Kristina's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 06 Mar 2025 09:20:56 -0800 60 Kristina's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Death at Morning House 199793628 From the bestselling author of the Truly Devious books, Maureen Johnson, comes a new stand-alone YA about a teen who uncovers a mystery while working as a tour guide on an island and must solve it before history repeats itself.

The fire wasn’t Marlowe Wexler’s fault. Dates should be hot, but not hot enough to warrant literal firefighters. Akilah, the girl Marlowe has been in love with for years, will never go out with her again. No one dates an accidental arsonist.

With her house-sitting career up in flames, it seems the universe owes Marlowe a new summer job, and that’s how she ends up at Morning House, a mansion built on an island in the 1920s and abandoned shortly thereafter. It’s easy enough, giving tours. Low risk of fire. High chance of getting bored talking about stained glass and nut cutlets and Prohibition.

Oh, and the deaths. Did anyone mention the deaths?]]> 384 Maureen Johnson 0063255952 Kristina 0 to-read 3.71 2024 Death at Morning House
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Slow Dance 198530925
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.

Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.

Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.

When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?

The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.

Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.

It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.]]> 400 Rainbow Rowell 0063380196 Kristina 0 to-read 3.64 2024 Slow Dance
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hum If You Don't Know the Words]]> 32739413 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a nine-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred... until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin's parents are left dead and Beauty's daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum if You Don't Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0399575065 Kristina 0 to-read 4.17 2017 Hum If You Don't Know the Words
author: Bianca Marais
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year]]> 199531989 Knives Out gets a rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers Christmas romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter

The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room three days before Christmas.

Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:
She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.
He’s Mr. Big-Time Thriller Guy.

She hates his guts.

He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)

But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.

That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.

She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?

As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth—and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.

Assuming they don’t kill each other first.]]> 293 Ally Carter 0063276682 Kristina 0 currently-reading 3.92 2024 The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
author: Ally Carter
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern]]> 203579107 It's never too late for new beginnings.

On the cusp of turning eighty, newly retired pharmacist Augusta Stern is adrift. When she relocates to Rallentando Springs—an active senior community in southern Florida—she unexpectedly crosses paths with Irving Rivkin, the delivery boy from her father’s old pharmacy—and the man who broke her heart sixty years earlier.

As a teenager growing up in 1920’s Brooklyn, Augusta’s role model was her father, Solomon Stern, the trusted owner of the local pharmacy and the neighborhood expert on every ailment. But when Augusta’s mother dies and Great Aunt Esther moves in, Augusta ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t help but be drawn to Esther’s curious methods. As a healer herself, Esther offers Solomon’s customers her own advice—unconventional remedies ranging from homemade chicken soup to a mysterious array of powders and potions.

As Augusta prepares for pharmacy college, she is torn between loyalty to her father and fascination with her great aunt, all while navigating a budding but complicated relationship with Irving. Desperate for clarity, she impulsively uses Esther’s most potent elixir with disastrous consequences. Disillusioned and alone, Augusta vows to reject Esther’s enchantments forever.

Sixty years later, confronted with Irving, Augusta is still haunted by the mistakes of her past. What happened all those years ago and how did her plan go so spectacularly wrong? Did Irving ever truly love her or was he simply playing a part? And can Augusta reclaim the magic of her youth before it’s too late?]]> 320 Lynda Cohen Loigman 1250278104 Kristina 5 4.07 2024 The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
author: Lynda Cohen Loigman
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/31
date added: 2024/12/31
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet]]> 55145261 A deeply moving and mind-expanding collection of personal essays in the first ever work of non-fiction from #1 internationally bestselling author John Green

The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his ground-breaking, critically acclaimed podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet - from the QWERTY keyboard and Halley's Comet to Penguins of Madagascar - on a five-star scale.

Complex and rich with detail, the Anthropocene's reviews have been praised as 'observations that double as exercises in memoiristic empathy', with over 10 million lifetime downloads. John Green's gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection about the shared human experience; it includes beloved essays along with six all-new pieces exclusive to the book.]]> 304 John Green 0525555218 Kristina 5 4.37 2021 The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet
author: John Green
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/06
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Funny Story 194803835 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441281 Kristina 0 to-read 4.19 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Kristina 0 to-read 4.12 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> How to End a Love Story 212432167 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Two writers with a complicated history end up working on the same TV show... Can they write themselves a new ending? A sexy and emotional enemies-to-lovers romance guaranteed to pull on your heartstrings and give you a book hangover from brilliant new voice Yulin Kuang.

Helen Zhang hasn’t seen Grant Shepard once in the thirteen years since the tragic accident that bound their lives together forever.

Now a bestselling author, Helen pours everything into her career. She’s even scored a coveted spot in the writers� room of the TV adaptation of her popular young adult novels, and if she can hide her imposter syndrome and overcome her writer’s block, surely the rest of her life will fall into place too. LA is the fresh start she needs. After all, no one knows her there. Except�

Grant has done everything in his power to move on from the past, including building a life across the country. And while the panic attacks have never quite gone away, he’s well liked around town as a screenwriter. He knows he shouldn’t have taken the job on Helen’s show, but it will open doors to developing his own projects that he just ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t pass up.

Grant’s exactly as Helen remembers him—charming, funny, popular, and lovable in ways that she’s never been. And Helen’s exactly as Grant remembers too—brilliant, beautiful, closed off. But working together is messy, and electrifying, and Helen’s parents, who have never forgiven Grant, have no idea he’s in the picture at all.

When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet� the key to making peace with their past—and themselves—might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.]]> 384 Yulin Kuang 0063310686 Kristina 0 to-read 3.51 2024 How to End a Love Story
author: Yulin Kuang
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore]]> 201751300 An affectionate and engaging history of the American bookstore and its central place in American cultural life, from department stores to indies, from highbrow dealers trading in first editions to sidewalk vendors, and from chains to special-interest community destinations

Bookstores have always been unlike any other kind of store, shaping readers and writers, and influencing our tastes, thoughts, and politics. They nurture local communities while creating new ones of their own. Bookshops are powerful spaces, but they are also endangered ones. In The Bookshop, we see those stakes: what has been, and what might be lost.

Evan Friss’s history of the bookshop draws on oral histories, archival collections, municipal records, diaries, letters, and interviews with leading booksellers to offer a fascinating look at this institution beloved by so many. The story begins with Benjamin Franklin’s first bookstore in Philadelphia and takes us to a range of booksellers including The Strand, Chicago’s Marshall Field & Company, Gotham Book Mart, specialty stores like Oscar Wilde and Drum and Spear, sidewalk sellers of used books, Barnes & Noble, Amazon Books, and Parnassus. The Bookshop is also a history of the leading figures in American bookselling, often impassioned eccentrics, and a history of how books have been marketed and sold over more than two centuries—including, for example, a 3,000-pound elephant who appeared to sign books at Marshall Field’s in 1944.

The Bookshop is a love letter to bookstores, a charming chronicle for anyone who cherishes these sanctuaries of literature, and essential reading to understand how these vital institutions have shaped American life—and why we still need them.]]> 416 Evan Friss 0593299922 Kristina 0 to-read 3.93 2024 The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore
author: Evan Friss
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Kristina 0 to-read 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

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

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.]]> 352 Meg Shaffer 0593598873 Kristina 0 to-read 3.79 2024 The Lost Story
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)]]> 199347538 Somewhere Beyond the Sea is the hugely anticipated sequel to TJ Klune’s The House in the Cerulean Sea, one of the best-loved and best-selling fantasy novels of the past decade. Featuring gorgeous orange sprayed edges!

A magical house. A secret past. A summons that could change everything.

Arthur Parnassus lives a good life built on the ashes of a bad one.

He’s the master of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six dangerous and magical children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. He is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department In Charge of Magical Youth. And there’s the island’s sprite, Zoe Chapelwhite, and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name that Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they’re at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur’s story.

Somewhere Beyond the Sea is a story of resistance, lovingly told, about the daunting experience of fighting for the life you want to live and doing the work to keep it.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 125088120X Kristina 0 to-read 4.18 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dungeons and Drama (Dungeons and Drama, #1)]]> 160047094
Musical lover Riley has big aspirations to become a director on Broadway. Crucial to this plan is to bring back her high school’s spring musical, but when Riley takes her mom’s car without permission, she's grounded and stuck with the worst punishment: spending her after-school hours working at her dad’s game shop.

Riley can't waste her time working when she has a musical to save, so she convinces Nathan—a nerdy teen employee—to cover her shifts and, in exchange, she’ll flirt with him to make his gamer-girl crush jealous.

But Riley didn’t realize that meant joining Nathan's Dungeons & Dragons game…or that role playing would be so fun. Soon, Riley starts to think that flirting with Nathan doesn't require as much acting as she would've thought...]]> 304 Kristy Boyce 0593647017 Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.14 2024 Dungeons and Drama (Dungeons and Drama, #1)
author: Kristy Boyce
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Time-Traveling Fashionista On Board the Titanic]]> 12847314
Louise Lambert has always dreamed of movie starlets and exquisite gowns and longs for the day when she can fill the closet of her normal suburban home with stylish treasures. But when she receives a mysterious invitation to a vintage fashion sale in the mail, her once painfully average life is magically transformed into a time-travel adventure.

Suddenly onboard a luxurious cruise ship a hundred years ago, Louise relishes the glamorous life of this opulent era and slips into a life of secrets, drama, and decadence. . . .

Dreamy and imaginative, The Time-Traveling Fashionista features thirty full-color fashion illustrations to show gorgeous dresses and styles throughout history.]]> 272 Bianca Turetsky 0316105449 Kristina 2 3.55 2011 The Time-Traveling Fashionista On Board the Titanic
author: Bianca Turetsky
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2014/09/22
date added: 2024/06/18
shelves:
review:
This book was definitely meant for younger readers, but I do love me some titanic based fiction. It was cute.
]]> James 173754979 A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and satirical—told from the enslaved Jim's point of view

When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

Brimming with nuanced humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim's agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780385550369.]]> 303 Percival Everett Kristina 0 to-read 4.47 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/12
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review:

]]> Good Material 96177629
Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

Wondering why everyone else around him seems to have grown up while he wasn't looking

Set adrift on the sea of heartbreak, Andy clings to the idea of solving the puzzle of his ruined relationship. Because if he can find the answer to that, then maybe Jen can find her way back to him. But Andy still has a lot to learn, not least his ex-girlfriend's side of the story�

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 345 Dolly Alderton 0241523672 Kristina 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Good Material
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Book of Doors 156480764
In New York City, bookseller Cassie Andrews is living an unassuming life when she is given a gift by a favourite customer. It's a book - an unusual book, full of strange writing and mysterious drawings. And at the very front there is a handwritten message to Cassie, telling her that this is the Book of Doors, and that any door is every door .

What Cassie is about to discover is that the Book of Doors is a special book that bestows an extraordinary powers on whoever possesses it, and soon she and her best friend Izzy are exploring all that the Book of Doors can do, swept away from their quiet lives by the possibilities of travelling to anywhere they want.

But the Book of Doors is not the only magical book in the world. There are other books that can do wondrous and dreadful things when wielded by dangerous and ruthless individuals - individuals who crave what Cassie now possesses.

Suddenly Cassie and Izzy are confronted by violence and danger, and the only person who can help them is, it seems, Drummond Fox. He is a man fleeing his own demons - a man with his own secret library of magical books that he has hidden away in the shadows for safekeeping. Because there is a nameless evil out there that is hunting them all . . .

Because some doors should never be opened.]]> 408 Gareth Brown 1787637247 Kristina 0 to-read 4.04 2024 The Book of Doors
author: Gareth Brown
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Slow Fire Burning 56213354
Look what you started.]]> 307 Paula Hawkins 073521123X Kristina 0 to-read 3.45 2021 A Slow Fire Burning
author: Paula Hawkins
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)]]> 58684524
While her ultra-wealthy parents want her to carry on the family legacy of world-renowned surgeons, Alexis doesn’t need glory or fame. She’s fine with being a “mere� ER doctor. And every minute she spends with Daniel and the tight-knit town where he lives, she’s discovering just what’s really important. Yet letting their relationship become anything more than a short-term fling would mean turning her back on her family and giving up the opportunity to help thousands of people.

Bringing Daniel into her world is impossible, and yet she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t just give up the joy she’s found with him either. With so many differences between them, how can Alexis possibly choose between her world and his?

The New York Times bestselling author of Life's Too Short delivers a refreshingly modern fairy tale perfect for fans of Casey McQuiston and Emily Henry.]]> 389 Abby Jimenez 1538704374 Kristina 0 to-read 4.26 2022 Part of Your World (Part of Your World, #1)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone, #2)]]> 50208350 The Friend Zone.

Two years after losing her fiancé, Sloan Monroe still can't seem to get her life back on track. But one trouble-making pup with a "take me home" look in his eyes is about to change everything. With her new pet by her side, Sloan finally starts to feel more like herself. Then, after weeks of unanswered texts, Tucker's owner reaches out. He's a musician on tour in Australia. And bottom line: He wants Tucker back.

Well, Sloan's not about to give up her dog without a fight. As their flirty texts turn into long calls, Sloan can't deny a connection. There's no telling what could happen when they meet in person. The question is: With his music career on the rise, how long will Jason really stick around? And is it possible for Sloan to survive another heartbreak?]]> 401 Abby Jimenez Kristina 0 to-read 4.14 2020 The Happy Ever After Playlist (The Friend Zone, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)]]> 61918816 A novel of terrible first impressions, hilarious second chances, and the joy in finding your perfect match.

Dr. Briana Ortiz’s life is seriously flatlining. Her divorce is just about finalized, her brother’s running out of time to find a kidney donor, and that promotion she wants? Oh, that’s probably going to the new man-doctor who’s already registering eighty-friggin�-seven on Briana’s “pain in my ass� scale. But just when all systems are set to hate, Dr. Jacob Maddox completely flips the game . . . by sending Briana a letter.

And it’s a really good letter. Like the kind that proves that Jacob isn’t actually Satan. Worse, he might be this fantastically funny and subversively likeable guy who’s terrible at first impressions. Because suddenly he and Bri are exchanging letters, sharing lunch dates in her “sob closet,â€� and discussing the merits of freakishly tiny horses. But when Jacob decides to give Briana the best gift imaginable—a kidney for her brother—she wonders just how she can resist this quietly sexy new doctor . . . especially when he calls in a favor she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t refuse.]]> 416 Abby Jimenez 1538704390 Kristina 4 4.29 2023 Yours Truly (Part of Your World, #2)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/03/25
date added: 2024/03/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Love and Other Historical Accidents]]> 182537199 As it turns out, history is just one damned accident after another.

For fans of Harry Potter, Jane Austen, and Connie Willis, a historical romantic comedy all about time, and getting the hell out of it.]]> 431 PacificRimbaud Kristina 5 4.10 2021 Love and Other Historical Accidents
author: PacificRimbaud
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/02/13
date added: 2024/02/13
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]]> The Wishing Game 62926992
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind� Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.]]> 304 Meg Shaffer 0593598830 Kristina 5 4.02 2023 The Wishing Game
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/27
date added: 2024/01/27
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]]> The Hating Game 27213238 Nemesis (n.)
1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome;
2) A person’s undoing;
3) Joshua Templeman.
Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman hate each other. Not dislike. Not begrudgingly tolerate. Hate. And they have no problem displaying their feelings through a series of ritualistic passive aggressive maneuvers as they sit across from each other, executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. Lucy ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t understand Joshua’s joyless, uptight, meticulous approach to his job. Joshua is clearly baffled by Lucy’s overly bright clothes, quirkiness, and Pollyanna attitude.

Now up for the same promotion, their battle of wills has come to a head and Lucy refuses to back down when their latest game could cost her her dream job…But the tension between Lucy and Joshua has also reached its boiling point, and Lucy is discovering that maybe she doesn’t hate Joshua. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.]]> 365 Sally Thorne Kristina 0 to-read 3.72 2016 The Hating Game
author: Sally Thorne
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/23
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]]> Red, White & Royal Blue 41150487
As President Claremont kicks off her reelection bid, Alex finds himself hurtling into a secret relationship with Henry that could derail the campaign and upend two nations. What is worth the sacrifice? How do you do all the good you can do? And, most importantly, how will history remember you?]]> 448 Casey McQuiston 1250316774 Kristina 4 4.06 2019 Red, White & Royal Blue
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/23
date added: 2024/01/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love]]> 60127763
Features hypercompetent, fiery Hermione and lazy, yet dangerous, Draco. Slow burn.

Rating: Explicit
Fandom: Harry Potter
Relationship: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy

Tags: Healer Hermione Granger, Researcher Hermione Granger, Auror Draco Malfoy, Slow burn, unresolved sexual tension, eventual smut, POV Draco Malfoy, Forced Collaboration, Romance, romcom, Action/Adventure, EWE, HEA, reckless overuse of author's favorite tropes, oblivious idiots, All aboard the SS Denial, late-stage pining, what is pining if not denial persevering, no first names we die like men, do not look too closely at the plot you will only hurt yourself, scandalous ankle touching, misuse of whirlpool baths, graphic depictions of competent women, eroticized arithmancy, Crookshanks will fight god or become him, human on mushroom violence, Schrodinger's ethics, nuns]]> 593 isthisselfcare Kristina 5 fanfiction 4.57 2021 Draco Malfoy and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being in Love
author: isthisselfcare
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.57
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/20
date added: 2024/01/20
shelves: fanfiction
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]]> First Lie Wins 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

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

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

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

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Kristina 5 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/20
date added: 2024/01/20
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]]> <![CDATA[More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood]]> 61272032 An intense and emotional epistolary memoir by one of the world's top ice climbers, born at the confluence of motherhood, adventure, career, and marriage.Ěý

As one of the world’s leading female professional rock and ice climbers,ĚýBurhardtĚýand her husband led globe-trotting, adventure-seeking lives.Ěý When she learns that she’sĚýpregnantâ€�with twins—BurhardtĚýat first tries to justify her insistence on pursuing extreme risk in the face of responsibility.Ěý But she isĚý ultimately forced to grieve the avalanche of emotions that accompanies any major life transitions along with the physical changes in her own body.

Based on the letters and journalsĚýBurhardtĚýdiligently kept over the course of those six years,Ěý˛Ń´Ç°ů±đĚýtakes the reader on an around-the-world journey asĚýBurhardtĚýexplores theĚýtransformative, identity-shifting experience of motherhood and its irreversible impact on career, identity, marriage, and self.

In the early weeksĚýof her children's lives,ĚýBurhardtĚýimmerses herself in adoration for her twins and grappling with the tremendous guilt and struggle around having to return to risk-laden work and that ever elusive balance mothers everywhere seek amidst it all.Ěý

As the newness of her twins fades into a permanent reality,ĚýBurhardtĚýturns her attention towards her marriage and the collateral damage as she and her husband, Peter, struggle to navigate their new normal. As anger and resentment threaten the foundation of her family,ĚýBurhardtĚýcourageously looks to herĚýpast—andĚýher own mother's tumultuous and confusing history of success, violence, and ragged divorce—to better understand her own way forward.Ěý How will she break free from the legacy of her own childhood to start fresh with her own family?Ěý

Raw, candid, and galvanizing,Ěý˛Ń´Ç°ů±đĚýisĚýa passionate and poignant testament to the enduring power of love and our lifelong journey to understand ourselves as we strive to always pursueĚýmore.]]> 335 Majka Burhardt 1639363505 Kristina 0 currently-reading 3.97 More: Life on the Edge of Adventure and Motherhood
author: Majka Burhardt
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
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rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> <![CDATA[Beyond the Wand: The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard]]> 61062194 From the magical moments on set as Draco Malfoy to the challenges of growing up in the spotlight, get a backstage pass into Tom Felton’s life on and off the big screen in this #1 New York Times bestseller.

Tom Felton’s adolescence was anything but ordinary. His early rise to fame in beloved films like The Borrowers catapulted him into the limelight, but nothing could prepare him for what was to come after he landed the iconic role of the Draco Malfoy, the bleached blonde villain of the Harry Potter movies. For the next ten years, he was at the center of a huge pop culture phenomenon and yet, in between filming, he would go back to being a normal teenager trying to fit into a normal school.

Speaking with great candor and his signature humor, Tom shares his experience growing up as part of the wizarding world while also trying to navigate the muggle world. He tells stories from his early days in the business like his first acting gig where he was mistaken for fellow blonde child actor Macaulay Culkin and his Harry Potter audition where, in a very Draco-like move, he fudged how well he knew the books the series was based on (not at all). He reflects on his experiences working with cinematic greats such as Alan Rickman, Sir Michael Gambon, Dame Maggie Smith, and Ralph Fiennes (including that awkward Voldemort hug). And, perhaps most poignantly, he discusses the lasting relationships he made over that decade of filming, including with Emma Watson, who started out as a pesky nine-year-old whom he mocked for not knowing what a boom mic was but who soon grew into one of his dearest friends. Then, of course, there are the highs and lows of fame and navigating life after such a momentous and life-changing experience.

Tom Felton’s Beyond the Wand is an entertaining, funny, and poignant must-read for any Harry Potter fan. Prepare to meet a real-life wizard.]]> 288 Tom Felton 1538741369 Kristina 5 4.28 2022 Beyond the Wand: The Magic & Mayhem of Growing Up a Wizard
author: Tom Felton
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> Really Good, Actually 60877616 A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning in the wake of an unexpected breakup, from comedian, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter Monica Heisey

Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée�.

Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there� sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.

Laugh-out-loud funny and filled with sharp observations, Really Good, Actually is a tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call “happiness�. This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.]]> 370 Monica Heisey 0063235412 Kristina 0 to-read 3.14 2023 Really Good, Actually
author: Monica Heisey
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> The Vaster Wilds 62952130
A servant girl escapes from a colonial settlement in the wilderness. She carries nothing with her but her wits, a few possessions, and the spark of god that burns hot within her. What she finds in this terra incognita is beyond the limits of her imagination and will bend her belief in everything that her own civilization has taught her.

Lauren Groff’s new novel is at once a thrilling adventure story and a penetrating fable about trying to find a new way of living in a world succumbing to the churn of colonialism. The Vaster Wilds is a work of raw and prophetic power that tells the story of America in miniature, through one girl at a hinge point in history, to ask how—and if—we can adapt quickly enough to save ourselves.]]> 272 Lauren Groff 0593418395 Kristina 0 to-read 3.73 2016 The Vaster Wilds
author: Lauren Groff
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> They're Going to Love You 59721793 A magnetic tale of betrayal, art, and ambition, set in the world of professional ballet, New York City during the AIDS crisis, and present-day Los Angeles

Carlisle Martin dreams of becoming a professional ballet dancer just like her mother, Isabel, a former Balanchine ballerina. Since they live in Ohio, she only gets to see her father Robert for a few precious weeks a year when she visits Greenwich Village, where he lives in an enchanting apartment on Bank Street with his partner, James.

Brilliant but troubled, James gives Carlisle an education in all that he holds dear in life--literature, music, and most of all, dance. Seduced by the heady pull of mentorship and the sophistication of their lives, Carlisle's aspiration to become a dancer herself blooms, born of her desire to be asked to stay at Bank Street, to be included in Robert and James' world even as AIDS brings devastation to their community. Instead, a passionate love affair creates a rift between them, with devastating consequences that reverberate for decades to come.

Nineteen years later, Carlisle receives a phone call which unravels the fateful events of her life, causing her to see with new eyes how her younger self has informed the woman she's become. They're Going to Love You is a gripping and gorgeously written novel of heartbreaking intensity. With psychological precision and a masterfully revealed secret at its heart, it asks what it takes to be an artist in America, and the price of forgiveness, of ambition, and of love.]]> 288 Meg Howrey 038554877X Kristina 0 to-read 4.07 2022 They're Going to Love You
author: Meg Howrey
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/01/09
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]]> Darling Girl 58065362
In this beautiful dive into the world of J. M. Barrie’s classic, one woman must take on the infamous Peter Pan—who is not the innocent adventurer the fairy tales make him out to be—to save her daughter’s life. . . .

Life is looking up for Holly Darling, granddaughter of Wendy—yes, that Wendy. That is, until she gets a call that her daughter, Eden, who has been in a coma for nearly a decade, has gone missing from the estate where she’s been long tucked away. And, worst of all, Holly knows who must be Peter Pan, who is not only very real, but very dangerous.
Ěý
Holly is desperate to find Eden and protect her son, Jack, from a terrible web of family secrets before she loses both her children. And yet she has no one to turn to—her mother, Jane, is the only other person in the world who knows that Peter is more than a story, but she refuses to accept that he is not the hero she’s always imagined.
Ěý
Darling Girl brings all the magic of the classic Peter Pan story to the present, while also exploring the dark underpinnings of fairy tales, grief, aging, sacrifice, motherhood, and just how far we will go to protect those we love.]]> 352 Liz Michalski 0593185633 Kristina 4 3.45 2022 Darling Girl
author: Liz Michalski
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/29
date added: 2024/01/08
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]]> Somebody's Daughter 54860610 One of the most prominent voices of her generation debuts with an extraordinarily powerful memoir: the story of a childhood defined by the ever looming absence of her incarcerated father and the path we must take to both honor and overcome our origins.

For as long as she could remember, Ashley has put her father on a pedestal. Despite having only vague memories of seeing him face-to-face, she believes he's the only person in the entire world who understands her. She thinks she understands him too. He's sensitive like her, an artist, and maybe even just as afraid of the dark. She's certain that one day they'll be reunited again, and she'll finally feel complete. There are just a few problems: he's in prison, and she doesn't know what he did to end up there.

Through poverty, puberty, and a fraught relationship with her mother, Ashley returns to her image of her father for hope and encouragement. She doesn't know how to deal with the incessant worries that keep her up at night, or how to handle the changes in her body that draw unwanted attention from men. In her search for unconditional love, Ashley begins dating a boy her mother hates; when the relationship turns sour, he assaults her. Still reeling from the rape, which she keeps secret from her family, Ashley finally finds out why her father is in prison. And that's where the story really begins.

Somebody’s Daughter steps into the world of growing up a poor Black girl, exploring how isolating and complex such a childhood can be. As Ashley battles her body and her environment, she provides a poignant coming-of-age recollection that speaks to finding the threads between who you are and what you were born into, and the complicated familial love that often binds them.]]> 224 Ashley C. Ford 1250305977 Kristina 4 4.02 2021 Somebody's Daughter
author: Ashley C. Ford
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/13
date added: 2023/12/13
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]]> Other Birds 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 Kristina 5 4.00 2022 Other Birds
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/10
date added: 2023/12/10
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]]> Don't You Forget About Me 34109621
Reeling from the indignity of a double dumping on the same day, Georgina snatches at the next job that she’s offered—barmaid in a newly opened pub, which just so happens to run by the boy she fell in love with at school: Lucas McCarthy. And whereas Georgina (voted Most Likely to Succeed in her school yearbook) has done nothing but dead-end jobs in the last twelve years, Lucas has not only grown into a broodingly handsome man, but also has turned into an actual grown-up along the way, with a business and a dog.

Meeting Lucas again not only throws Georgina’s rackety present into sharp relief, but also brings a dark secret from her past bubbling to the surface. Only she knows the truth about what happened on the last day of school, and why she’s allowed it to chase her all these years…]]> 433 Mhairi McFarlane 0008169322 Kristina 0 to-read 3.82 2019 Don't You Forget About Me
author: Mhairi McFarlane
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/12/08
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]]> Rock Paper Scissors 56269064 Think you know the person you married? Think again�

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts � paper, cotton, pottery, tin � and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.]]> 294 Alice Feeney 1250266106 Kristina 4 3.88 2021 Rock Paper Scissors
author: Alice Feeney
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/11/29
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]]> Gallant 58064046 Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?]]> 338 Victoria E. Schwab 0062835777 Kristina 4 3.70 2022 Gallant
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/11/29
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]]> The Writing Retreat 61273863
Alex has all but given up on her dreams of becoming a published author when she receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity: attend an exclusive, month-long writing retreat at the estate of feminist horror writer Roza Vallo. Even the knowledge that Wren, her former best friend and current rival, is attending doesn’t dampen her excitement.

But when the attendees arrive, Roza drops a bombshell—they must all complete an entire novel from scratch during the next month, and the author of the best one will receive a life-changing seven-figure publishing deal. Determined to win this seemingly impossible contest, Alex buckles down and tries to ignore the strange happenings at the estate, including Roza’s erratic behavior, Wren’s cruel mind games, and the alleged haunting of the mansion itself. But when one of the writers vanishes during a snowstorm, Alex realizes that something very sinister is afoot. With the clock running out, she must discover the truth—or suffer the same fate.]]> 313 Julia Bartz 1982199458 Kristina 5 3.41 2023 The Writing Retreat
author: Julia Bartz
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/11/29
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]]> In the Lives of Puppets 60784549
The day Vic salvages and repairs an unfamiliar android labelled “HAP,� he learns of a shared dark past between Hap and Gio–a past spent hunting humans.

When Hap unwittingly alerts robots from Gio’s former life to their whereabouts, the family is no longer hidden and safe. Gio is captured and taken back to his old laboratory in the City of Electric Dreams. So together, the rest of Vic’s assembled family must journey across an unforgiving and otherworldly country to rescue Gio from decommission, or worse, reprogramming.

Along the way to save Gio, amid conflicted feelings of betrayal and affection for Hap, Vic must decide for himself: Can he accept love with strings attached?

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.]]> 432 T.J. Klune 125021744X Kristina 5 3.90 2023 In the Lives of Puppets
author: T.J. Klune
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/11/29
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]]> Weyward 60654349 I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

2019: Under cover of darkness, Kate flees London for ramshackle Weyward Cottage, inherited from a great aunt she barely remembers. With its tumbling ivy and overgrown garden, the cottage is worlds away from the abusive partner who tormented Kate. But she begins to suspect that her great aunt had a secret. One that lurks in the bones of the cottage, hidden ever since the witch-hunts of the 17th century.

1619: Altha is awaiting trial for the murder of a local farmer who was stampeded to death by his herd. As a girl, Altha’s mother taught her their magic, a kind not rooted in spell casting but in a deep knowledge of the natural world. But unusual women have always been deemed dangerous, and as the evidence for witchcraft is set out against Altha, she knows it will take all of her powers to maintain her freedom.

1942: As World War II rages, Violet is trapped in her family's grand, crumbling estate. Straitjacketed by societal convention, she longs for the robust education her brother receives––and for her mother, long deceased, who was rumored to have gone mad before her death. The only traces Violet has of her are a locket bearing the initial W and the word weyward scratched into the baseboard of her bedroom.

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 329 Emilia Hart 125028080X Kristina 5 4.03 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/29
date added: 2023/11/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Their Early Years - Raising Children Who Are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful]]> 188498 Caring for young children is one of the most challenging tasks an adult will ever face. No matter how much you love the child, there will be moments filled with anger, frustration, and even desperation. There will also be Why does my child deliberately lie to me? Why won't she listen to me? Should I ever spank her when she is disobedient?
Over the years, millions of parents just like you have come to trust Jane Nelsen's Positive Discipline series. These books offer a commonsense approach to child-rearing that so often is lacking in today's world. Now completely updated to report the latest research in child development, Positive Discipline for Preschoolers will teach you how to use kind but firm support to raise a child who is responsible, respectful, and resourceful. You'll find practical solutions on how
·Prevent misbehavior through nonpunitive discipline—not punishment
·Avoid the power struggles that often come with the challenges of mastering sleeping, eating, and potty training
·Instill valuable social skills and positive behavior inside and outside the home by using methods that teach important life skills
·Employ family and class meetings to tackle discipline and developmental problems
·And much, much more!
"Once parents grasp and use the amazing power of Positive Discipline, their home will be transformed into a place of love and learning like no other."
—Joan K. Comeau, Ph.D., president, Family Information Services
"By leading parents in a natural direction of wisdom and responsibility, this book encourages trust in the parent/child relationship and asks the simple yet profound question, 'Given this particular situation, what will you do?'"
—Janice Lind Raun, M.A., family therapist]]> 351 Jane Nelsen 0761515151 Kristina 0 currently-reading 3.99 1994 Positive Discipline for Preschoolers: For Their Early Years - Raising Children Who Are Responsible, Respectful, and Resourceful
author: Jane Nelsen
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1994
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Something Close to Magic 62919216 A baker’s apprentice reluctantly embarks on an adventure full of magic, new friendships, and a prince in distress in this deliciously romantic young adult fantasy.

It’s not all sugar and spice at Basil’s Bakery, where seventeen-year-old Aurelie is an overworked, underappreciated apprentice. Still, the job offers stability, which no-nonsense Aurelie values highly, so she keeps her head down and doesn’t dare to dream big—until a stranger walks in and hands her a set of Seeking stones. In a country where Seeking was old-fashioned even before magic went out of style, it’s a rare skill, but Aurelie has it.

The stranger, who turns out to be a remarkably bothersome bounty hunter named Iliana, asks for Aurelie’s help rescuing someone from the dangerous Underwood—which sounds suspiciously like an adventure. When the someone turns out to be Prince Hapless, the charming-but-aptly-named prince, Aurelie’s careful life is upended. Suddenly, she finds herself on a quest filled with magic portals, a troll older than many trees (and a few rocks), and dangerous palace intrigue.

Even more dangerous are the feelings she’s starting to have for Hapless. The more time Aurelie spends with him, the less she can stand the thought of going back to her solitary but dependable life at the bakery. Must she choose between losing her apprenticeship—or her heart?]]> 384 Emma Mills 1665926910 Kristina 0 to-read 3.85 2023 Something Close to Magic
author: Emma Mills
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Keep House While Drowning]]> 60139504 How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.

Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.]]> 151 K.C. Davis 166800285X Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.22 2022 How to Keep House While Drowning
author: K.C. Davis
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/06
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Gwen & Art Are Not in Love 61885131 Heartstopper meets A Knight’s Tale in this queer medieval rom-com YA debut about love, friendship, and being brave enough to change the course of history.

It’s been hundreds of years since King Arthur’s reign. His descendant, Arthur, a future Lord and general gadabout, has been betrothed to Gwendoline, the quick-witted, short-tempered princess of England, since birth. The only thing they can agree on is that they despise each other.

They’re forced to spend the summer together at Camelot in the run-up to their nuptials, and within 24 hours, Gwen has discovered Arthur kissing a boy, and Arthur has gone digging for Gwen's childhood diary and found confessions about her crush on the kingdom's only lady knight, Bridget Leclair.

Realizing they might make better allies than enemies, Gwen and Art make a reluctant pact to cover for each other, and as things heat up at the annual royal tournament, Gwen is swept off her feet by her knight, and Arthur takes an interest in Gwen's royal brother. Lex Croucher's Gwen & Art Are Not in Love is chock full of sword-fighting, found family, and romantic shenanigans destined to make readers fall in love.]]> 416 Lex Croucher 1250847214 Kristina 0 to-read 3.97 2023 Gwen & Art Are Not in Love
author: Lex Croucher
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Migrations 42121525
Epic and intimate, heartbreaking and galvanizing, Charlotte McConaghy's Migrations is an ode to a disappearing world and a breathtaking page-turner about the possibility of hope against all odds.]]> 256 Charlotte McConaghy 125020402X Kristina 0 to-read 4.11 2020 Migrations
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Teeth in the Mist 35115574 Three generations of women uncover an ancient evil in this epic genre-bending horror-fantasy -- a "fearless" Faustian tale perfect for fans of Kendare Blake and Ransom Riggs" - Cat Winters

Before the birth of time, a monk uncovers the Devil's Tongue and dares to speak it. The repercussions will be felt for generations . . .

Sixteen-year-old photography enthusiast Zoey has been fascinated by the haunted, burnt-out ruins of Medwyn Mill House for as long as she can remember -- so she and her best friend, Poulton, run away from home to explore them. But are they really alone in the house? And who will know if something goes wrong?

In 1851, seventeen-year-old Roan arrives at the Mill House as a ward -- one of three, all with something to hide from their new guardian. When Roan learns that she is connected to an ancient secret, she must escape the house before she is trapped forever.

1583. Hermione, a new young bride, accompanies her husband to the wilds of North Wales where he plans to build the largest water mill and mansion in the area. But rumors of unholy rituals lead to a tragic occurrence and she will need all her strength to defeat it.

Three women, centuries apart, drawn together by one Unholy Pact. A pact made by a man who, more than a thousand years later, may still be watching . . .

"This haunting, captivating, and "delightfully disturbing" mystery redefines horror and fantasy" - Kirkus]]> 447 Dawn Kurtagich 0316478474 Kristina 0 to-read 3.64 2019 Teeth in the Mist
author: Dawn Kurtagich
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Suite Scarlett (Scarlett, #1) 2328841
Scarlett is the third of four children in the Martin family. The Martins live in and manage a shabby hotel in NYC that dates back to the 1920s. When Scarlett turns 15, she is put in charge of one of the hotel's 27 rooms- the Empire Suite. Into this room moves Mrs. Amberson, a failed 1970s starlet who has returned to New York to write her memoirs. Soon, Scarlett is taking dictation, running around town with Mrs. Amberson, and getting caught up in her Auntie Mame-meets-Bianca Jagger adventures.]]> 368 Maureen Johnson 0439899273 Kristina 4 3.61 2008 Suite Scarlett (Scarlett, #1)
author: Maureen Johnson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2008
rating: 4
read at: 2011/10/26
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> If You Could See the Sun 60099660 actually invisible.
Ěý
When her parents drop the news that they can no longer afford her tuition, even with the scholarship, Alice hatches a plan to monetize her strange new power—she’ll discover the scandalous secrets her classmates want to know, for a price.
Ěý
But as the tasks escalate from petty scandals to actual crimes, Alice must decide if it’s worth losing her conscience—or even her life.

In this genre-bending YA debut, a Chinese American girl monetizes her strange new invisibility powers by discovering and selling her wealthy classmates� most scandalous secrets.]]> 346 Ann Liang 1335915842 Kristina 0 to-read 4.01 2022 If You Could See the Sun
author: Ann Liang
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Happy Place 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t stand to break their friendsâ€� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one weekâ€� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Kristina 0 to-read 3.95 2023 Happy Place
author: Emily Henry
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Only One Left 62703226 At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer�I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,� Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.]]> 383 Riley Sager 0593183223 Kristina 0 to-read 4.12 2023 The Only One Left
author: Riley Sager
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Peter Pan 1558824 Popular fantasy about Peter, the boy who won't grow up, and his companion Tinker Bell, transports young readers to Never-Never Land where together with Wendy and the other Darling children they meet Princess Tiger Lily, the Lost Boys, and the nasty Captain Hook. Inexpensive, completely unabridged edition promises to enchant new generations.

]]> 197 J.M. Barrie 1587261022 Kristina 5 childhood-books 3.94 1911 Peter Pan
author: J.M. Barrie
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1911
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/29
shelves: childhood-books
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What Happened to Annabell? (A Monday Night Anthology)]]> 96176049
“From shadow selves and horrible beasts to casual culinary reincarnations and the bureaucracy of heaven, these writers tumble into afterlife premises and discussions of mortality with grace, creativity, and wit.â€� -Self-Publishing Review, â…â…â…â…â�


What happened to Annabell?

She left poor instructions.
She outgrew her manufacturing specs.
She defrauded an international brewing company.
She burned down her house.
She sold her soul to vengeance.
She sent herself to the future.
She never existed in the first place.
She was too stubborn to die.

Annabell should have died long ago—and often did—but there’s more than one way to be immortal.

Monday Night Anthology presents the many possible lives of Annabell Doyle as told through occult humor, speculative feminism, historical fiction, and even a touch of cozy mystery. Perhaps she joined a satanic cult, or maybe she ran away from a society that didn’t yet value her skills. She could be stuck for eternity cooking for her descendants, or solving murder mysteries in a fantasy world with a talking cat at her side. She could have built a new life in the aftermath of the Great Depression, or quietly died, forgotten by everyone she once knew.

Or perhaps she’s just the oldest woman in the world.

Featuring stories by Liz Leo, Sunny Everson, Stephen Folkins, Katrina Hamilton, Rachael Sterling, Amy Piedalue, Kristina Horner, Shay Lynam, Tara Theoharis, and Maria Berejan.]]> 258 Kristina Horner 1956273085 Kristina 5 4.46 2023 What Happened to Annabell? (A Monday Night Anthology)
author: Kristina Horner
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Obsolescence: A Dark Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Anthology]]> 64351504
All leaps in technology are scary. Mysterious. Misunderstood. Until they slowly creep into our daily lives and become impossible to get rid of. Like an evolving parasite.

The broken cell phone that can only text with your dead husband. The backyard tire swing that becomes a portal to another world. The Radio Shack Walkie-Talkies that pick up an alien GPS�

In OBSOLESCENCE, technology gets repurposed, subverted, and redefined.]]> 408 Alan Lastufka 1959565028 Kristina 5 4.28 2023 Obsolescence: A Dark Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror Anthology
author: Alan Lastufka
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/04/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries]]> 60606739
First published in 1971, Go Ask Alice shocked readers and reinvented the young adult genre. Fifty years and 5 million copies later, Go Ask Alice is more than famous—it’s iconic. Even people who haven’t read it know the basics: Some teenager’s diary…she’s hooked on drugs…it might be fake…doesn’t she die at the end?

But Alice was only the beginning.

In 1979, another “real� diary rattled the nation. The posthumous account of a boy lured into devil-worship, Jay’s Journal spurred the Satanic Panic—a literal witch hunt that lasted for decades, shattering lives and poisoning whole communities.

Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the Worlds Most Notorious Diaries is the true story of a young-adult blockbuster…of a terror that stalked 1980s America…and of the ruthless charlatan behind both.

Author and veteran radio/television broadcaster Rick Emerson spent five years unearthing and assembling this amazing and , nearly unbelievable story: interviewing central and peripheral players, visiting key locations, and sifting through tens of thousands of documents.

The story stretches from Hollywood to Quantico, and passes through a tiny patch of Utah desert called “the fraud capital of America". It’s the story of a doomed romance and an unhinged celebrity. Of a lazy press and a public mob. Of two suicidal teenagers, and their exploitation by a literary vampire. Unmask Alice is the gripping true story of a pop-culture smash—and its ugly, ongoing fallout.]]> 384 Rick Emerson 1637740433 Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.04 2022 Unmask Alice: LSD, Satanic Panic, and the Imposter Behind the World's Most Notorious Diaries
author: Rick Emerson
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/13
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies, #2)]]> 36301023
Or does she?

Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Brontë, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.]]> 447 Cynthia Hand 006265277X Kristina 4 3.76 2018 My Plain Jane (The Lady Janies, #2)
author: Cynthia Hand
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/01
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)]]> 61272658 The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.


Who hasn’t wondered for a split second what the world would be like if a person who is the object of your affliction ceased to exist? But then you’ve probably never heard of The McMasters Conservatory, dedicated to the consummate execution of the homicidal arts. To gain admission, a student must have an ethical reason for erasing someone who deeply deserves a fate no worse (nor better) than death. The campus of this “Poison Ivy League� college—its location unknown to even those who study there—is where you might find yourself the practice target of a classmate…and where one’s mandatory graduation thesis is getting away with the perfect murder of someone whose death will make the world a much better place to live.

Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A “fiendishly funny� (Booklist) mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.]]> 400 Rupert Holmes 1451648219 Kristina 0 to-read 3.79 2023 Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)
author: Rupert Holmes
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Cartographers 61354648 391 Peng Shepherd 0062910701 Kristina 0 to-read 3.62 2022 The Cartographers
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Unsinkable Greta James 58265135 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Greta James's meteoric rise to indie stardom was hard-won. Before she graced magazine covers and sold out venues, she spent her girlhood strumming her guitar in the family garage. Her first fan was her mother, Helen, whose face shone bright in the dusty downtown bars where she got her start—but not everyone encouraged Greta to follow her dreams. While many daydream about a crowd chanting their name, her father, Conrad, saw only a precarious life ahead for his daughter.

Greta has spent her life trying to prove him wrong, but three months after Helen's sudden death, and weeks before the launch of her high-stakes sophomore album, Greta has an onstage meltdown that goes viral. Attempting to outrun the humiliation and heartbreak, she reluctantly agrees to accompany her father on a week-long Alaskan cruise, the very one that her parents had booked to celebrate their fortieth anniversary.

This could be the James family's last chance to heal old wounds and will prove to be a voyage of discovery for them, as well as for Ben Wilder, a historian also struggling with a major upheaval in his life. Ben is on board to lecture about Jack London's The Call of the Wild, the adventure story Greta's mother adored, and he captures Greta's attention after her streak of dating hanger-ons. As Greta works to build up her confidence and heal, and Ben confronts his uncertain future, they must rely on one another to make sense of life’s difficult choices. In the end, Greta must make the most challenging decision of all: to listen to the song within her or make peace with those who love her.

An indie musician reeling from tragedy reconnects with her estranged father on a week-long cruise in this tale of grief, fame, and love from bestselling author Jennifer E. Smith.]]> 320 Jennifer E. Smith 0593358279 Kristina 0 to-read 3.82 2022 The Unsinkable Greta James
author: Jennifer E. Smith
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ask Again, Yes 43666435
In Mary Beth Keane's extraordinary novel, a lifelong friendship and love blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next thirty years.

Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous and generous portrait of the daily intimacies of marriage and the power of forgiveness.]]> 399 Mary Beth Keane 1982107006 Kristina 0 to-read 4.04 2019 Ask Again, Yes
author: Mary Beth Keane
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Last to Vanish 59366312 New York Times bestselling author Megan Miranda returns with a gripping and propulsive thriller that opens with the disappearance of a journalist who is investigating a string of vanishings in the resort town of Cutter’s Pass—will its dark secrets finally be revealed?

Ten years ago, Abigail Lovett fell into a job she loves, managing The Passage Inn, a cozy, upscale resort nestled in the North Carolina mountain town of Cutter’s Pass. Cutter’s Pass is best known for its outdoor offerings—rafting and hiking, with access to the Appalachian trail by way of a gorgeous waterfall—and its mysterious history. As the book begins, the string of unsolved disappearances that has haunted the town is once again thrust into the spotlight when journalist Landon West, who was staying at the inn to investigate the story of the vanishing trail, then disappears himself.

Abby has sometimes felt like an outsider within the community, but she’s come to view Cutter’s Pass as her home. When Landon’s brother Trey shows up looking for answers, Abby ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t help but feel the town closing ranks. And she’s still on the outside. When she finds incriminating evidence that may bring them closer to the truth, Abby soon discovers how little she knows about her coworkers, neighbors, and even those closest to her.

Megan Miranda brings her best writing to The Last to Vanish, a riveting thriller filled with taut suspense and shocking twists that will keep you guessing until the very end.]]> 352 Megan Miranda 1982147334 Kristina 0 to-read 3.77 2022 The Last to Vanish
author: Megan Miranda
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lifeguards 78301678 Ěý
The bonds between three picture-perfect—but viciously protective—mothers and their close-knit sons are tested during one unforgettable summer in a gripping novelĚýfrom the New York Times bestselling author of The Jetsetters .

Austin’s Zilker Park neighborhood is a wonderland of greenbelt trails, live music, and moms who drink a few too many margaritas. Whitney, Annette, and Liza have grown thick as thieves as they have raised their children together for fifteen years,ĚýbelievingĚýthat they can shelter themĚýtheir childrenĚýfrom an increasingly dangerous world.ĚýTheir friendship is unbreakable—as safe as the neighborhood where they've raised their sweet little boys.

Or so they think.Ěý

One night, the three women have been enjoying happy hour when their boys,Ěýlifeguards for the summer,Ěýcome back on bicycles from a late-night dip in their favorite swimming hole. The boys share a secret—news that will shatter the perfect world their mothers have so painstakingly created. Ěý
Ěý
Combining three mothers� points of view in a powerful narrative tale with commentary from entertaining neighborhood listservs, secret text messages, and police reports, The Lifeguards is both a story about the secrets we tell to protect the ones we love and a riveting novel of suspense filled with half-truths and betrayals, fierce love and complicated friendships, and the loss of innocence on one hot summer night.]]> 384 Amanda Eyre Ward 0593159462 Kristina 0 to-read 3.40 2022 The Lifeguards
author: Amanda Eyre Ward
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mistletoe Paradox: A Monday Night Anthology]]> 59646420
Reasons to think twice before kissing under the mistletoe:
An accidental trip through space and time
The zombie apocalypse
A stranger in the woods
The VHS that never should have been rented
A moonshine recipe from outer space
Unwanted midnight visitors
The new drug all the kids are doing
Wet snowballs to the face
An incredibly awkward office party

Monday Night Anthology presents a multi-genre collection of stories exploring the many surprises that lurk beneath the most festive time of year. One thing is certain: you’ll never look at mistletoe the same way again.

Featuring stories by Liz Leo, Kristina Horner, Katrina Hamilton, Sunny Everson, Jennifer Lee Swagert, Maria Berejan, Stephen Folkins, Shay Lynam, and Rachael Sterling.]]> 216 Kristina Horner 1956273034 Kristina 0 to-read 4.19 The Mistletoe Paradox: A Monday Night Anthology
author: Kristina Horner
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Now Is Not the Time to Panic 60415700
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another sad summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s unhappy house and who is as lonely and awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

The posters begin appearing everywhere, and people wonder who is behind them. Satanists, kidnappers—the rumors won’t stop, and soon the mystery has dangerous repercussions that spread far beyond the town. The art that brought Frankie and Zeke together now threatens to tear them apart.

Twenty years later, Frances Eleanor Budge—famous author, mom to a wonderful daughter, wife to a loving husband—gets a call that threatens to upend everything: a journalist named Mazzy Brower is writing a story about the Coalfield Panic of 1996. Might Frances know something about that? And will what she knows destroy the life she’s so carefully built?

A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson’s trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not The Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It’s also about the secrets that haunt us—and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.]]> 246 Kevin Wilson 0062913506 Kristina 0 to-read 3.68 2022 Now Is Not the Time to Panic
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Family Game 60417443 A rich, eccentric family. A time-honored tradition. Or a lethal game of survival? One woman finds out what it really takes to join the 1% in this riveting psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Something in the Water, Mr. Nobody, and The Disappearing Act.

Harry is a novelist on the brink of stardom; Edward, her husband-to-be, is seemingly perfect. In love and freshly engaged, their bliss is interrupted by the reemergence of the Holbecks, Edward's eminent family and the embodiment of American old money. For years, they've dominated headlines and pulled society's strings, and Edward left them all behind to forge his own path. But there are eyes and ears everywhere. It was only a matter of time before they were pulled back in . . .

After all, even though he's long severed ties with his family, Edward is set to inherit it all. Harriet is drawn to the glamour and sophistication of the Holbecks, who seem to welcome her with open arms, but everything changes when she meets Robert, the inescapably magnetic head of the family. At their first meeting, Robert slips Harry a cassette tape, revealing a shocking confession which sets the inevitable game in motion.

What is it about Harry that made him give her that tape? A thing that has the power to destroy everything? As she ramps up her quest for the truth, she must endure the Holbecks' savage Christmas traditions all the while knowing that losing this game could be deadly.]]> 319 Catherine Steadman 0593158067 Kristina 0 to-read 3.83 2022 The Family Game
author: Catherine Steadman
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Calamity Jane (The Lady Janies, #3)]]> 49630951
JANE (a genuine hero-eene)

Calamity’s her name, and garou hunting’s her game—when she’s not starring in Wild Bill’s Traveling Show, that is. She reckons that if a girl wants to be a legend, she should just go ahead and be one.

FRANK (*wolf whistle*)
Frank “the Pistol Prince� Butler is the Wild West’s #1 bachelor. He’s also the best sharpshooter on both sides of the Mississippi, but he’s about to meet his match. . . .

ANNIE (get your gun!)
Annie Oakley (yep, that Annie) is lookinâ€� for a job, not a romance, but she ł¦˛ą˛Ô’t deny there’s something about Frank she likes. Really likes. Still, she’s pretty sure that anything he can do, she can do better.

A HAIRY SITUATION
After a garou hunt goes south and Jane finds a suspicious-like bite on her arm, she turns tail for Deadwood, where there’s been talk of a garou cure. But things ain’t always what they seem—meaning the gang better hightail it after her before they’re a day late and a Jane short.]]> 544 Cynthia Hand 0062652818 Kristina 0 to-read 3.56 2020 My Calamity Jane (The Lady Janies, #3)
author: Cynthia Hand
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
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]]> The Measure 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 Kristina 0 to-read 3.96 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Love, Lucy 149852 THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The one and only autobiography by the iconic Lucille Ball, hailed by TV Guide as the "#1 Greatest TV Star of All Time."

Love, Lucy is the valentine Lucille Ball left for her fans--a warm, wise, and witty memoir written by Lucy herself. The legendary star of the classic sitcom I Love Lucy was at the pinnacle of her success when she sat down to record the story of her life. No comedienne had made America laugh so hard, no television actress had made the leap from radio and B movies to become one of the world's best-loved performers. This is her story--in her own words.

The story of the ingenue from Jamestown, New York, determined to go to Broadway, destined to make a big splash, bound to marry her Valentino, Desi Arnaz. In her own inimitable style, she tells of their life together--both storybook and turbulent; intimate memories of their children and friends; wonderful backstage anecdotes; the empire they founded; the dissolution of their marriage. And, with a heartfelt happy ending, her enduring marriage to Gary Morton.

Here is the lost manuscript that her fans and loved ones will treasure. Here is the laughter. Here is the life. Here's Lucy...]]> 256 Lucille Ball Kristina 5 4.24 1996 Love, Lucy
author: Lucille Ball
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.24
book published: 1996
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/30
date added: 2023/01/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Inside Jobs: Tales from a Time of Quarantine]]> 53305870
Inside Jobs: Tales from a Time of Quarantine includes:

The Crimson Parrot
It's not easy masterminding the crime of the century when your whole gang is working from home. A high-stakes tale of larceny, deception, and teleconferencing.

The Cape House
As the world shifts around them, two estranged brothers end up in their childhood home. But it's the memories they unearth that will change them forever.

Stop Motion
With endless time on her hands, an apartment-bound young woman gets to all the hobbies she's neglected—martial arts, playing the sax, photography...and solving a murder?

©2020 Ben H. Winters (P)2020 Audible Originals, LLC]]> 3 Ben H. Winters Kristina 3 3.19 2020 Inside Jobs: Tales from a Time of Quarantine
author: Ben H. Winters
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/01/30
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> How to Sell a Haunted House 59414094 Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.

When Louise finds out her parents have died, she dreads going home. She doesn’t want to leave her daughter with her ex and fly to Charleston. She doesn’t want to deal with her family home, stuffed to the rafters with the remnants of her father’s academic career and her mother’s lifelong obsession with puppets and dolls. She doesn’t want to learn how to live without the two people who knew and loved her best in the world.

Most of all, she doesn’t want to deal with her brother, Mark, who never left their hometown, gets fired from one job after another, and resents her success. Unfortunately, she’ll need his help to get the house ready for sale because it’ll take more than some new paint on the walls and clearing out a lifetime of memories to get this place on the market.

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…]]> 419 Grady Hendrix 0593201264 Kristina 0 to-read 3.65 2023 How to Sell a Haunted House
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/30
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[You Could Make This Place Beautiful]]> 61273812 You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith explores the disintegration of her marriage and her renewed commitment to herself in lyrical vignettes that shine, hard and clear as jewels. The book begins with one woman’s personal, particular heartbreak, but its circles widen into a reckoning with contemporary womanhood, traditional gender roles, and the power dynamics that persist even in many progressive homes. With the spirit of self-inquiry and empathy she’s known for, Smith interweaves snapshots of a life with meditations on secrets, anger, forgiveness, and narrative itself. The power of these pieces is cumulative: page after page, they build into a larger interrogation of family, work, and patriarchy.

You Could Make This Place Beautiful, like the work of Deborah Levy, Rachel Cusk, and Gina Frangello, is an unflinching look at what it means to live and write our own lives. It is a story about a mother’s fierce and constant love for her children, and a woman’s love and regard for herself. Above all, this memoir is an argument for possibility. With a poet’s attention to language and an innovative approach to the genre, Smith reveals how, in the aftermath of loss, we can discover our power and make something new. Something beautiful.]]> 320 Maggie Smith 1982185856 Kristina 0 to-read 4.03 2023 You Could Make This Place Beautiful
author: Maggie Smith
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/01/30
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]]> <![CDATA[Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1)]]> 61827543 Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy â€detectiveâ€� work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could � because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands � Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.]]> 339 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593549228 Kristina 0 to-read 4.01 2023 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1)
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/16
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review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Kristina 5 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/15
date added: 2023/01/15
shelves:
review:
Jfc this book was good. Definitely a book that messed me up and wrung me out in ways I did not expect. If you love games or make games or even play games, you should read this book. As someone who can never stop working on making things, I feel so incredibly seen and understood, and I deeply love Sadie, Sam and Marx and all of their flaws and mistakes. This book is gonna be one that sticks with me forever.
]]> One Italian Summer 58438583
But as soon as she steps foot on the Amalfi Coast, Katy begins to feel her mother’s spirit. Buoyed by the stunning waters, beautiful cliffsides, delightful residents, and, of course, delectable food, Katy feels herself coming back to life.

And then Carol appears—in the flesh, healthy, sun-tanned, and thirty years old. Katy doesn’t understand what is happening, or how—all she can focus on is that she has somehow, impossibly, gotten her mother back. Over the course of one Italian summer, Katy gets to know Carol, not as her mother, but as the young woman before her. She is not exactly who Katy imagined she might be, however, and soon Katy must reconcile the mother who knew everything with the young woman who does not yet have a clue.]]> 255 Rebecca Serle 1982166797 Kristina 4 3.56 2022 One Italian Summer
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/05
date added: 2023/01/05
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]]> You Should See Me in a Crown 50160619
But when the financial aid she was counting on unexpectedly falls through, Liz's plans come crashing down . . . until she's reminded of her school's scholarship for prom king and queen. There's nothing Liz wants to do less than endure a gauntlet of social media trolls, catty competitors, and humiliating public events, but despite her devastating fear of the spotlight she's willing to do whatever it takes to get to Pennington.

The only thing that makes it halfway bearable is the new girl in school, Mack. She's smart, funny, and just as much of an outsider as Liz. But Mack is also in the running for queen. Will falling for the competition keep Liz from her dreams . . . or make them come true?

A newer edition of ISBN 9781338503265 can be found here.]]> 336 Leah Johnson Kristina 3 4.07 2020 You Should See Me in a Crown
author: Leah Johnson
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2022/12/18
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]]> I Kissed Shara Wheeler 58756420 From the New York Times bestselling author of One Last Stop and Red, White & Royal Blue comes a debut YA romantic comedy about chasing down what you want, only to find what you need...

Chloe Green is so close to winning. After her moms moved her from SoCal to Alabama for high school, she’s spent the past four years dodging gossipy classmates and a puritanical administration at Willowgrove Christian Academy. The thing that’s kept her going: winning valedictorian. Her only rival: prom queen Shara Wheeler, the principal’s perfect progeny.

But a month before graduation, Shara kisses Chloe and vanishes.

On a furious hunt for answers, Chloe discovers she’s not the only one Shara kissed. There’s also Smith, Shara’s longtime quarterback sweetheart, and Rory, Shara’s bad boy neighbor with a crush. The three have nothing in common except Shara and the annoyingly cryptic notes she left behind, but together they must untangle Shara’s trail of clues and find her. It’ll be worth it, if Chloe can drag Shara back before graduation to beat her fair-and-square.

Thrown into an unlikely alliance, chasing a ghost through parties, break-ins, puzzles, and secrets revealed on monogrammed stationery, Chloe starts to suspect there might be more to this small town than she thought. And maybe—probably not, but maybe—more to Shara, too.

Fierce, funny, and frank, Casey McQuiston's I Kissed Shara Wheeler is about breaking the rules, getting messy, and finding love in unexpected places.]]> 356 Casey McQuiston 1250244455 Kristina 4 3.87 2022 I Kissed Shara Wheeler
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2022/12/18
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]]> The Village 57795564 From the bestselling author of the DI Amy Winter series comes a thriller about a shocking disappearance—and the village that has conspired to keep the truth buried.

Ten years ago, the Harper family disappeared. Their deserted cottage was left with the water running, the television playing cartoons, the oven ready for baking. The doors were locked from the inside.

Overnight, the sleepy village of Nighbrook became notorious as the scene of the unsolved mystery of the decade, an epicentre for ghoulish media speculation.

For crime journalist Naomi, solving the case has turned into an obsession. So now, with Ivy Cottage finally listed for sale, it’s her chance to mount an investigation like no other. And her husband and stepdaughter don’t really need to know what happened in their new home� do they?

But Nighbrook isn’t quite the village she expected. No one wants to talk to her. No one will answer her questions. And as she becomes increasingly uneasy, it’s clear that the villagers are hiding something—that there is something very dark at the heart of this rural idyll. And the deeper she digs, the more it seems her investigation could be more dangerous than she ever imagined� In raking up the secrets of the past, has she made her own family the next target?]]> 304 Caroline Mitchell Kristina 5 4.05 2022 The Village
author: Caroline Mitchell
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2022/12/18
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]]> Evidence of the Affair 41715227 The repercussions of an illicit affair unfold in this short story by bestselling author Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Dear stranger�

A desperate young woman in Southern California sits down to write a letter to a man she’s never met—a choice that will forever change both their lives.

My heart goes out to you, David. Even though I do not know you�

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here.

Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.]]> 88 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1542044510 Kristina 5 3.86 2018 Evidence of the Affair
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/18
date added: 2022/12/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Boldly On: A Collection of Poems]]> 53460231 55 Hayley G. Hoover 1735109304 Kristina 0 currently-reading 4.30 2020 Boldly On: A Collection of Poems
author: Hayley G. Hoover
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/06
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)]]> 44421460 What would you change if you could go back in time?

In a small back alley in Tokyo, there is a café which has been serving carefully brewed coffee for more than one hundred years. But this coffee shop offers its customers a unique experience: the chance to travel back in time.

In Before the Coffee Gets Cold, we meet four visitors, each of whom is hoping to make use of the café’s time-travelling offer, in order to: confront the man who left them, receive a letter from their husband whose memory has been taken by early onset Alzheimer's, to see their sister one last time, and to meet the daughter they never got the chance to know.

But the journey into the past does not come without risks: customers must sit in a particular seat, they cannot leave the café, and finally, they must return to the present before the coffee gets cold . . .

Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s beautiful, moving story explores the age-old question: what would you change if you could travel back in time? More importantly, who would you want to meet, maybe for one last time?]]> 213 Toshikazu Kawaguchi 1529029589 Kristina 0 to-read 3.67 2015 Before the Coffee Gets Cold (Before the Coffee Gets Cold, #1)
author: Toshikazu Kawaguchi
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/06
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]]> Hamnet 43890641 Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

A New York Times Notable Book (2020), Best Book of 2020: Guardian, Financial Times, Literary Hub, and NPR.]]> 372 Maggie O'Farrell 1472223799 Kristina 0 to-read 4.16 2020 Hamnet
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/11
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]]> The Marriage Portrait 60353768 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

The author of award-winning Hamnet brings the world of Renaissance Italy to jewel-bright life in this unforgettable fictional portrait of the captivating young duchess Lucrezia de� Medici as she makes her way in a troubled court.

Florence, the 1550s. Lucrezia, third daughter of the grand duke, is comfortable with her obscure place in the palazzo: free to wonder at its treasures, observe its clandestine workings, and devote herself to her own artistic pursuits. But when her older sister dies on the eve of her wedding to the ruler of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio, Lucrezia is thrust unwittingly into the limelight: the duke is quick to request her hand in marriage, and her father just as quick to accept on her behalf.

Having barely left girlhood behind, Lucrezia must now enter an unfamiliar court whose customs are opaque and where her arrival is not universally welcomed. Perhaps most mystifying of all is her new husband himself, Alfonso. Is he the playful sophisticate he appeared to be before their wedding, the aesthete happiest in the company of artists and musicians, or the ruthless politician before whom even his formidable sisters seem to tremble?

As Lucrezia sits in constricting finery for a painting intended to preserve her image for centuries to come, one thing becomes worryingly clear. In the court’s eyes, she has one duty: to provide the heir who will shore up the future of the Ferranese dynasty. Until then, for all of her rank and nobility, the new duchess’s future hangs entirely in the balance.

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.]]> 355 Maggie O'Farrell Kristina 0 to-read 3.97 2022 The Marriage Portrait
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/11
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]]> Sorrow and Bliss 49110165
Martha told Patrick before they got married that she didn't want to have children. He said he didn't mind either way because he has loved her since he was fourteen and making her happy is all that matters, although he does not seem able to do it.

By the time Martha finds out what is wrong, it doesn't really matter anymore. It is too late to get the only thing she has ever wanted. Or maybe it will turn out that you can stop loving someone and start again from nothing - if you can find something else to want.]]> 352 Meg Mason Kristina 0 to-read 4.08 2020 Sorrow and Bliss
author: Meg Mason
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/11
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]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Kristina 0 to-read 4.14 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/11/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> Beguiled 59464832 A dark and enthralling story about a young woman who makes a deal with a spirit to try and gain her independence—and the twisted price she has to pay for it

Ella is a 17-year-old weaver whose entire livelihood depends on her loom. She dreams of opening her own shop, but when her father died in debtor’s prison, she had to support herself by taking whatever clients she could get. In order to buy her supplies she goes into debt of her own, and when her loom breaks, Ella realizes she needs more help than a repairperson can give her. She, like everyone, has heard about the old washerwoman spirit called the Bean-Nighe who will grant any one wish—for a price.
Ěý
But Ella is desperate, so she asks the Bean-Nighe to fix her loom. And it works. The loom is fixed, and she's creating beautiful pieces she could have never imagined before. All she has to do is feed the loom a drop of blood each time she weaves—a small price to pay for such magnificent silks. And when she brings two bolts to a rich client, she meets a mysterious young man named Callum and bargains for an invitation to his exclusive party. At that party, he's so mesmerized by her talent, he offers Ella a place to live and patronage for her art.ĚýIt seems like Ella's fortune is finally turning for the better . . . until she begins to notice the loom taking more from her than she offered.
ĚýĚý
AsĚýshe becomes entangled in the lives of the city’s rich, swept into Callum's allure, and trapped by the Bean-Nighe’s magic, Ella must figure out a way to secure her future while she still has a future at all.]]> 384 Cyla Panin 1419752677 Kristina 0 to-read 3.44 2022 Beguiled
author: Cyla Panin
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Poison Season 58939926 Outsiders are always given a choice: the Forest or the lake. Either way, they're never heard from again.

Leelo has spent her entire life on Endla, coexisting with the bloodthirsty Forest and respecting the poisonous lake that protects her island from outsiders who seek to destroy it. But as much as Leelo cares for her community, she struggles to accept that her younger brother will be exiled by his next birthday, unless he gains the magic of enchanted song so vital to Endla.

When Leelo sees a young outsider on the verge of drowning in the lake, she knows exactly what she's supposed to do. But in a moment that will change everything, Leelo betrays her family, her best friend, and Endla by making an unthinkable choice.

Discovery could lead to devastating consequences for both Leelo and the outsider, Jaren, but as they grow closer, Leelo realizes that not all danger comes from beyond the lake—and they can only survive if Leelo is willing to question the very fabric of her society, her people, and herself.]]> 390 Mara Rutherford 133591580X Kristina 0 to-read 3.67 2022 The Poison Season
author: Mara Rutherford
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Carrie Soto Is Back 60435878 Carrie Soto is fierce, and her determination to win at any cost has not made her popular.

By the time Carrie retires from tennis, she is the best player the world has ever seen. She has shattered every record and claimed twenty Slam titles. And if you ask her, she is entitled to every one. She sacrificed nearly everything to become the best, with her father as her coach.

But six years after her retirement, Carrie finds herself sitting in the stands of the 1994 US Open, watching her record be taken from her by a brutal, stunning, British player named Nicki Chan.

At thirty-seven years old, Carrie makes the monumental decision to come out of retirement and be coached by her father for one last year in an attempt to reclaim her record. Even if the sports media says that they never liked the 'Battle-Axe' anyway. Even if her body doesn't move as fast as it did. And even if it means swallowing her pride to train with a man she once almost opened her heart to: Bowe Huntley. Like her, he has something to prove before he gives up the game forever.

In spite of it all: Carrie Soto is back, for one epic final season. In this riveting and unforgettable novel, Taylor Jenkins Reid tells a story about the cost of greatness and a legendary athlete attempting a comeback.]]> 384 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158687 Kristina 5 4.19 2022 Carrie Soto Is Back
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/06
date added: 2022/11/06
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]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 Kristina 5 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/23
date added: 2022/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated]]> 7284508 Little House on the Prairie viewers hated Nellie Oleson and her evil antics, Arngrim grew to love her character—and the freedom and confidence Nellie inspired in her.

In Confessions of a Prairie Bitch, Arngrim describes growing up in Hollywood with her eccentric parents: Thor Arngrim, a talent manager to Liberace and others, whose appetite for publicity was insatiable, and legendary voice actress Norma MacMillan, who played both Gumby and Casper the Friendly Ghost. She recalls her most cherished and often wickedly funny moments behind the scenes of Little House: Michael Landon's "unsaintly" habit of not wearing underwear; how she and Melissa Gilbert (who played her TV nemesis, Laura Ingalls) became best friends and accidentally got drunk on rum cakes at 7-Eleven; and the only time she and Katherine MacGregor (who played Nellie's mom)Ěý appeared in public in costume, provoking a posse of elementary schoolgirls to attack them.

Arngrim relays all this and more with biting wit, but she also bravely recounts her life's challenges: her struggle to survive a history of traumatic abuse, depression, and paralyzing shyness; the "secret" her father kept from her for twenty years; and the devastating loss of her "Little House husband" and best friend, Steve Tracy, to AIDS, which inspired her second career in social and political activism. Arngrim describes how Nellie Oleson taught her to be bold, daring, and determined, and how she is eternally grateful to have had the biggest little bitch on the prairie to show her the way.]]> 302 Alison Arngrim 0061962147 Kristina 5 4.05 2010 Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated
author: Alison Arngrim
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/23
date added: 2022/10/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires]]> 44074800 Fried Green Tomatoes and Steel Magnolias meet Dracula in this Southern-flavored supernatural thriller set in the '90s about a women's book club that must protect its suburban community from a mysterious and handsome stranger who turns out to be a blood-sucking fiend.

Patricia Campbell had always planned for a big life, but after giving up her career as a nurse to marry an ambitious doctor and become a mother, Patricia's life has never felt smaller. The days are long, her kids are ungrateful, her husband is distant, and her to-do list is never really done. The one thing she has to look forward to is her book club, a group of Charleston mothers united only by their love for true-crime and suspenseful fiction. In these meetings, they're more likely to discuss the FBI's recent siege of Waco as much as the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood.

But when an artistic and sensitive stranger moves into the neighborhood, the book club's meetings turn into speculation about the newcomer. Patricia is initially attracted to him, but when some local children go missing, she starts to suspect the newcomer is involved. She begins her own investigation, assuming that he's a Jeffrey Dahmer or Ted Bundy. What she uncovers is far more terrifying, and soon she--and her book club--are the only people standing between the monster they've invited into their homes and their unsuspecting community.]]> 410 Grady Hendrix Kristina 5 3.78 2020 The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/06
date added: 2022/10/06
shelves:
review:

]]> The Book of Essie 36723245 A debut novel of family, fame, and religion that tells the emotionally stirring, wildly captivating story of the seventeen-year-old daughter of an evangelical preacher, star of the family's hit reality show, and the secret pregnancy that threatens to blow their entire world apart.

Esther Ann Hicks--Essie--is the youngest child on Six for Hicks, a reality television phenomenon. She's grown up in the spotlight, both idolized and despised for her family's fire-and-brimstone brand of faith. When Essie's mother, Celia, discovers that Essie is pregnant, she arranges an emergency meeting with the show's producers: Do they sneak Essie out of the country for an abortion? Do they pass the child off as Celia's? Or do they try to arrange a marriage--and a ratings-blockbuster wedding? Meanwhile, Essie is quietly pairing herself up with Roarke Richards, a senior at her school with a secret of his own to protect. As the newly formed couple attempt to sell their fabricated love story to the media--through exclusive interviews with an infamously conservative reporter named Liberty Bell--Essie finds she has questions of her own: What was the real reason for her older sister leaving home? Who can she trust with the truth about her family? And how much is she willing to sacrifice to win her own freedom?]]> 319 Meghan MacLean Weir Kristina 0 to-read 3.91 2018 The Book of Essie
author: Meghan MacLean Weir
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Her Majesty's Royal Coven (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #1)]]> 59088433
At the dawn of their adolescence, on the eve of the summer solstice, four young girls--Helena, Leonie, Niamh and Elle--took the oath to join Her Majesty's Royal Coven, established by Queen Elizabeth I as a covert government department. Now, decades later, the witch community is still reeling from a civil war and Helena is now the reigning High Priestess of the organization. Yet Helena is the only one of her friend group still enmeshed in the stale bureaucracy of HMRC. Elle is trying to pretend she's a normal housewife, and Niamh has become a country vet, using her powers to heal sick animals. In what Helena perceives as the deepest betrayal, Leonie has defected to start her own more inclusive and intersectional coven, Diaspora. And now Helena has a bigger problem. A young warlock of extraordinary capabilities has been captured by authorities and seems to threaten the very existence of HMRC. With conflicting beliefs over the best course of action, the four friends must decide where their loyalties lie: with preserving tradition, or doing what is right.

Juno Dawson explores gender and the corrupting nature of power in a delightful and provocative story of magic and matriarchy, friendship and feminism. Dealing with all the aspects of contemporary womanhood, as well as being phenomenally powerful witches, Niamh, Helena, Leonie and Elle may have grown apart but they will always be bound by the sisterhood of the coven.]]> 448 Juno Dawson 014313714X Kristina 0 to-read 3.79 2022 Her Majesty's Royal Coven (Her Majesty's Royal Coven, #1)
author: Juno Dawson
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Scatter of Light 59049157 Award-winning author Malinda Lo returns to the Bay Area with another masterful coming-of-queer-age story, this time set against the backdrop of the first major Supreme Court decisions legalizing gay marriage. And almost sixty years after the end of Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Lo's new novel also offers a glimpse into Lily and Kath's lives since 1955.

Aria Tang West was looking forward to a summer on Martha's Vineyard with her best friends—one last round of sand and sun before college. But after a graduation party goes wrong, Aria's parents exile her to California to stay with her grandmother, artist Joan West. Aria expects boredom, but what she finds is Steph Nichols, her grandmother's gardener. Soon, Aria is second-guessing who she is and what she wants to be, and a summer that once seemed lost becomes unforgettable—for Aria, her family, and the working-class queer community Steph introduces her to. It's the kind of summer that changes a life forever.]]> 336 Malinda Lo Kristina 0 to-read 4.04 2022 A Scatter of Light
author: Malinda Lo
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Restless Dark 60091386 Enter Cloudkiss Canyon at your own risk.

The Cloudkiss Killer is dead. Now a true-crime podcast is hosting a contest to find his bones.

Lucy was almost the serial killer’s final victim. Carolina is a true-crime fan who fears her own rage. Maggie is a psychology student with a little too much to hide.

All of them are looking for answers, for a new identity, for a place to bury their secrets.

But there are more than bones hiding in the shadows…sometimes the darkness inside is more frightening than anything the dead leave behind.

Perfect for fans of Sadie and Wilder Girls, this newest novel from Erica Waters follows three girls at a true-crime contest to find the bones of a lost killer—even as a mysterious force pulls at the contestants� darkest desires.]]> 400 Erica Waters 0063115905 Kristina 0 to-read 3.44 2022 The Restless Dark
author: Erica Waters
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anne of Greenville 60099223 This is the story of how I became Anne of Greenville. It’s also the story of how I found my true true, and how I needed to maybe come to Greenville, of all places, to make that happen.

In this modern reimagining of Anne of Green Gables, Anne is an ABBA-loving singer/actor/writer of disco-operas, queer, Japanese-American who longs to be understood for her artistic genius. Recently relocated to middle-of-nowhere Greenville and starting at a new school, Anne has a tendency to A) fall in love quickly, deeply, and effervescently and B) fly off the handle in the face of jerks. Both personality quirks quickly come into play when the soccer team boos the premiere of her disco performance, which—in a roundabout way—introduces her to her new BFF, Berry, and she soon after meets the girl of her dreams, Gilly.

Falling quickly into that age-old trap of ignoring the best friend for the new crush, Anne soon becomes embroiled in a series of dramatic and unfortunate events, and quickly finds herself wrapped up in a love triangle she never expected. Is she MTB with Gilly? Or is Berry her true soul mate? Only time (or 304 pages) will tell.


In this coming-of-age novel by fan-favorite author Mariko Tamaki, see the classic tale in a whole new light. Refreshingly bold and unapologetically unique, Anne of Greenville will make you want to stand up and sing!
]]> 304 Mariko Tamaki 1368078400 Kristina 0 to-read 3.44 2022 Anne of Greenville
author: Mariko Tamaki
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> After Dark with Roxie Clark 59808535 From the author of The Hollow Inside comes a twisty, thought-provoking YA thriller about grief, family, and what happens when true crime hits a little too close to home.

Roxie Clark has seen more dead bodies than your average seventeen-year-old. As a member of the supposedly-cursed Clark family, most of her ancestors have met tragic ends, including her own mother. Instead of fearing the curse, however, Roxie has combined her flair for performance and her gruesome family history into a successful ghost tour. But her tour never covers the most recent body she's seen-her sister Skylar's boyfriend, Colin Riley, found murdered in a cornfield.

A year after the murder, Roxie's desperate to help Skylar find closure and start to heal. Instead, Skylar becomes fixated on finding the killer. As the sisters dig into what really happened, they discover that more than one person has been lying about that night. And the closer they get to the truth, the more Roxie starts to wonder if some scary stories might be better left untold. Brooke Lauren Davis offers another thought-provoking and eerily satisfying tale, perfect for fans of Kara Thomas and Cruel Summer.]]> 352 Brooke Lauren Davis 1547606142 Kristina 0 to-read 3.84 2022 After Dark with Roxie Clark
author: Brooke Lauren Davis
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Pretty Dead Queens 57121698 Seaview High's homecoming queen is dead . . . and she's not the first. A thriller about a decades-old mystery, a copycat killing, and the teen who won't stop until she discovers the truth.

After the death of her mom (screw cancer), seventeen-year-old Cecelia Ellis goes to live with her estranged grandmother, a celebrated author whose Victorian mansion is as creepy as the murder mysteries she writes. On the surface, life is utterly ordinary in the California coastal town . . . until the homecoming queen is murdered. And she’s not Seaview’s first pretty dead queen.

With a copycat killer on the loose, Cecelia throws herself into the investigation, determined to crack the case like the heroines in her grandmother’s books. But the more Cecelia digs into the town’s secrets, the more she worries that her own mystery might not have a storybook ending.]]> 336 Alexa Donne 0593479823 Kristina 0 to-read 3.68 2022 Pretty Dead Queens
author: Alexa Donne
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Sacrifice 60190092
Pristine beaches, lush greenery, and perfect weather, the island of Kisapmata would be the vacation destination...if not for the curse. The Philippine locals speak of it in hushed voices and refuse to step foot on the island. They know the lives it has claimed. They won't be next.

A Hollywood film crew won't be dissuaded. Legend claims a Dreamer god sleeps, waiting to grant unimaginable powers in exchange for eight sacrifices. The producers are determined to document the evidence. And they convince Alon, a local teen, to be their guide.

Within minutes of their arrival, a giant sinkhole appears, revealing a giant balete tree with a mummified corpse entwined in its gnarled branches. And the crew start seeing strange visions. Alon knows they are falling victim to the island's curse. If Alon can't convince them to leave, there is no telling who will survive. Or how much the Dreamer god will destroy...

Creepy and suspenseful, The Sacrifice is perfect for readers looking for:
* Spooky, scary books for young adults
* Horror novels
* Ghost story books for teens
* East Asian folklore]]> 287 Rin Chupeco 1728255910 Kristina 0 to-read 3.73 2022 The Sacrifice
author: Rin Chupeco
name: Kristina
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]> 336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X Kristina 0 to-read 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Kristina
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/17
shelves: to-read
review:

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