June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore

June by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore is a the next delightful novel by the bestselling author of Bittersweet.  Cassie has just lost her grandmother, the closest person to her and the person who raised her after the death of her parents in a car accident.  Cassie is depressed that she hadn't even spent enough time with her grandmother, June, to even notice that she was dying of cancer. Cassie has inherited her grandmother's house and is astonished to find that it is falling down in disrepair.  How could all of this happened and Cassie not even notice?   Her depression is so bad that it is all Cassie can do to even get up out of bed after spending 16 or more hours there.  If that were not enough there are the strange dreams of the past.  It is as if the house has its own life and it is trying to tell her of its past and of Cassie's own history and that of June's life as a young girl.  While Cassie is wallowing in her own sadness, one day the doorbell awakens her midday and the caller, Nick, announces that Jack Montgomery, an old famous actor, has left her his entire fortune along with the announcement that she is his granddaughter.  Of course Cassie knows that this must be a hoax, wouldn't she know it if she were a part of a famous man's family?  Nick it turns out works for one of Jack's daughters, Tate, and she was expecting to inherit the money and is miffed that the money is to go to someone she has never even heard.  Nick's job  is  to get Cassie to give him some DNA off of a cheek swab and he could be on his way.  That is what he was supposed to do but Nick just loves the character of the old house and gets lost looking at the crown molding and such.  Nick is not bad to look at and he is very interesting so though Cassie agrees that it is very unlikely that she is related she wants to have more information about Jack and her grandmother, June.  Soon Nick and Tate along with her sister Elda, none of whom get along have moved into Cassie's house and Cassie finds herself interested in finding out the truth of the house and June and Jack's love story.

This story easily flows back and forth between the summer of 1955 and June and Jack's love story and the present day of cell phones and the renovation of the house.  The reader finds herself drawn into how this story could have taken place and the secrets needed to keep the story in the past.  Cassie has always thought she knew her grandmother and grandfather, Art Danvers, but there was the time she deeply hurt her grandmother after she had made the picture of her family car accident and displayed it.  Cassie had thought she was merely portraying  distant memory but her grandmother had strangely said something about keeping it quiet like it was a secret. At the time she had just thought it was the bottle on the floorboard of the car that caused June all the distress.  Then Cassie had known that her grandfather's real name was Adlebert and though she thought it an odd name she didn't know until Nick told her that this was Jack Montgomery's real name.  This mystery/love story is difficult to lay down once you start reading it so don't start it just before bed unless you want to be up all night.
I received this book from Blogging for books for this review.

Sister Eve and the Blue Nun by Lynne Hinton

Sister Eve and the Blue Nun by Lynne Hinton is the next escapade of the Eve Divine mysteries.  While Eve is back at the monastery to listen to  a speech by a young professor from the college, Dr. Kelly Middlesworth, on one of Eve's favorite subjects, the Blue Nun.  This nun's merits were being discussed for sainthood.  Eve had very much hoped that her sister nun would be judged a saint and was interested in the new evidence being presented in the first session in the morning.  She was also friends with the professor's brother as he was a monk in the monastery.  Eve couldn't sleep so she had made her way to the chapel to pray, she just didn't know how to help her friend, Anthony who had just had a big fight in front of everyone with his sister, Kelly.   Well she couldn't sleep anyway might as well go talk with Kelly and see if she could help smooth the waters.  As she stood to leave there stood Anthony with tears streaming and so distraught he could barely tell her that he had just come from Kelly's room and she was dead and that it was all his fault.  Eve ran to check on Kelly just to make sure she was dead and not just really sick--well she was dead.  It appears and smells like from drinking arsenic laced tea.  All evidence points to Anthony but Eve just knows he couldn't have done it-no matter what he said.  Read this next episode in Sister Eve's adventures with all its twists and turns.
I liked this book as I have liked all of the Sister Eve stories.  These books are easy to read and can be enjoyed by any age group.  It is a Christian novel though that is not part of the story other than it takes place in a monastery and the main character is a nun who is trying to decide if she wants to take her final vows.  It is a difficult decision for her but the pull of working in her father's private eye business is challenging her brain.
I received this book from Booksneeze for this review.