At the Water’s Edge by Sara Gruen
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh how I loved this book! I wanted to read it because I’d read Water For Elephants and loved it.

This story is about Maddie, Ellis and Hank. Maddie and Ellis are married to each other and Hank is their best friend. They are wealthy and living the high life during World War II. Ellis gets himself declared color blind and Hugh gets himself declared flat footed so neither is able to serve in the military. Ellis’s father, a former Colonel, is disgusted with this fact and eventually cuts Ellis’s allowance off.

The men decide to go to Scotland to find the Loch Ness Monster, something Ellis’s dad did back in the day. They plan to get the monster on film thereby becoming famous in their own right and also redeeming the Colonel whom everyone thought manufactured photos of the monster.

They cross the sea on a supply transport. Right before they arrive, another ship is bombed and they go back to pull the sailors out of the burning sea. This spectacle changed the way Maddie looked at life in general.

While they are in Scotland, they stay at a guest house run by Angus, Meg and Anna and this is where the story actually begins.

I loved seeing Maddie’s character grow throughout the story. I loved that Ellis eventually got his and that Maddie got hers.

What a great book! I highly recommend it. 🙂

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Swan Dive by Kendel Lynn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Another wonderful book by Kendel Lynn. I read the book that came before Swan Dive and fell in love with the character of Elliott Lisbon. She’s smart and, while she works running the Ballantine Foundation, she’s also working towards her private investigator’s license.

When one of the dancers in the foundation’s production of the Nutcracker turns up dead, Elliot is right in the middle of the scene of the crime. She works to find out what happens because she feels the police are going in the wrong direction.

The relationships between Maddy and Ransom are sorted out in this book and I’m happy with how that turned out. Maddy seems like a really great guy but Ransom seems the one she should be with.

This book was fun to read and kept me guessing until the very end. I’m looking forward to the next book! 🙂

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My Best Everything by Sarah Tomp
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book! Lulu is headed to college in San Diego and all she wants is to get out of her small Virginia town where she feels she’s never fit.

Then her dad told her that, because of a bad business decision, there wasn’t any money for her to go to college so far away. Lulu figures she will find a way. She works at a junk yard with her best friend. They catalog items that come into the yard as part of their job. One day she realizes they haven’t logged in a still and she gets the idea that they can make moonshine to raise the money for her to go to college.

She makes plans to make the moonshine with her best friend, her boyfriend and his friend, Mason. Mason comes from a family of moonshiners and, if not for him, they might have gone wrong in so many different ways. Lulu falls in love with Mason, learns that he is a recovering alcoholic and in the end that she is bad for him.

The story of a summer of love, moonshine and dreams. This was a great book. 🙂

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