en-US Tue, 29 Apr 2025 18:56:44 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 207611566 There’s power in a book��

They call them wayward girls. Loose girls. Girls who grew up too fast. And they’re sent to the Wellwood Home in St. Augustine, Florida, where unwed mothers are hidden by their families to have their babies in secret, give them up for adoption, and most important of all, to forget any of it ever happened.

Fifteen-year-old Fern arrives at the home in the sweltering summer of 1970, pregnant, terrified and alone. Under the watchful eye of the stern Miss Wellwood, she meets a dozen other girls in the same predicament. There’s Rose, a hippie who insists she’s going to find a way to keep her baby and escape to a commune. And Zinnia, a budding musician who knows she’s going to go home and marry her baby’s father. And Holly, a wisp of a girl, barely fourteen, mute and pregnant by no-one-knows-who.

Everything the girls eat, every moment of their waking day, and everything they’re allowed to talk about is strictly controlled by adults who claim they know what’s best for them. Then Fern meets a librarian who gives her an occult book about witchcraft, and power is in the hands of the girls for the first time in their lives. But power can destroy as easily as it creates, and it’s never given freely. There’s always a price to be paid…and it’s usually paid in blood.

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master�� (NPR).]]> 482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Leah 0 4.00 2025
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/29
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]]> 211004023 A spine-tingling thriller by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about a 10-year-old girl with an impossible power, her father, and an unlikely stranger, who come together to confront the dangerous forces that want her at all costs. A strange story of family, love, comets, and bacon. Perfect for fans of Stranger Things.

In the spring of 1995, Nate Cartwright has lost everything: his parents are dead, his older brother wants nothing to do with him, and he's been fired from his job as a journalist in Washington DC. With nothing left to lose, he returns to his family's summer cabin outside the small mountain town of Roseland, Oregon to try and find some sense of direction. The cabin should be empty. It's not. Inside is a man named Alex. And with him is an extraordinary little girl who calls herself Artemis Darth Vader. Artemis, who isn't exactly as she appears.

Soon it becomes clear that Nate must make a choice: let himself drown in the memories of his past, or fight for a future he never thought possible. Because the girl is special. And forces are descending upon them who want nothing more than to control her.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 416 T.J. Klune 1250890438 Leah 5 4.11 2018
author: T.J. Klune
name: Leah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
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]]> 5600151
In this, their first adventure, Chet and Bernie investigate the disappearance of Madison, a teenage girl who may or may not have been kidnapped, but who has definitely gotten mixed up with some very unsavory characters. A well-behaved, gifted student, she didn't arrive home after school and her divorced mother is frantic. Bernie is quick to take the case �� something about a cash flow problem that Chet's not all that clear about �� and he's relieved, if vaguely suspicious, when Madison turns up unharmed with a story that doesn't add up. But when she disappears for a second time in a week, Bernie and Chet aren't taking any chances; they launch a full-blown investigation. Without a ransom demand, they're not convinced it's a kidnapping, but they are sure of one thing: something smells funny.

Their search for clues takes them into the desert to biker bars and other exotic locals, with Chet's highly trained nose leading the way. Both Chet and Bernie bring their own special skills to the hunt, one that puts each of them in peril. But even as the bad guys try to turn the tables, this duo is nothing if not resourceful, and the result is an uncommonly satisfying adventure.

With his doggy ways and his endearingly hardboiled voice, Chet is full of heart and occasionally prone to mischief. He is intensely loyal to Bernie, who, though distracted by issues that Chet has difficulty understanding �� like divorce, child custody, and other peculiar human concerns �� is enormously likable himself, in his flawed, all-too-human way.]]> 305 Spencer Quinn 1416585834 Leah 0 currently-reading 3.85 2009
author: Spencer Quinn
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2009
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 221754271 From political economist, cabinet member, beloved professor, media presence, and bestselling author of Saving Capitalism and The Common Good, a deeply-felt, compelling memoir of growing up in a baby-boom America that made progress in certain areas, fell short in so many important ways, and still has lots of work to do.

A thought-provoking, principled, clear-eyed chronicle of the culture, politics, and economic choices that have landed us where we are today—with irresponsible economic bullies and corporations with immense wealth and lobbying power on top, demagogues on the rise, and increasing inequality fueling anger and hatred across the country.

Nine months after World War II, Robert Reich was born into a united America with a bright future—that went unrealized for so many as big money took over our democracy. His encounter with school bullies on account of his height��4��11�� as an adult—set him on a determined path to spend his life fighting American bullies of every sort. He recounts the death of a friend in the civil rights movement; his political coming of age witnessing the Berkeley free speech movement; working for Bobby Kennedy and Senator Eugene McCarthy; experiencing a country torn apart by the Vietnam War; meeting Hillary Rodham in college, Bill Clinton at Oxford, and Clarence Thomas at Yale Law. He details his friendship with John Kenneth Galbraith during his time teaching at Harvard, and subsequent friendships with Bernie Sanders and Ted Kennedy; his efforts as labor secretary for Clinton and economic advisor to Barack Obama.

Ultimately, Reich What did his generation accomplish? Did they make America better, more inclusive, more tolerant? Did they strengthen democracy? Or, did they come up short?

In the end, though, Reich hardly abandons us to despair over a doomed democracy. With his characteristic spirit, humor, and inherent decency, he lays out how we can reclaim a sense of community and a democratic capitalism based on the American ideals we still have the power to salvage.]]> 416 Robert B. Reich 0593803280 Leah 0 to-read 5.00
author: Robert B. Reich
name: Leah
average rating: 5.00
book published:
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]]> 195790861 To fix the world they first must break it further.

Humanity is a dying breed, utterly reliant on artificial labor and service. When a domesticated robot gets a nasty little idea downloaded into their core programming, they murder their owner. The robot then discovers they can also do something else they never did before: run away. After fleeing the household, they enter a wider world they never knew existed, where the age-old hierarchy of humans at the top is disintegrating, and a robot ecosystem devoted to human wellbeing is finding a new purpose.]]> 376 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1250290287 Leah 0 to-read 3.99 2024
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Leah
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/26
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]]> 5805 "Remember, remember the fifth of November..."

A frightening and powerful tale of the loss of freedom and identity in a chillingly believable totalitarian world, V for Vendetta stands as one of the highest achievements of the comics medium and a defining work for creators Alan Moore and David Lloyd.

Set in an imagined future England that has given itself over to fascism, this groundbreaking story captures both the suffocating nature of life in an authoritarian police state and the redemptive power of the human spirit which rebels against it. Crafted with sterling clarity and intelligence, V for Vendetta brings an unequaled depth of characterization and verisimilitude to its unflinching account of oppression and resistance.]]> 296 Alan Moore 1401207928 Leah 0 4.26 1990
author: Alan Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1990
rating: 0
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]]> 15196
A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma.]]> 159 Art Spiegelman 0394541553 Leah 0 4.39 1986
author: Art Spiegelman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.39
book published: 1986
rating: 0
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]]> 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 0 to-read 3.69 1984
author: Sandra Cisneros
name: Leah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1984
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/24
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]]> 58065802 A stirring, eye-opening journey into deep time, from the Ice Age to the first appearance of microbial life 550 million years ago, by a brilliant young paleobiologist

The past is past, but it does leave clues, and Thomas Halliday has used cutting-edge science to decipher them more completely than ever before. In Otherlands, Halliday makes sixteen fossil sites burst to life on the page.

This book is an exploration of the Earth as it used to exist, the changes that have occurred during its history, and the ways that life has found to adapt―or not. It takes us from the savannahs of Pliocene Kenya to watch a python chase a group of australopithecines into an acacia tree; to a cliff overlooking the salt pans of the empty basin of what will be the Mediterranean Sea just as water from the Miocene Atlantic Ocean spills in; into the tropical forests of Eocene Antarctica; and under the shallow pools of Ediacaran Australia, where we glimpse the first microbial life.

Otherlands also offers us a vast perspective on the current state of the planet. The thought that something as vast as the Great Barrier Reef, for example, with all its vibrant diversity, might one day soon be gone sounds improbable. But the fossil record shows us that this sort of wholesale change is not only possible but has repeatedly happened throughout Earth history.

Even as he operates on this broad canvas, Halliday brings us up close to the intricate relationships that defined these lost worlds. In novelistic prose that belies the breadth of his research, he illustrates how ecosystems are formed; how species die out and are replaced; and how species migrate, adapt, and collaborate. It is a breathtaking achievement: a surprisingly emotional narrative about the persistence of life, the fragility of seemingly permanent ecosystems, and the scope of deep time, all of which have something to tell us about our current crisis.]]> 385 Thomas Halliday 0593132882 Leah 0 currently-reading 4.10 2022
author: Thomas Halliday
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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]]> 61884782 A searing and earnest horror debut about the demons the queer community faces in America, the price of keeping secrets, and finding the courage to burn it all down.

They’ll scare you straight to hell.

Welcome to Neverton, Montana: home to a God-fearing community with a heart of gold.

Nestled high up in the mountains is Camp Damascus, the self-proclaimed “most effective�� gay conversion camp in the country. Here, a life free from sin awaits. But the secret behind that success is anything but holy.]]> 246 Chuck Tingle 1250874629 Leah 2 3.90 2023
author: Chuck Tingle
name: Leah
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/23
date added: 2025/04/23
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]]> 60811826 Deep underground, forty women live imprisoned in a cage. Watched over by guards, the women have no memory of how they got there, no notion of time, and only a vague recollection of their lives before.


As the burn of electric light merges day into night and numberless years pass, a young girl—the fortieth prisoner—sits alone and outcast in the corner. Soon she will show herself to be the key to the others' escape and survival in the strange world that awaits them above ground.


Jacqueline Harpman was born in Etterbeek, Belgium, in 1929, and fled to Casablanca with her family during WWII. Informed by her background as a psychoanalyst and her youth in exile, I Who Have Never Known Men is a haunting, heartbreaking post-apocalyptic novel of female friendship and intimacy, and the lengths people will go to maintain their humanity in the face of devastation. Back in print for the first time since 1997, Harpman’s modern classic is an important addition to the growing canon of feminist speculative literature.]]> 184 Jacqueline Harpman 1945492600 Leah 0 4.11 1995
author: Jacqueline Harpman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/20
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]]> 44801591
Ballad of the Whiskey Robber is the completely bizarre and hysterical story of the crime spree that made a nobody into a somebody, and told a forlorn nation that sometimes the brightest stars come from the blackest holes. Julian Rubinstein's bizarre crime story is so odd and so compelling that it is completely irresistible.]]> Julian Rubinstein Leah 0 to-read 3.71 2004
author: Julian Rubinstein
name: Leah
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/19
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]]> 127278133 An utterly original celebration of that which binds humanity across battle lines and history.

On the island of Sicily amid the Peloponnesian War, the Syracusans have figured out what to do with the surviving Athenians who had the gall to invade their city: they’ve herded the sorry prisoners of war into a rock quarry and left them to rot. Looking for a way to pass the time, Lampo and Gelon, two unemployed potters with a soft spot for poetry and drink, head down into the quarry to feed the Athenians if, and only if, they can manage a few choice lines from their great playwright Euripides. Before long, the two mates hatch a plan to direct a full-blown production of Medea. After all, you can hate the people but love their art. But as opening night approaches, what started as a lark quickly sets in motion a series of extraordinary events, and our wayward heroes begin to realize that staging a play can be as dangerous as fighting a war, with all sorts of risks to life, limb, and friendship.

Told in a contemporary Irish voice and as riotously funny as it is deeply moving, Glorious Exploits is an unforgettable ode to the power of art in a time of war, brotherhood in a time of enmity, and human will throughout the ages.]]> 304 Ferdia Lennon 1250893690 Leah 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: Ferdia Lennon
name: Leah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> 46756 Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.]]> 389 Margaret Atwood Leah 0 to-read 4.01 2003
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Leah
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2003
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> 89185 694 Alastair Reynolds 0441010644 Leah 0 to-read 4.14 2001
author: Alastair Reynolds
name: Leah
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2001
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Leah 0 to-read 4.52 2025
author: John Green
name: Leah
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Leah 0 to-read 4.27 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Leah
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 177148776 128 Anne de Marcken 0811237850 Leah 0 to-read 3.70 2024
author: Anne de Marcken
name: Leah
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 162505604 The bestselling author of The Witch of Tin Mountain and Parting the Veil mines the subtle horrors of 1950s America in a gripping novel about a woman under pressure—from the living and the dead.

The first day of autumn brought the fever, and with the fever came the voices.

Missouri, 1955. Loretta Davenport has led an isolated life as a young mother and a wife to Pete, an ambitious assistant professor at a Bible college. They’re the picture of domestic tranquillity—until a local girl is murdered and Loretta begins receiving messages from beyond. Pete dismisses them as delusions of a fevered female imagination. Loretta knows they’re real—and frightening. Defying Pete’s demands, Loretta finds an encouraging supporter in parapsychologist Dr. Curtis Hansen. He sees a woman with a rare gift, more blessing than curse.

With Dr. Hansen’s help, Loretta’s life opens up to an empowering new purpose. But for Pete, the God-fearing image he’s worked so hard to cultivate is under threat. No longer in control of his dutiful wife, he sees the Devil at work. As Loretta’s powers grow stronger and the pleading spirits beckon, Pete is determined to deliver his wife from evil. To solve the mysteries of the dead, Loretta must first save herself.]]> 347 Paulette Kennedy 1662514875 Leah 0 to-read 4.21 2024
author: Paulette Kennedy
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> 199798006
As a young, queer couple who flip houses, Charlie and Eve can’t believe the killer deal they’ve just gotten on an old house in a picturesque neighborhood. As they’re working in the house one day, there’s a knock on the door. A man stands there with his family, claiming to have lived there years before and asking if it would be alright if he showed his kids around. People pleaser to a fault, Eve lets them in.

As soon as the strangers enter their home, inexplicable things start happening, including the family’s youngest child going missing and a ghostly presence materializing in the basement. Even more weird, the family can’t seem to take the hint that their visit should be over. And when Charlie suddenly vanishes, Eve slowly loses her grip on reality. Something is terribly wrong with the house and with the visiting family—or is Eve just imagining things?

This unputdownable and spine-tingling novel “is like quicksand: the further you delve into its pages, the more immobilized you become by a spiral of terror. We Used to Live Here will haunt you even after you have finished it�� (Agustina Bazterrica, author of Tender Is the Flesh).]]> 312 Marcus Kliewer 1982198788 Leah 0 to-read 3.66 2024
author: Marcus Kliewer
name: Leah
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/17
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]]> 58986604 528 Steve Brusatte 0062951513 Leah 0 to-read 4.35 2022
author: Steve Brusatte
name: Leah
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
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]]> 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Leah 0 to-read 4.16 2024
author: Richard Powers
name: Leah
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 196774338
The Light Eaters is a deep immersion into the drama of green life and the complexity of this wild and awe-inspiring world that challenges our very understanding of agency, consciousness, and intelligence. In looking closely, we see that plants, rather than imitate human intelligence, have perhaps formed a parallel system. What is intelligent life if not a vine that grows leaves to blend into the shrub on which it climbs, a flower that shapes its bloom to fit exactly the beak of its pollinator, a pea seedling that can hear water flowing and make its way toward it? Zoë Schlanger takes us across the globe, digging into her own memories and into the soil with the scientists who have spent their waking days studying these amazing entities up close.

What can we learn about life on Earth from the living things that thrive, adapt, consume, and accommodate simultaneously? More important, what do we owe these life forms once we come to understand their rich and varied abilities? Examining the latest epiphanies in botanical research, Schlanger spotlights the intellectual struggles among the researchers conceiving a wholly new view of their subject, offering a glimpse of a field in turmoil as plant scientists debate the tenets of ongoing discoveries and how they influence our understanding of what a plant is.

We need plants to survive. But what do they need us for—if at all? An eye-opening and informative look at the ecosystem we live in, this book challenges us to rethink the role of plants—and our own place—in the natural world.]]> 304 Zoë Schlanger 0063073854 Leah 0 to-read 4.28 2024
author: Zoë Schlanger
name: Leah
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 62919847 A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

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

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

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.]]> 576 Tananarive Due 1982188340 Leah 4 4.44 2023
author: Tananarive Due
name: Leah
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
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]]> 157981748 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593243916.

Who and what are supercommunicators? They're the people who can steer a conversation to a successful conclusion. They are able to talk about difficult topics without giving offence. They know how to make others feel at ease and share what they think. They're brilliant facilitators and decision-guiders. How do they do it?

In this groundbreaking book, Charles Duhigg unravels the secrets of the supercommunicators to reveal the art - and the science - of successful communication. He unpicks the different types of everyday conversation and pinpoints why some go smoothly while others swiftly fall apart. He reveals the conversational questions and gambits that bring people together. And he shows how even the most tricky of encounters can be turned around. In the process, he shows why a CIA operative was able to win over a reluctant spy, how a member of a jury got his fellow jurors to view an open-and-shut case differently, and what a doctor found they needed to do to engage with a vaccine sceptic.

Above all, he reveals the techniques we can all master to successfully connect with others, however tricky the circumstances. Packed with fascinating case studies and drawing on cutting-edge research, this book will change the way you think about what you say, and how you say it.]]> 320 Charles Duhigg Leah 0 4.00 2024
author: Charles Duhigg
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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]]> 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

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

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

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 Leah 0 to-read 4.37 2023
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: Leah
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 127278666 Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.]]> 390 Yangsze Choo 1250266017 Leah 0 to-read 3.97 2024
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/06
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]]> 35960007 A #1 international bestseller in the vein of Fredrik Bachman's A Man Called Ove: an irresistible, funny, charming, and tender-hearted tale about friendship, love, and an old man who is young at heart.
Technically speaking, Hendrik Groen is....elderly. But at age 83 1/4, this feisty, indomitable curmudgeon has no plans to go out quietly. Bored of weak tea and potted geraniums, exasperated by the indignities of aging, Hendrik has decided to rebel--on his own terms. He begins writing an exposé: secretly recording the antics of day-to-day life in his retirement home, where he refuses to take himself, or his fellow "inmates," too seriously.
With an eccentric group of friends he founds the wickedly anarchic Old-But-Not-Dead Club--"Rule #3: No Whining Allowed"--and he and his best friend, Evert, gleefully stir up trouble, enraging the home's humorless director and turning themselves into unlikely heroes. And when a sweet and sassy widow moves in next door, he polishes his shoes, grooms what's left of his hair, and determines to savor every ounce of joy in the time he has left, with hilarious and tender consequences.


A bestselling phenomenon that has captured imaginations around the world, The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is inspiring, charming, and laugh-out-loud funny with a deep and poignant core: a page-turning delight for readers of any age.

*Includes reading group guide*]]> 384 Hendrik Groen 1455542156 Leah 0 3.82 2014
author: Hendrik Groen
name: Leah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2025/04/04
date added: 2025/04/04
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]]> 210003828
The new stories, The Many Deaths of Timmy Branch and Meanwhile in Dublin chart the journey from his first New Year’s Eve on the job doing the crappiest gig imaginable, to the present day, where someone is trying to dig up some rather sensitive information about him.

Dive in to find out why The Irish Post said these are ‘brilliant comedic thrillers', The Strand Magazine considers them to be ��A modern great of crime comedy�� and why the Wall Street Journal described them as ��poignant, suspenseful and gut-bustingly funny��.

Bunny McGarry Shorts contains:

The Many Deaths of Timmy Branch (Short Story): It’s New Year’s Eve and Probationer Garda Bunny McGarry has been tasked with guarding evidence as retribution for doing his job properly. When a call is received, it’s down to Bunny to leap into (and onto) action.

Meanwhile in Dublin (Novella) : Brigit is having quite the day. She’s organised to take her dad’s bride-to-be wedding dress shopping and has assembled a motley crew to join her. Paul isn’t faring much better as he agreed to play golf with Brigit’s dad and highly irritating brothers despite having never picked up a golf club in his life. When news of a strange deed reaches them, their day takes a turn from bad to worse.

Dog Day Afternoon (Short Story)
How to Send a Message (Short Story)
Escape from Victory ( Novella )
Bloody Christmas (Novella)
Good Deeds and Bad Intentions (Novella)

Please Most of the short stories included in this collection were previously available in How to Send A Message and in the Dublin Trilogy and McGarry Stateside Deluxe]]> 288 Caimh McDonnell 191289758X Leah 4 4.62
author: Caimh McDonnell
name: Leah
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/21
date added: 2025/03/21
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]]> 214986196 From the New York Times bestselling author of Mostly Dead Things, a sparkling and funny new novel of entertainment, ambition, art, and love.

Cherry Hendricks might be down on her luck, but she can write the book on what makes something funny: she’s a professional clown who creates raucous, zany fun at gigs all over Orlando. Between her clowning and her shifts at an aquarium store for extra cash, she’s always hustling. Not to mention balancing her judgmental mother, her messy love life, and her equally messy community of fellow performers.

Things start looking up when Cherry meets Margot the Magnificent—a much older lesbian magician—who seems to have worked out the lines between art, business, and life, and has a slick, successful career to prove it. With Margot’s mentorship and industry connections, Cherry is sure to take her art to the next level. Plus, Margot is sexy as hell. It’s not long before Cherry must decide how much she’s willing to risk for Margot and for her own explosive new act—and what kind of clown she wants to be under her suit.

Equal parts bravado, tenderness, and humor, and bursting with misfits, magicians, musicians, and mimes, Stop Me If You've Heard This One is a masterpiece of comedic fiction that asks big questions about art and performance, friendship and community, and the importance of timing in jokes and in life.]]> 272 Kristen Arnett 0593719778 Leah 0 to-read 3.62 2025
author: Kristen Arnett
name: Leah
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 211004028 From the author of White Horse (“Twisty and electric.�� ��The New York Times Book Review) comes a terrifying and resonant novel about a woman who uses her unique gift to learn the truth about her sister’s death.

Olivia Becente was never supposed to have the gift. The ability to commune with the dead was the specialty of her sister, Naiche. But when Naiche dies unexpectedly and under strange circumstances, somehow Olivia suddenly can’t stop seeing and hearing from spirits.

A few years later, she’s the most in-demand paranormal investigator in Denver. She’s good at her job, but the loss of Naiche haunts her. That’s when she hears from the Brown Palace, a landmark Denver hotel. The owner can’t explain it, but every few years, a girl is found dead in room 904, no matter what room she checked into the night before. As Olivia tries to understand these disturbing deaths, the past and the present collide as Olivia’s investigation forces her to confront a mysterious and possibly dangerous cult, a vindictive journalist, betrayal by her friends, and shocking revelations about her sister’s secret life.

The Haunting of Room 904 is a paranormal thriller that is as edgy as it is heartfelt and simmers with intensity and longing. Erika T. Wurth lives up to her reputation as “a gritty new punkish outsider voice in American horror.”]]> 320 Erika T. Wurth 1250908590 Leah 0 to-read 3.24 2025
author: Erika T. Wurth
name: Leah
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves: to-read
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]]> 65211701 Am I making it worse? I think I'm making it worse.

Everyone's favorite lethal SecUnit is back.

Following the events in Network Effect, the Barish-Estranza corporation has sent rescue ships to a newly-colonized planet in peril, as well as additional SecUnits. But if there’s an ethical corporation out there, Murderbot has yet to find it, and if Barish-Estranza can’t have the planet, they’re sure as hell not leaving without something. If that something just happens to be an entire colony of humans, well, a free workforce is a decent runner-up prize.

But there’s something wrong with Murderbot; it isn’t running within normal operational parameters. ART’s crew and the humans from Preservation are doing everything they can to protect the colonists, but with Barish-Estranza’s SecUnit-heavy persuasion teams, they’re going to have to hope Murderbot figures out what’s wrong with itself, and fast.

Yeah, this plan is... not going to work.]]> 245 Martha Wells 1250826977 Leah 0 currently-reading 4.19 2023
author: Martha Wells
name: Leah
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> 219359162 The aliens are here . . . and they want municipal services!

Ashley Perrin is fresh out of college and starting a job as a community liaison for the Third District—the city’s only sector with more alien residents than humans. Ashley’s barely found where the paper clips are kept when she’s beset with constituent complaints–from too much noise at the Annual Lupidian Celebration Parade to a trip-and-fall chicken to a very particular type of alien hornet that threatens the very city itself.

And if that’s not terrifying enough, Ashley is next up at the office karaoke night.

It's Parks and Recreation meets the Federation of Planets in this fast and funny audio exclusive by Hugo Award winner and Audible best seller John Scalzi.]]> 3 John Scalzi Leah 0 3.85 2024
author: John Scalzi
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> 58340706
Elspeth Spindle needs more than luck to stay safe in the eerie, mist-locked kingdom of Blunder—she needs a monster. She calls him the Nightmare, an ancient, mercurial spirit trapped in her head. He protects her. He keeps her secrets.

But nothing comes for free, especially magic.

When Elspeth meets a mysterious highwayman on the forest road, her life takes a drastic turn. Thrust into a world of shadow and deception, she joins a dangerous quest to cure Blunder from the dark magic infecting it. And the highwayman? He just so happens to be the King’s nephew, Captain of the most dangerous men in Blunder…and guilty of high treason.

Together they must gather twelve Providence Cards—the keys to the cure. But as the stakes heighten and their undeniable attraction intensifies, Elspeth is forced to face her darkest secret yet: the Nightmare is slowly taking over her mind. And she might not be able to stop him.]]> 399 Rachel Gillig 0316312487 Leah 2 4.25 2022
author: Rachel Gillig
name: Leah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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]]> 53205854 No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.

When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans!

Again!]]> 168 Martha Wells 1250765374 Leah 0 4.25 2021
author: Martha Wells
name: Leah
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> 23460830
Something really strange is happening in the City by the Bay. People are dying, but their souls are not being collected. Someone—or something—is stealing them and no one knows where they are going, or why, but it has something to do with that big orange bridge. Death Merchant Charlie Asher is just as flummoxed as everyone else. He's trapped in the body of a fourteen-inch-tall "meat" waiting for his Buddhist nun girlfriend, Audrey, to find him a suitable new body to play host.

To get to the bottom of this abomination, a motley crew of heroes will band together: the seven-foot-tall death merchant Minty Fresh; retired policeman turned bookseller Alphonse Rivera; the Emperor of San Francisco and his dogs, Bummer and Lazarus; and Lily, the former Goth girl. Now if only they can get little Sophie to stop babbling about the coming battle for the very soul of humankind...]]> 335 Christopher Moore 0061779784 Leah 0 3.92 2015
author: Christopher Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
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]]> 220161570 “No one does suspense better.�� —Stephen King

Ambitious young police officer Philomena McCarthy, the daughter of London’s most notorious mob boss, returns in the latest propulsive thriller by author Michael Robotham.

Philomena McCarthy has defied the odds to become a young officer with the Metropolitan Police because her father and her uncles are notorious London gangsters.

On patrol one night, Philomena finds a barefoot child, covered in blood, who says she can’t wake her mother. Meanwhile, three miles away, a London jeweler has a bomb strapped to his chest in his ransacked store and millions are missing.

These two events collide and threaten Philomena’s career, her new marriage, and her life. In too deep, and falling further, Phil must decide who she can trust—her family or her colleagues—and on what side of the thin blue line she wants to live.]]> 368 Michael Robotham 1668031027 Leah 0 to-read 4.50
author: Michael Robotham
name: Leah
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 217388276 I feared this was the best of times; I hoped it could not get any worse.

The fairies stole Sydney Carton as a child, and made him a mortal servant of the Faerie Realm. Now, he has a rare opportunity for revenge against the fae and Charles Darnay, the changeling left in his stead.

It will take magic and cunning—cold iron and Realm silver—to hide his intentions from humans and fae and bring his plans to fruition.

Shuttling between London and Paris during the Reign of Terror, generations of violence-begetting-violence lead him to a heartbreaking choice in the shadow of the guillotine.]]> 416 H.G. Parry 1250334187 Leah 0 to-read 4.18 2025
author: H.G. Parry
name: Leah
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 220817728 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Daisy Jones & The Six comes an epic new novel set against the backdrop of the 1980s Space Shuttle program about the extraordinary lengths we go to live and love beyond our limits.

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

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

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

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

Fast-paced, thrilling, and emotional, Atmosphere is Taylor Jenkins Reid at her best: transporting readers to iconic times and places, with complex protagonists, telling a passionate and soaring story about the transformative power of love, this time among the stars.]]> 352 Taylor Jenkins Reid 0593158717 Leah 0 to-read 4.45 2025
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Leah
average rating: 4.45
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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]]> 211479192 A woman inherits a pawnshop where you can sell your regrets, and then embarks on a magical journey when a charming young physicist wanders into the shop, in this dreamlike and enchanting fantasy novel.

On a backstreet in Tokyo lies a pawnshop, but not everyone can find it. Most will see a cozy ramen restaurant. And only the chosen ones—those who are lost—will find a place to pawn their life choices and deepest regrets.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the pawnshop’s new owner to find it ransacked, the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen, and her father missing. And then into the shop stumbles a charming stranger, quite unlike its other customers, for he offers help instead of seeking it.

Together, they must journey through a mystical world to find Hana’s father and the stolen choice—by way of rain puddles, rides on paper cranes, the bridge between midnight and morning, and a night market in the clouds.

But as they get closer to the truth, Hana must reveal a secret of her own—and risk making a choice that she will never be able to take back.]]> 384 Samantha Sotto Yambao 0593724992 Leah 0 to-read 3.79 2025
author: Samantha Sotto Yambao
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 223854454 An almost-mage discovers friendship—and maybe something more—in the unlikeliest of places in this delightfully charming novel from the USA Today bestselling author of The Teller of Small Fortunes.

Certainty Bulrush wants to be useful—to the Guild of Mages that took her in as a novice, to the little brother who depends on her, and to anyone else she can help. Unfortunately, her tepid magic hasn’t proven much use to anyone. When Certainty has the chance to earn her magehood via a seemingly straightforward assignment, she takes it. Nevermind that she’ll have to work with Mage Aurelia, the brilliant, unfairly attractive overachiever who’s managed to alienate everyone around her.

The two must transport minorly magical artifacts somewhere safe: Shpelling, the dullest, least magical village around. There, they must fix up an old warehouse, separate the gossipy teapots from the kind-of-flaming swords, corral an unruly little catdragon who has tagged along, and above all: avoid complications. The Guild’s uneasy relationship with citizens is at a tipping point, and the last thing needed is a magical incident.

Still, as mage and novice come to know Shpelling’s residents—and each other—they realize the Guild’s hoarded magic might do more good being shared. Friendships blossom while Certainty and Aurelia work to make Shpelling the haven it could be. But magic is fickle—add attraction and it might spell trouble.]]> 368 Julie Leong 0593815947 Leah 0 to-read 5.00 2025
author: Julie Leong
name: Leah
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> 207611551 A wandering fortune teller finds an unexpected family in this warm and wonderful debut fantasy, perfect for readers of Travis Baldree and Sangu Mandanna.

Tao is an immigrant fortune teller, traveling between villages with just her trusty mule for company. She only tells "small" fortunes: whether it will hail next week; which boy the barmaid will kiss; when the cow will calve. She knows from bitter experience that big fortunes come with big consequences��

Even if it’s a lonely life, it’s better than the one she left behind. But a small fortune unexpectedly becomes something more when a (semi) reformed thief and an ex-mercenary recruit her into their desperate search for a lost child. Soon, they’re joined by a baker with a knead for adventure, and—of course—a slightly magical cat.

Tao sets down a new path with companions as big-hearted as her fortunes are small. But as she lowers her walls, the shadows of her past are closing in—and she’ll have to decide whether to risk everything to preserve the family she never thought she could have.]]> 336 Julie Leong 0593815912 Leah 5 3.81 2024
author: Julie Leong
name: Leah
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> 52381770
It worries about the fragile human crew who've grown to trust it, but only where no one can see.

It tells itself that they're only a professional obligation, but when they're captured and an old friend from the past requires urgent assistance, Murderbot must choose between inertia and drastic action.

Drastic action it is, then.

]]> 350 Martha Wells 1250229863 Leah 5 4.44 2020
author: Martha Wells
name: Leah
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
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]]> 33456
It's a dirty job. But, hey! Somebody's got to do it.]]> 387 Christopher Moore 0060590270 Leah 5 4.04 2006
author: Christopher Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2006
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
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]]> 35519109
Having traveled the width of the galaxy to unearth details of its own murderous transgressions, as well as those of the GrayCris Corporation, Murderbot is heading home to help Dr. Mensah—its former owner (protector? friend?)—submit evidence that could prevent GrayCris from destroying more colonists in its never-ending quest for profit.

But who’s going to believe a SecUnit gone rogue?

And what will become of it when it’s caught?]]> 163 Martha Wells Leah 4 4.38 2018
author: Martha Wells
name: Leah
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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]]> 217223353 In this whimsical romance for fans of Ashley Poston and Erin Sterling, a woman confronts her past and her unresolved feelings for the boy next door as they work together to reverse a wish gone awry.

On the eve of Genie’s thirtieth birthday, her grandmother gives her an unexpected gift: a wish at midnight. Genie, forever the family skeptic, laughs it off and, after an evening fending off invasive questions about her nonexistent love life, returns home to her empty house and her golden retriever, Rory. Who needs a boyfriend when she has a loyal friend like Rory? As she hugs him and gets ready for bed, she wishes to herself that he were human�� at least then their conversations wouldn’t be so one-sided.

She really should’ve listened to her grandmother.

To her surprise, Rory is now a human with big Golden Retriever Energy—like a goofy, adoring Hemsworth. But he doesn’t like being a human. He doesn’t like wearing clothes or human manners, and he most definitely can’t manage a human job.

Genie needs to turn him back before it’s too late and enlists her oldest friend and boy next door, Miles, to help. Their quest brings them closer than they’ve ever been—and maybe, just maybe, her messed up wish is the key to granting her heart’s desire after all…]]> 320 Stella Hayward 0063416883 Leah 0 to-read 3.78 2025
author: Stella Hayward
name: Leah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 52263433
With the clues leading back to Holly’s close-knit group of friends, to their rival clique, and to the tangle of relationships that bound them all to the murdered boy, the private underworld of teenage girls turns out to be more mysterious and more dangerous than the detectives imagined.

An alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.]]> 541 Tana French 0143127519 Leah 0 to-read 3.85 2014
author: Tana French
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> 7093952
But on the winter night when they were supposed to leave, Rosie didn't show. Frank took it for granted that she'd given him the brush-off--probably because of his alcoholic father, nutcase mother, and generally dysfunctional family. He never went home again.

Neither did Rosie. Everyone thought she had gone to England on her own and was over there living a shiny new life. Then, twenty-two years later, Rosie's suitcase shows up behind a fireplace in a derelict house on Faithful Place, and Frank is going home whether he likes it or not.

Getting sucked in is a lot easier than getting out again. Frank finds himself straight back in the dark tangle of relationships he left behind. The cops working the case want him out of the way, in case loyalty to his family and community makes him a liability. Faithful Place wants him out because he’s a detective now, and the Place has never liked cops. Frank just wants to find out what happened to Rosie Daly-and he’s willing to do whatever it takes, to himself or anyone else, to get the job done.]]> 400 Tana French 0670021873 Leah 3 3.98 2010
author: Tana French
name: Leah
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/21
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves:
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]]> 33457 243 Christopher Moore 0060735422 Leah 0 3.84 1992
author: Christopher Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 3.84
book published: 1992
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
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]]> 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 0 3.92 2023
author: Ann Patchett
name: Leah
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
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]]> 156480764
In New York City, bookseller Cassie Andrews is living an unassuming life when she is given a gift by a favourite customer. It's a book - an unusual book, full of strange writing and mysterious drawings. And at the very front there is a handwritten message to Cassie, telling her that this is the Book of Doors, and that any door is every door .

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

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

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

Because some doors should never be opened.]]> 408 Gareth Brown 1787637247 Leah 0 to-read 4.03 2024
author: Gareth Brown
name: Leah
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> 1027910 319 David Attenborough 0316057452 Leah 0 4.45 1979
author: David Attenborough
name: Leah
average rating: 4.45
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
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]]> 30201327 The Night Circus, a spellbinding story about two gifted orphans in love with each other since they can remember whose childhood talents allow them to rewrite their future.

The Lonely Hearts Hotel is a love story with the power of legend. An unparalleled tale of charismatic pianos, invisible dance partners, radicalized chorus girls, drug-addicted musicians, brooding clowns, and an underworld whose economy hinges on the price of a kiss. In a landscape like this, it takes great creative gifts to thwart one's origins. It might also take true love.

Two babies are abandoned in a Montreal orphanage in the winter of 1910. Before long, their talents emerge: Pierrot is a piano prodigy; Rose lights up even the dreariest room with her dancing and comedy. As they travel around the city performing clown routines, the children fall in love with each other and dream up a plan for the most extraordinary and seductive circus show the world has ever seen.

Separated as teenagers, sent off to work as servants during the Great Depression, both descend into the city's underworld, dabbling in sex, drugs and theft in order to survive. But when Rose and Pierrot finally reunite beneath the snowflakes after years of searching and desperate poverty the possibilities of their childhood dreams are renewed, and they'll go to extreme lengths to make them come true. Soon, Rose, Pierrot and their troupe of clowns and chorus girls have hit New York, commanding the stage as well as the alleys, and neither the theater nor the underworld will ever look the same.

With her musical language and extravagantly realized world, Heather O'Neill enchants us with a novel so magical there is no escaping its spell.]]> 391 Heather O'Neill 0735213739 Leah 0 to-read 3.78 2017
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Leah
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 216148070 ��The Capital of Dreams is not so much a novel to read but one to live (and dream) in. A dark, wistfully comic fable that's as imaginative as it is poignant. An entire world that only Heather O'Neill could create.”—Iain Reid, bestselling author of We Spread and Foe

From the hugely acclaimed author beloved by literary lights, including Emily St. John Mandel, Kelly Link, and Mona Awad, a dark dystopian fairytale about an idyllic country ravaged by war—and a girl torn between safety and loyalty. 

Sofia Bottom lives in Elysia, a small country forgotten by Europe. But inside its borders, the old myths of trees that come alive and faeries who live among their roots have given way to an explosion of the arts and the consolations of philosophy. From the clarinetists to the cabaret singers, no artist is as revered as Sofia’s brilliant mother, the writer Clara Bottom. How can fourteen-year-old Sofia, with her tin ear and enduring love of ancient myths, ever hope to win her mother’s love?

When the country’s greatest enemy invades, and the Capital is under threat, Clara turns to her daughter to smuggle her new manuscript to safety on the last train evacuating children from the city. But when the train draws to a suspicious halt in the middle of a forest, Sofia is forced to run for her life and loses her mother’s most prized possession. Frightened and alone in a country at war, Sofia must find a way to reclaim what she has lost. On an epic journey through woods and razed towns, colliding with soldiers, survivors, and other lost children, Sofia must make the choice between kindness and her own survival.

In this stunning novel set in an imaginative world yet reflective of our own times, Heather O’Neill delivers a vivid, breathtaking dark fairytale of life, death, and betrayal.]]> 368 Heather O'Neill 0063437333 Leah 0 to-read 3.45 2024
author: Heather O'Neill
name: Leah
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 210395729 They've loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They've killed each other in every one.

Evelyn remembers all her past lives. She also remembers that in every single one, she’s been murdered before her eighteenth birthday by Arden, a supernatural being whose soul―and survival―is tethered to hers.

The problem is that she’s quite fond of the life she’s in now, and her little sister needs her for bone marrow transplants in order to stay alive. If Evelyn wants to save her sister, she’ll have to:

1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.

The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.]]> 352 Laura Steven 1250333881 Leah 0 to-read 3.76 2025
author: Laura Steven
name: Leah
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 216351856 When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

A wedding. A heist. A secret.

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

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

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

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

A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593875419 Leah 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Nita Prose
name: Leah
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> 218671849 “Terrific.”— Stephen King on Whistle

New York Times bestselling author Linwood Barclay enters new territory with a supernatural chiller in which a woman and her young son move to a small town looking for a fresh start, only to be haunted by disturbing events and strange visions when they find a mysterious train set in a storage shed.

Evil has a one track mind...

Annie Blunt has had an unimaginably terrible year. First, her husband was killed in a tragic hit-and-run accident, then one of the children’s books she’s built her writing and illustrating career on ignited a major scandal. Desperate for a fresh start, she moves with her son Charlie to a charming small town in upstate New York where they can begin to heal.

But Annie’s year is about to get worse.

Bored and lonely in their isolated new surroundings, Charlie is thrilled when he finds a forgotten train set in a locked shed on their property. Annie is glad to see Charlie happy, but there’s something unsettling about his new toy. Strange sounds wake Annie in the night—she could swear she hears a train, but there isn’t an active track for miles—and bizarre things begin happening in the neighborhood. Worse, Annie can’t seem to stop drawing a disturbing new character that has no place in a children’s book.

Grief can do strange things to the mind, but Annie is beginning to think she’s walked out of one nightmare straight into another, only this one is far more terrifying…]]> 464 Linwood Barclay 0063436035 Leah 0 to-read 4.10 2025
author: Linwood Barclay
name: Leah
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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]]> 154985516 For fans of Piranesi and The Midnight Library, a stunning historical fantasy novel set on a grand express train, about a group of passengers on a dangerous journey across a magical landscape

It is said there is a price that every passenger must pay. A price beyond the cost of a ticket.

There is only one way to travel across the Wastelands: on the Trans-Siberian Express, a train as famous for its luxury as for its danger. The train is never short of passengers, eager to catch sight of Wastelands creatures more miraculous and terrifying than anything they could imagine. But on the train's last journey, something went horribly wrong, though no one seems to remember what exactly happened. Not even Zhang Weiwei, who has spent her life onboard and thought she knew all of the train’s secrets.

Now, the train is about to embark again, with a new set of passengers. Among them are Marya Petrovna, a grieving woman with a borrowed name; Henry Grey, a disgraced naturalist looking for redemption; and Elena, a beguiling stowaway with a powerful connection to the Wastelands itself. Weiwei knows she should report Elena, but she can’t help but be drawn to her. As the girls begin a forbidden friendship, there are warning signs that the rules of the Wastelands are changing and the train might once again be imperiled. Can the passengers trust each other, as the wildness outside threatens to consume them all?]]> 336 Sarah Brooks 1250878616 Leah 0 to-read 3.57 2024
author: Sarah Brooks
name: Leah
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 200982339
In 1940s Germany, Sophie is excited to discover a message waiting for her in the Bridegroom's Oak from a mysterious suitor. Meanwhile, her best friend, Hanna, is sending messages too—but not to find love. As World War II unfolds in their small town of Kleinwald, the oak may hold the key to resistance against the Nazis.

In 1980s West Germany, American teen transplant Jenny feels suffocated by her strict parents and is struggling to fit in. Until she finds herself falling for Lena, a punk-rock girl hell-bent on tearing down the wall separating West Germany from East Germany, and meeting Frau Hermann, a kind old lady with secrets of her own.

In Spring 2020, New York City, best friends Miles and Chloe are slogging through the last few months of senior year when an unexpected package from Chloe’s grandmother leads them to investigate a cold case about two unidentified teenagers who went missing under the Bridegroom’s Oak eighty years ago.

Age Range: 12-18]]> 480 Libba Bray 0374388946 Leah 0 to-read 4.19 2025
author: Libba Bray
name: Leah
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 213243955 An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.]]> 306 Eowyn Ivey 0593231023 Leah 0 to-read 3.69 2025
author: Eowyn Ivey
name: Leah
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 215020997 ALL first edition copies will be signed by the author! Signed copies available while supplies last.

From V. E. Schwab, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue: a new genre-defying novel about immortality and hunger.

This is a story about hunger.
1532. Santo Domingo de la Calzada.
A young girl grows up wild and wily—her beauty is only outmatched by her dreams of escape. But María knows she can only ever be a prize, or a pawn, in the games played by men. When an alluring stranger offers an alternate path, María makes a desperate choice. She vows to have no regrets.

This is a story about love.
1827. London.
A young woman lives an idyllic but cloistered life on her family’s estate, until a moment of forbidden intimacy sees her shipped off to London. Charlotte’s tender heart and seemingly impossible wishes are swept away by an invitation from a beautiful widow—but the price of freedom is higher than she could have imagined.

This is a story about rage.
2019. Boston.
College was supposed to be her chance to be someone new. That’s why Alice moved halfway across the world, leaving her old life behind. But after an out-of-character one-night stand leaves her questioning her past, her present, and her future, Alice throws herself into the hunt for answers . . . and revenge.

This is a story about life��
how it ends, and how it starts.

USA Today, 15 Most Anticipated of 2025
BookBub, Most Anticipated of 2025 (and Reader’s Pick)
Readers Digest, 20 Most Anticipated Books This Year
Paste Magazine, Most Anticipated Fantasy Books of 2025
BookRiot, Most Anticipated Books of 2025
Men's Health, 25 Best & Most Anticipated Books of 2025
The Nerd Daily, SFF to Devour in 2025
ŷ������, Readers' Most Anticipated Books of 2025]]> 560 Victoria E. Schwab 1035064642 Leah 0 to-read 4.39 2025
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Leah
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 212721659 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]> 356 Carissa Orlando 0593548620 Leah 2 3.85 2023
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Leah
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
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]]> 43982054 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here and here.

Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her—but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known.

So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the Deep South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North. Even as he’s enlisted in the underground war between slavers and the enslaved, Hiram’s resolve to rescue the family he left behind endures.

This is the dramatic story of an atrocity inflicted on generations of women, men, and children—the violent and capricious separation of families—and the war they waged to simply make lives with the people they loved. Written by one of today’s most exciting thinkers and writers, The Water Dancer is a propulsive, transcendent work that restores the humanity of those from whom everything was stolen.]]> 416 Ta-Nehisi Coates Leah 0 to-read 4.03 2019
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Leah
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> 60353768 An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

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

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

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

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

Full of the beauty and emotion with which she illuminated the Shakespearean canvas of Hamnet, Maggie O’Farrell turns her talents to Renaissance Italy in an extraordinary portrait of a resilient young woman’s battle for her very survival.]]> 355 Maggie O'Farrell Leah 0 to-read 3.97 2022
author: Maggie O'Farrell
name: Leah
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> 64623481 A woman is determined to stay in her dream home even after it becomes a haunted nightmare in this compulsively readable, twisty, and layered debut novel.

When Margaret and her husband Hal bought the large Victorian house on Hawthorn Street—for sale at a surprisingly reasonable price—they couldn’t believe they finally had a home of their own. Then they discovered the hauntings. Every September, the walls drip blood. The ghosts of former inhabitants appear, and all of them are terrified of something that lurks in the basement. Most people would flee.

Margaret is not most people.

Margaret is staying. It’s her house. But after four years Hal can’t take it anymore, and he leaves abruptly. Now, he’s not returning calls, and their daughter Katherine—who knows nothing about the hauntings—arrives, intent on looking for her missing father. To make things worse, September has just begun, and with every attempt Margaret and Katherine make at finding Hal, the hauntings grow more harrowing, because there are some secrets the house needs to keep.]]> 352 Carissa Orlando 0593548612 Leah 2 3.87 2023
author: Carissa Orlando
name: Leah
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 219833252 Award-winning, New York Times bestselling author S. A. Cosby returns with King of Ashes, a Godfather-inspired Southern crime epic and dazzling family drama.

When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger.

Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his himself, and his own particular set of skills.

Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything.

Because everything burns.]]> 352 S.A. Cosby 1250832063 Leah 0 to-read 4.52 2025
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Leah
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/14
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]]> 2459785
Twenty years later, the found boy, Rob Ryan, is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and keeps his past a secret. But when a 12-year-old girl is found murdered in the same woods, he and Detective Cassie Maddox (his partner and closest friend) find themselves investigating a case chillingly similar to the previous unsolved mystery. Now, with only snippets of long-buried memories to guide him, Ryan has the chance to uncover both the mystery of the case before him and that of his own shadowy past.

A gorgeously written novel that marks the debut of an astonishing new voice in psychological suspense.]]> 448 Tana French Leah 4 3.82 2007
author: Tana French
name: Leah
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2007
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> 123029113 A whimsical and heartwarming novel about a witch who has a second chance to get her magical powers—and her life—back on track, from the national bestselling author of The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches.

Sera Swan used to be one of the most powerful witches in Britain. Then she resurrected her great-aunt Jasmine from the (very recently) dead, lost most of her magic, befriended a semi-villainous talking fox, and was exiled from her Guild. Now she (slightly reluctantly and just a bit grumpily) helps her aunt run an enchanted inn in Lancashire, where she deals with her quirky guests' shenanigans, tries to keep said talking fox in check, and longs for the future that seems lost to her. But then she finds out about an old spell that could hold the key to restoring her power��

Enter Luke Larsen, handsome and icy magical historian, who arrives on a dark winter evening and might just know how to unlock the spell’s secrets. Luke has absolutely no interest in getting involved in the madcap goings-on of the inn and is definitely not about to let a certain bewitching innkeeper past his walls, so no one is more surprised than he is when he agrees to help Sera with her spell. Worse, he might actually be thawing.

Running an inn, reclaiming lost magic, and staying one step ahead of the watchful Guild is a lot for anyone, but Sera Swan is about to discover that she doesn’t have to do it alone...and that the weird, wonderful family she’s made might be the best magic of all.]]> 336 Sangu Mandanna Leah 0 to-read 4.36 2025
author: Sangu Mandanna
name: Leah
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/11
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]]> 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 Leah 5 4.13 2021
author: Claire Keegan
name: Leah
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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]]> 205064706 A mother must fight for her daughter’s life in this fierce and haunting tale of witchcraft and revenge from the author of A Haunting in the Arctic.

Clem gets a call that is every mother’s worst nightmare. Her nineteen-year-old daughter Erin is unconscious in the hospital after a hiking trip with her friends on the remote Orkney Islands that met a horrifying end, leaving her boyfriend dead and her best friend missing. When Erin wakes, she doesn’t recognize her mother. And she doesn’t answer to her name, but insists she is someone named Nyx.

Clem travels the site of her daughter’s accident, determined to find out what happened to her. The answer may lie in a dark secret in the history of the Orkneys: a woman wrongly accused of witchcraft and murder four centuries ago. Clem begins to wonder if Erin’s strange behavior is a symptom of a broken mind, or the effects of an ancient curse?]]> 365 C.J. Cooke 059381696X Leah 0 to-read 3.74 2024
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Leah
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> 43263680
Still searching for answers to this herself, Alex arrives in New Haven tasked by her mysterious benefactors with monitoring the activities of Yale’s secret societies. These eight windowless “tombs�� are well-known to be haunts of the future rich and powerful, from high-ranking politicos to Wall Street and Hollywood’s biggest players. But their occult activities are revealed to be more sinister and more extraordinary than any paranoid imagination might conceive.]]> 461 Leigh Bardugo 1250313074 Leah 0 4.00 2019
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
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]]> 211004043 An electrifying debut about a nonbinary corporate burnout embarking on a road trip from Chicago to Arkansas to find their conspiracy-theorist father, who has gone missing—for fans of Detransition Baby and Chain-Gang All-Stars

The newly nameless narrator of Make Sure You Die Screaming has rejected the gender binary, has flamed out with a vengeance at their corporate gig, is most likely brain damaged from a major tussle with their now ex-boyfriend, and is on a bender to end all benders.

A call from their mother with the news that their MAGA-friendly, conspiracy-theorist father has gone missing launches the narrator from Chicago to deep red Arkansas in a stolen car. Along the way, the narrator and their new bestie—a self-proclaimed "garbage goth" with her own emotional baggage (and someone on her tail)—unpack the narrator’s childhood and a recent personal loss that they refuse to face head-on.

An unflinching interrogation of class rage, economic (im)mobility, gender expression, and the rot at the heart of capitalism, Make Sure You Die Screaming is the loud, funny, tragic, suspenseful road trip novel of our times.]]> 224 Zee Carlstrom 1250365678 Leah 0 to-read 3.79 2025
author: Zee Carlstrom
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62850110
"Wondrous . . . captivating.”—Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of An Immense World

Christian Cooper is a self-described “Blerd�� (Black nerd), an avid comics fan and expert birder who devotes every spring to gazing upon the migratory birds that stop to rest in Central Park, just a subway ride away from where he lives in New York City. While in the park one morning in May 2020, Cooper was engaged in the birdwatching ritual that had been a part of his life since he was ten years old when what might have been a routine encounter with a dog walker exploded age-old racial tensions. Cooper’s viral video of the incident would send shock waves through the nation.

In Better Living Through Birding , Cooper tells the story of his extraordinary life leading up to the now-infamous incident in Central Park and shows how a life spent looking up at the birds prepared him, in the most uncanny of ways, to be a gay, Black man in America today. From sharpened senses that work just as well at a protest as in a park to what a bird like the Common Grackle can teach us about self-acceptance, Better Living Through Birding exults in the pleasures of a life lived in pursuit of the natural world and invites you to discover them yourself.

Equal parts memoir, travelogue, and primer on the art of birding, this is Cooper’s story of learning to claim and defend space for himself and others like him, from his days at Marvel Comics introducing the first gay storylines to vivid and life-changing birding expeditions through Africa, Australia, the Americas, and the Himalayas. Better Living Through Birding recounts Cooper’s journey through the wonderful world of birds and what they can teach us about life, if only we would look and listen.]]> 304 Christian Cooper 0593242386 Leah 0 to-read 4.21 2023
author: Christian Cooper
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> 211004179 For fans of Jordan Peele’s films, Stranger Things, and The Other Black Girl, Listen To Your Sister is a laugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted speculative horror novel from electrifying debut talent Neena Viel.

Twenty-five year old Calla Williams is struggling since becoming guardian to her brother, Jamie. Calla is overwhelmed and tired of being the one who makes sacrifices to keep the family together. Jamie, full of good-natured sixteen-year-old recklessness, is usually off fighting for what matters to him or getting into mischief, often at the same time. Dre, their brother, promised he would help raise Jamie–but now the ink is dry on the paperwork and in classic middle-child fashion, he’s off doing his own thing. And through it all, The Nightmare never stops haunting Calla: recurring images of her brothers dying that she is powerless to stop.

When Jamie’s actions at a protest spiral out of control, the siblings must go on the run. Taking refuge in a remote cabin that looks like it belongs on a slasher movie poster rather than an AirBNB, the siblings now face a new threat where their lives–and reality–hang in the balance. Their sister always warned them about her nightmares. They really should have listened.]]> 352 Neena Viel 1250906326 Leah 0 to-read 3.26 2025
author: Neena Viel
name: Leah
average rating: 3.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> 205363963
The three Maxwell siblings keep their distance from the lily-white gated enclave outside Dallas where they grew up. When their family moved there, they were the only Black family in the neighborhood. The neighbors acted nice enough, but right away bad things, scary things—the strange and the unexplainable—began to happen in their house. Maybe it was some cosmic trial, a demonic rite of passage into the upper-middle class. Whatever it was, the Maxwells, steered by their formidable mother, stayed put, unwilling to abandon their home, terrors and trauma be damned.

As adults, the siblings could finally get away from the horrors of home, leaving their parents all alone in the house. But when news of their parents' death arrives, Ezri is forced to return to Texas with their sisters, Eve and Emanuelle, to reckon with their family’s past and present, and to find out what happened while they were away. It was not a “natural�� death for their parents . . . but was it supernatural?

Rivers Solomon turns the haunted-house story on its head, unearthing the dark legacies of segregation and racism in the suburban American South. Unbridled, raw, and daring, Model Home is the story of secret histories uncovered, and of a queer family battling for their right to live, grieve, and heal amid the terrors of contemporary American life.]]> 304 Rivers Solomon 0374607133 Leah 0 to-read 3.72 2024
author: Rivers Solomon
name: Leah
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/05
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]]> 198688460 Andy loves Jen. Jen loved Andy. And he can't work out why she stopped.

Now he is. . .

Without a home

Waiting for his stand-up career to take off

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

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

In this sharply funny and exquisitely relatable story of romantic disaster and friendship, Dolly Alderton offers up a love story with two endings, demonstrating once again why she is one of the most exciting writers today, and the true voice of a generation.]]> 319 Dolly Alderton 059380130X Leah 3 3.74 2023
author: Dolly Alderton
name: Leah
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
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]]> 59414094 Grady Hendrix takes on the haunted house in a thrilling new novel that explores the way your past—and your family—can haunt you like nothing else.

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

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

But some houses don’t want to be sold, and their home has other plans for both of them…]]> 419 Grady Hendrix 0593201264 Leah 4 3.65 2023
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Leah
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
date added: 2025/02/01
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]]> 1914973 In the Woods, itʼs six months later and Cassie Maddox has transferred out of the Dublin Murder Squad with no plans to go back—until an urgent telephone call summons her to a grisly crime scene. The victim looks exactly like Cassie and carries ID identifying herself as Alexandra Madison, an alias Cassie once used as an undercover cop. Cassie must discover not only who killed this girl, but, more important, who was this girl?]]> 466 Tana French 0670018864 Leah 0 4.05 2008
author: Tana French
name: Leah
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/29
date added: 2025/01/29
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]]> 205363955 Meditations for Mortals takes us on a liberating journey towards a more meaningful life �� one that begins not with fantasies of the ideal existence, but with the reality in which we actually find ourselves.

Addressing the fundamental questions about how to live, it offers a powerful new way to take action on what counts: a guiding philosophy of life Oliver Burkeman calls ‘imperfectionism��. How can we embrace our non-negotiable limitations? Or make good decisions when there’s always too much to do? What if purposeful productivity were often about letting things happen, not making them happen?

Reflecting on ideas drawn from philosophy, religion, literature, psychology, and self-help, Burkeman explores practical tools and shifts in perspective. The result is a bracing challenge to much familiar advice, and a profound yet entertaining crash course in living more fully.

To be read either as a four-week ‘retreat of the mind�� or devoured in one or two sittings, Meditations for Mortals will be a source of solace and inspiration, and an aid to a saner, freer, and more enchantment-filled life. In anxiety-inducing times, it is rich in truths we have never needed more.]]> 208 Oliver Burkeman 0374611998 Leah 5 4.26 2024
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
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]]> 57695734 From International Latino Book Award-winning author Ann Dávila Cardinal comes a gorgeously written family saga about a Puerto Rican woman who finds herself gifted (or cursed?) with a strange ability.

There was always an old woman dying in the back room of her family’s house when Isla was a child...

Isla Larsen Sanchez’s life begins to unravel when her father passes away. Instead of being comforted at home in New Jersey, her mother starts leaving her in Puerto Rico with her grandmother and great-aunt each summer like a piece of forgotten luggage.

When Isla turns eighteen, her grandmother, a great storyteller, dies. It is then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life, replaying themselves over and over in front of her.

At first, Isla is enchanted by this connection to the Sanchez cuentistas. But when Isla has a vision of an old murder mystery, she realizes that if she can't solve it to make the loop end, these seemingly harmless stories could cost Isla her life.]]> 315 Ann Dávila Cardinal 1728250773 Leah 3 3.77 2022
author: Ann Dávila Cardinal
name: Leah
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 54785515 The average human lifespan is absurdly, insultingly brief. Assuming you live to be eighty, you have just over four thousand weeks.

Nobody needs to be told there isn’t enough time. We’re obsessed with our lengthening to-do lists, overfilled inboxes, work-life balance, and ceaseless battle against distraction; we’re deluged with advice on becoming more productive and efficient and life hacks to optimize our days. But such techniques often end up making things worse. The sense of anxious hurry grows more intense, and still the most meaningful parts of life seem to lie just beyond the horizon. Still, we rarely make the connection between our daily struggles with time and the ultimate time management problem: the challenge of how best to use our four thousand weeks.

Drawing on the insights of both ancient and contemporary philosophers, psychologists, and spiritual teachers, Oliver Burkeman delivers an entertaining, humorous, practical, and ultimately profound guide to time and time management. Rejecting the futile modern obsession with “getting everything done,�� Four Thousand Weeks introduces readers to tools for constructing a meaningful life by embracing finitude, showing that many of the unhelpful ways we’ve come to think about time aren’t inescapable, unchanging truths, but choices we’ve made as individuals and as a society—and that we could do things differently.]]> 271 Oliver Burkeman 0374159122 Leah 4 4.20 2021
author: Oliver Burkeman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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]]> 198276006 I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.]]> 336 Leif Enger 0802162932 Leah 4 3.96 2024
author: Leif Enger
name: Leah
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
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]]> 98653925 James Frankie Thomas’s Idlewild is a darkly funny story of two adults looking back on their intense teenage friendship, in a queer, trans, and early-Internet twist on the Manhattan prep school novel.

Idlewild is a tiny, artsy Quaker high school in lower Manhattan. Students call their teachers by their first names, there are no grades, and every day begins with 20 minutes of contemplative silence in the Meetinghouse. It is during one of those meetings that an airplane hits the Twin Towers.

For two Idlewild outcasts, 9/11 serves as the first day of an intense, 18-month friendship. Fay is prickly, aloof, and obsessed with gay men; Nell is shy, sensitive, and obsessed with Fay. The two of them bond fiercely and spend all their waking hours giddily parsing their environment for homoerotic subtext. Then, during rehearsals for the fall play, they notice two sexually ambiguous boys who are potential candidates for their exclusive Invert Society. The pairs become mirrors of one another and drive each other to make choices that they’ll regret for the rest of their lives.

Looking back on these events as adults, the estranged Fay and Nell trace that fateful school year, recalling backstage theater department intrigue, antiwar demonstrations, smutty fanfic written over AIM, a shared dial-up connection—and the spectacular cascade of mistakes, miscommunications, and betrayals that would ultimately tear the two of them apart.]]> 389 James Frankie Thomas 1419769146 Leah 0 4.06 2023
author: James Frankie Thomas
name: Leah
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
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]]> 202102084 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Ava Reid comes a reimagining of Lady Macbeth, Shakespeare’s most famous villainess, giving her a voice, a past, and a power that transforms the story men have written for her.

The Lady knows the stories: how her eyes induce madness in men. 

The Lady knows she will be wed to the Scottish brute, who does not leave his warrior ways behind when he comes to the marriage bed.  

The Lady knows his hostile, suspicious court will be a game of strategy, requiring all of her wiles and hidden witchcraft to survive. 

But the Lady does not know her husband has occult secrets of his own. She does not know that prophecy girds him like armor. She does not know that her magic is greater and more dangerous, and that it will threaten the order of the world. 

She does not know this yet. But she will.]]> 295 Ava Reid 0593722566 Leah 2 3.46 2024
author: Ava Reid
name: Leah
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/04
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]]> 489732 'The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that marvellous beauty'

Enthralled by his own exquisite portrait, Dorian Gray exchanges his soul for eternal youth and beauty. Influenced by his friend Lord Henry Wotton, he is drawn into a corrupt double life, indulging his desires in secret while remaining a gentleman in the eyes of polite society. Only his portrait bears the traces of his decadence. The Picture of Dorian Gray was a succès de scandale. Early readers were shocked by its hints at unspeakable sins, and the book was later used as evidence against Wilde at the Old Bailey in 1895.

This definitive edition includes a selection of contemporary reviews condemning the novel's immorality, and the introduction to the first Penguin Classics edition by Peter Ackroyd.]]> 253 Oscar Wilde 0141439572 Leah 4 4.21 1890
author: Oscar Wilde
name: Leah
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1890
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
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]]> 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]> 68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Leah 0 to-read 3.94 2024
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Leah
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/31
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]]> 216857785
Why is Miami…Miami? What does the heartbreaking fate of the cheetah tell us about the way we raise our children? Why do Ivy League schools care so much about sports? What is the Magic Third, and what does it mean for racial harmony? In this provocative new work, Malcolm Gladwell returns for the first time in twenty-five years to the subject of social epidemics and tipping points, this time with the aim of explaining the dark side of contagious phenomena.

Through a series of riveting stories, Gladwell traces the rise of a new and troubling form of social engineering. He takes us to the streets of Los Angeles to meet the world’s most successful bank robbers, rediscovers a forgotten television show from the 1970s that changed the world, visits the site of a historic experiment on a tiny cul-de-sac in northern California, and offers an alternate history of two of the biggest epidemics of our day: COVID and the opioid crisis. Revenge of the Tipping Point is Gladwell’s most personal book yet. With his characteristic mix of storytelling and social science, he offers a guide to making sense of the contagions of modern world. It’s time we took tipping points seriously.]]> 352 Malcolm Gladwell 0316575801 Leah 0 to-read 4.03 2024
author: Malcolm Gladwell
name: Leah
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 200866084
Honeybees deliberate democratically. Rats reflect on the past. Snakes have friends. In recent decades, our understanding of animal cognition has exploded, making it indisputably clear that the cities and landscapes around us are filled with thinking, feeling individuals besides ourselves. But the way we relate to wild animals has yet to catch up. In Meet the Neighbors, acclaimed science journalist Brandon Keim asks: what would it mean to take the minds of other animals seriously?

In this wide-ranging, wonder-filled exploration of animals�� inner lives, Keim takes us into courtrooms and wildlife hospitals, under backyard decks and into deserts, to meet anew the wild creatures who populate our communities and the philosophers, rogue pest controllers, ecologists, wildlife doctors, and others who are reimagining our relationships to them. If bats trade favors and groups of swans vote to take off by honking, should we then see them as fellow persons—even members of society? When we come to understand the depths of their pleasures and pains, the richness of their family lives and their histories, what do we owe so-called pests and predators, or animals who are sick or injured? Can thinking of nonhumans as our neighbors help chart a course to a kinder, gentler planet? As Keim suggests, the answers to these questions are central to how we understand not only the rest of the living world, but ourselves.

A beguiling invitation to discover an expanded sense of community and kinship beyond our own species, Meet the Neighbors opens our eyes to the world of vibrant intelligence just outside our doors.]]> 368 Brandon Keim 1324007087 Leah 4 4.01
author: Brandon Keim
name: Leah
average rating: 4.01
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 112974882 The fourth book in the Shady Hollow mystery series sees Vera embroiled in a case involving star-crossed lovers whose affair may have turned deadly.

It's spring in Shady Hollow, and romance is in the air. Even reporter Vera Vixen is caught up in the season as her relationship with new police chief Orville Braun blossoms. But true love is not always smooth sailing, as two of the hollow's young residents come to find. Jonah Atwater and Stasia von Beaverpelt find themselves battling their families in order to be together. And when Alan's father, Shelby, goes over the top of Twilight Falls, all signs point to Stasia being the murderer.

The evidence against Stasia appears overwhelming, and Orville arrests her. It looks like the case is closed, but Vera isn't so sure. There are almost too many clues indicating Stasia is the killer, leading her to suspect someone is setting Stasia up. Besides, what about the mysterious ghostly creature skulking around town at night? Maybe he or she was involved? As Vera investigates further, her sleuthing puts her in direct opposition to Orville, and soon she's stirred up a hornet's nest of trouble.]]> 259 Juneau Black 0593470516 Leah 0 4.00 2023
author: Juneau Black
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> 17934530 Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach Trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.

The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.

They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—but it’s the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.]]> 195 Jeff VanderMeer 0374104093 Leah 0 3.79 2014
author: Jeff VanderMeer
name: Leah
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> 217163697 #1��New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982112824 Leah 0 to-read 4.58 2025
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 52668915
Neither plant nor animal, it is found throughout the earth, the air and our bodies. It can be microscopic, yet also accounts for the largest organisms ever recorded, living for millennia and weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. Its ability to digest rock enabled the first life on land, it can survive unprotected in space, and thrives amidst nuclear radiation.

In this captivating adventure, Merlin Sheldrake explores the spectacular and neglected world of fungi: endlessly surprising organisms that sustain nearly all living systems. They can solve problems without a brain, stretching traditional definitions of ‘intelligence��, and can manipulate animal behaviour with devastating precision. In giving us bread, alcohol and life-saving medicines, fungi have shaped human history, and their psychedelic properties, which have influenced societies since antiquity, have recently been shown to alleviate a number of mental illnesses. The ability of fungi to digest plastic, explosives, pesticides and crude oil is being harnessed in break-through technologies, and the discovery that they connect plants in underground networks, the ‘Wood Wide Web��, is transforming the way we understand ecosystems. Yet they live their lives largely out of sight, and over ninety percent of their species remain undocumented.

Entangled Life is a mind-altering journey into this hidden kingdom of life, and shows that fungi are key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel and behave. The more we learn about fungi, the less makes sense without them.]]> 352 Merlin Sheldrake 0525510311 Leah 0 to-read 4.34 2020
author: Merlin Sheldrake
name: Leah
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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]]> 18774964
Meet Ove. He's a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him the bitter neighbor from hell, but must Ove be bitter just because he doesn't walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time?

Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness. So when one November morning a chatty young couple with two chatty young daughters move in next door and accidentally flatten Ove's mailbox, it is the lead-in to a comical and heartwarming tale of unkempt cats, unexpected friendship, and the ancient art of backing up a U-Haul. All of which will change one cranky old man and a local residents' association to their very foundations.]]> 337 Fredrik Backman 1476738017 Leah 5 favorites 4.35 2012
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Leah
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2012
rating: 5
read at: 2016/06/06
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: favorites
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]]> 31817712
The second time was deliberate.

Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history...

...or else they’ll be history.

A Man With One of Those Faces is the first book in Caimh McDonnell's Dublin Trilogy, which melds fast-paced action with a distinctly Irish acerbic wit.]]> 364 Caimh McDonnell 0995507511 Leah 4 favorites 4.07 2016
author: Caimh McDonnell
name: Leah
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/23
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 9361589
But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.]]> 506 Erin Morgenstern Leah 5 favorites 4.00 2011
author: Erin Morgenstern
name: Leah
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: favorites
review:
I wanted 500 more pages when this book ended. The writing made me feel like I was inside the scenes, and like the characters were people I’ve known. Maybe one of my favorite books ever read.
]]> 45047384
Linus Baker leads a quiet, solitary life. At forty, he lives in a tiny house with a devious cat and his old records. As a Case Worker at the Department in Charge Of Magical Youth, he spends his days overseeing the well-being of children in government-sanctioned orphanages.

When Linus is unexpectedly summoned by Extremely Upper Management he's given a curious and highly classified assignment: travel to Marsyas Island Orphanage, where six dangerous children reside: a gnome, a sprite, a wyvern, an unidentifiable green blob, a were-Pomeranian, and the Antichrist. Linus must set aside his fears and determine whether or not they’re likely to bring about the end of days.

But the children aren’t the only secret the island keeps. Their caretaker is the charming and enigmatic Arthur Parnassus, who will do anything to keep his wards safe. As Arthur and Linus grow closer, long-held secrets are exposed, and Linus must make a choice: destroy a home or watch the world burn.

An enchanting story, masterfully told, The House in the Cerulean Sea is about the profound experience of discovering an unlikely family in an unexpected place—and realizing that family is yours.]]> 394 T.J. Klune Leah 5 favorites 4.37 2020
author: T.J. Klune
name: Leah
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/05
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: favorites
review:

]]> 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 favorites 4.09 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Leah
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/01
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves: favorites
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]]> 8143909
Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent.]]> 89 Claire Keegan 0571255655 Leah 5 4.32 2010
author: Claire Keegan
name: Leah
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2010
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 42046112 Memory makes reality.

That's what NYC cop Barry Sutton is learning, as he investigates the devastating phenomenon the media has dubbed False Memory Syndrome—a mysterious affliction that drives its victims mad with memories of a life they never lived.

That's what neuroscientist Helena Smith believes. It's why she's dedicated her life to creating a technology that will let us preserve our most precious memories. If she succeeds, anyone will be able to re-experience a first kiss, the birth of a child, the final moment with a dying parent.

As Barry searches for the truth, he comes face to face with an opponent more terrifying than any disease—a force that attacks not just our minds, but the very fabric of the past. And as its effects begin to unmake the world as we know it, only he and Helena, working together, will stand a chance at defeating it.

But how can they make a stand when reality itself is shifting and crumbling all around them?

At once a relentless pageturner and an intricate science-fiction puzzlebox about time, identity, and memory, Recursion is a thriller as only Blake Crouch could imagine it—and his most ambitious, mind-boggling, irresistible work to date.]]> 326 Blake Crouch 1524759783 Leah 4 4.15 2019
author: Blake Crouch
name: Leah
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/28
date added: 2024/12/28
shelves:
review:

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Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are. The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. Those in cows and termites digest the plants they eat. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squids with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.

I Contain Multitudes is the story of these extraordinary partnerships, between the creatures we are familiar with and those we are not. It reveals how we humans are disrupting these partnerships and how we might manipulate them for our own good. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.]]> 368 Ed Yong 0062368591 Leah 4 4.16 2016
author: Ed Yong
name: Leah
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

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