{I've Been Reading} Playing Nice

Playing Nice by J. P. Delaney

Pete Riley opens the door one afternoon to two strangers and the news that his two-year-old son isn't actually his child. Two infants were switched in the NICU.

All of  those words that other thrillers put in their descriptions -- thrilling, unputdownable, gripping, harrowing -- definitely apply to this book. I did a lot of cringing and holding my breath and worrying about what was going to happen as the relationship between the two sets of parents went from amicable to uncomfortable to downright dangerous.

I can't recommend this one enough if you're into domestic thrillers that explore parenting.



Believe Me by J. P. Delaney

Drama student Claire Wright finds herself working for a divorce lawyer, entrapping cheating husbands in hotel bars. It pays the bills and she's good at the job, seeing her interactions as a script in her own mind. The whole thing is an easy performance, until she finds herself tangled up in a murder investigation and working with the police in an even more dangerous role.

One of the things I like most about JP Delaney is that the books are all so wildly different. This one plunges you into the world of Baudelaire's poetry. The plot gets weird, then it gets weirder, and eventually one of the twists near the end completely lost me...but it was an entertaining read.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Jane Austen Embroidery

I hate to admit that I've never actually read anything by Jane Austen....but I am fascinated by the history of needlework and was happy to have the chance to take a look at Jane Austen Embroidery: Regency Patterns Reimagined for Modern Stitchers  by Jennie Batchelor and Alison Larkin. You don't have to be familiar with Jane Austen's work to absolutely love this book.

The patterns are adapted from originals that appeared in The Lady's Magazine in the late 1700s. Since most of us aren't likely to be creating sprigged muslin gowns or embroidered waistcoats, the patterns have been transformed into cell phone cases and tablet sleeves, along with a housewife and some other sewing accessories.

Even more than the patterns, I love the chapters explaining the original magazines and the needlework being done at the time. For the first time in my life, I actually know what "sprigged muslin" is. And I plan on researching map samplers, because as much as I've read and heard about different types of samplers I wasn't familiar with those.

All of the projects include detailed finishing instructions. The book doesn't assume that you have much, if any, stitching experience so there are stitch guides and explanations of the materials and tools needed.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

Finding a Way Through It....

"Acceptance doesn't mean resignation. It means understanding that something is what it is and there's got to be a way through it." The quote is from Michael J. Fox and Michelle from Bendy Stitchy Designs created the sampler as part of a fundraiser for Parkinson's back in January. The things we're trying to get through have changed since I bought the chart, and changed since I started stitching the chart, and I'm sure they'll change again before I'm finished. 

I'm still here, still stitching and knitting and making plans for quilts. I've finished some things but I haven't worked up the energy and enthusiasm to take pictures and write posts. A little bit of it is on my Instagram feed, but there are more projects I've finished and tucked into drawers and forgotten. 

I've got pictures of my daughter's new house to show you -- she bought a time capsule house complete with a rotary phone on the kitchen wall and all the 1970s decor from my childhood and then immediately brought things up to date because nobody  wants matted shag green carpet that's still holding almost fifty years of cigarette smoke. 

I wrecked the minivan and a couple of weeks later my son in law totaled their new car on the same exact stretch of highway. No people were hurt, but we all hate deer now. And we're not too fond of whoever sideswiped their brand new car in the grocery store parking lot and took off.

We're still here, still healthy, and I'm trying to find a way back into the rhythm of posting on the blog.

{I've Been Reading} Down in Flames

Down in Flames by Cheryl Hollon

Savannah is teaching her students flame-working, a complicated technique that they can use to create glass beads. As always, we get a vicarious lesson in working with glass. That chance to learn about a craft I'm unlikely to tackle in real life is one of my favorite elements of this series, along with the cast of characters I always enjoy spending more time with. As her students are leaving the building, Savannah hears a thud and a scream. A hit and run driver has struck a pedestrian, leaving no evidence at the scene.

Unlike many cozy mysteries, where the victim is someone unpleasant or barely known to the protagonist, this murder hits close to home. The grief is real, and it's intense. I highly recommend this one.



Lies by T. M. Logan

Joe turning into a hotel parking garage after spotting his wife's car, intending to surprise her and let their young son show her the award he got at school that morning. Within minutes he's let another man unconscious and bloody in the parking lot and his life is beginning to unravel.  I liked that the entire book is told fist person from Joe's point of view, with no jumping back and forth in time. From the moment he follows his wife into the parking garage, the plot is moving forward. It bogged down for me a bit in the middle, just as I think things were supposed to be escalating for the reader, but overall it was an enjoyable read.




The Bone Jar by SW Kane

The body of an elderly woman is found in a condemned asylum and even before the autopsy confirms that she was murdered, the authorities have no idea how she could have gotten into the old building.

Police procedurals aren't usually my thing, but this one includes a derelict asylum and urban exploration. Those are the sort of thing that always catches my interest and I found myself really enjoying the book. The setting is seriously creepy and most of the characters are intriguing, especially the former patient who still lives on the asylum grounds. I did get two of the characters confused near the end of the book.


Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} The Safe Place

The Safe Place by Anna Downes

Emily is at the end of her rope. She's just lost her temporary job as a receptionist because she was absent too many times, going to acting auditions that don't work out. She's been evicted from her awful little apartment. Her adoptive parents won't loan her any more money... Then, out of the blue, she gets the offer for a job that seems too wonderful and perfect to be true.

The owner of the company she was just fired from wants her to work at his remote estate in France. His wife, Nina, needs an assistant, someone to help with her projects and some light housework and free up more time for Nina to spend with their daughter who has severe issues with her health.

Something is wrong on the property, something more sinister than the underlying reek of mold that fills the two houses, or the fact that distance and the lack of phone reception completely cuts them off from the outside world. But Emily is able to ignore that as she enjoys long afternoons by the pool sharing bottles of wine and enjoying Nina's fantastic cooking. Nina has created a haven for her little family and Emily is happy to be there with them until the signs that something is very wrong become too blatant for her to ignore.

I enjoyed this one. Emily, despite the fact that she can't keep her life together and is a little too snoopy for her own good at times, is a likable heroine. Nina obviously has problems, but I never guessed at what she and her husband were hiding.  And the setting is fantastic, something different from the domestic  thrillers I usually read.




The New Husband by D. J. Palmer

A year after the disappearance of her husband, Simon steps into Nina's life and she finds herself falling in love again. Simon is attentive and caring, Compared to the things she now knows about her first husband he's absolutely perfect, and he wants to build a life with Nina and her two teenage children.

Nina might have blinders on, but her daughter sees lots of red flags. The plot gets off to an almost painfully slow start, but about halfway through things suddenly get a whole lot more interesting. After that point, it's definitely a page turner. I'm glad I stuck with it.



The School Friend by Alison James

Lucy and Adele have a secret. They've never revealed  the details of what happened at the reservoir that afternoon when they went out with another girl and only the two of  them made it back home. But that's not what this book is actually about, despite what the cover copy implies. The secret that Adele and Lucy share is important, but it pales in comparison to what Lucy is dealing with right now.

The level of suspense in this one is high and I was holding my breath as the plot twisted and the situation got steadily worse. Lucy is in an abusive marriage and the details of her situation were hard to read about as it went from bad to worse. I went into this one expecting the focus to be on what Lucy and Adule had done as children, but that's revealed over the course of a few flashbacks. (The title of this one has changed since I received my review copy, which was titled The Friendship Pact.)

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an ARC. This post contains affiliate links. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {7/3/20}

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} Still Knife Painting

Still Knife Painting by Cheryl Hollon

Miranda has inherited her late uncle's homestead and has big plains to host cultural experiences, an afternoon of painting lessons followed by traditional local foods paired with tasting samples of moonshine. I'm not the slightest bit interested in moonshine, but the idea of outdoor painting classes in the Daniel Boone National Forest intrigued me If you like cozy mysteries set in small communities with a crafting element thrown in, pick this one up! It's fun and quirky and telling you my favorite elements might spoil the pacing of the book for you so I'm not going to do that. I love these  characters and can't wait to spend more time with them in future books.




A Sprinkling of Murder by Daryl Wood Gerber

Courtney Kelly teaches her customers at Open Your Imagination how to build  their own fairy gardens, selling the little houses plants and figurines that they'll need. When she discovers the owner of the dog grooming business next door is found dead on her patio, Courtney becomes a suspect in the murder investigation.

I wasn't expecting this book to have actual fairies in it and it took me a while to warm up to the idea. Fiona, Courtney's fairy friend, is  trying to earn her adult wings but keeps getting into trouble with the Fairy Queen. Helping to solve the murder will get Fiona closer to her wings. Probably the most unique thing about this new series is that Courtney is so open with everyone about the existence of fairies. Some of her customers can see Fiona and others can't, depending on how open they are to the possibility.



 A Curio Killing by Mary Ellen Hughes

Callie Reed's enthusiasm for the upcoming Keepsake Cove spring festival is only slightly dimmed when she learns that her ex's band will performing. When the band's manager is found dead, murdered with a music box from her shop, and Callie's ex is arrested...well, there's nothing she can do but try to prove him innocent.

This is a fun series and there's a lot in this book about the cove's different shop owners and the relationships between them. That's one of the things that make this  series work so well , along with the fact that Callie is such a likable character. Plenty of potential suspects has me guessing and even though I ultimately guessed wrong, I loved the ending.

Disclosure -- The publishers sent me advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} Gretchen

Gretchen by Shannon Kirk

This one started out strange and got progressively stranger. Lucy and her mother are on the run, setting up housekeeping in their eleventh state because a stranger seemed to think Lucy had reminded him of someone. It's a blessing to find a landlord who will accept the rent in cash and not ask too many questions, but the man and his daughter have secrets of their own. Lucy has always wanted lasting friendships, but soon she realized that Gretchen is really, really weird and has no respect for personal boundaries.

There's an obvious twist or two, then it snakes and spirals into something I don't think anyone would expect. At about the point where the story got insanely convoluted and twisted, I really found myself getting attached to Lucy and her mother.

It's not quite as good as Method 15/33 by the same author, but if you're in the mood for something weird and suspenseful (and don't require things to be actually plausible) give it a try. Especially if you've got Kindle Unlimited.





The Second Wife by Sheryl Browne

The cover copy tells you that Rebecca has stepped into Nicole's old life, living in Nicole's house with Nicole's husband, surrounded by Nicole's things. What it doesn't mention (but is revealed early enough in the book that I don't think I'll spoil it by telling you now) is that Rebecca and Nicole were best friends who haven't communicated much since Nicole and Richard were married.

After meeting them at the funeral, Rebecca is drawn to Richard and his adult daughter...and she also wants to find out what happened to her best friend. The perfect house doesn't seem to line up with what she knew about her friend. The fact that Nicole has given up her beloved oil painting doesn't seem right. The chapters alternate between Nicole in the days before her death, and Rebecca as she tries to learn what happened to cause Nicole's death. There is a lot of sex in this book. Far more than I've ever encountered in a domestic thriller. More than in a lot of romance novels. It kept me intrigued, but it's not one of the best.

Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links. 

I Stitched A Goose in a Dress

Or maybe she's a duck. If you'd asked me last year I'd have told you that the last thing on earth I wanted to stitch was a goose....but I'd never seen a goose like this one by Barbara Ana Designs.

Pattern: The Key by Barbara Ana Designs 

I love the patterns with animals in dresses, but this is the best dress ever, with its great colors and geometric details. I started her for Maynia and got a corner of the dress done before moving on to something else because it was the next day and time to switch. A while later, I did some more stitching on the dress, but I was missing one of the shades of floss that I needed and wasn't feeling all that motivated... Then two nights ago the stitching bug bit hard.

Over the course of two evenings I went from "part of the dress is done" to having it completely finished. How long do you think it will take me to finish the fox?

If you enjoy huge single color samplers (or think you might), head over to Long Dog Samplers and download Pandemic. It's free for the next couple of days and absolutely amazing. I've been debating which of their samplers I might want to tackle and I guess this is the one.  It's got birds and flowers and a ton of amazing detail and I'm just deluded enough to think that I might be able to stitch it.

{I've Been Reading} The Empty Nest

The Empty Nest by Sue Watson

When her daughter doesn't call home or answer her phone, Kat is worried. When she checks Amy's social media accounts and there are no recent posts, she panics. They share every bit of news. It's unlike Amy to go for so long without contacting her mother.

It quickly becomes obvious that Kat isn't the most reliable narrator and that maybe her relationship with Amy isn't quite as perfect as she describes it....but Amy is nowhere to be found and there seems to be something going on. The plot builds slowly but it kept me turning pages and I definitely didn't expect it to end the way it did.



Bottled by Stephanie Ellis

Tyler Vitrum wants nothing to do with his late grandfather's house or the collection of bottles filled with impossibly intricate scenes, some created by his grandfather and others created by family members who came before them both. But Tyler has inherited  the house and his mother and ex-wife both have their eyes on what they think the estate must be worth. So he returns to spend a night, satisfying the terms of the will.

Bottled is a short, bleak read with what seemed to be an interesting premise. The secret lurking behind the house and bottles is, sadly, standard horror fare.





The publisher provided  me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links. 

{I've Been Reading} The Happy Couple

The Perfect Wife by JP Delaney

I went into this domestic thriller without any information other than what was on the cover and, as much as I try to avoid spoilers, it's going to be impossible to tell you about this book and my reaction to it without mentioning one huge thing that's already in most of the other reviews.

If you don't want that element revealed, go ahead and skip down to the next cover image or to another post. Somehow this book manages to be a domestic thriller with all off the usual trappings and something else entirely.

Abbie, who was in a terrible accident five years ago and just woke up with gaping holes in her memory, is a robot. Her tech genius husband has developed an artificial intelligence, fed it with all of the real Abbie's social media posts and texts and re-created his wife with a few holes in her encyclopedic knowledge. Some fill themselves in as her mind reaches out to the cloud for answers. Others remain stubbornly empty, like the details of how the real Abbie died.

I struggled with this one at first because Abbie wasn't actually Abbie. I can get attached to fictional characters, but apparently not if they're machines pretending to be someone else. The chapters alternate between the new Abbie in the present and the first days of flesh and blood Abbie's relationship with her husband, all of it told in second person. It took a couple of chapters, but before long I was completely caught up in it. The robot isn't the same as the woman, but that works because she's a separate being with her own fears and problems.

I'm very glad I read it even though something at the climax left me completely and utterly confused.



You Let Me In by Camilla Bruce

This is another one where the book's description didn't give me any idea what I was in for. A reclusive novelist has been missing for a year, presumed dead. Her heirs are instructed to go to her house and read her last manuscript. In its pages, they'll find the password they need to claim their inheritance. It's told in second person, which works because the author is speaking to her niece and nephew, predicting their movements and reactions.

This has to be one of the darkest domestic thrillers I've ever read, even when it's only hinting at what might have really happened behind the events the narrator describes. Like Little Darlings, it includes a fantasy element that may or may not be real. This time, I don't want to think too hard about what the real events behind the narrator's supernatural explanation might be because it's just too uncomfortable. I loved the book and I highly recommend it, but only if you're in the mood for something dark and emotionally challenging.





The Happy Couple by Samantha Hayes

Jo's husband has been missing for a year. He left the house one morning and was just gone without a trace. Except for the fact that Jo keeps seeing visions of him everywhere and having conversations with him. She's definitely an unreliable narrator and doesn't let us in on the fact that there actually is a reason Will might have run off until well into the book. It's hinted at on the back cover, but I almost never reread the description before starting the book.

After a friend convinces her that she needs to get away for a while and signs her up for a house sitting service, Jo sees a listing with pictures of her missing husband on the mantle. There's no question that the pictures are of Will. She took them herself.

The plot of this one twists and turns and despite a hard to accept coincidence or two, it was pretty entertaining.

Disclosure -- The publisher provided me with an advance review copy. This post contains affiliate links.

Ecru Embroidery Floss on Navy Aida

Who would have guessed that I could be so happy stitching with a single color of embroidery floss? Definitely not me! 

After finishing Lobster Bouquet, I switched back to Flowers in a Window, a free download from Stone Street Stitchworks. It's amazing how much fun you can have with a piece of thrifted navy aida and a couple of skeins of ecru DMC.

This one is trickier and I've had to break out the highlighter because one flower or sprig of leaves is easy to mistake for another while I'm looking back and forth from the chart to the fabric.

There's definitely a big single color project in my stitching future, if I can just make up my mind which one. Long Dog Samplers and Ink Circles both have a lot of tempting possibilities.

Let's Make Baby Quilts! {6/5/20}

Just a reminder that, for the moment at least, I've switched the Let's Make Baby Quilts linky party to the first Friday of the month. I've got plans that I hope I can get started on very soon, including some new tutorials. 

Let's Make Baby Quilts Linky Party Rules: 
Link directly to your post or specific Flickr photo. Your post can be about a baby quilt that's finished, or in progress, or you can be writing about what you have planned,  as long as it's about baby quilts. You're welcome to link to baby quilt posts that aren't brand new, but please don't submit the same post or picture more than once. I'd love it if you linked back to my site, either with a text link or the Let's Make Baby Quilts! button.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

{I've Been Reading} The Boy in the Photo

The Fallen Girls by Kathryn Casey

After learning that one of her half sisters is missing, detective Clara Jeffries returns to the small town where she grew up. Life in Alber, Utah has changed drastically. Clara's mother, Ardeth, and Ardeth's sister wives have moved with their children from the house where Clara grew up into a run down trailer outside of town. They insist that the missing twelve-year-old is on a mission with a family in Salt Lake City, that nothing is wrong. Beyond that, they refuse to speak to Clara at all. But there are other missing girls, from families who insist that they're not missing at all, and a decomposing body is discovered in the cornfield behind the trailer and Clara isn't leaving town without answers.

I absolutely loved this one. I don't usually pick up books where the main character is involved with law enforcement because, somewhere along the line, I got the idea that police procedurals aren't my thing. This book kept me turning pages.  I can't wait for the next book in the series, but since this one was just published today I guess I'm going to have to be patient.




The Boy in the Photo by Nicole Trope

It's been six years since Megan went to pick up her son after school and learned that his father had picked him up earlier in the day. Her ex husband and son are gone and the authorities haven't been able to find a trace of either of them. For all that time, she's been hoping that Daniel will come back to her. Then one day the phone rings.

Daniel has walked into a police station, alone. There was a fire in the isolated shack where he was living with his father and now he's come back to her. The boy is Daniel. They'll do a DNA test to confirm that he's her missing son, but Megan doesn't question it for a moment. Her loving, happy six-year-old son had grown into a sullen, angry twelve-year-old who won't reveal much about the past six years.

This one kept me holding my breath. One of my hunches did turn out to be right, but there were still twists and revelations that I didn't see coming until the end.



One by One by D. W. Gillespie

Behind the wallpaper of the house her family just moved into, a young girl finds a drawing of a stick figure family -- mother, father, son, daughter, dog. Not long after that, the family cat goes missing and an X appears over the family pet in the drawing.

Creepy old houses absolutely appeal to me, especially when there seems to be something sinister and/or ghostly involved. Parts of this book really worked for me, like the "tangle of hallways" and Alice's discovery of an old diary and her fear of reading further. Other parts definitely fell flat.


Disclosure -- The publishers provided me with advance review copies. This post contains affiliate links.