en-US Thu, 10 Apr 2025 10:58:03 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 214195323 Mare of Easttown meets The Outsider in this spine-tingling and twisty debut about a series of disappearances in a small, fundamentalist town and what one broken family must do to remain together as dark forces close in.

After losing her young son in an accident, Rachel Kennan throws herself into her career as police chief of a small Virginia town to avoid focusing on her grief. Meanwhile, her husband, Finn, a washed-up writer whose alcoholism led to the devastating tragedy that changed everything, struggles to redeem himself before his family completely falls apart. Their two daughters are the only things keeping Rachel and Finn together, but the girls have demons of their own.

At the same time, a disturbing crime rocks their tightknit, religious community, sending Rachel chasing leads in a place that does not take kindly to outsiders. When an ominous force in the forest starts calling to the children, fear spawns hate among the townspeople, placing the Kennan family directly in the line of fire. Left with no choice but to rely on each other, Rachel and Finn must come together to face threats inside and out.

A haunting family saga and a disquieting horror debut, Nowhere draws from Appalachian folklore to caution us that true terror is what we bury in our own hearts.]]> 304 Allison Gunn 1668046679 Mia 4 2025-books 3.71 2025
author: Allison Gunn
name: Mia
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: 2025-books
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 Mia 2 2025-books 3.99 2025
author: Amity Gaige
name: Mia
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 215362444 336 Katy Hays 0593875559 Mia 1 2025-books 3.65 2025
author: Katy Hays
name: Mia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 198563641 From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?

Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, she’s put romantic love on hold.

When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life.

Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice.

To make matters more complicated, once she’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all?

As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?]]> 320 Linda Holmes 059359925X Mia 2 2025-books 3.80 2025
author: Linda Holmes
name: Mia
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 58537371
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.]]> 277 Leila Mottley 0593318935 Mia 3 2025-books 3.95 2022
author: Leila Mottley
name: Mia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 214537763 "The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit."

Florence Grimes, age thirty-one, always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl-band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen-food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect.

Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: She’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name or risk losing Dylan forever—never mind that she has no useful skills (let alone investigative ones) and that all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and she has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe.]]> 384 Sarah Harman 0593851463 Mia 1 2025-books Not for me. 3.58 2025
author: Sarah Harman
name: Mia
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: 2025-books
review:
Not for me.
]]> 58778978 Set in 1970s along Red River Valley, Marcie R. Rendon's gripping new mystery follows the life of a young Ojibwe woman as she struggles to come to terms with the callous murder of a Native American stranger, bringing to life the gritty, dark reality of a flawed foster care system and the oppression of indigenous people.


Renee "Cash" Blackbear, a 19-year-old, tough-as-nails, resilient Ojibwe woman, has lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota's Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. Her life revolves around driving truck for local farmers, drinking beer, playing pool, smoking cigarettes, and solving criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, who's also her guardian and helped her out of the broken foster care system. Together they must work to solve a murder across cultures in a rural Midwest community layered in racism, genocide, and oppression.

This critically acclaimed series debut, winner of the Pinckley Prize and nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award, brings Cash Blackbear to Soho Crime along with Marcie R. Rendon's full crime backlist and future publications of new books in the Cash Blackbear Mystery series.]]> 320 Marcie R. Rendon 1641293888 Mia 2 2025-books 3.66 2017
author: Marcie R. Rendon
name: Mia
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 131068071
A retired CIA operative in small-town Maine tackles the ghosts of her past in this fresh take on the spy thriller from New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen.

Former spy Maggie Bird came to the seaside village of Purity, Maine, eager to put the past behind her after a mission went tragically wrong. These days, she’s living quietly on her chicken farm, still wary of blowback from the events that forced her early retirement.

But when a body turns up in Maggie’s driveway, she knows it’s a message from former foes who haven’t forgotten her. Maggie turns to her local circle of old friends—all retirees from the CIA—to help uncover the truth about who is trying to kill her, and why. This “Martini Club� of former spies may be retired, but they still have a few useful skills that they’re eager to use again, if only to spice up their rather sedate new lives.

Complicating their efforts is Purity’s acting police chief, Jo Thibodeau. More accustomed to dealing with rowdy tourists than homicide, Jo is puzzled by Maggie’s reluctance to share information—and by her odd circle of friends, who seem to be a step ahead of her at every turn.

As Jo’s investigation collides with the Martini Club’s maneuvers, Maggie’s hunt for answers will force her to revisit a clandestine career that spanned the globe, from Bangkok to Istanbul, from London to Malta. The ghosts of her past have returned, but with the help of her friends—and the reluctant Jo Thibodeau—Maggie might just be able to save the life she’s built.]]> 341 Tess Gerritsen 1662515111 Mia 1 2025-books Snooze 4.34 2023
author: Tess Gerritsen
name: Mia
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:
Snooze
]]> 202173601
AN ORPHANAGE FULL OF SECRETS

Hazel wants a new life.

She’s thirty years old, single, and her private investigation business is months away from folding.

Her luck takes a turn when Madeline Hemsley, a mysterious socialite, pays Hazel a visit with an offer too enticing to resist. An orphan girl has disappeared from a children’s home—The Orphanage By The Lake, as the locals call it—and Madeline wants Hazel to find her.

At first glance, it appears to be a standard runaway case, but as Hazel plunges into the investigation, she finds signs of something more: unexplained blood stains, cryptic symbols, sinister figures shadowing her every move. The more she digs, the more she realizes that The Orphanage By The Lake holds terrifying secrets, and even worse�

…so does Madeline.]]> 300 Daniel G. Miller 1737646366 Mia 3 2025-books 3.95 2024
author: Daniel G. Miller
name: Mia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 195790797
The reappearance of a woman thought long dead results in a safe in Langley being opened for the first time in ten years. Inside there is a letter. On it is written, 'The Acacia Avenue Protocol has been initiated.' Four names are listed underneath. Three of the people on the list are dead. The fourth name is Ben Koenig.

Koenig doesn't know why he's on the list and he doesn't know what the Acacia Avenue Protocol is. But he does know the woman who has reappeared. One of the bravest women Koenig has ever met, ten years ago he was asked by a senior intelligence officer to help her fake her own death. Koenig didn't ask why she had to die but he knows one thing for if she's resurfaced then something is very wrong.

From the windswept cities of northern England to a remote Scottish airfield, from New York to Nevada, Koenig will follow a trail of death and destruction as he uncovers the horrific protocol. Along the way he'll have run ins with a cabal of corrupt cops known as the East Coast Sweeney, a ruthless private military contractor, and a contract killer with an aversion to the colour yellow.

But Koenig will keep going. He has no choice. Because someone has initiated the Acacia Avenue Protocol and if Koenig can't stop it, the world will never be the same again . . .]]> 416 M.W. Craven 1250864593 Mia 3 2025-books 4.13 2024
author: M.W. Craven
name: Mia
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 211004897 Head Cases follows an enigmatic group of FBI agents as they hunt down a murderer seeking his own justice in this electrifying—and commercial—series debut.

FBI Agent Gardner Camden is an analytical genius with an affinity for puzzles. He also has a blind spot on the human side of investigations, a blindness that sometimes even includes people in his own life, like his beloved seven-year-old daughter Camila. Gardner and his squad of brilliant yet quirky agents make up the Patterns and Recognition (PAR) unit, the FBI’s hidden edge, brought in for cases that no one else can solve.

When DNA links a murder victim to a serial killer long presumed dead, the team springs into action. A second victim establishes a pattern, and the murderer begins leaving a trail of clues and riddles especially for Gardner. And while the PAR team is usually relegated to working cold cases from behind a desk, the investigation puts them on the road and into the public eye, following in the footsteps of a killer.

Along with Gardner, PAR consists of a mathematician, a weapons expert, a computer analyst, and their leader, a career agent. Each of them must use every skill they have to solve the riddle of the killer’s identity. But with the perpetrator somehow learning more and more about the team at PAR, can they protect themselves and their families…before it’s too late?

With an enigmatic case that will keep readers on the edge of their seats and a thoroughly engaging ensemble cast, John McMahon’s Head Cases is a triumph.]]> 341 John McMahon 1250348293 Mia 4 2025-books 4.00 2025
author: John McMahon
name: Mia
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 75669924
Dawsyn’s miraculous escape from the Ledge was just the beginning. In the queens� dungeon, Dawsyn awaits her execution while reliving the death of her lover, Ryon. There is no chance of mercy.

But hope finds her in the form of rescue by her village friends. Now on the run and struggling to tame her newly-gained and greatly unstable powers, Dawsyn's journey continues. Facing betrayal anew, she must learn patience and trust as she builds strength on all fronts, while she and her comrades recover and ready themselves for what's to come.

As they ascend the perilous mountain slopes to the Glacian kingdom once again in a desperate attempt to save those remaining on the Ledge, Dawsyn must battle wills as well as weapons, before discovering an entirely new evil awaiting her…]]> 502 Stacey McEwan 1915202663 Mia 3 2025-books 3.95 2023
author: Stacey McEwan
name: Mia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 203613942
"All things find a way back home."

At the bottom of the Chasm, Dawsyn and her followers traipse through the darkness to find their long-awaited home. But there are whispers all around them and safety is never guaranteed. With her powers much depleted, and food supplies running low, will they even survive the journey?

Above, the Queen and the new King of Glacia still bay for Dawsyn's blood, and they will not stop in their quest to destroy her. And with the help ofĚýsomeone Dawsyn thought her friend, they creep ever closer. Long-buried secrets will be revealed, hearts will be broken and a new day will dawn. Who will reign in this climactic conclusion to the epic Glacian Trilogy?]]> 400 Stacey McEwan 1915202418 Mia 1 2025-books 4.04 2024
author: Stacey McEwan
name: Mia
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 58878356
In a place known as the Ledge, a civilization is trapped by a vast chasm and sheer mountain face. There is no way for anyone to escape the frozen wasteland without befalling a deathly drop. They know nothing of the outside world except that it is where the Glacians reside � mystical and vicious winged creatures who bring meagre rations in exchange for a periodic human sacrifice.

Dawsyn, ax wielder and only remaining member of her family, has so far avoided the annual culling, but her luck has run out. She is chosen and ripped from her icy home, the only world she knows. No one knows what will happen to her on the other side, least of all Dawsyn. Murdered? Enslaved? Worse?

Fortunately, a half-Glacian called Ryon offers to help them both escape, but how can she trust one of the very creatures that plagued her life? Dawsyn is a survivor, and she is not afraid to cut anyone down to live.

With a slow-burning romance, high stakes and even higher rewards, this richly created new fantasy series by popular TikToker Stacey McEwan will keep you gripped to the very end.

*Content warnings* gratuitous violence & death; death of a minor; suicide; attempted sexual assault]]> 271 Stacey McEwan Mia 4 2025-books 3.65 2021
author: Stacey McEwan
name: Mia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 217905433 “A gripping novel about power, money, and secrets.� —Mindy Kaling

A daughter’s investigation into her family history threatens to destroy their legacy in a gripping novel about power, money, and secrets by the author of Token Black Girl.

On their Martha’s Vineyard estate, the Carter family prepares to celebrate. But when the billionaire patriarch dies right before his seventieth birthday, the media is quick to question the future of the multi-industry conglomerate that makes the Carters living legends. Amid the succession crisis, his daughter, Kennedy, is questioning her father’s past.

Kennedy is an aspiring filmmaker, and the documentary she’d planned to present at her father’s party begins an inquest into the life of a man she never really knew. A thoughtful outlier in an elite and fiercely guarded dynasty, she’s not interested in keeping up the appearances that define her impeccably poised mother or in the capitalist games her ruthless brother plays. Kennedy wants only to understand the origins of their empire, and the lethally ambitious man behind it. That understanding comes at a cost.

As a twisted history emerges, the fault lines in the family grow. Torn between morality and the promise of maintaining wealth, Kennedy must decide what’s most important—the Carter legacy or exposing the shocking truth of how it was built.]]> 293 Danielle Prescod 1662520131 Mia 2 2025-books 3.65 2025
author: Danielle Prescod
name: Mia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 35210381 When her husband mysteriously disappears and rumors swirl about his loyalties, a mother must rely on the remarkable power of friendship in war-torn Hawaii

It’s 1944, combat in the Pacific is intensifying, and Violet Iverson and her daughter, Ella, are piecing their lives back together one year after her husband vanished. As suspicions about his loyalties surface, Violet suspects Ella knows something. But Ella refuses to talk. Something—or someone—has scared her.

Violet enjoys the camaraderie of her friends as they open a pie stand for the soldiers training on the island for a secret mission. But even these women face their own wartime challenges as prejudice against the island Japanese pits neighbor against neighbor. And then there’s the matter of Sergeant Stone, a brash marine who comes to Violet’s aid when the women are accused of spying. She struggles with her feelings of guilt but can’t deny the burning attraction—or her fear of losing another man when Stone ships out for Iwo Jima.

Set amid the tropical beauty of Hawaii, Island of Sweet Pies and Soldiers offers a fresh perspective on World War II as it presents timeless depictions of female friendship, the bond between a mother and her child, and the enduring power of love even in the darkest times.]]> 394 Sara Ackerman 0778319210 Mia 4 2025-books 3.80 2018
author: Sara Ackerman
name: Mia
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 201102398 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593544372

A dark comedy about second acts, creative appropriation, and the racial identity–industrial complex

Jane has high hopes her life is about to turn around. After years of living precariously, she; her painter husband, Lenny; and their two kids have landed a stint as house sitters in a friend’s luxurious home in the hills above Los Angeles, a gig that coincides magically with Jane’s sabbatical. If she can just finish her latest novel, Nusu Nusu, the centuries-spanning epic Lenny refers to as her “mulatto War and Peace,� she’ll have tenure and some semblance of stability and success within her grasp.

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]> 277 Danzy Senna Mia 3 2025-books 3.53 2024
author: Danzy Senna
name: Mia
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Mia 3 2025-books 4.18 2025
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Mia
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 19492105 We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.]]> 280 Percival Everett Mia 2 2025-books 4.19 2001
author: Percival Everett
name: Mia
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2001
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 211953338
Meet the Agarwals, who have gathered on a private, luxury island off the west coast of Scotland for a much-anticipated family reunion.

Raj, the patriarch and a business tycoon, is about to announce to his wife and three children the succession plan for his multimillon-dollar Delhi-based company. Shalini, the fragile matriarch, is ready to have her husband to herself after years of sacrifice to the family business. Myra, the golden child, owner of the island and host of the reunion, is, unbeknownst to her family, on the brink of bankruptcy. Aseem, the son and supposed heir, is torn between his love for his wife and his duty to family. Aisha, the youngest, a party girl whose antics are legendary, can’t pass up an opportunity to wreak havoc. And then there’s Zoe, Aseem’s wife, the outsider whose #InstaPerfect life is built on a foundation of lies.

They’ve all got secrets they would die to protect. Who will survive this high-stakes reunion, and who will become a victim of their own greed? One thing is certain: this family gathering will shatter more than just their illusions of unity.]]> 352 Trisha Sakhlecha 0593832566 Mia 3 2025-books 3.69 2025
author: Trisha Sakhlecha
name: Mia
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 43822820 here.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.]]> 352 Lisa Jewell 1501190105 Mia 2 2025-books 3.93 2019
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Mia
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 211004079 A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that she’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.

A whirlwind romance.
When Theodora Scott met Connor—wealthy, charming, and a member of the powerful Dalton family—she fell in love in an instant. Six months later, he’s brought her to Idlewood, his family’s isolated winter retreat, to win over his skeptical relatives.

Stay away from Connor Dalton.
Theo has tried to ignore the threatening messages on her phone, but she can’t ignore the footprints in the snow outside the cabin window or the strange sense of familiarity she has about this place. Then, in a disused cabin, Theo finds something impossible: a photo of herself as a child. A photo taken at Idlewood.

I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.]]> 291 Kate Alice Marshall 1250343054 Mia 3 2025-books 3.79 2025
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Mia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 2199587
When the local police make a misjudgement which not only threatens the investigation but places a young girl's life in danger, the case is handed over to Special Agent Will Trent of the Criminal Apprehension Team - paired with detective Faith Mitchell, a woman who resents him from their first meeting.

But in the relentless heat of a Georgia summer, Will and Faith realise that they must work together to find the brutal killer who has targeted one of Atlanta's wealthiest, most privileged communities - before it's too late...]]> 388 Karin Slaughter 0385341954 Mia 3 2025-books 4.14 2008
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Mia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2008
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 211399773 A vacation in the Hamptons goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.

It was meant to be a harmless prank.

Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing.

But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she's had her fair share of both. Their bond—forged when May was just twelve years old—has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry.Ěý

When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends.

What had they gone and done?

The Note is a page-turner of the highest orderĚýfrom one of our greatest contemporary suspense writers.]]> 287 Alafair Burke 0593537084 Mia 3 2025-books 3.36 2025
author: Alafair Burke
name: Mia
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 27405397
In this gritty, gripping firecracker of a novel, the author of the bestselling Grant County, Georgia, series breaks thrilling new ground, weaving together the threads of a complex, multilayered story with the skill of a master craftsman. Packed with body-bending switchbacks, searing psychological suspense and human emotions, Triptych ratchets up the tension one revelation at a time as it races to a shattering and unforgettable climax.]]> 480 Karin Slaughter Mia 3 2025-books 4.16 2006
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Mia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2006
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 207611566 There’s power in a book�

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master� (NPR).]]> 482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Mia 4 2025-books 4.01 2025
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Mia
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 36373463
Soon a new team starts to take shape around Amat, the fastest player you’ll ever see; Benji, the intense lone wolf; and Vidar, a born-to-be-bad troublemaker. But bringing this team together proves to be a challenge as old bonds are broken, new ones are formed, and the enmity with Hed grows more and more acute.

As the big match approaches, the not-so-innocent pranks and incidents between the communities pile up and their mutual contempt grows deeper. By the time the last game is finally played, a resident of Beartown will be dead, and the people of both towns will be forced to wonder if, after all they’ve been through, the game they love can ever return to something simple and innocent.
]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1501160796 Mia 3 2025-books 4.34 2017
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Mia
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 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 Mia 3 2025-books 4.59 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Mia
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books
review:

]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Mia 4 2014-books 4.15 2014
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Mia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2014/07/30
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2014-books
review:
A little slower than I would have liked, a little bit too much time spent going over vampire clan rules and what not but overall a pretty good end to the series... Although still feels open enough that Harkness could go back and write more sequels.
]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Mia 5 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Mia
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 33413128
People say Beartown is finished. A tiny community nestled deep in the forest, it is slowly losing ground to the ever encroaching trees. But down by the lake stands an old ice rink, built generations ago by the working men who founded this town. And in that ice rink is the reason people in Beartown believe tomorrow will be better than today. Their junior ice hockey team is about to compete in the national semi-finals, and they actually have a shot at winning. All the hopes and dreams of this place now rest on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys.

Being responsible for the hopes of an entire town is a heavy burden, and the semi-final match is the catalyst for a violent act that will leave a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil. Accusations are made and, like ripples on a pond, they travel through all of Beartown, leaving no resident unaffected.

Beartown explores the hopes that bring a small community together, the secrets that tear it apart, and the courage it takes for an individual to go against the grain. In this story of a small forest town, Fredrik Backman has found the entire world.]]> 432 Fredrik Backman Mia 4 2024-books 4.27 2016
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Mia
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 203579073 Finding a dead body is not normal. But Ava is not a normal teenager. In this chillingly beautiful mystery, only the obsessive spirit of youth can save a desperate town from the savagery within.

Ava Bonney is a compassionate and studious fourteen-year-old girl with a dark secret: she has an obsessive interest in the macabre. She is fascinated by the rate at which dead animals decompose. The highway she lives by regularly offers up gifts of roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava loves nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings.

One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate and, fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police. But when Detective Seth Delahaye is given the case, Ava won’t step back—not while teenagers continue to go missing.

Racing alongside the police or against them, Ava is determined to figure out who is hunting her classmates before she becomes the next prey. How hard can it be to track a killer?]]> 354 Marie Tierney 1250357594 Mia 2 2024-books 3.79 2024
author: Marie Tierney
name: Mia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 61884839
Ben Koenig is nobody's hero . . . because he doesn't exist.

Six years back Ben Koenig headed up the US Marshal's Special Operations Group. They were the unit who hunted the bad guys. The really bad guys. They did this so no one else had to.

And then one day Ben sold his house, liquidated his assets and disappeared off the face of the earth. He told no one why and left no forwarding address. For six years he became a grey man. Someone you didn't remember. He drifted from town to town, from state to state, never visiting the same place twice. He was untraceable - officially, he no longer existed.

But now his face is plastered across every television screen in the country. Someone from Ben's past is going to extraordinary lengths to find him and they don't care how they do it. They have a job for him, a revenge mission, one Ben won't be able to refuse.

Because in the hellish heat of the Chihuahuan desert lies a town called Gauntlet. Some people in Gauntlet have a secret and they'll do anything protect it. And they know Ben is coming.

They've killed before and they'll kill again.

It's easy to dismiss Ben Koenig as just another drifter, someone you don't need to concern yourself about. But that would be a mistake. Because Ben has a condition, a unique disorder that means he is incapable of experiencing fear.

And that makes Ben Koenig a different kind of animal . . .]]> 416 M.W. Craven 1250864569 Mia 4 2024-books 3.96 2023
author: M.W. Craven
name: Mia
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Violent and exciting! Can’t wait for the next one.
]]> 206119050 LAPD Detective Renée Ballard tracks a terrifying serial rapist whose trail has gone cold, with the help of the newest volunteer to the Open-Unsolved Unit: Patrol Officer Maddie Bosch, Harry’s daughter.

Renée Ballard and the LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Unit get a hot shot DNA connection between a recently arrested man and a serial rapist and murderer who went quiet twenty years ago. The arrested man is only twenty-three, so the genetic link must be familial. It is his father who was the Pillowcase Rapist, responsible for a five-year reign of terror in the city of angels. But when Ballard and her team move in on their suspect, they encounter a baffling web of secrets and legal hurdles.

Meanwhile, Ballard’s badge, gun, and ID are stolen—a theft she can’t report without giving her enemies in the department the ammunition they need to end her career as a detective. She works the burglary alone, but her solo mission leads her into greater danger than she anticipates. She has no choice but to go outside the department for help, and that leads her to the door of Harry Bosch.

Finally, Ballard takes on a new volunteer to the cold case unit. Bosch’s daughter Maddie wants to supplement her work as a patrol officer on the night beat by investigating cases with Ballard. But Renée soon learns that Maddie has an ulterior motive for getting access to the city’s library of lost souls.]]> 407 Michael Connelly 031656379X Mia 3 2024-books 4.17 2024
author: Michael Connelly
name: Mia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves: 2024-books
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 Mia 3 2024-books 4.19 2016
author: Peter Brown
name: Mia
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Mia 2 2024-books 3.45 2024
author: Matt Haig
name: Mia
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Nope. Promising start but then it went downhill.
]]> 219505264
“Come for the Gilmore Girls anecdotes, stay for the revealing truths about what it takes to build a lifelong career in and out of Hollywood� (The A.V. Club) in this candid and captivating memoir from award-winning and beloved actress Kelly Bishop, spanning her six decades in show business from A Chorus Line, Dirty Dancing, Gilmore Girls, and much more.

Kelly Bishop’s long, storied career has been defined by landmark achievements, from winning a Tony Award for her turn in the original Broadway cast of A Chorus Line to her memorable performance as Jennifer Grey’s mother in Dirty Dancing. But it is probably her iconic role as matriarch Emily in the modern classic Gilmore Girls that cemented her legacy.

Now, Bishop reflects on her remarkable life and looks towards the future with The Third Gilmore Girl. She shares some of her greatest stories and the life lessons she’s learned on her journey. From her early transition from dance to drama, to marrying young to a compulsive gambler, to the losses and achievements she experienced—among them marching for women’s rights and losing her second husband to cancer—Bishop offers a rich, genuine celebration of her life.

Full of witty insights, The Third Gilmore Girl is a warm, unapologetic, and spirited memoir from a woman who has left indelible impressions on her audiences for decades and has no plans on slowing down.]]> 7 Kelly Bishop Mia 4 2024-books 4.39 2024
author: Kelly Bishop
name: Mia
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 65213377 Inheritance is the first in The Lost Bride Trilogy by #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts―a tale of tragedies, loves found and lost, and a family haunted for generations.

1806: Astrid Poole sits in her bridal clothes, overwhelmed with happiness. But before her marriage can be consummated, she is murdered, and the circle of gold torn from her finger. Her last words are a promise to Collin never to leave him�

Graphic designer Sonya MacTavish is stunned to learn that her late father had a twin he never knew about―and that her newly discovered uncle, Collin Poole, has left her almost everything he owned, including a majestic Victorian house on the Maine coast, which the will stipulates she must live in it for at least three years. Her engagement recently broken, she sets off to find out why the boys were separated at birth―and why it was all kept secret until a genealogy website brought it to light.

Trey, the young lawyer who greets her at the sprawling clifftop manor, notes Sonya’s unease―and acknowledges that yes, the place is haunted…but just a little. Sure enough, Sonya finds objects moved and music playing out of nowhere. She sees a painting by her father inexplicably hanging in her deceased uncle’s office, and a portrait of a woman named Astrid, whom the lawyer refers to as “the first lost bride.� It’s becoming clear that Sonya has inherited far more than a house. She has inherited a centuries-old curse, and a puzzle to be solved if there is any hope of breaking it�
]]> 419 Nora Roberts 1250288320 Mia 2 2024-books 4.16 2023
author: Nora Roberts
name: Mia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 53450790 Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At 33 years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned.

The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.

Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers.

Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home.

Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?]]> 337 Jeneva Rose 1913419657 Mia 2 2024-books Way too ridiculous. 3.90 2020
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Mia
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/07
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Way too ridiculous.
]]> 61685822 From the author of the New York Times best seller Poser and the acclaimed memoir Love and Trouble, a passionate, provocative, blisteringly smart interrogation of how we make and experience art in the age of #MeToo, and of the link between genius and monstrosity.

In this unflinching, deeply personal book that expands on her instantly viral Paris Review essay, What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men? Claire Dederer asks: Can we love the work of Hemingway, Polanski, Naipaul, Miles Davis, or Picasso? Should we love it? Does genius deserve special dispensation? Is male monstrosity the same as female monstrosity? Does art have a mandate to depict the darker elements of the psyche? And what happens if the artist stares too long into the abyss? She explores the audience's relationship with artists from Woody Allen to Michael Jackson, asking: How do we balance our undeniable sense of moral outrage with our equally undeniable love of the work? In a more troubling vein, she wonders if an artist needs to be a monster in order to create something great. And if an artist is also a mother, does one identity inexorably, and fatally, interrupt the other? Highly topical, morally wise, honest to the core, Monsters is certain to incite a conversation about whether and how we can separate artists from their art.]]> 257 Claire Dederer 0525655115 Mia 3 2024-books 3.75 2023
author: Claire Dederer
name: Mia
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 207611550 In this one-of-a-kind mystery with heart and humor, a hilariously grumpy pony must save the only human he’s ever loved after discovering she stands accused of a murder he knows she didn’t commit.

Pony has been passed from owner to owner for longer than he can remember. Fed up, he busts out and goes on a cross-country mission to reunite with the only little girl he ever loved, Penny, who he was separated from and hasn’t seen in years.

Penny, now an adult, is living an ordinary life when she gets a knock on her door and finds herself in handcuffs, accused of murder and whisked back to the place she grew up. Her only comfort when the past comes back to haunt her are the memories of her precious, rebellious pony.

Hearing of Penny’s fate, Pony knows that Penny is no murderer. So, as smart and devious as he is cute, the pony must use his hard-won knowledge of human weakness and cruelty to try to clear Penny’s name and find the real killer.

This acutely observant feel-good mystery reveals the humanity of animals and beastliness of humans in a rollicking escapade of epic proportions.]]> 384 Christina Lynch 0593640365 Mia 2 2024-books 3.94 2024
author: Christina Lynch
name: Mia
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Had its moments� but not for me.
]]> 12844430
Narrated by the author.]]> 9 Jenny Lawson 1611760852 Mia 4 2012-books Hilarious! 3.95 2012
author: Jenny Lawson
name: Mia
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/25
shelves: 2012-books
review:
Hilarious!
]]> 211119902
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 286 Robert Harris 0593689585 Mia 3 2024-books 4.09 2016
author: Robert Harris
name: Mia
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/17
date added: 2024/11/17
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 202538427 He swears by his boundaries. But did he cross the line?

At 8 o' clock on a blustery, mid-January morning, Charles Bliss is summoned to the head of school' s office at Carrington Academy. Charles, a teacher at the elite Connecticut boarding school, is surprised by the unusual request, but when he arrives, no time is wasted. Charles learns that he has been accused of engaging in a romantic relationship with a student.

The student behind the accusation, Hayley Goodloe, is the daughter of a state senator, the granddaughter of an ex-governor, and an heiress to a massive fortune.

But Charles has long prided himself on keeping proper boundaries with his students. He insists he would never cross the line . . . or would he? Hayley' s diary makes it clear she had strong feelings for her teacher. Was it just an unrequited schoolgirl crush? Or was it something more?

When Hayley disappears under suspicious circumstances, a daunting pile of evidence points to Charles as the chief suspect. Charles swears he' s being framed. And it soon becomes apparent there' s only one way he can clear his name.

Find her.

Perfect for fans of Harlan Coben and Jodi Picoult]]> 421 Brad Parks 1608096254 Mia 3 2024-books 3.94 2024
author: Brad Parks
name: Mia
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 42041520 From the author of the international bestseller Our House, a new novel of twisty domestic suspense asks, "Could you hate your neighbor enough to plot to kill him?"

Lowland Way is the suburban dream. The houses are beautiful, the neighbors get along, and the kids play together on weekends.

But when Darren and Jodie move into the house on the corner, they donĘĽt follow the rules. They blast music at all hours, begin an unsightly renovation, and run a used-car business from their yard. It doesn't take long for an all-out war to start brewing.

Then, early one Saturday, a horrific death shocks the street. As police search for witnesses, accusations start flying--and everyone has something to hide.]]> 368 Louise Candlish 0451489144 Mia 2 2019-books 3.26 2019
author: Louise Candlish
name: Mia
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2019/06/26
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves: 2019-books
review:

]]> 53138124 From internationally bestselling authors James Murray and Darren Wearmouth comes The Stowaway, a suspenseful masterpiece that leaves a cruise ship stranded at sea with a serial killer hiding aboard...

Two years ago, Maria Fontana was the deciding vote on a jury that set alleged serial killer Wyatt Butler free. Now, she and her family are enjoying vacation on a two week long transatlantic cruise. But when passengers are discovered brutally murdered in a similar way to Butler's ritualistic MO, the ship goes on lockdown. Maria, one of only twelve people in the world with intimate knowledge of the case, faces a perilous ticking clock. Is it a copycat? Or is she trapped on board with the bloodthirsty maniac she chose to set free?]]> 320 James S. Murray 1250263654 Mia 1 2024-books 3.73 2021
author: James S. Murray
name: Mia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 39875981 Summoned from her promising surgical career first to her estranged father's bedside, and then his post as medical examiner when his small town needs urgent help with a suspicious death, Emily Hartford discovers home is where the bodies are in this pitch perfect mystery debut.

Recently engaged and deeply ensconced in her third year of surgical residency in Chicago, Emily Hartford gets a shock when she’s called home to Freeport, MI, the small town she fled a decade ago after the death of her mother. Her estranged father, the local medical examiner, has had a massive heart attack and Emily is needed urgently to help with his recovery.

Not sure what to expect, Emily races home, blowing the only stoplight at the center of town and getting pulled over by her former high school love, now Sheriff, Nick Larson. At the hospital, she finds her father in near total denial of the seriousness of his condition. He insists that the best thing Emily can do to help him is to take on the autopsy of a Senator’s teen daughter whose sudden, unexplained death has just rocked the sleepy town.

Reluctantly agreeing to help her father and Nick, Emily gets down to work, only to discover that the girl was murdered. The autopsy reminds her of her many hours in the morgue with her father when she was a young teen—a time which inspired her love of medicine. Before she knows it, she’s pulled deeper into the case and closer to her father and to Nick—much to the dismay of her big city fiance. When a threat is made to Emily herself, she must race to catch the killer before he strikes again in The Coroner, expertly written and sharply plotted, perfect for fans of Patricia Cornwell and Julia Spencer Fleming.]]> 334 Jennifer Graeser Dornbush 168331624X Mia 2 2024-books 3.76 2018
author: Jennifer Graeser Dornbush
name: Mia
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 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 Mia 2 2024-books 4.11 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: Mia
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 61884833
Agrigento, Sicily, 1883. With the orsine destroyed, Cairndale lies in ruins, and Marlowe has vanished. His only hope of rescue lies in a fabled second orsine—long-hidden, thought lost—which might not even exist.

But when a body is discovered in the shadow of Cairndale, a body wreathed in the corrupted dust of the drughr, Charlie and the Talents realize there is even more at stake than they'd feared. For a new drughr has arisen, ferocious, horned, seemingly able to move in their world at will—and it is not alone. A malevolent figure, known only as the Abbess, desires the dust for her own ends. And deep in the world of the dead, a terrible evil stirs—an evil that the corrupted dust just might hold the secret to reviving or destroying forever.

So the dark journey begun in Ordinary Monsters surges forward, from the sinister underworld of the London exiles, to the mysteries of a sunlit villa in nineteenth-century Sicily, to the deep catacombs hidden under Paris. Against bone witches, mud glyphics, and a house of twilight that exists in a netherworld all its own, the Talents must work together—if they are to have any hope of staving off the world of the dead, and saving their long-lost friend.]]> 608 J.M. Miro 1250833833 Mia 4 2024-books 4.15 2024
author: J.M. Miro
name: Mia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2024/11/10
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 208580624
WELCOME TO MAPLE BAY, NOVA SCOTIA

For nearly a century, people have ventured to the idyllic seaside town of Maple Bay in search of a legendary lost pirate treasure, but locals know there’s more than just gold buried in the sand. As the paths of three strangers converge in Maple Bay, the truth is about to be blown wide open. But not before the bodies start to pile up.

Peter Barnett is rapidly approaching 40 with little to show for it when a mysterious letter invites him to Maple Bay and the mansion his estranged family has called home for generations.

Seventeen-year-old Dandy Feltzen is isolated and adrift following the death of her beloved grandfather, until his final request and a tantalizing clue sets her on a mission to solve the mystery he spent his entire life chasing.

Cass Jones has given up on her dream of being a successful author when an unexpected opportunity lands in her a housesitting gig in remote Maple Bay, where she stumbles on the perfect subject matter for her breakout book—and the handsome sailor who might be just the person to help her research it.

Peter, Dandy and Cass have never met, but they’re on a collision course with each other and the mystery that has defined Maple Bay for two centuries, and none of them are prepared for the shocking truths that may or may not still be buried there.]]> 384 Tom Ryan 0802163637 Mia 2 2024-books Felt kinda YA to me. 3.74 2024
author: Tom Ryan
name: Mia
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Felt kinda YA to me.
]]> 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 Mia 3 2024-books 3.99 2024
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Mia
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/20
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 203579177 From the bestselling author of Hidden Pictures comes a breathtaking work of suspense about a father trying to save his daughter from a life-altering decision that will put everything he loves on the line.

Frank Szatowski is shocked when his daughter, Maggie, calls him for the first time in three years. He was convinced that their estrangement would become permanent. He’s even more surprised when she invites him to her upcoming wedding in New Hampshire. Frank is ecstatic, and determined to finally make things right.

He arrives to find that the wedding is at a private estate—very secluded, very luxurious, very much out of his league. It seems that Maggie failed to mention that she’s marrying Aidan Gardner, the son of a famous tech billionaire. Feeling desperately out of place, Frank focuses on reconnecting with Maggie and getting to know her new family. But it’s difficult: Aidan is withdrawn and evasive; Maggie doesn’t seem to have time for him; and he finds that the locals are disturbingly hostile to the Gardners. Frank needs to know more about this family his daughter is marrying into, but if he pushes too hard, he could lose Maggie forever.

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that delves deep into the heart of one family, The Last One at the Wedding is a work of brilliant suspense from a true modern master.]]> 338 Jason Rekulak 1250895782 Mia 4 2024-books 3.62 2024
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Mia
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 203164421 Psychological horror meets cyber noir in this delicious one-sitting read � a haunted house story in which the haunting is by AI.

Henry is a brilliant engineer who, after untold hours spent in his home lab, has achieved the breakthrough of his career � he’s created an artificially intelligent consciousness. He calls the half-formed robot William.

No one knows about William. Henry’s agoraphobia keeps him inside the house, and his fixation on his project keeps him up in the attic, away from everyone, including his pregnant wife, Lily.

When Lily’s coworkers show up, wanting to finally meet Henry and see the new house � the smartest of smart homes � Henry decides to introduce them to William, and things go from strange to much worse. Soon Henry and Lily discover the security upgrades intended to keep danger out of the house are even better at locking it in.]]> 224 Mason Coile 0593719603 Mia 3 2024-books 3.52 2024
author: Mason Coile
name: Mia
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 207294238
Gela Nathaniel, head of Royal Hastings University’s new Multimedia Art course, must find six students from all walks of life across the United Kingdom for her new master’s program before the university cuts her funding. The students are nothing but trouble from day one.

There’s Jem, a talented sculptor recently graduated from her university program and eager to make her mark as an artist at any cost. Jonathan, who has little experience in art practice aside from running his family’s gallery. Patrick runs an art supply store, but can barely operate his phone, much less design software. Ludya is a single mother and graphic designer more interested in a paycheck than homework. Cameron is a marketing executive in search of a hobby or a career change. And Alyson, already a successful artist, seems to be overqualified. Finally, there is the examiner, the man hired to grade students� final works—an art installation for a local cloud-based solutions company that may have an ulterior agenda—and who, in sifting through final essays, texts, and message boards, warns that someone is in danger…or already dead. And nothing about this course has been left up to chance.

With her trademark “unique and exhilarating� (Megan Collins, author of The Family Plot) voice, Janice Hallett weaves a fresh and mind-bending mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end.]]> 480 Janice Hallett 1668023423 Mia 2 2024-books 3.72 2024
author: Janice Hallett
name: Mia
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199798109 And Then There Were None meets The Last Breath in this tense and suspenseful locked-room thriller that takes place inside a hyperbaric chamber from the author of the “brilliant, twisted, and oh so clever� (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author) novel The Last Thing to Burn.

Six experienced saturation divers are locked inside a hyperbaric chamber. Calm and professional, they know that rapid decompression would be fatal and so they work in shifts, breathing helium, and surviving in hot, close quarters.

Then one of them is found dead in his bunk.

With four days of decompression to go before the locked hatch to the chamber can be safely opened, the group must watch one another’s backs at all times. And when another diver is discovered unresponsive, everyone is on edge. What…or who…is taking them out one by one? And will any of them still be alive by the time the four days is up or will paranoia, exhaustion, suspicion, and pressure destroy them all?]]> 352 Will Dean 166802117X Mia 3 2024-books 3.46 2024
author: Will Dean
name: Mia
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Mia 3 2024-books 4.37 2023
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Mia
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 210331622 Following her explosive debut thriller Falling and its harrowing follow-up Drowning, #1 internationally bestselling author T.J. Newman is back with Worst Case Scenario.

When a pilot suffers a heart attack at 35,000 feet, a commercial airliner filled with passengers crashes into a nuclear power plant in the small town of Waketa, Minnesota, which becomes ground zero for a catastrophic national crisis with global implications.

The International Nuclear Event Scale tracks nuclear disasters. It has seven levels. Level 7 is a Major Accident, with only two on record: Fukushima and Chernobyl. There has never been a Level 8. Until now.

In this heart-stopping thriller, ordinary people—power plant employees, firefighters, teachers, families, neighbors, and friends� are thrust into an extraordinary situation as they face the ultimate test of their lives. It will take the combined courage, ingenuity, and determination of a brave few to save not only their community and loved ones, but the fate of humanity at large.]]> 336 T.J. Newman 0316576794 Mia 5 2024-books 4.05 2024
author: T.J. Newman
name: Mia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/05
date added: 2024/10/05
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 34219838 A powerful thriller about the explosive intersection of love, race, and justice from a writer and producer of the Emmy winning Fox TV show Empire.

When it comes to law and order, East Texas plays by its own rules--a fact that Darren Mathews, a black Texas Ranger, knows all too well. Deeply ambivalent about growing up black in the lone star state, he was the first in his family to get as far away from Texas as he could. Until duty called him home.

When his allegiance to his roots puts his job in jeopardy, he travels up Highway 59 to the small town of Lark, where two murders--a black lawyer from Chicago and a local white woman--have stirred up a hornet's nest of resentment. Darren must solve the crimes--and save himself in the process--before Lark's long-simmering racial fault lines erupt.

A rural noir suffused with the unique music, color, and nuance of East Texas, Bluebird, Bluebird is an exhilarating, timely novel about the collision of race and justice in America.]]> 307 Attica Locke 0316363294 Mia 4 2024-books
Reread for book club- still so good!]]> 3.82 2017
author: Attica Locke
name: Mia
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Took me a little to get into but once I adjusted to the Texas vibe I was hooked. More please!

Reread for book club- still so good!
]]> 204294824
Dark and twisting at every turn, fans of Catriona Ward will love this chilling new tale from the deviously inventive horror author that Peter Farris calls the “clear heir to Stephen King.�

Beware the one who got away . . .

Father Silence once terrorized the rural town of Twisted Tree, disguising himself as a priest to prey on the most vulnerable members of society. When the police finally found his “House of Horrors,� they uncovered nineteen bodies and one survivor–a boy now locked away in a hospital for the criminally insane.

Nearly two decades later, Father Silence is finally put to death, but by the next morning, the detective who made the original arrest is found dead. A new serial killer is taking credit for the murder and calling himself the Outcast.

The detective’s daughter, Tess Claibourne, is a detective herself, haunted by childhood trauma and horrified by the death of her father and the resurgence of Father Silence’s legacy.

When Tess’s daughter is kidnapped by the Outcast, Tess is forced to face her worst fears and long-buried memories. With no leads to follow, she travels back to Twisted Tree to visit the boy who survived and see what secrets might be buried in the tangled web of his broken mind.

With captivating prose and an old-school horror flair, Sleep Tight is a must-read, haunting tale from a true master of the genre.]]> 336 J.H. Markert 1639108734 Mia 2 2024-books 3.64 2024
author: J.H. Markert
name: Mia
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/24
date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 55119814 A bighearted debut with technicolor characters, plenty of Texas swagger, and a powder keg of a plot in which marriages struggle, rivalries flare, and secrets explode, all with a clever wink toward classical mythology.

The Briscoe family is once again the talk of their small town when March returns to East Texas two years after he was caught having an affair with his brother's wife. His mother, June, hardly welcomes him back with open arms. Her husband's own past affairs have made her tired of being the long-suffering spouse. Is it, perhaps, time for a change? Within days of March's arrival, someone is dead, marriages are upended, and even the strongest of alliances are shattered. In the end, the ties that hold them together might be exactly what drag them all down.

An expansive tour de force, Olympus, Texas cleverly weaves elements of classical mythology into a thoroughly modern family saga, rich in drama and psychological complexity. After all, at some point, don't we all wonder: What good is this destructive force we call love?]]> 318 Stacey Swann 0385545215 Mia 3 2024-books 3.73 2021
author: Stacey Swann
name: Mia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/15
date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 201102399 The new binge-worthy novel from the “queen of the one-sit read,� and New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

Nothing ever happens in sleepy little Fairhill, Vermont. But this morning that will change. And one innocent question could be deadly. What have you done?

The teenagers get their kicks telling ghost stories in the old graveyard. The parents trust their kids will arrive home safe from school. Everyone knows everyone. Curtains rarely twitch. Front doors are left unlocked.

But Diana Brewer isn’t lying safely in her bed where she belongs. Instead she lies in a hayfield, circled by vultures, discovered by a local farmer.

How quickly a girl becomes a ghost. How quickly a town of friendly, familiar faces becomes a town of suspects, a place of fear and paranoia.

Someone in Fairhill did this. Everyone wants answers.]]> 307 Shari Lapena 0593489969 Mia 2 2024-books 3.73 2024
author: Shari Lapena
name: Mia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/14
date added: 2024/09/14
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 207299448
Though the authorities rule Liam's death accidental, Nora and her estranged brother, Sam, believe otherwise. As they form an uneasy alliance to unpack the mystery, they start putting together the pieces of their father’s past and uncover a family secret that changes everything.

With Laura Dave’s “signature blend of pulse-pounding suspense� (PEOPLE) and “trademark emotional heft� (The New York Post), The Night We Lost Him is a “propulsive� (Oprah Daily) must-read, with a heartbreaking final twist you’ll never see coming.]]> 298 Laura Dave 1668002930 Mia 2 2024-books 3.56 2024
author: Laura Dave
name: Mia
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 58950733 "A staggering marvel."�The New York Times

â€�The World Gives Way has a sweeping world rich in lore and an electric plot, both of which make for ideal summer reading.”—Brandon Taylor,ĚýBooker Prize-nominated author ofĚýReal Life

ONE OF LITHUB'S MOST ANTICIPATED TITLES OF 2021

In a near-future world on the brink of collapse, a young woman born into servitude must seize her own freedom in this glittering debut with a brilliant twist.

In fifty years, Myrra will be free.

Until then, she's a contract worker. Ever since she was five, her life and labor have belonged to the highest bidder on her contract—butchers, laundries, and now the powerful, secretive Carlyles.

But when one night finds the Carlyles dead, Myrra is suddenly free a lot sooner than she anticipated—and at a cost she never could have imagined. Burdened with the Carlyles' orphaned daughter and the terrible secret they died to escape, she runs. With time running out, Myrra must come face to face with the truth about her world—and embrace what's left before it's too late.

A sweeping novel with a darkly glimmering heart, The World Gives Way is an unforgettable portrait of a world in freefall, and the fierce drive to live even at the end of it all.]]> 432 Marissa Levien 0316592374 Mia 3 2024-books 3.75 2021
author: Marissa Levien
name: Mia
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199793420
Tattooed, pierced, and a bit of a mess, Maggie Moore is a surprising genius when it comes to words, a savant able to solve any linguistic puzzle. The top student in her forensic linguistics class, she’s tapped by local police to use her skills to decipher harrowing notes left by a stalker-turned-rapist—and succeeds brilliantly.

But when the daughter of a local mayor is abducted, Maggie isn’t sure she’s the right person to help the police solve the crime. Given what happened to her best childhood friend, Maggie just might be too close to this one.

Yet she knows the authorities in this rural south-Central Florida town cannot crack the case without her special skill. Along with her new best friend, a detective Jackson, Maggie begins to analyze the texts, emails, and verbal tics of various suspects . . . and comes to a disturbing conclusion that will rock this small community.]]> 244 Stella Sands 0063345307 Mia 4 2024-books 3.40 2024
author: Stella Sands
name: Mia
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/06
date added: 2024/09/06
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Original! Ready for the next- hope it becomes a series.
]]> 55643278 In this #1 bestselling page-turner a Nantucket novelist has one final summer to protect her secrets while her loved ones on earth learn to live without their golden girl.

On a perfect June day, Vivian Howe, author of thirteenĚýbeach novels and mother of three nearly grown children, is killed in a hit-and-run car accident while jogging near her home on Nantucket. She ascends to the Beyond where she's assigned to a Person named Martha, who allows Vivi to watch what happens below for one last summer. Vivi also is granted three “nudgesâ€� to change the outcome of events on earth, and with her daughter Willa on her third miscarriage, Carson partying until all hours, and Leo currently “off againâ€� with his high-maintenance girlfriend, she’ll have to think carefully where to use them.

From the Beyond, Vivi watches “The Chief� Ed Kapenash investigate her death, but her greatest worry is her final book, which contains a secret from her own youth that could be disastrous for her reputation. But when hidden truths come to light, Vivi’s family will have to sort out their past and present mistakes—with or without a nudge of help from above—while Vivi finally lets them grow without her.

With all of Elin’s trademark beach scenes, mouth-watering meals, and picture-perfect homes, plus a heartfelt message—the people we lose never really leave us�Golden Girl is a beach book unlike any other.]]> 384 Elin Hilderbrand 0316420085 Mia 3 2024-books 4.09 2021
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Mia
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/04
date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199798497 The author of the “clever, atmospheric, and creepy� (Andrea Bartz, New York Times bestselling author) The Golden Spoon returns with a sly and addictive new mystery about an advice columnist searching for answers about her predecessor’s murder.

Alex Marks’s move to New York City is supposed to be a fresh start. She plans to lay low with her mundane copywriting job but the news of the murder of her childhood hero, Francis Keen, throws her for a loop. Beloved staff writer and the woman behind the famous advice column, Dear Constance , Keen’s death is a shock to her countless fans and readers.

When Alex sees an advertisement searching for her replacement, she impulsively applies, never expecting to actually get the job. But almost immediately, she begins to receive strange letters at the office and soon, Alex wonders why the murderer has never been found. Worse, she can’t help but question if her new boss and editor-in-chief, Howard Dimitri, was involved with Keen’s death.

As she starts her own investigation, the dark secrets of her own past rise to the surface and soon, Alex finds herself trapped in a dangerous and potentially deadly mystery. Will she solve the murder and save her own skin? Or will Alex face a similar fate?]]> 304 Jessa Maxwell 1668008033 Mia 3 2024-books 3.41 2024
author: Jessa Maxwell
name: Mia
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/02
date added: 2024/09/02
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199531929 "So cleverly plotted and brimming with tension." -- Gillian McAllister
"First-rate suspense . . . hard to put down." -- Shari Lapena
A bestselling detective novelist and her family are in danger when chilling events from her novels begin happening around her in this gripping thriller from the British sensation--the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Girls Who Disappeared and The Couple at Number 9.

Emilia has a dream life. But someone knows the truth . . .

Emilia Ward lives in suburban London with her husband, their young son, and a teenager from her first marriage. Emilia is an ordinary mom--and she's also the bestselling author of the Miranda Moody detective novels.

But when writing her tenth--and most difficult--book, life takes a disturbing turn: an incident mimicking the plot of one of her novels occurs in real life. Just an unsettling coincidence, right?

Until it happens again. And again.

Then someone she knows dies in the same way as a victim in the book she's currently writing.

Why is someone doing this?

What do they want?

How could they possibly know what she's thinking--and writing?

Is Emilia and her family next?]]> 400 Claire Douglas 0063277468 Mia 2 2024-books 3.79 2023
author: Claire Douglas
name: Mia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 211721806
You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

Welcome, Crawler. Welcome to the Dungeon. Survival is optional. Keeping the viewers entertained is not.

Includes part one of the exclusive bonus story “Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret.�]]> 450 Matt Dinniman 059382024X Mia 2 2024-books Not for me. 4.49 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Mia
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Not for me.
]]> 202468451 From a #1 internationally bestselling author comes anĚýatmospheric, chilling novel about a family who thinks there's someone hiding in their attic.

“Andrea Mara is a star.� —Lee Child

You thought you were home alone.

Anya is enjoying a relaxing bath when she hears a noise coming from the ceiling. Through the open bathroom door, she sees the attic hatch swing down, and a masked figure drops to the floor. Thirty seconds later, Anya is dead.

You're not afraid of being alone in the dark. You're afraid you're not alone.

Across town, Anya's old school friend, Julia, sees an online video of a masked figure climbing out of an attic. She suddenly realizes why the footage is eerily familiar: it was filmed inside her house in a luxury gated community, designed to keep intruders out.

And now your worst fears are coming true.

Why would a stranger target Julia? Unless of course, it's not a stranger at all.]]> 368 Andrea Mara Mia 2 2024-books 3.62 2024
author: Andrea Mara
name: Mia
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/29
date added: 2024/08/29
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: 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 predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy 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?

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?]]> 400 Emily Henry Mia 4 2024-books 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Mia
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/08/27
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 200356556 300 Hart Hanson Mia 3 2024-books 3.77
author: Hart Hanson
name: Mia
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/22
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Fun! Reminded me of Carl hiassen but in California.
]]> 199698485 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. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Mia 3 2024-books 4.16 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Mia
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Not bad� longer than it needed to be. Very much a “literary� mystery.
]]> 59316367 448 David Ellis 0399170928 Mia 3 2024-books 4.17 2022
author: David Ellis
name: Mia
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/19
date added: 2024/08/19
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199605487 By the acclaimed author of Moxie, a funny, bighearted adult debut that is at once an ode to educators, a timely glimpse at today’s pressing school issues, and a tender character study, following a sprawling cast of teachers, administrators, and staff at a Texas high school

With its ensemble of warm and unforgettable characters, The Faculty Lounge shows readers a different side of school life. It all starts when an elderly substitute teacher at Baldwin High School is found dead in the faculty lounge. After a bit of a stir, life quickly returns to normal—it’s not like it’s the worst (or even most interesting) thing that has happened within the building’s walls. But when, a week later, the spontaneous scattering of his ashes on the school grounds catches the attention of someĚýbusybody parents, it sets in motion a year that can only be described as wild, bizarre, tragic, mundane, beautiful, and humorous all at once.

In the midst of the ensuing hysteria and threats of disciplinary action, the novel peeks into the lives of the implicated adults who, it turns out, actually have first names and continue to exist when the school day is done. We a former punk band front man, now a middle-aged principal who must battle it out with the schoolboard to keep his job; a no-nonsense school nurse willing to break the rules, despite the close watch on their campus, when a student arrives at her office with a dilemma; and a disgruntled English instructor who finds himself embroiled in even more controversy when he misfires a snarky email. Oh, and there’s also a teacher make-out session in a supply closet during a lockdown.

As these people continue to manage the messiness of this school year, there is the looming threat of what will become of their beloved Baldwin High.ĚýUltimately, at the heart of this unconventional workplace novel is a story of the power of human connection and of the joy of finding purpose in what it is we do every day.]]> 304 Jennifer Mathieu 0593475399 Mia 3 2024-books 3.84 2024
author: Jennifer Mathieu
name: Mia
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199347234
When Cleo, a student at NYU, arrives late for dinner at her childhood home in Brooklyn, she finds food burning in the oven and no sign of her mother, Kat. Then Cleo discovers her mom’s bloody shoe under the sofa. Something terrible has happened.

But what? The polar opposite of Cleo, whose “out of control� emotions and “unsafe� behavior have created a seemingly unbridgeable rift between mother and daughter, Kat is the essence of Park Slope perfection: a happily married, successful corporate lawyer. Or so Cleo thinks.

Kat has been lying. She’s not just a lawyer; she’s her firm’s fixer. She’s damn good at it, too. Growing up in a dangerous group home taught her how to think fast, stay calm under pressure, and recognize a real threat when she sees one. And in the days leading up her disappearance, Kat has become aware of multiple threats: demands for money from her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband; evidence that Cleo has slipped back into a relationship that’s far riskier than she understands; and menacing anonymous messages from her past—all of which she’s kept hidden from Cleo . . .

Like Mother, Like Daughter is a thrilling novel of emotional suspense that questions the damaging fictions we cling to and the hard truths we avoid. Above all, it’s a love story between a mother and a daughter, each determined to save the other before it’s too late.]]> 320 Kimberly McCreight 0593536428 Mia 3 2024-books 3.64 2024
author: Kimberly McCreight
name: Mia
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

1975 is a time of change in America. The Vietnam War is ending. Mohammed Ali is fighting Joe Frazier. And in the small town of Monta Clare, Missouri, girls are disappearing.

When the daughter of a wealthy family is targeted, the most unlikely hero emerges—Patch, a local boy with one eye, who saves the girl, and, in doing so, leaves heartache in his wake.

Patch and those who love him soon discover that the line between triumph and tragedy has never been finer. And that their search for answers will lead them to truths that could mean losing one another.

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Mia 1 2024-books 4.24 2024
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Mia
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/08/14
date added: 2024/08/14
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Hmmm� I don’t get the raves for this one.
]]> 199262864
To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now she isn’t certain of anything except her love for her kids and a growing realization that this place, although beautiful, is unsettling.]]> 339 Ally Condie 1538757583 Mia 3 2024-books 3.16 2024
author: Ally Condie
name: Mia
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/12
date added: 2024/08/12
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 201102396 Willow’s worst nightmare was being cancelled. But the woods of Camp Castaway might destroy more than her reputation.After sitcom star Willow tweeted herself into infamy and had to be dragged blind-drunk out of a swimming pool, her agent shipped her off to the woodsy and wonderfully anonymous confines of Camp Castaway. Tucked away in the trees of upstate New York, Castaway is a summer camp for adults in desperate need of leaving behind their mistakes, their social media accounts, their lives. No real names, no phones…no way to call for help.Willow is relieved to find that her fellow campers seem okay. To her shock, her own favorite actress is here, sitting by the campfire and roasting a s’more. And did that jaded writer, Dani, just wink at her? But the peaceful vibe is shattered when a terrifying woman pops shrieking from the wardrobe in Willow’s room. Soon after, one of the campers vanishes.ĚýIs Willow about to get cancelled all over again, this time for good?Soon, terror grips the group, campers begin to lose their heads—literally!—and Willow and her new friends are on the run.ĚýAs paranoia grows and disturbing past deeds come to light, this escape from their shallow lifestyles might just lead to a set of shallow graves.]]> 314 Josh Winning 0593544692 Mia 2 2024-books 3.51 2024
author: Josh Winning
name: Mia
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/08/11
date added: 2024/08/11
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Mia 4 2024-books 4.49 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Mia
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/07
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Lots of fun! Skimmed a lot of the science stuff cause I just don’t get it... still an entertaining read.
]]> 199798083 A young father must clear his name and protect his queer son when his wealthy new wife’s televangelist grandfather is found murdered in this binge-worthy locked-room thriller from the acclaimed author of The Bright Lands—perfect for fans of Ruth Ware, Paul Tremblay, and Alex North.

For years, single father Toby Tucker has done his best to keep his sensitive young son, Luca, safe from the bigotry of the world. But when Toby marries Alyssa Wright—the granddaughter of a famed televangelist known for his grandiose, Old Testament preaching—he can’t imagine the world of religion, wealth, and hate that he and Luca are about to enter.

A trip to the Wright family’s compound in sun-scorched Texas soon turns hellish when Toby realizes that Alyssa and the rest of her brood might have some very strange plans for Toby and his son. The situation only grows worse when a freak storm cuts off the roads and the family patriarch is found murdered, stabbed through the heart on the roof of the family’s mansion.

Suspicion immediately turns to Toby, but when his son starts describing a spectral figure in a black suit lurking around the house with unfinished business in mind, Toby realizes this family has more than murder to be afraid of. And as the Wrights close in on Luca, no one is prepared for the lengths Toby will go in the fight to clear his name and protect his son.]]> 416 John Fram 1668031442 Mia 3 2024-books 3.64 2024
author: John Fram
name: Mia
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 85766771
Bosch pulls a needle from the haystack: a woman in prison for killing her husband, a sheriff’s deputy, but who still maintains her innocence. Bosch reviews the case and sees elements that don’t add up, and a sheriff’s department intent on bringing quick justice in the killing of one of its own.

Now Haller has an uphill battle in court, a David fighting Goliaths to vindicate his client. The path for both lawyer and investigator is fraught with danger from those who don’t want the case reopened and will stop at nothing to keep the Haller-Bosch dream team from finding the truth. Packed with intrigue and courtroom drama, Resurrection Walk shows once again that Michael Connelly is “the most consistently superior living crime fiction author� (South Florida Sun Sentinel).]]> 407 Michael Connelly 0316563781 Mia 3 2024-books 4.55 2023
author: Michael Connelly
name: Mia
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/03
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 16071701 Carl Hiaasen is back doing what he does best: spinning a wickedly funny, fiercely pointed tale in which the greedy, the corrupt, and the degraders of pristine land in Florida--now, in the Bahamas too--get their comeuppance in mordantly ingenious, diabolically entertaining fashion.

Andrew Yancy--late of the Miami Police, soon-to-be-late of the Key West Police--has a human arm in his freezer. There's a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, his commander might relieve him of Health Inspector duties, aka Roach Patrol. But first Yancy will negotiate an ever-surprising course of events--from the Keys to Miami to a Bahamian out island--with a crew of equally ever-surprising characters, including: the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; an avariciously idiotic real estate developer; a voodoo witch whose lovers are blinded-unto-death by her particularly peculiar charms; Yancy's new love, a kinky medical examiner; and the eponymous Bad Monkey, who earns his place among Hiaasen's greatest characters with hilariously wicked aplomb.Ěý]]> 337 Carl Hiaasen 0307272591 Mia 3 2024-books 3.68 2013
author: Carl Hiaasen
name: Mia
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Classic Hiaasen, if you like his other books you'll like this one too. Made me laugh out loud a few times, my only complaint is that it went on a little too long.
]]> 40163119
Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders.

Patrick Radden Keefe writes an intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions.]]> 441 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385521316 Mia 3 2024-books 4.47 2018
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Mia
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/27
date added: 2024/07/28
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199463712 In this clever, surprising, page-turner, the world’s most lethal assassin gives up the violent life only to find himself under siege by mysterious assailants. It’s a kill-or-be-killed situation, but the first option is off the table. What’s a reformed hit man to do?

Mark was the most dangerous killer-for-hire in the world. But after learning the hard way that his life’s work made him more monster than man, he left all of that behind, and joined a twelve-step group for reformed killers.

When Mark is viciously attacked by an unknown assailant, he is forced on the run. From New York to Singapore to London, he chases after clues while dodging attacks and trying to solve the puzzle of who’s after him. All without killing anyone. Or getting killed himself. For an assassin, Mark learns, nonviolence is a real hassle.]]> 308 Rob Hart 0593717392 Mia 3 2024-books 3.84 2024
author: Rob Hart
name: Mia
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/26
date added: 2024/07/26
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199927030 The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons� investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.]]> 352 Meg Shaffer 0593598873 Mia 2 2024-books 3.78 2024
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Mia
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/25
date added: 2024/07/25
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Not for me. Suprised this isn't categorized as a YA book.
]]> 200113519
Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA's worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn's childhood and the rhythms of her new job at the Irish Observer .

It's a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters' past surface to drag them back into the conflict. Tessa is told she must track down her old handler from MI5, Eamonn, and attempt to turn him into an IRA informant, or lose everything.

Tessa's reunion with Eamonn revives a host of feelings she has long attempted to bury. As their relationship intensifies and the pressure mounts, long-held secrets rise to the surface, and Tessa must navigate a treacherous landscape of shifting loyalties, all while trying to protect her beloved son.

With her signature hair-raising suspense, razor-sharp prose, and rich emotional depth, Edgar Award winner Berry has crafted both an unforgettable portrait of two fierce women in the Daly sisters, and her most spellbinding thriller to date.]]> 304 Flynn Berry 0593490320 Mia 3 2024-books 3.78 2024
author: Flynn Berry
name: Mia
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/20
date added: 2024/07/20
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 200555227
Elin Warner is on vacation with her brother Isaac in a rugged national park in Portugal—the last place Kier was seen. It’s supposed to be a time for the siblings to reconnect, but when Elin discovers Kier’s disturbing final map, it seems the park—especially the inhabitants of a camp buried deep in the forest—holds clues to what happened to Kier, and a lot more besides.

After a sinister discovery, Elin is shocked to learn Kier's disappearance is more personal to her than she’d ever imagined. And as she seeks the truth, Elin soon finds the wilderness hides something far darker than shifting shadows…]]> 386 Sarah Pearse 0593654048 Mia 2 2024-books 3.67 2024
author: Sarah Pearse
name: Mia
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/19
date added: 2024/07/19
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 28695606
Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?

FantasticLand is a modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online.]]> 272 Mike Bockoven 1510709444 Mia 4 2024-books Creepy! So good though! 3.84 2016
author: Mike Bockoven
name: Mia
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/14
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Creepy! So good though!
]]> 18892810 From the bestselling author ofĚýJurassic Park,ĚýTimeline, andĚýSphereĚýcomes a gripping thriller about the shocking demise of eight American geologists in the darkest region of the Congo.
Ěý
Deep in the African rain forest, near the ruins of the Lost City of Zinj, a field expedition is brutally killed. At the Houston-based Earth Resources Technology Services, Inc., a horrified supervisor watches a gruesome video transmission of that ill-fated group and sees a haunting, grainy, man-like blur moving amongst the bodies. In San Francisco, an extraordinary gorilla named Amy, who has a 620-sign vocabulary, may hold the secret to that fierce carnage. Immediately, a new expedition is sent to the Congo with Amy in tow, descending into a secret, forbidden world where the only escape may be through the grisliest death.
Ěý

]]> 371 Michael Crichton Mia 3 2024-books 4.05 1980
author: Michael Crichton
name: Mia
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1980
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 200634908 A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.]]> 384 J. Courtney Sullivan 059331915X Mia 3 2024-books 3.51 2024
author: J. Courtney Sullivan
name: Mia
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/07
date added: 2024/07/07
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Well written even if it felt a bit preachy at times.
]]> 198112011
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.

Until, on a summer trip abroad to Italy with his law-school classmates, Ryan gets a call from his father: Ali's car has finally been found, submerged in a lake in his hometown. Inside are two dead men and a cryptic note with five words written on the envelope in Ali’s handwriting: If something happens to me�

Then, halfway around the world, the unthinkable happens: Ryan sees the man who has haunted his dreams since that night.

As Ryan races from the rolling hills of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the glittering streets of Paris in search of the truth, he has no idea that his salvation may lie with a young sheriff’s deputy in Kansas working her first case, and a mobster in Philadelphia who’s experienced tragedy of his own.

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told by several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The novel cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.]]> 336 Alex Finlay 1250863805 Mia 4 2024-books 4.02 2024
author: Alex Finlay
name: Mia
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Over the top but very entertaining.
]]> 199372731
“The book is a classic summer beach read...Eruption will revive the art of speed-reading...told with a singular voice that is a compelling amalgam of the two writers.”—USA Today

“Eruption is an epic thriller…fast-paced and deeply considered…a cinematic story rooted in science and infused with plenty of heart, tackling big themes like love and loss.�
–Tľ±łľ±đ

The master of the techno-blockbuster joins forces with the master of the modern thriller to create the most anticipated mega bestseller in years.

Michael Crichton, creator of Jurassic Park, ER, Twister, and Westworld, had a passion project he’d been pursuing for years, ahead of his untimely passing in 2008. Knowing how special it was, his wife, Sherri Crichton, held back his notes and the partial manuscript until she found the right author to complete it: James Patterson, the world’s most popular storyteller.

“Red-hot storytelling... The action scenes will make readers� eyes pop as the tension continues to build." –Kirkus, starred review

“Explosive…the summer’s ultimate literary mashup.� —Washington Post

"Takes readers on a thrilling journey." —BBC

"Beachbag-ready." —Boston Globe

“A seismic publishing event…all the elements of a summer blockbuster…it’s a thrill and the pages practically turn themselves.� —Associated Press

“Eruption is this summer’s literary version of a blockbuster action movie.� –Los Angeles Times

"Breakneck and plausible." —Publishers Weekly]]> 423 Michael Crichton 0316565083 Mia 3 2024-books 3.79 2024
author: Michael Crichton
name: Mia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 150246179 The Fallon Spring Reads Book Club Pick

A mother is forced to the breaking point when her life and the lives of her children are threatened by an intruder

Home alone with her young children during a blizzard, a mother tucks her son back into bed in the middle of the night. She hears a noise—old houses are always making some kind of noise. But this sound is disturbingly familiar: it’s the tread of footsteps, unusually heavy and slow, coming up the stairs.

She sees the figure of a man appear down the hallway, shrouded in the shadows. Terrified, she quietly wakes her children and hustles them into the oldest part of the house, a tiny, secret room concealed behind a wall. There they hide as the man searches for them, trying to tempt the children out with promises and scare the mother into surrender.

In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.]]> 368 Tracy Sierra 0593654765 Mia 2 2024-books 3.79 2024
author: Tracy Sierra
name: Mia
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/07/05
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 62849881 While Justice Sleeps. But as the sparks of impeachment hearings and political skirmishes swirl around her, Avery is approached at a legal conference by Preston Davies, an unassuming young man and fellow law clerk to a federal judge in Idaho. Davies believes his boss, Judge Francesca Whitner, was being blackmailed in the days before she recently took her own life, and he gives Avery a file, a burner phone, and a fearful warning that there are highly dangerous people involved. Moments later, Avery is shocked when she witnesses Davies being murdered.

After breaking the encrypted file Davies gave to her, Avery reveals a list of names--all federal judges--and, alarmingly, all judges on the FISA Court (the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court), also known as America's secret court. It is this body that grants permission to the government to wiretap American individuals or corporations suspected of terrorism. Avery knows Judge Whitner had been extorted, but as she investigates the names and cases associated with other judges on the list she begins to see a frightening pattern--and she worries that something far more sinister may be unfolding.]]> 353 Stacey Abrams 038554832X Mia 3 2024-books 3.86 2023
author: Stacey Abrams
name: Mia
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/04
date added: 2024/07/04
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199743738 Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...

It’s the opening night of The Manor, and no expense, small or large, has been spared. The infinity pool sparkles; crystal pouches for guests� healing have been placed in the Seaside Cottages and Woodland Hutches; the “Manor Mule� cocktail (grapefruit, ginger, vodka, and a dash of CBD oil) is being poured with a heavy hand. Everyone is wearing linen.

But under the burning midsummer sun, darkness stirs. Old friends and enemies circulate among the guests. Just outside the Manor’s immaculately kept grounds, an ancient forest bristles with secrets. And the Sunday morning of opening weekend, the local police are called. Something’s not right with the guests. There’s been a fire. A body’s been discovered.

THE FOUNDER * THE HUSBAND * THE MYSTERY GUEST * THE KITCHEN HELP

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at� The Midnight Feast.]]> 354 Lucy Foley 0063003104 Mia 3 2024-books 3.55 2024
author: Lucy Foley
name: Mia
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/03
date added: 2024/07/03
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 7667
'Socal Approach, this is TransPacific 545. We have an emergency.' The pilot requests priority clearance to land - then comes the bombshell - he needs forty ambulances on the runway.

But nothing prepares the rescue workers for the carnage they witness when they enter the plane.

Ninety-four passengers are injured. Three dead. The interior cabin virtually destroyed.

What happened on board Flight TPA 545?]]> 431 Michael Crichton 0099556316 Mia 3 2024-books 3.73 1996
author: Michael Crichton
name: Mia
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1996
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/01
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 199026522 In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

The worst thing to ever happen on Hemlock Circle occurred in Ethan Marsh’s backyard. One July night, ten-year-old Ethan and his best friend and neighbor, Billy, fell asleep in a tent set up on a manicured lawn in a quiet, quaint New Jersey cul de sac. In the morning, Ethan woke up alone. During the night, someone had sliced the tent open with a knife and taken Billy. He was never seen again.

Thirty years later, Ethan has reluctantly returned to his childhood home. Plagued by bad dreams and insomnia, he begins to notice strange things happening in the middle of the night. Someone seems to be roaming the cul de sac at odd hours, and signs of Billy’s presence keep appearing in Ethan’s backyard. Is someone playing a cruel prank? Or has Billy, long thought to be dead, somehow returned to Hemlock Circle?

The mysterious occurrences prompt Ethan to investigate what really happened that night, a quest that reunites him with former friends and neighbors and leads him into the woods that surround Hemlock Circle. Woods where Billy claimed monsters roamed and where a mysterious institute does clandestine research on a crumbling estate.

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.]]> 367 Riley Sager 0593472373 Mia 3 2024-books 3.65 2024
author: Riley Sager
name: Mia
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/06/28
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 197449225 256 Paul Scheer 0063293714 Mia 3 2024-books 4.15 2024
author: Paul Scheer
name: Mia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves: 2024-books
review:

]]> 176443476
For a sixteen-year-old, a summer internship working for a private investigator seems like a dream come true—particularly since the PI is investigating the most shocking crime to hit Bloomington, Indiana, in decades. A local woman has vanished, and the last time anyone saw her, she was in the backseat of a police car driven by a man impersonating an officer.

Marshall Miller’s internship puts him at the center of the action, a position he relishes until a terrifying moment that turns public praise for his sharp observations and uncanny memory into accusations of lying and imperiling the case. His detective mentor withdraws, friends and family worry and whisper, and Marshall alone understands that the darkness visiting his town this summer goes far beyond a single crime. Now his task is to explain it—and himself.

Lost Man's Lane is a coming-of-age tale of terror.]]> 516 Scott Carson 1982191457 Mia 4 2024-books 4.15 2024
author: Scott Carson
name: Mia
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/23
date added: 2024/06/23
shelves: 2024-books
review:
Perhaps a touch too leisurely in its pacing but overall pretty good.
]]> 136276877
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.]]> 368 Stuart Turton Mia 1 2024-books 3.63 2024
author: Stuart Turton
name: Mia
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/06/22
date added: 2024/06/22
shelves: 2024-books
review:

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