A Beautiful Funeral by Jamie McGuire | Book Review

A Beautiful Funeral by Jamie McGuire

Reading Group: Anyone whose read the rest of the series

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: Losing has never been easy for a Maddox, but death always wins.

Eleven years to the day after eloping in Vegas with Abby, Special Agent Travis Maddox delivers his own brand of vigilante justice to mob boss Benny Carlisi. Vegas's oldest and most violent crime family is now preparing for vengeance, and the entire Maddox family is a target.

The secret Thomas and Travis have kept for a decade will be revealed to the rest of the family, and for the first time the Maddoxes will be at odds. While none of them are strangers to loss, the family has grown, and the risk is higher than ever. With brothers against brothers and wives taking sides, each member will make a choice—let the fear tear them apart, or make them stronger.

Cover: The cover of this book has a tree on it with bare branches and falling leaves.  That means that it must be towards the end of fall, which in a literary sense means the end of a life.  Also, Jim gives a speech to his sons about how life goes on the way branches grow off of other branches.  

My Review:  (Just a reminder now that I tend to ramble and give away spoilers)  Oh my gosh you guys this book did me in!  I read it all in one go and didn't go to bed until 4 in the morning last week.  My Predictions from last week was right, but wrong in some ways.  I was right that Jim was the one who died, but he didn't die in a way I imagined.  I also didn't originally think they were going to fake a death, but within about 10 pages of the book I was able to see that that's where it was headed.  Also, I am so upset that Olive died.  I wasn't even thinking of her as an option!  And she was only 18 and about to start college.  Plus, she had already held her brother while he died and now her parents had no kids, and Fayln lost her too.  I wish that she was seriously hurt and maybe it didn't look good, but she pulled through.  Her death hurt so bad.  her death also just seemed so unnecessary to me.  Everyone else I could understand for the most part, I did understand and wrote a blog post about it, but Olive was never on my radar.  She was a Maddox, because she was Falyn's biological daughter, but she was the one no one would know about, so I guess that added an element to the story.
Also, so much has changed!  Fayln and Taylor being in a weird place was a curveball I was not expecting.  And I know they decided to live together again, but I need to know how they work things out.  I also need to know how they handle the fact that the Mayor's son keeps texting her or how he even got her number.  Trenton and Cami not being able to get pregnant was also a surprise, but not as shocking as Falyn and Taylor.  However, I do need to know is Cami ever does get pregnant.  I felt bad to Trenton in this book too because even though he did have lied, his didn't seem as big as his family's and it was clear that he was hurt the most by finding out all of the different truths.  I think this is also what made Olive's death so hard, other than the fact that readers knew her as a little girl and then as an 18-year-old.  Olive was Trent's best friend so for him to be hurting so bad throughout the book and then have to go through that when it looked like it was over was hard.
That Jamie McGuire really knows how to simultaneously ruin and make my day.  Her books are some of my favorites, but then she does stuff like this and it makes me so sad.  However, I think that fact that this book made me feel so much proves how good it is.  If you were to read a book like this and just like "Eh, well it's over now," than the book didn't didn't do a very good job.  A novel should cause a reaction and this one definitely does. 
*Note: Did anyone else notice that at the beginning of the book (Chapter 5) Abby and Travis are at their house talking about baby names before Travis leaves to go t the airport for Liis, but when she does actually land (Chapter 18) Abby is at the hospital having just given birth to Carter?  And there's no way these things happened on the same day because Abby was at Jim's house with Travis when her water broke.  

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Beautiful Redemption by Jamie McGuire | Book Review

Beautiful Redemption by Jamie McGuire

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Reading Group Rating: M for Mature

Personal Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars

Given Summary: No-nonsense Liis Lindy is an agent of the FBI. Deciding she is married only to her job, she breaks off her engagement and transfers from Chicago to the field office in San Diego. She loves her desk. She is committed to her laptop. She dreams of promotions and shaking hands with the director after cracking an impossible case. 

Special Agent in Charge Thomas Maddox is arrogant, unforgiving, and ruthless. He is tasked with putting away some of the world’s toughest criminals, and he is one of the best the Bureau has to offer. Though, as many lives as he’s saved, there is one that is beyond his reach. Younger brother Travis is faced with prison time for his involvement in a basement fire that killed dozens of college students, and the media want a conviction. Travis’s only savior is his unusual tie to the mob. In a deal that will spare his brother, Thomas has agreed to recruit Travis into the FBI.

Liis is stubborn, defiant, and yet somehow softens Thomas’s rough edges, making her the perfect agent to accompany him to the ceremony. Posing as a couple, they must travel to Travis & Abby’s beach vow renewal and give him the news, but when the pretending ends, she finds herself wondering if they were pretending at all. 

In the second installment of the Maddox Brothers books, experience firsthand the mysterious world of the elusive Thomas Maddox, and how good love can be when you’re not the first, but the last.

Cover: For all of the Beautiful Series covers, they involve some animal.  A butterfly for Travis, a peacock for Trent, and an eagle for Thomas.  I think the eagle was chosen here because it's such a powerful bird, but it also has a sense of freedom to it, both of these traits can describe Thomas and Liis.

Summary: Liis Lindy goes to the bar across from her apartment the night before her new job and brings a very attractive man home with her.  However, the next morning she discovers that that man is her new boss, Thomas Maddox.  She was brought on as a translator because Maddox needs her to double check the work of the guy they already have.  He is purposefully messing up the translations.  Thomas and Liis have a weird connection-they slept together, they work together, he lives directly above her, he drives her to work-that causes them to grow close.  However, they have bigger problems.  Travis Maddox is at risk of going to jail for 20 years because of his involvement in an on campus fire that killed hundreds.  The alibi his wife, Abby, tried to come up with didn't work.  It's been a year and Thomas has to go to their vow renewal to try and get Travis to work undercover as a double agent with the FBI and Benny instead of him going to jail.  Thomas promised his mother that he would take care of his little brothers, but Travis promised to never lie to Abby.  But Trent also has plans for this weekend away.  He's going to propose to Cami, whom Thomas still loves.  But he also loves Liis.  A Maddox boy never falls out of love, he loves forever, but that's kind of difficult to explain to your girlfriend when you still love your ex-girlfriend.  When Thomas calls Liis "Cami" that's when she realizes that Thomas needs to be fully over Cami before he can love her.  At the end of the book Liis and Thomas are outside and the original translator comes and tries to shoot them.  He shoots Thomas through the back and the bullet exits him and goes into Liis' abdomen.  She wakes up in the hospital room next to Thomas.  Travis agreed to work with them.  The epilogue includes Thomas and Liis moving to DC, they are still dating and Liis is pregnant.        

My Review: Another great one!  Who couldn't love the Maddox brothers?  I like that it goes with the idea that when you break up with someone, but they're still apart of your life (and, ya know, marry your younger brother) it's hard to forget how much you cared about that person.  Especially the way things ended with Cami and Thomas.  He has to work extra hard to prove himself to Liis because he also has to prove himself to himself.  I also liked that Liis is a tough girl.  Now no girl in Jamie McGuire's novels are ever damsels in distress, but neither Cami nor Abby were trained to fire a gun by the FBI.    
The only thing that I didn't really like was the timing of the epilogue.  It's 11 years after Abby and Travis got married in Vegas, so 10 years after the vow renewal that Thomas and Liis went to.  They have been dating for 10 years and still aren't married?  Also, Thomas is the oldest brother and Travis is the youngest.  Even if all the boys are close in age, there would still be at least 4 years between them, but I think there is more than that (I can't remember if it says his age in the book.  Does anyone remember?).  No matter, he's in his late twenties, early thirties when the book starts, so he's in his late thirties early forties at its end.  I just wish it was a little sooner.  It's still a fantastic book.
I love how every Beautiful Series book is so different, but still the same.  Especially with the boys.  It's such a realistic example of a big family and I love it.

Smile!  I'll talk to you soon!xxx

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