en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 05:50:26 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 52702097
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 246 Susanna Clarke Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction 4.24 2020
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 223320255
As her husband spiraled into addiction and repeated incarcerations, Tamar’s life became a balancing act between personal chaos and professional ambition. She graduated with honors from her local university and secured a stable job at the Bank of Georgia—all while navigating the challenges of motherhood at 23. Refusing to be defined by her circumstances, Tamar took a daring leap at 25, becoming the CFO of a holding company with a bold mission to elevate Georgia’s economy.

In this role, she faced relentless challenges, from threats to bribery attempts, as she fought to align the company with international standards. Tamar’s unwavering resilience and integrity helped transform the company into one of Georgia's largest, and her story is one of grit, courage, and triumph.]]> 160 Tamar Gakharia Xandie 3 ceeres, non-fiction 4.00
author: Tamar Gakharia
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: ceeres, non-fiction
review:

]]> 199897857
Anna Green thought she was marrying Liam “West�� Weston for access to subsidized family housing while at UCLA. She also thought she’d signed divorce papers when the graduation caps were tossed, and they both went on their merry ways.

Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

Due to an antiquated clause in his grandfather’s will, Liam won’t see a penny until he’s been happily married for five years. Just when Liam thinks he’s in the home stretch, pressure mounts from his family to see this mysterious spouse, and he has no choice but to turn to the one person he’s afraid to introduce to his one-percenter parents—his unpolished, not-so-ex-wife.

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.]]> 352 Christina Lauren Xandie 4 fiction, romance 4.19 2024
author: Christina Lauren
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 177124765
Being single is like playing the lottery. There’s always the chance that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

Daphne Bell believes the universe has a plan for her. Every time she meets a new man, she receives a slip of paper with his name and a number on it—the exact amount of time they will be together. The papers told her she’d spend three days with Martin in Paris; five weeks with Noah in San Francisco; and three months with Hugo, her ex-boyfriend turned best friend. Daphne has been receiving the numbered papers for over twenty years, always wondering when there might be one without an expiration. Finally, the night of a blind date at her favorite Los Angeles restaurant, there’s only a name: Jake.

But as Jake and Daphne’s story unfolds, Daphne finds herself doubting the paper’s prediction, and wrestling with what it means to be both committed and truthful. Because Daphne knows things Jake doesn’t, information that—if he found out—would break his heart.

Told with her signature warmth and insight into matters of the heart, Rebecca Serle has finally set her sights on romantic love. The result is a gripping, emotional, passionate, and (yes) heartbreaking novel about what it means to be single, what it means to find love, and ultimately how we define each of them for ourselves. Expiration Dates is the one fans have been waiting for.]]> 268 Rebecca Serle Xandie 4 fiction, romance 3.79 2024
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

In September 1913, Mieczysław, a student suffering from tuberculosis, arrives at Wilhelm Opitz's Guesthouse for Gentlemen, a health resort in��Görbersdorf, what is now western Poland. Every day, its residents gather in the dining room to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur, to obsess over money and status, and to discuss the great issues of the day: Will there be war? Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women inherently inferior?

Meanwhile, disturbing things are beginning to happen in the guesthouse and its surroundings. As stories of shocking events in the surrounding highlands reach the men, a sense of dread builds. Someone—or something—seems to be watching them and attempting to infiltrate their world. Little does Mieczysław realize, as he attempts to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target.

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Xandie 0 to-read 3.66 2022
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49931211 An unforgettable story of friendship and feuds in a remote Armenian mountain village

In an isolated village high in the Armenian mountains, a close-knit community bickers, gossips and laughs. Their only connection to the outside world is an ancient telegraph wire and a perilous mountain road that even goats struggle to navigate.

As they go about their daily lives���� harvesting crops, making baklava, tidying houses���� the villagers sustain one another through good times and bad. But sometimes all it takes is a spark of romance to turn life on its head, and a plot to bring two of Maran's most stubbornly single residents together soon gives the village something new to gossip about...

Three Apples Fell from the Sky��is an enchanting fable that brilliantly captures the idiosyncrasy of a small community. Sparkling with sumptuous imagery and warm humour, this is a vibrant tale of resilience, bravery and the miracle of everyday friendship.]]> 256 Narine Abgaryan 1786077302 Xandie 4 4.00 2015
author: Narine Abgaryan
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: ceeres, fiction, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 220239067 A theater critic at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe writes a vicious one-star review of a struggling actress he has a one-night stand with in this sharply funny, feminist tinderbox.

Alex Lyons always has his mind made up by the time the curtain comes down at a performance—the show either deserves a five-star rave or a one-star pan. Anything in between is meaningless. On the opening night of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, he doesn’t deliberate over the rating for Hayley Sinclair’s show, nor does he hesitate when the opportunity presents itself to have a one-night stand with the struggling actress.

Unaware that she’s gone home with the theater critic who’s just written a career-ending review of her, Hayley wakes up at his apartment to see his scathing one-star critique in print on the kitchen table, and she’s not sure which humiliation offends her the most. So she revamps her show into a viral sensation critiquing Alex Lyons himself—entitled son of a famous actress, serial philanderer, and by all accounts a terrible man. Yet Alex remains unapologetic. As his reputation goes up in flames, he insists on telling his unvarnished version of events to his colleague, Sophie. Through her eyes, we see that the deeper she gets pulled into his downfall, the more conflicted she becomes. After all, there are always two sides to every story.

A brilliant Trojan horse of a book about art, power, misogyny, and female rage, Bring the House Down is a searing, insightful, and often hilarious debut that captures the blurred line between reality and performance.]]> 304 Charlotte Runcie 038555107X Xandie 0 to-read 3.94 2025
author: Charlotte Runcie
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220160823 From the New York Times bestselling author of Where the Dark Stands Still comes an atmospheric fantasy based on Swan Lake, following Odile as her plan to restore magic to her kingdom gets disrupted by a murder—forcing her to beg for help from the young woman whose identity she stole.

Can two girls—one enchanted, one the enchantress—save their kingdom and each other?

Two hundred years ago, a slighted deity stole the magic from Auréal and vanished without a trace. But seventeen-year-old Odile has a plan. All her life, her father, a vengeful sorcerer, has raised her for one singular task: infiltrate the royal palace and steal the king’s crown, an artefact with enough power to restore magic. But to enter the palace, she must assume the identity of a noblewoman. She chooses Marie d’Odette: famed for her beauty, a rumored candidate for future queen…and Odile’s childhood-friend-turned-sworn-enemy.

With her father’s help, Odile transforms Marie into a swan and takes her place at court. But when the king is brutally murdered and her own brother is accused, her plans are thrown into chaos. Desperate to free her brother, Odile is forced to team up with none other than elegant, infuriating Marie, the girl she has cursed…and the girl she can’t seem to stop thinking about despite her best efforts.

To make matters worse, there are whispers that the king’s murder was not at the hands of man, but beast. Torn between loyalty to her father and her growing feelings for Marie, Odile becomes tangled in a web of treachery and deceit. To save her kingdom, she must find the true path to magic…and find the real killer before they—or it—strikes again.]]> 368 A.B. Poranek 1665936509 Xandie 0 to-read 4.29 2025
author: A.B. Poranek
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387637
Mrs. B, the landlady of The Marigold Cottages is a stubborn idealist who only rents to people she cares about: Sophie, an anxious young playwright with a dark past; Hamilton, an agoraphobe who likes to overshare; Ocean, a queer sculptor raising two kids alone; the perfectionist Lily-Ann; and Nicholas, a finance bro who’s hiding secrets.

The tenants live contentedly in their doll-house bungalows in Santa Barbara, just minutes from the beach, until their peace is shattered when Anthony, a quiet, hulking, but potentially violent ex-con moves in. Three weeks later, a dead body is discovered on the streets of the peaceful neighborhood. Anthony is arrested, and the tenants heave sighs of relief. Until Mrs. B, convinced that he's innocent, marches down to the police station and confesses to the crime herself. The tenants band together and form “The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective�� to save their beloved landlady. As clues are unearthed and secrets are revealed, the community of misfits only grows more tight-knit...until a second body is found. Full of eccentricity, humor, community, The Marigold Cottages Murder Collective will keep you hooked until the last page.]]> 352 Jo Nichols 1250356547 Xandie 0 to-read 4.24
author: Jo Nichols
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56988057
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.

Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats�� secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.]]> 400 Maggie Stiefvater 0593655508 Xandie 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203956677 A thrilling collection of thirteen short stories that span the worlds of the New York Times bestselling author of the Scholomance Trilogy, including a sneak peek at the land where her next novel will be set.

From the dragon-filled Temeraire series and the gothic, magical halls of the Scholomance trilogy to the fairy tale worlds of Spinning Silver and Uprooted, this stunning collection takes us from fairy tale to fantasy, myth to history, and mystery to science fiction as we travel through Naomi Novik’s most beloved stories.

In Buried Deep, we move from ancient Greece and Rome, through the Middle Ages and the Black Death, and into the modern era. We meet Mark Antony, Sherlock Holmes, and Elizabeth Bennet, in ways we have never seen them before. We visit exotic fantasy cities and alien civilizations among the stars.

Though the stories are vastly different, there is a unifying theme: the act of finding and seizing one’s destiny, and the lengths one will go to achieve that—be it turning pirate, captaining a fighting dragon, or shifting from marriage to seek your destiny with a sword.

And in the two tales original to this collection, we first reenter the remade Scholomance in the wake of El’s revolution and see what life is like for the new crop of students. Then, we get a glimpse at the world of Novik’s upcoming series, a deserted land, populated only by silent and enigmatic architectural behemoths whose secrets are yet to be unlocked.]]> 430 Naomi Novik 0593600355 Xandie 4 3.99 2024
author: Naomi Novik
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, fiction, science-fiction
review:

]]> 15764748 Gallenzi, Alessandro 250 Alessandro Gallenzi 1846882087 Xandie 3 fiction 2.92 2012
author: Alessandro Gallenzi
name: Xandie
average rating: 2.92
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> 211004124 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six comes the story of three siblings who, upon the death of their father, are forced to reckon with their long-festering rivalries, dangerous abilities, and the crushing weight of all their unrealized adolescent potential.

Where there’s a will, there’s a war.

Thayer Wren, the brilliant CEO of Wrenfare Magitech and so-called father of modern technology, is dead. Any one of his three telepathically and electrokinetically gifted children would be a plausible inheritor to the Wrenfare throne.

Or at least, so they like to think.

Meredith, textbook accomplished eldest daughter and the head of her own groundbreaking biotech company, has recently cured mental illness. You're welcome! If only her father's fortune wasn't her last hope for keeping her journalist ex-boyfriend from exposing what she really is: a total fraud.

Arthur, second-youngest congressman in history, fights the good fight every day of his life. And yet, his wife might be leaving him, and he's losing his re-election campaign. But his dead father’s approval in the form of a seat on the Wrenfare throne might just turn his sinking ship around.

Eilidh, once the world's most famous ballerina, has spent the last five years as a run-of-the-mill marketing executive at her father’s company after a life-altering injury put an end to her prodigious career. She might be lacking in accolades compared to her siblings, but if her father left her everything, it would finally validate her worth—by confirming she'd been his favorite all along.

On the pipeline of gifted kid to clinically depressed adult, nobody wins—but which Wren will come out on top?]]> 512 Olivie Blake 1250883407 Xandie 0 to-read 3.86 2025
author: Olivie Blake
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211051861 If you find your way here, you’re already lost.

Inside
A year ago Sophie Wickham stumbled into the isolated Lancashire village of Withered Hill, naked, alone and with no memory of who she is.

Surrounded by a thick ring of woodland, its inhabitants seem to be of another world, drenched in pagan, folklorish traditions.

As Sophie struggles to regain the memories of her life from before, she quickly realises she is a prisoner after multiple failed escape attempts. But is it the locals who keep her trapped, with smiles on their faces, or something else, lurking in the woods?

Outside
In London, Sophie leads a chaotic life, with too many drunken nights, inappropriate men and boring temp jobs. But things take a turn as she starts to be targeted by strange messages warning her that someone, or something, is coming for her.

With no idea who to trust, or where to turn for help, the messages become more insistent and more intimidating, urging Sophie to make her way to a place called Withered Hill��

An utterly bewitching, dual timeline folk horror novel, with a truly devastating twist you have to read to believe.]]> 337 David Barnett 1804367575 Xandie 4 4.13 2024
author: David Barnett
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: fiction, fairytales-inspired-by, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 213293465
The Soviet invasion of 1921 dashed all hopes of independence. By the end of the 1930s, the once vibrant creative community was wiped from the earth by Stalin’s Great Terror, administered personally by Stalin’s sadistic henchman, Lavrentiy Beria. The best minds of a generation were destroyed and passed largely unnoticed by the world into the night.

Collected in this anthology are but a few of these missing voices. This is the poetry and prose of Georgia from the Soviet Shadow. They have been absent from the canon of World Literature for far too long.]]> 205 Ryan Sherman 9941316716 Xandie 4 4.14
author: Ryan Sherman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.14
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: ceeres, fiction, non-fiction, history, translations-into-english, poetry
review:

]]> 224046283 America’s venture capitalist werewolves meet their match in USA Today bestseller Emily Jane’s third rollicking, genre-defying novel.

“It takes aliens (or an Emily Jane) to help us see our society for the bizarre, sugary, microplastic-poisoned dream it is.�� —Edgar Cantero

"Emily Jane is a storyteller unbound by genre" �� Rebekah Bergman

From the author of On Earth as It Is on Television and Here Beside the Rising Tide��

Many full moons ago, a young American boy with ambition in his belly and the moon in his veins followed his destiny west, determined to carve a path to success no matter the carnage.

Two centuries later, a city is captivated by the strange and savage murder of a young woman. No longer able to afford their apartment alone, her roommate Natasha, hounded by rumors of wolves, sensational headlines, and one pop-star’s angry fan-swarm, has resorted to living in her car. There’s nothing left for her…except vengeance.

Across town, Shane LaSalle is about to see his wildest dreams come true. He already has a gorgeous apartment and a high paying job in venture capital. Now the partners of Barrington Equity have invited him to board the company’s private jet for an exclusive retreat. But with partnership finally in his reach, Shane realizes he’s losing his taste for just how ruthless and all-consuming the firm is.

Epic and electric, American Werewolves brings readers from the wilds of the New World to the opulent board rooms and golf courses of the twenty-first century, where devouring the weak is an American birthright as old as the country itself.]]> 436 Emily Jane 1368116035 Xandie 0 to-read 4.39
author: Emily Jane
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36059431
But it eventually becomes clear that things are unraveling elsewhere as well, as strangers, violent and desperate alike, begin to appear in the North End, spreading word of social and political deterioration in the South End and beyond. Faced with a growing disruption to his isolated life, the narrator discovers within himself a surprising need to resist losing the home he has created in this empty place. He and the rest of the citizens of the North End must choose whether to face outsiders as invaders or welcome them as neighbors.

The City Where We Once Lived is a haunting novel of the near future that combines a prescient look at how climate change and industrial flight will shape our world with a deeply personal story of one man running from his past. With glowing prose, Eric Barnes brings into sharp focus questions of how we come to call a place home and what is our capacity for violence when that home becomes threatened.]]> 272 Eric Barnes 1628728833 Xandie 0 to-read 3.63 2018
author: Eric Barnes
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220687890 A TIME MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK �� The Pulitzer Prize-finalist and author of the breakout bestseller There There delivers a masterful follow-up to his already classic first novel. Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange traces the legacies of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864 and the Carlisle Indian Industrial School through three generations of a family in a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous.

Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion prison castle,where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

In a novel that is by turns shattering and wondrous, Tommy Orange has conjured the ancestors of the family readers first fell in love with in There There—warriors, drunks, outlaws, addicts—asking what it means to bethe children and grandchildren of massacre. Wandering Stars is a novel about epigenetic and generational trauma that has the force and vision of a modern epic, an exceptionally powerful new book from one of the most exciting writers at work today and soaring confirmation of Tommy Orange’s monumental gifts.]]> 336 Tommy Orange 0593311442 Xandie 0 to-read 4.29 2024
author: Tommy Orange
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60050233 69 Naben Ruthnum Xandie 4 fiction, horror-gothic 3.47 2022
author: Naben Ruthnum
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: fiction, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 40046077
While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women—all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in—have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?

Based on real events and told through the “minutes�� of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.]]> 216 Miriam Toews 1635572584 Xandie 4 female-rage, fiction 3.61 2018
author: Miriam Toews
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: female-rage, fiction
review:

]]> 231117137 The stunning conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Magicians trilogy

Quentin Coldwater has lost everything. He has been cast out of Fillory, the secret magical land of his childhood dreams that he once ruled. Everything he had fought so hard for, not to mention his closest friends, is sealed away in a land Quentin may never again visit. With nothing left to lose he returns to where his story began, the Brakebills Preparatory College of Magic. But he can’t hide from his past, and it’s not long before it comes looking for him. Meanwhile, the magical barriers that keep Fillory safe are failing, and barbarians from the north have invaded. Eliot and Janet, the rulers of Fillory, embark on a final quest to save their beloved world, only to discover a situation far more complex—and far more dire—than anyone had envisioned.

Along with Plum, a brilliant young magician with a dark secret of her own, Quentin sets out on a crooked path through a magical demimonde of gray magic and desperate characters. His new life takes him back to old haunts, like Antarctica and the Neitherlands, and old friends he thought were lost forever. He uncovers buried secrets and hidden evils and ultimately the key to a sorcerous masterwork, a spell that could create a magical utopia. But all roads lead back to Fillory, where Quentin must face his fears and put things right or die trying.

The Magician’s Land is an intricate and fantastical thriller, and an epic of love and redemption that brings the Magicians trilogy to a magnificent conclusion, confirming it as one of the great achievements in modern fantasy. It’s the story of a boy becoming a man, an apprentice becoming a master, and a broken land finally becoming whole.]]> Lev Grossman 1101633530 Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction 4.07 2014
author: Lev Grossman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 231117083 Accompanied by his oldest friend, Julia, Quentin sets off--only to somehow wind up back in the real world and not in Fillory, as they'd hoped. As the pair struggle to find their way back to their lost kingdom, Quentin is forced to rely on Julia's illicitly-learned sorcery as they face a sinister threat in a world very far from the beloved fantasy novels of their youth.
]]> Lev Grossman 1101535539 Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction 4.00 2011
author: Lev Grossman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 6101718
Quentin Coldwater is brilliant but miserable. A senior in high school, he’s still secretly preoccupied with a series of fantasy novels he read as a child, set in a magical land called Fillory. Imagine his surprise when he finds himself unexpectedly admitted to a very secret, very exclusive college of magic in upstate New York, where he receives a thorough and rigorous education in the craft of modern sorcery.

He also discovers all the other things people learn in college: friendship, love, sex, booze, and boredom. Something is missing, though. Magic doesn’t bring Quentin the happiness and adventure he dreamed it would. After graduation he and his friends make a stunning discovery: Fillory is real. But the land of Quentin’s fantasies turns out to be much darker and more dangerous than he could have imagined. His childhood dream becomes a nightmare with a shocking truth at its heart.

At once psychologically piercing and magnificently absorbing, The Magicians boldly moves into uncharted literary territory, imagining magic as practiced by real people, with their capricious desires and volatile emotions. Lev Grossman creates an utterly original world in which good and evil aren’t black and white, love and sex aren’t simple or innocent, and power comes at a terrible price.]]> 402 Lev Grossman 0670020559 Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction 3.53 2009
author: Lev Grossman
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 52931
One hot afternoon in Lisbon, our narrator, John, finds his mother, who had died fifteen years earlier, seated on a park bench. “The dead don’t stay where they are buried,�� she tells him. And so begins a remarkable odyssey, told in simple yet gorgeous prose and with the openness to personal and political currents that has always marked John Berger’s work.

Having promised his mother that he will henceforth pay close attention to the dead, John takes us to a woman’s bed during the 1943 bombardment of London, to a Polish market where carrier pigeons are sold, to a Paleolithic cave, to the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. Along the way, we meet an English aristocrat who always drives barefoot, a pedophile schoolmaster, a Spanish sculptor who cheats at poker, and Rosa Luxemburg, among other long-gone presences, and John lets us choose to love each of them as much as he still does.

This is a unique literary journey in which a writer’s life and work are a fiction but not a conventional novel, a narration in the author’s voice but not a memoir, a portrait that moves freely through time and space but never loses its foothold in the present, a confession that brings with it not regret but a rich deepening of sensual and emotional understanding.]]> 256 John Berger 0375423362 Xandie 4 fiction 3.59 2005
author: John Berger
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> 174070058
In Isfahan, Iran, the eponymous palace has only twenty pillars―but, reflected in its courtyard pool, they become forty. This is the gamble of Davoudian’s magical, ruminative to recreate, in art’s reflection, a home for the speaker, who is unable to return to it in life.]]> 88 Armen Davoudian 1959030361 Xandie 4 poetry 3.93 2024
author: Armen Davoudian
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: poetry
review:

]]> 199702767 Step into a city where monsters feast on human emotions, knights split their souls to make their weapons, and witches always take more than they give.

Pain is Dymitr’s calling. To slay the monsters he’s been raised to kill, he had to split his soul in half to make a sword from his own spine. Every time he draws it, he gets blood on his hands.

Pain is Ala’s inheritance. When her mother died, a family curse to witness horrors committed by the Holy Order was passed onto her. The curse will claim her life, as it did her mother’s, unless she can find a cure.

One fateful night in Chicago, Dymitr comes to Ala with a her help in finding the legendary witch Baba Jaga in exchange for an enchanted flower that just might cure her. Desperate, and unaware of what Dymitr really is, Ala agrees.

But they only have one day before the flower dies . . . and Ala's hopes of breaking the curse along with it.]]> 171 Veronica Roth 1250855497 Xandie 4 3.83 2024
author: Veronica Roth
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 222376891 #1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth pulls from Slavic folklore to explore family, duty, and what it means to be a monster in this sequel to the USA Today bestselling novella When Among Crows

A funeral. A heist. A mission born of desperation.

When someone in Dymitr’s family dies, he’s called back home for the Empty Night, a funeral rite intended to keep evil at bay.

The secret Dymitr is keeping from them makes returning home downright dangerous, but if he wants to get his hands on a book of curses that might appease Baba Jaga’s blood lust, he has no choice. And when that same funeral brings ferocious creature-of-legend Niko to town for his own bloody purposes, Dymitr’s charade becomes impossible to maintain.

Family gatherings can be brutal. Dymitr’s might just be fatal.]]> 240 Veronica Roth 1250855500 Xandie 0 to-read 4.83 2025
author: Veronica Roth
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.83
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60420294 Proper Regency ladies are not supposed to become magicians �� but Miss Abigail Wilder is far from proper.

The marriageable young ladies of London are dying mysteriously, and Abigail Wilder intends to discover why. Abigail's father, the Lord Sorcier of England, believes that a dark lord of faerie is involved �� but while Abigail is willing to match her magic against Lord Longshadow, neither her father nor high society believe that she is capable of doing so.

Thankfully, Abigail is not the only one investigating the terrible events in London. Mercy, a street rat and self-taught magician, insists on joining Abigail to unravel the mystery. But while Mercy's own magic is strange and foreboding, she may well post an even greater danger to Abigail's heart.

From the author of HALF A SOUL comes a queer faerie tale romance full of love and defiant hope. Pick up LONG SHADOW, and return once more to Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England.]]> 263 Olivia Atwater 0316463124 Xandie 4 3.83 2021
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction, mystery-crime, romance
review:

]]> 50399867
In a tranquil, leafy suburb of ordinary streets - one where everyone is polite and friendly - an anonymous note has been left at some of the houses.

'I'm so sorry. My son has been getting into people's houses. He's broken into yours.'

Who is this boy, and what might he have uncovered? As whispers start to circulate, suspicion mounts.

And when a missing local woman is found murdered, the tension reaches breaking point. Who killed her? Who knows more than they're telling? And how far will all these very nice people go to protect their secrets?

Maybe you don't know your neighbour as well as you thought you did . . .]]> 400 Shari Lapena 0552174882 Xandie 4 fiction, mystery-crime 3.98 2019
author: Shari Lapena
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 63934847 Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.]]> 212 Kate Atkinson 0385688237 Xandie 3 fantasy, fiction 3.67 2023
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 224003731 One young woman’s relentless quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut will irrevocably alter the fates of the people she loves most in this tour de force of a debut about ambition, belonging, and family.

My mother took my sister and me, and she drove through the night to a place she felt a claim to, a place on earth she thought we might be safe. I stopped asking questions. I picked little glass pieces from my sister’s hair. I watched the moon.

Steph Harper is on the run. When she was six, her mother, Hannah, fled an abusive husband—with Steph and her younger sister, Kayla, in tow—to Cherokee Nation, where she hoped they might finally belong. In response, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.]]> 448 Eliana Ramage 1668065851 Xandie 0 to-read 4.83 2025
author: Eliana Ramage
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.83
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220999791 As spiritualism reaches its fevered pitch at the dawn of the 20th century, a Scottish girl crosses the veil to unlock a powerful connection within an infamous asylum in this thrillingly atmospheric, exquisitely evocative exploration of feminine rage and agency for readers of Sarah Penner, Alice Hoffman, and Hester Fox.

Leaving behind a quiet life of simple comforts, Nairna Liath traverses the Scottish countryside with her charlatan father, Tavish. From remote cottages to rural fairs, the duo scrapes by on paltry coins as Tavish orchestrates “encounters�� with the departed, while Nairna interprets tarot cards for those willing to pay for what they wish to hear.

But beyond her father’s trickery, Nairna possesses a genuine gift for communicating with the spirit world, one that could get an impoverished country girl branded a witch. A talent inherited from her grandmother, Lottie Liath, widow of a Welsh coalminer, whose story of imprisonment and exploitation in a notorious asylum is calling out to Nairna from four decades past—a warning to break free from the manipulations, greed, and betrayals of others.

What do the cards hold for Nairna’s future?

Rescued from homelessness by a well-connected stranger, Nairna is whisked into a new life among Edinburgh’s elite Spiritualist circle, including visiting American star Dorothy Kellings. Researchers, doctors, psychics, and thrill-seekers clamor for the rising young medium.��But after a séance with blood-chilling results, a shocking scandal ensues, and Nairna flees to a secluded community near Boston, where she assumes a new ��Nora Grey.

But Nora can’t stay hidden when Dorothy Kellings offers her the chance to face all comers and silence skeptics at a spectacular séance at Boston’s Old South Meeting Hall, where Nora will come face to face at last with her spiritual the courageous Lottie Liath, whose heart-wrenching story and profound messages are indelibly tied to Nora’s destiny.]]> 448 Kathleen Kaufman 1496753909 Xandie 0 to-read 4.21
author: Kathleen Kaufman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 226747693 An alchemist and his young nephew hunt down a legend in this profound and unsettling speculative Western, for fans of Karen Russell and Victor LaValle.

Alone in a frontier town in the nineteenth-century Northwest, Gentle Montgomery is grieving his best friend. Liam was an alchemist, killed when he tried to capture a creature that shouldn’t a giant salamander that drives men mad. When Gentle’s teenage nephew Kitt arrives at his doorstep, the two set out together to track the monster down, so they can use its blood in an alchemical formula that will bring Liam back to life.

It's a hard and haunted journey. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it—and the terrifying visions it causes—before it’s too late. And as Gentle struggles to comprehend the creature, his lost friend, his nephew, and his fellow seekers, it becomes clear that the Great Work of the alchemists may pale in comparison to the small work of human connection.

Sheldon Costa’s dark, vivid, and strangely hopeful debut novel is a supernatural adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.]]> 336 Sheldon Costa 1683695054 Xandie 0 to-read 4.75 2025
author: Sheldon Costa
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201751543
They aren’t the heroes of legend, like Lancelot or Gawain. They’re the oddballs of the Round Tables, from the edges of the stories, like Sir Palomides, the Saracen Knight and Sir Dagonet, Arthur’s fool, who was knighted as a joke. They’re joined by Nimue, who was Merlin’s apprentice until she turned on him and buried him under a hill. Together this ragtag fellowship will set out to rebuild Camelot in a world that has lost its balance.

But Arthur’s death has revealed Britain’s fault lines. God has abandoned it, and the fairies and monsters and old gods are returning, led by Arthur’s half-sister Morgan le Fay. Kingdoms are turning on each other, warlords are laying siege to Camelot, and rival factions are forming around the disgraced Lancelot and the fallen Queen Guinevere. It is up to Collum and his companions to reclaim Excalibur, solve the mysteries of this ruined world and make it whole again. But before they can restore Camelot they’ll have to learn the truth of why the lonely, brilliant King Arthur fell and lay to rest the ghosts of his troubled family and of Britain’s dark past.]]> 688 Lev Grossman 0735224056 Xandie 4 4.18 2024
author: Lev Grossman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 61725531 WOMB CITY imagines a dark and deadly future Botswana, rich with culture and true folklore, which begs the question: how far must one go to destroy the structures of inequality upon which a society was founded? How far must a mother go to save the life of her child?

Nelah seems to have it all: wealth, fame, a husband, and a child on the way. But in a body her husband controls via microchip and the tailspin of a loveless marriage, her hopes and dreams come to a devastating halt. A drug-fueled night of celebration ends in a hit-and-run. To dodge a sentencing in a society that favors men, Nelah and her side-piece, Janith Koshal, finish the victim off and bury the body.

But the secret claws its way into Nelah's life from the grave. As her victim's vengeful ghost begins exacting a bloody revenge on everyone Nelah holds dear, she'll have to unravel her society's terrible secrets to stop those in power, and become a monster unlike any other to quench the ghost's violent thirst.]]> 416 Tlotlo Tsamaase 1645660567 Xandie 4 3.20 2018
author: Tlotlo Tsamaase
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: female-rage, fiction, science-fiction
review:

]]> 230223840 144 Igor Obolensky 9941033889 Xandie 3 ceeres, history, non-fiction 3.00
author: Igor Obolensky
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: ceeres, history, non-fiction
review:

]]> 60756843 A housemaid needs some magical help when she falls for a high-society gentleman in this captivating historical fantasy full of wit, charm, and heart-fluttering romance.

Effie has most inconveniently fallen in love with the dashing Mr. Benedict Ashbrooke. There’s only one Effie is a housemaid, and a housemaid cannot marry a gentleman. It seems that Effie is out of luck until she stumbles into the faerie realm of Lord Blackthorn, who is only too eager to help her win Mr. Ashbrooke’s heart. All he asks in return is that Effie sew ten thousand stitches onto his favorite jacket.

Effie has heard rumors about what happens to those who accept magical bargains. But life as a maid at Hartfield is so awful that she is willing to risk even her immortal soul for a chance at something better. Now she has one hundred days—and ten thousand stitches—to make Mr. Ashbrooke fall in love and propose…if Lord Blackthorn doesn’t wreck things by accident, that is. For Effie’s greatest obstacle might well be Lord Blackthorn’s overwhelmingly good intentions.��

An enchanting faerie tale set in Olivia Atwater’s magical version of Regency England, Ten Thousand Stitches is “a delightful, romantic romp�� (Hannah Whitten) with a Cinderella twist and heaps of heart.��

Praise for the Regency Faerie Tales
"Smart and subversive, these charming romances will ignite your heart—and your hope." —Shelley Parker-Chan

"Whimsical, witty, and brimming over with charm." —India Holton

"Sweeps you off your feet in the swooniest way possible." —Megan Bannen

"I wolfed this down with great pleasure." —KJ Charles

"Warm, sparkling with magic, dangerous, and delightful." —Tasha Suri

"Whimsical but never frivolous, sweet but not sugary. I loved it." —Alix E. Harrow]]> 262 Olivia Atwater 0316463000 Xandie 4 3.97 2020
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, fiction, romance, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 214151601 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.

But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Xandie 0 to-read 3.64 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40242230 THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER. The new pulse-pounding and unputdownable thriller from the author of the number one bestseller THE COUPLE NEXT DOOR, and A STRANGER IN THE HOUSE.

'Tense. Unpredictable. Unputdownable. Shari Lapena's novels are domestic noir at its finest' Simon Kernick
____________________

We can’t choose the strangers we meet.

As the guests arrive at beautiful, remote Mitchell’s Inn, they’re all looking forward to a relaxing weekend deep in the forest, miles from anywhere. They watch their fellow guests with interest, from a polite distance.

Usually we can avoid the people who make us nervous, make us afraid.

With a violent storm raging, the group finds itself completely cut off from the outside world. Nobody can get in �� or out. And then the first body is found . . . and the horrifying truth comes to light. There’s a killer among them �� and nowhere to run.

Until we find ourselves in a situation we can’t escape. Trapped.
____________________

PRAISE FOR SHARI LAPENA:

‘Crafted like a vintage Christie and just as tense, this will be a smash hit�� Heat

'Smart characterisation combined with a subtle appreciation for the darkness of the human heart . . . A perfectly choreographed danse macabre' Mail on Sunday

‘Shari Lapena . . . is rapidly becoming a go-to author for anyone seeking a light but lip-smacking mystery�� Sunday Express

‘T��� psychological thrillers of Lapena are masterclasses in tightly plotted, economical narrative�� Metro

'An excellent mystery! Agatha Christie meets P D James' Ragnar Jonasson
____________________

READERS LOVE SHARI LAPENA:

��Best book I’ve read in ages��

��5* fast paced, twisting �ٳ�������������

‘T��� pace never let up��

‘On the edge of my seat to the end��

‘I haven’t picked up a book in 9 years and I’m so glad that I picked this up! I loved ����.��

‘Incredibly readable and unputdownable��

‘Very clever, well written, intriguing and suspenseful��

‘Had me hooked from start to finish’]]> 368 Shari Lapena 0552174874 Xandie 3 fiction, mystery-crime 3.80 2018
author: Shari Lapena
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 60522559
All��is not well in the city that never sleeps.��Even though��the avatars of New York City��have��temporarily managed to stop the Woman in White from invading—and destroying the entire universe in the process—the mysterious capital "E" Enemy has more subtle powers at her disposal. A new candidate for mayor wielding the populist rhetoric of��gentrification, xenophobia, and "law and order"��may have what it takes to change the very nature of New York itself and take it down from the inside.��

In order to defeat him, and the Enemy who holds his purse strings,��the avatars will have to join together with the other Great Cities of the world in order to bring her down for good and protect their world from complete destruction.

N.K. Jemisin’s Great Cities Duology, which began with�� The City We Became ��and concludes with�� The World We Make , is a masterpiece of speculative fiction from one of the most important��writers of her generation.
The Great Cities Duology
The City We Became
The World We Make]]> 369 N.K. Jemisin 0316509914 Xandie 3 fiction, fantasy 4.27 2022
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: fiction, fantasy
review:

]]> 35079706 I need you.

Isa drops everything, takes her baby daughter and heads straight to Salten. She spent the most significant days of her life at boarding school on the marshes there, days which still cast their shadow over her.

Isa and her three best friends used to play the Lying Game, competing to convince people of outrageous stories. Now, after seventeen years of hiding the truth, something terrible has been found on the beach. The friends�� darkest secret is about to come to light…]]> 464 Ruth Ware 1784704350 Xandie 3 fiction, mystery-crime 3.44 2017
author: Ruth Ware
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 218460336 In this poignant retelling of The Great Gatsby, set amongst L.A.’s Black elite, a young veteran finds his way post-war, pulled into a new world of tantalizing possibilities—and explosive tensions.

In 1945, Charlie Trammell steps off a cross-country train into the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles. Lured by his cousin Marguerite’s invitation to the esteemed West Adams Heights, Charlie is immediately captivated by the Black opulence of L.A.’s newly rechristened “Sugar Hill.��

Settling in at a local actress’s energetic boarding house, Charlie discovers a different way of life—one brimming with opportunity—from a promising career at a Black-owned insurance firm, the absence of Jim Crow, to the potential of an unforgettable romance. But nothing dazzles quite like James “Reaper�� Mann.

Reaper’s extravagant parties, attended by luminaries like Lena Horne and Hattie McDaniel, draw Charlie in, bringing the milieu of wealth and excess within his reach. But as Charlie’s unusual bond with Reaper deepens, so does the tension in the neighborhood as white neighbors, frustrated by their own dwindling fortunes, ignite a landmark court case that threatens the community’s well-being with promises of retribution.

Told from the unique perspective of a young man who has just returned from a grueling, segregated war, The Great Mann weaves a compelling narrative of wealth and class, illuminating the complexities of Black identity and education in post-war America.]]> 320 Kyra Davis Lurie 0593800869 Xandie 0 to-read 4.61 2025
author: Kyra Davis Lurie
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217446823 From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Sympathizer (now an HBO series) comes a moving and unflinchingly personal meditation on the literary forms of otherness and a bold call for expansive political solidarity.

Born in war-ravaged Vietnam, Viet Nguyen arrived in the United States as a child refugee in 1975. The Nguyen family would soon move to San Jose, California, where the author grew up, attending UC-Berkeley in the aftermath of the shocking murder of Vincent Chin, which shaped the political sensibilities of a new generation of Asian Americans.

The essays here, delivered originally as the prestigious Norton Lectures, proffer a new answer to a classic literary What does the outsider mean to literary writing? Over the course of six captivating and moving chapters, Nguyen explores the idea of being an outsider through lenses that are, by turns, literary, historical, political, and familial.

Each piece moves between writers who influenced Nguyen’s craft and weaves in the haunting story of his late mother’s mental illness. Nguyen unfolds the novels and nonfiction of Herman Melville, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ralph Ellison, William Carlos Williams, and Maxine Hong Kingston, until aesthetic theories give way to pressing concerns raised by war and politics. What is a writer’s responsibility in a time of violence? Should we celebrate fiction that gives voice to the voiceless—or do we confront the forces that render millions voiceless in the first place? What are the burdens and pleasures of the “minor�� writer in any society? Unsatisfied with the modest inclusion accorded to “model minorities�� such as Asian Americans, Nguyen sets the agenda for a more radical and disquieting solidarity with those whose lives have been devastated by imperialism and forever wars.]]> 144 Viet Thanh Nguyen 0674298179 Xandie 0 to-read 4.27
author: Viet Thanh Nguyen
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214565614 A chilling historical horror novel set in the American west in 1912 following a Lutheran priest who transcribes the life of a vampire who haunts the fields of the Blackfeet reservation looking for justice.

A diary, written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall. What it unveils is a slow massacre, a chain of events that go back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow. Told in transcribed interviews by a Blackfeet named Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story written by one of the new masters of horror, Stephen Graham Jones.]]> 448 Stephen Graham Jones 1668075083 Xandie 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204316396 A librarian with a knack for solving murders realizes there is something decidedly supernatural afoot in her little town in this cozy fantasy mystery.Librarian Sherry Pinkwhistle keeps finding bodies—and solving murders. But she's concerned by just how many killers she's had to track down in her quaint village. None of her neighbors seem surprised by the rising body count...but Sherry is becoming convinced that whatever has been causing these deaths is unnatural. But when someone close to Sherry ends up dead, and her cat, Lord Thomas Crowell, becomes possessed by what seems to be an ancient demon, Sherry begins to think she’s going to need to become an exorcist as well as an amateur sleuth. With the help of her town's new priest, and an assortment of friends who dub themselves the "Demon-Hunting Society," Sherry will have to solve the murder and get rid of a demon. This riotous mix of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Murder, She Wrote is a lesson for demons and murderers Never mess with a librarian.]]> 348 C.M. Waggoner 1984805894 Xandie 4 3.65 2024
author: C.M. Waggoner
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves: fantasy, fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 221972560 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

Alice Law has only ever had one goal: to become one of the brightest minds in the field of Magick. She has sacrificed everything to make that a reality—her pride, her health, her love life, and most definitely her sanity. All to work with Professor Jacob Grimes at Cambridge, the greatest magician in the world—that is, until he dies in a magical accident that could possibly be her fault.

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 560 R. F Kuang 0063446243 Xandie 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: R. F Kuang
name: Xandie
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36356627 The electrifying new thriller from Shari Lapena, author of the bestselling novel of the year, The Couple Next Door.

‘Shari expertly traps you, confounds you and leaves you gasping at the end. More, please . . .�� FIONA BARTON

‘So many dizzying twists you'd better not drive after reading�� LINWOOD BARCLAY

‘Smart, twisty thriller . . . It's taut, intelligent and compelling�� Heat



Why would you run scared from a happy home?

You're waiting for your beloved husband to get home from work. You're making dinner, looking forward to hearing about his day.

That's the last thing you remember.

You wake up in hospital, with no idea how you got there. They tell you that you were in an accident; you lost control of your car whilst driving in a dangerous part of town.

The police suspect you were up to no good. But your husband refuses to believe it. Your best friend isn't so sure. And even you don't know what to believe . . .



Praise for Shari Lapena:

'I thought the read-it-in-one-sitting thing was a cliché. Not any more.' LINWOOD BARCLAY

'Entirely compelling, utterly realistic. You will not see the twists coming.' Daily Mail

'Meticulously crafted and razor sharp.' HARLAN COBEN

'A twisty, utterly riveting tale.' TESS GERRITSEN

'Shari Lapena furnishes a clever array of motives and suspects. The tension is high and remains to the last, stunning page.' The Times]]> 384 Shari Lapena 0552173150 Xandie 3 mystery-crime, fiction 3.70 2017
author: Shari Lapena
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: mystery-crime, fiction
review:

]]> 199455331 A professor of literature finds herself caught up in a work of fiction�� literally.

Eileen Merriweather loves to get lost in a good happily-ever-after. The fictional kind, anyway. Because at least imaginary men don’t leave you at the altar. She feels safe in a book. At home. Which might be why she’s so set on going to her annual book club retreat this year—she needs good friends, cheap wine, and grand romantic gestures—no matter what.

But when her car unexpectedly breaks down on the way, she finds herself stranded in a quaint town that feels like it’s right out of a novel��

Because it is.

This place can’t be real, and yet�� she’s here, in Eloraton, the town of her favorite romance series, where the candy store’s honey taffy is always sweet, the local bar’s burgers are always a little burnt, and rain always comes in the afternoon. It feels like home. It’s perfect—and perfectly frozen, trapped in the late author’s last unfinished story.

Elsy is sure that’s why she must be here: to help bring the town to its storybook ending.

Except there is a character in Eloraton that she can’t place—a grumpy bookstore owner with mint-green eyes, an irritatingly sexy mouth and impeccable taste in novels. And he does not want her finishing this book.

Which is a problem because Elsy is beginning to think the town’s happily-ever-after might just be intertwined with her own.]]> 378 Ashley Poston Xandie 4 fiction, romance 3.75 2024
author: Ashley Poston
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 53217284
For fans of Georgette Heyer or Julia Quinn's Bridgerton, who'd like to welcome magic into their lives...

Young baronet Robin Blyth thought he was taking up a minor governmental post. However, he's actually been appointed parliamentary liaison to a secret magical society. If it weren’t for this administrative error, he’d never have discovered the incredible magic underlying his world.

Cursed by mysterious attackers and plagued by visions, Robin becomes determined to drag answers from his missing predecessor �� but he’ll need the help of Edwin Courcey, his hostile magical-society counterpart. Unwillingly thrown together, Robin and Edwin will discover a plot that threatens every magician in the British Isles.]]> 377 Freya Marske 1250788897 Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction, romance 3.94 2021
author: Freya Marske
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: fantasy, fiction, romance
review:

]]> 202655373
A dark, lyrical blend of historical fiction and magical realism, The Curators examines a critically underexplored event in American history through unlikely eyes. All of Atlanta is obsessed with the two-year-long trial and subsequent lynching of Jewish factory superintendent Leo Frank in 1915. None more so than thirteen-year-old Ana Wulff and her friends, who take history into their own hands—quite literally—when they use dirt from Ana’s garden to build and animate a golem in Frank’s image. They’ll do anything to keep his story alive, but when their scheme gets out of hand, they must decide what responsibility requires of them. The Curators tells the story of five zealous girls and the cyclonic power of their friendship as they come of age in a country riven by white supremacy.]]> 296 Maggie Nye 0810147327 Xandie 0 to-read 4.16
author: Maggie Nye
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60457992 Deep underground, thirty-nine women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 175 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492627 Xandie 4 4.10 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/03
date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: fiction, gender-sexuality, science-fiction, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 551457 contact and conflict. This new translation includes The Golden Pot, The Sandman, Princess Brambilla, Master Flea, and My Cousin's Corner Window.]]> 401 E.T.A. Hoffmann 0192837230 Xandie 4 3.89 1814
author: E.T.A. Hoffmann
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: fantasy, fiction, fairytales-inspired-by, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 53501914
Breasts and Eggs paints a portrait of contemporary womanhood in Japan and recounts the intimate journeys of three women as they confront oppressive mores and their own uncertainties on the road to finding peace and futures they can truly call their own.

It tells the story of three women: the thirty-year-old Natsu, her older sister, Makiko, and Makiko’s daughter, Midoriko. Makiko has traveled to Tokyo in search of an affordable breast enhancement procedure. She is accompanied by Midoriko, who has recently grown silent, finding herself unable to voice the vague yet overwhelming pressures associated with growing up. Her silence proves a catalyst for each woman to confront her fears and frustrations.

On another hot summer’s day ten years later, Natsu, on a journey back to her native city, struggles with her own indeterminate identity as she confronts anxieties about growing old alone and childless.]]> 366 Mieko Kawakami Xandie 4 3.84 2008
author: Mieko Kawakami
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: female-rage, gender-sexuality, translations-into-english, fiction
review:

]]> 211220339 KATE, 2019
Kate flees London �� abandoning everything �� for Cumbria and Weyward Cottage, inherited from her great-aunt. There, a secret lurks in the bones of the house, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

VIOLET, 1942
Violet is more interested in collecting insects and climbing trees than in becoming a proper young lady. Until a chain of shocking events changes her life forever.

ALTHA, 1619
Altha is on trial for witchcraft, accused of killing a local man. Known for her uncanny connection with nature and animals, she is a threat that must be eliminated.

But Weyward women belong to the wild. And they cannot be tamed��

Weaving together the stories of three women across five centuries, Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 381 Emilia Hart Xandie 4 4.27 2023
author: Emilia Hart
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: fantasy, female-rage, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 18528175 275 Elvira Dones 1908276347 Xandie 0 to-read 3.56 2007
author: Elvira Dones
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195608683 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Splendid and the Vile brings to life the pivotal five months between the election of Abraham Lincoln and the start of the Civil War—a slow-burning crisis that finally tore a deeply divided nation in two.

On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln became the fluky victor in a tight race for president. The country was bitterly at odds; Southern extremists were moving ever closer to destroying the Union, with one state after another seceding and Lincoln powerless to stop them. Slavery fueled the conflict, but somehow the passions of North and South came to focus on a lonely federal fortress in Charleston: Fort Sumter.
��
Master storyteller Erik Larson offers a gripping account of the chaotic months between Lincoln’s election and the Confederacy’s shelling of Sumter—a period marked by tragic errors and miscommunications, enflamed egos and craven ambitions, personal tragedies and betrayals. Lincoln himself wrote that the trials of these five months were “so great that, could I have anticipated them, I would not have believed it possible to survive them.��
��
At the heart of this suspense-filled narrative are Major Robert Anderson, Sumter’s commander and a former slave owner sympathetic to the South but loyal to the Union; Edmund Ruffin, a vain and bloodthirsty radical who stirs secessionist ardor at every opportunity; and Mary Boykin Chesnut, wife of a prominent planter, conflicted over both marriage and slavery and seeing parallels between both. In the middle of it all is the overwhelmed Lincoln, battling with his duplicitous Secretary of State, William Seward, as he tries desperately to avert a war that he fears is inevitable—one that will eventually kill 750,000 Americans.
��
Drawing on diaries, secret communiques, slave ledgers, and plantation records, Larson gives us a political horror story that captures the forces that led America to the brink—a dark reminder that we often don’t see a cataclysm coming until it’s too late.]]> 565 Erik Larson 0385348746 Xandie 0 to-read 4.13 2024
author: Erik Larson
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61942327
They broke up six months ago. And they still haven't told anyone.

Which is how they end up sharing a bedroom at the cottage that has been their yearly getaway with their best friends for the past decade. For one glorious week they leave behind their lives, drink far too much wine and soak up the sea air with their favourite people.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth. The cottage is for sale so this is the last time they'll all be together here and they can't bear to break their friends' hearts. So, they'll fake it for one more week.

It's a flawless plan (if you look at it through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses).

But how can you pretend to be in love with someone - and get away with it - in front of the people who know you best?

Brimming with characters you can't help but fall for and off-the-charts chemistry, HAPPY PLACE is Emily Henry's best novel yet.]]> 400 Emily Henry 024199537X Xandie 4 fiction, romance 3.94 2023
author: Emily Henry
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 62909823
Out on the sun-scorched trail, the woman encounters a towering cactus whose size and shape mean it should not exist in California. Yet the cactus is there, with a gash through its side that beckons like a familiar door. So she enters it. What awaits her inside this mystical succulent sets her on a journey at once desolate and rich, hilarious and poignant.]]> 205 Melissa Broder 1668024896 Xandie 2 fiction 3.52 2023
author: Melissa Broder
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> 178278114 Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

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

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

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

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.]]> 401 Yangsze Choo Xandie 4 4.26 2024
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 16204601 Diana Wynne Jones's entrancing, classic fantasy novel is filled with surprises at every turn.

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

In this giant jigsaw puzzle of a fantasy, people and things are never quite what they seem. Destinies are intertwined, identities exchanged, lovers confused. The Witch has placed a spell on Howl. Does the clue to breaking it lie in a famous poem? And what will happen to Sophie Hatter when she enters Howl's castle?]]> 308 Diana Wynne Jones 0062244515 Xandie 4 fantasy, fiction 4.33 1986
author: Diana Wynne Jones
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1986
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: fantasy, fiction
review:

]]> 174373630 293 Andrey Kurkov 0063352303 Xandie 4 3.70 2018
author: Andrey Kurkov
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: ceeres, historical-fiction, mystery-crime, translations-into-english, fiction
review:

]]> 52544164 Brilliant, heartbreaking and highly original, Ocean Vuong's debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, and a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling.

This is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late twenties, the letter unearths a family's history that began before he was born. It tells of Vietnam, of the lasting impact of war, and of his family's struggle to forge a new future. And it serves as a doorway into parts of Little Dog's life his mother has never known - episodes of bewilderment, fear and passion - all the while moving closer to an unforgettable revelation.]]> 246 Ocean Vuong 1529110688 Xandie 4 fiction, gender-sexuality 3.87 2019
author: Ocean Vuong
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: fiction, gender-sexuality
review:

]]> 218372439 An audacious debut spanning eight generations of a Black family in West Tennessee as they are repeatedly visited by the Devil

Yetunde awakens aboard a slave ship en route to the United States with the spirit of her dead sister as her only companion. Desperate to survive the hell that awaits her at their destination, Yetunde finds help in an unexpected form—the Devil himself. The Devil, seeking a way to reenter the pearly gates of heaven, decides to prove himself to an indifferent God by protecting Yetunde and granting her a piece of his supernatural power. In return, Yetunde makes an incredible sacrifice.
��
Their bargain extends far beyond Yetunde's mortal lifespan. Over the next 175 years, the Devil visits Yetunde's descendants in their darkest hour of need: Lucille, a conjure woman; Asa, who passes for white; Louis and Virgil, who risk becoming a twentieth-century Cain and Abel; Cassandra, who speaks to the dead; James, who struggles to make sense of the past while fighting to keep his family together; and many others. The Devil offers each of them his own version of salvation, all the while can he save himself, too?
��
Steeped in the spiritual traditions and oral history of the Black diaspora, All God’s Children is a baptism by fire and water, heralding a new voice in American fiction.]]> 416 Rickey Fayne 0316575178 Xandie 0 to-read 4.20
author: Rickey Fayne
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199793438 Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Amerie’s��dazzling,��satirical adult debut tells the story of��a Black man who walks into the light…to find himself in Los Angeles, where he becomes an instant celebrity for being the first visible and verifiable ghost.��

John’s House provides all he needs. Surrounded by a vast, beautiful ocean under a void of sky, the House is John’s haven. He is alone, but never lonely; he is here now, but neither remembers nor longs for a before. In his House, John is safe and untroubled.

But then a terrible shadow creature breaks in—and it wants him out. Pushed from the House, John falls into the light��

And finds himself in modern-day Los Angeles, the first person to ever come back from the other side. Though he has no memory of his past life, or even how he died, everyone wants to know more about the Black man who has returned from the dead—is he the second coming? A hoax? Or something beyond explanation? Soon he has brand deals, TV interviews, and politicians aiming to use him for their agendas, yet all John wants is to go home.

But going home will require, most unfortunately, help. In search of a way back, John grudgingly joins forces with a mystic holding dubious qualifications, a hard-edged publicist bent on making him famous, and an aspiring actress who is unsettlingly familiar. With this ragtag band of allies, John begins a journey to find his House on the ocean—but getting there will prove more complicated than he imagined, for it will require not only trusting in someone other than himself, but will mean uncovering painful truths about who John was in life and, perhaps most difficult, who he must become.

A gorgeous, tender story of hope, sacrifice, and what it means to be human,��This Is Not a Ghost Story introduces an astonishing new voice in literary fiction.]]> 304 Amerie 0358653088 Xandie 0 to-read 4.05
author: Amerie
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.05
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217311813 An unforgettable and heartwarming debut following a trans high school teacher from a small town in South Dakota who befriends the only other trans woman she knows: one of her students.

Erica Skyberg is thirty-five years old, recently divorced—and trans. Not that she's told anyone yet. Mitchell, South Dakota, isn't exactly bursting with other trans women. Instead, she keeps to herself, teaching by day and directing community theater by night. That is, until Abigail Hawkes enters her orbit.

Abigail is seventeen, Mitchell High’s resident political dissident and Only Trans Girl. It’s a role she plays faultlessly, albeit a little reluctantly. She's also annoyed by the idea of spending her senior year secretly guiding her English teacher through her transition. But Abigail remembers the uncertainty—and loneliness—that comes with it. Besides, Erica isn’t the only one struggling to shed the weight of others�� expectations.

As their unlikely friendship evolves under the increasing scrutiny of their community, both women—and those closest to them—will come to realize that sometimes there is nothing more radical than letting the world see who you really are.

Detransition Baby meets Fleishman is in Trouble in this remarkable debut novel from an incisive contemporary voice. A story about the awkwardness of growing up and the greatest love story of all, that between us and our friends, Woodworking is a tonic for the moment and a celebration of womanhood in all its multifaceted joy.]]> 351 Emily St. James 163893147X Xandie 0 to-read 4.42 2025
author: Emily St. James
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216371549
In 1480, John Collan’s greatest anxiety is how to circumvent the village’s devil goat on the way to collect water. But the arrival of a well-dressed stranger from London upends his life forever: John is not John Collan, not the son of Will Collan, but the son of the long-deceased Duke of Clarence, hidden in the countryside after a brotherly rift over the crown, and because Richard III has a habit of disappearing his nephews. Removed from his humble origins, sent to Oxford to be educated in a manner befitting the throne’s rightful heir, John is put into play by his masters, learning the rules of etiquette in Burgundy and the machinations of the court in Ireland, where he encounters the intractable Joan, the delightfully strong-willed and manipulative daughter of his Irish patrons, a girl imbued with both extraordinary political savvy and occasional murderous tendencies. Joan has two paths available her—marry, or become a nun. Lambert’s choices are similarly stark: he will either become King, or die in battle. Together they form an alliance that will change the fate of the English monarchy.

Inspired by a footnote to history—the true story of the little known Simnel, who was a figurehead of the 1487 Yorkist rebellion and ended up working as a spy in the court of King Henry VII�� The Pretender is historical fiction at its finest, a gripping, exuberant, rollicking portrait of British monarchy and life within the court, with a cast of unforgettable heroes and villains drawn from 15th century England. A masterful new work from a major new author.]]> 496 Jo Harkin 0593803302 Xandie 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Jo Harkin
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216684509 Two sisters, four nights, one city.

April, 1941. Belfast has escaped the worst of the war - so far. Over the next two months, it's going to be destroyed from above, so that people will say, in horror, My God, Belfast is finished.

Many won't make it through, and no one who does will remain unchanged.

Following the lives of sisters Emma and Audrey - one engaged to be married, the other in a secret relationship with another woman - as they try to survive the horrors of the four nights of bombing which were the Belfast Blitz, These Days is a timeless and heart-breaking novel about living under duress, about family, and about how we try to stay true to ourselves.]]> 288 Lucy Caldwell 1638931836 Xandie 0 to-read 3.62 2022
author: Lucy Caldwell
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52383048 “Elegant and gritty, angry and funny. Staples’s work is emotional without being sentimental. Dennis unmakes something in us, then remakes it, a quilt of characters that embody this town, this place, which sleeps but doesn’t dream, or it is all a dream we want to wake up from with its characters.�� —Tommy Orange, author of There, There

On an Ojibwe reservation called Languille Lake, within the small town of Geshig at the hub of the rez, two men enter into a secret romance. Marion Lafournier, a midtwenties gay Ojibwe man, begins a relationship with his former classmate Shannon, a heavily closeted white man. While Marion is far more open about his sexuality, neither is immune to the realities of the lives of gay men in small towns and closed societies.

Then one night, while roaming the dark streets of Geshig, Marion unknowingly brings to life the spirit of a dog from beneath the elementary school playground. The mysterious revenant leads him to the grave of Kayden Kelliher, an Ojibwe basketball star who was murdered at the age of seventeen and whose presence still lingers in the memories of the townsfolk. While investigating the fallen hero’s death, Marion discovers family connections and an old Ojibwe legend that may be the secret to unraveling the mystery he has found himself in.

Set on a reservation in far northern Minnesota, This Town Sleeps explores the many ways history, culture, landscape, and lineage shape our lives, our understanding of the world we inhabit, and the stories we tell ourselves to make sense of it all.]]> 224 Dennis E. Staples 1640092854 Xandie 4 3.65 2020
author: Dennis E. Staples
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: fiction, gender-sexuality, horror-gothic, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 203924668 Where the Library Hides is Isabel Ibañez's stunning conclusion to the story that started in What the River Knows. A lush immersive historical fantasy set in Egypt filled with adventure, and a rivals-to-lovers romance like no other!

"Ana Osorio and Ahmed Hamad are consistently excellent as they deliver this audiobook."��AudioFile

Inez Olivera traveled across the world to Egypt, seeking answers into her parents' recent and mysterious deaths. But all her searching led her down a perilous road, filled with heartache, betrayal, and a dangerous magic that pulled her deep into the past.

When Tío Ricardo issues an ultimatum about her inheritance, she’s left with only one option to consider.

Marriage to Whitford Hayes.

Former British soldier, her uncle’s aide de camp, and one time nemesis, Whit has his own mysterious reasons for staying in Egypt. With her heart on the line, Inez might have to bind her fate to the one person whose secret plans could ruin her.

A Macmillan Audio production from Wednesday Books.]]> 400 Isabel Ibañez 1250823005 Xandie 3 3.93 2024
author: Isabel Ibañez
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 217896248 From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

Aymar Castle has been under siege for six months. Food is running low and there has been no sign of rescue. But just as the survivors consider deliberately thinning their number, the castle stores are replenished. The sick are healed. And the divine figures of the Constant Lady and her Saints have arrived, despite the barricaded gates, offering succor in return for adoration.

Soon, the entire castle is under the sway of their saviors, partaking in intoxicating feasts of terrible origin. The war hero Ser Voyne gives her allegiance to the Constant Lady. Phosyne, a disorganized, paranoid nun-turned-sorceress, races to unravel the mystery of these new visitors and exonerate her experiments as their source. And in the bowels of the castle, a serving girl, Treila, is torn between her thirst for a secret vengeance against Voyne and the desperate need to escape from the horrors that are unfolding within Aymar’s walls.

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters�� or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.]]> 352 Caitlin Starling 0063418819 Xandie 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60845211
In the sleepy village of Cookingdean, Dr Nell Ward is busy working in the grounds of a local manor house. Whilst inspecting an old tunnel, the last thing she expects to overhear is a murder. As the only person with any clues as to what happened, Nell soon finds herself in the middle of the investigation.

Desperate to clear her name Nell, along with her colleague Adam, set out solving the murder using their skills as ecologists to uncover details no one else would notice. But it soon becomes clear that playing Agatha Christie is much harder than it might at first appear��

The start of an exciting new cosy crime series �� perfect for fans of Richard Osman, Faith Martin and Joy Ellis.]]> 368 Sarah Yarwood-Lovett Xandie 3 fiction, mystery-crime 3.80 2022
author: Sarah Yarwood-Lovett
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 224053819
In 1978, it was the turn of the Georgian language. During the adoption of the new constitution, the article that granted Georgian the status of the official language was removed. Constitutions had been updated before, but the status of the Georgian language, which was defined at the legislative level for the first time in 1921 by the first constitution of the independent Republic of Georgia, never changed. Never, until 1978��

Georgia immediately realized the danger which was followed by an instant reaction. The stories presented in the book bring to life the protests held in Tbilisi and Batumi in 1978 to protect the status of the Georgian language.

At first glance, the oral accounts of the active participants of the protest describe a spontaneous student uprising which first took place on April 14 in Tbilisi surrounded by tanks and at the risk of their lives and then continued in Batumi. These processes were followed by a chain of consequential events. The new stage of the national liberation movement began with the April 14 demonstration and ended with the restoration of the country’s independence in 1991.

The publication also includes speeches by Georgian scientists and writers in various institutions during the discussion of the new draft of the constitution, citizens�� letters of objection, and other archival materials like photos and articles.]]> 232 Ana Bakanidze 9941504679 Xandie 3 3.00 2023
author: Ana Bakanidze
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: ceeres, history, non-fiction, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 37880096 “Serious art does not need to be weighty or explicitly topical. It can be, as it is here, apparently as light as a feather: The Lumberjack’s Dove is, in its manner, a folktale; it is also a meditation on attachment, on loss, on transformation. Like its less humble relatives, myth and parable, it is pithy, magical, its many insights, its cautions and clarifications, unfolding in a chain of brief scenes and koan-like revelations. This is a book of unexpected lightness and buoyancy, as necessary in our tense period as the more urgent confrontations.�� --Louise Gluck

A boldly original and visceral debut collection from the winner of the 2017 National Poetry Series Competition, selected by Louise Gluck

In the ingenious and vividly imagined narrative poem The Lumberjack’s Dove, GennaRose Nethercott describes a lumberjack who cuts his hand off with an axe—however, instead of merely being severed, the hand shapeshifts into a dove. Far from representing just an event of pain and loss in the body, this incident spirals outward to explore countless facets of being human, prompting profound reflections on sacrifice and longing, time and memory, and—finally—considering the act of storytelling itself. The lumberjack, his hand, and the axe that separated the two all become participants in the story, with unique perspectives to share and lessons to impart. “I taught your fathers how to love,�� Axe says to the acorns and leaves around her. “I mean to be felled, sliced to lumber, & reassembled into a new body.��

Inflected with the uncanny enchantment of modern folklore and animated by the sly shifting of points-of-view, The Lumberjack’s Dove is wise, richly textured poetry from a boundlessly creative new voice.]]> 96 GennaRose Nethercott 0062853678 Xandie 0 to-read 4.48
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.48
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 150249978
The stories in Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart are about the abomination that resides within us all. That churning, clawing, ravenous the hunger to be held, and seen, and known. And the terror, to be loved too well, or not enough, or for long enough. To be laid bare before your sweetheart, to their horror. To be recognized as the monstrous thing you are.

Two teenage girls working at a sinister roadside attraction called the Eternal Staircase explore its secrets—and their own doomed summer love. A zombie rooster plays detective in a missing persons case. A woman moves into a new house with her acclaimed artist boyfriend—and finds her body slowly shifting into something specially constructed to accommodate his needs and whims. A pack of middle schoolers turn to the occult to rid themselves of a hated new classmate. And a pair of outcasts, a vampire and a goat woman, find solace in each other, even as the world's lack of understanding might bring about its own end.

In these lush, strange, beautifully written stories, GennaRose Nethercott explores human longing in all its diamond-dark facets to create a collection that will redefine what you see as a beast, and make you beg to have your heart broken.]]> 261 GennaRose Nethercott 0593314190 Xandie 5 3.86 2024
author: GennaRose Nethercott
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, female-rage, fiction, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 145621136
“My mother stayed, so that we could go.��

Having fled conflict in the former-Soviet Republic of Georgia as children, Saba and his brother have fought to make peace with the past. In particular, they struggle with the sacrifices of a mother who remained in a war zone so that their father could get them out. Now, years later, the brothers are young adults, their mother is dead, and their father has been lured back to their beautiful, decaying homeland �� only to disappear. Then Saba’s older brother, chasing after their missing father, vanishes too.

Left alone to figure out what has happened and to find his family, Saba sets off on his own urgent, haunted search across his homeland. Accompanied by new friends and old ghosts as he follows a breadcrumb trail of clues, he must wrestle the present from the past as he crosses into the kind of danger zones �� both physical and emotional �� that he thought he had left behind.��

Harrowing and tender but leavened with humor and an appreciation for the absurd, Hard by a Great Forest offers a unique story about traumas of war felt even decades after the fighting, and the long-term effects on those families driven not just to survive, but to remember.]]> 336 Leo Vardiashvili 0593545052 Xandie 4 4.10 2024
author: Leo Vardiashvili
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/01/21
shelves: ceeres, fiction, fairytales-inspired-by
review:

]]> 60731802 My kingdom for a magician!

The year is 1812, and Mr Albert Lowe is the only soldier in his regiment with a decent pair of boots. As the English withdraw to Portugal for the winter, a dark pall lies upon the troops, who cannot seem to decide which will kill them first—the lack of supplies, the bitter winter weather, or Napoleon’s dread Lord Sorcier. The lack of ammunition does seem pressing—but what are muskets to the French when they have on their side a magician capable of summoning up a hurricane?

As a surgeon, Albert can fix gunshot wounds more readily than hurricanes. But when he discovers by chance a peculiar, low-born magician among the English ranks, Albert begins to hope that they may all yet survive to return home.]]> 44 Olivia Atwater Xandie 0 to-read 3.55 2020
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60731784
This short, exclusive novella, written from Lord Elias Wilder’s perspective, takes place just after the events of Half a Soul and includes glimpses of the Lord Sorcier’s childhood in faerie.]]> 42 Olivia Atwater Xandie 0 to-read 3.76 2022
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60737485 It's difficult to find a husband in Regency England when you're a young lady with only half a soul.

Ever since she was cursed by a faerie, Theodora Ettings has had no sense of fear or embarrassment - a condition which makes her prone to accidental scandal. Dora hopes to be a quiet, sensible wallflower during the London Season - but when the strange, handsome and utterly uncouth Lord Sorcier discovers her condition, she is instead drawn into dangerous and peculiar faerie affairs.

If Dora's reputation can survive both her curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world. . . but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

Bridgerton meets Howl's Moving Castle in this enchanting historical fantasy, where the only thing more meddlesome than faeries is a marriage-minded mother.

Pick up HALF A SOUL, and be stolen away into Olivia Atwater's charming, magical version of Regency England!]]> 305 Olivia Atwater 0316462802 Xandie 4 4.15 2020
author: Olivia Atwater
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 142402813
Ginger. Honey. Cinnamon. Flour.

Twenty years after the witch in the gingerbread house, Greta and Hans are struggling to get by. Their mother and stepmother are long dead, Hans is deeply in debt from gambling, and the countryside lies in ruin, its people starving in the aftermath of a brutal war.

Greta has a secret, the witch's grimoire, secreted away and whispering in Greta's ear for the past two decades, and the recipe inside that makes the best gingerbread you've ever tasted. As long as she can bake, Greta can keep her small family afloat.

But in a village full of superstition, Greta and her mysteriously addictive gingerbread, not to mention the rumors about her childhood misadventures, is a source of gossip and suspicion.

And now, dark magic is returning to the woods and Greta's magic―magic she is still trying to understand―may be the only thing that can save her. If it doesn't kill her first.]]> 384 Kell Woods 125085248X Xandie 4 3.77 2023
author: Kell Woods
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: fairytales-inspired-by, fantasy, fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 73276240 In this groundbreaking novella, Cyprian Ekwensi narrates the spectacular adventures of a nomadic family whose lives are turned upside down when their great leader is cursed by his rival to the throne.When Chief Mai Sunsaye smells the smoke of burning grass, he knows it is time to go. Such is the nomadic life of the Fulani. Yet when Mai Sunsaye's rival, Ardo, curses him with wanderer's disease, it provokes in him a new-found sense of adventure, one which takes him further than he ever could have imagined...Full of love, magic, and fateful happenings, Burning Grass is an unforgettable tale that has captured the imagination of children and adults alike.'A joy to read; his glorious imagination captured ours.' Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie'One of the most prolific African writers of the twentieth century.' Charles R. Larson 'Magical occurrences, mysterious and seductive women, acts of phenomenal heroism, and swift-paced adventure.' Margaret Laurence ]]> 178 Cyprian Ekwensi 1803288248 Xandie 4 fiction, historical-fiction 4.50 1962
author: Cyprian Ekwensi
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.50
book published: 1962
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: fiction, historical-fiction
review:

]]> 67994728
Determined to keep their relationship perfect, she meticulously prepares for every encounter they have, always taking care to make her actions seem effortless. She watches him attentively, charting every mistake and punishing him accordingly to help him improve. And she tests him -- setting traps to make sure that he still loves her just as much as he did when they first met.

Until one day she realizes she may have gone too far . . .

With the surprise of Gone Girl, the bleakness of The Talented Mr Ripley and the sinister charm of the Netflix thriller You, My Husband is a bold and exhilarating story of passion and the dark secrets that lie beneath a seemingly healthy marriage.]]> 213 Maud Ventura Xandie 4 3.69 2021
author: Maud Ventura
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: fiction, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 189197566 A whip-smart debut that follows the adventures of an entirely unconventional heroine who throws herself into the London Season to find a wealthy husband. But the last thing she expects is to find love...

Kitty Talbot needs a fortune. Or rather, she needs a husband who has a fortune. Left with her father’s massive debts, she has only twelve weeks to save her family from ruin.

Kitty has never been one to back down from a challenge, so she leaves home and heads toward the most dangerous battleground in all of England: the London season.

Kitty may be neither accomplished nor especially genteel—but she is utterly single-minded; imbued with cunning and ingenuity, she knows that risk is just part of the game.

The only thing she doesn’t anticipate is Lord Radcliffe. The worldly Radcliffe sees Kitty for the mercenary fortune-hunter that she really is and is determined to scotch her plans at all costs, until their parrying takes a completely different turn...

This is a frothy pleasure, full of brilliant repartee and enticing wit—one that readers will find an irresistible delight.

]]> Sophie Irwin Xandie 4 fiction, romance 4.04 2022
author: Sophie Irwin
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 123013688 749 Yuri Mechitov 9941055106 Xandie 4 ceeres, non-fiction 4.50
author: Yuri Mechitov
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: ceeres, non-fiction
review:

]]> 31979077 ��
A couple weeks later, there is a special interruption in regular programming. The announcer warns all listeners of an escaped sea monster. Giant, spotted, and froglike, the beast—who was captured six months earlier by a team of scientists—is said to possess incredible strength and to be considered extremely dangerous.
��
That afternoon, the seven-foot-tall lizard man walks through Dorothy’s kitchen door. She is frightened at first, but there is something attractive about the monster. The two begin a tender, clandestine affair, and no one, not even Dorothy’s husband or her best friend, seems to notice.
��
Selected by the British Book Marketing Council as one of the greatest American novels since World War II, Mrs. Caliban is a story of passion and loneliness, love and loss. Wryly subversive, it brilliantly combines surrealism, satire, and the female perspective.

��]]> 128 Rachel Ingalls Xandie 4 3.63 1982
author: Rachel Ingalls
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1982
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: female-rage, fiction, science-fiction
review:

]]> 196775050 347 Amita Murray 0063296535 Xandie 3 3.84
author: Amita Murray
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.84
book published:
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2025/01/10
shelves: fiction, historical-fiction, romance
review:

]]> 125094716 A bold, clever, and sublimely sinister collection that dares to ask the “Are you ready to be un-settled?�� Featuring stories by:

Norris Black �� Amber Blaeser-Wardzala �� Phoenix Boudreau �� Cherie Dimaline �� Carson Faust �� Kelli Jo Ford �� Kate Hart �� Shane Hawk �� Brandon Hobson �� Darcie Little Badger �� Conley Lyons �� Nick Medina �� Tiffany Morris �� Tommy Orange �� Mona Susan Power �� Marcie R. Rendon �� Waubgeshig Rice �� Rebecca Roanhorse �� Andrea L. Rogers �� Morgan Talty �� D.H. Trujillo �� Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. �� Richard Van Camp �� David Heska Wanbli Weiden �� Royce Young Wolf �� Mathilda Zeller

Many Indigenous people believe that one should never whistle at night. This belief takes many for instance, Native Hawaiians believe it summons the Hukai’po, the spirits of ancient warriors, and Native Mexicans say it calls Lechuza, a witch that can transform into an owl. But what all these legends hold in common is the certainty that whistling at night can cause evil spirits to appear—and even follow you home.

These wholly original and shiver-inducing tales introduce readers to ghosts, curses, hauntings, monstrous creatures, complex family legacies, desperate deeds, and chilling acts of revenge. Introduced and contextualized by bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones, these stories are a celebration of Indigenous peoples�� survival and imagination, and a glorious reveling in all the things an ill-advised whistle might summon.]]> 408 Shane Hawk Xandie 4 fiction, horror-gothic 3.90 2023
author: Shane Hawk
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: fiction, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 41572890 ***Book of the Year in The Times***

Things don't go entirely to plan when undercover ace detective Jan Nyman is sent to the 'hottest beach in Finland' to investigate a suspicious death. Fargo meets Baywatch in a mesmerising, poignant dark-comedy thriller by the King of Helsinki Noir]]> 354 Antti Tuomainen 1912374323 Xandie 3 3.93 2017
author: Antti Tuomainen
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 75495002 When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another--both a riveting page-turner and a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.

"We didn't call the police right away." Those are the first words of this extraordinary novel about a biracial Korean-American family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.

Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything--which is why she isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia's brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.

What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, race, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.]]> 387 Angie Kim 0593448200 Xandie 0 to-read 3.72 2023
author: Angie Kim
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 197864008
Misha is a jaded scriptwriter who has been working in Hollywood for years, and has just been nominated for his first Oscar. But when he's pressured by his producers to kill off a gay character in the upcoming season finale��"for the algorithm "—Misha discovers that it's not that simple.

As he is haunted by his past, and past mistakes, Misha must risk everything to find a way to do what's right—before it's too late.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 304 Chuck Tingle 125087467X Xandie 4 4.12 2024
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves: fiction, horror-gothic, gender-sexuality
review:

]]> 11181442
Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required reading for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.

From Booklist
If there is an explanation for the political killing perpetrated in eastern Europe in the 1930s and 1940s, historian Snyder roots it in agriculture. Stalin wanted to collectivize farmers; Hitler wanted to eliminate them so Germans could colonize the land. The dictators wielded frightening power to advance such fantasies toward reality, and the despots toted up about 14 million corpses between them, so stupefying a figure that Snyder sets himself three goals here: to break down the number into the various actions of murder that comprise it, from liquidation of the kulaks to the final solution; to restore humanity to the victims via surviving testimony to their fates; and to deny Hitler and Stalin any historical justification for their policies, which at the time had legions of supporters and have some even today. Such scope may render Snyder’s project too imposing to casual readers, but it would engage those exposed to the period’s chronology and major interpretive issues, such as the extent to which the Nazi and Soviet systems may be compared. Solid and judicious scholarship for large WWII collections.]]> 524 Timothy Snyder 0099551799 Xandie 5 history, ceeres 4.36 2010
author: Timothy Snyder
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: history, ceeres
review:

]]> 74861000 Cackle and Such Sharp Teeth

ONCE SHE HAS HER GRIP ON YOU, SHE'LL NEVER LET YOU GO.

At four months old, Olivia Dahl was almost murdered. Driven by haunting visions, her mother became obsessed with the idea that Olivia was a changeling, and that the only way to get her real baby back was to make a trade with the "dead women" living at the bottom of the well. Now Olivia is ready to give birth to a daughter of her own…and for the first time, she hears the women whispering.

Everyone tells Olivia she should be happy. She should be glowing, but the birth of her daughter only fills Olivia with dread. As Olivia's body starts giving out, slowly deteriorating as the baby eats and eats and eats, she begins to fear that the baby isn't her daughter at all and, despite her best efforts, history is repeating itself. Soon images of a black-haired woman plague Olivia's nightmares, drawing her back to the well that almost claimed her life—tying mother and daughter together in a desperate cycle of fear and violence that must be broken if Olivia has any hope of saving her child…or herself.

Baby Teeth meets The Invited in a haunting horror novel about the sometimes-fragile connection between a woman's sense of self and what it means to be a "good" mother.]]> 361 Katrina Monroe 1728248248 Xandie 4 3.55 2023
author: Katrina Monroe
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves: fiction, female-rage, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 34732064
But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who embarked on that fateful trip, and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby. 2017.

Enter elusive investigative journalist Scott King, whose podcast examinations of complicated cases have rivaled the success of Serial, with his concealed identity making him a cult internet figure.

In a series of six interviews, King attempts to work out how the dynamics of a group of idle teenagers conspired with the sinister legends surrounding the fell to result in Jeffries' mysterious death. As every interview unveils a new revelation, you'll be forced to work out for yourself how Tom Jeffries died, and who is telling the truth.]]> 280 Matt Wesolowski 1495627845 Xandie 4 fiction, mystery-crime 3.77 2016
author: Matt Wesolowski
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/13
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

]]> 549938
The title creature is a sort of barometer of life at the home of John Peerybingle and his much younger wife Dot. When things go well, the cricket on the hearth chirps; it is silent when there is sorrow. Tackleton, a jealous old man, poisons John's mind about Dot, but the cricket through its supernatural powers restores John's confidence and all ends happily.]]> 82 Charles Dickens 0809500418 Xandie 3 classics, fiction 3.48 1845
author: Charles Dickens
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1845
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: classics, fiction
review:

]]> 58302394 White Horse is a gritty, vibrant debut from Erika T. Wurth about an Indigenous woman who must face her past when she discovers a bracelet haunted by her mother’s spirit.

Some people are haunted in more ways than one.

Heavy metal, ripped jeans, Stephen King novels, and the occasional beer at the White Horse have defined urban Indian Kari James’s life so far. But when her cousin Debby finds an old family bracelet that once belonged to Kari’s mother, it inadvertently calls up both her mother’s ghost and a monstrous entity, and her willful ignorance about her past is no longer sustainable��

Haunted by visions of her mother and hunted by this mysterious creature, Kari must search for what happened to her mother all those years ago. Her father, permanently disabled from a car crash, can’t help her. Her Auntie Squeaker seems to know something but isn’t eager to give it all up at once. Debby’s anxious to help, but her controlling husband keeps getting in the way. Kari’s journey toward a truth long denied by both her family and law enforcement forces her to confront her dysfunctional relationships, thoughts about a friend she lost in childhood, and her desire for the one thing she’s always wanted but could never have.]]> 320 Erika T. Wurth 1250847664 Xandie 4 fiction, horror-gothic 3.80 2022
author: Erika T. Wurth
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/06
date added: 2024/12/06
shelves: fiction, horror-gothic
review:

]]> 209186381
The legendary sleuth investigates, but soon realises must unravel the dark and tangled history of the village, as well as that of its rival families, to get to the truth.]]> 320 Seishi Yokomizo Xandie 4 3.95 1959
author: Seishi Yokomizo
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1959
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/04
date added: 2024/12/04
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime, translations-into-english
review:

]]> 53415322 From the winner of the Women's Prize for Fiction

'Powerful . . . truly a living and breathing thing.' Financial Times

'McBride is on blistering form.' Sin�ad Gleeson

'Nothing else feels so fresh, so radically new.' Garth Greenwell

'An emotionally enchanting novel that gets deep under the skin.' Dazed

A woman enters an Avignon hotel room. She's been here once before - but while the room hasn't changed, she is a different person now.

Forever caught between check-in and check-out, she will go on to occupy other hotel rooms, from Prague to Oslo, Auckland to Austin, each as anonymous as the last. There, amid the open suitcases, the matchbooks, cigarettes, keys and room-service wine, she will negotiate with memory, with the men she sometimes meets, and with what it might mean to return home.]]> 160 Eimear McBride 0571355153 Xandie 2 fiction 2.82 2020
author: Eimear McBride
name: Xandie
average rating: 2.82
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: fiction
review:

]]> 16333
When Miss Marple comes up from the country for a holiday in London, she finds what she's looking for at Bertram's: traditional décor and impeccable service. But she senses an unmistakable atmosphere of danger behind the highly polished veneer. Not even Miss Marple can foresee the violent chain of events set in motion when an eccentric hotel guest makes his way to the airport one day late!

Librarian's note: this entry is for the novel, "At Bertram's Hotel." Collections and other Miss Marple stories are located elsewhere on ŷ������. The series includes 12 novels and 20 short stories. Entries for the short stories can be found by searching ŷ������ for: "a Miss Marple Short Story."]]> 223 Agatha Christie Xandie 4 mystery-crime, fiction 3.72 1965
author: Agatha Christie
name: Xandie
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1965
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: mystery-crime, fiction
review:

]]> 879644 New edition with the same ISBN, but another cover

Note: Editions of The Tenant that start with: "You must go back with me..." are incomplete. Actual opening line of the novel is: "To J. Halford, Esq. Dear Halford, when we were together last..."

Anne Bronte's second novel is a passionate and courageous challenge to the conventions supposedly upheld by Victorian society and reflected in circulating-library fiction. The heroine, Helen Huntingdon, after a short period of initial happiness, leaves her dissolute husband, and must earn her own living to rescue her son from his influence. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is compelling in its imaginative power, the realism and range of its dialogue, and its psychological insight into the characters involved in a marital battle.]]> 378 Anne Brontë 0140620435 Xandie 4 classics, fiction 4.00 1848
author: Anne Brontë
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1848
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/26
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves: classics, fiction
review:

]]> 55076069 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Read, a sparkling new novel that will leave you with the warm, hazy afterglow usually reserved for the best vacations.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?]]> 382 Emily Henry Xandie 4 fiction, romance 4.03 2021
author: Emily Henry
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves: fiction, romance
review:

]]> 203697079 From the author of Better the Blood, the gripping second novel in a crime series starring Māori detective Hana Westerman, in which the discovery of human bones in the dunes of New Zealand upends a long-ago murder conviction


After the perils of a case that landed much too close to home, Hana Westerman turned in her badge and abandoned her career as a detective in the Auckland CIB. Hoping that civilian life will offer her the opportunity to rest and recalibrate, she returns to her hometown of Tātā Bay, where she moves back in with her beloved father, Eru. Yet the memories of the past are everywhere, and as she goes for her daily run on the beach, Hana passes a local monument to Paige, a high school classmate who was murdered more than twenty years ago and hidden in the dunes overlooking the sea. A Māori man with a previous record was convicted of the crime, although Eru never believed he was guilty.


When her daughter finds another young woman’s skeleton in the sands, Hana soon finds herself awkwardly involved. Investigators suspect that this is Kiri Thomas, a young Māori woman who disappeared four years earlier, after battling years of drug addiction. Hana and her daughter Addison are increasingly captivated by the story behind this unsolved crime, but without the official police force behind her, Hana must risk compromising her own peace and relationships if justice is to be served.


Expanding the range of vivid characters who made Michael Bennett’s first book, Better the Blood, so appealing, and offering a shocking twist at the end, Return to Blood takes readers further into Māori culture and traditions as it engages us more deeply into the story of Hana Westerman.]]> 250 Michael Bennett 0802163068 Xandie 4 fiction, mystery-crime 4.10 2024
author: Michael Bennett
name: Xandie
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: fiction, mystery-crime
review:

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