The First Mistake by Sandie Jones

Hello everyone.

You know, the internet is a weird thing. Okay, maybe not for you youngsters ('youngsters', I sound like my grandparents) let me rephrase...the internet is a weird thing if you didn't grow up with it. Don't get me wrong, when hubby and I are having that once a week discussion about someone he sees on tv and thinks it is an actor that it obviously isn't, the internet backs me up, proving him wrong. You'd think he'd listen to his darling wife, but alas NO! Besides being an instant source of discussion winning gotcha moments, the internet is also a meeting place. Now that I'm hearing tacky fake porno jazz in my head I'll clarify not THAT kind of meeting place. Let's face it, I just used the word "youngster",  online hookup time for me has long passed. I am talking about connecting with people from your past.

This week I spoke with a life-long friend, someone I lived next door to from the time I was 3 until moving out after college. It has been delightful, I can't believe how old her kids are and how beautiful! I last saw her children when they were babies and they are now adults. It's like that when you reconnect with people from school, isn't it? You haven't seen each other for years, the personality is the same, but how could they have been married and divorced or even have grandchildren. We were just in chemistry last Thursday, how on earth did this happen. That's the thing with the passage of time, you feel the same inside. It seems like you should still be hurrying so you don't miss the school bus , but the reality is that you have a mortgage, kids that are counting down the days until their next Disney World vacation, and a lawn that magically grows out of control overnight. Thankfully, when you realize that this bizarre passage of time has been happening, you discover the same has been going on with your friends. You are not alone, your friends are pulling their back when putting on their bra too! Pass the ice pack please!

I recently read The First Mistake by Sandie Jones. Last year I read her book, The Other Woman and loved it. When I received an advanced copy of the new story I was thrilled. The First Mistake is about ordinary life.  A woman, Alice, has lost her first husband and has remarried, Nathan. She has a best friend, Beth, they have been through everything together. When Alice starts noticing some odd things going on with Nathan she, like any of us would, turns to her friend for support. This book asks the question what do you do when you start to doubt your friend, your rock. Is everything real or are you making a big deal out of nothing? Do you crumble or fight back? I think what makes these types of thrillers so creepy is that they are, for the most part, normal situations. It seems to hit harder when it is actually something that could happen. A thriller set on some purple planet with an evil green monkey is a lot less likely to seep into your dreams as it doesn't really exist.  Sandie Jones has produced another solid, well written, rapidly paced thriller, with a plot even more involved and twisty than The Other Woman.

This book would be a great one to read on vacation, certainly interesting enough to hold your attention but not too taxing. Perhaps you should read it with a friend. Don't blame me if you look at each other suspiciously afterward.

The Other Woman by Sandie Jones

Are you ever just so tired that you feel like a slug? Probably no. You are likely one of those annoying, eternally perky people. I detest you. I really do. Okay, maybe I'm jealous. So what? I'm just in a mood, noticing all those signs of aging and resenting the young. My friend said she pulled a muscle the other day just putting on her bra. Hell, I pulled my back just sneezing "the wrong way".  People told me the day I hit 40 it would start, the very day...like on my birthday. Sadly, those wack-a-doodles were completely right. Now this is where I'll write nothing else, since I just mentioned turning 40 and act like I just had that milestone. In actuality, I've lied about my age so much recently when the doctor asked me how old I was, I had to get out my fingers to count. (Get them out, like they were "put away".) I'd say I got out an abacus, but you are all probably too young to even know what that is, which will really tick me off, which will make me sigh and feel even more tired. You see this aging thing is a vicious circle.

Anyway, after reading the amazing 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, I needed a break. I picked a thriller called The Other Woman by Sandie Jones. Honestly, I chose it because it is recent and shorter, just under 300 pages. This book was a great break for my character-laden brain. It follows a girl, Emily, who falls in love with Adam. Unfortunately Adam has a wicked Mother, who doesn't like Emily.  Seemed like a plot that has been done quite a bit. Just turn on the TV any Saturday afternoon, bypass the 9,000th showing of Shawshank Redemption (still love ya Stephen King) and Dirty Dancing, to see Jane Fonda in action in Monster-in-Law. The common plot didn't bother me, obviously, since I bought the book and it called to me from my stack to read. I'm glad it did. Sandie Jones is the kind of writer I like. She skips the BS. Not that background story is BS, but...how do I explain it? If she says something is going to happen on Wednesday, the story immediately skips to that event on Wednesday. I love it. No waiting while the characters do their laundry on Tuesday night, making me wonder why I'm spending so much time reading this book instead of doing my own laundry. Nope, Sandie Jones skips to the good stuff. THANK YOU! This made the book so much faster paced and so much more pleasant to read. The story moves quickly to a conclusion which I am certain I had figured out, but alas was happily wrong again.

A very pleasant read, would make a great plane or beach read.