Bayou Midnight Emilie Richards

Published: Emilie Richards   2nd Edition
Date: 15th July 2018
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 305
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Author

Homicide detective Sam Long is determined to solve his latest case, but he can’t move forward without help. His best witness to arson and murder is a little girl, and whatever she saw on the night of the fire is safely locked away in her mind.

The last thing Sam wants is to consult with anyone, especially Dr. Antoinette Deveraux, a beautiful psychologist trained in hypnosis. He’s certain there’s no place for someone like compassionate Antoinette in a murder investigation. But when she unlocks the child’s memories, Antoinette unlocks something primal and compelling in Sam’s own heart.

Bayou Midnight is the second book in the New Orleans trilogy by Emilie Richards. It is a revised and updated version of a previously published book. These books are set in New Orleans before hurricane Katrina changed it up so much.

As a reader not familiar with this part of the world I have to say I was fascinated by the setting that Emilie Richards describes so well.   I was on my computer researching who cajuns are and their history.  I know the author dearly loves this place, myself I'd be a little nervous, but it certainly is unique.

This is a romantic story about Antoinette - a psychologist and Sam the policeman. We met both in the previous book, and Sam was  someone  I really didn't like. He was a very suspicious and prickly man, although very loyal and once a friend - always a friend.

In this book he has all these same qualities, plus we see a gentle compassionate side, and that same prickly veneer. He is totally against getting involved and yet very attracted to the lovely Antoinette. I liked her very much, although she has one foible that could lead her into ill health if she kept it up.

The suspense part is that someone is trying to blow up an oil rig and damage an oil company who have been poor employers.  Sam is on the case, but he doesn't seem to get anywhere until suddenly it is very close to home.

I loved the writing and the descriptions in this book and of course really the characters are just so adorable.  I am so waiting for Night Magic which is Skeeter's story - a friend of Sams.  This will be a totally new story because back in the bad old days of publishing they thought he was too much of a bad boy to have a book. Oh my! Little did they know then. For my taste he has been cleaned up a bit too much in Book 2 so I hope he still has his attitude when his book now comes to life next month. We shall see!

Lady of the Night Emilie Richards

Published: Emilie Richards
Date:  June 15th 2018
Format:  e-ARC
Pages:  276
Genre: Romantic Suspense
Source: Author
Rating:
                         

The fragile young woman, lying comatose in the ward of City Hospital in New Orleans, has no name and no memories. When she finally awakens, the one thing she can remember is a man's voice calling her back to consciousness.

In all his years of training, no one has touched psychologist Joshua Martane in the same way, and he is determined to help her. Suspected prostitute. Near victim of a serial killer. Mystery surrounds who she is–and who she isn't.

One thing is certain. Joshua realizes he has become entranced with the woman he names Maggie. Therapists should never be involved with their patients, but Maggie quickly becomes more to him. Whatever her secrets, Joshua knows he has to help her find answers. For both their sakes.

Lady of the Night is the first of three in the series New Orleans Nights.   I loved reading this one and I certainly look forward to the next two. 

This book tells the story of a young woman who awakes in the city hospital, with no memory of who she is, after experiencing terrible trauma. She has been in a coma for so long that they have put her in a psych ward and pretty much given up hope. Except for one psychologist who spends time talking to her, and when she awakes goes into bat for her against the establishment.

The opening chapter immediately sucked me in and I was wondering about this mystery, questions of who, where, what, why, how arose and I wanted them all answered. And eventually they were!

Joshua is the psychologist who helps Maggie as they name her.  He is a compassionate man, a passionate and good therapist. In the face of challenge he can be strong, and calls a spade a spade and tells it like he sees it. But... he has an achilles heel as a result of a past experience, so... he is imperfect and human!  Which makes him a bit frustrating as well.

Josh has two friends from his youth, and both are interesting so I anticipate we will also have Sam's and Skeeter's stories to relish along the way. Sam was a bit of a nuisance to begin with but after awhile I liked him.  However it is Skeeter I felt really drawn to... yeah he's an insightful artist and seems to dabble still in a little 'crime' like all three did in their youth.

Maggie's story is heartbreaking, but once she starts to heal there is no stopping her, and often I thought she was as gifted with insight as Josh or even had more. Sometimes I had to stop and think who was the psychologist!

There is a nasty character as well, of course there is! And he is out to get Maggie. So the plot moves along really well with good pace until all is sorted!  All very satisfying! I just might have bought a paperback copy to put on that keeper shelf!

Read Along With Emilie 2018: Reading Challenge

This is where I will keep a record of the Read Along with Emilie 2018: A Reading Challenge issued by one of my favourite authors Emilie Richards.  Go on over and read her post and why she likes a bit of a reading challenge.


The categories are:

• A book set on the water    The Denim Blue Sea    Joanne DeMaio
• A novel that features a character with a disability  The Promise Between Us. Barbara Claypole White.  (Disability = OCD)
• A classic you always promised yourself you'd read Persuasion  Jane Austen
• A novel with a person's name in the title  The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry Gabrielle Zevin
• A travelogue    Table for Eight   Tricia Stringer  ( Pacific Islands cruise)
• A novel featuring a woman over sixty as a major character  The Single Ladies of the Jacaranda Retirement Village  Joanna Nell
• A novel set in a different century and a country not your own  The Duchess   Danielle Steele
• A family saga    The Pearl Sister.    Lucinda Riley.
• A novel from a genre ( cozy mystery) that you rarely or never read: Homicide in Hardcover by Kate Carlisle
• A novel by Emilie Richards   Night Magic.
• A non-fiction "how-to" book  Photo Album Quilts Wendy Butler Burns
• A young adult (YA) book  Becoming Magdalene  Fleur Beale
• A book you choose just because...   it had a quilt on the cover!   A Soft Place to Fall  Liz Flaherty
• A time travel novel    As You Wish   Jude Deveraux
• A novel that's been made into a movie
• A book that's been in your TBR pile for more than a year   Flirting with Pete Barbara Delinksy
• A memoir  Promise Me Dad.  Joe Biden (Memoir) Narrated by Joe Biden.  5 stars
• A book by a local author    Hearts of Resistance    Soraya M. Lane

The ones I'll find most difficult to fulfil I suspect are: a book set on water, a travelogue (erk!) and maybe a genre I never read. I'm doing a couple of challenges that call for classics - and... classics reading is a far from strong point for me!!

  

What would be your Waterloo?  

Have you any suggestions of books you've read that would fit one of these categories?

The Swallow's Nest. Emilie Richards

Published: MIRA.
Date: 13th June 2017
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 496
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Source:Publisher via NetGalley
Rating:
       

Three women fight for the chance to raise the child they've all come to love.

When Lilia Swallow's husband, Graham, goes into remission after a challenging year of treatment for lymphoma, the home and lifestyle blogger throws a party. Their best friends and colleagues attend to celebrate his recovery, but just as the party is in full swing, a new guest arrives. She presents Lilia with a beautiful baby boy, and vanishes.

Toby is Graham's darkest secret—his son, conceived in a moment of despair. Lilia is utterly unprepared for the betrayal the baby represents, and perhaps more so for the love she begins to feel once her shock subsides. Now this unasked-for precious gift becomes a life changer for three women: Lilia, who takes him into her home and heart; Marina, who bore and abandoned him until circumstance and grief changed her mind; and Ellen, who sees in him a chance to correct the mistakes she made with her own son, Toby's father

A custody battle begins, and each would-be mother must examine her heart, confront her choices and weigh her dreams against the fate of one vulnerable little boy. Each woman will redefine family, belonging and love—and the results will alter the course of not only their lives, but also the lives of everyone they care for.

The first chapter pulled me into the book and as I finished the last chapter I just might have been reaching for a tissue and wiping away a tear or two. I'd just been on a roller coaster ride about three women and their love or need for one child - Toby.  Three women - I know which one I liked and wanted to be Toby's mother, but I also ( a little reluctantly I might add) could see the motivations of the other two.  Quite frankly though I'd be very reluctant to release one beautiful, innocent child into their hands.

Lilia grew up in Hawaii, she has a wonderful extended family background, and I loved her approach to life and love. She receives a series of knock backs, yet once she makes the choice it is Toby that is the centre, his happiness and needs are important.  Marina, the birth mother, having dumped Toby into Lilia's hands comes to regret it and makes a play to retrieve him. I don't think I'd want to be friends with her, but she has had a tough upbringing and I did feel sympathetic towards her. Ellen, the grandmother, is a sad character I thought, totally having subjugated who she is to her husband and his cold, hard ways. Really she has had no life, and her ideas about child rearing were more than a little sobering.

I enjoyed how the story moved along, exploring the lives of the three women, getting to know them and their motivations and challenges. As I did I wondered where Toby would end up, what would the law decide? I know what I wanted, but would that happen?

As I said above, the ending moved me to tears, was it exactly as I had hoped? No, not really but perhaps even better. I liked the growth in all three characters, very realistic and not over the top, but promising some new possibilities.

The book is titled The Swallow's Nest, this is where Lilia has made her home, a warm cosy place that I enjoyed visualising. At the beginning of some chapters there are little snippets about cliff swallows and how their approach to chick rearing linked with the book I was reading. It was very apt and also made me want to go off and read about these swallows as well! 

In short, a well written, heart and mind engaging story that had me from page one until the very end.

Dragonslayer. Emilie Richards

Published:
Date: February 2017
Format: Kindle edition
Pages: 278
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Own book
Rating
              

Dragonslayer is the story of a minister who has lost his faith in God and a woman who, despite being surrounded by poverty and gang violence, has never lost her faith in humanity or the Corners, the inner city neighborhood where she grew up.

Thomas Stonehill and Garnet Anthony couldn't be more different, ice to fire, but both are determined to make the Corners a neighborhood where residents will be safe to enjoy a wealth of opportunities. After a personal tragedy Thomas, once the minister of a megachurch, forms a ragtag congregation in an abandoned store, despite his own doubts that God listens or cares. Garnet, a nurse, runs a maternal health clinic that she's carved from nothing.

When warring gangs threaten Garnet's clinic and personal safety, Thomas takes action to protect her, despite his conviction that he must remain a man apart. Neither of them is prepared for the startling outcome.

Dragonslayer by Emilie Richards was a book that I loved from beginning to end. This was a book that was first published in 1993 and won the RITA in the USA in 1994. Very well deserved I would say. Emilie Richards has now republished this book, updating it no doubt, because it fits very well in today's world. A timeless story. I am just grateful that she has republished it and that has made it available for me to read.

It is a powerful, emotional life affirming book. It totally captivated me. I loved the characters, the pacing, the complex issues that it tackles. It is a multi-layered book, not just a simple romance. 

Thomas is a pastor in a tough area. He is a strong but tortured man. Very well able to handle himself in the gang infested environment yet with a caring if lost heart and soul. He has lost his faith and his meaning in life. Immediately I was intrigued and was longing to know his back story, which did unfold to my great satisfaction as the book moved along.

Garnet is quite the opposite to Thomas, she has grown up in this area and also has a back story that makes her really interesting. Now she works as a nurse/director of a small endeavour to help mothers bring their children safely into the world and hopefully keep them that way. Garnet is strong and tough, a go-getter. She believes she knows the gang members and will be relatively safe on the streets. She is full of life, dresses in warm bright attire and exudes energy and life. 

When the two meet they clash, in good ways and a relationship springs up that tests them both and eventually leads to something wonderful. But first they must make the journey and that is a whole books worth of happenings. 

This book spoke to my heart and soul. One I savoured and relished.

When We Were Sisters. Emilie Richards.

Published:Mira.
Date: 31st May 2016
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 496
Genre: Fiction
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Rating:
             

As children in foster care, Cecilia and Robin vowed they would be the sisters each had never had. Thirty years later their bond remains strong. International pop star Cecilia lives life on the edge, but when Robin is nearly killed in an accident, she drops everything to be with her.

Robin set aside her career as a successful photojournalist to create the loving family she always yearned for. But now, as she realizes how close she's come to losing everything, she questions what she really has. Gazing through a wide-angle lens at both past and future she sees that her marriage is disintegrating. Her attorney husband is rarely home, leaving Robin to be both mother and father. She and the children need Kris's love and attention, but does Kris need them?

When Cecilia asks Robin to be the still photographer for a documentary on foster care, Robin agrees, even though Kris will be forced to take charge for the months she's away. She gambles that he'll prove to them both that their children—and their marriage—are a priority in his life.

Cecilia herself needs more than time with her sister. A lifetime of lies has finally caught up with her. She wants a chance to tell the real story of their childhood and free herself from the nightmares that still color her nights.

As the documentary unfolds, memories will be tested and the meaning of family redefined, but the love two young girls forged into bonds of sisterhood will help them move forward as the women they were always meant to be.

Emilie Richards has again written a story that held me enthralled all the way through. I read it slowly because I wanted to linger and be with the characters in their struggles  to sort through their lives and see what they truly valued and wanted. It is a powerful story, with complex characters - with two women, while meeting in the foster care system are truly sisters. The only part I hated was the end. No the ending of the story was fine - I just wanted it to go on and on!

Cecilia and Robin met in a foster care home and bonded. Cecilia was older and always looked out for Robin. Yet when we meet them they are adults and going about their lives - not always though with peace and happiness. Robin is a mother of two and wife to husband Kris. She is at a point in her life when she wants to be more. She has that need I think we all have, to have a creative purpose in life that tests our own unique passion and skill set. For Robin that is photography. As the story opens she is making a stand for herself.

Kris her husband is very unavailable - a lawyer who at this point in his life is working hard to keep his family well cared for in monetary terms. However he is missing out on family life and giving them what they really need - himself. How he develops over the story is interesting and I liked how eventually he chooses what was most important for him.

Cecilia is a very successful singer/song writer, famous and rich. Yet apart from Robin she really holds people at arm's length and doesn't let them in. She likes to be in control, but that is all about to change. Mick a documentary film maker has asked Cecilia to work with him on her experience in the foster care system. As well Robin comes along as the stills photographer on set.

The story is told in the first person from three points of view - Cecilia, Robin and Kris. I really liked this because each narrator does not see what is exactly going on in the others, yet we the readers do. It made me think of how quick I might be to judge something or someone, without really knowing what is going on for them.

As the movie is made Cecilia and Robin bond in a new way as they re-experience the past. In facing the past, feelings are explored and revelations made. Some I saw coming - some I didn't. These two women are courageous and in the exploration healing happens. 

I loved the main characters and the minor ones. Each had their part to play and enriched the experience. I think especially of Hayley, a young girl in the foster care system, Roscoe a dog in need of rescue, Robin and Kris' children, well just about each one of them - good or bad - made this novel what it is. 

Secrets, lies, guilt, hard heartedness, cruelty and deep hurt on one hand, - revelation, love, forgiveness, standing for self, owning the real self and trust - on the other.  And very importantly - the rights of children to safety, care and love. The kind of book I totally love, placing it on my Keeper's Shelf!

Find Emilie Richards:

On her website - Emilie Richards She is very active on her blog and has culled a playlist to go with When We Were Sisters, plus some other posts about the characters in the book.

Facebook     Goodreads   Twitter    Pinterest

Find: When We Were Sisters

Amazon Kindle  Amazon Paperback   Barnes and Noble   Indiebound  iBooks  Kobo

Wedding Ring. Emilie Richards

Published: Blackstone Audio Inc
Date: 2004
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Isabel Keating
Length: 15hrs 19min
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: Own book
Rating:
        

Needing time to contemplate her troubled marriage, Tessa MacRae agrees to spend the summer helping her mother and grandmother clean out the family home in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. But the three women have never been close.

Helen, the family matriarch, is domineering and sharp-tongued. Nancy, Tessa's mother, appears to be little more than a social climber. And Tessa herself is in turmoil following a family tragedy that has affected them all. Now, with the gift of time, Tessa's eyes are opened, and she begins to see her mother and grandmother for the flawed but courageous women they are. As she restores a vintage wedding-ring quilt pieced by her grandmother and quilted by her mother, the secrets that have shadowed their lives unfold at last. And each woman discovers that sometimes you have to clean house to find the things you thought were lost forever.

Wedding Ring was a reread for me, and I am so pleased I chose to do so by the audiobook version. I loved it the first time I read it, and totally fell in love with the characters and story line all over again as I listened to it. To be honest I had forgotten many details of the story - I just carried the general feel of the story with me. Now I have a refreshed memory of it!

Isabel Keating does a fabulous job in the narration. I loved her Helen voice and the way she just totally brought her to life for me. Whenever I thought of this book I remembered the opening scene when Helen was holed up in her house and her daughter Nancy and grand daughter Tessa were trying to get in. Wonderful scene.

The story follows the lives of these three remarkable women. We are taken back in time to Helen's early life and see where she came from and her joys and sorrows. We are also taken back in time to Nancy's earlier times too. 

As the story develops changes happen for all three women, and they are bonded together in ways they would not have thought of earlier. In the beginning they are not that close. Tessa has had heartbreak in her life and she is estranged from her husband. Nancy seems to be a bit of a socialite and Nancy - well she is a bit crotchety! I loved her anyway. There is Cissy Mowrey as well who lives nearby, she is pregnant and unmarried and Tessa and Helen reach out to her.

It is with this series I began my obsession with quilting, Helen is an expert quilter and I just wish she was a real live actual person and I'd love to go see her quilts. I loved the way her daughter Nancy, helped her see the value in what she had done. I must say the Quilt Along With Emilie Richards that goes with this book is also a favourite and I hope to try out a few of the Sunbonnet Sue examples. I have plans!

In short - love, love, loved it all. Guess who will be revisiting the whole series via audiobook!

Find it on Audible

The Color of Light. Emilie Richards

The Color of Light
Emilie Richards
Published: Mira
Date: July 28th 2015
Format: e-ARC
Pages: 496
Genre: Women's Fiction
Source: Publisher via NetGalley

For more than a decade minister Analiese Wagner has felt privileged to lead her parishioners along a well-lit path. Her commitment has never been seriously tested until the frigid night she encounters a homeless family huddling in the churchyard. Offering them shelter in a vacant parish house apartment and taking teenage Shiloh Fowler—a girl desperate to rescue her parents—under her wing, she tests the loyalty and faith of her congregation.

Isaiah Colburn, the Catholic priest who was her first mentor and the man she secretly longed for, understands her struggles only too well. At a crossroads, he's suddenly reappeared in her life, torn between his priesthood and his growing desire for a future with Analiese.

Divided between love and vows they've taken, both must face the possibilities of living very different lives or continuing to serve their communities. With a defeated family's trust and her own happiness on the line, Analiese must define for herself where darkness ends and light begins. 

The Color of Light is #4 in the Goddesses Anonymous series by Emilie Richards.  It is one of my top favourite series and the The Color of Light just added to the allure.

When Emilie Richards writes of church she has a ring of authority and compassion.  A vision that is inspiring. And so we have in this novel the story of Analiese the pastor of the local church. Annaliese is the kind of pastor I'd want for any and every church.  She is strong, caring and compassionate.  She is not about institution, she is about people.  However the life of a pastor is not an easy one.  If you belong to or have belonged to a parish of any kind, I am sure you are aware of the variety of people and their politics. That must be very taxing as a minister tries to follow their calling and deal with all the other minutiae that goes along with the role.  Annaliese has a lot to contend with, often no time to eat or call her own.  But she has a calling to ministry and it goes deeply into her being.

Annaliese welcomes a homeless family into a small apartment that is attached to the church when she finds them preparing to camp out in the cold.  The Fowler family play a big part in this story and through it a church is offered the chance to explore what church is really about.  This family has many problems and at the beginning it is Shiloh a fourteen year old that holds them together.  How best to help them? There are a variety of ways, but which way is going to lead to self respect, dignity and eventually the chance to be independent and whole again as people and as a family?

Isaiah is a Roman Catholic priest and Jesuit, arrives in the area, taking time out to explore his calling. Analiese and he have known each other many years ago, when he helped her discover her calling to ministry.  However they have not been in contact for many years until now.  I thought Emilie Richards explored his path and journey very well.  I was very satisfied finally with the way he made his choices in line with his calling.

Of course we meet other characters from previous books and see their lives continuing to take shape. We see the struggles of the homeless, we see a very topical issue facing the church and Annaliese - one that Annaliese handles extremely well. While it is foreshadowed before it happens I don't want to discuss it so as not to give away the plot.  

This book oozes warmth and humanity at its best and occasionally at its weakest.  My heart was deeply touched by an "I love you" and the response to it.  And no, it wasn't between Annaliese and Isaiah!

Story telling with sensitivity and at its finest.

Blessed is the Busybody. Emilie Richards

Blessed is the Busybody
Emilie Richards
Published: Berkley  2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 262
Genre: Mystery/Crime
Source: Own book

Meet the unconventional Aggie Sloan-Wilcox, a minister's wife with her own calling: helping troubled  souls in need of justice.  When the naked body of a murdered woman turns up on Aggie's front porch--and suspicion falls on Aggie's husband--she doesn't have a prayer of clearing his name unless she can uncover the truth in a town not known for confessing its sins.

I am not a big cozy mystery type of reader, but being a fan of Emilie Richards other novels I decided to try out the first one in her Ministry is Murder series.  

There are the murders that are a puzzle to the local community, and  Aggie finds herself caught up in the unravelling of the various clues that lead back to some interesting liaisons and a murderer who just might put a stop to Aggie's new found skills and interest.  Her husband Ed is a good guy and they have a very good relationship, with two 'adorable' girls - one who insists on burying their cat numerous times and one who is just beginning to stretch her independence as a middle grade young teen.  Aggie is not about to have the wool pulled over her eyes by them or indeed anyone.  

While the murders and mystery were interesting, it was the small town comings and goings of a small church community that was so entertaining and so recognisable the world over, whatever the church denomination.  Emilie Richards nailed this aspect, with I am sure her first hand experience of being a minister's wife helping her to make it so real.

Well written - and if I empty my TBR shelf fairly well over the next year, I will be delving into another Aggie mystery.