Our Perfect Storm by Carley Fortune

Goodreads blurb: Best friends have one week in paradise to fix their friendship or fall apart in this heart-stopping, utterly romantic new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Every Summer After and One Golden Summer. Frankie and George have been best friends since they were eight years old. Both passionate, impulsive, and headstrong—they’ve always clashed . . . and come back together. Until now. It’s the eve of Frankie’s wedding weekend, and she doesn’t know where they stand or even if George will show up as her best man. Then, at the start of the festivities, in walks George. For one glorious evening, surrounded by her loved ones, Frankie’s life is finally perfect. But it all comes crashing down when her fiancé dumps her the next morning, leaving only a note as an explanation. Crushed and confused, Frankie returns to her family’s home to wallow. But George has a different idea and a plan for healing Frankie’s broken heart. He wants her to go on her honeymoon. With him. For one week, to the lush rainforests and misty beaches of Tofino. Frankie agrees, seeing the trip for what it really is: one last chance to repair their friendship. Even if it means unearthing secrets and long buried feelings neither knows how to handle. Even if it means falling apart for good.

My take: 4.25 out of 5. Even if this might not be my favorite of hers Carley Fortune just never misses. A not the best Carley Fortune is still a 4 star read. You add Friend to Lovers to a beautiful setting and that is all you need to know to put this fab beach read in your pool bag. Those are two of my favorite things. However what made it less than stellar for me? I actually wanted a dual POV here. The end where we got some of his side of the story and the letters made me feel that the ending would have been great seeing the letters before. Like there is some unrealized potential here. This is just my take, some people loved the fact that it was a single POV.

Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

Goodreads blurb: It was a great love story, one for the ages. The speed of our beginning and the speed of our ending felt like matching bookends. They both came out of nowhere. He wanted it, he wanted me. And then he didn’t.
In March 2020, Belle Burden was safe and secure with her family at their house on Martha’s Vineyard, navigating the early days of the pandemic together—building fires in the late afternoons, drinking whisky sours, making roast chicken. Then, with no warning or explanation, her husband of twenty years announced that he was leaving her. Overnight, her caring, steady partner became a man she hardly recognized. He exited his life with her like an actor shrugging off a costume.
In Strangers, Burden revisits her marriage, searching for clues that her husband was not who she always thought he was. As she examines her relationship through a new lens, she reckons with her own family history and the lessons she intuited about how a woman is expected to behave in the face of betrayal. Through all of it, she is transformed. The discreet, compliant woman she once was—someone nicknamed “Belle the Good”—gives way to someone braver, someone determined to use her voice.
With unflinching honesty and profound grace, Burden charts a path through heartbreak to show the power of a woman who refuses to give up on love. Strangers is a stunning, deeply moving, compulsively readable memoir heralding the arrival of a thrilling new literary talent.

my take: 2.5 out of 5. – I am in the minority here but this was a no for me. A meeting that should have been an email, and in this case a Short story that did not need to be a novel.  I don’t know why this needed to be a book. Everyone said the audiobook was great but I don’t love her, it read boring. I had no pity for her on the contrary it felt very much a poor little rich girl complaining. Also she was a bit of an idiot – what the hell was that prenup – why would she put her husband name to the house and apartment? and she is a lawyer? it was a no for me. Maybe because im not married I didnt like it as much?

Ungodly Rich by Katharine McGee

Goodreads blurb: Old gods, new rules. New York Times bestselling author Katharine McGee puts a modern-day twist on ancient mythology in this bold reimagining of the Greek gods as a family of billionaires—with all the messy drama that entails.
When Julia Dodds meets Harry Adams, love hits her like a lightning bolt. He’s adventurous, charismatic, and impossibly handsome. Little does Julia know that her boyfriend has left out a few key details. His name isn’t Harry: it’s Ares, as in the ancient god of war. His mother is Hera, and his father is Zeus.
Soon, Julia is caught up in a world of wealth and privilege as she joins Harry at a lavish family reunion. Except these billionaires don’t just have wealth—they have divine powers. And the moment she steps onto their private island, Julia becomes their latest target.
It’s no secret that the Gods love to meddle, and when it comes to Julia, Harry’s immortal relatives each have their own agenda. Harry’s mother, Hera, will do anything to protect her own. Harry’s sister-in-law Aphrodite has a deeply personal reason for hating Julia, and tasks Hermes, keeper of family secrets, with digging up dirt. Meanwhile, Hades has spent years trying to upend Zeus’s power—and now he finally sees an opportunity to strike.
Set against a globe-trotting backdrop that sweeps from New York’s exclusive private clubs to the wilds of New Zealand to the gated estates of the British aristocracy, Ungodly Rich is a story of love, revenge, secrets, sex, and the most ancient motivator of all: family.

This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher.

My take: 3.5 out of 5. I loved this concept of the Greek gods in our current world, its smart and I love the classics so how its interwoven is really fun. It does however get a bit farfetched at some points, especially when you have to justify some of the anachronistic and how this all happens. It also gets confusing with the two names, you kind of need a dictionary of names next to you to keep track of both the greek and the current life names of them. Regardles its a very funny and a quick read, and i will be definetly reading the continuation

Start at the End by Emma Grey

Goodreads blurb: From the bestselling author of The Last Love Note and Pictures of You comes an epic story of two soulmates who have to start over before they’ve really begun.
When Audrey and Fraser tumble into a love story for the ages, theirs is an epic, unbreakable romance—until one tragic moment upends everything. Facing the unimaginable, wrestling with guilt, they’re left haunted by “what ifs.”
Would their lives still have imploded if they’d done one little thing differently? Where would they be if events had unfolded the other way around?
This powerful, emotional, sliding-doors novel about love, loss, grief, and hope asks if our stories are already written. Are we able to change fate? And is it ever too late to start again?

My take: 4.75 out of 5. This is a sliding doors style set up that is gorgeous an will break and mend your heart at the same time. It is beautiful but it is hard, so beware, you will need Kleenex next to you to get through it. The book is so good that I got over how thoroughly annoyed I was with our female main character, I even wrote down in my notes: I can’t deal with her. By the end of the book I loved her. I Loved all the musical references, they were so beautifully done, and music lovers will relate to this store so much.

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth

Goodreads blurb: From Sally Hepworth, the New York Times bestselling author of The Soulmate and The Good Sister, comes a twist-filled, darkly funny mystery about the two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies.
Meet Mad Mabel.
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She’s lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years–longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else’s business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.
When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie’s past start coming to light. Who was “Mad Mabel” fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?
Told with Sally Hepworth’s twists, humor, charm, and heart, MAD MABEL is novel that weaves past and present together–through the power of justice and redemption, and all the way to its stunning conclusion.

My take: 4.25 out of 5. This book was unexpected and kind of hilarious. It is a bit genre bending because you do not know if it s thriller or just a beautiful character study. As crazy as she is you end up loving Mad Mabel by the end and become very attached to her.