The Dream Daughter and Other September Reads

I finished eight books in September:

Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper by Robert Bloch
The Cuckoo’s Calling by Robert Galbraith (audiobook)
The Ancient Nine by Ian Smith (eARC)
Betrayal by John Lescroart
The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain (ARC)
When the Lights Go Out by Mary Kubica (audiobook)
The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
November Road by Lou Berney (ARC)


This has been a bit of a blah reading month for me. Honestly, I didn’t read anything this month that I super loved. Two of the ARCs I read were very meh, you can find links to my reviews here:
The Ancient Nine 
November Road

The third ARC, I really did not enjoy. I am posting that review here, because I was able to identify exactly why I didn’t enjoy the story. I would love to hear other opinions, though, whether you agree with me or not!

I received an ARC of The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. The Dream Daughter is scheduled for release on October 2, 2018.

I usually avoid all spoilers in my book reviews. This time, however, I can't. I need to discuss something that happens very early in the book (within the first 50 pages) but is not mentioned in the blurb or the publisher's information. This suggests that the author (and publisher) want this to remain a surprise. So here is your warning, read ahead at your own risk. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

The Dream Daughter is the story of a woman (Carly) who has just lost her husband in the Vietnam War. Just before his death, she learned that she was pregnant and sent him a letter that he didn't receive in time to know that he was going to be a father. Carly is already facing single parenthood (though she has lots of family support in the form of her sister and brother-in-law) when she learns that her unborn baby has a serious heart condition. In 1970, when this story takes place, this condition was a death sentence. Carly is devastated that she is going to lose the only piece of her husband she had left.

In her moment of crisis, Carly's brother-in-law, Hunter, confesses his deepest secret. He is actually a time traveler, originally from the year 2018. He wants to send Carly into the future so that her unborn child can have pre-natal surgery to save its life. This is the secret that I need to talk about. Honestly, if I knew up front that this was a time travel novel, I probably wouldn't have agreed to read it. I am a very tough sell on time travel stories. They are difficult to do well. There are often plot issues that the author wasn't able to fix due to the complexity of a plot that loops through itself in time.

This novel did not deal with the time travel aspect well, in my opinion. The problems started almost immediately. Hunter discusses the importance of not changing anything as a time traveler. Yet he has stayed in 1970 for a long time, gotten married, and had a child. He doesn't seem to recognize that this is exactly what he said a time traveler should not do. He created a whole human that would not otherwise exist, which is bound to change the course of time. Maybe in insignificant ways, but the effects could be huge.

Later in the story, despite being a near-genius who can do the complicated math to send Carly to the exact when and where of his choosing, Hunter makes a mistake that is based on him forgetting one of the most significant dates in recent history. These types of issues were scattered throughout the story, making everything feel very unrealistic and keeping me from sinking into the story.

I also struggled with the characters throughout. We spend the majority of the novel with Carly, in her head. I didn't feel like I really got to know any of the other characters. I also didn't feel like I got to know Carly, or maybe that there was anything to know about Carly. Despite spending so much time with her thoughts, all I knew about her at the end was that she loved her husband and child and wanted to be with them. I knew nothing else about her.

Overall, I didn't enjoy this novel. Granted, I was biased as soon as I saw time travel, but the story did nothing to change my mind. Both the plot and characters felt shallow and inconsistent.

The Day I Fell For You

They say when you're dying you see your life flash before your eyes. You get to relive your life in snippets, like a highlight reel. It's true. It's also not the whole story. I know there's more because it happened to me. Well, not the dying part, not quite.

I almost died when I was thirteen. I was a gymnast then, so the whole thing shouldn't have happened. I was used to walking on a balance beam, doing cartwheels, flips, whatever. I was coordinated, graceful. But there aren't obstacles on the beam. There aren't small children running from their parents, weaving in and out of the crowd, tangling themselves in your legs.

I tripped. That's all. I should have been able to catch myself, save myself. But I was standing at the top of concrete steps leading into our church. When I fell, I tumbled. Unlike the beam, there was no padding, and I had no control over the physics of my fall. I don't know how many steps I hit on the way down. I don't know how many times my head made contact with the unforgiving concrete.

I do know that I woke up in a hospital bed with one leg and one arm in casts. It was hard to see them, because my head was swaddled in a thick layer of bandages.

I also know what I saw when I fell. While I was falling, the steps disappeared. I wasn't really falling. I was dreaming. Remembering. I saw my fifth birthday, the trampoline my parents got for our back yard. I saw my sister get married when I was six. I saw my brother get his drivers license, then the crash that dented the car, but left my brother unscratched. I saw my parents get divorced. I saw us move halfway across the country. I saw my niece the day after she was born. I saw the plane that took me to Hawaii for competition. I saw the dress I put on that morning before I climbed the stairs. I saw the little girl start screaming and pull away from her mother's hand.

Then I saw beautiful green eyes, flecked with golden brown. I saw my hand, saw the ring Daddy gave me for my twelfth birthday, lifted to a curved smile for a kiss. Those green eyes looked over my hand, staring into me. I saw my hand twined with the hand of green eyes.

That's what no one tells you, the rest of what you see when you're dying. You don't just revisit your past. You get a glimpse into your future.

I saw you.

When I woke, still alive, I knew you were out there, waiting somewhere for me to find you. I didn't know when it would happen, and that was okay. I had the promise, I just had to be patient while fate worked to fulfill it.

It took five years to find you. I spent five years scanning crowds, looking into the eyes of strangers for that exact speckled, sparkling green from my memory. When I finally found those eyes, there was zero doubt. I knew it was you.

There was one small problem. You didn't know it was me. Not yet. You didn't see my vision, you didn't see what I did when I fell. To you, I was a stranger, you didn't know what we meant to each other, what we would mean to each other. I had to show you. I had to convince you that we were meant to be.

Two years. That's how long it took to show you we weren't just friends. That's how long it took for you to finally let me in. But I did it. And here we are, on our one year anniversary. This is my favorite spot, alone with you, overlooking the entire town sprawled below us.

Today we are celebrating our love, the love I fought so hard for. And I think today is the day. The day I saw years ago while I was falling. This is the day you will finally make new promises.

It's almost dusk, so I know it will have to happen soon. Your eyes catch the last of the day's bright light. The golden flecks are on fire. Right now your eyes are as beautiful as the day I fell. The day I fell for you.

"I love you," I say. I don't want to push you, but maybe this is part of the vision I didn't see. Maybe part of the story of this moment is that I say the words first, encourage you to confess what is in your heart.

You return your love to me in a nodding smile. "And you wore me down, convinced me that this was meant to be."

You get it. You get that I couldn't let you go, couldn't let you walk away. You are mine. You were promised to me, my prize for surviving.

Then it happens. Your eyes are glittering golden-green diamonds as you catch my hand in yours and lift it to your lips. I watch my ring glide up, nestle below your nose as your lips land on my knuckles. Your fingers interlock with mine, sealing us together.

I wait for you to reach in your pocket, pull out the new ring that I know you have tucked inside, ready to slip on my finger. That's why we're here. You're ready to promise me forever.

But you don't reach for your pocket. Instead you stand and pull me to my feet in front of you. You start to back away, pulling me with you away from the blanket stretched on the overlook's thin grass. You want this to be perfect, so you're moving us closer to the view. It's a waste, though. I can't look away from your eyes.

I follow your feet all the way to the edge and wait for you to sink to one knee. Again you surprise me. You pull hard on my hand, pulling me close for a hug. Or a kiss. I let my free hand fly up, my arm aimed to wrap around your neck and hug you back, pull you into me.

But I miss. My hand sails past you because you aren't there. You have stepped aside and set my hand free. I can't catch hold of you. I can't catch hold of the ledge. I can't catch hold of myself. I am falling. Again. This time it's not for you.

This fall is different. This time I only see my past. Moments since the first time I fell flicker through my mind. Most of them show you. Your face when we first met, the pinching around your nose and mouth as if my appearance displeased you. Your beautiful sun-flecked eyes rolling when I found you over and over again. Your mouth dodging mine, landing instead on the hollow of my cheek.

As I fall I get to watch you fail to fall in love with me.

Just before I land I realize the whole truth. What I saw the first time? It wasn't a promise. It was a warning.

A Well Behaved Woman, Lies, and other August Reads

I finished 8 books in August:

An Illustrated History of the Civil War by William J. Miller and Brian C. Pohanka
The House of Hades by Rick Riordan (reread)
The Best of Roald Dahl by Roald Dahl
Lies by T.M. Logan (ARC)
A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab
Shadowsong by S. Jae-Jones
A Well Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler (ARC)
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes

I received an advance readers' edition of Lies by T. M. Logan from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. Lies is scheduled for release September 11, 2018.

Lies is the story of a man (Joe) who sees his wife talking with another man. The encounter seems off to Joe, causing him to ask questions. One question leads to another, each with answers he never saw coming wrapped in layers of lies.

Joe's story is built around what some would consider to be a role-reversal. He is the primary care-giver for his son (in addition to his job as a teacher). Joe's wife (Mel) has what is probably the higher paying job, and the job that demands more of her time, taking her out of the house and into meetings. The plot of this book is built around a central question for Joe: "Is my wife cheating?" Joe talks a lot about how much he loves his son and wife, but we don't really get to know either of them as characters, which makes it a bit difficult to feel his love for his wife and his pain at the perceived betrayal.

Joe is not presented to the reader as an unreliable narrator. Instead we follow him as he tries to sort out the truth from the deliberate lies and misleadings of those around him. Like most novels that deal with a search for truth, this novel is full of twists and shifts in the story designed to keep the reader guessing as to the real story and what might happen next.

This was also my primary issue with this novel. While there were many twists built into the story, many aspects of the setup and follow-through felt clunky and forced to me. The pieces didn't quite fit together in a way that made real sense. An example from the first few chapters of the novel reveals that Joe's phone is synced to his wife's work iPad but is not synced to his own personal iPad. To me, this makes no sense and made me question everything that surrounded this in the story. I love novels that have turns and shifts, but they need to make sense. The turns and shifts need to be believable in the world of the story. Reveals and surprises should seem to be the only possible answer (but not until they are actually revealed!).

I also did not particularly like the ending of this novel. The final twist (which I won't reveal here) seemed to be added in for shock value, when it really should not be considered shocking at all, or function as any sort of plot point in a story (in my opinion).

Overall, Lies fell a little flat for me. The characters were not vibrant on the page, and the story felt forced. I'd love to hear other readers' opinions!

I received an Advance Reader Copy of A Well Behaved Woman by Therese Anne Fowler from the publisher (St. Martin's Press) in exchange for an honest review. A Well Behaved Woman is scheduled for release October 16, 2018.


A Well Behaved Woman is the fictionalized biography of Alva Smith (soon to become Alva Vanderbilt). I often enjoy reading these sorts of books and trying to puzzle out exactly where the line between fiction and reality lies. This story was deeply detailed, as I expect from a novel, but with the richness of history and truth lying behind it. Alva is a southern woman trying to survive after the Civil War. Her family is in dire financial straits, and relying on her to make a good marriage to save them from destitution. She manages to catch the eye and interest of a Vanderbilt. The Vanderbilts are a "new money" family, lacking the social standing that typically comes with the enormous amount of money they have managed to accumulate.

Alva finds marriage to be a disappointment, though it does feed her father and sisters. She is painfully aware that hers was a marriage of convenience, allowing her to catch glimpses of what she imagines love must be like in those around her. Alva secretly pines for this love. She publicly pines, and fights for, other things. She claws her way through society, dragging the Vanderbilt name up with her. She works with a designer to build mansions across the northeast. She begins to plan her daughters future, pushing her to choose the right man.

Alva is an interesting character. She is not warm. She is not particularly personable. She is honestly not that easy to like. Therese Anne Fowler says this herself in her author's note. While writing the initial story, Fowler did not like Alva. During revisions, she realized she didn't like Alva because she was looking at Alva as a woman, and laying all of the expectations that are typically placed on women onto her. Once Fowler began to shift her view, to look at Alva as a human instead of a woman, did Fowler begin to like Alva. Alva knows what she wants and is willing to put in the time and effort to plan and work for those goals. In a man, we would say he was driven, dedicated, committed. Why shouldn't we apply those same descriptors to a woman doing the same things?

This social commentary is completely justified, given what Alva Vanderbilt accomplished during her lifetime. However, there were a few points in the story where the message felt a bit heavy-handed to me. Fowler sometimes stepped a bit too forward, making the story about Alva the warrior, instead of about Alva the human.

Overall, I enjoyed this walk through the late 1800s and early 1900s. This was an in-depth view into the life of a woman during this era. I am sure that I would not have faired as well as Alva during this time in history, and am ever more grateful for the women who changed the future for me.