Holiday Ever After by Hanna Grace

Clara Davenport is a savvy businesswoman, in line to increase her position at her family’s toy company. She’s in charge of their small business program, which creates partnerships with businesses in their line of work. Until she is reassigned to an emergency post as incentive to get her promotion.

While she is away, her program gets hijacked. What she sees as her baby, her competition in the company sees as a way to make fast money, cheap. When she discovers the marketing nightmare created by the social media of the small town whose favorite small business has been abused, she has to find a way to fix it, fast. Her promotion is on the line.

 

What she doesn’t plan on is falling in love at Christmastime with tiny Fraser Falls, or with the toy maker who has been maligned. Clara’s journey to win over the town, the man and get her promotion makes a fun holiday read, and ripe for a Hallmark movie!  Holiday Ever After will be released September 30, 2025, by Atria books. My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the review copy, which was a wonderful, warm escape for me!

The Locked Ward by Sarah Pekkanen

 

Every once in a while, we all need to read a fast-paced thriller, especially one as complex as Sarah Pekkanem’s The Locked Ward. The book opens with elegant, successful, heiress, Georgia escorted unceremoniously into the locked ward of the mental hospital, on suicide watch and accused of murdering her younger sister.  Then we meet scrappy bar owner, Amanda who is summoned by a lawyer to meet his client, Georgia. He informs Amanda that Georgia is, in fact, her twin sister.

The rest of the story is the unraveling of the alleged murder, as well as the relationship between the secret twins. It would give away the fast, exciting story for me to go on, but I’ll just recommend The Locked Ward to anyone in the mood for a mystery! Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this review copy. The Locked Ward was published on August 5, 2025.

Fox Creek by M.E Torrey

 

Fox Creek is a southern plantation in northeast Louisiana, set in the mid 1800’s. It follows the story of Monette, a mulatto child whose white planter father adored and grants all the privileges of favorite child to. When he dies, the planter’s son sends Monette and other slaves from the plantation to the auction blocks of New Orleans, where she is bought by the owner of Fox Creek, as a playmate for his own daughter. She enjoys many of the Big House privileges she has become accustomed to, until the planter’s mother determines she’s become too “uppity.”

While the story is easy reading, it portrays the stereotypes and tropes the general public has come to assign to this period of American History. I found it to be dismissive of the diverse slave population, illustrating them all as unintelligent and fearful. It also portrayed women to be weak and not suited to “unladylike leanings” …anything other than motherhood. It felt like the kind of novels popular in the 1960’s where women and slaves were all portrayed as lustful animals. While the author is a good storyteller, I didn’t care for the story she told.

Fox Creek was published September 1, 2025, by Sly Fox Publishing, LLC. I appreciate the review copy provided by NetGalley and the publisher.

Beautiful Nights by Nina George

Beautiful Nights is the story of Claire, a middle aged, (if we still think the mid-forties are middle aged,) esteemed professor of human behavior in Paris. From the outside, Claire has success, a happy marriage, a grown son and a good life. Internally though, she is trapped, by expectations, achievements, status and the very things that are supposed to make her happy. She is aware of her husband’s many affairs, and her answer is not to confront him, but to lose her inhibitions in one-night stands where she doesn’t even know the name of her partner.

Her grandmother, Jeanne, has left a large vacation home on the coast of Breton to Claire, and as they have every year of her marriage, the family travels there for the summer holidays. The only difference is that this year, Claire’s son brings along his 19-year-old girlfriend, Julie, who he wants to marry.

Julie is another very well-developed character, trapped in a world of working menial jobs to get by when what she really wants is to sing, which she never does in public. Clair and Julie’s relationship is strained at first, but after Claire teaches Julie to swim, they recognize kindred spirits in one another and pursue a relationship that gives each of them the courage to seek her true happiness.

 

The writing is gorgeous, and it made me wish I spoke French so I could read it in the original. The sentiments of femininity and the place of women in the world reminded me of   1899 novel by Kate Chopin, The Awakening, condemned at first for its depiction of female sexuality. Both heroines want more… fulfillment, expression of their own opinions and desires in a male dominated world, and acceptance of their sexuality. While Edna, in The Awakening, walks into the sea and never returns, Claire swims so far out she might be expected to be lost, but using her own strength, returns, to claim what she desires. While Edna pursues men, Claire’s object is Julie. The development of their passion, and the differences between them create a sensitive story of the choices, given time, space, and freedom, maturity lets Claire, and women for that matter, develop healthy and balanced lives.

I loved the writing, particularly the descriptions and, as a swimmer, the sea. I found the story to drag a bit though, with repetition and changing viewpoints that detracted from its strength. I’d recommend this book for mature readers who are not disturbed or embarrassed by same sex relationships, and who can appreciate the confused thoughts of a woman in this age.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House/Ballantine for the review copy of Beautiful Nights. The book was published July 25, 2025.