Reviewed by Tina Gibbons for Readers' Favorite

The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More by Meredith Marple describes a group of people in the Great Wharf area. Several characters have had traumatic experiences that shape their behaviors in the book. Jean lost her husband, Richie's father, to an accident. Mallory has a childhood incident buried that she needs to deal with. There is a nosy, gossiping neighbor, an eligible doctor who refuses to give up bachelorhood, and a sexy redhead who runs a New Age business. The redhead wants the doctor. The doctor is in a friendship with benefits and his lover mysteriously dies. He finds himself attracted to Jean but they don't make their dating known to avoid the rumor mill. Mallory's husband grows weary of dealing with her paranoia and drinking, but he is supportive and loyal as the mysteries of her past and of the strange things presently happening are revealed.

Meredith Marple did an excellent job in this novel. I enjoyed all the characters and the Maine setting of The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More. Mallory and Jean's struggles were real. Empathy came naturally for them and I rooted for them to find happiness in their lives and success in their love lives. Doris was quirky and entertaining. I was impressed by the way Dwight handled his marriage troubles. Siren Angie really knew how to stir up trouble and spice up the plot. I couldn't put this book down. The mystery flowed smoothly and kept me curious. The story was addictive and I couldn't wait to find out what happened next. The author's voice was pleasing and constant and the polished prose stood out as stellar. This is one of my favorite reads this year. I strongly recommend it.

Reviewed by Gisela Dixon for Readers' Favorite

Amina: The Silent One by Fiza Pathan is a compelling, realistic, and sometimes stark read. Amina is essentially a social commentary in the form of fiction. It is the story of Amina, a young Muslim girl born and raised as an unwanted girl child in the slums of India with an unique musical gift. The book starts with an introduction to Amina’s family at her birth and the social dynamics that make the family mourn and lament the birth of a girl child. We then follow Amina’s life as she grows into a teenager, deals with loss and death, and the daily problems that women face in a patriarchal society like India. Amina is then married off in her teens to a 34-year-old man called Iqbal in an arranged marriage, who in turn forces her into prostitution. Throughout all of this, Amina finds solace in her music. This is the story of her life and the life of women in general in India.

Amina: The Silent One is a gritty, powerful story written in a wonderfully engaging way. The writing style is extremely readable and I couldn’t put the book down; I read it all in one go. Fiza has succeeded tremendously in portraying the conditions of women in India and other similar male-dominated societies. I really appreciated the fact that a book like this truly brings to light the many severe issues that women face in over half of the world such as female infanticide, the practice of dowry and arranged marriages, the second-class status of women in society, an utter lack of basic and fundamental human rights, sexual harassment and abuse, and lack of education and opportunities for women. All in all, this is an outstanding book and one that I would very highly recommend to everyone.

Reviewed by Deborah Lloyd for Readers' Favorite

Janie Jensen, who has learned to navigate the congested streets of New York despite being blind, is a strongly independent woman. Although she is a competent editor and is being considered for a promotion, her greatest desire is to write a romance novel. Boyd Hudson, a consultant at Janie’s workplace, finds Janie after a fall in the subway station. Boyd also works as a firefighter, while his life goal is to become a doctor. He also has unresolved issues surrounding a tragic event in his childhood. On the subway platform, a sizzling romance begins in Touched By Love: The Remingtons, Book Six, Love in Bloom Series by Melissa Foster. Janie’s best friend and next-door neighbor, Kiki, has been her closest companion since elementary school. Boyd’s family and friends are added to the cast of supporters for Janie and Boyd’s growing relationship. Janie and Boyd’s potentially conflicting goals add interesting complications to a future together.

Author Melissa Foster has incorporated many substantial components in her novel, Touched By Love. She has competently illustrated how people with visual limitations can succeed in work and city environments. A reader will learn how specific accommodations and a supportive attitude of treating them like sighted people are vitally important. Likewise, the character of Boyd demonstrates how traumatic childhood events can affect a person when these memories are not processed in healthy ways. Ms. Foster writes in a clear, succinct style. This novel is an enjoyable, relaxing read, with a good amount of sizzle!

Reviewed by Jeffrey Brooke-Stewart for Readers' Favorite

With graphic language and scenes of violence, John Manos introduces his readers to some very unsavory characters in the novel Dialogues of a Crime. Subsequently, the author skillfully develops some extremely complicated temperaments and patterns of behavior in these characters. Young and naïve Michael Pollitz is probably the most complex of these. Beginning with Pollitz’s arrest in 1972 on drug charges, and continuing through a violent attack in prison and his subsequent release, John Manos amplifies the difficulties the man faces and how he is simply unable to fully recover. The fact that he is on very close terms with the leading family in the Chicago-based mob only adds to the complexities of Pollitz’s life.

Moving forward to 1994, the reader is introduced to Chicago cop Larry Klinger. Klinger stumbles upon a link between the mob and Pollitz that promises to open up the opportunity of solving an old murder case. With the help of the state attorney Dan Whittaker, Larry begins to peel back layers of guilt, confusion and ambition as he tries to understand Pollitz and the other central characters. One surprising twist after another leads Klinger deeper into the complex relationships of the personalities. And he is even forced to take a fresh look at his own life.

In Dialogues of a Crime, John Manos causes the reader to weigh the sometimes conflicting balance of guilt and the need to move on in life with loyalty and honesty, and of truth and convenience. It is not always pleasant, but it is always challenging. Manos introduces enough side characters and situations to keep the reader guessing as the story develops. The build-up towards the end of the novel opens old wounds for the central characters and the reader will most likely not anticipate the conclusion. It is all written in a skilled manner and the reader who likes novels of this genre will love this one!

Reviewed by Marta Tandori for Readers' Favorite

Give Me Your Answer True by Suanne Laqueur is the second installment of The Fish Tales, a raw and heart-wrenching tale that exposes every wart, blemish and festering wound in the human psyche in search of forgiveness. Marguerite (Daisy) Bianco, her boyfriend, Erik (Fish) Fiskare and their friends, David and Will, have been to hell and back; battle-weary survivors of unimaginable violence that has decimated their fun young lives in one fell swoop, leaving destruction in its wake. The story here is being told from Daisy’s point of view and it’s a no-holds-barred accounting of her journey to hell and back, told in unapologetic flashbacks and in painful sessions to her therapist, Rita. Daisy and Erik and all who lived through the tragedy are suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and all subconsciously – if not willingly – submit themselves to compromising and potentially harmful situations and decisions which have life long effects, yet none seem able to help themselves, Daisy most of all.

Laqueur’s prose is exceptionally visceral, made more so by the completely honest and painstaking approach she takes to unfolding her story. Daisy, Erik and her friends are all shell-shocked and scarred in such a way that no amount of medical ministration can make them whole again. They wonder why they survived while some of their friends weren’t as lucky. Confusion, anger and fear course through their minds long after the physical scars have healed, which causes them to act out recklessly, hurting the ones they love in the process. And what makes each of the characters so compelling in Give Me Your Answer True is that even as readers think they know what makes each of them tick, a new layer of ugly truth is exposed; a new layer of vulnerability revealed.

Our hearts ache for their absolution and our hopes for their happiness grow with each experience and each relationship – the good, the bad and the ugly. Daisy’s struggle is particularly poignant since she is her own worst enemy, unable to find joy for a long time in anything positive that happens to her, subconsciously sabotaging her own happiness in a quagmire of guilt and blackness that threatens to consume her. As a ballerina, her body is both her instrument and her meal ticket and it’s the one thing in her life she can control, but she comes close to destroying it at her lowest point.

Reviewed by Anne-Marie Reynolds for Readers' Favorite

Just Going by Jianna Higgins is Lily's story. Lily is a 15-year-old girl from a privileged background who gets caught shoplifting cheap underwear. The judge sees through her tough demeanour and awards her 50 hours community service in Sorrento Retirement Home. Not looking forward to it, Lily finds that all of a sudden, she has another chance at life. Coming from a family where her mother wishes she was a boy and has no time for her, and a father whom she never sees, Lily is uncertain how to deal with the sudden influx of attention she gets from people who seem to like her. She makes friends with Alice, who is moving into the retirement home the same day Lily starts. She meets Karen, Alice's mother, and finds in her the mother she never had. She meets Cole, a teenage boy sentenced to community service for breaking a window, although he was having an epileptic seizure at the time and couldn't control himself. She is faced with bullying, something she is used to, but it is here at Sorrento that she learns to deal with life, with bullies and with love. It is through Sorrento that she learns to like her father again and get to know him properly. Could life get any better?

Just Going by Jianna Higgins is a wonderfully told story with several life messages. It's about bullying, it's about learning to love, not just those around you but yourself as well. It's about looking at the hand life dealt you and learning to play it the right way. I was hooked from page one and didn't stop reading until I had taken in every word. It's a really well-written book, in easy to understand language and with a great storyline. I am looking forward to reading other books by the same author, including the other stories in the series.

Reviewed by Jack Magnus for Readers' Favorite

Nirmala: The Mud Blossom is realistic fiction written by Fiza Pathan, set in the reclamation area of Mumbai, India. When the reader first meets Nirmala, she's being beaten with a belt by her mother for reading a library copy of a Dickens novel, when she should have been washing dishes. Nirmala is the oldest child in the family, and her parents had placed her in a dustbin when she was a baby. A group of NGO workers discovered the baby and returned her to her family, who thereupon bestowed on her the nickname of Mud Blossom. Nirmala cleans, cooks and tutors her younger brothers, and she dreams of the future when she'll become a doctor. She's a good student, especially in mathematics, even if her fellow students and teachers make it obvious that her dirty clothes and unwashed state are offensive.

Fiza Pathan's realistic novel, Nirmala: The Mud Blossom is a heart-wrenching and powerful indictment of the treatment of women in India. While I've read countless articles and reports about the wife-burning and other abusive practices, this novel brought it home to me as never before, and I was in tears as I finished Nirmala's story. Pathan's writing is starkly beautiful as we watch the young girl search for trinkets and treasures in the waste and share her finds with the poorer children. Any justifications for such a disparity in treatment based on gender sound hollow at best, and the reader cannot help but share Nirmala's dismay at the change in her placid and kind husband when she cannot produce a male heir. Nirmala: The Mud Blossom is painful to read, but it carries a stunning and a essential message. It's most highly recommended.

Reviewed by Natasha Jackson for Readers' Favorite

Three Rules is the story of Hope Wellman who suffered abuse at the hands of her stepfather’s brother Lucas. At the story opens, Hope is attending the funeral of her abuser and she slowly unravels the story of how she came to be a Wellman and the horrors she had to endure. Hope wants to put the past behind her, but she learns it is not as simple as wishing it so, and struggles to move past her current fear and inner pain. Since the body of Lucas was never recovered, moving forward is truly difficult due to the constant fear that he will return. Marie Drake captures the fear, anxiety and desperation fantastically, allowing us to experience Hope’s past pain and her current anxiety and torment along with her.

Three Rules is more than a melancholy story about the recovery of an abuse victim. It is a mystery and a drama and a work of incredible strength. There is something strange going on with her stepfather Luther, which is causing tension between Hope and her best friend Joey, whom she also happens to be in love with, and that is where things really start to unfold. Nothing is as it appears to be and Marie Drake presents these details beautifully. She never makes the connections obvious, but the reader can always see how the mistakes could have been made. Hope, although fragile, is a survivor and that makes all the dysfunction and horror in this story bearable. Where most would have been broken, Hope is fractured but willing to be whole again, giving Three Rules the glimmer of hope running through almost every page. The three rules Hope reveals at the end are phenomenal, with that ingrained element of truth valid for so many different aspects of life.

Reviewed by Natasha Jackson for Readers' Favorite

Wyatt and Cassidy have been best friends since…forever. Their college careers are over and real life is set to begin, whether or not they are prepared. Cassidy plans to spend the summer with her boyfriend and his family, while Wyatt plans to spend the summer drinking beer and enjoying a few bikini clad hotties. But two pieces of devastating news change their plans — and their feelings — in one night. Catching Cassidy is your classic friends to lovers story, but with depth and grit. Melissa Foster does a great job of showing how hard Wyatt and Cassidy fight their growing feelings to protect their most important relationship, their friendship. But when tragedy strikes, it is difficult to justify not going after what you want. The constant struggle as these friends adjust to their new found romantic feelings is what drives this story and makes it so real.

I really enjoyed reading as Cassidy struggled to reconcile her feelings with the playboy she knows Wyatt to be. After finding out her boyfriend was unfaithful, it is easy to see why she’d have a hard time believing that Wyatt’s feelings are nothing more than convenience and grief. Catching Cassidy is a story that catches you off guard. At the beginning, you think it will be a typical new adult read with partying college kids looking for a good time, but I loved the way Melissa Foster threw things at both Wyatt and Cassidy that forced them to grow up quickly. Between running the bar, new romantic feelings, and crippling grief, it’s a wonder Wyatt and Cassidy were ever able to find their way to the light. Melissa Foster has proven again that she is a fantastic storyteller, excelling at making seemingly simple stories complex and heartfelt.

Reviewed by Kayti Nika Raet for Readers' Favorite

The Man I Love by Suanne Laqueur is a beautiful romance that explores love, sexuality, and the blossoming of a new relationship, as well as the trauma and anguish in the wake of a school shooting. College freshman Erik Fiskare is drawn into the world of theater where he helps craft the backdrop for the dancers taking center stage. He's drawn into a romance with Daisy Bianco, a beautiful, accomplished dancer, and their love blossoms. It's something that seems as if it will last a lifetime, but when a fellow dancer and student brings a gun into a theater, their lives are forever changed. With some friends dead and others gravely injured, Daisy and Erik try their best not to let the trauma affect their relationship, but in the end a shocking act of betrayal threatens to tear it apart. As the years pass, Erik must battle the demons that have haunted him since the shooting, and learn that he must tackle them head on instead of avoiding them if he ever hopes for any sort of reconciliation.

The Man I Love by Suanne Laqueur joins the handful of truly spectacular books I've read this year. The writing is gorgeous, each passage has a sort of rhythm that flows beautifully, drawing you deeper and deeper into Daisy and Erik's story. I loved how, though it was a romance, the readers weren't trapped in the vacuum of their relationship. We got to see and learn about their friends and families, and how their presence influenced them. It made for a richer, meatier story, and I'm thoroughly satisfied. When I first picked up The Man I Love, I hadn't read the blurb or any of the reviews, even though I'd heard a lot of good things about it. It made each scene and moment new, fresh, and shocking, and made for the perfect reading experience. I can't recommend this book highly enough!