en-US Fri, 11 Apr 2025 03:15:03 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Kim 5 3.92 2023
author: Ann Patchett
name: Kim
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/11
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]]> 218695923 Mary Russell’s allegiances are tested by the reappearance of her long-lost uncle—and a tantalizing case not even Sherlock Holmes could solve.

When Mary Russell was a child, she adored her black-sheep Uncle Jake. But she hasn’t heard from him in many years, and she's assumed that his ne’er-do-well ways had brought him to a bad end somewhere—until he presents himself at her Sussex door. Yes, Jake is back, and with a load of problems for his clever niece. Not the least of which is the reason the family rejected him in the first he was involved—somehow—in the infamous disappearance of the Irish Crown Jewels from a secure safe in Dublin Castle.

It was a theft that shook a government, enraged a King, threatened the English establishment—and baffled not only the Dublin police and Scotland Yard, but Sherlock Holmes himself. And now, Jake expects Russell to step into the middle of it all? To slip away with him, not telling Homes what she’s up to? Knowing that the theft—unsolved, hushed-up, scandalous—must have involved Mycroft Holmes as well?

Naturally, she can do nothing of the sort. Siding with her Uncle Jake, even briefly, could only place her in opposition to both her husband-partner, and to his secretive and powerful brother. She has to tell Jake no.

On the other hand, this is Jake—her father’s kid brother, her childhood hero, beloved and long-lost survivor of a diminished family.

Conflicting loyalties and international secrets, blatant lies and blithe sounds like another case for Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes.]]> 336 Laurie R. King 059387398X Kim 0 to-read 4.52 2025
author: Laurie R. King
name: Kim
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> 224004049 “So clever and fresh with a wild and incredibly satisfying twist at the end.� —Lisa Jewell, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A dinner party in a beautiful Notting Hill townhouse turns into a sinister game, as six old friends are forced to spill their darkest secrets…or else.

Six friends reunite in London to celebrate the life of their recently deceased ex-employer, a professor that brought them together in 1999 to help build a dating website based on psychological testing.

But what is meant to be a night of bittersweet nostalgia soon becomes a twisted and deadly game when the old friends find themselves held at gunpoint. They are given an ultimatum: reveal their darkest secrets to the group or pick each other off one-by-one.

It soon becomes clear that their current predicament is related to their shared past. The love questionnaire they helped develop in 1999 for the dating site was also turned into a tool for weeding out The Wasp Trap. This and the other tragic events of that summer long ago may help reveal the truth behind a killer hiding in plain sight.

Alternating between the past and present with a colorful ensemble of characters, The Wasp Trap is a fast-paced and twisty thrill ride that is perfect for fans of Lucy Foley and Alice Feeney.]]> 336 Mark Edwards 1668204770 Kim 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Mark Edwards
name: Kim
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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]]> 227759007 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 464 Amor Towles 0593296397 Kim 0 to-read 4.18 2024
author: Amor Towles
name: Kim
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> 229305515
The only edition of the beloved classic that is authorized by Fitzgerald’s family and from his lifelong publisher.

An all-new recording published for the 100th anniversary of The Great Gatsby, this production presents the enduring original text, updated with the author’s own revisions, a foreword by his granddaughter, and with an introduction by National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward.

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s third book, stands as the supreme achievement of his career. First published by Scribner in 1925, this quintessential novel of the Jazz Age has been acclaimed by generations of readers. The story of the mysteriously wealthy Jay Gatsby and his love for the beautiful Daisy Buchanan is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s.]]> F. Scott Fitzgerald 1668130815 Kim 0 to-read 3.92
author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
name: Kim
average rating: 3.92
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]]> 30893019 The Impossible Fortress will make you remember what it feels like to love someone—or something—for the first time.

Billy Marvin’s first love was his computer.

Then he met Mary Zelinsky.

Do you remember your first love?

It’s May 1987. Fourteen-year-old Billy Marvin of Wetbridge, New Jersey, is a nerd, but a decidedly happy nerd. Afternoons are spent with his buddies, watching copious amounts of television, gorging on Pop-Tarts, debating who would win in a brawl (Rocky Balboa or Freddy Krueger? Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel? Magnum P.I. or T.J. Hooker?), and programming video games on his Commodore 64 late into the night. Then Playboy magazine publishes photos of their idol, Wheel of Fortune hostess Vanna White, Billy meets expert computer programmer Mary Zelinsky, and everything changes.
]]> 320 Jason Rekulak 1501144421 Kim 0 to-read 3.81 2017
author: Jason Rekulak
name: Kim
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> 222419303 A woman must confront the demons of her past when she attempts to fix up her childhood home in this devilishly clever take on the haunted house novel from the USA Today bestselling author.

Clio Louise Barnes leads a picture-perfect life as a stylist and influencer, but beneath the glossy veneer she harbors a not-so glamorous secret: she grew up in a haunted house. Well, not haunted. Possessed. After Clio’s parent’s messy divorce, her mother, Alex, moved Clio and her sisters into a house occupied by a demon. Or so Alex claimed. That’s not what Clio’s sisters remember or what the courts determined when they stripped Alex of custody after she went off the deep end. But Alex was insistent; she even wrote a book about her experience in the house.

After Alex’s sudden death, the supposedly possessed house passes to Clio and her sisters. Where her sisters see childhood trauma, Clio sees an opportunity for house flipping content. Only, as the home makeover process begins, Clio discovers there might be some truth to her mother’s claims. As memories resurface and Clio finally reads her mother’s book, the presence in the house becomes more real, and more sinister, revealing ugly truths that threaten to shake Clio’s beautiful life to its very foundation.]]> 336 Rachel Harrison 0593642570 Kim 0 to-read 4.33 2025
author: Rachel Harrison
name: Kim
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> 3367956 290 Jamie Ford 0345505336 Kim 5 4.03 2009
author: Jamie Ford
name: Kim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/02
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]]> 222376614 WITH OVER 1.5 MILLION COPIES SOLD . . .

Chevy Stevens has garnered acclaim from literary giants,
including Stephen King who called THOSE GIRLS “incredibly scary and suspenseful� and Gillian Flynn who called STILL MISSING “utterly absorbing.�

With THE HITCHHIKERS, she forges new ground with a novel that will both terrify you and break your heart.

On the remote Canadian highways in 1976, Tom and Alice set out to heal their fractured marriage.
An RV, a new beginning, and the hope of recovery after a devastating tragedy.
Then they meet two young hitchhikers,
Ocean and Blue—a seemingly innocent couple who aren’t who they seem. . . .
They are Jenny and Simon.
And they have left a trail of blood, destruction, and madness behind them.
Now Tom and Alice are trapped—prisoners in a deadly game, with nowhere to turn.
But as the tension builds and the lines blur,
the question becomes, In whose heart does evil truly lie?

A chilling, twist-laden ride to the final page—THE HITCHHIKERS is a master class in suspense and shock.]]> 384 Chevy Stevens 1250133653 Kim 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Chevy Stevens
name: Kim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> 34697709 The #1 international bestselling author of Twenty Years Later and The Girl Who Was Taken1> delivers a twisting suspense novel about a murdered law school student, the reporter assigned to her story—and the intimate connection that comes when the living walk in the footsteps of the dead�

“A gem of a mystery, fast-paced and suspenseful.” —Catherine Coulter, # 1 New York Times bestselling author on Summit Lake

No suspects. No persons of interest. Just a girl who was alive one day and dead the next.   Some places seem too beautiful to be touched by horror. Summit Lake, nestled in North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains, is that kind of place. But two weeks ago, Becca Eckersley, a first-year law student and daughter of a powerful attorney, was brutally murdered there. Now the town is reeling with grief, and the police are baffled.  

At first, investigative reporter Kelsey Castle thinks of the assignment as a fluff piece. But the savagery of the crime, and the efforts to keep it quiet, hint at something far more sinister than a random attack by a stranger. As Kelsey digs deeper, despite danger and warnings, she feels a growing connection to the dead girl. And the more she learns about Becca’s friendships, her love life—and her secrets—the more convinced she becomes that walking in Becca’s footsteps could lead her out of her own dark past…]]> 338 Charlie Donlea 0786041420 Kim 4 4.26 2016
author: Charlie Donlea
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
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]]> 217387705 In this gripping new installment of the Edgar Award winning series, Chief of Police Kate Burkholder investigates a brutal double murder that takes her into the dark underbelly of society and exposes the dangers of Amish lives gone wrong.

Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?

The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Eicher’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have done to deserve such violent ends?

With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters―individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.

To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?]]> 304 Linda Castillo 1250781140 Kim 0 to-read 4.42 2025
author: Linda Castillo
name: Kim
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 220161301 A heartwarming and empowering novel about thriving after tragedy, from the author of the “enchanting, hilarious, and insightful� (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times author) My Magnolia Summer.

Violet Adams is the perfect, youngest child in a family of loud, passionate women on Sullivan’s Island, South Carolina. As the sweet, traditional one, she’s always been the steady hand in her family but after a sudden breakup and subsequent tragedy, she doesn’t know who she is anymore.

Aly Knox, Violet’s best friend, is a young influencer still struggling with the loss of her mother and adjusting to joining Violet in Southern living. With her best friend’s help, Violet is determined to break out of her shell—and who she thought she was—no matter what. And what better place to look for success, meaning, and possibly love than the Lowcountry of South Carolina?]]> 368 Victoria Benton Frank 166806779X Kim 0 to-read 4.38
author: Victoria Benton Frank
name: Kim
average rating: 4.38
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> 221544394
Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites.

For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help—and now she must bring her home.

But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did.

Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?]]> 448 Karin Slaughter 0063336774 Kim 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> 220999092 “No one does suburban paranoia like Shari Lapena.”—Ruth Ware

The new gripping novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Couple Next Door

When a beloved wife and mother disappears, a luxurious condo building transforms into a potential crime scene, and the investigation begins: can the detectives find her before it's too late?

Bryden and Sam have it all: thriving careers, a smart apartment in a luxury condominium, supportive friends and a cherished daughter. The perfect life for the perfect couple.

Then Sam receives a call at his office. Bryden–working from home that day–has failed to collect their daughter from daycare. Arriving home with their little girl, he finds his wife’s car in the underground garage. Upstairs in their apartment her laptop is open on the table, her cell phone nearby, her keys in their usual place in the hall.

Except Bryden is nowhere to be seen. It’s as if she just walked out.]]> 352 Shari Lapena 0593832442 Kim 0 to-read 4.06 2025
author: Shari Lapena
name: Kim
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> 2956 327 Mark Twain 0142437174 Kim 3 3.82 1884
author: Mark Twain
name: Kim
average rating: 3.82
book published: 1884
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
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]]> 214175092 After the murder of her best friend, a librarian’s search for answers leads back to her own dark secrets in this sweeping novel about a woman transformed by war, family, vengeance, and love, from award-winning writer Allen Eskens.

Hana Babic is a quiet, middle-aged librarian in Minnesota who wants nothing more than to be left alone. But when a detective arrives with the news that her best friend has been murdered, Hana knows that something evil has come for her, a dark remnant of the past she and her friend had shared.

Thirty years before, Hana was someone Nura Divjak, a teenager growing up in the mountains of war-torn Bosnia—until Serbian soldiers arrived to slaughter her entire family before her eyes. The events of that day thrust Nura into the war, leading her to join a band of militia fighters, where she became not only a fierce warrior but a legend—the deadly Night Mora. But a shattering final act forced Nura to flee to the United States with a bounty on her head.

Now, someone is hunting Hana, and her friend has paid the price, leaving her eight-year-old grandson in Hana’s care. To protect the child without revealing her secret, Hana must again become the Night Mora—and hope she can find the killer before the past comes for them, too.]]> 320 Allen Eskens 0316566314 Kim 3 4.21 2025
author: Allen Eskens
name: Kim
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> 220161593 In this follow-up to #1 New York Times bestselling author Ruth Ware’s multi-million copy mega-hit The Women in Cabin 10, Lo Blacklock returns to attend the opening of a luxury hotel, only to find herself in a white-knuckled race across Europe.

When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy.

What follows is a thrilling cat-and-mouse pursuit across Europe, forcing Lo to ask herself just how much she’s willing to sacrifice to save this woman…and if she can even trust her?]]> 400 Ruth Ware 1668025620 Kim 0 to-read 3.81 2025
author: Ruth Ware
name: Kim
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> 237186
Perhaps this is why, when Jason drowns, Diana will not accept the authorities� conclusion that his death was accidental. Or perhaps Diana is going mad. She begins to send David faxes and e-mails about ancient murders, driven by her growing belief that the earth is Gaia, a living witness to her son’s murder who could give evidence in the case she is building against her husband. David soon fears for his own family’s safety as the seductive qualities of Diana’s manic energy become impossible to ignore.

In The Cloud of Unknowing, Cook explores the power of blood and family mythology.]]> 320 Thomas H. Cook 0151012601 Kim 4 3.48 1400
author: Thomas H. Cook
name: Kim
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1400
rating: 4
read at: 2008/03/22
date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> 10108463 The Devil All the Time follows a cast of characters from the end of World War II to the 1960s. There’s Willard Russell, tormented veteran of the carnage in the South Pacific, who can’t save his beautiful wife, Charlotte, from an agonizing death by cancer no matter how much sacrifi­cial blood he pours on his “prayer log.� There’s Carl and Sandy Henderson, a husband-and-wife team of serial kill­ers, who troll America’s highways searching for suitable models to photograph and exterminate. There’s the spider-handling preacher Roy and his crippled virtuoso-guitar-playing sidekick, Theodore, running from the law. And caught in the middle of all this is Arvin Eugene Russell, Willard and Charlotte’s orphaned son, who grows up to be a good but also violent man in his own right.]]> 261 Donald Ray Pollock 038553504X Kim 5 4.13 2011
author: Donald Ray Pollock
name: Kim
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/05
date added: 2025/03/05
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]]> 39095097
Then one Easter weekend, tragedy comes to call. The event is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. Years pass as the children become adults, find new relationships, and develop their own separate lives. Soon it seems as though they've never been a family at all. But then something happens that calls them back to the house they grew up in -- and to what really happened that Easter weekend so many years ago.

Told in gorgeous, insightful prose that delves deeply into the hearts and minds of its characters, The House We Grew Up In is the captivating story of one family's desire to restore long-forgotten peace and to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.]]> 416 Lisa Jewell 1476776865 Kim 0 to-read 3.84 2013
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kim
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 219635283 He's in too deep� And almost out of time.

Martin Gabriel is a runner for Ben. He runs errands. He runs deliveries. And now he is running for his life�

When a deal goes wrong, Martin realizes Ben isn’t the legitimate businessman he thought he was.

He flees before Ben catches up with him, unaware that Ben’s criminal network and the FBI are also on his tail.

No longer a runner, but still on the run.

Is Martin fast enough to get away from his past?]]> 352 Lloyd Devereux Richards 000867986X Kim 0 to-read 4.33
author: Lloyd Devereux Richards
name: Kim
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/04
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]]> 49343950
Lizzy discovers a Book of Remembrances meant to help Lizzy embrace her own special gifts. When she reconnects with Andrew Greyson, one of the few in town who believed in Althea’s innocence, she resolves to clear her Grandmother’s name.]]> 397 Barbara Davis 1542006481 Kim 3 4.20 2020
author: Barbara Davis
name: Kim
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
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]]> 204118614 Two disappearances and a murder. The mystery couldn't be more personal in a witty and twisty rom-com caper from Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Jess Lourey.

After a year in Battle Lake, Minnesota, aspiring PI Mira James would kill not to stumble over another dead body. Given her latest discovery, though, it isn't looking good.

An ominous note hidden in an old book not only mentions Battle Lake's former librarian, who vanished into thin air, but also Mira's own father, who died thirteen years ago. The word "HELP" scrawled at the top is even more unnerving. But who's in danger? And why?

As if the note isn't mystery enough, a girl's sudden disappearance adds another case to Mira's plate. To solve them both, Mira—and all of Battle Lake—must navigate deadly threats and a few surprises she never saw coming.

Revised This edition of April Fools includes editorial revisions.]]> 284 Jess Lourey 1662519451 Kim 0 to-read 4.39
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.39
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/24
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]]> 220435885 In the latest thrilling suspense novel from Mary Higgins Clark Award–winning author Carol Goodman, a group of mystery authors gathers on a secluded Greek island for a writers retreat, only to discover that their enigmatic host has been murdered and everyone present is a suspect.

They’ll kill for inspiration�

Fifteen years ago, Maia Gold attended a prestigious—and very exclusive—writers retreat hosted by billionaire Argos Alexander on the Greek island of Eris. It’s where she wrote her first book, the one that should have launched a brilliant career. But something dark happened on that island, a betrayal that has hung over Maia ever since.

Now, Maia finds a familiar envelope in the mail. It’s an invitation to return to Eris, and according to social media, she’s not the only one from that first retreat who’s been invited back. This could be the second chance Maia needs to jump-start her dreams. A chance for reconciliation� or revenge.

Almost all of the writers from fifteen years before have returned to Eris, bringing unresolved resentments with them. Soon, the guests learn that their illustrious host is absent, though he has left instructions for them to participate in a whoever can write the most suspenseful mystery while on the island will win a fortune and literary acclaim. But this is no harmless game—when the guests gather in the morning to share their first chapters, they find Argos Alexander, dead. 

Tensions simmer as the guests try to determine who’s behind the murder, and why they’ve really been invited to the retreat. On an island full of mystery writers, anyone could be the killer—and anyone could be the next victim. Trapped together until the next boat arrives from the mainland, they must sort out old grievances and figure out how to trust one another... or die one by one.]]> 272 Carol Goodman 0063398737 Kim 0 to-read 3.38 2025
author: Carol Goodman
name: Kim
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> 219833105
But these things happen only when Emily is alone, so are they happening at all? She is still medically fragile. Her post-sepsis condition can cause hallucinatory side effects, which means she cannot fully trust her senses. Freddie does not notice anything odd and is happy with their chance at a fresh start. She, however, starts to believe the house is haunted by someone who had been murdered in it even though she can find no evidence of a wrongful death. As bizarre events pile up and her marriage starts to crumble, Emily becomes obsessed with discovering the truth about Larkin Lodge. But just as the house has secrets so do Emily and her husband.]]> 304 Sarah Pinborough 1250394058 Kim 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Sarah Pinborough
name: Kim
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> 222139807 #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner returns with the 4th installment in her bestselling Frankie Elkin series, in which Frankie is called to Tucson, Arizona, to find a missing Afghan refugee, whose friend suspects she is in grave danger, before it is too late.

A young mother haunted by war, determined to make a fresh start. But sometimes, the sins of the past aren't so easy to escape.

Recent Afghan refugee Sabera Ahmadi was last seen exiting her place of work three weeks ago. The local police have yet to open a case, while her older, domineering husband seems unconcerned. Sabera's closest friend, however, is convinced Sabera would never willingly leave her three‑year old daughter. At her insistence, missing persons expert Frankie Elkin agrees to take up the search through the broiling streets of Tucson. Just in time for a video of the young mother to surface—showing her walking away from the scene of a brutal double murder.

Frankie quickly realizes there's much more to the Ahmadi family than meets the eye. The father Isaad is a brilliant mathematician, Sabera a gifted linguist, and their little girl Zahra—she has an uncanny ability to remember anything she sees. Which given everything that has happened during the girl's short life, may be a terrible curse. When Isaad also disappears under mysterious circumstances and an attempt is made on Zahra's life, Frankie realizes she must quickly crack the code of this family's horrific past.

Someone is coming for the Ahmadis. And violence is clearly an option. When everything is on the line, how far would you go to protect the ones you love?

Frankie is about to find out.]]> 416 Lisa Gardner 1538765101 Kim 0 to-read 4.52 2025
author: Lisa Gardner
name: Kim
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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]]> 203579152 A Harvard law student falls under the spell of a charismatic judge.

Madison Rivera lands the internship of a lifetime working for Judge Kathryn Conroy—but Madison has a secret that could destroy her career: Her troubled younger brother Danny has been arrested, and Conroy is the judge on his case. When Danny goes missing after accusing the judge of corruption, Madison’s quest for answers brings her deep into the judge’s glamorous world. Is Kathryn Conroy a mentor, a victim, or a criminal? Is she trying to help Madison or use her as a pawn? And why is somebody trying to kill her?]]> 384 Michele Campbell 1250795257 Kim 0 to-read 4.03 2023
author: Michele Campbell
name: Kim
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199223892 From New York Times bestselling author Tess Gerritsen comes a chilling follow-up to The Spy Coast, plunging the Martini Club into the search for a missing teen—with a startling connection to their own pasts.

When former spy Maggie Bird retired to the seaside hamlet of Purity, Maine, she settled in for a quiet life with breathtaking views. But enemies from her past soon threatened to destroy everything.

Maggie survived, thanks to her wits and the collective intelligence of the Martini Club, the circle of ex-CIA friends in her cocktail-sipping book club. Their handiwork, however, caught the attention of young police chief Jo Thibodeau. Now Jo and her neighborhood ex-spies have an uneasy alliance.

After a teenager vanishes—and Maggie’s neighbor becomes the prime suspect—she joins the investigation, determined to prove her friend’s innocence. But the girl’s wealthy family pushes for an arrest. And when authorities discover a long-dead corpse in a nearby pond, the case becomes doubly complicated, with unthinkable ties to long-buried secrets.

As Jo grapples with two unexplained mysteries, the Martini Club races to uncover the truth behind shadowy secrets…before more lives are lost.]]> 363 Tess Gerritsen 1662515154 Kim 0 to-read 4.40 2025
author: Tess Gerritsen
name: Kim
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 221179145
Lately, Julia Pritzker is beginning to think she’s cursed. She’s lost her adoptive parents, then her husband is murdered. When she realizes that her horoscope essentially foretold his death, she begins to spiral. She fears her fate is written in the stars, not held in her own hands.

Then a letter arrives out of the blue, informing her that she has inherited a Tuscan villa and vineyard - but her benefactor is a total stranger named Emilia Rossi. Julia has no information about her biological family, so she wonders if Rossi could be a blood relative. Bewildered, she heads to Tuscany for answers.

There, Julia is horrified to discover that Rossi was a paranoid recluse with delusions of grandeur, who believed herself to be a descendent of Duchess Caterina Sforza, a legendary Renaissance ruler. Julia is stunned by her uncanny resemblance to Rossi and even to Caterina, then she unearths eerie parallels between them, including an obsession with astrology.

Before long, Julia suspects she’s being followed, and strange things begin to happen. Not even a chance meeting with a handsome Florentine can ease her disturbed mind. When events turn deadly, she breaks with reality.

Julia’s harrowing struggle becomes a search for her identity, a race to save her sanity, and ultimately, a question of her very survival.]]> 400 Lisa Scottoline 1538769999 Kim 0 to-read 3.70
author: Lisa Scottoline
name: Kim
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 195790788
Recruited into the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement as a young wife, Tia Levings learned that being a good Christian meant following a list of additional life principles—a series of secret, special rules to obey. Being a godly and submissive wife in Christian Patriarchy included strict discipline, isolation, and an alternative lifestyle that appeared wholesome to outsiders. Women were to be silent, “keepers of the home.�

Tia knew that to their neighbors her family was strange, but she also couldn't risk exposing their secret lifestyle to police, doctors, teachers, or anyone outside of their church. Christians were called in scripture to be “in the world, not of it.� So, she hid in plain sight as years of abuse and pain followed. When Tia realized she was the only one who could protect her children from becoming the next generation of patriarchal men and submissive women, she began to resist and question how they lived. But in the patriarchy, a woman with opinions is in danger, and eventually, Tia faced an urgent and extreme stay and face dire consequences, or flee with her children.

Told in a beautiful, honest, and sometimes harrowing voice, A Well-Trained Wife is an unforgettable and timely memoir about a woman's race to save herself and her family and details the ways that extreme views can manifest in a marriage.]]> 304 Tia Levings 1250288282 Kim 5 4.31 2024
author: Tia Levings
name: Kim
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> 220160424 The “consistently high-quality� (Booklist) Charlie Parker series continues with a white-knuckled new thriller from New York Times bestselling author John Connolly.

Wyatt Riggins, the boyfriend of rising Maine artist Zetta Nadeau, has gone missing, leaving behind a cell phone containing a single-word RUN. Private investigator Charlie Parker is hired to find out why Riggins has fled, and from whom.

Parker discovers that Riggins, an ex-soldier, has been involved in the abduction of four children from Mexico: three girls and a boy, all belonging to the cartel boss Blás Urrea—except Urrea’s family is safe and well in Mexico, which means the abductees cannot be his children. Yet whoever they are, Urrea wants them back, and has dispatched his agents to secure them, even if it means butchering everyone who stands in their way.

One of those agents is Eugene Seeley, a clever, ruthless solver of other men’s problems. The other is an unknown woman.

Every child has a mother. Now Charlie Parker will face one unlike any other, and learn the terrifying truth about the Children of Eve.]]> 464 John Connolly 1668083949 Kim 0 to-read 4.28 2025
author: John Connolly
name: Kim
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/09
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]]> 220160921 A decades-old secret that drove a mother from her hometown now threatens her college-bound daughter in this twisty new thriller from New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda.

Beckett Bowery never thought she’d return to Wyatt Valley, a picturesque college town in the Virginia mountains steeped in tradition. Her roots there were strong: Beckett’s parents taught at the college, and she never even imagined studying anywhere else—until a tragedy her senior year ended with two local men dead, and her roommate on the run, never to be seen again�

For the last two decades, Beckett has done her best to keep her distance. Then her daughter, Delilah, secretly applies to Wyatt College and earns a full scholarship, and Beckett can only hope that her lingering fears are unfounded. But deep down she knows that Wyatt Valley has a long memory, and that the past isn’t the only dangerous thing in town…]]> 352 Megan Miranda 1668080974 Kim 0 to-read 3.80 2025
author: Megan Miranda
name: Kim
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/07
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]]> 41212785 New York Times-bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank returns to the American South in this latest novel about friendship and love that is full of heart, humor, and rich description.

A woman wounded by her past comes to Sullivan's Island, South Carolina to find new meaning in life and to find herself. As she takes up a new hobby of beekeeping, she begins to come into her own and rebuild her life. When a new friend comes in and she finally allows for something more than just "friendship", everyone will realize that life could use a little taste of sweetness.

In what is sure to be another classic, Dorothea Benton Frank weaves a fun tale of self-discovery, love, and friendship with her signature charming wit, indelible poignancy, and hallmark themes.]]> 414 Dorothea Benton Frank 0062861212 Kim 3 4.06 2019
author: Dorothea Benton Frank
name: Kim
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> 214151555 For fans of Nightbitch and While No One Is Watching, comes “one of the best books this year, or any year� (Paul Tremblay, author of The Cabin at the End of the World)—a disturbing dystopian thrillfest about a woman moving to a glittering town of the future, whose investigation of a local tragedy puts a target on her back.

You’ll be safe here.

That’s what the tour guide promises Dr. Linda Farmer and her family when they move to Plymouth Valley. Sure, the locals are privileged hot house flowers who observe a weird religion Hollow, but the schools are blue ribbon, the air’s clean, the food’s fantastic, and Linda’s out of options. With the outside world in shambles, this move is her family’s last chance.

Linda, her husband, and their teen twins work hard to fit in, accommodating their square peg personalities into rounded holes. It works at first—the family rise up, gaining acceptance from the powerful elite. Then Linda encounters Gal Parker, a hot mess of a woman, whose wife has abandoned her and whose kids are sick. One terrible night, Gal commits an unthinkable act.

All of Plymouth Valley turns on Gal, refusing to speak her name. But Linda can’t stop wondering: what would drive a woman to do something so awful? The more she learns, the more frightened she becomes. A clock is ticking, too—before the Plymouth Valley Winter Festival, Linda’s got to figure out: should she and her family be fighting to stay, or fighting their way out?

A heart-poundingly ruthless dissection of wealth, power, and privilege, A Better World is “more terrifying with every turn of the page� (Booklist, starred review) from a writer who “never ceases to amaze� (Gillian Flynn).]]> 368 Sarah Langan 1982191074 Kim 0 to-read 3.95 2024
author: Sarah Langan
name: Kim
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> 218695909 A teenage girl breaks free from her father's world of isolation in this exhilarating novel of family, identity, and the power we have to shape our own destinies—from the New York Times bestselling author of Pretty Things and Watch Me Disappear

The first thing you have to understand is that my father was my entire world.

Growing up in an isolated cabin in Montana in the mid-1990s, Jane knows only the world that she and her father live the woodstove that heats their home, the vegetable garden where they try to eke out a subsistence existence, the books of nineteenth-century philosophy that her father gives her to read in lieu of going to school. Her father is elusive about their pasts, giving Jane little beyond the facts that they once lived in the Bay Area and that her mother died in a car accident, the crash propelling him to move Jane off the grid to raise her in a Thoreau-like utopia.

As Jane becomes a teenager she starts pushing against the boundaries of her restricted world. She begs to accompany her father on his occasional trips away from the cabin. But when Jane realizes that her devotion to her father has made her an accomplice to a horrific crime, she flees Montana to the only place she knows to look for answers about her mysterious past, and her mother's San Francisco. It is a city in the midst of a seismic change, where her quest to understand herself will force her to reckon with both the possibilities and the perils of the fledgling Internet, and where she will come to question everything she values.]]> 368 Janelle Brown 0593449789 Kim 0 to-read 4.35 2025
author: Janelle Brown
name: Kim
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/02
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]]> 200033315
You will have ninety minutes to solve the murder. A startling declaration by a new Harvard instructor: sixty-seven-year-old Frances Glessner Lee. It’s 1945. Before her, six wary male students given to assumptions—especially when it comes to women without a formal education—are challenged to solve a real-life whodunit using Mrs. Lee’s creation, the crime scene diorama. Every detail is accurate. And every detail matters when solving a crime with no survivors�

Ariel Lawhon’s Barriers to Entry is part of Blaze, a collection of short stories about incendiary women across the decades who dare to defy convention. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 39 Ariel Lawhon 1662519079 Kim 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 949466 432 Diane Chamberlain 0061042811 Kim 3 3.83 1995
author: Diane Chamberlain
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1995
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/21
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Kim 5 4.38 2023
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Kim
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Kim 0 to-read 4.17 2022
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Kim
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> 52741293 Shuggie Bain is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings.

Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie's guiding light but a burden for him and his siblings. She dreams of a house with its own front door while she flicks through the pages of the Freemans catalogue, ordering a little happiness on credit, anything to brighten up her grey life. Married to a philandering taxi-driver husband, Agnes keeps her pride by looking good--her beehive, make-up, and pearly-white false teeth offer a glamourous image of a Glaswegian Elizabeth Taylor. But under the surface, Agnes finds increasing solace in drink, and she drains away the lion's share of each week's benefits--all the family has to live on--on cans of extra-strong lager hidden in handbags and poured into tea mugs.

Agnes's older children find their own ways to get a safe distance from their mother, abandoning Shuggie to care for her as she swings between alcoholic binges and sobriety. Shuggie is meanwhile struggling to somehow become the normal boy he desperately longs to be, but everyone has realized that he is "no right," a boy with a secret that all but him can see. Agnes is supportive of her son, but her addiction has the power to eclipse everyone close to her--even her beloved Shuggie.

A heartbreaking story of addiction, sexuality, and love, Shuggie Bain is an epic portrayal of a working-class family that is rarely seen in fiction. Recalling the work of Edouard Louis, Alan Hollinghurst, Frank McCourt, and Hanya Yanagihara, it is a blistering debut by a brilliant novelist who has a powerful and important story to tell.]]> 430 Douglas Stuart 0802148042 Kim 0 to-read 4.29 2020
author: Douglas Stuart
name: Kim
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> 42270835 Author of The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys sentenced to a hellish reform school in 1960s Florida.

Elwood Curtis has taken the words of Dr Martin Luther King to heart: he is as good as anyone. Abandoned by his parents, brought up by his loving, strict and clear-sighted grandmother, Elwood is about to enroll in the local black college. But given the time and the place, one innocent mistake is enough to destroy his future, and so Elwood arrives at The Nickel Academy, which claims to provide 'physical, intellectual and moral training' which will equip its inmates to become 'honorable and honest men'.

In reality, the Nickel Academy is a chamber of horrors, where physical, emotional and sexual abuse is rife, where corrupt officials and tradesmen do a brisk trade in supplies intended for the school, and where any boy who resists is likely to disappear 'out back'. Stunned to find himself in this vicious environment, Elwood tries to hold on to Dr King's ringing assertion, 'Throw us in jail, and we will still love you.' But Elwood's fellow inmate and new friend Turner thinks Elwood is naive and worse; the world is crooked, and the only way to survive is to emulate the cruelty and cynicism of their oppressors.

The tension between Elwood's idealism and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision which will have decades-long repercussions.

Based on the history of a real reform school in Florida that operated for one hundred and eleven years and warped and destroyed the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative by a great American novelist whose work is essential to understanding the current reality of the United States.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead Kim 0 to-read 4.25 2019
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Kim
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/30
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]]> 204119008
A charitable senior finds her calling making creepily authentic life-size dolls. Call it recreation. But when Mira finds a dead body encased under that painted porcelain, it's more like murder.

It gets even stranger when Mira's investigation lands her just where the Battle Lake police chief wants her: in jail. Luckily, Team Mira is on the case. They're a fierce, if unlikely, force to be reckoned with: one flashy lady mayor and Mira's scrappy nonagenarian best friend.
They plan to bust Mira out and clear her name. Bad news, though: a bizarrely motivated killer is still on the loose and can't wait to see Mira all dolled up—to death.

Revised edition: This edition of March of Crimes includes editorial revisions.]]> 247 Jess Lourey 1662519427 Kim 0 to-read 4.25 2017
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217223357 ąó°ů´ÇłľĚýNew York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs, a wrenching but life-affirming novel based on a true story of survival, friendship, and redemption when six girls come together in a Catholic reform school in 1960s Buffalo, NY. Perfect for fans of Before We Were Yours,ĚýOrphan Train, and The Berry Pickers.

It was a place frozen in time, an ancient fortress haunted by echoes that whispered against the gray stone in a mysterious, heavy rhythm, as though this place was entirely separate from the rest of the world. A sign by the inner door read Our Lady of Charity Refuge and Sisters of the Good Shepherd.

Mairin’s breath caught in her throat as comprehension crept over her. This place was the one mentioned in scandalized whispers from the older girls at school. It was the one people gossiped about when a girl suddenly stopped showing up to class. It was the place angry parents—like her own mother—threatened their daughters “I’ll send you to the nuns, just you see if I won’t.�

Amid the turbulence of the Vietnam Era, in the all-American city of Buffalo, New York, teenage girls were condemned to forced labor at the Good Shepherd, a dark and secret institution controlled by the Sisters of Charity nuns.

In 1968 we meet six teens thrust into confinement at the Good Shepherd�merely for being gay, pregnant, or simply unruly.

Mairin� free-spirited daughter of Irish immigrants was committed to keep her safe from her stepfather.

Angela�denounced for her attraction to girls, was sent to the nuns for reform, but instead found herself the victim of a predator.

Helen�the daughter of intellectuals detained in Communist China, saw her “temporary� stay at the Good Shepherd stretch into years.

Odessa�caught up in a police dragnet over a racial incident, found the physical and mental toughness to endure her sentence.

Denise�sentenced for brawling in a foster home, dared to dream of a better life.

Janice�deeply insecure, she couldn’t decide where her loyalty lay�except when it came to her friend Kay, who would never outgrow her childlike dependency.

Sister Bernadette�rescued from a dreadful childhood, she owed her loyalty to the Sisters of Charity even as her conscience weighed on her.

Wayward Girls is a haunting but thrilling tale of hope, solidarity, and the enduring strength of young women who find the courage to break free and find redemption...and justice.]]> 400 Susan Wiggs 0063118270 Kim 0 to-read 4.32
author: Susan Wiggs
name: Kim
average rating: 4.32
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/23
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]]> 217223453 Highly acclaimed New York Times bestseller Laura Lippman returns with an irresistible mystery featuring Muriel Blossom, a former private investigator and middle-aged widow whose vacation on a Parisian river cruise turns into a deadly international mystery…that only she can solve. 

Mrs. Blossom is not the kind of woman to play the lottery. She is practical, a devoted grandmother, and has a knack for blending into the background, which was an asset during her days assisting private investigator Tess Monaghan. But when Mrs. Blossom finds a winning ticket in a parking lot, everything changes...including Mrs. Blossom. She is determined to see the world that sometimes feels as if it’s passing her by.

But when Mrs. Blossom booked her cruise through France on the MS Solitaire, she did not expect to meet Allan on her transatlantic flight. He is the first man who’s sparked something inside her since her beloved husband passed.

She also didn’t expect Allan to be found, dead, twenty-four hours later in Paris, a city he wasn’t supposed to be in.

Now Mrs. Blossom doesn’t know who to trust on board the ship, especially when a new, mystifying man, Danny, keeps popping up around every corner, always present when things go awry. He claims that Allan was involved in the transport of a stolen, precious piece of art, and he’s convinced that Mrs. Blossom knows more than she lets on, regarding both the artifact and Allan’s murder.

Mrs. Blossom’s questions only increase as the cruise sails down the Seine. Why does it feel like she is being followed? Who was Allan, and why was he killed? Most alarmingly, why do these mysterious men keep flirting with her?

What follows is a charming one-of-a-kind mystery from one of Time magazine’s “essential crime writers of the last 100 years.� The perfect combination of cozy and thrilling, this novel and the delightful Mrs. Blossom are sure to be unforgettable.]]> 272 Laura Lippman 0062998102 Kim 0 to-read 3.63 2025
author: Laura Lippman
name: Kim
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/18
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]]> 219301723 In this twisted psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of the Reese’s Book Club Pick The Last Mrs. Parrish, a woman is tormented by nightmarish visions of her future—and then they start to come true.

Annabelle has everything she’s ever wanted. A devoted husband, two wonderful daughters, and a career she loves. She couldn’t be happier. So why is she suddenly plagued by disturbing dreams of a future where she hates her husband and her daughters� lives are at risk? At first, she chalks the dreams up to an overactive imagination. But when details from her dreams, details she couldn’t possibly have predicted, begin to materialize, she realizes these aren’t just dreams but rather premonitions of a terrifying future. They all point to a singular choice, an unknown moment that holds Annabelle’s life in the balance.

Then Annabelle has a dream that her daughter, Scarlett, is in immediate danger. Someone wants Scarlett dead and Annabelle has no idea who or why. Suddenly, every choice she makes is fraught with peril, with no inkling of which move could bring this terrifying vision to life. As her present life starts to collide with the future in her dreams, she wrestles with how much control she really has over her destiny and whether or not she can change what is meant to be.]]> 352 Liv Constantine 0593875206 Kim 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Liv Constantine
name: Kim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> 217182446 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Calamity of Souls comes David Baldacci’s newest novel, set in London in 1944, about a bereaved book shop owner and two teenagers scarred by the second world war, and the healing and hope they find in one another.

Fourteen-year-old Charlie Matters is up to no good, but for a very good reason. Without parents, peerage, or merit, ducking school but barred from actual work, he steals what he needs, living day-to-day until he’s old enough to enlist to fight the Germans. After barely surviving the Blitz, Charlie knows there’s no telling when a falling bomb might end his life.

Fifteen-year-old Molly Wakefield has just returned to a nearly unrecognizable London. One of millions of people to have been evacuated to the countryside via “Operation Pied Piper,� Molly has been away from her parents—from her home—for nearly five years. Her return, however, is not the homecoming she’d hoped for as she’s confronted by a devastating reality: both her parents are gone.

Without guardians and stability, Charlie and Molly find an unexpected ally and protector in Ignatius Oliver, and solace at his book shop, The Book Keep, where A book a day keeps the bombs away. Mourning the recent loss of his wife, Ignatius forms a kinship with both children, and in each other—over the course of the greatest armed conflict the world had ever seen—they rediscover the spirit of family each has lost.

But Charlie’s escapades in the city have not gone unnoticed, and someone’s been following Molly since she returned to London. And Ignatius is still reeling from a secret Imogen long kept from him while she was alive—something so shocking it resulted in her death, and his life being turned upside down.

As bombs continue to bear down on the city, Charlie, Molly, and Ignatius learn that while the perils of war rage on, their coming together and trusting one another may be the only way for them to survive.]]> 448 David Baldacci 1538742055 Kim 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: David Baldacci
name: Kim
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
shelves: to-read
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]]> 219300993 Bestselling author James Lee Burke tells his most thrilling and insightful story yet through the eyes of fourteen-year-old Bessie Holland

At the beginning of the twentieth century, as America grapples with forces of human and natural violence more powerful than humanity has ever seen, Bessie Holland yearns for the love that she has never known. She finds a soulmate and mentor in a brilliant but tormented suffragette English teacher, who inspires Bessie to fight the forces of evil that permeate her world.

Watching the vast Texas countryside being destroyed by an oil company and a menacing figure with a violent past, Bessie is prepared to defend her home and her family. But when she accidentally kills an unarmed man to defend her father Hackberry, she must flee to New York. There, her older brother introduces her to boys who will grow into gangsters, but as children admire and respect Bessie’s spirit and fortitude as she is cast into a gangland that yearns for justice and mercy.

A welcome return to the beloved Holland series and populated with characters both radiant and despicable, Don't Forget Me, Little Bessie is an epic story of a remarkable young girl who fights against potentially overwhelming forces.]]> 368 James Lee Burke 0802164528 Kim 0 to-read 4.47 2025
author: James Lee Burke
name: Kim
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> 209311311 Northanger Abbey is often referred to as Jane Austen's "Gothic parody." Decrepit castles, locked rooms, mysterious chests, cryptic notes, and tyrannical fathers give the story an uncanny air, but one with a decidedly satirical twist.

The story's unlikely heroine is Catherine Morland, a remarkably innocent seventeen-year-old woman from a country parsonage. While spending a few weeks in Bath with a family friend, Catherine meets and falls in love with Henry Tilney, who invites her to visit his family estate, Northanger Abbey. Once there, Catherine, a great reader of Gothic thrillers, lets the shadowy atmosphere of the old mansion fill her mind with terrible suspicions. What is the mystery surrounding the death of Henry's mother? Is the family concealing a terrible secret within the elegant rooms of the Abbey? Can she trust Henry, or is he part of an evil conspiracy? Catherine finds dreadful portents in the most prosaic events, until Henry persuades her to see the peril in confusing life with art.

Executed with high-spirited gusto, Northanger Abbey is a lighthearted, yet unsentimental commentary on love and marriage.]]> 272 Jane Austen 019884106X Kim 0 to-read 3.83 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1817
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 218710826 " If you really want to shock the world, unleash your kindness." 

Based on bestselling author Brad Meltzer’s viral commencement speech for his son’s graduating class at the University of Michigan,ĚýMake Magic is the little book of hope for anyone who has ever wished for more. More authenticity. More empathy. More gratitude. A more fulfilling life. 

With charming, thoughtful insights from his remarkable life and career,ĚýMeltzer uses magic as allegory, sharing the secret that there are only four types of magic

1) you make something appear,

2) you make something disappear,

3) you make two things switch places, and

4) you turn one thing into something else—the hardest trick of all, transformation. 

Embracing each of these easy-to-follow tricks—and unleashing your kindness and empathy—will inspire you to craft a life filled with wonder and awe.

Make Magic is an uplifting message from one of today’s most inspiring voices.]]> 112 Brad Meltzer 0063440717 Kim 0 to-read 4.24
author: Brad Meltzer
name: Kim
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/12
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]]> 220481340
Crime fiction author Joe Penvale has won the most brutal battle of his life. Now that he has finished his intense medical treatment, he and his twin sister, Meredith, are boarding the glorious Orient Express in Paris, hoping for some much-needed rest and rejuvenation. Meredith also hopes that the literary ghosts on the train will nudge Joe's muse awake, and he'll be inspired to write again. And he is; after their first evening spent getting to know some of their fellow travelers, Joe pulls out his laptop and opens a new document. Seems like this trip is just what the doctor ordered�

And then some. The next morning, Joe and Meredith are shocked to witness that the cabin next door has become a crime scene, bathed in blood but with no body in sight. The pair soon find themselves caught up in an Agatha Christie-esque murder investigation. Without any help from the authorities, and with the victim still not found, Joe and Meredith are asked to join a group of fellow passengers with law enforcement backgrounds to look into the mysterious disappearance of the man in Cabin16G. But when the steward guarding the crime scene is murdered, it marks the beginning of a killing spree which leaves five found dead—and one still missing. Now Joe and Meredith must fight once again to preserve their newfound future and to catch a cunning killer before they reach the end of the line.

USA Today bestselling author Sulari Gentill brings readers on a heart-pounding ride filled with intrigue, suspense, and literary charm in Five Found Dead, perfect for fans of twisty mysteries and books about books. 


]]> 320 Sulari Gentill 1464219710 Kim 0 to-read 3.79 2025
author: Sulari Gentill
name: Kim
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/12
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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? She’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 she’s in a hostage situation the likes of which she’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 Kim 0 to-read 3.80 2025
author: Colleen Oakley
name: Kim
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> 207571151 Told in alternating timelines, The Lake of Lost Girls is a haunting novel that will thrill fans of All Good People Here and We Are All the Same in the Dark.

Using suspenseful podcast clips to weave a twisty tale of a missing student and her sister who is desperate for answers, The Lake of Lost Girls is perfect for fans of I Have Some Questions for You.

It's 1998, and female students are going missing at Southern State University in North Carolina. But freshman Jessica Fadley, once a bright and responsible student, is going through her own struggles. Just as her life seems to be careening dangerously out of control, she suddenly disappears.

Twenty-four years later, Jessica's sister Lindsey is desperately searching for answers and uses the momentum of a new chart-topping true crime podcast, Ten Seconds to Vanish, that focuses on the cold cases, to guide her own investigation. Soon, interest reaches fever pitch when the bodies of the long-missing women begin turning up at a local lake, which leads Lindsey down a disturbing road of discovery.

In the present, one sister seeks to untangle a complicated web of lies.
In the past, the other descends ever deeper into a darkness that will lead to her ultimate fate.

This propulsive and chilling suspense is a sharp examination of sisterhood and the culture of true crime.]]> 320 Katherine Greene 1639109080 Kim 3 3.83 2024
author: Katherine Greene
name: Kim
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/08
date added: 2025/01/08
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]]> 217387838 The latest gripping serial killer thriller from the New York Times bestselling author Alex North.

Dan Garvie’s life has been haunted by the crime he witnessed as a child—narrowly escaping an encounter with a notorious serial killer. He has dedicated his life since to becoming a criminal profiler, eager to seek justice for innocent victims. So when his father passes away under suspicious circumstances, Dan revisits his small island community, determined to uncover the truth about his death. Is it possible that the monster he remembers from his childhood nightmares has returned after all these years?

With his signature shock and suspense, Alex North brings us The Man Made of Smoke. In turn emotional, introspective, and utterly terrifying, this is a story of fathers and sons, shadows and secrets, and the fight we all face to escape the trauma of the past.]]> 320 Alex North 1250757894 Kim 0 to-read 4.25 2025
author: Alex North
name: Kim
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/02
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]]> 204119241 Revised This edition of February Fever includes editorial revisions.

All aboard. It's murder on the Valentine Train in a heart-racing mystery from Amazon Charts bestselling and Edgar Award-nominated author Jess Lourey.

Mira James is heading to Oregon by rail with two of her best friends to attend a PI conference. Even better, she'll see Johnny, the love of her life, who's in Portland for an internship. It'll be scenic, swift, and safe. Until it isn't.

When a winter storm brings the train to a dead stop in the Rockies, Mira discovers that a woman in the next cabin has been murdered, and her husband and child have vanished. Rumors of an escaped convict do nothing to ease the passengers' frazzled nerves. To Mira, every one of them is a suspect.

Trapped in a snowbound train with only two people she can trust, Mira has to solve a baffling disappearance and track down a killer—if she isn't derailed herself. Permanently.]]> 246 Jess Lourey 1662519400 Kim 0 to-read 4.16 2015
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

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

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

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

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

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Kim 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kim
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> 5166
As recounted by Sibyl's precocious fourteen-year-old daughter, Connie, the ensuing trial bears the earmarks of a witch hunt except for the fact that all its participants are acting from the highest motives—and the defendant increasingly appears to be guilty. As Sibyl Danforth faces the antagonism of the law, the hostility of traditional doctors, and the accusations of her own conscience, Midwives engages, moves, and transfixes us as only the very best novels ever do.]]> 384 Chris Bohjalian Kim 4 3.99 1997
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Kim
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 36477572
Miranda Brooks grew up in the stacks of her eccentric Uncle Billy’s bookstore, solving the inventive scavenger hunts he created just for her. But on Miranda’s twelfth birthday, Billy has a mysterious falling-out with her mother and suddenly disappears from Miranda’s life. She doesn’t hear from him again until sixteen years later when she receives unexpected news: Billy has died and left her Prospero Books, which is teetering on bankruptcy—and one final scavenger hunt.]]> 397 Amy Meyerson Kim 3 3.65 2018
author: Amy Meyerson
name: Kim
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> 219328991 The new thrilling novel from Megan Miranda, the instant New York Times bestselling author of All the Missing Girls, The Last to Vanish, and The Only Survivors.

When Hazel Sharp, daughter of Mirror Lake’s longtime local detective, unexpectedly inherits her childhood home, she’s warily drawn back to the town—and people—she left behind almost a decade earlier. But Hazel’s not the only relic of the past to a drought has descended on the region, and as the water level in the lake drops, long-hidden secrets begin to emerge…including evidence that may help finally explain the mystery of her mother’s disappearance.]]> 534 Megan Miranda 1420521543 Kim 5 4.56 2024
author: Megan Miranda
name: Kim
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> 213847223
So writes Sebastian Trapp, reclusive mystery novelist, to his longtime correspondent Nicky Hunter, an expert in detective fiction. With mere months to live, Trapp invites Nicky to his spectacular San Francisco mansion to help draft his life story . . . living alongside his beautiful second wife, Diana; his wayward nephew, Freddy; and his protective daughter, Madeleine. Soon Nicky finds herself caught in an irresistible case of real-life “detective fever.�

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

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

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

As Nicky attempts to weave together the strands of Sebastian’s life, she becomes obsessed with discovering the truth . . . while Madeleine begins to question what her beloved father might actually know about that long-ago night. And when a corpse appears in the family’s koi pond, both women are shocked to find that the past isn’t gone—it’s just waiting.]]> 416 A.J. Finn 0062678469 Kim 0 to-read 3.07 2024
author: A.J. Finn
name: Kim
average rating: 3.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> 211742032 Bestselling author James Grippando’s legendary criminal defense attorney Jack Swyteck is back to defend a single mother accused of kidnapping her own child in a perilous case involving politics and international diplomacy that will test his legal expertise and his marriage.

Jack Swyteck’s new client fled Iran to Miami with her daughter, and has been accused of kidnapping by her husband. The seasoned attorney must not only plan a winning defense. To stop the father from taking the girl back to Tehran, Jack must build a case under international law and prove that returning the child would put her at risk.

But everything in this case isn’t what it seems, and Jack quickly learns that his client is really the child’s aunt and that the biological mother may have been killed by Iran’s morality police. But what role did the father play in his wife’s death, and why is Jack’s wife, FBI Agent Andie Henning, being pressured by her bosses to persuade Jack to drop the case?

Plunging into an investigation unlike any other, Jack must discover who is behind the legal maneuvering and what their interest is. As politics threatens to derail the case and compromise the best interests of the child, Jack and Andie find themselves on opposite sides—with their marriage hanging in the balance. For their relationship to survive, the couple must navigate a treacherous web of deceit that extends from a Miami courthouse to the highest echelons of Washington DC, and spells grave danger at every turn.]]> 320 James Grippando 0063358034 Kim 0 to-read 4.03
author: James Grippando
name: Kim
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 51173642 Set in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times bestselling author John Hart's singular style.

Gibby's older brothers have already been to war. One died there. The other came back misunderstood and hard, a decorated killer now freshly released from a three-year stint in prison.

Jason won't speak of the war or of his time behind bars, but he wants a relationship with the younger brother he hasn't known for years. Determined to make that connection, he coaxes Gibby into a day at the lake: long hours of sunshine and whisky and older women.

But the day turns ugly when the four encounter a prison transfer bus on a stretch of empty road. Beautiful but drunk, one of the women taunts the prisoners, leading to a riot on the bus. The woman finds it funny in the moment, but is savagely murdered soon after.

Given his violent history, suspicion turns first to Jason; but when the second woman is kidnapped, the police suspect Gibby, too. Determined to prove Jason innocent, Gibby must avoid the cops and dive deep into his brother's hidden life, a dark world of heroin, guns and outlaw motorcycle gangs.

What he discovers there is a truth more bleak than he could have imagined: not just the identity of the killer and the reasons for Tyra's murder, but the forces that shaped his brother in Vietnam, the reason he was framed, and why the most dangerous man alive wants him back in prison.

This is crime fiction at its most raw, an exploration of family and the past, of prison and war and the indelible marks they leave.]]> 369 John Hart 1250167728 Kim 4 4.08 2021
author: John Hart
name: Kim
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/13
date added: 2024/12/13
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]]> 198494052
Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism, until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. And he quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what is at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.

Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.

Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.

Over a decade in the writing, A Calamity of Souls breathes richly imagined and detailed life into a bygone era, taking the reader through a world that will seem both foreign and familiar.]]> 480 David Baldacci 1538765020 Kim 4 4.38 2024
author: David Baldacci
name: Kim
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/25
date added: 2024/12/13
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]]> 217223380 "This is book club fiction at its finest!" —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author

ąó°ů´ÇłľĚýNew York Times bestselling author Mary Alice Monroe comes her highly anticipated Where the Rivers Merge, the first of two epic and triumphant novels celebrating one intrepid woman's life across multiple generations in the American South.

1908: The Lowcountry of South Carolina is at the cusp of change. Mayfield, the grand estate held for generations by the Rivers family, is the treasured home of young Eliza. Free spirited, she refuses to be confined by societal norms. Instead, Eliza revels in exploring the golden fields and sparkling ponds of Mayfield, observing wildlife, and riding horses.

But her halcyon days are cut short by the Great War, coastal storms, and unexpected challenges to Mayfield. As Eliza battles personal pains and the ravages of family turmoil over the years, her love and devotion for the natural world puts her on a collision course with the patriarchal traditions of a bygone era.

1988: At 88, Eliza is the scion of the Rivers/DeLancey family. She’s fought a lifetime to save her beloved Mayfield and is too independent and committed to quietly retire and leave the fate of the estate to her greedy son. She must make decisions that will assure the future of the land and her family—or watch them both be split apart.  

Set against the evocative landscape of the twentieth-century low country,ĚýWhere the Rivers Merge is a dramatic and sweeping multigenerational family story of unyielding love, lessons learned, profound sacrifices, and the indomitable spirit of a woman determined to persevere in the face of change in order to protect her family legacy and the land she loves.]]> 352 Mary Alice Monroe 0063249421 Kim 0 to-read 4.45
author: Mary Alice Monroe
name: Kim
average rating: 4.45
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> 219603177 One train. No stops. A deadly game of survival and revenge.

In 1942, six people destroyed Anna Matheson’s family. Twelve years later, she’s ready for retribution.

Under false pretenses, Anna has lured those responsible for her family’s downfall onto a luxury train from Philadelphia to Chicago,Ěýan overnight journey of fourteen hours. Her goal? Confront the people who’ve wronged her, get them to confess their crimes, and deliver them into the hands of authorities waiting at the end of the line. Justice will at last be served.

But Anna’s plan is quickly derailed by the murder of one of the passengers. As the train barrels through the night, it becomes clear that someone else on board is enacting their own form of revenge—and that they won’t stop until everyone else is dead.

With time running out before the train reaches its destination, Anna is forced to hunt the killer in their midst while protecting the people she hates the most. In order to destroy her enemies, she must first save them—even though it means putting her own life at risk.]]> 400 Riley Sager 0593472403 Kim 0 to-read 3.65 2025
author: Riley Sager
name: Kim
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> 220999068 From the bestselling author of I Am Still Alive comes a new nail-biter that's part survival story, part murder mystery, and all thriller—perfect for fans of Karen McManus and Holly Jackson!

Two years ago Mercy Gray was hailed as a hero for saving lives during a mall shooting. She still carries souvenirs from that incident: the fragment of a bullet lodged in her back, a mountain of medical debt, and guilt for ignoring her sister’s warnings that the sweet boy next door was anything but.

When billionaire-turned-TV-host Damien Dare recruits Mercy to compete on his new survivalist reality show, she can’t turn down a chance at the whopping cash prize that could send her sister to college—but when she and the other contestants arrive at the off-grid location, something isn’t right. The set is empty. The gates close without warning, trapping them inside. Then one of them turns up dead. What appeared at first to be a tragic accident quickly transforms as more contestants start dying. With time and resources running low, surviving this show takes on a new meaning.]]> 336 Kate Alice Marshall 0593691830 Kim 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Kim
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/05
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]]> 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Kim 5 4.16 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Kim
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/04
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]]> 204118695
It may be six below zero, but an ice-skating jaunt gets even more chilling for private investigator in training Mira James. She's just locked eyes with a frozen corpse floating under a sheet of ice.

The man, a curious transient who's been researching local history, also rescued Mira and her best friend from a mugging the night before. His death is no accident, but it is a mystery. To solve it, Mira follows a trail leading to the alleged haunting of a historic museum and a centuries-old tragedy that has yet to claim its final victim.

With a killer on the loose amid a freakish winter thaw, Mira is on thin ice. If she doesn't watch her back, she could be the next one to go under.

Revised edition: This edition of January Thaw includes editorial revisions.]]> 267 Jess Lourey 1662519389 Kim 0 to-read 4.18 2014
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 203613902 An Irish-American family comes to life through the eyes of a 13-year-old boy in this debut novel by actor-filmmaker Ed Burns, the first book in a trilogy.

Immigrants and storytellers, lilting voices and Long Island moxy are all part of this colorful Irish-Catholic community in 1970s New York.

A Kid from Marlboro Road opens at a wake, as our twelve-year-old narrator, an aspiring writer, takes in the death of his beloved grandfather, Pop, a larger-than-life figure to him. The overflowing crowd includes sandhogs in their muddy work boots, old Irish biddies in black dresses and cops in uniform, along with the family in mourning. There’s an open casket, the first time he’s seen a dead person. Later, at the bar across the street, he tells a story to the assembled crowd about the day his dad proposed to his mom, and how he almost got beat up by her brothers for it, and then how Pop made him propose twice.

His mom calls him “Kneenie,� and with her husband and older son Tommy lost to her, he’s the best thing she’s got. He sees her struggling with depression and is worried his parents might get divorced, but doesn’t know how to help—since like his brother and father before him he knows he’ll also abandon her soon enough.

Stories cascade between the prior generation’s colorful origins in the Bronx and the softer world of the of Gibson, the town on Long Island where the family lives now. There are scenes in the Rockaways, at Belmont Race Track, and in Montauk. Out of individual struggles a collective warmth emerges, a certain kind of American story, raucous and joyous.

Includes black and white photographs from the author's family history.]]> 224 Edward Burns 1644214075 Kim 3 3.82
author: Edward Burns
name: Kim
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
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]]> 199798460
It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington State.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a twisty page-turner that will shock and surprise you right up until the final page.]]> 299 Emiko Jean 1668023938 Kim 5 3.97 2024
author: Emiko Jean
name: Kim
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/24
date added: 2024/11/24
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]]> 40121959 Miracle Creek is a powerhouse debut about how far we'll go to protect our families, and our deepest secrets.

In rural Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine. A pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives,� it's also a repository of hopes and dreams: the dream of a mom that her child can be like other kids; the dream of a young doctor desperate to cure his infertility and save his marriage; the dream of the Yoos themselves, Korean immigrants who have come to the United States so their teenage daughter can have a better life.

When the oxygen chamber mysteriously explodes, killing two people, all these dreams shatter with it, and the ensuing murder trial uncovers imaginable secrets and lies. In Miracle Creek, Angie Kim takes a classic form—courtroom drama—and draws on her own experience as an immigrant, a lawyer, and the mother of a real-life "submarine" patient to turn it into something wholly original, unputdownable . . . real. This is a spellbinding novel by an exciting new voice.]]> 355 Angie Kim 0374156026 Kim 5 3.86 2019
author: Angie Kim
name: Kim
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/18
date added: 2024/11/18
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]]> 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

Restauranteur Paddy Swann was the life of the party until the day a man pushed him in the path of an oncoming train, leaving his twenty-something daughter Ash and wife Nina devastated. Shortly after Paddy’s funeral, the two women receive a surprise in the mail: a note and package from Nick Ratcliffe, an old friend of Paddy’s, and a nondescript lighter that once belonged to him decades ago. This unexpected gift draws Nick and Nina closer together—much to Ash’s dismay.

Martha is a small-town florist with dreams of expansion. She lives with her second husband Al, her baby, and two sons from her prior marriage. But they never seem to have any money, and with his constant traveling for work, she feels like a single parent—especially when an emergency makes her realize something needs to change.

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]> 368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Kim 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Kim
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217394492 In this stunningly twisty thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Harlan Coben, a secret from former Detective Sami Kierce’s college days comes back to haunt him. His memory is clear, but all these years later, the facts don’t add up…which is something he cannot ignore.

Sami Kierce, a young college grad backpacking in Spain with friends, wakes up one morning, covered in blood. There’s a knife in his hand. Beside him, the body of his girlfriend. Anna. Dead. He doesn’t know what happened. His screams drown out his thoughts—and then he runs.

Twenty-two years later, Kierce, now a private investigator, is a new father who’s working off his debts by doing low level surveillance jobs and teaching wannabe sleuths at a night school in New York City. One evening, he recognizes a familiar face at the back of the classroom. Anna. It’s unmistakably her. As soon as Kierce makes eye contact with her, she bolts. For Kierce there is no choice. He knows he must find this woman and solve the impossible mystery that has haunted his every waking moment since that terrible day.

His investigation will bring him face-to-face with his past—and prove, after all this time, he’s nobody’s fool.]]> 352 Harlan Coben 1538756358 Kim 0 to-read 4.18 2025
author: Harlan Coben
name: Kim
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/10
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]]> 213111930
There’s a madman dog beside me, and the hounds of memory ahead of us . . . It’s love and beasts and wild mistakes, and regret, but never to change things.

What happens when the Zusak family opens their home to three big, wild, street-hardened dogs—Reuben, more wolf than hound; Archer, blond, beautiful, destructive; and the rancorously smiling Frosty, who walks like a rolling thunderstorm?

The answer can only be chaos: There are street fights, park fights, public shamings, property damages, injuries, hospital visits, wellness checks, pure comedy, shocking tragedy, and carnage that must be read to be believed.

There is a reckoning of shortcomings and failure, a strengthening of will, but most important of all, an explosion of love—and the joy and recognition of family.

Three Wild Dogs (and the Truth) is a tender, motley, and exquisitely written memoir about the human need for both connection and disorder, a love letter to the animals who bring hilarity and beauty—but also the visceral truth of the natural world—straight to our doors and into our lives and change us forever.]]> 240 Markus Zusak 0063426072 Kim 0 to-read 4.02 2024
author: Markus Zusak
name: Kim
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> 204119090
Revised: This edition of December Dread includes editorial revisions.]]> 268 Jess Lourey 1662519370 Kim 0 to-read 4.31 2012
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217388081 The #1 New York Times-bestselling author presents a new novel about an injured cop who must fight to bring down a pair of twisted killers�

Natural Resources police officer, Sloan Cooper, and her partner had just taken down three men preying on hikers in the Western Maryland mountains. Driving back, she pulled in at a convenience store—and walked right into a robbery in progress. One gunshot from a jittery thief was about to change her world.

After being shocked back to life on the operating table, she has a long recovery ahead, so she moves back to her parents� peaceful house in Heron’s Rest. As for the boyfriend who dumped her via text while she was in the hospital, good riddance.

She may be down, but she’s not out. So when a woman vanishes, leaving her car behind in a supermarket parking lot, Sloan searches online for similar cases. She finds them, spread across three states. Men and women, old and young—the missing seem to have nothing in common. And the abductions keep happening.

Luckily, the new man in her life shares her passion for solving this mystery. But it will take every ounce of endurance to get to the dark heart of this bizarre case—and she's willing to risk her life again if that's what it takes to stop the horror.]]> 448 Nora Roberts 125037085X Kim 0 to-read 4.14 2025
author: Nora Roberts
name: Kim
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/28
shelves: to-read
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]]> 33572350
But she doesn’t know why she feels so different from the other girls at school; why the line between love and pain can be so hard to see. Or why making a friend may be the bravest and most terrifying thing she has ever done.

Sometimes the people you’re supposed to trust are the ones who do most harm. And what you’ve been taught to fear is the very thing that will save you…]]> 417 Gabriel Tallent 0735211175 Kim 5 3.56 2017
author: Gabriel Tallent
name: Kim
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/10/12
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]]> 25614492
Sepetys (writer of 'Between Shades of Gray') crafts four fictionalized but historically accurate voices to convey the real-life tragedy. Joana, a Lithuanian with nursing experience; Florian, a Prussian soldier fleeing the Nazis with stolen treasure; and Emilia, a Polish girl close to the end of her pregnancy, converge on their escape journeys as Russian troops advance; each will eventually meet Albert, a Nazi peon with delusions of grandeur, assigned to the Gustloff decks.]]> 391 Ruta Sepetys Kim 0 to-read 4.35 2016
author: Ruta Sepetys
name: Kim
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 25354 320 Dorothy Allison 0452287057 Kim 0 to-read 4.14 1992
author: Dorothy Allison
name: Kim
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> 198563674 A sweeping novel inspired by the untold history of women pioneers who fought to protect children caught in the storm of land barons hungry for power and oil wealth.

Oklahoma, 1909. Eleven-year-old Olive Augusta Radley knows that her stepfather doesn’t have good intentions toward the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards. When the older girl disappears, Ollie flees to the woods, taking six-year-old Nessa with her. Together they begin a perilous journey to the rugged Winding Stair Mountains, the notorious territory of outlaws, treasure hunters, and desperate men. Along the way, Ollie and Nessa form an unlikely band with others like themselves, struggling to stay one step ahead of those who seek to exploit them . . . or worse.

Oklahoma, 1990. Law Enforcement Ranger Valerie Boren O’dell arrives at Horsethief Trail National Park seeking a quiet place to balance a career and single parenthood. But no sooner has Valerie reported for duty than she’s faced with local controversy over the park’s opening, a teenage hiker gone missing from one of the trails, and the long-hidden burial site of three children deep in a cave. Val’s quest to uncover the truth wins an ally among the neighboring Choctaw Tribal Police but soon collides with old secrets and the tragic and deadly history of the land itself.

In this emotional and enveloping novel, Lisa Wingate traces the story of children abandoned by the law and the battle to see justice done. Amid times of deep conflict over who owns the land and its riches, Ollie and Val traverse the wild and beautiful terrain, each leaving behind one life in search of another.]]> 368 Lisa Wingate 0593726502 Kim 5 3.81 2024
author: Lisa Wingate
name: Kim
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/02
date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> 204118615 Revised This edition of November Hunt includes editorial revisions.]]> 253 Jess Lourey 1662519346 Kim 0 to-read 4.19 2012
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211004064
Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States, is often ranked among Americans� most well-liked presidents. Yet what most Americans don’t know is that JFK’s historic presidency almost ended before it began—at the hands of a disgruntled sociopathic loner armed with dynamite.

On December 11, 1960, shortly after Kennedy’s election and before his inauguration, a retired postal worker named Richard Pavlick waited in his car—a parked Buick—on a quiet street in Palm Beach, Florida. Pavlick knew the president-elect’s schedule. He knew when Kennedy would leave his house. He knew where Kennedy was going. From there, Pavlick had a simple plan—one that could’ve changed the course of history.

Written in the gripping, page-turning style that is the hallmark of Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch’s bestselling series, this is a slice of history vividly brought to life. Meltzer and Mensch are at the top of their game with this brilliant exploration of what could’ve been for one of the most compelling leaders of the 20th century.]]> 304 Brad Meltzer 1250790573 Kim 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Brad Meltzer
name: Kim
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 210999992 Following the highly acclaimed Nocturnes and Night Music, Night & Day is filled with eerie surprises and dark delights.

Night & Day takes us from the dusty shelves of an uncanny library filled with fictional characters to a bunker deep beneath the earth where scientists seek revenge on old Nazis, from an English marsh haunted by a mother and her son to a country house where a grieving widower finds comfort from a most unlikely source.

Concluding with the author's account of how an obscure horror film brought him closer to his lost father, and how nostalgia can help to keep us sane, this is a collection that will move, entertain, and keep you reading late into the night.]]> 368 John Connolly 1668081679 Kim 0 to-read 3.47
author: John Connolly
name: Kim
average rating: 3.47
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/24
shelves: to-read
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]]> 66474 336 Robin Cook 042517638X Kim 2 3.73
author: Robin Cook
name: Kim
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/09/23
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]]> 199026522 In the latest jaw-dropping thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager, a man must contend with the long-ago disappearance of his childhood best friend—and the dark secrets lurking just beyond the safe confines of his picture-perfect neighborhood.

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

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

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

The closer Ethan gets to the truth, the more he realizes that no place—be it quiet forest or suburban street—is completely safe. And that the past has a way of haunting the present.]]> 367 Riley Sager 0593472373 Kim 4 3.66 2024
author: Riley Sager
name: Kim
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> 203796571 In a wise and magical follow-up to The Puppets of Spelhorst, Kate DiCamillo revisits the land of Norendy, where tales swirl within tales—and every moment is a story in the making.

At the Hotel Balzaar, Marta’s mother rises before the sun, puts on her uniform, and instructs Marta to roam as she will but quietly, invisibly—like a little mouse. While her mother cleans rooms, Marta slips down the back staircase to the grand lobby to chat with the bellman, study the painting of an angel’s wing over the fireplace, and watch a cat chase a mouse around the face of the grandfather clock, all the while dreaming of the return of her soldier father, who has gone missing. One day, a mysterious countess with a parrot checks in, promising a story—in fact, seven stories in all, each to be told in its proper order. As the stories unfold, Marta begins to wonder: could the secret to her father’s disappearance lie in the countess’s tales? Book two in a trio of novellas bound by place and mood—with elegant line art by Júlia Sardà�The Hotel Balzaar masterfully juggles yearning and belief, shining light into every dark corner.]]> 160 Kate DiCamillo 153622331X Kim 0 to-read 4.27 2024
author: Kate DiCamillo
name: Kim
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 212426504 A delightfully insightful exploration of our obsession with gossip that weaves together journalism, cultural criticism, and memoir, from the host of the massively popular Normal Gossip podcast.

Can you keep a secret? As the pandemic forced us to socialize at a distance, Kelsey McKinney was mourning the juicy updates, jaw-dropping stories, and idle chatter that she’d typically collect over drinks with friends. She realized she wasn’t the only one missing these little morsels and her hunger for this aspect of normalcy took on a life of its own and the blockbuster Normal Gossip podcast was born. With listenership in the millions and gossip quickly becoming her day job, Kelsey found herself with the urge to think more critically about gossip as a form, to better understand the role that it plays in our culture.

In YOU DIDN'T HEAR THIS FROM ME, McKinney explores the murkiness of everyday storytelling. Why is gossip considered a sin and how can we better recognize when gossip is being weaponized against the oppressed? Why do we think we’re entitled to every detail of a celebrity’s personal life because they are a public figure? And how do we even define “gossip,� anyway? She dishes on the art of eavesdropping and dives deep into how pop culture has changed the way that we look at hearsay. But as much as the book aims to treat gossip as a subject worthy of rigor, it also hopes to capture the heart of how enchanting and fun it can be to lean over and whisper something a little salacious into your friend’s ear. With wit and honesty, McKinney unmasks what we're actually searching for when we demand to know the truth � and how much the truth really matters in the first place.  ]]> 288 Kelsey McKinney 1538757400 Kim 0 to-read 3.89 2025
author: Kelsey McKinney
name: Kim
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211399773 A vacation in the Hamptons goes terribly wrong for three friends with a complicated history.

It was meant to be a harmless prank.

Growing up, May Hanover was a good girl, always. Well-behaved, top of her class, a compulsive rule-follower. Raised by a first-generation Chinese single mother with high expectations, May didn’t have room to slip up, let alone fail. Her friends didn’t call her the Little Sheriff for nothing.

But even good girls have secrets. And regrets. When it comes to her friendship with Lauren and Kelsey, she's had her fair share of both. Their bond—forged when May was just twelve years old—has withstood a tragic accident, individual scandals, heartbreak and loss. Now the three friends have reunited for the first time in years for a few days of sun and fun in the Hamptons. But a chance encounter with a pair of strangers leads to a drunken prank that goes horribly awry. 

When she finds herself at the center of an urgent police investigation, May begins to wonder whether Lauren and Kelsey are keeping secrets from her, testing the limits of her loyalty to lifelong friends.

What had they gone and done?

The Note is a page-turner of the highest order from one of our greatest contemporary suspense writers.]]> 287 Alafair Burke 0593537084 Kim 0 to-read 3.37 2025
author: Alafair Burke
name: Kim
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/09
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]]> 203019740 From the New York Times bestselling author of We Begin at the End comes a soaring thriller and an epic love story that spans decades.

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

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

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

A missing person mystery, a serial killer thriller, a love story, a unique twist on each, Chris Whitaker has written a novel about what lurks in the shadows of obsession, and the blinding light of hope.]]> 608 Chris Whitaker 0593798872 Kim 5 4.24 2024
author: Chris Whitaker
name: Kim
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/05
date added: 2024/09/05
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]]> 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 Kim 0 to-read 4.22 2025
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Kim
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 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 Kim 0 to-read 3.16 2025
author: Lisa Unger
name: Kim
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 202645063 As a wave of murders grips Southern California, an unlikely pair must untangle the mysterious patterns of an elusive killer. A propulsive new series by New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Isabella Maldonado.

Carmen Sanchez is a tough Homeland Security agent who plays by the rules. But when her sister is attacked, revealing a connection to a series of murders across Southern California, she realizes a conventional investigation will not be enough to stop the ruthless perpetrator.

With nowhere else to turn, Sanchez enlists the aid of Professor Jake Heron, a brilliant and quirky private security expert who, unlike Sanchez, believes rules are merely suggestions. The two have a troubled past, but he owes her a favor and she’s cashing in. They team up to catch the assailant, who, mystifyingly, has no discernable motive and fits no classic criminal profile. All they have to go on is a distinctive tattoo and a singular obsession that gives this chillingly efficient tactician his nickname: Spider.

Over the next seventy-two hours, Sanchez and Heron find themselves in the midst of a lethal chess match with the killer as they race to stop the carnage. As the victims mount, so do the risks. Because this spider’s web of intrigue is more sinister—and goes far deeper—than anyone could possibly anticipate.]]> 434 Jeffery Deaver 1662518706 Kim 0 to-read 4.26 2024
author: Jeffery Deaver
name: Kim
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> 204119027
Cue the accordions: Battle Lake, Minnesota, is kicking off October Fest with polka, sausage, and cold suds. The big inaugural event? A debate between two congressional hopefuls. One, stultifyingly sincere. The other, a foot-in-mouth tippler.

Reporter Mira James is roped into covering their fighting words...and then a murder, when a relentless pit bull of a blogger is found dead at a motor lodge filled to capacity with fellow pundits, campaign entourages, and tourists—all of whom have just become suspects.

Mired to her neck in deadly mudslinging, it's up to Mira to sort through a pile of the candidates' dirty laundry and expose a killer who's giving her the pre-Halloween jitters, all while managing mixed messages from local hottie Johnny Leeson. Who knew the political season could be so scary?

Revised edition: This edition of October Fest includes editorial revisions.]]> 234 Jess Lourey 1662519338 Kim 0 to-read 4.12 2011
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/26
shelves: to-read
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]]> 199550833 292 John Grisham 0385545991 Kim 3 3.92 2024
author: John Grisham
name: Kim
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/24
date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> 196614815 A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.

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

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.]]> 341 Simone St. James 0593200381 Kim 3 3.67 2024
author: Simone St. James
name: Kim
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/17
date added: 2024/08/17
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]]> 5957702 The #1 New York Times bestselling author and producer of the Fox television hit, Bones, returns with a spectacular new Tempe Brennan novel.

There are 206 bones in the human body. Forensic anthropologists know them intimately, can read in them stories of brief or long lives and use them to reconstruct every kind of violent end. 206 Bones opens with Tempe regaining consciousness and discovering that she is in some kind of very small, very dark, very cold enclosed space. She is bound, hands to feet. Who wants Tempe dead, or at least out of the way, and why? Tempe begins slowly to reconstruct...

Tempe and Lieutenant Ryan had accompanied the recently discovered remains of a missing heiress from Montreal to the Chicago morgue. Suddenly, Tempe was accused of mishandling the autopsy -- and the case. Someone made an incriminating phone call. Within hours, the one man with information about the call was dead. Back in Montreal, the corpse of a second elderly woman was found in the woods, and then a third.

Seamlessly weaving between Tempe's present-tense terror as she's held captive and her memory of the cases of these murdered women, Reichs conveys the incredible devastation that would occur if a forensic colleague sabotaged work in the lab. The chemistry between Tempe and Ryan intensifies as this complex, riveting tale unfolds. Reichs is writing at the top of her game.]]> 308 Kathy Reichs 0743294394 Kim 4 3.94 2009
author: Kathy Reichs
name: Kim
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
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]]> 41821074
Could a lifetime of memories...be a lifetime of lies?

All her life Ryan Gracey watched her perfect older sister from afar. Knowing she could never top Wendy’s achievements, she didn’t even try. Instead Ryan forged her own path while her family barely seemed to notice.

Now Wendy shares two little girls with her perfect husband while Ryan mourns the man she lost after a nearly fatal mistake in judgment. The sisters� choices have taken them in different directions, which is why Ryan is stunned when Wendy calls, begging for her help. There’s been a murder - and Wendy believes she’ll be wrongfully accused.

While Wendy lies low, Ryan moves back to their hometown to care for the nieces she hardly knows. The sleuthing skills she’s refined as a true-crime podcaster quickly rise to the surface as she digs for answers with the help of an unexpected ally. Yet the trail of clues Wendy’s left behind lead to nothing but questions. Blood may be thicker than water, but what does Ryan owe a sister who, with every revelation, becomes more and more a stranger?

Is Wendy, who always seemed so perfect, just a perfect liar - or worse?
Is Wendy, who always seemed so perfect, just a perfect liar - or worse?]]> 14 Emilie Richards Kim 5 3.99 2019
author: Emilie Richards
name: Kim
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2020/07/09
date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> 195790670
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.

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

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

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

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told from several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The story cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.]]> 324 Alex Finlay 1250863791 Kim 3 3.69 2024
author: Alex Finlay
name: Kim
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/08/05
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]]> 198712881 By-the-book forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck and rogue BCA agent Van Reed must catch a cold-case killer who’s returned to abduct a small town’s children one by one in this heart-stopping novel from the Edgar Award–nominated author of Unspeakable Things.

In 1998 an Alku, Minnesota, family of five was brutally murdered in their sleep. The event shook the insulated community but, without any solid leads, was relegated to the cold case files, where it moldered for twenty-five years. Until today.

Agent Harry Steinbeck hoped never to return to the northland, a place that holds terrible memories of his sister’s abduction. But when a recent homicide is connected to Alku’s unsolved mass murder, he and cold case agent Evangeline Reed have no choice but to investigate.

The case grows impossibly darker as, one by one, the children of Alku begin disappearing. And Harry and Van can’t shake the sensation that someone is watching every move they make.

As an elusive killer’s trail leads to a truth more sinister than either imagined, Harry knows there’s only one way to crack this he must finally face the secrets of his own past—even if doing so will cost him everything.]]> 326 Jess Lourey 1662513992 Kim 0 to-read 4.11 2024
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62919847 A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.]]> 576 Tananarive Due 1982188340 Kim 5 4.44 2023
author: Tananarive Due
name: Kim
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/07/31
shelves:
review:

]]> 204119658 A festive fairground becomes an unexpected backdrop for a grade-A murder in a deliciously funny mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Jess Lourey.

The Minnesota State Fair wows again with 4-H exhibits, rides, a Neil Diamond concert, and deep-fried everything on a stick. Covering it is a breezy assignment as fluffy as cotton candy for reporter Mira James, until the main attraction becomes murder.

Ashley Pederson, crowned Milkfed Mary, Queen of the Dairy, is getting her all-American likeness carved in a block of unsalted butter when she drops dead, her face as red as a stoplight. Cause: malicious poisoning. Despite Ashley's creamy good looks, her reputation was pretty rancid. Still, who'd want to take out the soon-to-be college freshman and Battle Lake resident? Mira's made a vow to the dairy darling's grieving mother to find out.

Amid queenly competitors, rumors of sordid love affairs and embezzlement scandals, small-town secrets, and big business cover-ups, can Mira find the murderer on the Midway? You bet your corn dog she can.

Revised This edition of September Mourn includes editorial revisions.]]> 278 Jess Lourey 1662519303 Kim 0 to-read 4.18 2009
author: Jess Lourey
name: Kim
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

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