Bibliophile Amber's Book Reviews

Title: Did I Say You Could Go  Author: Melanie Gideon  Expected Publication: August 3,2021  Publisher: Simon Schuster  Genre: Thriller/Mystery  Pages: 368 pages  Rating: 4/5 Stars  Review:  You know how they say keep your friends close but your enemies closer. Well this is one of those types of stories, Ruth and Gamma have that kind of relationship. They are frenemies, they have a very twisted relationship. Now this story has more twists than tornado alley in tornado season! Ruth and Gamma had a falling out when but when Gamma is involved in an academic scandal at her testing center. Now this scandal brings the two frienemies together but his relationship suffocates Gemma and she is looking for an out! Beginning to think that she has found the perfect out to leave the friendship with Ruth  when Ruth starts an affair with a married man. However this is not the case Ruth is not willing to let Gemma end the friendship that easily! I ...

Title: His Secret Starlight Baby  Author: Michelle Major Expected Publication: February 23, 2021 Publisher: Harlequin Special Edition  Genre: Romance  Pages: 224 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  It's soo cute and I loved it! Cory has a secret, a secret that her grandmother's dying wish was for Cory to let her son meet his father. Jordan is a retired NFL player and he had a one night event with Cory and when she snuck out of his bed in the morning he went ahead and left Atlanta and started his new non-NFL life. So later when Cory goes to see Jordan he is surprised but not as surprised as he is when Cory tells him he has a son. So now they are pretending to be in a relationship and they are going to Jordan's fathers funeral. Now, this game gets too serious when Cory starts to actually get feelings for Jordan and Jordan is too stubborn to tell Cory he has the same feelings. This is a cute quick read and I loved it and binged it in one night! 

Title: Triple Chocolate Cheesecake Murder  Author: Joanne Fluke  Expected Publication: February 22,2021 Publisher: Kensington Books Genre: Cozy Mystery  Pages: 352 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  Once again I love the Hannah mysteries! I absolutely adore that these cozy mysteries comes with different recipes in each one and slowly I'm reading through the series and maybe not so much in the order but I love these books!  In this installment Hannah  is working to solve a mystery because the Mayor is found dead by none other than Hannah's sister Andrea. Making her and several other people suspects in his murder!  I think Hannah's character took a blow after Ross and I don't really like that it seems like she is coddled soo much but I still enjoyed the book!  I will definitely continue on with the series because I adore it soo much! I definitely recommend this book and series to anyone who loves cozy mysteries and recipes!

Title: A Killer's Daughter  Author: Jenna Kernan  Expected Publication: February 11,2021  Publisher: Bookouture  Genre: Thriller/Mystery  Pages: 397 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Review:  I enjoy thrillers and true crime types of books and this one was right up my ally! This is the first book in the series, which if the series keeps up the pace and action I will definitely read all of them! Dr. Finch is a forensic psychologist, who unfortunately her mother is a serial killer. While she tries to keep that information on the down low of her colleagues. She has changed her name and worked very hard to keep that information in the past. However someone she works with is threatening to expose her. When two bodies are found floating in the Florida coast, they are mangled and slashed. The crime is horrible but as Dr. Finch gets a closer look at the bodies there are eerie familiarities that are raising flags with her. The crimes look very similar to the cr...

Title: Sparks like Stars  Author: Nadia Hashimi  Expected Publication: March 2,2021 Publisher: William Morrow/HarperCollins and Harper Audio  Genre: Historical Fiction  Pages: 464 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐  Review:  No matter how I review this book I don't think that I will ever do it justice! This is the best book of the year soo far! I loved everything about this book! The realness, the love, the history, the culture and even the passion! Sitara is a daughter of a prominent family, her father is the right hand man of Sardar Daoud the progressive president of Afghanistan. Then one night everything changed. The communist plan an attack, a coup, assassinating the president and all of Sitara's family. She is the sole survivor and the only reason that she survived was because a guard named Shair smuggled her out. Eventually he was able to get her to the American Ambassador to help smuggle her out of the country using her deceased sister's identity....

Title: That's Not What Happened  Author: Kody Keplinger  Published: August 28, 2018 Published by: Scholastic Press  Genre: Young Adult  Pages: 336 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Review:  This is very difficult book to rate.  I went in blind to what was going on in the book and while I am glad that I did the subject of the book is very heavy and can help people understand how traumatic events can impact people.  Lee is carrying a weight that she wants to tell the truth, three years after a school shooting and she wants to tell the truth. The bad side of this is that the truth disrupts the whole vision that Sarah was a   a strong willed Christian that even facing death she didn't turn down her faith but, that wasn't what happened. During the story we follow Lee as she gets the lettets from all the different people who were the survivor's from the incident, and the reactions to how the people in the town act towards Lee after she spoke h...

Title: The Lost Symbol  Author: Dan Brown  Published: September 15,2009 Published by: Doubleday Books Genre: Mystery  Pages: 509 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  So I dont think this one was as good as the previous 2 but I enjoyed it. The twist and the turns kept me on my toes! I was completely immersed into the story, and I like that the books always make you look at the regular things and even history in a different light. I like that the books shed a different light, while this book is fiction it does incorporate different thoughts on history and that's not always a bad thing. Robert Langdon is invited to give a lecture but when he arrives to give the lecture he finds out he has been fooled and his friend Peter is in trouble and Robert is once again involved with a huge mystery with symbolism! I liked that the plot of this book was much more realistic. I liked the mystery and the heart racing challenge! I definitely would still recommend this book to ...

Title: Six Weeks to Live  Author: Catherine Mckenzie  Expected Publication: May 4, 2021  Publisher: Atria Books  Genre: Thriller  Pages: 384 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  After receiving devastating news at the doctors office Jennifer finds out she only has weeks to live because she has cancer. While she received the papers from her doctors office she finds out that a year ago when she had blood work done that she had really high levels of lead. Someone had been poisoning her and that is how she believes that is what caused her cancer. As she relays this theory to her daughters Aline, Emily and Miranda they think she is completely off her rocker and then they come to believe that she basically poisoned herself. Jennifer is left to try to discover if it is her husband trying to force her into the divorce or if it's one of her three triplet daughters who poisoned her. This is a different kind of thriller, I enjoyed that the story was told in d...

Title: The Good Neighbor  Author: R. J. Parker  Publisher: One More Chapter  Expected Publication: March 18, 2021  Genre: Thriller  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  Leah is on her way home when she hits a deer and crashes her car. Stranded with her battery dead she decides to walk to a nearby house. When she knocks on the door a man named Martin answers the door and he lets her use his phone and even calls for help. Then when she decides to wait outside for help he even lends her his umbrella to wait outside. So, after this when she gets home she decides to take him a glass of wine as a thank you for his help. But things take a wicked twist when she returns to the house and when she knocks on the door Martin doesn't answer the Police answer the door, then to make things worse they tell her that the residence of the home has been gruesomely murdered. However, Martin is not the homeowner. The residence of the home was a woman! Now with this new development t...

Title: The Da Vinci Code  Author: Dan Brown  Publication: March 18, 2003 Published by: Double Day Books Pages: 624 pages  Genre: Mystery/ Thriller  Review: So in this novel we follow Robert Langdon on another adventure but this time he is hunting down the Holy Grail. This time Robert is awoken in the middle of the night in Paris because his name is written at the crime scene of a murder and escapes with the help of Sophie. As the twist and the turns happen this is definitely a page turner.  What I've noticed with a lot of the bad reviews is that while this book does have a lot of history aspects it is fiction. I love the puzzles and the twist working towards the end and the answers. I throughly enjoyed this book and will definitely check out the next one! It might take an open mind to be able to enjoy this one!

Title: Whisper Island  Author: Carissa Ann Lynch  Expected Publication: February 5, 2021  Publisher: Harper Collins UK, One more Chapter  Genre: Horror/ Thriller  Pages: 308 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 Review:  Four friends embark on what was supposed to be a girls vacation to take time away from everything and to focus on their art. Riley, Scarlett, Sammy, and Mia are in college together and after going viral for making a puzzle together combining their art they decide to take a break from it all and to take time to focus just on their art. So in the most opportune moment they are able to secure a great getaway for rent free but like most things they start off on a bumpy trail when Sammy's brother Rob and his girlfriend are brought along for the trip causing some animosity between a few of the girls. Then, something happens to the boat which was their only way off the island. So when things get bad things start to get worse when people start dyi...

Title: The Half Sister  Author: Sandie Jones  Published: June 16, 2020 Published by: Minotaur Books  Genre: Thriller/ Mystery  Pages: 320 pages  Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Review:  This is my first read from this author and I loved it! Two sisters and their mother are having lunch when there's a knock on the door. At the door is a woman named Jess, and Jess is claiming that she is the two sisters' half sister. This is the first sting on an unraveling of their whole lives and when all the secrets that were meant to stay secrets are coming to light. Kate is the younger sister and while she and her husband have been trying to conceive they are going through an IVF to try to get pregnant. Kate does not believe Jess and being a journalist she is determined to find out who exactly Jess is and what her end game is. Hannah is the older sister and she is more accepting of Jess because she found Jess by using a DNA kit. All the while Jess is trying to infiltrate the fa...