The House Guests | Emilie Richards | Harper Collins | Pub: June 29, 2021| Pages: 544
This was a good story, but it was a very slow-paced story. Even when the action hit, it was sort of glazed over, which was fine since I did enjoy the story and character development. However, I honestly would categorize this book as general fiction rather than mystery and thriller.
The story is told by different POVs,
which I really enjoyed! That’s where all the character development unfolds and
where I find the author thrived in this book. We got to know what both woman’s
secrets were in the end, but I truly was more invested in the relationship and
dynamic between characters at that point. Overall, it was a well-written, easy,
enjoyable read!
Thank you to MIRA for providing me with an electronic ARC of this book via NetGalley. As usual, my reviews are my honest and unbiased opinions.
Two women. Two families. Two lifetimes' worth of secrets.
Teenage Savannah's father passed away recently
and she has been rebelling against her stepmother, Cassie, since. When she
happens upon a pouch filled with cash in a parking lot with some new friends
she's trying to impress, she decides to keep it in an act of defiance. When
Cassie learns of her crime after Savannah has already spent the money, and
learns that the money belonged to a woman, Amber, who has since been evicted
along with her teenage son Will because they couldn't pay the rent after losing
the pouch of money, she invites Amber and Will to move in with them. As they
become involved in each other's lives, the teenagers develop a friendship while
the mothers do the same. But while Cassie is trying to figure out what happened
to her husband in the months before he passed away - why he was becoming
distant and draining the funds in their bank accounts, leaving them destitute
upon his death - Amber is clearly trying to outrun something dark in her own
past.
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
USA Today bestselling author Emilie Richards has written more than seventy novels. She has appeared on national television and been quoted in Reader’s Digest, right between Oprah and Thomas Jefferson.
Born in Bethesda, Maryland, and raised in St. Petersburg, Florida, Richards has been married for more than forty years to her college sweetheart. She splits her time between Florida and Western New York, where she is currently plotting her next novel.
SOCIAL LINKS
BUY LINKS
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Excerpt
1
Amber Blair had spent most of her
thirty-four years trying not to think about luck. Her daddy had told her there
were only two kinds. Either you came into the world with the luck of the early
bird or the early worm. The kind he’d been born with was obvious. Nothing that
had gone wrong in all his years had to do with simply hanging around the edges
of life, waiting for something good to fall in his lap. It was all about luck.
Her mother,
tight-lipped and seething, had rarely voiced opinions. As a receptionist at the
Halfway to Paradise motel, she had been too busy checking people in, and giving
out room keys—and probably a little extra—to worry about luck.
Like most
people, Amber had acquired something from both parents. She had inherited her
father’s early worm luck, oddly coupled with her mother’s work ethic. Against
tremendous odds she had scrambled to support herself and her son on her feet in
restaurants, instead of on her back in cheap motels. Her mother had been remote
and disinterested, but years of watching her determination to survive had
helped.
“Haven’t seen
you for a while.” The manager at the cash register of Things From the Springs
greeted Amber with a wide smile. She was middle-aged and overweight,
refreshingly unaware that spandex and sequins weren’t good choices for
minimizing either. Her plastic nameplate read Ida, but Amber had never told Ida
her own name, a habit she’d developed after leaving home at sixteen. Still, Ida
never forgot a face.
“It has been a
while,” Amber said.
“You feeling
better?”
Amber wasn’t
surprised that Ida remembered the day two months before when she had fainted
facedown in the women’s clothing aisle, strawberry blond hair spread wide on a
table stacked with shorts and T-shirts. The manager had insisted Amber go right
to the hospital. Amber had thanked her, then headed to work instead. Three days
later, though, she had seen a doctor after Will, her son, gazed at her in
horror and announced that her green eyes were rimmed by an ominous yellow.
Of course, the
news hadn’t been good. Hepatitis A had arrived with a flourish, and she had
been so dehydrated that, despite all her protests, she’d been hospitalized for
a day, a bill that had nearly sunk them.
Health insurance
was a luxury she had never indulged in.
“Yes. Definitely
better,” she said now. She didn’t add that she still tired easily or that she
was struggling to regain the weight she’d lost. Jaundice, the colorful bonus,
was finally gone, and she was back at work.
“You were caught
up in that hepatitis thing, weren’t you? The one at that restaurant…” The
manager snapped her fingers. “Electric something?”
“Dine Eclectic.”
“You closed for
a while, right?”
Because two of
the kitchen staff had also been infected, Dine Eclectic, the much promoted
addition to restaurants in Tarpon Springs, Florida, had closed until health
inspectors had given permission to reopen. Amber had been forbidden to go back
to work until the jaundice and other symptoms disappeared. During most of the
weeks of illness, she had been far too sick to work even if she’d wanted to.
She certainly had needed to, because from an armchair in the apartment she
shared with sixteen-year-old Will, she’d watched the savings she had so
carefully hoarded dwindle to nothing.
“We’ve been open
again for a while now,” she said. “We’ve passed all the inspections. The
problem was an infected line cook. Luckily hepatitis A is almost never fatal.”
“I imagine the
publicity wasn’t good for business.”
More customers
arrived, and Amber headed for the rear of the store and the men’s section.
Things From the
Springs was smaller than many thrift stores she’d frequented. They were loosely
affiliated with a local children’s charity, and volunteers did much of the
sorting and pricing.
She liked
visiting Things because she could be in and out in less than an hour, often
with vintage clothing she could cut and use for crafts to sell in her Etsy
shop. An example was tucked securely in her purse today, a zipper pouch created
from a brocade jacket and embroidered with the name of her landlord’s wife. It
had turned out so well she posted a photo on her shop’s page, hoping to get
orders for more.
The pouch bulged
with money, mostly tips she had carefully collected to pay one of the two
months of back rent she owed. Even after she’d showed her suspicious landlord a
letter from the health department, he had begun eviction proceedings. She had
managed to stave him off, promising to pay the first month today and the second
in two weeks. She hoped the additional gift for his wife might make him feel
better about his decision.
Her son had been
more than patient during her months of unemployment. Will was a straight A
student at the local high school and held down a part-time job stocking shelves
at a local grocery store. He had taken on additional hours during her illness
and brought home expired or damaged food that was destined for salvage stores
or landfills. He had treated his quest like a treasure hunt and never wished
out loud that his life was more like the easier ones of the other teens in his
advanced placement classes.
Will wasn’t
perfect. He was sometimes messy, sometimes oblivious, often determined his way
was best, but they’d been a team, just the two of them, from the very beginning
of his life. And Amber knew her son would do anything for her, just as she had
done everything for him. Much more than Will knew.
Today if she had
early bird luck, she was going to buy him a surprise. Things From the Springs
had a special rack dedicated to sports teams, and there was always a good
selection. She was hoping to find one with the pirate flag of Will’s favorite
professional football team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. For the first time, her
tips from the night before had been nearly as large as pre-hepatitis days, and
she was hopeful she might be digging her way out of trouble. She would be happy
just to pay rent on time, put a full tank of gas in the car and buy fresh food
at the grocery store now and then.
Fifteen minutes
later she was on her way back to the front of the now-empty store, a paper-thin
but appropriately logoed T-shirt clutched under her arm. The size and price
were right, and while Will wouldn’t get much wear before it fell apart, he
would be delighted.
She was starting
to feel lucky. Her landlord had begrudgingly given her a little time to settle
their account. After everything she still had her job, and restaurant traffic
showed signs of improving. Today she had just enough extra to buy the shirt.
“You found
something,” Ida said. “I saw you heading to the back.”
“It’s for my son.”
Amber laid the shirt on the long counter. “He’s a Bucs fan.”
“These have been
going fast. Apparently, he’s not alone.” She rang up the amount as Amber
reached down to unzip her purse.
Only the purse
wasn’t zipped.
She spread it
wide and peered inside. Without ceremony and with more than a touch of panic,
she dumped the contents on the counter. Keys fell out. A pack of tissues. Her
tiny coin purse, which held the extra money she hadn’t put into the zip purse
destined for the landlord and his wife. Nothing else.
“Run into a
problem?”
Amber gazed at
the concerned woman’s face. “I had a zipper pouch in here, dark green silk, a
name embroidered across it.”
Ida read her
expression correctly. “Did you open your purse here in the store? Could the
pouch have fallen out?”
Amber knew she’d
had the zipper pouch when she left her apartment. She’d so carefully slipped it
inside the purse. Surely she’d zipped it closed. She always did. She had lived
in cities with pickpockets. But by now panic had obliterated all memories of
the past hour.
“I had it when I
left my house.”
“We’ll look
together.” As Amber scraped her belongings back into her purse, the manager
walked to the door, turned the lock and flipped the Closed sign. “That will buy
us some time. We’ll find it.”
Half an hour
later, though, they were still empty-handed. They’d looked under tables, sorted
through all the shirts in the back, followed Amber’s route through the store
four separate times peering at the ground.
“I’m so sorry,”
Ida said. “But I have to unlock the front door. The high school lets out about
now. They’ll start banging on the glass. I just know you’re going to find it
somewhere. Your house or car maybe?”
Amber knew she
wasn’t. The truth was a tight knot in her stomach, all too familiar. She’d been
slapped down again. The landlord wouldn’t believe her, and who could blame him?
He probably didn’t need the money right away, but he would be furious she’d
lied to him.
She and Will
would see that eviction notice after all.
“Thank you for
helping me look.” Amber cleared her throat. “I don’t think I’ll buy the shirt.
“Why don’t I
just let you have it?”
“No.” Amber took
a breath and softened her tone. “But thank you.”
She followed the
manager to the front door as she unlocked it. “You’ll let me know when you find
it?” Ida asked.
Amber managed the tiniest of smiles. But in her mind she saw the early worm being swallowed, inch by wiggling inch. And somewhere, after the meal, a fat, happy robin was looking for more just like it.
Excerpted from The House Guests by Emilie Richards, Copyright © 2021 by Emilie Richards McGee. Published by MIRA Books.
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