The truth of what really happened between Paul and Lee and Wendy is told primarily through a series of interviews between Paul and Dr. Lisa Boyers, a forensic psychologist with her own troubled past. As Paul relates how he met both Lee and Wendy and shares the disturbing patterns that developed among them, Dr. Boyers must face not only the memories of her own difficult childhood and abusive marriage, a relationship that ended only with the death of her husband, but also the media attention that includes their delving into her past looking for dirt.

It seems that my reading has definitely veered towards the dark side lately, with this being my third review in a month that involves abuse issues or dysfunctional teenage relationships, or both. While I wouldn’t seek that out just for the sake of it, I have found all of them to be quite well written, each in their own way.

With Lovesick, I found myself squeezing in a few pages whenever I had a moment to spare, not wanting to wait any longer than absolutely necessary to find out the conclusion for both stories. This was definitely a psychological thrill ride worth taking!

Lovesick was published as an ebook in October 2011 and is coming out in hard copy this June. Right now, we have one galley copy to give away. Just leave a comment below to be entered to win – US & Canada only. We’ll announce the winner in our giveaway column on February 22nd.

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Trish thanks Media Muscle and PublishingWorks, Inc. for the review copy of this book. When she can pull herself away from her reading, Trish blogs at In So Many Words.

Jolene Zarkades lost her parents in a car accident when she was 17. With no family and no money, she turned to the Army, where she found a different kind of family. 12 years later, she’s married to Michael, a successful lawyer, mother of two girls, and flying helicopters with her best friend for the National Guard. Jolene and Michael’s marriage has hit a rocky patch. Jolene is strong, self-reliant and refuses to ask for help. Michael, following in his father’s footsteps, spends too many hours at work and his family suffers for his seeming lack of interest in them. But when Jolene’s unit is deployed to Iraq, her family’s world is turned upside down. While she lives in constant fear of IEDs, attacks on the base and her Black Hawk getting shot down, Michael finally puts his family first and wonders how he can repair the marriage that’s broken partly (mostly) because of his selfish behavior.

In the year that Home Front covers, each member of the Zarkades family goes through major changes, which is what makes good character-driven fiction, in my book (no pun intended!). Most of them start out pretty unlikeable — even Jolene, the seemingly perfect mother, has her flaws — and while Jolene’s going to war is a less than ideal situation they all come out having grown and learned from the experience.

I will warn interested readers that the content in Home Front is not light or warm and fuzzy. A family torn apart by war is emotionally unstable and the language used in times of anger and frustration only added to the realism for me but others may disapprove.

Notes on the audiobook: Maggi-Meg Reed is becoming the narrator of choice for popular women’s fiction, and for good reason. She conveys emotions in ways that evoke a strong reaction from the listener. This is not a book to listen to while driving because tears caused by the many heartbreaking moments are not conducive to safe driving.

Macmillan Audio is providing us with an audio copy of Home Front for one winner, U.S. addresses only. Please leave a comment to enter to win. The winner will be announced on February 22.

• The winner of the A Wrinkle in Time 50th Anniversary giveaway is #14 Cindi
• The winner of the Four Letter Words giveaway is #3, Emily C.

Don’t miss a thing: Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed or video reviews on YouTube. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter or on Facebook.

Nancy couldn’t imagine leaving her family and going off to war, but is thankful to those who do serve their country. She writes about her 2 boys, books and life in Colorado at Life With My Boys and Books.

I would imagine that everyone out there has heard of The Hunger Games, in some fashion. At least “I sure hear a lot about this, but I don’t know what it is.” You might know that the Hunger Games movie releases March 23. You might not know that it’s a wildly popular Young Adult series by Suzanne Collins, that has fans from tweens up through adults. You might not know that it’s dystopian literature. If you don’t know any of this, I’d suggest you brush up, because I think that this movie and these books are going to continue down their path of wild success, and you don’t want to be the last one in the know.

Keep reading my review at 5 Minutes for Mom, where you can enter to win a copy….

Keep reading at 5 Minutes for Mom to find out my thoughts on this book and the new dystopian novel Restoring Harmony in our weekly book review column. You can enter to win your own set as well by leaving a comment over there.

We are happy to a part of Scholastic’s Parent Circle. Each month, one of our reviewers will select a book from that month’s Scholastic Book Club flyers. Ilsa and I selected this Dystopian Romance pack from February’s TAB flyer.

Elizabeth read 1984 at an impressionable age which has forever tinged her view of dystopian fiction. That didn’t stop her from enjoying these two, however. Read more at her blog Planet Nomad.