Throwback Thursday – The Second Captive by Maggie James

 

 

Throwback Thursday is a meme created by Renee at It’s Book Talk to share old favorite books rather than just the new shiny ones. This is a great idea to bring back to life some much-loved books. Please feel free to join in.

My choice for this week is:   The Second Captive by Maggie James

Published November 24th 2014 by Orelia Publishing

 

Goodreads Description:

Stockholm syndrome: the psychological tendency of a hostage to bond with his or her captor.

Beth Sutton is eighteen years old when Dominic Perdue abducts her. Held prisoner in a basement, she’s dependent upon him for food, clothes, her very existence. As the months pass, her hatred for him changes to compassion. Beth never allows herself to forget, however, that her captor has killed another woman. She has evidence to prove it, not to mention Dominic’s own admission of murder.

Then Beth escapes…

And discovers Dominic Perdue is not a man who let’s go easily. Meanwhile, despite being reunited with her family, she spirals into self-destructive behaviour. Release from her prison isn’t enough, it seems. Can Beth also break free from the clutches of Stockholm syndrome?

A study of emotional dependency, The Second Captive examines how love can assume strange guises.

 

My thoughts:

Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological tendency in which hostages express empathy, sympathy,  and can have positive feelings toward their captors. At times the “love” they feel can even lead to them defending their captor.

I’ve always been interested in Stockholm syndrome. We see it mentioned often in cases of kidnappings. However, it can also be present in any type of abusive relationship and even used to describe an animal who stays with an abusive owner.

The Second Captive is a psychological suspense story about Beth Sutton. Beth was kidnapped and kept captive for two years. We learn a lot about what happened to her in the two years she was kept captive, as well as how she copes after she escapes.

I read this book in a just a few sittings. The characters were all well-developed. The plot was great, very exciting and intense. I found the alternating points of view easy to follow. I enjoyed knowing what was going on in the minds of all of the characters during Beth’s time in captivity as well as present day – two years later.  I was gripped wondering what was going to happen next.  In the end, I was extremely satisfied with how it all came together. It was very apparent that the author did a lot of research on Stockholm Syndrome. 

A great psychological thriller from Maggie James that I highly recommend.

Review/Unboxing – Once Upon a Book Club (July box)

I am thrilled to be reviewing Once Upon a Book Club’s July adult box!

I have not yet subscribed to a subscription box so when the opportunity to review this box came up I was pretty excited.

Adding a different element to reading!

Readers have a choice of Adult or Young Adult Book Club Boxes. Each box includes 1 novel (either paperback or hardback), a quote art print, and 3 – 5 items that correspond with a quote or item mentioned in the book. Each item included is wrapped and labeled with a different page number to let the reader know that they shouldn’t open up the item until they reach that specific page.

I loved the entire presentation. The purple box that contained everything had a great design. The individual gifts were lovely and all were wrapped with care.

The Goodies!!! For the full experience it is recommended that the reader doesn’t open any of the gifts until they have reached the page number that corresponds with the number on each gift!

Book Club discussion questions and dates and a 5″ by 7″ quote print

Each box has discussion questions and beside each question is a date. Members can log onto the Once Upon a Book Club Instagram page and have discussions with other members of the Book Club community.

 

And the book…….

The Saturday Evening Girls Club by Jane Healey (book reviewed in previous post)

A wonderful story of a beautiful bond between four immigrant women in the 1920s.

 

Gifts one and two:

a 1900’s style yellow turban hat that Caprice wore – So Cute! My daughter looked so pretty in it!

Wooden spoon with etched with “The Saturday Evening Girls Club” – I could use this but I kind of want to save it.

 

 

Gifts three and four:

Beautiful message inside an envelope with a butterfly.

A lovely and unique, three-tier wind-chime.

 

 

And last but certainly not least….

Gift five:

A pretty yellow with white polka dots tote bag similar to what the character Maria carried. (My daughter seems to have snagged this already).

 

I really enjoyed reading “The Saturday Night Girls Club“. The experience of reading and opening my gifts was a lot of fun!  Although I was tempted to open all of the gifts at once, I really do think that waiting until I got to the corresponding page made this so much more exciting. Before I would open my gift I would scan the page to see if I could guess what my gift was going to be. The gifts were well made with good quality.

Once Upon A Book Club has come up with a very unique and special way to read a book! I know quite a few people who would love to receive a subscription or one of these boxes as a gift.

Boxes can be purchased on a month to month basis or a three, six , or twelve month subscription.

For more information or to subscribe click here.

Be sure to check out Once Upon a Book Club’s instagram and facebook page too!

 

Review: The Saturday Evening Girls Club by Jane Healey

Although I don’t read a lot of historical fiction, I’ve realized that when I have had the opportunity to read a historical novel, I always seem to end up enjoying it. This is what happened with “The Saturday Evening Girls Club”.

“The Saturday Evening Girls Club” came with my ONCE UPON A BOOK CLUB Box (to be reviewed next on my blog). It’s a story about four young immigrant women living in Boston’s North End in the early 1900s.

The book opens on a beautiful autumn morning in 1908. Twenty year old Caprice is wondering if this was the same type of day that greeted her parents when they came to Boston from Italy twenty-four years earlier. They had come to America dreaming of a better life than they could have ever had back in Sicily.

Caprice’s parents want her to get married to a nice Italian man and have a family, but Caprice wants more. Working as a hat trimmer at Madame Dupont’s Millinery has made her realize just how much more she wants. Her big dream is of opening her own hat shop, “Caprice’s Millinery” where she’ll make affordable hats for women in her own neighborhood. But it will take a lot for this dream to come to fruition.

It has been a terrible day at work but Caprice is thankful that it’s Saturday. Saturday means the weekly Saturday Evening Girls (S.E.G) meeting. Caprice has been attending these meetings since she was thirteen years old. They have educational speakers, discuss literature, put on plays, and listen to music among other things. But the best part of the S.E.G club is spending time with her best friends Ada, Maria, and Thea who are also members of the group. The meetings take place in the basement of a pottery shop. The club really helps the girls. During the time they spend together, they are often able to help each other work out some of the issues they may be having in their lives.

Caprice’s father is continually inviting eligible (or who HE thinks are eligible) bachelors over to meet Caprice. He feels this is the year she needs to be married. Caprice wants no part of an arranged marriage, but has kept these feelings to herself. Her friend, Thea is very shy. Thea comes from a Jewish family that barely acknowledges her existence. Ada is very intelligent and is hiding the fact that she’s taking college classes from her Russian Jewish father. And then we have, Maria who wants a better life for herself than the one her broken down Italian Catholic mother has with her alcoholic father. What will she do to escape that life?

Though the story is a bit of a slow burner, I enjoyed the descriptions of Boston in the early 1900’s. The apartment building in the North End where Caprice and Maria both lived with their families, where doors were always open, and everyone knew everyone’s business. Sunday dinners with aunts, uncles and cousins. Even the men invited to come for desert were pretty entertaining.

We see how the women each deal with their individual issues. Will they achieve their dreams? Or will circumstances, their families, and/or cultural prejudice keep them from realizing their full potential and finding true happiness.

I really enjoyed reading about these women and the tight bond they had. No matter the time, a good set of supportive friends will always be priceless. I liked their personalities and I became invested in their lives. These women were always there for each other.

I thought “The Saturday Evening Girls Club” was an interesting historical fiction novel. I found it very interesting that the novel and many of its characters were based on real people and a real club. The real “Saturday Evening Girls Club” started as a book club in Boston in 1899 and S.E.G Club Pottery or Paul Revere Pottery is now quite valuable and highly collectible. The club grew to include other days of the week for different ages of girls and grew to have over 250 members. An interesting part of history.

Thank you to Once Upon a Book Club for providing a copy of this book for me to read in exchange for my honest review.

Teaser Tuesday August 29, 2017

 

Welcome to Teaser Tuesday, the weekly Meme that is hosted by The Purple Booker.  It is very easy to play along:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 

Here are my “teaser” sentences:

 

She should be counting her blessings, like her strawberry daughters at her beautiful lake house, for example. She should be thankful for everything she has, everything I’ve provided, not missing something, someone who never existed.

 

 

And the book is……

 

Best Day Ever by Kaira Rouda

Published September 7th 2017 by HQ

 

Goodreads Description:

I glance at my wife as she climbs into the passenger seat, and I am bursting with confidence. Today will be everything I’ve promised her…and more…

Paul Strom has the perfect life: a glittering career as an advertising executive, a beautiful wife, two healthy boys and a big house in a wealthy suburb. And he’s the perfect husband: breadwinner, protector, provider. That’s why he’s planned a romantic weekend for his wife, Mia, at their lake house, just the two of them. And he’s promised today will be the best day ever.

But as Paul and Mia drive out of the city and toward the countryside, a spike of tension begins to wedge itself between them and doubts start to arise. How much do they trust each other? And how perfect is their marriage, or any marriage, really?

Forcing us to ask ourselves just how well we know those who are closest to us, Best Day Ever crackles with dark energy, spinning ever tighter toward its shocking conclusion. In the bestselling, page-turning vein of The Couple Next Door and The Dinner, Kaira Rouda weaves a gripping, tautly suspenseful tale of deception and betrayal dark enough to destroy a marriage…or a life.

 

I’ve only just started this book, but so far I’m intrigued!!

I can’t wait to read more!!