Book Review: The Writer by James Patterson and J.D. Barker

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The Writer by James Patterson and J.D. Barker  was published on March 17, 2025. It opens with Detective Declan Shaw at a closed subway station trying to work up the nerve to commit suicide when he receives a call from his partner about a break in and homicide at the home of a true crime author. Shaw makes his way to the crime scene to work the case, and in a turn of events, Declan comes under scrutiny in another case loosely connected to this new case. I received an Advanced Readers Copy (ARC) of The Writer  from NetGalley and Little , Brown, and Company for free in exchange for my honest review. I'm appreciative that my request for this book was approved. With this story opening with the main character trying to commit suicide, I almost didn't go any further with the book. However, I am glad I stuck with it as it took me on a fantastic ride and had my emotions all over the place. There were so many twists and turns that just when I thought I had it all figured out, there was ...
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Book Review: Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz

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When I was a kid, there was a book club subscription service called Especially For Girls. My mom signed me up for it when I began to become an avid reader. One of the books I received was Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz. For whatever reason, it ended up on a shelf in my mom's shoe closet without me reading it. Several years later, she was cleaning out the closet and came across the book and gave it back to me. I remember reading it in high school and falling in love with it. As part of my rereading my way through my childhood, I decided to read it again to see if it stood the test of time.

Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz is about a teenage actress named Valerie who wants nothing more than to have a normal life like her classmates. When she starts dating basketball player Tom Gordon, Valerie lies about being an actress, which becomes harder to hide when she lands a lead role on a new television show.

One of the things I enjoyed about the book as a kid and as an adult is that it's about acting. I grew up in the industry, which is one of the reasons the topic of the book was so interesting to me. What I disliked about the book is that it may give people the wrong idea about the entertainment industry when it comes to agents, parents, actors, and other people involved in the industry. Not everyone in the industry acts like these characters. It is simply just one person's perception of it.

A couple of things that I found interesting is that the television show that Valerie auditioned for was to be about teens falling in love and their everyday life at Beverly Hills High School. The book was published in 1986. Was it just a coincidence that the television show in Love Story, Take Three bares some similarity to the television show Beverly Hills, 90210 that premiered in 1990?  This was oddly eerie to me. The other thing I found interesting was there is another book published with a character named "Tom Gordon" . . . that book is Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I know this last thing is completely coincidental, but it is still an interesting tidbit.
As a kid, I would have given Love Story, Take Three by Gloria D. Miklowitz 5 stars out of 5 stars. However, as an adult, I'd give it 3.5 stars out of 5 stars.

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