Leah's bookshelf: all en-US Thu, 24 Apr 2025 18:31:57 -0700 60 Leah's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love]]> 203680936 A “wonderfully joyful read� (Good Housekeeping) a funny, uplifting story about the power of friendship and finding love in unexpected places from the author of The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot: When twentysomething Bella learns that 90-year-old Eddie has never been kissed, she makes it her mission to help him find love.
Eddie Winston is 90 years old. He has lived and loved, but he has never been kissed.

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

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

A tale of friendship and kindness that reminds us that those we love are never forgotten and it is never too late to try again.]]> 304 Marianne Cronin 0063383500 Leah 4 4.42 2024 Eddie Winston Is Looking for Love
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Leah
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> The Paris Express 214151304 Emma Donoghue, the “soul-stirring� (Oprah Daily) nationally bestselling author of Room, returns with a sweeping historical novel about an infamous 1895 disaster at the Paris Montparnasse train station.

Based on an 1895 disaster that went down in history when it was captured in a series of surreal, extraordinary photographs, The Paris Express is a propulsive novel set on a train packed with a fascinating cast of characters who hail from as close as Brittany and as far as Russia, Ireland, Algeria, Pennsylvania, and Cambodia. Members of parliament hurry back to Paris to vote; a medical student suspects a girl may be dying; a secretary tries to convince her boss of the potential of moving pictures; two of the train’s crew build a life away from their wives; a young anarchist makes a terrifying plan, and much more.

From an author whose “writing is superb alchemy� (Audrey Niffenegger, New York Times bestselling author), The Paris Express is an evocative masterpiece that effortlessly captures the politics, glamour, chaos, and speed that marked the end of the 19th century.]]> 288 Emma Donoghue 1668082799 Leah 4 3.28 2025 The Paris Express
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Leah
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2025
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> Every Tom, Dick & Harry 213558038 From one of the most beloved comedic writers of our time comes a charming, laugh-out-loud tale of love and criminality, a pitch-perfect romantic comedy from the author of Ms. Demeanor.

Taking over her parents� estate sale business is more than Emma Lewis bargained for. Coming from a long line of estate liquidators has its challenges but Emma was completely unprepared for the people she would meet. Pimps, prostitutes, crooked cops, art thieves? Should she turn down potential clients in need of decluttering just because they are shady and proud of it?

No.

A girl must make a living—and it could be more fortuitous than she ever imagined . . .Ěý]]> 312 Elinor Lipman 0063322250 Leah 2 3.37 2025 Every Tom, Dick & Harry
author: Elinor Lipman
name: Leah
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2025
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/04/15
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]]> Theft 217006044 In his first new novel since winning the 2021 Nobel Prize, a master storyteller captures a time of dizzying global change.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, three young people come of age in Tanzania. Karim returns to his sleepy hometown after university with new swagger and ambition. Fauzia glimpses in him a chance at escape from a smothering upbringing. The two of them offer a haven to Badar, a poor boy still unsure if the future holds anything for him at all. As tourism, technology, and unexpected opportunities and perils reach their quiet corner of the world, bringing, each arrives at a different understanding of what it means to take your fate into your own hands.

]]> 296 Abdulrazak Gurnah 0593852605 Leah 4 3.93 2025 Theft
author: Abdulrazak Gurnah
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/04/12
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]]> Same As It Ever Was 199344873
She’s unprepared, though, for what comes next: a surprise announcement from her straight-arrow son, an impending separation from her spikey teenaged daughter, and a seductive resurgence of the past, all of which threaten to draw her back into the patterns that had previously kept her on a razor’s edge.

Same As It Ever Was traverses the rocky terrain of real life, —exploring new avenues of maternal ambivalence, intergenerational friendship, and the happenstantial cause-and-effect that governs us all. Delving even deeper into the nature of relationships—how they grow, change, and sometimes end—Lombardo proves herself a true and definitive cartographer of the human heart and asserts herself among the finest novelists of her generation.]]> 498 Claire Lombardo 0385549555 Leah 0 3.82 2024 Same As It Ever Was
author: Claire Lombardo
name: Leah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> What Happened to the McCrays? 195391623 From New York Times bestselling author Tracey Lange, a poignant story about the resilience of family, the importance of community, and the magic of middle school hockey

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

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

Full of love and hope, What Happened to the McCrays? takes an intimate look at both sides of a failed marriage and two people who must finally confront the awful pain of their past or risk being consumed by it.]]> 352 Tracey Lange 1250328438 Leah 3 4.08 2025 What Happened to the McCrays?
author: Tracey Lange
name: Leah
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/31
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]]> Alternative Remedies for Loss 36222643 A slyly funny coming-of-age novel about a young woman fumbling her way into the mysteries of loss and the travails of adulthood as she tries to make sense of a vanished mother’s legacy.

When 22-year-old Olivia learned that her mother had only months to live, she pulled up roots, leaving Vassar and her career plans far behind to be with her mother for her last days. And yet, just four months after her mother’s death, everyone in Olivia’s family already seems ready to move on. Her brothers are settled comfortably in careers and families of their own; her father has already started to date again, inviting a woman named June on a family trip. Still reeling from the loss, Olivia looks for a new start of her own, throwing herself headlong into Manhattan’s fast-moving media world, where she is alternately demeaned by bosses and pursued by men.
But as Olivia tries to piece together an adulthood without her mother to guide her, she makes a shocking discovery: a secret romantic correspondence her mother had with a man who only signed each letter “F.� As she tries to untangle the mystery of F, Olivia will journey halfway across the world, to an ashram in rural India, on a quest that will reconfigure everything Olivia thought she knew about her family and her own place in an increasingly complex world.

A profoundly moving and keenly observed contemplation of the debts we owe to the past and the ways we discover our futures, Alternative Remedies for Loss is the rare sort of book that can break and mend your heart in a single and unforgettable read.]]> 320 Joanna Cantor 1635571715 Leah 3 3.35 2018 Alternative Remedies for Loss
author: Joanna Cantor
name: Leah
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/28
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]]> Blob: A Love Story 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Leah 3 3.39 2025 Blob: A Love Story
author: Maggie Su
name: Leah
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/24
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]]> Water Finds a Way 209801559
“What a fiercely original novel! This powerful read is truly a thoughtful stunner about where we find our place in the world—and our person.”—Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You and Days of Wonder

Can coming home be a second chance? Or at least a place to hide out?
For Blake Alvares, recently released from prison, home means returning to the only place she ever felt safe, the now–derelict Maine town in which she harbored as a teen. Determined to conceal her secrets and losses, she soon finds herself dragged into others� lives when she takes a job on a boat owned by a notorious young lobsterman.

Leland Savard is nearly broke, trying to support himself and 9-year-old Quinnie as he wrestles with a dangerous family legacy. Though his choice to hire Blake raises local eyebrows, Leland and those around Blake are quickly surprised and jarred by how much they come to rely on her. At the same time, Blake stumbles into love from unexpected places. When Leland’s rash actions place her and Quinnie in peril, Blake feels forced to run again—only to discover the past is never more than a few steps behind her. On her quest for home, Blake must confront a daunting question: where does she truly belong?

Water Finds a Way is perfect for your next book club selection, for readers who enjoy the believable eccentricity a small town offers—and for those who trust in the redemptive powers of the sea and hard work.]]> 360 Meghan Perry 1953002412 Leah 3 4.24 Water Finds a Way
author: Meghan Perry
name: Leah
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/23
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]]> Starter Villain 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

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

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

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

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 Leah 3 4.09 2023 Starter Villain
author: John Scalzi
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> Shred Sisters 208107364 A wry and riveting debut novel about family, mental illness, and a hard-won path between two sisters

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight, but when her stunning confidence morphs into something erratic and unpredictable, she becomes a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Put simply, she has no brakes.

Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, survives Ollie’s bullying and outcast status throughout her school years. She dreams of winning a Nobel Prize and unlocking the mysteries of the mind. Amy believes in facts, proof, and the empirical world. Except none of that can explain what’s happening to Ollie, whose physical beauty and charisma mask the bipolar disorder that will shatter Amy’s carefully constructed world.

As Amy comes of age and seeks to find her place—first in academics, then New York publishing, and through a series of troubled relationships—every step brings collisions with Ollie, who slips in and out of the Shred family without warning. For all that upends and unsettles these sisters, an inextricable bond always draws them back.

Spanning two decades, Shred Sisters is an intimate and bittersweet story exploring the fierce complexities of sisterhood, mental health, loss and love. If anything is true it’s what Amy learns on her road to self-acceptance: No one will love you or hurt you more than a sister.]]> 272 Betsy Lerner 080216370X Leah 3 3.76 Shred Sisters
author: Betsy Lerner
name: Leah
average rating: 3.76
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? A Memoir]]> 52588525 A heart-warming and hilarious family memoir of growing up as one of eleven children raised by a single dad in Northern Ireland at the end of the Troubles

After the untimely death of his mother, five-year-old SĂ©amas O'Reilly and his ten siblings were left to the care of their loving but understandably beleaguered father. In this thoroughly delightful memoir, we follow O'Reilly and the rest of his rowdy clan as they learn to cook, clean, do the laundry, and struggle (often hilariously) to keep the household running smoothly and turn into adults in the absence of the woman who had held them together. Along the way, we see O'Reilly through various adventures: There's the time the family's windows were blown out by an IRA bomb; the time a priest blessed their thirteen-seater caravan before they took off for a holiday on which they narrowly escaped death; the time O'Reilly worked as a guide in a leprechaun museum during the recession; and of course, the time he inadvertently found himself on ketamine while serving drinks to the president of Ireland.

Through it all, the lovable, ginger-haired O'Reilly regales us with his combination of wit, absurdity, and tenderness, creating a charming and unforgettable portrait of an oddly gigantic family's search for some semblance of normalcy.]]> 231 SĂ©amas O'Reilly 0316424250 Leah 4 4.10 2021 Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? A Memoir
author: SĂ©amas O'Reilly
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/03/13
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]]> Piglet 127282554 A New York Times Book Review Editors� Choice
A Belletrist Book Club Pick

An elegant, razor-sharp debut about women's ambitions and appetites—and the truth about having it all

Outside of a childhood nickname she can’t shake, Piglet’s rather pleased with how her life’s turned out. An up-and-coming cookbook editor at a London publishing house, she’s got lovely, loyal friends and a handsome fiancé, Kit, whose rarefied family she actually, most of the time, likes, despite their upper-class eccentricities. One of the many, many things Kit loves about Piglet is the delicious, unfathomably elaborate meals she’s always cooking.

But when Kit confesses a horrible betrayal two weeks before they’re set to be married, Piglet finds herself suddenly…hungry. The couple decides to move forward with the wedding as planned, but as it nears and Piglet balances family expectations, pressure at work, and her quest to make the perfect cake, she finds herself increasingly unsettled, behaving in ways even she can’t explain. Torn between a life she’s always wanted and the ravenousness that comes with not getting what she knows she deserves, Piglet is, by the day of her wedding, undone, but also ready to look beyond the lies we sometimes tell ourselves to get by.

A stylish, uncommonly clever novel about the things we want and the things we think we want, Piglet is both an examination of women’s often complicated relationship with food and a celebration of the messes life sometimes makes for us.]]> 320 Lottie Hazell 125028984X Leah 2 3.39 2024 Piglet
author: Lottie Hazell
name: Leah
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> The Pairing 199440249 definitely not.

Theo and Kit have been a lot of things: childhood best friends, crushes, in love, and now estranged exes. After a brutal breakup on the transatlantic flight to their dream European food and wine tour, they exited each other's lives once and for all.

Time apart has done them good. Theo has found confidence as a hustling bartender by night and aspiring sommelier by day, with a long roster of casual lovers. Kit, who never returned to America, graduated as the reigning sex god of his pastry school class and now bakes at one of the finest restaurants in Paris. Sure, nothing really compares to what they had, and life stretches out long and lonely ahead of them, but—yeah. It's in the past.

All that remains is the unused voucher for the European tour that never happened, good for 48 months after its original date and about to expire. Four years later, it seems like a great idea to finally take the trip. Solo. Separately.

It's not until they board the tour bus that they discover they've both accidentally had the exact same idea, and now they're trapped with each other for three weeks of stunning views, luscious flavors, and the most romantic cities of France, Spain, and Italy. It's fine. There's nothing left between them. So much nothing that, when Theo suggests a friendly wager to see who can sleep with their hot Italian tour guide first, Kit is totally game. And why stop there? Why not a full-on European hookup competition?

But sometimes a taste of everything only makes you crave what you can't have.]]> 432 Casey McQuiston 1250862744 Leah 0 3.70 2024 The Pairing
author: Casey McQuiston
name: Leah
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/10
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]]> <![CDATA[Scorched Grace (Sister Holiday Mystery #1)]]> 60610668 Sister Holiday, a chain-smoking, heavily tattooed, queer nun, puts her amateur sleuthing skills to the test in this debut crime novel.

When Saint Sebastian's School becomes the target of a shocking arson spree, the Sisters of the Sublime Blood and their surrounding community are thrust into chaos. Unsatisfied with the officials' response, sardonic and headstrong Sister Holiday becomes determined to unveil the mysterious attacker herself and return her home and sanctuary to its former peace. Her investigation leads down a twisty path of suspicion and secrets in the sticky, oppressive New Orleans heat, turning her against colleagues, students, and even fellow Sisters along the way.

Sister Holiday is more faithful than most, but she's no saint. To piece together the clues of this high-stakes mystery, she must first reckon with the sins of her checkered past-and neither task will be easy.

An exciting start to Margot Douaihy's bold series for Gillian Flynn Books that breathes new life into the hard-boiled genre, Scorched Grace is a fast-paced and punchy whodunnit that will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 320 Margot Douaihy 1638930244 Leah 0 3.16 2023 Scorched Grace (Sister Holiday Mystery #1)
author: Margot Douaihy
name: Leah
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> Rental House 208584952 From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,� says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign� wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular� style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron� (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.]]> 224 Weike Wang 0593545540 Leah 3 3.30 2024 Rental House
author: Weike Wang
name: Leah
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/03/01
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]]> 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 Leah 4 4.46 2024 James
author: Percival Everett
name: Leah
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/28
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]]> The Last White Man 58885796 From the New York Times -bestselling author of Exit West , a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

One morning, a man wakes up to find himself transformed. Overnight, Anders’s skin has turned dark, and the reflection in the mirror seems a stranger to him. At first he shares his secret only with Oona, an old friend turned new lover. Soon, reports of similar events begin to surface. Across the land, people are awakening in new incarnations, uncertain how their neighbors, friends, and family will greet them. Some see the transformations as the long-dreaded overturning of the established order that must be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders’s father and Oona’s mother, a sense of profound loss and unease wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different a chance at a kind of rebirth--an opportunity to see ourselves, face to face, anew.
Ěý
In Mohsin Hamid’s lyrical and urgent prose, The Last White Man powerfully uplifts our capacity for empathy and the transcendence over bigotry, fear, and anger it can achieve.]]> 192 Mohsin Hamid 0593538811 Leah 4 3.43 2022 The Last White Man
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: Leah
average rating: 3.43
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> Family Meal 123414019 From the bestselling, award-winning author of Memorial and Lot, an irresistible, intimate novel about two young men, once best friends, whose lives collide again after a loss.

Cam is living in Los Angeles and falling apart after the love of his life has died. Kai's ghost won't leave Cam alone; his spectral visits wild, tender, and unexpected. When Cam returns to his hometown of Houston, he crashes back into the orbit of his former best friend, TJ, and TJ's family bakery. TJ's not sure how to navigate this changed Cam, impenetrably cool and self-destructing, or their charged estrangement. Can they find a way past all that has been said - and left unsaid - to save each other? Could they find a way back to being okay again, or maybe for the first time?

When secrets and wounds become so insurmountable that they devour us from within, hope and sustenance and friendship can come from the most unlikely source. Spanning Los Angeles, Houston, and Osaka, Family Meal is a story about how the people who know us the longest can hurt us the most, but how they also set the standard for love. With his signature generosity and eye for food, sex, love, and the moments that make us the most human, Bryan Washington returns with a brilliant new novel.]]> 320 Bryan Washington 0593421094 Leah 3 3.50 2023 Family Meal
author: Bryan Washington
name: Leah
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/02/12
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]]> Blue Sisters 195430687 Three estranged siblings return to their family home in New York after their beloved sister's death in this unforgettable story of grief, identity, and the complexities of family.

The three Blue sisters are exceptional—and exceptionally different. Avery, the eldest and a recovering heroin addict turned strait-laced lawyer, lives with her wife in London; Bonnie, a former boxer, works as a bouncer in Los Angeles following a devastating defeat; and Lucky, the youngest, models in Paris while trying to outrun her hard-partying ways. They also had a fourth sister, Nicky, whose unexpected death left Avery, Bonnie, and Lucky reeling. A year later, as they each navigate grief, addiction, and ambition, they find they must return to New York to stop the sale of the apartment they were raised in.

But coming home is never as easy as it seems. As the sisters reckon with the disappointments of their childhood and the loss of the only person who held them together, they realize the greatest secrets they've been keeping might not have been from each other, but from themselves.]]> 342 Coco Mellors 0593723767 Leah 3 3.93 2024 Blue Sisters
author: Coco Mellors
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/02/06
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]]> We the Animals 12359041 An award-winning novel in stories surrounding a young, half-white, half-Puerto Rican boy grappling with life, love, and identity as he comes of age.

In this groundbreaking debut, Justin Torres plunges us into the chaotic heart of one family, the intense bonds of three brothers, and the mythic effects of this fierce love on the people we must become.

]]> 156 Justin Torres Leah 5 3.79 2011 We the Animals
author: Justin Torres
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2011
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> <![CDATA[A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories]]> 22929586 A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they'd ever overlooked her in the first place.]]> 406 Lucia Berlin 0374202397 Leah 4 4.22 2015 A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories
author: Lucia Berlin
name: Leah
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2015
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/02/03
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]]> One by One 61426433
When an off-site company retreat meant to promote mindfulness and collaboration goes utterly wrong when an avalanche hits, the corporate food chain becomes irrelevant and survival trumps togetherness. Come Monday morning, how many members short will the team be?

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Turn of the Key and In a Dark Dark Wood returns with another suspenseful thriller set on a snow-covered mountain.]]> Ruth Ware 150118881X Leah 2 3.79 2020 One by One
author: Ruth Ware
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2020
rating: 2
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date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> Cruel Beautiful World 28110866
It's 1969, and 16-year-old Lucy is about to run away with a much older man to live off the grid in rural Pennsylvania, a rash act that will have vicious repercussions for both her and her older sister, Charlotte. As Lucy's default caretaker for most of their lives, Charlotte's youth has been marked by the burden of responsibility, but never more so than when Lucy's dream of a rural paradise turns into a nightmare.

Cruel Beautiful World examines the intricate, infinitesimal distance between seduction and love, loyalty and duty, and explores what happens when you're responsible for things you cannot make right.]]> 357 Caroline Leavitt 1616203633 Leah 3 3.81 2016 Cruel Beautiful World
author: Caroline Leavitt
name: Leah
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2025/01/24
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]]> Exit West 30688435
Exit West follows these characters as they emerge into an alien and uncertain future, struggling to hold on to each other, to their past, to the very sense of who they are. Profoundly intimate and powerfully inventive, it tells an unforgettable story of love, loyalty, and courage that is both completely of our time and for all time.]]> 231 Mohsin Hamid 0735212171 Leah 5 3.74 2017 Exit West
author: Mohsin Hamid
name: Leah
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
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]]> <![CDATA[Impossible Creatures (Impossible Creatures #1)]]> 205977739
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what's happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.]]> 368 Katherine Rundell 0593809866 Leah 0 4.13 2023 Impossible Creatures (Impossible Creatures #1)
author: Katherine Rundell
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/13
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?�

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 Leah 4 3.98 2024 Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Leah
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/07
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]]> Long Island Compromise 55777544 “Were we gangsters? No. But did we know how to start a fire?�

In 1980, a wealthy businessman named Carl Fletcher is kidnapped from his driveway, brutalized, and held for ransom. He is returned to his wife and kids less than a week later, only slightly the worse, and the family moves on with their lives, resuming their prized places in the saga of the American dream, comforted in the realization that though their money may have been what endangered them, it is also what assured them their safety.

But now, nearly forty years later, it’s clear that perhaps nobody ever got over anything, after all. Carl has spent the ensuing years secretly seeking closure to the matter of his kidnapping, while his wife, Ruth, has spent her potential protecting her husband’s emotional health. Their three grown children aren’t doing much better: Nathan’s chronic fear won’t allow him to advance at his law firm; Beamer, a Hollywood screenwriter, will consume anything—substance, foodstuff, women—in order to numb his own perpetual terror; and Jenny has spent her life so bent on proving that she’s not a product of her family’s pathology that she has come to define it. As they hover at the delicate precipice of a different kind of survival, they learn that the family fortune has dwindled to just about nothing, and they must face desperate questions about how much their wealth has played a part in both their lives� successes and failures.

Long Island Compromise spans the entirety of one family’s history, winding through decades and generations, all the way to the outrageous present, and confronting the mainstays of American Jewish life: tradition, the pursuit of success, the terror of history, fear of the future, old wives� tales, evil eyes, ambition, achievement, boredom, dybbuks, inheritance, pyramid schemes, right-wing capitalists, beta-blockers, psychics, and the mostly unspoken love and shared experience that unite a family forever.]]> 464 Taffy Brodesser-Akner 0593133498 Leah 4 3.72 2024 Long Island Compromise
author: Taffy Brodesser-Akner
name: Leah
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2025/01/01
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]]> <![CDATA[The Wrong Victim (Quinn & Costa, #3)]]> 58293772
Forensic profilers know there are two types of domestic terrorists: those who use violence to instill fear for political purposes but stop at murder because it detracts from the cause, and those who crave attention and are willing to maim and murder for their own agenda.

Accused of putting profits before people after leaking fuel that caused a massive fish kill, the West End Charter company may itself have been the target. But as special agent Matt Costa, detective Kara Quinn and the rest of the FBI team begin their investigation, they discover that plenty of people might have wanted someone dead on that yacht. Now they must track down who is responsible and stop them before they strike again.]]> 453 Allison Brennan 0778312305 Leah 3 3.92 2022 The Wrong Victim (Quinn & Costa, #3)
author: Allison Brennan
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> The Silent Wife 39088974 A heart-wrenching, emotionally gripping read for fans of Liane Moriarty and Diane Chamberlain


Lara's life looks perfect on the surface---gorgeous doting husband, Massimo; sweet little son, Sandro; and the perfect home. But Lara knows something about Massimo. Something she can't tell anyone else, or everything he has worked so hard for will be destroyed: his job, their reputation, their son. This secret is keeping Lara a prisoner in her marriage.


Maggie is married to Massimo's brother, Nico, and lives with him and her troubled stepdaughter. She knows all of Nico's darkest secrets---or so she thinks. Then one day she discovers a letter in the attic that reveals a shocking secret about Nico's first wife. Will Maggie set the record straight or keep silent to protect those she loves?


For a family held together by lies, the truth will come at a devastating price.

]]> 343 Kerry Fisher 1538714655 Leah 2 3.80 2017 The Silent Wife
author: Kerry Fisher
name: Leah
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/12/24
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]]> The House on Mango Street 139253 The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero.

Told in a series of vignettes � sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes deeply joyous–it is the story of a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for herself who and what she will become. Few other books in our time have touched so many readers.]]> 110 Sandra Cisneros 0679734775 Leah 5 3.69 1984 The House on Mango Street
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Leah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/12/21
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]]> The Life Impossible 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…�

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Leah 0 3.45 2024 The Life Impossible
author: Matt Haig
name: Leah
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/19
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]]> The Mighty Red 199793431
Gary Geist, a terrified young man set to inherit two farms, is desperate to marry Kismet Poe, an impulsive, lapsed Goth who can't read her future but seems to resolve his.

Hugo, a gentle red-haired, home-schooled giant, is also in love with Kismet. He’s determined to steal her and is eager to be a home wrecker.

Kismet's mother, Crystal, hauls sugar beets for Gary's family, and on her nightly runs, tunes into the darkness of late-night radio, sees visions of guardian angels, and worries for the future, her daughter’s and her own.

Human time, deep time, Red River time, the half-life of herbicides and pesticides, and the elegance of time represented in fracking core samples from unimaginable depths, is set against the speed of climate change, the depletion of natural resources, and the sudden economic meltdown of 2008-2009. How much does a dress cost? A used car? A package of cinnamon rolls? Can you see the shape of your soul in the everchanging clouds? Your personal salvation in the giant expanse of sky? These are the questions the people of the Red River Valley of the North wrestle with every day.

The Mighty Red is a novel of tender humor, disturbance, and hallucinatory mourning. It is about on-the-job pains and immeasurable satisfactions, a turbulent landscape, and eating the native weeds growing in your backyard. It is about ordinary people who dream, grow up, fall in love, struggle, endure tragedy, carry bitter secrets; men and women both complicated and contradictory, flawed and decent, lonely and hopeful. It is about a starkly beautiful prairie community whose members must cope with devastating consequences as powerful forces upend them. As with every book this great modern master writes, The Mighty Red is about our tattered bond with the earth, and about love in all of its absurdity and splendor.

A new novel by Louise Erdrich is a major literary event; gorgeous and heartrending, The Mighty Red is a triumph.]]> 384 Louise Erdrich 0063277050 Leah 4 3.78 2024 The Mighty Red
author: Louise Erdrich
name: Leah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/14
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]]> <![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 Leah 4 4.17 2024 Somewhere Beyond the Sea (Cerulean Chronicles, #2)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Leah
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/12
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]]> How to Read a Book 62365896 A charming, deeply moving novel about second chances, unlikely friendships, and the life-changing power of sharing stories.

Our Reasons meet us in the morning and whisper to us at night. Mine is an innocent, unsuspecting, eternally sixty-one-year-old woman named Lorraine Daigle�

Violet Powell, a twenty-two-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving twenty-two months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed.

When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland—Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman—their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.

How to Read a Book Ěýis an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Monica Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.Ěý .Ěý]]> 288 Monica Wood 0063243679 Leah 4 4.21 2024 How to Read a Book
author: Monica Wood
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/12/08
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]]> A Reason to See You Again 199531902
The women of the Cohen family are in crisis. Triggered by the death of their patriarch, Rudy, the glue that held them all together, everyone’s lives soon take a dramatic turn.

Shelly, the younger of the two Cohen sisters, runs off to the West Coast to immerse herself in the emerging (and lucrative) world of technology. Her sister, Nancy, gets married at the age of twenty-one to a traveling salesman with a shadowy lifestyle, while their mother, Frieda, hurls herself into a boozy, troubled existence in Miami, trying to forget the past even as it haunts her.

But they each learn in different ways that running from the past can’t save you—and then must make life-altering decisions about what they want their family to be and what they need to move forward.

Beginning in the 1970s and spanning forty years, A Reason to See You Again takes the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey through motherhood, the American workforce, the tech industry, the self-help movement, inherited trauma, the ever-evolving ways we communicate with one another, and the many unexpected forms that love can take.]]> 240 Jami Attenberg 0063039842 Leah 2 3.20 2024 A Reason to See You Again
author: Jami Attenberg
name: Leah
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/12/06
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]]> <![CDATA[Tell No Lies (Quinn & Costa #2)]]> 53288447
Quinn and Costa find themselves scouring the desolate landscape, which keeps revealing clues to something much darker—greed, child trafficking and more death. As the body count adds up, it’s clear they have stumbled onto much more than they bargained for. Now they must figure out who is at the heart of this mayhem and stop them before more innocent lives are lost.]]> 425 Allison Brennan 0778331466 Leah 3 3.90 2021 Tell No Lies (Quinn & Costa #2)
author: Allison Brennan
name: Leah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/11/30
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]]> 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 Leah 2 3.63 2024 Slow Dance
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Leah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/11/28
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]]> <![CDATA[The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club, #3)]]> 197036052
The police bring Judith, Suzie, and Becks in to investigate the murder as civilian advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart's content� which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure. But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable mayor of Marlow? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? The Marlow Murder Club is about to face their most difficult case yet...]]> 272 Robert Thorogood 1728284473 Leah 2 3.78 2024 The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club, #3)
author: Robert Thorogood
name: Leah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/11/27
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]]> <![CDATA[The Third to Die (Quinn & Costa #1)]]> 46039026
Detective Kara Quinn, on leave from the LAPD, is on an early morning jog in her hometown of Liberty Lake when she comes upon the body of a young nurse. The manner of death shows a pattern of highly controlled rage. Meanwhile in DC, FBI special agent Mathias Costa is staffing his newly minted Mobile Response Team. Word reaches Matt that the Liberty Lake murder fits the profile of the compulsive Triple Killer. It will be the first case for the MRT. This time they have a chance to stop this zealous if elusive killer before he strikes again. But only if they can figure out who he is and where he is hiding before he disappears for another three years. The stakes are higher than ever before, because if they fail, one of their own will be next...]]> 458 Allison Brennan 0778309444 Leah 3 4.00 2020 The Third to Die (Quinn & Costa #1)
author: Allison Brennan
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/11/23
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]]> <![CDATA[The Dead Lie Down (A Zailer & Waterhouse Mystery)]]> 20193915 A heart-stopping novel of psychological suspense from the internationally bestselling author of The Wrong Mother and The Other Woman’s House

Ruth Bussey once did something wrong � horribly wrong � and was nearly destroyed by her punishment. Now, she has tentatively rebuilt her life and unexpectedly found love with a man named Aidan Seed. But Aidan also has a secret, and one day he confides in Ruth: years ago, he killed a woman named Mary Trelease. Ruth's initial horror turns to confusion when she realizes that she knows Mary Trelease, and Mary is very much alive. So why does Aidan insist that she’s dead?
Ěý
The fourth book in Sophie Hannah’s beloved Zailer and Waterhouse series, The Dead Lie Down is a sophisticated, addictive page-turner that will appeal to fans of Laura Lippman and Tana French.
]]> 480 Sophie Hannah 110143466X Leah 0 3.62 2009 The Dead Lie Down (A Zailer & Waterhouse Mystery)
author: Sophie Hannah
name: Leah
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/20
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]]> Here One Moment 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.�

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Leah 4 3.98 2024 Here One Moment
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Leah
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Trouble with Goats and Sheep]]> 27276280 The Trouble with Goats and Sheep is a quirky and utterly charming debut about a community in need of absolution and two girls learning what it means to belong.

England, 1976. Mrs. Creasy is missing and the Avenue is alive with whispers. The neighbors blame her sudden disappearance on the heat wave, but ten-year-olds Grace and Tilly aren’t convinced. As the summer shimmers endlessly on, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands. Inspired by the local vicar, they go looking for God—they believe that if they find Him they might also find Mrs. Creasy and bring her home.

Spunky, spirited Grace and quiet, thoughtful Tilly go door to door in search of clues. The cul-de-sac starts to give up its secrets, and the amateur detectives uncover much more than ever imagined. As they try to make sense of what they’ve seen and heard, a complicated history of deception begins to emerge. Everyone on the Avenue has something to hide, a reason for not fitting in.

In the suffocating heat of the summer, the ability to guard these differences becomes impossible. Along with the parched lawns and the melting pavement, the lives of all the neighbors begin to unravel. What the girls don’t realize is that the lies told to conceal what happened one fateful day about a decade ago are the same ones Mrs. Creasy was beginning to peel back just before she disappeared.]]> 354 Joanna Cannon 1501121898 Leah 4 3.59 2016 The Trouble with Goats and Sheep
author: Joanna Cannon
name: Leah
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2016
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/11
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]]> Virgil Wander 39027388 Virgil Wander is an all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart.

Midwestern movie house owner Virgil Wander is "cruising along at medium altitude" when his car flies off the road into icy Lake Superior. Virgil survives but his language and memory are altered and he emerges into a world no longer familiar to him. Awakening in this new life, Virgil begins to piece together his personal history and the lore of his broken town, with the help of a cast of affable and curious locals--from Rune, a twinkling, pipe-smoking, kite-flying stranger investigating the mystery of his disappeared son; to Nadine, the reserved, enchanting wife of the vanished man; to Tom, a journalist and Virgil's oldest friend; and various members of the Pea family who must confront tragedies of their own. Into this community returns a shimmering prodigal son who may hold the key to reviving their town.]]> 303 Leif Enger 0802128785 Leah 5 3.97 2018 Virgil Wander
author: Leif Enger
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2018
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/11/06
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]]> The God of the Woods 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances.

Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet, The God of the Woods is a story of inheritance and second chances, the tensions between a family and a community, and a history that will not let any of them go.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Leah 5 4.09 2024 The God of the Woods
author: Liz Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/11/04
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]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 219449299 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?]]> 387 Richard Osman 059365322X Leah 4 4.06 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/11/01
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder on Tour (Mystery Bookshop, #9)]]> 123173937
While Sam wraps up her first whirlwind book tour, Nana Jo has kept Market Street Mysteries running smoothly. The last stop is a prestigious book festival in Sam’s hometown of North Harbor, Michigan. But not everyone thinks the guest of honor, bestselling author Judith Hunter, deserves stellar reviews. Sam witnesses nasty arguments between Judith and two different authors—who accuse her of plagiarism and sabotage . . .

When a publicist is poisoned during a cocktail reception, Sam wonders if the killer missed the intended target. It’s a twist that echoes the plot of Sam’s mystery, Murder at Wickfield Lodge. But fact can be stranger—and deadlier—than fiction. How much collateral damage is the killer willing to risk? With feisty Nana Jo and the girls from Shady Acres Retirement Village lending a hand, Sam tries to solve the case before the festival delivers another fatality . . .]]> 336 V.M. Burns 1496739485 Leah 3 3.99 2023 Murder on Tour (Mystery Bookshop, #9)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/31
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]]> The Ministry of Time 213308211 An alternative cover edition for this ASIN can be found here

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.]]> 335 Kaliane Bradley Leah 5 3.57 2024 The Ministry of Time
author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Leah
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Death Comes to Marlow (The Marlow Murder Club, #2)]]> 61632448
But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

The study was locked from the inside, so the police don’t consider the death suspicious. But Judith disagrees. As far as she's concerned, Peter was murdered! And it’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find the killer before he or she strikes again…]]> 288 Robert Thorogood 1728250544 Leah 3 3.94 2023 Death Comes to Marlow (The Marlow Murder Club, #2)
author: Robert Thorogood
name: Leah
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2023
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/27
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]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Leah 5 3.86 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles
author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Leah
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/26
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]]> <![CDATA[White Corridor (Bryant & May, #5)]]> 602698
It’s an “impossible� crime—a member of the Peculiar Crimes Unit killed inside a locked autopsy room populated only by the dead and to which only four PCU members had a key. And to make matters worse, the Unit has been shut down for a forced “vacation� and Bryant and May are stuck in a van miles away in the Dartmoor countryside during a freak snowstorm on their way to a convention of psychics.

Now, with Sergeant Janice Longbright in charge at headquarters, Bryant and May must crack the case by cell phone while trying to stop a second murder without freezing to death. For among the line of snowed-in vehicles, a killer is on the prowl, a beautiful woman is on the run from a man who seeks either redemption or another victim, and an innocent child is caught in the middle.

Weaving together two electrifying cases, White Corridor is an unforgettable triumph—by turns hilarious and harrowing—as two of detective fiction’s most marvelous characters confront one of human nature’s darkest mysteries: the ability to deceive, deny, and destroy.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 339 Christopher Fowler 0553804502 Leah 3 3.97 2007 White Corridor (Bryant & May, #5)
author: Christopher Fowler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2007
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/24
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]]> <![CDATA[Bookclubbed to Death (Mystery Bookshop #8)]]> 60795393 When the bookshop she owns becomes a crime scene, mystery writer Samantha Washington discovers there is such a thing as bad publicity . . .

After the local library in North Harbor, Michigan, is flooded in a storm, Sam offers her bookstore as a new venue for the Mystery Mavens Book Club. Unfortunately, she immediately runs afoul of the club leader, Delia Marshall, a book reviewer who can make or break careers—something Sam can ill afford with her debut historical mystery soon to be published.

But the next morning, Sam opens her shop to find the unpleasant woman dead on the floor, bashed with a heavy—apparently lethal—tome: the Complete Works of Agatha Christie. While Sam is busy writing her latest British historical mystery in which the queen mother is suspected in the murder of a London Times correspondent, a pair of ambitious cops suspect Sam of the real-life crime. When she gathers Nano Jo and their friends from the Shady Acres Retirement Village to review the case, they discover every one of the Mavens had a motive. With her novel about to hit the stores, Sam must find out who clubbed Delia before a judge throws the book at her . . .]]> 336 V.M. Burns 1496739469 Leah 3 3.98 2022 Bookclubbed to Death (Mystery Bookshop #8)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/10/20
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]]> The Whisper Sister: A Novel 204221626 The author of Modern Girls delivers an atmospheric coming-of-age story set in Prohibition-era New York, tracing one immigrant family’s fortunes and a young girl’s journey from the schoolyard to the speakeasy.

The streets of New York in 1920 are most certainly not paved with gold, as Minnie Soffer learns when she arrives at Ellis Island. Her father, who left Ukraine when Minnie was a toddler, feels like a stranger. She sleeps on a mattress on the kitchen floor. She understands nothing at school. They came to America for this?

As her family adjusts to this new life, Minnie and her brother work hard to learn English and make friends. When her father, Ike, opens his own soda shop, stability and citizenship seem within reach. But the soda shop is not what it seems; it’s a front for Ike’s real a speakeasy.

When tragedy strikes the Soffers, Minnie has no choice but to take over the bar. She’s determined to make the speakeasy a success despite the risks it brings to herself, her family, and her freedom. At what price does the American dream come true? Minnie won’t stop until she finds out.]]> 429 Jennifer S. Brown 1662521235 Leah 5 4.43 2024 The Whisper Sister: A Novel
author: Jennifer S. Brown
name: Leah
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/20
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Just loved this!!! Great story, great characters and great glimpse of history
]]> <![CDATA[Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6)]]> 203164357 The stage is set. Marooned overnight by a snowstorm in a grand country house are a cast of characters and a setting that even Agatha Christie might recognize â€� a vicar, an Army major, a Dowager, a sleuth and his sidekick - except that the sleuth is Jackson Brodie, and the â€sidekickâ€� is DC Reggie Chase.

The crumbling house - Burton Makepeace and its chatelaine the Dowager Lady Milton - suffered the loss of their last remaining painting of any value, a Turner, some years ago. The housekeeper, Sophie, who disappeared the same night, is suspected of stealing it.

Jackson, a reluctant hostage to the snowstorm, has been investigating the theft of another The Woman with a Weasel, a portrait, taken from the house of an elderly widow, on the morning she died. The suspect this time is the widow’s carer, Melanie. Is this a coincidence or is there a connection? And what secrets does The Woman with a Weasel hold? The puzzle is Jackson’s to solve. And let’s not forget that a convicted murderer is on the run on the moors around Burton Makepeace.

All the while, in a bid to make money, Burton Makepeace is determined to keep hosting a shambolic Murder Mystery that acts as a backdrop while the real drama is being played out in the house.

A brilliantly plotted, supremely entertaining, and utterly compulsive tour de force from a great writer at the height of her powers.]]> 320 Kate Atkinson 0385547994 Leah 5 3.69 2024 Death at the Sign of the Rook (Jackson Brodie, #6)
author: Kate Atkinson
name: Leah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/18
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]]> Black and Blue 5157
Now she is starting over in a city far from home, far from Bobby. And in this place she uses a name that isn't hers, and cradles her son in her arms, and tries to forget. For the woman who now calls herself Beth, every day is a chance to heal, to put together the pieces of her shattered self. And every day she waits for Bobby to catch up to her. Because Bobby always said he would never let her go. And despite the flawlessness of her escape, Fran Benedetto is certain of one thing: It is only a matter of time...]]> 288 Anna Quindlen 0385333137 Leah 3 3.90 1998 Black and Blue
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Leah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1998
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> After Annie 177185880
Yet over the course of the next year, while Annie looms large in their memories, all three are able to grow, to change, even to become stronger and more sure of themselves. The enduring power Annie gave to those who loved her is the power to love, and to go on without her.

Written in Quindlen’s emotionally resonant voice, and with her deep and generous understanding of people, After Annie is a story that ends with hope, a beautiful novel about how adversity can change us in profound ways.]]> 283 Anna Quindlen 0593229800 Leah 4 3.89 2024 After Annie
author: Anna Quindlen
name: Leah
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/14
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]]> The Marlow Murder Club 59076831
Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper.

One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar.

Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.

When another body turns up, they realise they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…]]> 282 Robert Thorogood 172825051X Leah 3 3.73 2021 The Marlow Murder Club
author: Robert Thorogood
name: Leah
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/13
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club]]> 196845474 Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

It is the summer of 1919 and Constance Haverhill is without prospects. Now that all the men have returned from the front, she has been asked to give up her cottage and her job at the estate she helped run during the war. While she looks for a position as a bookkeeper or—horror—a governess, she’s sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who is convalescing at a seaside hotel. Despite having only weeks to find a permanent home, Constance is swept up in the social whirl of Hazelbourne-on-Sea after she rescues the local baronet’s daughter, Poppy Wirrall, from a social faux pas.

Poppy wears trousers, operates a taxi and delivery service to employ local women, and runs a ladies� motorcycle club (to which she plans to add flying lessons). She and her friends enthusiastically welcome Constance into their circle. And then there is Harris, Poppy’s recalcitrant but handsome brother—a fighter pilot recently wounded in battle—who warms in Constance’s presence. But things are more complicated than they seem in this sunny pocket of English high society. As the country prepares to celebrate its hard-won peace, Constance and the women of the club are forced to confront the fact that the freedoms they gained during the war are being revoked.

Whip-smart and utterly transportive, The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club is historical fiction of the highest order: an unforgettable coming-of-age story, a tender romance, and a portrait of a nation on the brink of change.]]> 432 Helen Simonson 1984801317 Leah 5 3.84 2024 The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club
author: Helen Simonson
name: Leah
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Killer Words (Mystery Bookshop, #7)]]> 57346033

Bookstore owner and mystery writer Samantha Washington comes to the aid of the cop who once arrested her own grandmother...

Sam and Nana Jo are back in sleepy North Harbor, Michigan, where Sam is eagerly awaiting the publication of her first book. In search of more immediate excitement, Nana Jo hits the casino with her fellow Shady Acres Retirement Village gal pals—but they get more than they bargained for when they witness Detective Bradley Pitt decking mayoral candidate John Cloverton.

As Sam well knows, mystery novels are full of brilliant detectives, genius sleuths, and hero cops. Detective Bradley Pitt—aka “Stinky Pitt”—is another story. In the past, the dull-witted detective has mistakenly accused members of Sam’s family for crimes they didn’t commit. Now, it’s his when Cloverton turns up dead, he’s arrested. With his predilection for polyester, Pitt has been wanted by the fashion police for years, but Nana Jo knows her former elementary school math student would never commit murder—it doesn’t add up. Somebody’s framed the flatfoot to take a fall, and Sam and Nana Jo must step in to restore the reputation and good name of Detective Pitt.

Praise for THE PLOT IS MURDER

“A promising debut with a satisfying conclusion.� � Publishers Weekly

“Cozy mystery readers and historical novel aficionados will adore this warm-hearted, cleverly plotted new series.� � Kings River Life]]> 336 V.M. Burns 1496728971 Leah 3 4.18 2021 Killer Words (Mystery Bookshop, #7)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2021
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/09
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]]> Daughters of Shandong 195888874
A propulsive, extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters� harrowing escape to Taiwan as the Communist revolution sweeps through China, by debut author Eve J. Chung, based on her family story

Daughters are the Ang family’s curse.

In 1948, civil war ravages the Chinese countryside, but in rural Shandong, the wealthy, landowning Angs are more concerned with their lack of an heir. Hai is the eldest of four girls and spends her days looking after her sisters. Headstrong Di, who is just a year younger, learns to hide in plain sight, and their mother—abused by the family for failing to birth a boy—finds her own small acts of rebellion in the kitchen. As the Communist army closes in on their town, the rest of the prosperous household flees, leaving behind the girls and their mother because they view them as useless mouths to feed.

Without an Ang male to punish, the land-seizing cadres choose Hai, as the eldest child, to stand trial for her family’s crimes. She barely survives their brutality. Realizing the worst is yet to come, the women plan their escape. Starving and penniless but resourceful, they forge travel permits and embark on a thousand-mile journey to confront the family that abandoned them.

From the countryside to the bustling city of Qingdao, and onward to British Hong Kong and eventually Taiwan, they witness the changing tide of a nation and the plight of multitudes caught in the wake of revolution. But with the loss of their home and the life they’ve known also comes new freedom—to take hold of their fate, to shake free of the bonds of their gender, and to claim their own story.

Told in assured, evocative prose, with impeccably drawn characters, Daughters of Shandong is a hopeful, powerful story about the resilience of women in war; the enduring love between mothers, daughters, and sisters; and the sacrifices made to lift up future generations.]]> 400 Eve J. Chung 0593640535 Leah 4 4.45 2024 Daughters of Shandong
author: Eve J. Chung
name: Leah
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/08
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]]> Victim 177185976
Javier Perez is a hustler from a family of hustlers. He learns from an early age how to play the game to his own advantage, how his background—murdered drug dealer dad, single cash-strapped mom, best friend serving time for gang activity—can be a key to doors he didn’t even know existed. This kind of story, molded in the right way, is just what college admissions committees are looking for, and a full academic scholarship to a prestigious university brings Javi one step closer to his dream of becoming a famous writer.

As a college student, Javi embellishes his life story until there’s not even a kernel of truth left. The only real connection to his past is the occasional letter he trades with his childhood best friend, Gio, who doesn’t seem to care about Javi’s newfound awareness of white privilege or the school-to-prison pipeline. Soon after Javi graduates, a viral essay transforms him from a writer on the rise to a journalist at a legendary magazine where the editors applaud his “unique perspective.� But Gio more than anyone knows who Javi really is, and sees through his game. Once Gio’s released from prison and Javi offers to cut him in on the deal, will he play along with Javi’s charade, or will it all come crumbling down?

A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots with a tender portrait of friendship at its core, Victim asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes.]]> 276 Andrew Boryga 0385549970 Leah 4 3.83 2024 Victim
author: Andrew Boryga
name: Leah
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/07
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]]> This Strange Eventful History 201187765
Over seven decades, from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state—separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all. This Strange Eventful History, told with historical sweep, is above all a family story: of patriarch Gaston and his wife Lucienne, whose myth of perfect love sustains them and stifles their children; of François and Denise, devoted siblings connected by their family’s strangeness; of François’s union with Barbara, a woman so culturally different they can barely comprehend one another; of Chloe, the result of that union, who believes that telling these buried stories will bring them all peace.

Inspired in part by long-ago stories from her own family’s history, Claire Messud animates her characters� rich interior lives amid the social an]]> 448 Claire Messud 039363504X Leah 3 3.50 This Strange Eventful History
author: Claire Messud
name: Leah
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> Tom Lake 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

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

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Leah 4 3.92 2023 Tom Lake
author: Ann Patchett
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/10/02
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]]> Last Acts 176443757
“Honest, highwire, virtuosic writing that summons up the world with all its charms and hazards.� —George Saunders, author of Liberation Day
“This funny as hell tale kept me moved to the core. Unputdownable.� —Mary Karr, author of Lit

Even though his firearms store is failing, things are looking up for David Rizzo. His son, Nick, has just recovered after a near-fatal overdose, which means one Rizzo can use Nick’s resurrection to create the most compelling television commercial for a gun emporium that the world has ever seen. After all, this is America , Rizzo tells himself. Surely anything is possible. But the relationship between father and son is fragile, mired in mutual disappointment. And when the pair embarks on their scheme to avoid bankruptcy, a high stakes crash of hijinks, hope, and disaster ensues.

Featuring a cast of unforgettable characters, this razor-sharp social satire lays bare both the gun and opioid crises. Fans of Don DeLillo and Stephen Markley will be thrilled by this smart, inventive debut.]]> 224 Alexander Sammartino 1982196742 Leah 0 3.21 2024 Last Acts
author: Alexander Sammartino
name: Leah
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/30
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]]> Our Gen 61375637 Residents of an active-living retirement community revert to lives of youthful indulgence, even as time-bomb secrets of their pasts tick toward explosion.

The Gen--short for Sexagenarian--is an upscale fifty-five-plus community located in the bucolic suburbs of Philadelphia. Main character Cynthia befriends the Gen's two other Black residents, Bloc and Tish, as well as Lavia, who everyone assumes is from India. They regularly convene to smoke weed, line dance, and debate politics and philosophy as the wine goes down like silk. Their camaraderie is exhilarating.

But beneath the fun and froth, storms gather. With its walls of windows gushing light and air, the Gen becomes the catalyst for secrets to be exposed.

Shifting the narrative between the characters' pasts and the present day, Diane McKinney-Whetstone deftly builds suspense as she captures with insight, poignancy, and humor, the scars, tenderness, and swagger of those not yet old, but no longer young, coming to the mean acceptance that life is finite after all, who knew.]]> 255 Diane McKinney-Whetstone 0063140136 Leah 4 4.26 2022 Our Gen
author: Diane McKinney-Whetstone
name: Leah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/09/28
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]]> The Leftover Woman 78296909 An evocative family drama and a riveting mystery about the ferocious pull of motherhood for two very different women--from the New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee and Girl in Translation.

Jasmine Yang arrives in New York City from her rural Chinese village without money or family support, fleeing a controlling husband, on a desperate search for the daughter who was taken from her at birth--another female casualty of China's controversial One Child Policy. But with her husband on her trail, the clock is ticking, and she's forced to make increasingly desperate decisions if she ever hopes to be reunited with her daughter.

Meanwhile, publishing executive Rebecca Whitney seems to have it all: a prestigious family name and the wealth that comes with it, a high-powered career, a beautiful home, a handsome husband, and an adopted Chinese daughter she adores. She's even hired a Chinese nanny to help her balance the demands of being a working wife and mother. But when an industry scandal threatens to jeopardize not only Rebecca's job but her marriage, this perfect world begins to crumble and her role in her own family is called into question.

The Leftover Woman finds these two unforgettable women on a shocking collision course. Twisting and suspenseful and surprisingly poignant, it's a profound exploration of identity and belonging, motherhood and family. It is a story of two women in a divided city--separated by severe economic and cultural differences yet bound by a deep emotional connection to a child.]]> 288 Jean Kwok 0063031469 Leah 2 3.72 2023 The Leftover Woman
author: Jean Kwok
name: Leah
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2023
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/09/26
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]]> <![CDATA[A Tourist's Guide to Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #6)]]> 53599417 While visiting the land of Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes, bookstore owner and amateur sleuth Samantha Washington finds herself on a tragical mystery tour . . .

Sam joins Nana Jo and her Shady Acres Retirement Village friends Irma, Dorothy, and Ruby Mae on a weeklong trip to London, England, to experience the Peabody Mystery Lovers Tour. The chance to see the sights and walk the streets that inspired Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle is a dream come true for Sam—and a perfect way to celebrate her new publishing contract as a mystery author.

But between visits to Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel district and 221B Baker Street, Major Horace Peabody is found dead, supposedly of natural causes. Despite his employer’s unfortunate demise, the tour guide insists on keeping calm and carrying on—until another tourist on their trip also dies under mysterious circumstances. Now it’s up to Sam and the Shady Acres ladies to mix and mingle among their fellow mystery lovers, find a motive, and turn up a murderer . . .]]> 250 V.M. Burns 1496728955 Leah 3 3.74 2021 A Tourist's Guide to Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #6)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/25
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]]> <![CDATA[Ten Second Staircase (Bryant & May #4)]]> 1616899
As implausible as the boy’s story sounds, Bryant and May take it seriously when “The Highwayman� is spotted again, striking a dramatic pose at the scene of his next outlandish murder. Whatever the killer’s real identity, he seems intent on killing off a string of minor celebrities while becoming one himself.

As the tabloids look to make a quick bundle on “Highwayman Fever,� Bryant and May, along with the newest member of the Unit, May’s agoraphobic granddaughter, April, find themselves sorting out a case involving an unlikely combination of artistic rivalries, sleazy sex affairs, the Knights Templars, and street gang feuds. To do it, they’re going to have to use every orthodox–and unorthodox–means at their disposal, including myth, witchcraft, and the psychogeographic history of the city’s “monsters,� past and present.

And if one unsolvable crime weren’t enough, this case has disturbing links to a decades-old killing spree that nearly destroyed the partnership of Bryant and May once before…and may again. The Peculiar Crimes Unit is one murder away from being closed down for good–and that murder could be their own.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 356 Christopher Fowler 0553804499 Leah 3 3.72 2006 Ten Second Staircase (Bryant & May #4)
author: Christopher Fowler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/24
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]]> Tigerlily's Orchids 11256372
Diamond Dagger Award–winning Ruth Rendell has written a psychologically thrilling novel about the eccentric inhabitants of a London terrace, the secrets they keep, and what they will do to hide them.

Is it dangerous to know too much about your neighbors?

When Stuart Font decides to throw a housewarming party in his new flat, he invites all the people in his building—three flippant young girls, a lonely spinster, a man with a passion for classical history, and a woman determined to drink herself to death. After some deliberation, he even includes the unpleasant caretaker and his wife. He considered inviting a few other friends, but he definitely does not want his girlfriend, Claudia, in attendance, as he would also have to invite her lawyer husband.

As it turns out, the party will be one everyone remembers.

Living in a townhouse opposite Stuart’s building, in reclusive isolation, is a young, beautiful Asian woman known as Tigerlily. As though from some strange urban fairytale, she emerges infrequently to exert a terrible spell.

And Stuart’s parents, always worried about their handsome, hopelessly naive, and undermotivated son, have even more cause for concern.

Darkly humorous, piercingly insightful about human behavior, Ruth Rendell, whom People magazine calls “one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation,� has created an extraordinarily compelling story of our lives and crimes.]]> 354 Ruth Rendell 1439154384 Leah 3 3.64 2010 Tigerlily's Orchids
author: Ruth Rendell
name: Leah
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2010
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/21
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]]> The Coffins of Little Hope 11356938 169 Timothy Schaffert 1609530411 Leah 4 3.19 2011 The Coffins of Little Hope
author: Timothy Schaffert
name: Leah
average rating: 3.19
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at: 2011/07/30
date added: 2024/09/21
shelves:
review:
i really enjoyed this - it reads quickly and i really liked the characters......
]]> <![CDATA[Bookmarked for Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #5)]]> 44283549 Amateur sleuth Samantha Washington’s shopping trip to Chicago takes a deadly detour when a man is murdered on her bus . . .

After some post-Christmas retail therapy in the Windy City, mystery bookshop owner and historical whodunit novelist Sam Washington is returning home to North Harbor, Michigan, on a chartered bus. With Nana Jo and her gal pals Irma, Dorothy, and Ruby Mae from Shady Acres Retirement Village along for the ride, it's a lively trip. But one passenger is not so lively—a gentleman Irma befriended is found dead in his seat after an unscheduled stop. The ladies immediately shift gears to find out who punched his ticket, while Sam slips into the driver's seat to make sure Nana Jo and her crew steer clear of fatal conclusions . . .]]> 256 V.M. Burns 1496718313 Leah 3 3.94 2019 Bookmarked for Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #5)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/09/19
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]]> In Tongues 195790706 A young gay man upends the lives of a powerful art-world couple in this steamy novel of self-discovery.

It’s 2001, and twenty-four-year-old Gordon―handsome, sensitive, and eager for direction―takes a bus from Minnesota to New York City because it’s the only place for a young gay man to go. As he begins to settle into the city’s punishing rhythm, he gets a job walking rich Manhattanites� dogs. But it isn’t until he stumbles into the West Village brownstone of two of his clients, the powerful gallery owners Phillip and Nicola, that Gordon learns how much the world has hidden from him―and what he’s capable of doing in order to get it for himself.

A lush, heart-quickening novel about family and art, sex and class, and the terror of self-discovery, Thomas Grattan’s In Tongues chronicles Gordon’s perilous pursuit of belonging from the Midwest to New York and, later, to Europe and Mexico City. As he floats further into Phillip and Nicola’s exclusive universe, and as lines blur between employee, muse, lover, and mentor, Gordon’s charm, manipulation, and growing ambition begin to escape his own control, in turn threatening to unravel the lives, and lies, of those around him.

Anchored by winsome lyricism, glinting intellect, and a main character whose yearnings and mistakes come to feel like our own, In Tongues crackles with fierce longing and pointed emotion, further confirming Grattan as a rare chronicler of young adulthood’s joys and devastations.]]> 288 Thomas Grattan 0374608180 Leah 2 3.93 2024 In Tongues
author: Thomas Grattan
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)]]> 195820807
Emma hadn't planned that her next assignment as a traveling nurse would be in Minnesota, but she and her best friend agree that dating Justin is too good of an opportunity to pass up, especially when they get to rent an adorable cottage on a private island on Lake Minnetonka.

It's supposed to be a quick fling, just for the summer. But when Emma's toxic mother shows up and Justin has to assume guardianship of his three siblings, they're suddenly navigating a lot more than they expected--including catching real feelings for each other. What if this time Fate has actually brought the perfect pair together?]]> 432 Abby Jimenez 1538704439 Leah 3 4.35 2024 Just for the Summer (Part of Your World, #3)
author: Abby Jimenez
name: Leah
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Novel Art of Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #3)]]> 39339734 Mystery bookstore owner Samantha Washington is trying to keep her grandmother from spending her golden years in an orange jumpsuit . . .

The small town of North Harbor, Michigan, is just not big enough for the two of them: flamboyant phony Maria Romanov and feisty Nana Jo. The insufferable Maria claims she's descended from Russian royalty and even had a fling with King Edward VIII back in the day. She’s not just a lousy liar, she's a bad actress, so when she nabs the lead in the Shady Acres Senior Follies—a part Nana Jo plays every year in their retirement village production—Nana Jo blows a gasket and reads her the riot act in front of everyone.

Of course, when Maria is silenced with a bullet to the head, Nana Jo lands the leading role on the suspects list. Sam’s been writing her newest mystery, set in England between the wars, with her intrepid heroine Lady Daphne drawn into murder and scandal in the household of Winston Churchill. But now she has to prove that Nana Jo’s been framed. With help from her grandmother's posse of rambunctious retirees, Sam shines a spotlight on Maria’s secrets, hoping to draw the real killer out of the shadows . . .]]> 338 V.M. Burns 1496711866 Leah 3 4.09 2018 The Novel Art of Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #3)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/15
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]]> <![CDATA[The Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs, #18)]]> 199703402
The Comfort of Ghosts completes Jacqueline Winspear’s ground-breaking and internationally bestselling series.

“An outstanding historical series.”—The New York Times

“Winspear is a brilliant writer, mixing the history and the mystery with the psychology of criminals and victims.”—The Historical Novel Society

Psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs unravels a profound mystery from her past in a war-torn nation grappling with its future.

London, 1945: Four adolescent orphans with a dark wartime history are squatting in a vacant Belgravia mansion—the owners having fled London under heavy Luftwaffe bombing. Psychologist and Investigator Maisie Dobbs visits the mansion on behalf of the owners and discovers that a demobilized soldier, gravely ill and reeling from his experiences overseas, has taken shelter with the group.

Maisie’s quest to bring comfort to the youngsters and the ailing soldier brings to light a decades-old mystery concerning Maisie’s first husband, James Compton, who was killed while piloting an experimental fighter aircraft. As Maisie unravels the threads of her dead husband’s life, she is forced to examine her own painful past and question beliefs she has always accepted as true.

The award-winning Maisie Dobbs series has garnered hundreds of thousands of followers, readers drawn to a woman who is of her time, yet familiar in ours—and who inspires with her resilience and capacity for endurance. This final assignment of her own choosing not only opens a new future for Maisie and her family, but serves as a fascinating portrayal of the challenges facing the people of Britain at the close of the Second World War.]]> 342 Jacqueline Winspear 1641296062 Leah 4 4.26 2024 The Comfort of Ghosts (Maisie Dobbs, #18)
author: Jacqueline Winspear
name: Leah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/09/13
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]]> True Biz 58395049 TRUE BIZ (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk

True biz? The students at the River Valley School for the Deaf just want to hook up, pass their history finals, and have politicians, doctors, and their parents stop telling them what to do with their bodies. This revelatory novel plunges readers into the halls of a residential school for the deaf, where they'll meet Charlie, a rebellious transfer student who's never met another deaf person before; Austin, the school's golden boy, whose world is rocked when his baby sister is born hearing; and February, the headmistress, who is fighting to keep her school open and her marriage intact, but might not be able to do both. As a series of crises both personal and political threaten to unravel each of them, Charlie, Austin, and February find their lives inextricable from one another's—and changed forever.

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.]]> 386 Sara Nović 0593241509 Leah 5 4.06 2022 True Biz
author: Sara Nović
name: Leah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[Wed, Read & Dead (Mystery Bookshop, #4)]]> 41064692 Bookstore owner Samantha Washington sells and solves mysteries in North Harbor, Michigan--including the murder of her mother's wedding planner...

Sam's mother can't wait to wed her wealthy beau, Harold Robertson. The big mystery is how they're going to pull off a lavish wedding in three weeks. Harold's snobby sister-in-law proposes a solution: engage flamboyant wedding planner Lydia Lighthouse. But their beacon of hope quickly sends everyone into a blind rage, most of all the groom-to-be. So when the maddening micromanager is strangled with her own scarf, it's a shock, but not a surprise.

It's a case of art imitating life as Sam pens her next historical mystery set in England between the wars. Lady Daphne Marsh insists on marrying Lord James Browning on Christmas Eve, three weeks hence. But when the fop planning their wedding ends up with a knife in his back, she vows to nab the backstabber before she walks down the aisle.

Meanwhile, when she's not writing, Sam and her beloved and boisterous Nana Jo rush to shine a light on Lydia's killer--so her mother's new husband won't spend his honeymoon behind bars...]]> 263 V.M. Burns 1496718291 Leah 3 4.01 2019 Wed, Read & Dead (Mystery Bookshop, #4)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/09/09
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]]> All We Were Promised 182484361 A housemaid with a dangerous family secret conspires with a wealthy young abolitionist to help an enslaved girl escape, in volatile pre-Civil War Philadelphia.

The rebel . . . the socialite . . . and the fugitive. Together, they will risk everything for one another in this “beguiling story of friendship, deception, and women crossing boundaries in the name of freedom� (Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Lost Friends).

Philadelphia, 1837. After Charlotte escaped from the crumbling White Oaks plantation down South, she’d expected freedom to feel different from her former life as an enslaved housemaid. After all, Philadelphia is supposed to be the birthplace of American liberty. Instead, she’s locked away playing servant to her white-passing father, as they both attempt to hide their identities from slavecatchers who would destroy their new lives.

Longing to break away, Charlotte befriends Nell, a budding abolitionist from one of Philadelphia’s wealthiest Black families. Just as Charlotte starts to envision a future, a familiar face from her past reappears: Evie, her friend from White Oaks, has been brought to the city by the plantation mistress, and she’s desperate to escape. But as Charlotte and Nell conspire to rescue her, in a city engulfed by race riots and attacks on abolitionists, they soon discover that fighting for Evie’s freedom may cost them their own.]]> 368 Ashton Lattimore 0593600150 Leah 0 3.79 2024 All We Were Promised
author: Ashton Lattimore
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/09/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Seventy-Seven Clocks (Peculiar Crimes Unit #3)]]> 5691589 496 Christopher Fowler 0553385542 Leah 4 3.74 2005 Seventy-Seven Clocks (Peculiar Crimes Unit #3)
author: Christopher Fowler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/09/01
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]]> French Exit 39009919 From bestselling author Patrick deWitt, a brilliant and darkly comic novel about a wealthy widow and her adult son who flee New York for Paris in the wake of scandalĚýand financial disintegration.

Frances Price � tart widow, possessive mother, and Upper East Side force of nature � is in dire straits, beset by scandal and impending bankruptcy. Her adult son Malcolm is no help, mired in a permanent state of arrested development. And then there’s the Price’s aging cat, Small Frank, who Frances believes houses the spirit of her late husband, an infamously immoral litigator and world-class cad whose gruesome tabloid death rendered Frances and Malcolm social outcasts.

Putting penury and pariahdom behind them, the family decides to cut their losses and head for the exit. One ocean voyage later, the curious trio land in their beloved Paris, the City of Light serving as a backdrop not for love or romance, but self destruction and economical ruin â€� to riotous effect. A number of singular characters serve to round out the cast: a bashful private investigator, an aimless psychic proposing a seance, and a doctor who makes house calls with his wine merchant in tow, to name a few.ĚýĚý

Brimming with pathos, French Exit is a one-of-a-kind 'tragedy of manners,' a send-up of high society, as well as a moving mother/son caper which only Patrick deWitt could conceive and execute.Ěý]]> 256 Patrick deWitt 0062846930 Leah 0 3.61 2018 French Exit
author: Patrick deWitt
name: Leah
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/25
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]]> Ladder of Years 8501738 NEW YORK TIMESĚýBESTSELLERĚý•ĚýFrom the beloved Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Breathing Lessons"BALTIMORE WOMAN DISAPPEARS DURING FAMILY VACATION." The headlines are all the Beloved mother and wife Delia Grinstead was last seen strolling down the Delaware shore, wearing only a bathing suit and carrying a beach tote with five hundred dollars tucked inside. To the best of her family's knowledge, she has disappeared without a trace. But Delia didn't disappear. She ran.Exhausted with her routine and everyone else's plans for her, Delia needed an out, a chance to make a new life for herself and to become a different person. The new Delia can let go of all the hurt and resentment that left her stuck in her past. As she eagerly sheds the pieces of herself she no longer needs, Delia discovers feelings of passion and wonder she'd long since forgotten. The thrill of walking away from it all leads to a newfound sense of self and the feeling that she is, finally, the star of her own life story.]]> 347 Anne Tyler 0307434346 Leah 3 3.84 1995 Ladder of Years
author: Anne Tyler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1995
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> Sandwich 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Leah 5 3.55 2024 Sandwich
author: Catherine Newman
name: Leah
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/24
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]]> Olga Dies Dreaming 57693171
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets...

Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream--all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.]]> 369 Xóchitl González 1250786177 Leah 4 3.95 2022 Olga Dies Dreaming
author: Xóchitl González
name: Leah
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/23
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]]> Table for Two 195474144 From the bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway, A Gentleman in Moscow, and Rules of Civility, a richly detailed and sharply drawn collection of stories set in New York and Los Angeles. The millions of readers of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of compromise which operate at the heart of modern marriages. In Towles’s novel, Rules of Civility, the indomitable Evelyn Ross leaves New York City in September, 1938, with the intention of returning home to Indiana. But as her train pulls into Chicago, where her parents are waiting, she instead extends her ticket to Los Angeles. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood� describes how Eve crafts a new future for herself—and others—in the midst of Hollywood’s golden age. Throughout the stories, two characters often find themselves sitting across a table for two where the direction of their futures may hinge upon what they say to each other next. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting historical fiction.]]> 451 Amor Towles 0593296370 Leah 5 4.15 2024 Table for Two
author: Amor Towles
name: Leah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/18
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]]> <![CDATA[The Water Room (Bryant & May #2)]]> 5511764
They are living legends with a reputation for solving even the trickiest cases using unorthodox, unconventional, and often completely unauthorized methods. But the Peculiar Crimes Unit headed by Detectives John May and Arthur Bryant is one mistake away from being shut down for good. And when the elderly sister of Bryant’s friend is found dead in the basement of her decrepit house in Kentish Town, they find themselves on the verge of making exactly that mistake.

According to the coroner, Ruth Singh’s heart simply stopped beating. But why was a woman who rarely left the house fully dressed for an outing? And why was there river water in her throat? Convinced that the old lady didn’t die a natural death, the detectives delve into a murky case with no apparent motive, no forensics, and no clues. And they’ve barely launched their investigation when death claims another victim. Suddenly they discover some very unnatural behavior surrounding Ruth Singh’s death by “natural� causes—from shady real estate developers and racist threats to two troubled marriages, from a dodgy academician working London’s notorious “grey economy� to a network of antiquities collectors obsessed with Egyptian mythology. And running beneath it all are the sweeping tentacles of London’s vast and forgotten underground river system. As the rains pour down and the water rises, Bryant and May must rely on instinct, experience, and their own very peculiar methods to stem a tide of evil that threatens to drown them all.]]> 368 Christopher Fowler 0553803891 Leah 3 3.63 2004 The Water Room (Bryant & May #2)
author: Christopher Fowler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2004
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Blue Lightning (Shetland Island, #4)]]> 7939087 357 Ann Cleeves 0312384351 Leah 4 3.97 2010 Blue Lightning (Shetland Island, #4)
author: Ann Cleeves
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> Winter Storms (Winter, #3) 28962891 Gather under the mistletoe for one last round of caroling with the Quinn family in this heartwarming conclusion to Elin Hilderbrand's bestselling Winter Street Trilogy.

Some of the stormy weather of the past few seasons seems to have finally lifted for the Quinns. After a year apart, and an ill-fated affair with the Winter Street Inn's old Santa Claus, Mitzi has returned to rule the roost; Patrick is about to be released from prison; Kevin has a successful new business and is finally ready to tie the knot with Isabelle; and best of all, there's hopeful news about Bart, who has been captured by enemy forces in Afghanistan.

That doesn't mean there aren't a few dark clouds on the horizon. Kelley has recently survived a health scare; Jennifer can't quite shake her addiction to the drugs she used as a crutch while Patrick was in jail; and Ava still can't decide between the two lovers that she's been juggling with limited success. However, if there's one holiday that brings the Quinn family together to give thanks for the good times, it's Christmas. And this year promises to be a celebration unlike any other as the Quinns prepare to host Kevin and Isabelle's wedding at the inn. But as the special day approaches, a historic once-in-a-century blizzard bears down on Nantucket, threatening to keep the Quinns away from the place--and the people--they love most. Before the snow clears, the Quinns will have to survive enough upheavals to send anyone running for the spiked eggnog, in this touching novel that proves that when the holidays roll around, you can always go home again.]]> 246 Elin Hilderbrand 0316261173 Leah 3 3.85 2016 Winter Storms (Winter, #3)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2016
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> Winter Stroll (Winter, #2) 24819476 "Happy Holidays 2015! It has been a rough year for the Quinns, but I would like to start by saying thank you for all of the well wishes and positive missives sent our way."

Another Christmas on Nantucket finds Winter Street Inn owner Kelley Quinn reflecting on the past year as he writes a holiday letter to friends and family. Though the year has had its share of misfortune and worry, the Quinns have much to celebrate. Kelley, now single, at least is on better terms with his first wife Margaret, who is using her celebrity to lure customers to the inn in record numbers. Their son Kevin has a beautiful new baby, Genevieve, with the Inn's French housekeeper, Isabelle; and their daughter, Ava, is finally dating a nice guy--her devoted colleague, Scott.

Now the Quinns are looking forward to celebrating Genevieve's baptism, welcoming Isabelle to the family, and enjoying the cheer of Nantucket's traditional Christmas Stroll. But just when a peaceful family gathering seems within reach, Kelley's estranged second wife, Mitzi, shows up on the island after souring on her relationship with the inn's former Santa Claus. Soon Kelley isn't the only Quinn entertaining a surprise guest from Christmases past as lovers old and new gather beneath the mistletoe. With jealousy, passion, and eggnog consumption at an all-time high, it's going to take a whole lot more than a Christmas miracle to get the Quinns--and the inn--through the holidays intact.]]> 263 Elin Hilderbrand 0316261130 Leah 3 3.79 2015 Winter Stroll (Winter, #2)
author: Elin Hilderbrand
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (Mrs. Pollifax, #1)]]> 140524 204 Dorothy Gilman 0449208281 Leah 3 4.13 1966 The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax (Mrs. Pollifax, #1)
author: Dorothy Gilman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1966
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> Mania 181109972 What if calling someone stupid was illegal? In a reality not too distant from our own, where the so-called Mental Parity Movement has taken hold, the worst thing you can call someone is 'stupid'.

Everyone is equally clever, and discrimination based on intelligence is 'the last great civil rights fight'.

Exams and grades are all discarded, and smart phones are rebranded. Children are expelled for saying the S-word and encouraged to report parents for using it. You don't need a qualification to be a doctor.

Best friends since adolescence, Pearson and Emory find themselves on opposing sides of this new culture war. Radio personality Emory � who has built her career riding the tide of popular thought � makes increasingly hard-line statements while, for her part, Pearson believes the whole thing is ludicrous.

As their friendship fractures, Pearson's determination to cling onto the 'old, bigoted way of thinking' begins to endanger her job, her safety and even her family.

Lionel Shriver turns her piercing gaze on the policing of opinion and intellect, and imagines a world in which intellectual meritocracy is heresy. Hilarious, deadpan, scathing and at times frighteningly plausible, MANIA will delight the many fans of her fiction and journalism alike.]]> 288 Lionel Shriver 0063345390 Leah 4 3.58 2024 Mania
author: Lionel Shriver
name: Leah
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/08/04
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]]> <![CDATA[Read Herring Hunt (Mystery Bookshop, #2)]]> 35881950 Mystery bookstore owner Samantha Washington is about to find out it's not so easy to play Monday morning quarterback when it comes to murder. . .

To the town of North Harbor, Michigan, MISU quarterback Dawson Alexander is a local hero. To Samantha Washington, owner of the Market Street Mysteries Bookstore, Dawson is more than a tenant—he’s like an adopted son. But to the police, he is their prime suspect after his ex-girlfriend is found murdered. It’s more than enough real-life drama for Sam to tackle, but her role as a mystery writer also calls. Returning to the English countryside between the wars, she finds Lady Daphne Marsh in quite the quandary. Someone has tried to murder the scandalous American divorcée Wallis Simpson, for whom Edward VIII so recently abdicated his throne. It seems finding a suspect is no small challenge when most of England has a motive . . .

While Sam’s lawyer sister Jenna rushes in to build Dawson's defense, Sam and her lively grandmother, Nana Jo, huddle up to solve the mystery and blow the whistle on the real killer. With the tenacious members of the Sleuthing Senior Book Club eager to come off the sidelines, Sam and her team just might stop a killer from completing another deadly play . . .]]> 271 V.M. Burns 1496711831 Leah 3 3.83 2018 Read Herring Hunt (Mystery Bookshop, #2)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/08/03
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]]> Anita de Monte Laughs Last 127306192 New York Times bestselling author Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a mesmerizing novel about a first-generation Ivy League student who uncovers the genius work of a female artist decades after her suspicious death

1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.

But when Raquel becomes romantically involved with a well-connected older art student, she finds herself unexpectedly rising up the social ranks. As she attempts to straddle both worlds, she stumbles upon Anita’s story, raising questions about the dynamics of her own relationship, which eerily mirrors that of the forgotten artist.

Moving back and forth through time and told from the perspectives of both women, Anita de Monte Laughs Last is a propulsive, witty examination of power, love, and art, daring to ask who gets to be remembered and who is left behind in the rarefied world of the elite.]]> 342 Xóchitl González 1250786215 Leah 5 3.76 2024 Anita de Monte Laughs Last
author: Xóchitl González
name: Leah
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/03
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]]> <![CDATA[The Plot is Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #1)]]> 34488844 The small town of North Harbor on the shores of Lake Michigan is about to have a new mystery bookstore. But before the first customer can browse its shelves, the store’s owner is suspected of her own murder plot . . .

Samantha Washington has dreamed of owning her own mystery bookstore for as long as she can remember. And as she prepares for the store’s grand opening, she’s also realizing another dream—penning a cozy mystery set in England between the wars. While Samantha hires employees and fills the shelves with the latest mysteries, quick-witted Lady Penelope Marsh, long-overshadowed by her beautiful sister Daphne, refuses to lose the besotted Victor Carlston to her sibling's charms. When one of Daphne's suitors is murdered in a maze, Penelope steps in to solve the labyrinthine puzzle and win Victor.

But as Samantha indulges her imagination, the unimaginable happens in real life. A shady realtor turns up dead in her backyard, and the police suspect her—after all, the owner of a mystery bookstore might know a thing or two about murder. Aided by her feisty grandmother and an enthusiastic ensemble of colorful retirees, Samantha is determined to close the case before she opens her store. But will she live to conclude her own story when the killer has a revised ending in mind for her?]]> 254 V.M. Burns 1496711815 Leah 3 3.57 2017 The Plot is Murder (Mystery Bookshop, #1)
author: V.M. Burns
name: Leah
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2017
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/29
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]]> <![CDATA[Full Dark House (Bryant & May #1)]]> 474064 Full Dark House, Christopher Fowler tells the story of both their first and last case—and how along the way the unlikely pair of crime fighters changed the face of detection.

A present-day bombing rips through London and claims the life of eighty-year-old detective Arthur Bryant. For his partner John May, it means the end of a partnership that lasted over half-a-century and an eerie echo back to the Blitz of World War II when they first met. Desperately searching for clues to the killer's identity, May finds his old friend's notes of their very first case and becomes convinced that the past has returned...with a killing vengeance.

It begins when a dancer in a risque new production of Orpheus in Hell is found without her feet. Suddenly, the young detectives are plunged in a bizarre gothic mystery that will push them to their limits—and beyond. For in a city shaken by war, a faceless killer is stalking London's theaters, creating his own kind of sinister drama. And it will take Arthur Bryant's unorthodox techniques and John May's dogged police work to catch a criminal whose ability to escape detection seems almost supernatural--a murderer who even decades later seems to have claimed the life of one of them...and is ready to claim the other.

Filled with startling twists, unforgettable characters, and a mystery that will keep you guessing, Full Dark House is a witty, heartbreaking, and all-too-human thriller about the hunt for an inhuman killer.


From the Hardcover edition.]]> 356 Christopher Fowler 0553803875 Leah 3 3.33 2003 Full Dark House (Bryant & May #1)
author: Christopher Fowler
name: Leah
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2003
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/28
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]]> Within Arm's Reach 203019737 A tender and perceptive debut novel about three generations of an Irish American family jarred into crisis by an unexpected pregnancy—from the bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

“This stunning . . . exquisite, skillfully written gem addresses serious issues–e.g., guilt vs. loyalty, the past vs. the present—[but] remains hopeful and includes ample doses of humor and wit.”—Library Journal (starred review)

No one in my mother’s family ever talks about anything that can be categorized as unpleasant or as having to do with emotions. . . .

This spellbinding debut by bestselling author Ann Napolitano is a poignant reminder of how connected we are to those we love, even when we cannot find the words to say it. The unforgettable story of three generations of a large Irish Catholic family, Within Arms Reach is another rich and deeply satisfying novel from the author who captured the many dimensions of grief in Dear Edward and the unbreakable bonds of sisterhood in Hello Beautiful.]]> 352 Ann Napolitano 0593732499 Leah 4 3.41 2004 Within Arm's Reach
author: Ann Napolitano
name: Leah
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/25
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]]> Swift River 199798557 A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK | A Most Anticipated Book from Today, Real Simple, Time, Los Angeles Times, and BookPage

“The book we all need to revive our souls� (Nicole Dennis-Benn): A sweeping family saga about the complicated bond between mothers and daughters, the disappearance of a father, and the long-hidden history of a declining New England mill town.

“A powerful novel about how our family history shapes us, Swift River broke my heart, and then offered me hope.� —Ann Napolitano, New York Times bestselling author of Hello Beautiful

It’s the summer of 1987 in Swift River, and Diamond Newberry is learning how to drive. Ever since her Pop disappeared seven years ago, she and her mother hitchhike everywhere. But that’s not the only reason Diamond stands out: She’s teased relentlessly about her weight, and the fact that since Pop’s been gone, she is the only Black person in all of Swift River. This summer, Ma is determined to declare Pop legally dead so they can collect his life insurance money, get their house back from the bank, and finally move on.

But when Diamond receives a letter from a relative she’s never met, key elements of Pop’s life are uncovered. She is introduced to two generations of African American Newberry women, spanning the 20th century and revealing a much larger picture of prejudice and abandonment, of love and devotion. As pieces of their shared past become clearer, Diamond gains a sense of her place in the world and in her family. But how will what she’s learned of the past change her future?]]> 304 Essie J. Chambers 1668027917 Leah 4 3.47 2024 Swift River
author: Essie J. Chambers
name: Leah
average rating: 3.47
book published: 2024
rating: 4
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date added: 2024/07/23
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]]> The Sicilian Inheritance 182486315 From bestselling author and award-winning journalist Jo Piazza, comes aĚýtransportingĚýnovel rooted inĚýthe author's ownĚýfamily history about a long-awaited trip to Sicily, a disputed inheritance, and a family secret that some will kill to protect . . .

Sara Marsala barely knows who she is anymore after the failure of her business and marriage.ĚýOn top of that, her beloved great-aunt Rosie passes away, leaving Sara bereft withĚýgrief. But Aunt Rosie's death also opens an escape from her life and a window into the past by way of a plane ticket to Sicily, a deed to a possibly valuable plot of land, and a bombshell family secret.ĚýRosie believes Sara's great-grandmother Serafina, the family matriarch who was left behind while her husband worked in America, didn’t die of illness as family lore has it . . . she was murdered.

Thus begins a twist-filled adventure that takes Sara all over the picturesque Italian countryside as she races to solve a mystery and prove her birthright. Flashing back to the past, we meet Serafina, a feisty and headstrong young woman in the early 1900s thrust into motherhood in her teens, who fought for a better life not just for herself but for all the women of her small village. Unsurprisingly it isn’t long before a woman challenging the status quo finds herself in danger.

As Sara discovers more about Serafina she also realizes she is coming head-to-head with the same menacing forces that took down her great-grandmother. At once an immersive multigenerational mystery and an ode to the undaunted heroism of everyday women, The Sicilian Inheritance is an atmospheric, page-turning delight.]]> 384 Jo Piazza 0593474163 Leah 3 3.93 2024 The Sicilian Inheritance
author: Jo Piazza
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/22
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]]> One Day 46114545 --back cover]]> 437 David Nicholls 0307474712 Leah 2 3.97 2009 One Day
author: David Nicholls
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2009
rating: 2
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date added: 2024/07/21
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]]> The Engagement Party 123112160
Kass Baptiste is newly engaged to her fiancé Murray Sedgemont after a whirlwind romance. Before they even get to share the news, an invitation arrives via messenger - to an engagement party hosted by Murray’s parents. When Kass and Murray arrive at the Sedgemont Estate, she is astonished to learn that Murray’s family is one of the most powerful families in North Carolina. As Kass’s future mother-in-law, Beatrice, whips herself into a frenzy over the perfect party for the state’s elite, Kass begins to receive anonymous threatening social media messages.

ĚýOn the night of the event, as champagne is popped and the celebrations begin, a body is found in the lavish home. All eyes are on Kass, the interloper amongst the rich and powerful guests. Over the course of the party , Kass’s dark past unexpectedly becomes intertwined with the murder, and in order to prove her innocence, she must finally come to terms with her secrets.

ĚýAs Murray’s family secrets are revealed, Kass must prove herself innocent while evading the anonymous threats that haunt her every move.]]> 320 Finley Turner 1639105972 Leah 1 3.22 2023 The Engagement Party
author: Finley Turner
name: Leah
average rating: 3.22
book published: 2023
rating: 1
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date added: 2024/07/20
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]]> The Paris Novel 195430688
Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean... Oysters, she thought, where have they been all my life?

When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual a one-way plane ticket and a note reading Go to Paris . But Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a childhood trauma has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. When her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.

Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and, for the first time in her life, Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress and together they embark on an adventure.

Her first iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters, and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces her to a veritable who’s who of the 1980s Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, Stella begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.

As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed� at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.]]> 288 Ruth Reichl 0812996305 Leah 3 3.67 2024 The Paris Novel
author: Ruth Reichl
name: Leah
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 3
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date added: 2024/07/20
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