Number #16 in the Maisie Dobbs series. It is 1941 and Maisie works for SOE and is in pursuit of a murderer amongst the Free French stationed in London. If you've enjoyed the Maisie series, you will enjoy this one, too. Always well-written and engaging.

It was an interesting read and I discovered some new facts. In a nutshell it explains how Earth was formed and how everything lined up just right at the precise times and distances to create life as we know it. It delves into the subjects of chemistry, biology, and physics throughout, while naming notable scientists, physicists, etc. Overall, it took me quite some time to get through the book because it did not hold my interest, page after page.

Great book if you are interested in historical fiction in the World War II era. I felt very connected to the characters throughout the stories and felt like I was walking in their shoes. I liked the parallel between the present day and past. Quick read!

Second book in the Rock Harbor series. I will finish the series by the end of July. This is an easy read and flows nicely from the first book. I love the characters. I feel like I know the characters and easily find myself engrossed in their lives. This book deals with Bree and her son, whom she found in the first book, alive after a year. Someone breaks into her lighthouse and is searching for something. She and her dog Sampson need to protect her son and find out what they are looking for.

Told from the perspective of fifteen-year-old Libby during the 1980s, the story starts one night when Libby's younger sister, Ellen, annoys their mom so bad that she kicks Ellen out of the car and tells her to walk home. Ellen decides to hitchhike her way back, only to get into the car of a strange man who doesn't seem willing to let her out, resulting in her having to jump. I was expecting this to be more of a thriller or mystery, following what happened after the car ride and them finding the guy who did it. That's not really the story, though. This is less a mystery/thriller and more a coming of age story about a family who just happened to have a girl who was molested in a car. I found Libby to be really boring as a narrator, and the timeline itself was very confusing - you'd be reading something present tense and all of a sudden, within the same paragraph, they suddenly jump to an event that happened years ago. The premise was interesting, but I found the writing style to be disjointed and the summary didn't really match what the book was.

This was fun. I'm sure if I spent more time thinking and analyzing it, I could find reasons to knock the stars down, but I don't really want to. It was tense and exciting and had excellent pacing, and was a book that I could not put down. Bill is a pilot who has just been asked to fill in on a shift. Unfortunately, the shift overlaps with his son's first baseball game, which already makes his wife upset with him. Even worse, after Bill leaves, his family is taken hostage. He's given a choice; his family, or the plane. If Bill wants his wife and two kids to survive, he needs to crash the plane and kill all the passengers on board. Right from the start the book is action-packed, and it never really lets up. I wasn't as thrilled with the FBI agent chapters (I didn't want to leave the plane!), but all in all everything was engaging. Did it have predictable moments? Sure. Do I think it'd make a good movie? Honestly, probably not. But as a quick suspense read, I don't think you'll go wrong here. I look forward to seeing what else Newman comes up with in the future.

As I've been continuing my journey through all of the Bridgerton books, they get more enjoyable. I find myself reading through them very quickly and it's an enjoyable read. Definitely a good beach/summer read if you want something quick and easy. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

This is very much more of a character-driven story, and a character-exploration story, rather than a page turning, thrilling mystery novel. The main character, Anna, has just recently returned home after suffering a family tragedy and being kicked out by her husband. A detective who specializes in missing children, Anna's hometown has long haunted her as a girl she went to school with went missing in a still-unsolved case. Just as she returns, as it happens, another girl has gone missing - and Anna very quickly finds herself involved in solving the case. As she does so, her past trauma comes to light and becomes a force she will need to deal with if she is going to find Cameron and return to her family. I didn't really find this to be a page turner. In fact, it took me a while to get past the first section, because it's really just setting the stage and nothing much happens. I finally sat down and just plowed through the book in a day. It wasn't bad, but everything felt kind of flat and I didn't really care about Anna as a character. Even as she cried about the unknown trauma she had experienced, I never felt myself dying to know what had happened to her that led to her husband kicking her out. I just didn't care. I also don't love using real-life cases in a fictional story. It just felt exploitive and gross to me. Polly was a real girl who underwent something terrible, as did her family, and using it as some form of entertainment just doesn't sit right with me. Especially when you're going to make it a big piece of your plot, with your character investigating her bedroom and listening to a psychic talk about her.

Grace leaves an unfulfilling marriage in Australia and travels to Paris where she becomes a model for the House of Dior. Supposedly based on a true story, Grace finds her true self far away from home. Some of the setting seemed implausible; otherwise it was a quick and educational read (learning about fashion in the post WWII era).

Loved this series!!! It was long but well worth it!