en-US Wed, 09 Apr 2025 12:54:22 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 223120442 A disillusioned millennial and a fragile young actress uncover the secrets of a decaying Hollywood mansion—a manifestation of the anxieties, obsessions, and fears of our digital era—in this wickedly entertaining novel about the eerie ways the internet haunts us, from the acclaimed author of Self Care.

Enter A thirty-nine-year-old unemployed rabbit owner whose boyfriend dumps her in a Reddit post. Out of options, she accepts an unusual opportunity from a man she stopped speaking to twenty years ago. If Dayna can transform Craig’s crumbling mansion—now home to a motley crew of college dropouts with big dreams—into a successful hype house, he can restore his birthright to its former glory . . . and she can resurrect her career from the dead.

Enter A fresh-faced nineteen-year-old actress with a guilty conscience and a gift for crying on camera. She arrives at the house looking for the one person who can grant her Becca, an enigmatic tarot card influencer who built a fandom with her cryptic, soul-touching readings . . . Ěýand then vanished.

By getting up close and personal with the generation coming to replace her, Dayna begins to build a social media campaign around Becca’s disappearance that will catapult the creators to new heights of success, but Craig forbids her from pursuing the mystery. As Olivia searches for traces of Becca in a labyrinthine house that seems intent on hiding its secrets from her, and Dayna becomes entangled with both Craig and Jake, the resident heartthrob and the last person to see Becca, the two women discover clues in the house’s hallways that upend everything—and lead to a shocking discovery.

The You may think you’re inhabiting it, but is it really inhabiting you? If You're Seeing This, It's Meant for You is an audacious social comedy and unnerving gothic mystery from one of our most acclaimed satirists and "a great demolition expert of the influencer era" (The New Republic).]]> 320 Leigh Stein 0593983645 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 208840704 Just add lemon, garlic, and a dash of the one percent.

This smart, biting novel explores what happens when a Haitian American girl uses her previously hidden zombie abilities to exact revenge on the wealthy elites who’ve caused her family pain.

Brielle Petitfour loves to cook. But with a chronically sick mother and bills to pay, becoming a chef isn’t exactly a realistic career path.

When Brielle’s mom suddenly loses her job, Brielle steps in and uses her culinary skills to earn some extra money. The rich families who love her cooking praise her use of unique flavors and textures, which keep everyone guessing what’s in Brielle’s dishes. The secret ingredient? Human flesh.

Written by the storytelling duo Maika Moulite and Maritza Moulite, The Summer I Ate the Rich is a modern-day fable inspired by Haitian zombie lore that scrutinizes the socioeconomic and racial inequity that is the foundation of our society. Just like Brielle’s clients, it will have you asking: What’s for dinner?]]> 400 Maika Moulite 0374390533 Mara 0 to-read 3.72
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]]> 218587803
All Raina wants is a do-over, so when she wakes up the next morning to a miracle—another chance at Nationals with Aditya by her side—she couldn’t be happier. But as the events of the day start repeating, Raina realizes she’s stuck in a time loop, cursed to humiliate herself at Nationals and then get dumped—over and over again.

Raina is certain that if she follows all the right steps, she can break out of the time loop, win Nationals, and earn back the heart of her one true love in the process. But what if perfection isn’t enough?]]> 272 Ananya Devarajan 1335009949 Mara 0 to-read 4.36
author: Ananya Devarajan
name: Mara
average rating: 4.36
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]]> 218155658
This “harmless� crush immediately raises Şener’s hackles; although he doesn’t think Deniz would ever reciprocate Fehmi’s feelings, it’s not a risk he’s willing to take. But when one betrayal leads to another, Deniz hatches a plan, and the sultry summer takes a dark turn as the couple’s relationship is put to the test like never before. Will lust or love win the day? One thing’s for sure: not everyone will be getting out of this love triangle alive.

Dishy, suspenseful, and boiling over with black humor, Yiğit Karaahmet’s debut makes a fierce political statement about supporting “gay wrongs� while also introducing a shockingly lovable pair of antiheroes who could be Tom Ripley’s grandfathers.]]> 352 Yiğit Karaahmet 1641295864 Mara 0 to-read 3.89
author: YiÄźit Karaahmet
name: Mara
average rating: 3.89
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]]> 212807002 From the internationally award-winning creator of Broadchurch comes a brilliant new detective story following one man’s death and the secrets that unravel in a coastal English village

The villagers of Bradcombe like to think of it as one of the most picturesque spots on England’s seaside.

But now, it’s a crime scene.

A man is found dead, tied to a chair in the middle of the road, with a stag’s antler’s on his head. The gruesome scene stuns the town, especially when they learn that it is Jim Tiernan, owner of the White Hart pub, who has been found murdered.

Is it a personal vendetta, or something more macabre? Tierney’s pub is at the center of village life and he knew everyone’s secrets.

Detective Nicola Bridge grew up in Bradcombe, and has been craving a juicy case ever since she moved back from the big city.Ěý DC Harry Ward is ten years younger, and their partnership is somehow stronger, and more satisfying even than her marriage. Together, they are determined to crack the storybook façade to find out just what the people of Bradcombe have to hide.

And now, in the town she thought she knew so well, Detective Nicola Bridge is asking questions. Is she ready for what she’s about to find?]]> 352 Chris Chibnall 0593831578 Mara 0 to-read 4.00
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name: Mara
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]]> 220239019 A poignant, sharp-eyed, and bitterly funny tale of a family struggling to stay together in a country that's rapidly coming apart, told through the eyes of their wondrous ten-year-old daughter, by the bestselling author of Super Sad True Love Story and Our Country Friends

"In its swirls of emotion, its humor and its pathos, the unsparing humanity of its vision, Vera, or Faith is like some fabulous, hitherto-unknown creature that’s been let out of its bottle and set free. It begins to seem that there’s nothing Gary Shteyngart can’t do."—Michael Cunningham

The Bradford-Shmulkin family is falling apart. A very modern blend of Russian, Jewish, Korean, and New England WASP, they love each other deeply but the pressures of life in an unstable America are fraying their bonds. There's Daddy, a struggling, cash-thirsty editor whose Russian heritage gives him a surprising new currency in the upside-down world of twenty-first-century geopolitics; his wife, Anne Mom, a progressive, underfunded blue blood from Boston who's barely holding the household together; their son, Dylan, whose blond hair and Mayflower lineage give him pride of place in the newly forming American political order; and, above all, the young Vera, half-Jewish, half-Korean, and wholly original.

Observant, sensitive, and always writing down new vocabulary words, Vera wants only three things in a friend at school; Daddy and Anne Mom to stay together; and to meet her birth mother, Mom Mom, who will at last tell Vera the secret of who she really is and how to ensure love's survival in this great, mad, imploding world.

Both biting and deeply moving, Vera, or Faith is a boldly imagined story of family and country told through the clear and tender eyes of a child. With a nod to What Maisie Knew, Henry James's classic story of parents, children, and the dark ironies of a rapidly transforming society, Vera, or Faith demonstrates why Shteyngart is, in the words of The New York Times, "one of his generation's most exhilarating writers."]]> 256 Gary Shteyngart 0593595092 Mara 0 to-read 4.68 2025
author: Gary Shteyngart
name: Mara
average rating: 4.68
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]]> 219838797 A PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 2025 HOT SUMMER READ: "Irresistible.�

Set in Hollywood and Carmel-by-the-Sea, an unforgettable story of the unlikely friendship between an Oscar-nominated screenwriter and a young actress hoping to be Alfred Hitchcock's new star � from the internationally bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris and The Last Train to London,

1957. Isabella Giori is ten months into a standard seven-year studio contract when she auditions with Hitchcock. Just weeks later, she is sequestered by the studio’s “fixer� in a tiny Carmel cottage.

Léon Chazan, next door, is annoyed as hell when Iz interrupts his work on yet another screenplay he won’t be able to sell, because he’s been blacklisted. But soon, they’re in his roadster, speeding down the fog-shrouded Big Sur coast.

2018. Twenty-six-year-old screenwriter Gemma Chazan, in Carmel to sell her grandfather’s cottage, finds a hidden safe full of secrets—raising questions about who the screenwriter known simply as Chazan really was, and whether she can live up to his name.

In graceful prose and with an intimate understanding of human nature, Meg Waite Clayton captures the joys and frustrations of being a writer, being a woman, being a star, and being in love. Typewriter Beach is the story of two women separated by generations—a tale of ideas and ideals, passion and persistence, creativity, politics, and family.]]> 320 Meg Waite Clayton 006342214X Mara 0 to-read 4.56
author: Meg Waite Clayton
name: Mara
average rating: 4.56
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]]> 217387706 Three hypnotic novellas about obsessional love, missed connections, and enduring regret by the bestselling author of Call Me by Your Name.

The short fictions in Room on the Sea deal with the heart-wrenching vicissitudes of amorous ambivalence, in André Aciman's inimitably nostalgic, lyric style.

"The Gentleman from Peru" tells the story of the life-changing encounter of a group of friends with an enigmatic solitary guest in a hotel on the Amalfi Coast. "Room on the Sea" is a dialogue between a man and a woman who meet on jury duty and embark on a complex relationship. "Mariana" is a modern retelling of a famous seventeenth-century novel about a love affair between a nun and a swashbuckling, unreliable aristocrat.

No one writes about the ups and downs, the yeses and nos, of contemporary love like Aciman. As The Times (London) writes: ”You don't so much read André Aciman's novels as tumble breathlessly into them.“]]> 272 André Aciman 0374613419 Mara 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: André Aciman
name: Mara
average rating: 3.71
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]]> 219299658 La guerre, la désertion, l'amour et l'engagement... le nouveau roman de Mathias Enard - vif, bref, suspendu - observe ce que la guerre fait au plus intime de nos vies.]]> 192 Mathias Énard 0811239012 Mara 0 to-read 4.00 2023
author: Mathias Énard
name: Mara
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
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]]> 219520678 The announcement of a major literary debut: What begins as a celebration takes a sudden turn when a shocking betrayal shatters the trust between families.

It’s an autumn weekend at a comfortable New York country house where two deeply intertwined families have gathered to mark the host’s fifty-second birthday.

Together, the group forms an enviable portrait of middle age. The wives and husbands have been friends for over thirty years, their teenage daughters have grown up together, and the drinks, dinners, rituals, and games that form their days all reflect the rich bonds between them.

This weekend, however, something is different. An unforeseen curdling of envy and resentment will erupt into an unspeakable act, the ramifications of which are enormous. Accusations, denials, and shattered illusions follow, driving wedges between friends, spouses, children and parents, and exposing the treacherous fault lines on which these families have dwelt.

Written with hypnotic elegance and molten precision, and announcing the arrival of a major literary talent, Hal Ebbott’s Among Friends examines the aftermath of betrayal within the sanctuary of a defining relationship. It explores themes of class, marriage, friendship, and power, as well as the things we tell ourselves to preserve our finely made worlds.]]> 320 Hal Ebbott 0593854195 Mara 0 to-read 3.92 2025
author: Hal Ebbott
name: Mara
average rating: 3.92
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]]> 205363962 A gonzo account of Britney Spears’s meteoric rise and almost equally iconic fall, from Jeff Weiss, LA's Hunter S. Thompson.America, 2003: A country at war, its shiny veneer beginning to crack. Von Dutch and The Simple Life dominate. And on the cover of every magazine, a twenty-two-year-old pop star named Britney Spears. Tracking her every move for a third-tier gossip rag in Los Angeles is a young writer named Jeff Weiss, who took whatever job he could to pursue his dream of being a “serious� writer. He'd instead become a firsthand witness to the slow tragedy of a changing nation, represented in spirit by “the coy it-girl at the end of history.”Years later, after finally making it as a celebrated cultural critic, Weiss presents Waiting for Britney Spears, a gonzo, nostalgic, and mostly true recounting of Britney's rise and fall during his years in the tabloid underbelly of Los Angeles. Weiss follows America’s sweetheart through Vegas superclubs and Malibu car chases, annulled marriages and soul-crushing legal battles, all the way to Britney’s infamous 2005 VMA performance. As Weiss lives through the years leading to Britney’s conservatorship, he observes, with peerless style, cringe-inducing fashion waves, a destructive culture of celebrity surveillance, and a country whose decline is embodied by the devastating downturn of its former golden child.With the narrative flair that established him as a singular chronicler of modern pop culture, Weiss goes for broke in Waiting for Britney Spears, a roaring Künstlerroman of celebrity, obsession, morality, and the last great pop star.]]> 400 Jeff Weiss 0374606137 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 218671850 A reclusive journalist is suddenly thrown into a wild, suspenseful journey to rescue his kidnapped grandchildren.

A few weeks after the 2016 election, at Thanksgiving with his daughter and her belligerent new husband, Rhys Kinnick finally snapped. After an escalating fight about politics, he hauled off and punched the jerk. Immediately horrified by what he'd done, by the state of the world around him, and by his own spiraling mental health, Rhys chucked his smartphone out the car window and fled for a remote cabin in the woods of the Pacific Northwest.

Seven years later, when his grandchildren show up on his doorstep, Rhys barely recognizes them. Their mother has disappeared, and they need a safer place to stay than with their father, who has taken up with a Christian Nationalist militia. So what if Rhys’s cabin has no electricity or indoor plumbing, and the raccoons help themselves to the monthly grocery haul? He'll do whatever he needs to for these sweet kids.

But when the militia members show up and kidnap the children, Rhys realizes he'll have to re-enter the broken world. With the help of a bipolar retired detective and his caustic ex-girlfriend, Rhys reluctantly heads off on a madcap journey through the rubble of the life he left behind.]]> 272 Jess Walter 0062868144 Mara 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Jess Walter
name: Mara
average rating: 4.20
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]]> 217388128 A genre-bending story about breaking―both of the heart and form itself―from the author of Biography of X.

Adrift in the winter of 2021 after a sudden breakup and the ensuing depression, the novelist Catherine Lacey began cataloguing the wreckage of her life and the beauty of her friendships, a practice that eventually propagated fiction both entirely imagined and strangely true. She soon realized that she was writing about her relationship with faith. Betrayed by the mercurial partner she had trusted with a shared mortgage and suddenly catapulted into the unknown, Lacey’s appetite vanished completely, a visceral reminder of the teenage emaciation that came when she stopped believing in God. Through relationships, travel, reading, and memories of her religious fanaticism, Lacey charts the contours of faith’s absence and reemergence. Bending form, she and her characters recall gnostic experiences with animals, close encounters with male anger, griefdriven lust, and the redemptive power of platonic love and narrative itself.

A hybrid work across fiction and nonfiction with no beginning or ending, The Möbius Book troubles the line between memory and fiction with an openhearted defense of faith’s inherent danger.]]> 240 Catherine Lacey 0374615403 Mara 0 to-read 4.09 2025
author: Catherine Lacey
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average rating: 4.09
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]]> 219520677 From the author of Oprah's Book Club pick and New York Times best seller Nightcrawling, here isĚýan astonishing new novel aboutĚýthe joys and entanglements of a fierce group of teenage mothers in a small town on the Florida panhandle.

Adela Woods is sixteen years old and pregnant. Her parents banish her from her comfortable upbringing in Indiana to her grandmother’s home in the small town of Padua Beach, Florida. When she arrives, Adela meets Emory, who brings her newborn to high school, determined to graduate despite the odds; Simone, mother of four-year-old twins, weighs her options when she finds herself pregnant again; and the rest of the Girls, a group of outcast young moms who raise their growing brood in the back of Simone’s red truck.

The town thinks the Girls have lost their way, but really they are finding it: looking for love, making and breaking friendships, and navigating the miracle of motherhood and the paradox of girlhood.

Full of heart and life and hope, set against the shifting sands of these friends� secrets and betrayals, The Girls Who Grew Big confirms Leila Mottley’s promise and offers an explosive new perspective on what it means to be a young woman.]]> 352 Leila Mottley 0593801121 Mara 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Leila Mottley
name: Mara
average rating: 4.20
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]]> 223362296 Sometimes you have to follow your dreams� When a young woman is bequeathed a shuttered dance hall, she begins to dream of it in its heyday —and learns to see her present-day entanglements in a new light� in this warmhearted romance from the author of Prime Time Romance.

When Jules finds out that Kitty St. Clair, a resident at the retirement home where she works, has passed away and bequeathed her a dilapidated dance hall in their quaint and picturesque lakeside community, Jules is surprised.ĚýKitty St. Clair was as eccentric as she was glamorous, but Jules cannot figure out why Kitty left her an abandoned building.Ěý

That is until Reeve, a charming, successful developer,Ěýreturns to town, looking for the new owner of the dance hall, intent on turning it into luxury vacation condos. Suddenly Jules has a way to make her lifelong dream of going to med school a reality. But selling the dance hall will only add to the steadily rising real estate prices and make it harder for residents of her tiny vacation town to live there, not to mention, Reeve also happens to be the man who Jules shared a magical night with two summers ago-- and never heard from again.Ěý

Reeve wants a second chance with Jules and is determined to earn back her trust. But can she let herself fall for him again? Does he want her, or a guaranteed sale?Ěý

Jules wishes she could talk to Kitty, who always seemed to have the best advice, so she turns to the diary she left her. But as Jules falls asleep reading, she wakes up in the world of the diary, fifty years ago, accompanying a young Kitty to the dance hall in all its glory. Her dream visits to Kitty’s past begin to parallel the questions plaguing her in her own world. Will Kitty’s past hold the keys to unlocking Jules’s future?]]> 368 Kate Robb 0593734122 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
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name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 223097496 AĚýdeeply moving and often hilariousĚýnovel that follows a woman who becomes an internet folk hero in the most unexpected way, catapulting her to fame and influence just as she’s finally beginning to reckon with her complicated pastĚý

Lola Treasure Gold can’t figure out her life. She’s broke, she’s unemployed, she’s back in her childhood home, a crumbling cottage in the Hollywood Hills. Worse, unspeakably worse, one of her closest friends has just died. So, nobody is more surprised than Lola when a jackpot falls in her she stars in a Very Viral Video, opening a surprising path for her to become a self-help guru.Ěý

With the encouragement of her other best friend, Celi—still alive, thank god—Lola embraces the public interest in her perceived message. But is she a scammer or a sage? Just as Lola is telling others to be their own guiding lights, she can’t seem to find she’s grieving, she’s accused of using the notoriety of her friend’s death to fuel her rise, and she’s full of questions about the fate of her mother, who came to America pregnant, fleeing China’s one-child policy, got deported when Lola was eight, and has now totally disappeared.Ěý

Driven by an exuberant, searching spirit, Jade Chang’s kaleidoscopic new novel is a deep examination of the ways we commodify belief, the power and precarity of fame, and the delicious terror of being truly seen.ĚýWhat a Time to Be AliveĚýasks if we can look honestly at the world and still love Ěýthe answer is a brilliant, resoundingĚýyes.Ěý±Ő±Ő> 304 Jade Chang 0063416395 Mara 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: Jade Chang
name: Mara
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 219301727 In this vibrant, gratifying novel, a pious, small-town teenager travels to Atlanta to get an abortion and finds herself smack in the middle of the civil rights movement and the secret lives of queer Black people.

Where do you get an abortion in 1960 Georgia, especially if the town midwife goes to the same church as your parents? For seventeen-year-old Doris Steele, the answer is Atlanta, where her favorite teacher, Mrs. Lucas, calls upon her brash, wealthy childhood best friend, Sylvia, for help. While waiting to hear from the doctor who has agreed to do the procedure, Doris spends the weekend scandalized by, but drawn to, the people who move in and out of Sylvia's celebrities whom Doris has seen in the pages of Jet and Ebony, political leaders like Coretta Scott King and Diane Nash, women who dance close together, atheists!ĚýAnd even more shocking? Mrs. Lucas seems right at home.

The young people Doris encounters are no less surprising. When he's not flirting too hard or talking too much, Sylvia’s nephew, Dexter, brings Doris into the heart of Atlanta’s civil rights movement, where some activists practice nonviolence to prepare for sit-ins, while others carry guns to protect Black families from the Klan.

From the guests at a queer kickback to the student activists at a SNCC conference, Doris suddenly finds herself surrounded by so many people who seem to know exactly who or what they want. Doris knows she doesn’t want a baby, but what does she want? Will this trip help her find out?

These Heathens! is a funny, poignant story about Black women’s obligations and ambitions, what we owe to ourselves, and the transformative power of leaving your bubble, even for just one chaotic weekend.]]> 272 Mia McKenzie 0593596943 Mara 0 currently-reading 4.72 2025
author: Mia McKenzie
name: Mara
average rating: 4.72
book published: 2025
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]]> 220161572 For fans of The Ministry of Time and The Midnight Library, a sweeping, unforgettable novel moving from pre-WWII Germany to Cold War-era America to the mysterious time space, a library filled with books containing the memories of those who bore witness to history.

Nuremberg, 1938: On the night of Kristallnacht, eleven-year-old Lisavet Levy is hidden by her father from approaching forces in a mysterious place called the time space, a library where all the memories of the past are stored inside of books. When her father doesn’t return for her, she becomes trapped, spending her adolescence walking through the memories of those who lived before. When she discovers that living timekeepers are entering the time space to destroy memories and maintain their preferred version of history, Lisavet sets about trying to salvage the past, creating her own book of lost memories. Until one day in 1949, when she meets an American timekeeper named Ernest Duquesne, who is intent on keeping her from her task. What ensues sets her on a course to change history and the time space itself forever.

Boston, 1965: Amelia Duquesne is mourning the death of her uncle and guardian, Ernest, when she’s approached by Moira, the enigmatic head of the CIA’s highly secretive Temporal Reconnaissance Program. Moira tells her about the existence of the time space—accessed only by specially designed watches whose intricate mechanisms have been lost to time—and enlists her help in recovering a strange book her uncle had once sought. But Amelia quickly realizes that the past—and the truth—are not as straightforward as Moira would like her to believe.

A sweeping, cinematic love story, this feat of imagination explores memory, time, and the lengths we will go to in order to protect the existence of those we love.]]> 416 Hayley Gelfuso 1668076349 Mara 2 4.18 2025
author: Hayley Gelfuso
name: Mara
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: 2025-books, fantasy, historical-fiction, lj-review
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]]> 222377141 A gorgeous, atmospheric debut fantasy that reimagines the Jewish myth of golem in a tale rooted in history, folklore, and sapphic romance—perfect for fans of Katherine Arden, Ava Reid, Hannah Whitten, and Naomi Novik.

The forest eats the girls who wander out after dark.

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

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

But a deal easily made is not easily kept. And as their bargain begins to unravel a much more sinister threat, protecting her people may force Malka to endanger the one person she left home to save—and face her growing feelings for the very creature she was taught to fear.]]> 352 Maddie Martinez 1250367751 Mara 0 to-read 3.60 2025
author: Maddie Martinez
name: Mara
average rating: 3.60
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]]> 231126855 544 Cameron Sullivan 1250362768 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2025
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name: Mara
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]]> 222377124 The Witcher meets Howl’s Moving Castle in this debut original faerie tale of revenge, redemption, and friendship―for fans of T. Kingfisher, Naomi Novik, and cozy fantasy with a dash of gritty adventure.

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

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

When the witch Ragnhild decrees that Alderic and Lyssa must gather the other ingredients to forge the weapon together, or else the spell will fail, Lyssa gets more than she bargained for. Alderic is ill-equipped for the task at hand, and almost guaranteed to get himself killed.

But as the two of them search for the materials that will be the Beast's undoing, Alderic reveals hidden depths: dark secrets that he guards as carefully as Lyssa guards hers. Before long, and against Lyssa's better judgment, they begin to forge a blooming friendship―one that will either lead to the culmination of Lyssa's quest for vengeance, or spell doom for them both.]]> 320 Serra Swift 1250373786 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Serra Swift
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
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]]> 222376977 A fierce, glamorous sapphic fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore, for fans of Jade City, Silvia Moreno-Garcia, and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.

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

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

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

But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbor gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place for once, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she is to keep it.]]> 480 Wen-yi Lee 1250369452 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Wen-yi Lee
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 231126887
Since their first episode on Joy's own experience with narcolepsy, they've been the best friends everyone wants to befriend, and thanks to the meticulous management of Joy's spouse, Xander, they've built a lucrative empire.

Until one morning, without any warning, Joy and Xander go missing. The only clue shedding light on the couple's disappearance is the incomplete, previously unseen first draft of Joy's memoir, and no one, not even Benny, can guess how it ends.

As the hours tick by and the police zero in on Benny as their prime suspect, the odds seem increasingly stacked against Joy and Xander being found alive. If Benny wants to find Joy in time, and clear his own name, he'll have to solve the highest stakes survival story yet.]]> 368 Tiffany Crum 1250395232 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
author: Tiffany Crum
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 222376725
But when her boss's lady friends start turning up dead, Hanna finds herself in the cross hairs of a murder investigation. Even worse, hunky homicide detective James Morrison fears hers might be the next body he discovers.

With the "help" of the gallery's quirky cast of resident artists, Hanna will have to hunt down the truth about Abernathy’s dark secret—before it hunts her.
Read the entire Tails from the Alpha Art Gallery series in order:

Love Bites
Love Sucks
Love Lies]]> 304 Cynthia St. Aubin 1250407117 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2019
author: Cynthia St. Aubin
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 222376985 'An intriguing work of whimsi-grotesquerie'
OLIVIE BLAKE



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

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

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

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

Guy doesn't have a choice.

'A lush and seductive story, rife with opulent horror and decaying decadence'
SUNYI DEAN
]]> 432 Hiron Ennes 125081121X Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Hiron Ennes
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 222376624
Rose DuBois is not your average final girl.

Rose is in her late 70s, living out her golden years at the Autumn Springs Retirement Home.

When one of her friends dies alone in her apartment, Rose isn’t too concerned. Accidents happen, especially at this age!

Then another resident drops dead. And another. With bodies stacking up, Rose can’t help but wonder: are these accidents? Old age? Or something far more sinister?

Together with her best friend Miller, Rose begins to investigate. The further she digs, the more convinced she becomes: there’s a killer on the loose at Autumn Springs, and if she isn’t careful, Rose may be their next victim.]]> 416 Philip Fracassi 125087906X Mara 0 to-read 4.20 2025
author: Philip Fracassi
name: Mara
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
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]]> 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]> 384 Emily Henry 059344129X Mara 0 currently-reading 4.26 2025
author: Emily Henry
name: Mara
average rating: 4.26
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]]> 218460339
Nastia and her sister Solomiya are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator while secretly searching for their missing mother—a flamboyant protestor who vanished after years of fierce activism against the romance tours. So begins a journey of a lifetime across hundreds of miles: three angry women, a truckful of kidnapped bachelors, and Lefty, a last-of-his-kind snail with one final shot at perpetuating his species. But their plans come to a screeching halt as Russia invades.]]> 352 Maria Reva 0385545312 Mara 4 2025-books 4.39 2025
author: Maria Reva
name: Mara
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
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]]> 224003589 A divinely-blessed warrior bound to the last living goddess plots deicide to win her freedom in this propulsive epic fantasy for fans of Godkiller and Gideon the Ninth.

The Devoted Lands was once home to many gods: Salt, Stone, Storm, Green, Shadow. Now, after centuries of devastating wars, only Tempestra-Innara, the Eternal Flame, remains.

Conscripted as a child, Lys, potentiate of the Dawn Cloister, is outwardly a loyal servant to her goddess. If she harbors impossible dreams of deicide, that’s her business. But when a routine heretical execution erupts into a near-fatal assassination attempt on Tempestra-Innara, Lys sees a glimmer of hope for her freedom.

Lys is chosen to hunt down the heretics and find an ancient reliquary that holds the power to kill a god. Annoyingly, she’s not alone. Paired with Nolan, a potentiate from a rival cloister who is as pious as he is determined, Lys must feign devotion if she hopes to keep her own heretical thoughts hidden and god-killing ambitions within reach.

As they pursue a dangerous network of heretics linked to the assassination, Lys uncovers a world brimming with more possibility—and peril—than she ever anticipated.]]> 464 Lyndsay Ely 1668080311 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Lyndsay Ely
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 224004304 Based on a true story, this sparkling and witty novel whisks you to 1956 Manhattan, where famed director Alfred Hitchcock is hosting a star-studded party in an allegedly haunted house…only for the soiree to be interrupted by a ghostly party crasher.

After fleeing her mundane life in the Midwest, Carolyn Banks finds herself in her enigmatic great-aunts� eerie mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Inside its crumbling façade, suspense director Alfred Hitchcock is throwing a party, gleefully informing his celebrity guests that the venue is supposedly haunted. It all seems like a fun gag, but Carolyn knows that the line between reality and the supernatural is dangerously blurred here.

Soon, the paranormal entities are mingling with guests like Charles Addams and Henry Fonda. As Carolyn grapples with romantic entanglements and ghostly encounters, she discovers long-buried family secrets, challenging her understanding of love, loyalty, and legacy. A striking mix of the haunting and the heartwarming, The Last Spirits of Manhattan is an unputdownable novel about a family reunion unlike any other, set against the bewitching backdrop of 1950s New York City.]]> 336 John A McDermott 1668058731 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: John A McDermott
name: Mara
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]]> 222376616 A richly imagined dark fantasy that pulses with the beautiful destruction of a town reclaimed by the natural world.

Sub-tropical Bellworth is founded on floodplains and root-bound secrets. And Charlie, remarkable only for vanished friends and a successful sister, plans to leave for good, just as soon as he deals with his dead aunt’s house. Then Grace arrives, desperate, with roses pressing up through her skin, and drags Charlie into the ghost-choked mysteries of Bellworth, uncovering the impossible consequences of loss and desire � and a choice Charlie made when he was a boy. But peeling back the rumors and lies that cocoon the suburb disturbs more than complacent neighbors and lost souls. And Charlie and Grace are forced to a decision that threatens not only their lives, but all they believed those lives could be.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 272 Kathleen Jennings 1250845882 Mara 0 to-read 4.00
author: Kathleen Jennings
name: Mara
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 222376689 KJ Parker's new novella is a darkly witty historical fantasy. A group of scholars are asked to do the impossible by a ruthless king. The cost of refusal being death, of course.

History isn't truth...it's propaganda.

Academics can be cocky. Atop their perches of authority high above the thrumming masses of the unquestioning world they can begin to think themselves gods. It is extremely rare for this authority to be tested. But a challenge from an idiotic, power-hungry king—that'll do it.

Our narrator is one of a dozen professors at the University of the Kingdom of Aelia. Early one morning, all of them are rounded up for an audience with their dictator, Gyges. You see, Gyges is new to the job—he only just invaded Aelia last year—and like any good tyrant, he's looking to expand his empire. But he doesn't think his public image can take the hit of (another) unjustified assault. No problem, he's come up with a plan—have the scholars construct an ancient city from scratch that justifies his right to the lands of the neighboring city-state.

Now these bookworms must put their heads together to do the impossible. They must make history. Because if they don't, they'll lose their heads all-together.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 128 K.J. Parker 125083578X Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 223121131 Jordan Peele’s Us meets The School For Good Mothers in this horror-tinged intergenerational saga, as a single mother’s doppelganger forces her to confront the legacy of violence that has shaped every woman in their family.

Single mother Alice Chow is drowning. With a booming online cloth diaper shop, her resentful teenage daughter Luna, and her screen-obsessed son Luca, Alice can never get everything done in a day. It’s all she can do to just collapse on the couch with a bottle of wine every night.

It’s a relief when Alice wakes up one morning and everything has been done. The counters are clear, the kids� rooms are tidy, orders are neatly packed and labeled. But no one confesses they’ve helped, and Alice doesn’t remember staying up late. Someone–or something–has been doing her chores for her.

Alice should be uneasy, but the extra time lets her connect with her children and with her hard-edged mother, who begins to share their haunted family history from Alice’s great-grandmother, a comfort woman during WWII, through to Alice herself. But the family demons, both real and subconscious, are about to become impossible to ignore.

Sharp and incisive, The Hunger We Pass Down traces the ways intergenerational trauma transforms from mother to daughter, and asks what it might take to break that cycle.]]> 304 Jen Sookfong Lee 1645662802 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Jen Sookfong Lee
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 221997197
Chicago physical therapist Krista Evans finds that her clients rely on her life and love advice just as much as on her hands-on work, so why not share it on the live-streaming platform Twitch? Her friend Hailey Swanson, an inveterate gamer, is willing to help Krista build her presence and cohost a biweekly show. A Word From The Wise is born . . .

Taking real-time questions from chat participants proves more popular than Krista thought possible, and their follower count—and income—grow. But not all attention is wanted, as she soon discovers. An account with the username Chase547 becomes enraged when Krista and Hailey suggest he stop pursuing a woman who constantly rebuffs him. He amps up his efforts, even when he’s piled on by other followers, throwing their chats into chaos.

Unnerved by Chase547’s obsession, Krista turns to law enforcement, but the little information she’s able to give the Chicago PD isn’t enough to start an investigation.

Soon, Krista notices things missing at home and feels as if she’s being watched. And when Chase547 begins to leave clues in real life proving he’s capable of murder, she begins to fear for her safety. Chase547 has more than one way to make his presence known—and this time it won’t be from behind a screen . . .]]> 304 Sara Driscoll 1496748727 Mara 0 to-read 4.82
author: Sara Driscoll
name: Mara
average rating: 4.82
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]]> 228383160 For fans of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, an inventive and romantic speculative novel about two women—a witch and an immortal demon—who make a Faustian bargain and are drawn into a cat-and-mouse chase across multiple lifetimes.

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

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

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

Natasha Siegel has written an unexpected love story that feels both epic and deeply personal. Ambitious, gothic, and magical, As Many Souls as Stars is about the lengths we go to protect ourselves, our legacy, and those we love.]]> 352 Natasha Siegel 0063418029 Mara 0 to-read 4.73 2025
author: Natasha Siegel
name: Mara
average rating: 4.73
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]]> 221997154
“Do you have a sister, Ms. Fairview?� The little girl’s question, in all its buttery innocence, slices through me, and the answer catches in my throat. It isn’t as simple as yes or no. It hasn’t been, in nearly sixteen years.

The evening Caitlin and Olivia's parents leave them to go to a dinner party, both girls are bubbling with excitement. At ages 10 and 13, they are at last old enough to stay home alone. After all, in their idyllic town no one even bothers to lock their doors.

As the summer light fades, after TV and popcorn, the sisters finally put themselves to bed. They’re unaware of the figure watching them through an open window. Or of the back door opening once they’ve fallen asleep.

When their parents return, they will find Olivia's bed empty. Their golden-haired, long-limbed, eldest daughter gone. Never to return. Until now.

But is the woman who claims to be Olivia all she seems? Is everything Caitlin said she saw that night the whole truth? Their family have dreamed of this moment, but both sisters are keeping more than one secret. What price will they all pay if they end up believing the wrong daughter?]]> 304 Dandy Smith 1496757238 Mara 0 to-read 3.67 2024
author: Dandy Smith
name: Mara
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 223854881 2014: A great poem is read aloud and never heard again. For generations, people speculate about its message, but no copy has yet been found.



2119: The lowlands of the UK have been submerged by rising seas. Those who survive are haunted by the richness of the world that has been lost.

Tom Metcalfe, an academic at the University of the South Downs, part of Britain’s remaining island archipelagos, pores over the archives of that distant era, captivated by the freedoms and possibilities of human life at its zenith. When he stumbles across a clue that may lead to the lost poem, a story is revealed of entangled loves and a crime that destroy his assumptions about people he thought he knew intimately well.

What We Can Know is a masterpiece, a fictional tour de force that reclaims the present from our sense of looming catastrophe, and imagines a future world where all is not quite lost.
]]> 320 Ian McEwan 0593804724 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
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name: Mara
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]]> 222701014
Twin brothers Easton and Weston are both in love with their childhood best friend Eloise. But headstrong Eloise prefers the younger brother, Wes, which is why she is heartbroken when, quite unexpectedly, Wes proposes to an heiress, and Eloise finds herself engaged to Easton—the twin she cannot stand.

Then, during a week of feasting and hunting to celebrate the engagements, Wes is poisoned. Murmurs of nightshade slip through the manor, and everyone seems to have a motive.

Was it Della Drewitt—the heiress reluctant to marry Wes? Or did Easton decide killing his brother was the only way to secure Eloise’s affections? Or was it the housemaid Violet, Wes� previous lover?

As guests turn into suspects, attempts to kill Wes become more relentless than the storms churning the estate—who wants him dead, and why?]]> 288 Chrystal Schleyer 077838795X Mara 0 to-read 5.00
author: Chrystal Schleyer
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 220160159 From the author of the international bestseller Dear Mrs. Bird, the immensely satisfying conclusion to a delightful quartet of novels set in London during World War II.

London, July 1944. Editor Emmy Lake's career is Woman's Friend magazine is a huge success, and she is finally realizing her dream of becoming a War Correspondent. On the personal front, Emmy's husband Charles has been posted closer to home, and her good friends Bunty and Harold are planning their summer wedding in the countryside. They all know how lucky they are.

But after nearly five years of war, the nation is struggling with loss, deprivation, and fear. The "Yours Cheerfully" advice column receives more letters than ever, and even though there are high hopes for the war to finally be over by Christmas, the situation is far from resolved. And soon Emmy will find herself in her greatest battle yet, forced to rally her community and keep her own spirits up even when fearing the worst.

Endearing, engaging, and full of heart, Dear Miss Lake is a testament to the saving power of friendship when all seems lost.]]> 304 A.J. Pearce 1668007746 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: A.J. Pearce
name: Mara
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]]> 221179205 A cynical young outcast confronts his small town’s dark secrets in this atmospheric and haunting debut horror novel from brilliant new voice Jen Julian.
Ěý
The town of Blacknot is not what it appears, and a place deep in the woodsĚýknown only as The Night House is calling...Ěý

Jesse Calloway hadn’t planned to return to his repressive, backwoods hometown of Blacknot, North Carolina, after only one year away at college, but an anonymous messenger has lured him home. Eighteen years ago, his mother died under unexplained circumstances. Every story he has heard is incomplete. Now, the messenger claims to have the answers. But Jesse will have to hunt for them.

Alice Catherine, the daughter of a local porkĚýmanufacturer, obsesses over Jesse in turn. To her, he is a key player in unearthing the dark family history she’s convinced her father is concealing. Alice knows Jesse must find the answers himself, with the hope that once he does, he’ll help her change both their futures.Ěý

But Jesse’s path to Alice isn’t a straight line, and his questions are stirring up issues with locals, including his much older and well-armed ex-boyfriend, Harlan. When an old fling of Jesse’s goes missing and Alice’s plans start to unravel, it’s clear there’s more at stake than either of them could imagine. On a collision course littered with psychotropic fungi, time-warping magic, and far too many alligators, Jesse and Alice will need to determine how far they are willing to go for the truth, and whether they can trust each other enough to get there…]]> 336 Jen Julian 0316580562 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Jen Julian
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 222376577 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six , Girl Dinner is a darkly-fun novel about power, lust, and eating your fill, as wealthy moms and sorority girls practice a sinister new wellness trend . . .

Good girls deserve a treat.

Every member of The House, the most exclusive sorority on campus, and all its alumni, are beautiful, high-achieving, and universally respected.

After a freshman year she would rather forget, sophomore Nina Kaur knows being one of the chosen few accepted into The House is the first step in her path to the brightest possible future. Once she's taken into their fold, the House will surely ease her fears of failure and protect her from those who see a young woman on her own as easy prey.

Meanwhile, adjunct professor Dr. Sloane Hartley is struggling to return to work after accepting a demotion to support her partner's new position at the cutthroat University. After 18 months at home with her newborn daughter, Sloane's clothes »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t fit right, her girl-dad husband isn’t as present as he thinks he is, and even the few hours a day she's apart from her child fill her psyche with paralyzing ennui. When invited to be The House’s academic liaison, Sloane enviously drinks in the way the alumnae seem to have it all, achieving a level of collective perfection that Sloane so desperately craves.

As Nina and Sloane each get drawn deeper into the arcane rituals of the sisterhood, they learn that living well comes with bloody costs. And when they are finally invited to the table, they will have to decide just how much they can stomach in the name of solidarity and power.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 368 Olivie Blake 1250883458 Mara 0 to-read 4.07 2025
author: Olivie Blake
name: Mara
average rating: 4.07
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]]> 224057566 A haunting, unforgettable novel of obsession, pride, and forgiveness, exploring the friendship and rivalry between two gifted boys in harrowing circumstances, from the acclaimed writer ofThe Removed

Milton Muleborn has envied Matthew Echota, a talented young Cherokee artist, ever since they were locked up together in a dangerous juvenile detention center in the late 1980s. Until Matthew escaped, that is.

A novel within a novel, we read here Milton’s account of the story of their childhood even as, years later, he remains jealous of Matthew’s extraordinary abilities and unlikely success. Milton reveals secrets about their friendship, their families, and their nightmarish, sometimes surreal, experience of imprisonment. In revisiting the past, he explores the echoing traumas of racial and institutional violence and the systemic injustices in our systems of incarceration and so-called reform.

Filled with Brandon Hobson’s trademark swirling yet visceral writing, The Devil Is a Southpaw is an ambitious, elegant, and propulsive novel in the spirit of Vladimir Nabokov and Gabriel GarcĂ­a Márquez. Ěý]]> 352 Brandon Hobson 0063259656 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 221179174 The Conjuring of America tells the epic story of conjure women, who, through a mix of spiritual beliefs, herbal rituals, and therapeutic remedies gave rise to the rich tapestry of American culture we see today. Feminist philosopher, Lindsey Stewart, tells the stories of Negro Mammies of slavery; the Voodoo Queens and Blues Women of Reconstruction; and the Granny Midwives and textile weavers of the Jim Crow era. These women, in secrecy and subterfuge, courageously and devotedly continued their practices and worship for centuries and passed down their traditions.Ěý
Ěý
Emerging first in the American South during slavery, these women were thrust into the heart of national conflicts over generations of African American life. They combined ancestral magic and hyperlocal resources to respond to Black struggles in real time, forging a secret well of health and power hidden to their oppressors. As a result, conjure informs our lives in ways remarkable and ordinary—from traditional medicines that informed the creation of Vicks VapoRub and the rise of Aunt Jemima’s Pancake Mix, to the original magic of Disney’s The Little Mermaid (2023), and the true origins of the all-American classic blue jean.
Ěý
From the moment enslaved Africans first arrived on these shores, conjureĚýwas heavily regulated and even outlawed. Now, Stewart uncovers new contours of American history, sourcing letters from the enslaved, dispatches from the lore of Oshun and other African mystics. The Conjuring of America is a love letter to the real magic Black women used, their magic Black women, their herbs, food, textiles, song, and dance, usedĚýto sow rebellion, freedom, and hope.
Ěý]]> 400 Lindsey Stewart 1538769506 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 223296088 A blood-curdlingly spooky and darkly funny romance about how falling in love is scary AF, perfect for fans ofĚýWednesdayĚýandĚýHeartstopper.
Ěý
WhenĚýGrayĚýgetsĚýaĚýtext from a wrongĚýnumber,Ěýhe’sĚýprettyĚýsureĚýit’sĚýaĚýserialĚýkiller—orĚýworse,ĚýhisĚýex—on theĚýother end of theĚýline. But, theĚýanonymousĚýtexter sharesĚýhis same taste in musicĚýand movies,ĚýandĚýGray’s bored while stuckĚýat homeĚýall summer, so why not respond? BeingĚýanonymousĚýactuallyĚýhelps them open up to each other,ĚýandĚýGrayĚýfinds himself hopeful that thisĚýcould beĚýhisĚýdream goth crush.ĚýAll they have to do is meet—on Halloween, theĚýnight of Sleepy Hollow’s big house-decorating contest,Ěýand theĚýperfect opportunity forĚýGrayĚýto showĚýhisĚýmysteryĚýtexterĚýhisĚýtrue feelings.
Ěý
But betweenĚýGray’s closetedĚýexĚýcoming back into theĚýpicture,ĚýaĚýcute but obnoxious new goth kid vying to win theĚýcontest,ĚýandĚýaĚýmaybeĚýserialĚýkiller lurkingĚýaround and killing local gay teens,ĚýGray’s prospectsĚýare looking grim. Come Halloween,Ěýhe’ll either getĚýhisĚýdream guy or die tryingâ€�
Ěý
You’veĚýGoth My HeartĚýis the romantic and hilarious accidental-connection romance youĚý»ĺ´Ç˛Ô’tĚýwant to miss!]]> 384 L. C. Rosen 0316575550 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
author: L. C. Rosen
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 220337797 Madison March's life is perfect. And she'll do anything to keep it that way.

Madison March is the perfect wife, with the perfect family and the perfect life.

She spends her days baking sourdough and picking vegetables from the garden while watching her children play in the fields surrounding her Montana homestead.

Dinner is always on the table for her husband and they end their days sitting on the porch, watching the sun go down.

It’s a life anyone would dream of.

And it’s all a lie.]]> 352 Liane Child 0008755000 Mara 0 to-read 3.67
author: Liane Child
name: Mara
average rating: 3.67
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]]> 222850699 You never know who’s listening.

To Stella Dixon, sneaking her teenage brother out of their parents� house for a beach party was harmless fun—until Max disappeared without a trace.

Six years later, Stella’s family is still broken, and she can’t let go of her guilt. The only thing that keeps her going is helping other families find closure through A Killer Motive, her true crime podcast.

In a bid to find new sponsors and keep making episodes, Stella goes on a local radio show. But when she says on air that if she had just one clue, she’d find Max and bring whoever hurt him to justice, someone takes it as a challenge.

A mysterious invitation to play a game arrives, with the promise that if Stella wins, she’ll get information about what happened to Max. Stella thinks it’s a sick joke…until Max’s best friend vanishes. And she’s given new instructions: tell nobody or people will die.

Desperate and unable to trust anyone, Stella agrees. But beating a twisted, invisible enemy seems impossible when they make all the rules…]]> 400 Hannah Mary McKinnon 0778387674 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
author: Hannah Mary McKinnon
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 224003549 The acclaimed author of the “chilling, mesmerizing debut� (Rachel Harrison, author of The Return) Beneath the Stairs returns with a gripping, atmospheric suspense novel about a woman investigating a serial killer’s connection to her mother’s disappearance—for fans of I Have Some Questions for You and Notes on an Execution.

One hot August night in 1993, a young couple go to a party. When their car breaks down, they are picked up by a truck driver who attacks the man and abducts the woman. She is never seen again.

That woman was Fiona Green’s mother.

When the trucker, Eddie Ward, is caught, a mass grave of bodies is discovered in his backyard but Fiona’s mother isn’t there. Thirty years later, on his prison deathbed, Ward insists that he didn’t kill her, so Fiona finds herself back in the small town where her mother disappeared. Fighting demons of her own, she’s shocked when history repeats another woman, another roadside breakdown, and another disappearance. Only this time the primary suspect is Jason Ward, Eddie’s son. Desperate, Fiona hunts down answers, unaware that she is being drawn into a dangerous trap.

With Jennifer Fawcett’s signature “suspenseful and immersive� (Library Journal) prose, Keep This for Me is a fresh, spellbinding exploration of what we unwillingly inherit from our parents and how one random act can send ripples years into the future.]]> 352 Jennifer Fawcett 1668050641 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
author: Jennifer Fawcett
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 223830507 From the internationally bestselling author of Fair Rosaline comes a captivating historical novel—a powerful retelling of the life of one of the most beguiling and misrepresented female figures in history, Cleopatra.

The favored daughter of the Pharaoh, Egyptian Princess Cleopatra spent her childhood hiding amid the scrolls in the great library of Alexandria, dreaming of one day writing her own story.

When her father dies, naming both Cleopatra and her selfish brother Ptolemy as his successors to the throne, danger arises. While the young Queen sails the Nile to greet her people, her brother plots to eliminate her and rule the empire alone.

But while Ptolemy has the power of the kingdom behind him, Cleopatra has her cunning wits. When the great Caesar arrives from Rome, she realizes he could be the key to her salvation—though courting this powerful man could cost her everything.

Can Cleopatra save her life, her throne, and her beloved Egypt and finally write her own history?

Told from the dueling perspectives of Cleopatra and Caesar’s mistress Servilia, Cleopatra is a powerful, addictively readable retelling of the alluring queen’s life. A modern retelling that goes beyond previous caricatures, Cleopatra is a fascinating portrait of the flesh-and blood-woman behind the great legend. Natasha Solomons� spellbinding story of female power and fragility, love and loss, fierce friendship and terrible betrayal introduces at last the real Cleopatra in all her glory and vulnerability.]]> 336 Natasha Solomons 0063449757 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Natasha Solomons
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 220481360 Misogyny is being hardwired into our future. Can we stop it?

We like to believe we’re moving closer to equality, riding the wave of technological progress into a brighter, fairer future. But beneath the glossy surface of innovation lies a chilling truth: new technologies are not just failing to solve age-old inequalities—they’re deepening them.

In The New Age of Sexism, acclaimed author and activist Laura Bates exposes how misogyny is being coded into the very fabric of our future. From the biases embedded in artificial intelligence to the alarming rise of sex robots and the toxic dynamics of the metaverse, Bates takes readers on a shocking journey into a world where technology is weaponized against women.

This isn’t a dystopian warning about what might happen. It’s a harrowing account of what’s happening now and the dangers we face if we »ĺ´Ç˛Ô’t act. With clarity and urgency, Bates reveals how these advancements are dragging society backward, reinforcing harmful stereotypes, and jeopardizing decades of progress in the fight for gender equality.

Eye-opening and empowering, The New Age of Sexism is a rallying cry for awareness and action in a world where the battle for equality has entered a dangerous new frontier.]]> 336 Laura Bates 1464234361 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 222683966 A haunting, unforgettable collection of tales from the 2022 National Book Award for Translated Literature winner and three-time Booker finalist, Samanta Schweblin.

Once a decade a story collection rips a hole in the sky and we remember how it feels to have a spell cast upon us. From Jamaica Kincaid’s At the Bottom of the River to Denis Johnson’s Jesus’s Son to the earthquake stories of Haruki Murakami, these books are often short, but unforgettable. Samanta Schweblin’s Good and Evil is such a book. Sculpted and lucid, strange and uncanny, here is a masterpiece of suggestiveness. Step by step these six stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life—ourselves.

In one tale, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring, to go home to her family, only to wish she could go back. In another, a sorrowful father finds himself unable to communicate with his son after a life-changing misfortune occurs under his supervision. In yet another, a dying woman calls a friend she hasn’t spoken to in thirty years—not since an accident which forever changed them both.

Guilt, grief, and relationships severed permeate this collection—but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love, and longing, each sinister and beautiful. When something seismic happens in our lives, the waves keep coming for years after, with warning or without. Sometimes, all we can do is wait around the corner, ear pressed to the phone receiver, for them to arrive.

Fantastical and subtly terrifying, these stories draw on magical realism, psychological fiction, and the dark side of fairy tales inherited from literary predecessors like the Brothers Grimm and Jorge Luis Borges. Yet, far from antiquated or closed off, Schweblin’s worlds invite us in, like quicksand or a strong river’s current. These stories will insinuate themselves into your heart, and your bloodstream.]]> 192 Samanta Schweblin 0593803108 Mara 0 to-read 4.57 2025
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Mara
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
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]]> 224004474 Manhunt meets Lord of the Flies in this blistering horror debut following a young trans woman after she arrives at the all-trans girl commune founded by her toxic ex-girlfriend, only to discover that demons, both literal and figurative, haunt her fellow comrades—and she's their next prey!

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

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

While trying to untangle the commune’s many mysteries, the narrator contends with disemboweled pigs, cultlike psychosexual rituals, and the horrors of communal breakfast. And before long, she discovers that her demons have followed her. And this time, they won’t be letting her go.]]> 272 Grace Byron 1668087863 Mara 0 to-read 3.71 2025
author: Grace Byron
name: Mara
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
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]]> 220377470 A fascinating and enlightening deep dive into the infamous Disney Adult community from the woman behind the popular website The Disney Food Blog.

Disney Adults are grown-ups who derive singular, almost obsessive, joy from all things Disney. They devote countless hours and millions of dollars to Disney offerings, whether or not they have children. They’re avid fans of the films, devotees of the Disney theme parks, collectors of the vast world of Disney merchandise, cosplayers who dress in clothing inspired by Disney characters.

Their ranks are so large and their cultural impact so distinct that they have their own moniker and are an economic force unto themselves. They’re often maligned in the larger culture and put on a particularly high pedestal of cringe. But in truth, their obsessive fandom hints at a universal desire for pleasure and joy, for magic and escape.

There are darker sides to Disney mania that can’t be ignored, but the ranks of the Disney Adult community are broad, deep, and ever-growing. Disney Adults are a telling microcosm of modern America, highlighting the value we place on magic and escapism, and what we deem to be “acceptable� sources of joy.

Disney Adults dives deep into a misunderstood subculture, exploring the lives and experiences of a fascinating community to better understand its devotees� unwavering passion for all things Disney, why it offends, and why it matters.]]> 272 AJ Wolfe 1668069210 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 218372247 Created by real-life rivals and #1ĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling authors Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft, this hilarious illustrated story about a rivalry between two talented fifth graders celebrates comics, creativity, and the magic of collaboration.Ěý

J and K are the most talented and creative fifth graders at Dean Ashley Public School (DAPS). J loves to draw and his wordless stories are J-ENIUS! K loves to write and his stories are K-LASSIC!! Both J and K are determined to win the DAPS annual creative storytelling contest or at least get in the top five. AndĚýwhen they find out that they are both entering The Contest, it's the beginning of one of the most intense rivalries the world has ever seen.
Ěý
It’s artist vs. writer with plenty of shady double crosses as J and K plot their way to the top.Ěý±Ő±Ő> 240 Kwame Alexander 0316582689 Mara 0 to-read 4.67
author: Kwame Alexander
name: Mara
average rating: 4.67
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]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Mara 4 4.34 2025
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Mara
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: 2025-books, audiobooks, non-fiction
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]]> 218695918 A young Victorian Egyptologist traverses the Nile River on a mission to undo a curse that may have befallen her family in this spellbinding debut novel.

Essex, 1887. Clementine’s ability to read hieroglyphs makes her invaluable at her father's Egyptian relic parties, which have become the talk of the town. But at one such party, the words she interprets from an unusual amulet strike fear into her heart. As her childhood games about Isis and Nephthys—sister goddesses who protect the dead—take on a devastating resonance in her life, and tragedy slowly consumes her loved ones, she wonders what she and her father may have unleashed . . .

Five years later, Clemmie arrives in Cairo desperate to save what remains of her family back home. There, she meets a motley crew of unwitting English travelers about to set sail down the Nile—including an adventurer with secrets of his own—and joins them on a mission to reach Denderah, a revered religious site, where she hopes to return the amulet and atone for her sins.

With each passing day, she is further engulfed in a life she’s yearned for all along. But as long-buried secrets and betrayals rise to the surface, Clemmie must reconcile the impossibility of living in the light while her past keeps her anchored to the darkness.]]> 352 Rachel Louise Driscoll 0593982886 Mara 0 to-read 3.55
author: Rachel Louise Driscoll
name: Mara
average rating: 3.55
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]]> 222419264 Two women, one refined and one ribald, set their sights on marrying the same duke, but instead of becoming natural enemies, they find themselves falling in love—though not with him.

Harriet Lockhart never planned to marry. The educated daughter of a high-class prostitute, Harry has spent her life defying playing male roles in bawdy Shakespearean productions on London's seediest stages, pursuing the many women who adore her, and wearing whatever she pleases, so long as it's well tailored—all while being subsidized by her late mother’s trust. When she is contacted out of the blue by her hitherto anonymous father, she finds herself at risk of losing the trust that he actually funds unless she acquiesces to his request that she lead a more respectable life, starting with finding a husband.Ěý

Emily Sergeant, on the other hand, has only ever wanted to marry. She is the modest, tea-sipping,Ěýsoft-spoken Regency bride. And were it not for one mistake in her youth that rendered her a social pariah, she would be appropriately betrothed. Instead, she’s due to wed the only willing man in her small the abominable Robert Tweed. Desperate forĚýan alternative, Emily flees to London for the summer to snag a less lecherous fiancĂ© before she's shackled to a scoundrel.

Worlds collide, dramatically and hilariously, when both women decide on the very same duke as their best possible chance at a tolerable husband and the security that he brings. A tongue-in-cheek romp through London's summer season, from balls to brothels, horseraces to duels, Harry and Emily compete for the duke's favor, only to find their true hearts' desires may be more compatible than they ever could have predicted.]]> 384 Mackenzi Lee 0593730607 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 222818695 At least she can tackle the tuition money with the seasonal gig she landed at her local donut shop. But when she finds out that her genderqueer nemesis, Mateo della Penna-Dominguez, will also be working behind the counter, Penny’s summer of mindless labor instantly vanishes before her eyes. Mateo is ridiculous and artsy, and their favorite kind of donut is Boston Crème (gross!). But the duo’s two-and-a-half-year feud will have to take a backseat when Delicious Donuts is threatened by a corporate takeover.Ěý
Ěý
As their small town faces big pressure, and anxiety threatens everything Penny’s worked for, there’s still one person who remains by her side. And though their taste in donuts is questionable, Mateo’s presence manages to keep Penny calm and focused. Could it be that Penny’s found the perfect, most infuriating person to change the world with?Ěý]]> 384 Anita Kelly 1335012893 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 224003653 In this richly atmospheric, dark academia debut novel, a young woman with a secretive past will risk everything—including her life—to fit in.

Belles never tell�

It’s 1951 at the secluded Bellerton College, and Deena Williams is an outsider doing her best to blend in with her wealthy and perfectly groomed peers. Infamous for its strict rules as much as its prestige, attending Bellerton could give Deena the comfortable life she’s always dreamed of.

She quickly forms an alliance with the five other freshmen on her floor, and soon they are singled out by the president’s wife as the most promising girls of their class, who anoints The Belles. They walk the college’s halls in menacing unison, matching velvet ribbons in their hair. But no sisterhood comes without secrets, and the Belles are no exception. Playing cruel pranks on their dormitory housemother and embarking on boundary-shattering night games, the Belles test the limits of the campus rules.

But as Deena begins to piece together the sinister history of Bellerton, her own past threatens to come to light, forcing her to make a dangerous choice. A chilling and seductive coming-of-age story, The Belles is an excavation of the dark side of girlhood, the intricacies of privilege, and the unbridled desire to belong at any cost.]]> 304 Lacey N. Dunham 1668084864 Mara 0 to-read 3.86
author: Lacey N. Dunham
name: Mara
average rating: 3.86
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]]> 222259191 Throughout his long and illustrious career, Benjamin Franklin nursed a not-so-secret desire to annex Canada and make it American.

When he was not busy conducting scientific experiments or representing American interests at home and abroad, Benjamin Franklin hatched one plan after another to join Canada to the American colonies and then later to the United States. These were not solely intellectual efforts. He went to Montreal in 1776 to try to turn around the faltering occupation by American forces. As lead American negotiator at the 1782 peace negotiations with Britain in Paris, he held the fate of Canada in his hands. Ill health and other American priorities then forced him to abandon his decades-long campaign to possess Canada.

Franklin’s elevation to the status of an American icon has pushed this signal failure into the far reaches of collective memory in both Canada and the United States. Yet it shaped the future of North America and relations between the two neighbours over the next two and a half centuries.]]> 312 Madelaine Drohan 1459754182 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2025
author: Madelaine Drohan
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 216684962 112 Ana Paula Maia 1917260105 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2017
author: Ana Paula Maia
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2017
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 220481291 368 Deborah O'Connor 146423468X Mara 0 to-read 3.97 2025
author: Deborah O'Connor
name: Mara
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 222476129 From the USA Today bestselling author of BOYFRIEND MATERIAL and HUSBAND MATERIAL comes a charming New Adult LGBTQIA+ romance perfect for fans of Heartstopper.

Drew's always prided himself on being the "right" kind of nerd. He plays sports, has a solid group of friends, and never had any problem talking to girls. Sure, he spends time playing Heroes of Legend, the biggest MMORPG on the planet, but it's just a fun hobby, not his identity. Falling for someone in a video game? Not his style.

Until it is.

Enter witty, kind, razor-sharp, and a healer who's saved Drew's virtual skin more times than he can count. She's also, turns out, a boy in real life. The realization knocks Drew off-balance, but it doesn't take long for him to figure out the simple truth—he likes Kit, no matter Kit's gender.

The real challenge? Kit's reality is leagues apart from Drew's. Being online is his life, and while he's willing to come out of his shell an inch at a time, there's such a wide gulf between them that Drew's left can love truly bridge the distance…or are they fated to remain in separate worlds forever?]]> 384 Alexis Hall 1728250897 Mara 0 to-read 3.62 2016
author: Alexis Hall
name: Mara
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2016
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 221289746 In this fearless novel from the award-winning author of Girls Burn Brighter, a coupleĚýfrom India—so different from generations of white colonialists who came before them—move to Montana, only to discover how brutal and unforgiving hubris can be.

JanaviĚýand Sagar were never meant to end up married.ĚýJanaviĚýis a wonderfully independent, young modern Indian woman. She works for an organizaiton in India that helps street children, often lost to the world of human trafficking. Sagar is a trained hydraulic engineer, an expert in dam construction. He is the least favorite son, his parents never able to forgive him for an unspeakable act from his past. Sagar seeks refuge in his daydreams of one day finding hidden treasures in the fabled Indian river, the Ganges.

Yet the two are forced together into an arranged marriage which neither of them wants.ĚýEven worse, Sagar has already accepted a job in America, in a strange place called Montana, where he will be in charge of dismantling a dam.

Montana upends all their expectations. Sagar's white colleagues do not welcome him with open arms, andĚýJanaviĚýfinds herself unable to forgive her sister who stayed behind in India whose betrayalĚýled her to this marriage and this strange place.

When a colleague of Sagar's is found drowned, Sagar is the obvious scapegoat. But is this death one in a long history of people of color paying the price for the white man's arrogance and expansionism?

Just like the Ganges river that dominates Sagar's dreams, thoughout the novel runs short historical stories of settlers who conquered, both the west and India, who form the foundation upon which Sagar and Janavi stand.

A bold, ambitious, stunningly beautiful yet brutal novel about colonialism and the rippling ramifications still felt today, Indian Country is a tour de force modern-day classic.]]> 432 Shobha Rao 0593798953 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Shobha Rao
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> 224044745
Mr. Montessori and his family return home from a trip to the beach to discover that their sofa is different. Once dark and contemporary, it’s now antique, green and yellow, and smelling faintly of damp.

Its appearance and origins are a mystery. A joke? An inverted theft? A break in the fabric of reality? Yes, the police take the “crime� seriously. But what happens next lies outside their expertise. Strange sounds in the night. A half-bathroom toilet with a mind of its own. Odd, fleeting glimpses of something (or someone) in mirrors. The inexplicable vision of Montessori’s neighbor: He swears he saw a burglar. . . .

Montessori’s quest for answers will take him to a dank highway overpass in decayed upstate New York, a very strange dry-cleaning supply concern in outermost Queens, and into the depths of an eerie, warped forest where time and space no longer connect, all while putting his ever-more-troubled marriage and young family in grave danger. But that’s what it costs to find out if we own our possessions � or if they own us.

Munson emerges as a master stylist in this tense, taut work of surreal humor and psychological horror.]]> 162 Sam Munson 1953387977 Mara 0 to-read 4.50
author: Sam Munson
name: Mara
average rating: 4.50
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]]> 222925674 A gothic feminist body horror in two timelines revolving around three Anatomical Venuses—ultrarealistic wax figures of women—that come to life at night to murder men who have wronged them

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

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

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

However, these haunted, murderous dolls might not be ready to burn.]]> 384 A. Rushby 0593954645 Mara 0 to-read 4.00
author: A. Rushby
name: Mara
average rating: 4.00
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]]> 220160172 In 18th-century England, a widowed confectioner is drawn into a web of love, betrayal, and intrigue and a battle of wits in this masterful historical novel from the author of the USA TODAY bestseller The Square of Sevens.

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

Only William Devereux seems different. A friend of her late husband, Devereux helps Hannah unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his death. He also tells her about an Italian delicacy called iced cream, an innovation she is convinced will transform the fortunes of her shop. But their friendship opens Hannah to speculation and gossip and draws Henry Fielding’s attention her way, locking her into a battle of wits more devastating than anything she can imagine.]]> 304 Laura Shepherd-Robinson 1668083094 Mara 4 4.50
author: Laura Shepherd-Robinson
name: Mara
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: 2025-books, historical-fiction, lj-review
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]]> 223843463 370 Jo Kaplan 1960988808 Mara 0 to-read 4.50
author: Jo Kaplan
name: Mara
average rating: 4.50
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> 218569844 A captivating history of obsessive from ancient looters and idolaters to fin de siècle decadents, Freudian psychos, and hoarders.


Collectors are often praised for their taste in art or contributions to science, but there can be a darker their passion is sometimes driven by dangerous obsession. Roman emperors who lusted after statues; Chinese scholars obsessed with rocks and flowers; fin de siècle dandies surrounded by bibelots. History is full of stories about those who love things more than people, presenting a danger either to themselves or others. In this sweeping history from antiquity to today, James Delbourgo tells the extraordinary story of the mad collector as a cultural figure from the tyrant and idolater to the sexually repressed “psycho� of the Freudian imagination and the modern-day hoarder. His conclusion is Because they are driven by passion rather than profit, obsessive collectors also have been cultural heroes, seen as authentic and true to themselves. Some may be mad, but theirs is a noble madness.]]> 288 James Delbourgo 0393541967 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 218569867 Humanity’s earliest efforts at recording and drawing meaning from history reveal how lives millennia ago were not so different from our own.

Mesopotamia saw the first cities, devised the original writing system, sowed the early seeds of agriculture, and developed myths, medicine, and astronomy that all went on to influence societies around the world. However, the significance of this ancient civilization goes far beyond its technological inventions: These were the people who began the human tradition of recording their own histories.

With each chapter focusing on a new artifact, historian Moudhy Al-Rashid takes us on a personal tour of ancient life: the brick that was the basis of Mesopotamian architecture; the classroom tablets that shed light on the timeless anxieties of student life; the stone obelisk that spoke to the vast socioeconomic gulfs. Ancient Mesopotamians wanted a witness to their lives, and thousands of years later, Al-Rashid shares their stories.]]> 336 Moudhy Al-Rashid 1324036427 Mara 0 to-read 4.14 2025
author: Moudhy Al-Rashid
name: Mara
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 218569892 The riveting story of a 1985 double murder, a long-overdue investigation, and the fight to exonerate an innocent man.


In 1985, a white man walked into a South Georgia church and brutally murdered Harold and Thelma Swain, two pillars of the area’s Black community. Detectives at the time were unable to apprehend their killer. Twenty years later, police claims lead to the conviction of a local man, Dennis Perry, on a double life sentence.


When award-winning journalist and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe retraces the case, he discovers a winding path of small-town corruption, devastating missteps, and secrets. Driven by a relentless pursuit of the truth, Sharpe considers another suspect—an alleged white supremacist who brags about committing the murders—and discovers explosive evidence that helps to overturn Perry’s wrongful conviction. In this gripping work of literary journalism, Sharpe finds closure to one of the most confounding cases in Georgia history and offers a moving examination of how we reckon with the sins of our past.]]> 256 JOSHUA SHARPE 1324020717 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: JOSHUA SHARPE
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 204190332 Queer as Folklore takes readers across centuries and continents which reveals the unsung heroes and villains of storytelling, magic and fantasy. Featuring images from archives, galleries and museums around the world, each chapter investigates the queer history of different mythic and folkloric characters, both old and new.

Leaving no headstone unturned, Sacha Coward will take you on a wild ride through the night from ancient Greece to the main stage of RuPaul’s Drag Race, visiting cross-dressing pirates, radical fairies and the graves of the �queerly departed� along the way. Queer communities have often sought refuge in the shadows, found kinship in the in-between and created safe spaces in underworlds; but these forgotten narratives tell stories of remarkable resilience that deserve to be heard.

Join any Pride march and you are likely to see a glorious display of papier-mâché unicorn heads trailing sequins, drag queens wearing mermaid tails and more fairy wings than you can shake a trident at. But these are not just accessories: they are queer symbols with historic roots.

To truly understand who queer people are today, we must confront the twisted tales of the past and Queer as Folklore is a celebration of queer history like you've never seen it before.]]> 352 Sacha Coward 1800183364 Mara 0 to-read 4.08 2024
author: Sacha Coward
name: Mara
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 220161403 Karen Armstrong meets Pico Iyer in this sweeping history of Christianity that visits a dozen places of worship on every inhabited continent to tell their often wild stories and examine their sometimes difficult legacies.

Christianity is the largest religion in the US with upwards of 200 million people, and its churches often possess an allure and beauty that fascinate even the most committed atheist. What fascinates Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is that each place of worship tells a story—of place, time, and most of all, people. It is in these sanctuaries that the complexities of life from birth and death to power, sex, violence, justice, and beauty are encapsulated, and here, in Twelve Churches, Fergus takes us on a fascinating journey through time to unravel the story of Christianity as told by the people who have lived it on every inhabited continent.

Beginning with the birth of Christ over 2,000 years ago in Bethlehem at the location marked by the Church of the Nativity—a confusing warren of a building—Fergus leads us to a remote stone outcrop in Mount Athos, Greece, where the monastic vow of celibacy is taken to an optimistic extreme by excluding all female animals. We learn that at Canterbury Cathedral, the stones have been soaked in blood that is both famous and infamous. On the coast of Japan, a cave like church marks the spot where Christian martyrs were tied to crosses at low tide—and left there. The 16th Street Church in Birmingham, Alabama, remains the site of one of the Ku Klux Klan’s most infamous bombings, and the meeting house in Salem, Massachusetts, remains a monument to the ways that a quest for purity can lead to mass murder. And in Nigeria we visit a church the size of an airplane hangar, where every Sunday it fills almost every one of its 50,000 seats.

An engaging blend of history, geography, travel, biography, spiritual reflection, and a wry sense of humor, Butler-Gallie shows us that despite its complexities and controversy, such a faith is still worth following, and that by acknowledging the past we can ultimately discover the path toward healing and hope.]]> 352 Fergus Butler-Gallie 1668074478 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: Fergus Butler-Gallie
name: Mara
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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 Mara 0 to-read 4.50 2025
author: Mark Edwards
name: Mara
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2025
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date added: 2025/03/19
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]]> 217929489 Four strangers time travel to the past and find themselves stuck on the day all their lives were changed in this stunning speculative mystery from award-winning film and television producer Dete Meserve, perfect for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold, Wrong Place Wrong Time and The Paradox Hotel.

What would you do if you could spend an hour in your past? Four strangers in the beach town of Ventura, California are about to find out.Ěý

Elizabeth aches for one more precious hour with her son who died in a senseless accident. Andy is desperate to find his first love who vanished after a whirlwind romance. Logan craves the rush of surfing and mountain climbing, yearning to reclaim the freedom he lost after a misstepĚýlanded him in a wheelchair. Brooke is looking for an hour of relief from the guilt of an unforgivable mistake.

Enter Aeon Expeditions, the groundbreaking time travelĚýinvention of Mark Saunders—which allowsĚýsome lucky clientsĚý the chanceĚýto spend an hour in their past. Even though Aeon’s technology ensures time travel can’t alter the future, all four clients,Ěýincluding Mark’s ex-wife Elizabeth,Ěýyearn to revisit the hour that changed their lives forever.Ěý

But when their “hour� extends beyond sixty minutes, they find themselves stranded in the past. As their paths intertwine unexpectedly, they unearth shocking secrets hidden in the shadows of their shared All their lives were shattered the same night on a secluded highway by the beach. As they delve into the hidden truths of that pivotal hour, a startling revelation emerges. They were not alone. Someone else was present, harboring deadly intentions.

The Memory Collectors is a heart-wrenching, genre-bending novel brimming with hope, grief and second chances.

]]> 336 Dete Meserve Mara 4 2025-books, science-fiction 4.00 2025
author: Dete Meserve
name: Mara
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: 2025-books, science-fiction
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]]> 222399134 Kennedy Ann Scott was awarded Teacher of the Year in Nashville, Tennessee. Olivia Lux starred in Rent and Kinky Boots. Julie J raised more than $100,000 for trans and LGBTQIA+ organizations. Lagoona Bloo is currently starring on the Off-Broadway hit the Musical and Alex Michaels received a stellar review from The New York Times for their role in LA CAGE AUX FOLLES at Barrington Stage Company. Nina West received an honorary doctorate in May 2024 and is a well-known entertainer having worked with everyone from Glenn Close to Kermit the Frog.

When these gorgeous queens dress up in their stunning gown with picture perfect makeup, haters label them as inappropriate and unlawful. They are entertainers not predators. Drag is an art of self-expression that, at its core, affirms and uplifts LGBTQIA+ people.

No Tea, No Shade is a collective anthem written by six drag queens who believe in equality, peace, and in a world that loves and respects all people. The defiant legacy of drag will endure fearmongering and hate because their hearts have endured the unthinkable, their courage has been relentlessly tested, and to be blunt, they have the balls to prevail.

No Tea, No Shade? features thirty essays written by six talented queens. They

Social activism, Drag Story Hour, and education.Coming out, gender, and equality.Parenting, relationships, setting goals, and rejection.Celebrating womanhood, family, and image.Despite the pervasive danger of being authentic and real, these drag artists have chosen to fight for LGBTQIA+ rights and not give up. They remind us and others who will listen that a person’s identity shouldn’t be marginalized to genitals. Identity categories are not as important as we have been led to believe. The shade casted on drag is just a scapegoat. It is a distraction political figures and trolls use to lure people away from caring about serious issues like gun violence, poverty, and racism.

No Tea, No Shade will shine a light on a community of people who are paving the way for a better world and holding the light for others to step up.]]> 240 Kennedy Ann Scott 006343055X Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 221754279 In this mesmerizing and profound novel, the arc of a woman's life in a devout, insular community challenges our deepest assumptions about what infuses life with meaning.
Ěý
Ruth is raised in a snow globe of Christian communism, a world without private property, television, or tolerance for idle questions. Every morning she braids her hair and wears the same costume, sings the same breakfast song in a family room identical to every other family room in the community; every one of these moments is meant to be a prayer, but to Ruth they remain puzzles. Her life is seen in glimpses through childhood, marriage, and motherhood, as she tries to manage her own perilous curiosity in a community built on holy mystery. Is she happy? Might this in fact be happiness? Ruth immerses us in an experience that challenges our most fervent beliefs.]]> 256 Kate Riley 0593715942 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Kate Riley
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> 222156751 Wildly witty and wickedly fun,ĚýAĚýKiller WeddingĚýis a juicy debut whodunit about toxic family dynamics hidden beneath the surface of billionaire-level wealth that reads likeĚýThe Devil Wears PradaĚýprotagonist played a game of Clue at a White Lotus Hotel.

Christine can’t believe her luck. The iconic Gloria Beaufort, founder of the billion-dollar beauty empire Glo, has personally chosen her to cover her grandson’s wedding forĚýBespoke, the cult fashion magazine that every A-list bride dreams of being featured in. A career-making scoop and a free trip to a castle turned five-star hotel on the Emerald Isle? It feels too good to be trueâ€�

Because it is.

Gloria is found dead on the very first morning of the celebratory weekend, and her entire family wants to keep her death a secret and for the wedding to march on. When Gloria’s heirs issue a chilling warning to Christine to keep things quiet, she can’t help but wonder if one of them is guilty. There’s the son who’s hiding a damaging lawsuit; the resentful daughter-in-law; the grandson who’s had a few too many run-ins with the law; the ambitious granddaughter who’s hiding more than one secret; and Gloria’s favorite grandchild, the too-good-to-be-true groom. As Christine navigates a world where glamour masks grimy secrets and everyone she meets is a suspect, she realizes that among this glitzy elite, nothing is as it seems.

Set against the dazzling backdrop of ultimate luxury and an endless reveal of surprises,ĚýA Killer WeddingĚýis a fast-paced, humorous mystery that proves you’ll never forget your wedding day…especially if it starts with a murder.]]> 336 Joan O'Leary 0063432218 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: Joan O'Leary
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 222376708 368 Scott Miller 0374609675 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: Scott Miller
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 222377040 From the author of The Lindbergh Nanny comes an evocative mystery about the 1920 murder of the gambler Joseph Elwell, featuring New Yorker writer Morris Markey and Zelda Fitzgerald.

At the dawn of the Jazz Age, Morris Markey arrives in New York to become a writer. Having served in France, he needs to be in a place so distracting he cannot hear himself think. New in town, Markey hovers at the edge of the city’s revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first Big Story. Finally one night he spots Joseph Elwell, a man about town known for courting wealthy married women, with a glorious girl in a dress of silver and dollar green.

The next morning, Elwell’s housekeeper runs out into the street screaming that Elwell has been shot. Every door and window in the house is locked. Did the ravishing woman kill her paramour? At last, Morris Markey has his story.

To penetrate the glittering world of Joseph Elwell, Markey turns to the newly famous Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, who met Elwell the same fateful night he night. Bored while Scott is working on his next novel, Zelda offers to help Markey with his investigation.

Together, Markey and Zelda learn that there were many people in Elwell's life who had reason to want him dead. And when a second man is found shot in his home in a very similar way, Markey begins to suspect that the truth may be more complicated—a story so dangerous that after he finishes it three decades later, he himself is found dead in his home, a single bullet through his head.

Mariah Fredericks's third standalone novel based on a true story from New York City's glamorous past, The Girl in the Green Dress is a truly standout historical mystery.]]> 336 Mariah Fredericks 1250367514 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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name: Mara
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]]> 212378269 New York Times bestselling author Madeline Martin

In the aftermath of a tumultuous year, Fiona Winslow finds solace in the decaying grandeur of Wurimbirra, the rambling family estate on the east coast of Australia she once called home. Intent on restoring it, she discovers the keys to more than just the dilapidated mansion—beneath the crumbling plaster and dust are secrets that have been buried for a generation.

When a misshelved book, The Midnight Estate, catches her attention in her late uncle's library, Fiona is plunged into a tale that mirrors her own—a story of love, loss and betrayal. But as the lines between fiction and reality blur, Fiona must ask herself: Is the true mystery the one hidden within the walls of her ancestral home, or is it within the pages of a book that chose her as much as she chose it?

Told across three timelines and set against the Gothic backdrop of Wurimbirra, The Midnight Estate weaves a tale as intricate and haunting as Kate Morton's Homecoming, inviting readers into the heart of a family's darkest secrets with an absorbing book-within-a-book mystery.]]> 416 Kelly Rimmer 1525805118 Mara 0 to-read 4.34
author: Kelly Rimmer
name: Mara
average rating: 4.34
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]]> 222292403 This is the astonishing story of the ten million books that US intelligence smuggled across the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

From copies of Orwell to Agatha Christie, the Western effort was to undermine the censorship of the Soviet bloc, offer different visions of thought and culture to the people, and build relationships with real readers in the East.

Historian Charlie English follows the characters of the era, with Bucharest-born George Minden at the narrative’s heart. Tasked with masterminding the effort, Minden understood both sides of the he was opposed to the intellectual straightjacket created by the communist system, but he also resented the Americans� patronising tone � the people weren’t fooled by what their puppet governments were saying, but they did need culture, diversity of thought, entertainment, art, reassurance and solidarity. This is how the perilous mission to bring books as beacons of hope played out, told in riveting detail.]]> 384 Charlie English 0593447905 Mara 0 to-read 3.73 2025
author: Charlie English
name: Mara
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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]]> 222850723 A captivating new historical novel from Madeline Martin, set in Victorian London aboutĚýa forbidden book club, dangerous secrets, and the women who dare to break free.
Ěý
You are cordially invited to the Secret Book Society�
Ěý
London, 1895: Trapped by oppressive marriages and societal expectations, three women receive a mysterious invitation to an afternoon tea at the home of the reclusive Lady Duxbury. Beneath the genteel facade of the gathering lies a secret book club—a sanctuary where they can discover freedom, sisterhood, and the courage to rewrite their stories.
Ěý
Eleanor Clarke, a devoted mother suffocating under the tyranny of her husband. Rose Wharton, a transplanted American dollar princess struggling to fit the mold of an aristocratic wife. Lavinia Cavendish, an artistic young woman haunted by a dangerous family secret. All are drawn to the enigmatic Lady Duxbury, a thrice-widowed countess whose husbands� untimely deaths have sparked whispers of murder.
Ěý
As the women form deep, heartwarming friendships, they uncover secrets about their marriages, their pasts, and the risks they face. Their courage is their only weapon in the oppressive world that has kept them silent, but when secrets are deadly, one misstep could cost them everything.
Ěý]]> 336 Madeline Martin 1335016287 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
author: Madeline Martin
name: Mara
average rating: 0.0
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]]> 211003956
A gorgeously composed narrative nonfiction book about the longstanding relationship between prehistoric plants and life on Earth.

Immaculately framed by ancient stone, the leaves look as if they were pressed between the gray pages of a great geological diary. If we were to see the plant alive, we would simply pass it by, but the fossil is a whisper from a time more than 55 million years ago, when alligators dwelled within the Arctic Circle and gigantic dragonflies buzzed through the air. This little plant is an entry-point into this lost world. Past, present, and future, this ancient specimen has roots in all of them.

We often retell the history of life on Earth as a series of great moments in which fascinating animal life springs forth, all the while forgetting the plants that made these moments possible. But we can’t understand our own history without them. Or, our future. Dinosaurs, saber-toothed cats, and all mammals would be nothing without the efforts of their leafy counterparts. Even humans would likely not exist had plants not taken root to sow the land for our amphibious ancestors.

Using the same scientifically-informed narrative technique that readers loved in the award-winning The Last Days of the Dinosaurs, in When the Earth Was Green, Riley Black brings readers back in time to prehistoric seas, swamps, forests, and savannas where critical moments in plant evolution unfolded. Each chapter stars plants and animals alike, underscoring how the interactions between species have helped shape the world we call home. As the chapters move upwards in time, Black guides readers along the burgeoning trunk of the Tree of Life, stopping to appreciate branches of an evolutionary story that links the world we know with one we can only just perceive now through the silent stone, from ancient roots to the present.]]> 292 Riley Black 1250288991 Mara 0 currently-reading 4.12 2025
author: Riley Black
name: Mara
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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]]> 217453576 From the author of Natural Beauty, set in the fiercely competitive art world, a novel about an obsessive friendship upended by a cutting-edge technology purported to enhance empathy and connection

Enka meets Mathilde in art school. Mathilde is a dizzyingly talented yet tortured artist whose star is on the rise—and Enka, struggling to make art that feels original, is immediately drawn to her. The two strike up an intense bond that soon turns codependent. But when Mathilde’s fame reaches new heights, Enka becomes desperate to keep her best friend close—no matter the cost.
Ěý
Enka quickly falls in love with and marries a billionaire whose family’s company is funding an unconventional technology purported to heighten empathy, which could allow someone else to inhabit Mathilde’s mind and absorb the trauma from her brain. Soon, the boundaries between Mathilde and Enka begin to blur even further, setting in motion a disturbing series of events that forever changes their lives.

Blisteringly smart, thought-provoking, and shocking, Immaculate Conception deftly navigates big questions of art, technology, authorship, and what makes us human. Ling Ling Huang offers us a portrait of close friendship—achingly tender and twisted—that captures the tenuous line between love and possession that will haunt you long after you turn the final page.]]> 304 Ling Ling Huang 0593850432 Mara 4 2025-books, horror 4.23 2025
author: Ling Ling Huang
name: Mara
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: 2025-books, horror
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]]> 222725803 From the award-winning, bestselling “literary pied piper� (The New York Times Book Review) who brought us Boy, Snow, Bird comes an account of seven particularly busy days in an already hectic inner life

New Day, New You!

Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week.

There's a Kinga for every day: on Mondays, you can catch Kinga A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath.

Kingas A-G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life - between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic.

It's an arrangement that's not without its fair share of admin, grudges and half-truths. But when Kinga A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all.

In A New New Me, master storyteller Helen Oyeyemi cleverly asks: what if the different sides of your personality had trust issues with each other? How many versions of oneself can one self safely contain?]]> 224 Helen Oyeyemi 0593718771 Mara 0 to-read 3.00
author: Helen Oyeyemi
name: Mara
average rating: 3.00
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]]> 217223460 From the author of the “delightfulâ€� (New York Times Book Review)ĚýMary Jane, a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco’s most exclusive department store, I. Magnin.

Nineteen-year-old Zippy can hardly believe she’s the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.� Every week, she rotates her three spruced-up Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps; still, she’s thrilled to walk those pumps through the employee entrance five days a week as she saves to buy something new. For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard; a girl who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how; I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one.

Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. Her fellow salesgirls (lifetime professionals) run the gamut from mean and indifferent to caring and helpful. The cosmetics ladies on the first floor share both samples and advice (“only date a man with a Rolex�); and her new roommate, Raquel, an ambitious lawyer, tells Zippy she can lose ten pounds easy if she joins Raquel in eating only every other day. Just when Zippy thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco,ĚýShopgirlsĚýis an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found.


]]> 272 Jessica Anya Blau 0063052350 Mara 4 3.72 2025
author: Jessica Anya Blau
name: Mara
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn't all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they're coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It's up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyperintelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 Mara 4 4.09 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Mara
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
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]]> 218267191 The dramatic, untold story of EugĂ©nie de Montijo, the woman who created haute couture, fought for women’s rights, opened France’s schools to girls and ruled the country as its last empress,Ěýyet today remains almost unknown.

Although a nineteenth-century woman, her almost twenty-firstĚýcentury outlook was key to the creation of modern France. Viewed frequently as a mere “ornament of the throneâ€� of her husband, Emperor NapolĂ©on III, this Spanish-born aristocrat proved to be almost as fiery as her red hair, fighting against institutional limitations, establishing innovations in childcare and women’s health, scientific research and education, battling anti-Semitism and “sex prejudice,â€� all the while displaying a political acumen so sharp that her husband gave her sole control of the government during his absences and consulted her daily when he was home. But the triumphs and glamour of her life were coupled with heartbreak and tragedy.

This first definitive American biography of Eugénie restores her far-reaching legacy to history.]]> 336 Petie Kladstrup 1335012494 Mara 0 to-read 0.0
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]]> 228177777 When a daughter and her famous mother return to Winthrop Island to confront their complicated past, they discover a secret trove of paintings that connect them to a mysterious woman who vanished on a luxury steamship two centuries earlier.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Husbands & Lovers comes an epic tale of family legacy, love, and truths that echo down generations.

Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef. Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams. Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback, and where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people? Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged bartender father, Mike Kennedy, and the astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets…attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody. How did a trove of paintings from one of America’s greatest artists wind up in the cellar of the Mohegan Inn? And who is the mysterious woman portrayed on every canvas?

On a stormy November night in 1846, Providence Dare flees Boston and boards the luxury steamship Atlantic one step ahead of the law�.or so she believes. But when a catastrophic accident leaves the ship at the mercy of a mighty gale, Providence finds herself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the one man who knows her real identity—the detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer, the painter Henry Irving. As the Atlantic fights for her life and the rocky shore of Winthrop Island edges closer, a desperate Providence searches for her chance to escape…before the sea swallows her without a trace.

In Under the Stars, the destinies of three women converge across centuries, as a harrowing true disaster at the dawn of the steamship era evokes a complex legacy of family secrets in modern-day New England. Williams has written a timeless epic of mothers and daughters, of love lost and found, and of the truths that echo down generations.]]> 368 Beatriz Williams 0593724259 Mara 0 to-read 0.0 2025
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name: Mara
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]]> 221179212 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Disappearing Spoon, a romp through the entire history of humankind—from 75,000 B.C. to the dawn of the modern age.

From the mighty pyramids of Egypt to the majestic temples of the Aztec, we have a good idea of what the past looked like. But what about our other The tang of Roman fish sauce, and the springy crust of Egyptian sourdough? The boom of medieval cannons and clash of Viking swords? The breathless plays of an Aztec ballgame, and the chilling reality that the losers might also lose their lives?

History all too often neglects the tastes, textures, sounds, and smells that were an intimate part of our ancestors� daily experience, but a new generation of researchers is resurrecting those hidden details, pioneering an exciting new discipline called experimental archaeology. These are scientists gone They make human mummies. They carve ancient spears and go hunting, then knap their own obsidian blades to skin the game. They build perilous boats and plunge out onto the open sea—all in the name of experiencing history as it was, with all its dangers, disappointments, and unexpected delights.

Beloved author Sam Kean joins these experimental archeologists on their adventures as they resurrect the lives of our ancestors, following in their footsteps at exotic locations across the globe, from remote Polynesian islands to forbidding arctic ice floes. He fires medieval catapults, tries his hand at ancient surgery and tattooing, builds Roman-style roads—and, in novelistic interludes, spins tales of the lives of people long gone with vivid imagination and his signature meticulous research. Lively, offbeat, and filled with stunning discoveries, Dinner with King Tut sheds light on days long past and the intrepid experts resurrecting them today, with startling, lifelike detail and more than a few laughs along the way.]]> 464 Sam Kean 0316496553 Mara 0 to-read 4.33
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name: Mara
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]]> 222139733 From the author ofĚýWild and Wicked Things comes a dark gothic fantasy about two young women struggling to find the freedom of choice in a world where their path feels predetermined. Turning to each other, they soon find themselves sinking deeper into a world of beauty, poison, and the insatiable quest for knowledge.Ěý

Thora Grieve finds herself destitute and an outcast after the sudden death of her husband only a few weeks into their marriage, but a glimmer of hope arrives when a family friend offers her spot at a university to study botany under a famed professor. Once at the university Thora becomes entranced by a mysterious young woman, Olea, who emerges each night to tend to the plants in the professor's private garden.
Ěý
Thora soon that a mysterious illness prevents Olea from leaving the garden. Hungry for connection, Thora befriends Olea through the garden gate and their relationship quickly and intensely blossoms. The visceral connection between Thora and Olea unlocks an obsessive desire in Thora as she throws herself into finding a cure for Olea's ailment. But is this really love or is it merely lustful intoxication? Thora's finally found the freedom to pursue her deepest desires, but at what cost?]]> 432 Francesca May 0316287539 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Francesca May
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 211004893
As they attempt to evade the boy's increasingly desperate father, horrifying incidents of butchery follow them. At first, Jess thinks she understands what they're up against, but she's about to learn there's more to these surreal and grisly events than she could've ever imagined.

And that when the wolf finally comes home, none will be spared.]]> 304 Nat Cassidy 125035434X Mara 5 4.57 2025
author: Nat Cassidy
name: Mara
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2025-books, audiobooks, horror
review:

]]> 222925690 A young man is haunted by a mythological specter bent on stealing everything he loves in this unsettling horror from the author of Indian Burial Ground and Sisters of the Lost Nation.

For fear of summoning evil spirits, Native superstition says you should never, ever whistle at night.

Henry Hotard was on the verge of fame, gaining a following and traction with his eerie ghost-hunting videos. Then his dreams came to a screeching halt. Now, he's learning to navigate a new life in a wheelchair, back on the reservation where he grew up, relying on his grandparents� care while he recovers.

And he’s being haunted.

His girlfriend, Jade, insists he just needs time to adjust to his new reality as a quadriplegic, that it’s his traumatized mind playing tricks on him, but Henry knows better. As the specter haunting him creeps closer each night, Henry battles to find a way to endure, to rid himself of the horror stalking him. Worried that this dread might plague him forever, he realizes the only way to exile his phantom is by confronting his troubled past and going back to the events that led to his injury.

It all started when he whistled at night....]]> 368 Nick Medina 0593820401 Mara 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Nick Medina
name: Mara
average rating: 5.00
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]]> 224003242 A “big-hearted and true� (Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winner) debut novel set in a small rural town amid a congressional race when life-changing secrets are unearthed by the candidates, their families, and a clique of gay second homeowners.

The trendy rural town of Griffin has become a popular destination for weekenders and the city’s second homeowners but now a congressional race in this swing district is highlighting tensions between life-long residents and new arrivals. The campaign pits local pub owner and town supervisor Chip Riley against the wealthy young carpetbagger Paul Banks, challenging the social and political loyalties of their families and friends with lasting repercussions.

Diane Riley, Chip’s wife, is a religiously devout real estate agent who feels conflicted about selling second homes—including to Paul and his much older husband, Stan. The Riley’s eldest son Joe is grieving the recent overdose death of his best friend and spiraling into drugs himself, while their youngest son, Will, is a newly out college student seduced by the decadent lifestyle and sexual openness of Paul’s clique but burdened by his sense of obligation to his father.

Meanwhile, Stan Banks uses the race to give purpose to the pain of losing his brother to AIDS, even as he begins to doubt Paul’s readiness for office. And within their growing circle of city transplants, Eric Larimer finds unexpected connection with a local farmer that opens his eyes to the region’s complexity as Leon Rogers, still reeling from a divorce, becomes increasingly desperate to infiltrate the Banks’s exclusive crew.

Spanning six months from Memorial Day to Election Day, Town & Country paints a kaleidoscopic portrait of a community in flux. For readers of Fredrick Backman and Jen Beagin, this “powerful and extremely well-written book� (Colum McCann, National Book Award winner) asks the essential and timeless What makes a home, and what do we owe our neighbors?]]> 304 Brian Schaefer 1668086891 Mara 0 to-read 4.12 2025
author: Brian Schaefer
name: Mara
average rating: 4.12
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]]> 220852285 An ill-fated road trip resurrects a married couple’s darkest secrets in this new thriller from the USA Today bestselling author of Best Day Ever and The Next Wife.


Some secrets keep a couple together.



If you ask Jill Tingley, she’ll tell you she and her husband Jack are college sweethearts living the dream in Southern California. Wealthy, popular and genetically blessed, theirs is an enviable life, though they’ve grown distant in recent years. Newly empty nesting with their daughter Maggie away at college, Jill suggests a road trip to reconnect.



Jack would rather do anything else than drive to Utah with his wife. He’s only stayed in this marriage because of a shared secret, a tragedy in the past he wanted to keep buried. And for his daughter’s sake. But Jack is finished with the charade of his marriage. He’s filing for divorce as soon as they return, no matter what.



But he doesn’t realize what else Jill is hiding.



So begins a cat-and-mouse road trip as a cunning wife—think Ripley in yoga pants—and a reluctant husband match wits and drive each other to the edge. But everything will be fine. Jill still loves Jack and believes he’s the only one for her. She’ll do anything to keep him. Anything. She always has.
]]> 256 Kaira Rouda 1613166079 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
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name: Mara
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]]> 218372243 Award-winning novelist Caro De Robertis offers a first-of-its-kind, deeply personal, and moving oral history of a generation of queer and trans elders of color, from leading activists to artists to ordinary citizens to tell their stories of breathtaking courage, cultural innovations, and acts of resistance, all in their own words.

So Many StarsĚýknits together the voices of trans, nonbinary, genderqueer and two spirit elders of color as they share authentic, intimate accounts of how they created space for themselves and their communities in the world, how they pursued their passions, and how they continue to be at the vanguard of social change. This singular project collects the testimonies of over a dozen elders, each a glimmering thread in a luminous tapestry, preserving their words for future generations—who can more fully exist in the world today because of these very voices.

Award-winning novelist De Robertis creates a collective coming-of-age story based on hundreds of hours of interviews, offering rare snapshots of ordinary kids growing up, navigating family issues and finding community, coming out and changing how they identify over the years, building movements and weathering the AIDS crisis, and sharing wisdom for future generations. Often narrating experiences that took place before they had the array of language that exists today to self-identify and to describe life beyond the gender binary, this generation lived through remarkable changes in American culture, shaped American culture, and yet rarely takes center stage in the history books. Their stories feel particularly urgent in the current political moment, but also remind readers that their experiences are not new. Young trans and nonbinary people of color today belong to a long lineage.
Ěý
The anecdotes in these pages are riveting, joyful, heartbreaking—so full of life and personality and wisdom, and artfully woven together into one immersive narrative. In De Robertis’s words, So Many Stars shares “behind-the-scenes tales of what it meant—and still means—to create an authentic life, against the odds.”]]> 320 Caro De Robertis 1643756877 Mara 0 currently-reading 4.20
author: Caro De Robertis
name: Mara
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]]> 217388119 A lavish, Texas-sized Sweet Sixteen turns deadly in this twisty, pulse-pounding new novel � serving up a fresh take on a classic locked-room whodunnit. Let the festivities begin�

Today is Sophie Matthews’s sixteenth birthday party, an exclusive black-tie bash in the heart of the Texas Hill Country, where secrets are as deep-rooted as the sprawling live oaks. Sophie’s dad has spared no expense, and his renovated cliffside mansion—once thought haunted—is now hosting the event of the season. Then, just before the candles on the three-tiered red velvet cake are blown out, a body falls from the balcony onto the starlit dance floor below.

It’s a killer guest list . . .

DANI: Sophie’s new stepmother who’s been plagued by self-doubt ever since the birth of her own baby girl

ÍѸ鳢´ˇ±ő°Ő±á: the superstitious Irish nanny who senses a looming danger in this cavernous house

MIKAYLA: the birthday girl’s best friend who is not nearly as meek as the popular kids assume

KIM: the cunning ex-wife who has a grudge she can’t let go of . . .

Everyone is invited in. Not everyone will get out alive. ]]> 336 Kelsey Cox 1250378818 Mara 3 2025-books, thriller 4.07 2025
author: Kelsey Cox
name: Mara
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> 211080534 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Romanov Sisters comes the story of a courageous young Imperial Grand Duchess who scandalized Europe in search of freedom.

In 1795, Catherine the Great of Russia was in search of a bride for her grandson Constantine, who stood third in line to her throne. In an eerie echo of her own story, Catherine selected an innocent young German princess, Julie of Saxe-Coburg, aunt of the future Queen Victoria. Though Julie had everything a young bride could wish for, she was alone in a court dominated by an aging empress and riven with rivalries, plotting, and gossip―not to mention her brute of a husband, who was tender one moment and violent the next. She longed to leave Russia and her disastrous marriage, but her family in Germany refused to allow her to do so.

Desperate for love, Julie allegedly sought consolation in the arms of others. Finally, Tsar Alexander granted her permission to leave in 1801, even though her husband was now heir to the throne. Rootless in Europe, Julie gave birth to two―possibly three―illegitimate children, all of whom she was forced to give up for adoption. Despite entreaties from Constantine to return and provide an heir, she refused, eventually finding love with her own married physician.

At a time when many royal brides meekly submitted to disastrous marriages, Julie proved to be a woman ahead of her time, sacrificing her reputation and a life of luxury in exchange for the freedom to live as she wished. The Rebel Romanov is the inspiring tale of a bold woman who, until now, has been ignored by history.]]> 336 Helen Rappaport 1250273129 Mara 0 to-read 4.04 2025
author: Helen Rappaport
name: Mara
average rating: 4.04
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]]> 224004039 "A stunning work of suspense that's impossible to put down. Christina Kovac masterfully combines a twisty missing person mystery, a heartbreaking love story, and an insightful exploration of the nature of obsession and trauma. I loved this novel."
—Angie Kim, New York Times bestselling author of Happiness Falls and Miracle Creek




Lucy and her three best friends share a glamorous but decaying house in the heart of Georgetown. They call themselves “the Sweeties� and live an idyllic post-grad lifestyle complete with exciting jobs, dramatic love lives, and, most importantly, each other.



But when Addie, the group’s queen bee, discovers that her ex-boyfriend Josh has gone missing, the Sweeties� worlds are turned upside down. In the days leading up to his disappearance, Josh, a star investigative journalist from a prominent political family, was behaving erratically—and Lucy is determined to find out why. All four friends upend their lives to search for him, but detectives begin to suspect that the Sweeties might know more than they’re letting on.



As the investigation unfolds, Lucy’s obsession with the case reaches a boiling point, and with it, her own troubling secrets begin bubbling to the surface of her carefully curated life. A thrilling account of the lies and delusions that lurk beneath cloistered groups of female friends and the sinister realities of celebrity, Watch Us Fall is a gripping mystery and an examination of the things we tell ourselves when we can’t face the truth.]]> 304 Christina Kovac 1501141724 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
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name: Mara
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]]> 223362037 Hong Kong, 1953: In a remote mansion, witnesses insist a massacre took place. The police see nothing but pristine rooms and declare it a collective hallucination. Until decades later, when one witness returns…from the Edgar®-nominated author of The Last Russian Doll.

In 1950s Hong Kong, Mei is a young refugee of the Chinese Communist revolution struggling to put her past in Shanghai behind her. When she receives a shocking invitation—to take part in a competition pitting six spirit mediums against one another in a series of six sĂ©ances over six nights, until a single winner emerges, in one of Hong Kong’s most notorious haunted houses—she has every reason to refuse.Ěý

Except that the hostess, a former Shanghainese silent film star, is none other than the wife of the man who once destroyed Mei’s entire life.

It is promised the winner will receive a fortune, but there is only one prize Mei wants: revenge.Ěý

Decades later, the final night of that competition has become an infamous urban The police were called to the scene of a brutal massacre but found no evidence, dismissing it as a collective hallucination. Mei knows what she saw, but now someone else is convinced they know what she did. She must uncover the truth about that fateful night in the cursed house at last—even if the ghosts of her past are waiting for her there. . . .]]> 368 Kristen Loesch 0593548019 Mara 0 to-read 5.00
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]]>