Reviews

Mad Men meets The Devil Wears Prada

Park Avenue Summer by Renée Rosen is a highly entertaining, enlightening, and fascinating historical fiction novel that immediately captured my attention and held my interest right to the very end.

The story follows a young, single woman named Alice Weiss as she relocates to New York City in 1965, to experience the life her late mother always encouraged her to live. With the assistance of her mother’s best friend Elaine Sloan, Alice is hired as the personal secretary to Cosmopolitan’s new editor-in-chief, Helen Gurley Brown, who along with Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem changed the world. As Helen fights to keep Cosmo afloat, Alice juggles the never-ending office gossip, lies, betrayal and manipulation, and her own heart breaking relationships.

Helen Gurley Brown was a visionary who fought to eliminate barriers in a male dominated workforce. Throughout the story, it gives us a glimpse of a generation of women taking New York City by storm and inspiring those who came after them. Grab a copy of this book, a martini and settle in for an amazing read!

The story of two broken souls trying to become whole is at the core of Linda Holmes' novel, Evvie Drake Starts Over.

Evvie is reeling from the sudden death of her husband and grappling with what it means to be a young widow. On the day he died, she had packed her car and planned to leave her husband. As she has not shared this secret with anyone close to her, Evvie struggles with guilt and lack of closure.

Dean Tenney is a former Major League pitcher who has troubles of his own. He suffers from the “yips” and just wants a quiet place to move on from his unplanned ending to his career.  He rents the apartment at the back of Evvie’s house. These two lost characters form an unexpected friendship that slowly turns into something more.

Evvie Drake Starts Over is a heartwarming story that is relatable and uplifting. If you are someone who enjoys baseball and a light romantic story in a small town setting, this one is for you. Holmes is also a correspondent for NPR and host of the "Pop Culture Happy Hour" podcast.

In Alex Michaelides debut novel, The Silent Patient, Alicia Berenson appears to have it all. She is a well-known painter and her husband is a famous fashion photographer. What would motive this seemingly content woman to shoot her husband five times in the face and then never speak again? Psychotherapist, Theo Faber, is desperate to work with Alicia to see if he can breakthrough her silence and finally get to the truth.

As it turns out, Alicia feels a draw to Theo as well. At a slow, but not tedious and incredibly suspenseful pace, Alicia begins to open up and little pieces of her story are shared for the reader and Theo to put together. What follows is a suspenseful, thrilling and surprising story that fans of B. A. Paris and Clare Macintosh will thoroughly enjoy.

An adaption of this twisty best-selling novel is in development and will soon come to the big screen.

In Tracey Garvis Graves latest book, The Girl He Used to Know, Annika is a high-functioning woman with autism spectrum disorder. Throughout the story, the reader is given an inside look into her life and how she copes with being on the spectrum. Annika struggled with life in a way most of us will never understand. Socially awkward, her experiences with college and daily life was so very different and only underscored how difficult just the simplest encounters could be.

When Annika gets to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and has an understanding roommate that signs her up for the chess club she meets Jonathan Hoffman. Jonathan does not mind that Annika is different. He can see through her awkwardness to her beautiful heart, and they fall in love. After a tragic event and separating ways, their story picks up again ten years later when they meet by chance at Mariano’s in Chicago. Annika is the girl that Jonathan never forgot and Annika still hurts over their breakup.

I enjoyed this second chance romance very much, but the book also strongly focuses on the heroine's own personal growth. How she evolves from someone filled with anxiety that leans heavily on others to cope socially, to a woman who has fought for her own self-confidence and the skills to thrive on her own two feet. The book has dual points of view and alternates from the present time to flashbacks of the past in the couple's college years.

This is a unique book written with remarkable empathy. Although this is a fictional story, it is extremely relatable, inspirational, and insightful.

Summer is wedding season and Tif Marcelo’s book The Key To Happily Ever After is the perfect book to give you an inside look into wedding planning.

This lighthearted family drama is about three sisters who own a wedding planning business and discover love around the same time. Set in Washington, D.C. the de la Rosa sisters, Marisol, Jane and Pearl find that working together comes with its challenges. There is some family conflict and a little bit of drama, but overall it shows the closeness sisters share even when they are fighting.

This charming, fun, and, at times, genuinely moving, trip down the aisle(s) is full of romance, family drama and unexpected twists.

The Key To Happily Ever After is a perfect one to add to your summer reading list to enjoy on the beach or while sipping lemonade on your front porch.

Told in the style of an oral history, Daisy Jones & the Six chronicles the tumultuous relationships behind the music of a famed '70s rock band. Real-life drama, fame and fortune, tabloid gossip, drugs and addiction - everything you want in a music biography, this book has them in spades. Inspired by VH1’s Behind the Music series, Taylor Jenkins Reid shares the band’s untold fictional story in a way that makes it feel like nonfiction.

Daisy Jones & the Six gives you a backstage view of the epic rise, and agonizing fall, of one beloved rock band. 

Since there is no narrator in this story, you are hearing everything from the characters themselves and that gives it a sense of authenticity. The fact that I wanted this to be a real band and even Googled them says a lot about the charisma of these characters and the rich, vivid detail. I devoured this book in 2 days! I was thrilled to learn that Reece Witherspoon is producing a TV miniseries based on the book that is set to consist of thirteen episodes and will air on Amazon Video. For those of you who loved the recent movies A Star is Born and Bohemian Rhapsody get this book immediately!