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 September of 2023. Here are the 11 books I read and reviewed for September. 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.

Where They Lie is a non-stop action thriller that keeps your heart beating faster and nerves tingling as each scene uncovers something shocking. This was a story that kept me glued until the ending.

Nora McTavish, a child protective services agent, is someone who knows abuse as a child and tries to help other children from suffering the same fate. Her office puts three children into a foster home and walks away. Nora doesn’t feel quite right about the placement but can’t say why. She stays close and keeps in touch with the foster mother who does videos about her life and foster children.

Her past still haunts her and keeps her from ignoring what she feels is not right. Her curiosity almost gets her killed a couple of times as she delves deeper into a mystery of a plane crash that involves this family. She will not give up her investigation into why and how this crash came about.

This is an enjoyable story that leaves you feeling helpless for those children who are in need of help. How much can the foster care system do for them?

There are two stories in this one book but I will do my reviews separately. Love You First showcases the first story, Falling for Rachel. In this romance Rachel Stanislaski is a lawyer for the public defender’s office. She is given a case involving a teen boy who is troubled, lost and mixed up with a group of delinquents, the Cobras.

What Rachel doesn’t realize is there is a step-brother who comes to his brother’s rescue after being estranged and in the service for a number of years. When he returns he finds his brother, Nick, is in serious trouble and in jail accused of stealing some technical equipment.

Rachel manages to bond with Nick but finds herself drawn to the brother, Zach, who is dark, brooding and sexy. What transpires is a romantic romp between the two, but also trouble brews with Nick when he wants her too.

The Stanislaski family is a robust, close-knit and loving family who always watch over and take of their own. Nick has never known family and is blown over by the affection and attentions of this family. Will he be able to stay away from the negative influences of the Cobras or will he be saved by his long-lost brother and his lawyer, Rachel, who has a motherly bond with him?

An enjoyable read!

This is the second book in this 2-1 series about the Stanislaski family. They are a robust, loving, close-knit family who will go above and beyond to protect those they love and help others who are in need.

The two main protagonists, Bess, a soap-opera writer, and Alexi Stanislaski, a police detective, meet while he is on a case after two murders of a couple of hookers. He meets Bess who is masquerading as a hooker just to get some inside scoop on their lives for her daytime soap opera. What she doesn’t realize is the raw chemistry of this handsome, rugged cop would effect her so profoundly.

Their paths keep crossing and sparks fly as they both cannot control the strong feelings they develop about each other despite trying to fight them. Bess has not known a love like this and denies that she feels anything for Alex while Alex knows that this is real, more real than anything he has ever felt in the past.

This series is addictive especially the Stanislaski men who are the essence of masculinity and sexuality. No woman can escape their charms.

This may be an old cover from her original book but I purchased the one with both stories but chose to review each one separately. An enjoyable read!

Until I Die is a quick-paced thriller, romance novel that has a mystery within a mystery that kept this reader glued. The two main protagonists, Halle Parker and Jamie DiBarto, are well-defined characters who are married but somewhat estranged in the process of an impending divorce when Halley has a massive CVA and dies. At the same time Chris Copestakes goes off a bridge in a terrible accident in another place and also dies. Chris is given a second chance at life by God and inhabits the body of Halle with the message, Find his heart.

Things get quite complicated when Halle comes to life much to the shock of her husband and the doctors who declared that she was going to die. Her husband, Jamie, gives Halle the option to stay with him at his mother’s to regain her strength or go with her boyfriend, Mick. When Halle sees how unstable and dangerous Mick is she realizes that Jamie is the safer one to be with and most likely the one whose heart she must find.

We follow Halle aka Chris as she tries to adjust to her new body and life, losing her beloved parents, sisters and dogs to live with her husband, a stranger to her. As they try to get along she realizes how much Jamie has been hurt by Halle and she is strangely drawn to him when he professes to love her.

There is another mystery and that is how Chris died. In Chris’ new body she continues to have nightmares of her death as Chris and cannot go on without finding out what happened.

This is a mystery full of romance, angst and coming full circle as the couple rediscovers who they really are. An enjoyable read that I couldn’t put down.

Stranger in the Mirror is the second book in this series of Soul Change. The main protagonist, Hallie, died but was give a second chance in another person’s body, Marti West, who had died from strangulation.

Hallie finds that Marti West is pregnant and she must figure out what to do. She doesn’t want this baby and doesn’t even know the father. Her feelings soon tell her that the father is just the man for her but how can she convince him after confessing that she really is not who he thinks she is. He did not love Marti who tricked him into impregnating her so he would marry her.

The new Marti begins to like this new life with a man she is falling in love with and a baby who she has felt move inside her and has stolen her heart. She feels her world tearing apart when two other women show an interest in her husband, Jesse, and she vies to hang onto this man no matter what it takes.

An interesting read about an intriguing subject. Will Marti be successful in keeping Jesse or will the person who thought he had murdered her return to finish the job?

Redemption is a mystery that is full of family issues, heartache and forgiveness. After Lisa, the main protagonist, comes home to see her parents, she is in a state of shock after her father is murdered and her mother is gravely injured in front of her by an unexpected visitor. When Lisa and her brother try to piece together clues to solve their father’s murder they find themselves in more danger than they could have imagined. Someone doesn’t want them to discover who is responsible.

They find that there is no one they can trust or confide in, even the police and FBI cannot be trusted. When Lisa sees a psychiatrist she feels that she has found someone that she can share her problems with about her father’s murder. Everywhere the siblings turn, however, someone is trying to harm them and they are forced to continue on their own to uncover the truth.

A fast-paced mystery that leads to some surprises at the end. This was an enjoyable read.

This is a 2-1 story of the Stanislaski family. In this first story is Convincing Nick.

This is the first story, Waiting for Nick, in this 2-for-1 book, A Forever Kind of Love, where the next generation of the Stanislaski family find love. This tale is about Nick, a troubled boy who is adopted by the Stanislaski, and Frederica, a niece of the Stanislaskis who is younger than Nick but clearly enamored by him.

Nick has known Frederica or Fred since she was just a young girl and he was a teen. Fred comes to visit her uncle Mikhail who runs a bar and is Nick’s step-brother and guardian. Once she sees Nick she feels more than a brotherly feeling for him but he does not reciprocate. What Nick doesn’t realize is that Fred is now a young woman who has designs on him and will stop at nothing to win his heart. Fred comes from a talented musical family and is a talented writer of musical scores while Nick is a virtuoso pianist who composes his own music for theater productions. Fred convinces him to let her write the lyrics to his music. The team doesn’t always get along and there is nothing but dissension between them.

This story has plenty of emotion, love scenes between the two, and family gatherings with this robust and fun-loving Stanislaski family. The family sees what is happening between these two and stands by to watch their love unfold.

An enjoyable read involving an unforgettable family!

This is the second story, Considering Kate, in the 2-1 series of the book Forever Kind of Love.

This is the second story, Considering Kate, in A Forever Kind of Love book. This is the ongoing saga of the Stanislaski family, a robust, loving and close-knit group who will do anything to support each other.

Kate, whose mother was a Stanislaski, is a prima ballerina who comes home to settle down and open her own dancing school. Being a ballerina is a grueling job that takes a toll on her and she knows that she can’t do it forever even though she loves it.

When Kate crosses paths with a contractor, Brody, who takes on the job of refurbishing the building she purchased for her studio, Kate feels a strong attraction to him which she strives to cultivate and convince Brody that he feels the same for her. She falls in love at the same time with Brody’s young son, Jack, who needs a mother.

Norah Roberts knows how to write beautiful love scenes that are sweet, tender and emotionally charged. Her stories are full of characters that interesting and unforgettable as the Stanislaski family.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about this family that anyone would be fortunate to be part of.

Blindsight is a mystery with a little telepathy that will keep any reader glued until the climatic ending.

The main protagonists, Olivia Howe and detective Max Callahan, become embroiled in a kidnapping when Olivia, who is blind but has telepathic talents, sees the girl being kidnapped. She continues to ‘see’ through the young girl’s eyes throughout her ordeal as she is caged by her kidnapper.

There is more to what Olivia sees than is explained to the detective when she reaches out to the police for help to find the girl. Her feelings during this time are more than just concern for the little girl but also because she had been kidnapped when she was the same age but escaped thanks to an angel who rescued her from her ordeal.

Max spends more and more time with Olivia and soon realizes that he feels more for her than as a part of his investigation. Once he connects the clues to Olivia’s kidnapping to the present one he is forced not only to help the girl but also to rescue Olivia from her past which his part of his own.

An unforgettable story that kept me on the edge of my seat!

This story was perfect for those 70+ who think there isn’t any chance for another love in their lives. This is a sweet tale of two people over 70 who discover something that they thought was lost or impossible to find at their age.

Noah and Cassandra have both moved to Clarion Court which is a community for independent living for those who do not need assistance. When they meet at one of the dinners they realize that they knew each other in college. They are both set in their ways while Noah was married for over 40 years and lost his wife to cancer, Cassandra was married three times and now is widowed.

They realize after being at this new community that they both feel unsettled and not at all happy with their new home. Over many conversations at dinner and over drinks they discover that they both love the Cape where Noah has a cottage. Cassandra decides to go with Noah to his cottage for a vacation away from the drudgery of Clarion Court.

What they discover is something that they did not expect. A dog, a Newfoundland, who loves the water, is with them on the Cape and makes for a sweet addition to the story. Will Noah and Cassandra find more than friendship or will they struggle to get over their own issues and continue to annoy each other?

An enjoyable story that touches the heart.

Before She Disappeared is a gripping mystery that deals in missing girls that are forgotten. Frankie Elkin is a middle-aged woman who has suffered a loss and knows what it’s like to lose someone. She devotes her time traveling all over trying to find missing people who the authorities haven’t been able to find and have given up hope of ever finding.

Frankie is determined to find someone alive this time for she has tried many times before and only found the missing people too late to save them. She vows this time to bring the girls home alive even if she does not have any help from the families who fear her and fight against her interference.

She befriends a detective who doubts her efforts at first but when Frankie comes up with evidence that the girls are still alive he starts to trust her and offers his support. What she doesn’t realize at first is that this detective means more to her than she wants to admit but can’t afford to let her guard down or have anything or anyone distract her from completing her mission.

This was an intriguing and enjoyable mystery.

True to Me is an emotional trip to a beautiful place that is a true paradise, Hawaii. If you never visited these lovely islands you need to to discover the magic and the beauty that is all around in the people, the language and the customs.

The author has created a story around this magical place that touches the heart and comes full circle for the main protagonist, Quinn Maguire. Quinn discovers that her mother has lied to her all her life about who her father was. She only discovers this deception from her mother’s dying words. This creates more question s about her life that empowers Quinn to seek help about her ancestry by doing a DNA test.

Quinn knows that her mother grew up in Maui and decides to delve deeper into her mother’s life there to find the answers that she has craved all her life – who is her father? What she finds there is not what she expected but soon her former life feels stagnant and she realizes that the man she thought she wanted to marry is not who she thought he was after he cheats on her with her friend while she is in Hawaii.

She purchases a house there but finds it is inhabited by a family who are destitute. Being a compassionate person she does all she can to help them and cannot bring herself to push them out. Quinn realizes that the people there are kind, caring but stubborn and set in their ways but feels at home and finally peaceful and relaxed for the first time.

There is a shocking surprise for Quinn that she discovers with the help of an old Asian/Hawaiian that will change her life forever.

This was an enjoyable read that I would highly recommend!

Thank you so much for stopping by to read this post and for your continued and kind support. Feel free to come back for more interesting posts. Please remember to review books for all those hard-working authors everywhere. We will love you for your efforts.

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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