Hold me tight so I don't have to think: FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE.

Forever Hold Your Peace by Liz Fenton
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

June and Amy are not thrilled when their young (but grown, mind you) children come home from a trip abroad with the news that they are engaged. June thought she was close to Olivia, but bungles it when her daughter reveals the engagement, creating distance between them. Amy and Zach have been close since she divorced his father when Zach was a toddler, and no girlfriend has ever measured up to Amy's standards. She cannot believe that Zach didn't tell her about the engagement until coming home. But nothing beats June or Amy's surprise when the parents meet for the first time, and the two women realize that they know each other: they were once best friends in college, but a shocking event broke up their friendship for life. June and Amy are horrified to realize their kids are getting married, but try to shift the focus to breaking up Zach and Olivia's rapid engagement.

I had assumed this was a thriller, as per the authors' usual MO. It's not, but it's still a really captivating read. There is drama supreme here with the parents' saga! Some of the characters are quite annoying (I'm looking at you, Amy). Still, I couldn't help but keep reading. It's a silly story but a quick read. No character felt particularly fleshed out, but I felt engaged by June and Amy's story. The book is really just as much about the older characters as the young, even if it opens on Zach and Olivia's whirlwind romance.

There's a bit of romance thrown in here (beyond our young couple) and the ending is fairly cute. I do hate the trope of lying and miscommunication, though--I sure wish that happened a little less here. 3.5 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Alcove Press and Netgalley in return an unbiased review. Look for FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE on 07/11/2023!!

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I dreamt of you all summer long: HOW TO SAVE A LIFE.

How to Save a Life by Liz Fenton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Fast-paced read that kept me riveted, even if the characters were lukewarm


Dom called off his engagement with Mia nearly ten years ago--and he's regretted it ever since. She's the one that got away and the standard by which he's measured every relationship after. So when he bumps into her in a coffee shop, he believes it's fate. They've been given a second chance. He asks her out on a date. But on their outing, Mia dies tragically. As an injured Dom watches Mia's body being taken away, he makes a wish: to be given a chance to save her life. So imagine his shock when he wakes the next day to discover it's Thursday: again. He seems to be reliving the same day over again, giving him a chance to save Mia. But as these Thursdays continue to happen, Dom has to confront his intense feelings for Mia. Why have they lasted all these years? Why is he reliving the same day over and over, unable to save her?


"The more things that happen like this, the more it feels like I'm reliving the same day all over again."


This was an incredibly fast read that kept me hooked, that's for sure. The Groundhog Day aspect of this book was fascinating. It's also a bit strange and completely stressful. Knowing Mia is pretty much guaranteed to die over and over--in different ways--freaked me out. I'm not sure how Dom didn't totally lose it. (I'm going to say that he definitely lost it a little bit!)

The book is certainly repetitive in some ways. I think you can't totally avoid this when you're writing a "relive the same day over and over" story. What frustrated me was the constant emphasis put on Dom's obsession with Mia: his repeated telling that she was an impulsive and different sort of person and that's why he fell for her, but also why he was wary of marrying her in the beginning. This point was hammered home far too much for me. We get it.

While I actually really loved the plot of this book--it was something new and I needed that--I couldn't fully embrace it because I just didn't adore Dom and Mia as a couple. Dom was a doormat and a bit annoying. Take control of your life! Mia's impulsive, carpe diem came across more as rude and too much. Overall, they didn't seem to be a good match.

I enjoyed the fact that this book had one narrator: Dom, even if he drove me a little crazy sometimes. I honestly couldn't grasp his infatuation with Mia and wanted to shake him and tell him to move on. The book also threw in some weird tangent plot pieces that just didn't seem to need to be there. They wound up as distractions or loose ends.

Overall, though, this was an enjoyable read. While I couldn't fully warm to Dom and Mia, this was a fast-paced read and something different. It had an interesting ending--nothing predictable here. 3.5 stars.

I received a copy of this book from Lake Union Publishing and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review.

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Over the unclear eyes of memory: GIRLS' NIGHT OUT.

Girls' Night Out by Liz Fenton

My rating: 2.5 of 5 stars


Natalie, Ashley, and Lauren have been friends since college, but lately their friendship has been showing a lot of strain. In fact, the trio has been estranged from Lauren for a year. So Ashley gets the idea for a girls' trip to Tulum, Mexico to help repair their friendship and mend fences. But once there, they find that fixing things isn't so easy. Each woman brings so much baggage and anger to the friendship. Natalie is angry at Ashley regarding the beauty business, BloMe, that they founded together. Lauren holds a grudge with Ashley relating to the death of her husband, Geoff. Both Natalie and Lauren are angry at themselves for letting their worlds revolve around Ashley. And their anger simmers even more when Ashley starts spending more time with Marco, a man she meets in Mexico, then with them. Suddenly, Ashley disappears. Did she run away with Marco? Was she kidnapped? Or--Natalie and Lauren fear--did they snap in anger at Ashley and harm her?

I had never read anything by the Fenton and Steinke writing team but had heard good things, so decided to try this one out. Its format takes a little getting used to: it switches in both time and narration, so you'll get Ashley, three days before the disappearance, and then the next chapter could be Lauren, two days after the disappearance. Once you get in the groove, it works pretty well, and builds suspense fairly effectively. Pieces of the story are slowly revealed, as we both don't know what happened to divide the friends in their friendship and, of course, don't know what happened to make Ashley disappear.

Honestly, I had just enough curiosity to find out what happened to Ashley that kept me reading. This was an interesting novel and certainly tense and intriguing, but I couldn't muster much interest or sympathy in these characters. Man, these women were just awful! I would not want a single one of them as my friend, that's for sure. Their friendship problems seemed petty, overblown, and childish, and I lost patience and interest with their myriad issues. There was just so much constant bickering. Bickering, drinking, more fighting, drinking, some more fighting. Ugh. They were so overly dramatic and even worse, most of the chapters would end with a sentence that had such an overblown "dramatic flair" to it that I found myself rolling my eyes at times.

A lot of the book just felt hokey, and I found myself wanting them to just go home and get their own lives (although their husbands didn't seem much better, honestly). Still, as mentioned, the reveals are interesting, and there is enough interest in what happened to Ashley to keep you reading. If you can get past the irritating characters, you'll be intrigued, albeit potentially annoyed. 2.5 stars.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher and Netgalley in return for an unbiased review (thank you!).

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