en-US Fri, 09 May 2025 08:19:08 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 231127441 The Blair Witch Project meets The Ritual, with a generous helping of The Menu, in Morsel, a delicious folk horror novella perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher, Cassandra Khaw, and Paul Tremblay.

Lou did what the children of parents with back-breaking, poor paying jobs are supposed to pulled up her bootstraps, went to college, and got an office job with coworkers who won’t stop talking about their multi-level marketing scheme disguised as self-betterment.

Determined to lift her ill mother out of poverty before it's too late, and in the spirit of climbing the corporate ladder, Lou accepts an assignment in the rural hills of Ohio. She quickly finds herself stranded in the middle of nowhere with a sabotaged truck, a dog she’s determined to keep safe, and something stalking her through the ancient Appalachian woods.

If she can’t escape the woods in time, she’ll come face to face with the fact that her job isn’t the only thing that wants to eat her alive.

Morsel is a chilling testament to the burden of generational poverty and the all-consuming nature of capitalism, where the monster and the monstrous, in the end, are not the same.]]> 208 Carter Keane 1250392454 mj 0 to-read 0.0
author: Carter Keane
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/05/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 231680043 Seasons of Glass and Stories is a collection of acclaimed and awarded work from Amal El-Mohtar.

With confidence and style, El-Mohtar guides us through exquisitely told and sharply observed tales about life as it is, was, and could be. Like miscellany from other worlds, these stories are told in letters, diary entries, reference materials, folktales, and lyrical prose.

Full of Nebula, Locus, World Fantasy, and Hugo Award-winning and nominated stories, Seasons of Glass and Stories includes "Seasons of Glass and Iron," "The Green Book," "Madeleine," "The Lonely Sea in the Sky," "And Their Lips Rang with the Sun," "The Truth About Owls," "A Hollow Play," "Anabasis," "To Follow the Waves," "John Hollowback and the Witch," "Florilegia, or, Some Lies About Flowers," "Pockets," and more.]]> Amal El-Mohtar 1250341019 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2026
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223035778 A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them.

Seoul, present day. Antiques dealer Alys’s task is nearly complete. She has at last secured Elizabeth, the final anatomical Venus in a dangerously intertwined trio. Crafted in eighteenth-century London and modeled after real-life sex workers to entice male medical students to study female anatomy, these eerie wax figures, known as slashed beauties, carry unsavory lore. Legend has it that the figures are bewitched, and come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them. Now Alys embarks for England, where she knows what she must sever her cursed connection to the Venuses once and for all.

London, 1763. Abandoned and penniless in Covent Garden, wide-eyed Eleanor and another young woman, Emily, are taken under the wing of beautiful and beguiling Elizabeth, one of the city’s most highly desired courtesans. But as Eleanor is seduced deeper into a web of money, materialism, and men, it seems that Elizabeth may not be the savior she appears to be.

As past and present begin to intersect, it becomes clear that the women’s stories are linked in deeper, darker ways than it initially seems. And that the only method for Alys to end the witchcraft that binds her legacy is to gather all three models in one place and destroy them.

The problem is, Elizabeth is not ready to burn. Far from it. Centuries on, she is determined to rise again, and she will obliterate anything standing in her path. Including Alys herself.]]> A. Rushby 0593954653 mj 0 to-read 5.00
author: A. Rushby
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 127463549 From a visionary Mexican author, a hallucinatory, revelatory, colonial revenge story that reimagines the fall of Tenochtitlan.

One morning in 1519, conquistador Hernán Cortés entered the city of Tenochtitlan �� today's Mexico City. Later that day, he would meet the emperor Moctezuma in a collision of two worlds, two empires, two languages, two possible futures.

Cortés was accompanied by his nine captains, his troops, and his two translators: Friar Aguilar, a taciturn, former slave, and Malinalli, a strategic, former princess. Greeted at a ceremonial welcome meal by the steely princess Atotoxli, sister and wife of Moctezuma, the Spanish nearly bungle their entrance to the city. As they await their meeting with Moctezuma �� who is at a political, spiritual, and physical crossroads, and relies on hallucinogens to get himself through the day and in quest for any kind of answer from the gods �� the Spanish are ensconced in the labyrinthine palace. Soon, one of Cortés’s captains, Jazmín Caldera, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the city, begins to question the ease with which they were welcomed into the city, and wonders at the risks of getting out alive, much less conquering the empire.

You Dreamed of Empires brings to life Tenochtitlan at its height, and reimagines its destiny. The incomparably original Alvaro Enrigue sets afire the moment of conquest and turns it into a moment of revolution, a restitutive, fantastical counter-attack, in a novel so electric and so unique that it feels like a dream.]]> 240 Álvaro Enrigue mj 0 to-read 3.82 2022
author: Álvaro Enrigue
name: mj
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220327395 Wuthering Heights meets The Cruel Prince in the new Celtic-inspired erotic fantasy romance from Sunday Times bestseller S.T. Gibson, author of the cult phenomenon A Dowry of Blood.

For as long as Adam can remember, the legends passed down from his world-traveling grandfather have called him to a crumbling manor in the Highlands. His closest friend Nicola longs for the same adventure, as well as for Adam himself. She'll follow him just about anywhere -even to the remote wilds of Scotland-if it pushes the pair to surrender to their shared attraction.

But when a storm strikes and strands them unexpectedly, Adam and Nicola find themselves at the mercy of the eccentric owner of the infamous house, Eileen, as well as her brooding groundskeeper, Finley.

Trapped by the weather, and bound by ancient faery magic, Nicola and Adam get more than they bargained for as they become entangled in Eileen and Finley's world of mind games, deceit and forbidden desire. As ancestral sins are unearthed, Adam and Nicola will have to reckon with the spell Eileen and Finley have cast over them - and whether or not they even want to be free.

Praise for S.T. Gibson's A Dowry of Blood:

'Stunningly gorgeous and devastatingly romantic' Katee Robert, author of Neon Gods

'A dizzying nightmare of a romance that will leave you aching, angry and ultimately hopeful' Hannah Whitten, author of For the Wolf

'A dark seductive tale. . . intermingling love, pain, fear and anger in mesmerizing prose' Publishers Weekly]]> S.T. Gibson 0356523225 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: S.T. Gibson
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 205790532 160 Dahlia de la Cerda 1558613269 mj 0 to-read 4.32 2019
author: Dahlia de la Cerda
name: mj
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60656554 Sly, surprising, and razor-sharp, Natural Beauty follows a young musician into an elite, beauty-obsessed world where perfection comes at a staggering cost.

Our narrator produces a sound from the piano no one else at the Conservatory can. She employs a technique she learned from her parents—also talented musicians—who fled China in the wake of the Cultural Revolution. But when an accident leaves her parents debilitated, she abandons her future for a job at a high-end beauty and wellness store in New York City.

Holistik is known for its remarkable products and procedures—from remoras that suck out cheap Botox to eyelash extensions made of spider silk—and her new job affords her entry into a world of privilege and a long-awaited sense of belonging. She becomes transfixed by Helen, the niece of Holistik’s charismatic owner, and the two strike up a friendship that hazily veers into more. All the while, our narrator is plied with products that slim her thighs, smooth her skin, and lighten her hair. But beneath these creams and tinctures lies something sinister.

A piercing, darkly funny debut, Natural Beauty explores questions of consumerism, self-worth, race, and identity—and leaves readers with a shocking and unsettling truth.]]> 272 Ling Ling Huang 0593472934 mj 0 currently-reading 3.84 2023
author: Ling Ling Huang
name: mj
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 198701985 From the New York Times best-selling author of Ghosts and Everything I Know About a story of heartbreak and friendship and how to survive both.

Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.

Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story��

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 354 Dolly Alderton 0593801318 mj 4
pride & prejudice is in good hands friends! ]]> 3.80 2023
author: Dolly Alderton
name: mj
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves:
review:
yes i wanted to shake andy like he was a fish in a bag and I was the child at the dentist's office from finding nemo - but i really loved this. so charming, funny, and honest.

pride & prejudice is in good hands friends!
]]> 219441105 A spellbinding novel of literary and psychological suspense about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charismatic, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school—by the legendary author “who is surely on any shortlist of America’s greatest living writers�� (The New York Times Magazine)

“Eerie, shocking, provoking, and beautifully written, Fox is yet further proof Oates is one of the greatest writers among us today.”—Gillian Flynn

“I found it mesmerizing front to back.”—Michael Connelly

Who is Francis Fox? A charming English teacher new to the idyllic Langhorne Academy, Fox beguiles many of his students, their parents, and his colleagues at the elite boarding school, while leaving others wondering where he came from and why his biography is so enigmatic. When two brothers discover Fox’s car half-submerged in a pond in a local nature preserve and parts of an unidentified body strewn about the nearby woods, the entire community, including Detective Horace Zwender and his deputy, begins to ask disturbing questions about Francis Fox and who he might really be.

A hypnotic, galloping tale of crime and complicity, revenge and restitution, victim vs. predator, Joyce Carol Oates’s Fox illuminates the darkest corners of the human psyche while asking profound moral questions about justice and the response evil demands. A character as magnetically diabolical as Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley and Vladimir Nabokov’s Humbert Humbert, Francis Fox enchants and manipulates nearly everyone around him, until at last he meets someone he can’t outfox. Written in Oates’s trademark intimate, sweeping style, and interweaving multiple points of view, Fox is a triumph of craftsmanship and artistry, a novel as profound as it is propulsive, as moving as it is full of mystery.]]> Joyce Carol Oates 0593978102 mj 0 to-read 3.00 2025
author: Joyce Carol Oates
name: mj
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 432 Emily Henry mj 2 4.12 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: mj
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves:
review:
i guess it had to happen eventually, but damn that was boring
]]> 217267448 Falling in love with your husband is anything but convenient in this steamy romance from the New York Times bestselling author of Business or Pleasure.

Dani Dorfman has somehow made it to her thirties without knowing what she wants to do with her life. So when an office romance ends poorly and gets her fired, she applies for a job in Amsterdam, idly dreaming of escaping the mess she’s created, but never imagining she'll actually get it.

Except she does. By the end of her first week in Amsterdam, she’s never felt more adrift or alone. Then she crashes her bike into her high school ex-boyfriend—and suddenly life is blooming with new opportunities.

Wouter van Leeuwen was a Dutch exchange student Dani’s family hosted, a forbidden love that ended in a painful breakup. Years later, there’s still sizzling chemistry between them, and okay, maybe a little animosity. More importantly, Wouter needs to be married to inherit a gorgeous family home on a canal—and when Dani's job falls apart, she needs a visa.��As the marriage of convenience pushes them together in unexpected ways, Dani must decide whether her new life is yet another mistake—or if it's worth taking a risk on a second chance.]]> 378 Rachel Lynn Solomon 0593548566 mj 1 in my hater era i guess 4.04 2025
author: Rachel Lynn Solomon
name: mj
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/29
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves:
review:
in my hater era i guess
]]> 231126993 A lush, atmospheric and achingly magical standalone adult fantasy romance set in Renaissance Italy from a #1 New York Times bestselling author.

In 15th-century Volterra, sculptress Ravenna Maffei enters a competition hosted by a secretive, immortal family who offer an invaluable boon to the victor. Desperate to win so she can save her brother, Ravenna reveals a rare magical talent-a dangerous act in a city where magic is forbidden. Her revelation makes her a target, and she is kidnapped by the Luni family and taken to Florence, a city of breathtaking beauty and cutthroat ambition.

There, Ravenna is forced into an impossible task where failure means certain death at the hands of Saturnino dei Luni, the family's enigmatic and merciless heir. But under his cold reserve hides a vulnerability that draws her closer than she ever intended.

Meanwhile, Ravenna's forbidden magic does not go unnoticed. The Pope, waging war against Florence, the Medici, and magic itself, has his own interest in her abilities, seeing her as a potential weapon in his ruthless campaign.

As alliances shift and war brews on the horizon, Ravenna must navigate the treacherous line between survival and betrayal, between love and duty. With time running out and her every move watched, the choices she makes will determine the fate of not just her own life, but the fragile balance of magic and power that could unravel Florence itself.]]> 496 Isabel Ibañez 1250376696 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2026
author: Isabel Ibañez
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228691354 What is wrong meets what feels right in this romance set in Italy by the New York Times bestselling author of Deep End.

Maya Killgore is twenty-three and still in the process of figuring out her life.

Conor Harkness is thirty-eight, and Maya cannot stop thinking about him.

It’s such a cliché, it almost makes her heart implode: older man and younger woman; successful biotech guy and struggling grad student; brother’s best friend and the girl he never even knew existed. As Conor loves to remind her, the power dynamic is too imbalanced. Any relationship between them would be problematic in too many ways to count, and Maya should just get over him. After all, he has made it clear that he wants her gone from his life.

But not everything is as it seems—and clichés sometimes become plot twists.

When Maya’s brother decides to get married in Taormina, she and Conor end up stuck together in a romantic Sicilian villa for over a week. There, on the beautiful Ionian coast, between ancient ruins, delicious foods, and natural caves, Maya realizes that Conor might be hiding something from her. And as the destination wedding begins to erupt out of control, she decides that a summer fling might be just what she needs—even if it’s a problematic one.]]> 416 Ali Hazelwood mj 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:
the devil works hard but ali works the hardest (foaming at the mouth give this to me now)
]]> 54814676
In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humour and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence; of treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band �� and meeting the man who would become her husband �� her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

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

Vivacious, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.]]> 243 Michelle Zauner 0525657746 mj 5 4.25 2021
author: Michelle Zauner
name: mj
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/10
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: best-of-2022, non-fiction, all-time-loves
review:
may i just say as the first generation daughter of a tough immigrant mother who gave up everything to raise me in a country where she couldn’t speak the language all so i could have better opportunities in life, who also expresses love through the meals she makes - ouch
]]> 231299870
Cape Carnage is a seaside town of colorful houses, quirky shops, and an unusually high body count. But with tourists comes trouble, and Harper Starling won’t let anyone ruin her picture-perfect home. A skilled gardener with killer instincts, Harper protects her sanctuary at any cost—especially for her aging mentor with a fading memory.

Troublesome tourists don’t check out of Carnage. They compost beneath Harper’s award-winning flowerbeds. But Nolan Rhodes isn’t your average tourist. Devilishly handsome, disarmingly charming, and skilled with a blade, Nolan is relentless in the pursuit of revenge. On every anniversary of the hit-and-run accident that fractured his life, Nolan slays another target. And he’s saved the best for last: the undeniably beautiful Harper Starling.

The problem? Harper isn’t the monster he expected. And she won’t go down without a fight. When an amateur true crime investigator comes to Cape Carnage on the trail of a long-lost serial killer, Harper and Nolan strike an uneasy truce. If Nolan helps Harper protect her town, she’ll keep quiet about his hunting habits . . . for now. But their alliance soon spirals into obsession, one that threatens to shatter every secret in Carnage—including their fragile love.

Tourist Season is a darkly funny, slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance where destruction and desire are balanced on the edge of a blade—and where love is the most dangerous battleground of all.]]> 368 Brynne Weaver 1638932107 mj 0 to-read 4.80
author: Brynne Weaver
name: mj
average rating: 4.80
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:
one more chance weaver�� because this sounds fun as hell
]]> 53870787
So begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents in a war that stretches through the vast reaches of time and space.

Red belongs to the Agency, a post-singularity technotopia. Blue belongs to Garden, a single vast consciousness embedded in all organic matter. Their pasts are bloody and their futures mutually exclusive. They have nothing in common---save that they're the best, and they're alone.

Now what began as a battlefield boast grows into a dangerous game, one both Red and Blue are determined to win. Because winning's that you do in war. Isn't it?

A tour de force collaboration from two powerhouse writers that spans the whole of time and space.]]> 201 Amal El-Mohtar 1534430997 mj 5 best-of-2024, all-time-loves 3.90 2019
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: mj
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/24
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: best-of-2024, all-time-loves
review:
i honestly don’t know how to describe this in a way that makes it make sense and does it justice - so all i can say is it’s a sci-fi, a fantasy, a love story, a winding and violent poem. stunning, cannot recommend enough!
]]> 12479382 401 Robin Hobb mj 5
my top reads of 2025 list is just going to be the realm of the elderlings. everyone told me it was slow, character driven, and well written, and that’s really all I knew going in. i don’t think i was prepared for just how well written this would be - if hobb pivoted to literary fiction she would be snatching all them awards right tf up and that is a hill i will die on. genuinely i have never experienced such perfect writing - it was definitely slow and i was nervous that it was in first person and from the perspective of a young boy, but oh the talent, the skill, the pen game! every single moment i spent with this book was completely immersive. not a single info dump, just a world that unfolds so gently around you that no detail can escape your notice. i never sped through passages or checked how much i had left. i can’t sing robin’s praises enough.

character work! flawless! gorgeous! earth-shatteringly painful! i would die for fitz and i am completely fascinated by the fool, i know there is much more to come from him and i can’t wait. every single character was so alive and real to me!! okay!!

also i was warned about the dog stuff, i thought i could handle it, but i had to stop reading and hug my dog (who does not fit in my lap) and cradle her against my chest while awkwardly rocking back and forth. i fear as much as this book has mentally scarred me, it has further tormented my dog by association. i will say this - it wasn’t a cheap trick like i’ve seen so many books and films do, every loss, every move for that matter is so emotionally charged and evolved.

i’m not quite ready to step out of this world yet so upwards and onwards! i hear this was a simple introduction and i am in for worlds of pain, but i’m a glutton for punishment so i will continue immediately. ]]> 4.30 1995
author: Robin Hobb
name: mj
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves:
review:
sobbing so hard i couldn’t formulate the words to explain that a piece of fiction had wounded me so badly! robin literally what have i ever done to you?

my top reads of 2025 list is just going to be the realm of the elderlings. everyone told me it was slow, character driven, and well written, and that’s really all I knew going in. i don’t think i was prepared for just how well written this would be - if hobb pivoted to literary fiction she would be snatching all them awards right tf up and that is a hill i will die on. genuinely i have never experienced such perfect writing - it was definitely slow and i was nervous that it was in first person and from the perspective of a young boy, but oh the talent, the skill, the pen game! every single moment i spent with this book was completely immersive. not a single info dump, just a world that unfolds so gently around you that no detail can escape your notice. i never sped through passages or checked how much i had left. i can’t sing robin’s praises enough.

character work! flawless! gorgeous! earth-shatteringly painful! i would die for fitz and i am completely fascinated by the fool, i know there is much more to come from him and i can’t wait. every single character was so alive and real to me!! okay!!

also i was warned about the dog stuff, i thought i could handle it, but i had to stop reading and hug my dog (who does not fit in my lap) and cradle her against my chest while awkwardly rocking back and forth. i fear as much as this book has mentally scarred me, it has further tormented my dog by association. i will say this - it wasn’t a cheap trick like i’ve seen so many books and films do, every loss, every move for that matter is so emotionally charged and evolved.

i’m not quite ready to step out of this world yet so upwards and onwards! i hear this was a simple introduction and i am in for worlds of pain, but i’m a glutton for punishment so i will continue immediately.
]]> 220209417 In this taut Southern family drama, the sins of a favorite son rock a small Mississippi town.

Reverend Sabre Winfrey, shepherd of the Seven Seals Baptist Church, believes in God, his own privilege, and enterprise. Besides the barbershop and radio station he owns, he has an iron hand on every aspect of Dominion, Mississippi, society. He and his wife, Priscilla, have five boys; the youngest, Emanuel, is called Wonderboy—no one sings prettier, runs as fast, or turns as many heads. After a surprising encounter with a stranger, Wonderboy finds himself confronted by questions he’d never imagined, and his response will send shockwaves through the entire community. Told from the point of view of the women who love these two men, Dominion illustrates how we enable the everyday violence and casual sins of the patriarchy.

A Black Southern family drama that deals as much in tenderness and humor as it does in brutality, Addie E. Citchens’s Dominion reveals the many sinister ways in which we are shaped by fear and patriarchy.]]> Addie E. Citchens 0374609357 mj 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Addie E. Citchens
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228048314 Sometimes love shows up where you least expect it—right next door.
A jaded twenty-something is stuck living at home, her life on pause, when a single dad becomes her new neighbor, and unexpectedly sets her life—and her heart—into motion in this modern love story from the bestselling author of You, Again.

Praise for Kate
"This debut romance ticks all the boxes of a must-read, with plenty of bite giving it edge." Kirkus (*starred review*)

"A masterclass in banter." –��Rosie Danan, bestselling author of The Roommate

"Fresh, witty, and utterly romantic.�� –��Ali Hazelwood, New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis

"You can’t help but enjoy every second of the��ride.�� NPR, “Books We Love in 2023��

At 26, Sam Pulaski expected to be thriving in her academic career, living on her own in some exciting city. Expectations, meet reality. She has massive student loans from studying art history, a dead-end service industry job, a situationship that’s equal parts intoxicating and toxic. And she’s been crashing in her mom’s condo—at least it’s not a basement?—for the last five years. If she can finally get accepted into a PhD program and get out of Ohio, the adult life that’s been on hold for half her twenties will finally begin.��

Her mom’s new neighbor, Nick, is the ultimate grownup. His adult life began the moment his nine-year-old daughter, Kira, was born. Her happiness is Nick’s only priority, especially in the wake of divorce. There’s nothing he won’t do for Kira–including giving up his globetrotting career for something more stable…like managing a chain restaurant.��

Sam has zero interest in an ultra-dependable guy pushing forty; frankly, she’s a little afraid of kids. But with just one thin wall separating the two condos, Nick proves difficult to avoid. His quiet confidence forces Sam to grapple with the other men in her her emotionally derelict friend-with-benefits and her actually-derelict father. As her unexpected connection with Nick heats up (and steams up his minivan windows), Sam finds herself falling fast for a man whose life is steady and settled–while hers is anything but.]]> Kate Goldbeck 0593730828 mj 0 to-read 4.67
author: Kate Goldbeck
name: mj
average rating: 4.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 227827894 An alchemist and his young nephew hunt down a legend in this profound and unsettling speculative Western, for fans of Karen Russell and Victor LaValle.

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

It’s a hard and haunted journey through the Northwestern frontier. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it—and the terrifying visions it causes—before it’s too late.

Dark and compelling, The Great Work is an arcane adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.]]> Sheldon Costa 1683695062 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Sheldon Costa
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222706197 The HOTLY ANTICIPATED adult debut novel by the beloved, #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING author of the Caraval and Once Upon a Broken Heart series

It starts with a class in an old movie theater.

Folklore 517: Local Legends and Urban Myths, taught by a woman called the Professor. Most students believe the Professor’s stories are just fiction, but Holland St. James has always been convinced that magic is real. When she tracks down a local legend named the Watch Man, who can supposedly tell you when you’ll die, the world finally makes sense. Except that the Watch Man tells her she will die at midnight tomorrow unless she finds an ancient object called the Alchemical Heart.

With the clock ticking, Holland is pulled deeper into this magical world in the heart of Los Angeles—and into the path of a magnetic stranger. Everything about him feels like a bad idea, but he promises Holland that her sister sent him to protect her. As they chase clues and stories that take them closer to the Alchemical Heart, Holland realizes everyone in this intoxicating new world is lying to her, even this stranger. And if she can’t figure out whom to trust, not even the Alchemical Heart will save her.]]> 336 Stephanie Garber 125078915X mj 0 to-read 4.68 2025
author: Stephanie Garber
name: mj
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222616508 The Witcher meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship—for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure.

The night Lyssa Cadogan's brother was murdered by a faerie-made monster known as the Beast, she made him a she would find a way to destroy the immortal creature and avenge his death. For thirteen years, she has been hunting faeries and the abominations they created. But in all that time, the one Beast she is most desperate to find has never resurfaced.

Until she meets Alderic Casimir de Laurent, a melodramatic dandy with a coin purse bigger than his brain. Somehow, he has found the monster’s lair, and—even more surprising—retrieved one of its claws. A claw Lyssa needs in order to forge a sword that can kill the Beast.

Alderic is ill-equipped for a hunt and almost guaranteed to get himself killed. But as the two of them search for the rest of the materials that will be the Beast's undoing, Alderic reveals hidden dark secrets that he guards as carefully as Lyssa guards hers. Before long, and against Lyssa's better judgment, an unlikely friendship begins to bloom—one that will either lead to the culmination of Lyssa's quest for vengeance, or spell doom for them both.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> Serra Swift 1250373794 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Serra Swift
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229165924 Addictive, epically smutty and the breath of fresh air the romance genre didn't know it needed' ELENA ARMAS, New York Times bestselling author

Two divorce lawyers determined to share only beds but not hearts discover that love is something that can't be overruled in this steamy contemporary romance by Lana Ferguson, USA Today bestselling author of The Game Changer.

Danica Pierce has one great love in her work. As one of the top divorce lawyers in Chicago, Danica lets her caseload keep her warm at night and has no problem being married to her job, not when love only ends in hurt. When the biggest case of her career gives her a shot at making partner, it seems like nothing could possibly stand in her way . . . except for her infuriating she's sleeping with the enemy.

Ezra Hart is known for charming his way in and out of a courtroom. In the matter of winning Danica Pierce's heart, however, he's been far less successful. With her verdict to keep things purely physical with no chance of appeal, Ezra struggles to show Danica he's more than the insufferable playboy she's pegged him to be - especially since they find themselves on opposing sides of Danica's most important case to date.

While Dani and Ezra battle it out in the courtroom, the real trial is the one happening between them. When Dani realizes that everything she knows of Ezra might be hearsay - and that she's not the only one with emotional baggage - she must choose between her fear of trusting again and the feelings blossoming between her and the man she thought was her worst enemy.]]> Lana Ferguson 0349439672 mj 3 3.50 2025
author: Lana Ferguson
name: mj
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
yeah, this was a little repetitive and the family drama was way way way too dark and underdeveloped for the level of smut that enveloped it, but ultimately it gave what it i needed it to give at this point in time. lana, you never let me down when i need you queen!
]]> 212491001 Hungerstone��is a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’s��A Dowry of Blood��and Emilia Hart’s��Weyward.

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,��Hungerstone��is a compulsive feminist reworking of��Carmilla, the book that inspired��Dracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932174 mj 2 4.06 2025
author: Kat Dunn
name: mj
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves:
review:
wanted to love this so badly, but ultimately it was lazy, predictable, and boring. did not expect a re-working of carmilla to relegate her to a simple plot device.
]]> 220909040
Evander has lived like a ghost in the forgotten corners of the Hazelthorn estate ever since he was taken in by his reclusive billionaire guardian, Byron Lennox-Hall, when he was a child. For his safety, Evander has been given three ironclad rules to follow:

He can never leave the estate. He can never go into the gardens. And most importantly, he can never again be left alone with Byron's charming, underachieving grandson, Laurie.

That last rule has been in place ever since Laurie tried to kill Evander seven years ago, and yet somehow Evander is still obsessed with him.

But when Byron suddenly dies, Evander inherits Hazelthorn’s immense gothic mansion and acres of sprawling grounds, along with the entirety of the Lennox-Hall family's vast wealth. There’s just one caveat: He must choose a new guardian from amongst Laurie's scheming, backstabbing relatives to help manage the estate until he turns eighteen.

Except Evander's sure his guardian was murdered, and Laurie may be the only one who can help him find the killer before they come for Evander next. Perhaps even more concerning is how the overgrown garden is refusing to stay behind its walls, slipping its vines and spores deeper into the house with each passing day. As the family’s dark secrets unravel alongside the growing horror of their terribly alive, bloodthirsty garden, Evander needs to find out what he’s really inheriting before the garden demands to be fed once more.]]> 368 C.G. Drews 1250376297 mj 0 to-read 4.73 2025
author: C.G. Drews
name: mj
average rating: 4.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 169485073 This highly anticipated follow-up to The Will of the Many—one of 2023’s most lauded and bestselling fantasy novels—follows Vis as he grapples with a dangerous secret that could change the course of history across alternate dimensions.


OMNE TRIUM PERFECTUM.

The Hierarchy still call me Vis Telimus. Still hail me as Catenicus. They still, as one, believe they know who I am.

But with all that has happened—with what I fear is coming—I am not sure it matters anymore.

I am no longer one. I won the Iudicium, and lost everything—and now, impossibly, the ancient device beyond the Labyrinth has replicated me across three separate worlds. A different version of myself in each of Obiteum, Luceum, and Res. Three different bodies, three different lives. I have to hide; fight; play politics. I have to train; trust; lie. I have to kill; heal; prove myself again, and again, and again.

I am loved, and hated, and entirely alone.

Above all, though, I need to find answers before it’s too late. To understand the nature of what has happened to me, and why.

I need to find a way to stop the coming Cataclysm, because if all I have learned is true, I may be the only one who can.]]> James Islington mj 0 to-read 4.69 2025
author: James Islington
name: mj
average rating: 4.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:
if i was not at the office right now i would fall to my knees and scream to the skies
]]> 210223811 Two graduate students must set aside their rivalry and journey to Hell to save their professor’s soul, perhaps at the cost of their own.

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

Grimes is now in Hell, and she’s going in after him. Because his recommendation could hold her very future in his now incorporeal hands, and even death is not going to stop the pursuit of her dreams. Nor will the fact that her rival, Peter Murdoch, has come to the same conclusion.]]> 400 R.F. Kuang mj 5 best-of-2025 4.02 2025
author: R.F. Kuang
name: mj
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: best-of-2025
review:
i’m in pieces, sobbing at the mere perfection of this novel. rtc when i can collect my thoughts, but all of my already impossibly high expectations were exceeded in explosive fashion. remarkable, truly remarkable. new favourite r.f. kuang novel and the book to beat this year - maybe even this decade.
]]> 224038742 Manhunt meets Lord of the Flies in this blistering horror debut following a young trans woman after she arrives at the all-trans girl commune founded by her toxic ex-girlfriend, only to discover that demons, both literal and figurative, haunt her fellow comrades—and she's their next prey!

Herculine’s narrator has demons. Sure, her life includes several hallmarks of the typical trans girl sob story—conversion therapy, a string of shitty low-paying jobs, and even shittier exes—but she also regularly debates sleep paralysis demons that turn to mist soon after she wakes and carries vials of holy oil in her purse. Nothing, though, prepares her for the new malevolent force stalking her through the streets of New York City, more powerful than any she’s ever encountered. Desperate to escape this ancient evil, she flees to rural Indiana, where her ex-girlfriend started an all-trans girl commune in the middle of the woods.

The secluded camp, named after 19th-century intersex memoirist Herculine Barbin, is a scrappy operation, but the shared sense of community among the girls is a welcome balm to the narrator’s growing isolation and paranoia. Still, something isn’t quite right at Herculine. Girls stop talking as soon as she enters the room, everyone seems to share a common secret, and the books lining the walls of the library harbor strange cryptograms. Soon what once looked like an escape becomes a trap all its own.

While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go.]]> Grace Byron 166808788X mj 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Grace Byron
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224004327
Festering masses of worms and flies have taken root in dark corners across Appalachia. In exchange for unwavering loyalty and fresh corpses, these hives offer a few struggling humans salvation. A fresh start. It’s an offer that none refuse.

Crane is grateful. Among his hive’s followers, Crane has found a chance to transition, to never speak again, to live a life that won’t destroy him. He even met Levi: a handsome ex-Marine and brutal killer who treats him like a real man, mostly. But when Levi gets Crane pregnant—and the hive demands the child’s birth, no matter the cost—Crane’s desperation to make it stop will drive the community that saved him into a devastating spiral that can only end in blood.

You Weren’t Meant to Be Human is a deeply personal horror; a visceral statement about the lives of marginalized people in a hostile world, echoing the works of Stephen Graham Jones and Eric LaRocca.]]> 336 Andrew Joseph White 1668038072 mj 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Andrew Joseph White
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228383160 For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, an inventive and romantic speculative novel about two women—a witch and an immortal demon—who make a Faustian bargain and are drawn into a cat-and-mouse chase across multiple lifetimes.

1592. Cybil Harding is a First Daughter. Cursed to bring disaster to those around her, she is trapped in a house with a mother paralyzed by grief and a father willing to sacrifice everything in pursuit of magic.

Miriam Richter is a creature of shadow. Forged by the dark arts many years ago, she is doomed to exist for eternity and destined to be alone—killing mortals and consuming their souls for sustenance. Everything changes when she meets Cybil, whose soul shines with a light so bright, she must claim it for herself. She offers a bargain: she will grant Cybil reincarnation in exchange for her soul.

Thus begins a dance across centuries as Miriam seeks Cybil in every lifetime to claim her prize. Cybil isn’t inclined to play by the rules, but when it becomes clear that Miriam holds the key to breaking her family curse, Cybil finds that—for the first time in her many lives—she might have the upper hand. As they circle each other, drawn together inescapably as light and dark, the bond forged between them grows stronger. In their battle for dominance, only one of them can win—but perhaps they can’t survive without each other.

Natasha Siegel has written an unexpected love story that feels both epic and deeply personal. Ambitious, gothic, and magical, As Many Souls as Stars is about the lengths we go to protect ourselves, our legacy, and those we love.]]> 352 Natasha Siegel 0063418029 mj 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Natasha Siegel
name: mj
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376977 A fierce, glamorous sapphic fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, for fans of Jade City, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.

Singapore, 1972: Newly independent, a city of immigrants grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters are the last conduits of the gods their ancestors brought with them, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place where magic has not been assimilated and legislated away.

Loner schoolgirl Adeline Siow has never needed more company than the flame she can summon at her fingertips. But when her mother dies in a house fire with a butterfly seared onto her skin and Adeline hunts down a girl she saw in a back-alley barfight—a girl with a butterfly tattoo–she discovers she’s far from alone.

Ang Tian is a Red Butterfly: one of a gang of girls who came from nothing, sworn to a fire goddess and empowered to wreak vengeance on the men that abuse and underestimate them. Adeline’s mother led a double life as their elusive patron, Madam Butterfly. Now that she’s dead, Adeline’s bloodline is the sole thing sustaining the goddess. Between her search for her mother’s killer and the gang’s succession crisis, Adeline becomes quickly entangled with the girls�� dangerous world, and even more so with the charismatic Tian.

But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbor gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place for once, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she is to keep it.]]> 480 Wen-yi Lee 1250369452 mj 0 to-read 3.67 2025
author: Wen-yi Lee
name: mj
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214363822 A gothic, mist-cloaked tale of a prophetess who is forced beyond the safety of her cloister on an impossible quest to defeat the gods with the one knight whose future is beyond her sight.

Sybil Delling has spent nine years dreaming of having no dreams at all. Like the other foundling girls who traded a decade of service for a home in the great cathedral, Sybil is a Diviner. In her dreams she receives visions from six unearthly figures known as Omens. From them, she can predict terrible things before they occur, and lords and common folk alike travel across the kingdom of Traum's windswept moors to learn their futures by her dreams.

Just as she and her sister Diviners near the end of their service, a mysterious knight arrives at the cathedral. Rude, heretical, and devilishly handsome, the knight Rodrick has no respect for Sybil's visions. But when Sybil's fellow Diviners begin to vanish one by one, she has no choice but to seek his help in finding them. For the world outside the cathedral's cloister is wrought with peril. Only the gods have the answers she is seeking, and as much as she'd rather avoid Rodrick's dark eyes and sharp tongue, only a heretic can defeat a god.]]> 401 Rachel Gillig 0356522954 mj 5
the knight and the moth felt very medieval pan’s labyrinth if that makes for an apt description. i think its strengths are flawless pacing (she has never wronged me here), and a tremendous commitment to the lore. it makes for the most immersive experience and i am so attached to everyone in this series my heart is bursting with love (and fear) for them. the tension was absolutely exquisite - you’re going to have to wait a bit but oh, was it ever worth it. everything i loved about one dark window came back to play in a new, bold way - and it makes me so excited for how the story will end, and for whatever else rachel gillig has in store for us as her beautiful career continues. if this becomes the romantasy (though it is so much more than this) darling of the spring/summer, you will not see a single eye roll from me. you will see me screaming and tossing copies of it at you, more fury behind each throw, begging me to stop, to cease the violence - and i simply will not.

the only minor, nitpicky, highly specific to me things that kept it from being a five star in absolutely no way detracted from my enjoyment and excitement. i also need to add - this was crazy funny. the monster provided some comedic relief for sure on odw, but it had nothing on my sensitive, hysterical, distinctly michael scott-esque gargoyle. i was full out cackling.

the biggest and most heartwarming thank you to hachette/orbit for the arc - it made my entire month and delivered on every promise.

also, just, the END????????? i will say no more. but for everyone i’ve seen screaming about it, i hear and understand you. this one’s not even out, so looking forward to suffering and waiting for book two with the masses when this releases in the spring.

as always - preorder, preorder, preorder! (please)

edit: no I can’t stop thinking about it, I love this book so much I need book two now - rating upped to five stars AS IT DESERVES ]]> 4.43 2025
author: Rachel Gillig
name: mj
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:
oh you guys are not ready, definitely not ready for this!! gillig upped her game so hard on this one guys. the world is whimsical, fantastical, dangerous, dark, and just extraordinarily done.

the knight and the moth felt very medieval pan’s labyrinth if that makes for an apt description. i think its strengths are flawless pacing (she has never wronged me here), and a tremendous commitment to the lore. it makes for the most immersive experience and i am so attached to everyone in this series my heart is bursting with love (and fear) for them. the tension was absolutely exquisite - you’re going to have to wait a bit but oh, was it ever worth it. everything i loved about one dark window came back to play in a new, bold way - and it makes me so excited for how the story will end, and for whatever else rachel gillig has in store for us as her beautiful career continues. if this becomes the romantasy (though it is so much more than this) darling of the spring/summer, you will not see a single eye roll from me. you will see me screaming and tossing copies of it at you, more fury behind each throw, begging me to stop, to cease the violence - and i simply will not.

the only minor, nitpicky, highly specific to me things that kept it from being a five star in absolutely no way detracted from my enjoyment and excitement. i also need to add - this was crazy funny. the monster provided some comedic relief for sure on odw, but it had nothing on my sensitive, hysterical, distinctly michael scott-esque gargoyle. i was full out cackling.

the biggest and most heartwarming thank you to hachette/orbit for the arc - it made my entire month and delivered on every promise.

also, just, the END????????? i will say no more. but for everyone i’ve seen screaming about it, i hear and understand you. this one’s not even out, so looking forward to suffering and waiting for book two with the masses when this releases in the spring.

as always - preorder, preorder, preorder! (please)

edit: no I can’t stop thinking about it, I love this book so much I need book two now - rating upped to five stars AS IT DESERVES
]]> 221269108 USA Today bestselling author Julie Soto crafts a lush romantic fantasy that’s filled with intrigue, magic, and an irresistible enemies-to-lovers romance.

The war is over, the dark forces have won, and the hero who was supposed to save them is dead.����

Captured as her castle is overrun by the enemy, the world as Briony Rosewood knows it is changed forever.��Evil has won, and her people face imminent servitude, imprisonment, or death.����

​Stripped of her Magic and her freedom, Briony and the other survivors are quickly sold off to the highest bidders in an auction—and as Evermore's princess, she fetches the highest price. After a fierce bidding war, she’s sold to none other than Toven Hearst,��scion of a family known for their cruelty.����

Yet despite the horrors of her new world and the role she must learn to play within it, all is not lost. Help—and hope—may yet arise in the most unlikely of places…]]> Julie Soto mj 5
Was it unequivocally perfect? No. Did I have the best reading experience from start to finish? Absolutely. This is everything I want in a romantasy, a genre that has honestly lost my interest in the last few years - this reminded me how amazing it can be when it’s done right (also looking at you Knight + Moth my love). This is proper enemies to lovers. Briony and Toven are on opposing sides of a war, but it’s not as simple as all of that of course. They share a complicated history, and Julie does an impeccable job of weaving the past and all of its implications into the present. It felt like slipping into a full formed world that’s been spinning for years, and you’re a traveller who got dropped in the middle of it in all its splendour and terror. Additionally, if I did not know this was a re-working of a Dramione fanfiction, I genuinely do not know if I would work it out on my own. That being said, I haven’t read the Auction, so I can’t speak to a lot of that - but oh my god this was so good, so unbelievably dark, and the slowest of slow burns. I wanted to yell and fling my kindle at the wall when it finished, like what do you mean this book isn’t even out and the sequel has yet to be announced?

So, so good. The chemistry, the banter, the flashbacks, the dread, the suspense, the tension, the world building! Julie excels in contemporary romance, so I wasn’t sure what to expect here, but wow, job well done. Completely unputdownable. I walked out of a full-out function yesterday to resume reading this, it would not leave my mind.

Massive thanks to the publisher for the ARC, I will now be foaming at the mouth and barking until the sequel is in my hands.]]> 4.48 2025
author: Julie Soto
name: mj
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:
Julie Soto, you were an auto-buy author before this and now you are the love of my life.

Was it unequivocally perfect? No. Did I have the best reading experience from start to finish? Absolutely. This is everything I want in a romantasy, a genre that has honestly lost my interest in the last few years - this reminded me how amazing it can be when it’s done right (also looking at you Knight + Moth my love). This is proper enemies to lovers. Briony and Toven are on opposing sides of a war, but it’s not as simple as all of that of course. They share a complicated history, and Julie does an impeccable job of weaving the past and all of its implications into the present. It felt like slipping into a full formed world that’s been spinning for years, and you’re a traveller who got dropped in the middle of it in all its splendour and terror. Additionally, if I did not know this was a re-working of a Dramione fanfiction, I genuinely do not know if I would work it out on my own. That being said, I haven’t read the Auction, so I can’t speak to a lot of that - but oh my god this was so good, so unbelievably dark, and the slowest of slow burns. I wanted to yell and fling my kindle at the wall when it finished, like what do you mean this book isn’t even out and the sequel has yet to be announced?

So, so good. The chemistry, the banter, the flashbacks, the dread, the suspense, the tension, the world building! Julie excels in contemporary romance, so I wasn’t sure what to expect here, but wow, job well done. Completely unputdownable. I walked out of a full-out function yesterday to resume reading this, it would not leave my mind.

Massive thanks to the publisher for the ARC, I will now be foaming at the mouth and barking until the sequel is in my hands.
]]> 213329789 London, 1837.
Boston, 2019.

Three young women, their bodies planted in the same soil, their stories tangling like roots.

One grows high, and one grows deep, and one grows wild.

And all of them grow teeth.]]> 0 Victoria E. Schwab 1250320534 mj 5 best-of-2025
in more comprehensive and slightly less unhinged terms, this novel is the bloodthirsty daughter of victor vale and lestat de lioncourt - with the grace and emotional depth of addie larue. this is what i have always wanted a vampire novel to be. this is the sapphic, vampiric epic of my dearest dreams.

i can’t wait until you all get to sink your teeth into this one. the biggest thank you to tor for the arc, and to v.e. schwab for continuing to write treasure after treasure. ]]> 4.60 2025
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: mj
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: best-of-2025
review:
reading this feels like recreating that scene from possession (1981) where she’s freaking out in the subway but your screams are being drowned out by a florence + the machine song that’s blasting from what sounds like a slightly warped victrola, but you can’t find it to turn down the music so you just scream louder and throw your milk around and whatever else she does in that movie, but you’re also a vampire.

in more comprehensive and slightly less unhinged terms, this novel is the bloodthirsty daughter of victor vale and lestat de lioncourt - with the grace and emotional depth of addie larue. this is what i have always wanted a vampire novel to be. this is the sapphic, vampiric epic of my dearest dreams.

i can’t wait until you all get to sink your teeth into this one. the biggest thank you to tor for the arc, and to v.e. schwab for continuing to write treasure after treasure.
]]> 222683982 An enchanting, illuminating, highly personal tour of some of the most iconic cemeteries of the world—part travelogue, part memoir, part hauntology by the author of Our Share of Night and "Buenos Aires's sorceress" (The��New York Times)

"Enriquez is a queen of horror."��Los Angeles Times
"One of Latin America’s most exciting authors."—Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mariana Enriquez has been fascinated by the haunting beauty of cemeteries since she was a teenager, visiting them frequently, a goth flaneur taking notes on her aesthetic obsession as she walked among the headstones. But in 2013, when the body of a friend's mother who was dissapeared during Argentina's military dictatorship was found in a common grave, she began to examine more deeply the complex meanings of cemeteries and where our bodies come to rest.��

In this vivid, cinematic book, Enriquez travels North and South America, Europe and Australia, visiting the catacombs of Paris, Prague's Old Jewish Cemetery, Elvis's grave at Graceland, the above-ground mausoleums of New Orleans, her hometown of Buenos Aires's Recoleta, and more. She investigates each cemetery's history, architecture, its dead (famous and not), its saints and ghosts, its caretakers and visitors. Weaving personal stories with reportage, interviews, folklore, musicology, and literature, Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave is memoir channeled through Enriquez's obsession with cemeteries,��revealing as much about her own life and unique sensibility as the graveyards and tombstones she walks among. Exhilarating, unsettling, and unlike anything else, Enriquez's first work of nonfiction is as original and enthralling as the stories and novels for which she's become so admired and beloved.]]> 336 Mariana Enríquez 0593733517 mj 0 to-read, non-fiction 5.00
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:
this is so niche and it is so important and special, you cannot convince me this hasn’t been written specifically for me
]]> 223339016 “A poignant, innovative, and urgent blend of memoir and criticism that has replenished my belief in how art and love can save your life.”—Torrey Peters

“I'm in awe—this collection is an absolute sensation.”—Jeanne Thornton

A sharply personal and expansive essay collection dedicated to the strange and absurd beauty of horror films, exploring the complications of gender, the insidiousness of class ascension, and the latent violence hidden in our own uncanny reflections.

This is how it first I loved them, and then I loved myself.

At twenty-seven, poet Zefyr Lisowski found herself in the place she feared a locked psych ward. While inside, she turned to horror movies—her deepest, most constant comfort.

Rather than disturb, scary movies have always provided solace and connection for Lisowski, as they do many others—offering a vision of a world filled equally with beauty and pain, and a reason to reach out to others and hold them tight. After all, as Lisowski argues, what terrifies us most about these movies is our own uncanny reflection—and at the root of that fear, a desperate desire to love and be loved.

In these wide-ranging essays, Lisowski weaves theory and memoir into nuanced critiques of films such as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Saint Maud. From fears about sickness and disability, to trans narratives and the predator/victim complex, to the struggle to live in a world that wants you dead, she explores horror’s reciprocal impact on our culture and—by extension—our lives. Through it all, Lisowski lays bare her own complex biography—spanning from a trans childhood in the South to the sweaty dancefloors of Brooklyn—and the family, friends, and lovers that have bloomed with her into the present.

Deeply felt, blood-spattered, and brimming with care and wonder, Uncanny Valley Girls thrusts this seasoned poet to centerstage.]]> 240 Zefyr Lisowski 006341399X mj 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Zefyr Lisowski
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376985 'An intriguing work of whimsi-grotesquerie'
OLIVIE BLAKE



He was sent to kill a pest. Instead, he found a monster.

Enter the decadent, deadly city of Tiliard, carved into the stump of an ancient tree. In its canopy, the pampered elite warp minds with toxic perfume; in its roots, gangs of exterminators hunt a colossal worm with an appetite for beauty.

In a complex, chaotic city, Guy Moulène has a simple keep his sister out of debt. For her sake, he'll take on any job, no matter how vile.

As an exterminator, Guy hunts the uncanny pests that crawl up from the river. These vermin are all strange, and often dangerous. His latest quarry is a worm the size of a dragon with a deadly venom and a ravenous taste for artwork. As it digests Tiliard from the sewers to the opera houses, its toxin reshapes the future of the city. No sane person would hunt it, if they had the choice.

Guy doesn't have a choice.

'A lush and seductive story, rife with opulent horror and decaying decadence'
SUNYI DEAN
]]> 432 Hiron Ennes 125081121X mj 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Hiron Ennes
name: mj
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


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


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 mj 5
i’m off to stare at the wall for a few hours, or until my limbs regain feeling. ]]> 4.11 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: mj
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/07
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: best-of-2025, a24-adaptation-wishlist
review:
the first third of this book really frustrated me, i was very close to giving up. the idea was excellent, but i worried the execution was failing the further it went. and it continued in this way, meandering, plotless - but it’s a slow moving knife between the ribs, and it packs a bloody and tremendous punch. a few reviews i’ve read have said there is only before and after i who have never known men. they’re right.

i’m off to stare at the wall for a few hours, or until my limbs regain feeling.
]]> 222631674 From bestselling author John Boyne, a gripping and profound exploration of guilt, blame, trauma, and the human capacity for redemption.

In The Elements, acclaimed Irish novelist John Boyne has created an epic saga that weaves together four interconnected narratives, each representing a different perspective on the enabler, the accomplice, the perpetrator, and the victim.

The narrative follows a mother on the run from her past, a young soccer star facing a trial, a successful surgeon grappling with childhood trauma, and a father on a transformative journey with his son. Each is somehow connected to the next, and as the story unfolds, their lives intersect in unimaginable ways.

Boyne’s most ambitious work yet, The Elements is both an engrossing drama and a moving investigation of why and how we allow crime to occur. With masterful, spellbinding prose, he navigates this complex subject with extraordinary empathy and unflinching honesty. The story resonates on a deeply emotional level, challenging readers to confront their own conceptions of guilt and innocence at every step. Amid the wildly engrossing storytelling, the book ultimately What would you do when faced with the unthinkable?]]> 496 John Boyne 1250410363 mj 0 to-read 4.71 2025
author: John Boyne
name: mj
average rating: 4.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 mj 3 4.18 2025
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: mj
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:
gorgeously written, but would have been served much better as a full length novel.
]]> 228499077 From World Fantasy Award-winning author Tasha Suri comes The Isle in the Silver Sea, a heart-shattering romantasy of sapphic longing, medieval folklore and a love that spans the centuries.

In a Britain fuelled by stories, the knight and the witch are fated to fall in love and doom each other over and over, the same tale retold over hundreds of lifetimes.

Simran is a witch of the woods. Vina is a knight of the Queen's court. When the two women begin to fall for each other, how can they surrender to their desires, when to give in is to destroy each other?

As they seek a way to break the cycle, a mysterious assassin begins targeting tales like theirs. To survive, the two will need to write a story stronger than the one that fate has given to them.

But what tale is stronger than The Knight and the Witch?]]> 512 Tasha Suri 031659508X mj 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Tasha Suri
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:
!!!! lady knight autumn will be upon us this year !!!! also this cover made my jaw drop absolutely stunning
]]> 181110022 Combining the raw realism and vulnerability of Shuggie Bain and Detransition, Baby with the poignant sensibility of Pedro Almodóvar, a staggering coming-of-age novel deeply rooted in the class struggles of a trans woman growing up in Madrid in the last decades of the twentieth century.

"I saw a whole generation of boys fall like irredeemable angels."

Told in the heartrending voice of a girl trapped within the body of a boy, Bad Habit is a story of coming-of-age in working class Madrid–in a godforsaken neighborhood ironically named after a saint. Alana S. Portero's spunky protagonist struggles to make sense of herself and the world she inhabits, conveying her surroundings with mythic allusions and a poetic vitality absent from everyday life.

Set against the heroin epidemic that ravaged Madrid in the 1980s and the city’s vibrant party scene that dominated its nightlife in the 1990s, Bad Habit follows Portero’s unnamed protagonist as she grows up in a blue-collar suburb that has no place for her. Forging ahead, she discovers community and kinship in downtown Madrid, amid a lively party scene animated by junkies, pop divas, and fallen angels. But with each step she takes forward, she finds herself confronted by a violence she does not yet know how to counter; in this exciting, often terrifying, world each choice can truly be a matter of life and death.

Blistering and compassionate, Bad Habit illuminates the ties between gender and class, the search for identity, and the power of sisterhood. Shimmering in its lyrical beauty, vivid in its realism, autobiographical in its detail, it is a mesmerizing story of self-realization that speaks to the outsider in all of us.

Translated from the Spanish by Mara Faye Lethem]]> 240 Alana S. Portero 006333612X mj 0 to-read 4.22 2023
author: Alana S. Portero
name: mj
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213395480
Whether creeping across the moonlit lawns in her undergarments or gently tormenting the house staff, Winifred struggles at every turn to stifle the horrid compulsions of her past until her chillingly dark imagination breaches the feeble boundary of reality on Christmas morning.

Wielding her signature sardonic wit and a penchant for the gorgeously macabre, Virginia Feito returns with a vengeance in Victorian Psycho.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 mj 4
also i was about to put this on my a24 adaptation wishlist and then i remembered! a24 is blessing us with this fr! can’t wait to see how they pull this off without getting indicted. ]]> 3.61 2025
author: Virginia Feito
name: mj
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:
oh this one’s for all my fellow depraved, little freaks (complimentary). had absolutely no right being that funny and disgusting, and i try not to think what it means about me that every moment was a ghastly delight.

also i was about to put this on my a24 adaptation wishlist and then i remembered! a24 is blessing us with this fr! can’t wait to see how they pull this off without getting indicted.
]]> 228481861 A Human hybrid and an Alpha Were claw against the bonds of fate in the highly anticipated companion novel to the New York Times bestselling Bride.

Serena Paris is orphaned, pack-less, and one of a kind. Coming forward as the first Human-Were hybrid was supposed to heal a centuries-long rift between species. Instead, it made her a target, prey to the ruthless political machinations between Weres, Vampyres, and Humans. With her enemies closing in on her, she has only one option left—if he’ll have her.

As Alpha of the Northwest pack, Koen Alexander commands obedience. His authority is so absolute, only a fool would threaten his mate. It doesn’t matter if Serena doesn’t reciprocate his feelings, nothing will stop him from keeping her safe.

But power-hungry Vampyres and Weres are not the only threats chasing Serena. Sooner or later, her past is bound to catch up with her—and Koen might be the only thing standing between her and total annihilation…]]> 432 Ali Hazelwood mj 0 to-read oh ali, how i love you 0.0 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:
oh ali, how i love you
]]> 215118692 A bombshell bestseller in Japan, a provocative, defiant debut novel about a young woman in a care home seeking autonomy and the full possibilities of her life.

Born with a congenital muscle disorder,��Shaka spends her days in her room in a care home outside Tokyo, relying on an electric wheelchair to get around and a ventilator to breathe. But if Shaka's physical life is limited, her quick, mischievous mind has no she takes e-learning courses on her iPad, publishes explicit fantasies on websites, and anonymously troll-tweets to see if anyone is paying attention (“If I were to live again, I’d want to be a highclass prostitute��). One day, she tweets into the void an offer of an enormous sum of money for a sperm donor. To her surprise—and ours—her new nurse accepts the dare, unleashing a series of events that will forever change Shaka's sense of herself as a woman in the world.

Hunchback has shaken Japanese literary culture with its skillful depiction of the physical body and��unrepentant humor. Winner of the prestigious Akutagawa Prize, it's a feminist story about the dignity of an individual who insist on her right to make choices for herself, no matter the consequences. Formally creative and refreshingly unsentimental, Hunchback depicts the joy, anger, and desires of a woman demanding autonomy in a world that doesn't aways always grant it to people like her. Full of wit, bite, and heart, this unforgettable novel reminds us all of the full potential��of our lives, no matter the limitations we experience.]]> Saou Ichikawa 0593734734 mj 0 to-read 3.42 2023
author: Saou Ichikawa
name: mj
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 223420465
Trapped and desperate, Arthur turns to his closest friends for comfort and help. Together they dream up a wild, fantastical scheme to free Arthur from the cruel trap in which he finds himself. Wealthy, irrepressible Colin Wren suggests using the unnerving Crane journal (bound in the skin of its author) to summon a dragon to do their bidding. The others—brave, beautiful Alison Shiner; the battling twins Donna and Donovan McBride; and brainy, bold Gwen—don’t hesitate to join Colin in an effort to smash reality and bring a creature of the impossible into our world.

But there’s nothing simple about dealing with dragons, and their pact to save Arthur becomes a terrifying bargain in which the six must choose a new sacrifice for King Sorrow every year—or become his next meal.]]> 896 Joe Hill 0062200607 mj 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Joe Hill
name: mj
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211809571 The third installment in the heartwarming and enchanting Emily Wilde series, about a curmudgeonly scholar of folklore and the fae prince she loves

Emily Wilde has spent her life studying faeries. A renowned dryadologist, she has documented hundreds of species of Folk in her Encyclopaedia of Faeries. Now she is about to embark on her most dangerous academic project studying the inner workings of a faerie realm—as its queen.

Along with her former academic rival—now fiancé—the dashing and mercurial Wendell Bambleby, Emily is immediately thrust into the deadly intrigues of Faerie as the two of them seize the throne of Wendell’s long-lost kingdom, which Emily finds a beautiful nightmare filled with scholarly treasures.

Emily has been obsessed with faerie stories her entire life, but at first she feels as ill-suited to Faerie as she did to the mortal How can an unassuming scholar such as herself pass for a queen? Yet there is little time to settle in, for Wendell’s murderous stepmother has placed a deadly curse upon the land before vanishing without a trace. It will take all of Wendell’s magic—and Emily’s knowledge of stories—to unravel the mystery before they lose everything they hold dear.

Book Three of the Emily Wilde Series]]> 368 Heather Fawcett 0593500237 mj 2 4.24 2025
author: Heather Fawcett
name: mj
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:
i think this was a really unfortunate combination of me not being in the right mood for it and a plot that just didn’t grab me, i hate myself rtc
]]> 17187000 Librarian Note: Find an alternate cover edition (white gloves) with the same ISBN HERE.

No one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals. Sue Trinder is an orphan, left as an infant in the care of Mrs. Sucksby, a "baby farmer." Mrs. Sucksby’s household also hosts a transient family of petty thieves--fingersmiths--for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.

One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives--Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, they all will share in Maud’s vast inheritance.

With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to regret her decision.]]> 548 Sarah Waters 1860498833 mj 5 all-time-loves 4.10 2002
author: Sarah Waters
name: mj
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2002
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: all-time-loves
review:

]]> 63376665 A riveting, deeply personal memoir of more than twenty years of death-scene investigations by New York City death investigator Barbara Butcher.

Barbara Butcher was early in her recovery from alcoholism when she found an unexpected a job at the Medical Examiner’s Office in New York City. The second woman ever hired for the role of Death Investigator in Manhattan, she was the first to last more than three months. The work was gritty, demanding, morbid, and sometimes dangerous �� she loved it.

Butcher (yes, that is her real name, and she has heard all the jokes) spent day in and day out investigating double homicides, gruesome suicides, and most heartbreaking of all, underage rape victims who had also been murdered. In What the Dead Know, she writes with the kind of New York attitude and bravado you might expect from decades in the field, investigating more than 5,500 death scenes, 680 of which were homicides. In the opening chapter, she describes how just from sheer luck of having her arm in cast, she avoided a boobytrapped suicide. Later in her career, she describes working the nation’s largest mass murder, the attack on 9/11, where she and her colleagues initially relied on family members�� descriptions to help distinguish among the 21,900 body parts of the victims.

This is the fascinating and stunning real-life story of a woman who, in dealing with death every day, learned surprising lessons about life—and how some of those lessons saved her from becoming a statistic herself. Fans of Kathy Reichs, Patricia Cornwell, and true crime won’t be able to put it down.]]> 289 Barbara Butcher 1982179406 mj 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.32 2023
author: Barbara Butcher
name: mj
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 58709510 The Butchering Art, presents the compelling, true story of a visionary surgeon who rebuilt the faces of the First World War’s injured heroes, and in the process ushered in the modern era of plastic surgery.

From the moment the first machine gun rang out over the Western Front, one thing was clear: humankind’s military technology had wildly surpassed its medical capabilities. Bodies were battered, gouged, hacked, and gassed. The First World War claimed millions of lives and left millions more wounded and disfigured. In the midst of this brutality, however, there were also those who strove to alleviate suffering. The Facemaker tells the extraordinary story of such an individual: the pioneering plastic surgeon Harold Gillies, who dedicated himself to reconstructing the burned and broken faces of the injured soldiers under his care.

Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, became interested in the nascent field of plastic surgery after encountering the human wreckage on the front. Returning to Britain, he established one of the world’s first hospitals dedicated entirely to facial reconstruction. There, Gillies assembled a unique group of practitioners whose task was to rebuild what had been torn apart, to re-create what had been destroyed. At a time when losing a limb made a soldier a hero, but losing a face made him a monster to a society largely intolerant of disfigurement, Gillies restored not just the faces of the wounded but also their spirits.

The Facemaker places Gillies’s ingenious surgical innovations alongside the dramatic stories of soldiers whose lives were wrecked and repaired. The result is a vivid account of how medicine can be an art, and of what courage and imagination can accomplish in the presence of relentless horror.]]> 315 Lindsey Fitzharris 0241389372 mj 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.27 2022
author: Lindsey Fitzharris
name: mj
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 220161306 An Italian-inspired gothic historical fantasy debut in which a young woman competing with her twin brother to inherit the family forge finds her power in the nocturnal world that lurks beneath her own.

Just beyond the waking edges of Lucerìa, an 18th-century town in the kingdom of Naples, lies the an enigmatic fiefdom governed by seven immortals and fueled by Moira, the power to reshape one’s destiny.

On this porous border separating Day from Night, Oriana spends her time fantasizing about becoming a smith in her father’s forge and eavesdropping on whispered tales of beasts and men who roam the nocturnal realm. But in the Night, these stories come alive, as Oriana saw for herself after she inadvertently trespassed into the Secret Market of the Dead, where vendors hawk Moira to those desperate enough to accept its immeasurably steep price.

Years later, when her father chooses her twin brother to succeed him, Oriana challenges her sibling to a series of trials to determine the forge’s true heir. But as the twins�� fierce competition escalates, with the town and her own family set firmly against her, Oriana realizes that to break free from the stifling confines of Day, she must once again embrace the Night—and, as always, everything comes with a cost.]]> 336 Giovanni De Feo 1668077361 mj 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Giovanni De Feo
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222361600 A pair of Gothic novelists trade rivalry for love in this swoony, steamy, sapphic Regency by USA Today bestselling author Alexandra Vasti.

Celebrated authoress Lady Georgiana Cleeve has achieved fame and fortune. Unfortunately, she’s also acquired an the enigmatic Lady Darling, whose spine-tingling plots appear to be pulled straight from Georgiana’s own manuscripts. What’s a stubborn, steely writer to do? Unmask her rival, of course.

But unmasking doesn’t go according to plan—because Lady Darling is actually Cat Lacey, the butler’s daughter and object of Georgiana’s very secret, very embarrassing teenage infatuation.

Cat Lacey has spent a decade clawing her family out of poverty. The last thing she needs is to be distracted by the stunning(ly pretentious) Lady Georgiana Cleeve. But Cat can’t seem to escape her infuriatingly beautiful rival—including at the eerie manor where they both plan to set their next books. The plot unexpectedly thickens, however, when the novelists find themselves trapped in the manor together. In between ghostly moans and spectral staff, Cat and Georgiana come face-to-face with real the scorching passion that’s been haunting their rivalry all along.]]> Alexandra Vasti 1250910994 mj 0 to-read 4.37 2025
author: Alexandra Vasti
name: mj
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224004657 Award­ winning author Ken Liu returns with his first sci-fi thriller in a brand-new series following former “orphan hacker�� Julia Z as she is thrust into a high-stakes adventure where she must use her cybersecurity and hacking skills to unravel a virtual reality mystery, rescue a kidnapped dream artist, and confront the blurred lines between technology, identity, and the power of shared dreams.

Julia Z, a young woman who gained notoriety at fourteen as the “orphan hacker,�� is trying to live a life of digital obscurity in a Boston suburb.

But when a lawyer named Piers—whose famous artist wife, Elli, has been kidnapped by dangerous criminals—barges into her life, Julia decides to put the solitary life she has painstakingly created at risk as she can’t walk away from helping Piers and Elli, nor step away from the challenge of this digital puzzle. Elli is an onierofex, a dream artist, who can weave the dreams of an audience together through a shared virtual landscape, live, in a concert-like experience by tapping into each attendee’s waking dream and providing an emotionally resonant and narrative experience. While attendees�� dreams are anonymous, Julia discovers that Elli was also providing a one-on-one dream experience for the head of an international criminal enterprise, and he’s demanding his dreams in return for Elli.

Unraveling the real and unreal leads Julia on an adventure that takes her across the country and deep into the shadows of her psyche.]]> 416 Ken Liu 1668083175 mj 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Ken Liu
name: mj
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 208707405 A gripping literary page-turner from a rising Irish talent in which former friends, estranged for twenty years, reckon with the terrifying events of the summer that changed their lives.

In the seaside village of Kinlough, on Ireland’s west coast, three old friends meet for the first time in years. They—Helen, Joe and Mush—were part of an original group of six inseparable teenagers in the summer of 2003, with motherless, reckless Kala Lanann at its white-hot center. But later that year, Kala disappeared without a trace. Now remains have been discovered in the woods—including a skull with a Polaroid photo tucked inside—and the town is both aghast and titillated at reopening this old wound.

On the eve of this gruesome discovery, Helen had reluctantly returned for her father’s wedding, the world-famous musician Joe had come home to dry out and reconnect with something authentic, and Mush had never left, too shattered by the events of that summer to venture beyond the counter of his mother’s café. But when two more girls go missing, they are forced to confront their own complicity in the events that led to Kala’s disappearance. Ultimately, they must do what others should have done before to stop the violent patterns of their town’s past repeating themselves once again.

In cracklingly vivid prose, Kala brilliantly examines the sometimes brutal costs of belonging, as well as the battle in the human heart between vengeance and forgiveness, despair and redemption.]]> 416 Colin Walsh 0593470028 mj 0 to-read 3.73 2023
author: Colin Walsh
name: mj
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 30285766
Tamsen Donner must be a witch. That is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the wagon train known as the Donner Party. Depleted rations, bitter quarrels, and the mysterious death of a little boy have driven the pioneers to the brink of madness. They cannot escape the feeling that someone--or something--is stalking them. Whether it was a curse from the beautiful Tamsen, the choice to follow a disastrous experimental route West, or just plain bad luck--the 90 men, women, and children of the Donner Party are at the brink of one of the deadliest and most disastrous western adventures in American history.

While the ill-fated group struggles to survive in the treacherous mountain conditions--searing heat that turns the sand into bubbling stew; snows that freeze the oxen where they stand--evil begins to grow around them, and within them. As members of the party begin to disappear, they must ask themselves "What if there is something waiting in the mountains? Something disturbing and diseased...and very hungry?"]]> 376 Alma Katsu 0735212511 mj 0 to-read 3.57 2018
author: Alma Katsu
name: mj
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220595449
When We Love You, Bunny opens, Sam has just published her first novel to critical acclaim. But at a New England stop on her book tour, her one-time frenemies, furious at the way they’ve been portrayed, kidnap her. Now a captive audience, it’s her (and our) turn to hear the Bunnies�� side of the story. One by one, they take turns holding the axe, and recount the birth throes of their unholy alliance, their discovery of their unusual creative powers—and the phantasmagoric adventure of conjuring their first creation. With a bound and gagged Sam, we embark on a wickedly intoxicating journey into the heart of dark academia: a fairy tale slasher that explores the wonder and horror of creation itself. Not to mention the transformative powers of love and friendship, Bunny.

Frankenstein by way of Heathers, We Love You, Bunny is both a prequel and a sequel, and an unabashedly wild and totally complete stand-alone novel. Open your hearts, Bunny, to another dazzlingly original and darkly hilarious romp in the Bunny-verse from the queen of the fever-dream, Mona Awad.]]> 496 Mona Awad 166805986X mj 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Mona Awad
name: mj
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215098003 God, I want to kiss her. I want to feel the heat of her lips against mine. Would she want that? Would she melt against me if she did? Or would the tension I feel between us snap and release something feral inside her? Inside me?

From the #1��New York Times�����Ի���USA TODAY��bestselling author of the genre-breaking international TikTok sensation��Butcher & Blackbird��and��Leather & Lark��comes the final book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy—a friends-with-benefits dark romantic comedy packed with murder, mayhem, and spice.

Doctor Fionn Kane is running from a broken heart, one he hopes to mend in small-town Nebraska, far away from his almost-fiancé and his derailed surgical career. It’s a simpler head down, hard work, and��absolutely no��romantic relationships. He wants none of the circus he left behind in Boston.

But then the�����𲹱���circus finds him.

Motorcycle performer Rose Evans has spent a decade on the road with the Silveria Circus, and it suits her just fine, especially when she has the urge to indulge in a little murder when she’s not in the spotlight. But when a kill goes awry and she ends up with an injured leg, Rose finds herself stuck in Nebraska, at the home of the adorably nerdy town doctor.

The problem is, not every broken heart can be sewn back together.

. . . And the longer you stay in one place, the more likely your ghosts are to catch up.


Friends with benefits
Small town romance
Fish out of water
Forced proximity
Hurt/care
Touch her and die]]> 416 Brynne Weaver mj 3
that being said, i don’t think the perfect blend of charm and insanity was ever achieved after butcher and blackbird. the first book was funny, romantic, and thoroughly disturbing, while each book since has felt like a watered down version. fionn and lochlan never come close to rowan, lark and rose never give me the same complexity and range as sloane. this one was doing so well for the first third, but it started to lean way to hard on the first two books and it quickly and steadily lost my interest. rose and fionn were good characters to follow, but they ended up side characters in another narrative that we have already seen played out�� twice. however, this one only prompted a few eye rolls, and overall it was fun. i will say it excelled in rose’s character. the single funniest part of this book is that rose may be a serial killer like her fellow mc’s in the ruinous love trilogy, but she is hilariously bad at it. cannot stomach gore, has no real skills for fighting - just a can-do attitude.

i’m glad i finished the trilogy, it was a good ending all around i guess. if you liked leather & lark, i think you’ll probably enjoy this one - but if you’re hoping for the magic of b&b, can’t say it quite did the trick for me. ]]> 4.19 2025
author: Brynne Weaver
name: mj
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
it’s really more of a 2/2.5, but it was so much better than leather and lark.

that being said, i don’t think the perfect blend of charm and insanity was ever achieved after butcher and blackbird. the first book was funny, romantic, and thoroughly disturbing, while each book since has felt like a watered down version. fionn and lochlan never come close to rowan, lark and rose never give me the same complexity and range as sloane. this one was doing so well for the first third, but it started to lean way to hard on the first two books and it quickly and steadily lost my interest. rose and fionn were good characters to follow, but they ended up side characters in another narrative that we have already seen played out�� twice. however, this one only prompted a few eye rolls, and overall it was fun. i will say it excelled in rose’s character. the single funniest part of this book is that rose may be a serial killer like her fellow mc’s in the ruinous love trilogy, but she is hilariously bad at it. cannot stomach gore, has no real skills for fighting - just a can-do attitude.

i’m glad i finished the trilogy, it was a good ending all around i guess. if you liked leather & lark, i think you’ll probably enjoy this one - but if you’re hoping for the magic of b&b, can’t say it quite did the trick for me.
]]> 222793034 From the Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Olivie Blake, this is a powerful and darkly fun novel about ambition, lust and eating your fill �� as wealthy moms and sorority girls practice a sinister new wellness trend . . .

Good girls deserve a treat.

The House is the most exclusive sorority on campus; its members and alumni are universally beautiful, high-achieving and 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 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 eighteen 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 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.

‘Whip-sharp, nuanced, and highly propulsive��
Hildur Knútsdóttir, author of The Night Guest

‘Truly brilliant . . . wickedly fun and deeply satisfying��
Ling Ling Huang, author of Natural Beauty and Immaculate Conception

‘An exploration of the many hungers of the female heart��
Delilah S. Dawson, New York Times bestselling author of The Violence]]> Olivie Blake 103501145X mj 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Olivie Blake
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
review:
has a year ever been so stacked? have we ever been so fed? if even half of the insane titles dropping this year are good it’s gonna be a gorgeous year (book-wise at least)
]]> 223854541 A down-on-her-luck woman makes a deal with a crafty demon to win back her ex-girlfriend after a proposal gone awry, only to discover the girl of her dreams might��be the devil she knows, from nationally bestselling author Alexandria Bellefleur.

Samantha Cooper is having a day from hell.

In less than 24 hours, her life has unraveled, leaving her single and with nowhere to live. Adding insult to injury, she’s trapped in an elevator with a gorgeous woman claiming to be a demon.

Daphne is not at all what Samantha expected from someone claiming to be an evil supernatural entity. She’s pretty, witty, dressed in pink, and smells nice. And she’s here to offer Samantha a deal she can’t refuse. Six wishes in exchange for one tiny trade—Samantha’s soul. There’s a glaring loophole in their contract, one Samantha fully intends to exploit so she doesn’t fork over her soul. After all, she only needs one wish to win her ex back.

Hell-bent to gather the last of the one thousand souls she needs so that she can be free of her own devilish deal, Daphne grants each of Samantha’s wishes . . . with a twist, so that Samantha is forced to make another.

As Samantha’s wishes dwindle and Daphne offers her glimpses into the life she thought she wanted, the unlikely pair grows close. Perhaps the girl of Samantha’s dreams is actually the stuff of nightmares, but Samantha and Daphne will have to outsmart the Devil himself if they want a chance at happily ever after.]]> 336 Alexandria Bellefleur 0593952502 mj 0 to-read 3.89 2025
author: Alexandria Bellefleur
name: mj
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224970641
In this gritty, haunting tale about doing whatever it takes for love, a small-town storyteller resolves to keep the local monster—and her own secrets—safe from a legendary knight.

Nestled deep in the steep hills, valleys, and surrounding woodlands lies Iron Hollow, a rural community beset by demons. Such horrors are common in the outlands, where most folks die young, if they don’t turn into monsters first. But what’s causing these transformations?

No one has the answer, not even the town’s oral historian, seventeen-year-old Shrike. And when a legendary knight is summoned to hunt down the latest beast to haunt their woods, Shrike has more reason than most to be concerned. Because that demon was her wife. And while Shrike is certain that May still recognizes her—that May is still human, somewhere beneath it all—she can’t prove it.

Determined to keep May safe, Shrike stalks the knight and his demon-hunting hawk through the recesses of the forest. But as they creep through toxic creeks and overgrown kudzu, Shrike realizes the knight has a secret of his own. And he’ll do anything to protect it.]]> 36 Alix E. Harrow 1662527233 mj 0 to-read 4.01 2025
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: mj
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222616580 Ignyte Award-winning author C. L. Clark brings fantasy to the fens with Fate's Bane, a tragic sapphic adventure.

Warring clans. Burning hearts. Deadly fate.

The clans of the fens enjoy a tenuous peace, and it is all thanks to Agnir, ward and hostage. For as long as she can remember she has lived among the enemy, learning their ways, growing strong alongside their children. When a burgeoning love for the chieftain’s daughter lures them both to a hidden spring, a magic awakens in them that could bind the clans under one banner at last—or destroy any hope of peace. By working their intentions into leather, they can weave misfortune for their enemies�� just like the Fate’s Bane that haunts the legends of the clans.

Ambitions grow in their fathers�� hearts, grudges threaten a return to violence, and greedy enemies wait outside the borders, seeking a foothold to claim the fens for themselves. And though their Makings may save their families, the legend that gave them this power always exacts its price.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 176 C.L. Clark 1250293154 mj 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: C.L. Clark
name: mj
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214641607 *WINNER OF THE INAUGURAL PFD QUEER FICTION PRIZE*
*SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE DISCOVERIES AWARD*

An arresting, unmissable debut novel shortlisted for the Women's Prize Discoveries award - an exploration of family, grief, queer identity, and the legacy of the Catholic Church in Ireland.

Can you imagine it? I'd say to them. Can you imagine me there in the front row in Saint Peter's Square? The lesbian sister of a literal saint.

Brought up in a devout household in Ireland, Jay is now living in London with her girlfriend, determined to live day to day and not think too much about either the future or the past. But when she learns that her beloved older brother, who died in a terrible accident, may be made into a Catholic saint, she realises she must at last confront her family, her childhood and herself . . .

Inspired by the author's own devout upbringing, Ordinary Saints is a brilliant debut novel from a fresh, exciting new voice which asks - who gets to decide how we are remembered - and who we will become?

Praise for Ordinary Saints:

'The best debut novel I've read in a long time. Niamh Ní Mhaoileoin is a writer of immense delicacy, perception and heart, drilling deep into questions of faith, family and love. A beautiful novel and a huge talent'
Jessica Moor

'Ní Mhaoileoin's writing has a real magic to it that hits you right from the first sentence'
Okechukwu Nzelu

'I both learnt - and felt - a lot reading Ordinary Saints. An intriguing, compelling and deeply original debut'
Roxy Dunn, author of As Young As This]]> 368 Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin 1786584263 mj 0 to-read 4.54
author: Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin
name: mj
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 75568983 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
��
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence-a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 228 Daniel Keyes mj 5 all-time-loves 4.44 1966
author: Daniel Keyes
name: mj
average rating: 4.44
book published: 1966
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: all-time-loves
review:

]]> 220160172 In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

Following the murder of her husband in what looks like a violent street robbery, Hannah Cole is struggling to keep her head above water. Her confectionary shop on Piccadilly is barely turning a profit, her suppliers conspiring to put her out of business because they don’t like women in trade. Henry Fielding, the famous author-turned-magistrate, is threatening to confiscate the money in her husband’s bank account because he believes it might have been illicitly acquired. And even those who claim to be Hannah’s friends have darker intent.

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.]]> 304 Laura Shepherd-Robinson 1668083094 mj 0 to-read 4.40
author: Laura Shepherd-Robinson
name: mj
average rating: 4.40
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 213871135 When Sarah’s only friend in her graduate program is found dead of an alleged heroin overdose, she is forced back into the orbit of the man in their department who assaulted her. A hurtling ride of a novel—darkly funny and propulsive.

At a PhD program in southern California, Sarah and her best friend Nathan spend their time working on their theses, getting high, and keeping track of the poor air quality due to nearby forest fires. No one believes Sarah when she reports a fellow student for raping her at a party—“he’s such a good guy!”—and the Title IX office simply files away the information, just like the police. Nathan is the only person who cares.

When Sarah finds him dead of an overdose from a drug he’s always avoided, she knows something isn’t right. She starts investigating his death as a murder, and as the pieces fall into place, she notices a disturbing pattern in the other student deaths on campus.

As a girl, Sarah grew up in the forests of Maine, following her father on hunts, learning how to stalk prey and kill but only when necessary. Now, she must confront a different type of killing—and decide if it can be justified.��

Notes on Surviving the Fire is a story about vengeance, the insidious nature of rape culture and ultimately, a woman's journey to come back to herself.]]> 0 Christine Murphy 0593801504 mj 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Christine Murphy
name: mj
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55941815 Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi believes that she is an Ogbanje, or an Abiku, a non-human spirit that plagues a family with misfortune by being born and then dying in childhood to cause a human mother misery. She has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family but lives in fear of the consequences of her decision.

Kambirinachi and her two daughters become estranged from one another because of a trauma that Kehinde experiences in childhood, which leads her to move away and cut off all contact. She ultimately finds her path as an artist and seeks to raise a family of her own, despite her fear that she won't be a good mother. Meanwhile, Taiye is plagued by guilt for what her sister suffered and also runs away, attempting to fill the void of that lost relationship with casual flings with women. She eventually discovers a way out of her stifling loneliness through a passion for food and cooking.

But now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward.

For readers of African diasporic authors such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family.]]> 368 Francesca Ekwuyasi 155152824X mj 0 to-read 4.30 2020
author: Francesca Ekwuyasi
name: mj
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222069388
Gilda, a twenty-something, atheist, animal-loving lesbian, cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind and alienated from her repressive family, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church, and finds herself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she’s there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace.

In between trying to memorize the lines to Catholic mass, hiding the fact that she has a new girlfriend, and erecting a dirty dish tower in her crumbling apartment, Gilda strikes up an email correspondence with Grace’s old friend. She can’t bear to ignore the kindly old woman who has been trying to reach her friend through the church inbox, but she also can’t bring herself to break the bad news. Desperate, she begins impersonating Grace via email. But when the police discover suspicious circumstances surrounding Grace’s death, Gilda may have to finally reveal the truth of her mortifying existence.

With a “kindhearted heroine we all need right now�� (Courtney Maum, New York Times bestselling author), Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling and “delightfully weird reminder that we will one day turn to dust and that yes, this is depressing, but it’s also what makes life beautiful�� (Jean Kyoung Frazier, author of Pizza Girl).]]> 255 Emily R. Austin 1982167378 mj 3 3.80 2021
author: Emily R. Austin
name: mj
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
3/3.5. really dark, funny, and off-putting in an enjoyable way. it takes a little while to get used to gilda’s internal monologue, and once you do her mind is a fairly dark place to occupy. really well done and written - looking forward to reading the rest of austin’s work.
]]> 220195723 A haunting and seductive tale of a young career woman who slides quickly into the role of stepmother, in a life that may still belong to someone else. “Vivid, addictive, and crackling with life (yes, even the ghost), House of Beth asks us to consider how and why we make the lives we make�� (Lynn Steger Strong).

After a heart-wrenching breakup with her girlfriend and a shocking incident at her job, Cassie flees her life as an overworked assistant in New York for her hometown in New Jersey, along the Delaware. There, she reconnects with her high school best friend, Eli, now a widowed father of two. Their bond reignites, and within a few short months, Cassie is married to Eli, living in his house in the woods, homeschooling the kids, and getting to know her reserved neighbor, Joan.

But Cassie’s fresh start is less idyllic than she’d hoped. She grapples with harm OCD, her mind haunted by gory, graphic images. And she’s afraid that she’ll never measure up to Eli’s late spouse, who was a committed homemaker and traditional wife. No matter what Cassie does, Beth’s shadow still permeates every corner of their home.

Soon, Cassie starts hearing a voice narrating the house’s secrets. As she listens, the voice grows stronger, guiding Cassie down a path to uncover the truth about Beth’s untimely death.]]> Kerry Cullen 1668074613 mj 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Kerry Cullen
name: mj
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 224103430 The new novel from the bestselling author of If We Were Villains and Graveyard Shift—a vivid and immersive tale of one woman’s reckless mission to make sense of the events that shattered her childhood, and made her who she is

Summer, 1989: ten-year-old Suzanne is drawn like a magnet to her father’s forbidden world of electric guitars and tricked-out cars. When her mother remarries, she jumps at the chance to tag along on the concert tour that just might be Gil and the Kills�� wild ride to glory. But fame has sharper fangs than anybody realized, and as the band blazes up the charts, internal power struggles set Gil and his group on a collision course destined for a bloody reckoning—one shrouded in mystery and lore for decades to come.

The only witness to a desperate act of violence, Suzanne spends the next twenty-nine years trying to disappear. She trades the music and mayhem of her youth for the quiet of the suburbs and the company of her mild-mannered husband Rob. But when her father’s sudden death resurrects the troubled past she tried so hard to bury, she leaves it all behind and hits the road in search of answers. Hitching her fate and Gil’s beloved car to two vagabonds who call an old Airstream trailer home, she finds everything she thought she’d lost desire, adventure, and the woman she once wanted to be. But Rob refuses to let her go. Determined to bring her back where she belongs, he chases her across the country—and drives her to a desperation all her own.

Drenched in knock-down drag-out rock and roll, Hot Wax is a raucous, breakneck ride to hell and back—where getting lost might be the only way to find yourself and save your soul.]]> 400 M.L. Rio 1668070022 mj 0 to-read 3.86 2025
author: M.L. Rio
name: mj
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212806981 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...]]> 447 Ali Hazelwood 0593550447 mj 3 4.09 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: mj
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
review:
yes i read it in less than 24 hours, yes i had a good time, but sadly this was not my fave.
]]> 222377141 A gorgeous, atmospheric debut fantasy that reimagines the Jewish myth of golem in a tale rooted in history, folklore, and sapphic romance—perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten, and Naomi Novik.

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.

As the healer’s daughter, Malka has seen how the curse of the woods has plagued her village, but when the Ozmini Church comes to collect their tithes, they don’t listen to the warnings about a monster lurking in the trees. After a clergy girl wanders too close to the forest and Malka’s mother is accused of her murder, Malka strikes a bargain with a zealot Ozmini priest. If she brings him the monster, he will spare her mother from execution.

When she ventures into the blood-soaked woods, Malka finds a monster, though not the one she expects: an inscrutable, disgraced golem who agrees to implicate herself, but only after Malka helps her free the imprisoned rabbi who created her.

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.]]> 352 Maddie Martinez 1250367751 mj 0 to-read 3.78 2025
author: Maddie Martinez
name: mj
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:
oh it’s so beautiful give give give
]]> 219551467 In this addictive new fantasy series set in a world where magic is fueled by pleasure and pain, an obsessive detective infiltrates a brutal gang of dark mages—knowing that one wrong move will get her killed. . . .

Two decades ago, the Bloodmoons ruthlessly murdered Saffron Killoran’s parents, destroying her idyllic childhood. Hell-bent on revenge, she lies her way into Silvercloak Academy—the training ground for her city’s elite order of detectives—with a single goal: to bring the Bloodmoons to justice.

But when Saff’s deception is exposed, rather than being cast out, she’s given a rare opportunity: to go undercover and tear the Bloodmoons down from the inside.

Descending into a world where pleasure and pain are the most powerful currencies, Saff must commit some truly heinous deeds to keep her cover—and her life. Not only are there rival gangs and sinister smuggling rings to contend with, but there’s also her growing feelings for the kingpin’s tortured son, with his vicious pet fallowwolf, his dark past, and the curious prophecy foretelling his death at Saffron’s hand.

With each day testing her loyalties further, Saff finds her web of lies becoming harder to spin. And when one false step could destroy everything and everyone she’s ever loved . . . the detective who’s dedicated her life to vengeance just might die for it.

Book One of the Silvercloak Saga]]> 480 L.K. Steven 059397400X mj 0 to-read 4.03 2025
author: L.K. Steven
name: mj
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222419270 In this sexy and emotional romance from the acclaimed author of Out of the Woods and Out on a Limb, a small-town woman’s journey to spread her wings intertwines with the arrival of an adventurous newcomer who brings out the best in her.

Prudence Welch has found solace in her introverted life in Baysville, a charming tourist town in Northern Ontario. Despite once dreaming of a life beyond its borders, she now finds contentment in her working at her father’s gas station, writing poetry, and caring for her mother, who was diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's shortly after Prue’s nineteenth birthday. But as her mother’s condition worsens and her father’s concerns about her future intensify, Prue feels her world slipping further out of control.

Enter Milo Kablukov, an enigmatic wanderer whose beat-up van covered with ill-advised bumper stickers rolls into town just when Prue needs a change. It’s all too easy to let go with him, and Prue can’t help but strike up an unlikely friendship with Milo, which leads to a wild and sexy agreement between them.

Milo, a man of many adventures and countless stories, is not one to settle down. However, his brother’s urgent need for help has brought him to Baysville, and now the intriguing Prue has given him more reason to stay. Especially once they start spending more time together, their chemistry intensifying, and casual-sex lessons start at Prue’s request.

But as their temporary arrangement blossoms into something deeper, Prue and Milo discover that getting out of their comfort zones is one thing . . . taking that leap together is something else entirely.]]> 352 Hannah Bonam-Young 059387188X mj 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Hannah Bonam-Young
name: mj
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212365339 A married couple joins a week-long wilderness expedition to help them reconnect in this heartfelt companion novel to the viral TikTok sensation Out on a Limb.

High school sweethearts Sarah and Caleb Linwood have always been a sure thing. For the past seventeen years, they have had each other’s backs through all of life’s ups and downs.

But Sarah has begun to wonder... who is she without her other half?

When she decides to take on a project of her own, a fundraising gala in memoriam of her late mother, Sarah wants nothing more than to prove to herself—and to everyone else—that she doesn’t need Caleb’s help to succeed. She’s still her mother’s daughter, after all, independent and capable.

That is, until the event fails and Caleb uninvitedly steps in to save the day.

The rift that follows unearths a decade of grievances and doubts. Are they truly the same people they were when they got married at nineteen?��Are they supposed to be?

In a desperate attempt to fix what they fear is breaking, Sarah and Caleb make the spontaneous decision to get out of their comfort zone and join a grueling, week-long hiking trip intended to guide couples through rough patches.

What follows is a life-affirming comedy of errors as two nature-averse people fight their way out of the woods in order to find their way back to their roots.]]> 336 Hannah Bonam-Young 0593871871 mj 2 4.05 2025
author: Hannah Bonam-Young
name: mj
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 222376600 From the acclaimed author of The Stardust Grail comes the epic tale of two sisters who sail across oceans to find their missing third sister―and Earth’s environmental salvation.

In Earth's not too distant future, seas consume coastal cities, highways disintegrate underwater, and mutant fish lurk in pirate-controlled depths. Skipper, a skilled sailor and the youngest of three sisters, earns money skimming and reselling plastic from the ocean to care for her ailing grandmother.

But then her eldest sister, Nora, goes missing. Nora left home a decade ago in pursuit of a cure for failing crops all over the world. When Skipper and her other sister, Carmen, receive a cryptic plea for help, they must put aside their differences and set out across the sea to find―and save―her. As they voyage through a dying world both beautiful and strange, encountering other travelers along the way, they learn more about their sister's work and the corporations that want what she discovered.

But the farther they go, the more uncertain their mission becomes: What dangerous attention did Nora attract, and how well do they really know their sister―or each other? Thus begins an epic journey spanning oceans and continents and a wistful rumination on sisterhood, friendship, and ecological disaster.

--

Content warnings available on the author's website (see author bio).]]> 384 Yume Kitasei 1250380960 mj 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Yume Kitasei
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 174733026
Winter is a Priestess, her life is simple and uncomplicated, but shortly takes a turn when she is appointed as an aide for a Mage who intends to stop the God of Death from spreading a plague that would end their world. Both of them begin searching the Urvalis library for answers and find more than they had bargained for.

And as the end approaches, the questions begin vaguing.]]> 141 Wendy Heiss mj 3 4.01 2023
author: Wendy Heiss
name: mj
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves:
review:
honestly, not bad! it gave what it needed to give - and i love a brooding man who falls for a nonsensical yapper.
]]> 217293304 Daisy Jones and The Six meets Patricia Highsmith in this addictive, intense novel about the brutal and ferocious road to glory, from the award-winning author of My Husband.��

Ever since she was a child, Cléo, the French-American daughter of two academics, has had only one obsession: becoming a famous singer. Over the years, to everyone’s surprise but her own, she overcomes every obstacle and becomes a global superstar with millions of dollars, countless awards, and several Los Angeles villas to her name. But as any celebrity will tell you, getting to the top is one thing; staying there is another.

Now thirty-three years old, Cléo is taking her first real vacation in years, on a remote island with no one else in sight. With the never-ending spin cycle of her life finally on pause and no paparazzi peeking out from behind the coconut palms, she can work on her fourth album in peace. Except that with so much time to think, she can’t help but ruminate on her past—including how, just six months earlier, things started to go very, very wrong...

Taking place between New York, Paris, Los Angeles and the South Pacific, Make Me Famous is a brilliant sophomore novel from Maud Ventura that dives intoxicatingly deep into the machinations of one woman’s complicated mind, and her relentless pursuit of fame.]]> 352 Maud Ventura 0063427532 mj 0 to-read 4.00 2024
author: Maud Ventura
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 222376906
Ten years ago, Vincent of Beckett wrote to Matilda on the darkest night of his life―begging the goddess he befriended in dreams to help him. When his request went unanswered, Vincent moved on, becoming the hardened, irreverent lord of the river who has long forgotten Matilda. That is, until she comes tumbling into his bedroom window with a letter for him.

As Fate would have it, Matilda and Vincent were destined to find each other beyond dreams. There may be a chance for Matilda to rewrite the blood-soaked ways of the gods, but at immense sacrifice. She will have to face something she fears even more than losing her magic: to be vulnerable, and to allow herself to finally be loved.]]> 544 Rebecca Ross 1250373352 mj 0 to-read 4.65 2025
author: Rebecca Ross
name: mj
average rating: 4.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:
i am vibrating with excitement and fear of heartbreak
]]> 214297648 A moving story about two very different sisters, and a love letter to childhood, growing up, and the power of imagination—from the bestselling author of Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead and Interesting Facts About Space.

Sigrid hates working at the Dollar Pal but having always resisted the idea of growing up into the trappings of adulthood, she did not graduate high school, preferring to roam the streets of her small town with her best friend Greta, the only person in the world who ever understood her. Her older sister Margit is baffled and frustrated by Sigrid’s inability to conform to the expectations of polite society.

But Sigrid’s detachment veils a deeper turmoil and sensitivity. She’s haunted by the pains of her past—from pretending her parents were swamp monsters when they shook the floorboards with their violent arguments to grappling with losing Greta’s friendship to the opioid epidemic ravaging their town. As Margit sets out to understand Sigrid and the secrets she has hidden, both sisters, in their own time and way, discover that reigniting their shared childhood imagination is the only way forward.

What unfolds is an unforgettable story of two sisters finding their way back to each other, and a celebration of that transcendent, unshakable bond.]]> 252 Emily R. Austin 1668085526 mj 0 to-read 3.85 2025
author: Emily R. Austin
name: mj
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199897944 A “razor-sharp, perfectly plotted�� (The Sunday Times) tale of desire, suspicion, and obsession between two women staying in the same house in the Dutch countryside during the summer of 1961—a powerful exploration of the legacy of WWII and the darker parts of our collective past.

A house is a precious thing...

It is 1961 and the rural Dutch province of Overijssel is quiet. Bomb craters have been filled, buildings reconstructed, and the war is truly over. Living alone in her late mother’s country home, Isabel knows her life is as it should be—led by routine and discipline. But all is upended when her brother Louis brings his graceless new girlfriend Eva, leaving her at Isabel’s doorstep as a guest, to stay for the season.

Eva is Isabel’s antithesis: she sleeps late, walks loudly through the house, and touches things she shouldn’t. In response, Isabel develops a fury-fueled obsession, and when things start disappearing around the house—a spoon, a knife, a bowl—Isabel’s suspicions begin to spiral. In the sweltering peak of summer, Isabel’s paranoia gives way to infatuation, leading to a discovery that unravels all Isabel has ever known. The war might not be well and truly over after all, and neither Eva—nor the house in which they live—are what they seem.

Mysterious, sophisticated, sensual, and infused with intrigue, atmosphere, and sex, The Safekeep is “a brave and thrilling debut about facing up to the truth of history, and to one’s own desires�� (The Guardian).]]> 272 Yael van der Wouden 1668034360 mj 4 4.25 2024
author: Yael van der Wouden
name: mj
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/28
shelves:
review:
surprisingly tender, sexy, and vicious all at once. this one will stick with me for a long time, and it’s a part of ww2 history that many of us can likely say we were unaware of. it’s a story of love, surely, but also about national and personal culpability. heavily and sorrowfully relevant.
]]> 222376601
Kinsey has the perfect job as the team lead in a remote research outpost. She loves the solitude, and the way the desert keeps her far away from the temptations teeming out in the civilian world.

When her crew discovers a mysterious specimen buried deep in the sand, Kinsey breaks quarantine and brings it into the hab. But the longer it's inside, the more her carefully controlled life begins to unravel. Temptation has found her after all, and it can't be ignored any longer.

One by one, Kinsey's team realizes the thing they're studying is in search of a new host—and one of them is the perfect candidate....]]> 208 Sarah Gailey 1250387337 mj 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Sarah Gailey
name: mj
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216678617
If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda’s wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?

The Bee Sting, Paul Murray’s exuberantly entertaining new novel, is a tour de force: a portrait of postcrash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world.]]> 658 Paul Murray mj 0 to-read 3.61 2023
author: Paul Murray
name: mj
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217387953 Lucky Day is the newest novel of terror from Chuck Tingle, USA Today bestselling author of Bury Your Gays, where one woman must go up against the most horrifying concept of all: nothing.

Vera is a survivor of a global catastrophe known as the Low Probability Event, but she definitely isn't thriving. Once a passionate professor of statistics, she no longer finds meaning in anything at all.

But when problematic government agent Layne knocks on her door, she's the only one who can help him uncover the connection between deadly spates of absurdity and an improbably lucky casino. What's happening in Vegas isn't staying there, and the world is at risk of another disaster.

When it comes to Chuck Tingle, the only thing more terrifying than a serious horror novel is an absurd one...]]> 240 Chuck Tingle 1250398657 mj 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Chuck Tingle
name: mj
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 204170818 372 C.J. Leede mj 5 speechless 4.03 2024
author: C.J. Leede
name: mj
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves: a24-adaptation-wishlist, best-of-2025
review:
speechless
]]> 150285160
Zenia is beautiful, smart and greedy, by turns manipulative and vulnerable, needy and ruthless; a man's dream and a woman''s nightmare. She is also dead. Just to make sure Tony, Roz andd Charis are there for the funeral. But five years on, as the three women share an indulgent, sisterly lunch, the unthinkable happens; 'with waves of ill will flowing out of her like cosmic radiation', Zenia is back...]]> 530 Margaret Atwood mj 0 to-read 3.89 1993
author: Margaret Atwood
name: mj
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1993
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 214208266 The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

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

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

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 188 Agustina Bazterrica mj 2 3.76 2023
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: mj
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:
could not be arsed about this one
]]> 53575905 Minor Detail begins during the summer of 1949, one year after the war that the Palestinians mourn as the Nakba—the catastrophe that led to the displacement and exile of some 700,000 people—and the Israelis celebrate as the War of Independence. Israeli soldiers murder an encampment of Bedouin in the Negev desert, and among their victims they capture a Palestinian teenager and they rape her, kill her, and bury her in the sand.

Many years later, in the near-present day, a young woman in Ramallah tries to uncover some of the details surrounding this particular rape and murder, and becomes fascinated to the point of obsession, not only because of the nature of the crime, but because it was committed exactly twenty-five years to the day before she was born. Adania Shibli masterfully overlays these two translucent narratives of exactly the same length to evoke a present forever haunted by the past.]]> 144 Adania Shibli mj 4 4.17 2017
author: Adania Shibli
name: mj
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves:
review:
devastating, disturbing, and deeply important.
]]> 207670238
“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.��

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile, undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.]]> 976 SenLinYu mj 0 to-read 4.74 2025
author: SenLinYu
name: mj
average rating: 4.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:
976 PAGES?! i haven’t read manacled and yet i have never been so sat in my life. also potentially one of the most beautiful covers i have ever seen? give it to me
]]> 217256824 disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong��

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]> 361 Abby Jimenez mj 4
Please know that my threat is placed with the utmost respect and adoration. Abby Jimenez stepped up her game and stepped on my rib cage all at the same time, it’s impressive really. I am always astounded by Abby’s ability to bring characters to life. And I don’t mean that they eventually stumble into being with the passage of time and pages, but the moment they appear they are a whole being who has had a life before our introduction and will have one after - people with thoughts and facets private even to the reader. It’s honestly a gift, and in contemporary romance I personally find it very rare. Emily Henry and Abby are the top of their game at it, and I was instantly charmed and enraptured with these two - as they proceeded to rip my heart open with their inability to be alone in a room together (when you read this, and understand this reference you too will cry). Family is always a major part of her novels, and in this it is arguably the main focus of the plot - the romance, while beautifully developed, still takes a beat next to this story about families who have no love for one another, and the ones who love so much it tears them apart in moments of crisis. Truly, I’m so impressed and moved.

And even with all of the above, I cannot give it a five star rating. And again as per most of my reviews, it’s just a me thing - but there is a certain author who is referenced 4 times in the first few chapters and it launched me out of the story and into the Earth’s orbit. I know that sounds petty, and I’m sorry, but it was visceral. Additionally, I do think while the writing was strong and I do appreciate a heavy dose of yearning - I think some cuts could have been made here and there. So on a technicality, it’s a four star - but the experience was an absolute 5/5.

Endless thanks and gratitude to the publisher for the early copy, made my absolute day. Will be yelling about this to anyone who makes eye contact with me until its release.]]> 4.04 2025
author: Abby Jimenez
name: mj
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves:
review:
First of all, I’d like to sue whoever designed and approved this pastel, whimsical, happy-go-lucky cover and personally hold them accountable for the unexpected trauma I have endured over the past two days. Forget the plot summary on the back, forget the adorable shout out to a beloved pop hit - prepare for buckets, and heaps of tears, pain, and heartbreak.

Please know that my threat is placed with the utmost respect and adoration. Abby Jimenez stepped up her game and stepped on my rib cage all at the same time, it’s impressive really. I am always astounded by Abby’s ability to bring characters to life. And I don’t mean that they eventually stumble into being with the passage of time and pages, but the moment they appear they are a whole being who has had a life before our introduction and will have one after - people with thoughts and facets private even to the reader. It’s honestly a gift, and in contemporary romance I personally find it very rare. Emily Henry and Abby are the top of their game at it, and I was instantly charmed and enraptured with these two - as they proceeded to rip my heart open with their inability to be alone in a room together (when you read this, and understand this reference you too will cry). Family is always a major part of her novels, and in this it is arguably the main focus of the plot - the romance, while beautifully developed, still takes a beat next to this story about families who have no love for one another, and the ones who love so much it tears them apart in moments of crisis. Truly, I’m so impressed and moved.

And even with all of the above, I cannot give it a five star rating. And again as per most of my reviews, it’s just a me thing - but there is a certain author who is referenced 4 times in the first few chapters and it launched me out of the story and into the Earth’s orbit. I know that sounds petty, and I’m sorry, but it was visceral. Additionally, I do think while the writing was strong and I do appreciate a heavy dose of yearning - I think some cuts could have been made here and there. So on a technicality, it’s a four star - but the experience was an absolute 5/5.

Endless thanks and gratitude to the publisher for the early copy, made my absolute day. Will be yelling about this to anyone who makes eye contact with me until its release.
]]> 222765064 The Godfather meets The Magicians in the sweeping adult debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author Marie Lu. Perfect for fans of V.E. Schwab, Red City is a dark and deadly contemporary fantasy of magical warfare, star-crossed ambition, and the pursuit of perfection at any cost, set in a glittering alternate Los Angeles.

Alchemy is the hidden art of transformation. An exclusive power wielded by crime syndicates that market it to the world’s elites in the form of sand, a drug that enhances those who take it into a more perfect version of more beautiful, more charismatic, simply more.

Among the gleaming skyscrapers and rolling foothills of Angel City, alchemy is controlled by two rival syndicates. For years, Grand Central and Lumines have been balanced on a razor’s edge between polite negotiation and outright violence. But when two childhood friends step into that delicate equation, the city—and the paths of their lives—will be irrevocably transformed.

The daughter of a poor single mother, Sam would do anything to claw her way into the ranks of Grand Central in search of a better life. Plucked away from his family as a boy to become a Lumines apprentice, Ari is one of the syndicates' brightest rising stars. Once, they might have loved each other. But as the two alchemists face off across opposite sides of an ever-escalating conflict, ambition becomes power, loyalty becomes lies, and no transformation may be perfect enough for them both to survive the coming war.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> Marie Lu 125088568X mj 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Marie Lu
name: mj
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 217872527 A deeply dark academia novel from USA Today bestselling author Cassandra Khaw, perfect for fans of A Deadly Education and The Atlas Six who are hungry for something a little more diabolical.

The Hellebore Technical Institute for the Gifted is the premier academy for the dangerously the Anti-Christs and Ragnaroks, the world-eaters and apocalypse-makers.

Hellebore promises redemption, acceptance, and a normal life after graduation. At least, that’s what Alessa Li is told when she’s kidnapped and forcibly enrolled.

But there’s more to Hellebore than meets the eye. On graduation day, the faculty go on a ravenous rampage, feasting on Alessa’s class. Only Alessa and a group of her classmates escape the carnage. Trapped in the school’s library, they must offer a human sacrifice every night, or else the faculty will break down the door and kill everyone.

Can they band together and survive, or will the faculty eat its fill?

Also by Cassandra Khaw:
The Salt Grows Heavy
Nothing But Blackened Teeth
A Song for Quiet
Hammers on Bone
The Dead Take the A Train (co-written with Richard Kadrey)

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 288 Cassandra Khaw mj 0 to-read 3.80 2025
author: Cassandra Khaw
name: mj
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60433424 215 C.S. Fritz mj 0 to-read 3.72 2021
author: C.S. Fritz
name: mj
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 41806382 The Kaul siblings' battle with rival clans reaches new heights in the heart-pounding continuation of the Green Bone Saga, an��epic trilogy about family, honor, and those who live and die by the ancient laws of blood and jade.On the island of Kekon, the Kaul family is locked in a violent feud for control of the capital city and the supply of magical jade that endows trained Green Bone warriors with supernatural powers they alone have possessed for hundreds of years.Beyond Kekon's borders, war is brewing. Powerful foreign governments and mercenary criminal kingpins alike turn their eyes on the island nation. Jade, Kekon's most prized resource, could make them rich - or give them the edge they'd need to topple their rivals.Faced with threats on all sides, the Kaul family is forced to form new and dangerous alliances, confront enemies in the darkest streets and the tallest office towers, and put honor aside in order to do whatever it takes to ensure their own survival—and that of all the Green Bones of Kekon.Praise for the Green Bone "A beautifully realized setting, a great cast of characters, and dramatic action scenes. What a fun, gripping read!" —Ann Leckie, Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author"Lee has upped her game in this novel, with deeper, more nail-biting intrigue and stunning, heart-pumping action scenes. Her character development is pitch-perfect."―Booklist"An instantly absorbing tale of blood, honor, family, and magic, spiced with unexpectedly tender character beats." —NPRThe Green Bone SagaJade CityJade WarJade Legacy]]> 608 Fonda Lee 0316440930 mj 4
I think my biggest gripe with this book was the politics bogging down the middle. I felt there was a really perfect balance in the first book of the family drama, action, and politics - but the international warfare of it all really took stage front and centre for this one. That being said, they were impeccably done and very easy to follow - their impacts severe. So as much as the payoff was earned, I think there could have been some trimming here and there. And while I loved learning more about the world, it got a little too immersive - there were some random things here and there that didn’t serve the overall plot, namely the backstories of every random character Anden came across. Depth is always appreciated, but in a book of this length and plot, just didn’t feel super necessary to me. Again, never hated it, but it just made the middle section a touch of a slog to get through. I did think learning about the other cultures however was fascinating, it really puts Kekon in perspective.

Now that is not to say that this book did not have some absolutely BANGER moments. Fonda Lee has the ability to give me full body chills, which is so rare in a book. My jaw was on the floor at least five times, these characters I’ve come to love and trust so deeply reminding me at every turn that they are deeply human and fallible. I think another thing this book does so insanely and spectacularly well, is to contradict a lot of the first instalment - as odd as that sounds. I feel like in the first book, we’re so blown away by how cool the Green Bones are - strong, powerful, magical. In Jade War, we realize how polarizing Green Bone culture can be for those caught in its crossfires - how the innocent can suffer for ties made to these families before they were even born.

Another shoutout I have to give Fonda is her talent for writing villains in all their shades and monstrosity. Ayt Mada has presence, every time she enters a scene I felt it in my bones. Also Bero’s story, as angry as he makes me, has me absolutely riveted - where will it go?

I’m taking a brief pause before Jade Legacy, so I can appreciate it all the more as I hear nothing but good things - but also because I am deeply afraid and scared of what will happen to my beloved Kauls ]]> 4.41 2019
author: Fonda Lee
name: mj
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/11
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves:
review:
Okay so if i’m being honest with myself, this was more of a 3/3.5, but ultimately the payoff is so high and I love this family so much that for the first time in my brutally honest reviewing life I feel I cannot give this book any less than 4 stars.

I think my biggest gripe with this book was the politics bogging down the middle. I felt there was a really perfect balance in the first book of the family drama, action, and politics - but the international warfare of it all really took stage front and centre for this one. That being said, they were impeccably done and very easy to follow - their impacts severe. So as much as the payoff was earned, I think there could have been some trimming here and there. And while I loved learning more about the world, it got a little too immersive - there were some random things here and there that didn’t serve the overall plot, namely the backstories of every random character Anden came across. Depth is always appreciated, but in a book of this length and plot, just didn’t feel super necessary to me. Again, never hated it, but it just made the middle section a touch of a slog to get through. I did think learning about the other cultures however was fascinating, it really puts Kekon in perspective.

Now that is not to say that this book did not have some absolutely BANGER moments. Fonda Lee has the ability to give me full body chills, which is so rare in a book. My jaw was on the floor at least five times, these characters I’ve come to love and trust so deeply reminding me at every turn that they are deeply human and fallible. I think another thing this book does so insanely and spectacularly well, is to contradict a lot of the first instalment - as odd as that sounds. I feel like in the first book, we’re so blown away by how cool the Green Bones are - strong, powerful, magical. In Jade War, we realize how polarizing Green Bone culture can be for those caught in its crossfires - how the innocent can suffer for ties made to these families before they were even born.

Another shoutout I have to give Fonda is her talent for writing villains in all their shades and monstrosity. Ayt Mada has presence, every time she enters a scene I felt it in my bones. Also Bero’s story, as angry as he makes me, has me absolutely riveted - where will it go?

I’m taking a brief pause before Jade Legacy, so I can appreciate it all the more as I hear nothing but good things - but also because I am deeply afraid and scared of what will happen to my beloved Kauls
]]> 213354576 **Winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel**
**A Best Book of the Year for Vulture, Buzzfeed, Entropy & Thrillist**
**Longlisted for the Believer Book Award, the Northern California 'Golden Poppy' Book Award & the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award**

The Book of X tells the tale of Cassie, a girl born with her stomach twisted in the shape of a knot. From childhood with her parents on the family meat farm, to a desk job in the city, to finally experiencing love, she grapples with her body, men, and society, all the while imagining a softer world than the one she is in.

Twining the drama of the everyday �� school-age crushes, paying bills, the sickness of parents �� with the surreal �� rivers of thighs, men for sale, and fields of throats �� Cassie's realities alternate to create a blurred, fantastic world of haunting beauty.

From the author Ripe comes a surreal exploration of one woman's life and death against a landscape of meat, office desks and bad men.

Perfect for fans of Rouge by Mona Awad, Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder and Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield.

'I loved every page of this gorgeous, grotesque, heartbreaking novel' - Carmen Maria Machado, author of Her Body and Other Parties

'The Book of X traverses the mundane and the surreal - from grocery lists to blooming meat, menstrual blood to a jealousy removal shop - laying bare the absurdities of womanhood. A truly original writer, Etter continues to push the boundaries of her imagination... and ours' - Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley

'Utterly unique and remarkable... Sarah Rose Etter takes the surreal and expertly shapes it into a portrait that is as beautiful and compelling as it is horrifying and unbearable... Etter brilliantly, viciously lays bare what it means to be a woman in the world, what it means to hurt, to need, to want, so much it consumes everything' - Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

'Taut, macabre, with wounds electric, The Book of X will take your head off while staring dead-on into your eyes. Move over, Angela Carter, there's a new boss in the Meat Quarry, and she is fearless, relentless, ready to feast' - Blake Butler, author of Alice Knott

'Sarah Rose Etter is a visionary. Perfectly paced, structurally audacious, and endlessly inventive, The Book of X is our new Revelation' - Scott McCLanahan, author of The Sarah Book]]> 246 Sarah Rose Etter 0857309048 mj 0 to-read 3.85 2019
author: Sarah Rose Etter
name: mj
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 41807132
Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.]]> 278 Charlotte McConaghy mj 0 to-read 4.25 2020
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: mj
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 220196086 The critically acclaimed author of the “crazily enjoyable�� (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war.

Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly venture into the perilous No Man’s Land to euthanize a wounded comrade.

What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell.

Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict.]]> Daniel Kraus mj 0 to-read 0.0
author: Daniel Kraus
name: mj
average rating: 0.0
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> 125053180 A widowed writer begins to work on a biography of a novelist and artist—and soon uncovers bizarre parallels between her life and her subject’s—in this chilling and singularly strange novella by a contemporary master of horror and fantasy.

The narrator of Lisa Tuttle’s uncanny novella is a recent widow, a writer adrift. Not only has she lost her husband but her muse seems to have deserted her altogether. Her agent summons her to Edinburgh to discuss her next book. What will she tell him? At once the answer comes to she will write the biography of Helen Ralston, best known, if at all, as the subject of W.E. Logan’s much-reproduced painting Circe, and the inspiration for his classic children’s book, Hermine in Cloud-Land.

But Ralston was a novelist and artist in her own right, though her writing is no longer in print and her most��radical painting, My Death, deemed too unsettling—malevolent even—to be shown in public. Over the months that follow, Ralston proves an astonishingly cooperative subject, even as her biographer uncovers eerie resonances between the older woman’s��history and her own. Whose biography is she writing—really?]]> 108 Lisa Tuttle 168137773X mj 0 to-read 3.95 2004
author: Lisa Tuttle
name: mj
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61935392 A sleepy little town discovers its memories have become part of the water cycle in Naomi Salman's debut novella, Nothing but the Rain.

The rain in Aloisville is never-ending, and no one can remember when it started. There’s not much they can remember. With every drop that hits their skin, a bit of memory is washed away. Stay too long in the wet, and you’ll lose everything you used to be.

By the time Laverne begins keeping a journal, the small town she calls home has been irreparably changed. Every drop of water is dangerous, from leaky faucets to the near-constant rainfall, and a careless trip outside can mean a life down the drain. With mysterious forces preventing escape, calls for rebellion seem to be on every resident’s lips. But Laverne has no interest in fighting. She has no interest in rebellion. She just wants to survive.]]> 96 Naomi Salman 1250849810 mj 0 to-read 3.96 2023
author: Naomi Salman
name: mj
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> 213048711 “A wise, tremendously moving exploration of what it means to seek companionship and understanding, in books and in life.”—Hua Hsu, author of Stay True

“A must for the obsessive reader.”—Elif Batuman, author of Either/Or and The Idiot

Books can seduce you. They can, Sarah Chihaya believes, annihilate, reveal, and provoke you. And anyone incurably obsessed with books understands this kind of unsettling literary encounter. Sarah calls books that have this effect “Life Ruiners��.

Her Life Ruiner, Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, became a talisman for her in high school when its electrifying treatment of race exposed Sarah’s deepest feelings about being Japanese American in a predominantly white suburb of Cleveland. But Sarah had always lived through her books, seeking escape, self-definition, and rules for living. She built her life around reading, wrote criticism, and taught literature at an Ivy League University. Then she was hospitalized for a nervous breakdown, and the world became an unreadable blank page. In the aftermath, she was faced with a question. Could we ever truly rewrite the stories that govern our lives?

Bibliophobia is an alternately searing and darkly humorous story of breakdown and survival told through books. Delving into texts such as Anne of Green Gables, Possession, A Tale for the Time Being, The Last Samurai, Chihaya interrogates her cultural identity, her relationship with depression, and the intoxicating, sometimes painful, ways books push back on those who love them.]]> 221 Sarah Chihaya 0593594738 mj 0 to-read, non-fiction 3.77 2025
author: Sarah Chihaya
name: mj
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

]]> 213618152 From a rising literary star and the author of How to Be a Good Girl comes��a brilliant, biting, and beautifully wrought memoir of trauma and the cost of survival

In the thick of lockdown, 2020, poet, critic, and memoirist Jamie Hood published her debut, How to Be a Good Girl,��an interrogation of modern femininity and the narratives of love, desire, and violence yoked to it. The Rumpus praised Hood's “bold vulnerability,�� and Vogue named it a Best Book of 2020.��

In Trauma Plot, her long-awaited follow-up, Hood turns her eye to the archetype of the rape survivor, who must perform penitence long after living through the unthinkable. In her trademark blend of memoir and criticism, Hood investigates the lives of art's most infamous women, from Ovid's Philomela and David Lynch’s Laura Palmer to Artemisia Gentileschi, the painter who captured Judith’s wrath—as well as Hood herself,��reckoning with three decades of sexual violence and the wreckage left behind. In so doing, she What do we as a culture demand of survivors? And what do survivors, in turn, owe a world that has abandoned them?��

Trauma Plot is a scalding work of personal and literary criticism. It is a send-up of our culture's pious disdain for “trauma porn,�� a dirge for the broken promises of #MeToo, and a paean to��life after death.]]> 336 Jamie Hood 059370097X mj 0 to-read, non-fiction 4.50 2025
author: Jamie Hood
name: mj
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/08
shelves: to-read, non-fiction
review:

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