Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Is it hot in here?

So, I started watching Sex/Life on Netflix and I actually bulldozed right through it. If you haven’t seen the show you may want to scroll past.

Sex/Life is about a woman who lives in the burbs with her hunky husband and their two kids in this beautiful house in Connecticut. Billie is the woman’s name who is the main character. So Billie gets bored with her life and hasn’t been having the sex life that she so craves. So she starts thinking about her steamy past.

Billie takes out her laptop and starts a journal about her past relationship with Brad. Gorgeous Australian Brad with the hot body. Anyway, she writes in her blog about all the sex they had. I mean SO much sex.

Billies husband finds her journal and starts reading it and actually gets him off. Their sex life starts to get better and she doesn’t understand why. Their is a part in the show where he is in the kitchen and he opens the blog and reads about an amazing sex scene and he takes out his member and gets off, right there in the kitchen. I’m like OMG this is almost too much for me, but damn that was hot.

In my personal life, my sex life isn’t all that glamorous, but I watched this show and I was more then ravished and I pounced on my husband. I applaud the show for giving me a good sex life again.

Sex/Life was basically like watching one of those back in the day Cinemax pornos lol that is what I took from it. I however, enjoyed it very much. The story was a little wonky but that’s okay. The sex made up for it.

Did any of you watch this show? Let me know what you think. I know the show had bad reviews and I believe the only good thing that might save the show is the sex.

What you might not know, is that this was a true story. A woman decided to write her fantasies and her past sex life in her journal and her husband read it. They were fine coming out of all this, but if my husband read something in my journal, I know for sure he would not be okay with it.

That’s it for now guys! I hope you have a rocking day!

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Book Review #14

The book I am reviewing is “The Great Alone” by Kristin Hannah. Let me just start off saying that it took me a long time to finish this book, only because I started it before the Pandemic. Once the pandemic started, I stopped reading it. However, once I went back to work, I finished it in a week.

I fell in love with the characters of this book. Ernt, Leni, and Cora Allbright. Ernt was the father, Cora was the mother, and Leni was the daughter. I technically fell in love with Leni and Cora, Ernt not so much (he was a bad guy).

SPOIL ALERT: DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN TO READ THE BOOK

The story goes, Leni was a teenage girl and her father was an alcoholic man. He came back from Vietnam a changed man. But Cora loved him anyway, no matter how much he abused her.

Ernt would get in depressing moods and just want to pick up and move. So, one day when Leni got home from school, he picked his family up and whisked them out to Alaska. He inherited a piece of land from a Vietnam buddy who passed away. The issue with this was that the land was in the middle of nowhere. It was off the grid, they would all have to survive on their own.

When they arrived, the place was in shambles, but they made it their home. They were welcomed by other people in town. They’re really was only a handful, maybe a little more. They welcomed them with open arms and Ernt appreciated that. He thought Alaska would help him get better, get rid of his demons. However, it made him worse. His wife Cora was an attractive woman, so when men would look at her, he would become enraged and go home and hit Cora, like it was her fault.

When Leni started going to school there, there was only one classmate her age and his name was Matthew. Now at this time they were about 14. They were just friends, they didn’t think of each other in that way. However, something changed between them when Matthew watched his mother die. She was sucked under the ice. Matthew was devastated by her loss, that he decided to move in with his grandparents in a different part of Alaska, and Leni was left on her own.

Four years later, things were becoming really severe with her parents, that she wanted to get out there. More rather she wanted her mom, Cora to leave her dad. He was becoming more and more abusive and drinking more. Around this time is when Matthew came back. When Leni saw him, something changed inside her. She had a burning passion for him. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, and he about her. One thing you have to understand is that Ernt hated Matthews family, so she was forbidden to see him or hangout with him. However, during their senior year, they would sneak out and take trips and have picnics and that’s where Leni was kissed for the first time. She was thrilled and she wanted more.

One night Leni’s parents went out and she knew they would be gone for hours, so she invited Matthew over to the house. They made love for the first time that night. Matthew woke up to the sound of people walking around down in Leni’s house. He woke her up and she had to get him out of the house. She dragged her folks out of the house and Matthew got away.

After that night, things would never be the same. Leni wanted to be with Matthew always, but she couldn’t, so her plan was to go to college with him. She would leave this life behind, away from her dad and go with him. Her and Cora decided they were going to leave him. They headed to town with Ernt, and Leni yelled to Matthew to help them. Ernt heard that and yelled for them to get into the car. They went back into the truck and headed back home, but Matthew followed. When Ernt and the family got into the house, that is when all hell broke loose. He started beating Cora with her fists, smashing her nose and her face. Matthew came and pulled him off her and knocked him out. Cora and Leni went into Matthews truck.

They headed into town and Cora was dropped off at a really close friends house. Matthew took Leni up a mountain so they could escape her father. They set up a tent and woke up to each other. Leni was happy, but she needed her mom. She wanted to make sure she was okay. She needed to go, so Matthew decided to take her back. On the way down it started raining, and Leni lost track of Matthew and she fell into a crevice of the earth. She woke up with a broken arm and she couldn’t catch her breath. She broke some of her ribs. Matthew came after her and tried to save her life, but instead, it cost him a huge price. He fell and was in bad shape. He had a brain injury and he couldn’t walk.

A few hours, they were found and transported by hospital. Leni got patched up and was sent home. Matthew however, was in a coma. They weren’t sure if he would ever wake up.

When Cora and Leni arrived home, her dad was waiting for them. Cora didn’t press charges like she promised she would. Instead he went after them, but Leni told them she was pregnant and he started to beat the hell out of her. That is when Cora, took a shot gun and shot him! Not once, but twice. They had to hide the body, because this took place in the 70’s where it didn’t matter that men hit women. She would go to jail.

They hid the body and came back to the cabin, Cora’s close friends cleaned up and made up a fake story, saying that they were missing. Leni and Cora had to leave Alaska and went to Seattle, where Cora’s parents lived. They stayed there for 7 or 8 years. Cora became sick with Cancer, and gave Leni a confession letter and to go back home to Alaska with Leni’s son MJ. She told her she belonged there with Matthew, although she still thought he was a vegetable. That was her last wishes. She died and did what she was told. Her mom left her two one way tickets to Alaska.

Once they arrived, Leni did what she was told. She went to the police station and handed the envelope from her mom. The chief read it and coaxed her into telling him what really happened. She eventually told him what really happened and he arrested her. She told him to call Mr. Walker (Matthew’s dad) to come down. Mr. Walked came and saw Leni and she introduced him to his grandson. She told him to take care of him and left.

An arraignment was supposed to happen, but Cora’s friend came in and told the judge (who was friends with this woman) that it was a load of crap. All of a sudden there was a phone call from the governor and the case had been dropped. Thanks to Mr. Walker. In case you didn’t know, Mr. Walker is a big deal in Alaska, so he had a lot of strings.

Leni reunited with her son back on the Walker ranch. She wanted to see Matthew, but she was afraid. Mr. Walker took her to see him and when the door opened, she saw that he was conscious and aware. He was in a wheelchair and still had some damage to his head, but he was mostly aware of what was going on. He spoke in phrases. She was so happy he was back. She told him that he was a father. They walked hand in hand, (yes he could walk as well) and she took him to meet their son. He fell in love with him, as soon as he saw him. MJ yelled out daddy, and they became a family in Alaska.

This story actually had me crying. I never cry in books, like ever. But this one, I really couldn’t help myself. I give this story 4.5 stars. I would have given it 5, but it was a little slow in some parts. Especially toward the end. I kept waiting and waiting for the climax.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 12

I am reviewing the book Watch Me Disappear, by Janelle Brown.

I gave this book book 3 stars out of 4. It was a little hard to get into this book. It wasn’t until the end that I really started to get into it. Therefore, it took me months to finish.

SPOIL ALERT

This book is about Billie Flanagan, a wild child, but she was a woman. She was witty, fun, open, wild, wasn’t afraid of anything. She was married to her husband Johnathan and had a daughter Olive.

Billie has what seems like a life crisis, and starts to ponder her life. She was a free spirit, didn’t really like to be tied down, until she met her husband. However after many years, that didn’t last.

Billie goes off for a hike, leaving her husband and daughter at home. A few days go by and she never came home. Johnathan and Olive start to worry and they send a search party. The search party finds Billies shoe and she is presumed dead.

After a year goes by, Olive starts to have visions of her. She thinks she’s trying to tell her. She gives her clues and Olive tries and finds her. She’s convinced she is alive somewhere. She tells her father, but he dismisses her.

Johnathan feels like he’s going through a midlife crisis. He quits his job, and writes a memoir about his beloved wife. He finds himself however, finding clues and things hidden from him, like the fact that Billie had a daughter, from a previous marriage, that she neglected to tell him. He starts up a relationship with Billies best friend Harmony, and his daughter is skipping school and avoiding him all together. He feels like nothing is going right for him, until he comes across Billies laptop.

Johnathan can’t get into his wife’s computer, so he hands it off to his friend to crack the password. He hired a private investigator, because Johnathan realized a lot of money is taken from him.

Johnathan finds out an address of someone that was Billies computer of a man, or he thought was a man. He also found a letter that Billie wrote. It seemed to be intimate in his eyes. He thought she left him and Olive for another man. He hid the computer and didn’t want to see it anymore. He thought if she wanted to disappear and be with that man then let her.

Olive finds the laptop, and retrieves the address. She leaves school and takes a drive. When she pulls up to this address of Ryan, she knocks on the door and to her surprise she sees her mother looking back at her, except it wasn’t really her mother. It was Billies daughter.

When Jonathan found out that Olive skipped school, he knew that Olive found the laptop and went to that address. He pulled up, knocked on the door and there she was. A younger version of his wife.

Billie did hike up to the mountains, but she knew her life was over with Johnathan and Olive. She faked her own death by throwing a shoe into a rock, thinking she got stuck.

She hired a private investigator to get a new passport and to change her name. She left and started anew in Denmark.

I did like this book, but sometimes I think, she was really selfish. She just left her daughter and husband. She didn’t tell them about her other daughter. She kept so many things from them. She felt like she just needed to start over. That to me is a shitty mother, and really selfish. But hey, it’s fiction right haha it’s different then my other reads.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 11

I’m very excited to review this next book. It’s called Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen. I gave this book five stars. It was amazing!

Here comes the spoilers in case you want to read this book yourself.

WARNING: SPOILERS

Garden Spells is about the Waverly family. Claire and Sydney. They are sisters that are the complete opposite. Sydney was a wild child while Claire was a homebody, who did right by everyone.

The Waverly’s were highly popular in their cozy North Carolina town. They were popular and well known because they were something magical. They knew things and things would happen when they were around. They weren’t per say witches, but there was something to them. The townspeople didn’t really care for them because they were different. Claire however, always tried to make people like her. She was a caterer and made wonderful meals that everyone loved. She tried to please everyone.

There was Evanelle, an Aunt from what I gathered who also lived in town. She had the power of giving things to people when they need them. A lot of people in town were afraid of her because you never know what she could give you. It was like something called to her and she needed to give it you right away. It could be in the middle of the night and she would have to get it to you.

Sydney ran away from her home where she was living with her daughter Bay and her boyfriend David. David was a bad man. He would beat Sydney within inches of her life, so she and Bay decided to move away from there and back home with Claire, who hadn’t seen her in years. They didn’t always get a long and didn’t see eye to eye.

So when Sydney showed up out of nowhere with a daughter who is five years old, Claire was shocked. She didn’t know what to think about all of this. Sydney wouldn’t tell her anything about the life she was living.

As time passed, the girls became closer. A man named Tyler lived next door to them and Claire had a thing for him, but it was more like he had one for her. You see there was an apple tree that was planted in the Waverly’s backyard. It had a mind of it’s own. It would throw apples and it would spread it’s branches out. It liked the attention. It was magic. It was said that if you ate one of those apples, you would see the one thing you were destined for. It would be either horribly devastating or wonderful.

Tyler ate one of those apples and he saw something that he never imagined. He saw Claire. She pushed him away as much as she could, she didn’t want love or to get hurt. However, there was something about him that drew her in.

Sydney spent a lot of time with Tyler because they were becoming great friends. They would tell each other everything and he would talk about Claire all the time.

Claire would make her infamous magical food to wean people away from her, but it didn’t work on Tyler. She couldn’t stay away from him any longer.

Sydney found Henry, a boy she knew since grade school. She just wanted to be friends with him, but Henry didn’t want that and it took him a good chunk of the book to tell her. At the end, she realized that she loved him. She kissed him to be sure, and it was pure electric. There was one thing though, there was David. The ex.

David pops in at the end of the story during a party that Claire and Sydney are throwing. He carries a gun with him and he shoots Henry in the shoulder. Bay hid away from David, she didn’t want anything to do with him. The tree threw an apple at him, thinking it came from Bay and he ate it. What he saw a few seconds later changed everything. He dropped the gun and he fled.

In the end David gets caught and goes to prison. They believe he saw his death in jail. Henry and Sydney spoke about marriage and Bay became incredibly happy. Claire and Tyler end up together with a baby and an engagement.

They all lived happily ever after.

That was my review of Garden Spells. I know what I wrote didn’t do the book justice but it’s only a tad of what this book is about. If I had to compare it to anything, it reminded me of Practical Magic.

 

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 10

 

loreen

 

For this review I’m doing it on the book Loreen On The Lam: A Tennessee Mystery, by Marielena Zuniga. I gave this book three stars. The story was pretty good, but the way it was written was not.

*SPOIL ALERT*

The story starts out with Loreen, a woman in her young twenties, from what I gathered,  breaking out of prison. She meets up with a man that she was supposedly “sleeping with” at his garage and she steals Josh Montgomery’s tour bus.

Loreen breaks out of jail, because she receives a letter from her mama, telling her that she is dying and she doesn’t have much time left.

Loreen takes the bus and drives as fast as she could to her mama, but along the way she meets Tilly. Tilly is on the side of the ride crying and she needs a ride, to get rid of her abusive cop husband. Loreen now takes on the responsibility of this woman. They go on their way, when they meet a mute bible salesman, Splat. However, it turns out Splat isn’t who he said he was. He was a murderer and was on the way to murder Josh Montgomery. What a coincidence.

There are two parts of the story: one is Loreens, and the other takes place in the 80’s and has something to do with her grandfather Mac. Mac robbed a bank with some other people and hid the money and jewels in a cave back in the 80’s. These bad people were trying to look for this treasure, but Mac wouldn’t give it up and tell them where it was. They even threatened to hurt Loreen, when she was a little girl, but Mac still wouldn’t budge.

Meanwhile, Loreen was a woman who broke out of jail, and brought along two other people, now ran into a nun who was broke down in the middle of night. Loreen went out to get her, but Splat turned the gun on her and the nun. Loreen knew he was trouble. Splat made the nun get on the bus.

Throughout the story, all Loreen is trying to do is get home to her dying mama. Obstacles keep on getting in her way.

When Loreen finally makes it home to her destination, she goes to her mama and she is pretty much gone. She tells her that she loves her and apologizes for the daughter that she has become. She kisses her one last time. Her mama’s caregiver gives her a letter containing information where the money and jewels were. Mac wrote it back in the 80’s when he thought he would disappear, because of all the threats made against him. He was presumed dead, and was never seen again.

Loreen was on her way to the cave when Splat went after her with a twist Josh Montgomery, they were heading to kill Josh Montgomery’s wife. They were going to pin it on Loreen. However, when they got there, his wife wasn’t dumb and nailed Splat. His wife listened to Loreen’s story. She was her get out of jail free card.

The end of the story, Splat and Josh Montgomery go to jail for trying to kill his wife. Tilly and the nun are free from the chaos that happened. Loreen finds the money and jewels and returns them. Josh’s wife, gets Loreen off so she doesn’t have to do any time. The biggest shock for me in this story, was that Mac was indeed alive, but dying with the same thing her mama had.

I only gave this story three stars because of the way the book was written. The grammar and spelling were a mess. The story however, was good. Sometimes though, it took a while to get through. Some of the parts were boring. It took me months to get through it.

Have a great weekend!

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 9

 

fifty shades

 

my newest review is about the book Grey by E L James. This book is in Christian Grey’s point of view. I did read the Fifty Shade’s books when they first came out and I did enjoy them. However, as I became a writer, I noticed that I didn’t really care for them as much.

When I read Grey, I struggled to get through it. I just wasn’t into it, but I am not one of those people that can toss a book by the way side, so I reluctantly finished it. I am giving this book three stars. It did not hold my interest and it took me a really long time to finish it, although it was a pretty fast read. I found myself over it and over all the sexual escapades that was going on.

*SPOIL ALERT*

The story goes if you don’t know it already. Christian Grey, a wealthy man in his twenties who owns his own huge corporation meets Anastasia Steele, a twenty something college student.

Christian is all about finding a submission for his sexual lifestyle to succumb to his every need. However, when he meets Ana all bets are off. He finds himself having feelings for her, feelings that he’s not used to. He can’t stay away from her and he wants her all to himself.

That’s basically the gist of it. the story line was pretty good, but the writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 8

For this book review I decided to review What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty. I gave this book a five-star rating. I absolutely loved this book and I thought it was an amazing concept of a story. I’m actually jealous that I didn’t think of this when I was writing.

WARNING: Spoil Alert

Alice Love is a twenty-nine year old woman, happily married to her husband Nick and expecting their first child together. Or so she thought!

Alice woke up on the gym floor not knowing where she was. Her spin class friends tell her that she had fainted. She hit her head so hard that she’s forgotten the last ten years of her life. She thought she was still pregnant with her first child and married to her husband. When in actuality, she had three children and now she is separated from the love of her life.

Alice is rushed to the hospital not knowing what is happening. Nobody looks familiar to her, but yet everyone knows her. They call her sister Elisabeth and she doesn’t rush to her side. She calls Nick, but he screams at her. She feels lost and confused. Supposedly all of her relationships crumbled.

Eventually Elisabeth comes to the hospital and Alice realizes that her sister doesn’t seem the same. She’s older, stiff, and cold towards her. They used to have such a wonderful relationship. Elisabeth is flabbergasted by her memory loss. She thought she was faking it, but soon realizes that she is not.

Her mother Barb comes to the hospital and finds out that she was married to Roger, which is Nick’s father. They proceed to tell her that she has three children and Alice is about to lose her mind. She still thinks it’s 2008 and pregnant with her first child.

The doctors send her home, figuring she will regain her memory any day. Her kids are with Nick for the weekend, so Alice doesn’t have to worry about them yet. She’s noticing little flashes here and there of memories, but has no idea what they are or if they are even real. Her sister tries to fill in blanks for her, but has no idea of anything. She’s supposedly dating someone named Dominick, that’s the principal of her kids school. She’s so confused and just wants Nick back. She asks everyone where they went wrong, but nobody can tell her why.

When the weekend came to an end, she anxiously waited for her kids, whom she doesn’t remember and her Nick. She goes outside to greet them and she’s stunned to find out how much they are just like her and Nick with a mix of their own personalities. When she sees Nick, she wants to run to him, but he doesn’t want anything to do with her. They make small talk and he realized that she still has no memory. He’s concerned and asks if he should take the kids and she said no.

As the week unfolds she finds out many interesting things. She had a best friend Gina, who lived next door. They were supposedly inseparable. It turns out that Gina was killed in a freak accident, when a tree landed on her car at a stop sign. Alice and her daughter Madison witnessed the whole thing because they were following her from the gym.

She finds out that Gina’s husband Mike, was caught kissing another woman and that destroyed their marriage, which in turn destroyed Alice and Nick’s marriage.

With Alice losing her memory, she convinces Nick to give her a shot and she tries to break it off with Dominick. She just wants her life back to the way it once was. She discovered in a span of a week, how much she loves her kids and is willing to do anything for them. Supposedly the old Alice was somewhat a cold hearted bitch. Now she has this fresh attitude that everyone likes. They wonder and she wonders if her memory will ever come back.

Alice organized this event that featured the world’s largest lemon meringue pie. It was supposedly Gina’s favorite pie and Alice did this event in honor of her. She convinced a bunch of mother’s and businesses to get together  to help her with this process. Their was a band there set to play all Elvis songs, which Gina loved. All of a sudden Alice felt weird, she was weak in the knees, and she was about to pass out. Nick and Dominick came to her aid for they could see something was wrong. As she laid there for a brief moment, she remembered. She remembered EVERYTHING. All the memories came back to her like a flood. Pouring into her. Her kids being born, her best friend Gina, her and Nick’s marriage, and Dominick. She looked at Nick and Dominick and she flinched. Nick knew she regained her memory and walked away.

Flash forward a few years. It turned out that Alice ended up with Nick after all. I was shocked and I was relieved. I thought the ending of this story was great and I was rooting for their relationship to work out. They surprised her with breakfast in bed and she was happy as can be. The knock on her head was a curse but it turned out to be a blessing.

Also a side note that I didn’t really mention. Her sister Elisabeth and her husband were trying to get pregnant for years and did IVF and every time it failed. They were older and Elisabeth was tired of trying. She and her husband were constantly fighting now and it was starting to ruin their marriage. They decided to stop the treatments, but they had to do their last round first. Elisabeth received the news that she was pregnant. She was devastated, figuring she was going to lose this baby as well.

She didn’t! She ended up having a daughter. Alice and her sister became really close again, as they once were ten years prior.

I loved this story, I really praise the author!

 

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 7

dark matter

 

This week my review is the novel Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. When I first started reading this book, it got my attention. Some books are hard for me to get into, but not this book. Very good and very different.

#Spoil Alert

This book follows Jason Dessen, a physicist teacher at a college. He has the perfect life: a wife, a son, a warm house to come home to in Chicago, IL. What he doesn’t know, is that everything is about to change. His wife Daniella convinces him to go out to a bar to have a drink with his friend Ryan. On his way home, he decides to take a different way and grab some ice cream so he can enjoy it with his family. Suddenly someone approaches him with a gun in the shadows. He doesn’t see his face. He tells Jason to get into his car and drive to an abandoned warehouse. When they get there, Jason is beside himself. He doesn’t understand what this guy wants. He starts to beg and plead for his life. The other guy then tells him to take off all his clothes and walk down a dark hallway. Jason does as he is told. They arrive at a dark area and the guy tells him to put on some clothes and then injects him with a serum.

Jason falls asleep and when he wakes up, he doesn’t know where he’s at. He’s in a building that looks like a scientists wet dream. A man runs over to him, excitedly. He kept saying ‘oh my god it worked!’ Jason had no idea where he was and who this guy was. He asks Jason all kinds of questions about this portal, and Jason is confused.

He comes to realize that this other person that kidnapped him, was his other self. On the opposite vortex there was another Jason, who did all he dreamed of. But he made this portal that can transport you into another parallel universe. The other Jason was home with his wife and son and this Jason was here at the lab, confused.

Jason decides to go back into this portal with syringes that contain a solution that will help him crossover. When he goes back in, it’s a long dark hallway. He continues walking and sees dozens of doors. He doesn’t know yet what the purpose is of these doors, so he keeps on walking. Eventually he walks through one of the doors, he’s trying to get back to his home. As he goes through the door, his world is completely different. His house has changed, and things are different even with his wife and son. He doesn’t understand what has happened and why things have changed.

The whole book is Jason going through various worlds to find HIS world. He’s tired, upset, lonely, and he misses his family.

#Warning: Don’t read if you don’t want to know the ending

By the end of the book, Jason has one ampule left to take. He figured out a formula to finally get back to his world. He outsmarts the hundreds of other Jason’s that have arrived (Which I still don’t know how that happened). He gets Daniella to believe that he his the real Jason and she believes him. They go to a cabin in Wisconsin I believe and take shelter to figure out to get rid of the Jason impostors.

At the end Jason takes the last ampule with his wife and son. Jason told his son to conjure up something beautiful in his mind and then they would walk through a door.

I gave this book four stars, only because some things I were confused about. If you like science fiction, you should read this book. It really makes you think!

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author

Review # 6

51H9jlSL4XL._SX333_BO1,204,203,200_

 

I’m doing my sixth review on the book The Widow’s House by Carol Goodman. All I have to say is wow. I give this book 5 stars. I was kind of skeptical about reading this book because I never heard of the author. She was a bestselling author however, so I gave her a chance. I’m really glad I did, because I loved this book.

So if you’re reading my blog and how I usually do my reviews I always reveal the book and the ending, so if you don’t want to know how the story ends don’t read my blog 🙂 Anyway let’s get started.

Okay so this book is about Clare and Jess Martin. They are a married couple from New York. Jess was a bestselling author and trying to work on his second novel, but he lost his inspiration so him and his wife Clare move to Clare’s old neighborhood of Concord. They decide to be caretakers to a wealthy old man who was also Clare and Jess’s professor in college.

Katrine, the realtor tells them that this was the perfect place to get inspiration. They see the cottage and they think it is perfect. It was a huge property with a side suite down the hill from where Mr. Montague was staying (who they’re taking care of). They were to stay in this small cottage and help restore the mansion for Mr. Montague. He wanted to make sure it was in working condition if and when he passed away.

So they move into the cottage and the first night there, Clare hears sounds. It sounded like a baby crying outside the cottage. She wakes up and goes outside, but doesn’t see a baby but actually a shadowy figure in the fog of the pond. Clare tries to run to the figure but it vanishes.

Clare heads back to the cottage where Jess is still sleeping. She doesn’t want Jess to think she is crazy. She did have a breakdown in the past because of having a miscarriage.

So the story is basically about Clare getting haunted at this house. She hears babies crying, sees shadowy figures, hears and bells ringing in the middle of the night. She thinks she’s gong crazy, but she is also writing a novel that maybe caused these hallucinations. She was inspired by Monty. She decided to dig up who she really was. She was adopted as a young baby, and never found out who her real parents were. She heard the rumors of the Apple Blossom Girl and Monty’s father Bayard. His father had an affair with this young girl while married to Minnie and she got pregnant. Both actually got pregnant at the same time.

Minnie found out about the young girl, but didn’t do anything about it. When the young girl had her baby she gave her baby to her sister and she gave it to Bayard, but he didn’t want the baby and he gave it to the maid. The young girl, whose name was Mary Foley, drowned in the frozen pond the night she had the baby. The rumor was that she was haunting the estate ever since. Minnie went crazy because she thought her baby was killed and her baby was swapped with Mary’s baby.

So with that said, now you get the gist of what the story is about. Clare finds out that she is Monty’s daughter with a previous student of Monty’s. She tells Monty and he is happy. The thing is though, is that strange things kept on happening. Clare seemed to be going crazy. The way the author captivated her character, made her seem like she was a little off the hinges.

As the story comes to a close, Clare realizes that Jess and Katrine were conspiring against her. She finds out that Jess and Katrine actually dated in the past. Since Monty found out that Clare was his daughter, he wrote her into his will to own the house called River House, but called Riven House because of all the hauntings. Jess and Clare’s marriage was not perfect at all, in fact it was bad. Really bad. So Jess and Katrine arranged to inherit money from Clare, by trying to kill her in a way that looked like accident.

Okay so this story is strange, the ending got me a little confused. So Clare thought this whole time that Katrine and Jess were conspiring against her, however, I don’t think that was the case at all. Jess was actually proud of his wife for writing such an amazing novel and Katrine was actually trying to get Jess and Clare to live in Clare’s old childhood home to get away from River House because she was losing her shit. Clare had this illusion that Katrine was actually the ghost of River House, trying to make her crazy. She was dead wrong.

CLIMAX!!

Clare saw Jess and Katrine go into Clare’s old home and spend a good hour in there. Clare sat there waiting for them to come out, but hid. Clare left upset, because she thought he was cheating on her and took off like a bat out of hell. She crashed her car and it flipped. It was freezing rain outside and Clare was inches from freezing to death, but she was able to get out of there. She raced back to the house on foot to tell Monty about Jess and Katrine’s plan to kill her. When she reached the house, she went into Monty’s room but he wasn’t there, but saw the pages of her manuscript on his desk. He was using her work to write his own novel. He saw her and he freaked out, he thought she was the ghost of the house and had a heart attack, and died. Clare confronted Jess about having the affair and Jess laughed it off. Clare got upset and the power went out. She grabbed a gun from Monty’s room and tried to leave the room, but Jess was holding her back. A tree flew into the window from the ice storm that was taking place outside. Clare was able to get free. She left the room but Katrine and Jess were able to get to her. She shot and killed Katrine. She ran away from Jess and he went into the pond and drown, but she did try and save him. She saw a ghost however, drag him down into the blackness.

So now you can choose what to believe. Was it really haunted or were Jess and Katrine conspiring with each other to kill Clare so they could inherit the house and the money?

I rate this story very high. I do love a good haunting/ghost story.

M.

Posted on by Melissa Rose Bushey: Author · 2 Comments

Review # 5

Today my review is going to be about the book Crow Lake by Mary Lawson. Out of 5 stars I give this book 3 and a half stars.

When I first started reading this book I struggled with it. I don’t really read a story like this, but I gave it a chance.

#WARNING SPOIL ALERT

So this book is basically about a woman named Katie who is the main character and is telling the story about her childhood. It takes place in a farmland in Toronto, Canada I believe.

She reminisces about her life as a young girl, like 7 or so and the devastation that her, her two older brothers, and younger sister went through with the loss of their parents. Luke and Matt are her older brothers and Bo is her younger sister.

Katie loves Matt the most to me in the story. She clings to every word he says and wants to be with him 24/7. Katie appears to be afraid of Luke and annoyed by Bo.

Eventually Katie grows up and she works at a university and does something with organisms and microscopes haha. She chose this because her brother Matt was interested in this and he ended up staying in Crow Lake because of an unfortunate incident that happened with him and a girl.

Anyway the story continues with Katie as a grown woman dating a man who she’s not so sure about. She gets an invitation from Matt about his sons birthday party. This issue is, is that she’s not sure if she should bring this man with her because she’s not 100 percent about how she feels about him.

Long story short, this man finds the invitation and now she has no choice but to invite him and he says yes. Katie is the type of character that holds everything in. She never told him about her family really or her upbringing, so she’s afraid to bring him. She does anyway and it actually works out. Him and Matt get a long at the end of the story and Katie finds herself happy to be back in the company of Matt and her other siblings.

Throughout the whole story Katie seemed ashamed by her family because she never spoke about them, but deep down she loved them very much.

I did enjoy this story, but it was very different then what I’m used to reading. If you check it out enjoy and keep me in mind.

Also I wanted to point out that I’m now part of a publishing company called Zimbell House. Click Here to see me and my interview 😁