Book Blitz & Giveaway: Same Place Same Stars by Katey Taylor

Same Place Same Stars
Katey Taylor
Publication date: May 13, 2025
Genres: Adult, Psychological

Twenty-one-year-old Natalia battles a rare parasomnia sleep disorder that propels her to act violently, experience night terrors, and put herself in dangerous situations—all while she’s unconscious.

After waking up covered in unexplained bruises, she lands herself back in a mental facility. Making friends has never been easy, but at Awana, she quickly bonds with her fun-loving roommate Lindsay and falls for Gabriel, a handsome yet severely depressed resident she secretly meets at night.

As Natalia wrestles with the harsh side effects of her medication, her reality unravels, exposing disturbing truths about those she trusts most. Though romantic relationships are strictly forbidden at Awana, Gabriel becomes her lifeline amidst the chaos. To be with him, Natalia must risk everything—including her sanity, and she learns some choices carry devastating consequences.

Filled with shocking twists, Same Place, Same Stars, unpacks the many layers of what happens when you can no longer avoid dark secrets that refuse to be ignored.

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CHAPTER 1:

No sharp objects. Pack light.

My instinct is to run, but I don’t know how far my sore limbs will carry me.

Apathy is my last line of defense.

I reach for a baggy sweatshirt and leggings. This has become my uniform when I go away, not for any fashion statement but its functionality—it can be easily taken off before my body is searched by a nurse’s gloved hands. The pressure from the fabric causes me to hiss in pain. I carefully step each leg in to cover the tender scrapes and deep purple bruises along my pale white shins and thighs. The bruises are a reminder that I’ve messed up again.

I drag my worn leather suitcase that’s on its last leg away from our cottage and into the trunk of Olga’s station wagon. She doesn’t say a word as we head out of our driveway and onto the tree-dense highway. The branches are grayer than normal, though it could be my mood filtering the world in a cloud of indifference.

Olga rolls every window down even though it’s a brisk fifty-two degrees. Long drives make her sweat. I think she would never leave our small town if it were up to her, but I remain her forcing agent.

My eyes wander from the pastures filled with cows and horses to Olga and her wild blowing hair that is unusually more silver than black for someone in their thirties.

“So, what’s this ward like?” I ask, trying to break the tense silence.

“Don’t call it that. That’s not what it’s called. This is a treatment center.”

She turns up her classical piano playlist, the one she plays to calm her nerves, then hands me a folded piece of stock paper filled with smiling faces of young adults—those who, like me, are not teenagers anymore but not quite what I would consider adults either. Much like our mental state, we’re something in between.

The brochure states this center isn’t government funded. By the looks of it, it seems far out of the budget of Olga’s ballet studio salary and my unemployed status, but it claims as part of their philosophy that they take on special cases free of charge. Just my luck, they happened to have room for a last-minute drop-in.

After the stunt I pulled last night, I’m sure Olga would be willing to pay any price.

Author Bio:

Katey Taylor is a San Francisco Bay Area-based author and published poet, with work featured in online magazines such as DarkWinter Lit, SWAAY, and Fauxmoir. She’s recognized for her ability to address complex topics with sensitivity and depth. To find out more about her previous and upcoming novels, visit www.kateytaylor.com.

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The Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano

Lost Melody by Joanna Davidson Politano
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wrongfully confined to a Victorian mental asylum, a former concert pianist desperately tries to convince someone she's not mad!

After her father's death, concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant is shocked when his solicitor informs her that as his only heir, she was the guardian of one Rosamund Swansea, a patient of the Hurstwell Pauper Lunatic Asylum. Vivienne didn't know anything about the woman, but her father had been paying for her stay at the institution for years. Wanting to learn more about her ward, she contacts the asylum only to be told there was no patient by that name there, nor had there ever been one.

The reply had come too quickly and glibly for Vivienne to accept as a simple mistake; she felt something was 'off.' In addition, there was that long history of payments to the asylum that they denied receiving. Having enough money to make ends meet had been a struggle for her father, but the solicitor claimed he'd never been late or missed paying the Hurstwell bill. With no other ideas on how to discover the truth about Rose, Vivienne goes undercover as an aid at the asylum. But when her questions and snooping attract the attention of Hurstwell's superintendent, Dr. Thornhill, a man she thinks is teetering on the edge of sanity himself, she ends up drugged and confined as a patient, with no way to get help from her friends on the outside.

The Lost Melody was a dark yet exciting historical Christian fiction novel about mental health care and treatment during the 1800s. The asylum storyline and setting are the stuff of nightmares: a creaking old building situated on the edge of the moors, barred doors and windows, hidden passageways, dimly-lit wards with confused and suffering patients, a crumbling tower off-limits to staff, all within view of a well-populated cemetery on the grounds. The main character must even hide in a morgue at one point!

When the story opens, Vivienne is relieved by her father's death; he'd been something of a tyrant. She's an angry young woman, and with good reason. Her father had been an abusive and harsh autocrat, taking the parenting style of the time to an extreme. She's just gotten out from under his thumb only to discover she's got a manager with an agenda that doesn't align with her own. This dissonance led to a gripping novel filled with plot twists and shocking surprises that kept me turning the pages to find out how it would turn out.

The author uses light and dark imagery throughout the story with beautiful results. Within the asylum setting, hope struggles with hopelessness, and dark, gaslit corridors are juxtaposed with the chandelier-bright conservatory. Candles and matches are Vivienne's only items within her control. Light and dark even plays a role in characterization, with some representing light and others darkness while still others actively suck the very light out of the lives of those left to disappear into the asylum.

With its gripping plot, superb storytelling, and sympathetic and engaging characters, I recommend THE LOST MELODY to readers of historical fiction, especially those who are interested in Victorian-era asylums, the treatment and care of mental health patients in the 1800s, and the beginnings of music therapy in mental health settings.

I voluntarily reviewed this after receiving an Advanced Review Copy from the author through NetGalley and Lone Star Book Blog Tours.

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