en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 06:19:46 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 8143909
Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent.]]> 89 Claire Keegan 0571255655 Erin 0 to-read 4.32 2010
author: Claire Keegan
name: Erin
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220259184 Heartwood takes you on a journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.]]> 320 Amity Gaige 1668063603 Erin 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: Amity Gaige
name: Erin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212375021 Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in � she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?

Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret � and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?]]> 385 John Marrs 166250649X Erin 0 to-read 3.96 2025
author: John Marrs
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Erin 0 to-read 4.41 2025
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Erin
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band � and meeting the man who would become her husband � her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her.

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 Erin 0 currently-reading 4.25 2021
author: Michelle Zauner
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 26030734
When robot Roz opens her eyes for the first time, she discovers that she is all alone on a remote, wild island. She has no idea how she got there or what her purpose is—but she knows she needs to survive. After battling a violent storm and escaping a vicious bear attack, she realizes that her only hope for survival is to adapt to her surroundings and learn from the island's unwelcoming animal inhabitants.

As Roz slowly befriends the animals, the island starts to feel like home—until, one day, the robot's mysterious past comes back to haunt her.

From bestselling and award-winning author and illustrator Peter Brown comes a heartwarming and action-packed novel about what happens when nature and technology collide.]]> 282 Peter Brown 0316381993 Erin 3 ya 4.19 2016
author: Peter Brown
name: Erin
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: ya
review:
I had seen this book listed as a middle grades book, but it is definitely a children’s book. I could see an animal-loving eight year old really loving this book.
]]> 478600
Nathaniel is a young magician's apprentice, taking his first lessons in the arts of magic. But when a devious hotshot wizard named Simon Lovelace ruthlessly humiliates Nathaniel in front of everyone he knows, Nathaniel decides to kick up his education a few notches and show Lovelace who's boss. With revenge on his mind, he masters one of the toughest spells of all: summoning the all-powerful djinni, Bartimaeus. But summoning Bartimaeus and controlling him are two different things entirely, and when Nathaniel sends the djinni out to steal the powerful Amulet of Samarkand, Nathaniel finds himself caught up in a whirlwind of magical espionage, murder, blackmail, and revolt.

Set in a modern-day London spiced with magicians and mayhem, this extraordinary, funny, pitch-perfect thriller will dazzle the myriad fans of Artemis Fowl and the His Dark Materials trilogy. And with the rights sold in more than a dozen countries, and a major motion picture in the works, the Bartimaeus trilogy is on the fast track to becoming a classic.]]> 462 Jonathan Stroud 0786852550 Erin 3 audio, ya, series 4.09 2003
author: Jonathan Stroud
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: audio, ya, series
review:
It was refreshing that instead of a chosen one, the conflict in this fantasy was started by a naive but arrogant pre-teen. Kind of like Edmund from Narnia. But I didn’t like it enough to want to continue the series.
]]> 56179377
Seeking help from a powerful gravewitch, Marra is offered the tools to kill a prince—if she can complete three impossible tasks. But, as is the way in tales of princes, witches, and daughters, the impossible is only the beginning.

On her quest, Marra is joined by the gravewitch, a reluctant fairy godmother, a strapping former knight, and a chicken possessed by a demon. Together, the five of them intend to be the hand that closes around the throat of the prince and frees Marra's family and their kingdom from its tyrannous ruler at last.]]> 243 T. Kingfisher 1250244048 Erin 0 to-read 4.07 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Erin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13623848 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780062060624.

Achilles, "the best of all the Greeks," son of the cruel sea goddess Thetis and the legendary king Peleus, is strong, swift, and beautiful, irresistible to all who meet him. Patroclus is an awkward young prince, exiled from his homeland after an act of shocking violence. Brought together by chance, they forge an inseparable bond, despite risking the gods' wrath.

They are trained by the centaur Chiron in the arts of war and medicine, but when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, all the heroes of Greece are called upon to lay siege to Troy in her name. Seduced by the promise of a glorious destiny, Achilles joins their cause, and torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus follows. Little do they know that the cruel Fates will test them both as never before and demand a terrible sacrifice.]]> 408 Madeline Miller Erin 0 to-read 4.30 2011
author: Madeline Miller
name: Erin
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62322008
Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say.

But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .]]> 384 Liz Nugent 1844885968 Erin 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Liz Nugent
name: Erin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23515727 No Country for Old Men is a triumph.]]> 309 Cormac McCarthy 0375706674 Erin 3 4.25 2005
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:
Still impressive writing, but I didn’t love this like I loved The Road, mainly because I found the shifting narrators confusing, making it hard to follow the plot.
]]> 61416564
Growing up, Chloé Hayden felt like she'd crash-landed on an alien planet where nothing made sense. Eye contact? Small talk? And WHY are you people so touch oriented? She moved between 10 schools in 8 years, struggling to become a person she believed society would accept, and was eventually diagnosed with autism and ADHD. It was only after a life-changing group of allies showed her that different did not mean less that she learned to celebrate her true voice and find her happily ever after.

Different, Not Less is a moving, at times funny story of how it feels to be neurodivergent as well as a practical guide, with insights on how autism and ADHD present differently in females, advice for living with meltdowns and shutdowns, tips for finding supportive relationships, communities and workplaces and much more.

Whether you're neurodivergent or supporting those who are, Different, Not Less will inspire you to create a more inclusive world where everyone feels like they belong.]]> 283 Chloé Hayden 1761185047 Erin 0 to-read 4.29 2022
author: Chloé Hayden
name: Erin
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58537365 Celebrating special interests Cultivating Autistic relationships Reframing Autistic stereotypes And rediscovering your valuesIt’s time to honor the needs, diversity, and unique strengths of Autistic people so that they no longer have to mask—and it’s time for greater public acceptance and accommodation of difference. In embracing neurodiversity, we can all reap the rewards of nonconformity and learn to live authentically, Autistic and neurotypical people alike.]]> 304 Devon Price 0593235231 Erin 0 currently-reading 4.38 2022
author: Devon Price
name: Erin
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 43834909 Two sisters travel the same streets, though their lives couldn't be more different. Then, one of them goes missing.

In a Philadelphia neighborhood rocked by the opioid crisis, two once-inseparable sisters find themselves at odds. One, Kacey, lives on the streets in the vise of addiction. The other, Mickey, walks those same blocks on her police beat. They don't speak anymore, but Mickey never stops worrying about her sibling.

Then Kacey disappears, suddenly, at the same time that a mysterious string of murders begins in Mickey's district, and Mickey becomes dangerously obsessed with finding the culprit--and her sister--before it's too late.

Alternating its present-day mystery with the story of the sisters' childhood and adolescence, Long Bright River is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate.]]> 482 Liz Moore 0525540679 Erin 0 to-read 4.03 2020
author: Liz Moore
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23363928
After all, she was a normal American herself, once.

That was a long time ago, of course—before the time she calls “adoption day,� when she and a dozen other children found themselves being raised by a man they learned to call Father.

Father could do strange things. He could call light from darkness. Sometimes he raised the dead. And when he was disobeyed, the consequences were terrible.

In the years since Father took her in, Carolyn hasn't gotten out much. Instead, she and her adopted siblings have been raised according to Father's ancient Pelapi customs. They've studied the books in his library and learned some of the secrets behind his equally ancient power.

Sometimes, they've wondered if their cruel tutor might secretly be God.

Now, Father is missing. And if God truly is dead, the only thing that matters is who will inherit his library—and with it, power over all of creation.

As Carolyn gathers the tools she needs for the battle to come, fierce competitors for this prize align against her.

But Carolyn can win. She's sure of it. What she doesn't realize is that her victory may come at an unacceptable price—because in becoming a God, she's forgotten a great deal about being human.]]> 390 Scott Hawkins 0553418602 Erin 4 —I don’t know what the heck is going on.
—Ok I get it now
—Nope, still lost
—Think I get it now
—What is happening???
—Repeat until the end, where you’re still confused but say, That was an amazing book.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that reel as I read this. Totally weird and confusing fantasy world, but pretty satisfying in the end.]]> 4.01 2015
author: Scott Hawkins
name: Erin
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:
I saw an Instagram reel that described reading fantasy as a squiggly line graph that goes like this:
—I don’t know what the heck is going on.
—Ok I get it now
—Nope, still lost
—Think I get it now
—What is happening???
—Repeat until the end, where you’re still confused but say, That was an amazing book.

I couldn’t stop thinking about that reel as I read this. Totally weird and confusing fantasy world, but pretty satisfying in the end.
]]> 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Erin 0 to-read 4.27 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Erin
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 12401556 The Age of Miracles tells the haunting and beautiful story of Julia and her family as they struggle to live in a time of extraordinary change.
Ěý
On an ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia awakens to discover that something has happened to the rotation of the earth. The days and nights are growing longer and longer; gravity is affected; the birds, the tides, human behavior, and cosmic rhythms are thrown into disarray. In a world that seems filled with danger and loss, Julia also must face surprising developments in herself, and in her personal world: divisions widening between her parents; strange behavior by her friends; the pain and vulnerability of first love; a growing sense of isolation; and a surprising, rebellious new strength. With crystalline prose and the indelible magic of a born storyteller, Karen Thompson Walker paints a breathtaking portrait of people finding ways to go on in an ever-evolving world.]]> 294 Karen Thompson Walker 0812983602 Erin 4
One reviewer on here complained that this book wasn't scientifically accurate and that the author should have done her homework on what would actually happen if the earth slowed down. I don't think scientists know for sure what would happen, but based on what little I know (along with a little googling) about gravity, magnetism, and centrifugal force, I found the author's suppositions to be within the realm of possibility. I'm pretty picky about sci-fi that doesn't make sense, and once I accepted the implausible situation of the earth slowing, I never felt a need to question the rest.]]> 3.66 2012
author: Karen Thompson Walker
name: Erin
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2013/04/22
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves:
review:
The average rating on this book right now is 3.67 stars, and that's about what I'd give it. It's one of the slowest books I've read in awhile, and the actual plot was pretty mundane and ordinary (typical coming of age stuff with first loves and broken friendships and betrayals by parents). But set against the background of a dying world, the ordinary took on a new importance. Overall, the book had a lovely nostalgic quality that I enjoyed but wasn't wowed by.

One reviewer on here complained that this book wasn't scientifically accurate and that the author should have done her homework on what would actually happen if the earth slowed down. I don't think scientists know for sure what would happen, but based on what little I know (along with a little googling) about gravity, magnetism, and centrifugal force, I found the author's suppositions to be within the realm of possibility. I'm pretty picky about sci-fi that doesn't make sense, and once I accepted the implausible situation of the earth slowing, I never felt a need to question the rest.
]]> 198397258
Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
Ěý
Which is how Daphne begins her new Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
Ěý
ĚýScruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads —Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
Ěý
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?]]> 544 Emily Henry 0593910575 Erin 4 romance 4.28 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: romance
review:
Not as funny in my opinion as some of Henry’s other books (despite being titled Funny Story), but full of heart. ❤️
]]> 18693771 A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world's foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers' capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain's natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.]]> 464 Bessel van der Kolk 0670785938 Erin 0 to-read 4.36 2014
author: Bessel van der Kolk
name: Erin
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60487339 301 Xavier Amador 0985206780 Erin 5 4.69
author: Xavier Amador
name: Erin
average rating: 4.69
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves:
review:
Recommended to me by a family support group. Excellent book for families of someone with mental health challenges who doesn’t think they need help. We’ll see if my review changes as I try to put these tools into practice.
]]> 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

Sydney Shaw, like every single woman in New York, has terrible luck with dating. She’s seen it men who lie in their dating profile, men who stick her with the dinner bill, and worst of all, men who can't shut up about their mothers. But finally, she hits the jackpot.

Her new boyfriend is utterly perfect. He's charming, handsome, and works as a doctor at a local hospital. Sydney is swept off her feet.

Then the brutal murder of a young woman―the latest in a string of deaths across the coast―confounds police. The primary suspect? A mystery man who dates his victims before he kills them.

Sydney should feel safe. After all, she is dating the guy of her dreams. But she can’t shake her own suspicions that the perfect man may not be as perfect as he seems. Because someone is watching her every move, and if she doesn’t get to the truth, she’ll be the killer’s next victim...

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 Erin 3 3.95 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Erin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:
The twist in this one surprised me too, but like the other Frieda McFadden book I read, it’s because the misdirection is so dumb and overhanded, not because it’s so well-crafted. Don’t get me wrong - I’m enjoying these while I’m reading. They’re very hard to put down. But pretty dumb.
]]> 22514020 Ěý
Along the way, he reveals the untold story of Hans Asperger, the father of Asperger’s syndrome, whose “little professors� were targeted by the darkest social-engineering experiment in human history; exposes the covert campaign by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner to suppress knowledge of the autism spectrum for fifty years; and casts light on the growing movement of "neurodiversity" activists seeking respect, support, technological innovation, accommodations in the workplace and in education, and the right to self-determination for those with cognitive differences.]]> 477 Steve Silberman 158333467X Erin 0 to-read 4.27 2015
author: Steve Silberman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213243915 The #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books so many love, brings us a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is... complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.]]> 450 Jojo Moyes 1984879324 Erin 0 to-read 3.87 2025
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Erin
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making�a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists�the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until � betrayed and brokenhearted � she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America � but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X Erin 0 to-read 3.94 2025
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Erin
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18722098 207 Ellen B. Braaten 1609184726 Erin 3 3.99 2014
author: Ellen B. Braaten
name: Erin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
Another book I read for school. The main takeaways for teachers are that kids with slow processing speed really benefit from a structured class and learning environment, even though they may think they prefer less structure. Teachers should also make sure they’re differentiating (duh), and giving lots of opportunities to practice and avoiding overloading with content. Pretty common sense stuff.
]]> 209496283 Time is a healer, but it helps to have a friend.

The last thing Alice expects to see at her husband’s graveside on his birthday is a giant, talking frog. On closer inspection, it’s a grown man dressed as Kermit.

Turns out Alice’s husband is buried next to Ben’s older brother Harry, who—as a parting practical joke in his will—insisted that Ben visit his grave each year, on this specific day, dressed in an as-yet-undisclosed pageant of embarrassing fancy dress.

With little but their grief and this one day in common, Alice and Ben form a very special, very strange friendship, meeting just once a same day, same time, same place—different silly costume. As the years pass and grief alters, can their unique bond help them cope with the hardest part of life?]]> 314 Nick Spalding 1662519990 Erin 0 to-read 4.24 2024
author: Nick Spalding
name: Erin
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 234809 48 Brenda Smith Myles 1931282994 Erin 0 to-read, education 4.28 2006
author: Brenda Smith Myles
name: Erin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, education
review:

]]> 217387937 A pulse-pounding new Southern thriller from the author of the runaway bestseller A Flicker in the Dark.

Twenty-two years ago, Claire Campbell’s older sister, Natalie, disappeared shortly after her eighteenth birthday. Days later, her blood was found in a car, a man was arrested, and the case was swiftly closed. In the decades since, Claire has attempted to forget her traumatic past by moving to the city and climbing the ranks as an investigative journalist... until an unexpected call from her father forces her to come back home and face it all anew.

With the entire summer now looming ahead—a summer spent with nothing to do in her childhood home, with her estranged mother—Claire decides on a whim to accept a seasonal job at Galloway Farm, a muscadine vineyard in coastal South Carolina less than an hour away from where she grew up. At first glance, Galloway is an idyllic escape for Claire. A scenic retreat full of slow-paced nostalgia, as well as a place where her sister seemed truly happy in that last summer before she vanished, it feels like the perfect plan to pass the time. However, as soon as Claire starts to settle in, she stumbles across an old diary written by one of the vineyard's owners, and what at first seems like a story of young rebellion and love turns into something much more sinister as it begins to describe details of various unsolved crimes. As the days stretch on, Claire finds herself becoming more and more secluded as she starts to obsess over the diary's contents� as well as the lingering feeling that her own sister's disappearance may be somehow tied to it all.

Galloway was supposed to be a place to help her move forward, but instead, Claire quickly finds herself immersed in her own dark and dangerous past.]]> 336 Stacy Willingham 1250887976 Erin 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Erin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52085140
The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighborhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s.

Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be, which comprise a series of novella-length volumes. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House.]]> 125 Beth Brower 0998063614 Erin 5
I’m not sure if each of these books should be rated separately since they are serialized like old fashioned books. Also, the author has said she thinks of them like seasons of a TV show with the first five being season 1. ]]> 4.23 2019
author: Beth Brower
name: Erin
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:
Loved Emma M. Lion a lot. Hope the author can keep it up for the 25 novellas that she has planned.

I’m not sure if each of these books should be rated separately since they are serialized like old fashioned books. Also, the author has said she thinks of them like seasons of a TV show with the first five being season 1.
]]> 11352031 Ěý]]> 253 Shari Y. Manning 1609181956 Erin 5 4.21 2011
author: Shari Y. Manning
name: Erin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:
This book could just as easily be called “Loving Someone with Emotional Dysregulation,� which includes so many people from those who have ADHD, anger management challenges, autism, bipolar, major depressive disorder, etc. to those of us that simply struggle with anxiety. Honestly, I feel like the communication skills could be used with just about anyone.
]]> 53231680 A revolutionary new approach to ADD/ADHD featuring cutting-edge research and strategies to help readers thrive, by the bestselling authors of the seminal books Driven to Distraction and Delivered from Distraction

"An inspired road map for living with a distractible brain . . . If you or your child suffer from ADHD, this book should be on your shelf. It will give you courage and hope."--Michael Thompson, Ph.D., New York Times bestselling co-author of Raising Cain

World-renowned authors Dr. Edward M. Hallowell and Dr. John J. Ratey literally "wrote the book" on ADD/ADHD more than two decades ago. Their bestseller, Driven to Distraction, largely introduced this diagnosis to the public and sold more than a million copies along the way.

Now, most people have heard of ADHD and know someone who may have it. But lost in the discussion of both childhood and adult diagnosis of ADHD is the potential upside: Many hugely successful entrepreneurs and highly creative people attribute their achievements to ADHD. Also unknown to most are the recent research developments, including innovations that give a clearer understanding of the ADHD brain in action. In ADHD 2.0, Drs. Hallowell and Ratey, both of whom have this "variable attention trait," draw on the latest science to provide both parents and adults with ADHD a plan for minimizing the downside and maximizing the benefits of ADHD at any age. They offer an arsenal of new strategies and lifestyle hacks for thriving with ADHD, including

- Find the right kind of difficult. Use these behavior assessments to discover the work, activity, or creative outlet best suited to an individual's unique strengths.
- Reimagine environment. What specific elements to look for--at home, at school, or in the workplace--to enhance the creativity and entrepreneurial spirit inherent in the ADHD mind.
- Embrace innate neurological tendencies. Take advantage of new findings about the brain's default mode network and cerebellum, which confer major benefits for people with ADHD.
- Tap into the healing power of connection. Tips for establishing and maintaining positive connection "the other Vitamind C" and the best antidote to the negativity that plagues so many people with ADHD.
- Consider medication. Gets the facts about the underlying chemistry, side effects, and proven benefits of all the pharmaceutical options.

As inspiring as it is practical, 'ADHD 2.0' will help you tap into the power of this mercurial condition and find the key that unlocks potential.




RUNNING TIME => 7hrs.

©2021 Edward M. Hallowell and John J. Ratey (P)2021 Random House Audio]]> 208 Edward M. Hallowell 0399178732 Erin 3
One thing I that I really appreciated learning is that you can hire a social learning trainer. My childhood would have been so much easier if I’d had social learning training, and a couple of my kids would have benefited from having it too. So now I know to hire a social learning trainer for any grandkids I might have someday.]]> 4.05 2021
author: Edward M. Hallowell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:
I read this because so many students with reading difficulties have ADHD. I learned a lot about ADHD, but there weren’t a lot of strategies that I found useful for supporting my students. The authors also include a lot of strategies with the caveat that there’s not a lot of research to support it. If I actually had ADHD or a child with ADHD, I might appreciate this “you might as well give it a try� attitude, but I personally wanted more science-backed approaches from a book by doctors.

One thing I that I really appreciated learning is that you can hire a social learning trainer. My childhood would have been so much easier if I’d had social learning training, and a couple of my kids would have benefited from having it too. So now I know to hire a social learning trainer for any grandkids I might have someday.
]]> 18364429
Sarah Grimké is the middle daughter. The one her mother calls difficult and her father calls remarkable. On Sarah's eleventh birthday, Hetty 'Handful' Grimké is taken from the slave quarters she shares with her mother, wrapped in lavender ribbons, and presented to Sarah as a gift. Sarah knows what she does next will unleash a world of trouble. She also knows that she cannot accept. And so, indeed, the trouble begins ...

A powerful, sweeping novel, inspired by real events, and set in the American Deep South in the nineteenth century, The Invention of Wings evokes a world of shocking contrasts, of beauty and ugliness, of righteous people living daily with cruelty they fail to recognize; and celebrates the power of friendship and sisterhood against all the odds.]]> 384 Sue Monk Kidd 0698152425 Erin 0 to-read 4.42 2014
author: Sue Monk Kidd
name: Erin
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62080187
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate� with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.

Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.]]> 286 Freida McFadden Erin 3 4.09 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves:
review:
This one got me with the twist (first thriller/mystery I haven’t guessed in awhile), which was disappointing since I had been thinking that this was the worst written book I’d read in awhile with one narrator who was an awful but supposedly famous psychiatrist and the other narrator who was a pansy baby.
]]> 57693172
Now 20 years later, Chloe is a psychologist in private practice in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. She finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to get. Sometimes, though, she feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. And then a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, and that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, and seeing parallels that aren't really there, or for the second time in her life, is she about to unmask a killer?

In a debut novel that has already been optioned for a limited series by actress Emma Stone and sold to a dozen countries around the world, Stacy Willingham has created an unforgettable character in a spellbinding thriller that will appeal equally to fans of Gillian Flynn and Karin Slaughter.]]> 357 Stacy Willingham 1250803829 Erin 4 thriller 3.96 2022
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: thriller
review:
I called the twist within the first few chapters, which was disappointing, but I still enjoyed the experience.
]]> 45836551
After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you're a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodermus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880's America.

What's more, this safe haven is not what it appears - as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won't be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by - and that Jane needs her, too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane's back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it's up to Katherine to keep hope alive - even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.]]> 560 Justina Ireland 006257065X Erin 1 4.15 2020
author: Justina Ireland
name: Erin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:
A messy plot that even the fun narrative voice and kickass sisterhood could not overcome.
]]> 61149872 1) Treat all prisoners with respect.
2) Never reveal any personal information.
3) Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates.

But none of the staff at the prison knows Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates. And they certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheart―the star quarterback who is now spending the rest of his life in prison for a series of grisly murders. Or that Brooke's testimony was what put him there.

But Shane knows. And he will never forget.]]> 388 Freida McFadden Erin 0 to-read 4.03 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62874245 Ěý
Lee Gulliver never thought she’d find herself living on the streets—no one ever does—but when her restaurant fails, and she falls deeper into debt, she leaves her old life behind with nothing but her clothes and her Toyota Corolla. In Seattle, she parks in a secluded spot by the beach to lay low and plan her next move—until early one morning, she sees aĚýsobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. Lee hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. The drowning woman, Hazel, tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Lee has thwarted her one chance to escape her life.

Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her, until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And thenĚýone day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems, and that Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.]]> 336 Robyn Harding 1538726769 Erin 0 to-read 3.99 2023
author: Robyn Harding
name: Erin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176451879
One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Intricate, heart-racing, and from an author who “is the real deal� (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Kill for Me, Kill for You will keep you breathless until the final page.]]> 340 Steve Cavanagh 1668049341 Erin 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Steve Cavanagh
name: Erin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40718386
When someone hacks into the systems of eight self-drive cars, their passengers are set on a fatal collision course.

The passengers are: a TV star, a pregnant young woman, a disabled war hero, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife - and parents of two - who are travelling in separate vehicles and a suicidal man. Now the public have to judge who should survive but are the passengers all that they first seem?]]> 400 John Marrs 1473558522 Erin 0 to-read 4.04 2019
author: John Marrs
name: Erin
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60109530
Mia and Finn are busy turning a derelict house into their dream home when Mia unexpectedly falls pregnant. But just when they think the house is ready, Mia discovers a chilling message scored into a skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following the clue up into the eaves, the couple make a gruesome discovery: their dream home was once a house of horrors.

In the wake of their traumatic discovery, the baby arrives and Mia can’t shake her fixation with the monstrous crimes that happened right above them. Haunted by the terrible things she saw and desperate to find answers, her obsession pulls her ever further from her husband.

Secrecy shrouds the mystery of the attic, but when shards of a dark truth start to emerge, Mia realises the danger is terrifyingly present. She is prepared to do anything to protect her family—but is it already too late?]]> 380 John Marrs 1542017289 Erin 0 to-read 4.08 2022
author: John Marrs
name: Erin
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 53137974 An alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BYCWK6T can be found here.

Sally Hepworth, the author of The Mother-In-Law delivers a knock-out of a novel about the lies that bind two sisters in The Good Sister.

There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be...dangerous.

When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of what families keep hidden.]]> 309 Sally Hepworth 1250120950 Erin 0 to-read 4.11 2020
author: Sally Hepworth
name: Erin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59316367 448 David Ellis 0399170928 Erin 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: David Ellis
name: Erin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52616342
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.

A high school girl has vanished from Erika's quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst--murder. And Erika's teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.

Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he's innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can't deny the truth--Liam may have done the unthinkable.

Now she must ask herself:

How far will she go to protect her son?]]> 373 Freida McFadden Erin 0 to-read 4.03 2019
author: Freida McFadden
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41154336
A psychopath is terrorizing Copenhagen.

His calling card is a “chestnut man”—a handmade doll made of matchsticks and two chestnuts—which he leaves at each bloody crime scene. Examining the dolls, forensics makes a shocking discovery—a fingerprint belonging to a young girl, a government minister’s daughter who had been kidnapped and murdered a year ago.

A tragic coincidence—or something more twisted?

To save innocent lives, a pair of detectives must put aside their differences to piece together the Chestnut Man’s gruesome clues.

Because it’s clear that the madman is on a mission that is far from over.

And no one is safe.]]> 519 Søren Sveistrup 0062895362 Erin 0 to-read 4.17 2019
author: Søren Sveistrup
name: Erin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56238004 Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She’s spent a decade treating California’s most depraved predators and unlocking their motives—predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning—and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development�

Defense attorney Robert Kavin is a still-traumatized father whose own son fell prey to the BH Killer. Convinced of Thompson’s innocence, he steps in to represent him. Now Robert wants Gwen to interview the accused, create a psych profile of the killer and his victims, and help clear his client’s name.

As Gwen and Robert grow closer and she dives deeper into the investigation, grave questions arise. So does Gwen’s suspicion that Robert is hiding something—and that he might not be the only one with a secret.

Six teenagers dead. Finally, the killer behind bars. But are the games just beginning?]]> 257 A.R. Torre 1542020174 Erin 0 to-read 4.12 2021
author: A.R. Torre
name: Erin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35533431 A suspense novel from the award-winning author of The Haunting of Maddy Clare...

Vermont, 1950. There's a place for the girls whom no one wants--the troublemakers, the illegitimate, the too smart for their own good. It's called Idlewild Hall. And in the small town where it's located, there are rumors that the boarding school is haunted. Four roommates bond over their whispered fears, their budding friendship blossoming--until one of them mysteriously disappears.Ěý.Ěý. .

Vermont, 2014. As much as she's tried, journalist Fiona Sheridan cannot stop revisiting the events surrounding her older sister's death. Twenty years ago, her body was found lying in the overgrown fields near the ruins of Idlewild Hall. And though her sister's boyfriend was tried and convicted of murder, Fiona can't shake the suspicion that something was never right about the case.

When Fiona discovers that Idlewild Hall is being restored by an anonymous benefactor, she decides to write a story about it. But a shocking discovery during the renovations will link the loss of her sister to secrets that were meant to stay hidden in the past--and a voice that won't be silenced.Ěý.Ěý. .]]> 336 Simone St. James Erin 0 to-read 4.06 2018
author: Simone St. James
name: Erin
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45046683
A year later, Marin is a shadow of herself. The FBI search has gone cold. The publicity has faded. She and her husband rarely speak. She hires a P.I. to pick up where the police left off, but instead of finding Sebastian, she learns that Derek is having an affair with a younger woman. This discovery sparks Marin back to life. She's lost her son; she's not about to lose her husband, too. Kenzie is an enemy with a face, which means this is a problem Marin can fix.

Permanently.

All it takes to unravel a life is one little secret...

Overwhelmed by tragedy, a woman desperately tries to save her marriage in award-winning author Jennifer Hillier's Little Secrets, a riveting novel of psychological suspense.]]> 352 Jennifer Hillier Erin 0 to-read 4.19 2020
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: Erin
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30689367 A tragic accident. It all happened so quickly. She couldn't have prevented it. Could she?

In a split second, Jenna Gray's world descends into a nightmare. Her only hope of moving on is to walk away from everything she knows to start afresh. Desperate to escape, Jenna moves to a remote cottage on the Welsh coast, but she is haunted by her fears, her grief and her memories of a cruel November night that changed her life forever.

Slowly, Jenna begins to glimpse the potential for happiness in her future. But her past is about to catch up with her, and the consequences will be devastating . . .]]> 400 Clare Mackintosh 1101987502 Erin 0 to-read 3.96 2014
author: Clare Mackintosh
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36315374
When she was sixteen years old, Angela Wong—one of the most popular girls in school—disappeared without a trace. Nobody ever suspected that her best friend, Georgina Shaw, now an executive and rising star at her Seattle pharmaceutical company, was involved in any way. Certainly not Kaiser Brody, who was close with both girls back in high school.

But fourteen years later, Angela Wong's remains are discovered in the woods near Geo's childhood home. And Kaiser—now a detective with Seattle PD—finally learns the truth: Angela was a victim of Calvin James. The same Calvin James who murdered at least three other women.

To the authorities, Calvin is a serial killer. But to Geo, he's something else entirely. Back in high school, Calvin was Geo's first love. Turbulent and often volatile, their relationship bordered on obsession from the moment they met right up until the night Angela was killed.

For fourteen years, Geo knew what happened to Angela and told no one. For fourteen years, she carried the secret of Angela's death until Geo was arrested and sent to prison.

While everyone thinks they finally know the truth, there are dark secrets buried deep. And what happened that fateful night is more complex and more chilling than anyone really knows. Now the obsessive past catches up with the deadly present when new bodies begin to turn up, killed in the exact same manner as Angela Wong.

How far will someone go to bury her secrets and hide her grief? How long can you get away with a lie? How long can you live with it?]]> 311 Jennifer Hillier 1250154197 Erin 0 to-read 4.09 2018
author: Jennifer Hillier
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 18144124 Pilgrim.']]> 612 Terry Hayes 1439177724 Erin 0 to-read 4.25 2013
author: Terry Hayes
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52652923 Two women. Two Flights. One last chance to disappear.

Claire Cook has a perfect life. Married to the scion of a political dynasty, with a Manhattan townhouse and a staff of ten, her surroundings are elegant, her days flawlessly choreographed, and her future auspicious. But behind closed doors, nothing is quite as it seems. That perfect husband has a temper that burns as bright as his promising political career, and he's not above using his staff to track Claire's every move, making sure she's living up to his impossible standards. But what he doesn't know is that Claire has worked for months on a plan to vanish.

A chance meeting in an airport bar brings her together with a woman whose circumstances seem equally dire. Together they make a last-minute decision to switch tickets � Claire taking Eva's flight to Oakland, and Eva traveling to Puerto Rico as Claire. They believe the swap will give each of them the head start they need to begin again somewhere far away. But when the flight to Puerto Rico goes down, Claire realizes it's no longer a head start but a new life. Cut off, out of options, with the news of her death about to explode in the media, Claire will assume Eva's identity, and along with it, the secrets Eva fought so hard to keep hidden.

The Last Flight is the story of two women â€� both alone, both scared â€� and one agonizing decision that will change theĚýtrajectory of both of their lives.]]> 320 Julie Clark 1728215722 Erin 0 to-read 4.02 2020
author: Julie Clark
name: Erin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 45885495 There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

His & Hers is a twisty, smart, psychological thriller. A gripping tale of suspense, told by expertly-drawn narrators that will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 304 Alice Feeney 1250266076 Erin 0 to-read 4.03 2020
author: Alice Feeney
name: Erin
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 21686 369 Dennis Lehane 038073186X Erin 0 to-read 4.12 2003
author: Dennis Lehane
name: Erin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2003
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30319086
As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.]]> 354 M.L. Rio 125009528X Erin 0 to-read 4.11 2017
author: M.L. Rio
name: Erin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57361474 People don’t just disappear without a trace....

Shelby Tebow is the first to go missing. Not long after, Meredith Dickey and her six-year-old daughter, Delilah, vanish just blocks away from where Shelby was last seen, striking fear into their once-peaceful community. Are these incidents connected? After an elusive search that yields more questions than answers, the case eventually goes cold.

Now, 11 years later, Delilah shockingly returns. Everyone wants to know what happened to her, but no one is prepared for what they’ll find....

In this smart and chilling thriller, master of suspense and New York Times best-selling author Mary Kubica takes domestic secrets to a whole new level, showing that some people will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.]]> 356 Mary Kubica 077831166X Erin 0 to-read 4.10 2021
author: Mary Kubica
name: Erin
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22840421 This comical, fantastical, romantical, New York Times bestselling, (not) entirely true story of Lady Jane Grey is “an uproarious historical fantasy that’s not to be missed� (Publishers Weekly, starred review).

In My Lady Jane, coauthors Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows have created a one-of-a-kind YA fantasy in the tradition of The Princess Bride, featuring a reluctant king, an even more reluctant queen, a noble steed, and only a passing resemblance to actual history—because sometimes history needs a little help.

At sixteen, Lady Jane Grey is about to be married off to a stranger and caught up in a conspiracy to rob her cousin, King Edward, of his throne. But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about. Jane gets to be Queen of England.

Like that could go wrong.]]> 474 Cynthia Hand 0062391798 Erin 4
I kind of wished the ending had been more true to history. Not that everyone had to die, but that Mary had been queen for many years before Elizabeth became queen.]]> 4.00 2016
author: Cynthia Hand
name: Erin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:
The witty narration made a dumb-sounding premise (a re-imagining of English history where some people can shapeshift into animals) into a fun and amusing story. I listened to the audio, and I definitely recommend it. The audio narrator was fantastic.

I kind of wished the ending had been more true to history. Not that everyone had to die, but that Mary had been queen for many years before Elizabeth became queen.
]]> 53257881 Sometimes, love finds you when you least expect it...

Having worked for Southern Service Paws for a few years now, I like to think I’m prepared for just about any client meeting under the sun. I am dead wrong.

The day I meet with single dad, Jacob Broaden, about potentially matching his daughter with one of our service dogs, I learn a few valuable lessons.

1) Always set my alarm clock.
2) Single dads are way hotter than I previously thought.
3) It is possible to go from fantasizing about kissing someone to wishing they would be run over by a truck in a matter of two minutes.

Unfortunately, I don’t hold that opinion of him for very long. Not when he shows me a different side of himself—one that’s sweet as maple syrup and hot as apple pie fresh out of the oven. And after a few days of working closely with him and his daughter, he starts looking at me with fire in his eyes, making me dream of something I probably shouldn’t�
A family.

The Match is a feel-good, closed-door romantic comedy! Perfect for readers who enjoy sweet, sizzling chemistry with passionate kissing only. ]]> 284 Sarah Adams Erin 3 3.95 2020
author: Sarah Adams
name: Erin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:
This one had a slow start for me, but I enjoyed the plot developments in the final third, even though they were pretty cliche. Also just in general liked the idea of characters with epilepsy and service dogs.
]]> 62919375
At first, Wren internally resists her husband’s fate. Is there a way for them to be together after Lewis changes? Then, a glimpse of Lewis’s developing carnivorous nature activates long-repressed memories for Wren, whose story vacillates between her childhood living on a houseboat in Oklahoma, her time with her college ex-girlfriend, and her unusual friendship with a woman pregnant with twin birds.]]> 416 Emily Habeck 1668006499 Erin 4
Once we shifted to Angela’s point of view, it felt like the book was meandering redundantly to the end. It wasn’t terrible; it was just disappointing, so I was less interested in reading it.]]> 3.95 2023
author: Emily Habeck
name: Erin
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/18
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars average. I really loved the first third of this book and felt at that point that it was a 5 star read. The premise is absurd, but it works as a metaphorical explanation of watching someone you love suffer through a debilitating illness. Because it wasn’t a real disease, it’s relatable as dementia, terminal cancer, or mental health without being one specifically. Wren and Lewis’s attempts to continue loving each other despite this challenge were beautifully written.

Once we shifted to Angela’s point of view, it felt like the book was meandering redundantly to the end. It wasn’t terrible; it was just disappointing, so I was less interested in reading it.
]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Erin 4
“Was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?”]]> 4.13 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: Erin
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
I loved how I could hear the Irish accent in my head thanks to the author’s phrasing and word choice. Not much of a plot (you basically spend the book in the main character’s head), but if you can hold out to the end, it’s a lovely little story about what it means to be Christian.

“Was there any point in being alive without helping one another? Was it possible to carry along through all the years, the decades, through an entire life, without once being brave enough to go against what was there and yet call yourself a Christian, and face yourself in the mirror?�
]]> 30091914 A riveting, poetic, and fearless portrait of political unrest and the universal struggle for justice by the acclaimed author of The Vegetarian.

In the midst of a violent student uprising in South Korea, a young boy named Dong-ho is shockingly killed.

The story of this tragic episode unfolds in a sequence of interconnected chapters as the victims and the bereaved encounter suppression, denial, and the echoing agony of the massacre. From Dong-ho’s best friend, who meets his own fateful end, to an editor struggling against censorship; to a prisoner and a factory worker, both suffering from traumatic memories; and to Dong-ho's own grief-stricken mother, their collective heartbreak and acts of hope tell the tale of a brutalized people in search of a voice.

An award-winning, controversial bestseller, Human Acts is a timeless, pointillist portrait of a historic event with reverberations still being felt today, by turns tracing the harsh reality of oppression and the resounding, extraordinary poetry of humanity.]]> 218 Han Kang 1101906723 Erin 4 4.26 2014
author: Han Kang
name: Erin
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
Heartbreaking book, but beautiful writing.
]]> 35297426 She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW
It’s been ten years since Ellie disappeared, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her daughter.

And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet.

Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter.

Poppy is precocious and pretty - and meeting her completely takes Laurel's breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age. And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?

Who still has secrets to hide?]]> 359 Lisa Jewell 1501154648 Erin 3 thriller 4.02 2017
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves: thriller
review:
3.5 stars. Kept me interested, but there were a lot of moments of “really???� the closer I got to the end.
]]> 8031168
Drawing on the latest research in neuroscience and psychology, Cordelia Fine debunks the myth of hardwired differences between men’s and women’s brains, unraveling the evidence behind such claims as men’s brains aren’t wired for empathy, and women’s brains aren’t made to fix cars. She then goes one step further, offering a very different explanation of the dissimilarities between men’s and women’s behavior. Instead of a “male brain� and a “female brain,� Fine gives us a glimpse of plastic, mutable minds that are continuously influenced by cultural assumptions about gender.

Delusions of Gender provides us with a much-needed corrective to the belief that men’s and women’s brains are intrinsically different--a belief that, as Fine shows with insight and humor--all too often works to the detriment of ourselves and our society.]]> 338 Cordelia Fine 0393068382 Erin 0 to-read, nonfiction 4.07 2010
author: Cordelia Fine
name: Erin
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: to-read, nonfiction
review:

]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Erin 0 to-read, nonfiction, audio 4.37 2021
author: John Green
name: Erin
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read, nonfiction, audio
review:

]]> 30223025
But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.]]> 455 Justina Ireland 0062570609 Erin 4 ya 4.12 2018
author: Justina Ireland
name: Erin
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: ya
review:
Loved the characters in this reimagined history, especially the narrator and her witty narration.
]]> 62583516 This powerful and moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea weaves together past and present, tracing the ripple effects of war and immigration on one child in Europe in 1938 and another in the United States in 2019.

Vienna, 1938. Samuel Adler was six years old when his father disappeared during Kristallnacht—the night their family lost everything. Samuel’s mother secured a spot for him on the last Kindertransport train out of Nazi-occupied Austria to the United Kingdom, which he boarded alone, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and his violin.

Arizona, 2019. Eight decades later, Anita Diaz, a blind seven-year-old girl, and her mother board another train, fleeing looming danger in El Salvador and seeking refuge in the United States. However, their arrival coincides with the new family separation policy, and Anita finds herself alone at a camp in Nogales. She escapes through her trips to Azabahar, a magical world of the imagination she created with her sister back home.

Anita’s case is assigned to Selena Duran, a young social worker who enlists the help of a promising lawyer from one of San Francisco’s top law firms. Together they discover that Anita has another family member in the United States: Leticia Cordero, who is employed at the home of now eighty-six-year-old Samuel Adler, linking these two lives.

Spanning time and place, The Wind Knows My Name is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers—and never stop dreaming.]]> 260 Isabel Allende 0593598105 Erin 3 3.93 2023
author: Isabel Allende
name: Erin
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves:
review:
I appreciate what Allende was trying to do by drawing the parallels between the Jewish orphans in WW2 and the immigrant orphans today, but there were too many narrators, most that I didn’t care about. Focusing on just Anita would have made a better book, in my opinion.
]]> 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Erin 5
Just one thing…In the original, Huck is around 13 or 14, but in this, he felt much younger - not just because Jim kept calling him a boy but also because he kept describing him as very small. Plus, he behaved much more childlike. I feel like that youthful naivety was part of the point of what the author was trying to do with the character, but then, did he mean for me to still imagine him as a 14 year old? I teach 14 year olds, and this version of Huck seemed more like about 10.

Okay two things…I suspected very early that it was going to turn out that Huck was Jim’s son (when Jim chose to stay with Huck instead of go to Illinois). I liked this for the fact that apologists have tried to justify Twain’s Jim by describing him as a father figure for Huck. It was smart of the author to then make him the actual father. But I disliked how it was eventually written so emotionless, with Jim in the end not seeming to care all that much about Huck beyond wanting him to stay alive. This may have been intentional on the part of the author for thematic reasons that I’m not getting.]]> 4.46 2024
author: Percival Everett
name: Erin
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/24
shelves:
review:
I have always had a soft spot for Huck Finn (a classic American tale that is both engaging and problematic, like America itself). I loved this reimagining, which is extremely clever, exciting, thought provoking, and heartbreaking all at the same time.

Just one thing…In the original, Huck is around 13 or 14, but in this, he felt much younger - not just because Jim kept calling him a boy but also because he kept describing him as very small. Plus, he behaved much more childlike. I feel like that youthful naivety was part of the point of what the author was trying to do with the character, but then, did he mean for me to still imagine him as a 14 year old? I teach 14 year olds, and this version of Huck seemed more like about 10.

Okay two things…I suspected very early that it was going to turn out that Huck was Jim’s son (when Jim chose to stay with Huck instead of go to Illinois). I liked this for the fact that apologists have tried to justify Twain’s Jim by describing him as a father figure for Huck. It was smart of the author to then make him the actual father. But I disliked how it was eventually written so emotionless, with Jim in the end not seeming to care all that much about Huck beyond wanting him to stay alive. This may have been intentional on the part of the author for thematic reasons that I’m not getting.
]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

Alice Scott is an eternal optimist still dreaming of her big writing break. Hayden Anderson is a Pulitzer-prize winning human thundercloud. And they’re both on balmy Little Crescent Island for the same reason: To write the biography of a woman no one has seen in years--or at least to meet with the octogenarian who claims to be the Margaret Ives. Tragic heiress, former tabloid princess, and daughter of one of the most storied (and scandalous) families of the 20th Century.

When Margaret invites them both for a one-month trial period, after which she’ll choose the person who’ll tell her story, there are three things keeping Alice’s head in the game.

One: Alice genuinely likes people, which means people usually like Alice—and she has a whole month to win the legendary woman over.

Two: She’s ready for this job and the chance to impress her perennially unimpressed family with a Serious Publication

Three: Hayden Anderson, who should have no reason to be concerned about losing this book, is glowering at her in a shaken-to-the core way that suggests he sees her as competition.

But the problem is, Margaret is only giving each of them pieces of her story. Pieces they can’t swap to put together because of an ironclad NDA and an inconvenient yearning pulsing between them every time they’re in the same room.

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry Erin 0 to-read 4.21 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Erin
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219833252 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.]]> 352 S.A. Cosby 1250832063 Erin 0 to-read 4.51 2025
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Erin
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217163697 #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Erin 0 to-read 4.58 2025
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 180357146 From the New York Times-bestselling author of Cutting for Stone comes a stunning and magisterial epic of love, faith, and medicine, set in Kerala, South India, following three generations of a family seeking the answers to a strange secret

Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala's Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the hardships undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. Imbued with humor, deep emotion, and the essence of life, it is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years.]]> 715 Abraham Verghese 0802162177 Erin 0 to-read 4.34 2023
author: Abraham Verghese
name: Erin
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13543121
Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.]]> 432 Christopher Buehlman 1937007863 Erin 0 to-read 4.20 2012
author: Christopher Buehlman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199755
Choice Words shows how teachers accomplish this using their most powerful teaching tool: language. Throughout, Peter Johnston provides examples of apparently ordinary words, phrases, and uses of language that are pivotal in the orchestration of the classroom. Grounded in a study by accomplished literacy teachers, the book demonstrates how the things we say (and don't say) have surprising consequences for what children learn and for who they become as literate people. Through language, children learn how to become strategic thinkers, not merely learning the literacy strategies. In addition, Johnston examines the complex learning that teachers produce in classrooms that is hard to name and thus is not recognized by tests, by policy-makers, by the general public, and often by teachers themselves, yet is vitally important.

This book will be enlightening for any teacher who wishes to be more conscious of the many ways their language helps children acquire literacy skills and view the world, their peers, and themselves in new ways.]]> 118 Peter H. Johnston 1571103899 Erin 0 to-read, education 4.15 2004
author: Peter H. Johnston
name: Erin
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: to-read, education
review:

]]> 43208407 �For a very long time, the days went by, each just like the day before, then I began to think, and everything changed�

Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only vague recollection of their lives before.

As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl - the fortieth prisoner - sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.]]> 188 Jacqueline Harpman 152911179X Erin 0 to-read 4.24 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Erin
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123036004 A four-year-old Mi’kmaq girl goes missing from the blueberry fields of Maine, sparking a tragic mystery that haunts the survivors, unravels a community, and remains unsolved for nearly fifty years.

July 1962. A Mi’kmaq family from Nova Scotia arrives in Maine to pick blueberries for the summer. Weeks later, four-year-old Ruthie, the family’s youngest child, vanishes. She is last seen by her six-year-old brother, Joe, sitting on a favorite rock at the edge of a berry field. Joe will remain distraught by his sister’s disappearance for years to come.

In Maine, a young girl named Norma grows up as the only child of an affluent family. Her father is emotionally distant, her mother frustratingly overprotective. Norma is often troubled by recurring dreams and visions that seem more like memories than imagination. As she grows older, Norma slowly comes to realize there is something her parents aren’t telling her. Unwilling to abandon her intuition, she will spend decades trying to uncover this family secret.

For readers of The Vanishing Half and Woman of Light, this showstopping debut by a vibrant new voice in fiction is a riveting novel about the search for truth, the shadow of trauma, and the persistence of love across time.]]> 307 Amanda Peters 1646221958 Erin 0 to-read 4.04 2023
author: Amanda Peters
name: Erin
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.ĚýYet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Erin 0 to-read 4.28 2015
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Erin
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40024121
But on the day of the ceremony, her blood runs gold, the color of impurity–and Deka knows she will face a consequence worse than death.

Then a mysterious woman comes to her with a choice: stay in the village and submit to her fate, or leave to fight for the emperor in an army of girls just like her. They are called alaki--near-immortals with rare gifts. And they are the only ones who can stop the empire's greatest threat.


Knowing the dangers that lie ahead yet yearning for acceptance, Deka decides to leave the only life she’s ever known. But as she journeys to the capital to train for the biggest battle of her life, she will discover that the great walled city holds many surprises. Nothing and no one are quite what they seem to be–not even Deka herself.]]> 432 Namina Forna 1984848704 Erin 3 3.99 2020
author: Namina Forna
name: Erin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:
Extremely strange book with overly complicated word building.
]]> 182484354 College exes break all the rules when they reunite years later in this enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance, the highly anticipated companion novel to the viral TikTok sensation The Cheat Sheet.

Nora Mackenzie’s entire career lies in the hands of famous NFL tight end Derek Pender, who happens to be her extremely hot college ex-boyfriend. Nora didn’t end things as gracefully as she could have back then, and now it has come back to haunt her. Derek is her first client as an official full-time sports agent, and he’s holding a grudge.

Derek has set his sights on a little friendly revenge. If Nora Mackenzie, the first girl to ever break his heart, wants to be his agent, oh, he’ll let her be his agent. The plan is simple: make Nora’s life absolutely miserable. But if Derek knows anything about the woman he once loved—she won’t quit easily.

Instead of giving in, Nora starts a scheme of her own. But then a wild night in Vegas leads to Nora and Derek in bed the next morning married. With their rule book out the window, could this new relationship save their careers and spark the romance of a lifetime?]]> 356 Sarah Adams 0593723678 Erin 3 3.88 2024
author: Sarah Adams
name: Erin
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 58328436 A fantasy about the power of generosity and love, and how a community suffers when they disappear.

Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighborliness. The people put their faith in the Mayor, a dazzling fellow who promises he alone can help. After all, he is a famous dragon slayer. (At least, no one has seen a dragon in his presence.) Only the clever children of the Orphan House and the kindly Ogress at the edge of town can see how dire the town’s problems are.

Then one day a child goes missing from the Orphan House. At the Mayor’s suggestion, all eyes turn to the Ogress. The Orphans know this can’t be: the Ogress, along with a flock of excellent crows, secretly delivers gifts to the people of Stone-in-the-Glen.

But how can the Orphans tell the story of the Ogress’s goodness to people who refuse to listen? And how can they make their deluded neighbors see the real villain in their midst?]]> 392 Kelly Barnhill 1643750747 Erin 0 to-read 4.27 2022
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: Erin
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 37592173 'You look the type to break your father’s heart.'
'Yeah, but he broke mine first.�

When Rosie Gennaro first meets Jimmy Hailler, she has walked away from life in Sydney, leaving behind the place on Dalhousie that her father, Seb, painstakingly rebuilt for his family but never saw completed. Two years later, Rosie returns to the house and living there is Martha, whom Seb Gennaro married less than a year after the death of Rosie’s mother. Martha is struggling to fulfil Seb’s dream, while Rosie is coming to terms with new responsibilities. And so begins a stand-off between two women who refuse to move out of the home they both lay claim to.

As the battle lines are drawn, Jimmy Hailler re-enters Rosie’s life. Having always watched other families from the perimeters, he’s now grappling, heartbreakingly, with forming one of his own . . .

An unforgettable story about losing love and finding love; about the interconnectedness of lives and the true nature of belonging, from one of our most acclaimed writers.]]> 288 Melina Marchetta 0143793535 Erin 0 to-read 4.14 2019
author: Melina Marchetta
name: Erin
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 42983724 WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE IN LITERATURE

In a remote Polish village, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbor, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

A deeply satisfying thriller cum fairy tale, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead is a provocative exploration of the murky borderland between sanity and madness, justice and tradition, autonomy and fate. Whom do we deem sane? it asks. Who is worthy of a voice?]]> 274 Olga Tokarczuk 0525541330 Erin 0 to-read 3.92 2009
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Erin
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.�

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Erin 0 to-read, thriller 3.98 2024
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Erin
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read, thriller
review:

]]> 197108968 From the acclaimed author of The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and brilliant speculative thriller about families: real and virtual.

Some families are virtually perfect�

The world's population is soaring, creating overcrowded cities and an economic crisis. And in the UK, the breaking point has arrived. A growing number of people can no longer afford to start families, let alone raise them.

But for those desperate to experience parenthood, there is an alternative. For a monthly subscription fee, clients can create a virtual child from scratch who they can access via the metaverse and a VR headset. To launch this new initiative, the company behind Virtual Children has created a reality TV show called The Substitute. It will follow ten couples as they raise a Virtual Child from birth to the age of eighteen but in a condensed nine-month time period. The prize: the right to keep their virtual child, or risk it all for the chance of a real baby�

Set in the same universe as John Marrs's bestselling novel The One and The Marriage Act, The Family Experiment is a dark and twisted thriller about the ultimate Tamagotchi—a virtual baby.]]> 384 John Marrs 1335000364 Erin 0 to-read, thriller 4.00 2024
author: John Marrs
name: Erin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read, thriller
review:

]]> 198276006 I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.]]> 336 Leif Enger 0802162932 Erin 0 to-read 3.96 2024
author: Leif Enger
name: Erin
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 127278666 Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.]]> 390 Yangsze Choo 1250266017 Erin 0 to-read 3.97 2024
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Erin
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet, The God of the Woods is a story of inheritance and second chances, the tensions between a family and a community, and a history that will not let any of them go.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Erin 0 to-read, thriller 4.09 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Erin
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read, thriller
review:

]]> 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Erin 0 to-read 4.47 2024
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Erin
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 133938826 should feel successful—but all she feels is drained. Haunted by an abandoned dream, she takes a leap of faith and leaves her old life behind. Quitting her job and divorcing her husband, Yeongju moves to a quiet residential neighborhood outside the city and opens the Hyunam-dong Bookshop.

The transition isn’t easy. For months, all Yeongju can do is cry. But as the long hours in the shop stretch on, she begins to reflect on what makes a good bookseller and a meaningful store. She throws herself into reading voraciously, hosting author events, and crafting her own philosophy on bookselling. Gradually, Yeongju finds her footing in her new surroundings.

Surrounded by friends, writers, and the books that bind them, Yeongju begins to write a new chapter in her life. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop evolves into a warm, welcoming haven for lost souls—a place to rest, heal, and remember that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start over.]]> 307 Hwang Bo-Reum Erin 0 to-read 3.94 2022
author: Hwang Bo-Reum
name: Erin
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 6288
A father and his son walk alone through burned America. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscape save the ash on the wind. It is cold enough to crack stones, and when the snow falls it is gray. The sky is dark. Their destination is the coast, although they don’t know what, if anything, awaits them there. They have nothing; just a pistol to defend themselves against the lawless bands that stalk the road, the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food—and each other.

The Road is the profoundly moving story of a journey. It boldly imagines a future in which no hope remains, but in which the father and his son, “each the other’s world entire,� are sustained by love. Awesome in the totality of its vision, it is an unflinching meditation on the worst and the best that we are capable of: ultimate destructiveness, desperate tenacity, and the tenderness that keeps two people alive in the face of total devastation.]]> 241 Cormac McCarthy 0307265439 Erin 5
I couldn’t help but compare this one through my read to the other post-apocalyptic book that I like, Station Eleven. It’s interesting to think about the different imaging of what the world would be like, this one focusing so much on the dark side with Station Eleven including so much more hope for humanity (although she definitely included a dark side as well).

Post apocalyptic novels always make me think I should have a plan for how to die just in case. I’m definitely on the side of the woman, although it’s sad that she abandoned her son, but I just don’t get the impulse to fight so hard to live when living is so awful.]]> 3.99 2006
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: Erin
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves:
review:
Bleak story, but incredible writing. This is my first Cormac McCarthy, and I think I’ll go on and read some more.

I couldn’t help but compare this one through my read to the other post-apocalyptic book that I like, Station Eleven. It’s interesting to think about the different imaging of what the world would be like, this one focusing so much on the dark side with Station Eleven including so much more hope for humanity (although she definitely included a dark side as well).

Post apocalyptic novels always make me think I should have a plan for how to die just in case. I’m definitely on the side of the woman, although it’s sad that she abandoned her son, but I just don’t get the impulse to fight so hard to live when living is so awful.
]]> 28818221 I lost an arm on my last trip home.

Home is a new house with a loving husband in 1970s California that suddenly transformed in to the frightening world of the antebellum South.

Dana, a young black writer, can't explain how she is transported across time and space to a plantation in Maryland. But she does quickly understand why: to deal with the troubles of Rufus, a conflicted white slaveholder--and her progenitor.

Her survival, her very existence, depends on it.

This searing graphic-novel adaptation of Octavia E. Butler's science fiction classic is a powerfully moving, unflinching look at the violent disturbing effects of slavery on the people it chained together, both black and white--and made kindred in the deepest sense of the word.]]> 256 Damian Duffy 141970947X Erin 3 4.19 2017
author: Damian Duffy
name: Erin
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/21
date added: 2024/11/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 9118135
As Dr. Marina Singh embarks upon an uncertain odyssey into the insect-infested Amazon, she will be forced to surrender herself to the lush but forbidding world that awaits within the jungle.

Charged with finding her former mentor Dr. Annick Swenson, a researcher who has disappeared while working on a valuable new drug, she will have to confront her own memories of tragedy and sacrifice as she journeys into the unforgiving heart of darkness.

Stirring and luminous, "State of Wonder" is a world unto itself, where unlikely beauty stands beside unimaginable loss beneath the rain forest's jeweled canopy.]]> 353 Ann Patchett 0062049801 Erin 2
Most of my enjoyment of this book was “meh,� but I really really really hated the end, so technically it ended as a 2 star book.

In a book that had an intriguing setup and setting, Marina’s passiveness made the plot creep by at a snail’s pace. One specific example that really frustrated me: When Marina finally came in contact with Dr Swenson after waiting for days, she takes the whole evening before finally asking about Anders, even though that’s the whole reason she was there!

Dr Swenson was also a really unlikeable human being, so it was also annoying that Marina finally overcame her passiveness once Dr Swenson explained that Marina’s mistake as a young ob was a reasonable mistake.

And Mr Fox? ]]> 3.88 2011
author: Ann Patchett
name: Erin
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves:
review:
Update: The longer this book has stayed in my mind, the more my dislike for it has grown, specifically Marina sleeping with Anders. Just, why? So I’m officially dropping it to 2 stars. Which is annoying because I’d already bought a second book by this author.

Most of my enjoyment of this book was “meh,� but I really really really hated the end, so technically it ended as a 2 star book.

In a book that had an intriguing setup and setting, Marina’s passiveness made the plot creep by at a snail’s pace. One specific example that really frustrated me: When Marina finally came in contact with Dr Swenson after waiting for days, she takes the whole evening before finally asking about Anders, even though that’s the whole reason she was there!

Dr Swenson was also a really unlikeable human being, so it was also annoying that Marina finally overcame her passiveness once Dr Swenson explained that Marina’s mistake as a young ob was a reasonable mistake.

And Mr Fox?
]]> 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Erin 0 to-read 4.11 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: Erin
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Erin 5 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Erin
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/13
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
Maybe my feelings were influenced by the fact that I coincidentally (accidentally) read two books with time travel and I haaaated the ending of the other one, but I got to the end of this one and felt so satisfied and happy. I also find Emily St. John Mandel's writing compelling to read even though there's not really a plot in this book. It's basically alternating chapters of characters musing on their lives. And I thought it was fun that her previous two books bleed into this one - Emily Llewelyn is clearly her and Llewelyn's books had a lot of similarities to Station Eleven, and Mirella was friends with the lady in The Glass Hotel (which I haven't read).
]]> 55922299
Kim watches her daughter leave and, as late evening turns into night, which turns into early morning, she waits for her return. And waits.

The next morning, Kim phones Tallulah's friends who tell her that Tallulah was last seen heading to a party at a house in the nearby woods called Dark Place.

She never returns.

2019: Sophie is walking in the woods near the boarding school where her boyfriend has just started work as a head-teacher when she sees a note fixed to a tree.

'DIG HERE' . . .

A cold case, an abandoned mansion, family trauma and dark secrets lie at the heart of Lisa Jewell's remarkable new novel.]]> 416 Lisa Jewell 1982137363 Erin 4 4.05 2021
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Erin
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves:
review:
Fantastic mystery. Kept me guessing up until right before the big reveal. A little unbelievable that the murder would be solved just in the nick of time to save Tulula after they kept her kidnapped for 18 months, and also doesn’t really make sense why they would keep her alive for so long if they were just going to kill her anyway. But it’s fiction, so no biggie. Fun book!
]]> 58340706
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.]]> 399 Rachel Gillig 0316312487 Erin 0 to-read 4.25 2022
author: Rachel Gillig
name: Erin
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 22299763
Kaz Brekker and his crew of deadly outcasts have just pulled off a heist so daring even they didn't think they'd survive. But instead of divvying up a fat reward, they're right back to fighting for their lives.

Double-crossed and badly weakened, the crew is low on resources, allies, and hope. As powerful forces from around the world descend on Ketterdam to root out the secrets of the dangerous drug known as jurda parem, old rivals and new enemies emerge to challenge Kaz's cunning and test the team's fragile loyalties.

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.]]> 561 Leigh Bardugo Erin 4
I was considering that this might be a five star book until Matthias died. Not that I was strongly attached to his character, but it seemed pretty pointless, thrown in after the climax, and so didn’t make me feel any strong emotions. If you’re going to kill off a major character, you have to at least make me cry, or what’s the point?]]> 4.58 2016
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Erin
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/27
date added: 2024/10/27
shelves:
review:
Considering how meh I thought Shadow and Bone was, I’m super impressed with Leigh Bardugo’s world and character building in these two books. Glad I finally read the sequel. These characters are just so fantastic, and I always love a good heist story.

I was considering that this might be a five star book until Matthias died. Not that I was strongly attached to his character, but it seemed pretty pointless, thrown in after the climax, and so didn’t make me feel any strong emotions. If you’re going to kill off a major character, you have to at least make me cry, or what’s the point?
]]> 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Erin 0 dropped 4.58 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Erin
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/18
shelves: dropped
review:
Read about a quarter of it and just wasn’t feeling it. There were the hints that she was going to have a romantic relationship with a married man, and I’m not a fan of affairs in books. Plus there was lots of medical talk, which I always find boring. Kristin Hannah books are iffy for me, so I think I’ll set this one aside.
]]> 40538657 9781501154850

Set on the Korean island of Jeju, The Island of Sea Women follows Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls from very different backgrounds, as they begin working in the sea with their village’s all-female diving collective. Over many decades—through the Japanese colonialism of the 1930s and 1940s, World War II, the Korean War, and the era of cellphones and wet suits for the women divers—Mi-ja and Young-sook develop the closest of bonds. Nevertheless, their differences are impossible to ignore: Mi-ja is the daughter of a Japanese collaborator, forever marking her, and Young-sook was born into a long line of haenyeo and will inherit her mother’s position leading the divers. After hundreds of dives and years of friendship, forces outside their control will push their relationship to the breaking point.

This beautiful, thoughtful novel illuminates a unique and unforgettable culture, one where the women are in charge, engaging in dangerous physical work, and the men take care of the children. A classic Lisa See story—one of women’s friendships and the larger forces that shape them�The Island of Sea Women introduces readers to the fierce female divers of Jeju Island and the dramatic history that shaped their lives.]]> 374 Lisa See Erin 4
If you want to learn more about haenyeo, there’s a documentary on AppleTV right now, or I recommend these dramas: 1) Our Blues 2) Welcome to Samdalri]]> 4.29 2019
author: Lisa See
name: Erin
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves:
review:
Same basic concept as many of Lisa See’s books: two women who were best friends as girls but are divided by social class. The Jeju setting made it stand out for me compared to her other books because I love Korean culture and history. One particularly graphic scene made me cry while walking the dog.

If you want to learn more about haenyeo, there’s a documentary on AppleTV right now, or I recommend these dramas: 1) Our Blues 2) Welcome to Samdalri
]]> 46041199 A fierce international bestseller that launched Korea’s new feminist movement, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 follows one woman’s psychic deterioration in the face of rigid misogyny.

Truly, flawlessly, completely, she became that person.

In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A thirtysomething-year-old “millennial everywoman,� she has recently left her white-collar desk job—in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time—as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women—alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her. As she plunges deeper into this psychosis, her discomfited husband sends her to a male psychiatrist.

In a chilling, eerily truncated third-person voice, Jiyoung’s entire life is recounted to the psychiatrist—a narrative infused with disparate elements of frustration, perseverance, and submission. Born in 1982 and given the most common name for Korean baby girls, Jiyoung quickly becomes the unfavored sister to her princeling little brother. Always, her behavior is policed by the male figures around her—from the elementary school teachers who enforce strict uniforms for girls, to the coworkers who install a hidden camera in the women’s restroom and post their photos online. In her father’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s fault that men harass her late at night; in her husband’s eyes, it is Jiyoung’s duty to forsake her career to take care of him and their child—to put them first.

Jiyoung’s painfully common life is juxtaposed against a backdrop of an advancing Korea, as it abandons “family planning� birth control policies and passes new legislation against gender discrimination. But can her doctor flawlessly, completely cure her, or even discover what truly ails her?

Rendered in minimalist yet lacerating prose, Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982 sits at the center of our global #MeToo movement and announces the arrival of writer of international significance]]> 163 Cho Nam-Joo 1631496700 Erin 0 to-read 4.17 2016
author: Cho Nam-Joo
name: Erin
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61897968 A small-town sweetheart and an emotionally unavailable bad boy try to find some common ground in this chemistry-filled romance from the author of The Cheat Sheet and When in Rome.

Annie Walker is on a quest to find her perfect match—someone who complements her happy, quiet life running the local flower shop in Rome, Kentucky. But finding her dream man may be harder than Annie imagined. Everyone knows everyone in her hometown, and the dating prospects are getting fewer by the day. After she overhears her latest date say she is “so unbelievably boring,� Annie starts to think the problem might be her. Is it too late to become flirtatious and fun like the leading ladies in her favorite romance movies? Maybe she only needs a little practice . . . and Annie has the perfect person in mind to be her tutor: Will Griffin.

Will—the sexy, tattooed, and absolutely gorgeous bodyguard—is temporarily back in Rome, providing security for Amelia Rose as excitement builds for her upcoming marriage to Noah Walker, Annie’s brother. He has one personal objective while on the job: stay away from Annie Walker and any other possible attachments to this sleepy town. But no sooner than he gets settled, Will finds himself tasked with helping Annie find the love of her life by becoming the next leading lady of Rome, Kentucky. Will wants no part in changing the sweet and lovely Annie. He knows for a fact that some stuffy, straitlaced guy won’t make her happy, but he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

Amid steamy practice dates and strictly “educational� tutoring lessons, Annie discovers there are more layers to Will’s usual stoic attitude. As the lines of their friendship become dangerously blurred, Annie reconsiders her dream guy. Maybe her love life doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be real.]]> 335 Sarah Adams 0593500806 Erin 4 4.00 2023
author: Sarah Adams
name: Erin
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
I’m with Mom. This was better than When in Rome.
]]> 23437156 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792127

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone...

A convict with a thirst for revenge

A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager

A runaway with a privileged past

A spy known as the Wraith

A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes

Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.]]> 480 Leigh Bardugo 1627792120 Erin 4 4.47 2015
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Erin
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:
I liked this so much more than Shadow and Bone. The magic was incidental to the heist, so the fact that the magic still doesn’t make much sense didn’t bother me like it did in the other book. I have a soft spot for heist stories already, so the plot itself was already going to be appealing to me, but the best part of this book was actually the characterization and the characters� back stories. The way that little bits were revealed slowly throughout the plot was perfectly done. The only thing I didn’t like about the characterization was that I could have done without the little hints of flirtation between Waylon and Jesper (not sure of spellings since I had the audiobook). Did we really need every single person involved in the heist to be romantically connected? We already had Kaz/Inej and Nina/Matthias. It was also a little hard for me to picture the ice castle, so several times it seemed like people magically appeared at just the exact right moment, and I wasn’t sure how they got there. Besides that, this was a fun book, and I will definitely read the next one.
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