TUESDAY JOURNEY: INTROS/TEASERS – “YOU CAN TRUST ME”

 

 

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, from Tuesday/First Chapter/Intros, hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by Should Be Reading.

Today I’m featuring an ARC called You Can Trust Me, by Sophie McKenzie.

 

 

 

 

Beginning:  (Chapter One – Four weeks earlier…)

The text arrives as I’m getting out of the car.  I’m so anxious about the evening ahead that I barely register the beep.  The setting sun is casting soft swirls of pink and orange across the Exeter skyline, thinning and sharpening the tops of the cathedral towers.  The air is warm but I’m shivering, my heart beating hard and loud against my ribs.  Will throws me a worried glance.  I pull my phone from my bag, wondering vaguely if the text is from the babysitter.  But it’s Julia’s name that flashes up.  For a second my anxiety eases a little.  Whatever my closest friend has written is sure to be an offering of support, expressed in Julia’s customary style:  big and bold and full of feeling.  But when I open it, the text is short and terse.

PLS CALL, I NEED TO TALK TO YOU.

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Teaser:  Life slips back into its old groove:  I ferry the kids around, shop for groceries, and pay bills.  And yet, even as everything remains the same, it is all different. (p. 37)

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Blurb:  On a quiet, gray, Saturday morning, Livy arrives at her best friend Julia’s flat for a lunch date only to find her dead. Though all the evidence supports it, Livy cannot accept the official ruling of suicide; the Julia she remembers was loud, inappropriate, joyful, outrageous and loving, not depressed. The suspicious circumstances cause Livy to dig further, and she is suddenly forced to confront a horrifying possibility: that Julia was murdered, by the same man who killed Livy’s sister, Kara, eighteen years ago.

Desperate to understand the tragedies of her past and hold her unraveling life together, Livy throws herself into the search for Kara and Julia’s killer, who she now believes is someone close to her family. But if that is true, can she still trust anyone? Damien, the man Julia was secretly dating? Leo, her husband’s boss and a close family friend? His son Paul, her husband’s best mate since college? Or even Will, her own dear husband, who has betrayed her perhaps one time too many?

And when Livy finally faces her sister’s killer, and he traps her with one horrible, impossible choice, she must finally decide: is she strong enough to trust herself?

Get lost in the dark, gripping pages of You Can Trust Me.

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What do you think?  Would you keep reading?  I know I can’t wait to find out more.

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REVIEW: THE GOOD WIFE, BY JANE PORTER

Even though Sarah, the youngest Brennan sister, is the centerpiece of The Good Wife (A Brennan Sisters Novel), we get to join the whole Brennan family and share their joys and their sorrows.

And the book begins with lots of sorrows.

Two losses devastate them all. Then, Sarah, who is married to her baseball player husband Boone, continues to struggle with trust issues…and some changes come along for her very shortly after the book’s beginning.

The author also introduces the Summers family from Napa: Lauren and Lisa, and when Lauren’s story, in her perspective, first appeared, I was confused. Did she show up in a previous novel? What, if anything, connects her to Sarah and her family?

But I soon found out, and then I was totally engaged in her story.

Themes of loss, family dynamics, children’s behavioral issues, and starting over filled the pages, and my emotions were definitely aroused throughout. I think this read was more satisfying in many ways than the other books, which I loved a lot. Perhaps it was the sense that the door was closing on the family. Now I wish for another book about them.

The characters felt very real to me, and I loved the familiar settings of San Francisco, Napa, and Capitola. Special places in my life, too. I could also relate to many of the issues they all experienced, and how lives unravel when trust is lost. How moving on after death can seem impossible. Five stars.