First Lines Friday... This week’s opening lines are from a twisty coastal thriller full of family drama, suspicious deaths, and the kind of small-town secrets that never stay buried…

 

"I did not plan to start the summer by dangling out of a ­second-​­story window. But on this breezy night, all that separates me from plunging to my death and living to see my eighteenth birthday is the grip my older sister, Lucy, has on my wrists from inside my bedroom."

I love the way this story starts out! How about you? Would you keep reading after these first few lines?

I just received this book in the mail from Penguin Random House and had to share just a peek. It is a romantic mystery thriller, and with all those three in a book description, I'm definitely in. Here's the book description from the publisher...

A razor-sharp murder-mystery set during the summer when a local teen's suspicious death exposes the devastating secrets three sisters keep.

Do you ever really know the people you love?

For the Gold sisters and Silver brothers, life has been idyllic, growing up in side-by-side waterfront mansions in a town where doors are never locked and the police do little more than issue speeding tickets. The Golds and Silvers have known each other their entire lives, as neighbors, as friends, as family.

But one carefree summer takes a dark turn when a beach party ends in tragedy and their perfect world cracks wide open. Suddenly, the bonds that tie these families together are strained by suspicion and fear. Painful secrets surface, revealing the fragile truths they've all been hiding.

Lucy, the oldest Gold girl, harbors a crushing secret from her boyfriend, one of the Silver boys. Millie, the middle sister, quietly yearns for the one person she can't have. And the youngest, Frankie, uncovers something that could blow their island apart.

A gripping novel about the lies friends tell, the façade siblings build, and how one summer tests—and breaks—the bonds of family.

The book will be released by G.P. Putnam & Sons (a division of Penguin Random House) on June 2nd! Look for my review before then!

Immortal Game by Allison Saft is coming August 4, 2026! Mark Your Calendars and read my Review...

“Chess opens a door between two souls.”

That line lives at the heart of Immortal Game by Allison Saft — and it’s exactly what this book does. It opens a door. Step through it and you’re no longer in the ordinary world. You’re in the Otherworld, where the Fae are immortal, the magic hums beneath every breath, and Mortals are allowed to cross the veil only once every hundred years… to play a game of chess that could cost them everything.

I am not your typical fantasy reader. I don’t usually gravitate toward Fae courts and ancient magic systems. And yet? I was completely swept away. Allison Saft builds a world that feels lush and dangerous and achingly alive. The Otherworld isn’t just a setting — it pulses. The Fae cannot lie. The landscape shifts with thought. Magic is woven into speech, into bargains, into love. And at the center of it all is the Immortal Game, where chess becomes more than strategy — it becomes fate.

The characters are what truly anchored me.

Shea, a chess prodigy, is driven by fierce, almost desperate love for her sister Aideen. Every move she makes — on the board and off — is shaped by that devotion.

Daniil, brooding and sharp-tongued, carries his own complicated loyalty to his sister. His seriousness hides something tender, and I found myself softening toward him with every chapter.

Ciara, the Fae princess who adores everything mortal, brings spark and warmth into a realm that could easily feel cold.

And then there is Midir, the Fae King — immortal, powerful, and in love with Aideen enough to steal her away beyond the veil.

As for Fuamnach… trust me. You’ll want to meet her yourself.

What makes this story so compelling is how these characters — from different worlds, with different loyalties — collide over the chessboard. The relationships layer and tangle in ways that feel real and earned. Alliances shift. Motives blur. Love becomes both weapon and shield.

And the chess? It’s brilliant. Whether Allison Saft is secretly a grandmaster or simply did amazing research, she makes the game feel electric. The terminology, the strategy, the references to real-life masters — it’s all woven into the narrative so seamlessly that it never feels like a lecture. It feels like tension. Like you’re holding your breath between moves. I actually pulled out my old chess set just to follow along with some of the moves.

Immortal Game isn’t just about magic or competition. It’s about devotion. About the cost of love. About what we sacrifice for the people who define us. There were twists I didn’t see coming, tenderness that caught me off guard, and moments of quiet heartbreak that lingered.

When I reached the final page, I wasn’t ready to leave the Otherworld — but I was satisfied. The story closes its loops. The emotional threads are honored. Nothing feels rushed or abandoned.

If you’re hesitant about fantasy, let this be your doorway. Walk through "The Veil". Sit at the chessboard. Let Allison Saft show you what happens when strategy meets soul.

Immortal Game by Allison Saft is coming out on August 4th, 2026! Mark your calendars because you won't want to miss this one! (Categorized as YA teen, romance and LGBTQIAP+)

I want to thank St. Martin's Press for sending along an advanced copy for me to read and review. I really enjoyed it. 

BTW, Isn't that cover gorgeous!!

                           My travel chessboard and mini iPad

P.S. Shea Fury, our chess prodigy in Immortal Game reminds me of Judit Polgar, a 12-year-old who became the youngest Grandmaster in history, and eventually beat world champion Garry Kasparov. I watched a great documentary about her called Queen of Chess on Netflix. Her life was chess and the documentary shows how and why her Father raised her to become a world champion. 

Book Giveaway!

 

This giveaway announcement just popped in my email from Kirkus Reviews. Looks like some great books! Giveaways ends October 1st. 

Here's the link so you can enter. Good luck!

The Sunday Salon and 3 Of the Most Anticipated Time Traveling YA Books of 2016

Welcome to The Sunday Salon, where bloggers from all over the world talk about all things bookish is a virtual library! And The Sunday Post, which is a weekly meme hosted by The Caffeinated Book Reviewer, in which more bloggers share their bookish news!! Sunday is the day of the week we sit back, relax and talk books! Here in Connecticut, we are still recovering from 5 inches of unexpected snow from friday, and it isn't as unusually warm as it has been lately, so staying inside and reading seems a great idea! I just finished Lisa Gardner's Find Her, and loved it!(Here's a link to my review) and though I have a few books in the wings to start (My reading group selection this month is Eternal on the Water by Joseph Monninger) and one library book to finish (Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas) I am always on the lookout for fresh reading. There has been a lot of buzz about some great YA books to come out the last month (and one coming out next week) that I thought I would share with you. These books piqued my interest, not only because the plots sound interesting, but because they all involve time traveling, and I just LOVE time travel books! The Time Travelers Wife and Outlander are two of my favorites.


Let's Look at 3 of the most anticipated Time Traveling YA books...
The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry... Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start…until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

I've heard so many great things said about this debut from Emily Henry that it is definitely on my TBR list! This came out January 26, 2016 from Razorbill an imprint from Penguin.

Passenger by Alexandra Bracken  ...Violin prodigy Etta Spencer had big plans for her future, but a tragedy has put her once-bright career at risk. Closely tied to her musical skill, however, is a mysterious power she doesn't even know she has. When her two talents collide during a stressful performance, Etta is drawn back hundreds of years through time. 

Etta wakes, confused and terrified, in 1776, in the midst a fierce sea battle. Nicholas Carter, the handsome young prize master of a privateering ship, has been hired to retrieve Etta and deliver her unharmed to the Ironwoods, a powerful family in the Colonies--the very same one that orchestrated her jump back, and one Nicholas himself has ties to. But discovering she can time travel is nothing compared to the shock of discovering the true reason the Ironwoods have ensnared her in their web. 

Another traveler has stolen an object of untold value from them, and, if Etta can find it, they will return her to her own time. Out of options, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the mysterious traveler. But as they draw closer to each other and the end of their search, the true nature of the object, and the dangerous game the Ironwoods are playing, comes to light--threatening to separate her not only from Nicholas, but her path home... forever.

Yes! This sounds fabulous, doesn't it! A true adventure and a bit of romance thrown in. On my TBR list too! This came out January 5, 2016 from Disney Hyperion.

The Girl From Everywhere Heidi Heilig... Sixteen-year-old Nix Song is a time-traveller. She, her father and their crew of time refugees travel the world aboard The Temptation, a glorious pirate ship stuffed with treasures both typical and mythical. Old maps allow Nix and her father to navigate not just to distant lands, but distant times - although a map will only take you somewhere once. And Nix's father is only interested in one time, and one place: Honolulu 1868. A time before Nix was born, and her mother was alive. Something that puts Nix's existence rather dangerously in question...

Nix has grown used to her father's obsession, but only because she's convinced it can't work. But then a map falls into her father's lap that changes everything. And when Nix refuses to help, her father threatens to maroon Kashmir, her only friend (and perhaps, only love) in a time where Nix will never be able to find him. And if Nix has learned one thing, it's that losing the person you love is a torment that no one can withstand. Nix must work out what she wants, who she is, and where she really belongs before time runs out on her forever.

Another fun looking time travel adventure! This is coming out February 26, 2016 from Greenwillow Books an imprint of HarperCollins.

*****************************

What do you think about time travel in books?! Time travel can be confusing, and I have heard readers not liking The Time Travelers Wife because they were pretty confused at the start of that book.  But if handled well, I think time travel can be so much fun!

Weekly Update... Here's what went on last week on the blog:

Monday, Feb. 1st...
Memoir Monday with Concussion by Jeannie Marie Laskas and Mailbox Monday featuring the two great eGalleys in my mail.

Friday, Feb. 5th... 
First Lines Friday with The 6:41 to Paris by Jean-Philippe Blondel and My Review of American Housewife by Helen Ellis

Saturday, Feb. 6th...  My Review of Find Her by Lisa Gardner (BTW, I gave it 5 stars!)
                               
Next week I'll be finishing up Concussion by Jeannie Marie Laskas (hopefully) and start The Expatriates by Janice Y.K. Lee. There are two more YA books on my nightstand that are trying to lure me their way, but they are going to have to wait... (maybe!)

               

                                               Pax by Sara Pennypacker           Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Hope you found something interesting to read here today! And please, share what you're reading this week and what good books you've found! 

Happy Reading... Suzanne

*P.S. Don't forget next Sunday is VALENTINE'S DAY! We'll have something sexy for The Sunday Salon!

Banned Books Week and Memoir Monday

A Young Woman's Coming of Age Story...

During the Turbulent Political Backdrop of the Islamic Revolution in Tehran

Young Marjane Satrapi came from a well off, loving, modern family. She went to a non-religious french school. Her father drove a cadillac and her family had a maid. All that changed in 1980, when Marjane turned 10 years old... because Marjane lived in Tehran... During the cultural revolution... and 'the veil'.

The book opens with Marjane showing us how a 10 year old perceives the sudden requirement to wear the veil... The little girls didn't understand the need to wear one. One day you don't have to, and the next day you do? Her bilingual school was closed down because it was a symbol of capitalism and decadence... And soon Marjane was being indoctrinated into the political fray. First she is taught that the Shah was chosen by God, then when he is overthrown she is taught to tear his pictures out of all the school books. People were being persecuted, executed, tortured. And Marjane's parents did not protect her from the truth because it seemed the only way to save her from becoming one of the persecutors...

Her parents protested, there were raids & bombs, and patrols... Relatives are murdered, friends of the family disappear, a friend dies is a bombing. How is a 1o year old suppose to deal with all this? Honestly... Unfortunately her honesty was perceived as blasphemy... Marjane called her teacher a liar when she taught that there were no more political prisoners and recited the facts, she wore a simple bracelet under her garment and was expelled... It was then decided that a little girl with a penchant for rebellion and a sharp tongue would be safer growing up away from Iran... So, Marjane next goes to Austria to live with a friend of her mother's... and as if things couldn't get worse, they do.

What is so interesting and compelling in this story is that Marjane is the same as all young girls- she likes music, and posters, jewelry and wearing jeans. But because of where she is born she is forced to grow up faster and learn to survive. Her "slips" are mostly from her acting like a 10 year old. How she deals with all this conflict, even the conflict within herself as she grapples with what is going on around her and what is in her heart, is written and drawn wonderfully.

This coming of age story, The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, is a tender, heartfelt story of a girl growing up in a world of conflict. The relationship she has with her mother and grandmother are loving and volatile. But what she takes from each of them and tucks away into her soul shows us glimpses of a girl growing up. How she deals with the war & revolution are important, but how she deals with the injustices imposed on her just because she is a female is even more important. The wearing of the veil, the cut of her clothes, the wearing of make-up, a strand of hair out of place, moral etiquette, dating, divorce... these are all things we learn how a young Iranian girl deals with. All of this is why I thought this book would easily fit into the Women Unbound Reading Challenge... This book shows how this young woman deals with the social and political issues present as she grows up in Iran. Marjane is candid, honest, funny and angry. The book will tug at your heart at moments and infuriate you other times. The book spans 14 years, and it is well worth your time cracking the spin!

I really enjoyed reading this book. The Black & White drawings were so expressive and the story flowed easily from the page. I read it in one sitting because I became absorbed in the Marjane's story. If you're not exactly a graphic novel reader, I hope you'll open this book anyway, it is a wonderful read and would be a great start to reading graphic novels!

First Book of the Year… 2015!

Happy New Year! The new year promises many things to many people, and to readers it means a brand new year filled with new places to explore, new people to meet and adventures to have all experienced through the imagination of someone we may never meet, but come to love or hate named... the author.

Last New Years Day, I joined Sheila from Book Journey's First Book Of The Year 2015 challenge. And this year I decided it was a great idea and signed up again to participate! Not so much a "challenge" as a reading tradition of choosing a book to start the year. This year the book I'm choosing is Wonder by R.J. Palacio! I have read rave reviews of this book for some time and most recently someone told me that it was the best book they read in 2014. Wonder is about a little boy named August Pullman who was born with his faced deformed. In and out of surgeries for years, he was home schooled, but when he's about to enter the 5th grade it's decided he can go to "normal" school. This book is about acceptance and courage and change… what better way to start the new year for "real"! Want to see who else is reading a First Book of The Year 2015? Sheila put together a photo montage of the participants! You can find 62 girls with their books by CLICKING HERE.

What is the first book you're going to read this year? 

Stay tuned to see my review of Wonder coming up next week...