portrait of family love, the Baxters cling to each other and to God’s promise of forever.


Ope’s Opinion: I recently read Karen Kingsbury series about Bailey Flanigan and was disappointed.  This one has renewed my faith in Karen Kingsbury’s writing.  I really enjoyed this book.  Even though it is about the Baxter family, you do not have to have read her previous books.  This book is fast moving.

Rating: Four Chairs – I like this book so much I know several friends to share it with.