en-US Sat, 12 Apr 2025 20:10:52 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 203747793
Fledgling actress Amelia Grant is at rock bottom when offered the opportunity of a to star in a biopic about the world-renowned romance author Gloria Diamond, who used her own tragic love story as inspiration for her bestselling books. To prepare for the role, she’ll spend a week with Gloria at her secluded Washington estate. It’s a chance to get out of LA, away from her cheating ex-boyfriend, and to make her recently deceased mother proud.

Amelia’s excitement is short-lived, however, once she actually meets Gloria, who is cold, verging on rude and mostly unavailable. If not for Gloria’s frustratingly handsome son Will, the visit might be a complete waste of her time.

But when Amelia stumbles upon a secret from Gloria’s past, she realizes Gloria’s life story is more fiction than fact. And as the movie’s filming date draws nearer, Amelia must decide how much słó±đ’s willing to sacrifice to uncover the truth.]]> 320 Jillian Cantor 0778310914 Hannah 3
]]> 3.81 2024
author: Jillian Cantor
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
Amelia Grant is asked to play romance author Gloria Diamond in her film biopic. She comes across some discrepancies in Gloria's life as she's getting to know her and wants to dig deeper in Gloria's life. I enjoyed this story but it just wasn't a standout and reads forgettable to me. I never felt too intrigued by the mystery and some parts fell flat.


]]> 214269008 The long-awaited follow-up to the Reese’s Book Club pick and New York Times bestselling global phenomenon The Light We Lost: a thrilling love story about the roles fate and choice play in shaping a life

It’s been ten years. In case you’re out there somewhere—in case you’re listening, I’m here. And I have so much to tell you.

It’s been nearly ten years since Gabe’s been gone when Lucy finds a tiny piece of paper in a box of his old photos. An address in Rome. Why did Gabe keep it, and what was he doing in Italy? Lucy buys a last-minute ticket. Impulsive, but Gabe always brought that out in her.

Lucy’s journey to uncover Gabe’s secret leads her to Dr. Dax Amstrong, a New Yorker in Italy working with an NGO. His broad shoulders and sad, intense eyes draw Lucy in. His touch reaches her in a forgotten place—one that no one has neared since Gabe.

But her old life awaits, along with an earth-shattering decision—whether she and Darren should tell their son Samuel the truth about his real father. How can Lucy move forward while słó±đ’s rooted in regret? Fate broke her heart in the past. Can finding new love set her free?]]> 352 Jill Santopolo 0593419200 Hannah 3 ]]> 3.95
author: Jill Santopolo
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
I reread The Light We Lost right before reading this book and I'm so glad I did because many storylines continue right after the first one ends. I did enjoy Lucy in the first book but by the second found her insufferable at times. This story has major insta-love between Lucy and Dax and it felt forced. The story felt predictable and I'm just not sure it needed to be told.

]]> 214709014 A fresh take on the classic conman chase novel following two adult siblings forced to play nice in hopes of tracking down the man they believe killed their mother and ran off with their sizable inheritance.

Siblings Hazel and Kagan Bailey haven’t been close for a long time, but when their mother passes under mysterious circumstances an investigation quickly follows, and the siblings are high on the list of possible suspects. As they deal with the emotional tragedy of losing their only living parent, brother and sister are forced to team up against a master con man—someone they once called “family�.

After the silver-tongued trickster disappears with the family fortune, Hazel and Kagan must put aside their differences to track him down. Along the way, they encounter a host of secrets, lies, and double-crosses as they dive into the murky waters of their family’s past. With an unlikely ally by their side, the siblings race against time, unraveling a web of deceit that’s more tangled than they ever imagined.

Packed with pulse-pounding suspense and sharp insights into the complexities of family, Trust Issues delivers shocking twists at every turn.]]> 336 Elizabeth McCullough Keenan 0593474201 Hannah 4
This is a conman chase novel featuring two entitled adult siblings who are trying to play nice in hopes of tracking down the man they believed killed their mother and ran off with their inheritance.

The two main characters in this story are morally grey, entitled, unlikable, and make multiple poor choices (especially given their age). But, I was still so drawn to this story and loved their bickering and rivalry with each other! I really love a fun cat and mouse story and this was a very fun popcorn thriller to unpack. The siblings were like a car crash and I couldn't pull myself away from what sort of antics they were up to next and the different characters they met along the way were also really colorful side characters. The ending was quite fun, twisty, and so satisfying!

Recommend if you enjoy:
-Family secrets
-Sibling rivalry
-Inheritance drama stories
-Con artist stories
-Cat and mouse chases
-Popcorn thrillers
]]> 3.71
author: Elizabeth McCullough Keenan
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
The audiobook is single narrated by Beth Hicks and I loved her narration style to keep me hooked!

This is a conman chase novel featuring two entitled adult siblings who are trying to play nice in hopes of tracking down the man they believed killed their mother and ran off with their inheritance.

The two main characters in this story are morally grey, entitled, unlikable, and make multiple poor choices (especially given their age). But, I was still so drawn to this story and loved their bickering and rivalry with each other! I really love a fun cat and mouse story and this was a very fun popcorn thriller to unpack. The siblings were like a car crash and I couldn't pull myself away from what sort of antics they were up to next and the different characters they met along the way were also really colorful side characters. The ending was quite fun, twisty, and so satisfying!

Recommend if you enjoy:
-Family secrets
-Sibling rivalry
-Inheritance drama stories
-Con artist stories
-Cat and mouse chases
-Popcorn thrillers

]]> 214151202 “The farmer is dead. He is dead, and all anyone wants to know is who killed him.�

Beth and her gentle, kind husband Frank are happily married, but their relationship relies on the past staying buried. But when Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog going after their sheep, Beth doesn’t realize that the gunshot will alter the course of their lives. For the dog belonged to none other than Gabriel Wolfe, the man Beth loved as a teenager—the man who broke her heart years ago. Gabriel has returned to the village with his young son Leo, a boy who reminds Beth very much of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

As Beth is pulled back into Gabriel’s life, tensions around the village rise and dangerous secrets and jealousies from the past resurface, this time with deadly consequences. Beth is forced to make a choice between the woman she once was, and the woman she has become.

A sweeping love story with the pace and twists of a thriller, Broken Country is a novel of simmering passion, impossible choices, and explosive consequences that toggles between the past and present to explore the far-reaching legacy of first love.]]> 320 Clare Leslie Hall 166807818X Hannah 4
Beth and her husband, Frank, have a happy marriage built on the agreement to keep their past secrets buried. However, when Beth's brother-in-law shoots a dog threatening their sheep, the gunshot sets off a series of events that brings Gabriel Wolfe, Beth’s former love, back into their lives. Gabriel returns to the village with his son, Leo, who reminds Beth of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

The story masterfully blends mystery, romance, loss, grief, and historical fiction. The story is told in alternating timelines from 1955 and 1968. There is an infidelity storyline and love triangles play a very heavy role, but this also shows a raw and honest portrayal of how people could cope with grief after devastating loss. The small town drama and the deeply flawed, complex characters are compelling. The choices they make are heartbreaking and will tug at your heartstrings. The final chapters are incredible—emotional, shocking, and I could not put this story down.]]> 4.44 2025
author: Clare Leslie Hall
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
This book is everywhere right now, and it absolutely lives up to the hype!

Beth and her husband, Frank, have a happy marriage built on the agreement to keep their past secrets buried. However, when Beth's brother-in-law shoots a dog threatening their sheep, the gunshot sets off a series of events that brings Gabriel Wolfe, Beth’s former love, back into their lives. Gabriel returns to the village with his son, Leo, who reminds Beth of her own son, who died in a tragic accident.

The story masterfully blends mystery, romance, loss, grief, and historical fiction. The story is told in alternating timelines from 1955 and 1968. There is an infidelity storyline and love triangles play a very heavy role, but this also shows a raw and honest portrayal of how people could cope with grief after devastating loss. The small town drama and the deeply flawed, complex characters are compelling. The choices they make are heartbreaking and will tug at your heartstrings. The final chapters are incredible—emotional, shocking, and I could not put this story down.
]]> 216286419 From USA Today bestselling author Julianne MacLean comes an epic tale of unrequited love that is by turns breathtaking, heartbreaking—and utterly unforgettable.

1946: World War II is over, and Emma Clarkson is poised to take flight. With dreams of attending university, słó±đ’s ready to leave behind the wild beauty of Sable Island, the only home słó±đ’s ever known. But when a handsome British sea captain is rescued from a nearby shipwreck, her destiny is forever changed.

Emma falls deeply in love with Oliver Harris, but their romance is not meant to be. Oliver returns to the sea, while Emma vows to forget him and pursue her own ambitions. When a handsome veterinarian arrives on the island to study the wild horses, Emma finds love again, but soon discovers that all is not as it seems�

1995: Mourning the death of her beloved grandmother, Joanna Griffin is shocked to learn that her grandfather once loved a young woman named Emma, but lies, betrayals, and catastrophic events separated them forever. As Joanna crosses an ocean to solve the secrets of her grandfather’s past, she learns that love is a powerful force, even mightier than the passage of time�

A shining thread of hope illuminates this epic tale of lost love and fallen dreams, set in the remote splendor of Nova Scotia and spanning decades.]]> 356 Julianne MacLean 1662519109 Hannah 3
Julianne Maclean writes such sweeping historical fiction stories! This is my third book I've read by her and they are all enchanting and I love learning about a different period or place I wasn't previously familiar with. During the 1940s, Sable island was inhabited by about 35 people and it served as a weather station and was a beacon for those shipwrecked in the North Atlantic

This story is quite atmospheric and I loved the island setting, including the wild horses! It was so cool to learn more about the wild horses that still live there wild without intervention, and their origin and influence on the story. The two timelines worked really well together as we followed Emma's journey to see all she overcame. I just would have loved a little more of our two leads at the very end of the story after all they went through. ]]> 4.44
author: Julianne MacLean
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.44
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
This is a beautiful historical fiction story, starting in 1946 after WWII. Emma lives on the isolated Sable Island, off the coast of Nova Scotia. She plans on leaving for university, but when she meets a British sea captain, rescued from a nearby shipwreck, her plans are forever changed. This story spans decades and multiple generations looking into Emma's life on the island and beyond. 

Julianne Maclean writes such sweeping historical fiction stories! This is my third book I've read by her and they are all enchanting and I love learning about a different period or place I wasn't previously familiar with. During the 1940s, Sable island was inhabited by about 35 people and it served as a weather station and was a beacon for those shipwrecked in the North Atlantic

This story is quite atmospheric and I loved the island setting, including the wild horses! It was so cool to learn more about the wild horses that still live there wild without intervention, and their origin and influence on the story. The two timelines worked really well together as we followed Emma's journey to see all she overcame. I just would have loved a little more of our two leads at the very end of the story after all they went through.
]]> 203800257 “A love letter to books and reading. This debut is catnip for any book geek. I just loved it.� —Cesca Major, author of Maybe Next Time, a Reese’s Book Club Pick

A story of second chances and new beginnings, this is a love letter to books—and a love letter to life

Still reeling from a recent tragedy, Erin Connolly knows she needs to start living, but has no idea how. When she accidentally donates her favorite book—a heavily annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird containing a memento she can’t be without—to a local little community library, słó±đ’s devastated. But then the book turns up a week later, back in the library with fresh notes in the margins, along with an invitation in a copy of Great Expectations to meet her newfound pen pal.

A life-changing conversation, written only in the margins of beloved classic books, begins between Erin and her Mystery Man. Following each other through the pages of their favorite novels as the book exchange continues, they both begin to open up, falling into a friendship…and maybe something more.

But Erin and her pen pal have a shared history that neither of them has guessed. Faced with painful reminders of the past—and the one person she swore never to forgive—Erin finds herself at a crossroads. One that could change her life forever.

A book-lovers dream! References to the following classics can be found in The Book Swap:
� TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
� GREAT EXPECTATIONS
� WUTHERING HEIGHTS
� MANSFIELD PARK
� THE GREAT GATSBY
� MIDDLEMARCH
� BELOVED
� ON THE ROAD
� THE BELL JAR]]> 336 Tessa Bickers 1525836706 Hannah 2 3.56 2024
author: Tessa Bickers
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 214537763 "The missing boy is 10-year-old Alfie Risby, and to be perfectly honest with you, he's a little shit."

Florence Grimes, age thirty-one, always takes the easy way out. Single, broke and unfulfilled after the humiliating end to her girl-band career, she has only one reason to get out of bed each day: her ten-year-old son Dylan. But then Alfie Risby, her son’s bully and the heir to a vast frozen-food empire, mysteriously vanishes during a class trip, and Dylan becomes the prime suspect.

Florence, for once, is faced with a task she can’t quit: Słó±đ’s got to find Alfie and clear her son’s name or risk losing Dylan forever—never mind that she has no useful skills (let alone investigative ones) and that all the other school moms hate her. Oh, and she has a reason to suspect Dylan might not be as innocent as she’d like to believe.]]> 384 Sarah Harman 0593851463 Hannah 4 3.59 2025
author: Sarah Harman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 216522672
Twenty-six-year-old Ruth excels at microchip design but decides to get rich the old-fashioned way: robbing banks. She becomes a cybercriminal and devotes five years to siphoning more than $250 million out of the banking system using a hacked firewall chip that she created and only she knows how to access. Then one night an alarm goes off and she realizes słó±đ’s been discovered.

Five hours later słó±đ’s on the run, chased across California and the West by a slew of government agents who see her as both a high-level national security threat and a potential intelligence asset. They’ll catch her dead or alive—whatever it takes to make sure no one else discovers what she knows. Each of these men is obsessed with the woman łó±đ’s hunting, certain he knows what makes her tick. But Ruth, always a step ahead, armed with her ironic wit and a reluctant dog, eludes their understanding; can she elude their capture, too?

A nonstop oddball thriller for the age of digital theft, Ruth Run introduces an irresistible new heroine and a fantastic new voice in contemporary fiction.]]> 304 Elizabeth Kaufman 0593832647 Hannah 2
This is a solid debut thriller if you enjoy a cat and mouse, high stakes chase story. The chapters are short and just over 300 pages, it's a very easy read to keep you engaged. Ruth is highly intelligent and likable and it's fun to see her escape each of the scenarios she finds herself in. Mike, our second POV is completely delusional and his obsession kept me hooked as well. There were a few unanswered questions and I do wish the ending were a little more neat.

]]> 3.71 2025
author: Elizabeth Kaufman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
Ruth is a 26 year old cybercriminal who has developed a micro chip to rob more than $250 million from banks over the last five years. She is on a cross-country trip to run after she realizes she has been discovered by various government agents who view her as a high-level national security threat and a potential intelligence asset.

This is a solid debut thriller if you enjoy a cat and mouse, high stakes chase story. The chapters are short and just over 300 pages, it's a very easy read to keep you engaged. Ruth is highly intelligent and likable and it's fun to see her escape each of the scenarios she finds herself in. Mike, our second POV is completely delusional and his obsession kept me hooked as well. There were a few unanswered questions and I do wish the ending were a little more neat.


]]> 217387810 It’s a thin line between love and love-hating.

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch� Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.

The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but fakes it that she can.

Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. And they don’t get along. Next stop paradise!

But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good looking man she has ever seen . . . but also a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful Aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.]]> 320 Katherine Center 1250283825 Hannah 2
But, I can see how others would enjoy this if you are looking for a summer time contemporary romance with themes of adventure, the best sidekick pup, and swimming and the Coast Guard training.]]> 4.03 2025
author: Katherine Center
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:
I love Katherine Center's storytelling and writing but this was a miss for me. I couldn't get behind the main character, the storyline didn't feel cohesive, it lacked normal KC charm, and there was unnecessary friction that took away from the story itself. The deeper themes were so heavy handed they just didn't land for me and side characters were a miss as well.

But, I can see how others would enjoy this if you are looking for a summer time contemporary romance with themes of adventure, the best sidekick pup, and swimming and the Coast Guard training.
]]> 214537798 From the author of instant national bestseller Love & Saffron, this bright and comforting novel follows the surprising friendship between two young women in 1990s Seattle and Paris, illuminating the power of books to change our lives.

A buoyant, mouth-watering oasis of a novel, Kate & Frida is a love letter to bookshops and booksellers, to the way stories shape how we perceive ourselves, to the passion we bring to life in our twenties, and to the last precious years before the internet changed everything.

Twenty-something Frida Rodriguez comes to Paris in 1991, relishing the city’s butter-soaked cuisine and seeking her future as a war correspondent. But when she writes to a bookshop in Seattle, she receives more than just the book she requests. A friendship begins that will redefine the person she thought she wanted to become. 

Seattle bookseller Kate Fair is transformed by Frida’s free spirit, spurred to kiss her handsome coworker, to believe in herself as a writer, and to find beauty even in loss. Through the most tumultuous years of their young lives—personally and globally—Kate and Frida’s friendship sustains and nourishes them as they show each other how to overcome self-doubt and the necessity of embracing joy even through our darkest hours.]]> 288 Kim Fay 0593852389 Hannah 3 4.11 2025
author: Kim Fay
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 384 Emily Henry 059344129X Hannah 3 4.24 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 127616032 Discover the serial killer romance series everyone is talking about!From the no.1 New York Times bestselling author of the genre-breaking international TikTok sensation Butcher & Blackbird and Leather & Lark comes the final book in the Ruinous Love Trilogy - a friends-with-benefits dark romantic comedy.

Murder.

Mayhem.

And spice.

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

But then the real circus finds him.

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

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

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

***


Friends with benefits
Small town romance
Fish out of water
Forced proximity
Hurt/care
Touch her and die]]> 416 Brynne Weaver Hannah 2 4.11 2025
author: Brynne Weaver
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 216405550 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Alex Aster comes her adult debut novel Summer in the City—a swoony, fast-paced rom-com set in New York City in which a screenwriter and a sexy tech CEO go from lovers to enemies and back to lovers again�

Twenty-seven-year-old screenwriter Elle has the chance of a lifetime to write a big-budget movie set in New York City. The only problem? Słó±đ’s had writer’s block for months, and her screenplay is due at the end of the summer. 

In a desperate attempt at inspiration, Elle ends up back in the city she swore she would never return to, in an apartment she could never afford (floor-to-ceiling windows, skyline views, and a new coffee shop to haunt included). It’s the perfect place to write her screenplay…until she realizes her new neighbor is tech “Billionaire Bachelor� Parker Warren, her stairwell hookup from two years ago. It’s been a lovers-to-enemies situation ever since. 

When seeing him again turns into a full night of hate-fueled writing, Elle realizes her enemy/twisted muse might just be the key to finishing her screenplay... if she can stand being around her polar opposite. She writes anonymously, and łó±đ’s on the cover of every business magazine. He frequents fancy red carpeted events, and she doesn’t like leaving her emotional support five block radius. 

One summer. One wall apart. He needs to fake a buzzy relationship during his company’s precarious acquisition. She needs to write a movie around a list of NYC locations. Both need a break from their unrelenting schedules, and a chance to rediscover the skyscraper glimmering, pizza crusted, sunlit charms of the city.  

Summers always end, and so will this agreement. It’s all pretend. Promise. 

Until it isn’t.]]> 304 Alex Aster 0063411660 Hannah 3 3.89 2025
author: Alex Aster
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 223199392 Two good neighbors make the best of a bad Valentine’s Day in a funny and improbably romantic short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Just for the Summer.

It’s Valentine’s Day weekend, and Charlotte and Seth are not looking for romance. Armed with emotional-support bear spray, Charlotte is in self-imposed isolation and on guard from men. Having a stalker can do that to a person’s nerves. Just across the hall and giving off woodsy vibes is Seth, a recently divorced arborist. As in today recently. Heights, łó±đ’s fine with. Trust? Not so much. But when disaster traps them one flight up and no way down, an outrageously precarious predicament forces a tree-loving guy and a rattled girl next door to embrace their captivity. Soon their defenses are breaking away. Considering how close they both are to the edge, Charlotte and Seth could be in danger of falling—in love.]]> 82 Abby Jimenez 1662529082 Hannah 2 4.12 2025
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 216351856 When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

A wedding. A heist. A secret.

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

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

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

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

A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593875419 Hannah 3 4.01 2025
author: Nita Prose
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 217506549 368 Julie Clark 1464221286 Hannah 4 4.25 2025
author: Julie Clark
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/22
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 214986213 1956, Malibu, Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.

Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?

As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…]]> 352 Susan Meissner 0593332865 Hannah 3 3.69 2025
author: Susan Meissner
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 218671812 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Kind Worth KillingĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýEight Perfect Murders comes an inventive, utterly propulsive murder-mystery in reverse, tracing a marriage back in time to uncover the dark secret at its heart.

Thom and Wendy Graves have been married for over twenty-five years. They live in a beautiful Victorian on the north shore of Massachusetts. Wendy is a published poet and Thom teaches English literature at a nearby university. Their son, Jason, is all grown up. All is well…except that Wendy wants to murder her husband.

What happens next has everything to do with what happened before. The story of Wendy and Thom’s marriage is told in reverse, moving backward through time to witness key moments from the couple’s lives—their fiftieth birthday party, buying their home, Jason’s birth, the mysterious death of a work colleague—all painting a portrait of a marriage defined by a single terrible act they plotted together many years ago.

Eventually we learn the details of what Thom and Wendy did in their early twenties, a secret that has kept them bound together through the length of their marriage. But its power over them is fraying, and each of them begins to wonder if they would be better off making sure their spouse carries their secrets to the grave.]]> 288 Peter Swanson 0063433621 Hannah 4 3.59 2025
author: Peter Swanson
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 218431658
What if there were a cure for the broken-hearted?

Welcome to the Poppy Fields, where there’s hope for even the most battered hearts to heal.

Here, in a remote stretch of the California desert, lies an experimental and controversial treatment center that allows those suffering from the heartache of loss to sleep through their pain...and keep on sleeping. After patients awaken from this prolonged state of slumber, they will finally be healed. But only if they’re willing to accept the potential shadowy side effects.

On a journey to this mystical destination are four very different strangers and one little dog: Ava, a book illustrator; Ray, a fireman; Sasha, an occupational therapist; Sky, a free spirit; and a friendly pup named PJ. As they attempt to make their way from the Midwest all the way to the Poppy Fields—where they hope to find Ellis, its brilliant, enigmatic founder—each of their past secrets and mysterious motivations threaten to derail their voyage.

A high-concept speculative novel about heartache, hope, and human resilience, The Poppy Fields explores the path of grief and healing, a journey at once profoundly universal and unique to every person, posing the questions: How do we heal in the wake of great loss? And how far are we willing to go in order to be healed?]]> 324 Nikki Erlick 0063349337 Hannah 4 4.12 2025
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 214151359 Inspired by a true literary mystery, New York Times bestselling author of the mesmerizing The Secret Book of Flora Lea returns with the sweeping story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both.

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

Told in Patti Callahan Henry’s lyrical, enchanting prose, The Story She Left Behind is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the evergreen allure of secrets.]]> 352 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011875 Hannah 4
Clara’s mother, Bronwyn, a renowned author, vanishes from the South Carolina coast, leaving the world captivated by her book written in an invented language that becomes a national phenomenon.

Set primarily in 1952, the story follows Clara, now a children’s book illustrator, as she raises her own daughter, Wynnie. One day, Clara receives a letter from Charlie Jameson, a stranger in London, who claims to have the lost dictionary of her mother’s unique language. Clara and Wynnie cross the Atlantic to London during the height of the Great Smog, a devastating natural disaster that puts asthmatic Wynnie at risk and they escape to Charlie’s family retreat in the Lake District.

This is a beautifully written, deeply moving story about the bond between a mother and daughter, and the search for a lost mother. It has themes of abandonment, adventure, mystery, and love.
I was so intrigued by the mystery around Bronwyn's book and the invented language, and seeing everything come together was so beautifully written. My only slight critique is that this didn't fully feel like historical fiction - it felt a little like it could have taken place at any time. But this is a truly wonderful and heartwarming read.]]> 4.22 2025
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:
The audiobook is dual narrated by Julia Whalen who is incredible in this enchanting story!

Clara’s mother, Bronwyn, a renowned author, vanishes from the South Carolina coast, leaving the world captivated by her book written in an invented language that becomes a national phenomenon.

Set primarily in 1952, the story follows Clara, now a children’s book illustrator, as she raises her own daughter, Wynnie. One day, Clara receives a letter from Charlie Jameson, a stranger in London, who claims to have the lost dictionary of her mother’s unique language. Clara and Wynnie cross the Atlantic to London during the height of the Great Smog, a devastating natural disaster that puts asthmatic Wynnie at risk and they escape to Charlie’s family retreat in the Lake District.

This is a beautifully written, deeply moving story about the bond between a mother and daughter, and the search for a lost mother. It has themes of abandonment, adventure, mystery, and love.
I was so intrigued by the mystery around Bronwyn's book and the invented language, and seeing everything come together was so beautifully written. My only slight critique is that this didn't fully feel like historical fiction - it felt a little like it could have taken place at any time. But this is a truly wonderful and heartwarming read.
]]> 211003858
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic.

And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women� or what did they do to him?

Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, THE BUSINESS TRIP takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who?]]> 344 Jessie Garcia 1250364418 Hannah 4
This is a debut thriller featuring Stephanie and Jasmine. The two don't know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the exact same messages about the same man and the messages soon become really strange and erratic.

This is such a fun popcorn thriller. It's juicy, the story moves along quickly with non stop action and twists. You can easily binge it in 1-2 sittings. The story includes the main characters, friends of the characters, and an active investigation. The story is predictable but it is just a lot of fun to see how the story and twists play out.
]]> 3.63 2025
author: Jessie Garcia
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:
Thank you to @stmartinspress and @macmillanaudio and for my #gifted copy. The audio book is narrated by a full cast and having different voice actors portray all the characters makes for such a fun and juicy book! This is definitely one of those books that is better as an audiobook!

This is a debut thriller featuring Stephanie and Jasmine. The two don't know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the exact same messages about the same man and the messages soon become really strange and erratic.

This is such a fun popcorn thriller. It's juicy, the story moves along quickly with non stop action and twists. You can easily binge it in 1-2 sittings. The story includes the main characters, friends of the characters, and an active investigation. The story is predictable but it is just a lot of fun to see how the story and twists play out.

]]> 214152415 This riveting psychological thriller from master of twists Steve Cavanagh, author of the �unguessable and unputdownable� (Alex Michaelides, #1 New York Times bestselling author) Kill For Me, Kill for You, What if the witness was more twisted than the killer?

Something is wrong with Ruby Johnson.

A former resident of the ultra-elite Manhattan upper class, Ruby now works as a maid in the type of houses she used to live in. Unassuming, she sees everyone’s dirty secrets from the inside of their beautiful, renovated brownstones. But when Ruby witnesses a murder, she has wicked plans in mind that don’t involve telling the authorities the truth.

Eddie Flynn, streetwise ex con-artist-turned-defense attorney, is the only lawyer in New York City willing to take on hopeless cases. And none is more hopeless than John Jackson’s—the gun that killed his neighbor found, with Jackson’s DNA, in his own home. Flynn and his unconventional team will need to use every trick they know to keep an innocent man from being locked up. But to save his client’s life, Eddie must first protect his own, as the scariest organized criminals in the city are out for his head.

Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Megan Miranda, Witness 8 is a fresh knockout page-turner from an author who is “the real deal� (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author).]]> 416 Steve Cavanagh 1668049376 Hannah 3 4.15 2024
author: Steve Cavanagh
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 215805924 Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.�

Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. Słó±đ’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly...bored.

Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena's, Vera finds a treasure Selena's briefcase. Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer—who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for.

Online, Xander had it a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can't seem to actually identify him. Who is Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents.

Vera is determined to solve Xander's murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and there is nothing she wouldn't do for her future daughter-in-law.]]> 325 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593546253 Hannah 4 4.32 2025
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 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 Hannah 4 4.32 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 227916359 He’s a no-nonsense businessman. Słó±đ’s a free-spirited baker. But the magical building they live in seems to think they’re a perfect matchâ€�

When billionaire Archer Gaines needs to escape his father’s corrupt shadow and a related scandal, he purchases The Serendipity, a historic apartment building far from New York City.

He believes in bottom lines and big business deals, definitely not in the local folklore surrounding the town of Serendipity Springs. So łó±đ’s eager to move forward with plans to flip the building into luxury lofts.

But The Serendipity doesn’t particularly care what Archer believes, and the building has plans of its own.

Willa never believed in the rumors about her “magical� building. But that was before she walked into her closet looking for a sweater and found herself in another apartment altogether—in the penthouse closet of the grumpy and unfortunately attractive new building owner.

This is less of a meet cute than a meet ugly, and things only go downhill from there.

When Archer announces sweeping changes that include a rent increase, he becomes public enemy number one for the residents. And by charging Willa for use of the commercial kitchen, he puts her fledgling baking business at risk.

With his progress being (magically) blocked at every turn, Archer grows desperate for help.

But the bewitching woman he found hiding in his closet seems to present both the answer and a larger because Archer never planned to fall in love or stay in Serendipity Springs forever…]]> 296 Emma St. Clair Hannah 2 4.17 2025
author: Emma St. Clair
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 213243949 A new Anne Tyler novel destined to be an instant classic: a socially awkward mother of the bride navigates the days before and after her daughter's wedding.

Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past.

Told with deep sensitivity and a tart sense of humor, full of the joys and heartbreaks of love and marriage and family life, Three Days in June is a triumph, and gives us the perennially bestselling, Pulitzer Prize–winning writer at the height of her powers

]]> 165 Anne Tyler 0593803485 Hannah 4
Gail is dealing with a lot: she loses her job, her daughter Debbie is getting married, and she hasn’t been involved in any pre-wedding activities. To make matters worse, her ex-husband shows up unexpectedly with a cat, needing a place to stay for the wedding. Meanwhile, Debbie reveals a secret about her fiancé that could potentially change the course of the wedding.

This brief, slice-of-life novella captures Anne Tyler's signature humor, the complexities of family and marriage, and offers a glimpse into Gail’s past and relationships. It focuses on the mundane yet beautifully explores ordinary moments, with Anne Tyler’s keen observations tying everything together perfectly.]]> 3.63 2025
author: Anne Tyler
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves:
review:
This novella, just over 150 pages, is a quick read that can easily be finished in one sitting. It follows the story of a socially awkward mother of the bride as she navigates the day before, the wedding day, and the aftermath of her only daughter's wedding.

Gail is dealing with a lot: she loses her job, her daughter Debbie is getting married, and she hasn’t been involved in any pre-wedding activities. To make matters worse, her ex-husband shows up unexpectedly with a cat, needing a place to stay for the wedding. Meanwhile, Debbie reveals a secret about her fiancé that could potentially change the course of the wedding.

This brief, slice-of-life novella captures Anne Tyler's signature humor, the complexities of family and marriage, and offers a glimpse into Gail’s past and relationships. It focuses on the mundane yet beautifully explores ordinary moments, with Anne Tyler’s keen observations tying everything together perfectly.
]]> 199798006
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).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Hannah 4
I don't normally gravitate towards horror books but this book is incredible! My mind is blown by all the twists and moving parts. I still do not know what to make of the ending! I don't want to share too many details but I highly recommend it if you are looking for a horror lite, psychological suspense, wild and crazy mystery.

I am so anxious for the Netflix adaptation and can't wait to see certain scenes play out!

This story has SO many wild theories on reddit - I finished this a couple of weeks ago and am still going back and rethinking pieces.
]]> 3.67 2024
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/03/05
shelves:
review:
Thank you to @atriabooks and @librofm for my #gifted copy! I listened to the audiobook but highly recommend reading this one in the physical format. There are some clues you would miss hidden in the pages from the physical copy!

I don't normally gravitate towards horror books but this book is incredible! My mind is blown by all the twists and moving parts. I still do not know what to make of the ending! I don't want to share too many details but I highly recommend it if you are looking for a horror lite, psychological suspense, wild and crazy mystery.

I am so anxious for the Netflix adaptation and can't wait to see certain scenes play out!

This story has SO many wild theories on reddit - I finished this a couple of weeks ago and am still going back and rethinking pieces.

]]> 211049697 Some secrets we keep even from ourselves

Philosophy professor Neil Weber can' t think of one good reason to get up in the morning. His wife has left him, his academic research has sputtered, and the prospect of tenure is more remote than ever.

Until Lucia Vanotti disappears.

A college student at the Southern university where Neil teaches, Lucia has a secret of her own� one that haunts her relationships and leads to destructive, reckless behavior. When Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance, he finds himself suddenly relevant again. But at what cost? Each clue pulls him deeper into Lucia' s dark past, but also into the hidden lives of his closest friends and colleagues.

What drove Lucia to risk everything? And why does Neil, a professor who hardly knew her, care to find her? From campus classrooms to sex dens to backwoods hideaways, The Department shows the world through the eyes of Lucia and Neil as they descend into obsession, delusion, and the dangerous terrain of memory� uncovering the trauma that drives them to behave in ways even they themselves could never have predicted.

Perfect for fans of Tana French and Gillian Flynn]]> 0 Jacqueline Faber 1608096351 Hannah 4
Neil is a philosophy professor and one day discovers Lucia, a student at the college where he teaches, has gone missing. Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance and starts to investigate her dark past and story. This story has obsession, trauma, dark hideouts, and buried secrets.

I don't want to say too much but I highly recommend it if you enjoy really dark thrillers. This story had some really dark twists, excellent pacing, and a captivating mystery. We really examine how trauma drives characters to make certain decisions. I was also very hooked by the philosophy angle and how it weaves in throughout the story. I loved the obsession and delusion of this world. I loved seeing Neil discover different threads and see how they connect.
]]> 3.92
author: Jacqueline Faber
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves:
review:
This is a debut novel set in the dark academia world.

Neil is a philosophy professor and one day discovers Lucia, a student at the college where he teaches, has gone missing. Neil is drawn into the mystery of her disappearance and starts to investigate her dark past and story. This story has obsession, trauma, dark hideouts, and buried secrets.

I don't want to say too much but I highly recommend it if you enjoy really dark thrillers. This story had some really dark twists, excellent pacing, and a captivating mystery. We really examine how trauma drives characters to make certain decisions. I was also very hooked by the philosophy angle and how it weaves in throughout the story. I loved the obsession and delusion of this world. I loved seeing Neil discover different threads and see how they connect.

]]> 216052784 Leah O'Connor is torn between the life she's currently living and the allure of a phantom life that can no longer be hers.

Swept off her feet by the gentle charm of Lucas O'Connor, Leah's unexpected pregnancy changes the course of her carefree and nomadic existence. Over a decade and three children later, Leah is unraveling. She resents the world in which her artistic aspirations have been sidelined by the overwhelming demands of motherhood, and the ever-present rift between herself and her mother-in-law, Christine, is best dulled by increasingly fuller glasses of wine.

Christine represents a model of selfless motherhood that Leah can neither achieve nor accept. To heighten the strain, Lucas's business venture, a trendy restaurant that honors his mother, has taken all his attention, which places the domestic demands squarely on Leah's shoulders. Seeking an ally in her sweet sister-in-law Amy, Leah shares a secret that, if made known to the wider family, could disrupt the curated ecosystems that keep the O'Connors connected.

As Leah dances with the devil while descending further into darkness, her behavior becomes more erratic and further alienates her from both Lucas and the wider family. Leah's drinking threatens the welfare of her family, prompting Amy to turn to Christine for support. A duel for loyalty ensues. When the inevitable waves come crashing down, it's the O'Connor women who give Leah a the truth of what they've all endured. But Leah alone must uncover the villain of her own story, learn how to ask for help, and decide if the family she has rejected will be her salvation or ultimate undoing.

This masterful blend of book club and literary women's fiction offers a frank rebuttal to Wine Mom culture and is perfect for fans of Celeste Ng and Liane Moriarty.]]> 304 Jessica Guerrieri 1400345952 Hannah 4 4.39
author: Jessica Guerrieri
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 202102003 How far would you go to belong?

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion - it's been a decade since she graduated, and this visit is special because she will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya's worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister's death, she begins to realise how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya's warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus - the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

Maya knows that her sister isn't the first person in the society to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she's been keeping all these years.]]> 384 Lauren Ling Brown 059372335X Hannah 2 3.48 2024
author: Lauren Ling Brown
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 217231774
Having the same genetic mutation that took both her mother and grandmother, Birdie Rose Hawkins meets her thirty-seventh birthday with the grim belief that this year will also be her last. While she normally spends her days living by lists, rules, and routines—alone—she starts her final year doing something she never does: having a one-night stand.

When the stranger fatefully reappears in her life, this time carrying baggage of his own, it’s with an offer of friendship. Rather than doing what she thinks will keep her safe, he, along with the few people she has in her life, teach her how to lean into the things that scare her.

But the more time they spend together, the harder it becomes for them to ignore the connection they’ve had since that very first night. When a secret is exposed and threatens to destroy everything they’ve built, Birdie has to decide if she wants to survive like she always has or trust in the unknown that comes with truly living.]]> 412 Ashley Manley Hannah 4 4.52
author: Ashley Manley
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.52
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 214151429 Hollywood Wives meets A Visit from the Goon Squad in this emotional debut novel from Variety chief correspondent and a moderator of the Actors on Actors series about a group of actresses confronting their careers, their secrets, and each other throughout one turbulent awards season.

As Hollywood prepares for its most glamorous evening, five actresses compete to see who will claim the top prize.

Adria, a dignified and highly regarded grand dame of the movie industry, is intent on cementing her legacy as one of the greatest thespians of all time, even as the younger generation creeps up quickly behind her. Bitty must keep a nervous breakdown—and an increasingly debilitating alcohol addiction—at bay, as she searches for genuine closeness in an unforgiving landscape. Contessa, a former child star, is determined to make the world, and her leading man, take her seriously. Davina attempts to find her footing in superficial Los Angeles, a far cry from her roots as a serious London stage actress. And Jenny—always the underdog to her rival, Adria—sees this awards season as her personal redemption, a chance to atone for past mistakes and make up for missed opportunities.

With humor, wit, and an insider’s insight, The Talent peels back the layers of women who are in the business of being perceived. And while they work to push their careers forward and maintain the public’s goodwill, all five are forced to confront truths about themselves that they would rather Could Adria and Jenny have been a team all these years, rather than bitter enemies? Is it their responsibility to offer a lifeline to poor Bitty, who is clearly teetering on the edge? Should Contessa and Davina dim their own rising stars to make those around them more comfortable? What do women in the spotlight owe each other, and themselves?]]> 336 Daniel D'Addario 1668075474 Hannah 2 3.07 2025
author: Daniel D'Addario
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 214986181 Don't miss the next hilarious and gorgeously romantic romcom from Carlie Walker - out March 2025!
________

Two exes. One mission. A trip she'll never forget...

Max is just your average girl. She works odd jobs, has a soul-crushing amount of debt and just happens to have an uncanny resemblance to Europe's youngest female prime minister, Sofia Christensen . . .

So when the prime minister receives a credible death threat, the CIA approaches Max with a a life-changing amount of money if she pretends to be Sofia on the prime minister's annual Italian trip.

It would be a dream if it weren't for those pesky assassins and Flynn, Max's ridiculously hot handler - the man who broke her heart years and years ago.

With her life now on the line, Max knows she has no choice but to lose herself in the role. But losing her heart to Flynn again? Now that's a risk that she isn't willing to take . . .

Red, White and Royal Blue meets Emily Henry in this opposites-attract, fake-dating romcom. Perfect for fans of Katherine Center and Ali Hazelwood.]]> 320 Carlie Walker 0593640411 Hannah 2 3.89
author: Carlie Walker
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.89
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 222520092 In motherhood and marriage, is anything ever really simple?June Cannon has spent the last seventeen years of her life as a devoted mom and wife, but when her husband, Camp, doesn’t come home for dinner—again—and her teenage daughter calls her simple, słó±đ’s had enough. Inspired by a podcast, her way forward becomes get a divorce, get a job, and show her kids słó±đ’s anything but simple.

As soon as she tells Camp she wants a divorce, he becomes the husband he hasn’t been for years, blurring the lines between what’s real and what’s pretend for the sake of their kids.

She quickly realizes that nothing—including her life, no matter what her kids think—is simple. As June catapults herself into the world at age forty to build a life outside of her family’s needs, a romantic interest from the past returns to town, giving her the attention słó±đ’s missed.

When the unhealed wounds of kept secrets and loss are reopened, June must decide between the wild and free life she thinks she wants and the seemingly simple one she already has.

This title contains explicit language and romance scenes.]]> 362 Ashley Manley Hannah 5 4.59
author: Ashley Manley
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.59
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/20
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 213953832
Penelope â€�Nelâ€� Crawford is stuck. At least that’s what her family tells her. A year after losing her husband of seventeen years, słó±đ’s still so deep in her grief that słó±đ’s barely hanging on, let alone living. She hardly recognizes her teenage kids and finds no joy in doing the things she once loved.

Her solution? An attempt to heal herself and the relationship with her kids with a summer road trip. From one destination to the next, Nel not only has to navigate life on the road, but the trials and tribulations of motherhood after loss.

When a detour leads her to a flirtatious restaurant owner słó±đ’s been emailing off and on for months, she starts to remember that life—no matter how unpredictable—is made for living. And the heart, even if broken, finds ways to love again.

Every Beautiful Mile will make readers laugh, cry, and remind them of the healing powers of nature, family, and love itself.]]> 392 Ashley Manley Hannah 5 4.38
author: Ashley Manley
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004155 The Last Thing He Told Me meets Fleishman Is in Trouble in this page-turning story of a couple who flee winter in the Midwest for Palm Springs, where they find their relationship at a crossroads.

Kim and Grant are at a turning point. A couple for thirty years, their "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age: Grant’s mother has died, the college where he taught philosophy was shuttered, and their twin girls are grown and gone. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face.

When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community where everyone knows everyone’s business, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape, leaving Kim to wonder if their relationship can survive the snowbird season. But when Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time łó±đ’s really left her.

Is it ever too late to become the person we wanted to be—and is there still time to change into someone better? The exhilarating, but often confusing transitions of midlife are pitched against the promise and glamour of Palm Springs in this tender, honest story of what it takes to commit to someone for a lifetime. With compassion and humor, Clancy explores the redemptive power of finding ourselves, and of being found.]]> 304 Christina Clancy 1250284953 Hannah 2 3.50 2025
author: Christina Clancy
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 213243919 From the beloved author of Right on Cue and Lease on Love comes a whimsical new rom-com about a workaholic forced to aim for a goal she never thought she'd love.

Campbell Andrews despises exactly three things in incompetence, tardiness, and love stories. Making partner at her law firm at thirty-four, she has no time for anything or anyone else. And certainly no respect for those who choose love over work. That is, until she wakes up in Heart Springs—her own personal hell. 

The good news? She's not dead. She's been magically transported to a small town straight out the Hallmark channel, complete with a meddling mayor, seasonal festivals, and friendly townsfolk. Cam can't stand it, but in order to make it back to her real life, she has to fulfill three tasks . . . most importantly, she has to find true love. It seems impossible. But anything's possible with a Change of Heart.]]> 336 Falon Ballard 0593712927 Hannah 2 3.38
author: Falon Ballard
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.38
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/15
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 213570821 From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

It's the most famous crime in modern history. But only she knows the true story.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory...

So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected. Details don't add up, the police are cagey, and there seems to be more media hype and internet theorizing than actual evidence. When Jane and her sleuths take a step closer, they find that every answer only begs more questions. Something's not adding up, and they begin to suspect their killer may be smarter and more prolific than any they've faced before. Placing themselves in the center of the story starts to feel more and more like walking into a trap...

Told one year after the astounding events that concluded the case and left the world reeling, when Jane has finally decided to break her silence about what really happened, she tells the true story of the Delphine Massacres. And what she has to confess will shock even the most seasoned true crime fans...


]]> 480 Ashley Winstead 1728270006 Hannah 3 3.75 2025
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 212294464 After a case of mistaken identity and an almost one-night stand, two stranded wedding guests have to find their way to their final destination together, in this riotously fun debut romance.

Ada’s little sister is getting married. Which should be a happy thought, right? But the once close sisters have been in a year long fight, the wedding is all the way in Ireland, and Ada is so broke that she just barely managed to get a ticket on a budget airline. And as if things couldn’t get worse, said airline just cancelled her connection. Which means Ada is stuck in London with no way to make it to the wedding.

Surely słó±đ’s hit rock bottom?

So, there’s no reason for her not to spill her heart out about the over-the-top wedding, her sister’s worryingly quick engagement, and the womanizing best man słó±đ’s dreading meeting to a handsome also-stranded stranger at the bar. Until she realizes the stranger is headed to the same wedding. Oh, and łó±đ’s the infamous best man.

Now, Jack and Ada must put their simmering attraction behind them to make it to Belfast before they miss the nuptials. But between flat tires, missed trains, and suspect hostels, Jack and Ada start to question whether their feelings are worth going the distance, or just a distracting detour along the way.]]> 400 Heather McBreen 0593817621 Hannah 4 3.92 2025
author: Heather McBreen
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 215805795 Two strangers find themselves stranded at sea together in this epic new love story by bestselling author Beth O’Leary.

What if you were lost at sea…with your one-night stand?

Zeke and Lexi thought it would just be a night of fun. They had no intentions of seeing each other again. Zeke is only in town for the weekend to buy back his late father’s houseboat. Lexi has no time for dating when she needs to help take care of her best friend's daughter.

Going back home with a stranger seems like a perfect escape from their problems. But a miscommunication in the dark, foggy night means no one tied the houseboat to the dock. The next morning, Zeke and Lexi realize all they can see is miles and miles of water.

With just a few provisions on the idle boat, Zeke and Lexi must figure out how to get back home. But aside from their survival, they’re facing another challenge. Because when you’re stuck together for days on end, it gives you a lot of time to get to know someone—and to fall in love with them.]]> 384 Beth O'Leary 0593640144 Hannah 2 3.71 2025
author: Beth O'Leary
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 211003787 From New York Times bestseller and Edgar-Award nominee Elle Cosimano, comes Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave—the hugely anticipated next installment in the fan-favorite Finlay Donovan series.

Finlay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet . . . but at least there's not a body in her backyard.

Finlay Donovan and her nanny/partner-in-crime, Vero, have not always gotten along with Finlay’s elderly neighbor, Mrs. Haggerty, the community busybody and president of the neighborhood watch. But when a dead body is discovered in her backyard, Mrs. Haggerty needs their help. At first a suspect, Mrs. Haggerty is cleared by the police, but her house remains an active crime scene. She has nowhere to go . . . except Finlay’s house, right across the street.

Finlay and Vero have no interest in getting involved in another murder case—or sacrificing either of their bedrooms. After all, they’ve dealt with enough murders over the last four months to last a lifetime and they both would much rather share their beds with someone else.]]> 320 Elle Cosimano 1250337348 Hannah 3 4.16 2025
author: Elle Cosimano
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 216426697 An intimate and lyrical celebration of great love, great art, and the sacrifices we make for both

For fifty years Abe and Jane have been coming to Central Park, as starry-eyed young lovers, as frustrated and exhausted parents, as artists watching their careers take flight. They came alone when they needed to get away from each other, and together when they had something important to discuss. The Park has been their witness for half a century of love. Until now.

Jane is dying, and Abe is recounting their life together as a way of keeping them going: the parts they knew—their courtship and early marriage, their blossoming creative lives—and the parts they didn’t always want to know—the determined young student of Abe’s looking for a love story of her own, and their son, Max, who believes his mother chose art over parenthood and who has avoided love and intimacy at all costs. Told in various points of view, even in conversation with Central Park itself, these voices weave in and out to paint a portrait as complicated and essential as love itself.]]> 304 Jessica Soffer 0593851269 Hannah 3 3.22
author: Jessica Soffer
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.22
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/09
date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> 199793676 A rollicking, unforgettable romance about two strangers finding love despite their best efforts as they embark on a sweeping matchmaking tour through Việt Nam, perfect for readers of Carley Fortune and Abby Jimenez.

What’s a few weeks to a lifetime of promise?

Evie Lang’s life is in shambles. On the heels of losing her beloved aunt, she's unceremoniously fired from her poetry professorship by her secret boyfriend. Lacking income and inspiration, she's stuck in Ohio with no idea how to move forward—until hope arrives in a surprising letter.

Auntie Hảo left Evie the deed to her San Francisco row house, a place full of Evie’s happiest memories. The catch? To inherit, she must go on a pre-arranged matchmaking tour in Việt Nam. The last thing Evie wants is to spend time with a group of strangers looking for love. But she can't resist the chance to finally visit her family’s native home.

A world away, Adam Quy�n has a chip on his shoulder. He’s working around the clock as CMO for his sister’s elite matchmaking business, a job complicated by her insistence that he knows nothing about love. He’s desperate to prove himself, so when she challenges him to join the inaugural tour, he reluctantly agrees.

Adam thinks Evie is chaotic and unpredictable. Evie thinks Adam is grumpy and uptight. But from the bustling streets of H� Chí Minh City to the soaring waterfalls in �à Lạt, they keep getting thrown together, their animosity charged with attraction…and they discover that true love may be out there, if they are willing to take a leap.

Two stubborn hearts, one whirlwind adventure, Adam & Evie’s Matchmaking Tour is a story of how loving (and living) bravely can lead you to the most unexpected places—and the most imperfectly perfect loves.]]> 304 Nora Nguyen 0063381508 Hannah 3 3.39 2024
author: Nora Nguyen
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 214537816 Four women assassins, senior in status—and in age—sharpen their knives for another bloody good adventure in this riotous follow-up to the New York Times bestselling sensation Killers of a Certain Age.

After more than a year of laying low, Billie, Helen, Mary Alice, and Natalie are called back into action. They have enjoyed their rest, but the lack of excitement is starting to chafe: a professional killer can only take so many watercolor classes and yoga sessions before she gets the itch to get back in the game. When they receive a call from Naomi Ndiaye, the head of the elite assassin organization known as the Museum, they are ready to tackle the greatest challenge of their careers.

Someone on the inside has compiled a list of important kills committed by Museum agents, all of them connected to a single, shadowy figure, an Eastern European gangster who rules her business empire with an iron fist and plays puppet master in international affairs. Naomi is convinced this criminal queen is bent upon revenge, killing off the agents who attempted to thwart her, and the aging quartet of killers is next.

Together the foursome embark on a wild ride across the globe on the double mission of rooting out the Museum’s mole and hunting down the gangster and her assassin. But their nemesis is unlike any they’ve faced before, and it will take all their experience and a whole lot of luck to get out of this mission alive.]]> 368 Deanna Raybourn 0593638514 Hannah 3 3.95 2025
author: Deanna Raybourn
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
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]]> 214268974 Date night goes off the rails in this hilariously insightful take on midlife and marriage when one unhappy couple find themselves at the heart of a crime in progress, from the USA Today bestselling author of The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise.

Jane and Dan have been married for nineteen years, but Jane isn’t sure they’re going to make it to twenty. The mother of two feels unneeded by her teenagers, and her writing career has screeched to an unsuccessful halt. Her one published novel sold under five hundred copies. Worse? Słó±đ’s pretty sure Dan is cheating on her. When the couple goes to the renowned upscale restaurant La Fin du Monde to celebrate their anniversary, Jane thinks it’s as good a place as any to tell Dan she wants a divorce.

But before they even get to the second course, an underground climate activist group bursts into the dining room. Jane is shocked—and not just because słó±đ’s in a hostage situation the likes of which słó±đ’s only seen in the movies. Nearly everything the disorganized and bumbling activists say and do is right out of the pages of her failed book. Even Dan (who Jane wasn’t sure even read her book) admits it’s eerily familiar.

Which means Dan and Jane are the only ones who know what’s going to happen next. And they’re the only ones who can stop it. This wasn’t what Jane was thinking of when she said “’til death do us part� all those years ago, but if they can survive this, maybe they can survive anything—even marriage.]]> 368 Colleen Oakley 0593200829 Hannah 2 3.79 2025
author: Colleen Oakley
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 213243915 The #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books so many love, brings us a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.]]> 450 Jojo Moyes 1984879324 Hannah 4 3.88 2025
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]> 368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Hannah 4 4.06 2025
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 198563641 From the New York Times bestselling author of Evvie Drake Starts Over and Flying Solo, a podcast producer agrees to host a new series about modern dating—but will the show jeopardize her chance at finding real love?

Cecily Foster loves to make podcasts. She fiercely protects her colleagues, dearly adores her friends, and never misses dinner with her sister. But after a disastrous relationship with a colleague who stole her heart and her ideas, słó±đ’s put romantic love on hold.

When the boss who’s disappointed her again and again finally offers her the chance to host her own show, she wants to be thrilled. But there’s a catch—actually, two catches. First, the show will be about Cecily’s dating life. And second, she has to follow the guidance of influencer and newly minted relationship coach Eliza Cassidy, whose relentlessly upbeat attitude seems ready-made for social media, not real life.

Cecily would rather do anything other than put her singledom on display (ugh) or take advice from the internet (UGH). But when her boss hints that doing the show is the only way to protect a friend’s job, she realizes she has no choice.

To make matters more complicated, once słó±đ’s committed to twenty blind dates of Eliza’s choosing, Cecily finds herself unable to stop thinking about Will, a photographer she helped to rescue a very big and very lovable lost dog. Even though there are sparks between the two, Will’s own path is uncertain, and Eliza’s skeptical comments about Cecily’s decision-making aren’t helping. On the one hand, Will seems great. But on the other hand . . . don’t they all?

As Cecily struggles to balance the life she truly desires and the one Eliza wants to create for her, she finds herself at a crossroads. Can Cecily sort through all the advice and find a way to do what she loves without losing herself in the process?]]> 320 Linda Holmes 059359925X Hannah 2
Cecily is a podcast producer who ends up being the host and star of a self-help/dating podcast where she goes on 20 dates to find a partner.

I loved learning more about audio and the podcasting world - you can tell this is where Linda shines and where her own expertise comes from. The story reads more like women's fiction with romance. I loved the very convenient run-ins with Will (but after a few, they did start to feel too much). However, Cecily also read as unlikable at times and flipped to be hard to root for. I would have liked to see more reflection and growth after some of the comments she made.
]]> 3.80 2025
author: Linda Holmes
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:
I enjoyed this far more than Flying Solo but Evvie is still my favorite of her books.

Cecily is a podcast producer who ends up being the host and star of a self-help/dating podcast where she goes on 20 dates to find a partner.

I loved learning more about audio and the podcasting world - you can tell this is where Linda shines and where her own expertise comes from. The story reads more like women's fiction with romance. I loved the very convenient run-ins with Will (but after a few, they did start to feel too much). However, Cecily also read as unlikable at times and flipped to be hard to root for. I would have liked to see more reflection and growth after some of the comments she made.

]]> 203579018 In Michelle Chouinard’s clever mystery The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco, the granddaughter of a serial killer shows readers another side of the beloved city.

Welcome to San Francisco, a city with killer charm.

The chill of a San Francisco summer can be deadly. No one knows this better than Capri Sanzio, who makes her living giving serial killer tours of the city. Capri has been interested in the topic since she was a kid, when she discovered słó±đ’s the granddaughter of serial killer William â€�Overkill Billâ€� Sanzio. Słó±đ’s always believed in his innocence, though she's never taken the leap to fully dive into the case.

But now an Overkill Bill copycat has struck in San Francisco. And Capri’s former mother-in-law, Sylvia, just cut off Capri’s daughter’s tuition payments. Needing cash, Capri wonders if this is the time to exonerate her grandfather. The case is back in the news and the police will be looking to understand the past to catch a present-day killer. Capri could finally uncover the truth about Overkill Bill—documenting the process with a podcast and a book—and hopefully earn some money.

Before Capri can get very far, the cops discover the copycat’s latest Sylvia. Capri soon finds herself at the heart of the police’s investigation for an entirely different reason. She and her daughter are prime suspects.]]> 336 Michelle Chouinard 1250359309 Hannah 3 3.70 2024
author: Michelle Chouinard
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 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 Hannah 3 4.12 2024
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 212806852
Secrets don't die when you do.

It’s the first week of senior year at Middlebrook Academy. For Amy and her best friend Sarah, that means late-night parties at the boathouse, bike rides through their sleepy Connecticut town, and the crisp beginning of a New England fall.

Then tragedy. Sarah and her boyfriend are brutally murdered in their dorm room. Now the week Amy has been dreaming about for years has turned into a nightmare, especially when all eyes turn to her as the culprit. She was Sarah’s only roommate, the only other person there when she died—or so she told the police to cover for her own boyfriend’s suspicious whereabouts. And even though they were best friends, with every passing day, Amy begins to learn that Sarah lied about a lot of things.

Liz, editor of the school newspaper and social outcast, is determined to uncover the truth about what happened on campus, in hopes her reporting will land a prestigious scholarship to college. As Liz dives deeper into her investigation, the secrets these murdered seniors never wanted out come to light. The deeper Liz digs, the messier the truth becomes � and with a killer still on campus, she can’t afford to make any mistakes. 

The Meadowbrook Murders is a gripping mystery about the inextricable way power, privilege, and secrets are linked, and how telling the truth can come at a deadly price.]]> 336 Jessica Goodman 0593698711 Hannah 3 3.59 2025
author: Jessica Goodman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 211894916 An extreme game of hide-and-seek turns deadly in this riveting new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Lisa Unger

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

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

Enter Adele, a single mother with a fierce determination to protect her children at all costs. When she begins the game, she unwittingly enters a twisted web of deception and intrigue. Can she maneuver through the treacherous storm and the relentless competition and get home to her family? In a ruthless battle for survival where the stakes are higher than ever, the blurry line between the virtual and the real proves that the only person we can trust is ourselves.]]> 384 Lisa Unger 0778333361 Hannah 2 3.16 2025
author: Lisa Unger
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/25
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 209439446
Now Violet must journey beyond the failing Aretian wards to seek allies from unfamiliar lands to stand with Navarre. The trip will test every bit of her wit, luck, and strength, but she will do anything to save what she loves—her dragons, her family, her home, and him.

Even if it means keeping a secret so big, it could destroy everything. They need an army. They need power. They need magic. And they need the one thing only Violet can find—the truth. But a storm is coming...and not everyone can survive its wrath.]]> 527 Rebecca Yarros 1649374186 Hannah 3 4.18 2025
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 205644861
'Iwa Young’s life is high in the Maui rainforest. As a field biologist, słó±đ’s happiest in company with trees and birds and waterfalls. When a developer arrives with plans for a so-called "eco resort" in the middle of a forest full of endangered species, 'Iwa puts all her energy into the fight to protect it. But a chance encounter threatens to distract her. His name is Dane Parsons, and łó±đ’s a big-wave surfer from California. 'Iwa has a few unbreakable rules, and at the top of her list: never date a surfer.

Dane Parsons is part of an underground group of big-wave riders, and his connection to the ocean runs deep. When he meets 'Iwa, he can’t get her out of his mind. But 'Iwa wants nothing to do with Dane until he offers to help protect her beloved forest and waterfall. Always on the hunt for the ultimate ride, Dane suddenly glimpses something even greater, but just out of reach.

In this thunderous love story, we travel deep into the Maui rainforest and hop across the globe from Hawai'i to California to Portugal, chasing waves the size of nine-story buildings—where the unthinkable is always just one breath away.]]> 352 Sara Ackerman 0778369560 Hannah 3 3.64
author: Sara Ackerman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.64
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/22
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 214152353 A propulsive page-turning thriller following the hit reality TV show Garden State Goddesses where secrets are uncovered, intense rivalries surface, and a startling murder propels a producer on a riveting quest for the truth.

One of Huzzah’s most popular shows, Garden State Goddesses, was in need of a refresh. Largely centering on the Sicilian American Fontana family of Shady Pond, New Jersey, showrunner Eden Bennett found a solution that helped her both personally and she introduced lovable bachelor Leo Fontana to her estranged cousin Hope—a blonde beauty and aspiring singer. After a whirlwind romance, they begin the new season with Leo and Hope’s wedding, but not everyone is happy, least of all Hope’s new sister-in-law Carmela, who finds Hope’s lack of family, friends, pop cultural knowledge, and social media presence deeply suspicious. Nevertheless, Hope is joining Carmela, and their other sister-in-law Valeria, a lovable ditz too dependent on cutting Carmela, and wealthy grand dame Birdie St. Clair as a new lead on Garden State Goddesses. Hope quickly bonds with castmate Renée, a down-to-earth single mom whose daughter Ruby aspires to be the next Ariana Grande.

When one of the goddesses collapses while filming at the Broke Not Broken gala at Birdie’s manor, there will be a reality reckoning. Eden will be forced to confront the ways she is emotional manipulation, coercion, and dropping her naïve cousin in this mess while also using her skills as a producer to seek out the truth—uncovering that many of the Fontanas have rivalries and grievances that go back decades, some with serious legal, financial, physical, and romantic consequences.]]> 288 Astrid Dahl 166806488X Hannah 2 3.20 2025
author: Astrid Dahl
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 211399774 Two former serial killers trying to keep their past buried realize that old habits die hard in this “wildly original, razor-sharp thriller� (Chris Whitaker, New York Times bestsellingauthor of All the Colors of the Dark).

I wasn't smashing the patriarchy; I was killing it. Literally.

Hazel and Fox are an ordinary married couple with a baby. Except for one small thing: they're murderers. Well, they used to be. They had it all. An enviable London lifestyle, five-star travels, and plenty of bad men to rid from the world. Then Hazel got pregnant.

Now, they’re just another mom-and-dad-and-baby. They gave up vigilante justice for life in the suburbs: arranged play dates instead of body disposals, diapers over daggers, mommy conversations instead of the sweet seduction right before a kill. Hazel finds her new life terribly dull. And the more she forces herself to play her monotonous, predictable role, the more she begins to feel that murderous itch again.

Meanwhile, Fox has really taken to being a father. Always the planner, he loves being five steps ahead of everyone and knowing exactly what’s coming around the bend. Plus, if anyone can understand Hazel needing one more kill, it’s Fox. But then Hazel kills someone without telling Fox. And when police show up at their door, Hazel realizes it will take everything she has to keep her family together.]]> 352 Asia Mackay 0593875583 Hannah 3 3.60 2025
author: Asia Mackay
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/19
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 212421066
From the author of Reese’s Book Club Pick and New York Times bestseller Wrong Place Wrong Time comes an addictive thriller about a new mother’s world upended when her husband commits a terrifying crime. How well does she truly know the man she loves? And what danger does she face if her entire life has been built on a lie?

It is June 21st, the longest day of the year, and new mother Camilla’s life is about to change forever. After months of maternity leave, she will drop her infant daughter off at daycare for the first time and return to her job as a literary agent. Finally. But, when she wakes, her husband Luke isn’t there, and in his place is a cryptic note.

Then it starts. Breaking news: there's a hostage situation developing in London. The police arrive, and tell her Luke is involved. But he isn't a hostage. Her husband—doting father, eternal optimist—is the gunman.

What she does next is crucial. Because only she knows what the note he left behind that morning says...

Famous Last Words is the story of a crime, a marriage, and more secrets than Camilla ever could have imagined. This novel cements Gillian McAllister’s reputation as “the best at putting her characters in impossible situations and making her readers not only contemplate but feel what it would be like to find themselves in those situations.� (Emily Henry)]]> 336 Gillian McAllister 0063338424 Hannah 3 3.73 2025
author: Gillian McAllister
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 220226736 From the creator of the 2017 film All I Wish comes the heartbreaking story of two strangers searching for the truth about their families—and discovering a secret that will change their lives forever.

Jane’s father is far from perfect. But his sudden death brings crushing grief. As Jane grapples with her pain, life delivers another blow ... a stack of letters pointing to a secret life. A life her father shared with another woman…who may have had his child.

Across the country, sixteen-year-old Adam is self-destructing. His adoptive parents never intended to show him the unsigned letters from his birth mother, but he is desperate for answers, even if they hurt.

Jane and Adam are on a collision course, but not for the reasons we might suspect. Because the letters do not tell the whole story. What is true is that Adam and Jane are both looking for a woman who does not want to be found.

A family saga spanning two decades, this emotional story explores how good things can grow from the ashes of old scars.]]> 325 Susan Walter 1662523505 Hannah 3 4.56
author: Susan Walter
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.56
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 213243908 A hopeless romantic meets a jaded radio host in this cozy, Sleepless in Seattle-inspired love story from beloved author B.K. Borison.

Aiden Valentine has a secret: he's fallen out of love with love. And as the host of Baltimore's romance hotline, that's a bit of a problem. But when a young girl calls in to the station asking for dating advice for her mom, the interview goes viral, thrusting Aiden and Heartstrings into the limelight.

Lucie Stone thought she was doing just fine. She has a good job; an incredible family; and a smart, slightly devious kid. But when all of Baltimore is suddenly scrutinizing her love life-or lack thereof—she begins to question if she's as happy as she thought. Maybe a little more romance wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Everyone wants Lucie to find her happy ending... even the handsome, temperamental man calling the shots. But when sparks start to fly behind the scenes, Lucie must make the final call between the radio-sponsored happily ever after or the man in the headphones next to her.]]> 448 B.K. Borison 0593641191 Hannah 3 4.08 2025
author: B.K. Borison
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 201102261 A woman must woo her lover’s soul back into his body to wake him from a coma—or risk losing him forever—in this moving novel from the author of The Hundred Loves of Juliet.

Claire Walker has always had her life in perfect order, including her high-powered job at one of Manhattan’s top corporate law firms. Yet the one thing she cannot seem to find is a perfect love to complete it, until fate pushes Matías de León into her path. Matías is a Spanish artist who is everything that Claire is not: free-spirited and creative, chaos to her order. She falls for him, hard—and he for her.

A year later, however, Claire begins to question everything about their relationship. How can they possibly work long-term when they’re so different? Might it be best to end it before they are both in too deep?

Then tragedy strikes while Matías is visiting family, leaving him gravely wounded in a Madrid hospital. And when Claire drops everything to race to his side, she finds she is the only one who can see and talk to Matías’s soul, detached from his comatose body. But that soul has no memories of his year in New York, of her, or of their relationship. Claire soon realizes that in order to lure Matías back to his body, she will have to convince him to fall in love with her all over again. But can lightning strike twice? Can the same magic that brought them together once do so again?]]> 336 Evelyn Skye 0593499271 Hannah 2 3.61 2024
author: Evelyn Skye
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 216247502
Arriving at the University of Edinburgh for her first term, Pen knows her divorced parents back in Canada are hiding something from her. She believes she’ll find the answer here in Scotland, where an old friend of her father’s—now a famous writer known as Lord Lennox—lives. When she is invited to spend the weekend at Lord Lennox’s centuries-old estate with his enveloping, fascinating family, Pen begins to unravel her parentsâ€� secret, just as słó±đ’s falling in love for the first time . . .

As Pen experiences the sharp shock of adulthood, she comes to rely on herself for the first time in her life. A rich and rewarding novel of campus life, of sexual awakening, and ultimately, of the many ways women can become mothers in this world, The Life Cycle of the Common Octopus asks to what extent we need to look back in order to move forward.]]> 384 Emma Knight 0593830458 Hannah 2 3.41
author: Emma Knight
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.41
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/12
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 211025449
Abe Winter and Ruth Warneke were never meant to be together—at least if you ask Ruth. Yet their catastrophic blind date in college evolved into a seventy-year marriage and a life on a farm on Bainbridge Island with their hens and beloved Labrador, Megs. Through the years, the Winters have fallen in and out of lockstep, and from their haunting losses and guarded secrets, a dependable partnership has been forged.

But when Ruth’s loose tooth turns out to be something much more malicious, the beautiful, reliable life they’ve created together comes to a crisis. As Ruth struggles with her crumbling independence, Abe must learn how to take care of her while their three living children question his ability to look after his wife. And once again, the couple has to reconfigure how to be there for each other.

In this bighearted and profound portrait of a marriage, Jonathan Evison explores seventy years of big moments in subtle ways, elegantly braiding the Winters� turbulent history with their present-day battles, showing us how the oddly paired college kids became parents, fell apart and back together, andgrew into the Abe and Ruth of today. Endlessly heartwarming and moving, The Heart of Winter is a reminder that true love lives in small, everyday moments.]]> 368 Jonathan Evison 059347354X Hannah 5
My first 5 star book of the year!

This is an incredible story about married couple Abe and Ruth in their golden years, and looks back at their 70 year marriage and all its ups, downs, and moments in between.

This would make for a great book club story and there is so much to discuss about when the two aren't on the same page, their losses, secrets, celebrations, and the challenges that arise with aging parents.

This book made such an impact on me and I felt so much for these characters and their marriage. This is a beautiful love story and was so compelling to see both timelines of their marriage. This story covers so much - friendship, love, struggles of parenting, loss of a child, and loss of your identity. We also celebrate their incredible highs and seeing the unfailing love and support our Abe and Ruth have for each other in their golden years. It is incredible to look back at their life and see two very different people make a life together and choose each other again and again. 

The story is a heartwarming, nostalgia filled, family centered, book about marriage. 
]]> 4.11 2025
author: Jonathan Evison
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:
Thank you to @prhaudio for my gifted copy. This is beautifully narrated and is so moving as an audiobook! 

My first 5 star book of the year!

This is an incredible story about married couple Abe and Ruth in their golden years, and looks back at their 70 year marriage and all its ups, downs, and moments in between.

This would make for a great book club story and there is so much to discuss about when the two aren't on the same page, their losses, secrets, celebrations, and the challenges that arise with aging parents.

This book made such an impact on me and I felt so much for these characters and their marriage. This is a beautiful love story and was so compelling to see both timelines of their marriage. This story covers so much - friendship, love, struggles of parenting, loss of a child, and loss of your identity. We also celebrate their incredible highs and seeing the unfailing love and support our Abe and Ruth have for each other in their golden years. It is incredible to look back at their life and see two very different people make a life together and choose each other again and again. 

The story is a heartwarming, nostalgia filled, family centered, book about marriage. 

]]> 211399784 To the world, they were a scandal. To each other, an obsession.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER � An epic love story set in the sparkling, savage sphere of elite figure skating, starring a woman determined to carve her own path on and off the ice

“P˛ą°ůłŮ Wuthering Heights and part Daisy Jones & The Six, this novel is as brilliantly choreographed as a gold medal performance and will keep you guessing until its last page.”—Jodi Picoult, New York Times bestselling author of By Any Other Name

She might not have a famous name, funding, or her family’s support, but Katarina Shaw has always known that she was destined to become an Olympic skater. When she meets Heath Rocha, a lonely kid stuck in the foster care system, their instant connection makes them a formidable duo on the ice. Clinging to skating—and each other—to escape their turbulent lives, Kat and Heath go from childhood sweethearts to champion ice dancers, captivating the world with their scorching chemistry, rebellious style, and roller-coaster relationship.

Until a shocking incident at the Olympic Games brings their partnership to a sudden end.

As the ten-year anniversary of their final skate approaches, an unauthorized documentary reignites the public obsession with Shaw and Rocha, claiming to uncover the “real storyâ€� through interviews with their closest friends and fiercest rivals. Kat wants nothing to do with the documentary, but she can’t stand the thought of someone else defining her legacy. So, after a decade of silence, słó±đ’s telling her story: from the childhood tragedies that created her all-consuming bond with Heath to the clash of desires that tore them apart. Sensational rumors have haunted their every step for years, but the truth may be even more shocking than the headlines.]]> 448 Layne Fargo 0593732049 Hannah 4
This book is everywhere right now, and it is so deserving of the hype! I will die on the hill that every audio should be a full cast audio. This was an incredible production with an all-star cast of narrators including two time Olympian Johnny Weir!! Have I pitched this hard enough that audio is the way to go with this book?

I've been a Layne Fargo fan for a while - you have to go back and read They Never Learn which is a massive shift from this story and is a much darker serial killer story but also incredible!

This is similar to Daisy Jones and the Six in its interview style narration and this format works so well for me. However, this is far more like Carrie Soto and is very heavily a sports story set in the figure skating world. This story is juicy, gossipy, and full of scandal and drama. This is reminiscent of a Bravo show or daytime soap opera! However - this is not quite the romance story it's being marketed as so temper expectations with this piece. The story is completely addicting and you are guaranteed to have a lot of fun with this book!]]> 4.19 2025
author: Layne Fargo
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/01/22
shelves:
review:
����� (I didn't rate this the full 5 because it was a touch long for me and the pacing was up and down in spots - but still incredible!!)

This book is everywhere right now, and it is so deserving of the hype! I will die on the hill that every audio should be a full cast audio. This was an incredible production with an all-star cast of narrators including two time Olympian Johnny Weir!! Have I pitched this hard enough that audio is the way to go with this book?

I've been a Layne Fargo fan for a while - you have to go back and read They Never Learn which is a massive shift from this story and is a much darker serial killer story but also incredible!

This is similar to Daisy Jones and the Six in its interview style narration and this format works so well for me. However, this is far more like Carrie Soto and is very heavily a sports story set in the figure skating world. This story is juicy, gossipy, and full of scandal and drama. This is reminiscent of a Bravo show or daytime soap opera! However - this is not quite the romance story it's being marketed as so temper expectations with this piece. The story is completely addicting and you are guaranteed to have a lot of fun with this book!
]]> 203680931 The author of the beloved international hit The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot returns with a funny, uplifting story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places.

Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and loved, but he has never been kissed.

A true gentleman and incurable romantic, Eddie spends his days volunteering at a charity shop, where he sorts through the donations of the living and the dead, preserving letters and tokens of love. It is here that he meets Bella, a troubled young woman who, at 24 years old, has just lost the love of her life.

When Bella learns that Eddie is yet to have his first kiss, she resolves to help Eddie Winston finally find love, sparking an adventure that will take them to unexpected places and, they hope, bring Eddie Winston to the moment he has waited for all his life.

A tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again.]]> 304 Marianne Cronin 0063383519 Hannah 3
Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He is a true romantic, he spends his days volunteering at charity shop, but he has never been kissed. He meets Bella, a 24 year old woman who has lost the love of her life and they form a powerful friendship as she helps Eddie in his search to have his first kiss.

This is an uplifting, heartwarming story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places. The story alternates between Eddie's past in the mid 1960s and present day. Both timelines are paced well and I was fully invested in both stories. Eddie and Bella are both such wonderfully developed and layered characters, full of personality. Chapters are short and the story moves along quickly - highly recommend for a feel good story, intergenerational friendship story!

Recommend if you enjoy:
- Intergenerational friendship stories
-Stories of healing, hope, and friendship
- Heartwarming, feel good stories
- Found family
- Quirky characters

]]> 4.31 2024
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:
The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot is an incredible story and one of my favorite books of 2021 and I was SO excited to read Eddie Winston too!

Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He is a true romantic, he spends his days volunteering at charity shop, but he has never been kissed. He meets Bella, a 24 year old woman who has lost the love of her life and they form a powerful friendship as she helps Eddie in his search to have his first kiss.

This is an uplifting, heartwarming story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places. The story alternates between Eddie's past in the mid 1960s and present day. Both timelines are paced well and I was fully invested in both stories. Eddie and Bella are both such wonderfully developed and layered characters, full of personality. Chapters are short and the story moves along quickly - highly recommend for a feel good story, intergenerational friendship story!

Recommend if you enjoy:
- Intergenerational friendship stories
-Stories of healing, hope, and friendship
- Heartwarming, feel good stories
- Found family
- Quirky characters


]]> 214152422 She has his dead wife’s heart; the one she wants is his. The author of The Family Plot brings her signature prose to a twisty novel about a heart transplant patient who becomes romantically obsessed with her donor’s husband.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.

A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, słó±đ’s working at her parentsâ€� bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: Słó±đ’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.

As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man słó±đ’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?]]> 309 Megan Collins 1668048078 Hannah 3 3.62 2025
author: Megan Collins
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/10
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. Słó±đ’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]> 352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 Hannah 3 3.93 2025
author: Fiona Davis
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 214152208 From the author of The Reunion, a cozy rom-com about a writer who decamps to a Vermont lodge for work but finds herself distracted by the charming ski instructor next door.

Alix Morgan just got her big break as the ghostwriter of a memoir by Sebastian Green, a former member of the boy band True North. And when he offers her a penthouse at a luxurious resort in Vermont, she jumps at the chance to work far away from her noisy, cramped apartment.

Her career as an entertainment journalist has been building toward this dream job—after all, she used to cover True North and was one of the last people to interview former front man Jett Beckett before he disappeared. As she combs through her client’s voice memos, the specter of the missing lead singer remains, and fans are desperate to know the full story.

But Alix also has time for some fun at this glamorous resort, where she begins ski lessons with a handsome instructor named Tyler. As Alix and Tyler fall in love on the slopes, Alix’s work takes a complicated turn—and the mystery of True North’s downfall may be hers to solve.]]> 352 Kayla Olson 1668033194 Hannah 2 3.71 2025
author: Kayla Olson
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 214152244 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781668076217.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets First Lie Wins in this electric, voice-driven debut novel about an elusive bestselling author who decides to finally confess her true identity after years of hiding from her past.

Cate Kay knows how to craft a story. As the creator of a bestselling book trilogy that struck box office gold as a film series, słó±đ’s one of the most successful authors of her generation. The thing is, Cate Kay doesn’t really exist. Słó±đ’s never attended author events or granted any interviews. Her real identity had been a closely guarded secret, until now.

As a young adult, she and her best friend Amanda dreamed of escaping their difficult homes and moving to California to become movie stars. But the day before their grand adventure, a tragedy shattered their dreams and Cate has been on the run ever since, taking on different names and charting a new future. But after a shocking revelation, Cate understands that returning home is the only way she’ll be a whole person again.]]> 304 Kate Fagan Hannah 2 3.76 2025
author: Kate Fagan
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004079 A woman invited to her wealthy fiance’s family retreat realizes they are hiding a terrible secret—and that słó±đ’s been there before, by the bestselling author of What Lies in the Woods.

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

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

I’ve been here before.
Theo has almost no recollection of her earliest years, but now she begins to piece together the fragments of her memories. Someone here has a shocking secret that they will do anything to keep hidden, and Theo is in terrible danger. Because the Daltons do not lose, and discovering what happened at Idlewood may cost Theo everything.]]> 291 Kate Alice Marshall 1250343054 Hannah 4 3.80 2025
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 211399646 The caretaker at an isolated mountain hotel finds herself fighting for her life—and sanity—in this twisty, addictive thriller.

Kerry’s life is in shambles: Her husband has left her, her drinking habit has officially become a problem, and though the deadline for her big book deal—the one that was supposed to change everything—is looming, she can’t write a word. When she sees an ad for a caretaker position at a revitalized roadside motel in the Catskills, she jumps at the chance. It’s the perfect getaway to finish her book and start fresh.

But as she hunkers down in a blizzard, she spots something through the window: a pale arm peeking out from a heap of snow. Trapped in the mountains and alone with a dead, frozen body, Kerry must keep her head and make it out before the killer comes for her too. But is the deadly game of cat-and-mouse all in her mind? The body count begs to differ...]]> 333 Leah Konen 059371590X Hannah 2 3.38 2025
author: Leah Konen
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 199927030 The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons� investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.]]> 352 Meg Shaffer 0593598873 Hannah 0 3.78 2024
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 60621104
James Hunter has made a tactical error. His new role as protection officer to Prince Magnus of Norway was supposed to be an exciting change. Instead łó±đ’s marooned on a royal estate in the middle of nowhere charged with chasing after demon children and dodging the machinations of meddling staff. And the crowning jewel in this little drama—the children’s nanny is none other than Laila Bruset. The woman whose heart he broke. The woman who still holds his.

When Laila took the job as a nanny for the Norwegian royal children in order to be closer to her ailing grandmother in Oslo, the last thing she expected was to have her life turned upside down—again. But as much as James gets on her nerves, he's also getting under her skin, and the tension between them sizzles just as devastatingly as before.

As undeniable sparks turn James and Laila’s battle royal into a more serious game of hearts, nanny and bodyguard will have to decide just how much they’re willing to risk for a second chance at love.]]> 352 Karina Halle 0593334213 Hannah 2 3.15
author: Karina Halle
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.15
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
I LOVED the Royals Next Door but this book did not live up to its predecessor. The writing felt choppy, it felt VERY steamy with not a lot of plot, and I just didn't feel very invested in the characters. I would recommend to skip this one but read The Royals Next Door if you haven't yet!
]]> 214312329
“What Does It Feel Like? is fiction, but it is my most autobiographical work to date. Eve’s story is my story.”—Sophie Kinsella

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain.

As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again—and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children—she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it.

Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief. This short, extraordinary novel is a celebration of life, shot through with warmth and humor—it will both break your heart and put it back together again.

“Why did I write such a personal book? I have always processed my life through writing. Hiding behind my fictional characters, I have always turned my own life into a narrative. It is my version of therapy, maybe. Writing is my happy place, and writing this book, although tough going at times, was immensely satisfying and therapeutic for me.”—Sophie Kinsella]]> 144 Sophie Kinsella 0593977564 Hannah 4 4.26 2024
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
This story is absolutely incredible - this could be non fiction, the story is based on the author's own experience battling brain cancer. The audiobook is under two hours and it's a beautiful and heartbreaking story. Highly recommend.
]]> 203751785
Annie Jones works hard designing windows for iconic New York City department store Lawson's Finest. So when her Christmas window display gets upended by some rambunctious kids on Christmas Eve, the all-too-realistic store Santa gives Annie a little decorating tip on how to start over. With help from friendly security guard Braden Tate, Annie repairs the damage and heads home. But when she wakes the next morning, she's bewildered to find that it isn't Christmas day at all, but Christmas Eve all over again.

Trapped in a time loop, Annie doesn't know how she'll ever make it back to the present. Luckily, she has an infinite number of chances to get things right. As little everyday choices bring her closer to Braden and to Christmas day, Annie starts to picture what her new life� one full of friendship, love, and community—could look like.

Praise for The Holiday

"Fans of Hallmark movies will appreciate this wholesome holiday offering." —Library Journal

"Baird excels at capturing the warmhearted and somewhat kooky dynamic� This is a delight." —Publishers Weekly]]> 397 Ginny Baird 1728276942 Hannah 2 3.35 2024
author: Ginny Baird
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/08
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
This was a sweet and charming story. However, this is not one of my favorite holiday books I would recommend. Like most Groundhog Day type stories, the middle really dragged and felt so repetitive, I lost interest and stopped counting what day they were on in their 12 day cycle. This is very much a Hallmark Christmas movie set up though!
]]> 211164792 Two feuding second-grade teachers (and neighbors) find themselves teaming up in this rivals-to-lovers romance.

Emily Walker hates having her carefully crafted world disrupted by anyone, most of all her legendary nemesis, Jack Bennett. He's the opposite of the wonderful heroes she dreams up in her double life as a romance writer, which is why Emily was perfectly happy when Jack left Rome, Kentucky, mid-school year, with his fiancĂ©e. The last thing Emily saw coming was Jack’s return at the start of the summer after calling off the wedding and ending his relationship, but łó±đ’s here to stay—as her colleague and her neighbor.

Jackson Bennett is glad to be back, eager to renovate his house and work on the next mystery novel under his bestselling pen name. But when he realizes łó±đ’s now neighbors with the one woman who has always pushed his buttons, he discovers something łó±đ’s even more excited for—thwarting Emily and her petty plans to sabotage his return.

With their chemistry-fueled animosity at an all-time high, Emily accidentally sends an email to their school’s principal that could reveal her secret literary side hustle. She needs to steal back her manuscript, and Jack—she hates to admit—is just the man to help her. Surprisingly, Jack agrees. Will their unlikely alliance put an end to their rivalry? Or could it lead to a steamy plot twist they never saw coming?]]> 384 Sarah Adams 0593723694 Hannah 4
Emily Walker and Jack Bennett are college rivals and are now second grade teachers at the same school and neighbors. Emily is secretly a romance novelist; Jack left their school mid year with his fiance and has returned to town single.

I love being back in Rome, Kentucky! This is one of my favorite fictional small towns. The town itself is so charming, full of meddling neighbors and a sense of community. Sarah Adams absolutely shines in the contemporary romance lane - her banter is spot on, character interactions are sharp and swoony, and while this book is a touch more open door than most, she still builds really great chemistry without a lot of steam. I loved seeing Emily and Jack's relationship progression. Their decade long history adds depth to their relationship, their past email exchanges and bickering were so fun, and I loved their snarky comments. In their present day relationship they were so supportive of each other and had healthy communication.

Recommend if you enjoy:
Rivals to Lovers
Any Sarah Adams book!
Small town romances
He falls first
Health communication
Secret authors

]]> 4.07 2025
author: Sarah Adams
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
This is the third in the When in Rome series; this can be read as a standalone but I recommend reading them in order because there are great backstories and story continuations from characters from the first two books. 

Emily Walker and Jack Bennett are college rivals and are now second grade teachers at the same school and neighbors. Emily is secretly a romance novelist; Jack left their school mid year with his fiance and has returned to town single.

I love being back in Rome, Kentucky! This is one of my favorite fictional small towns. The town itself is so charming, full of meddling neighbors and a sense of community. Sarah Adams absolutely shines in the contemporary romance lane - her banter is spot on, character interactions are sharp and swoony, and while this book is a touch more open door than most, she still builds really great chemistry without a lot of steam. I loved seeing Emily and Jack's relationship progression. Their decade long history adds depth to their relationship, their past email exchanges and bickering were so fun, and I loved their snarky comments. In their present day relationship they were so supportive of each other and had healthy communication.

Recommend if you enjoy:
Rivals to Lovers
Any Sarah Adams book!
Small town romances
He falls first
Health communication
Secret authors


]]> 217231505 Maggie Field was looking forward to a solo Christmas in her cosy London flat � before her three workmates decided to liven things up for her.

Maggie loves her job as head of IT at a financial firm, and her three geeky but lovable work buddies. And when they invite her to stay with each of them for the holidays, she can’t resist the chance to get to know them better.

But then her boss tells her she has to make one of her beloved team redundant, and Maggie is distraught. Frank’s work is his world, Jasper’s sarcastic humour is everything, and Leo…well, łó±đ’s talented, professional, confusingly attractive, dependable, and funnyâ€� Maggie definitely doesn’t want to lose him.

With her career and her heart on the line, Maggie sets off on the Christmas adventure of a lifetime, from playing fake girlfriend at a lavish wedding, to rescuing baby foxes on a posh country estate, to chasing a very confused donkey on Christmas Day in the Lake District. She can’t ignore the sparks between her and Leo � but she also can’t avoid her dilemma.

Can she find a way to keep her work family together, and maybe even find true love under the mistletoe?

A hilarious and heartfelt celebration of friendship, workplace romance, and finding where you belong. Perfect for fans of Sophie Kinsella and Beth O’Leary, this festive rom-com will have you laughing, crying, and reaching for the mince pies.]]> 346 Kristen Bailey 1805086804 Hannah 4 4.09 2024
author: Kristen Bailey
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/15
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:
This is one of my favorite holiday books from this year! I loved this story, the characters, and I LOVE a good he falls first story!! Each of the men were charming and I loved seeing their secrets and relationship with Maggie evolve and develop. They were all fiercely loyal and protective of her and their friendships were so endearing.
]]> 207677131 A woman investigates her brother's mysterious death while coming to terms with her own haunting past in this atmospheric novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Unmaking of June Farrow

The only thing James and Johnny Golden have ever had is each other. For as long as she can remember, James’s deep connection with her twin brother, Johnny, has gone beyond intuition—she can feel what he feels. So, when Johnny is killed in a tragic accident, James knows before her phone even rings that her brother is gone and that słó±đ’s alone—truly alone—for the first time in her life. 

When James arrives in the rural town of Hawthorne, California to settle her brother’s affairs, słó±đ’s forced to rehash the ominous past she and Johnny shared and finally face Micah, the only person who knows about it. He’s also the only man słó±đ’s ever loved. 

But James soon discovers that the strange connection she had with Johnny isn’t quite gone, and the more she immerses herself into his world, the more questions she has about the brother she thought she knew. Johnny was keeping secrets, and łó±đ’s not the only one. What she uncovers will push her to unravel what happened in the days before Johnny’s death, but in the end, she’ll have to decide which truths should come to light, and which should stay buried forever.]]> 288 Adrienne Young 0593598709 Hannah 2 3.71 2025
author: Adrienne Young
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 221078645 What if the person you shared your life with couldn't remember you anymore?

Nash Carter is devastated when a skiing accident leaves his wife with severe memory loss, erasing him and their three-year marriage from her mind.

Not only is Nash a stranger, but Sadie remembers being in love with her ex-boyfriend and can't understand how she ended up living in a new city, estranged from her family, and married to a man she doesn't know.

It's up to Nash to win back his wife and prove that their love is worth fighting for.

Can Nash's unwavering devotion help Sadie rebuild what was lost, or will he lose her love forever?

â—� One Foggy Christmas is a holiday romance that brings all the chemistry and tension without explicit language or scenes. ]]> 366 Kortney Keisel Hannah 4 4.36 2024
author: Kortney Keisel
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

When Kyle McCray gets word his father has suffered a debilitating stroke, he returns to his hometown of Potsdam, New York, where he doesn’t expect a warm welcome. Kyle left suddenly two and a half years ago, abandoning people who depended on him: his father, his employees, his friends—not to mention Casey, his wife of sixteen years and a beloved teacher in town. He plans to lie low and help his dad recuperate until he can leave again, especially after Casey makes it clear she wants him gone.

The longer łó±đ’s home, the more Kyle understands the impact his departure has had on the people he left behind. When łó±đ’s presented with an opportunity for redemption as the coach of the floundering middle school hockey team, he begins to find compassion in unexpected places. Kyle even considers staying in Potsdam, but that’s only possible if he and Casey can come to some kind of peace with each other.

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]> 352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Hannah 5 4.10 2025
author: Tracey Lange
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 76839114 The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime.

It’s senior-year spring break, and Noelle Meyer and Evan Sinclair have been kidnapped. Neither knows why they were chosen, only that they share a tragic past: Evan’s father got away with killing Noelle’s mother, effectively ruining her family when the death was ruled an accident.

Despite the connection that should have made them enemies, the teens instead unite to face their other common denominator—their abductors. Noelle and Evan survive one sadistic circumstance after another, eventually making a harrowing escape. But every happy ending comes at a price�

Years later, Evan, now a private investigator, revisits the crime when he learns it may be ongoing. He reaches out to Noelle for help, and they discover that the answers lie with a man known only as the Collector. To close their case and solve the ones that followed, Noelle and Evan must unmask this mysterious spectator—the only man who knows enough secrets to take their captors down.

...

Mia: While ATLR's is a complete standalone, it is set in Reno just as Bad Mother was, and there are a few (general) references to the case from that story. For that reason, I'd suggest reading Bad Mother first to plant yourself firmly in that world. ]]> 390 Mia Sheridan 1662508239 Hannah 4 4.04 2023
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 57099601 Megs Devonshire sets out to fulfill her younger brother George’s last wish by uncovering the truth behind his favorite story. The answer provides hope and healing and a magical journey for anyone whose life has ever been changed by a book.

1950: Margaret Devonshire (Megs) is a seventeen-year-old student of mathematics and physics at Oxford University. When her beloved eight-year-old brother asks Megs if Narnia is real, logical Megs tells him it’s just a book for children, and certainly not true. Homebound due to his illness, and remaining fixated on his favorite books, George presses her to ask the author of the recently released novel The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe a question: “Where did Narnia come from?�

Despite her fear about approaching the famous author, who is a professor at her school, Megs soon finds herself taking tea with C. S. Lewis and his own brother Warnie, begging them for answers.

Rather than directly telling her where Narnia came from, Lewis encourages Megs to form her own conclusion as he slowly tells her the little-known stories from his own life that led to his inspiration. As she takes these stories home to George, the little boy travels farther in his imagination than he ever could in real life.

Lewis’s answers will reveal to Megs and her family many truths that science and math cannot, and the gift she thought she was giving to her brother—the story behind Narnia—turns out to be his gift to her, instead: hope.]]> 320 Patti Callahan Henry 0785251723 Hannah 4 4.31 2021
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 204905217
A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, and the world would never know her story in her own words, never know the passionate, joyful, caring, and complicated woman that Riley loved and grieved.

Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story after story about smashing golf carts together in the yards of Graceland, about the unconditional love she felt from her father, about being upstairs, just the two of them. About getting dragged screaming out of the bathroom as she ran towards his body on the floor. About living in Los Angeles with her mother, getting sent to school after school, always kicked out, always in trouble. About her singular, lifelong relationship with Danny Keough, about being married to Michael Jackson, what they shared in common. About motherhood. About deep addiction. About ever-present grief. Riley knew she had to fulfill her mother’s wish to reveal these memories, incandescent and painful, to the world.

To make her mother known.

This extraordinary book is written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other. Profoundly moving and deeply revealing, From Here to the Great Unknown is a book like no other—the last words of the only child of an American icon.]]> 304 Lisa Marie Presley 0593733878 Hannah 4 4.27 2024
author: Lisa Marie Presley
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 195644142
A girl can get in almost anywhere, even if she can’t get out.

In Berlin’s artistic underground, where techno and drugs fill warehouses still pockmarked from the wars of the twentieth century, nineteen-year-old Nila at last finds her tribe. Born in Germany to Afghan parents, raised in public housing graffitied with swastikas, drawn to philosophy, photography, and sex, Nila has spent her adolescence disappointing her family while searching for her voice as a young woman and artist.

Then in the haze of Berlin’s legendary nightlife, Nila meets Marlowe, an American writer whose fading literary celebrity opens her eyes to a life of personal and artistic freedom. But as Nila finds herself pulled further into Marlowe’s controlling orbit, ugly, barely submerged racial tensions begin to roil Germany—and Nila’s family and community. After a year of running from her future, Nila stops to ask herself the most important question: Who does she want to be?

A story of love and family, raves and Kafka, staying up all night and surviving the mistakes of youth, Good Girl is the virtuosic debut novel by a celebrated young poet and, now, a major new voice in fiction.]]> 368 Aria Aber Hannah 2 3.73 2025
author: Aria Aber
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004350
Then she meets journalist Sam Hunter at the grief group one day, and he has a proposition for her: Thirteen-year-old Alice Webber claims a witch is haunting her. Living with her family in the remote village of Banathel, Alice finds her symptoms are getting increasingly disturbing. Taking this job will give Mina some experience and much-needed money; Sam will get the scoop of a lifetime; and Alice will get better—Mina is sure of it.

But instead of improving, Alice’s behavior becomes inexplicable and intense. The town of Banathel has a deep history of superstition and witchcraft. They believe there is evil in the world. They believe there are ways of…dealing with it. And they don’t expect outsiders to understand.]]> 304 Daisy Pearce 1250334381 Hannah 3 3.39 2025
author: Daisy Pearce
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 123136728 207 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Hannah 4 3.56 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 37762870 SWEET JUSTICE

When a body turns up in the dumpster behind Caroline’s Cupcakes, the store’s owner is the main suspect. Everyone in town saw Caroline fighting with the victim on the night of his death. Worse, the murder weapon is Caroline’s custom-designed butcher knife. But Holly White knows that her best friend isn’t capable of murder.

Now, just ten days before Christmas, Holly’s up to her jingle bells in holiday shenanigans. Juggling extra shifts at her family’s Christmas tree farm and making enough gingerbread jewelry to satisfy the crowd is already more than she can handle. Add in her budding relationship with the sheriff, and Holly’s ready to fly south until springtime. But her mittens come off when Caroline is taken into custody. Can Holly wrap up the case in time for Christmas?]]> 309 Jacqueline Frost Hannah 2 3.91 2018
author: Jacqueline Frost
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/23
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 34507286
When the murder weapon is revealed as one of the wooden stakes used to identify trees on the farm, Sheriff Evan Grey turns to Holly's father, Bud, and the Reindeer Games staff. And it doesn't help that Bud and the reindeer keeper were each seen arguing with Margaret just before her death. But Holly knows her father, and is determined to exonerate him.The jingle bells are ringing, the clock is ticking, and if Holly doesn't watch out, she'll end up on Santa's naughty list in Twelve Slays of Christmas, Jacqueline Frost's jolly series debut.]]> 311 Jacqueline Frost 1683313178 Hannah 2 3.82 2017
author: Jacqueline Frost
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 75294612
2023, The Smithsonian's National Museum of American A costume conservator is preparing an exhibition featuring movie costumes from the 1920s to present day. As she gingerly places a gown once worn by Greta Garbo on a mannequin, she discovers another name hidden beneath the designer's label, leaving her to wonder—who is Zora Lily?

1924, Poverty-stricken Zora Hough spends her days looking after her younger siblings while sewing up holes and fixing hems for clients to bring in extra money, working her fingers to the bone just to survive. But at night, as she lies in the bed she shares with one of her three sisters, she secretly dreams of becoming a designer like Coco Chanel and Jeanne Lanvin.

When her best friend gets a job dancing in a club downtown, Zora is lured in by her stories of music, glittering dresses and boys. She follows her friend to the underground speakeasies that are at once exciting and frightening—with smoke hanging in the air, alcohol flowing despite Prohibition, couples dancing in a way that makes Zora blush and a handsome businessman named Harley. It’s a world she has only ever imagined, and one with connections that could lead her to the life she's always dreamed of. But as Zora's ambition is challenged by tragedy and duty to her family, she'll learn that dreams come with a cost.]]> 416 Noelle Salazar 0778305201 Hannah 4
This takes place primarily throughout the 20s during the time of speakeasies, the jazz age, Prohibition, bootlegging, and dancing! Harley is a local businessman and he has a strong connection to Zora. Zora is a young seamstress who has a sense of duty to her family. She is ambitious, strong, honest, and kind.

Zora faces hardships throughout her story but she perseveres and shows resiliency and dedication to her family. I loved seeing her character growth, independence, and success along the way. Highly encourage historical fiction fans to pick this one up!!

Recommend if you enjoy
▫️ąó˛ą˛őłóľ±´Ç˛Ô
▫️Jazz age
▫️Strong family and friend relationships
▫️Redemptive ending!
▫️Aardvark pick!]]> 4.14 2023
author: Noelle Salazar
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/27
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
The story begins in present day - a Smithsonian costume conservator is preparing an exhibition of movie costumes from the 20s and found a hidden designer’s label - Zora Lily.

This takes place primarily throughout the 20s during the time of speakeasies, the jazz age, Prohibition, bootlegging, and dancing! Harley is a local businessman and he has a strong connection to Zora. Zora is a young seamstress who has a sense of duty to her family. She is ambitious, strong, honest, and kind.

Zora faces hardships throughout her story but she perseveres and shows resiliency and dedication to her family. I loved seeing her character growth, independence, and success along the way. Highly encourage historical fiction fans to pick this one up!!

Recommend if you enjoy
▫️ąó˛ą˛őłóľ±´Ç˛Ô
▫️Jazz age
▫️Strong family and friend relationships
▫️Redemptive ending!
▫️Aardvark pick!
]]> 59736753
In what is shaping up to be the worst Christmas ever, somehow Lily and Tom have to try to get along and play happy families, but living with the man who she is clearly not over is proving to be difficult, and tensions are high. Add in some drunken caroling, a reindeer bite, a potent Christmas pudding and some meddling parents and Lily’s trip home will turn her entire life upside down.]]> 5 Kate Forster Hannah 2 3.47 2021
author: Kate Forster
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 20820994
Years later, they are barely speaking. Something has happened to change the twins in different yet equally devastating ways... but then Jude meets an intriguing, irresistible boy and a mysterious new mentor. The early years are Noah's to tell; the later years are Jude's. But they each have only half the story, and if they can only find their way back to one another, they'll have a chance to remake their world.

This radiant, award-winning novel from the acclaimed author of The Sky Is Everywhere will leave you breathless and teary and laughing—often all at once.

Printz Award Winner Stonewall Honor Book.]]> 371 Jandy Nelson 0803734964 Hannah 4 favorites 4.14 2014
author: Jandy Nelson
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 204466320 White Christmas meets Nora Ephron in Jenny Bayliss� latest wholehearted, ensemble-cast holiday extravaganza.

Christmas can officially get stuffed because Harriet Smith is not feeling bright and merry this year. She hasn’t for a while. So when her college-aged daughter opts for Manhattan’s winter wonderland instead of Christmas at home, Harriet finds herself seeking solace in a wine-soaked one-night stand.  

But how Harriet will spend the holidays is swiftly decided for her after she takes the fall for some students who break into the town’s old Winter Theater. To get the students off the hook, the theater’s elderly owner requests that Harriet direct the washed-out stage’s final Christmas performance. And Harriet will do anything to help the kids . . . even work with the owner’s lawyer who, as it turns out, is her less than impressed one-night stand.

Directing the play with him won't exactly change her life. But it might just reignite the Christmas spirit and remind her what makes life merry and bright again.]]> 397 Jenny Bayliss 0593717910 Hannah 2 3.58 2024
author: Jenny Bayliss
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 202496527 He's everything I've ever wanted. Too bad he's my boyfriend's twin brother.

When my boyfriend says łó±đ’s too busy working—again—to spend the holidays with me and my family, I’m sure Christmas is ruined.

Not only will I be alone, but my family is convinced he doesn't love me.

So when his identical twin comes to town, I realize a swap could be the perfect way to reassure my family and give me a date for the holiday season.

But our fake-out quickly goes from the solution to THE PROBLEM.

Because falling for your boyfriend’s twin brother is never a good thing.

And when my real boyfriend finally has time for me, things get confusing.

I'll need a Christmas miracle to get out of this twin-brother mess.

â—†The Holiday Stand-In is a closed-door romantic comedy that brings all the sizzle, tension, and chemistry without explicit scenes or language.

Tropes in the

� Love Triangle

� Falling for the wrong "right" brother

� Fake Dating

� Christmas Tradition

� Small Town

� Snowed In

� Mistletoe Kiss

� Closed Door (nothing beyond kissing)]]> 346 Kortney Keisel Hannah 3 4.18
author: Kortney Keisel
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 210690230 Darby Kane, author of the #1 international bestseller Pretty Little Wife, returns with another twisty domestic thriller about a wife wondering who tried to kill her husband twice before finally succeedingâ€� because that was supposed to be her Âá´Ç˛ú.Ěý

Dr. Richmond Dougherty is a renowned pediatric surgeon, an infamous tragedy survivor, and a national hero. He’s also very dead—thanks to a fall down the stairs. His neighbors angrily point a finger at the newest Ms. Dougherty, Addison. The sudden marriage to the mysterious young woman only lasted ninety-seven days, and he’d had two suspicious “accidents� during that time. Now Addison is a very rich widow.

As law enforcement starts to circle in on Addison and people in town become increasingly hostile, sides are chosen with Kathryn, Richmond’s high school sweetheart, wife number one, and the mother of his children, leading the fray. Despite rising tensions, Addison is even more driven to forge ahead on the path she charted years ago�

Determined at all costs to unravel Richmond’s legacy, she soon becomes a target—with a shocking note left on her bedroom  You will pay. But it will take a lot more than faceless threats to stop Addison. Her plan to marry Richmond then ruin him may have been derailed by his unexpected death, but słó±đ’s not done with him yet.]]> 368 Darby Kane 006335196X Hannah 3 3.51 2024
author: Darby Kane
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/17
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 62799254 Love can be downright messy.

This last year has been a total disaster, but my failed six-month marriage takes the cake. While my ex is out having the time of his life, my coping mechanisms consist of an unhealthy obsession with true-crime podcasts and trying to revive my floundering social media account.

So, when I get an offer from one of social media’s darlings—Nikki Aker—to make gingerbread centerpieces for her Christmas wedding, I can’t refuse. Not only because the job pays well (my maxed-out credit card will attest to how much I need this money), but it’s a last-ditch effort to increase my following before I’m forced to get “a real job.�

There’s only one small problem I didn’t account for: Nikki’s a self-proclaimed matchmaker, and apparently, I’m her next target. My only hope to escape unscathed is to conspire with Nikki’s grumpy—albeit gorgeous—brother, Landon, who seems equally determined to get through this wedding with his single status fully intact.

All we need to do is convince Nikki we're developing feelings for each other. What can possibly go wrong?]]> 346 Jess Heileman 1732985162 Hannah 3 3.91 2022
author: Jess Heileman
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 62235806 If there is one thing she has learned in England, it's that not all Englishmen are created equal.
Because this guy was turning out to be a real pill.

Tired of spending the holidays throwing up on cruises with her parents and, you know, being dumped by ex-boyfriends, Claire Frost is determined to change her luck this Christmas. Taking time off from her flower shop, she follows her friend to London, ready to enjoy all-things England. And boy, does she. The frost-covered flowers. The frozen green hills. The bright red telephone boxes. The festive Christmas markets.

Also the men. Definitely the men.

Except, of course, her friend's cousin. Liam Everhart is super attractive, super swoony, and super English. Too bad he's also a super jerk. A super jerk whom she now has to spend every minute with. What a blessed, blessed relief that his Darcy/Poldark looks are overshadowed by his Darth Vader/Malfoy personality. She had enough Christmas baggage to deal with, so why would she ever add a swoony Englishman to the mix?]]> 304 Deborah M. Hathaway 1956091033 Hannah 3 3.77 2022
author: Deborah M. Hathaway
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/15
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 62347133 Everyone loves a Christmas surprise—just not when it's a spy in disguise.

Lacee:

I'll be home for Christmas...alone was the plan, but everything changes when I bump into a handsome stranger who always seems to be in the right place at the right time. So there's a new plan, a plan that involves a casual holiday fling. Merry Christmas to me.

But spending the holidays with Park Bradshaw in my charming hometown turns into Mission Impossible when I find out his knife skills go way beyond carving the Christmas ham.

Now I'm on the run, living out my own Christmas version of Die Hard, where making it home in time for Christmas is the least of my worries. I just want to make it home alive—and hopefully not lose my heart to the one man I'm not sure I can trust.

Because as the countdown to Christmas ticks on like a bomb, I'm left wondering which side he's on.]]> 338 Kortney Keisel Hannah 3 3.91 2022
author: Kortney Keisel
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 60763689 The moment we meet, it’s all downhill.

My job is providing happiness and smiles at Honeywood Fun Park, and Emory Dawson is the frown our park didn’t ask for.

When our star roller coaster malfunctions with me on board, the manufacturer’s heir and lead engineer, Emory, vows to renovate the attraction. So instead of having a fun summer season as Marketing Manager for Honeywood, I’m now saddled with playing host.

Wonderful.

Emory is the opposite of a good time. He’s the grump that won’t stop grumping, and our arguments escalate quicker than my heart rate after a roller coaster’s fall.

He knows I can see right through his broody gaze and big ideas. Repairing the coaster? More like overhauling his own company’s reputation, regardless of whether it helps our local theme park.

But when our firm handshakes start lingering too long, or when his muscled thighs rest against mine under the table, I’m thrown for a loop.

Most roller coasters are fun, but I’d like to get off this emotional one, please.

All Downhill With You is a stand-alone romantic comedy. This book is an enemies-to-lovers, grumpy/sunshine romance with laugh-out-loud theme park moments, a cozy small town, and sizzling spice!]]> 356 Julie Olivia Hannah 3 3.75 2022
author: Julie Olivia
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 58899332
It’s been eight years since a tragic accident changed Mo Kaminski’s and Chloe Miller’s lives forever. Now in their midtwenties, they’re sharing an apartment in San Francisco and navigating the normal challenges of early adulthood. Along with their roommate, Hazel, they are making their marks on the world—Mo revolutionizing the news with her media start-up, Hazel using her big brain to anticipate the future, and Chloe rescuing abandoned strays in the city.

But when Hazel disappears after being sexually assaulted, Mo’s and Chloe’s lives are again suddenly ripped apart. And when the perpetrator turns up drugged and beaten, the mystery of where Hazel is deepens. Intensely worried and desperate to discover the truth, they set out to find Hazel and bring her home.

Mo and Chloe are no strangers to tragedy, but this journey will test them in ways they never imagined. The stakes are high; the future uncertain; the need for justice essential.

Will their commitment to their friend bring them closer together—or ultimately drive them apart?]]> 287 Suzanne Redfearn 1542037204 Hannah 4 3.97 2022
author: Suzanne Redfearn
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/12
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 209604911 In this twisted journey into the shadows of the Golden Gate, an inspector and an FBI agent must track down the source of an unknown drug, but their attraction and their own secrets keep getting in the way.

The streets of San Francisco aren’t as sunny as the city pretends they are. Inspector Lennon Gray has learned this the hard way, and it’s starting to wear on her. When a new case plunges her into the depths of the transient community, Lennon must once again face ugly truths about humanity.

Her new partner makes things a little easier, though.

Agent Ambrose Mars is charming—innocent, somehow, despite his own hard years in the field. The combination leaves Lennon fascinated and disturbed at the same time, and słó±đ’s even more drawn to him for it.

As they investigate the hallucinogenic drug that’s forcing homeless citizens into bizarre and dangerous role-plays, Lennon and Ambrose find their relationship intensified with every new twist. But when these revelations begin to uncover secrets she wasn’t prepared to know, Lennon will have to decide how much more she can take…before something important is taken from her.]]> 344 Mia Sheridan 1662523068 Hannah 3 3.80 2024
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Hannah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 220393796 A second chance with your first crush.

Doesn’t happen often.

For Liam Fisher, that first crush was his next door neighbor, Olive Witherby.

Childhood was lazy summers, treehouse stargazing, and endless games of hide and seek at Pine Creek, the Christmas tree farm that’s been in Liam’s family for generations.

When Liam moves away, he and Olive say goodbye the only way they know how—with a fumbling first kiss neither of them will ever forget.

Even though twelve-year olds� promises of keeping in touch feel eternal, time and distance eventually make Olive and Liam practically strangers.

Twenty years later, Liam’s parents announce they’re retiring and selling the tree farm.

Twenty years later, Pine Creek is the last place grown-up Liam wants to be. Inherit this legacy? Not on your life.

And twenty years later, grown-up Olive is stuck.

Her work life is a lot like her love life—floundering. After a humiliating business failure, loads of debt, and one too many laughable first dates, słó±đ’s in no hurry to put herself out there again, in business or in romance.

When Olive is hired by Liam’s parents to rekindle the lost magic of the farm one final time before it’s sold, she sets out to make this the last, best Pine Creek Christmas, for the town and for a very cranky, not-so-talkative, surprisingly attractive Liam.

Part of her mission? Convince the crank to fall in love with Christmas.

The other part? Not fall head over heels in the process.

Christmas With a Crank is a grumpy/sunshine, childhood crush, opposites attract romance with plenty of sizzle but none of the steam.]]> 366 Courtney Walsh Hannah 4
Liam and Olive were neighbors growing up but Liam moved away and the two lost touch. Twenty years later, Liam’s parents announce they are retiring and selling their Christmas tree farm. Olive is hired to help make this the last, best Pine Creek Christmas.

This is a grumpy sunshine, childhood crush, opposites attract romance. Courtney writes some of my favorite romance stories with no spice but full of chemistry and lots of joy.

I loved all the details Olive cooked up for the tree farm. This is such a festive setting for a story and it captures the magic of Christmas. The story is sweet, charming, heartwarming, and festive. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a feel good holiday romance.]]> 4.02 2024
author: Courtney Walsh
name: Hannah
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:
It’s no secret I love Courtney Walsh’s books and this is one of my favorite holiday stories this year. A Cross-Country Christmas, Merry Ex-Mas, and Christmas with a Crank are all standalone holiday reads but some of my go to recommendations if you’re looking for a sweet hallmark type Christmas story romance!

Liam and Olive were neighbors growing up but Liam moved away and the two lost touch. Twenty years later, Liam’s parents announce they are retiring and selling their Christmas tree farm. Olive is hired to help make this the last, best Pine Creek Christmas.

This is a grumpy sunshine, childhood crush, opposites attract romance. Courtney writes some of my favorite romance stories with no spice but full of chemistry and lots of joy.

I loved all the details Olive cooked up for the tree farm. This is such a festive setting for a story and it captures the magic of Christmas. The story is sweet, charming, heartwarming, and festive. Highly recommend if you’re looking for a feel good holiday romance.
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