Here it is already the end of another month. Where does the time go? I have been busy as usual reading some wonderful books for the month of June of 2023. Here are the 8 books I read and reviewed for June. I might have read even more if I didn’t have a few WIP. But I always seemed to have a WIP! That fact never stops me! I hope you enjoy reading these reviews.

I love sharing my eclectic reads in this Jemsbooks Segment, Books Read in the Month. I hope you will get a chance to look over these books soon. Thank you for your kind support of my work and that of my fellow authors.

If you are an avid reader, as I am, please review the books you love on Amazon or wherever you purchased them in order for others to enjoy your reviews. Reviews are one way for readers to know about an exceptional book. We indie authors love to receive reviews and appreciate the efforts of readers to do them. Once again, I thank you for your kind support of me and my books and for supporting my fellow authors too.

When I wrote these reviews I rated them on Amazon, Goodreads and sometimes Barnes & Noble. I did not include the ratings here though. It is best to share my thoughts with you about how I felt about the book without the rating. Ratings can be deceiving at times.

We all feel differently about books. Sometimes we love them, sometimes we like them and still other times we may dislike a book. Some others are so memorable they take our breaths away! While others are sweet, sensitive and enjoyable reads that we soon will forget. But all of these books I have reviewed were lovely reads as you can see from my reviews. I hope you enjoy my reviews and that they help you decide what will be your next read.

If you want to cry your heart out – this is the book for you. Lizzie is dying and holds no bars about it. She has given up hope until ….

This is where the story takes a turn and we see how many people love Lizzie and want her to fight with all her might to live for as long as she can. She has a golden voice that thrills everyone who hears her sing. She had given up singing when she lost hope. But now that she has so many people pulling for her she begins to find her voice again.

She travels to the island of Elba off the coast of Italy and finds more than she could have ever hoped to find – a love and a daughter that she had always prayed for in the form of a 13-year-old named Etta. These two loves filled her heart to bursting and kept her going.

This story brought me to tears throughout and especially at the ending. I won’t tell you anymore but you must read this to appreciate the beauty it holds and how it will fill you up with life and love and make you appreciate all that you have. Hold on tight and keep the tissues ready.

The Letter is a beautiful story that deeply touched my heart. The author created an unforgettable story of love and heartbreak for one woman that somehow caused another woman to find love that would have been impossible otherwise.

The story is told through one woman’s life in the past as she loses her love and is tossed aside by her father when he learns that she is pregnant. Her father does all he can to keep her and the man she loves separated.

We also are told the story of another woman who is battered and abused by her husband. She refuses to leave him but is forced into doing that when she has to deal with a devastating loss of her baby.

These two women’s lives become intertwined when the second woman finds a letter in an old suit in a second-hand store where she works. The story becomes quite involved when she follows the trail of this letter to discover why the letter was never mailed. Her curiosity brings her to discover that love is possible and that she should not ignore her broken heart but give it time to heal.

This is an amazing story that mirrors the writings of Nicholas Sparks in that it is full of heartache, loss and tragedy. I can see this book becoming a major motion picture one day. I highly recommend this well-written and deeply touching story!

Someone Else’s Life is a gripping story with psychological twists that kept me intrigued. What is happening to the main protagonist, Annie Lin? One minute she seems normal while the next she is deranged. The story moves along through the eyes and disturbed mind of Annie. We don’t know what happened to cause her to be so distressed.

I did find it frustrating with all the hints of something traumatic that had happened to her son on her watch. But we are kept in the dark until nearly the end of the story when Annie encounters a woman who comes to her home during a horrific storm after being stranded in her car.

Annie lets the woman in, in spite of her better judgment and the niggling feeling that something isn’t right. Surprisingly the two women bond quickly after tea and then wine by sharing the personal stories of their lives. That is when we find out what happened to cause Annie to become agitated.

I did enjoy this story but felt exasperated with Annie at her naïveté dealing with this strange woman even after her dog, Marley, kept warning her.

You will have to read this book to find out what happened and why. It has a little twist at the end almost hinting of a sequel.

This is a story of the resilience of the human spirit in times of strife. The author has created a story during the COVID-19 pandemic that involves the hardship, tragedies, loss, and sacrifices that many in the medical profession had to endure to help others and themselves survive in spite of the dire consequences of this terrible epidemic.

The story also chronicles the life of one woman on her trip to the Galápagos Islands but what she doesn’t realize is that what she is experiencing and seeing is not what it seems. Is she living this life or another?

Many strange things happen during this woman’s sojourn. We feel her angst as she comes to meet obstacles along the way and tries to come to a conclusion about what is real and what is not, what is important and not so, and what makes her happy and what leaves her feeling empty.

There are a myriad of emotions that are emitted that makes the readers think long and hard about life and how important it is.

A wonderful story that I highly recommend as a worthwhile and enjoyable read that brings back the tough times we all had to endure during one of the most trying periods of the pandemic for many people.

The author has created an emotional and heartbreaking read about the lives lost and destroyed after being incarcerated in an asylum back in 1956 based on real-life experiences that she discovered in her research. These asylums were known as lunatic asylums. A sad term to be used for some troubled souls.

The story is told through two timelines, one in 1956 and the other fifty years later of two women and how their lives intertwined. One woman was a patient while the other was a nurse who cared for this woman and many of the other patients. The nurse tells her story through her eyes of what she witnessed and how unfair and cruel the treatment was of these people.

The second timeline is told by a woman who is a historical writer who is intrigued by this derelict building that was once an asylum for the insane. Her father once worked there but never spoke about it and refuses to share what he knows with his daughter, Sarah. Sarah vows to find out more about this place and why her father is so obstinate and disturbed when she asks him about it.

What Sarah finds is not what she expected and is horrified as more information is uncovered about this place. She is forced to confront her father for more about what he knows, and he finally shares his story with her when some surprising developments are discovered that he cannot ignore any longer.

The author has created a story rich in full-bodied characters who will tear your heart out from the young boy Sarah finds hiding out in the abandoned building while she is searching for clues to uncover the mysteries of this place to the many patients we get to know in the past through the timeline of the nurse.

This is an unforgettable read that will break your heart and leave you in tears and unable to understand why all these people had to suffer unnecessarily and for so long. Kudos to this amazing author who writes from her heart such wonderful stories.

This is a romantic rom-com that involves four characters, two men and two women, who meet while on a plane heading to St. Lucia for vacation. The characters each have a story to tell and share their troubles with one another feeling more comfortable than sharing with those who are close to them.

One woman is in an unhappy marriage with a husband who abuses her mentally and psychologically while the other woman is finally free from the same type of marriage after 30 years. One man is on his way to getting married on the island to a woman he has known his whole lifetime while the second man is going to find the woman he slept and fell in love with at first sight who is on the island.

The lives of the four intertwine more than they ever could imagine enabling them to each come to a solution to what they will do in their present and future lives. There are some surprising issues that I will not share.

This was an enjoyable summer read!

Heart of Eden is a lovely story filled with romance, adventure, danger, and underlying heartache of the loss of a father. The characters, five sisters, travel to Colorado after their father passed to learn more about him and their birthplace after being estranged for many years. What they find there is not what they expected.

Mavis, Belle, Emma, Lavinia, and Katie, the Brinkman sisters, strong and resilient, come to Colorado to forge the way for a new future which is uncertain to them but still hopeful to make up for not coming home sooner to see their father before he passed. Their mother took them away when they were young children to live with another couple. This couple, the Crowdaires, proved to be deceitful people who convinced the girls that their father did not want them in his life, preventing them from ever returning and finding out the truth after their mother’s death.

A thoroughly enjoyable beach read with plenty of threats of danger, uncertainty, and romance that kept this reader engrossed to see what would happen next to the sisters. I look forward to the rest of the books in this series. I’m sure there will be plenty more adventures for the sisters.

I highly recommend this book!

It had been many years since I had entered the world of the little girl named Anne with an E. The author has created a classic story of the adventures, trials and tribulations of this imaginative and ever creative, intriguing and fascinating character, Anne Shirley, a little orphan who is lost but refuses to be discouraged no matter what happens to her. She lives in a fantasy world where everything is perfect and beautiful in spite of the degradation and squalor she sees around her.

When Anne finally has the chance to move out of the orphanage and find a home with a family who will love and care for her, she cannot believe her luck. But soon her luck does change, once again she must fight her way through and somehow manage to convince her new family, Marilla and Mathew Cuthbert, sister and brother, that she is a person who can be loved.

What transpires in this story is magical in Anne’s words for she finds a family that desperately needs her as much as she needs them. She transforms their lonely and sedentary lives into a whirlwind of unexpected events, some quite comical while others sad. Some of Anne’s antics made me laugh while others made me cry, and still others lightened my spirits and made my heart sing with joy and feel like a kid again.

This is a story that readers will want to enjoy again and again over the years and share with their children and grandchildren.

Highly recommend!

Thank you so much for stopping by to read this post. Come back again soon for more interesting and surprising developments, free books and whatever else pops into my already overcrowded brain.

Blessings & Hugs! Stay Safe, Stay Well and God Bless!

READING GIVES YOU WINGS TO FLY! SOAR WITH JEMSBOOKS ALL YEAR THROUGH! HAPPY READING!

Janice Spina aka J.E. Spina

Award-Winning Author

Jemsbooks for All Ages!

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