Literary Mystique

"Everywhere I looked I saw people hurting, disappointed, weighed down with longings they couldn’t name.." Synopsis :  A freak car crash in 1960s rural North Carolina puts in motion moments of grace that bring redemption to two generations of women and the lives they touch. For forty years Aurilla Cutter has tended a clutch of secrets that have turned her mean. A fatal accident becomes the catalyst for the release of the passions, needs, and hurts in everyone affected by her hidden past. Darlene, a seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her dead husband while proving herself still alive. Soon loss and death work their magic, drawing Darlene into an unlikely affair that threatens to upend Aurilla’s family, and sets loose Aurilla’s own memories of longing and infidelity. As Aurilla’s forbidden and heartbreaking story of love, death, and repeated loss alternates with Darlene’s, the divide of generations and time narrows and collapses, building to the unlikely col

"There were some things that were a part of you, no matter how badly they hurt.." Synopsis :  A rural island community steeped in the mystical superstitions of its founders and haunted by an unsolved murder is upended by the return of the suspected killer in this deeply atmospheric novel. Emery Blackwood’s life was forever changed on the eve of her high school graduation, when the love of her life, August Salt, was accused of murdering her best friend, Lily.  Now, she is doing what her teenage self swore she never would: living a quiet existence among the community that fractured her world in two. She’d once longed to run away with August, eager to escape the misty, remote shores of Saiorse Island and chase new dreams; now, she maintains her late mother’s tea shop and cares for her ailing father.  But just as the island, rooted in folklore and tradition, begins to show signs of strange happenings, August returns for the first time in fourteen years and unearths the past that

"The heavenly-painted leaves won’t remain long. Might we enjoy them so much if they did?" Synopsis :  A young girl disappears. Can secrets inside a three centuries-old journal save her life in time? Advertising agency owner, Bethany Miller, inherits an ancestral home from the biological mother she never knew. Inside a grandfather clock named The Timekeeper, she discovers a treasured family journal. Generations of first daughters each wrote one entry, sharing family secrets, chronicling courageous acts, the freeing power of forgiveness and more.  Reading the women’s stories and timeless wisdom, Bethany begins to reassess her busy life and contemplates taking a chance on romance, but she can’t forget an alarming encounter with a girl’s soul-piercing eyes.  They shot her a dire warning … right before she disappeared. Those eyes cause Bethany’s past, present and future to collide. Is history right on time to save a girl’s life? Review :  As Time Unfolds had a promising premise an

"We are all works in progress, and it takes real guts to admit when you’re wrong and try to move from there.." Synopsis : When popular high schooler,  Julianna Stefanie Robinson takes her life days before her final year of high school commence, her best friend, Dalia Parker, and her twin brother James Robinson are left to pick up the pieces as Julia left letters to those she feels she has wronged. But as they deliver them to their recipients and start getting closer to each other, Dalia and James realize that there were quite some skeletons that Julia hid in the closet, ones that could change their lives..forever.. Review :  First of all I'd like to thank the lovely @salemwrites_ for providing me with the ARC of this wonderful book.  The synopsis gave me major 13 Reasons Why vibes (one of my favourite books) and I knew then that I'd love this book too.  And in this respect, "The Secrets That She Kept" didn't disappoint. This book explores the typical Ame

"You are a human being, not a machine. Nobody can be happy one hundred percent of the time. It isn’t realistic. It’s not what we’re made for.." Synopsis :  Trixie isn’t exactly sure what she was thinking when she stopped her car in the middle of downtown Chicago, scooped up a chicken struggling to cross the road, and drove off… but she does know that she has to find a new home for herself and her new feathered friend. The landlord at her apartment doesn’t allow pets and has caught Trixie in one too many pet-smuggling attempts in the past. Bear likes his quiet life with his close-knit family, who own a flower business, but he’s in for a rude awakening when his meddlesome sisters post an ad to rent the spare room in his simple home, without asking his permission. Still, when Trixie responds to the ad, he agrees to let her move in, despite immediate worries about keeping things platonic. Determined to keep her new room, befriend Bear, and give her rescue chicken the care she des

"We should expect the mind to reel with echoes from our deepest past . It takes the most extreme trauma to trigger the unforgotten forgotten. Our conscious brain says “yes”, but the brain who’s only responsibility is our very survival says, “fuck no”.. Synopsis :  In a lonely valley, deep in the mountains, a ranger watches over the last surviving grizzly bear. With the natural world exhausted and in tatters, Ben has dedicated himself to protecting this single fragment of the wild. One night, he hears voices in the valley – poachers, come to hunt his bear. A heart-pounding chase begins, crossing forests and mountainsides, passing centuries of human ruins. Sometimes hunter, sometimes prey – Ben must choose the bear’s fate and his own. Is he willing to lay down his life for a dying breed? Is he willing to kill for it? Review :  Reading this novel was the ultimate literary shot in the dark for me, as I knew nothing about the author. But seeing one of his previous novels, “Fishbowl” (