Vilma's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 16 Mar 2025 16:15:23 -0700 60 Vilma's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Close Your Eyes and Count to 10]]> 211894916 An extreme game of hide-and-seek turns deadly in this riveting new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger

When the real game begins, who will make it to the count of 10?

Charismatic daredevil and extreme adventurer Maverick Dillan invites you to the ultimate game of hide-and-seek. But as the players gather on Falcao Island, the event quickly spirals into a chilling test of survival. A storm rages as a deadly threat stalks the contestants, turning the challenge into something far more sinister than the social media stunt it was intended to be.

Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.]]> 384 Lisa Unger 0778333361 Vilma 5 3.16 2025 Close Your Eyes and Count to 10
author: Lisa Unger
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Rebel Witch (The Crimson Moth, #2)]]> 60217777 The stakes are even higher in this epic, romantic conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Crimson Moth duology.

A WITCH...
Rune Winters is on the run. Ever since the boy she loved, Gideon Sharpe, revealed who she was and delivered her into enemy hands, everyone wants her dead. If Rune hopes to survive, she must ally herself with the cruel and dangerous Cressida Roseblood, who’s planning to take back the Republic and reinstate a Reign of Witches—something Cressida needs Rune to accomplish.

A WITCH HUNTER...
Apparently it wasn’t enough for Rune to deceive Gideon; she’s now betrayed him by allying herself with the witch who made his life a living hell. Gideon won’t allow the Republic to fall to the witches and be plunged back into the nightmares of the past. In order to protect this new world he fought for, every last witch must die—especially Rune Winters.

AN IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE...
When Rune makes Gideon an offer he can’t refuse, the two must pair up to accomplish dangerous goals. The more they’re forced into each other’s company, the more Gideon realizes the feelings he had for Rune aren’t as dead and buried as he thought. Now he’s faced with a terrible choice: sacrifice the girl he loves to stop a monster taking back power, or let Rune live and watch the world he fought so hard for burn.

In Kristen Ciccarelli's Rebel Witch, the exciting conclusion to The Crimson Moth duology, love has never been so deadly.]]> 464 Kristen Ciccarelli Vilma 4 4.25 2025 Rebel Witch (The Crimson Moth, #2)
author: Kristen Ciccarelli
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil]]> 215020997 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.]]> 560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 Vilma 0 currently-reading 4.38 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/19
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Crash 216223604 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
]]> 384 Freida McFadden 1464232989 Vilma 4 3.58 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> Vantage Point 195790637 Succession meets Megan Abbott in this seductive Gothic suspense novel about the dramatic downfall of one of America’s most affluent families.

The old-money Wieland family has it all—wealth, status, power. They’re also famously cursed. Clara and her brother Teddy grew up on a small island in Maine in the shadow of their parents� tragic deaths, haunted by rumors and paparazzi. Fourteen years later they’ve mostly put their turbulent past to rest. Teddy has married Clara’s best friend, Jess, and the three of them have moved back home to take over the sprawling, remote family mansion known as Vantage Point. Then Teddy decides to run for the Senate—an unnerving prospect made much worse when intimate videos of Clara are leaked online. The most frightening part is that she doesn't remember filming any of them. Are the videos real? Or are they deepfakes? Is someone trying to take down the Wielands once and for all?

Everyone thinks Clara is losing her grip on reality, but she knows the videos are only the beginning. Years ago the curse destroyed her parents. Now it’s coming for her. Brimming with palpable tension, Vantage Point reveals a twisted web of family secrets and political ambition that raises questions about the blurred lines between public and private personas and the nature of truth in the digital age.]]> 400 Sara Sligar 0374282293 Vilma 5 3.56 2025 Vantage Point
author: Sara Sligar
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3) 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Vilma 5 4.18 2025 Onyx Storm (The Empyrean, #3)
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Vilma 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> Dear Hanna 201155433 Zoje Stage delivers another knockout with a blood-chilling follow-up to international sensation Baby Teeth, taking readers back into the unsteady world of a young sociopath who’s all grown up.

Hanna is no stranger to dark thoughts: as a young child, she tried to murder her own mother. But that was more than sixteen years ago. And extensive therapy—and writing letters to her younger brother—has since curbed those nasty tendencies.

Now twenty-four, Hanna is living an outwardly normal life of domestic content. Married to real estate agent Jacob, she’s also stepmother to his teenage daughter Joelle. They live in a beautiful home, and Hanna loves her career as a phlebotomist—a job perfectly suited to her occasional need to hurt people.

But when Joelle begins to change in ways that don’t suit Hanna’s purposes, her carefully planned existence threatens to come apart. With life slipping out of her control, Hanna reverts to old habits, determined to manipulate the events and people around her. And the only thing worse than a baby sociopath is a fully grown one.

With its dark humor and chillingly seductive protagonist, Dear Hanna is a stand-alone sequel sure to thrill returning and new readers alike.]]> 331 Zoje Stage 1662521014 Vilma 3 3.62 2024 Dear Hanna
author: Zoje Stage
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> A Killing Cold 211004079 A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that she’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.

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

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

I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.]]> 291 Kate Alice Marshall 1250343054 Vilma 4 3.80 2025 A Killing Cold
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> Beautiful Ugly 211004123 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible � a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.]]> 306 Alice Feeney 125033778X Vilma 5 3.65 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
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]]> All the Colors of the Dark 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

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

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

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

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Vilma 0 4.24 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Back in the Saddle (Avenging Angels #2)]]> 210128123
She doesn’t think it’s dangerous.

Eric Turner disagrees.

Eric is a member of the Nightingale Investigations and Security team. Therefore, Eric knows what he’s talking about.

Eric isn’t only badass, he’s also a seriously gorgeous guy, and Jessie has a huge crush on him. She doesn’t think he knows she exists…until now.

Eric steps in, and so do Jessie’s besties, the Avenging Angels. Soon, the Angels and the Hottie Squad are on the case to find Jessie’s missing sibling.

There’s more happening when it comes to Eric, though. Jessie’s so worried about her brother, she’s not paying attention. Eric sets about changing that, and just like all the Hot Bunch before him, when he finds his one, he doesn’t mess around.

However, something is afoot in Phoenix. And as the Angels uncover the sinister workings behind people going missing, and Eric and Jessie unpack their emotional baggage, the Angels dive deeper into the dark underbelly of the city�

Finding heroes, more hot guys, lots of hijinks…and heart.]]> 511 Kristen Ashley Vilma 0 4.30 2024 Back in the Saddle (Avenging Angels #2)
author: Kristen Ashley
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/04
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]]> <![CDATA[The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy, #2)]]> 203578918 #1 New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts continues the hauntingly spectacular Lost Bride Trilogy with book two, The Mirror.

When Sonya MacTavish inherits the huge Victorian mansion on the coast of Maine, she has no idea that the house is haunted. The footsteps she hears at night, the doors slamming, the music playing, are not figments of her imagination. In her dreams she sees glimpses of the past. In the present she finds portraits of brides. And when she has visions of an antique mirror, she is drawn to it, sensing it holds dark family secrets.

Then one night the mirror appears and Sonya glides through this looking glass, into the past—and sees a bride murdered on her wedding day, the circle of gold torn from her finger. It is a scene that will play out again and again—a centuries-old curse that must be broken—and a puzzle she must solve if there is any hope of breaking the curse.]]> 435 Nora Roberts 1250288770 Vilma 3 4.01 2024 The Mirror (The Lost Bride Trilogy, #2)
author: Nora Roberts
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/26
shelves:
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]]> The Last One at the Wedding 203579177 From the bestselling author of Hidden Pictures comes a breathtaking work of suspense about a father trying to save his daughter from a life-altering decision that will put everything he loves on the line.

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

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

An edge-of-your-seat thriller that delves deep into the heart of one family, The Last One at the Wedding is a work of brilliant suspense from a true modern master.]]> 338 Jason Rekulak 1250895782 Vilma 4 3.62 2024 The Last One at the Wedding
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/10
date added: 2024/11/10
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]]> Run 10595576 A rash of bizarre murders swept the country�
Senseless. Brutal. Seemingly unconnected.
A cop walked into a nursing home and unloaded his weapons on elderly and staff alike.
A mass of school shootings.
Prison riots of unprecedented brutality.
Mind-boggling acts of violence in every state.

4 D A Y S A G O
The murders increased ten-fold�

3 D A Y S A G O
The President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace�

2 D A Y S A G O
The killers began to mobilize�

Y E S T E R D A Y
All the power went out�

T O N I G H T
They’re reading the names of those to be killed on the Emergency Broadcast System. You are listening over the battery-powered radio on your kitchen table, and they’ve just read yours.

Your name is Jack Colclough. You have a wife, a daughter, and a young son. You live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. People are coming to your house to kill you and your family. You don’t know why, but you don’t have time to think about that any more.

You only have time to�.

R U N

This 80,000-word novel also contains a bonus interview with Blake, and excerpts from his other work.]]> 331 Blake Crouch Vilma 4 3.80 2011 Run
author: Blake Crouch
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
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]]> Here One Moment 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Vilma 5 3.99 2024 Here One Moment
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/31
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves:
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]]> Incidents Around the House 199757490 A chilling horror novel about a haunting told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,� from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box

To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’sMommy,Daddo,and Grandma Ruth.But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”�

When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the same question, over and over . . . Bela understands that unless she says yes, soon her family must pay.

Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe but other incidents show cracks in her parents' marriage. The safety Bela relies on is on the brink of unraveling.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror told by the child Bela. A story about a family as haunted as their home.]]> 367 Josh Malerman 0593723120 Vilma 4 3.61 2024 Incidents Around the House
author: Josh Malerman
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/23
date added: 2024/10/23
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]]> The Book of Witching 205064706 A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?]]> 365 C.J. Cooke 059381696X Vilma 5 3.74 2024 The Book of Witching
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/19
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]]> The Boyfriend 208503280 She's looking for the perfect man. He's looking for the perfect victim.

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

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

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

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

A dark story about obsession and the things we’ll do for love, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden proves that crimes of passion are often the bloodiest…]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1728296226 Vilma 5 3.95 2024 The Boyfriend
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The House at Watch Hill (The Watch Hill Trilogy, #1)]]> 199531757
Zo Grey is reeling from the sudden death of her mother when she receives a surprising call from an attorney in Divinity, Louisiana, with the news she has been left an inheritance by a distant relative, the terms of which he will only discuss in person. Destitute and alone, with nothing left to lose, Zo heads to Divinity and discovers she is the sole beneficiary of a huge fortune and a monstrosity of a house that sits ominously at the peak of Watch Hill—but she must live in it, alone, for three years before the house, or the money, is hers.

Met with this irresistible opportunity to finally build a future for herself, Zo puts aside her misgivings about the foreboding Gothic mansion and the strange circumstances, and moves in, where she is quickly met by a red-eyed Stygian owl and an impossibly sexy Scottish groundskeeper.

Her new home is full of countless secrets and mystifying riddles, with doors that go nowhere, others that are impossible to open, and a turret into which there is no visible means of ingress. And the townspeople are odd�

What Zo doesn’t yet know is that her own roots lie in this very house and that in order to discover her true identity and awaken her dormant powers, she will have to face off against sinister forces she doesn’t quite comprehend—or risk being consumed by them.]]> 384 Karen Marie Moning 0063249219 Vilma 5 3.73 2024 The House at Watch Hill (The Watch Hill Trilogy, #1)
author: Karen Marie Moning
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves:
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]]> Intermezzo 208931300 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family—but especially love—from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 454 Sally Rooney 0374602638 Vilma 4 3.88 2024 Intermezzo
author: Sally Rooney
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves:
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]]> The Seventh Veil of Salome 199927990 A young woman wins the role of a lifetime in a film about a legendary heroine � but the real drama is behind the scenes in this sumptuous historical epic from the author of Mexican Gothic.

1950s Hollywood: Every actress wants to play Salome, the star-making role in a big-budget movie about the legendary woman whose story has inspired artists since ancient times.

So when the film’s mercurial director casts Vera Larios, an unknown Mexican ingenue, in the lead role, she quickly becomes the talk of the town. Vera also becomes an object of envy for Nancy Hartley, a bit player whose career has stalled and who will do anything to win the fame she believes she richly deserves.

Two actresses, both determined to make it to the top in Golden Age Hollywood—a city overflowing with gossip, scandal, and intrigue—make for a sizzling combination.

But this is the tale of three women, for it is also the story of the princess Salome herself, consumed with desire for the fiery prophet who foretells the doom of her stepfather, Herod: a woman torn between the decree of duty and the yearning of her heart.

Before the curtain comes down, there will be tears and tragedy aplenty in this sexy Technicolor saga.]]> 336 Silvia Moreno-Garcia Vilma 5 A sensuous exploration of 1950s Hollywood through the eyes of a budding Mexican starlet and a jealous, struggling actress.

21-year-old Vera Larios, who was never meant to be the actress in her family, catches the eye of a director and lands the lead role in the “sword-and-sandal� epic, Salome. Her sudden rise to fame, fueled by her ingenuity, curiosity, and distinctive ethnicity, incites the ire of Nancy Hartley, a failed actress convinced that Vera has usurped the stardom she deserves.

Nancy, whose career has stalled, schemes to reclaim her rightful place in the limelight. The situation escalates when a wealthy jazz pianist, whom Nancy has been vying for, turns his attention to Vera.

As Vera battles the oppressive forces of Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’—from an overbearing mother to racism, misogyny, and predatory advances—Nancy grapples with her crumbling career, financial woes, and the cold indifference of those around her.

Moreno-Garcia’s narrative deftly shifts between the perspectives of Vera, Nancy, and even the film’s Salome, weaving a shrewd, spellbinding tale that builds to an explosive crescendo as the two actresses� lives collide.

With this latest, Silvia Moreno-Garcia once again proves her extraordinary prowess as a versatile storyteller and gifted prosaic writer. Her talent for crafting vivid, immersive worlds, building relentless suspense, and creating compelling characters is unparalleled.

Evocative, explosive, and darkly thrilling—THE SEVENTH VEIL OF SALOME is one of the year’s best.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.75 2024 The Seventh Veil of Salome
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/10
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
A sensuous exploration of 1950s Hollywood through the eyes of a budding Mexican starlet and a jealous, struggling actress.

21-year-old Vera Larios, who was never meant to be the actress in her family, catches the eye of a director and lands the lead role in the “sword-and-sandal� epic, Salome. Her sudden rise to fame, fueled by her ingenuity, curiosity, and distinctive ethnicity, incites the ire of Nancy Hartley, a failed actress convinced that Vera has usurped the stardom she deserves.

Nancy, whose career has stalled, schemes to reclaim her rightful place in the limelight. The situation escalates when a wealthy jazz pianist, whom Nancy has been vying for, turns his attention to Vera.

As Vera battles the oppressive forces of Hollywood’s ‘Golden Age’—from an overbearing mother to racism, misogyny, and predatory advances—Nancy grapples with her crumbling career, financial woes, and the cold indifference of those around her.

Moreno-Garcia’s narrative deftly shifts between the perspectives of Vera, Nancy, and even the film’s Salome, weaving a shrewd, spellbinding tale that builds to an explosive crescendo as the two actresses� lives collide.

With this latest, Silvia Moreno-Garcia once again proves her extraordinary prowess as a versatile storyteller and gifted prosaic writer. Her talent for crafting vivid, immersive worlds, building relentless suspense, and creating compelling characters is unparalleled.

Evocative, explosive, and darkly thrilling—THE SEVENTH VEIL OF SALOME is one of the year’s best.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[This Is Why We Lied (Will Trent, #12)]]> 199793571 The next thrilling suspense featuring Will Trent and Sara Linton from Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Girls and After That Night!

Everyone here is a liar, but only one of us is a killer�

A secluded cabin retreat

For GBI investigator Will Trent and medical examiner Sara Linton, McAlpine Lodge seems like the ideal getaway to celebrate their honeymoon. Set on a gorgeous, off-the-grid mountaintop property, it’s the perfect place to unplug and reconnect. Until a bone-chilling scream cuts through the night.

A murderer in their midst

Mercy McAlpine, the manager of the Lodge, is dead. With a vicious storm raging and the one access road to the property washed out, the murderer must be someone on the mountain. But as Will and Sara investigate the McAlpine family and the other guests, they realize that everyone here is lying�.Lying about their past. Lying to their family. Lying to themselves.

Who killed Mercy McAlpine?

It soon becomes clear that normal rules don’t apply at McAlpine Lodge, and Will and Sara are going to have to watch their step at every turn. Trapped on the resort, they must untangle a decades-old web of secrets to discover what happened to Mercy. And with the killer poised to strike again, the trip of a lifetime becomes a race against the clock…]]> 464 Karin Slaughter 0063336723 Vilma 5
Perched on a picturesque mountaintop, McAlpine Lodge seems like the perfect getaway for newlyweds Will and Sarah. The property holds a special-yet-complicated place in Will’s heart, deepening the significance of their retreat. Their idyllic escape shatters, however, when a blood-curdling scream rends the night. Will soon finds the lodge’s manager, Mercy McAlpine, brutally stabbed.

A vicious storm rages and with everyone trapped on property, it’s clear the killer is among them. With no escape, Will and Sarah begin to investigate, uncovering a web of lies that entangles everyone at the lodge. The McAlpine family’s toxic secrets run deep, and suspicious connections between the family and their guests reveal that everyone has a motive for wanting Mercy dead.

With this latest, Karin Slaughter masterfully crafts a tangled, locked-room thriller brimming with unrelenting tension. Clever red herrings kept me guessing until the jaw-dropping revelation of the killer. The narrative expertly blends a procedural investigation with a harrowing exploration of a deeply malicious family and the emotional scars they’ve inflicted. From the first page to the last, I was utterly captivated.

One of my favorite series for a reason. Brilliant.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.19 2024 This Is Why We Lied (Will Trent, #12)
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/27
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
During their honeymoon at a remote lodge, Will and Sarah are thrust into a deadly mystery after discovering the brutal murder of a woman.

Perched on a picturesque mountaintop, McAlpine Lodge seems like the perfect getaway for newlyweds Will and Sarah. The property holds a special-yet-complicated place in Will’s heart, deepening the significance of their retreat. Their idyllic escape shatters, however, when a blood-curdling scream rends the night. Will soon finds the lodge’s manager, Mercy McAlpine, brutally stabbed.

A vicious storm rages and with everyone trapped on property, it’s clear the killer is among them. With no escape, Will and Sarah begin to investigate, uncovering a web of lies that entangles everyone at the lodge. The McAlpine family’s toxic secrets run deep, and suspicious connections between the family and their guests reveal that everyone has a motive for wanting Mercy dead.

With this latest, Karin Slaughter masterfully crafts a tangled, locked-room thriller brimming with unrelenting tension. Clever red herrings kept me guessing until the jaw-dropping revelation of the killer. The narrative expertly blends a procedural investigation with a harrowing exploration of a deeply malicious family and the emotional scars they’ve inflicted. From the first page to the last, I was utterly captivated.

One of my favorite series for a reason. Brilliant.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> Sleep Tight 204294824
Dark and twisting at every turn, fans of Catriona Ward will love this chilling new tale from the deviously inventive horror author that Peter Farris calls the “clear heir to Stephen King.�

Beware the one who got away . . .

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

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

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

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

With captivating prose and an old-school horror flair, Sleep Tight is a must-read, haunting tale from a true master of the genre.]]> 336 J.H. Markert 1639108734 Vilma 5
Disguised as a priest, the notorious Father Silence preyed on the town’s most vulnerable, leaving nineteen bodies in his “House of Horrors.� Though he was executed almost twenty years later, the terror reignites when the detective who originally arrested him is found dead the very next day.

Tess Clairbourne, the detective’s daughter and now a detective herself, is pulled back into a nightmare she thought she’d escaped. As she sifts through fragmented memories, her life is thrown into chaos when her own daughter is kidnapped by the killer. With more children disappearing and bodies piling up, Tess must confront the ghosts of her past in the town she once fled.

J.H. Markert’s Sleep Tight is a gripping blend of suspense, horror, and heart that keeps you on edge from start to finish. The novel’s eerie premise and richly developed characters explore the dark mysteries of a small town and the chilling secrets that refuse to stay buried. Markert masterfully balances supernatural elements with a deeply human story, weaving themes of family, loss, and redemption into the fabric of the plot.

What truly stands out is the narrative’s atmospheric tension and the palpable sense of dread that permeates every page. Markert blurs the line between reality and nightmare, making Sleep Tight a compelling and addictive horror thriller—perfect for spooky season.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.64 2024 Sleep Tight
author: J.H. Markert
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/19
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:
A small town is terrorized once again as a copycat killer emerges nearly two decades after a series of brutal murders.

Disguised as a priest, the notorious Father Silence preyed on the town’s most vulnerable, leaving nineteen bodies in his “House of Horrors.� Though he was executed almost twenty years later, the terror reignites when the detective who originally arrested him is found dead the very next day.

Tess Clairbourne, the detective’s daughter and now a detective herself, is pulled back into a nightmare she thought she’d escaped. As she sifts through fragmented memories, her life is thrown into chaos when her own daughter is kidnapped by the killer. With more children disappearing and bodies piling up, Tess must confront the ghosts of her past in the town she once fled.

J.H. Markert’s Sleep Tight is a gripping blend of suspense, horror, and heart that keeps you on edge from start to finish. The novel’s eerie premise and richly developed characters explore the dark mysteries of a small town and the chilling secrets that refuse to stay buried. Markert masterfully balances supernatural elements with a deeply human story, weaving themes of family, loss, and redemption into the fabric of the plot.

What truly stands out is the narrative’s atmospheric tension and the palpable sense of dread that permeates every page. Markert blurs the line between reality and nightmare, making Sleep Tight a compelling and addictive horror thriller—perfect for spooky season.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Vilma 4 4.16 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/25
date added: 2024/08/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hide and Seek (Helen Grace, #6)]]> 29430031 Prison is no place for a detective
Helen Grace was one of the country's best police investigators.
Now she's behind bars with the killers she caught.

Framed for murder
She knows there is only way out:
stay alive until her trial and somehow prove her innocence.

Locked up with a killer
But when a mutilated body is found in the cell next door,
Helen fears her days are numbered.

A murderer is on the loose.
And she must find them.
Before she's next . . .]]> 368 M.J. Arlidge 0718183843 Vilma 0 to-read 4.23 2016 Hide and Seek (Helen Grace, #6)
author: M.J. Arlidge
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Afterburn / Aftershock 17607911 Never mix business with pleasure. Never bring politics into the bedroom. In a way I did both when I took Jackson Rutledge as a lover. I can't say I wasn't warned.

Two years later, he was back. Walking into a deal I'd worked hard to close. Under the tutelage of Lei Yeung, one of the sharpest businesswomen in New York, I had picked up a thing or two since Jax walked away. I wasn't the girl he once knew, but he hadn't changed. Unlike the last time we'd drifted into each other's lives, I knew exactly what I was dealing with... and how addictive his touch could be.

The inner circle of glamour, sex, and privilege was Jax's playground--but this time, I knew the rules of the game. In the cutthroat business world, one adage rules all: keep your enemies close and your ex-lovers closer...]]> 400 Sylvia Day 0373622430 Vilma 0 to-read 3.92 2013 Afterburn / Aftershock
author: Sylvia Day
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Vilma 5 4.15 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2014/07/02
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
Favorite book of the year. It was perfect! It was suspenseful, romantic and gut wrenching with some unexpected surprises. Review to come.
]]> <![CDATA[World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2)]]> 12983100 Angelfall, the survivors of the angel apocalypse begin to scrape back together what's left of the modern world.

When a group of people capture Penryn's sister Paige, thinking she's a monster, the situation ends in a massacre. Paige disappears. Humans are terrified. Mom is heartbroken.

Penryn drives through the streets of San Francisco looking for Paige. Why are the streets so empty? Where is everybody? Her search leads her into the heart of the angels' secret plans where she catches a glimpse of their motivations, and learns the horrifying extent to which the angels are willing to go.

Meanwhile, Raffe hunts for his wings. Without them, he can't rejoin the angels, can't take his rightful place as one of their leaders. When faced with recapturing his wings or helping Penryn survive, which will he choose?]]> 438 Susan Ee Vilma 5 4.24 2013 World After (Penryn & the End of Days, #2)
author: Susan Ee
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2015/03/02
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Every Little Thing (Hart's Boardwalk #2)]]> 31356463
Vaughn admires Bailey’s free spirit, independence, and loyalty. As his passion for her has grown, his antagonism toward her has only worsened. Every little thing Bailey does seduces him. But when Vaughn’s painful emotional past makes him walk away in fear he will hurt her, it opens an old wound in Bailey, and she uncharacteristically retreats.

Once Vaughn begins to realize he’s made the biggest mistake of his life, he has no choice but to fight like he’s never fought before to convince Bailey that the love they’ve found together only comes around once in a lifetime�.]]> 352 Samantha Young Vilma 5 4.04 2017 Every Little Thing (Hart's Boardwalk #2)
author: Samantha Young
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2017/03/11
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid Is Watching (The Housemaid, #3)]]> 199235727
I used to clean other people’s houses—now, I can’t believe this home is actually mine. The charming kitchen, the quiet cul-de-sac, the huge yard where my kids can play. My husband and I saved for years to give our children the life they deserve.

Even though I’m wary of our new neighbor Mrs. Lowell, when she invites us over for dinner it’s our chance to make friends. Her maid opens the door wearing a white apron, her hair in a tight bun. I know exactly what it’s like to be in her shoes.

But her cold stare gives me chills�

The Lowells� maid isn’t the only strange thing on our street. I’m sure I see a shadowy figure watching us. My husband leaves the house late at night. And when I meet a woman who lives across the way, her words chill me to the bone: Be careful of your neighbors.

Did I make a terrible mistake moving my family here?

I thought I’d left my darkest secrets behind. But could this quiet suburban street be the most dangerous place of all?]]> 364 Freida McFadden 1464223319 Vilma 5 3.79 2024 The Housemaid Is Watching (The Housemaid, #3)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)]]> 62848145 As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can't risk losing this job � not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe . . .

It's hard to find an employer who doesn't ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It's almost perfect. But I still haven't met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I'm sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I'm doing laundry. And one day I can't help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything...

That's when I make a promise. After all, I've done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It's simply a question of how far I'm willing to go...]]> 318 Freida McFadden 1837901317 Vilma 5 4.22 2023 The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/02
date added: 2024/08/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Never Lie 62080187
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate� with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

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

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

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.]]> 286 Freida McFadden Vilma 5 4.09 2022 Never Lie
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/28
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven, #3)]]> 61273743 Cyrus Haven and Evie Cormac return in Robotham’s latest page-turning, psychological thriller in this series.

If I could tell you one thing about my brother, it would be this. Two days after his nineteenth birthday, he killed our parents and twin sisters because he heard voices in his head. As defining events go, nothing else comes close for Elias, or for me.

As a boy, Cyrus Haven survived a family massacre and slowly pieced his life back together. Now, after almost twenty years, his brother is applying to be released from a secure psychiatric hospital—and Cyrus is expected to forgive Elias and welcome him home.

Elias is returning to a very different world. Cyrus is now a successful psychologist, working with the police, sharing his house with Evie Cormac, a damaged and gifted teenager who can tell when someone is lying. Evie has gone back to school and is working part-time at an inner-city bar, but she continues to struggle with authority and following rules.

When a man is murdered and his daughter disappears, Cyrus is called in to profile the killer and help piece together Maya Kirk’s last hours. Police believe she was drugged and driven away from the same bar where Evie is working. Soon, a second victim is taken, and Evie is the only person who glimpsed the man behind the wheel.

But there’s a problem. Only two people believe her. One is Cyrus.

The other is the killer.]]> 352 Michael Robotham 1982166487 Vilma 5 4.17 2022 Lying Beside You (Cyrus Haven, #3)
author: Michael Robotham
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls, #5)]]> 203518955 Diana Bishop journeys to the darkest places within herself—and her family history—in the highly anticipated fifth novel of the beloved #1 New York Times bestselling All Souls series.

Deborah Harkness first introduced the world to Diana Bishop, Oxford scholar and witch, and vampire geneticist Matthew de Clairmont in A Discovery of Witches. Drawn to each other despite long-standing taboos, these two otherworldly beings found themselves at the center of a battle for a lost, enchanted manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Since then, they have fallen in love, traveled to Elizabethan England, dissolved the Covenant between the three species, and awoken the dark powers within Diana’s family line.

Now, Diana and Matthew receive a formal demand from the Congregation: They must test the magic of their seven-year-old twins, Pip and Rebecca. Concerned with their safety and desperate to avoid the same fate that led her parents to spellbind her, Diana decides to forge a different path for her family’s future and answers a message from a great-aunt she never knew existed, Gwyneth Proctor, whose invitation simply reads: It’s time you came home, Diana.

On the hallowed ground of Ravenswood, the Proctor family home, and under the tutelage of Gwyneth, a talented witch grounded in higher magic, a new era begins for Diana: a confrontation with her family’s dark past, and a reckoning for her own desire for even greater power—if she can let go, finally, of her fear of wielding it.]]> 444 Deborah Harkness 0593724771 Vilma 5 3.96 2024 The Black Bird Oracle (All Souls, #5)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/21
date added: 2024/07/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Graveyard Shift 203578770 Author of sales sensation If We Were Villains returns with a story about a ragtag group of night shift workers who meet in the local cemetery to unearth the secrets lurking in an open grave.

Every night, in the college’s ancient cemetery, five people cross paths as they work the late shift: a bartender, a rideshare driver, a hotel receptionist, the steward of the derelict church that looms over them, and the editor-in-chief of the college paper, always in search of a story.

One dark October evening in the defunct churchyard, they find a hole that wasn’t there before. A fresh, open grave where no grave should be. But who dug it, and for whom?

Before they go their separate ways, the gravedigger returns. As they trail him through the night, they realize he may be the key to a string of strange happenings around town that have made headlines for the last few weeks—and that they may be closer to the mystery than they thought.

Atmospheric and eerie, with the ensemble cast her fans love and a delightfully familiar academic backdrop, Graveyard Shift is a modern Gothic tale in If We Were Villains author M. L. Rio’s inimitable style.]]> 144 M.L. Rio 1250356792 Vilma 4 3.19 2024 Graveyard Shift
author: M.L. Rio
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/15
date added: 2024/07/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The Haters 201627012 The bestselling author ofThe Partyand The Drowning Woman returns with a twisted tale of fame, obsession, and the dark recesses of social media.

Camryn Lane is living her dream. After years of struggle and rejection, her first novel has finally been published. Her editor is happy; her teenage daughter is proud; and her boyfriend and friends are all excited for her. She’s on top of the world—until she receives a disturbing message from an unknown sender.

Rattled by the accusations she finds there, Camryn swallows the sick feeling in her stomach and resolves to put the missive out of her mind. But when she checks her ratings on a popular book site, she finds a scathing one-star review. The reviewer is so articulate and convincing that soon, Camryn’s book is flooded with bad reviews. Could the reviewer be the same person who sent the ugly email? And why do they want to ruin her?

As the online harassment creeps into Camryn’s personal life, she vows to find out who’s behind it. Is it really a disgruntled reader? Or could it be someone she knows? The troll’s actions are escalating, and when the abuse turns deadly, it will take everything Camryn has to unmask the enemy so intent on destroying her—and finally learn why she's being targeted.]]> 342 Robyn Harding 1538766108 Vilma 5 3.56 2024 The Haters
author: Robyn Harding
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/13
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> This Used to Be Us 199347400 There are two sides to every love story—and every breakup. Get ready for an emotional roller coaster of family, marriage, and divorce that will have you both laughing and crying, from the bestselling author of Before We Were Strangers.

After twenty-two years together, Danielle and Alex are getting a divorce. Once fiercely in love, they can barely stand the sound of each other’s voice. Instead of shuttling the kids between two broken homes, Alex and Dani decide to share a nesting apartment while swapping days with their two teenage boys at the family home.

In the apartment, Dani and Alex, on their own, begin to reflect on the last two decades—why they fell in love and why the marriage fell, spectacularly, apart. With the newfound space and time, they are given a chance to rediscover their autonomous selves again. They both get back in the dating pool. Dani finds major success at work as a showrunner on her own TV project, while Alex faces the challenges of a new relationship.

Still, they find that they just can’t stay away from each other, and somehow, the distance allows them to remember (for the first time in years) what each used to love about the other. When a family crisis draws them back into each other’s orbit, Dani and Alex are once again put to the test, which leads to a dramatic conclusion that will have listeners weeping.]]> 384 Renee Carlino 0593729285 Vilma 5 4.00 This Used to Be Us
author: Renee Carlino
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/11
date added: 2024/07/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Breaking the Dark (Marvel Crime, #1)]]> 201306695 In her most imaginative novel yet, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jewell (None of This Is True) launches the Marvel Crime series of thriller books for adults with an original story starring the private detective Jessica Jones.

Meet Jessica Jones: Retired super hero, private investigator, loner. She tried her best to be a shiny spandex crimefighter, but that life only led to unspeakable trauma. Now she avoids that world altogether and works on surviving day-to-day in Hell’s Kitchen, New York.

The morning a distraught mother comes into her office, Jessica would prefer to nurse her hangover and try to forget last night’s poor choices. But something about Amber Randall’s story strikes a chord with her. Amber is adamant that something happened to her teenage twins while they were visiting their father in the UK. The twins don’t act like themselves, and they now have flawless skin, have lost their distinctive tics and habits, and keep talking about a girl named Belle. Amber insists her children have been replaced by something horrible, something “perfect.�

Traveling to a small village in the British countryside, Jessica meets the mysterious Belle, who lives a curiously isolated life in an old farmhouse with a strange woman who claims to be her guardian. Can this unworldly teenager really be responsible for the Randall twins� new personas? Why does the strange little village of Barton Wallop seem to harbor dark energies and mysteries in its tight-knit community?

A mother’s intuition is never wrong. And Jessica knows that nothing in life is perfect—not these kids, not her on-again, off-again relationship with Luke Cage, and certainly not Jessica herself. But even as she tries to buy into the idea that better days are ahead, Jessica Jones has seen all too clearly that behind every promise of perfection trails a dark, dangerous shadow.

Breaking the Dark, the first book in the brand-new Marvel Crime series, introduces fans to a grittier, street-level side of the Marvel Universe, and will continue with original novels featuring fan-favorite characters like Luke Cage, written by S.A. Cosby, and Daredevil, written by Alex Segura.]]> 384 Lisa Jewell 1368090125 Vilma 5 3.61 2024 Breaking the Dark (Marvel Crime, #1)
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/08
date added: 2024/07/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Storm Child (Cyrus Haven, #4) 209523725 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN 9781668030998 can be found here

The mystery of Evie Cormac’s background has followed her into adulthood. As a child, she was discovered hiding in a secret room where a man had been tortured to death. Many of her captors and abusers escaped justice, unseen but not forgotten. Now, on a hot summer’s day, the past drags Evie back as she watches the bodies of seventeen migrants wash up on a Lincolnshire beach.

There is only one survivor, a teenage boy, who tells police their small boat was deliberately rammed and sunk. Psychologist Cyrus Haven is recruited by the police to investigate the murders—but recognizes immediately that Evie has some link to the tragedy. By solving this crime, he could finally unlock the secrets of her past. But what dark forces will he set loose? And who will pay the price?]]> 336 Michael Robotham 1668030993 Vilma 4 4.12 2024 Storm Child (Cyrus Haven, #4)
author: Michael Robotham
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/07/06
date added: 2024/07/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Honey 195790655 A coming-of-age story that follows the meteoric rise of singer Amber Young as she navigates fame in the late-1990s and early-2000s era of pop music superstardom

It is 1997, and Amber Young has received a life-changing call. It is a chance thousands of girls would die for: the opportunity to join girl group Cloud9 in Los Angeles and escape her small town. She quickly finds herself in the orbits of fellow rising stars Gwen Morris, a driven singer-dancer, and Wes Kingston, a member of the biggest boy band in the world, ETA.

As Amber embarks on her solo career and her fame intensifies, her rich interior life is frequently reduced. Surrounded by people who claim to love her but only wish to exploit her, and driven by a desire for recognition and success, for love and sex, for agency and connection, Amber comes of age at a time when the kaleidoscope of public opinion can distort everything and one mistake can shatter a career.

Isabel Banta’s debut novel redefines the narratives of some of the most famous pop icons of the 1990s and 2000s. It reimagines the superstars we idolized and hated, oversexualized and underestimated, and gives them the fresh, multifaceted story they deserve.]]> 336 Isabel Banta 1250333466 Vilma 3 3.44 2024 Honey
author: Isabel Banta
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/28
date added: 2024/07/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of�

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Vilma 4 4.31 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/30
date added: 2024/06/30
shelves:
review:

]]> The Midnight Feast 199743738 Secrets. Lies. Murder. Let the festivities begin...

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

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

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

It all began with a secret, fifteen years ago. Now the past has crashed the party. And it’ll end in murder at� The Midnight Feast.]]> 354 Lucy Foley 0063003104 Vilma 4 3.55 2024 The Midnight Feast
author: Lucy Foley
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman by the Lake (Misted Pines, #3)]]> 204920712
The minute she arrives, she knows it’s perfect.

The very night of her arrival, however, someone—or something—is scratching at her window.

The next morning, she meets her one and only neighbor, Doc Riggs. He’s a rough, good-time guy who rubs Nadia wrong immediately. They clash, and neither of them are happy to be sharing their lake.

But soon, Nadia learns the lore around her cabin, and how the townsfolk are certain it’s haunted by the ghost of the man who was murdered there fifteen years before.

Riggs and Nadia are suddenly thrown into a tangled web of history, betrayal, grief, secrets, with only one thing certain.

Someone—or something—wants them off that lake.]]> 490 Kristen Ashley Vilma 5 4.24 2024 The Woman by the Lake (Misted Pines, #3)
author: Kristen Ashley
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/16
date added: 2024/06/17
shelves:
review:

]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge�: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as �1847� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,� “Spotify,� and “the collapse of the British Empire.� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Vilma 3 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Rom-Commers 195790586 She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.� Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?]]> 336 Katherine Center 1250283809 Vilma 5 A struggling screenwriter heads to LA for a one-shot chance of writing a rom-com with her hero.

Emma Wheeler is obsessed with rom-coms. She’s spent a lifetime watching, studying, and writing them. But she’s yet to hit it big. As the sole caretaker for her father, there’s no time to cultivate a life of her own. When her now-successful-agent ex, offers her the opportunity of a lifetime—the chance to work with her screenwriting hero, Charlie Yates—it’s too good a break to pass up.

Emma’s sister steps up to care for her dad, while Emma heads to LA for six weeks, to help Charlie re-write a script. Nothing is as it seems, however, when she arrives. Charlie wants nothing to do with her and the opportunity seems to vanish in a blink. Before she leaves, she gives Charlie (who doesn’t believe in love!) a piece of her mind. And that does the trick�

Before too long, Emma is sitting across from Charlie Yates, writing a rom-com! Day after day, as they re-write Charlie’s script and unexpected sparks fly, they seem to be writing a romantic comedy of their own. After all, Emma needs to show Charlie that what love is really about� even as the line between fiction and reality blurs.

I absolutely loved this book! Center brings to life the enemies-to-lovers trope with a charming story of second chances, overcoming trauma, and finding love where/when you least expect. The narrative touts the perfect balance of humor and heart, enlivened by characters of which it’s a joy to root for.

Like always, this latest from Katherine Center is a wonderful, heart-filling delight to read!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.06 2024 The Rom-Commers
author: Katherine Center
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/17
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:
A struggling screenwriter heads to LA for a one-shot chance of writing a rom-com with her hero.

Emma Wheeler is obsessed with rom-coms. She’s spent a lifetime watching, studying, and writing them. But she’s yet to hit it big. As the sole caretaker for her father, there’s no time to cultivate a life of her own. When her now-successful-agent ex, offers her the opportunity of a lifetime—the chance to work with her screenwriting hero, Charlie Yates—it’s too good a break to pass up.

Emma’s sister steps up to care for her dad, while Emma heads to LA for six weeks, to help Charlie re-write a script. Nothing is as it seems, however, when she arrives. Charlie wants nothing to do with her and the opportunity seems to vanish in a blink. Before she leaves, she gives Charlie (who doesn’t believe in love!) a piece of her mind. And that does the trick�

Before too long, Emma is sitting across from Charlie Yates, writing a rom-com! Day after day, as they re-write Charlie’s script and unexpected sparks fly, they seem to be writing a romantic comedy of their own. After all, Emma needs to show Charlie that what love is really about� even as the line between fiction and reality blurs.

I absolutely loved this book! Center brings to life the enemies-to-lovers trope with a charming story of second chances, overcoming trauma, and finding love where/when you least expect. The narrative touts the perfect balance of humor and heart, enlivened by characters of which it’s a joy to root for.

Like always, this latest from Katherine Center is a wonderful, heart-filling delight to read!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> Middle of the Night 199026522 In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

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

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

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

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.]]> 367 Riley Sager 0593472373 Vilma 5 In a haunting quest for closure, a man returns to the neighborhood of his youth to unravel the mystery of his childhood best friend’s disappearance.

One summer morning, ten-year-old Ethan Marsh woke up alone in a backyard tent in a serene New Jersey cul-de-sac. His best friend, Billy Barringer, had vanished—someone had sliced open the tent in the dead of night and taken Billy. Wracked with guilt and tormented by unanswered questions, Ethan eventually fled Hemlock Circle—the neighborhood forever marred by the tragedy.

Three decades later, Ethan reluctantly returns home after his parents relocate. Plagued by memories of that July night and surrounded by the same neighbors, he finds himself spiraling into the past. The events of that night remain a blank in his mind.

Sleepless and haunted by recurring nightmares, Ethan becomes convinced that someone—or something—is prowling the cul-de-sac. Garage lights flicker on, and he senses a presence lurking in the shadows. As imagination blurs with reality, Ethan becomes consumed by the notion that Billy is reaching out to reveal the truth of what transpired.

As Ethan delves deeper, he unearths long-buried secrets, his desperation for answers escalating to a fever pitch.

I absolutely loved this book. Riley Sager crafts a tense, menacing, atmospheric domestic thriller. The dichotomy between the seemingly idyllic �90s suburbia and its sinister, paranormal undertones creates a fascinating and nostalgic backdrop. The narrative evokes a chilling sense that this could be any neighborhood, where something so horrifying and unimaginable could occur.

As Ethan’s paranoia intensifies, I felt my own urgency build, desperate to uncover the truth. Twist after twist leads to a final, satisfying, and shocking revelation, demonstrating Sager’s masterful ability to maintain suspense until the very end. And while this is very much a thriller, I also loved that it felt like a coming-of-age story and an exploration of the aftermath of trauma.

Wonderfully creepy, surprisingly moving, and as always with a Sager novel, fun to read.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.66 2024 Middle of the Night
author: Riley Sager
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/27
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:
In a haunting quest for closure, a man returns to the neighborhood of his youth to unravel the mystery of his childhood best friend’s disappearance.

One summer morning, ten-year-old Ethan Marsh woke up alone in a backyard tent in a serene New Jersey cul-de-sac. His best friend, Billy Barringer, had vanished—someone had sliced open the tent in the dead of night and taken Billy. Wracked with guilt and tormented by unanswered questions, Ethan eventually fled Hemlock Circle—the neighborhood forever marred by the tragedy.

Three decades later, Ethan reluctantly returns home after his parents relocate. Plagued by memories of that July night and surrounded by the same neighbors, he finds himself spiraling into the past. The events of that night remain a blank in his mind.

Sleepless and haunted by recurring nightmares, Ethan becomes convinced that someone—or something—is prowling the cul-de-sac. Garage lights flicker on, and he senses a presence lurking in the shadows. As imagination blurs with reality, Ethan becomes consumed by the notion that Billy is reaching out to reveal the truth of what transpired.

As Ethan delves deeper, he unearths long-buried secrets, his desperation for answers escalating to a fever pitch.

I absolutely loved this book. Riley Sager crafts a tense, menacing, atmospheric domestic thriller. The dichotomy between the seemingly idyllic �90s suburbia and its sinister, paranormal undertones creates a fascinating and nostalgic backdrop. The narrative evokes a chilling sense that this could be any neighborhood, where something so horrifying and unimaginable could occur.

As Ethan’s paranoia intensifies, I felt my own urgency build, desperate to uncover the truth. Twist after twist leads to a final, satisfying, and shocking revelation, demonstrating Sager’s masterful ability to maintain suspense until the very end. And while this is very much a thriller, I also loved that it felt like a coming-of-age story and an exploration of the aftermath of trauma.

Wonderfully creepy, surprisingly moving, and as always with a Sager novel, fun to read.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> If Something Happens to Me 195790670
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.

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

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

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

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told from several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The story cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.]]> 324 Alex Finlay 1250863791 Vilma 4 A man’s traumatic past comes back to life in a twisted and terrifying turn of events.

Ryan Richardson is tormented by the most harrowing night of his life—his girlfriend, Ali, vanishing with a scream as a car door is violently wrenched open, followed by a blow to his head that renders him unconscious. For five years, suspicion of his involvement has lingered in true-crime circles. Now living under a new name and far from small-town Kansas, Ryan is stunned when Ali’s car is found submerged in a local lake, containing two dead men and a cryptic note from Ali:

“If something happens to me…�

Ryan is shocked when he comes face-to-face with the man he saw that fateful night, an encounter that sends him spiraling down unexpected paths to uncover the truth. From the picturesque landscapes of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the bustling streets of to Paris, Ryan embarks on a desperate search for answers. Meanwhile, back in Kansas, a tenacious sheriff’s deputy is piecing together clues of her own.

Finlay masterfully unravels the story through multiple perspectives, revealing how a mobster’s thirst for vengeance triggers a cascade of tragic events, leaving a wake of destruction and despair. Each twist and turn heightens the suspense and keeps the reader riveted throughout. This layered cat-and-mouse thriller delves into themes of loss, trauma, and redemption, and is sure to captivate new and avid readers of Finlay’s work.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.69 2024 If Something Happens to Me
author: Alex Finlay
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/04
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:
A man’s traumatic past comes back to life in a twisted and terrifying turn of events.

Ryan Richardson is tormented by the most harrowing night of his life—his girlfriend, Ali, vanishing with a scream as a car door is violently wrenched open, followed by a blow to his head that renders him unconscious. For five years, suspicion of his involvement has lingered in true-crime circles. Now living under a new name and far from small-town Kansas, Ryan is stunned when Ali’s car is found submerged in a local lake, containing two dead men and a cryptic note from Ali:

“If something happens to me…�

Ryan is shocked when he comes face-to-face with the man he saw that fateful night, an encounter that sends him spiraling down unexpected paths to uncover the truth. From the picturesque landscapes of Tuscany, to a rural village in the UK, to the bustling streets of to Paris, Ryan embarks on a desperate search for answers. Meanwhile, back in Kansas, a tenacious sheriff’s deputy is piecing together clues of her own.

Finlay masterfully unravels the story through multiple perspectives, revealing how a mobster’s thirst for vengeance triggers a cascade of tragic events, leaving a wake of destruction and despair. Each twist and turn heightens the suspense and keeps the reader riveted throughout. This layered cat-and-mouse thriller delves into themes of loss, trauma, and redemption, and is sure to captivate new and avid readers of Finlay’s work.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> False Witness 55809780
Leigh Coulton has worked hard to build what looks like a normal life. She has a good job as a defence attorney, a daughter doing well in school, and even her divorce is relatively civilised - her life is just as unremarkable as she'd always hoped it would be.

HIDES A DEVASTATING PAST

But Leigh's ordinary life masks a childhood which was far from average... a childhood tarnished by secrets, broken by betrayal, and finally torn apart by a devastating act of violence.

BUT NOW THE PAST IS CATCHING UP

Then a case lands on her desk - defending a wealthy man accused of rape. It's the highest profile case she's ever been given - a case which could transform her career, if she wins. But when she meets the accused, she realises that it's no coincidence that he's chosen her as his attorney. She knows him. And he knows her. More to the point, he knows what happened twenty years ago, and why Leigh has spent two decades running.

AND TIME IS RUNNING OUT

If she can't get him acquitted, she'll lose much more than the case. The only person who can help her is her younger, estranged sister Calli, the last person Leigh would ever want to ask for help. But suddenly she has no choice...]]> 440 Karin Slaughter 0062858092 Vilma 5 4.05 2021 False Witness
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/28
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves:
review:

]]> One Perfect Couple 199798953 Harkening to Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None, this high-tension and ingenious thriller follows five couples trapped on a storm-swept island as a killer stalks among them.

Lyla is in a bit of a rut. Her post-doctoral research has fizzled out, she’s pretty sure they won’t extend her contract, and things with her boyfriend, Nico, an aspiring actor, aren’t going great. When the opportunity arises for Nico to join the cast of a new reality TV show, The Perfect Couple, she decides to try out with him. A whirlwind audition process later, Lyla find herself whisked off to a tropical paradise with Nico, boating through the Indian Ocean towards Ever After Island, where the two of them will compete against four other couples—Bayer and Angel, Dan and Santana, Joel and Romi, and Conor and Zana—in order to win a cash prize.

But not long after they arrive on the deserted island, things start to go wrong. After the first challenge leaves everyone rattled and angry, an overnight storm takes matters from bad to worse. Cut off from the mainland by miles of ocean, deprived of their phones, and unable to contact the crew that brought them there, the group must band together for survival. As tensions run high and fresh water runs low, Lyla finds that this game show is all too real—and the stakes are life or death.

A fast-paced, spellbinding thriller rife with intrigue and characters that feel so true to life, this novel proves yet again that Ruth Ware is the queen of psychological suspense.]]> 385 Ruth Ware 1668025590 Vilma 5 Stranded on a storm-swept island, five couples battle the elements—and each other—as they struggle to survive in this paradise-turned-nightmare thriller.

Lyla and Nico’s relationship seems to be going nowhere. But out-of-work actor Nico pleads with Lyla, a virologist, to join him on a reality TV show. For Nico, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, and for Lyla, this is the chance to see if their relationship has a future.

From the beginning, however, the show feels thrown together, falling short of the professional expectations of such a production. Lyla and Nico join four other couples—Angel and Bayer, Santana and Dan, Romi and Joel, Zana and Conor—and venture to a remote Indonesian island to take their shot at the grand prize. After their first challenge, the aggressive and ever-shady director departs with the crew and first cast-out contestant, leaving the group for the night. A massive storm hits the island however, and they awake to a terrifying nightmare—most of their huts are destroyed, bodies are found, food and water supply are minimal with only a battery-powered radio remaining.

Distress calls through the radio go unanswered, however, as days turn into weeks. Worse yet, someone on the island forcefully takes over, willing to kill if they don’t fall in line. Division sows, alliances are forged and broken, and more bodies get buried beneath the sand, as hunger and dehydration take root in the sweltering tropical heat.

As their numbers and resources dwindle, and matters of life and death beckon action, it’s unclear whether anyone will make it out alive.
Love Island turns Survivor in this taut, immersive psychological suspense. The narrative—a fresh take on the locked-room mysteries Ware is known for—plays like a movie. Lyla’s pragmatic perspective unfurls the story with clarity, and I felt captive to sheer insanity of everything these people went through. I particularly loved seeing women band together fiercely and problem solve their way through their many situations. While the story touted propulsive pacing overall, my only minor callout is that the ending wrap-up felt a bit like a fizzle down from the high of the well-executed climax. Nonetheless, I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down.

This is the summer thriller you’ve been waiting for.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.60 2024 One Perfect Couple
author: Ruth Ware
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/21
date added: 2024/05/25
shelves:
review:
Stranded on a storm-swept island, five couples battle the elements—and each other—as they struggle to survive in this paradise-turned-nightmare thriller.

Lyla and Nico’s relationship seems to be going nowhere. But out-of-work actor Nico pleads with Lyla, a virologist, to join him on a reality TV show. For Nico, this is the opportunity of a lifetime, and for Lyla, this is the chance to see if their relationship has a future.

From the beginning, however, the show feels thrown together, falling short of the professional expectations of such a production. Lyla and Nico join four other couples—Angel and Bayer, Santana and Dan, Romi and Joel, Zana and Conor—and venture to a remote Indonesian island to take their shot at the grand prize. After their first challenge, the aggressive and ever-shady director departs with the crew and first cast-out contestant, leaving the group for the night. A massive storm hits the island however, and they awake to a terrifying nightmare—most of their huts are destroyed, bodies are found, food and water supply are minimal with only a battery-powered radio remaining.

Distress calls through the radio go unanswered, however, as days turn into weeks. Worse yet, someone on the island forcefully takes over, willing to kill if they don’t fall in line. Division sows, alliances are forged and broken, and more bodies get buried beneath the sand, as hunger and dehydration take root in the sweltering tropical heat.

As their numbers and resources dwindle, and matters of life and death beckon action, it’s unclear whether anyone will make it out alive.
Love Island turns Survivor in this taut, immersive psychological suspense. The narrative—a fresh take on the locked-room mysteries Ware is known for—plays like a movie. Lyla’s pragmatic perspective unfurls the story with clarity, and I felt captive to sheer insanity of everything these people went through. I particularly loved seeing women band together fiercely and problem solve their way through their many situations. While the story touted propulsive pacing overall, my only minor callout is that the ending wrap-up felt a bit like a fizzle down from the high of the well-executed climax. Nonetheless, I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down.

This is the summer thriller you’ve been waiting for.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons, #6)]]> 110396 Everything was so much simpler... when he was wicked.

In every life there is a turning point. A moment so tremendous, so sharp and breathtaking, that one knows one's life will never be the same. For Michael Stirling, London's most infamous rake, that moment came the first time he laid eyes on Francesca Bridgerton.

After a lifetime of chasing women, of smiling slyly as they chased him, of allowing himself to be caught but never permitting his heart to become engaged, he took one look at Francesca Bridgerton and fell so fast and hard into love it was a wonder he managed to remain standing. Unfortunately for Michael, however, Francesca's surname was to remain Bridgerton for only a mere thirty-six hours longer—the occasion of their meeting was, lamentably, a supper celebrating her imminent wedding to his cousin.

But that was then... Now Michael is the earl and Francesca is free, but still she thinks of him as nothing other than her dear friend and confidant. Michael dares not speak to her of his love... until one dangerous night, when she steps innocently into his arms, and passion proves stronger than even the most wicked of secrets...]]> 368 Julia Quinn 0060531231 Vilma 5 3.96 2004 When He Was Wicked (Bridgertons, #6)
author: Julia Quinn
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:

]]> Good Bad Girl 83668030 Sometimes bad things happen to good people, so good people have to do bad things. Alice Feeney, returns with another thrilling mystery filled with drama and her trademark surprises.

Twenty years after a baby is stolen from a stroller, a woman is murdered in a care home. The two crimes are somehow linked, and a good bad girl may be the key to discovering the truth.

Edith may have been tricked into a nursing home, but at eighty-years-young, she’s planning her escape. Patience works there, cleaning messes and bonding with Edith, a kindred spirit. But Patience is lying to Edith about almost everything.

Edith’s own daughter, Clio, won’t speak to her. And someone new is about to knock on Clio’s door…and their intentions aren’t good.

With every reason to distrust each other, the women must solve a mystery with three suspects, two murders, and one victim. If they do, they might just find out what happened to the baby who disappeared, the mother who lost her, and the connections that bind them.

In the style of Daisy Darker and Rock Paper Scissors, Good Bad Girl is a thriller in which nobody can be trusted and the twists come fast and furious.]]> 306 Alice Feeney 1250843960 Vilma 0 3.62 2023 Good Bad Girl
author: Alice Feeney
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/21
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review:

]]> Daisy Darker 59808050 The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows�

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.]]> 352 Alice Feeney 1250843936 Vilma 0 3.75 2022 Daisy Darker
author: Alice Feeney
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/21
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review:

]]> The Quiet Tenant 61897971
When Aidan’s wife dies, he and his thirteen-year-old daughter Cecilia are forced to move. Aidan has no choice but to bring Rachel along, introducing her to Cecilia as a “family friend� who needs a place to stay. Aidan is betting on Rachel, after five years of captivity, being too brainwashed and fearful to attempt to escape. But Rachel is a fighter and survivor, and recognizes Cecilia might just be the lifeline she has waited for all these years. As Rachel tests the boundaries of her new living situation, she begins to form a tenuous connection with Cecilia. And when Emily, a local restaurant owner, develops a crush on the handsome widower, she finds herself drawn into Rachel and Cecilia’s orbit, coming dangerously close to discovering Aidan’s secret.

Told through the perspectives of Rachel, Cecilia, and Emily, The Quiet Tenant explores the psychological impact of Aidan’s crimes on the women in his life—and the bonds between those women that give them the strength to fight back. Both a searing thriller and an astute study of trauma, survival, and the dynamics of power, The Quiet Tenant is an electrifying debut thriller by a major talent.]]> 303 Clémence Michallon 0593534646 Vilma 5 3.80 2023 The Quiet Tenant
author: Clémence Michallon
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/12
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves:
review:

]]> The Handmaid's Tale 49982302 311 Margaret Atwood Vilma 0 4.13 1985 The Handmaid's Tale
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1985
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)]]> 60784546 After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again�

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands � that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper � an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.]]> 357 Rebecca Ross 1250857430 Vilma 0 4.14 2023 Divine Rivals (Letters of Enchantment, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> Babel 57945316 From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a historical fantasy epic that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British Empire

Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal.

1828. Robin Swift, orphaned by cholera in Canton, is brought to London by the mysterious Professor Lovell. There, he trains for years in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Chinese, all in preparation for the day he’ll enroll in Oxford University’s prestigious Royal Institute of Translation—also known as Babel. The tower and its students are the world's center for translation and, more importantly, magic. Silver-working—the art of manifesting the meaning lost in translation using enchanted silver bars—has made the British unparalleled in power, as the arcane craft serves the Empire's quest for colonization.

For Robin, Oxford is a utopia dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge obeys power, and as a Chinese boy raised in Britain, Robin realizes serving Babel means betraying his motherland. As his studies progress, Robin finds himself caught between Babel and the shadowy Hermes Society, an organization dedicated to stopping imperial expansion. When Britain pursues an unjust war with China over silver and opium, Robin must decide . . .

Can powerful institutions be changed from within, or does revolution always require violence?]]> 544 R.F. Kuang 0063021420 Vilma 0 4.17 2022 Babel
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
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review:

]]> I Hope This Finds You Well 200987323 In this wildly funny and heartwarming office comedy, an admin worker accidentally gains access to her colleagues� private emails and DMs and decides to use this intel to save her job—a laugh-till-you-cry debut novel you’ll be eager to share with your entire list of contacts, perfect for fans of Anxious People and Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine.

As far as Jolene is concerned, her interactions with her colleagues should start and end with her official duties as an admin for Supershops, Inc. Unfortunately, her irritating, incompetent coworkers don’t seem to understand the importance of boundaries. Her secret to survival? She vents her grievances in petty email postscripts, then changes the text colour to white so no one can see. That is, until one of her secret messages is exposed. Her punishment: sensitivity training (led by the suspiciously friendly HR guy, Cliff) and rigorous email restrictions.

When an IT mix-up grants her access to her entire department’s private emails and DMs, Jolene knows she should report it, but who could resist reading what their coworkers are really saying? And when she discovers layoffs are coming, she realizes this might just be the key to saving her job. The plan is simple: gain her boss’s favour, convince HR she’s Supershops material and beat out the competition.

But as Jolene is drawn further into her coworker’s private worlds and secrets, her carefully constructed walls begin to crumble—especially around Cliff, who she definitely cannot have feelings for. Soon she will need to decide if she’s ready to leave the comfort of her cubicle, even if it means coming clean to her colleagues.

Crackling with laugh-out-loud dialogue and relatable observations, I Hope This Finds You Well is a fresh and surprisingly tender comedy about loneliness and love beyond our computer screens. This sparkling debut novel will open your heart to the everyday eccentricities of work culture and the undeniable human connection that comes with it.]]> 338 Natalie Sue 0063320363 Vilma 0 to-read 3.75 2024 I Hope This Finds You Well
author: Natalie Sue
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Murder at the End of the World]]> 136276877
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

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

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

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

And the clock is ticking.

From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.]]> 368 Stuart Turton Vilma 0 to-read 3.63 2024 The Last Murder at the End of the World
author: Stuart Turton
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Five Year Lie 195853534 Bestselling romance author Sarina Bowen’s debut thriller, about one woman’s search for the truth after receiving a text from her deceased ex.

She thought it was love. Then he vanished.

On an ordinary Monday morning, Ariel Cafferty's phone buzzes with a disturbing text message. Something’s happened. I need to see you. Meet me under the candelabra tree ASAP. The words would be jarring from anyone, but the sender is the only man she ever loved. And it's been several years since she learned he died.

Seeing Drew’s name pop up is heart-stopping. Ariel’s gut says it can’t be real. But she goes to the tree anyway. She has to.

Nobody shows. But the text upends everything she thought she knew about the day he left her. The more questions she asks, the more sinister the answers get. Only two things are clear: everything she was told five years ago is wrong, and someone is still lying to her.

The truth has to be out there somewhere. To safeguard herself—and her son—she’ll have to find it before it finds her. And with it, the answer to what became of Drew.

With a heart-stopping romance that only Sarina Bowen can execute, The Five Year Lie is a page-turning, spine-tingling thriller that will have you guessing until the very end.]]> 421 Sarina Bowen 0063280604 Vilma 0 to-read 3.84 2024 The Five Year Lie
author: Sarina Bowen
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1) 199368721 She's been driving him wild for years . . . the good kind of wild.

The kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend's little sister and knowing you can't have her.

Forbes may have labeled Ford Grant the World's Hottest Billionaire, but all he cares about is escaping the press and opening a recording studio in gorgeous small town Rose Hill. Something that comes to a screeching halt when he ends up face-to-face with a young girl who claims he's her biological father. Now, he spends his days balancing business with parenting a sullen twelve-year-old, all while trying desperately to keep his hands the hell off his best friend's sister, Rosie Belmont.

After living in the city, Rosie came blasting back into town like a storm. Beautiful, messy, and chaotic. And one wide-eyed, desperate plea for a job is all it takes for Ford to hire her. He vows to keep her at arm's length. Tries to stick to scowls and grumpy one-liners. But with her, verbal sparring is a type of foreplay―friction that soon turns to blistering heat.

Ford knows damn well he shouldn't cross this line. But shouldn't and can't are two very different things.

And the only thing he truly can't do is resist her.]]> 402 Elsie Silver 0349441626 Vilma 3 3.98 2024 Wild Love (Rose Hill, #1)
author: Elsie Silver
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> Murder Road 196614815 A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.

July 1995. April and Eddie have taken a wrong turn. They’re looking for the small resort town where they plan to spend their honeymoon. When they spot what appears to be a lone hitchhiker along the deserted road, they stop to help. But not long after the hitchhiker gets into their car, they see the blood seeping from her jacket and a truck barreling down Atticus Line after them.

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.]]> 341 Simone St. James 0593200381 Vilma 5 A newlywed couple gets lost, picks up a hitchhiker, and soon finds themselves suspects in a brutal murder.

After taking a wrong exit, April and Eddie drive down a deserted road, late into the night, desperate to find their way to their resort. Instead, they come across a lone hitchhiker needing help—a young woman who now seeps blood from her jacket and onto their back seat.

She whispers “he’s coming� as they rush her to the small-town hospital, speeding ahead of lights that seem to inch closer and closer behind.

But although they made it to the hospital, the young woman—Rhonda Jean—does not survive. Covered in blood and with an unlikely story as their only defense, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of a grisly murder. Worse yet, it’s not just one murder—many unexplained murders happened along that road and the Coldlake Falls police finally have suspects.

Before too long, April and Eddie are sucked into a terrifying urban legend they can’t seem to escape, fearing they’ll be the next victims.

I devoured this book.

Chilling and deeply unsettling from the very beginning, it’s a harrowing horror-filled ride. With broken characters, well-hidden secrets, and high stakes tension throughout, it’s truly an exhilarating, unrelenting, unpredictable serial killer thriller. Obsessed.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.67 2024 Murder Road
author: Simone St. James
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/10
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
A newlywed couple gets lost, picks up a hitchhiker, and soon finds themselves suspects in a brutal murder.

After taking a wrong exit, April and Eddie drive down a deserted road, late into the night, desperate to find their way to their resort. Instead, they come across a lone hitchhiker needing help—a young woman who now seeps blood from her jacket and onto their back seat.

She whispers “he’s coming� as they rush her to the small-town hospital, speeding ahead of lights that seem to inch closer and closer behind.

But although they made it to the hospital, the young woman—Rhonda Jean—does not survive. Covered in blood and with an unlikely story as their only defense, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of a grisly murder. Worse yet, it’s not just one murder—many unexplained murders happened along that road and the Coldlake Falls police finally have suspects.

Before too long, April and Eddie are sucked into a terrifying urban legend they can’t seem to escape, fearing they’ll be the next victims.

I devoured this book.

Chilling and deeply unsettling from the very beginning, it’s a harrowing horror-filled ride. With broken characters, well-hidden secrets, and high stakes tension throughout, it’s truly an exhilarating, unrelenting, unpredictable serial killer thriller. Obsessed.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> Listen for the Lie 127279000 What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. But after Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer.

It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life. But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast Listen for the Lie and its too-good looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it.

The truth is out there, if we just listen.]]> 352 Amy Tintera 1250880319 Vilma 5 A woman accused of murdering her best friend teams up with a podcaster to uncover who was really behind the mysterious death.

Lucy Chase reluctantly returns home to Plumpton, Texas, for her grandmother’s birthday. But everyone in her small town refuses to forget what happened five years prior—Lucy wandering the streets, covered in her best friend’s blood. Lucy and Savannah were the inseparable ‘it� girls, until Savvy was found bludgeoned to death, with Lucy losing all memory of that night. Now, true-crime podcaster Ben Owens has brought more attention to the unsolved case and is also in Plumpton interviewing for his show, Listen for the Lie.

Lucy wants nothing to do with the podcast, has agreed to no interviews, and is endlessly haunted—and frustrated by—the night that changed her life forever. Ben strongly spurs Lucy to tell her side of the story, especially as he uncovers new evidence that shed new light and finally cast doubt to Lucy’s culpability. Before too long, Ben and Lucy, through multiple interviews and found memories, arrive at the shocking truth of who was behind the murder of the beautiful, yet complicated, Savannah “Savvy� Harper.

This book was such an addictive whodunit. We see Lucy’s story unfurl mostly from her perspective. She’s smart, feisty, bristly, and complicated herself, weighed down by antagonistic voices in her head, and vanished memories that hide the truth everyone desperately seeks. Multiple characters feel like real possibilities as the complicated web of what really transpired starts to crystallize. Everyone has secrets to hide in a town that antagonizes outliers, and cares mostly about perception. Wickedly fun, fast paced, and sharp, I ripped through the pages of this propulsive thriller. Excellent all around.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.07 2024 Listen for the Lie
author: Amy Tintera
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/13
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
A woman accused of murdering her best friend teams up with a podcaster to uncover who was really behind the mysterious death.

Lucy Chase reluctantly returns home to Plumpton, Texas, for her grandmother’s birthday. But everyone in her small town refuses to forget what happened five years prior—Lucy wandering the streets, covered in her best friend’s blood. Lucy and Savannah were the inseparable ‘it� girls, until Savvy was found bludgeoned to death, with Lucy losing all memory of that night. Now, true-crime podcaster Ben Owens has brought more attention to the unsolved case and is also in Plumpton interviewing for his show, Listen for the Lie.

Lucy wants nothing to do with the podcast, has agreed to no interviews, and is endlessly haunted—and frustrated by—the night that changed her life forever. Ben strongly spurs Lucy to tell her side of the story, especially as he uncovers new evidence that shed new light and finally cast doubt to Lucy’s culpability. Before too long, Ben and Lucy, through multiple interviews and found memories, arrive at the shocking truth of who was behind the murder of the beautiful, yet complicated, Savannah “Savvy� Harper.

This book was such an addictive whodunit. We see Lucy’s story unfurl mostly from her perspective. She’s smart, feisty, bristly, and complicated herself, weighed down by antagonistic voices in her head, and vanished memories that hide the truth everyone desperately seeks. Multiple characters feel like real possibilities as the complicated web of what really transpired starts to crystallize. Everyone has secrets to hide in a town that antagonizes outliers, and cares mostly about perception. Wickedly fun, fast paced, and sharp, I ripped through the pages of this propulsive thriller. Excellent all around.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Paradise Problem 199797582
Three years later, Anna is a starving artist living paycheck to paycheck while West is a Stanford professor. He may be one of four heirs to the Weston Foods conglomerate, but he has little interest in working for the heartless corporation his family built from the ground up. He is interested, however, in his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. There’s just one catch.

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

But in the presence of his family, Liam’s fears quickly shift from whether the feisty, foul-mouthed, paint-splattered Anna can play the part to whether the toxic world of wealth will corrupt someone as pure of heart as his surprisingly grounded and loyal wife. Liam will have to ask himself if the price tag on his flimsy cover story is worth losing true love that sprouted from a lie.]]> 352 Christina Lauren 1668017725 Vilma 5 Two ex-roommates fake a relationship to land a massive inheritance in this new marriage-of-convenience rom-com from writer duo, Christina Lauren.

To score subsidized family housing, Anna Green and Liam “West� Weston faked a marriage while at UCLA. Once they graduated, and with divorce papers signed, they went their separate ways.

Three years later, Liam (a now Stanford professor), approaches Anna (a struggling artist) with the news that they’re still married, and with an irrational offer that comes with money she desperately needs. Anna must stay married to Liam for a little longer and accompany him to his sister’s tropical wedding. The catch? His family is awful, but if they can keep up the ruse, Liam—the heir to a grocery store conglomerate—receives his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. Liam wants nothing to do with his problematic father and their company, but for him to do what he aspires, he needs the money.

Free-spirited, pink-haired Anna couldn’t be more different than the polished and pretentious one-percenters, and when things get heated during the wedding week, everything begins to spiral. Worse yet, the more time Anna and Liam spend together, the more the line blurs between what’s real and pretend.

In their singular, never-fail style, Christina Lauren deliver an irresistible, opposites-attract romcom teeming with fantastic banter, pop-culture references, and just the right balance between spiciness and emotion. I was swept away by the characters falling for each other in paradise, coming together to fight against Liam’s awful family. This is the perfect, one-sitting, poolside read—I loved it!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.07 2024 The Paradise Problem
author: Christina Lauren
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/31
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
Two ex-roommates fake a relationship to land a massive inheritance in this new marriage-of-convenience rom-com from writer duo, Christina Lauren.

To score subsidized family housing, Anna Green and Liam “West� Weston faked a marriage while at UCLA. Once they graduated, and with divorce papers signed, they went their separate ways.

Three years later, Liam (a now Stanford professor), approaches Anna (a struggling artist) with the news that they’re still married, and with an irrational offer that comes with money she desperately needs. Anna must stay married to Liam for a little longer and accompany him to his sister’s tropical wedding. The catch? His family is awful, but if they can keep up the ruse, Liam—the heir to a grocery store conglomerate—receives his one-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. Liam wants nothing to do with his problematic father and their company, but for him to do what he aspires, he needs the money.

Free-spirited, pink-haired Anna couldn’t be more different than the polished and pretentious one-percenters, and when things get heated during the wedding week, everything begins to spiral. Worse yet, the more time Anna and Liam spend together, the more the line blurs between what’s real and pretend.

In their singular, never-fail style, Christina Lauren deliver an irresistible, opposites-attract romcom teeming with fantastic banter, pop-culture references, and just the right balance between spiciness and emotion. I was swept away by the characters falling for each other in paradise, coming together to fight against Liam’s awful family. This is the perfect, one-sitting, poolside read—I loved it!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> Mind Games 195791352
As they do each June, the Foxes have driven the winding roads of Appalachia to drop off their children for a two-week stay at their grandmother’s. Here, twelve-year-old Thea can run free and breathe in the smells of pine and fresh bread and Grammie’s handmade candles. But as her parents head back to suburban Virginia, they have no idea they’re about to cross paths with a ticking time bomb.

Back in Kentucky, Thea and her grandmother Lucy both awaken from the same nightmare. And though the two have never discussed the special kind of sight they share, they know as soon as their tearful eyes meet that something terrible has happened.

The kids will be staying with Grammie now in Redbud Hollow, and thanks to Thea’s vision, their parents� killer will spend his life in supermax. Over time, Thea will make friends, build a career, find love. But that ability to see into minds and souls still lurks within her, and though Grammie calls it a gift, it feels more like a curse―because the inmate who shattered her childhood has the same ability. Thea can hear his twisted thoughts and witness his evil acts from miles away. He knows it, and hungers for vengeance. A long, silent battle will be waged between them―and eventually bring them face to face, and head to head…]]> 422 Nora Roberts 1250289696 Vilma 5 Through an unlikely connection, a woman and her parent’s murderer battle it out in a dangerous duel of the minds.

Every June, John and Cora Fox drop off their two children—Thea and Rem—for a much-anticipated two-week stay with Cora’s mom, “Grammie� Lucy in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky. There, in beautiful Appalachia, the kids run free, help Grammie make soaps and candles for her business, and eat an abundance of delicious home-cooked meals. One night, Lucy and Thea awaken from a terrible real-life nightmare, knowing John and Cora have been murdered back in Virginia.

Lucy and Thea share a special kind of sight passed down through the women of Lucy’s family. Twelve-year-old Thea’s sight is particularly strong, as she helplessly watched every moment of her parent’s murder. Thanks to Thea, they catch the psychopathic killer—Ray Riggs—who gets sent to a supermax prison.

But Ray also shares the sight, and knows it was Thea that ruined everything for him. Promising vengeance, he weaponizes his own psychic ability by tormenting Thea year after year. As Thea becomes an adult, takes on a career as a successful game designer, and falls in love, Ray Riggs is always there, darkening the hope of a peaceful, happy life. As his anger and vengeance reaches a fever pitch, Thea’s life begins to fray, and she plots a perilous plan to sever their mental connection once and for all.

With MIND GAMES, Roberts once again delivers an immersive story with beloved, richly penned characters. Suspenseful and moving in equal measure, the narrative explores themes of family, grief, and love.

So good I didn’t want it to end!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.15 2024 Mind Games
author: Nora Roberts
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/18
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
Through an unlikely connection, a woman and her parent’s murderer battle it out in a dangerous duel of the minds.

Every June, John and Cora Fox drop off their two children—Thea and Rem—for a much-anticipated two-week stay with Cora’s mom, “Grammie� Lucy in Redbud Hollow, Kentucky. There, in beautiful Appalachia, the kids run free, help Grammie make soaps and candles for her business, and eat an abundance of delicious home-cooked meals. One night, Lucy and Thea awaken from a terrible real-life nightmare, knowing John and Cora have been murdered back in Virginia.

Lucy and Thea share a special kind of sight passed down through the women of Lucy’s family. Twelve-year-old Thea’s sight is particularly strong, as she helplessly watched every moment of her parent’s murder. Thanks to Thea, they catch the psychopathic killer—Ray Riggs—who gets sent to a supermax prison.

But Ray also shares the sight, and knows it was Thea that ruined everything for him. Promising vengeance, he weaponizes his own psychic ability by tormenting Thea year after year. As Thea becomes an adult, takes on a career as a successful game designer, and falls in love, Ray Riggs is always there, darkening the hope of a peaceful, happy life. As his anger and vengeance reaches a fever pitch, Thea’s life begins to fray, and she plots a perilous plan to sever their mental connection once and for all.

With MIND GAMES, Roberts once again delivers an immersive story with beloved, richly penned characters. Suspenseful and moving in equal measure, the narrative explores themes of family, grief, and love.

So good I didn’t want it to end!

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Familiar 133286777 From the New York Times bestselling author of Ninth House, Hell Bent, and creator of the Grishaverse series comes a highly anticipated historical fantasy set during the Spanish Golden Age

In a shabby house, on a shabby street, in the new capital of Madrid, Luzia Cotado uses scraps of magic to get through her days of endless toil as a scullion. But when her scheming mistress discovers the lump of a servant cowering in the kitchen is actually hiding a talent for little miracles, she demands Luzia use those gifts to better the family's social position.

What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santangel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]> 387 Leigh Bardugo 125088425X Vilma 5 In 16th-century Madrid, a scullion’s “milagritos� land her in a dangerous tournament set to deliver either a more promising future or doom her to the Inquisition’s clutches.

Luzia Cotado toils in the kitchen of a struggling couple desperate for a more favorable social position. One day, Luzia is caught using menial magic to unburn bread. Her employer sees this as the perfect opportunity to use her talent for small miracles to rise among the nobility. But when Luzia catches the eye of the ambitious and disgraced secretary to Spain’s king, Antonio Pérez, the plan takes a more precarious turn.

Soon, Luzia is under the tutelage of the notorious and secretive Guillén Santángel, whose equally sinister patron demands he train Luzia to compete in a magical tournament. Through this process, she finds herself thrust into a perilous world of the power-hungry elite, seers and racketeers, and those who aim to change their fortune. Perhaps more dangerous yet is Luzia’s growing feelings for Santángel, which may get them both killed before the torneo’s end.

With THE FAMILIAR, Leigh Bardugo delivers an intricately imagined standalone fantasy, replete with themes of power, ambition, trust, betrayal, and love. Bardugo’s prowess at lush storytelling and meticulous, exacting worldbuilding vivifies Spain’s fascinating ‘Siglo de Oro.� I loved the richly drawn characters, her use of language in the narrative, and the unforeseen twists woven through the dark undercurrent of the story. As with all stories I tend to love the most, I relished in the synthesis of history and fiction with a measured dose of wit and magic to make it all the more interesting.

Taut, propulsive, and deeply imaginative, it was impossible to put this down.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.74 2024 The Familiar
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/14
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
In 16th-century Madrid, a scullion’s “milagritos� land her in a dangerous tournament set to deliver either a more promising future or doom her to the Inquisition’s clutches.

Luzia Cotado toils in the kitchen of a struggling couple desperate for a more favorable social position. One day, Luzia is caught using menial magic to unburn bread. Her employer sees this as the perfect opportunity to use her talent for small miracles to rise among the nobility. But when Luzia catches the eye of the ambitious and disgraced secretary to Spain’s king, Antonio Pérez, the plan takes a more precarious turn.

Soon, Luzia is under the tutelage of the notorious and secretive Guillén Santángel, whose equally sinister patron demands he train Luzia to compete in a magical tournament. Through this process, she finds herself thrust into a perilous world of the power-hungry elite, seers and racketeers, and those who aim to change their fortune. Perhaps more dangerous yet is Luzia’s growing feelings for Santángel, which may get them both killed before the torneo’s end.

With THE FAMILIAR, Leigh Bardugo delivers an intricately imagined standalone fantasy, replete with themes of power, ambition, trust, betrayal, and love. Bardugo’s prowess at lush storytelling and meticulous, exacting worldbuilding vivifies Spain’s fascinating ‘Siglo de Oro.� I loved the richly drawn characters, her use of language in the narrative, and the unforeseen twists woven through the dark undercurrent of the story. As with all stories I tend to love the most, I relished in the synthesis of history and fiction with a measured dose of wit and magic to make it all the more interesting.

Taut, propulsive, and deeply imaginative, it was impossible to put this down.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> Funny Story 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Vilma 5 Embittered roommates pretend date (and fall in love) in retaliation against their respective exes.

Daphne’s fiancé, Peter, comes home from his bachelor party and unexpectedly breaks off their engagement. Worse yet, he proclaims he’s in love with his childhood best friend, Petra. Peter and Petra jet to Europe while Daphne is forced to move out of their place and pick up the pieces of what she thought was their idyllic life.

Without much recourse, she temporarily moves in with Petra’s ex-boyfriend, Miles—the only one in the same miserable predicament.

Scruffy, chaotic, messy, and unexpectedly charming, Miles is the opposite of the pragmatic, ultra-organized, and often closed-off Daphne. A children’s librarian, Daphne moved to Waning Bay, Michigan, for Peter. Now without family or friends of her own, she must find her way through the all-too familiar storm of shattered promises and lies.

Daphne and Miles largely avoid each other, but one day, they form a tremulous friendship amidst their shared sorrow. Their friendship turns into something more, however—at least publicly—when in a moment of panic and deflection, Daphne declares she’s dating Miles.

Trouble is, the more time they spend together, the harder it is to discern what is real and what is not, as real feelings escalate between Daphne and her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex.

As with Henry’s other novels, it felt like the most delightful escape to jump into her story about two people—seemingly opposites—finding something real with each other. I loved the balance of humor and poignancy, and as always, the characters felt relatable and loveable in their flawed authenticity. Their chemistry touted an irresistible ease that felt natural in the narrative—evidence to Henry’s meticulous, storytelling prowess.

A joy to read, perfect for springtime reading.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.21 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/26
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:
Embittered roommates pretend date (and fall in love) in retaliation against their respective exes.

Daphne’s fiancé, Peter, comes home from his bachelor party and unexpectedly breaks off their engagement. Worse yet, he proclaims he’s in love with his childhood best friend, Petra. Peter and Petra jet to Europe while Daphne is forced to move out of their place and pick up the pieces of what she thought was their idyllic life.

Without much recourse, she temporarily moves in with Petra’s ex-boyfriend, Miles—the only one in the same miserable predicament.

Scruffy, chaotic, messy, and unexpectedly charming, Miles is the opposite of the pragmatic, ultra-organized, and often closed-off Daphne. A children’s librarian, Daphne moved to Waning Bay, Michigan, for Peter. Now without family or friends of her own, she must find her way through the all-too familiar storm of shattered promises and lies.

Daphne and Miles largely avoid each other, but one day, they form a tremulous friendship amidst their shared sorrow. Their friendship turns into something more, however—at least publicly—when in a moment of panic and deflection, Daphne declares she’s dating Miles.

Trouble is, the more time they spend together, the harder it is to discern what is real and what is not, as real feelings escalate between Daphne and her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex.

As with Henry’s other novels, it felt like the most delightful escape to jump into her story about two people—seemingly opposites—finding something real with each other. I loved the balance of humor and poignancy, and as always, the characters felt relatable and loveable in their flawed authenticity. Their chemistry touted an irresistible ease that felt natural in the narrative—evidence to Henry’s meticulous, storytelling prowess.

A joy to read, perfect for springtime reading.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Gathering 186872450 A detective investigating a grisly crime in rural Alaska finds herself caughtup in the dark secrets andsuperstitions of a small town in this riveting novel from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man

Deadhart, Alaska. 873. Living.

In a small Alaska town, a boy is found with his throat ripped out and all the blood drained from his body. The inhabitants of Deadhart haven’t seen a killing like this in twenty-five years. But they know who’s responsible: a member of the Colony, an ostracized community of vampyrs living in an old mine settlement deep in the woods.

Detective Barbara Atkins, a specialist in vampyr killings, is called in to officially determine if this is a Colony killing—and authorize a cull. Old suspicions die hard in a town like Deadhart, but Barbara isn’t so sure. Determined to find the truth, she enlists the help of a former Deadhart sheriff, Jenson Tucker, whose investigation into the previous murder almost cost him his life. Since then, Tucker has become a recluse. But he knows the Colony better than almost anyone.

As the pair delve into the town’s history, they uncover secrets darker than they could have imagined. And then another body is found. While the snow thickens and the nights grow longer, a killer stalks Deadhart, and two disparate communities circle each other for blood. Time is running out for Atkins and Tucker to find the truth: Are they hunting a bloodthirsty monster . . . or a twisted psychopath? And which is more dangerous?]]> 336 C.J. Tudor 0593356594 Vilma 5 3.85 2024 The Gathering
author: C.J. Tudor
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/02
date added: 2024/05/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Daughter of Mine 176443330 The new thrilling novel from Megan Miranda, the instant New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls, The Last to Vanish, and The Only Survivors.

When Hazel Sharp, daughter of Mirror Lake’s longtime local detective, unexpectedly inherits her childhood home, she’s warily drawn back to the town—and people—she left behind almost a decade earlier. But Hazel’s not the only relic of the past to return: a drought has descended on the region, and as the water level in the lake drops, long-hidden secrets begin to emerge…including evidence that may help finally explain the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.]]> 368 Megan Miranda Vilma 4 3.88 2024 Daughter of Mine
author: Megan Miranda
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/29
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Falling for Gage (Pelion Lake, #3)]]> 198666978 How is it possible that perfect Gage Buchanan is still single after all these years?

He can't quite figure it out himself. Perhaps he hasn't met the right woman. Maybe he's spent too many years focusing on work―or maybe he just isn't as perfect as everyone thinks he is.

Gage thought he left his days of one-night stands behind him, however something about the gorgeous cocktail waitress in a town three hours away is far too intriguing. But when she shows up weeks later in his hometown, Calliope, pretending to be an art appraiser, Gage is completely blindsided―not to mention still very attracted to the (apparent) little liar. He can't figure her out: not her angle nor the persistent pull between them.

Aurora "Rory" Casteel is determined to find her father. All she knows from her late mother is that he lives in Calliope and he's an important part of the town. So when Rory's gallery-owning friend offers to run cover for her while she sleuths around town, she jumps at the chance. But she doesn't anticipate the man she spent one wild night with turning out to be a local.

Sure, it puts a wrinkle in Rory's plan, but she can work around Gage Buchanan. Even as it gets harder to pretend her heart doesn't flip every time he's in the room. She has a suspicion he isn't everything he seems, either, but maybe it's "perfect" Gage's flaws that are what she's really drawn to.]]> 384 Mia Sheridan 172829911X Vilma 4 3.89 2024 Falling for Gage (Pelion Lake, #3)
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/22
date added: 2024/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)]]> 196864520

The viral TikTok friends-to-lovers dark romantic comedy full of murder, chaos, and spice—unlike anything you’ve read before—now available in all bookstores.


When a chance encounter sparks an unlikely bond between rival murderers Sloane and Rowan, the two find something elusive—the friendship of like-minded, pitch-black souls. From small town West Virginia to upscale California, from downtown Boston to rural Texas, the two hunters collide in an annual game of blood and suffering, one that pits them against the most dangerous monsters in the country.


But as their friendship develops into something more, the restless ghosts left in their wake are only a few steps behind, ready to claim more than just their newfound love. Can Rowan and Sloane dig themselves out of a game of graves? Or have they finally met their match?

]]> 360 Brynne Weaver Vilma 4 4.00 2023 Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/09
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Avenging Angel (Avenging Angels, #1)]]> 197805676
And maybe she’s a bit too cocky about it.

While riding a hunch about the identity of a kidnapper, she runs into Julien “Cap� Jackson, who was trained by the team at Nightingale Investigations in Denver. Now he’s a full-fledged member at their newly opened Phoenix branch.

It takes Cap a beat to realize Raye’s the woman for him. It takes Raye a little longer (but just a little) to figure out how she feels about Cap.

As Raye introduces Cap to her crazy posse of found family and his new home in the Valley of the Sun, Cap struggles with his protective streak. Because Raye has no intention to stop doing what she can to save the world.

But there’s a mysterious entity out there who has discovered what Raye is up to, and they’ve become very interested.

Not to mention, women are going missing in Phoenix, and it seems like the police aren’t taking it seriously.

Raye believes someone should.

So she recruits her best friend Luna, and between making coffees, mixing cocktails, planning parties and enduring family interventions (along with reunions), the Avenging Angels unite to ride to the rescue.]]> 456 Kristen Ashley 1954680384 Vilma 5 4.29 2024 Avenging Angel (Avenging Angels, #1)
author: Kristen Ashley
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/06
date added: 2024/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> The Drift 60965424 Three ordinary people risk everything for a chance at redemption in this audacious, utterly gripping novel of catastrophe and survival at the end of the world, from the acclaimed author of The Chalk Man

Hannah awakens to carnage, all mangled metal and shattered glass. During a hasty escape from a secluded boarding school, her coach careened over a hillside road during one of the year's heaviest snowstorms, trapping her inside with a handful of survivors, a brewing virus, and no way to call for help. If she and the remaining few want to make it out alive, with their sanity--and secrets--intact, they'll need to work together or they'll be buried alive with the rest of the dead.

A former detective, Meg awakens to a gentle rocking. She is in a cable car suspended far above a snowstorm and surrounded by strangers in the same uniform as her, with no memory of how they got there. They are heading to a mysterious place known to them only as "The Retreat," but when they discover a dead man among their ranks and Meg spies a familiar face, she realizes that there is something far more insidious going on.

Carter is gazing out the window of the abandoned ski chalet that he and his ragtag compatriots call home. Together, they manage a precarious survival, manufacturing vaccines against a deadly virus in exchange for life's essentials. But as their generator begins to waver, the threat of something lurking in the chalet's depths looms larger, and their fragile bonds will be tested when the power finally fails--for good.

The imminent dangers faced by Hannah, Meg, and Carter are each one part of the puzzle. Lurking in their shadows is an even greater threat--one that threatens to consume all of humanity.]]> 340 C.J. Tudor 059335656X Vilma 4 3.67 2023 The Drift
author: C.J. Tudor
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/03
date added: 2024/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Nothing More Dangerous (Boady Sanden, #1)]]> 44284637 In a small town where loyalty to family and to “your people� carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition.

After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn’t being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him.

Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady’s life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins--a black family settling into a community where notions of “us� and “them� carry the weight of history--forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he’s taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle.

But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world.

As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town, and he is forced to choose sides.]]> 305 Allen Eskens 0316509744 Vilma 0 to-read 4.31 2019 Nothing More Dangerous (Boady Sanden, #1)
author: Allen Eskens
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Saving Emma (Boady Sanden, #2)]]> 63277455 A lawyer's race to reveal a wrongful conviction collides with the dark shadow of a murder in his own home in this propulsive and perfectly-plotted new thriller from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.

When Boady Sanden first receives the case of Elijah Matthews, he's certain there's not much he can do. Elijah, who believes himself to be a prophet, has been locked up in a psychiatric hospital for the past four years, convicted of brutally murdering the pastor of a megachurch. But as a law professor working for the Innocence Project, Boady agrees to look into Elijah's file. When he does, he is alarmed to find threads that lead back to the death of his colleague and friend, Ben Pruitt, a man shot to death four years earlier in Boady's own home.

Ben's daughter, Emma, has lived with Boady and Boady's wife Dee ever since that awful night. Now fourteen years old, Emma has been growing distant, and soon makes a fateful choice that takes her far from the safety of her godparents. Desperate to bring her home, and to free an innocent man, Boady must do all he can to investigate Elijah's case while fighting to save the family he has deeply come to love.

Written with energy, propulsion, and his characteristic pathos and insight, Eskens delivers another pitch-perfect legal thriller that reveals a twisted murder and explores faith, love, family, and redemption along the way.]]> 304 Allen Eskens 031656642X Vilma 5 4.17 2023 Saving Emma (Boady Sanden, #2)
author: Allen Eskens
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Nightwatching 150246179 The Fallon Spring Reads Book Club Pick

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

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

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

In the suffocating darkness, the mother struggles to remain calm, to plan. Should she search for a weapon or attempt escape? But then she catches another glimpse of him. That face. That voice. And at once she knows her situation is even more dire than she’d feared, because she knows exactly who he is—and what he wants.]]> 368 Tracy Sierra 0593654765 Vilma 4 3.79 2024 Nightwatching
author: Tracy Sierra
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/24
date added: 2024/03/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Fate Inked in Blood (Saga of the Unfated, #1)]]> 165940202
Bound in an unwanted marriage, Freya spends her days gutting fish, but dreams of becoming a warrior. And of putting an axe in her boorish husband’s back.

Freya’s dreams abruptly become reality when her husband betrays her to the region’s jarl, landing her in a fight to the death against his son, Bjorn. To survive, Freya is forced to reveal her deepest secret: She possesses a drop of a goddess’s blood, which makes her a shield maiden with magic capable of repelling any attack. It was foretold such a magic would unite the fractured nation of Skaland beneath the one who controls the shield maiden’s fate.

Believing he’s destined to rule Skaland as king, the fanatical jarl binds Freya with a blood oath and orders Bjorn to protect her from their enemies. Desperate to prove her strength, Freya must train to fight and learn to control her magic, all while facing perilous tests set by the gods. The greatest test of all, however, may be resisting her forbidden attraction to Bjorn. If Freya succumbs to her lust for the charming and fierce warrior, she risks not only her own destiny but the fate of all the people she swore to protect.]]> 419 Danielle L. Jensen 0593599837 Vilma 3 3.91 2024 A Fate Inked in Blood (Saga of the Unfated, #1)
author: Danielle L. Jensen
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/19
date added: 2024/03/19
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Heartless Hunter (The Crimson Moth, #1)]]> 127305713
Spending her days pretending to be nothing more than a vapid young socialite, Rune spends her nights as the Crimson Moth, a witch vigilante who rescues her kind from being purged. When a rescue goes wrong, she decides to throw the witch hunters off her scent and gain the intel she desperately needs by courting the handsome Gideon Sharpe � a notorious and unforgiving witch hunter loyal to the revolution � who she can't help but find herself falling for.

Gideon loathes the decadence and superficiality Rune represents, but when he learns the Crimson Moth has been using Rune’s merchant ships to smuggle renegade witches out of the republic, he inserts himself into her social circles by pretending to court her right back. He soon realizes that beneath her beauty and shallow façade, is someone fiercely intelligent and tender who feels like his perfect match. Except, what if she’s the very villain he’s been hunting?

Kristen Ciccarelli’s The Crimson Moth is the thrilling start to a romantic fantasy duology where the only thing more treacherous than being a witch� is falling in love.]]> 406 Kristen Ciccarelli 1250866901 Vilma 5
Rune Winters� life was forever changed the day her grandmother—a witch—was taken and purged. A devastating revolution consumed her life, the lives of the Sister Queens, and the lives of many other powerful witches. Now, under the guise of a vapid socialite, Rune hides her own emerging magic while collecting information she can use as the Crimson Moth—a vigilante who rescues her kind from being killed. Now that she’s eighteen, the pressure to marry mounts and she decides to wed strategically, finding someone who can give her the most valuable information for her nighttime proclivities.

Gideon Sharpe—the seemingly heartless and ruthless commander of the Blood Guard—has good reason to hate witches. He still bears the scars of his past to prove it. His primary goal is to uncloak the Crimson Moth, who continues to smuggle witches out of the republic. Gideon abhors the superficiality of women like Rune, but without alternate recourse, he decides to court her to ferret out clues to the Moth’s next moves.

Caught in an unexpected dance between desire and hate, Gideon and Rune get to know a side in each other they never saw coming—but the more they uncover, the more complicated everything gets especially as the magic everyone thought was waning suddenly re-emerges darker and more dangerous than ever.

Deeply romantic, mesmerizing, and thrumming with forbidden magic, this novel was so much more than I ever expected. This is the book everyone should be talking about with its sizzling chemistry and addictive storyline. Told in alternating viewpoints—and inherently exploring dissenting perspectives—this compelling, high-stakes fantasy touts unforgettable characters, rich worldbuilding, and non-stop action.

Witch and witch hunter, enemies to lovers, cat and mouse, romance and fantasy � the best of all worlds collide in this scintillating series starter that has me clamoring for more.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.16 2024 Heartless Hunter (The Crimson Moth, #1)
author: Kristen Ciccarelli
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves:
review:
In a world where no witch is safe as the Blood Guard hunts them, the Crimson Moth rescues them under the guise of night.

Rune Winters� life was forever changed the day her grandmother—a witch—was taken and purged. A devastating revolution consumed her life, the lives of the Sister Queens, and the lives of many other powerful witches. Now, under the guise of a vapid socialite, Rune hides her own emerging magic while collecting information she can use as the Crimson Moth—a vigilante who rescues her kind from being killed. Now that she’s eighteen, the pressure to marry mounts and she decides to wed strategically, finding someone who can give her the most valuable information for her nighttime proclivities.

Gideon Sharpe—the seemingly heartless and ruthless commander of the Blood Guard—has good reason to hate witches. He still bears the scars of his past to prove it. His primary goal is to uncloak the Crimson Moth, who continues to smuggle witches out of the republic. Gideon abhors the superficiality of women like Rune, but without alternate recourse, he decides to court her to ferret out clues to the Moth’s next moves.

Caught in an unexpected dance between desire and hate, Gideon and Rune get to know a side in each other they never saw coming—but the more they uncover, the more complicated everything gets especially as the magic everyone thought was waning suddenly re-emerges darker and more dangerous than ever.

Deeply romantic, mesmerizing, and thrumming with forbidden magic, this novel was so much more than I ever expected. This is the book everyone should be talking about with its sizzling chemistry and addictive storyline. Told in alternating viewpoints—and inherently exploring dissenting perspectives—this compelling, high-stakes fantasy touts unforgettable characters, rich worldbuilding, and non-stop action.

Witch and witch hunter, enemies to lovers, cat and mouse, romance and fantasy � the best of all worlds collide in this scintillating series starter that has me clamoring for more.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[Still See You Everywhere (Frankie Elkin, #3)]]> 166395806 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner comes a harrowing new thriller:

Frankie Elkin is an expert at finding the missing persons that the rest of the world has forgotten, but even she couldn’t have anticipated this latest request—to locate the long-lost sister of a female serial killer facing execution in three weeks� time.

She has called herself "death," but people called her the devil.

The case was sensational. Kaylee Pierson had confessed from the very beginning, waived all appeals. Despite the media’s chronicling of her tragic circumstances—the childhood spent with a violent father—no one could find sympathy for “the Beautiful Butcher� who had led eighteen men home from bars before viciously slitting their throats.
Now, with only twenty-one days left to live, Pierson has finally received a lead on the whereabouts of the sister who was kidnapped over a decade ago, and she needs Frankie’s help to find her. The Beautiful Butcher’s offer:

When was the last time your search ended with finding the living?

Unable to resist the chance for a rescue, Frankie takes on Pierson’s request. Twelve years ago, five-year-old Leilani went missing in Hawaii. The main suspect? Pierson’s tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus. Now, on a remote island in the middle of the Pacific—the site of MacManus’s latest vanity project—fresh evidence has appeared. In order to learn the truth and possibly save a young woman’s life, Frankie must go undercover at the isolated base camp. Her challenge: A dozen strangers. Countless dangerous secrets. Zero means of calling for help. And then the storm rolls in…]]> 416 Lisa Gardner 1538765063 Vilma 5
Amateur investigator Frankie Elkin receives an unusual request from a notorious death row inmate. With twenty-one days left to live, Kaylee Pierson—known as the ‘Beautiful Butcher’—appeals to Frankie for help. Twelve years prior, Kaylee’s sister went missing in Hawaii. Kaylee suspects she was kidnapped by her tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus, who is building a resort in a remote island. Imprisoned for brutally slitting the throats of eighteen men, Kaylee’s last wish is to free her sister.

With the inescapable allure of a rescue, Frankie takes the job and flies to the Pacific in search of the young woman. There, Frankie finds a crew of strangers—nomadic outsiders with many a secret to hide. Undercover and with a complicated past of her own, Frankie fits right in. Her questions lead to more questions than answers, however, the more she pieces together information about MacManus and Leilani. There seems to be a lot more at play on this isolated island, and before too long, she realizes they’re all in danger. Worse yet, there’s nowhere to run when danger meets them head on.

As a die-hard Lisa Gardner and Frankie Elkin fan, I was delighted to get into a story touting such a compelling premise. In some ways, however, the narrative felt like a departure from what we usually see from Gardner, yet it still delivered the excitement and twists we love and expect. Perhaps what felt different was that the first half of the novel felt mired down by too much detail on the atoll, so it took a beat to really get moving. What transpires in its culmination is arguably a bit crazy, but with such high-stakes and stellar writing, it’s worth every moment.

Part cat-and-mouse, part locked room mystery, this is an exciting, action-packed thriller you shouldn’t miss.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.83 2024 Still See You Everywhere (Frankie Elkin, #3)
author: Lisa Gardner
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/19
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves:
review:
Hired by a serial killer on death row, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin tracks down a kidnapped woman on a remote Hawaiian atoll.

Amateur investigator Frankie Elkin receives an unusual request from a notorious death row inmate. With twenty-one days left to live, Kaylee Pierson—known as the ‘Beautiful Butcher’—appeals to Frankie for help. Twelve years prior, Kaylee’s sister went missing in Hawaii. Kaylee suspects she was kidnapped by her tech mogul ex-boyfriend, Sanders MacManus, who is building a resort in a remote island. Imprisoned for brutally slitting the throats of eighteen men, Kaylee’s last wish is to free her sister.

With the inescapable allure of a rescue, Frankie takes the job and flies to the Pacific in search of the young woman. There, Frankie finds a crew of strangers—nomadic outsiders with many a secret to hide. Undercover and with a complicated past of her own, Frankie fits right in. Her questions lead to more questions than answers, however, the more she pieces together information about MacManus and Leilani. There seems to be a lot more at play on this isolated island, and before too long, she realizes they’re all in danger. Worse yet, there’s nowhere to run when danger meets them head on.

As a die-hard Lisa Gardner and Frankie Elkin fan, I was delighted to get into a story touting such a compelling premise. In some ways, however, the narrative felt like a departure from what we usually see from Gardner, yet it still delivered the excitement and twists we love and expect. Perhaps what felt different was that the first half of the novel felt mired down by too much detail on the atoll, so it took a beat to really get moving. What transpires in its culmination is arguably a bit crazy, but with such high-stakes and stellar writing, it’s worth every moment.

Part cat-and-mouse, part locked room mystery, this is an exciting, action-packed thriller you shouldn’t miss.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)]]> 62335396 Love is a sacrifice at the altar of power.

In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.

The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside.

When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.

But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power � and the devastating love that could be her downfall.]]> 626 Carissa Broadbent Vilma 4 4.10 2023 The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/07
date added: 2024/03/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)]]> 60714999 Human or vampire, the rules of survival are the same: never trust, never yield, and always � always � guard your heart.

The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.

But winning won’t be easy amongst the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival.

Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown� and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him.

But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari. War for the House of Night brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone � but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall, in a kingdom where nothing is more deadly than love.

The Serpent and the Wings of Night is the first book in a new series of heart-wrenching romance, dark magic, and bloodthirsty intrigue, perfect for fans of From Blood and Ash and A Court of Thorns and Roses.]]> 504 Carissa Broadbent Vilma 5 4.30 2022 The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/01
date added: 2024/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> End of Story 202914347
So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.�

“You and I might even solve an old mystery or two.�

Twenty years earlier—on New Year’s Eve 1999—Sebastian’s first wife and teenaged son vanished from different locations, never to be seen again. Did the perfect crime writer commit the perfect crime? And why has he emerged from seclusion, two decades later, to allow a stranger to dig into his past?

“Life is hard. After all, it kills you.�

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.]]> 408 A.J. Finn 0062678450 Vilma 3 3.03 2024 End of Story
author: A.J. Finn
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.03
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/26
date added: 2024/02/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)]]> 52857700
Bryce Quinlan never expected to see a world other than Midgard, but now that she has, all she wants is to get back. Everything she loves is in Midgard: her family, her friends, her mate. Stranded in a strange new world, she's going to need all her wits about her to get home again. And that's no easy feat when she has no idea who to trust.

Hunt Athalar has found himself in some deep holes in his life, but this one might be the deepest of all. After a few brief months with everything he ever wanted, he's in the Asteri's dungeons again, stripped of his freedom and without a clue as to Bryce's fate. He's desperate to help her, but until he can escape the Asteri's leash, his hands are quite literally tied.

In this sexy, breathtaking sequel to the #1 bestsellers House of Earth and Blood and House of Sky and Breath, Sarah J. Maas's Crescent City series reaches new heights as Bryce and Hunt's world is brought to the brink of collapse-with its future resting on their shoulders.]]> 835 Sarah J. Maas 1681193094 Vilma 5
[Please do not read further unless you have read the first two books]

Last we saw Bryce, she finds herself fifteen thousand years before her time, in the original world of the Fae, with those we’ve come to love. Surrounded by Rhys, Azriel, Amren, and Nesta, Bryce ferrets out how they freed themselves from those who would become the Asteri (the Daglan), and why she materialized in their realm instead of Hel.

Meanwhile, Hunt, Ruhn, and Baxion endure endless torture in the Asteri’s dungeons as Lidia (the Hind) desperately schemes for a way to free them.

While in the Prythian caves, Bryce uncovers ancient secrets that reveal a way to stop the Asteri. More powerful than ever before, and with weapons to aid her cause, Bryce returns to Midgard to break them free from the parasitic clutches of those who rule.

After a two-year anticipation, I relished in all 834 pages of it. I dove into the world of Midgard, thrilled to be back with these characters, ecstatic to have worlds collide. Sarah J. Maas imbues a singular kind of magic to her stories that continues to keep me rapt and immersed in a world that feels real.

There were aspects of the novel I loved so much: Lidia (whose story was central to this installment), Lidia and Ruhn, the nonstop action, moments that moved me to tears (Nesta in the caves, “the hug� with Nesta), and so many others. There were aspects that arguably fell a bit short: Ithan and Tharion’s POVs, too much time/overwhelming explanation in the caves, some dropped/decentralized plot lines and characters, the sometimes lackluster dynamic between Bryce and Hunt, and a lingering desire to see more of an Avengers Endgame moment. That said, these are personal preferences in a story for which I don’t know the full arc. What I can share is that I loved it. I had a great time reading it, I wanted to talk about it constantly, and I delighted spending the time with these wonderfully complex and nuanced characters. And it bears repeating that Lidia to me, was one of my favorite parts of the novel (and ohmygod, that reveal!!!).

Immersing myself in the worlds of Sarah J. Mass is such a joy, and how we do so is such a personal experience. For me, I’m already clamoring for more, for what’s to come next in this mesmerizing and magical melee, in whatever realm we land.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.15 2024 House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City, #3)
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/04
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:
Bryce Quinlan, together with her friends new and old, battles the powerful Asteri to free Midgard, in this highly anticipated third installment in the Crescent City series.

[Please do not read further unless you have read the first two books]

Last we saw Bryce, she finds herself fifteen thousand years before her time, in the original world of the Fae, with those we’ve come to love. Surrounded by Rhys, Azriel, Amren, and Nesta, Bryce ferrets out how they freed themselves from those who would become the Asteri (the Daglan), and why she materialized in their realm instead of Hel.

Meanwhile, Hunt, Ruhn, and Baxion endure endless torture in the Asteri’s dungeons as Lidia (the Hind) desperately schemes for a way to free them.

While in the Prythian caves, Bryce uncovers ancient secrets that reveal a way to stop the Asteri. More powerful than ever before, and with weapons to aid her cause, Bryce returns to Midgard to break them free from the parasitic clutches of those who rule.

After a two-year anticipation, I relished in all 834 pages of it. I dove into the world of Midgard, thrilled to be back with these characters, ecstatic to have worlds collide. Sarah J. Maas imbues a singular kind of magic to her stories that continues to keep me rapt and immersed in a world that feels real.

There were aspects of the novel I loved so much: Lidia (whose story was central to this installment), Lidia and Ruhn, the nonstop action, moments that moved me to tears (Nesta in the caves, “the hug� with Nesta), and so many others. There were aspects that arguably fell a bit short: Ithan and Tharion’s POVs, too much time/overwhelming explanation in the caves, some dropped/decentralized plot lines and characters, the sometimes lackluster dynamic between Bryce and Hunt, and a lingering desire to see more of an Avengers Endgame moment. That said, these are personal preferences in a story for which I don’t know the full arc. What I can share is that I loved it. I had a great time reading it, I wanted to talk about it constantly, and I delighted spending the time with these wonderfully complex and nuanced characters. And it bears repeating that Lidia to me, was one of my favorite parts of the novel (and ohmygod, that reveal!!!).

Immersing myself in the worlds of Sarah J. Mass is such a joy, and how we do so is such a personal experience. For me, I’m already clamoring for more, for what’s to come next in this mesmerizing and magical melee, in whatever realm we land.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> First Lie Wins 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Vilma 5
Evie Porter is not her real name, but she’s used to slipping into aliases with ease. She’s the perfect Southern girl to Ryan Sumner—her boyfriend, and mark. The job is starting to feel different, however, and what’s real and not is feeling a lot more blurred. Her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, is tracking her every move, however, and she can’t afford to make any mistakes.

Then one day, she meets one of Ryan’s old friends, and his girlfriend, Lucca Marino—problem is, Lucca Marino is her real identity and it’s clear Mr. Smith has other plans for her.

Now, Evie must finish the job while she tries to stay one step ahead of the all-knowing and very dangerous Mr. Smith.

This was such an unexpectedly fun book to read. It’s a fast-paced, high-stakes thrill ride rife with twists and turns, making it the perfect one-sitting binge. This is the book you need to shake off a book slump. It’s the book you’ll want to be talking about with all your friends. And it’s the book you need to pick up now if you haven’t devoured it yet!

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/14
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:
A professional con woman takes a job that upends her carefully curated life, forcing her into a dangerous cat-and-mouse game with her mysterious boss.

Evie Porter is not her real name, but she’s used to slipping into aliases with ease. She’s the perfect Southern girl to Ryan Sumner—her boyfriend, and mark. The job is starting to feel different, however, and what’s real and not is feeling a lot more blurred. Her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, is tracking her every move, however, and she can’t afford to make any mistakes.

Then one day, she meets one of Ryan’s old friends, and his girlfriend, Lucca Marino—problem is, Lucca Marino is her real identity and it’s clear Mr. Smith has other plans for her.

Now, Evie must finish the job while she tries to stay one step ahead of the all-knowing and very dangerous Mr. Smith.

This was such an unexpectedly fun book to read. It’s a fast-paced, high-stakes thrill ride rife with twists and turns, making it the perfect one-sitting binge. This is the book you need to shake off a book slump. It’s the book you’ll want to be talking about with all your friends. And it’s the book you need to pick up now if you haven’t devoured it yet!

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The New Couple in 5B 128007059 A couple inherits an apartment with a spine-tingling past in this binge-worthy thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.

Rosie and Chad Lowan are barely making ends meet in New York City when they receive life-changing news: Chad’s late uncle has left them his luxury apartment at the historic Windermere in glamorous Murray Hill. With its prewar elegance and impeccably uniformed doorman, the building is the epitome of old New York charm. One would almost never suspect the dark history lurking behind its perfectly maintained facade.

At first, the building and its eclectic tenants couldn’t feel more welcoming. But as the Lowans settle into their new home, Rosie starts to suspect that there’s more to the Windermere than meets the eye. Why is the doorman ever-present? Why are there cameras everywhere? And why have so many gruesome crimes occurred there throughout the years? When one of the neighbors turns up dead, Rosie must get to the truth about the Windermere before she, too, falls under its dangerous spell.]]> 384 Lisa Unger 0778333345 Vilma 5
Newlyweds Rosie and Chad Lowan inherit an apartment worth nearly $5 million at the Windermere—a building known for its sinister string of murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Longing for a new start and cash strapped, however, this is exactly the boon they need. Chad, an actor, awaits his big break as Rosie, an author, toils at her next novel—an exploration into the deaths at this century-old building, and whether the building itself is cursed, personifying something more nefarious in its timeworn bones.

Immediately after moving in, they’re drawn into the residential fold, meeting the eccentric neighbors, tenants, and employees of the Windermere. Rosie, however, feels uneasy from the start—someone seems to always be watching and listening, visions question who really lurks in the shadows, and those who live there seem to be hiding secrets. As her research deepens, and a neighbor turns up dead, those feelings of dread reach a fever pitch. Worse yet, her husband disappears for spells, her neighbors meddle in suspicious ways and is the ever-present doorman lying to her?

Unger deftly blends mystery and horror in this taut haunted thriller. Its gothic atmosphere comes to life in the historic Windermere—an alluring incongruity of opulence and death. The characters—all with questionable reliability and intentions—add to the intrigue and as the narrative escalates, guesses will fall short of the surprising and satisfying end. I loved the vibes, loved the way truths unfurled so meticulously. I loved SECLUDED CABIN SLEEPS SIX, but think I loved this latest even more.

Perfectly paced, deliciously creepy and completely absorbing, this is already one of my favorite thrillers of the year.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.55 2024 The New Couple in 5B
author: Lisa Unger
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/10
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:
A couple inherits a luxury New York City apartment with a grisly past, only to be drawn deep into its darkness.

Newlyweds Rosie and Chad Lowan inherit an apartment worth nearly $5 million at the Windermere—a building known for its sinister string of murders, suicides, and accidental deaths. Longing for a new start and cash strapped, however, this is exactly the boon they need. Chad, an actor, awaits his big break as Rosie, an author, toils at her next novel—an exploration into the deaths at this century-old building, and whether the building itself is cursed, personifying something more nefarious in its timeworn bones.

Immediately after moving in, they’re drawn into the residential fold, meeting the eccentric neighbors, tenants, and employees of the Windermere. Rosie, however, feels uneasy from the start—someone seems to always be watching and listening, visions question who really lurks in the shadows, and those who live there seem to be hiding secrets. As her research deepens, and a neighbor turns up dead, those feelings of dread reach a fever pitch. Worse yet, her husband disappears for spells, her neighbors meddle in suspicious ways and is the ever-present doorman lying to her?

Unger deftly blends mystery and horror in this taut haunted thriller. Its gothic atmosphere comes to life in the historic Windermere—an alluring incongruity of opulence and death. The characters—all with questionable reliability and intentions—add to the intrigue and as the narrative escalates, guesses will fall short of the surprising and satisfying end. I loved the vibes, loved the way truths unfurled so meticulously. I loved SECLUDED CABIN SLEEPS SIX, but think I loved this latest even more.

Perfectly paced, deliciously creepy and completely absorbing, this is already one of my favorite thrillers of the year.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Teacher 195967140 A mind-bending, psychological thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Housemaid!

Lesson #1: trust no one

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except�

Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye.

Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says.

But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

From the New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a story of twisting secrets and long-awaited revenge.]]> 379 Freida McFadden 1728296218 Vilma 4 3.82 2024 The Teacher
author: Freida McFadden
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/20
date added: 2024/02/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[All This Twisted Glory (This Woven Kingdom #3)]]> 127823371 The highly anticipated third novel in the This Woven Kingdom series, full of explosive magic, searing romance, and heartbreaking betrayal, from the award-winning and bestselling author of the Shatter Me series. Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, Sabaa Tahir, and Tomi Adeyemi.

As the long-lost heir to the Jinn throne, Alizeh has finally found her people—and she might’ve found her crown. Cyrus, the mercurial ruler of Tulan, has offered her his kingdom in a twisted exchange: one that would begin with their marriage and end with his murder.

Cyrus’s dark reputation precedes him; all the world knows of his blood-soaked past. Killing him should be easy—and accepting his offer might be the only way to fulfill her destiny and save her people. But the more Alizeh learns of him, the more she questions whether the terrible stories about him are true.

Ensnared by secrets, Cyrus has ached for Alizeh since she first appeared in his dreams many months ago. Now that he knows those visions were planted by the devil, he can hardly bear to look at her—much less endure her company. But despite their best efforts to despise each other, Alizeh and Cyrus are drawn together over and over with an all-consuming thirst that threatens to destroy them both.

Meanwhile, Prince Kamran has arrived in Tulan, ready to exact revenge. . . .

Layered with exquisite tension and heart-stopping romance, All This Twisted Glory is the explosive third book in the captivating, bestselling Woven Kingdom series.]]> 397 Tahereh Mafi 0062972502 Vilma 3 4.06 2024 All This Twisted Glory (This Woven Kingdom #3)
author: Tahereh Mafi
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/11
date added: 2024/02/11
shelves:
review:

]]> A Little Life 22822858
Over the decades, their relationships deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride.Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself, by midlife a terrifyingly talented litigator yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by what he fears is a degree of trauma that he’ll not only be unable to overcome—but that will define his life forever.]]> 720 Hanya Yanagihara 0385539258 Vilma 0 to-read 4.28 2015 A Little Life
author: Hanya Yanagihara
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Fire Endless (Elements of Cadence, #2)]]> 54326657
In the West, Adaira struggles to adjust to the more brutal, bitter ways of life among the Breccans. Striving to find her place in the clan, she swiftly realizes that it just might be the last role she desires to hold. And while magic blooms effortlessly for the Breccans in the west, the spirits continue to suffer beneath Bane’s harsh power, felt in every gust of wind.

In the East, Jack is adrift without Adaira until he sings to the ember-weak fire spirits, acquiring a dangerous mission he never expected. One that is destined to lead him westward. Likewise, Torin and Sidra are consumed by a new mystery as sickness spreads first amongst the crops, and then to the people of the Tamerlaine clan. While Sidra desperately searches for a cure, Torin dares to strike a bargain with the spirits—a precarious folly anytime, but especially now as the days grow darker.

With the island falling further out of balance, humans and spirits alike will need to join together to face Bane, and Jack’s gift with the harp will be called upon once more. Yet no one can challenge the North Wind without paying a terrible price, and the sacrifice required this time may be more than Jack, Adaira, Torin, and Sidra can bear to pay.

In the stunning conclusion to the Elements of Cadence duology, A Fire Endless finds the delicate balance between the human and faerie realm threatened by Bane, the spirit of the North Wind, whose defeat can only come through fire, song, and heart-rending sacrifice.]]> 512 Rebecca Ross 0008514704 Vilma 4 4.33 2022 A Fire Endless (Elements of Cadence, #2)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/29
date added: 2024/01/29
shelves:
review:

]]> The Bullet Swallower 123847255 A dazzling magical realism western in the vein of Cormac McCarthy meets Gabriel García Márquez, The Bullet Swallower follows a Mexican bandido as he sets off for Texas to save his family, only to encounter a mysterious figure who has come, finally, to collect a cosmic debt generations in the making.

In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is the latest in a long line of ruthless men. He’s good with his gun and is drawn to trouble but he’s also out of money and out of options. A drought has ravaged the town of Dorado, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children, and so when he hears about a train laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it—with his younger brother Hugo in tow. But when the heist goes awry and Hugo is killed by the Texas Rangers, Antonio finds himself launched into a quest for revenge that endangers not only his life and his family, but his eternal soul.

In 1964, Jaime Sonoro is Mexico’s most renowned actor and singer. But his comfortable life is disrupted when he discovers a book that purports to tell the entire history of his family beginning with Cain and Abel. In its ancient pages, Jaime learns about the multitude of horrific crimes committed by his ancestors. And when the same mysterious figure from Antonio’s timeline shows up in Mexico City, Jaime realizes that he may be the one who has to pay for his ancestors� crimes, unless he can discover the true story of his grandfather Antonio, the legendary bandido El Tragabalas, The Bullet Swallower.

A family saga that’s epic in scope and magical in its blood, and based loosely on the author’s own great-grandfather, The Bullet Swallower tackles border politics, intergenerational trauma, and the legacies of racism and colonialism in a lush setting and stunning prose that asks who pays for the sins of our ancestors, and whether it is possible to be better than our forebears.]]> 272 Elizabeth Gonzalez James 1668009323 Vilma 4 3.75 2024 The Bullet Swallower
author: Elizabeth Gonzalez James
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves:
review:

]]> The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

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

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

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

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Vilma 5
We meet Francis “Frankie� McGrath in 1966 during the farewell party for her older brother Finley, who is to serve in Vietnam. Shortly after, rejecting the traditional plans of her conservative parents and imagining a different future for herself, she enlists in the Army Nurse Corp and follows her brother to war.

Immediately, Frankie’s life is thrust into a reality painted by the chaos of war, the incessant din of gunfire, and the blood-drenched, endless hospital shifts that eventually shape her into a skilled surgery nurse.

While in Vietnam, Frankie falls in love, faces the devastation of loss and heart break, forges lifelong friendships, and reshapes her world and place in it as a result.

The second part of the novel shakes the ground beneath her once again, as she returns to a country divided and a life markedly different. There is no gratitude for her service, no real belief that she—along with other women—were even there. And while the world is intent to dismiss Vietnam, Frankie, like so many others, finds herself utterly broken and lost.

Through Frankie’s story, Hannah takes us on an extraordinary journey that’s deeply evocative and sobering—one that explores everything from the massive loss of life (on both sides) in Vietnam, to the political division the war engendered, to both the physical and psychological scars Veterans struggled with upon their return to a country defined by protest and a hostile dismissal of their sacrifice.

Through rich details and cultural signposts, Frankie’s story felt intimate, transportive, and all consuming. I couldn’t put it down, even as tears streamed down my face in parts particularly difficult to read.

There are so many reasons I have loved this, and all the Kristin Hannah books I’ve devoured. One of those reasons is that her stories stay with me long after I’m done. They’re steeped in compelling histories I yearn to learn more about, and I always spiral into them in the aftermath of reading.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I listened to the audio version (narrated by Julia Whalen) and it’s amazing.

6 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.59 2024 The Women
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves:
review:
Through the lens of one woman’s story, Kristin Hannah underscores the impact of women during Vietnam.

We meet Francis “Frankie� McGrath in 1966 during the farewell party for her older brother Finley, who is to serve in Vietnam. Shortly after, rejecting the traditional plans of her conservative parents and imagining a different future for herself, she enlists in the Army Nurse Corp and follows her brother to war.

Immediately, Frankie’s life is thrust into a reality painted by the chaos of war, the incessant din of gunfire, and the blood-drenched, endless hospital shifts that eventually shape her into a skilled surgery nurse.

While in Vietnam, Frankie falls in love, faces the devastation of loss and heart break, forges lifelong friendships, and reshapes her world and place in it as a result.

The second part of the novel shakes the ground beneath her once again, as she returns to a country divided and a life markedly different. There is no gratitude for her service, no real belief that she—along with other women—were even there. And while the world is intent to dismiss Vietnam, Frankie, like so many others, finds herself utterly broken and lost.

Through Frankie’s story, Hannah takes us on an extraordinary journey that’s deeply evocative and sobering—one that explores everything from the massive loss of life (on both sides) in Vietnam, to the political division the war engendered, to both the physical and psychological scars Veterans struggled with upon their return to a country defined by protest and a hostile dismissal of their sacrifice.

Through rich details and cultural signposts, Frankie’s story felt intimate, transportive, and all consuming. I couldn’t put it down, even as tears streamed down my face in parts particularly difficult to read.

There are so many reasons I have loved this, and all the Kristin Hannah books I’ve devoured. One of those reasons is that her stories stay with me long after I’m done. They’re steeped in compelling histories I yearn to learn more about, and I always spiral into them in the aftermath of reading.

I can’t recommend this book enough. I listened to the audio version (narrated by Julia Whalen) and it’s amazing.

6 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> No One Can Know 127305892
Emma has never told anyone what she saw the night her parents died, even when she became the prime suspect. But her presence in the house threatens to uncover secrets that have stayed hidden for years, and the sisters are drawn together once again. As they face their memories of the past, rivalries restart, connections are forged, and, for the first time, Emma starts to ask questions about what really happened that night.

The more Emma learns, the more riddles emerge. And Emma begins to wonder just what her siblings will do to keep the past buried, and whether she did the right thing staying quiet about what was whispered that night: “No one can know.”]]> 325 Kate Alice Marshall 1250859913 Vilma 5
All at once, Emma Palmer discovers she’s pregnant and her husband lost his job. Without recourse, they must return to her childhood home—a house owned by Emma and her sisters, vacated fourteen years prior after the grisly murder of their parents.

As the prime suspect then, Emma rouses old rivalries with her return. Truth is, however, Emma, Juliette, and Daphne all hide secrets from that night—secrets they promised never to share. But as past resentments flare, Emma asks questions she should have broached long ago, and new information upends what she believed to be true. Worse yet, tragedy strikes again, and it seems no one wants the truth revealed.

With multiple narrators, shifting timelines, and a propulsive pace, Marshall crafts a fantastic popcorn thriller. Its meticulously intricate and twisted plot keeps you guessing, unfurling shocking revelations on the girls� upbringing and how it shaped what really happened.

Non-stop twists to keep you guessing in this recommended, single-sitting read.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.65 2024 No One Can Know
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/21
shelves:
review:
Estranged sisters reunite and unravel the secrets of their parents� murder, in this tangled and taut psychological thriller from Kate Alice Marshall (What Lies In The Woods).

All at once, Emma Palmer discovers she’s pregnant and her husband lost his job. Without recourse, they must return to her childhood home—a house owned by Emma and her sisters, vacated fourteen years prior after the grisly murder of their parents.

As the prime suspect then, Emma rouses old rivalries with her return. Truth is, however, Emma, Juliette, and Daphne all hide secrets from that night—secrets they promised never to share. But as past resentments flare, Emma asks questions she should have broached long ago, and new information upends what she believed to be true. Worse yet, tragedy strikes again, and it seems no one wants the truth revealed.

With multiple narrators, shifting timelines, and a propulsive pace, Marshall crafts a fantastic popcorn thriller. Its meticulously intricate and twisted plot keeps you guessing, unfurling shocking revelations on the girls� upbringing and how it shaped what really happened.

Non-stop twists to keep you guessing in this recommended, single-sitting read.

4.5 stars // Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)]]> 58132544
As Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together, they find they make better allies than rivals as their partnership turns into something more. But with each passing song, it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than they first expected, and an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.]]> 480 Rebecca Ross 0063055988 Vilma 4 4.06 2022 A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/19
date added: 2024/01/19
shelves:
review:

]]> Only If You're Lucky 60891867
And so Margot finds herself living in an off-campus house with three other girls, Lucy, the ringleader; Sloane, the sarcastic one; and Nicole, the nice one, the three of them opposites but also deeply intertwined. It's a year that finds Margot finally coming out of the shell she's been in since the end of high school, when her best friend Eliza died three weeks after graduation. Margot and Lucy have become the closest of friends, but by the middle of their sophomore year, one of the fraternity boys from the house next door has been brutally murdered... and Lucy Sharpe is missing without a trace.

A tantalizing thriller about the nature of friendship and belonging, about loyalty, envy, and betrayal—another gripping novel from an author quickly becoming the gold standard in psychological suspense.]]> 371 Stacy Willingham 1250887933 Vilma 4 “If you knew you could get away with murder, would you do it?�

Longing for a new start in the aftermath of tragedy, a college freshman moves in with new roommates only to spiral into chaos once again.

Margot meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year. Margot is reserved, careful, forever fading into the background of her more spirited companions. Lucy is just that—magnetic, uninhibited, the center of attention. When Lucy asks Margot to room with her and two other girls, it feels like the perfect opportunity for Margot to become someone different, to start anew after the death of her high-school best friend.

Soon, however, the past begins to tangle with the present, and tragedy rears its ugly head once more when Levi, a friend of the group, is found dead, and Lucy disappears shortly after.

Everyone is hiding secrets, and as detectives try to ferret out the truth, they’re all at risk.

Willingham deftly weaves a knotted tale of friendship, belonging, jealousy, and obsession. The story boasts a compelling premise, but arguably moves at too slow a pace to reach that fever pitch we long for in thrillers—especially if compared to the vibe of ALL THE DANGEROUS THINGS (which I loved). Echoes of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde� thrum throughout, as we uncover what everyone hides. Overall, a solid psychological thriller, but not as strong as what I’ve read before from this author.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.54 2024 Only If You're Lucky
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves:
review:
“If you knew you could get away with murder, would you do it?�


Longing for a new start in the aftermath of tragedy, a college freshman moves in with new roommates only to spiral into chaos once again.

Margot meets Lucy at the end of their freshman year. Margot is reserved, careful, forever fading into the background of her more spirited companions. Lucy is just that—magnetic, uninhibited, the center of attention. When Lucy asks Margot to room with her and two other girls, it feels like the perfect opportunity for Margot to become someone different, to start anew after the death of her high-school best friend.

Soon, however, the past begins to tangle with the present, and tragedy rears its ugly head once more when Levi, a friend of the group, is found dead, and Lucy disappears shortly after.

Everyone is hiding secrets, and as detectives try to ferret out the truth, they’re all at risk.

Willingham deftly weaves a knotted tale of friendship, belonging, jealousy, and obsession. The story boasts a compelling premise, but arguably moves at too slow a pace to reach that fever pitch we long for in thrillers—especially if compared to the vibe of ALL THE DANGEROUS THINGS (which I loved). Echoes of ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde� thrum throughout, as we uncover what everyone hides. Overall, a solid psychological thriller, but not as strong as what I’ve read before from this author.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> <![CDATA[Random in Death (In Death, #58)]]> 127305845
Jenna’s parents had finally given in, and there she was, at a New York club with her best friends, watching the legendary band Avenue A, carrying her demo in hopes of slipping it to the guitarist, Jake Kincade. Then, from the stage, Jake catches her eye, and smiles. It’s the best night of her life.
It’s the last night of her life.

Minutes later, Jake’s in the alley getting some fresh air, and the girl from the dance floor comes stumbling out, sick and confused and deathly pale. He tries to help, but it’s no use. He doesn’t know that someone in the crowd has jabbed her with a needle―and when his girlfriend Nadine arrives, she knows the only thing left to do for the girl is call her friend, Lieutenant Eve Dallas.

After everyone on the scene is interviewed, lab results show a toxic mix of substances in the victim’s body―and for an extra touch of viciousness, the needle was teeming with infectious agents. Dallas searches for a Had any boys been harassing Jenna? Was she engaging in risky behavior or caught up in something shady? But there are no obvious clues why this levelheaded sixteen-year-old, passionate about her music, would be targeted.

And that worries Dallas. Because if Jenna wasn’t targeted, if she was just the random, unlucky victim of a madman consumed by hatred, there are likely more deaths to come.]]> 368 J.D. Robb 1250289548 Vilma 5
A murderer is targeting young girls by injecting them with a nasty, highly toxic cocktail of drugs which kills them in minutes.

Sixteen-year-old Jenna Harbough is the first victim, jabbed in the arm by a male while attending an Avenue A concert, where she hoped to slip a demo tape to singer Jake Kincade. The next day, another victim, with more to follow.

Eve, Peabody, and the team leave no stone unturned as they piece together the clues. They’re dealing with a highly intelligent perpetrator—someone skilled at chemistry, someone fueled by rage and malice. It’s fascinating to see it all come together, as always, by such a compelling cast of characters.

This is book 58 and still I never tire of the series, of the stories and adventures J.D. Robb so expertly imparts. This fast-paced procedural is the perfect blend of heart and suspense, and a 2024 favorite already.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 4.21 2024 Random in Death (In Death, #58)
author: J.D. Robb
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/31
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves:
review:
Lieutenant Eve Dallas, Peabody, Roarke, and the rest of our beloved crew, is back with another riveting case.

A murderer is targeting young girls by injecting them with a nasty, highly toxic cocktail of drugs which kills them in minutes.

Sixteen-year-old Jenna Harbough is the first victim, jabbed in the arm by a male while attending an Avenue A concert, where she hoped to slip a demo tape to singer Jake Kincade. The next day, another victim, with more to follow.

Eve, Peabody, and the team leave no stone unturned as they piece together the clues. They’re dealing with a highly intelligent perpetrator—someone skilled at chemistry, someone fueled by rage and malice. It’s fascinating to see it all come together, as always, by such a compelling cast of characters.

This is book 58 and still I never tire of the series, of the stories and adventures J.D. Robb so expertly imparts. This fast-paced procedural is the perfect blend of heart and suspense, and a 2024 favorite already.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Heiress 126919284
But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.]]> 294 Rachel Hawkins 1250280036 Vilma 5
Ruby McTavish, once famous in North Carolina for surviving a kidnapping and becoming a widow four times over, unfurls sinister truths about her life in posthumous letters. Eccentric and wildly wealthy, Ruby is eternally embroiled in controversy. Upon her death, Ruby leaves the vast McTavish fortune to her adopted son, Camden—much to the fury of the rest of the family.

Now, ten years later, Camden is called back to Ashby House following the death of his uncle. Married and working as a high school English teacher, Camden rejects his inheritance, as well as everything and everyone having to do with his family. At the urging of his wife, Jules, however, they return to North Carolina to face his past once and for all.

As the story unwinds in the present, we learn more about Ruby’s illustrious life through letters she’s written: What happened when she was kidnapped as a young girl? What really happened to her four husbands—all who died mysteriously? What led her to adopt Camden? What secrets did she conceal over the course of her life?

Everyone hides something in this fascinating and original novel from Rachel Hawkins (The Villa). Ruby’s letters are witty and utterly engrossing, juxtaposing a forebodingly gothic ‘present� narrated by both Camden and Jules. It’s all comes to a surprising and satisfying climax.

I loved this book. Loved its originality and approach. Propulsive pacing and intriguing, morally ambiguous characters made it a non-stop thrill ride impossible to put down.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content]]> 3.80 2024 The Heiress
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves:
review:
An adopted son reluctantly returns to the home and family he repudiates, only to be sucked back into a past marked by murder, and a future dangerously uncertain.

Ruby McTavish, once famous in North Carolina for surviving a kidnapping and becoming a widow four times over, unfurls sinister truths about her life in posthumous letters. Eccentric and wildly wealthy, Ruby is eternally embroiled in controversy. Upon her death, Ruby leaves the vast McTavish fortune to her adopted son, Camden—much to the fury of the rest of the family.

Now, ten years later, Camden is called back to Ashby House following the death of his uncle. Married and working as a high school English teacher, Camden rejects his inheritance, as well as everything and everyone having to do with his family. At the urging of his wife, Jules, however, they return to North Carolina to face his past once and for all.

As the story unwinds in the present, we learn more about Ruby’s illustrious life through letters she’s written: What happened when she was kidnapped as a young girl? What really happened to her four husbands—all who died mysteriously? What led her to adopt Camden? What secrets did she conceal over the course of her life?

Everyone hides something in this fascinating and original novel from Rachel Hawkins (The Villa). Ruby’s letters are witty and utterly engrossing, juxtaposing a forebodingly gothic ‘present� narrated by both Camden and Jules. It’s all comes to a surprising and satisfying climax.

I loved this book. Loved its originality and approach. Propulsive pacing and intriguing, morally ambiguous characters made it a non-stop thrill ride impossible to put down.

Original review published on // Follow me on for more bookish content
]]> The Fury 123206645 A masterfully paced thriller about a reclusive ex–movie star and her famous friends whose spontaneous trip to a private Greek island is upended by a murder � from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Silent Patient.

This is a tale of murder.

Or maybe that’s not quite true. At its heart, it’s a love story, isn’t it?

Lana Farrar is a reclusive ex–movie star and one of the most famous women in the world. Every year, she invites her closest friends to escape the English weather and spend Easter on her idyllic private Greek island.

I tell you this because you may think you know this story. You probably read about it at the time � it caused a real stir in the tabloids, if you remember. It had all the necessary ingredients for a press a celebrity; a private island cut off by the wind…and a murder.

We found ourselves trapped there overnight. Our old friendships concealed hatred and a desire for revenge. What followed was a game of cat and mouse � a battle of wits, full of twists and turns, building to an unforgettable climax. The night ended in violence and death, as one of us was found murdered.

But who am I?

My name is Elliot Chase, and I’m going to tell you a story unlike any you’ve ever heard.]]> 298 Alex Michaelides 125075898X Vilma 4
“There were seven of us in all, trapped on the island. One of us was a murderer.�

With a unique literary spin and an unreliable narration, Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient, The Maidens) imparts the compelling story of a murder on a Greek island.

We meet playwright Elliot Chase—the narrator—who at once shares there’s been a murder, but before we learn who died and who’s responsible, he unfurls the story in five acts—present and past, learning about each of the characters: movie star and best friend Lana Farrar; her friend and actress Kate Crosby; her husband, Jason Miller; her son, Leo; her housekeeper, and her caretaker . We also discern through brief mentions that Elliott struggles with his traumatic childhood, which led him to live with an older female writer for some time, and ultimately allowed him to cross paths with Lana.

Over Easter weekend, everyone gathers on Lana’s private Greek Island—the site of the murder—and an island rumored to be cursed, and battered by wild, raging windstorms.

As an omniscient (and unreliable) narrator, Elliott chooses what he shares and when, shaping what transpired to maximize dramatic impact. His perspective manifests his own shortcomings, and I think most readers (like me) will find that he isn’t a very likeable or trustworthy character. However, if you consider that Michaelides uses Elliott as a literary device to impart his story, I find it a very effective approach. I was riveted, clamoring to see how it all would happen (as I admittedly and rightly guessed the murder and murderer).

Even so, the climax is exciting, surprising, full of twists, and indeed, as Elliott suggested, brimming with drama. Part locked room mystery, part Greek tragedy, I really loved it overall and blew through the pages. Replete with betrayal, manipulation, toxic relationships, jealousy, and resentment, it was a unique, fun, and fast-paced novel easily devoured.

4.5 stars // Original review published on ]]> 3.34 2024 The Fury
author: Alex Michaelides
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/02
date added: 2024/01/15
shelves:
review:
“There were seven of us in all, trapped on the island. One of us was a murderer.�

With a unique literary spin and an unreliable narration, Alex Michaelides (The Silent Patient, The Maidens) imparts the compelling story of a murder on a Greek island.

We meet playwright Elliot Chase—the narrator—who at once shares there’s been a murder, but before we learn who died and who’s responsible, he unfurls the story in five acts—present and past, learning about each of the characters: movie star and best friend Lana Farrar; her friend and actress Kate Crosby; her husband, Jason Miller; her son, Leo; her housekeeper, and her caretaker . We also discern through brief mentions that Elliott struggles with his traumatic childhood, which led him to live with an older female writer for some time, and ultimately allowed him to cross paths with Lana.

Over Easter weekend, everyone gathers on Lana’s private Greek Island—the site of the murder—and an island rumored to be cursed, and battered by wild, raging windstorms.

As an omniscient (and unreliable) narrator, Elliott chooses what he shares and when, shaping what transpired to maximize dramatic impact. His perspective manifests his own shortcomings, and I think most readers (like me) will find that he isn’t a very likeable or trustworthy character. However, if you consider that Michaelides uses Elliott as a literary device to impart his story, I find it a very effective approach. I was riveted, clamoring to see how it all would happen (as I admittedly and rightly guessed the murder and murderer).

Even so, the climax is exciting, surprising, full of twists, and indeed, as Elliott suggested, brimming with drama. Part locked room mystery, part Greek tragedy, I really loved it overall and blew through the pages. Replete with betrayal, manipulation, toxic relationships, jealousy, and resentment, it was a unique, fun, and fast-paced novel easily devoured.

4.5 stars // Original review published on
]]> Argylle 195608705 A luxury train speeding towards Moscow and a date with destiny.

A CIA plane downed in the jungles of the Golden Triangle.

A Nazi hoard entombed in the remote mountains of South-West Poland.

A missing treasure, the eighth wonder of the world, lost for seven decades.

One Russian magnate's dream of restoring a nation to greatness has set in motion a chain of events which will take the world to the brink of chaos. Only Frances Coffey, the CIA's most legendary spymaster, can prevent it. But to do so, she needs someone special. Enter Argylle, a troubled agent with a tarnished past who may just have the skills to take on one of the most powerful men in the world. If only he can save himself first...]]> 384 Elly Conway 0593600010 Vilma 3 3.21 2024 Argylle
author: Elly Conway
name: Vilma
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2024/01/14
shelves:
review:

]]> The True Love Experiment 62361081 Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.

Felicity “Fizzy� Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.

Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?

Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.

The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.]]> 409 Christina Lauren 1982173432 Vilma 5
Beloved romance author Felicity “Fizzy� Chen has lost her mojo � she’s suffering from a bad case of writer’s block, likely because she’s yet to find that all-encompassing, fireworks kind of love. Her last entanglement ended chaotically, leaving her scarred in a way she won’t soon forget.

Single dad and producer Connor Prince is stuck too, forced to shoot a dating reality show instead of the socially conscious documentaries he prefers. Desperate for an idea to make the show unique, he stumbles on Fizzy—the romantic lead everyone is sure to love.

Fizzy’s immediate answer is ‘no way’—unless Connor can meet her unusual list of demands. And when he does, The True Love Experiment really begins.

Fizzy and Connor spark immediate chemistry, finding something special in each other. The problem is Connor should be helping Fizzy find her soulmate and any relationship between them is strictly—and legally—forbidden. As tension and chemistry reaches a fever pitch, the show, their careers, and their futures, hang precariously in the balance.

As they always seem to do, Christina Lauren delivers a perfect romcom. The story felt fresh, exciting, and yet familiar, as they play with romance archetypes throughout. This is their love letter to romance authors and readers alike, making it even more enjoyable to read.

But it’s Fizzy and Connor who bring the story to life spectacularly. Fizzy is such a funny and charismatic heroine, the ideal complement to the caring-yet-pragmatic Connor. You could really feel them falling in love page after page. Their banter, their chemistry, it all makes this romp an utter delight to read, and a joyful, one-weekend binge.]]> 4.06 2023 The True Love Experiment
author: Christina Lauren
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/02
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves:
review:
A romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker partner on a reality show and along the way find joy and love, in Christina Lauren’s latest, THE TRUE LOVE EXPERIMENT.

Beloved romance author Felicity “Fizzy� Chen has lost her mojo � she’s suffering from a bad case of writer’s block, likely because she’s yet to find that all-encompassing, fireworks kind of love. Her last entanglement ended chaotically, leaving her scarred in a way she won’t soon forget.

Single dad and producer Connor Prince is stuck too, forced to shoot a dating reality show instead of the socially conscious documentaries he prefers. Desperate for an idea to make the show unique, he stumbles on Fizzy—the romantic lead everyone is sure to love.

Fizzy’s immediate answer is ‘no way’—unless Connor can meet her unusual list of demands. And when he does, The True Love Experiment really begins.

Fizzy and Connor spark immediate chemistry, finding something special in each other. The problem is Connor should be helping Fizzy find her soulmate and any relationship between them is strictly—and legally—forbidden. As tension and chemistry reaches a fever pitch, the show, their careers, and their futures, hang precariously in the balance.

As they always seem to do, Christina Lauren delivers a perfect romcom. The story felt fresh, exciting, and yet familiar, as they play with romance archetypes throughout. This is their love letter to romance authors and readers alike, making it even more enjoyable to read.

But it’s Fizzy and Connor who bring the story to life spectacularly. Fizzy is such a funny and charismatic heroine, the ideal complement to the caring-yet-pragmatic Connor. You could really feel them falling in love page after page. Their banter, their chemistry, it all makes this romp an utter delight to read, and a joyful, one-weekend binge.
]]> Knockout (Hell's Belles, #3) 63874598 New York Times bestselling author Sarah MacLean returns with the next Hell’s Belles novel about a chaotic bluestocking and the buttoned-up detective enlisted to keep her out of trouble (spoiler: She is the trouble).

With her headful of wild curls and wilder ideas and an unabashed love of experiments and explosives, society has labeled Lady Imogen Loveless peculiar…and doesn’t know she’s one of the Hell’s Belles—a group of vigilantes operating outside the notice of most of London.

Thomas Peck is not most of London. The brilliant detective fought his way off the streets and into a promising career through sheer force of will and a keen ability to see things others miss, like the fact that Imogen isn’t peculiar…she’s pandemonium. If you ask him, she requires a keeper. When her powerful family discovers her late-night activities, they couldn’t agree more…and they know just the man for the task.

Thomas wants nothing to do with guarding Imogen. He is a grown man with a proper job and no time for the lady’s incendiary chaos, no matter how lushly it is packaged. But some assignments are too explosive to pass up, and the gruff detective is soon caught up in Imogen’s world, full of her bold smiles and burning secrets…and a fiery passion that threatens to consume them both.]]> 404 Sarah MacLean 0063056798 Vilma 5 4.15 2023 Knockout (Hell's Belles, #3)
author: Sarah MacLean
name: Vilma
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/08/28
date added: 2024/01/02
shelves:
review:

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