Saturdays at the Café

 

Saturdays at the Café is a weekly feature hosted here to talk about and discuss the books I’ve discovered during the past week, added to my shelf and am excited about reading. They may be new/scheduled releases I’ve seen on NetGalley, at the library, or from publishers or they may be older titles my friends have reviewed and shared on Goodreads or blogs.

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From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen—with a startling connection to their own pasts.

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes—and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect—she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.

Thanks to Yvo @ It’s All About Books for featuring this next installment of the Martini Club series in her Stacking the Shelves post.  Scheduled for release in March, it’s an audio review hopeful.

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For readers of Remarkably Bright Creatures and The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, a warm, life-affirming debut about a zany case of mistaken identity that allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family.

‘Would you mind terribly, old boy, if I borrowed the rest of your life? I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.’

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.

Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard’s facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter’s health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man deceive her again.

As Fred walks in Bernard’s shoes, he leaves a trail of kindness behind him, fueling Denise’s suspicions about his true identity. When unexpected truths are revealed, Fred and Denise rediscover their sense of purpose and learn how to return a broken life to mint condition.

Bittersweet and remarkably perceptive, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a hilarious, feel-good, clever novel about grief, forgiveness, redemption, and finding family.

Thanks to a really trusted Goodreads friend for her wonderful review. I added it immediately. Scheduled for release in September, it’s a library audiobook hopeful.

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I don’t want the perfect marriage. I want revenge…

If you had met me a year ago, you wouldn’t have noticed me. A beautiful woman, but a struggling nobody in a tiny apartment, invisible…

Meeting Paul changed that.

And now here I am in Paris, after a whirlwind courtship and a stunning beach proposal. I smile at my handsome husband, my eyes shining in the candlelight, my huge diamond ring sparkling on the starched white tablecloth. Other women look at me in envy. They see a couple completely in love.

They’re wrong.

Despite this incredible luxury vacation, my husband and I can’t escape our problems. I can’t get over what he did with that woman just after our wedding, and my bright smile can’t hide the hardness in my heart.

I wonder if Paul knows the truth. That our first meeting, when we fell in love, wasn’t the coincidence he thinks it was. That what I want from him has nothing to do with his money.

And now that he’s wronged me, I’ll stop at nothing to get it…

Thanks to a Bookouture alert, I got the ebook for $.99 and then added the audiobook to my Audible wishlist.

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Sarah Morgenthaler is back with a heart-mending contemporary romance featuring a single dad you’ll fall for; a satisfying slow burn love affair; found family you’ll root for; small town holiday magic; and all the quirky animals and snowy rustic scenes your heart desires.

Sienna Naples’s family has taken care of their wild Idaho land for generations and Sienna can’t imagine any other life. But at Christmastime, with her parents gone and her painful marriage finally over, it’s full of memories…and incredibly lonely. Until a tall, handsome stranger and a little girl walk into her life and suddenly the holidays are alive again.

When single father Guy Maple shows up as the result of an ad meant to be a joke, the handsome Montana construction worker isn’t joking. Money is tight this Christmas, and Guy’s four-year-old daughter Emma has stage-five chronic kidney disease. She needs a kidney transplant, but if Guy can’t prove that he can afford Emma’s anti-rejection medications, his daughter isn’t going to stay on the transplant list. Guy’s willing to do anything, including marrying a stranger, to keep her safe. It’s an impulsive marriage of convenience, and Sienna knows this isn’t real, no matter how much she adores Emma, how well Guy fits in to the ranching life—or how much light and laughter is coming into their lives as a result. But the more time she spends with her new family, the more she fears losing the fragile, feisty little girl and the kind, devoted, hard-working, incredibly attractive man who is her husband—but is it only in name?

I hadn’t heard of this until the audiobook showed up on NetGalley. I got it for audio review.

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Detective Elise King’s investigation into a woman’s murder is getting derailed by a reporter who insists on doing her own investigation in this nail-biting mystery from the author of Local Gone Missing.

When Karen Simmons is murdered on Valentine’s Day, Detective Elise King wonders if she was killed by a man she met online. Karen was all over the dating apps, leading some townspeople to blame her for her own death, while others band together to protest society’s violence against women. Into the divide comes Kiki Nunn, whose aggressive newsgathering once again antagonizes Elise.

A single mother of a young daughter, Kiki is struggling to make a living in the diminished news landscape. Getting a scoop in the Simmons murder would do a lot for her career, and she’s willing to go up against not just Elise but the killer himself to do it.

The second book in the Elise King series showed up at my library and I jumped into a short library queue.

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A woman’s harrowing past comes back to haunt her in a novel of twisting psychological suspense by New York Times bestselling author Mary Burton.

Ten years ago, fifteen-year-old Scarlett Crosby was held captive in a terrifying ordeal with a girl named Della. Scarlett escaped, their predator was killed, and Della simply vanished. Detective Kevin Dawson always wondered if Della even existed.

A decade later, Scarlett is a successful artist. As hard as she tries to move on, the mysterious Della remains her inescapable obsession. Then a girl’s body is discovered—a link to Scarlett’s horrific past—and all her old traumas resurface. So does Della. Scarlett has seen her hiding in plain sight. The girl who knows Scarlett’s secrets, who understands the desperate compromises Scarlett made to endure hell, and who, like Scarlett, embraced the darkness to survive.

As a suspicious Detective Dawson once again comes calling, and obsessions turn deadly, Scarlett fears there isn’t a living soul she can trust. As for Della, who’s watching from afar, what could she possibly want from Scarlett now? And what new nightmare lies ahead?

I couldn’t resist this when the audiobook showed up on NetGalley. I got it for audio review.

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What books did YOU add to your shelves this week?