en-US Sat, 29 Mar 2025 13:22:52 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 51559209
The kids who found Mr. Larkin are her way in, and her ex–best friend, Tripp Talbot, was one of them. Without his account of events, the other two kids might have gone down for Mr. Larkin’s murder—but instead, thanks to Tripp, they're now at the top of the Saint Ambrose social pyramid. Tripp’s friends have never forgotten what Tripp did for them that day, and neither has he. Just like he hasn’t forgotten that everything he told the police was a lie.

Digging into the past is bound to shake up the present, and when Brynn begins to investigate what happened in the woods that day, she uncovers secrets that might change everything—about Saint Ambrose, about Mr. Larkin, and about her ex-best friend, Tripp Talbot.

Four years ago someone got away with murder. More terrifying is that they might be closer than anyone thinks.]]> 358 Karen M. McManus 0593175905 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.89 2022
author: Karen M. McManus
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 60209470
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?

Everything.

The long-awaited conclusion to the beloved New York Times bestselling and “engrossing� (People) Beartown series—which inspired an HBO series of the same name—follows the small hockey town’s residents as they grapple with change, pain, hope, and redemption.]]> 673 Fredrik Backman 1982112794 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.42 2022
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/29
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]]> 124862
So begins Homer "Sonny" Hickam Jr.'s extraordinary memoir of life in Coalwood, West Virginia - a hard-scrabble little mining company town where the only things that mattered were coal mining and high school football and where the future was regarded with more fear than hope.

Looking back after a distinguished NASA career, Hickam shares the story of his youth, taking readers into the life of the little mining town of Coalwood and the boys who would come to embody its dreams.

In 1957 a young man watched the Soviet satellite Sputnik shoot across the Appalachian sky and soon found his future in the stars. 'Sonny' and a handful of his friends, Roy Lee Cook, Sherman O'Dell and Quentin Wilson were inspired to start designing and launching the home-made rockets that would change their lives forever.

Step by step, with the help (and occasional hindrance) of a collection of unforgettable characters, the boys learn not only how to turn scrap into sophisticated rockets that fly miles into the sky, but how to sustain their dreams as they dared to imagine a life beyond its borders in a town that the postwar boom was passing by.

A powerful story of growing up and of getting out, of a mother's love and a father's fears, Homer Hickam's memoir Rocket Boys proves, like Angela's Ashes and Russell Baker's Growing Up before it, that the right storyteller and the right story can touch readers' hearts and enchant their souls.

A uniquely endearing book with universal themes of class, family, coming of age, and the thrill of discovery, Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys is evocative, vivid storytelling at its most magical.

In 1999, Rocket Boys was made into a Hollywood movie named October Sky starring Chris Cooper, Jake Gyllenhaal and Laura Dern. October Sky is an anagram of Rocket Boys. It is also used in a period radio broadcast describing Sputnik 1 as it crossed the 'October sky'. Homer Hickam stated that "Universal Studios marketing people got involved and they just had to change the title because, according to their research, women over thirty would never see a movie titled Rocket Boys" so Universal Pictures changed the title to be more inviting to a wider audience. The book was later re-released with the name October Sky in order to capitalize on interest in the movie.]]> 428 Homer Hickam 0440235502 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.14 1998
author: Homer Hickam
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/07
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 60460704
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women� taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 275 Victor LaValle 052551208X Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.68 2023
author: Victor LaValle
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/31
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 25774162 320 John Brady 1466881577 Brianna 0 5.00 2015
author: John Brady
name: Brianna
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/30
shelves: nonfiction, owned-but-not-read
review:

]]> 63324547 A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK •ĚýThis beautiful, page-turning and redemptive story of a mother’s gripping journey across the Caribbean to find her stolen children and piece her family back together is a “celebration of motherhood and female resilienceâ€� (The Observer).

Named One of Time’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2023

“A powerful novel that explores how freedom and family are truly defined”—Marie Benedict, New York Times bestselling coauthor of The Personal Librarian
Ěý
Her search begins with an ending.�

The master of the Providence plantation in Barbados gathers his slaves and announces the king has decreed an end to slavery. As of the following day, the Emancipation Act of 1834 will come into effect. The cries of joy fall silent when he announces that they are no longer his slaves; they are now his apprentices. No one can leave. They must work for him for another six years. Freedom is just another name for the life they have always lived. So Rachel runs.
Ěý
Away from Providence, she begins a desperate search to find her children—the five who survived birth and were sold. Are any of them still alive? Rachel has to know. The grueling, dangerous journey takes her from Barbados then, by river, deep into the forest of British Guiana and finally across the sea to Trinidad. She is driven on by the certainty that a mother cannot be truly free without knowing what has become of her children, even if the answer is more than she can bear. These are the stories of Mary Grace, Micah, Thomas Augustus, Cherry Jane and Mercy. But above all this is the story of Rachel and the extraordinary lengths to which a mother will go to find her children...and her freedom.]]> 336 Eleanor Shearer 0593548051 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.18 2023
author: Eleanor Shearer
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/03/27
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]]> 59729042 A novel that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire.

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel.

Babel is the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as its knowledge serves the Empire’s quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide�

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 560 R.F. Kuang Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.14 2022
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/02/15
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 760658 The French Lieutenant's Woman is a feat of seductive storytelling that effectively invents anew the Victorian novel. The novel inspired the hugely successful 1981 film starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons and is today universally regarded as a modern classic.]]> 467 John Fowles 0316291161 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.86 1969
author: John Fowles
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1969
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/10/23
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 59808050 The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows�

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.]]> 352 Alice Feeney 1250843936 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.75 2022
author: Alice Feeney
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/08/19
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 44057462 Set in Depression-era America, a breathtaking story of five extraordinary women and their remarkable journey through the mountains of Kentucky and beyond

When Alice Wright marries handsome American Bennett Van Cleve, she escapes her stifling life in England, but small-town Kentucky quickly proves equally claustrophobic. So when a call goes out for a team of women to deliver books on horseback as part of Eleanor Roosevelt's new traveling library, Alice signs on enthusiastically. What happens to these women—and to the men they love—becomes an unforgettable drama of loyalty, justice, humanity, and passion.

Based on a true story rooted in America's past, The Giver of Stars is unparalleled in its scope and epic in its storytelling. Funny, heartbreaking, enthralling, it is destined to become a modern classic—a richly rewarding novel of women's friendship, of true love, and of what happens when we reach beyond our grasp for the great beyond.]]> 399 Jojo Moyes Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.41 2019
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/07/02
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 17165596 The Kite Runner is a beautifully crafted novel set in a country that is in the process of being destroyed. It is about the power of reading, the price of betrayal, and the possibility of redemption; and an exploration of the power of fathers over sons—their love, their sacrifices, their lies.

A sweeping story of family, love, and friendship told against the devastating backdrop of the history of Afghanistan over the last thirty years, The Kite Runner is an unusual and powerful novel that has become a beloved, one-of-a-kind classic.

The 10th anniversary edition of the New York Times bestseller and international classic loved by millions of readers.

]]> 371 Khaled Hosseini Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.47 2003
author: Khaled Hosseini
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/22
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 56616095 (back cover)]]> 288 Sylvia Plath 0060837020 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.11 1963
author: Sylvia Plath
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1963
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
shelves: owned-but-not-read
review:

]]> 58065358 From Adriana Trigiani, "a master of visual and palpable detail" (The Washington Post), comes a lush, immersive novel about three generations of Tuscan artisans with one remarkable secret. Epic in scope and resplendent with the glorious themes of identity and belonging, The Good Left Undone unfolds in breathtaking turns.

Matelda, the Cabrelli family's matriarch, has always been brusque and opinionated. Now, as she faces the end of her life, she is determined to share a long-held secret with her family about her own mother's great love story: with her childhood friend, Silvio, and with dashing Scottish sea captain John Lawrie McVicars, the father Matelda never knew. . . .

In the halcyon past, Domenica Cabrelli thrives in the coastal town of Viareggio until her beloved home becomes unsafe when Italy teeters on the brink of World War II. Her journey takes her from the rocky shores of Marseille to the mystical beauty of Scotland to the dangers of wartime Liverpool--where Italian Scots are imprisoned without cause--as Domenica experiences love, loss, and grief while she longs for home. A hundred years later, her daughter, Matelda, and her granddaughter, Anina, face the same big questions about life and their family's legacy, while Matelda contemplates what is worth fighting for. But Matelda is running out of time, and the two timelines intersect and weave together in unexpected and heartbreaking ways that lead the family to shocking revelations and, ultimately, redemption.]]> 439 Adriana Trigiani 0593183320 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.90 2022
author: Adriana Trigiani
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
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]]> 36307634 Face your demons... or feed them.

The dashing young king, Nikolai Lantsov, has always had a gift for the impossible. No one knows what he endured in his country's bloody civil war--and he intends to keep it that way. Now, as enemies gather at his weakened borders, Nikolai must find a way to refill Ravka's coffers, forge new alliances, and stop a rising threat to the once-great Grisha Army.

Yet with every day a dark magic within him grows stronger, threatening to destroy all he has built. With the help of a young monk and a legendary Grisha general, Nikolai will journey to the places in Ravka where the deepest magic survives to vanquish the terrible legacy inside him. He will risk everything to save his country and himself. But some secrets aren't meant to stay buried--and some wounds aren't meant to heal.]]> 511 Leigh Bardugo 125014227X Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.16 2019
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
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]]> 55053187
1. Acclaim as an artist.
2. A noble cause.
3. Marriage to a young lord who puts the gentle in gentleman.

Why then does this Oxford scholar find herself at the altar with the darkly attractive financier Lucian Blackstone, whose murky past and ruthless business practices strike fear in the hearts of Britain's peerage? Trust Hattie to take an invigorating little adventure too far. Now she's stuck with a churlish Scot who just might be the end of her ambitions....

When the daughter of his business rival all but falls into his lap, Lucian sees opportunity. As a self-made man, he has vast wealth but holds little power, and Hattie might be the key to finally setting long-harbored political plans in motion. Driven by an old desire for revenge, he has no room for his new wife's apprehensions or romantic notions, bewitching as he finds her.

But a sudden journey to Scotland paints everything in a different light. Hattie slowly sees the real Lucian and realizes she could win everything--as long as she is prepared to lose her heart.

Going toe-to-toe with a brooding Scotsman is rather bold for a respectable suffragist, but when he happens to be one's unexpected husband, what else is an unwilling bride to do?]]> 448 Evie Dunmore 198480572X Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.83 2021
author: Evie Dunmore
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
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]]> 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.11 2020
author: Brit Bennett
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
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]]> 19182039 The capital has fallen.

The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.

Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.]]> 432 Leigh Bardugo Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.13 2014
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
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]]> 56898223
Called "Pastoral," this reclusive community was founded in the 1970s by like-minded people searching for a simpler way of life. By all accounts, the commune shouldn’t exist anymore and soon after Travis stumbles upon it� he disappears. Just like Maggie St. James.

Years later, Theo, a lifelong member of Pastoral, discovers Travis’s abandoned truck beyond the border of the community. No one is allowed in or out, not when there’s a risk of bringing a disease�rot—into Pastoral. Unraveling the mystery of what happened reveals secrets that Theo, his wife, Calla, and her sister, Bee, keep from one another. Secrets that prove their perfect, isolated world isn’t as safe as they believed—and that darkness takes many forms.

Hauntingly beautiful, hypnotic, and bewitching, A History of Wild Places is a story about fairy tales, our fear of the dark, and losing yourself within the wilderness of your mind.]]> 354 Shea Ernshaw 1982164808 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.92 2021
author: Shea Ernshaw
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 55710525 Ferris Bueller’s Day Off meets Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist in this romp through the city that never sleeps from the New York Times bestselling author of Since You’ve Been Gone, Morgan Matson.

Two girls. One night. Zero phones.

Kat and Stevie—best friends, theater kids, polar opposites—have snuck away from the suburbs to spend a night in New York City. They have it all planned out. They’ll see a play, eat at the city’s hottest restaurant, and have the best. Night. Ever. What could go wrong?

Well. Kind of a lot?

They’re barely off the train before they’re dealing with destroyed phones, family drama, and unexpected Pomeranians. Over the next few hours, they’ll have to grapple with old flames, terrible theater, and unhelpful cab drivers. But there are also cute boys to kiss, parties to crash, dry cleaning to deliver (don’t ask), and the world’s best museum to explore.

Over the course of a wild night in the city that never sleeps, both Kat and Stevie will get a wake-up call about their friendship, their choices…and finally discover what they really want for their future.

That is, assuming they can make it to Grand Central before the clock strikes midnight.]]> 416 Morgan Matson 1481498983 Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 3.64 2021
author: Morgan Matson
name: Brianna
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]> 56965384

In It's Better to Be Feared, Seth Wickersham, one of the country’s finest long form and investigative sportswriters, tells the full, behind-the-scenes story of the Patriots, capturing the brilliance, ambition, and vanity that powered and ultimately unraveled them. Based on hundreds of interviews conducted since 2001, Wickersham’s chronicle is packed with revelations, taking us deep into Bill Belichick’s tactical ingenuity and Tom Brady’s unique mentality while also reporting on their divergent paths in 2020, including Brady’s run to the Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Raucous, unvarnished, and definitive, It’s Better to Be Feared is an instant classic of American sportswriting in the tradition of Michael Lewis, David Maraniss, and David Halberstam.]]> 544 Seth Wickersham 163149824X Brianna 0 owned-but-not-read 4.29 2021
author: Seth Wickersham
name: Brianna
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/06/20
shelves: owned-but-not-read
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]]>