What is it like to be the private secretary to the Queen of England? Or the media specialist for the third in line to the throne? Do you get along with your co-workers or if the work environment hostile, where only the fittest can survive? These are just some of the questions asked and answered in Valentine Low’s book. Following several key people behind the House of the Windsor from the time Queen Elizabeth II became monarch to today, Courtiers explores the complex working environments these people find themselves in and how they balance pleasing their bosses while also working towards their end goal.

Within the last couple of years there has been quite a few new books coming out about the British Royal Family. Despite being a self-confessed lover of the British Royals I tend to stay away from these books as a lot of them repeat stories we’ve already seen in the news and don’t always offer up anything new. However, this book sparked my interest as it didn’t necessarily talk about the royals themselves but about the people working behind the scenes, something not previously spoken about.

Most of the book does focus on today’s British Royal Family so if you are looking for stories about the people who served before Queen Elizabeth II, you aren’t going to find much. However, there are enough interesting characters from Elizabeth’s reign that makes the book worthwhile. Mr. Low does a good job of illustrating the sometimes hostile environment that encases these staff members while also showing the family atmosphere that can be created, depending on the royal they are working with. He also gives us a healthy overview of key members, providing us with enough key information and interesting anecdotes but not so much that it becomes boring and you find yourself glazing over the pages. That being said, there are some parts that do seem to drag on a bit too long and why I didn’t give the book a perfect rating. Still, this is a fascinating book about those who help the royal family “rule” Britain.

I would recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the inner workings of the royal family and also to anyone who enjoys a bit of rich people gossip, as there is plenty of that in the book. This is also for anyone who likes a good with good intrigue, especially intrigue that is very much a true story!

4 out of 5 stars

When Libby Day was seven years old she witnessed the brutal and bloody deaths of her mother and two older sisters. She manages to escape, suffering injuries of her own and lives to tell the tale, including telling authorities that it was her older brother, Ben, who did the slayings. Twenty-four years later Libby is still haunted by that night and can’t seem to move on with her life. When her lawyer informs her that the money that was donated to her as a result of her tragedy is running dry, Libby starts looking for alternative streams of revenue and one group seems more than willing to help her out.

Harriet thought the worse was behind her. When things ended between her and her longtime boyfriend/fiancé, Wyn, Harriet thought her life had ended. But she picked up the pieces and is now looking forward to her annual summer trip with her college best friends, Sabrina and Cleo, where she will reveal her relationship with Wyn is over.

Except that’s not what happens. Sabrina and her boyfriend are getting married that weekend and have invited Wyn to join them. To avoid ruining their special day, Harriet and Wyn agree to a ceasefire and pretend to still be in love and engaged. As the week goes on, Harriet and Wyn find themselves slipping into old habits and asking the question, are they still in love with each other?

Emily Henry has sort of become the queen of modern day romances and is a BookTok darling. I’ve seen many people rave about her books and perhaps because of that I’ve been hesitant to pick up one of them, feeling they wouldn’t live up to the hype. But then Ms. Henry released a book with a vibrant, hot pink cover and Target ran a buy 2 get 1 free special on their books and here we are.

This book had a good premise; lovers to enemies and possibly back to lovers again. I also liked the idea of the couple hiding the state of their true relationship from their friends, and the summer getaway location. Yet, what I feared would happen did happen.

I don’t think the book lived up to the hype.

Romance books can sometimes be fairly formulaic and although I had a pretty strong suspicion I knew how the book ended, I was still won over enough by the story (and the gorgeous cover) to grab it and give it a read. But that’s not the reason why I didn’t like this book. I didn’t like it for one major, big reason; Wyn.

For the life of me I couldn’t understand why Harriet was so enamored with this man. Yes, he’s nice and clearly a family person, but he’s hardly supportive of Harriet’s career ambitions and seems to blame her for a lot of the issues in their relationship. That is not to say Harriet is completely blameless and one does have to take into consideration that when the relationship ends Wyn is going through a very difficult family tragedy, but I just couldn’t get on board with them being a couple.

But what really took the cake for me was how the relationship ended between Harriet and Wyn. Throughout the story the reader gets the impression that the engagement ended because of something Harriet did, an idea seemingly reinforced by Wyn, who seems to be doing everything possible to get back into a relationship with Harriet. However, when that part of the story is finally revealed and the reader learns the truth, that it was Wyn who ended the relationship, not Harriet, and when he chose to do it, I was left infuriated. Again, Wyn was going through a hard time but Harriet did nothing to him, supported him through his mourning, and did not take a temptation that was propositioned to her, a proposition that deeply upset Harriet and caused her to tell Wyn, who them promptly cut ties with Harriet. That completely soured my feelings for their relationship. To me, Wyn didn’t have the skills and maturity to be in a relationship with Harriet and the fact that she, in the end, changes her entire life to make this work was just frustrating.

The book is also long, far too long for a romance and is very sluggish in some places. I did like the dynamics going on between Harriet and her two roommates, to the point I wished that was the main storyline instead, but also here there are some issues. Sabrina can be very overwhelming and perhaps do some questionable things but Harriet and Cleo fail to realize Sabrina’s own struggles and that, at the end of the day, she’s just trying to be a good friend who desperately misses the “old days.” Cleo comes off as very cranky and uninterested in keeping these friendships. Again, she has her own personal struggles but it doesn’t really justify her rude behavior towards Sabrina.

So the question is, will I ever read an Emily Henry book again? Possibly, but not any time soon. To me, Ms. Henry’s books are nothing really special and if I found a copy of another book of hers at a Goodwill or free little library I would give it a chance. Perhaps this was not one of her better works. However, there are plenty of other authors who do romance much better and I much rather read one of theirs in the future than pay full price for an Emily Henry so-so romance.

3 out of 5 stars

Ten years ago on a school field trip two vans filled with two teachers and multiple students crashed into a ravine, leaving only nine students alive. Most of the survivors are not friends with each other, but the tragedy forges a bond between them that intensifies when a year after the disaster one of the survivors kills herself. To make sure none of them are alone again on the anniversary of the accident, the remaining eight survivors agree to spend the anniversary week together at a beach house. However, a decade on and survivor Cassidy Bent isn’t sure she wants to attend this year’s event. She has created a new life for herself, one that includes her boyfriend and not the seven people she was been forced into a relationship with where the only thing they have in common is a tragedy.

That is until she receives devastating news that another one of the survivors, Ian, killed himself and Cassidy finds herself speeding towards the beach house on the Outer Banks. But once she arrives she quickly notices that not everything is what it appears to be and when fellow survivor Amaya disappears on the first night of the week she begins to feel that something is amiss. As each survivor relieves the terrible events of that fateful day, secrets that they had attempted to buried resurface and as the clock ticks in their search for Amaya, the survivors are forced to ask themselves, is one of them a killer?

The premise of this thriller is very interesting and the beautiful color had my hooked. Ms. Miranda does a great job of building tension that continues to increases as the days and eventually the hours tick by. I also liked how she included chapters where the disaster is seen through each of the survivor’s eyes, painting a complicated picture of the events that transpired and why their decisions continue to haunt them ten years on. I also appreciated Ms. Miranda’s portrayal of Cassidy, who the story is told from as she created a character that is clearly suffering from PTSD and is blocking out critical memories that are revealed at the very end of the story, mainly how the accident actually occurred.

Despite Ms. Miranda’s excellent tension building and plot devices, I was underwhelmed by the conclusion of the story and who the killer was. Without revealing anything I can say that the conclusion felt like the ending I read in a book I read earlier this year, In My Dreams I Hold a Knife by Ashley Winstead. While the endings are not identical, they do have a very similar plot point that, since I read Ms. Winstead’s book first, left me greatly wanting more out of The Only Survivors. Additionally, while I liked how Ms. Miranda included scenes of the disaster from each of the survivors’ point of view, the fate of two of the other students who eventually didn’t survive remains a bit of a mystery to me. I can guess what happened to them but they didn’t seem to fit in with the story of what happened. With the exception of the teachers who were killed immediately in the crash, I only know what happened to one of the other student victims and that’s because it was what the plot was centered around.

As a result this book left me a bit underwhelmed and I’m not sure if I would pick it up again in the future. It was a good concept that was executed fairly well but the ending could have been improved.

3 out of 5 stars

Robert Ballard had one dream as a child growing up and that was to become Captain Nemo, exploring the depths of the ocean and discovering all the treasures hidden below. It’s an ambitious dream, especially from all the setbacks young Bob faced. Yet, in this vivid account of his left, Dr. Ballard shares with the reader who, even in the face of adversity, overcame it all and found the most famous shipwreck in the world, the Titanic.

I have been fascinated with the Titanic since a small child so whenever there is a new book about the disaster or the people involved with her story I normally have to pick it up. To my surprise, while surfing the Internet one night, I discovered Ballard had published his memoir a couple of years ago and it completely missed my radar (pun intended). I immediately ordered it and began reading it. Ironically and tragically, the day I started reading this was the day it was announced that the Titan Five had all perished while attempting to visit the Titanic wreck. As a result, I was more interested than ever about Ballard’s story and his mission to discover these famous shipwrecks.

Ballard is an interesting character with quite the story. A Kansas boy that grew up in California, Ballard struggled throughout school due to dyslexia, something no one really knew anything about when he was growing up. Despite his disability, he had big dreams for his future which included becoming an oceanographer and finding famous shipwrecks.

Essentially a modern day Captain Nemo.

Despite numerous bumps and hardships, Ballard achieves his dream and begins to work on a submersible that would allow him to explore the depths of the ocean. Through repeated testing to ensure it’s safety (what a concept) and some backing from the Navy, who had a very heavy interest in this type of technology, Ballard is able set out on the journey that made him internationally famous; finding the Titanic. But the story doesn’t end there and the reader learns more about his other discoveries and achievements since.

One thing I really enjoyed about this autobiography is that Ballard is a good story teller and you really do garner the impression that he cares about the wrecks he is exploring as well as the people lost in these disasters. In particular, you can feel his disdain and frustration in individuals who explored the Titanic after him, taking her treasures and not caring what damage they caused to the wreck as they did so. For that, I really respect him.

Some parts of the book do lag a little bit and some of the scientific information was hard to digest (in particular for a non-science person) but the reader does get the gist. Another critique of the book I will make is when Ballard is discussing his first and second wife, something that other reviewers have picked up on. The main critique of this is that he is very dismissive of the sacrifices his first wife, Margie, makes and doesn’t seem to register the fact that she allowed him to go on this trips where he would be gone for weeks at a time. I can see where some would feel this way but I would point out that he does state in the book that he recognizes Margie’s sacrifices and thanks her for that. However, I will say that how he goes about divorcing his wife is pretty awful. I also didn’t appreciate how he seemingly compared his first wife to his second wife, who he had more in common with and wasn’t the “housewife” that Margie was. Both women clearly had their strengths and I don’t think Ballard should have been comparing the two, even if not directly stated.

Overall, this is an excellent resource for individuals wanting to know more the man who discovered Titanic, and the various other adventures he went on. One can certainly say that Dr. Ballard achieved his dream.

4 out of 5 stars

Lux and her boyfriend, Nico, might be living in paradise but they are far from living the life they had hoped. When Lux met Nico and he invited her to see the world, she hadn’t expected to be “stuck” in Maui for several months working as a maid at an upscale hotel. Still, Lux believes in Nico and knows that one deal they will leave Hawaii behind and travel the world on Nico’s boat. As it turns out, that might be sooner than they expected when Nico is approached by two American college students, Brittany and Amma, to take they to an abandon and remote island in the Pacific that has a shady history of cannibalism and WWII secrets. Upon arriving at the beautiful paradise and meeting a couple, Jake and Eliza, a dark cloud of mystery, tension, and fear settles over the group that will eventually snap into unimaginable crimes being committed.

Let’s begin with this cover. Stunning! The cover alone is enough to hook you so major points for that. The story itself is very engaging and this book absolutely does tension building perfect. From the moment Lux and Co. arrive on the island there is something that just isn’t right. Perhaps it’s the couple that are already there, or maybe it’s the island unsavory history. Yet, whatever it is, something is obviously not right and most of the book focuses on this tension growing and growing until it snaps in the last few chapters.

The premise of the book is very good and obviously takes inspiration from Lord of the Flies and, as the summary says, And Then There Were None. I have not read either books but I have read The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins and the author does do a good job of taking classics or famous stories and keeping the overall theme but making them uniquely hers. At the same time, Ms. Hawkins also provides us some flashbacks of the characters before they all meet each other, providing some interesting background on these individuals and their possible motives, adding another layer of complexity to what is going on.

Yet while the story does do good with the tension building and providing meaningful flashbacks, it does feel like at points that the story is drawn out and could have been condensed a bit, which is surprising given it is not a very long book. At times, it feels like the story stalls and one can easily find themselves glazing over some of the passages to get to the good stuff.

Another point worth mentioning as I first noticed it in The Wife Upstairs but seemed to be more of an issue with this book is that some of the characters’ motives or plot points are never wrapped up or explained. While I can’t go into this with too much detail because it will reveal spoilers, I can say that when the conclusion occurs and what has happened is explained by one of the characters, I was left with more questions and answers. Perhaps this was done intentionally but if so, I wish it would have been done in another way to at least give the reader some closure. Mainly, the plot points involving the island’s sinister nature and Amma’s true story were the two stories I wish would have been flushed out a bit more.

Overall, this book is a fun summer read and something a reader can easily finished off in a day but is not one of the best thrillers I have read.

3 out of 5 stars

(Image Credit: Goodreads)

When Cecilia Fitzpatrick finds a letter from her husband, hidden in their attic and designated as only to be read if he dies, Cecilia is more than a little bit intrigued. What could her loving husband, John-Paul, want to tell her that he can’t when he is alive? When she does decide to disregard John-Paul’s request and open his letter, she unburies a secret that involves two other women in her community.

Rachel Crowley has been living with every parent’s worst nightmare for years. Her daughter, Janie, was brutally murdered when she was in high school and her murder remains unsolved although Rachel is convinced that the school’s PE teacher, Connor Whitby, is responsible and she’s determined to make sure he is brought to justice.

Tess O’Leary isn’t even supposed to be in the picture but when her husband and cousin reveal they are having an affair, Tess packs up her son, Liam, and goes home to her mother to lick her wounds and decide what she’ll do next. But when she runs into her old boyfriend, Connor, her situation becomes even more complicated.

All three women are on a collision course that will lead to exposed secrets and dire consequences for everyone involved.

I picked up a copy of this book on a whim when I found it at a thrift store and for what I paid for it, I’m overall happy with it. If I had paid full price, perhaps not as much. The husband’s secret is revealed fairly early on, perhaps around 25% into the book. Therefore, this story isn’t so much a mystery or thriller but rather a story that builds on tension. We spend most of the book waiting to see what Cecilia will do with her husband’s shocking revelation and how Rachel and Tess become intertwined with it. This tension is something Ms. Moriarty does really well and it did have me turning page after page.

When the tension is finally broken we get a good but somewhat flat ending. The consequence for John-Paul’s secret is terrible but it didn’t have me shocked. It was just fine (and I hate using that word if you have read the book and knows what happen but hopefully you know what I’m getting at). I did like the epilogue, revealing how secrets often have us go down paths in our lives we weren’t supposed to.

The character development is good but while on the topic of characters I am forced to ask, what is the point of Tess’ character? Cecilia and Rachel become linked and it makes sense why, but I was left wondering if the story would have had the same outcome if Tess hadn’t been involved and while a good argument could be made for why Tess was needed I just don’t see the real value Tess adds to the story. Yes she becomes involved with the person Rachel believes killed her daughter but she has no real impact on the outcome of that plot line.

This book is overall solid and a good beach read but I don’t think it will be one I return to in the future. The secrets have already been revealed.

3 out of 5 stars

(Image Credit: Goodreads)

Finlay Donovan is a recently divorced mother of two little children and is far from killing it at life. She’s months behind on her newest novel, has more overdue bills than she cares to count, a garage door that won’t close, and an ex-husband dead set on receiving full custody of their two children. But, for Finlay things are going to get even more complicated. While discussing her book with her publisher at a local Panera, a woman overhears Finlay and mistakes her for a hitwoman, and she has a little problem she wants Finlay to take care of. What ensues is a hilarious tale of what one woman will do to kill it at life.

In one simple word, this book could be described as hilarious. The subject matter could be dark, but Ms. Cosimano has created a fantastic character in Finlay Donovan, a mom who has been pushed just a bit too hard and is looking for a way to keep her children out of the hands of her cheating ex-husband. Though I’m not a mother myself I do think many women can relate to Finlay’s struggles, as well as her humor about her situation. Finlay knows what she is doing is wrong, but isn’t your husband cheating on your real estate agent also just as bad?

Finlay is soon joined by her babysitter, Vero. This college student is probably my favorite character in the story. She’s sassy, self assured, and her humor is one of my favorite aspects of this book. These two oddball characters find themselves in deep trouble when a well meaning bartender and a young, ambitious detective become involved, only complicating the plot but also providing more insane situations that Finlay and Vero have to get out of.

There is truly nothing I didn’t dislike about this book. It could be argued that the plot if predictable and that it’s not necessarily a deep mystery where you have to guess the killer. Nonetheless, it is one of those books that you can fly through and, if you are down and having a bad day, it will immediately put you into a better move. For that, I loved this book and believe it might become one of my favorite books moving forward.

5 out of 5 stars