Liz's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 05 Apr 2025 18:26:54 -0700 60 Liz's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The One 59349956 How far would you go to find The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you’ll be matched with your perfect partner the one you are genetically made for.

That’s the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.� They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after� isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others�

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Liz 0 to-read 4.12 2016 The One
author: John Marrs
name: Liz
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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]]> I Who Have Never Known Men 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


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


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 208 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Liz 0 currently-reading 4.13 1995 I Who Have Never Known Men
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Liz
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1995
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/03
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]]> Bellevue 209455913 From the bestselling author Robin Cook comes a new tale of suspense-horror about a first-year resident who experiences life-shattering visionsthat reveal the truth behind some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine.

Twenty-four-year-old Michael “Mitt� Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly three-hundred-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical, which gradually plays a progressive role, especially as one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. At first he thinks it is just the "luck of the draw," but as the numbers mount, he’s forced to think otherwise. As he struggles to find out why these people are dying while simultaneously having to deal with the unreasonable demands of being first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control.

Between fatigue, stress, and nerves, it’s no wonder that these first few days and nights of his surgical residency are tough ones. What is surprising, though, are the visions that begin to plague Mitt—visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, hearing bloodcurdling screams in the distance, and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn into the secrets of the abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment still exists, defying demolition a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but scary structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.]]> 351 Robin Cook 0593718852 Liz 1 2025 3.62 2024 Bellevue
author: Robin Cook
name: Liz
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> <![CDATA[Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil]]> 213263148 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.]]> 544 Victoria E. Schwab 1250320526 Liz 0 to-read 4.57 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Liz
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> Greenteeth 214229691 From an outstanding new voice in cozy fantasy comesGreenteeth,a tale of fae, folklore, and found family, narrated by a charismatic lake-dwelling monster with a voice unlike any other, perfect for fans of T. Kingfisher.

Beneath the still surface of a lake lurks a monster with needle sharp teeth. Hungry and ready to pounce.

Jenny Greenteeth has never spoken to a human before, but when a witch is thrown into her lake, something makes Jenny decide she's worth saving. Temperance doesn't know why her village has suddenly turned against her, only that it has something to do with the malevolent new pastor.

Though they have nothing in common, these two must band together on a magical quest to defeat the evil that threatens Jenny's lake and Temperance's family, as well as the very soul of Britain.]]> 304 Molly O'Neill Liz 0 to-read 4.02 2025 Greenteeth
author: Molly O'Neill
name: Liz
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
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]]> Burntown 30201151 The major new novel from New York Times bestselling suspense writer Jennifer McMahon.

Eva grew up watching her father, Miles, invent strange and wonderful things in the small workshop behind their house on the river that runs through their old mill town. But the most important invention of all was the one that Miles claimed came from the mind of Thomas Edison himself--a machine that allowed one to speak with loved ones long passed. Smuggled out of Edison's laboratory, the blueprints were passed down to Miles, and he's been using them to protect Eva, her mother, Lily, and her brother, Errol, ever since.

Then, one night when a storm is raging and the river is threatening to flood, the machine whirrs to life on its own. Danger, it says. You're in terrible danger. The next thing Eva knows is waking up on the side of the river and seeing her mother's grim face. Eva's father and brother are dead, their house has been washed away and an evil man is searching for them both. They need to hide.

Eva changes her name to Necco--a candy she always loved--and tries to put everything in her past behind her as she adapts to her new life off the grid. But when her boyfriend is murdered and her mother disappears, she knows that the past is starting to catch up to her.

What really happened the night of the flood? As Necco searches for the truth, her journey unites her with two women who are on desperate quests of their own. And as the trio follows the clues to solving the mystery of Necco's past, they discover that sometimes it's the smallest towns that hold the strangest secrets.]]> 304 Jennifer McMahon 0385687036 Liz 0 to-read 3.64 2017 Burntown
author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Liz
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> The Antidote 214537790 FromPulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestsellingauthor of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove. A gripping Dust Bowl epic about five characters whose fates become entangled after a storm ravages their small Nebraskan town

The Antidote opens on Black Sunday, as a historic dust storm ravages the fictional town of Uz, Nebraska. But Uz is already collapsing—not just under the weight of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl drought, but beneath its own violent histories. The Antidote follows a "Prairie Witch," whose body serves as a bank vault for peoples� memories and secrets; a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

Russell's novel is above all a reckoning with a nation’s forgetting—enacting the settler amnesia and willful omissions passed down from generation to generation, and unearthing not only horrors but shimmering possibilities. The Antidote echoes with urgent warnings for our own climate emergency, challenging readers with a vision of what might have been—and what still could be.]]> 432 Karen Russell 059380225X Liz 0 to-read 4.05 2025 The Antidote
author: Karen Russell
name: Liz
average rating: 4.05
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]]> The Bane Witch 211004908 Practical Magic meets Gone Girl in Ava Morgyn's next dark, spellbinding novel about a woman who is more than a witch - she's a hunter. Piers Corbin has always had an affinity for poisonous things - plants and men. From the pokeweed berries she consumed at age five that led to the accidental death of a stranger, to the husband whose dark proclivities have become� concerning, poison has been at the heart of her story. But when she fakes her own death in an attempt to escape her volatile marriage and goes to stay with her estranged great aunt in the mountains, she realizes her predilection is more than a hunger - it’s a birthright. Piers comes from a long line of poison eaters - Bane Witches � women who ingest deadly plants and use their magic to rid the world of evil men. Piers sets out to earn her place in her family’s gritty but distinguished legacy, all while working at her Aunt Myrtle’s cafe and perpetuating a flirtation with the local, well-meaning sheriff to allay his suspicions on the body count she’s been leaving in her wake. But soon she catches the attention of someone else, a serial killer operating in the area. And that only means one thing - it’s time to feed. In Ava Morgyn’s dark, thrilling novel, The Bane Witch, a very little poison can do a world of good.]]> 384 Ava Morgyn 1250835453 Liz 0 to-read 4.11 2025 The Bane Witch
author: Ava Morgyn
name: Liz
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Liz 0 to-read 4.57 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
author: John Green
name: Liz
average rating: 4.57
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]]> The Devils 212276037 Holy work sometimes requires unholy deeds.

Brother Diaz has been summoned to the Sacred City, where he is certain a commendation and grand holy assignment awaits him. But his new flock is made up of unrepentant murderers, practitioners of ghastly magic, and outright monsters, and the mission he is tasked with will require bloody measures from them all in order to achieve its righteous ends.

Elves lurk at our borders and hunger for our flesh, while greedy princes care for nothing but their own ambitions and comfort. With a hellish journey before him, it's a good thing Brother Diaz has the devils on his side.]]> 560 Joe Abercrombie 125088005X Liz 0 to-read 4.48 2025 The Devils
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Liz
average rating: 4.48
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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 Liz 0 to-read 4.38 2025 Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Liz
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> Black Woods Blue Sky 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]> 306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Liz 0 to-read 3.72 2025 Black Woods Blue Sky
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Liz
average rating: 3.72
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]]> Wild Dark Shore 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Liz 0 to-read 4.34 2025 Wild Dark Shore
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Liz
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death]]> 38212121
“Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.� ―Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry―especially chemical embalming―and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality. 45 illustrations]]> 256 Caitlin Doughty 0393356280 Liz 0 to-read 4.30 2017 From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death
author: Caitlin Doughty
name: Liz
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> <![CDATA[Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine]]> 35127681
But everything changes when Eleanor falls for the local Hipster-band frontman, Johnnie Rivers. As Eleanor prepares herself for her inevitable union with the object of her desire (appropriate attire, new laptop for Instagram stalking), she inadvertently befriends the new guy from her office, Raymond.

As Eleanor navigates the waters of obsessive love and her long-distance relationship with ‘Mummy�, she realises she can only overcome the horrors of her past if she accepts a little help from Raymond�

Filled with unabashed wit, Eleanor Oliphant follows its quirky and troubled female narrator as she realises that the only way to survive her current state of mind is to open her heart to friendship.]]> 11 Gail Honeyman 1524749699 Liz 0 currently-reading 4.19 2017 Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine
author: Gail Honeyman
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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]]> The Resurrectionist 210531873 Historical fiction, true crime, and dark academia intertwine in a harrowing tale of murder, greed, and the grisly origins of modern medicine.

Edinburgh, Scotland, 1828. Naïve but determined James Willoughby has abandoned his posh, sheltered life at Oxford to pursue a lifelong dream of studying surgery in Edinburgh. A shining beacon of medical discovery in the age of New Enlightenment, the city’s university offers everything James desires—except the chance to work on a human cadaver.

For that he needs to join one of the private schools in Surgeon’s Square, at a cost he cannot afford. In desperation he strikes a deal with Aneurin “Nye� MacKinnon, a dashing young dissectionist with an artist’s eye for anatomy and a reckless passion for knowledge. Nye promises to help James gain the surgical experience he craves—but it doesn’t take long for James to realize he’s made a devil’s bargain... Nye is a body snatcher—and James has unwittingly become his accomplice.]]> 337 A. Rae Dunlap Liz 5 2025 I loved it! 3.94 2024 The Resurrectionist
author: A. Rae Dunlap
name: Liz
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: 2025
review:
I loved it!
]]> Welcome to Nightmare Island 123259716 220 Devin Cabrera Liz 3 2025 3.70 2023 Welcome to Nightmare Island
author: Devin Cabrera
name: Liz
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: 2025
review:
Quick read, it was like the movie �13 Ghosts� in book form.
]]> Hungerstone 212342605 Hungerstoneis a thrillingly seductive sapphic romance for fans of S.T. Gibson’sA Dowry of Bloodand Emilia Hart’sWeyward.

For what do you hunger, Lenore?

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

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

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

Set against the violent wilderness of the moors and the uncontrolled appetite of the industrial revolution,Hungerstoneis a compulsive feminist reworking ofCarmilla, the book that inspiredDracula: a captivating story of appetite and desire.]]> 336 Kat Dunn 1638932166 Liz 0 to-read 4.03 2025 Hungerstone
author: Kat Dunn
name: Liz
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> Atmosphere 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

Joan Goodwin has been obsessed with the stars for as long as she can remember. Thoughtful and reserved, Joan is content with her life as a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University and as aunt to her precocious niece, Frances. That is, until she comes across an advertisement seeking the first women scientists to join NASA’s Space Shuttle program. Suddenly, Joan burns to be one of the few people to go to space.

Selected from a pool of thousands of applicants in the summer of 1980, Joan begins training at Houston’s Johnson Space Center, alongside an exceptional group of fellow candidates: Top Gun pilot Hank Redmond and scientist John Griffin, who are kind and easy-going even when the stakes are highest; mission specialist Lydia Danes, who has worked too hard to play nice; warm-hearted Donna Fitzgerald, who is navigating her own secrets; and Vanessa Ford, the magnetic and mysterious aeronautical engineer, who can fix any engine and fly any plane.

As the new astronauts become unlikely friends and prepare for their first flights, Joan finds a passion and a love she never imagined. In this new light, Joan begins to question everything she thinks she knows about her place in the observable universe.

Then, in December of 1984, on mission STS-LR9, everything changes in an instant.

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Liz 0 to-read 4.44 2025 Atmosphere
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Liz
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> <![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 Liz 0 to-read 4.00 2023 Butcher & Blackbird (The Ruinous Love Trilogy, #1)
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Liz
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> The Starving Saints 217896248 From the nationally bestselling author of The Luminous Dead and The Death of Jane Lawrence, a transfixing, intensely atmospheric fever dream of medieval horror.

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

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

As the castle descends into bacchanalian madness—forgetting the massed army beyond its walls in favor of hedonistic ecstasy—these three women are the only ones to still see their situation for what it is. But they are not immune from the temptations of the castle’s new masters� or each other; and their shifting alliances and entangled pasts bring violence to the surface. To save the castle, and themselves, will take a reimagining of who they are, and a reorganization of the very world itself.]]> 352 Caitlin Starling 0063418819 Liz 0 to-read 4.02 2025 The Starving Saints
author: Caitlin Starling
name: Liz
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
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]]> Heartwood 220259184 Heartwood takes you on a gripping journey as a search and rescue team race against time when an experienced hiker mysteriously disappears on the Appalachian Trail in Maine.

In the heart of the Maine woods, an experienced Appalachian Trail hiker goes missing. She is forty-two-year-old Valerie Gillis, who has vanished 200 miles from her final destination. Alone in the wilderness, Valerie pours her thoughts into fractured, poetic letters to her mother as she battles the elements and struggles to keep hoping.

At the heart of the investigation is Beverly, the determined Maine State Game Warden tasked with finding Valerie, who leads the search on the ground. Meanwhile, Lena, a seventy-six-year-old birdwatcher in a Connecticut retirement community, becomes an unexpected armchair detective. Roving between these compelling narratives, a puzzle emerges, intensifying the frantic search, as Valerie’s disappearance may not be accidental.

Heartwood is a “gem of a thousand facets—suspenseful, transporting, tender, and ultimately soul-mending,� (Megan Majumdar, New York Times bestselling author of A Burning) that tells the story of a lost hiker’s odyssey and is a moving rendering of each character’s interior journey. The mystery inspires larger questions about the many ways in which we get lost, and how we are found. At its core, Heartwood is a redemptive novel, written with both enormous literary ambition and love.]]> 320 Amity Gaige 1668063603 Liz 0 to-read 4.11 2025 Heartwood
author: Amity Gaige
name: Liz
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> The Haunting of Alejandra 200043529
Nor can they see what Alejandra sees.In times of despair, a ghostly vision appears to her, the apparition of a crying woman in a ragged white gown.

When Alejandra visits a therapist, she begins exploring her family’s history, starting with the biological mother she never knew. As she goes deeper into the lives of the women in her family, she learns that heartbreak and tragedy are not the only things she has in common with her ancestors.

Because the crying woman was with them, too. She is La Llorona, the vengeful and murderous mother of Mexican legend. And she will not leave until Alejandra follows her mother, her grandmother, and all the women who came before her into the darkness.

But Alejandra has inherited more than just pain. She has inherited the strength and the courage of her foremothers—and she will have to summon everything they have given her to banish La Llorona forever.]]> 288 V. Castro 0593499719 Liz 3 2025 3.54 2023 The Haunting of Alejandra
author: V. Castro
name: Liz
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Eleanore of Avignon 203956661 Eleanore of Avignon is the story of a woman who is unwilling to bend to the limitations her society places upon her when she becomes the unlikely apprentice to the pope’s physician at the most challenging and dangerous moment in medieval European history.

Provence, 1347. Eleanore (Elea) Blanchet is a midwife and budding herbalist with remarkable skills. But as she knows all too well from her late mother’s fate, she must be careful to stay within her station. So, she quietly accepts her role tending to the pregnant women in her home city of Avignon; spending time with her father and beloved twin sister, Margot; and escaping to the surrounding woods to forage for herbs when she can. At the very least, she is determined to preserve the little freedom she does have by staying unwed—unlike Margot, who is about to marry a man with painful connections to their mother’s death.

Then, in a chance encounter, Elea meets Guy de Chauliac, “Guigo,� the enigmatic personal physician to the powerful Pope Clement, who, against all odds, agrees to take her on as his apprentice. Under his tutelage, a whole new world opens to Elea—a world of status, wealth, and fascinating medical cases—but just as she starts to settle into her new position, the much-feared plague hits Europe, making Elea and Guigo's work more urgent than ever. And as if that weren’t enough, the disgraced Queen Joanna of Naples arrives in Avignon to stand trial for her husband’s murder—and she is pregnant and in need of a midwife, a role only Elea can fill.

As the Black Death spreads like wildfire, leaving half the city dead in its wake—and as the queen's childbirth approaches—Elea finds herself battling what seems to be an unwinnable war. All the while, the people of Avignon are becoming more and more desperate for a scapegoat, and a group of religious heretics launch a witch hunt, one that could cost her everything.]]> 320 Elizabeth DeLozier 0593475038 Liz 0 to-read 4.29 2024 Eleanore of Avignon
author: Elizabeth DeLozier
name: Liz
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Crash 224326519 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.
]]> Freida McFadden 1666684910 Liz 2 2025
Incredibly frustrating at times]]> 3.14 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Liz
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: 2025
review:
2.5 meh�.

Incredibly frustrating at times
]]> A Certain Hunger 44294655
But there is something within Dorothy that's different from everyone else, and having suppressed it long enough, she starts to embrace what makes Dorothy uniquely, terrifyingly herself. Recounting her life from a seemingly idyllic farm-to-table childhood, the heights of her career, to the moment she plunges an ice pick into a man's neck on Fire Island, Dorothy Daniels show us what happens when a woman finally embraces her superiority.

A satire of early foodieism, a critique of how gender is defined, and a showcase of virtuoso storytelling, Chelsea G. Summers' A Certain Hunger introduces us to the food world's most charming psychopath and an exciting new voice in fiction.]]> 250 Chelsea G. Summers Liz 0 to-read 3.73 2019 A Certain Hunger
author: Chelsea G. Summers
name: Liz
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)]]> 60657589
Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world's first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party--or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, and the Fair Folk.

So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily's research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.

But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones--the most elusive of all faeries--lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she'll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all--her own heart.]]> 336 Heather Fawcett 059350013X Liz 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde, #1)
author: Heather Fawcett
name: Liz
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Starling House 75256818 The Underland -- and disappeared.

Before she vanished, Starling House appeared. But everyone agrees that it’s best to let the uncanny house—and its last lonely heir, Arthur Starling—go to rot. Opal knows better than to mess with haunted houses or brooding men, but an unexpected job offer might be a chance to get her brother out of Eden. Too quickly, though, Starling House starts to feel dangerously like something she’s never a home.

As sinister forces converge on Starling House, Opal and Arthur are going to have to make a dire to dig up the buried secrets of the past and confront their own fears, or let Eden be taken over by literal nightmares.

If Opal wants a home, she’ll have to fight for it.

A grim and gothic new tale from New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow about a small town haunted by secrets that can't stay buried and the sinister house that sits at the crossroads of it all.]]> 312 Alix E. Harrow 1250799074 Liz 3 2025 3.96 2023 Starling House
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> They Bloom at Night 211003894
Now, Noon is stuck navigating the submerged town with her mom, who believes their dead family has reincarnated as sea creatures. Alone with the pain of what happened that night at the cove, Noon buries the truth: she is not the right shape.

When Mercy’s predatory leader demands Noon and her mom capture the creature drowning residents, she reluctantly finds an ally in his deadly hunter of a daughter and friends old and new. As the next storm approaches, Noon must confront the past and decide if it’s time to answer the monster itching at her skin.]]> 272 Trang Thanh Tran 1547611111 Liz 0 to-read 3.67 2025 They Bloom at Night
author: Trang Thanh Tran
name: Liz
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party]]> 144123 Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Antarctic endeavor is legend, but for sheer heroism and tragic nobility, nothing compares to the saga of the Ross Sea party. This crew of explorers landed on the opposite side of Antarctica from the Endurance with a mission to build supply depots for Shackleton’s planned crossing of the continent. But their ship disappeared in a gale, leaving ten inexperienced, ill-equipped men to trek 1,356 miles in the harshest environment on earth. Drawing on the men’s own journals and photographs, The Lost Men is a masterpiece of historical adventure, a book destined to be a classic in the vein of Into Thin Air.]]> 366 Kelly Tyler-Lewis 0670034126 Liz 0 to-read 4.13 2006 The Lost Men: The Harrowing Saga of Shackleton's Ross Sea Party
author: Kelly Tyler-Lewis
name: Liz
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Asylum 61629659
As she tries to get used to life at Lakehurst, Annie starts to realize that a dark presence is lurking in the shadows. Someone is conducting hideous experiments on both the living and the dead, and one of the greatest evil forces in history is preparing to return. Before she can get to the truth, however, Annie has to try to survive the 'special treatment' she receives from Nurse Winter.

Meanwhile, Annie's not the only one who's finding life at Lakehurst strange. Another patient lives in constant fear, terrified of a burned man who appears when she's alone. The hospital's janitor is haunted by the ghosts of nuns who are buried near the main building. And in the attic, an old man is waiting for his chance to get revenge. But how is all of this connected to that fateful day when Annie aimed a gun at her brother and pulled the trigger?

Asylum is the first book in the Asylum trilogy. This is the 2022 edition of the original 2012 book.]]> 497 Amy Cross Liz 3 2025 3.5 4.02 2012 Asylum
author: Amy Cross
name: Liz
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: 2025
review:
3.5
]]> <![CDATA[The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)]]> 218537468
When Detective Stark, Molly’s old foe, investigates the author’s unexpected demise, it becomes clear that this death was murder most foul. Suspects abound, and everyone wants to know: Who killed J. D. Grimthorpe? Was it Lily, the new Maid-in-Training? Or was it Serena, the author’s secretary? Could Mr. Preston, the hotel’s beloved doorman, be hiding something? And is Molly really as innocent as she seems?

As the high-profile death threatens the hotel’s pristine reputation, Molly knows she alone holds the key to unlocking the killer’s identity. But that key is buried deep in her past, as long ago, she knew J. D. Grimthorpe. Molly begins to comb her memory for clues, revisiting her childhood and the mysterious Grimthorpe mansion where she and her dearly departed Gran once worked side by side. With the entire hotel under investigation, Molly must solve the mystery posthaste. Because if there’s one thing she knows for sure, it’s that secrets don’t stay buried forever.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593356209 Liz 0 to-read 3.82 2023 The Mystery Guest (Molly the Maid, #2)
author: Nita Prose
name: Liz
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> House of Bone and Rain 203245267 In the latest from Shirley Jackson and Bram Stoker Award-winning author of THE DEVIL TAKES YOU HOME, a group of five teenage boys in Puerto Rico seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered; a Latinx STAND BY ME with a haunted, obsidianly dark heart.

For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo's mom has been shot dead.We’re gonna kill the guys who killed herBimbo swears. And they all agree.

Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.

Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.]]> 352 Gabino Iglesias Liz 3 2025 3.96 2024 House of Bone and Rain
author: Gabino Iglesias
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Wake Up and Open Your Eyes 204640265 From Vulture's "master of horror" Clay McLeod Chapman, a relentless and emotionally charged social horror novel about a family on the run from a demonic possession epidemic that spreads through media, for fans of The Last of Us and When Evil Lurks

Noah Fairchild has been losing his formerly polite Southern parents to far-right cable news for years, so when his mother leaves him a voicemail warning him that the “Great Reawakening� is here, he assumes it’s related to one of the many conspiracy theories she believes in. But when his own phone calls go unanswered, Noah makes the long drive from Brooklyn to Richmond, Virginia. There, he discovers his childhood home in shambles, a fridge full of spoiled food, and his parents locked in a terrifying trance-like state in front of the TV. Panicked, Noah attempts to snap them out of it and get medical help.

Then Noah’s mother brutally attacks him.

But Noah isn’t the only person to be attacked by a loved one. Families across the country are tearing each other apart-–literally-–as people succumb to a form of possession that gets worse the more time they spend watching particular channels, using certain apps, or visiting certain websites. In Noah’s Richmond-based family, only he and his young nephew Marcus are unaffected. Together, they must race back to the safe haven of Brooklyn�-but can they make it before they fall prey to the violent hordes?

This ambitious, searing novel from "one of horror's modern masters" holds a mirror to our divided nation, and will shake readers to the core.]]> 384 Clay McLeod Chapman Liz 0 to-read 3.41 2025 Wake Up and Open Your Eyes
author: Clay McLeod Chapman
name: Liz
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Suffer the Children 18211208 From an acclaimed horror writer, a chilling tale of blood-hungry children who rise from the dead in this innovative spin on apocalyptic vampire fiction.

Suffer the Children presents a terrifying tale of apocalyptic fiction, as readers are introduced to Herod's Syndrome, a devastating illness that suddenly and swiftly kills all young children across the globe. Soon, they return from the grave…and ask for blood. And with blood, they stop being dead. They continue to remain the children they once were...but only for a short time, as they need more blood to live. The average human body holds ten pints of blood, so the inevitable question for parents everywhere becomes: How far would you go to bring your child back?]]> 343 Craig DiLouie 1476739633 Liz 4 2025 3.97 2014 Suffer the Children
author: Craig DiLouie
name: Liz
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Whiteout 214101838 A researcher stranded in Antarctica receives a radio message that a nuclear war has broken out in this claustrophobic survival thriller, perfect for fans of The Martian, The Last Murder at the End of the World and Breathless.

It’s been four months since glaciologist Rachael Beckett left her husband and daughter to join an urgent research trip to a remote field station deep in the Antarctic. But after losing all communication with her crew at base camp, she’s trapped and alone � and running out of supplies. The only information she has about what’s gone so catastrophically wrong is an emergency radio broadcast playing on a a nuclear war has broken out, and Rachael might be the last survivor on Earth.

Abandoned and starving, all she has left is a fierce determination to stay alive in the extreme cold and perpetual darkness of the polar winter. The research she’s gathered about catastrophic climate damage means she holds the fate of the continent and the world in her grasp…if there’s even a world left to save.

Struggling with loneliness and grief over the unknown fate of her family back home, Rachael knows both her life and her sanity balance on a knife edge. As she battles to stay alive in unimaginable conditions, she soon discovers she’s not completely alone in the dark and cold–but she might wish she was…]]> 352 R.S. Burnett Liz 0 to-read 3.58 2025 Whiteout
author: R.S. Burnett
name: Liz
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Lamb 216867498
But Mama’s want is stronger than her hunger sometimes, and when a beautiful, white-toothed stray named Eden turns up in the heart of a snowstorm, Margot must confront the shifting dynamics of her family, untangle her own desires, and make her own bid for freedom.

With this gothic coming-of-age tale, novelist Lucy Rose explores how women swallow their anger, desire, and animal instincts—and wrings the relationship between mother and daughter until blood drips from it.]]> 336 Lucy Rose 1399619713 Liz 0 to-read 3.96 2025 The Lamb
author: Lucy Rose
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Incidents Around the House 200697745 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’s Mommy, 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 question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon 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 about to unravel.

But Other Mommy needs an answer.

Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror about a family as haunted as their home.]]> 373 Josh Malerman Liz 2 2025 3.67 2024 Incidents Around the House
author: Josh Malerman
name: Liz
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Witchcraft for Wayward Girls 207611566 There’s power in a book�

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

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

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

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master� (NPR).]]> 482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Liz 5 2025 4.5 stars 4.02 2025 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Liz
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: 2025
review:
4.5 stars
]]> At Dark, I Become Loathsome 210906882 From Eric LaRocca—Bram Stoker Award–nominated and Splatterpunk Award–winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke—cdz At Dark, I Become Loathsome, a grim yet gentle, horrifying yet hopeful, intense tale of death, trauma, and love.

“If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought that the world would be a better place without you.�

A single line of text, glowing in the darkness of the internet. Written by Ashley Lutin, who has often thought the same—and worse—in the years since his wife died and his young son disappeared. But the peace of the grave is not for him—it’s for those he can help. Ashley has constructed a peculiar ritual for those whose desire to die is at war with their yearning to live a better life.

Struggling to overcome his own endless grief, one night Ashley finds connection with Jinx—a potential candidate for Ashley’s next ritual—who spins a tale both revolting and fascinating. Thus begins a relationship that traps the two men in an ever-tightening spiral of painful revelations, where long-hidden secrets are dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light.

Only through pain can we find healing. Only through death can we find new life.]]> 178 Eric LaRocca Liz 0 to-read 3.37 2025 At Dark, I Become Loathsome
author: Eric LaRocca
name: Liz
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Victorian Psycho 213395480 From the acclaimed author of Mrs. March comes the riveting tale of a bloodthirsty governess who learns the true meaning of vengeance.

Grim Wolds, England: Winifred Notty arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess—she’ll dutifully tutor her charges, Drusilla and Andrew, tell them bedtime stories, and only joke about eating children. But long, listless days spent within the estate’s dreary confines come with an intimate knowledge of the perversions and pathetic preoccupations of the Pounds family—Mr. Pounds can’t keep his eyes off Winifred’s chest, and Mrs. Pounds takes a sickly pleasure in punishing Winifred for her husband’s wandering gaze. Compounded with her disdain for the entitled Pounds children, Winifred finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past. French tutoring and needlework are one way to pass the time, as is admiring the ugly portraits in the gallery . . . and creeping across the moonlit lawns. . . .

Patience. Winifred must have patience, for Christmas is coming, and she has very special gifts planned for the dear souls of Ensor House. Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new literary psychopath.]]> 208 Virginia Feito 1631498630 Liz 0 to-read 3.63 2025 Victorian Psycho
author: Virginia Feito
name: Liz
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Let Them Theory 216351768
If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple words�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. The Let Them Theory puts the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book, The Let Them Theory, Mel Robbins�New York Times bestselling author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's made The Mel Robbins Podcast a global sensation, Robbins explains why The Let Them Theory is already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who champion The Let Them Theory every step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't control Stop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment. . . and so much more.

The Let Them Theory will forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory now and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]> 311 Mel Robbins 1401971377 Liz 0 4.20 2024 The Let Them Theory
author: Mel Robbins
name: Liz
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves:
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]]> The Bewitching 220458657 Three women in three different eras encounter danger and witchcraft in this eerie multigenerational horror saga from the New York Times bestselling author of Mexican Gothic.

“Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches�: That was how Nana Alba always began the stories she told her great-granddaughter Minerva—stories that have stayed with Minerva all her life. Perhaps that’s why Minerva has become a graduate student focused on the history of horror literature and is researching the life of Beatrice Tremblay, an obscure author of macabre tales.

In the course of assembling her thesis, Minerva uncovers information that reveals that Tremblay’s most famous novel, The Vanishing, was inspired by a true story: Decades earlier, during the Great Depression, Tremblay attended the same university where Minerva is now studying and became obsessed with her beautiful and otherworldly roommate, who then disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

As Minerva descends ever deeper into Tremblay’s manuscript, she begins to sense that the malign force that stalked Tremblay and the missing girl might still walk the halls of the campus. These disturbing events also echo the stories Nana Alba told about her girlhood in 1900s Mexico, where she had a terrifying encounter with a witch.

Minerva suspects that the same shadow that darkened the lives of her great-grandmother and Beatrice Tremblay is now threatening her own in 1990s Massachusetts. An academic career can be a punishing pursuit, but it might turn outright deadly when witchcraft is involved.]]> 368 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 0593874323 Liz 0 to-read 4.37 2025 The Bewitching
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Liz
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ward D 123193218 spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward.

Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out.

And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.

Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D.

And now she might never escape.
]]> 348 Freida McFadden Liz 3 2024 3.98 2023 Ward D
author: Freida McFadden
name: Liz
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> The God of the Woods 199700434 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.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Liz 4 2025 4.10 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Liz
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Piranesi 50202953
There is one other person in the house—a man called The Other, who visits Piranesi twice a week and asks for help with research into A Great and Secret Knowledge. But as Piranesi explores, evidence emerges of another person, and a terrible truth begins to unravel, revealing a world beyond the one Piranesi has always known.]]> 272 Susanna Clarke 163557563X Liz 0 to-read 4.22 2020 Piranesi
author: Susanna Clarke
name: Liz
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Darling Dreadful Thing 199296681
Spirits are drawn to salt, be it blood or tears.

Roos Beckman has a spirit companion only she can see. Ruth—strange, corpse-like, and dead for centuries—is the light of Roos' life. That is, until the wealthy young widow Agnes Knoop visits one of Roos' backroom seances, and the two strike up a connection.

Soon, Roos is whisked away to the crumbling estate Agnes inherited upon the death of her husband, where an ill woman haunts the halls, strange smells drift through the air, and mysterious stone statues reside in the family chapel. Something dreadful festers in the manor, but still, the attraction between Roos and Agnes is undeniable.

Then, someone is murdered.

Poor, alone, and with a history of 'hysterics', Roos is the obvious culprit. With her sanity and innocence in question, she'll have to prove who—or what—is at fault or lose everything she holds dear.

"A Sapphic seance of preternatural proportions, My Darling Dreadful Thing summons a stunning new literary voice to be reckoned with. Johanna van Veen reaches beyond the veil to conjure up a gothic shocker like no other."—Clay McLeod Chapman, author of What Kind of Mother and Ghost Eaters

©2024 Johanna van Veen (P)2024 Tantor]]> 377 Johanna van Veen 1728281563 Liz 4 2025 3.95 2024 My Darling Dreadful Thing
author: Johanna van Veen
name: Liz
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Untamed 52676534 In her most revealing and powerful memoir yet, the beloved activist, speaker, and bestselling author of Love Warrior and Carry On, Warrior explores the joy and peace we discover when we stop striving to meet the expectations of the world, and start trusting the voice deep within us.

"Untamed will liberate women—emotionally, spiritually, and physically. It is phenomenal." � Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat Pray Love

This is how you find yourself.

There is a voice of longing inside each woman. We strive so mightily to be good partners, daughters, mothers, employees, and friends. We hope all this striving will make us feel alive. Instead, it leaves us feeling weary, stuck, overwhelmed, and underwhelmed. We look at our lives and Wasn't it all supposed to be more beautiful than this? We quickly silence that question, telling ourselves to be grateful, hiding our discontent—even from ourselves.

For many years, Glennon Doyle denied her own discontent. Then, while speaking at a conference, she looked at a woman across the room and fell instantly in love. Three words flooded her There She Is. At first, Glennon assumed these words came to her from on high. But she soon realized they had come to her from within. This was her own voice—the one she had buried beneath decades of numbing addictions, cultural conditioning, and institutional allegiances. This was the voice of the girl she had been before the world told her who to be. Glennon decided to quit abandoning herself and to instead abandon the world's expectations of her. She quit being good so she could be free. She quit pleasing and started living.

Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member's ability to bring her full self to the table. And it is the story of how each of us can begin to trust ourselves enough to set boundaries, make peace with our bodies, honor our anger and heartbreak, and unleash our truest, wildest instincts so that we become women who can finally look at ourselves and There She Is.

Untamed shows us how to be brave. As Glennon The braver we are, the luckier we get.]]> 302 Glennon Doyle 1984801260 Liz 0 did-not-finish, to-read 4.09 2020 Untamed
author: Glennon Doyle
name: Liz
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: did-not-finish, to-read
review:

]]> The Queen 199897848 The national bestselling author of #HorrorBookTok sensation The Troop returns with a heart-pounding novel of terror about a young woman searching for her missing friend and uncovering a shocking truth.

On a sunny morning in June, Margaret Carpenter wakes up to find a new iPhone on her doorstep. She switches it on to find a text from her best friend, Charity Atwater. The problem is, Charity’s been missing for over a month. Most people in town—even the police—think she’s dead.

Margaret and Charity have been lifelong friends. They share everything, know the most intimate details about one another…but Charity carries a secret that even she is unaware of. A secret engraved into her DNA helix. For Charity is also known Subject Six, the crown jewel of Project Athena—a clandestine and unorthodox gene manipulation experiment, the brainchild of tech titan Rudyard Crate. And when Charity’s gene sequencing actualizes during a traumatic event at a high school party, it sets in motion a chain of events that will end in tragedy, bloodshed, and death.

And now Charity wants Margaret to know her story—the real story. In a narrative that takes place over one feverish day, Margaret follows a series of increasingly dreadful breadcrumbs as she forges deeper into the mystery of her best friend—a person she never truly knew at all…]]> 381 Nick Cutter Liz 3 2025 3.75 2024 The Queen
author: Nick Cutter
name: Liz
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times]]> 52623750 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593189481.

An intimate, revelatory book exploring the ways we can care for and repair ourselves when life knocks us down.

Sometimes you slip through the cracks: unforeseen circumstances like an abrupt illness, the death of a loved one, a break up, or a job loss can derail a life. These periods of dislocation can be lonely and unexpected. For May, her husband fell ill, her son stopped attending school, and her own medical issues led her to leave a demanding job. Wintering explores how she not only endured this painful time, but embraced the singular opportunities it offered.

A moving personal narrative shot through with lessons from literature, mythology, and the natural world, May’s story offers instruction on the transformative power of rest and retreat. Illumination emerges from many sources: solstice celebrations and dormice hibernation, C.S. Lewis and Sylvia Plath, swimming in icy waters and sailing arctic seas.

Ultimately Wintering invites us to change how we relate to our own fallow times. May models an active acceptance of sadness and finds nourishment in deep retreat, joy in the hushed beauty of winter, and encouragement in understanding life as cyclical, not linear. A secular mystic, May forms a guiding philosophy for transforming the hardships that arise before the ushering in of a new season.]]> 241 Katherine May Liz 0 to-read 3.82 2020 Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
author: Katherine May
name: Liz
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Way 205900986 A postapocalyptic road trip and a quest for redemption.

The world has been ravaged by a lethal virus and, with few exceptions, only the young have survived. Cities and infrastructures have been destroyed, and the natural world has reclaimed the landscape in surprising ways, with herds of wild camels roaming the American West and crocodiles that glow neon green lurking in the rivers.

Against this perilous backdrop, Will Collins, the de facto caretaker of a Buddhist monastery in Colorado, receives an urgent and mysterious request: to deliver a potential cure to a scientist in what was once California. So Will sets out, haunted by dreams of the woman he once loved, in a rusted-out pickup pulled by two mules. A menacing thug is on his tail. Armed militias patrol the roads. And the only way he’ll make it is with the help of a clever raven, an opinionated cat, and a tough teenage girl who has learned to survive on her own.

A highly original contribution to the canon of dystopian literature, The Way is a thrilling and imaginative novel, full of warmth, wisdom, and surprises that reflect our world in unsettling, uncanny, and even hopeful ways.]]> 304 Cary Groner 1954118422 Liz 0 to-read 3.82 2024 The Way
author: Cary Groner
name: Liz
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story]]> 204316857 The Nobelist's latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas.

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

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

A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, blending horror story, comedy, folklore, and feminist parable with brilliant storytelling.]]> 320 Olga Tokarczuk 0593712943 Liz 0 to-read 3.67 2022 The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story
author: Olga Tokarczuk
name: Liz
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> By Any Other Name 203337138 From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring� (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.]]> 528 Jodi Picoult 0593497228 Liz 0 to-read 4.12 2024 By Any Other Name
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Liz
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Abandon 61198602 451 Blake Crouch 0593598539 Liz 2 2025 3.53 2009 Abandon
author: Blake Crouch
name: Liz
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2009
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves: 2025
review:
I usually love Blake Crouch, but this one just wasn’t it.
]]> The Boyfriend 209950981 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 all: 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…]]> 370 Freida McFadden Liz 4 2025 4.20 2024 The Boyfriend
author: Freida McFadden
name: Liz
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Martyr! 139400713 Kaveh Akbar’s Martyr! is a paean to how we spend our lives seeking meaning—in faith, art, ourselves, others—in which a newly sober, orphaned son of Iranian immigrants, guided by the voices of artists, poets, and kings, embarks on a search that leads him to a terminally ill painter living out her final days in the Brooklyn Museum.

Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.

Electrifying, funny, wholly original, and profound, Martyr! heralds the arrival of a blazing and essential new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 331 Kaveh Akbar 0593537610 Liz 0 to-read 4.23 2024 Martyr!
author: Kaveh Akbar
name: Liz
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Circus Train 60534356 At the World of Wonders, Europe’s most magnificent travelling circus, every moment is full of magic, and nothing is as it seems—especially for the people who put on the show

Lena Papadopoulos has never quite found her place within the circus, even as the daughter of the extraordinary headlining illusionist, Theo. Brilliant and curious, Lena yearns for the real-world magic of science and medicine, despite her father’s overprotection and the limits her world places on her because she is disabled. Her unconventional life takes an exciting turn when she rescues Alexandre, an orphan with his own secrets and a mysterious past. Over several years, as their friendship flourishes and Alexandre trains as the illusionist’s apprentice, World War II escalates around them. When Theo and Alexandre are contracted to work and perform in a model town for Jews set up by the Nazis, Lena becomes separated from everything she knows. Forced to make her own way, Lena must confront her doubts and dare to believe in the impossible—herself.

A must-read for fans of The Night Circus and Water for Elephants, The Circus Train will take readers on a heart-wrenching and spectacular two-decade journey across Europe. When all is lost, how do you find the courage to keep moving forward?]]> 408 Amita Parikh 1443464996 Liz 3 2025 3.92 2022 The Circus Train
author: Amita Parikh
name: Liz
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: 2025
review:

]]> Little Eve 59808007
“A great day is upon us. He is coming. The world will be washed away.�

On the wind-battered isle of Altnaharra, off the wildest coast of Scotland, a clan prepares to bring about the end of the world and its imminent rebirth.

The Adder is coming and one of their number will inherit its powers. They all want the honor, but young Eve is willing to do anything for the distinction.

A reckoning beyond Eve’s imagination begins when Chief Inspector Black arrives to investigate a brutal murder and their sacred ceremony goes terribly wrong.

And soon all the secrets of Altnaharra will be uncovered.]]> 271 Catriona Ward 1250812658 Liz 0 to-read 3.69 2018 Little Eve
author: Catriona Ward
name: Liz
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.]]> 192 Agustina Bazterrica 1668051885 Liz 0 to-read 3.67 2023 The Unworthy
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Liz
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Sunny Place for Shady People]]> 203956643 A diabolical collection of stories featuring achingly human characters whose lives intertwine with ghosts, goblins, and the macabre, by “one of Latin America’s most exciting authors� (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

On the shores of this river, all the birds that fly, drink, perch on branches, and disturb siestas with the demonic squawking of the possessed—all those birds were once women.

Welcome to Argentina and the fascinating, frightening, fantastical imagination of Mariana Enriquez. In twelve spellbinding new stories, Enriquez writes about ordinary people, especially women, whose lives turn inside out when they encounter terror, the surreal, and the supernatural. A neighborhood nuisanced by ghosts, a family whose faces melt away, a faded hotel haunted by a girl who dissolved in the water tank on the roof, a riverbank populated by birds that used to be women—these and other tales illuminate the shadows of contemporary life, where the line between good and evil no longer exists.

Lyrical and hypnotic, heart-stopping and deeply moving, Enriquez’s stories never fail to enthrall, entertain, and leave us shaken. Translated by the award-winning Megan McDowell, A Sunny Place for Shady People showcases Enriquez’s unique blend of the literary and the horrific, and underscores why Kazuo Ishiguro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, calls her “the most exciting discovery I’ve made in fiction for some time.”]]> 257 Mariana Enríquez 0593733258 Liz 0 to-read 3.81 2024 A Sunny Place for Shady People
author: Mariana Enríquez
name: Liz
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Drowning Woman 62921543 The bestselling author of The Partyreturns witha deliciously twisted story of friendship, retribution, and betrayalabout a homeless woman fleeing a dangerous past—and the wealthy society wife she saves from drowning, who pulls her into a dark web of secrets and lies.

Lee Gulliver never thought she’d find herself living on the streets—no one ever does—but when her restaurant fails, and she falls deeper into debt, she leaves her old life behind with nothing but her clothes and her Toyota Corolla. In Seattle, she parks in a secluded spot by the beach to lay low and plan her next move—until early one morning, she sees asobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. Lee hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. The drowning woman, Hazel, tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Lee has thwarted her one chance to escape her life.

Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her, until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And thenone day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems, and that Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.]]> 336 Robyn Harding Liz 3 2024 4.19 2023 The Drowning Woman
author: Robyn Harding
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)]]> 29981261
In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.

When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.

As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding...]]> 288 Dot Hutchison 1503989712 Liz 0 to-read 4.09 2016 The Butterfly Garden (The Collector, #1)
author: Dot Hutchison
name: Liz
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 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 Liz 0 to-read 4.24 2024 All the Colors of the Dark
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Liz
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> This Is How It Always Is 34275215
This is how a family lives happily ever after…until happily ever after becomes complicated.

This is how children change…and then change the world.

This is Claude. He’s five years old, the youngest of five brothers, and loves peanut butter sandwiches. He also loves wearing a dress, and dreams of being a princess.

When he grows up, Claude says, he wants to be a girl.

Rosie and Penn want Claude to be whoever Claude wants to be. They’re just not sure they’re ready to share that with the world. Soon the entire family is keeping Claude’s secret. Until one day it explodes.

This Is How It Always Is is a novel about revelations, transformations, fairy tales, and family. And it’s about the ways this is how it always is: Change is always hard and miraculous and hard again, parenting is always a leap into the unknown with crossed fingers and full hearts, children grow but not always according to plan. And families with secrets don’t get to keep them forever.

"This is a novel everyone should read. It’s brilliant. It’s bold. And it’s time.�
―Elizabeth George, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Banquet of Consequences]]> 336 Laurie Frankel 1250088569 Liz 5 2019 4.28 2017 This Is How It Always Is
author: Laurie Frankel
name: Liz
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2019/03/28
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: 2019
review:

]]> We Used to Live Here 199898250
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 320 Marcus Kliewer Liz 3 2024 3.78 2024 We Used to Live Here
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Liz
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> FantasticLand 39971990
Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?
FantasticLand is a modern take on Lord of the Flies meets Battle Royale that probes the consequences of a social civilization built online.]]> 284 Mike Bockoven 151073788X Liz 5 2024 3.91 2016 FantasticLand
author: Mike Bockoven
name: Liz
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery]]> 56660256 Set in Colonial New England, Slewfoot is a tale of magic and mystery, of triumph and terror as only dark fantasist Brom can tell it.

Connecticut, 1666.

An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector.

The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil.

To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help.

Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan � one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake.]]> 312 Brom Liz 4 2024 4.26 2021 Slewfoot: A Tale of Bewitchery
author: Brom
name: Liz
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Horror Movie 206768687 The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.

In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.

The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.

The man who played “The Thin Kid� is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions—demons of the past be damned.

But at what cost?

Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful twist on the “cursed film� that breathlessly builds to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.]]> Paul Tremblay 0063070049 Liz 3 2024 3.26 2024 Horror Movie
author: Paul Tremblay
name: Liz
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Kill for Me, Kill for You 214152297
One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Intricate, heart-racing, and from an author who “is the real deal� (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Kill for Me, Kill for You will keep you breathless until the final page.]]> 352 Steve Cavanagh 166804935X Liz 0 to-read 4.15 2023 Kill for Me, Kill for You
author: Steve Cavanagh
name: Liz
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/20
shelves: to-read
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]]> Mexican Gothic 48717236
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And Noemí, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]> 302 Silvia Moreno-Garcia 1529402662 Liz 4 2021 3.72 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Liz
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/07/05
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: 2021
review:

]]> Where Sleeping Girls Lie 222111223 In Where Sleeping Girls Lie � a YA contemporary mystery by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé, the New York Times-bestselling author of Ace of Spades � a girl new to boarding school discovers dark secrets and coverups after her roommate disappears.

It’s like I keep stumbling into a dark room, searching for the switch to make things bright again. To make me remember. But the switch isn’t there. Was it there before?

Sade Hussein is starting her third year of high school, this time at the prestigious Alfred Nobel Academy boarding school. After being home-schooled all her life and feeling like a magnet for misfortune, she’s not sure what will happen. What she doesn’t expect though is for her roommate Elizabeth to disappear after Sade’s first night. Or for people to think she had something to do with it.

With rumors swirling around her, Sade catches the attention of the most popular girls in school � collectively known as the ‘Unholy Trinity� � and they bring her into their fold. Between learning more about them - especially Persephone, who Sade finds herself drawn to - playing catch-up in class, and trying to figure out what happened to Elizabeth, Sade has a lot on her plate. It doesn’t help that she’s already dealing with grief from the many tragedies in her family.

And then a student is found dead.

The more Sade investigates, the more she realizes there’s more to Alfred Nobel Academy and its students than she realized. Secrets lurk around every corner and beneath every surface…secrets that rival even her own.]]> Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé 1250892082 Liz 4 2024 3.72 2024 Where Sleeping Girls Lie
author: Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
name: Liz
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> The Lost Girls 57629185 336 Jessica Chiarella 0593191102 Liz 2 2024 3.57 2021 The Lost Girls
author: Jessica Chiarella
name: Liz
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/15
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Genesis (The Exorcist's House #2)]]> 216450911
1967: A brutal murder occurs at the Weston State Hospital in West Virginia. To amateur exorcist, Merle Blatty, this shocking story rings of the occult. Fueled by a desire to avenge the deaths of his wife and son, Merle investigates the case, unknowingly stepping into a sinister web spanning decades.

1997: It’s been three years since the Hill family left the nightmares of the farm behind them. Alice is off to college while Daniel and Nora are closer than ever, living in Ohio and raising their three-year-old daughter, Maren. Their high hopes for the future are quickly extinguished when they receive a call, learning of a plan by Adam, Daniel’s brother, to purchase the exorcist's former property and stage an Amityville-inspired haunting to profit from the story.

By alternating past and present narratives, The Exorcist’s House: Genesis is a multi-generational odyssey through Hell, giving birth to a new breed of horror.]]> 308 Nick Roberts Liz 4 2024 4.27 Genesis (The Exorcist's House #2)
author: Nick Roberts
name: Liz
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/10
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt]]> 208503336
Harriet Hunt is completely alone. Her father disappeared months ago, leaving her to wander the halls of Sunnyside house, dwelling on a past she'd rather keep buried. She doesn't often venture beyond her front gate, instead relishing the feel of dirt under her fingernails and of soft moss beneath her feet. Consequently, she's been deemed a little too peculiar for popular Victorian society. This solitary life suits her fine, though � because, in her garden, magic awaits.

Harriet's garden is special. It's a wild place full of twisting ivy, vibrant plums, and a quiet power that buzzes like bees. Caring for this place, and keeping it from running rampant through the streets of her London suburb, is Harriet's purpose.

When suspicion for her father's disappearance falls on her, she marries a seemingly charming man, the first to see past her peculiarities, in order to protect herself. It's soon clear, however, that her new husband might be worse than her father and that she's integral to a dark plot created by the men around her. To free herself and discover the truth, she must learn to channel the power of her strange, magical garden.

At once enchantingly mesmerizing and fiercely feminist, perfect for fans of The Magician's Daughter and The Once and Future Witches, the vibrant world-building and sinister undertones of The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt make for the perfect modern fairytale about women taking control of their lives—with a little help from the magic within them.]]> 309 Chelsea Iversen 1728275814 Liz 0 to-read 3.50 2024 The Peculiar Garden of Harriet Hunt
author: Chelsea Iversen
name: Liz
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> Darkly 208430757
As Dia and her fellow interns delve into the heart of Darkly, they discover hidden symbols, buried clues, and a web of intrigue. Who are these other teens, and what secrets do they keep? Why were any of them really chosen? The answers lie within the twisted labyrinth of Darkly.]]> 399 Marisha Pessl 0593706552 Liz 0 to-read 3.71 2024 Darkly
author: Marisha Pessl
name: Liz
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> The Stillwater Girls 40258215 The Thinnest Air.

Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York. When the youngest grows gravely ill, their mother leaves with the child to get help from a nearby town. And they never return.

As months pass, hope vanishes. Supplies are low. Livestock are dying. A brutal winter is bearing down. Then comes the stranger. He claims to be looking for the girls� mother, and he’s not leaving without them.

To escape, Wren and her sister must break the rule they’ve grown up with: never go beyond the forest.

Past the thicket of dread, they come upon a house on the other side of the pines. This is where Wren and Sage must confront something more chilling than the unknowable. They’ll discover what’s been hidden from them, what they’re running from, and the secrets that have left them in the dark their entire lives.]]> 273 Minka Kent 1542090105 Liz 4 2024 4.14 2019 The Stillwater Girls
author: Minka Kent
name: Liz
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/29
date added: 2024/11/29
shelves: 2024
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]]> The Teacher 198218463 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.]]> 362 Freida McFadden Liz 3 2024 4.15 2024 The Teacher
author: Freida McFadden
name: Liz
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> Ushers 218362004 A young man who has improbably escaped death twice reveals his secret in a spine-tingling short story by New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill.

Martin Lorensen is a twenty-three-year-old counselor for disturbed teenagers. He’s bright, compassionate, attractive, and outgoing. He’s also—and this is the most interesting thing—not dead. Martin has improbably survived not one but two deadly disasters that claimed dozens of lives. The kid is riding one hell of a lucky streak. Two federal agents think there is something darker at play. Now that they’ve arranged to interview Martin, they want answers. Martin is ready to share everything he knows. One thing is for certain: when it comes to escaping death, luck doesn’t figure into it at all.]]> 29 Joe Hill 1662527942 Liz 4 2024 4.23 2024 Ushers
author: Joe Hill
name: Liz
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> The Unmothers 201750707 In this emotionally raw and propulsive folk horror-mystery, a journalist goes to a small town and unravels a dark secret that the women have been keeping for generations.

Marshall is still trying to put the pieces together after the death of her husband. After she is involved in a terrible accident, her editor sends her to the small, backwards town of Raeford to investigate a clearly ridiculous rumor: that a horse has given birth to a healthy, human baby boy.

When Marshall arrives in Raeford, she finds an insular town that is kinder to the horses they are famous for breeding than to their own people. But when two horribly mangled bodies are discovered in a field—one a horse, one a human—she realizes that there might be a real story here.

As she’s pulled deeper into the town and its guarded people, her sense of reality is tipped on its head. Is she losing her grip? Or is this impossible story the key to a dark secret that has haunted the women of Raeford for generations?

Unbearably tense and utterly gripping, this atmospheric tale of female rage, bodily autonomy, and generational trauma hails the arrival of a masterful storyteller.]]> 304 Leslie J. Anderson Liz 2 2024 3.63 2024 The Unmothers
author: Leslie J. Anderson
name: Liz
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
shelves: 2024
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]]> Greenlights 55609949 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> Matthew McConaughey 059329419X Liz 5 2024 4.03 2020 Greenlights
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Liz
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2024/11/20
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]]> The Once and Future Witches 55673000
But when the Eastwood sisters--James Juniper, Agnes Amaranth, and Beatrice Belladonna--join the suffragists of New Salem, they begin to pursue the forgotten words and ways that might turn the women's movement into the witch's movement. Stalked by shadows and sickness, hunted by forces who will not suffer a witch to vote-and perhaps not even to live-the sisters will need to delve into the oldest magics, draw new alliances, and heal the bond between them if they want to survive.

There's no such thing as witches. But there will be.

The ISBN of this book is 9781549186424]]> 17 Alix E. Harrow Liz 0 to-read 4.00 2020 The Once and Future Witches
author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Liz
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> <![CDATA[A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)]]> 40864002 ASIN B08H831J18 moved to the more recent edition

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?]]> 151 Becky Chambers Liz 0 to-read 4.25 2021 A Psalm for the Wild-Built (Monk & Robot, #1)
author: Becky Chambers
name: Liz
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> Ten Days in a Mad-House 58438521 Beautifully adapted and rendered through piercing illustrations by acclaimed creators Brad Ricca and Courtney Sieh, Nellie Bly's complete, true-to-life 19th-century investigation of Blackwell Asylum captures a groundbreaking moment in history and reveals a haunting and timely glimpse at the starting point for conversations on mental health.

"I said I could and I would. And I did."

While working for Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper in 1887, Nellie Bly began an undercover investigation into the local Women's Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell Island. Intent on seeing what life was like on the inside, Bly fooled trained physicians into thinking she was insane—a task too easily achieved—and had herself committed. In her ten days at the asylum, Bly witnessed horrifying conditions: the food was inedible, the women were forced into labor for the staff, the nurses and doctors were cruel or indifferent, and many of the women held there had no mental disorder of any kind.


Now adapted into graphic novel form by Brad� Ricca and vividly rendered with beautiful and haunting illustrations by Courtney Sieh, Bly's bold venture is given new life and meaning. Her fearless investigation into the living conditions at the Blackwell Asylum forever changed the field of journalism. A timely reminder to take notice of forgotten populations, Ten Days in a Mad-House warns us what happens when we look away.]]> 160 Brad Ricca 1982140658 Liz 3 2024 3.74 2022 Ten Days in a Mad-House
author: Brad Ricca
name: Liz
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Her Dark Secrets (The Franklin Family #1)]]> 61472267
At eighteen, Violet Franklin fled the Texas ranch she'd always called home. Pregnant and alone, she was desperate to escape the cycle of lies and abuse that tainted her youth. Four years later, a death in the family brings her back.

Faced with the choice to speak out or remain silent, she chooses to reveal the unspeakable abuse she suffered at the hands of her rapacious uncle. But not everyone wants to hear what she has to say, and with a sizable inheritance at stake, there are those who wish she never came back at all.

As truth and greed threaten to tear her family apart, one secret remains. It's the darkest secret of all and the one she knows could destroy everything—but can she afford to keep it?

* Her Dark Book One is a story about love and family, truth and lies. Some of the subject matter may offend or trigger survivors of mental, physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse. Please read at your own discretion.*]]> Victoria Wright Liz 3 2024 3.79 Her Dark Secrets (The Franklin Family #1)
author: Victoria Wright
name: Liz
average rating: 3.79
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Delicate Condition 62976325 The Push meets The Silent Patient in a gripping thriller that follows a woman convinced a sinister figure is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens—while the men in her life refuse to believe a word she says.

Anna Alcott is desperate to be pregnant. But as she tries to balance her increasingly public life with a grueling IVF journey, she starts to suspect that someone is going to great lengths to make sure her pregnancy never happens. Crucial medicines are lost. Appointments get swapped without her knowledge. And even when she finally manages to get pregnant, not even her husband is willing to believe that someone's playing a twisted game with her.

When the increasingly cryptic threats drive her out of her Brooklyn brownstone and into hiding in the cold, gray ghost town that is the Hamptons in the depths of winter, Anna is almost at the end of her rope.

Then her doctor tells her she's had a miscarriage—except Anna's convinced she's still pregnant, despite everything the grave-faced men around her claim. Could it be that her mind is playing tricks on her? Or is something more sinister at play? As her symptoms become ever more horrifying and the sense of danger ever more present, Anna can't help but wonder what exactly she's carrying inside of her...and why no one will listen when she says something is horribly, painfully wrong.]]> 432 Danielle Valentine 1728276888 Liz 3 2024 3.61 2023 Delicate Condition
author: Danielle Valentine
name: Liz
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Liz 3 2024 3.73 2016 The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)
author: Ruth Ware
name: Liz
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/09
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Shadows of Pike Place (A Thomas Austin Crime Thriller #2)]]> 61684069
When the matriarch of a rich Seattle family dies under suspicious circumstances, private investigator Thomas Austin is on the case. This time, the suspect list is easy.

Seven people were in the lakefront mansion with the millionaire when she died: a spoiled son, a jealous brother-in-law, a beloved chef, a rebellious grandson, an arrogant memoirist, and a pair of successful daughters. All had motive. All had opportunity. But which one is the killer?

To solve the case, Austin must look into the past of one of Seattle's most powerful families. With the help of a fiery reporter and a long-lost diary, he uncovers a series of dark secrets that betray the criminal underbelly of old-money Seattle.

But the closer Austin gets to the truth, the more dangerous the investigation becomes. Sometimes, when you dig into a secret past, the past comes out to bury you.]]> 272 D.D. Black Liz 2 4.32 The Shadows of Pike Place (A Thomas Austin Crime Thriller #2)
author: D.D. Black
name: Liz
average rating: 4.32
book published:
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/10/31
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]]> The Death of Mrs. Westaway 36373481
Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the centre of it.]]> 368 Ruth Ware 1501156217 Liz 4 2018, to-read 3.79 2018 The Death of Mrs. Westaway
author: Ruth Ware
name: Liz
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2018/11/26
date added: 2024/10/31
shelves: 2018, to-read
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 59616018
A delight for readers of Where’d You Go, Bernadette and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, this blockbuster debut set in 1960s California features the singular voice of Elizabeth Zott, a scientist whose career takes a detour when she becomes the star of a beloved TV cooking show.

Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.

But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride�) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.

Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.]]> Bonnie Garmus 0593507533 Liz 5 2024 4.17 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: Liz
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: 2024
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]]> The Whispering Muse 59737212 From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a gripping tale of obsession, superstition and ambition, set against the atmospheric backdrop of Victorian London. Be careful what you wish for it may just come true.

At The Mercury Theatre in London's West End, rumours are circulating of a curse. It is said that the lead actress Lilith has made a pact with Melpomene, the tragic muse of Greek mythology, to become the greatest actress to ever grace the stage. Suspicious of Lilith, the jealous wife of the theatre owner sends dresser Jenny to spy on her, and, desperate for the money to help her family, Jenny agrees.

What Jenny finds is a woman as astonishing in her performance as she is provocative in her nature. On stage, it's as though Lilith is possessed by the characters she plays, yet off stage she is as tragic as the muse who inspires her, and Jenny, sorry for her, befriends the troubled actress. But when strange events begin to take place around the theatre, Jenny wonders whether the rumours are true and fears that when the muse comes calling for payment, the cost will be too high.]]> 304 Laura Purcell 1526627183 Liz 0 to-read 3.94 2023 The Whispering Muse
author: Laura Purcell
name: Liz
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> Furiously Happy 28220896 #1 New York Times Bestseller

In Furiously Happy, a humor memoir tinged with just enough tragedy and pathos to make it worthwhile, Jenny Lawson examines her own experience with severe depression and a host of other conditions, and explains how it has led her to live life to the fullest:

"I've often thought that people with severe depression have developed such a well for experiencing extreme emotion that they might be able to experience extreme joy in a way that ‘normal people' also might never understand. And that's what Furiously Happy is all about."

Jenny’s readings are standing room only, with fans lining up to have Jenny sign their bottles of Xanax or Prozac as often as they are to have her sign their books. Furiously Happy appeals to Jenny's core fan base but also transcends it. There are so many people out there struggling with depression and mental illness, either themselves or someone in their family—and in Furiously Happy they will find a member of their tribe offering up an uplifting message (via a taxidermied roadkill raccoon). Let's Pretend This Never Happened ostensibly was about embracing your own weirdness, but deep down it was about family. Furiously Happy is about depression and mental illness, but deep down it's about joy—and who doesn't want a bit more of that?]]> 329 Jenny Lawson 1250077028 Liz 0 to-read 4.09 2015 Furiously Happy
author: Jenny Lawson
name: Liz
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/22
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]]> Credence 49084724
And when they suddenly pass away, she knows she should be devastated. But has anything really changed? She’s always been alone, hasn’t she?

Jake Van der Berg, her father’s stepbrother and her only living relative, assumes guardianship of Tiernan who is still two months shy of eighteen. Sent to live with him and his two sons, Noah and Kaleb, in the mountains of Colorado, Tiernan soon learns that these men now have a say in what she chooses to care and not care about anymore. As the three of them take her under their wing, teach her to work and survive in the remote woods far away from the rest of the world, she slowly finds her place among them.

And as a part of them.

She also realizes that lines blur and rules become easy to break when no one else is watching.

One of them has her.

The other one wants her.

But he�

He’s going to keep her.

*Credence is a new adult standalone novel suitable for readers 18+.]]> 470 Penelope Douglas 1660089050 Liz 4 2024 3.58 2020 Credence
author: Penelope Douglas
name: Liz
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Exorcist's House (The Exorcist's House, #1)]]> 60718943
Along with his wife, Nora, and their teenage daughter, Alice, the family uproots their lives in Ohio and moves south. At first, they are seduced by the natural beauty of the farm and enjoy the bonding experience of fixing the old house, but that all changes when they discover a hidden room in the basement with a well, boarded shut and adorned with crucifixes.

Local legends about the previous owner’s predilection for performing exorcisms come to light, but by then, all Hell has broken loose.]]> 287 Nick Roberts Liz 3 3.5 stars 3.94 2022 The Exorcist's House (The Exorcist's House, #1)
author: Nick Roberts
name: Liz
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/14
date added: 2024/10/14
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars
]]> Run 205804189
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 Days Ago the murders increased ten-fold. . .

3 Days Ago the President addressed the nation and begged for calm and peace. . .

2 Days Ago the killers began to mobilize. . .

Yesterday all the power went out. . .

Tonight 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!

©2012 Blake Crouch (P)2012 Brilliance Audio, Inc.]]> 336 Blake Crouch 059387479X Liz 0 to-read 3.65 2011 Run
author: Blake Crouch
name: Liz
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Broken Horses 57724456 The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about a life shaped by music in this candid, heartfelt, and intimate story.

Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, 14 times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood.

As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music.

In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes listeners through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art - from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat� in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over 15 years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans.

Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.]]> 11 Brandi Carlile Liz 4 2024 4.45 2021 Broken Horses
author: Brandi Carlile
name: Liz
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Shamed (Kate Burkholder, #11) 61185923
In this gripping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Linda Castillo, a devastating murder exposes an Amish family’s tortured past.

The peaceful town of Painters Mill is shattered when an Amish grandmother is brutally murdered on an abandoned farm. When Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on the scene, she learns that the woman’s seven-year-old granddaughter is gone, abducted in plain sight. Kate knows time is against her—the longer the girl is missing, the less likely her safe return becomes. The girl’s family is a pillar of the Amish community, well-respected by all. But Kate soon realizes they’re keeping secrets—and the sins of their past may be coming back to haunt them. What are they hiding and why?

Kate’s investigation brings her to an isolated Old Order Amish settlement along the river, a community where family is everything and tradition is upheld with an iron fist. But the killer is close behind, drawing more victims into a twisted game of revenge. Left behind at each new crime scene are cryptic notes that lead Kate to a haunting and tragic secret. What she uncovers threatens to change everything she thought she knew about the family she’s fighting for, the Amish community as a whole—and her own beliefs.

As time to find the missing girl runs out, Kate faces a harrowing choice that will test her convictions and leave one family forever changed.]]> Linda Castillo Liz 4 2024 3.89 2019 Shamed (Kate Burkholder, #11)
author: Linda Castillo
name: Liz
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Paint It Black (The Perfect Nightmare Book 1)]]> 218178849 Enter the darkness within and heed the whispers... for in the shadows, the void hungers.

In Redwood Bay, Jack Miller and Charlie Duvall's chance encounter in a dimly lit bar sparks an unexpected and sinister journey. Drawn together by a shared desire for something beyond the mundane, they embark on a dark, twisted path starting at Jack's foreboding Victorian mansion.

As Charlie settles into her new home with Jack, whispers from the hidden Void within its walls begin to unravel their reality. Seduced by the ancient whispers and the promise of power, Jack and Charlie descend into madness, their minds entwined with the Eldritch horror lurking within.

Driven by the Creature's insatiable hunger, they turn to unspeakable acts, preying on the unsuspecting townsfolk to indulge their newfound craving. With each feeding, they descend deeper into the dark, where Sanity becomes a stranger.

But as the town spirals into chaos and the veil between worlds grows thin, Jack and Charlie must confront the terrifying truth of their existence. Will they succumb to the darkness consuming them, or will they find a way to break free from the clutches of the Eldritch abomination before it's too late?]]> 226 Kaos Emslie Liz 3 2024 3.15 Paint It Black (The Perfect Nightmare Book 1)
author: Kaos Emslie
name: Liz
average rating: 3.15
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> Strange Sally Diamond 62606369 The internationally bestselling author of Lying in Wait returns with a wickedly dark, twisted, and brilliantly observed new novel about an enigmatic woman confronting her unknown past.

Reclusive Sally Diamond causes outrage by trying to incinerate her dead father. Now she’s the center of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she does not remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her early childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world, and why does he call her Mary? And why does her new neighbor seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged…]]> 317 Liz Nugent 1501189735 Liz 3 2024 4.13 2023 Strange Sally Diamond
author: Liz Nugent
name: Liz
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean]]> 33784336
Growing up in Beverly Hills, Amy Dresner had it a top-notch private school education, the most expensive summer camps, and even a weekly clothing allowance. But at 24, she started dabbling in meth in San Francisco and unleashed a fiendish addiction monster. Soon, if you could snort it, smoke it, or have sex with, she did.

Smart and charming, with Daddy's money to fall back on, she sort of managed to keep it all together. But on Christmas Eve 2011 all of that changed when, high on Oxycontin, she stupidly "brandished" a bread knife on her husband and was promptly arrested for "felony domestic violence with a deadly weapon."

Within months, she found herself in the psych ward--and then penniless, divorced, and looking at 240 hours of court-ordered community service. For two years, assigned to a Hollywood Boulevard "chain gang," she swept up syringes (and worse) as she bounced from rehabs to halfway houses, all while struggling with sobriety, sex addiction, and starting over in her forties.

In the tradition of Orange Is the New Black and Jerry Stahl's Permanent Midnight , Amy Dresner's My Fair Junkie is an insightful, darkly funny, and shamelessly honest memoir of one woman's battle with all forms of addiction, hitting rock bottom, and forging a path to a life worth living.]]> 256 Amy Dresner 0316430951 Liz 0 to-read 3.79 2017 My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean
author: Amy Dresner
name: Liz
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hello Beautiful 207599286 Can love make a broken person whole?

William Waters grew up in a house silenced by tragedy, where his parents could hardly bear to look at him, much less love him—so when he meets the spirited and ambitious Julia Padavano in his freshman year of college, it's as if the world has lit up around him. With Julia comes her family, as she and her three sisters are inseparable: Sylvie, the family's dreamer, is happiest with her nose in a book; Cecelia is a free-spirited artist; and Emeline patiently takes care of them all. With the Padavanos, William experiences a newfound contentment; every moment in their house is filled with loving chaos.

But then darkness from William's past surfaces, jeopardizing not only Julia's carefully orchestrated plans for their future but the sisters' unshakeable devotion to one another. The result is a catastrophic family rift that changes their lives for generations. Will the loyalty that once rooted them be strong enough to draw them back together when it matters most?

An exquisite homage to Louisa May Alcott's timeless classic Little Women, Hello Beautiful is a profoundly moving portrait of what is possible when we choose to love someone not in spite of who they are, but because of it.]]> 387 Ann Napolitano 0593243730 Liz 0 to-read 4.05 2023 Hello Beautiful
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Liz
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

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