Madi's bookshelf: all en-US Mon, 14 Apr 2025 18:11:53 -0700 60 Madi's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Watching You 38355282
As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…]]> 320 Lisa Jewell 1501190075 Madi 0 to-read 3.83 2018 Watching You
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Madi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Grownup 26025580
“The Grownup,� originally appeared as “What Do You Do?� in George R. R. Martin’s Rogues anthology.]]> 64 Gillian Flynn 0804188971 Madi 2 Waste of time. 3.55 2014 The Grownup
author: Gillian Flynn
name: Madi
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
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review:
Waste of time.
]]> After I Do 18775359 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781476712840.

When Lauren and Ryan’s marriage reaches the breaking point, they come up with an unconventional plan. They decide to take a year off in the hopes of finding a way to fall in love again. One year apart, and only one rule: they cannot contact each other. Aside from that, anything goes.

Lauren embarks on a journey of self-discovery, quickly finding that her friends and family have their own ideas about the meaning of marriage. These influences, as well as her own healing process and the challenges of living apart from Ryan, begin to change Lauren’s ideas about monogamy and marriage. She starts to question: When you can have romance without loyalty and commitment without marriage, when love and lust are no longer tied together, what do you value? What are you willing to fight for?

This is a love story about what happens when the love fades. It’s about staying in love, seizing love, forsaking love, and committing to love with everything you’ve got. And above all, After I Do is the story of a couple caught up in an old game—and searching for a new road to happily ever after.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid Madi 1 If I were Lauren in the situation, I would not have gotten back together with him .
I’m sorry, but who for 11 years doesn’t know how to please their partner in bed you’re telling me for 11 years. You never thought to ask your wife hey what do you like to do in bed?
He also was the one who opened up the relationship and then got mad when she started having a relationship with another man .
He also would always play the victim in a fight and always be like oh I’m the worst in order to get her to apologize to him and do all the emotional labor of pretending like it was her fault like I’m sorry what ?
And also the reason why he wanted to get back together with her in the first place was because she appreciated him more than the other women did.
Literally, a woman didn’t like his shrimp scampi and didn’t give him enough praise for it, and that was the reason why he broke up with her. This man is a selfish man, baby, and I don’t know why anyone in her family was encouraging her to get back together with him.

Also as a little PSA, this is why you should date more in college cause then you won’t wind up, marrying selfish man babies .]]> 3.91 2014 After I Do
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Madi
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2014
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
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review:
I keep going back-and-forth on whether or not I should give this book a one or two star because of Ryan. He was literally the worst.
If I were Lauren in the situation, I would not have gotten back together with him .
I’m sorry, but who for 11 years doesn’t know how to please their partner in bed you’re telling me for 11 years. You never thought to ask your wife hey what do you like to do in bed?
He also was the one who opened up the relationship and then got mad when she started having a relationship with another man .
He also would always play the victim in a fight and always be like oh I’m the worst in order to get her to apologize to him and do all the emotional labor of pretending like it was her fault like I’m sorry what ?
And also the reason why he wanted to get back together with her in the first place was because she appreciated him more than the other women did.
Literally, a woman didn’t like his shrimp scampi and didn’t give him enough praise for it, and that was the reason why he broke up with her. This man is a selfish man, baby, and I don’t know why anyone in her family was encouraging her to get back together with him.

Also as a little PSA, this is why you should date more in college cause then you won’t wind up, marrying selfish man babies .
]]> All the Missing Girls 27276324
It’s been ten years since Nicolette Farrell left her rural hometown after her best friend, Corinne, disappeared from Cooley Ridge without a trace. Back again to tie up loose ends and care for her ailing father, Nic is soon plunged into a shocking drama that reawakens Corinne’s case and breaks open old wounds long since stitched.

The decade-old investigation focused on Nic, her brother Daniel, boyfriend Tyler, and Corinne’s boyfriend Jackson. Since then, only Nic has left Cooley Ridge. Daniel and his wife, Laura, are expecting a baby; Jackson works at the town bar; and Tyler is dating Annaleise Carter, Nic’s younger neighbor and the group’s alibi the night Corinne disappeared. Then, within days of Nic’s return, Annaleise goes missing.

Told backwards—Day 15 to Day 1—from the time Annaleise goes missing, Nic works to unravel the truth about her younger neighbor’s disappearance, revealing shocking truths about her friends, her family, and what really happened to Corinne that night ten years ago.

Like nothing you’ve ever read before, All the Missing Girls delivers in all the right ways. With twists and turns that lead down dark alleys and dead ends, you may think you’re walking a familiar path, but then Megan Miranda turns it all upside down and inside out and leaves us wondering just how far we would be willing to go to protect those we love.]]> 371 Megan Miranda 1501107968 Madi 0 to-read 3.69 2016 All the Missing Girls
author: Megan Miranda
name: Madi
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> All the Bright Places 18460392 The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.

Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders� of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.

This is an intense, gripping novel perfect for fans of Jay Asher, Rainbow Rowell, John Green, Gayle Forman, and Jenny Downham from a talented new voice in YA, Jennifer Niven.]]> 388 Jennifer Niven 0385755880 Madi 0 currently-reading 4.12 2015 All the Bright Places
author: Jennifer Niven
name: Madi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Woman in the Window 40389527
Then the Russells move into the house across the way: a father, a mother and their teenage son. The perfect family. But when Anna, gazing out her window one night, sees something she shouldn’t, her world begins to crumble and its shocking secrets are laid bare.

What is real? What is imagined? Who is in danger? Who is in control? In this diabolically gripping thriller, no one—and nothing—is what it seems.]]> 455 A.J. Finn Madi 2 3.95 2018 The Woman in the Window
author: A.J. Finn
name: Madi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/07
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> The Leftovers 10762469
Kevin Garvey, Mapleton's new mayor, wants to speed up the healing process, to bring a sense of renewed hope and purpose to his traumatized community. Kevin's own family has fallen apart in the wake of the disaster: his wife, Laurie, has left to join the Guilty Remnant, a homegrown cult whose members take a vow of silence; his son, Tom, is gone, too, dropping out of college to follow a sketchy prophet named Holy Wayne. Only Kevin's teenaged daughter, Jill, remains, and she's definitely not the sweet "A" student she used to be. Kevin wants to help her, but he's distracted by his growing relationship with Nora Durst, a woman who lost her entire family on October 14th and is still reeling from the tragedy, even as she struggles to move beyond it and make a new start.

With heart, intelligence and a rare ability to illuminate the struggles inherent in ordinary lives, Tom Perrotta has written a startling, thought-provoking novel about love, connection and loss.]]> 355 Tom Perrotta 0312358342 Madi 0 to-read 3.41 2011 The Leftovers
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Madi
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/07
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]]> Girl Dinner 222376577 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six , Girl Dinner is a darkly-fun novel about power, lust, and eating your fill, as wealthy moms and sorority girls practice a sinister new wellness trend . . .

Good girls deserve a treat.

Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.

After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she's taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.

Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner's new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane's clothes don’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she's apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.

As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 368 Olivie Blake 1250883458 Madi 0 to-read 3.90 2025 Girl Dinner
author: Olivie Blake
name: Madi
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> Good Girl 223300832 A portrait of the artist as a young woman in a Berlin that can't escape its history: an electric debut novel about the daughter of Afghan refugees and her year of nightclubs, bad romance, and self-discovery

'Kaleidoscopic, full of style and soul' Raven Leilani
'A beautiful coming-of-age story about identity and discovery' Elle, The Cult Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2025
'A no-bullshit must-read debut' Kaveh Akbar

In Berlin's underground, where techno rattles buildings still scarred with the violence of the last century, nineteen-year-old Nila finds her tribe. In their company she can escape the parallel city that made her, the public housing block packed with refugees and immigrants, where the bathrooms are infested with silverfish and the walls outside are graffitied with swastikas.

Escaping into the clubs, Nila tries to outrun the shadow of her dead mother, once a feminist revolutionary; her catatonic, defeated father; and the cab-driver uncles who seem to idle on every corner. To anyone who asks, her family is Greek, not Afghani.

And then Nila meets American writer Marlowe Woods, whose literary celebrity, though fading, opens her eyes to a world of patrons and festivals, one that imbues her dreams of life as an artist with new possibility. But as she finds herself drawn further into his orbit and ugly, barely submerged tensions begin to roil and claw beneath the city's cosmopolitan veneer, everything she hopes for, hates, and believes about herself will be challenged.

'Rarely has the wildness and bewilderment of youth been conveyed with such richly textured heat' Garth Greenwell ]]> 348 Aria Aber 1526679035 Madi 0 to-read 3.82 2025 Good Girl
author: Aria Aber
name: Madi
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Forever, Interrupted 16130531 Have you ever heard of supernovas? They shine brighter than anything else in the sky and then fade out really quickly, a short burst of extraordinary energy. I like to think you and Ben were like that . . . in that short time, you had more passion than some people have in a lifetime.

Elsie Porter is an average twentysomething and yet what happens to her is anything but ordinary. On a rainy New Year's Day, she heads out to pick up a pizza for one. She isn't expecting to see anyone else in the shop, much less the adorable and charming Ben Ross. Their chemistry is instant and electric. Ben cannot even wait twenty-four hours before asking to see her again. Within weeks, the two are head over heels in love. By May, they've eloped.

Only nine days later, Ben is out riding his bike when he is hit by a truck and killed on impact. Elsie hears the sirens outside her apartment, but by the time she gets downstairs, he has already been whisked off to the emergency room. At the hospital, she must face Susan, the mother-in-law she has never met and who doesn't even know Elsie exists.

Interweaving Elsie and Ben's charmed romance with Elsie and Susan's healing process, Forever, Interrupted will remind you that there's more than one way to find a happy ending.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid Madi 2 3.63 2013 Forever, Interrupted
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Madi
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2013
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
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review:

]]> What Once Was Mine 56623541 What if Rapunzel's mother drank a potion from the wrong flower?

Desperate to save the life of their queen and her unborn child, the good people of Corona search for the all-healing Sundrop flower to cure her—but mistakenly acquire the shimmering Moondrop flower instead. Nonetheless it heals the queen, and she delivers a healthy baby girl with hair as silver and gray as the moon. With it comes dangerous magical powers: the power to hurt, not heal. For her safety and the safety of the kingdom, Rapunzel is locked in a tower and put under the care of powerful goodwife, Mother Gothel.

For eighteen years Rapunzel stays locked away, knowing she must protect others from her magical hair. But when she leaves the only home she's ever known, wanting only to see the floating lights that appear on her birthday, she gets caught up in an adventure across the kingdom with two thieves—a young woman named Gina, and Flynn Rider, a rogue on the run. Before she can reach her happy ending, Rapunzel learns that there may be more to her story, and her magical tresses, than she ever knew.]]> 496 Liz Braswell 1368063829 Madi 2 3.92 2021 What Once Was Mine
author: Liz Braswell
name: Madi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #1)]]> 200033357 New York Times bestselling authors of The Unhoneymooners.

One typo, and a boy and girl connect by chance. Wishing each other a happy Valentine’s Day isn’t the end. In fact, it becomes a friendly annual tradition—with rules: no pics, no real names, nothing too personal. As years pass, the rules for their email “dates� are breaking, and they’re sharing more than they imagined—including the urge to ask�what if we actually met?

Christina Lauren’s The Exception to the Rule is part of The Improbable Meet-Cute, irresistibly romantic stories about finding love when and where you least expect it. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 101 Christina Lauren 1662519893 Madi 0 to-read 4.21 2024 The Exception to the Rule (The Improbable Meet-Cute, #1)
author: Christina Lauren
name: Madi
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Expert of Subtle Revisions]]> 214986234 A thrilling historical mystery about a young woman searching for her father, a young man trying to solve an impossible problem, and the quest for the power to transcend time.

In Half Moon Bay, California, 2016, a young woman waits for her father's sailboat to arrive at port. They have agreed to meet on this day and time. Yet he never shows.

He has told her this event might come. And if it did, she was ready. Go to the library in Berkeley, find a certain book, follow the instructions. But what if the instructions lead to more questions than answers?

In 1933, a young man arrives in Vienna to begin a new post as a professor of mathematics at the university. There he finds himself part of the Engelhardt Circle, a group of intellectuals that have recently been targeted by a growing, anti-academic mob. The circle includes the preeminent minds of their time and a cast of characters desperate to get invited into their midst, many of whom will stop at nothing to get there. As fascism rises, and polarization increases, moderate voices are drowned out.

There are whispers of a machine, a music box, which can transport someone through time. But no one can confirm if it's a rumor or true. And the only people who know firsthand are not talking.

Between the young woman, who lives off the grid and spends her free time editing Wikipedia entries and picking fights with people online, and the circle of intellectuals debating space and time in Vienna on the eve of World War II, lie years of history that might easily be erased—unless old secrets are unraveled. Kirsten Menger-Anderson's beautiful meditation on time, love, and obsession shows us how we never truly know what happened in the past, and often how the past eerily mirrors the future.]]> 256 Kirsten Menger-Anderson 0593798309 Madi 0 to-read 4.06 2025 The Expert of Subtle Revisions
author: Kirsten Menger-Anderson
name: Madi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beautyland 127282939 From the acclaimed author of Parakeet, Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a wise, tender novel about a woman who doesn't feel at home on Earth.

At the moment when Voyager 1 is launched into space carrying its famous golden record, a baby of unusual perception is born to a single mother in Philadelphia. Adina Giorno is tiny and jaundiced, but she reaches for warmth and light. As a child, she recognizes that she is different: She possesses knowledge of a faraway planet. The arrival of a fax machine enables her to contact her extraterrestrial relatives, beings who have sent her to report on the oddities of Earthlings.

For years, as she moves through the world and makes a life for herself among humans, she dispatches transmissions on the terrors and surprising joys of their existence. Then, at a precarious moment, a beloved friend urges Adina to share her messages with the world. Is there a chance she is not alone?

Marie-Helene Bertino’s Beautyland is a novel of startling originality about the fragility and resilience of life on our Earth and in our universe. It is a remarkable evocation of the feeling of being in exile at home, and it introduces a gentle, unforgettable alien for our times.]]> 327 Marie-Helene Bertino 0374109281 Madi 0 to-read 4.08 2024 Beautyland
author: Marie-Helene Bertino
name: Madi
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> Atomic Anna 58684535 Three generations of women work together and travel through time to prevent the Chernobyl disaster and right the wrongs of their past.

Three brilliant women.
Two life-changing mistakes.
One chance to reset the future.

In 1986, renowned nuclear scientist, Anna Berkova, is sleeping in her bed in the Soviet Union when Chernobyl’s reactor melts down. It’s the exact moment she tears through time—and it’s an accident. When she opens her eyes, she’s landed in 1992 only to discover Molly, her estranged daughter, shot in the chest. Molly, with her dying breath, begs Anna to go back in time and stop the disaster, to save Molly’s daughter Raisa, and put their family’s future on a better path.

In �60s Philadelphia, Molly is coming of age as an adopted refusenik. Her family is full of secrets and a past they won’t share. She finds solace in comic books, drawing her own series,Atomic Anna, and she’s determined to make it as an artist. When she meets the volatile, charismatic Viktor, their romance sets her life on a very different course.

In the �80s, Raisa, is a lonely teen and math prodigy, until a quiet, handsome boy moves in across the street and an odd old woman shows up claiming to be her biological grandmother. As Raisa finds new issues ofAtomic Anna in unexpected places, she notices each comic challenges her to solve equations leading to one impossible conclusion: time travel. And she finally understands what she has to do.

As these remarkable women work together to prevent the greatest nuclear disaster of the 20th century, they grapple with the power their discoveries hold. Just because you can change the past, does it mean you should?]]> 433 Rachel Barenbaum 1538734869 Madi 0 to-read 3.76 2022 Atomic Anna
author: Rachel Barenbaum
name: Madi
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Daughter of Doctor Moreau 54829360 A lavish historical drama reimagining of The Island of Doctor Moreau set against the backdrop of nineteenth-century Mexico.

Carlota Moreau: a young woman, growing up in a distant and luxuriant estate, safe from the conflict and strife of the Yucatán peninsula. The only daughter of either a genius, or a madman.

Montgomery Laughton: a melancholic overseer with a tragic past and a propensity for alcohol. An outcast who assists Dr. Moreau with his scientific experiments, which are financed by the Lizaldes, owners of magnificent haciendas and plentiful coffers.

The hybrids: the fruits of the Doctor’s labor, destined to blindly obey their creator and remain in the shadows. A motley group of part human, part animal monstrosities.

All of them living in a perfectly balanced and static world, which is jolted by the abrupt arrival of Eduardo Lizalde, the charming and careless son of Doctor Moreau’s patron, who will unwittingly begin a dangerous chain reaction.

For Moreau keeps secrets, Carlota has questions, and in the sweltering heat of the jungle, passions may ignite.

The Daughter of Doctor Moreau is both a dazzling historical novel and a daring science fiction journey.]]> 306 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593355334 Madi 0 to-read 3.56 2022 The Daughter of Doctor Moreau
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Madi
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> When the Tides Held the Moon 213075628 In Coney Island, true love rises to the surface. With lush illustrations and buoyant prose, Venessa Vida Kelley forges an unforgettable New York fairytale.

Benigno “Benny� Caldera knows an orphaned Boricua blacksmith in 1910s New York City can’t call himself an artist. But the ironwork tank he creates for famed Coney Island playground, Luna Park, astounds the eccentric sideshow proprietor who commissioned it. He invites Benny to join the show’s eclectic cast and share in their shocking secret: the tank will cage their newest exhibit, a live merman stolen from the salty banks of the East River.

More than a mythic marvel, Benny soon comes to know the merman Río as a kindred spirit, wise and more compassionate than any human he’s ever met. Despite their different worlds, what begins as a friendship of necessity deepens to love, leading Benny’s heart into uncharted waters where he can no longer ignore the agonizing truth of Río’s captivity—and his own.

Releasing Río could mean losing his found family, his new home, and his soulmate forever. Yet Benny’s courageous choice may just reveal a love strong enough to free them both.]]> 464 Venessa Vida Kelley 1645661539 Madi 0 to-read 4.36 2025 When the Tides Held the Moon
author: Venessa Vida Kelley
name: Madi
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke (Las Leonas, #3)]]> 204906176
Paris, 1889

Physician Aurora Montalban Wright takes risks in her career, but never with her heart. Running an underground women’s clinic exposes her to certain dangers, but help arrives in the unexpected form of the infuriating Duke of Annan. Aurora begrudgingly accepts his protection, then promptly finds herself in his bed.

New to his role as a duke, Apollo César Sinclair Robles struggles to embrace his position. With half of society waiting for him to misstep and the other half looking to discredit him, Apollo never imagined that his enthralling bedmate would become his most trusted adviser. Soon, he realizes the rebellious doctor could be the perfect duchess. But Aurora won’t give up her independence, and her secrets make her unsuitable for the aristocracy.

When a dangerous figure from their past returns to threaten them, Apollo whisks Aurora away to his villa in the French Riviera. Far from the reproachful eye of Parisian society, can Apollo convince Aurora that their bond is stronger than the forces keeping them apart?

Can't get enough of the Las Leonas?
Book 1: A Caribbean Heiress in Paris
Book 2: An Island Princess Starts a Scandal
Book 3: A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke]]> 432 Adriana Herrera 1335476962 Madi 0 to-read 4.27 2025 A Tropical Rebel Gets the Duke (Las Leonas, #3)
author: Adriana Herrera
name: Madi
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hungerstone 212342605 Hungerstoneis a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’sA Dowry of Bloodand Emilia Hart’sWeyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

Lenore is the wife of steel magnate Henry, but ten years into their marriage, the relationship has soured and no child has arrived to fill the distance growing between them. Henry's ambitions take them out of London and to the imposing Nethershaw manor in the countryside, where Henry aims to host a hunt with society’s finest. Lenore keeps a terrible secret from the last time her husband hunted, and though they never speak of it, it haunts their marriage to this day.

The preparations for the event take a turn when a carriage accident near their remote home brings the mysterious Carmilla into Lenore's life. Carmilla who is weak and pale during the day but vibrant at night; Carmilla who stirs up a hunger deep within Lenore. Soon girls from local villages begin to fall sick before being consumed by a bloody hunger.

Torn between regaining her husband's affection and Carmilla's ever-growing presence, Lenore begins to unravel her past and in doing so, uncovers a darkness in her household that will place her at terrible risk . . .

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution,Hungerstoneis a compulsive feminist reworking ofCarmilla, the book that inspiredDracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932166 Madi 0 to-read 4.02 2025 Hungerstone
author: Kat Dunn
name: Madi
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Blood on Her Tongue 213570812 "I'm in your blood, and you are in mine�"

The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.

Then, the worst happens. Sarah's behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angry� and hungry.

Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.]]> 368 Johanna van Veen 1728281571 Madi 0 to-read 4.03 2025 Blood on Her Tongue
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Madi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder at Gulls Nest (Nora Breen Investigates #1)]]> 214151311 A cozy mystery series about a former nun who searches for answers in a small seaside town after her pen pal mysteriously disappears

1954: When her former novice’s dependable letters stop, Nora Breen asks to be released from her vows. Haunted by a line in Frieda’s letter, Nora arrives at Gulls Nest, a charming hotel in Gore-on-Sea in Kent. A seaside town, a place of fresh air and relaxed constraints, is the perfect place for a new start. Nora hides her identity and pries into the lives of her fellow guests—but when a series of bizarre murders rattles the occupants of Gulls Nest it’s time to ask if a dark past can ever really be left behind.]]> 325 Jess Kidd 1668034034 Madi 0 to-read 3.98 2025 Murder at Gulls Nest (Nora Breen Investigates #1)
author: Jess Kidd
name: Madi
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> The Message 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk� city of “old traditions and new machinery,� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Madi 0 to-read 4.52 2024 The Message
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Madi
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Creative Act: A Way of Being]]> 60965426 From the legendary music producer, a master at helping people connect with the wellsprings of their creativity, comes a beautifully crafted book many years in the making that offers that same deep wisdom to all of us.

"A gorgeous and inspiring work of art on creation, creativity, the work of the artist. It will gladden the hearts of writers and artists everywhere, and get them working again with a new sense of meaning and direction. A stunning accomplishment." --Anne Lamott

"I set out to write a book about what to do to make a great work of art. Instead, it revealed itself to be a book on how to be." --Rick Rubin

Many famed music producers are known for a particular sound that has its day. Rick Rubin is known for something else: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. He has made a practice of helping people transcend their self-imposed expectations in order to reconnect with a state of innocence from which the surprising becomes inevitable. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn't, he has learned that being an artist isn't about your specific output, it's about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone's life, and everyone can make that place larger. In fact, there are few more important responsibilities.

The Creative Act is a beautiful and generous course of study that illuminates the path of the artist as a road we all can follow. It distills the wisdom gleaned from a lifetime's work into a luminous reading experience that puts the power to create moments--and lifetimes--of exhilaration and transcendence within closer reach for all of us.]]> 406 Rick Rubin 0593652886 Madi 0 to-read 4.00 2023 The Creative Act: A Way of Being
author: Rick Rubin
name: Madi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear]]> 56132724
The horrific conditions inside the Illinois State Hospital in Jacksonville, Illinois, are overseen by Dr. Andrew McFarland, a man who will prove to be even more dangerous to Elizabeth than her traitorous husband. But most disturbing is that Elizabeth is not the only sane woman confined to the institution. There are many rational women on her ward who tell the same story: they've been committed not because they need medical treatment, but to keep them in line - conveniently labeled "crazy" so their voices are ignored.

No one is willing to fight for their freedom and, disenfranchised both by gender and the stigma of their supposed madness, they cannot possibly fight for themselves. But Elizabeth is about to discover that the merit of losing everything is that you then have nothing to lose...]]> 540 Kate Moore 1492696722 Madi 0 to-read 4.29 2021 The Woman They Could Not Silence: One Woman, Her Incredible Fight for Freedom, and the Men Who Tried to Make Her Disappear
author: Kate Moore
name: Madi
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI]]> 204927599 From the author of Sapiens comes the groundbreaking story of how information networks have made, and unmade, our world.

For the last 100,000 years, we Sapiens have accumulated enormous power. But despite allour discoveries, inventions, and conquests, we now find ourselves in an existential crisis. The world is on the verge of ecological collapse. Misinformation abounds. And we are rushing headlong into the age of AI—a new information network that threatens to annihilate us. For all that we have accomplished, why are we so self-destructive?

Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world. Taking us from the Stone Age, through the canonization of the Bible, early modern witch-hunts, Stalinism, Nazism, and the resurgence of populism today, Yuval Noah Harari asks us to consider the complex relationship between information and truth, bureaucracy and mythology, wisdom and power. He explores how different societies and political systems throughout history have wielded information to achieve their goals, for good and ill. And he addresses the urgent choices we face as non-human intelligence threatens our very existence.

Information is not the raw material of truth; neither is it a mere weapon. Nexus explores the hopeful middle ground between these extremes, and in doing so, rediscovers our shared humanity.]]> 528 Yuval Noah Harari 059373422X Madi 0 to-read 4.14 2024 Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Madi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hundred Years� War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917�2017]]> 41812831
In 1899, Yusuf Diya al-Khalidi, mayor of Jerusalem, alarmed by the Zionist call to create a Jewish national home in Palestine, wrote a letter aimed at Theodore Herzl: the country had an indigenous people who would not easily accept their own displacement. He warned of the perils ahead, ending his note, “in the name of God, let Palestine be left alone.� Thus Rashid Khalidi, al-Khalidi’s great-great-nephew, begins this sweeping history, the first general account of the conflict told from an explicitly Palestinian perspective.

Drawing on a wealth of untapped archival materials and the reports of generations of family members—mayors, judges, scholars, diplomats, and journalists—The Hundred Years' War on Palestine upends accepted interpretations of the conflict, which tend, at best, to describe a tragic clash between two peoples with claims to the same territory. Instead, Khalidi traces a hundred years of colonial war on the Palestinians, waged first by the Zionist movement and then Israel, but backed by Britain and the United States, the great powers of the age. He highlights the key episodes in this colonial campaign, from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to the destruction of Palestine in 1948, from Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon to the endless and futile peace process.

Original, authoritative, and important, The Hundred Years' War on Palestine is not a chronicle of victimization, nor does it whitewash the mistakes of Palestinian leaders or deny the emergence of national movements on both sides. In reevaluating the forces arrayed against the Palestinians, it offers an illuminating new view of a conflict that continues to this day.]]> 336 Rashid Khalidi 1627798552 Madi 0 to-read 4.50 2020 The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917–2017
author: Rashid Khalidi
name: Madi
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty]]> 56382342
When eleven-year-old Cornelius Vanderbilt began to work on his father’s small boat ferrying supplies in New York Harbor at the beginning of the nineteenth century, no one could have imagined that one day he would, through ruthlessness, cunning, and a pathological desire for money, build two empires—one in shipping and another in railroads—that would make him the richest man in America. His staggering fortune was fought over by his heirs after his death in 1877, sowing familial discord that would never fully heal. Though his son Billy doubled the money left by “the Commodore,� subsequent generations competed to find new and ever more extraordinary ways of spending it. By 2018, when the last Vanderbilt was forced out of The Breakers—the seventy-room summer estate in Newport, Rhode Island, that Cornelius’s grandson and namesake had built—the family would have been unrecognizable to the tycoon who started it all.

Now, the Commodore’s great-great-great-grandson Anderson Cooper, joins with historian Katherine Howe to explore the story of his legendary family and their outsized influence. Cooper and Howe breathe life into the ancestors who built the family’s empire, basked in the Commodore’s wealth, hosted lavish galas, and became synonymous with unfettered American capitalism and high society. Moving from the hardscrabble wharves of old Manhattan to the lavish drawing rooms of Gilded Age Fifth Avenue, from the ornate summer palaces of Newport to the courts of Europe, and all the way to modern-day New York, Cooper and Howe wryly recount the triumphs and tragedies of an American dynasty unlike any other.

Written with a unique insider’s viewpoint, this is a rollicking, quintessentially American history as remarkable as the family it so vividly captures.]]> 317 Anderson Cooper 0062964615 Madi 0 to-read 3.75 2021 Vanderbilt: The Rise and Fall of an American Dynasty
author: Anderson Cooper
name: Madi
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz]]> 51187948
On Winston Churchill's first day as prime minister, Hitler invaded Holland and Belgium. Poland and Czechoslovakia had already fallen, and the Dunkirk evacuation was just two weeks away. For the next twelve months, Hitler would wage a relentless bombing campaign, killing 45,000 Britons. It was up to Churchill to hold the country together and persuade President Franklin Roosevelt that Britain was a worthy ally-and willing to fight to the end.

In The Splendid and the Vile, Erik Larson shows, in cinematic detail, how Churchill taught the British people "the art of being fearless." It is a story of political brinkmanship, but it's also an intimate domestic drama set against the backdrop of Churchill's prime-ministerial country home, Chequers; his wartime retreat, Ditchley, where he and his entourage go when the moon is brightest and the bombing threat is highest; and of course 10 Downing Street in London.

Drawing on diaries, original archival documents, and once-secret intelligence reports-some released only recently-Larson provides a new lens on London's darkest year through the day-to-day experience of Churchill and his wife, Clementine; their youngest daughter, Mary, who chafes against her parents' wartime protectiveness; their son, Randolph, and his beautiful, unhappy wife, Pamela; Pamela's illicit lover, a dashing American emissary; and the cadre of close advisers who comprised Churchill's "Secret Circle," including his lovestruck private secretary, John Colville; newspaper baron Lord Beaverbrook; and the Rasputin-like Frederick Lindemann.

The Splendid and the Vile takes readers out of today's political dysfunction and back to a time of true leadership, when-in the face of unrelenting horror-Churchill's eloquence, courage, and perseverance bound a country, and a family, together."--]]> 546 Erik Larson 038534872X Madi 0 to-read 4.30 2020 The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz
author: Erik Larson
name: Madi
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> Maybe in Another Life 23492661
From the acclaimed author of Forever, Interrupted and After I Do comes a breathtaking new novel about a young woman whose fate hinges on the choice she makes after bumping into an old flame; in alternating chapters, we see two possible scenarios unfold—with stunningly different results.

At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived in six different cities and held countless meaningless jobs since graduating college. On the heels of leaving yet another city, Hannah moves back to her hometown of Los Angeles and takes up residence in her best friend Gabby’s guestroom. Shortly after getting back to town, Hannah goes out to a bar one night with Gabby and meets up with her high school boyfriend, Ethan.

Just after midnight, Gabby asks Hannah if she’s ready to go. A moment later, Ethan offers to give her a ride later if she wants to stay. Hannah hesitates. What happens if she leaves with Gabby? What happens if she leaves with Ethan?

In concurrent storylines, Hannah lives out the effects of each decision. Quickly, these parallel universes develop into radically different stories with large-scale consequences for Hannah, as well as the people around her. As the two alternate realities run their course, Maybe in Another Life raises questions about fate and true love: Is anything meant to be? How much in our life is determined by chance? And perhaps, most compellingly: Is there such a thing as a soul mate?

Hannah believes there is. And, in both worlds, she believes she’s found him.]]> 342 Taylor Jenkins Reid Madi 2 3.77 2015 Maybe in Another Life
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Madi
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/27
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]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Madi 1 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Madi
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2024/07/23
date added: 2025/03/27
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]]> Before We Were Innocent 61407616 A summer in Greece for three best friends ends in the unthinkable when only two return home in this new novel from Ella Berman. . . .

Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.

While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .

Except now Joni is tangled up in a crime eerily similar to that one fateful night in Greece. And when she asks Bess to come back to LA to support her, Bess has a decision to make.

Is it finally time to face up to what happened that night, exposing herself as the young woman she once was and maybe still is? And what happens if she doesn’t like what she finds?]]> 384 Ella Berman 0593099540 Madi 2 3.36 2023 Before We Were Innocent
author: Ella Berman
name: Madi
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> <![CDATA[A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4)]]> 213075289 Prepare for the jaw-dropping finale of Sabaa Tahir's beloved New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes fantasy series, and discover: Who will survive the storm?

Picking up just a few months after A Reaper at the Gates left off...

The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning.

By his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.

Laia of Serra, now allied with the Blood Shrike, struggles to recover from the loss of the two people most important to her. Determined to stop the approaching apocalypse, she throws herself into the destruction of the Nightbringer. In the process, she awakens an ancient power that could lead her to victory--or to an unimaginable doom.

And deep in the Waiting Place, the Soul Catcher seeks only to forget the life--and love--he left behind. Yet doing so means ignoring the trail of murder left by the Nightbringer and his jinn. To uphold his oath and protect the human world from the supernatural, the Soul Catcher must look beyond the borders of his own land. He must take on a mission that could save--or destroy--all that he knows.]]> 544 Sabaa Tahir 044849454X Madi 0 to-read 4.24 2020 A Sky Beyond the Storm (An Ember in the Ashes, #4)
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Madi
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/26
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]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Madi 4 4.65 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Madi
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> <![CDATA[The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)]]> 216351856 When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

A wedding. A heist. A secret.

Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.

But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone's surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.

The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about Gran’s true-to-life fairytale, a young girl to the manor born, the only child of a wealthy magnate. But when Gran falls head over heels in love with a young man her parents deem below her station, her life is thrown into turmoil. As fate would have it, the greatest love of Gran’s life is someone Molly knows quite well�.

Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real.

A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593875419 Madi 0 to-read 4.01 2025 The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)
author: Nita Prose
name: Madi
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> <![CDATA[How to Seal Your Own Fate (Castle Knoll Files, #2)]]> 216970887
Present day: Annie Adams is just settling into life in Castle Knoll when local fortune teller Peony Lane crosses her path and shares a cryptic message. When Peony Lane is found dead only hours later inside the locked Gravesdown Estate, Annie quickly realizes that someone is out to make her look guilty while silencing Peony at the same time. Annie has no choice but to delve into the dark secrets of Castle Knoll in order to find out just what Peony Lane was trying to warn her about, before the new life she’s just begun to build comes crashing down around her.

1967: A year has passed since her friend Emily disappeared, and teenage Frances Adams finds herself caught between two men. Ford Gravesdown is one of the only remaining members of a family known for its wealth and dubious uses of power. Archie Foyle is a local who can’t hold down a job and lives above the village pub. But when Frances teams up with Archie to investigate the car crash that claimed the lives of Ford’s family, it quickly becomes clear that this was no accident—hints of cover-ups, lies, and betrayals abound. The question is, just how far does the blackness creep through the heart of Castle Knoll? When Frances uncovers secrets kept by both Ford and Archie, she starts to wonder: What exactly has she gotten herself into?]]> 320 Kristen Perrin 059347404X Madi 0 to-read 3.95 2025 How to Seal Your Own Fate (Castle Knoll Files, #2)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: Madi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> Gifted & Talented 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 Madi 0 to-read 3.92 2025 Gifted & Talented
author: Olivie Blake
name: Madi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> The River Has Roots 211004176 Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.�

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters� bond but also their lives will be at risk…]]> 133 Amal El-Mohtar 1250341086 Madi 0 to-read 4.20 2025 The River Has Roots
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Madi
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> Hello, Molly!: A Memoir 58541424 A candid, compulsively readable, hilarious, and heartbreaking memoir of resilience and redemption by comedic genius Molly Shannon

At age four, Molly Shannon's world was shattered when she lost her mother, baby sister, and cousin in a car accident with her father at the wheel. Held together by her tender and complicated relationship with her grieving father, Molly was raised in a permissive household where her gift for improvising and role-playing blossomed alongside the fearlessness that would lead her to become a celebrated actress.

From there, Molly ventured into the wider world of New York and Los Angeles show business, where she created her own opportunities and developed her daring and empathetic comedy. Filled with behind-the-scenes stories involving everyone from Whitney Houston to Adam Sandler to Monica Lewinsky, many told for the first time here, Hello, Molly! spans Molly's time on Saturday Night Live—where she starred alongside Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Cheri Oteri, Tracy Morgan, and Jimmy Fallon, among many others. At the same time, it explores with humor and candor her struggle to come to terms with the legacy of her father, a man who both fostered her gifts and drive and was left with the impossible task of raising his kids alone after the loss of her mother.

Witty, winning, and told with tremendous energy and heart, Hello, Molly!, written with Sean Wilsey, sheds new and revelatory light on the life and work of one of our most talented and free-spirited performers.]]> 291 Molly Shannon 0063056232 Madi 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Hello, Molly!: A Memoir
author: Molly Shannon
name: Madi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> The Pairing 199440249 definitely not.

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.

Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.]]> 432 Casey McQuiston 1250862744 Madi 1 3.70 2024 The Pairing
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Madi
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> A Novel Love Story 199261152 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.]]> 368 Ashley Poston 0593640977 Madi 2 3.62 2024 A Novel Love Story
author: Ashley Poston
name: Madi
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> Sucker Punch: Essays 211003937 The long-awaited follow-up from one of the most original and hilarious voices writing today.

Scaachi Koul’s first book was a collection of raw, perceptive, and hilarious essays reckoning with the issues of race, body image, love, friendship, and growing up the daughter of immigrants. When the time came to start writing her next book, Scaachi assumed she’d be updating her story with essays about her elaborate four-day wedding, settling down to domestic bliss, and continuing her never-ending arguments with her parents. Instead, the Covid pandemic hit, the world went into lockdown, Scaachi’s marriage fell apart, she lost her job, and her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

Sucker Punch is about what happens when the life you thought you’d be living radically changes course, everything you thought you knew about the world and yourself has tilted on its axis, and you have to start forging a new path forward. Scaachi employs her signature humor and fierce intelligence to interrogate her previous belief that fighting is the most effective tool for progress. She examines the fights she’s had—with her parents, her ex-husband, her friends, online strangers, and herself—all in an attempt to understand when a fight is worth having, and when it's better to walk away.]]> 272 Scaachi Koul 1250270502 Madi 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Sucker Punch: Essays
author: Scaachi Koul
name: Madi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
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]]> Brave New World 5129 Brave New World is a searching vision of an unequal, technologically-advanced future where humans are genetically bred, socially indoctrinated, and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold an authoritarian ruling order–all at the cost of our freedom, full humanity, and perhaps also our souls. “A genius [who] who spent his life decrying the onward march of the Machine� (The New Yorker), Huxley was a man of incomparable talents: equally an artist, a spiritual seeker, and one of history’s keenest observers of human nature and civilization. Brave New World, his masterpiece, has enthralled and terrified millions of readers, and retains its urgent relevance to this day as both a warning to be heeded as we head into tomorrow and as thought-provoking, satisfying work of literature. Written in the shadow of the rise of fascism during the 1930s, Brave New Worldd likewise speaks to a 21st-century world dominated by mass-entertainment, technology, medicine and pharmaceuticals, the arts of persuasion, and the hidden influence of elites.

"Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." —Chicago Tribune]]> 268 Aldous Huxley 0060929871 Madi 4 3.99 1932 Brave New World
author: Aldous Huxley
name: Madi
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1932
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> Becoming 38746485
In her memoir, a work of deep reflection and mesmerizing storytelling, Michelle Obama invites readers into her world, chronicling the experiences that have shaped her—from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world’s most famous address. With unerring honesty and lively wit, she describes her triumphs and her disappointments, both public and private, telling her full story as she has lived it—in her own words and on her own terms. Warm, wise, and revelatory, Becoming is the deeply personal reckoning of a woman of soul and substance who has steadily defied expectations—and whose story inspires us to do the same.]]> 426 Michelle Obama 1524763136 Madi 4 4.42 2018 Becoming
author: Michelle Obama
name: Madi
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> The Amityville Horror 293101
In December 1975, the Lutz family moved into their dream home, the same home where Ronald DeFeo had murdered his parents, brothers and sisters just one year earlier.

The psychic phenomena that followed created the most terrifying experience the Lutz family had ever encountered, forcing them to flee the house in 28 days, convinced that it was possessed by evil spirits.

Their fantastic story, never before disclosed in full detail, makes for an unforgettable book with all the shocks and gripping suspense of The Exorcist, The Omen or Rosemary's Baby, but with one vital difference...the story is true.]]> 315 Jay Anson 0553116606 Madi 3 3.85 1977 The Amityville Horror
author: Jay Anson
name: Madi
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1977
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> Love on the Brain 59571699 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis comes a new STEMinist rom-com in which a scientist is forced to work on a project with her nemesis—with explosive results.

Bee Königswasser lives by a simple code: What would Marie Curie do? If NASA offered her the lead on a neuroengineering project - a literal dream come true - Marie would accept without hesitation. Duh. But the mother of modern physics never had to co-lead with Levi Ward.

Sure, Levi is attractive in a tall, dark, and piercing-eyes kind of way. But Levi made his feelings toward Bee very clear in grad school - archenemies work best employed in their own galaxies far, far away.

But when her equipment starts to go missing and the staff ignore her, Bee could swear she sees Levi softening into an ally, backing her plays, seconding her ideas... devouring her with those eyes. The possibilities have all her neurons firing.

But when it comes time to actually make a move and put her heart on the line, there's only one question that matters: What will Bee Königswasser do?]]> 368 Ali Hazelwood 1408725789 Madi 3 3.88 2022 Love on the Brain
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Madi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Language of the Body: Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, Free Your Mind]]> 199793430 352 Jennifer Mann 0063382385 Madi 0 to-read 4.04 The Secret Language of the Body: Regulate Your Nervous System, Heal Your Body, Free Your Mind
author: Jennifer Mann
name: Madi
average rating: 4.04
book published:
rating: 0
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]]> The Screwtape Letters 8130077
C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters has entertained and enlightened readers the world over with its sly and ironic portrayal of human life and foibles from the unique vantage point of Screwtape, a highly placed assistant to “Our Father Below.� At once wildly comic, deadly serious, and strikingly original, C.S. Lewisgives us the correspondence of the wordly-wise devil to his nephew Wormwood, a novice demon in charge of securing the damnation of an ordinary young man. The Screwtape Lettersis the most engaging account of temptation—and triumph over it—ever written.]]> 222 C.S. Lewis Madi 3 4.37 1942 The Screwtape Letters
author: C.S. Lewis
name: Madi
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1942
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> Annie Bot 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 Madi 3 3.81 2024 Annie Bot
author: Sierra Greer
name: Madi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Woman Who Fooled the World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con, and the Darkness at the Heart of the Wellness Industry]]> 36579192 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781925548594.

Belle Gibson convinced the world she had healed herself of terminal brain cancer by eating a healthy diet. She built a global business based on her story. There was just one problem: she never had cancer in the first place.

In 2015, journalists uncovered the truth behind Gibson’s lies. This hero of the wellness world, with more than 200,000 followers, international book deals, and a best-selling mobile app, was a fraud. She had lied about having cancer--to her family and friends, to her business partners and publishers, and to the hundreds of thousands of people who were inspired by her, including real cancer survivors.

Written by the two journalists who uncovered the details of Gibson’s deception, The Woman Who Fooled the World tracks the 23-year-old's rise to fame and fall from grace. Told through interviews with the people who know her best, it explores the lure of alternative cancer treatments, exposes the darkness at the heart of the wellness and "clean eating" movements, and reveals just how easy it is to manipulate people on social media.

With the idea of clean eating now routinely debunked by dietary experts, and growing skepticism about the authenticity of what we read online, The Woman Who Fooled the World is a timely and important book that answers not just how, but why, Gibson was able to fool so many.]]> 322 Beau Donelly Madi 0 to-read 4.16 2017 The Woman Who Fooled the World: Belle Gibson's Cancer Con, and the Darkness at the Heart of the Wellness Industry
author: Beau Donelly
name: Madi
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Bridget Jones, #3)]]> 17345218
Is it better to die of Botox or die of loneliness because you’re so wrinkly?

Is it wrong to lie about your age when online dating?

Is it morally wrong to have a blow-dry when one of your children has head lice?

Is it normal to be too vain to put on your reading glasses when checking your toy boy for head lice?

Does the Dalai Lama actually tweet or is it his assistant?

Is it normal to get fewer followers the more you tweet?

Is technology now the fifth element? Or is that wood?

If you put lip plumper on your hands do you get plump hands?

Is sleeping with someone after two dates and six weeks of texting the same as getting married after two meetings and six months of letter writing in Jane Austen’s day?

Pondering these and other modern dilemmas, Bridget Jones stumbles through the challenges of loss, single motherhood, tweeting, texting, technology, and rediscovering her sexuality in—Warning! Bad, outdated phrase approaching!—middle age.

In a triumphant return after fourteen years of silence, Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy is timely, tender, touching, page-turning, witty, wise, outrageous, and bloody hilarious.

"How can a reader not love this woman?" -The New York Times
"Fielding is a wonderful comic novelist." -Time
"One of the most enchanting heroines to ever overdraw her bank account." -USA
Today
"A brilliant comic creation. Even men will laugh." -Salman Rushdie
"Bridget Jones is a joy and a comfort, and Helen Fielding is bloody great."
-Mademoiselle
"Helen Fielding is one of the funniest writers alive and Bridget Jones is a creation of
comic genius." -Nick Hornby]]> 390 Helen Fielding 0385350864 Madi 0 to-read 3.40 2013 Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Bridget Jones, #3)
author: Helen Fielding
name: Madi
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> Immaculate Conception 217453576 From the author of Natural Beauty, set in the fiercely competitive art world, a novel about an obsessive friendship upended by a cutting-edge technology purported to enhance empathy and connection

Enka meets Mathilde in art school. Mathilde is a dizzyingly talented yet tortured artist whose star is on the rise—and Enka, struggling to make art that feels original, is immediately drawn to her. The two strike up an intense bond that soon turns codependent. But when Mathilde’s fame reaches new heights, Enka becomes desperate to keep her best friend close—no matter the cost.

Enka quickly falls in love with and marries a billionaire whose family’s company is funding an unconventional technology purported to heighten empathy, which could allow someone else to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and absorb the trauma from her brain. Soon, the boundaries between Mathilde and Enka begin to blur even further, setting in motion a disturbing series of events that forever changes their lives.

Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception deftly navigates big questions of art, technology, authorship, and what makes us human. Ling Ling Huang offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.]]> 304 Ling Ling Huang 0593850432 Madi 0 to-read 4.24 2025 Immaculate Conception
author: Ling Ling Huang
name: Madi
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
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]]> I Leave It Up to You 214269353 From the award-winning author of Flux comes a dazzling novel about love, family, and the art of sushi that asks: What if you could return to the point of a fateful choice, wiser than before, and find the courage to forge a new path?

A coma can change a man, but the world Jack Jr. awakens to is one he barely recognizes. His advertising job is history, his Manhattan apartment is gone, and the love of his life has left him behind. He’s been asleep for two years; with no one to turn to, he realizes it’s been ten years since he last saw his family.

Lost and disoriented, he makes a reluctant homecoming back to the bustling Korean American enclave of Fort Lee, New Jersey; back into the waiting arms of his parents, who are operating under the illusion he never left; and back to Joja, their ever-struggling sushi restaurant that he was set to inherit before he ran away from it all. As he steps back into the life he abandoned—learning his Appa’s life lessons over crates of tuna on bleary-eyed 4 AM fish runs, doling out amberjack behind the omakase counter while his Umma tallies the night's pitiful number of customers, and sparring with his recovering alcoholic brother, James—he embraces new roles, That of romantic interest to the male nurse who took care of him throughout, and that of sage (but underqualified) uncle to his gangly teenage nephew.

There is value in the joyous rhythms of this once-abandoned life. But second chances are an even messier business than running a restaurant, and the lure of a self-determined path might, once again, prove too hard to resist.

Why do we run from those we love, and why do we still love those who run from us? A highly entertaining and poignant story about second chances and self-discovery, I Leave It Up to You pilots through the loss, love, and absurdity of finding one’s footing after the ground gives way.]]> 311 Jinwoo Chong 0593727053 Madi 0 to-read 4.03 2025 I Leave It Up to You
author: Jinwoo Chong
name: Madi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman]]> 33257571 From celebrity gossip expert and BuzzFeed culture writer Anne Helen Petersen comes an accessible, analytical look at how female celebrities are pushing boundaries of what it means to be an "acceptable" woman.

You know the type: the woman who won't shut up, who's too brazen, too opinionated--too much. It's not that she's an outcast (she might even be your friend or your wife, or your mother) so much as she's a social variable. Sometimes, she's the life of the party; others, she's the center of gossip. She's the unruly woman, and she's one of the most provocative, powerful forms of womanhood today.

There have been unruly women for as long as there have been boundaries of what constitutes acceptable "feminine" behavior, but there's evidence that she's on the rise--more visible and less easily dismissed--than ever before. In Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud, Anne Helen Petersen uses the lens of "unruliness" to explore the ascension of eleven contemporary powerhouses: Serena Williams, Melissa McCarthy, Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer, Nicki Minaj, Kim Kardashian, Hillary Clinton, Caitlyn Jenner, Jennifer Weiner, and Lena Dunham.

Petersen explores why the public loves to love (and hate) these controversial figures, each of whom has been conceived as "too" something: too queer, too strong, too honest, too old, too pregnant, too shrill, too much. With its brisk, incisive analysis, Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud will be a conversation-starting book on what makes and breaks celebrity today.]]> 234 Anne Helen Petersen 0399576851 Madi 0 to-read 3.76 2017 Too Fat, Too Slutty, Too Loud: The Rise and Reign of the Unruly Woman
author: Anne Helen Petersen
name: Madi
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/03
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color]]> 53260224 This explosive book of history and cultural criticism argues that white feminism has been a weapon of white supremacy and patriarchy deployed against Black and Indigenous women and all colonized women. It offers a long-overdue validation of the experiences of women of color. Taking us from the slave era—when white women fought in court to keep "ownership" of their slaves—through the centuries of colonialism—when they offered a soft face for brutal tactics—to the modern workplace, White Tears/Brown Scars

Examining subjects as varied as The Hunger Games, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the viral BBQ Becky video, and nineteenth-century lynchings of Mexicans in the American Southwest, Ruby Hamad builds a powerful argument about the entrenched systems of white supremacy that we are socialized within, a reality that we must apprehend in order to fight.]]> 284 Ruby Hamad 194822674X Madi 5 4.56 2020 White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color
author: Ruby Hamad
name: Madi
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)]]> 27840861 Alternate cover of ISBN 9781627792134

When you can't beat the odds, change the game.

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

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

A war will be waged on the city's dark and twisting streets - a battle for revenge and redemption that will decide the fate of the Grisha world.]]> 546 Leigh Bardugo Madi 0 to-read 4.62 2016 Crooked Kingdom (Six of Crows, #2)
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Madi
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> <![CDATA[Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)]]> 177188685
She is a beautiful, affluent, self-involved, and mildly neurotic London socialite. He is Britain’s most photographed bad boy who broke her heart.

Magnolia Parks and BJ Ballentine are meant to be, and everyone knows it.

She dates other people to keep him at bay; he sleeps with other girls to get back at her for it. But at the end of every sad endeavor to get over one another, it’s still each other they crawl back to.

But now their dysfunction is catching up with them, pulling at their seams and fraying the world they’ve built; a world where neither has ever let the other go completely.

As the cracks start to show and secrets begin to surface, Magnolia and BJ are finally forced to face the formidable question they’ve been avoiding all their How many loves do you really get in a lifetime?]]> 448 Jessa Hastings 0593474864 Madi 1 3.73 2021 Magnolia Parks (The Magnolia Parks Universe, #1)
author: Jessa Hastings
name: Madi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
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]]> <![CDATA[New Moon: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1]]> 13499154 New Moon, Bella and Edward find themselves facing new obstacles, including a devastating separation, the mysterious appearance of dangerous wolves roaming the forest in Forks, a terrifying threat of revenge from a female vampire and a deliciously sinister encounter with Italy's reigning royal family of vampires: the Volturi.]]> 160 Young Kim 0316217182 Madi 3 4.27 2012 New Moon: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1
author: Young Kim
name: Madi
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> Not in Love 198972014 A forbidden, secret affair proves that all’s fair in love and science—from New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.

Rue Siebert might not have it all, but she has enough: a few friends she can always count on, the financial stability she yearned for as a kid, and a successful career as a biotech engineer at Kline, one of the most promising start-ups in the field of food science. Her world is stable, pleasant, and hard-fought. Until a hostile takeover and its offensively attractive front man threatens to bring it all crumbling down.

Eli Killgore and his business partners want Kline, period. Eli has his own reasons for pushing this deal through—and he’s a man who gets what he wants. With one burning exception: Rue. The woman he can’t stop thinking about. The woman who's off-limits to him.

Torn between loyalty and an undeniable attraction, Rue and Eli throw caution out the lab and the boardroom windows. Their affair is secret, no-strings-attached, and has a built-in deadline: the day one of their companies will prevail. But the heart is risky business—one that plays for keeps.]]> 384 Ali Hazelwood 0593641043 Madi 1 3.60 2024 Not in Love
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Madi
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #1)]]> 402013 There are six things very wrong with my life:

1. I have one of those under-the-skin spots that will never come to a head but lurk in a red way for the next two years.

2. It is on my nose

3. I have a three-year-old sister who may have peed somewhere in my room.

4. In fourteen days the summer hols will be over and then it will be back to Stalag 14 and Oberfuhrer Frau Simpson and her bunch of sadistic teachers.

5. I am very ugly and need to go into an ugly home.

6. I went to a party dressed as a stuffed olive.


In this wildly funny journal of a year in the life of Georgia Nicolson, British author Louise Rennison has perfectly captured the soaring joys and bottomless angst of being a teenager. In the spirit of Bridget Jones's Diary, this fresh, irreverent, and simply hilarious book will leave you laughing out loud. As Georgia would say, it's "Fabbity fab fab!"

]]> 247 Louise Rennison 0060288140 Madi 4 3.76 1999 Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging (Confessions of Georgia Nicolson, #1)
author: Louise Rennison
name: Madi
average rating: 3.76
book published: 1999
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2]]> 11450360
The second volume of The Graphic Novel completes the visual adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's worldwide bestselling debut novel and is a must-have for any collector's library.]]> 240 Young Kim 0316133191 Madi 3 4.28 2011 Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 2
author: Young Kim
name: Madi
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> The Things We Didn’t Know 176442848
Andrea Rodríguez is nine years old when her mother whisks her and her brother, Pablo, away from Woronoco, the tiny Massachusetts factory town that is the only home they’ve known. With no plan and no money, she leaves them with family in the mountainside villages of Puerto Rico and promises to return.

Months later, when Andrea and Pablo are brought back to Massachusetts, they find their hometown significantly changed. As they navigate the rifts between their family’s values and all-American culture and face the harsh realities of growing up, they must embrace both the triumphs and heartache that mark the journey to adulthood.

A heartfelt, evocative portrait of another side of life in 1950s America, The Things We Didn’t Know establishes Elba Iris Pérez as a sensational new literary voice.]]> 320 Elba Iris Pérez 1668012065 Madi 0 to-read 3.83 2024 The Things We Didn’t Know
author: Elba Iris Pérez
name: Madi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
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]]> Deep End 212806619 A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...]]> 446 Ali Hazelwood 0593641051 Madi 1 3.90 2025 Deep End
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Madi
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Cruel Winter with You (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #1)]]> 220389458 New York Times bestselling author Ali Hazelwood.

All newly minted pediatrician Jamie Malek wants is to borrow a roasting pan for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, that requires her to interact with Marc—her best friend’s troublemaking brother, who’s now a tech billionaire. He’s the one who got away. She’s the one who broke his heart. Outside, a howling blizzard. Inside, a crackling fire. Suddenly, being snowbound with the man she never expected to see again might not be such a bad way to spend a winter’s night.

Ali Hazelwood’s Cruel Winter with You is part of Under the Mistletoe, a stirring collection of December romances that thrill and tingle all the way. They can be read or listened to in one swoony sitting.]]> 73 Ali Hazelwood 1662528396 Madi 1 3.68 2024 Cruel Winter with You (Under the Mistletoe Collection, #1)
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Madi
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
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]]> One Italian Summer 58438583
But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.]]> 255 Rebecca Serle 1982166797 Madi 1 Right?
Guys!

This girl has a hard on and it’s not for her hubbie ]]> 3.56 2022 One Italian Summer
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Madi
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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It’s okay to cheat if you did it in the past right???
Right?
Guys!

This girl has a hard on and it’s not for her hubbie
]]> Lights Out 212009455 The viral TikTok stalker dark romance, burning with high heat, hilarious banter, and a love story like you’ve never seen before. Can you handle the ride?

I want someone with a soul as black as night. Someone who would burn the world down for me and not lose a single minute of sleep over it.

Trauma nurse Alyssa Cappellucci doesn’t need any more kinks. She likes the one she’s landed on just fine. To her, nothing could top the masked men she follows online. Unless one of those men was shirtless, heavily tattooed, and waiting for her in her bedroom. She dreams about being hunted by one in particular, of him chasing her down and doing deliciously dark things to her willing body. She never could have guessed that by sending one drunken text, those dreams would become her new reality.


I want things most people don’t, craving darkness and depravity instead of light and love.

Joshua Hammond has an infamous father—the kind of man that true-crime podcasts love talking about. Josh has spent his life avoiding the limelight, but his online persona is another story. At night, he posts masked thirst traps for his millions of fans to drool over, but one follower has caught his Aly. After reading a comment begging him to break into her house wearing a mask, he decides to take her up on her offer.


Together, Aly and Josh live out their darkest fantasies, unaware that Aly has captured the attention of someone else. Someone with far more sinister intentions than a little light stalking. As Josh turns from predator to protector and the stakes heighten, he must ask himself how far he’s willing to go for the woman he’s obsessed with.


Lights Out is a fast-paced dark romance with a morally gray male lead. Some themes and scenes may be disturbing to readers. Please check the TWs at the beginning of the book.
]]> 338 Navessa Allen Madi 0 to-read 4.40 2024 Lights Out
author: Navessa Allen
name: Madi
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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review:

]]> Flirting with Disaster 211399750 She needs a divorce from her husband—but a hurricane threatens to dredge up their stormy, passionate past in this sizzling reimagining of Sweet Home Alabama from the bestselling author of Say You'll Be Mine.

It's been years since Meena has seen her husband, Nikhil . . . years since they first laid eyes on each other back home in Texas, years since they eloped in Las Vegas and she felt true happiness. A high-powered lawyer on Capitol Hill, ready to move on (or at least, she thinks so) with another successful lawyer, Shake, Meena has returned home. This time, finally, to obtain a divorce.

But there's one thing Meena couldn't have accounted for: a hurricane forming in the Gulf, veering right toward them, giving them no choice but to hunker down in the home they had built together. Suddenly, she finds herself trapped amid gale-force winds and pelting rain with the man she once loved.

As they spend more time together, Meena begins to remember everything that drew her to Nikhil: His small-town charm, his thoughtful nature. . . his absurdly good looks. But things make sense with Shake. He’s steady and ambitious and wants exactly what she wants. She’ll stick to her plan, come hell or high water. But will her windswept heart make the right choice, when the storm settles and the eye passes over?

With sharp observations about second chances at love, ambition and Indian American identity, and with characters who share an undeniable chemistry, Flirting with Disaster is a modern romance with the sensibility of a classic.]]> 320 Naina Kumar 0593723902 Madi 0 to-read 3.59 2025 Flirting with Disaster
author: Naina Kumar
name: Madi
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[This Could Be Us (Skyland, #2)]]> 182762109 fixeseverything. She’s a domestic goddess who's never met a party she couldn't host or a charge she couldn't lead. The one with all the answers and the perfect vinaigrettefor that summer salad. But none of her varied talents can save her when catastrophe strikes, and the life she built with the man who was supposed to be her forever, goespoofin a cloud of betrayal and disillusion.

But there is no time to pout or sulk, or even grieve the life she lost.She's toobusy keeping a roof over her daughters' heads and food on the table.And in the process of saving them all, Soledad rediscovers herself. From the ashes of a life burned to the ground, something bold and new can rise.

But then an unlikely man enters the picture—the forbidden one, the one she shouldn't want but can't seem to resist. She's lost it all before and refuses to repeat hermistakes. Can she trust him? Can she trustherself?

After all she's lost . . .and found . . .can she be brave enough to make room for what could be?]]> 416 Kennedy Ryan 1538706822 Madi 0 to-read 4.37 2024 This Could Be Us (Skyland, #2)
author: Kennedy Ryan
name: Madi
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty]]> 59232998
Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again.

It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio, and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.

She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the dangerous thrill Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits. This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love?

Akwaeke Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.]]> 288 Akwaeke Emezi 1982188707 Madi 0 to-read 3.52 2022 You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: Madi
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> Expiration Dates 176443178
From the New York Times bestselling author of In Five Years and One Italian Summer comes the romance that will define a generation.

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.]]> 272 Rebecca Serle 1982166827 Madi 0 to-read 3.58 2024 Expiration Dates
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Madi
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[King of Battle and Blood (Adrian x Isolde, #1)]]> 56651967
Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king, Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him.

But her assassination attempt is thwarted and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries to kill him again, he will raise her as the undead. Faced with the possibility of becoming the thing she hates most, Isolde seeks other ways to defy him and survive the brutal vampire court.

Except it isn’t the court she fears most � it’s Adrian. Despite their undeniable chemistry, she wonders why the king � fierce, savage, merciless � chose her as consort.

The answer will shatter her world.]]> 391 Scarlett St. Clair Madi 0 to-read 3.66 2021 King of Battle and Blood (Adrian x Isolde, #1)
author: Scarlett St. Clair
name: Madi
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[My Vampire Plus-One (My Vampires, #2)]]> 204640539
Amelia Collins is by definition successful. She would even go so far as to say successfully single. But not according to her family, and she’s tired of the constant questions about her nonexistent dating life. When an invitation to yet another family wedding arrives, she decides to get everyone off her back once and for all by finding someone–anyone–to pose as her date.

After a chance encounter with Reginald Cleaves, Amelia decides he’s perfect for her purposes. He’s a bit strange, but that’s fine; it’ll discourage tough questions from her family. (And it certainly doesn’t hurt that he’s very handsome.) For centuries-old vampire Reggie, posing as her plus-one sounds like the ultimate fun. And if it helps his ruse of pretending to be human, so much the better.

As Amelia and Reggie practice their fauxmance, it becomes clear that Reggie is as loyal to her as the day is long, and that Amelia’s first impressions could not have been more wrong. Suddenly, being in a real relationship with Reggie sounds pretty fang-tastic.]]> 372 Jenna Levine 0593548930 Madi 0 to-read 3.74 2024 My Vampire Plus-One (My Vampires, #2)
author: Jenna Levine
name: Madi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> Slaying the Vampire Conqueror 135685851 Sylina has sacrificed everything for her goddess-her soul, her freedom, her eyes. Life in service to the Arachessen, a cult of the Goddess of Fate, has turned Sylina from orphaned street-rat to disciplined killer, determined to overthrow Glaea's tyrannical king.
But when a brutal vampire conqueror arrives on their shores, Sylina faces an even deadlier adversary. She's tasked with a crucial infiltrate his army, earn his trust... and kill him.
Atrius is a terrifying warrior carving an unstoppable path through Glaea. Yet when Sylina becomes his seer, she glimpses a dark and shocking past-and a side of him that reminds her far too much of parts of herself she'd rather forget.
Sylina's orders are clear. The conqueror cannot live. But as the blood spilled by Glaea's tyrant king runs thicker, her connection with Atrius only grows stronger. A connection forbidden by her vows. A connection that could cost her everything.
Slaying the Vampire Conqueror is a standalone fantasy romance set in the Crowns of Nyaxia world, full of heart-wrenching forbidden romance, dark curses, and epic battles - perfect for fans of The Bridge Kingdom and the From Blood and Ash series. It is an installment of the heart-pounding fantasy romance series, Mortal Enemies to Monster Lovers. If you like forbidden romance, dark curses, bad*ss heroines, and morally-gray heroes, you'll devour this sexy, addictive series.]]> 450 Carissa Broadbent 1957779055 Madi 0 to-read 4.10 2023 Slaying the Vampire Conqueror
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Madi
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> To Have and to Heist 62802776 To exonerate her best friend, one woman must mastermind a jewelry heist during the wedding of the season in this hilarious romantic-comedy caper from the author of The Dating Plan.

Simi Chopra is on a bad-luck streak. She’s lost yet another job, her student loan debt won’t stop growing, her basement apartment is a certifiable flood zone, and now her best friend has been accused of stealing a multimillion-dollar diamond necklace. To put it lightly, she’s desperate for a break—that’s right when Jack waltzes out of the bushes and into her life.

Jack is just as charming as he is mysterious. When he offers to help her find the missing necklace and steal it back, Simi jumps at the chance to clear her friend’s name and collect the substantial reward. But every good heist needs a crew. All she needs to do is transform a ragtag group of strangers into an elite heist crew, infiltrate a high-society wedding and steal the necklace from a dangerous criminal before the happy couple say “I do.� Meanwhile the bride is keeping secrets, a detective with a slow-burn smile keeps showing up at her door, and the ultimate robbery might not be the wedding con, but the way Jack is stealing her heart.]]> 416 Sara Desai 0593548507 Madi 0 to-read 3.50 2023 To Have and to Heist
author: Sara Desai
name: Madi
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[A Daughter of Fair Verona (Daughter of Montague, #1)]]> 199611972 Knives Out meets Bridgerton in Fair Verona, as New York Times bestselling author Christina Dodd kicks off a frothy, irreverent, witty new series with an irresistible premise—Romeo and Juliet’s daughter as a clever, rebellious, fiercely independent young woman in fair Verona—told from the delightfully engaging point of view of the captivating Rosie Montague herself�

"A sharp, determined heroine, a clever historical mystery, sparkling wit, a unique setting, family drama and a dash of romance.”� Amanda Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Lady Has a Past

Once upon a time a young couple met and fell in love. You probably know that story, and how it ended (hint: badly). Only here’s the thing: That’s not how it ended at all.

Romeo and Juliet are alive and well and the parents of seven kids. I’m the oldest, with the emphasis on ‘old’—a certified spinster at twenty, and happy to stay that way. It’s not easy to keep your taste for romance with parents like mine. Picture it—constant monologues, passionate declarations, fighting, making up, making out . . . it’s exhausting.

Each time they’ve presented me with a betrothal, I’ve set out to find the groom-to-be a more suitable bride. After all, someone sensible needs to stay home and manage this household. But their latest match, Duke Stephano, isn’t so easy to palm off on anyone else. The debaucher has had three previous wives—all of whom met unfortunate ends. Conscience forbids me from consigning another woman to that fate. As it turns out, I don’t have to . . .

At our betrothal ball—where, quite by accident, I meet a beautiful young man who makes me wonder if perhaps there is something to love at first sight—I stumble upon Duke Stephano with a dagger in his chest. But who killed him? His late wives� families, his relatives, his mistress, his servants—half of Verona had motive. And when everyone around the Duke begins dying, disappearing, or descending into madness, I know I must uncover the killer . . . before death lies on me like an untimely frost.]]> 296 Christina Dodd 1496750160 Madi 0 to-read 3.71 2024 A Daughter of Fair Verona (Daughter of Montague, #1)
author: Christina Dodd
name: Madi
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Kiss and Spell (Elemental Love, #2)]]> 78537577 A witch without a spell
All Ursula Caraway wished for was to live happily ever after in her hometown of Freya Grove. The self-proclaimed Jersey Shore Witch Princess was set to begin her perfect life—until a twist of fate changed everything. Now, she's telling fortunes to the lovelorn, selling crystals at the local psychic shop, and reclaiming her missing magic. Ursula desperately wishes to shake up her life—so much so, that she’ll do just about anything. Including befriending a very cute, very enchanted prince.

A prince in search of a kiss
Prince Xavier Alder needs to find The One, but his lack of social skills has made that a challenge—and being cursed by the Faerie Queen isn’t helping either. So when Ursula, eager to believe in magic again, agrees to help Xavier find a perfect, curse-breaking kiss before Midsummer, it’s the ideal opportunity for them to get what they want. So long as they don’t let their mutual (and inconvenient) attraction get in the way.]]> 384 Celestine Martin 1538738082 Madi 0 to-read 3.74 2023 Kiss and Spell (Elemental Love, #2)
author: Celestine Martin
name: Madi
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> Best Hex Ever 204640549 A kitchen witch with a penchant for baking and a (literally) cursed love life meets someone who's worth breaking a hex for in this sweet and spicy debut romance.

As a skilled kitchen witch, Dina Whitlock knows her way around a pastry recipe. In fact, she runs her very own London café serving magic-infused pastries for her loyal customers. But only a select few friends know about her magical abilities or the hex that has plagued her love life. It’s hard to fall in love when your partner is guaranteed to have a string of bad luck the second they start to have feelings for you.

Scott Mason is back from traveling the world and is excited to begin his new job as a curator at the British Museum. After leaving London to heal from a brutal breakup two years ago, Scott only now realizes how much he missed out on. Now that his best friend’s wedding is right around the corner, Scott is determined to be the most amazing best man ever, but he doesn’t expect to be bewitched by the maid of honor, who also happens to be the owner of his new favorite café and, more surprisingly, a witch?!

After a weekend in the countryside full of peculiar hedge mazes, palm readings by candlelight, and a midnight Halloween ritual, there’s no denying the chemistry between them. But there’s just one problem: The hex still holds, and Dina knows that Scott is in danger. In the past, she’s always cut her losses, but this time is different. Scott could be the one. Will Dina be able to undo the hex, before it’s too late?]]> 320 Nadia El-Fassi 0593871790 Madi 0 to-read 3.50 2024 Best Hex Ever
author: Nadia El-Fassi
name: Madi
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> The Worst Best Man 43801254 USA TODAY BESTSELLER!

"A romantic comedy that's fun and flirty, young and fresh." � PopSugar

Named one of the Best Romances of 2020 by EW, Cosmo, OprahMag, Buzzfeed, Insider, and NPR!

Mia Sosa delivers a sassy, steamy #ownvoices enemies-to-lovers novel, perfect for fans of Jasmine Guillory, Helen Hoang, and Sally Thorne!

A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn’t lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina’s offered an opportunity that could change her life. There’s just one hitch� she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials.

Marketing expert Max Hartley is determined to make his mark with a coveted hotel client looking to expand its brand. Then he learns he’ll be working with his brother’s whip-smart, stunning—absolutely off-limits—ex-fiancée. And she loathes him.

If they can nail their presentation without killing each other, they’ll both come out ahead. Except Max has been public enemy number one ever since he encouraged his brother to jilt the bride, and Lina’s ready to dish out a little payback of her own.

Soon Lina and Max discover animosity may not be the only emotion creating sparks between them. Still, this star-crossed couple can never be more than temporary playmates because Lina isn’t interested in falling in love and Max refuses to play runner-up to his brother ever again...

"The Worst Best Man is rom-com perfection. . . Sosa has a gift with words that’s infectious and wry, one that keeps the pages turning in delight." � Entertainment Weekly]]> 368 Mia Sosa 0062909886 Madi 0 to-read 3.52 2020 The Worst Best Man
author: Mia Sosa
name: Madi
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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]]> Hello Stranger 61884987 Love isn’t blind, it’s just a little blurry.

Sadie Montgomery never saw what was coming . . . Literally! One minute she’s celebrating the biggest achievement of her life—placing as a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition—the next, she’s lying in a hospital bed diagnosed with a “probably temporary� condition known as face blindness. She can see, but every face she looks at is now a jumbled puzzle of disconnected features. Imagine trying to read a book upside down and in another language. This is Sadie’s new reality with every face she sees.

But, as she struggles to cope, hang on to her artistic dream, work through major family issues, and take care of her beloved dog, Peanut, she falls into—love? Lust? A temporary obsession to distract from the real problems in her life?—with not one man but two very different ones. The timing couldn’t be worse.

If only her life were a little more in focus, Sadie might be able to find her way. But perceiving anything clearly right now seems impossible. Even though there are things we can only find when we aren’t looking. And there are people who show up when we least expect them. And there are always, always other ways of seeing.]]> 323 Katherine Center 1250283787 Madi 0 to-read 3.92 2023 Hello Stranger
author: Katherine Center
name: Madi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com (Cosmic Chaos, #1)]]> 213618276 A hilarious and sexy romance about a woman who gets dropped on a strange planet only to fall for not one, but two, aliens, from the author of I Got Drunk and Yeeted a Love Potion at a Werewolf.

Dorothy Valentine is close to getting her PhD in wildlife biology when she’s attacked by a lion. On the bright side, she’s saved! On the not-so-bright side, it’s because they’re abducted by aliens. In her scramble to escape, Dory and the lion commandeer an escape pod and crash-land on an alien planet that has...dinosaurs?

Dory and her new lion bestie, Toto, are saved in the nick of time by a mysterious and sexy alien, Sol. On their new adventure, they team up with the equally hot, equally dangerous Lok, who may or may not be a war criminal. Whether it be trauma, fate, or intrigue, Dory can’t resist the attraction that’s developing in their trio....

As this ragtag group of misfits explore their new planet, Dory learns more about how and why they’ve all ended up together, battles more prehistoric creatures than she imagined (she imagined...zero), and questions if she even wants to go back home to Earth in this hilarious and steamy alien romance adventure comedy romp.]]> 287 Kimberly Lemming 0593818636 Madi 0 to-read 3.69 2025 I Got Abducted by Aliens and Now I'm Trapped in a Rom-Com (Cosmic Chaos, #1)
author: Kimberly Lemming
name: Madi
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Isabel and the Rogue (The Luna Sisters, #2)]]> 198563728 When a Mexican heiress defies Victorian society to protect her country a British war hero makes it his new mission to protect her�

Isabel Luna Valdés has long since resigned herself to being the “forgotten� Luna sister. But thanks to familial connections to the Mexican ambassador in London, wallflower Isabel is poised to unearth any British intelligence hidden by the ton that might aid Mexico during the French Occupation. Though she slips easily from crowded ballrooms into libraries and private studies, Isabel’s search is hampered by trysting couples and prowling rogues—including the rakish Captain Sirius Dawson.

As a covert agent for the British Home Office, Sirius makes a game of earning the aristocracy’s confidence. He spends his days befriending foolish politicians and seducing well-born ladies in order to learn their secrets. But after he spies a certain sharp-tongued Luna sister lurking in the shadows where no proper debutante should venture, it’s clear Sirius is outmatched, outwitted, and soon to be outmaneuvered by the one woman he can’t resist.

Their mutual attraction is undeniable, but when Isabel discovers private correspondence that could turn the tide of political turmoil in Mexico, she’s willing to do whatever it takes to protect her country—even if this means ignoring her heart and courting danger...]]> 352 Liana De la Rosa 0593440900 Madi 0 to-read 3.81 2024 Isabel and the Rogue (The Luna Sisters, #2)
author: Liana De la Rosa
name: Madi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay]]> 195820983
“There’s no single answer that will solve all our future problems. There’s no magic bullet. Instead there are thousands of answers—at least. You can be one of them if you choose to be.�

Originally published in Essence magazine in the year 2000, Octavia E. Butler’s essay “A Few Rules for Predicting the Future� offers an honest look into the inspiration behind her science fiction novels and the importance of studying history and taking responsibility for our actions if we are to move forward.

Organized into four main rules, this short essay reminds readers to learn from the past, respect the law of consequences, be aware of their perspectives, and count on the surprises. Citing the warning signs of fascism, the illusive effects of fear and wishful thinking, and the unpredictable nature of what is yet to come, Butler shares realistic but hopeful suggestions to shape our future into something good. An inspiring and motivational gift for students and recent graduates, fans of Butler's work, and anyone seeking a brighter day tomorrow, this exquisite gift book includes stunning Afrofuturist artwork by Manzel Bowman alongside the full text of the original essay.

LITERARY Octavia E. Butler was a pioneering science fiction writer whose novels, written decades ago, remain eerily relevant, reflecting on themes of racial injustice, women’s rights, environmental collapse, and political corruption. In 1995, she became the first science fiction author to win a MacArthur Genius grant, and her books are taught in over 200 colleges and universities nationwide. This book shares Butler's timely but lesser-known essay and is a must-read for fans of her classic sci-fi works.

CELEBRATE BLACK This book spotlights one of the greatest authors of Afrofuturism, a genre and philosophy that explores and reimagines Black culture, creativity, and liberation through fiction, art, music, film, and other media. Octavia E. Butler’s forward-thinking essay is paired with contemporary illustrations by Manzel Bowman, whose evocative images are also inspired by Afrofuturist visions.

INSPIRING A unique gift for students, recent graduates, and anyone celebrating life milestones or looking forward in life, this beautifully designed hardcover book is sure to inspire. Octavia E. Butler’s essay is also an important, evergreen reminder for writers, creatives, dreamers, and activists who want to envision and work toward a brighter future.

Perfect ]]> 56 Octavia E. Butler 1797229052 Madi 0 to-read 4.35 2000 A Few Rules for Predicting the Future: An Essay
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Madi
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice]]> 58890953 A landmark biography by two prizewinning Washington Post reporters that reveals how systemic racism shaped George Floyd's life and legacy--from his family's roots in the tobacco fields of North Carolina, to ongoing inequality in housing, education, health care, criminal justice, and policing--telling the singular story of how one man's tragic experience brought about a global movement for change.

The events of that day are now tragically familiar: on May 25, 2020, George Floyd became the latest Black person to die at the hands of the police, murdered outside of a Minneapolis convenience store by white officer Derek Chauvin. The video recording of his death set off a series of protests in the United States and around the world, awakening millions to the dire need for reimagining this country's broken systems of policing. But behind a face that would be graffitied onto countless murals, and a name that has become synonymous with civil rights, there is the reality of one man's stolen life: a life beset by suffocating systemic pressures that ultimately proved inescapable.

This biography of George Floyd shows the athletic young boy raised in the projects of Houston's Third Ward who would become a father, a partner, a friend, and a man constantly in search of a better life. In retracing Floyd's story, Washington Post reporters Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa bring to light the determination Floyd carried as he faced the relentless struggle to survive as a Black man in America. Placing his narrative within the larger context of America's deeply troubled history of institutional racism, His Name Is George Floyd examines the Floyd family's roots in slavery and sharecropping, the segregation of his Houston schools, the overpolicing of his communities, the devastating snares of the prison system, and his attempts to break free from drug dependence--putting today's inequality into uniquely human terms. Drawing upon hundreds of interviews and extensive original reporting, Samuels and Olorunnipa offer a poignant and moving exploration of George Floyd's America, revealing how a man who simply wanted to breathe ended up touching the world.]]> 432 Robert Samuels 0593490614 Madi 0 to-read 4.50 2022 His Name Is George Floyd: One Man's Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice
author: Robert Samuels
name: Madi
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business]]> 123195171 Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society—state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, women’s rights post-Dobbs, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy—alongside more individual topics: Can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily 8 am meeting?

In her role as a New York Times opinion section contributor and the publication’s “Work Friend� columnist, Gay reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights. Opinions is a collection of her best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years. Covering a wide range of topics—politics, feminism, the culture wars, civil rights, and much more—with an all-new introduction in which she reflects on the past decade in America, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Roxane Gay’s devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.]]> 320 Roxane Gay 0063341468 Madi 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Opinions: A Decade of Arguments, Criticism, and Minding Other People's Business
author: Roxane Gay
name: Madi
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Thicker than Water: A Memoir 88564046
While on a drive in Los Angeles, on a seemingly average afternoon, Kerry Washington received a text message that would send her on a life-changing journey of self-discovery. In an instant, her very identity was torn apart, with everything she thought she knew about herself thrown into question.

In Thicker than Water, Washington gives readers an intimate view into both her public and private worlds—as a mother, daughter, wife, artist, advocate, and trailblazer. Chronicling her upbringing and life’s journey thus far, she reveals how she faced a series of challenges and setbacks, effectively hid childhood traumas, met extraordinary mentors, managed to grow her career, and crossed the threshold into stardom and political advocacy, ultimately discovering her truest self and, with it, a deeper sense of belonging.

Throughout this profoundly moving and beautifully written memoir, Washington attempts to answer the questions so many have struggled Who am I? What is my truest and most authentic self? How do I find a deeper sense of connection and belonging? With grace and honesty, she inspires readers to search for—and find—themselves.]]> 320 Kerry Washington 0316497398 Madi 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Thicker than Water: A Memoir
author: Kerry Washington
name: Madi
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Another Word for Love: A Memoir]]> 195790838
We are born, and life breaks us. We spend the rest of our lives trying to put ourselves back together. “To return, to be made whole again. This is another word for love,� writes Carvell Wallace. In Another Word for Love , Wallace excavates layers of his own history, situated in the struggles and beauty of growing up Black and queer in America. What follows could be another narrow story of pain and survival, recounting hurt and centering suffering. But this is not that kind of memoir.

Wallace is an award-winning journalist who has built his career writing unforgettable profiles, bringing a provocative and engaged sensitivity to his subjects. Now he turns the focus on himself, examining his own life and the circumstances that frame it―making sense of seeking refuge from homelessness with a young single mother, living in a ghostly white Pennsylvania town, becoming a partner and parent, raising two teenagers in what feels like a collapsing world.

With courage, vulnerability, and a remarkable expansiveness of spirit―not to mention an unrivaled, thrilling, and stylistic storytelling verve―in a world that can feel stacked against it, Another Word for Love makes an irresistible case for life, for healing, for the fullness of our humanity, and, of course, for love itself. This extraordinary, one-of-a-kind book is a radical meditation on healing, told through the lenses of justice, sex, family, and death. It could be called a theory of life itself―a theory of being that will leave you open to the expansive wonder of the world.]]> 272 Carvell Wallace 0374237824 Madi 0 to-read 4.29 2024 Another Word for Love: A Memoir
author: Carvell Wallace
name: Madi
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> The Fraud 66086834 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780525558965.

From acclaimed and bestselling novelist Zadie Smith, a kaleidoscopic work of historical fiction set against the legal trial that divided Victorian England, about who gets to tell their story—and who gets to be believed.

It is 1873. Mrs. Eliza Touchet is the Scottish housekeeper—and cousin by marriage—of a once-famous novelist, now in decline, William Ainsworth, with whom she has lived for thirty years.

Mrs. Touchet is a woman of many interests: literature, justice, abolitionism, class, her cousin, his wives, this life and the next. But she is also sceptical. She suspects her cousin of having no talent; his successful friend, Mr. Charles Dickens, of being a bully and a moralist; and England of being a land of facades, in which nothing is quite what it seems.

Andrew Bogle, meanwhile, grew up enslaved on the Hope Plantation, Jamaica. He knows every lump of sugar comes at a human cost. That the rich deceive the poor. And that people are more easily manipulated than they realize. When Bogle finds himself in London, star witness in a celebrated case of imposture, he knows his future depends on telling the right story.

The “Tichborne Trial”—wherein a lower-class butcher from Australia claimed he was in fact the rightful heir of a sizable estate and title—captivates Mrs. Touchet and all of England. Is Sir Roger Tichborne really who he says he is? Or is he a fraud? Mrs. Touchet is a woman of the world. Mr. Bogle is no fool. But in a world of hypocrisy and self-deception, deciding what is real proves a complicated task. . . .

Based on real historical events, The Fraud is a dazzling novel about truth and fiction, Jamaica and Britain, fraudulence and authenticity and the mystery of “other people.”]]> 464 Zadie Smith Madi 0 to-read 3.25 2023 The Fraud
author: Zadie Smith
name: Madi
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> House of Cotton 60784369
One night while working at her dead-end gas station job, a mysterious, slick stranger named Cotton walks in and offers to turn Magnolia’s luck around. He offers her a lucrative “modeling� job at his family’s funeral home. Magnolia accepts. But despite things looking up, Magnolia’s problems fatten along with her wallet. When Cotton’s requests become increasingly weird, Magnolia discovers there’s a lot more at stake than just her rent.

Sharp as a belted knife, this sly social commentary cuts straight to the bone, revealing the aftermath of the American plantation and what it means to be poor, Black, and a woman in the God fearing south.]]> 304 Monica Brashears 1250851912 Madi 0 to-read 3.00 2023 House of Cotton
author: Monica Brashears
name: Madi
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> Colored Television 201102398 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593544372

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

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

But things don’t work out quite as hoped. In search of a plan B, like countless writers before her, Jane turns her desperate gaze to Hollywood. After she meets with a hot young producer to create “diverse content� for a streaming network, he seems excited to work with a “real writer.� She can create what he envisions as the greatest biracial comedy to ever hit the small screen. Things finally seem to be going right for Jane—until they go terribly wrong.]]> 277 Danzy Senna Madi 0 to-read 3.53 2024 Colored Television
author: Danzy Senna
name: Madi
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)]]> 125460757 Working as a nanny for the world's grumpiest single dad should be simple...except she can't keep her eyes off him. And he can't keep his hands off her.

Cade Eaton is thirteen years older than Willa Grant, and he barely looks her way, even though she's living in his house for the summer. That is, until she gets him into the hot tub one night for a game of truth or dare. Then, all bets are off--and so are their clothes.

Cade is gruff, a little rough around the edges, but broad-shouldered ranchers with calloused hands and filthy mouths are this city girl's kryptonite. So who is she to resist?

But it's in their quietest moments together that he softens. It's in the unexpected way he takes care of Willa that she realizes his hardened exterior is just a façade. And it's when she watches him go all sweet with his little boy that she starts to fall for him, whatever the consequences.

Someone once convinced Cade that his best wasn't good enough. But Willa has never felt more cherished than she does in his arms.

Her contract says this arrangement is only for two months.

But her heart says this is forever.]]> 432 Elsie Silver 172829701X Madi 0 to-read 4.34 2022 Heartless (Chestnut Springs, #2)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Madi
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)]]> 210714656
�'An absolutely stunning fantasy world� Raven Kennedy, author of international bestseller, The Plated Prisoner Series

‘A wild ride that thrills as much as it enchants � An instant classic� Thea Guanzon, Sunday Times bestselling author of The Hurricane Wars

He's fire and brimstone.
I'm shattered ice �
I'll gladly burn beneath him until the world comes crumbling down.
As an assassin for the rebellion, Raeve’s job is to complete orders and never get caught. When a rival bounty hunter shatters her world, Raeve finds herself captured by the Guild of Nobles � a group of powerful fae.

Crushed by the loss of his great love, dragon rider Kaan Vaegor took the head of a king and donned his melted crown. Now on a tireless quest to quell the never-ebbing ache in his chest, a clue lures him into the capital’s high-security prison where he stumbles upon the imprisoned Raeve �

Together, they seek truths that threaten to unravel everything they knew about their world � and each other.

Bestselling sensation When the Moon Hatched will transport you into a world filled with magic, dragons and a love that blazes through the ages…]]> 576 Sarah A. Parker 0008710228 Madi 0 to-read 3.91 2024 When the Moon Hatched (Moonfall, #1)
author: Sarah A. Parker
name: Madi
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[King of Wrath (Kings of Sin, #1)]]> 86121173 She’s the wife he never wanted…and the weakness he never saw coming.

Ruthless. Meticulous. Arrogant.

Dante Russo thrives on control, both personally and professionally.

The billionaire CEO never planned to marry�
until the threat of blackmail forces him into an engagement with a woman he barely knows.

Vivian Lau, jewelry heiress and daughter of his newest enemy.

It doesn’t matter how beautiful or charming she is. He'll do everything in his power to destroy the evidence and their betrothal.

There’s only one problem: now that he has her...he can't bring himself to let her go.

***
Elegant. Ambitious. Well-mannered.

Vivian Lau is the perfect daughter and her family’s ticket into the highest echelons of high society.

Marrying a blue-blooded Russo means opening doors that would otherwise remain closed to her new-money family.

While the rude, elusive Dante isn't her idea of a dream partner, she agrees to their arranged marriage out of duty.

Craving his touch was never part of the plan.

Neither was the worst thing she could possibly do: fall in love with her future husband.

King of Wrath is a steamy billionaire/arranged marriage romance. It contains explicit sexual content, profanity, and mild violence. Recommended for mature readers only.]]> 407 Ana Huang 1728289726 Madi 0 to-read 4.11 2022 King of Wrath (Kings of Sin, #1)
author: Ana Huang
name: Madi
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1)]]> 125157226 The rules were simple: keep his hands off his agent's daughter and stay out of trouble.

But now he's stuck with her. There's only one bed. And well, rules are made to be broken.

Rhett Eaton is the face of professional bull riding. The golden boy. Or at least he was until it all blew up in his face after a public brawl. Now his agent says he has to clean up his image, and sticks Rhett with his ball-busting daughter for the rest of the season as "full-time supervision."

But Rhett doesn't need a goddamn babysitter--especially one with skin-tight jeans, a sexy smirk, and a mouth she can't stop running.

A mouth he can't stop thinking about.

And he quickly learns that Summer Hamilton isn't just another conquest. She sees the man behind the mask, and she doesn't run--she pulls him closer, even when she shouldn't.

She says this means nothing.

Rhett says this means everything.

She says there are boundaries they shouldn't cross. That Rhett's reputation can't take any more hits...and neither can her damaged heart.

Rhett says he's going to steal it anyway.]]> 400 Elsie Silver 1728297001 Madi 0 to-read 4.01 2022 Flawless (Chestnut Springs, #1)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Madi
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus Madi 4 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Madi
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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review:

]]> Check & Mate 60683957 done with chess. Every move counts nowadays. After the sport led to the destruction of her family four years earlier, Mallory's focus is on her mom, her sisters, and the dead-end job that keeps the lights on. That is, until she begrudgingly agrees to play in one last charity tournament and inadvertently wipes the board with notorious "Kingkiller" Nolan Sawyer: current world champion and reigning bad boy of chess.

Nolan's loss to an unknown rook-ie shocks everyone—especially Mallory. What's even more confusing? His desire to cross pawns again. What kind of gambit is Nolan playing? The smart move would be to walk away. Resign. Game over. But Mallory's victory opens the door to sorely needed cash prizes and, despite everything, she can't help feeling drawn to the enigmatic strategist....

As she rockets up the ranks, Mallory struggles to keep her family safely separated from the game that wrecked it in the first place. And as her love for the sport she so desperately wanted to hate begins to rekindle, Mallory quickly realizes that the games aren't only on the board, the spotlight is hotter than she imagined, and the competition can be fierce(-ly attractive. And intelligent...and infuriating...)]]> 347 Ali Hazelwood 0593619919 Madi 1 3.93 2023 Check & Mate
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Madi
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Love in the Time of Serial Killers]]> 59722215
PhD candidate Phoebe Walsh has always been obsessed with true crime. She’s even analyzing the genre in her dissertation—if she can manage to finish writing it. It’s hard to find the time while she spends the summer in Florida, cleaning out her childhood home, dealing with her obnoxiously good-natured younger brother, and grappling with the complicated feelings of mourning a father she hadn’t had a relationship with for years.

It doesn’t help that she’s low-key convinced that her new neighbor, Sam Dennings, is a serial killer (he may dress business casual by day, but at night he’s clearly up to something). It’s not long before Phoebe realizes that Sam might be something much scarier—a genuinely nice guy who can pierce her armor to reach her vulnerable heart.]]> 336 Alicia Thompson 0593438663 Madi 1 3.27 2022 Love in the Time of Serial Killers
author: Alicia Thompson
name: Madi
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Funny You Should Ask 58065414 Then. Twentysomething writer Chani Horowitz is stuck. While her former MFA classmates are nabbing book deals, she's in the trenches writing puff pieces. Then she's hired to write a profile of movie star Gabe Parker. The Gabe Parker--her forever celebrity crush, the object of her fantasies, the background photo on her phone--who's also just been cast as the new James Bond. It's terrifying and thrilling all at once... yet if she can keep her cool and nail the piece, it could be a huge win. Gabe will get good press, and her career will skyrocket. But what comes next proves to be life-changing in ways Chani never saw coming, as the interview turns into a whirlwind weekend that has the tabloids buzzing.

Now. Ten years later, after a brutal divorce and a heavy dose of therapy, Chani is back in Los Angeles, laser-focused on one thing: her work. But she's still spent the better part of the last decade getting asked about her deeply personal Gabe Parker profile at every turn. No matter what new essay collection or viral editorial she's promoting, it always comes back to Gabe. So when his PR team requests that they reunite for a second interview, she wants to say no. She wants to pretend that she's forgotten about the time they spent together, years ago. But the truth is that those seventy-two hours are still crystal clear, etched in her memory. And so... he says yes.

Chani knows that facing Gabe again also means facing feelings she's tried so hard to push away. Alternating between their first meeting and their reunion a decade later, this deliciously irresistible novel will have you hanging on until the last word.

A restless young journalist with big dreams interviews a Hollywood heartthrob--and, ten years later, it's clear that their time together meant more than meets the eye in this sexy, engrossing adult debut novel. ]]> 352 Elissa Sussman 0593357329 Madi 2 3.55 2022 Funny You Should Ask
author: Elissa Sussman
name: Madi
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)]]> 60879779
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 371 Benjamin Stevenson 0063279029 Madi 2 3.75 2022 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Madi
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/28
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What If YOU Are the Answer?: And 26 Other Questions That Just Might Change Your Life]]> 216926754 Life isn’t always easy. We get tripped up, knocked down, and start to question ourselves. But as #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hollis learned, sometimes it’s not answers you need � what helps most are questions. And the best questions can change everything.

Good questions make us think, teach us about ourselves, and if we’re honest in our replies, they can reveal the answers we’ve been searching for. In What If YOU Are the Answer?, Rachel Hollis shares the transformative questions that have helped her heal, grow, and thrive, even when life throws its hardest punches.

With her signature blend of vulnerability, tell-it-like-it-is humor, and hard-won wisdom, Rachel challenges and encourages you to:

� Confront your deepest fears: “What are you afraid to admit?�
� Change your circumstances: “Would you sign up for this again?
� Lean into success: “What’s working in your life?"
� Take responsibility for your own growth: “What if YOU are the problem?�

Throughout this dynamic book, as hilarious as it is wise, Rachel’s questions � and above all, her raw and all-too-real stories � will give you the clarity, courage, and inspiration to embrace your full potential and become the person you were meant to be.

This isn’t just a book � it’s a journey of self-care and self-discovery that will help you find the resilience, motivation, and confidence to live your best life, or at least feel a whole helluva lot better while you try.]]> 240 Rachel Hollis Madi 1
Answer: it’s Rachel.

Also, I’m pretty sure if Rachel wrote a book that didn’t include the three P’s of excellence (pee, period, and poop) she would spontaneously combust.

No new material. Same old advice. Same relationship just with a different guy.

Nothing about this woman has changed, nor will she ever change.

Girl, stop writing books and learn some self awareness!

Listen to your own advice and own up to this critical fact: You are your own problem!

I guess it’s fine for Rachel to say this verbally abusive crap to her fans (all in the name of tough love), but not apply it to her own life.

Typical.]]> 3.95 2025 What If YOU Are the Answer?: And 26 Other Questions That Just Might Change Your Life
author: Rachel Hollis
name: Madi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:
I’m here to answer the age old question: what is the sole reason behind Rachel Hollis’s downfall?

Answer: it’s Rachel.

Also, I’m pretty sure if Rachel wrote a book that didn’t include the three P’s of excellence (pee, period, and poop) she would spontaneously combust.

No new material. Same old advice. Same relationship just with a different guy.

Nothing about this woman has changed, nor will she ever change.

Girl, stop writing books and learn some self awareness!

Listen to your own advice and own up to this critical fact: You are your own problem!

I guess it’s fine for Rachel to say this verbally abusive crap to her fans (all in the name of tough love), but not apply it to her own life.

Typical.
]]> <![CDATA[Real Life Dinners: Fun, Fresh, Fast Dinners from the Creator of The Chic Site]]> 36581676 Upscale Downhome, fun, fresh, and fast recipes for family dinners.

Real life isn't a series of stylized air-brushed photos. It's crazy, chaotic, beautiful, and funny, and it can knock you right off balance. But cooking and eating as a family has always been at real life's core. Making sure your family is fed makes a day a success, and truly taking the time to give them something wholesome and delicious is the ultimate pleasure.

Basedon meals Hollis makes for her hungry husband, three sons, and baby daughter, Real Life Dinners bursts with over 80 photos and recipes including:


Breakfast Quesadillas
Toast Nine Ways
Freeze-Ahead Breakfast Sandwiches
Taco Tuesday
Crispy Sweet Potato Bake
Lemon-Pesto Chicken
Slow Cooker Loaded Potato Soup
Rach's Spice Blends


Rachel Hollis' Real Life Dinners is a cookbook that fits into your real daily life.]]> 224 Rachel Hollis 1250153239 Madi 2 3.88 Real Life Dinners: Fun, Fresh, Fast Dinners from the Creator of The Chic Site
author: Rachel Hollis
name: Madi
average rating: 3.88
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2023/02/03
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Upscale Downhome: Family Recipes, All Gussied Up]]> 28220779
Rachel Hollis, blogger and founder of "The Chic Site," which reaches over 600,000 users a month, delivers this swoon-worthy cookbook packed with delicious and easy comfort food that's sure to wow at both family suppers and the fanciest dinner parties.

Rachel puts a finger-licking gourmet twist on classic American favorites in sections that include recipes

* balsamic bacon-wrapped meatloaf, bacon and green chili mac n'cheese
* loaded baked potato salad, seven layer salad
* grilled guacamole, corn dip, chili cheese dip, pizza dip
* strawberry rosemary moonshine, Grandma's sweet tea
*Somethin' banana pudding parfaits, Mema's carrot cake

Packed with big flavor and simple enough for a beginner home cook to master, Upscale Downhome focuses on great-tasting food and beautiful presentation that is guaranteed to impress. This is the kind of food that we all like to eat, served up with a chic twist.]]> 272 Rachel Hollis 1250078849 Madi 2 3.93 2016 Upscale Downhome: Family Recipes, All Gussied Up
author: Rachel Hollis
name: Madi
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2023/01/28
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]>