Review: Stories We Never Told by Sonja Yoerg

Psychology professor Jackie Strelitz thought she was over her ex-lover and colleague, Harlan Crispin. Why should she care if Harlan springs a new “friend” on her? After all, Jackie has everything she ever wanted: a loving husband and a thriving career. Still, she can’t help but be curious about Harlan’s latest.

Nasira Amari is graceful, smart, and young. Worse, she’s the new member of Jackie’s research team. For five years, Harlan enforced rules limiting his relationship with Jackie. With Nasira he’s breaking every single one. Why her?

Fixated by the couple, Jackie’s curiosity becomes an obsession. But she soon learns that nothing is quite what it seems, and that to her surprise—and peril—she may not be the only one who can’t let go. 

Kindle Edition, 328 pages

Published May 1st, 2020 

 by Lake Union 
3.5/5

 This is my second book by Sonja Yoerg. All the Best People was published 3 years ago and I loved it. It was women’s fiction at its finest.

Stories We Never Told is a slow burn psychological suspense. Most of the story is told through Jackie’s pov. A professor of high standings she is soon drawn into a web of mystery, suspicious that threatens not just her mental health but her job as well.

Even though I didn't really connect with the different characters the author kept my attention, she drew me in as I tried to figure out what was going on.

Stories We Never Told is a story of obsession, secrets (oh the secrets), and relationships.

My thanks to the publisher, Lake Union Publishing and Tall Poppy Writers (via Netgalley) for a digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

Review: All the Best People by Sonja Yoerg

An intricately crafted story of madness, magic and misfortune across three generations from the author of The Middle of Somewhere and House Broken...

 Vermont, 1972. Carole LaPorte has a satisfying, ordinary life. She cares for her children, balances the books for the family’s auto shop and laughs when her husband slow dances her across the kitchen floor. Her tragic childhood might have happened to someone else.

 But now her mind is playing tricks on her. The accounts won’t reconcile and the murmuring she hears isn’t the television. She ought to seek help, but she’s terrified of being locked away in a mental hospital like her mother, Solange. So Carole hides her symptoms, withdraws from her family and unwittingly sets her eleven-year-old daughter Alison on a desperate search for meaning and power: in Tarot cards, in omens from a nearby river and in a mysterious blue glass box belonging to her grandmother.

 An exploration of the power of courage and love to overcome a damning legacy, All the Best People celebrates the search for identity and grace in the most ordinary lives.

 Paperback, 368 pages

 Expected publication: May 2nd 2017 

by Berkley Books

*****

I know this is not the way to start a book review, but I have one pet peeve in regards to getting ARC copies and that is when it comes as a PDF, usually I am able read on my Kindle but a PDF means I would have to read on my iPad and I don't like doing that. My iPad is a regular sized one so it is larger than my Kindle and I just love my Kindle. Why am I saying this? Basically once I started reading All the Best People I didn't even realize where I was reading it, I was so absorbed in the story that my dislike for this reading app totally vanished. Any author that can do that totally deserves five stars.

This book centers around the lives of two women and a young girl but also jumps back in time to give the reader the background story of their mother/grandmother.

I loved the author's writing style right from the beginning and knew I was in for a real treat.  She created characters with depth, I was able to get to know them, feel their frustration, anxiety, fears and what makes them tick. Through reading with the various POV's and dealing with a subject matter of mental illness the author wrote with empathy, realism and did not hold back on the emotional level. She made me feel the frustration, defeat and determination of the various characters. We are talking both in the depression era as well as 1972 when dealing with mental illness was so different from today, showing the amount of research the author did to get it right.

All the Best People is a story of survival, heartache, love and support, it's one that will stay with me. This is my first book by Sonya Yoerg and I am a new fan on the search for more of her books. Definitely a book I highly recommend.

I was provided with a ARC through Penguin's First to Read program. Opinions are my own.