Dani's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 05 Apr 2025 09:58:47 -0700 60 Dani's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Perfect Divorce (Perfect, #2)]]> 219240806 From the author of the multimillion-copy bestselling thriller The Perfect Marriage

Till death do us part. Yours. Not Mine.

It’s been eleven years since high-powered attorney Sarah Morgan defended her husband, Adam, against the charge of murdering his mistress. Sarah has long since moved on, starting a family with her new husband, Bob Miller, and changing careers. Her life is back to being exactly how she always wanted � or is it?

After discovering Bob engaged in a one-night stand, Sarah wastes no time filing for divorce. However, amid their ugly separation, new DNA evidence is uncovered in the case against Adam, forcing the police to reopen the investigation and putting Sarah right back in the spotlight. Everyone wants to know what really happened, most of all former deputy Marcus Hudson, who is hell-bent on finding the truth.

But when the woman Bob slept with is reported missing, he and Sarah start to fight dirty, and a high-stakes game of cat and mouse ensues. Filled with page-turning suspense and Jeneva Rose’s signature twists and turns, this book will have readers wondering: Can Bob and Sarah achieve the perfect divorce? Or will it be “’til death do us part�?]]>
288 Jeneva Rose Dani 0 to-read 4.28 2025 The Perfect Divorce (Perfect, #2)
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Dani
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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The Perfect Marriage 223688351 Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At 33 years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned.

The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.

Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers.

Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home.

Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?]]>
352 Jeneva Rose Dani 0 to-read 4.00 2020 The Perfect Marriage
author: Jeneva Rose
name: Dani
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/05
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A Very Bad Thing 202991908 From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has—and everyone she knows.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With a number of hit titles and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?]]>
446 J.T. Ellison 1662520328 Dani 5 4.17 2024 A Very Bad Thing
author: J.T. Ellison
name: Dani
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
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<![CDATA[The Nantucket Restaurant (The Nantucket Restaurant, #1)]]> 220481303
Three sisters. An inherited Nantucket restaurant. One year before they can sell.

Mandy, Emma and Jill are as close as three sisters who live hundreds of miles apart can be. They grew up together on Nantucket, but Mandy is the only one that stayed.

Jill lives a glamorous life in Manhattan as a co-owner of a successful executive search firm. Never married, she is in her mid-thirties and lives in a stunning, corner condo with breathtaking views of the city and Hudson river. Everyone thinks there's something going on with her partner, Nick, because as a workaholic, she spends more time with him than anyone else. But there's never been anything but friendship between them and Nick loves being a bachelor in NYC.

Emma lives in Arizona and is an elementary school teacher and aspiring photographer. She met her college professor husband, Peter, in grad school and they've been married for over fifteen years. In recent years, she's noticed that Peter has grown distant. But when he shares a surprising secret, she doesn't see it coming and her world is turned upside down.

Mandy followed her high school boyfriend, Cory to Boston College, and after graduation, they married and Cory joined a successful hedge fund in Boston, while Mandy stayed home and had two children, Blake and Brooke. They moved home to Nantucket when Cory opened a competing hedge fund. Now that the children are older, Mandy is eager to do more than coordinate local charity events. But Cory doesn't want her to work. He thinks it doesn't reflect well on him and appearances are everything to Cory. Though when Mandy finds a second cell phone in his gym bag, she begins to question what is really going on.

When their beloved grandmother, Ethel Ferguson passes peacefully in her sleep a week before her ninety-ninth birthday, she leaves them quite a surprise. In addition to her Nantucket home, they learn that she was the silent owner of Mimi's Place, one of Nantucket's most popular year-round restaurants.

There is of course, a catch--she left the restaurant equally to Mandy, Emma, and Jill--and also to Paul, the restaurant chef for the past fifteen years.

And before they can sell, all three girls must work at the restaurant for one year--or their shares of the restaurant will go to Paul.

The same Paul that broke one of their hearts many years ago.]]>
352 Pamela M. Kelley 146424619X Dani 0 to-read 4.60 2020 The Nantucket Restaurant (The Nantucket Restaurant, #1)
author: Pamela M. Kelley
name: Dani
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/01
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The Eights 216522354 They knew they were changing history.
They didn’t know they would change each other.

Following the unlikely friendship of four women in the first female class at Oxford, their unshakeable bond in the face of male contempt, and their coming of age in a world forever changed by World War I.

“Entertaining and moving…I came to love these four women as though they were my sisters.”—TRACY CHEVALIER, #1 New York Times bestselling author

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its one-thousand-year history, Oxford University officially admits female students. Burning with dreams of equality, four young women move into neighboring rooms in Corridor 8. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne, and Otto—collectively known as The Eights—come from all walks of life, each driven by their own motives, each holding tight to their secrets, and are thrown into an unlikely, unshakable friendship.

Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Politically-minded Beatrice, daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way - and some friends her own age. Otto was a nurse during the war but is excited to return to her socialite lifestyle in Oxford where she hopes to find distraction from the memories that haunt her. And finally Marianne, the quiet, clever daughter of a village pastor, who has a shocking secret she must hide from everyone, even her new friends, if she is to succeed.

Among the historic spires, and in the long shadow of the Great War, the four women must navigate and support one another in a turbulent world in which misogyny is rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War don’t always remain dead.]]>
382 Joanna Miller 0593851420 Dani 0 to-read 3.70 2025 The Eights
author: Joanna Miller
name: Dani
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Last Murder at the End of the World]]> 197715421
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.]]>
368 Stuart Turton Dani 0 to-read 3.86 2024 The Last Murder at the End of the World
author: Stuart Turton
name: Dani
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/22
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<![CDATA[The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions]]> 220161418 The Power of Habit and Angela Duckworth’s Grit, a renowned social psychologist demonstrates the power of small acts—and how a subtle turning of habits into rituals can add purpose and pleasure to life.

Our lives are filled with repetitive tasks meant to boost productivity—what we come to know as habits. Over time, these habits (for example, brushing your teeth or putting on your right sock first) are done on autopilot. But when a layer of mindfulness accompanies a habit—when we focus on the precise way an act is performed—a ritual has been created. Now, an everyday act goes from black-and-white to technicolor. And as author Michael Norton explains here, it’s these rituals that make life worth living.

Think of the way you savor a certain beverage, the care you take with a certain outfit that only gets worn on special occasions, the unique way that your family gathers around the table at the holidays, or the secret language you enjoy with your significant other. To some, these behaviors may seem quirky, but because rituals matter so deeply to us on a personal level, they saturate our lives with purpose and meaning. Rituals can heal a community experiencing a great loss, guide a speaker through a difficult presentation, drive a stadium of sports fans to ecstasy, inspire courage in soldiers going into combat, and help us rise to challenges and realize opportunities. Among those who have made effective use of rituals are Maya Angelou, Keith Richards, Barack Obama, and Steve Jobs. Drawing on decades of original research, author Michal Norton reveals that shifting from a “habitual� mindset to a “ritual� mindset can both enhance performance and add meaning to your life.

Compelling, inspiring, and practical, The Ritual Effect takes us on a fascinating tour of the intention-filled acts that drive human behavior and shows us how to create simple rituals to imbue everyday life with a sense of purpose and joy.]]>
288 Michael Norton 1982153032 Dani 0 to-read 0.0 2024 The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions
author: Michael Norton
name: Dani
average rating: 0.0
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rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/18
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The Book Swap 203800257 “A love letter to books and reading. This debut is catnip for any book geek. I just loved it.� —Cesca Major, author of Maybe Next Time, a Reese’s Book Club Pick

A story of second chances and new beginnings, this is a love letter to books—and a love letter to life

Still reeling from a recent tragedy, Erin Connolly knows she needs to start living, but has no idea how. When she accidentally donates her favorite book—a heavily annotated copy of To Kill a Mockingbird containing a memento she can’t be without—to a local little community library, she’s devastated. But then the book turns up a week later, back in the library with fresh notes in the margins, along with an invitation in a copy of Great Expectations to meet her newfound pen pal.

A life-changing conversation, written only in the margins of beloved classic books, begins between Erin and her Mystery Man. Following each other through the pages of their favorite novels as the book exchange continues, they both begin to open up, falling into a friendship…and maybe something more.

But Erin and her pen pal have a shared history that neither of them has guessed. Faced with painful reminders of the past—and the one person she swore never to forgive—Erin finds herself at a crossroads. One that could change her life forever.

A book-lovers dream! References to the following classics can be found in The Book Swap:
� TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD
� GREAT EXPECTATIONS
� WUTHERING HEIGHTS
� MANSFIELD PARK
� THE GREAT GATSBY
� MIDDLEMARCH
� BELOVED
� ON THE ROAD
� THE BELL JAR]]>
336 Tessa Bickers 1525836706 Dani 0 to-read 3.56 2024 The Book Swap
author: Tessa Bickers
name: Dani
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/17
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The Stone Witch of Florence 203740124 “A feast of a novel, The Stone Witch of Florence is erudite, transportive, and addicting. Magical in every sense of the word.� —Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters

A woman's secret. A deadly Plague. Unleash the hidden magic�

1348. As the Black Plague ravages Italy, Ginevra di Gasparo is summoned to Florence after nearly a decade of lonely exile. Ginevra has a gift—harnessing the hidden powers of gemstones, she can heal the sick. But when word spread of her unusual abilities, she was condemned as a witch and banished. Now the same men who expelled Ginevra are begging for her return.

Ginevra obliges, assuming the city’s leaders are finally ready to accept her unorthodox cures amid a pandemic. But upon arrival, she is tasked with a much different she must use her collection of jewels to track down a ruthless thief who is ransacking Florence’s churches for priceless relics—the city’s only hope for protection. If she succeeds, she’ll be a recognized physician and never accused of witchcraft again.

But as her investigation progresses, Ginevra discovers she’s merely a pawn in a much larger scheme than the one she’s been hired to solve.ĚýAnd the dangerous men behind this conspiracy won’t think twice about killing a stone witch to get what they wantâ€�


Ěý±Ő±Ő>
Anna Rasche Dani 0 currently-reading 3.91 2024 The Stone Witch of Florence
author: Anna Rasche
name: Dani
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: currently-reading
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A Girl Like Us 197717646
It's 2004 and former reality TV star and party girl Maya Miller has just married the most eligible bachelor on the planet: Colin Sterling, of the globally famous Sterling family whose history of aristocratic titles and land holdings rival a British royal and whose media empire is comparable to the Murdochs. To some, Maya represents the American dream. To others, a gold digger. But when Colin's cousin Arianna, the heiress to the family's immense fortune, is found murdered, Maya is thrust into the spotlight: first as she is revealed to be the next heiress to the fortune, and then as the prime suspect.

Swiftly, the entire Sterling family goes into lockdown at Silver House, the family's ancestral estate in the English countryside. They're told it's for their own safety—but Maya becomes convinced that it's not to keep threats out, but to keep secrets in. Now, she has no choice but to find and expose the truth hidden within the Sterling family, and why Arianna, a girl she had never met, chose her to take her place. But Maya has secrets of her own. And she knows that in order to survive the Sterlings, she'll have to beat them at their own game.]]>
432 Anna Sophia McLoughlin 1728296137 Dani 4 3.56 2025 A Girl Like Us
author: Anna Sophia McLoughlin
name: Dani
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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Witchcraft for Wayward Girls 207610827 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).]]>
492 Grady Hendrix Dani 4 4.12 2025 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Dani
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
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The Good Lie 56238004 Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore is an expert on killers. She’s spent a decade treating California’s most depraved predators and unlocking their motives—predators much like the notorious Bloody Heart serial killer, whose latest teenage victim escaped and then identified local high school teacher Randall Thompson as his captor. The case against Thompson as the Bloody Heart Killer is damning—and closed, as far as Gwen and the media are concerned. If not for one new development�

Defense attorney Robert Kavin is a still-traumatized father whose own son fell prey to the BH Killer. Convinced of Thompson’s innocence, he steps in to represent him. Now Robert wants Gwen to interview the accused, create a psych profile of the killer and his victims, and help clear his client’s name.

As Gwen and Robert grow closer and she dives deeper into the investigation, grave questions arise. So does Gwen’s suspicion that Robert is hiding something—and that he might not be the only one with a secret.

Six teenagers dead. Finally, the killer behind bars. But are the games just beginning?]]>
257 A.R. Torre 1542020174 Dani 0 to-read 4.12 2021 The Good Lie
author: A.R. Torre
name: Dani
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
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The Amalfi Curse 218674082 Powerful witchcraft. A hunt for sunken treasure. Forbidden love on the high seas. Beware the Amalfi Curse�

Haven Ambrose, a trailblazing nautical archaeologist, has come to the sun-soaked village of Positano to investigate the mysterious shipwrecks along the Amalfi Coast. But Haven is hoping to find more than old artifacts beneath the azure waters; she is secretly on a quest to locate a trove of priceless gemstones her late father spotted on his final dive. Upon Haven’s arrival, strange maelstroms and misfortunes start plaguing the town. Is it nature or something more sinister at work?

As Haven searches for her father’s sunken treasure, she begins to unearth a centuries-old tale of ancient sorcery and one woman’s quest to save her lover and her village by using the legendary art of stregheria, a magical ability to harness the ocean. Could this magic be behind Positano’s latest calamities? Haven must unravel the Amalfi Curse before the region is destroyed forever�

Against the dazzling backdrop of the Amalfi Coast, this bewitching novel shimmers with mystery, romance and the untamed magic of the sea.]]>
336 Sarah Penner 0778308006 Dani 0 to-read 4.32 2025 The Amalfi Curse
author: Sarah Penner
name: Dani
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
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The Stolen Queen 211025454 From New York Times bestselling author Fiona Davis, an utterly addictive new novel that will transport you from New York City’s most glamorous party to the labyrinth streets of Cairo and back.

Egypt, 1936: When anthropology student Charlotte Cross is offered a coveted spot on an archaeological dig in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, she leaps at the opportunity. But after an unbearable tragedy strikes, Charlotte knows her future will never be the same.

New York City, 1978: Eighteen-year-old Annie Jenkins is thrilled when she lands an opportunity to work for iconic former Vogue fashion editor Diana Vreeland, who’s in the midst of organizing the famous Met Gala, hosted at the museum and known across the city as the “party of the year.� Though Annie soon realizes she’ll have her work cut out for her, scrambling to meet Diana’s capricious demands and exacting standards.

Meanwhile, Charlotte, now leading a quiet life as the associate curator of the Met’s celebrated Department of Egyptian Art, wants little to do with the upcoming gala. She’s consumed with her research on Hathorkare—a rare female pharaoh dismissed by most other Egyptologists as unimportant.

That is, until the night of the gala. When one of the Egyptian art collection’s most valuable artifacts goes missing . . . and there are signs Hathorkare’s legendary curse might be reawakening.

As Annie and Charlotte team up to search for the missing antiquity, a desperate hunch leads the unlikely duo to one place Charlotte swore she’d never return: Egypt. But if they’re to have any hope of finding the artifact, Charlotte will need to confront the demons of her past—which may mean leading them both directly into danger.]]>
352 Fiona Davis 0593474279 Dani 0 to-read 3.93 2025 The Stolen Queen
author: Fiona Davis
name: Dani
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/12
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The House of Eve 176443755
“A triumph of historical fiction� ( The Washington Post ), an instant New York Times bestseller, and a Reese’s Book Club pick, set in 1950s Philadelphia and Washington, DC, that explores what it means to be a woman and a mother, and how much one is willing to sacrifice to achieve her greatest goal.

1950s fifteen-year-old Ruby Pearsall is on track to becoming the first in her family to attend college. But a taboo love affair threatens to pull her back down into the poverty and desperation that has been passed on to her like a birthright.

Eleanor Quarles arrives in Washington, DC, with ambition and secrets. When she meets the handsome William Pride at Howard University, they fall madly in love. But William hails from one of DC’s elite wealthy Black families, and his parents don’t let just anyone into their fold. Eleanor hopes that a baby will make her finally feel at home in William’s family and grant her the life she’s been searching for. But having a baby—and fitting in—is easier said than done.

With their stories colliding in the most unexpected of ways, Ruby and Eleanor will both make decisions that shape the trajectory of their lives.]]>
384 Sadeqa Johnson 1982197374 Dani 0 to-read 4.24 2023 The House of Eve
author: Sadeqa Johnson
name: Dani
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/06
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Beautiful Ugly 210993995 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

Author Grady Green is having the worst best day of his life.

Grady calls his wife to share some exciting news as she is driving home. He hears Abby slam on the brakes, get out of the car, then nothing. When he eventually finds her car by the cliff edge the headlights are on, the driver door is open, her phone is still there. . . but his wife has disappeared.

A year later, Grady is still overcome with grief and desperate to know what happened to Abby. He can’t sleep, and he can’t write, so he travels to a tiny Scottish island to try to get his life back on track. Then he sees the impossible � a woman who looks exactly like his missing wife.

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.
]]>
320 Alice Feeney 1250337798 Dani 4 3.76 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Dani
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
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Count My Lies 214151565 A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley, and Laura Dave.

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

Harmless lies, mostly, to make her self-proclaimed sad, little life a bit more interesting.

So when Sloane sees a young girl in tears at a park one afternoon, she can't help herself—she tells the girl's (very attractive) dad she's a nurse and helps him pull a bee stinger from the girl's foot.

With this lie, and chance encounter, Sloane becomes the nanny for the wealthy, and privileged Jay and Violet Lockhart. The perfect New York couple, with a brownstone, a daughter in private school, and summers on Block Island.

But maybe Sloane isn't the only one lying, and all that's picture-perfect harbors a much more dangerous truth. To say anything more is to spoil the most exciting, twisty, and bitingly smart suspense novel to come out in years.

The thing about lies is that they add up, form their own truth and a twisted prison of a world. And in Count My Lies, Sophie Stava spins a breakneck, unputdownable thriller about the secrets we keep, and the terrifying dangers that lurk just under the images we spend so much time trying to maintain.

Careful what you lie for.]]>
336 Sophie Stava 1668079348 Dani 0 to-read 3.74 2025 Count My Lies
author: Sophie Stava
name: Dani
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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<![CDATA[Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)]]> 150260787 Torn apart by war. Reunited by love?

Two weeks have passed since Iris returned home bruised and heartbroken from the front, but the war is far from over.

Roman is missing, lost behind enemy lines, with no memory of his past, or Iris. Hoping his memories return, he begins to write again � but this time for the enemy.

When a strange letter arrives through his wardrobe door, he strikes up a correspondence with a penpal who seems at once mysterious� and strangely familiar.

As their connection deepens, the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to change the tides of the war.]]>
419 Rebecca Ross Dani 0 to-read 4.07 2023 Ruthless Vows (Letters of Enchantment, #2)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Dani
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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Coming Dawn (Devin Gray, #2) 59992655 The dawn of an inconceivable act of treason rises. The stakes for America’s future have never been higher than in a gripping novel of suspense by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Deep Sleep.

When CIA officer Helen Gray died, her son, Devin, a countersurveillance expert, inherited her paranoia—and the explosive evidence that gave it weight: a vast, previously undetected Russian sleeper network has operated in the United States since the Cold War.

The cells aren’t just embedded in every level of state and federal government. They’ve penetrated corporations that supply crucial technology to the Department of Defense and various intelligence agencies. With the network’s true scope still unknown, the only way to drive a stake through the heart of the conspiracy is to dispatch a covert crew to Moscow and eliminate the oligarch bankrolling it.

Russia’s endgame: inconceivable. Devin’s challenge: stop the greatest threat to national security and world peace in history. The margin for error: nonexistent.]]>
373 Steven Konkoly 1542036631 Dani 4 4.44 2022 Coming Dawn (Devin Gray, #2)
author: Steven Konkoly
name: Dani
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/01
date added: 2025/03/01
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<![CDATA[Fallen City (Fallen City Duology, #1)]]> 222376635 In the great walled city of Isara, political turmoil ignites a rebellion one hundred years in the making. But when a legionnaire falls in love with a Magistrate's daughter, their love will threaten the fate of the city and the will of the gods.

Luca Matius has one purpose—to carry on the family name, maintaining its presence in the Forum once his powerful and cruel uncle dies. But his noviceship with the city's Philosopher places him in the middle of a catastrophe that will alter the destiny of his people.

Maris Casoeria was raised amidst the strategic maneuvers of the Citadel's inner workings, and she knows what her future holds—a lifetime of service to a corrupt city. But her years of serving as a novice to the last Priestess who possesses the stolen magic of the Old War has made her envision a different kind of future for the city. When she meets Luca, a fated chain of events is set into motion that will divinely entangle their lives.

As a secret comes to light and throws the city into chaos, Luca and Maris hatch a plot to create a calculated alliance that could tip the scales of power. But when an execution forces Luca to become the symbol of rebellion, he and Maris are thrown onto opposite sides of a holy war. As their fates diverge, they learn they are at the center of a story the gods are writing. And even if they can find their way back to each other, there may be nothing left.]]>
416 Adrienne Young 1250794196 Dani 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Fallen City (Fallen City Duology, #1)
author: Adrienne Young
name: Dani
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/03/01
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Deep Sleep (Devin Gray, #1) 57914602 Stopping the most dangerous conspiracy to ever threaten America means believing the unthinkable in an explosive novel by Wall Street Journal bestselling author Steven Konkoly.

Countersurveillance expert Devin Gray is unwittingly thrown headfirst into dangerous new territory after the death of his mother. Helen Gray, a paranoid and disgraced former CIA officer, believed she was on the verge of preventing a national catastrophe—a mission worth dying for. Others, including Devin, believe she was chasing delusions. Until he finds what she left behind.

With the help of longtime friend and former Marine helicopter pilot Marnie Young and a loyal team of covert operatives Helen summoned just before her death, Devin is propelled into a high-stakes chase across the country. What he uncovers, clue by clue, is a conspiracy more widespread and insidious than anyone could have imagined.

Now it’s Devin’s mission to destroy a covert network poised to deliver a fatal blow to the future of the United States. And also to vindicate his mother, by seeing the mission through to its treacherous end.]]>
365 Steven Konkoly 1542029902 Dani 3 4.08 2022 Deep Sleep (Devin Gray, #1)
author: Steven Konkoly
name: Dani
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
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Murder Road 196614815 A young couple find themselves haunted by a string of gruesome murders committed along an old deserted road in this terrifying new novel.

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

When the hitchhiker dies at the local hospital, April and Eddie find themselves in the crosshairs of the Coldlake Falls police. Unexplained murders have been happening along Atticus Line for years and the cops finally have two witnesses who easily become their only suspects. As April and Eddie start to dig into the history of the town and that horrible stretch of road to clear their names, they soon learn that there is something supernatural at work, something that could not only tear the town and its dark secrets apart, but take April and Eddie down with it all.]]>
341 Simone St. James 0593200381 Dani 0 3.67 2024 Murder Road
author: Simone St. James
name: Dani
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/19
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<![CDATA[The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto, #2)]]> 199229118 A serial killer on death row challenges a forensic linguist to solve his final puzzle in a novel of breathtaking mind games by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of The Lies You Wrote.

Forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny lost his wife, Shay, to the very serial killer he’d hunted for five years. When Nathaniel Conrad—known as the Alphabet Man, for his love of tattooing codes onto his victims� bodies—was condemned to death row, Callum thought the game of cat and mouse was over. But just before execution, Nathaniel drops a he’s not the one who murdered Shay.

After analyzing the killer’s taunting, coded letters to authorities—one for each victim—FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto believes him. The discrepancies bear it out. So was it a copycat? A partner in crime? Or something more sinister? If Nathaniel knows the answer, Raisa fears he’ll be taking that closely guarded secret to his grave.

As Raisa and Callum are pulled into an investigation to solve Shay’s murder, it reopens old traumas that cut deeper than they could imagine. Before someone else dies, Raisa must decipher the unbelievable truth in an ever-twisting case built on a foundation of lies.]]>
316 Brianna Labuskes 166251137X Dani 5 4.25 2024 The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto, #2)
author: Brianna Labuskes
name: Dani
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
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Circe 50164163
When love drives Circe to cast a dark spell, wrathful Zeus banishes her to the remote island of Aiaia. There she learns to harness her occult craft, drawing strength from nature. But she will not always be alone; many are destined to pass through Circe's place of exile, entwining their fates with hers. The messenger god, Hermes. The craftsman, Daedalus. A ship bearing a golden fleece. And wily Odysseus, on his epic voyage home.

There is danger for a solitary woman in this world, and Circe's independence draws the wrath of men and gods alike. To protect what she holds dear, Circe must decide whether she belongs with the deities she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.]]>
433 Madeline Miller Dani 5 4.32 2018 Circe
author: Madeline Miller
name: Dani
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
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<![CDATA[The Last Murder at the End of the World]]> 213570810
Outside the island there is nothing: the world was destroyed by a fog that swept the planet, killing anyone it touched.

On the island: it is idyllic. One hundred and twenty-two villagers and three scientists, living in peaceful harmony. The villagers are content to fish, farm and feast, to obey their nightly curfew, to do what they're told by the scientists.

Until, to the horror of the islanders, one of their beloved scientists is found brutally stabbed to death. And then they learn that the murder has triggered a lowering of the security system around the island, the only thing that was keeping the fog at bay. If the murder isn't solved within 107 hours, the fog will smother the island—and everyone on it.

But the security system has also wiped everyone's memories of exactly what happened the night before, which means that someone on the island is a murderer—and they don't even know it.

And the clock is ticking.

From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.]]>
432 Stuart Turton 1464221847 Dani 0 to-read 3.60 2024 The Last Murder at the End of the World
author: Stuart Turton
name: Dani
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)]]> 123471760 When old secrets catch fire, everything will burn.

In a mortal world colonized by the gods and ruled over by the Descended, their cruel offspring, Diem Bellator yearns to escape the insular life of her poor village.

Her mother’s sudden disappearance—and the discovery of a dangerous secret about her past—offer Diem an unexpected opportunity to enter the dark world of Descended royalty and unlock the web of mysteries her mother left behind.

With the dying King’s handsome, mysterious heir watching her every move, and a ruthless mortal alliance recruiting her to join the growing civil war, Diem will have to navigate the unwritten rules of love, power, and politics in order to save her family—and all of mortalkind.

Spark of the Everflame is the first book in The Kindred's Curse Saga, a four-book fantasy romance series. This slow burn, enemies-to-lovers epic is perfect for lovers of magic, dragons, angst, and banter and will appeal to fans of books like A Court of Thorns and Roses, From Blood and Ash, Gild, and The Serpent & the Wings of Night.]]>
438 Penn Cole Dani 0 to-read 4.20 2023 Spark of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #1)
author: Penn Cole
name: Dani
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/08
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<![CDATA[The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot]]> 54798488 An extraordinary friendship. A lifetime of stories.
Their last one begins here.

Life is short. No-one knows that better than seventeen year old Lenni living on the terminal ward. But as she is about to learn, it's not only what you make of life that matters, but who you share it with.

Dodging doctor's orders, she joins an art class where she bumps into fellow patient Margot, a rebel-hearted eighty three year old from the next ward. Their bond is instant as they realize that together they have lived an astonishing one hundred years.

To celebrate their shared century, they decide to paint their life stories: of growing old and staying young, of giving joy, of receiving kindness, of losing love, of finding the person who is everything.

As their extraordinary friendship deepens, it becomes vividly clear that life is not done with Lenni and Margot yet.

Fiercely alive, disarmingly funny and brimming with tenderness, THE ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF LENNI AND MARGOT unwraps the extraordinary gift of life even when it is about to be taken away, and revels in our infinite capacity for friendship and love when we need them most. ]]>
322 Marianne Cronin 0063017504 Dani 3 4.26 2021 The One Hundred Years of Lenni and Margot
author: Marianne Cronin
name: Dani
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/08
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The Lion Women of Tehran 199898012 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]>
336 Marjan Kamali Dani 5 4.60 2024 The Lion Women of Tehran
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Dani
average rating: 4.60
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
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Voice Like a Hyacinth 211102322 Five young women eager for success rely on the unspeakable to make their dreams come true in a chilling novel about martyrdom, ritual, and obsession by the author of We Ate the Dark.

Art student Jo Kozak and her fellow classmates and best friends, Caroline, Finch, Amrita, and Saz, are one another’s muses—so close they have their own language and so devoted to the craft that they’ll do anything to keep their inspiration alive. Even if it means naively resorting to the occult to unlock their creativity and to curse their esteemed, if notoriously creepy, professor. They soon learn the horrible price to be paid for such a transgressive ritual.

In its violent aftermath, things are changing. Jo is feeling unnervingly haunted by something inexplicable. Their paintings, once prodigious and full of life, are growing dark and unhealthy. And their journey together—as women, students, and artists—is starting to crumble.

To right the wrong they’ve done, these five desperate friends will take their obsession a step too far. When that happens, there may be no turning back.]]>
358 Mallory Pearson 1662515413 Dani 4 3.65 2025 Voice Like a Hyacinth
author: Mallory Pearson
name: Dani
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/01
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<![CDATA[The Queen's Rising (The Queen's Rising, #1)]]> 214466903
Growing up in the southern kingdom of Valenia at the renowned Magnalia House should have prepared her. While some are born with a talent for one of the five passions—art, music, dramatics, wit, and knowledge—Brienna struggled to find hers until she chose knowledge. However, despite all her preparations, Brienna’s greatest fear comes true: she is left without a patron.

Months later, her life takes an unexpected turn when a disgraced lord offers her patronage. Suspicious of his intent, she reluctantly accepts. But there is much more to his story, for there is a dangerous plot to overthrow the king of Maevana—the rival kingdom of Valenia—and restore the rightful queen, and her magic, to the northern throne. And others are involved, some closer to Brienna than she realizes.

With war brewing, Brienna must choose whose side she will remain loyal to—passion or blood. Because a queen is destined to rise and lead the battle to reclaim the crown. Who will be that queen?

With gorgeous description and detailed rendering of a world where not everything is what it seems, debut author Rebecca Ross weaves an intricate tale of revenge, loyalty, and, ultimately, self-discovery.]]>
480 Rebecca Ross 0063428407 Dani 0 to-read 3.83 2018 The Queen's Rising (The Queen's Rising, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Dani
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Fatal Intrusion (Sanchez & Heron, #1)]]> 202645063 As a wave of murders grips Southern California, an unlikely pair must untangle the mysterious patterns of an elusive killer. A propulsive new series by New York Times bestselling author Jeffery Deaver and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Isabella Maldonado.

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

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

Over the next seventy-two hours, Sanchez and Heron find themselves in the midst of a lethal chess match with the killer as they race to stop the carnage. As the victims mount, so do the risks. Because this spider’s web of intrigue is more sinister—and goes far deeper—than anyone could possibly anticipate.]]>
434 Jeffery Deaver 1662518706 Dani 3 4.26 2024 Fatal Intrusion (Sanchez & Heron, #1)
author: Jeffery Deaver
name: Dani
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/26
date added: 2025/01/26
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The Missing Half 217213002 Two women haunted by their sisters' unsolved disappearances band together in this captivating mystery from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of All Good People Here and host of the #1 true crime podcast Crime Junkie.

Nicole “Nicâ€� Monroe is in a rut. At twenty-four, she lives alone in a dinky apartment in her hometown of Mishawaka, Indiana, she’s just gotten a DWI, and she works the same dead-end job she’s been working since high school, a job she only has because her boss is a family friend and feels sorry for her. Everyone has felt sorry for her forĚýtheĚýlast seven years—since the day her older sister, Kasey, vanished without a trace.

On theĚýnight Kasey went missing, her car was found overĚýaĚýhundred miles from home. TheĚýdriver’s door was open and her purse was untouched inĚýtheĚýseat next to it. The only real clue in her disappearance was Jules Connor, another young woman from the same area who disappeared inĚýtheĚýsame way, two weeks earlier. But with so little for the police to go on, both their cases eventually went cold.

Nic wants nothing more than to move on—from her sister’s disappearance andĚýtheĚýstate it’s left her in. But then one day, Jules’s sister, Jenna Connor, walks into her life and offers Nic something she hasn’t felt inĚýaĚýlong hope. What follows isĚýaĚýgripping tale of two sisters who will do anything to find theirĚýmissingĚýhalves, even if it means destroying everything they’ve ever known.]]>
272 Ashley Flowers 0593726987 Dani 0 to-read 4.05 2025 The Missing Half
author: Ashley Flowers
name: Dani
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Manor of Dreams 214152076 Mexican Gothic meets Everything I Never Told You in Christina Li’s haunting novel about the secrets that lie in wait in the crumbling mansion of a former Hollywood starlet, and the intertwined fates of the two Chinese American families fighting to inherit it.

They say what you don’t know can’t hurt you. But silence can be deadly.

Vivian Yin is dead. The first Chinese actress to win an Oscar, the trailblazing ingénue rose to fame in the eighties, only to disappear from the spotlight at the height of her career and live out the rest of her life as a recluse.

Now her remaining family members are gathered for the reading of her will and her daughters expect to inherit their childhood Vivian’s grand, sprawling Southern California garden estate. But due to a last-minute change to the will, the house is passed on to another family instead—one that has suddenly returned after decades of estrangement.

In hopes of staking their claim, both families move into the mansion. Amidst the grief and paranoia of the families� unhappy reunion, Vivian’s daughters race to piece together what happened in the last weeks of their mother’s life, only to realize they are being haunted by something much more sinister and vengeful than their regrets. After so many years of silence, will the families finally confront the painful truth about the last fateful summer they spent in the house, or will they cling to their secrets until it’s too late?

Told in dual timelines, spanning three generations, and brimming with romance, betrayal, ambition and sacrifice, The Manor of Dreams is a thrilling family gothic that examines the true cost of the American dream—and what happens when the roots we set down in this country turn to rot.]]>
352 Christina Li 1668051729 Dani 0 to-read 4.09 2025 The Manor of Dreams
author: Christina Li
name: Dani
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Eights 216522711 They didn't know they would change each other.

Following the unlikely friendship of four of the first ever women to matriculate at Oxford University in the aftermath of the First World War, a captivating debut novel about sisterhood, self-determination and the many forms courage can take.

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1000-year history, the world's most famous university has admitted female students. Giddy with dreams of equality, education and emancipation, four young women move into neighbouring rooms. Beatrice, Dora, Marianne and Otto (collectively known as The Eights) have come here from all walks of life, and they are thrown into an unlikely, life-affirming friendship.

Dora was never meant to go to university, but, after losing both her brother and her fiancé on the battlefield, has arrived in their place. Politically-minded Beatrice, daughter of a famous suffragette, sees Oxford as a chance to make her own way - and some friends her own age. Otto was a nurse during the war but is excited to return to her socialite lifestyle in Oxford - where she hopes to find distraction from the memories that haunt her. And finally Marianne, the quiet, clever daughter of a village pastor, who has a shocking secret she must hide from everyone, even her new friends, if she is to succeed.

But Oxford's dreaming spires cast a dark shadow: in 1920, misogyny is still rife, influenza is still a threat, and the ghosts of the Great War are still very real indeed. And as the group navigate this tumultuous moment in time, their friendship will become more important than ever.]]>
384 Joanna Miller 0593851412 Dani 0 to-read 4.02 2025 The Eights
author: Joanna Miller
name: Dani
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Killer Potential 215217589 Darkly funny and provocative, this edge-of-your-seat thrill ride follows two unlikely fugitives—an SAT tutor who finds her rich employers brutally murdered and the bound woman she frees from their mansion—an irresistible debut novel perfect for fans ofĚýThe GuestĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýMy Sister, the Serial Killer

A scholarship kid with straight As and big dreams, Evie Gordon always thought she was special, that she’d be someone. But after graduating from an elite university, she finds herself drowning in debt and working as an SAT tutor for the super-rich of Los Angeles.

Everything changes one Sunday, when she arrives for her weekly lesson at the Victors� Beverly Hills estate and, in lieu of a bored teenager, finds the bloody remains of the parents strewn through their beautiful back garden, and a woman crying for help within a closet. As Evie works to free her, the two are spotted—and within moments, they go from bystanders to suspects to fugitives.

Suddenly at the heart of a manhunt and accompanied by a mysterious woman who refuses to speak, Evie knows the only way to clear her name is to find the real killer. But first she’ll have to break down the barriers of her companion, who is quickly becoming the most important person in Evie’s upside-down life. Their breathless spree takes them across the U.S. as developments in the case shock the nation and the press runs wild with Evie’s a gifted kid turned killer. She's now on the cover of every magazine and newspaper—anointed the new Charles Manson, a bloodthirsty ninety-nine percenter looking to start a class war. Evie is finallyĚýsomeone.

By turns cuttingly hilarious and deeply insightful,ĚýKiller PotentialĚýis a strikingly original debut. A literary novel with the page-turning intensity of a thriller that asks timely questions about our belief in the romance of social mobility, and how the stories we’re sold about our potential can shape the course of our lives.]]>
320 Hannah Deitch 0063356481 Dani 0 to-read 3.54 2025 Killer Potential
author: Hannah Deitch
name: Dani
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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A Gorgeous Excitement 211953309 A dazzling debut novel set in 1980s New York, when cocaine is as easy to get as ice cream, about one young woman’s summer of infinite possibility—and looming danger.

It was the summer of 1986, when the girl was found dead in Central Park behind the Metropolitan Museum—half-naked, legs splayed, arms flung over her head. Larynx crushed.

There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly wrong, Nina is the talk of Flanagan’s, the Upper East Side bar where young Manhattan society congregates. It doesn’t help that she’s Jewish, an outsider among the blue-eyed blondes who populate this rarified world. She can fit in, kind of, with enough alcohol and prescription drugs stolen from her parents� medicine cabinet.

Flanagan’s is where she pines for the handsome, preppy, and charismatic Gardner Reed, whom every girl wants to sleep with and every guy wants to be. After she’s introduced to cocaine, Nina plunges headlong into her pursuit of Gardner, oblivious to the warning signs. When a new medication seemingly frees her mother from darkness, and Nina and Gardner grow closer, it seems like Nina might finally get what she wants. But at what cost?

Freud called cocaine “a gorgeous excitement,� but a gorgeous excitement for the wrong guy can be lethal.]]>
368 Cynthia Weiner 0593798848 Dani 0 to-read 3.72 A Gorgeous Excitement
author: Cynthia Weiner
name: Dani
average rating: 3.72
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<![CDATA[The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)]]> 62335396 Love is a sacrifice at the altar of power.

In the wake of the Kejari, everything Oraya once thought to be true has been destroyed. A prisoner in her own kingdom, grieving the only family she ever had, and reeling from a gutting betrayal, she no longer even knows the truth of her own blood. She’s left only with one certainty: she cannot trust anyone, least of all Raihn.

The House of Night, too, is surrounded by enemies. Raihn’s own nobles are none too eager to accept a Turned king, especially one who was once a slave. And the House of Blood digs their claws into the kingdom, threatening to tear it apart from the inside.

When Raihn offers Oraya a secret alliance, taking the deal is her only chance at reclaiming her kingdom–and gaining her vengeance against the lover who betrayed her. But to do so, she’ll need to harness a devastating ancient power, intertwined with her father’s greatest secrets.

But with enemies closing in on all sides, nothing is as it seems. As she unravels her past and faces her future, Oraya finds herself forced to choose between the bloody reality of seizing power � and the devastating love that could be her downfall.]]>
626 Carissa Broadbent Dani 4 4.10 2023 The Ashes & the Star-Cursed King (Crowns of Nyaxia, #2)
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Dani
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
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<![CDATA[Gilded Princess (Five Families, #1)]]> 57589985
Then my dad died, my crown broke, and my mom shipped my sister and me off to boarding school.

And then I met them.
My knights.
Only they’re nothing like the fairytales I grew up on. They’re wrapped in sin and shrouded in darkness. Bossy, protective, alphaholes.

And heirs to the Italian mafia.]]>
298 Penelope Black Dani 4 3.82 Gilded Princess (Five Families, #1)
author: Penelope Black
name: Dani
average rating: 3.82
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/19
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A Thousand Ships 54627213
In the middle of the night, Creusa wakes to find her beloved Troy engulfed in flames. Ten seemingly endless years of brutal conflict between the Greeks and the Trojans are over, and the Greeks are victorious. Over the next few hours, the only life she has ever known will turn to ash . . .

The devastating consequences of the fall of Troy stretch from Mount Olympus to Mount Ida, from the citadel of Troy to the distant Greek islands, and across oceans and sky in between. These are the stories of the women embroiled in that legendary war and its terrible aftermath, as well as the feud and the fatal decisions that started it all�

Powerfully told from an all-female perspective, A Thousand Ships gives voices to the women, girls and goddesses who, for so long, have been silent.

In A Thousand Ships, broadcaster and classicist Natalie Haynes retells the story of the Trojan War from an all-female perspective.]]>
366 Natalie Haynes Dani 0 to-read 4.09 2019 A Thousand Ships
author: Natalie Haynes
name: Dani
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/14
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The Let Them Theory 220772795 New York Times Bestselling Author. Millions of books sold worldwide!

A Life-Changing Tool Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About

What if the key to happiness, success, and love was as simple as two words?

If you've ever felt stuck, overwhelmed, or frustrated with where you are, the problem isn't you. The problem is the power you give to other people. Two simple wordsâ€�Let Them—will set you free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgments of others. Free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you.ĚýThe Let Them TheoryĚýputs the power to create a life you love back in your hands—and this book will show you exactly how to do it.

In her latest groundbreaking book,ĚýThe Let Them Theory,ĚýMel Robbinsâ€�New York TimesĚýBestselling Author and one of the world's most respected experts on motivation, confidence, and mindset—teaches you how to stop wasting energy on what you can't control and start focusing on what truly YOU. Your happiness. Your goals. Your life.

Using the same no-nonsense, science-backed approach that's madeĚýThe Mel Robbins PodcastĚýa global sensation, Robbins explains whyĚýThe Let Them TheoryĚýis already loved by millions and how you can apply it in eight key areas of your life to make the biggest impact. Within a few pages, you'll realize how much energy and time you've been wasting trying to control the wrong things—at work, in relationships, and in pursuing your goals—and how this is keeping you from the happiness and success you deserve.

Written as an easy-to-understand guide, Robbins shares relatable stories from her own life, highlights key takeaways, relevant research and introduces you to world-renowned experts in psychology, neuroscience, relationships, happiness, and ancient wisdom who championĚýThe Let Them TheoryĚýevery step of the way.

Learn how

Stop wasting energy on things you can't controlStop comparing yourself to other peopleBreak free from fear and self-doubtRelease the grip of people's expectationsBuild the best friendships of your lifeCreate the love you deservePursue what truly matters to you with confidenceBuild resilience against everyday stressors and distractionsDefine your own path to success, joy, and fulfillment...and so much more.

The Let Them TheoryĚýwill forever change the way you think about relationships, control, and personal power. Whether you want to advance your career, motivate others to change, take creative risks, find deeper connections, build better habits, start a new chapter, or simply create more happiness in your life and relationships, this book gives you the mindset and tools to unlock your full potential.

Order your copy ofĚýThe Let Them TheoryĚýnow and discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words.]]>
311 Mel Robbins 1788176650 Dani 0 to-read 4.37 2024 The Let Them Theory
author: Mel Robbins
name: Dani
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/09
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<![CDATA[The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)]]> 60714999 Human or vampire, the rules of survival are the same: never trust, never yield, and always � always � guard your heart.

The adopted human daughter of the Nightborn vampire king, Oraya carved her place in a world designed to kill her. Her only chance to become something more than prey is entering the Kejari: a legendary tournament held by the goddess of death herself.

But winning won’t be easy amongst the most vicious warriors from all three vampire houses. To survive, Oraya is forced to make an alliance with a mysterious rival.

Everything about Raihn is dangerous. He is a ruthless vampire, an efficient killer, an enemy to her father’s crown� and her greatest competition. Yet, what terrifies Oraya most of all is that she finds herself oddly drawn to him.

But there’s no room for compassion in the Kejari. War for the House of Night brews, shattering everything that Oraya thought she knew about her home. And Raihn may understand her more than anyone � but their blossoming attraction could be her downfall, in a kingdom where nothing is more deadly than love.

The Serpent and the Wings of Night is the first book in a new series of heart-wrenching romance, dark magic, and bloodthirsty intrigue, perfect for fans of From Blood and Ash and A Court of Thorns and Roses.]]>
504 Carissa Broadbent Dani 4 4.30 2022 The Serpent and the Wings of Night (Crowns of Nyaxia, #1)
author: Carissa Broadbent
name: Dani
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves:
review:
I loved this first book of the series! I enjoyed this different fantasy world and how much the author embraced being in the gray - good isn’t just good, bad isn’t just bad. Oraya is amazing as a FMC and I’m very curious what directions the rest of the series will take after that ending!
]]>
The Dream Hotel 218695937 A novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]>
336 Laila Lalami 0593317602 Dani 0 to-read 3.69 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: Dani
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/06
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<![CDATA[The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)]]> 26032825 Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.]]>
370 Holly Black 0316310271 Dani 0 to-read 4.01 2018 The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, #1)
author: Holly Black
name: Dani
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/05
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The Rules of Fortune 217903876
Kennedy is an aspiring filmmaker, and the documentary she’d planned to present at her father’s party begins an inquest into the life of a man she never really knew. A thoughtful outlier in an elite and fiercely guarded dynasty, she’s not interested in keeping up the appearances that define her impeccably poised mother or in the capitalist games her ruthless brother plays. Kennedy wants only to understand the origins of their empire, and the lethally ambitious man behind it. That understanding comes at a cost.

As a twisted history emerges, the fault lines in the family grow. Torn between morality and the promise of maintaining wealth, Kennedy must decide what’s most important—the Carter legacy or exposing the shocking truth of how it was built.]]>
304 Danielle Prescod 166252014X Dani 0 to-read 3.31 2025 The Rules of Fortune
author: Danielle Prescod
name: Dani
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/05
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<![CDATA[The Stolen Hours (Joe Talbert, #3)]]> 57313111 A woman finds herself in a race not only for justiceĚýbut for her life in thisĚý"riveting, hold-your-breath" new mystery from the bestselling author ofĚýThe Life We BuryĚý(Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author).Lila Nash is on the verge of landing her dream job—working as a prosecutor under the Hennepin County Attorney—and has settled into a happy life with her boyfriend, Joe Talbert. But when a woman is pulled from the Mississippi River, barely alive, things in the office take a personal turn.ĚýThe police believe the woman’s assailant is local photographer Gavin Spenser, but the case quickly flounders as the evidence wears thin. It seems Gavin saw this investigation coming—and no one can imagine how carefully he has prepared.The more determined Lila is to put Gavin behind bars, the more elusive justice becomes. Battling a vindictive new boss and haunted by the ghosts of her own unspeakable attack, which she’s kept a dark secret for eight long years, Lila knows the clock is ticking down. In a race against an evil mastermind, it will take everything Lila’s got to outsmart a killer—andĚýto escape the dark hold of her own past.“A near-perfect thriller, The Stolen Hours is a true nail-biter that will have you reading long into the night.â€� —Book Reporter“Even readers who predict the tale’s biggest twist before it arrives will still have the breath knocked out of them by the surprises that follow.â€� —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“There’s not a moment misplaced or a second lost. With the precision of a watchmaker, Eskens assembles the fine parts of a mystery and sets them to the tempo of a thriller, leaving the reader breathless.â€� —Craig Johnson, author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries]]> 320 Allen Eskens 0316703508 Dani 4 4.43 2021 The Stolen Hours (Joe Talbert, #3)
author: Allen Eskens
name: Dani
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/05
shelves:
review:
First book of 2025 was excellent! I loved Andi, Niki, and Lila as a trio of strong, smart, fierce women focused on justice. I loved that our villain was also smart - and knew it - and made everything extra intense as they tried to make the case against him.
]]>
Funny Story 220999062 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]>
416 Emily Henry 0593441214 Dani 0 to-read 4.20 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Dani
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Along Came Amor (Primas of Power, #3)]]> 65961539 From the international bestselling author of You Had Me at Hola and A Lot Like Adiós comes a steamy love story of a divorced schoolteacher who discovers that her perfect no-strings fling is anything but�

No strings

After Ava Rodriguez’s now-ex-husband declares he wants to “follow his dreams”—which no longer include her—she’s left questioning everything she thought she wanted. So when a handsome hotelier flirts with her, Ava vows to stop overthinking and embrace the opportunity for an epic one-night-stand complete with a penthouse suite, rooftop pool, and buckets of champagne.

No feelings

Roman Vasquez’s sole focus is the empire he built from the ground up. He lives and dies by his schedule, but the gorgeous stranger grimacing into her cocktail glass inspires him to change his plans for the evening. At first, it’s easy for Roman to agree to Ava’s rules: no strings, no feelings. But one night isn’t enough, and the more they meet, the more he wants.

No falling in love

Roman is the perfect fling, until Ava sees him at her cousin’s engagement party—as the groom’s best man, no less! Suddenly, maintaining her boundaries becomes a lot more complicated as she tries to hide the truth of their relationship from her family. However, Roman isn’t content being her dirty little secret, and he doesn’t just want more, he wants everything. With her future uncertain and her family pressuring her from all sides, Ava will have to decide if love is worth the risk—again.]]>
512 Alexis Daria 0062960008 Dani 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Along Came Amor (Primas of Power, #3)
author: Alexis Daria
name: Dani
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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If You Lie 216295096 A buried past. A new-age cult. A floating prison with no way off.

Seven years ago, Olivia woke up in the trunk of a stranger’s car—and barely escaped with her life. She’s been looking over her shoulder ever since.

Now, Olivia is a true-crime podcaster on a mission to help other women avoid her fate. But years spent covering violence and crime have left her burned out. So when Olivia’s estranged sister Quinn invites her to reconnect on an exclusive cruise, she jumps at the chance for a break…only this trip won’t be the relaxing vacation she’s hoping for.

The ship is elegant, the meals are divine, and the people are friendly—maybe too friendly. But Quinn isn’t the sister Olivia remembers. And strange things are starting to happen that echo Olivia's past in unsettling ways.

When someone on the ship goes missing, Olivia realizes she’s playing a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Only this time, she might not survive.]]>
321 Caleb Stephens Dani 0 to-read 3.72 If You Lie
author: Caleb Stephens
name: Dani
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/03
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The Starlight Heir 212364043
“Be ready for a deadly contest for a bride, mistaken identities, hidden magic, and secrets that will keep you guessing until the end.� –NISHA J. TULI, internationally bestselling author of Trial of the Sun Queen

A bladesmith blessed by the stars. A prince with a dangerous secret. A god bound in shadows. From USA Today bestselling author Amalie Howard comes a scorching new romantasy that will leave you spellbound.

“His Imperial Majesty King Zarek requests your presence as his esteemed guest.�

When the gold-dusted court invitation arrives at Suraya Saab’s forge, she believes it’s a joke. Nobles might seek her skills as a bladesmith—one of few who can imbue her work with precious jadu, the last source of magic in the realm—but she has no qualifications as a potential bride for the crown prince. Still, the invitation is the chance at adventure, and the means to finally visit the capital city her late mother loved.

But what awaits her in Kaldari is nothing she could have imagined—and fraught with danger. It’s not the crown prince, but his impossibly handsome, illegitimate half-brother, Roshan, who captures her interest…and her ire. The invitation isn’t a quest to find a suitable bride, but a veiled hunt for the Starkeeper—a girl rumored to hold the magic of the stars in her blood. And across the city, unrest is brewing between the noble houses and the rebel militia.

When the rebels attack, Suraya and Roshan find themselves on the run, trying to deny their simmering attraction and the knowledge that Suraya herself might be the Starkeeper. But Roshan is guarding secrets of his own. And with no control over the power stirring within her, Suraya has drawn the attention of a dark god, an immortal whose interest might be the biggest threat of all.

“Consumes all your attention and leaves you longing for more!� —Jennifer L. Armentrout, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Stunning .� —Brigid Kemmerer, New York Times bestselling author

“Pure addictive delight." —Thea Guanzon, New York Times bestselling author

“Amalie Howard at her finest!� —Danielle L. Jensen, New York Times bestselling author]]>
368 Amalie Howard 0063355841 Dani 0 to-read 3.31 2025 The Starlight Heir
author: Amalie Howard
name: Dani
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Great Big Beautiful Life 218559595 Two writers compete for the chance to tell the larger-than-life story of a woman with more than a couple of plot twists up her sleeve in this dazzling and sweeping new novel from Emily Henry.

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

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

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

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

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

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

And it’s becoming abundantly clear that their story—just like the tale Margaret’s spinning—could be a mystery, tragedy, or love ballad…depending on who’s telling it.]]>
384 Emily Henry 059344129X Dani 0 to-read 4.26 2025 Great Big Beautiful Life
author: Emily Henry
name: Dani
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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Atmosphere 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 Dani 0 to-read 4.44 2025 Atmosphere
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Dani
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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We All Live Here 213243915 The #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books so many love, brings us a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is . . . complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.]]>
450 Jojo Moyes 1984879324 Dani 0 to-read 3.88 2025 We All Live Here
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Dani
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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10% Happier 18505796
Eventually Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless: meditation, a tool that research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain. "10% Happier" takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives.]]>
256 Dan Harris 0062265423 Dani 0 to-read 3.87 2014 10% Happier
author: Dan Harris
name: Dani
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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<![CDATA[The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith]]> 28956892 The Universe Has Your Back, New York Times best-selling author Gabrielle Bernstein teaches readers how to transform their fear into faith in order to live a divinely guided life. Each story and lesson in the book guides readers to release the blocks to what they most long for: happiness, security and clear direction. The lessons help readers relinquish the need to control so they can relax into a sense of certainty and freedom. Readers will learn to stop chasing life and truly live.

Making the shift from fear to faith will give readers a sense of power in a world that all too often makes them feel utterly powerless. When the tragedies of the world seem overwhelming, this book will help guide them back to their true power.

Gabrielle says, “My commitment with this book is to wake up as many people as possible to their connection to faith and joy. In that connection, we can be guided to our true purpose: to be love and spread love. These words can no longer be cute buzz phrases that we merely post on social media. Rather, these words must be our mission. The happiness, safety, and security we long for lies in our commitment to love.�

When readers follow this path, they’ll begin to feel a swell of energy move through them. They will find strength when they are down, synchronicity and support when they’re lost, safety in the face of uncertainty, and joy when they are otherwise in pain. Follow the secrets revealed in this book to unleash the presence of your power and know always that The Universe Has Your Back.]]>
200 Gabrielle Bernstein 1401946542 Dani 0 to-read 3.97 2016 The Universe Has Your Back: Transform Fear to Faith
author: Gabrielle Bernstein
name: Dani
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success]]> 123018918 368 Liz Moody 0063333716 Dani 0 to-read 4.09 2023 100 Ways to Change Your Life: The Science of Leveling Up Health, Happiness, Relationships & Success
author: Liz Moody
name: Dani
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/30
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<![CDATA[Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives]]> 22889767 New York Times Bestseller
Washington Post Bestseller
Ěý
The author of the blockbusterĚýNew York TimesĚýbestsellers,ĚýThe Happiness ProjectĚý˛ą˛Ô»ĺĚýHappier at Home,Ěýtackles the critical question:ĚýHow do we change?Ěý
Ěý
Gretchen Rubin's answer: through habits. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life.ĚýIt takes work to make a habit, but once that habit is set, we can harness the energy of habits to build happier, stronger, more productive lives.
Ěý
So if habits are a key to change, then what we really need to know is: How do we change our habits?
Ěý
Better than Before answers that question. It presents a practical, concrete framework to allow readers to understand their habits—and to change them for good. Infused with Rubin’s compelling voice, rigorous research, and easy humor, and packed with vivid stories of lives transformed, Better than Before explains the (sometimes counter-intuitive) core principles of habit formation.
Ěý
Along the way, Rubin uses herself as guinea pig, tests her theories on family and friends, and answers readersâ€� most pressing questions—oddly, questions that other writers and researchers tend to ignore:Ěý

•ĚýWhy do I find it tough to create a habit for something IĚýloveĚýto do?
•ĚýSometimes I can change a habit overnight, and sometimes I can’t change a habit, no matter how hard I try. Why?
•ĚýHow quickly can I change a habit?
•ĚýWhat can I do to make sure I stick to a new habit?
•ĚýHow can I help someone else change a habit?
•ĚýWhy can I keep habits that benefit others, but can’t make habits that are just for me?

Whether readers want to get more sleep, stop checking their devices, maintain a healthy weight, or finish an important project, habits makeĚýchange possible. Reading just a few chapters of Better Than Before will make readers eager to start work on their own habits—even before they’ve finished the book.]]>
298 Gretchen Rubin 0385348614 Dani 0 to-read 3.81 2015 Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives
author: Gretchen Rubin
name: Dani
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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The Mystery Writer 157001116
There's nothing easier to dismiss than a conspiracy theory—until it turns out to be true

When Theodosia Benton abandons her career path as an attorney and shows up on her brother's doorstep with two suitcases and an unfinished novel, she expects to face a few challenges. Will her brother support her ambition or send her back to finish her degree? What will her parents say when they learn of her decision? Does she even have what it takes to be a successful writer?

What Theo never expects is to be drawn into a hidden literary world in which identity is something that can be lost and remade for the sake of an audience. When her mentor, a highly successful author, is brutally murdered, Theo wants the killer to be found and justice to be served. Then the police begin looking at her brother, Gus, as their prime suspect, and Theo does the unthinkable in order to protect him. But the writer has left a trail, a thread out of the labyrinth in the form of a story. Gus finds that thread and follows it, and in his attempt to save his sister he inadvertently threatens the foundations of the labyrinth itself. To protect the carefully constructed narrative, Theo Benton, and everyone looking for her, will have to die.]]>
352 Sulari Gentill Dani 2 3.56 2024 The Mystery Writer
author: Sulari Gentill
name: Dani
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/28
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<![CDATA[Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #2)]]> 59432676 December 12th, 2019, Jade returns to the rural lake town of Proofrock the same day as convicted Indigenous serial killer Dark Mill South escapes into town to complete his revenge killings, in this riveting sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author, Stephen Graham Jones.

Four years after her tumultuous senior year, Jade Daniels is released from prison right before Christmas when her conviction is overturned. But life beyond bars takes a dangerous turn as soon as she returns to Proofrock. Convicted Serial Killer, Dark Mill South, seeking revenge for thirty-eight Dakota men hanged in 1862, escapes from his prison transfer due to a blizzard, just outside of Proofrock, Idaho.

Dark Mill South’s Reunion Tour began on December 12th, 2019, a Thursday.

Thirty-six hours and twenty bodies later, on Friday the 13th, it would be over.

Don’t Fear the Reaper is the page-turning sequel to My Heart Is a Chainsaw from New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones.]]>
432 Stephen Graham Jones Dani 0 to-read 4.10 2023 Don't Fear the Reaper (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #2)
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Dani
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/28
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<![CDATA[Trails and Tribulations: The Running Adventures of Susie Chan AS SEEN ON BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS]]> 205400680 'I laughed, gulped and cried as I read Susie's stories of battling through some of the hardest races on this planet as well as some of the hardest moments in her life' Sophie Raworth

'Tells it all with an openness and honesty that comes from having endured some of the world's most gruelling tests of endurance'
Dean Karnazes, ultramarathoner and New York Times bestselling author

'A truly inspirational read from a brilliant and determined runner' Iwan Thomas

AN EXHILARATING READ FROM ONE OF THE UK'S LEADING AND MOST RECOGNISED ENDURANCE RUNNERS.

Susie Chan is an icon of endurance running. Since taking up running at the age of 35, she has completed the legendary Marathon des Sables more times than any other British woman, set the 12-hour treadmill World Record and was one of the first women to finish all the World Marathon Majors.

Susie's story is an inspirational fight against the odds. From leaving a dysfunctional marriage, managing as a single mum and tackling cancer treatment, Susie has had her fair share of adversity. Throughout it all, running has kept her going. She always finds a reason to lace up her shoes and hit the road � or the track, trail or tread. Her You never regret a run.

From the Moroccan desert, the Peruvian jungle and the sweltering Death Valley, to Susie's local South Downs and a running track in Tooting, her adventures take her across the globe. With Susie's down-to-earth personality, refreshing attitude and wicked sense of humour, we learn the countless reasons she finds to push herself further and the life-changing opportunities running has given her.

Her passion for the sport is infectious, and her story is a shining example to all in the running community and beyond.]]>
256 Susie Chan 1399408798 Dani 0 currently-reading 4.54 Trails and Tribulations: The Running Adventures of Susie Chan AS SEEN ON BBC BETWEEN THE COVERS
author: Susie Chan
name: Dani
average rating: 4.54
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The Staircase in the Woods 216971219 A group of friends investigates the mystery of a strange staircase in the woods in this mesmerizing horror novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Accidents.

Five high school friends are bonded by an oath to protect one another no matter what.

Then, on a camping trip in the middle of the forest, they find something a mysterious staircase to nowhere.

One friend walks up—and never comes back down. Then the staircase disappears.

Twenty years later, the staircase has reappeared. Now the group returns to find the lost boy—and what lies beyond the staircase in the woods. . . .]]>
400 Chuck Wendig 0593156560 Dani 0 to-read 3.90 2025 The Staircase in the Woods
author: Chuck Wendig
name: Dani
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[See How They Hide (Quinn & Costa, #6)]]> 211650089 No matter how far you run, some pasts never let you go�

Two people were murdered—at the exact same time, in the same gruesome manner, bodies covered in the same red poppies…but on opposite sides of the country.

With Detective Kara Quinn investigating in Oregon and Special Agent Matt Costa in Virginia, the Mobile Response Team digs deep to uncover more about each victim. What is the link between the two, and why were they targeted?

Yet their search unearths more questions than answers—until they meet Riley Pierce, the only person still alive who might be able to help them find the killers.

Soon, it becomes clear this case is nothing like they’ve seen before as their investigation leads them to the hallowed grounds of Havenwood—an eerily beautiful place rooted in a terrifying past.

As more bodies turn up, all tied to the same community, Kara and Matt are desperate to piece the puzzle together before Havenwood’s leader sacrifices everything to keep her secrets buried.]]>
400 Allison Brennan Dani 0 to-read 4.14 2025 See How They Hide (Quinn & Costa, #6)
author: Allison Brennan
name: Dani
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash, #6)]]> 58483123 And from the blood and ash, new gods will rise.

In the thrilling penultimate chapter of the viral BLOOD AND ASH series by #1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout, Poppy and Casteel face their most perilous challenges yet as old enemies rise and ancient powers stir from their slumber.

Bound by love but driven by destiny, they must navigate a world on the brink of
devastation—where every choice has deadly consequences. With their bond tested and their future hanging in the balance, the fate of the realm rests on the strength of their hearts and the power of the Deminyen.]]>
Jennifer L. Armentrout Dani 0 to-read 4.34 2025 The Primal of Blood and Bone (Blood and Ash, #6)
author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
name: Dani
average rating: 4.34
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Good Dirt 213618132 The daughter of an affluent Black family pieces together the connection between a childhood tragedy and a beloved heirloom in this moving novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Black Cake, a Read with Jenna Book Club Pick

When ten-year-old Ebby Freeman heard the gunshot, time stopped. And when she saw her brother, Baz, lying on the floor surrounded by the shattered pieces of a centuries-old jar, life as Ebby knew it shattered as well.

The crime was never solved—and because the Freemans were one of the only Black families in a particularly well-to-do enclave of New England—the case has had an enduring, voyeuristic pull for the public. The last thing the Freemans want is another media frenzy splashing their family across the papers, but when Ebby's high profile romance falls apart without any explanation, that's exactly what they get.

So Ebby flees to France, only for her past to follow her there. And as she tries to process what's happened, she begins to think about the other loss her family suffered on that day eighteen years ago—the stoneware jar that had been in their family for generations, brought North by an enslaved ancestor. But little does she know that the handcrafted piece of pottery held more than just her family's history—it might also hold the key to unlocking her own future.

In this sweeping, evocative novel, Charmaine Wilkerson brings to life a multi-generational epic that examines how the past informs our present.]]>
368 Charmaine Wilkerson 0593358368 Dani 0 to-read 4.06 2025 Good Dirt
author: Charmaine Wilkerson
name: Dani
average rating: 4.06
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rating: 0
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The Dream Hotel 60499589
From Laila Lalami—the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist and a “maestra of literary fiction� (NPR)—comes a riveting and utterly original novel about one woman’s fight for freedom, set in a near future where even dreams are under surveillance.

Sara has just landed at LAX, returning home from a conference abroad, when agents from the Risk Assessment Administration pull her aside and inform her that she will soon commit a crime. Using data from her dreams, the RAA’s algorithm has determined that she is at imminent risk of harming the person she loves most: her husband. For his safety, she must be kept under observation for twenty-one days.

The agents transfer Sara to a retention center, where she is held with other dreamers, all of them women trying to prove their innocence from different crimes. With every deviation from the strict and ever-shifting rules of the facility, their stay is extended. Months pass and Sara seems no closer to release. Then one day, a new resident arrives, disrupting the order of the facility and leading Sara on a collision course with the very companies that have deprived her of her freedom.

Eerie, urgent, and ceaselessly clear-eyed, The Dream Hotel artfully explores the seductive nature of technology, which puts us in shackles even as it makes our lives easier. Lalami asks how much of ourselves must remain private if we are to remain free, and whether even the most invasive forms of surveillance can ever capture who we really are.]]>
11 Laila Lalami Dani 0 to-read 3.81 2025 The Dream Hotel
author: Laila Lalami
name: Dani
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Lightfall (The Everlands Trilogy, #1)]]> 211003690 An epic fantasy of vampires, werewolves and sorcerers, Lightfall is the debut novel of Ed Crocker, for fans of Jay Kristoff’s Empire of the Vampire and Richard Swan’s The Justice of Kings.

No humans here. Just immortals: their politics, their feuds—and their long buried secrets.

For centuries, vampires freely roamed the land until the Grays came out of nowhere, wiping out half the population in a night. The survivors fled to the last vampire city of First Light, where the rules are simple. If you’re poor, you drink weak blood. If you’re nobility, you get the good stuff. And you can never, ever leave.

Palace maid Sam has had enough of these rules, and she’s definitely had enough of cleaning the bedpans of the lords who enforce them. When the son of the city’s ruler is murdered and she finds the only clue to his death, she seizes the chance to blackmail her way into a better class and better blood. She falls in with the Leeches, a group of rebel maids who rein in the worst of the Lords. Soon she’s in league with a sorcerer whose deductive skills make up for his lack of magic, a deadly werewolf assassin and a countess who knows a city’s worth of secrets.

There’s just one problem. What began as a murder investigation has uncovered a vast conspiracy by the ruling elite, and now Sam must find the truth before she becomes another victim. If she can avoid getting murdered, she might just live forever.]]>
384 Ed Crocker 1250287731 Dani 0 to-read 3.55 2025 Lightfall (The Everlands Trilogy, #1)
author: Ed Crocker
name: Dani
average rating: 3.55
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rating: 0
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Don't Let Him In 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

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

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

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]>
368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Dani 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Don't Let Him In
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Dani
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Crash 216223604 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

Tegan is eight months pregnant, alone, and desperately wants to put her crumbling life in the rearview mirror. So she hits the road, planning to stay with her brother until she can figure out her next move. But she doesn’t realize she’s heading straight into a blizzard.

She never arrives at her destination.

Stranded in rural Maine with a dead car and broken ankle, Tegan worries she’s made a terrible mistake. Then a miracle she is rescued by a couple who offers her a room in their warm cabin until the snow clears.

But something isn’t right. Tegan believed she was waiting out the storm, but as time ticks by, she comes to realize she is in grave danger. This safe haven isn’t what she thought it was, and staying here may have been her most deadly mistake yet.

And now she must do whatever it takes to save herself—and her unborn child.

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
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384 Freida McFadden 1464232989 Dani 0 to-read 3.58 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Dani
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
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The Listeners 56988057
January 1942. The Avallon Hotel & Spa has always offered elegant luxury in the wilds of West Virginia, its mountain sweetwater washing away all of high society’s troubles.

Local girl-turned-general manager June Porter Hudson has guided the Avallon skillfully through the first pangs of war. The Gilfoyles, the hotel’s aristocratic owners, have trained her well. But when the family heir makes a secret deal with the State Department to fill the hotel with captured Axis diplomats, June must persuade her staff—many of whom have sons and husbands heading to the front lines—to offer luxury to Nazis. With a smile.

Meanwhile FBI Agent Tucker Minnick, whose coal tattoo hints at an Appalachian past, presses his ears to the hotel’s walls, listening for the diplomats� secrets. He has one of his own, which is how he knows that June’s balancing act can have dangerous consequences: the sweetwater beneath the hotel can threaten as well as heal.

June has never met a guest she couldn’t delight, but the diplomats are different. Without firing a single shot, they have brought the war directly to her. As clashing loyalties crack the Avallon’s polished veneer, June must calculate the true cost of luxury.]]>
400 Maggie Stiefvater 0593655508 Dani 0 to-read 4.04 2025 The Listeners
author: Maggie Stiefvater
name: Dani
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/22
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Our Infinite Fates 210395729 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.

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.]]>
352 Laura Steven 1250333881 Dani 0 to-read 3.80 2025 Our Infinite Fates
author: Laura Steven
name: Dani
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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This Book Will Bury Me 213570821 From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

It's the most famous crime in modern history. But only she knows the true story.

After the unexpected death of her father, college student Jane Sharp longs for a distraction from her grief. She becomes obsessed with true crime, befriending armchair detectives who teach her how to hunt killers from afar. In this morbid internet underground, Jane finds friendship, purpose, and even glory...

So when news of the shocking deaths of three college girls in Delphine, Idaho takes the world by storm, and sleuths everywhere race to solve the crimes, Jane and her friends are determined to beat them. But the case turns out to be stranger than anyone expected. Details don't add up, the police are cagey, and there seems to be more media hype and internet theorizing than actual evidence. When Jane and her sleuths take a step closer, they find that every answer only begs more questions. Something's not adding up, and they begin to suspect their killer may be smarter and more prolific than any they've faced before. Placing themselves in the center of the story starts to feel more and more like walking into a trap...

Told one year after the astounding events that concluded the case and left the world reeling, when Jane has finally decided to break her silence about what really happened, she tells the true story of the Delphine Massacres. And what she has to confess will shock even the most seasoned true crime fans...


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480 Ashley Winstead 1728270006 Dani 0 to-read 3.76 2025 This Book Will Bury Me
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Dani
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
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The Lake of Lost Girls 207571151 Told in alternating timelines, The Lake of Lost Girls is a haunting novel that will thrill fans of All Good People Here and We Are All the Same in the Dark.

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

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

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

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

This propulsive and chilling suspense is a sharp examination of sisterhood and the culture of true crime.]]>
320 Katherine Greene 1639109080 Dani 0 to-read 3.83 2024 The Lake of Lost Girls
author: Katherine Greene
name: Dani
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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A Darker Shade of Magic 61885115 From #1 New York Times bestselling author V.E. Schwab, return to the beginning of the phenomenal Shades of Magic series with A Darker Shade of Magic, now in a brand new trade paperback edition

Kell is one of the last Antari�magicians with a rare, coveted ability to travel between parallel Londons; Red, Grey, White, and, once upon a time, Black.

Kell was raised in Arnes�Red London�and officially serves the Maresh Empire as an ambassador, traveling between the frequent bloody regime changes in White London and the court of George III in the dullest of Londons, the one without any magic left to see.

Unofficially, Kell is a smuggler, servicing people willing to pay for even the smallest glimpses of a world they'll never see. It's a defiant hobby with dangerous consequences, which Kell is now seeing firsthand.

After an exchange goes awry, Kell escapes to Grey London and runs into Delilah Bard, a cut-purse with lofty aspirations. She first robs him, then saves him from a deadly enemy, and finally forces Kell to spirit her to another world for a proper adventure.

Now perilous magic is afoot, and treachery lurks at every turn. To save all of the worlds, they'll first need to stay alive.

Other books by V. E. Schwab

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Shades of Magic series
A Darker Shade of Magic
A Gathering of Shadows
A Conjuring of Light

Villains Duology
Vicious
Vengeful]]>
401 Victoria E. Schwab 1250891213 Dani 3 4.06 2015 A Darker Shade of Magic
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Dani
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
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The Hollow Places 50892288 A young woman discovers a strange portal in her uncle’s house, leading to madness and terror in this gripping new novel.

Pray they are hungry.

Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle’s house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker—only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts…and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.]]>
341 T. Kingfisher 1534451129 Dani 0 to-read 3.76 2020 The Hollow Places
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Dani
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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<![CDATA[Small Town, Big Magic (Witchlore, #1)]]> 59952170
Witches aren't real. Right?

No one has civic pride quite like Emerson Wilde. As a local indie bookstore owner and youngest-ever Chamber of Commerce president, she’d do anything for her hometown of St. Cyprian, Missouri. After all, Midwest is best! She may be descended from a witch who was hanged in 1692 during the Salem Witch Trials, but there’s no sorcery in doing your best for the town you love.
Or is there?

As she preps Main Street for an annual festival, Emerson notices strange things happening around St. Cyprian. Strange things that culminate in a showdown with her lifelong arch-rival, Mayor Skip Simon. He seems to have sent impossible, paranormal creatures after her. Creatures that Emerson dispatches with ease, though she has no idea how she’s done it. Is Skip Simon…a witch? Is Emerson?

It turns out witches are real, and Emerson is one of them. She failed a coming-of-age test at age eighteen—the only test she’s ever failed!—and now, as an adult, her powers have come roaring back.

But she has little time to explore those powers, or her blossoming relationship with her childhood friend, cranky-yet-gorgeous local farmer Jacob North: an ancient evil has awakened in St. Cyprian, and it’s up to Emerson and her friends—maybe even Emerson herself—to save everything she loves.]]>
411 Hazel Beck 1525804715 Dani 0 to-read 3.27 2022 Small Town, Big Magic (Witchlore, #1)
author: Hazel Beck
name: Dani
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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Never Lie 62080187
But when they visit the remote manor that once belonged to Dr. Adrienne Hale, a renowned psychiatrist who vanished without a trace four years earlier, a violent winter storm traps them at the estate� with no chance of escape until the blizzard comes to an end.

In search of a book to keep her entertained until the snow abates, Tricia happens upon a secret room. One that contains audio transcripts from every single patient Dr. Hale has ever interviewed. As Tricia listens to the cassette tapes, she learns about the terrifying chain of events leading up to Dr. Hale’s mysterious disappearance.

Tricia plays the tapes one by one, late into the night. With each one, another shocking piece of the puzzle falls into place, and Dr. Adrienne Hale’s web of lies slowly unravels.

And then Tricia reaches the final cassette.

The one that reveals the entire horrifying truth.]]>
286 Freida McFadden Dani 4 4.09 2022 Never Lie
author: Freida McFadden
name: Dani
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/21
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Mexican Gothic 52873094
Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Her only ally in this inhospitable abode is the family’s youngest son. Shy and gentle, he seems to want to help Noemí, but might also be hiding dark knowledge of his family’s past. For there are many secrets behind the walls of High Place. The family’s once colossal wealth and faded mining empire kept them from prying eyes, but as Noemí digs deeper she unearths stories of violence and madness.

And NoemĂ­, mesmerized by the terrifying yet seductive world of High Place, may soon find it impossible to ever leave this enigmatic house behind.]]>
304 Silvia Moreno-Garcia Dani 4 3.76 2020 Mexican Gothic
author: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
name: Dani
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2021/11/07
date added: 2024/12/18
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<![CDATA[The Falcon (Nina Guerrera, #3)]]> 58530873 333 Isabella Maldonado 1542035600 Dani 4 4.39 2022 The Falcon (Nina Guerrera, #3)
author: Isabella Maldonado
name: Dani
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
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A Winter in New York 83817474
When Iris decides to move to New York to restart her life, she realizes she underestimated how big the Big Apple really is—all the nostalgic movies set in New York she’d watched with her mom while eating their special secret-recipe gelato didn’t quite do it justice.Ěý

But Bobby, Iris’s best friend, isn’t about to let her hide away. He drags her to a famous autumn street fair in Little Italy, and as they walk through the food stalls, a little family-run gelateria catches her eye—could it be the same shop that’s in an old photo of her mother’s?

Curious, Iris returns the next day and meets the handsome Gio, who tells her that the shop is in danger of closing. His uncle, sole keeper of their family’s gelato recipe, is in a coma, so theyĚýcan’t make more. When Iris samples the last remaining batch, she realizes that their gelato and her gelato are one and the same. ButĚýhow can she tell them she knows their secret recipe when she’s not sure why Gio’s uncle gave it to her mother in the first place?

Iris offers her services as a chef to help them re-create the flavor and finds herself falling for Gio and his family. But when Gio’s uncle finally wakes up, all of the secrets Iris has been keeping threaten to ruin the new life—and new love—she’s been building all winter long.]]>
372 Josie Silver 0593722876 Dani 2 3.81 2023 A Winter in New York
author: Josie Silver
name: Dani
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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<![CDATA[The Angel of Indian Lake (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #3)]]> 178019710 The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror literature

It’s been four years since Jade Daniels last set foot in Proofrock, Idaho. Since then, her reputation, and everything around Indian Lake, has changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of the savage history of Proofrock, Idaho, no one’s got the mettle to confront � no one except a final girl, making her last stand, this time for everything.

New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma and stolen hope. It’s the story of the American West written in blood. And it’s the story of one girl who doesn’t know how to give up.]]>
455 Stephen Graham Jones 1668011662 Dani 0 to-read 4.14 2024 The Angel of Indian Lake (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #3)
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Dani
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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The Book of Witching 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 Dani 0 to-read 3.74 2024 The Book of Witching
author: C.J. Cooke
name: Dani
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]>
384 Alison Espach Dani 0 to-read 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Dani
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/12/08
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Everyone Is Watching 126059124
The Best Friend. The Confidant. The Senator. The Boyfriend. The Executive.

Five contestants have been chosen to compete for ten million dollars on the game show One Lucky Winner. The catch? None of them knows what (or who) to expect, and it will be live streamed all over the world. Completely secluded in an estate in Northern California, with strict instructions not to leave the property and zero contact with the outside world, the competitors start to feel a little too isolated.

When long-kept secrets begin to rise to the surface, the contestants realize this is no longer just a reality show—someone is out for blood. And the game can’t end until the world knows who the contestants really are…]]>
316 Heather Gudenkauf 0369747607 Dani 5 3.84 2024 Everyone Is Watching
author: Heather Gudenkauf
name: Dani
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/08
date added: 2024/12/08
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<![CDATA[Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)]]> 208840265 A deliciously witty and inspiring memoir by One Tree Hill star Bethany Joy Lenz about her decade in a cult and her quest to break free.

In the early 2000s, after years of hard work and determination to breakthrough as an actor, Bethany Joy Lenz was finally cast as one of the leads on the hit drama One Tree Hill. Her career was about to take off, but her personal life was slowly beginning to unravel. What none of the show’s millions of fans knew, hidden even from her costars, was her secret double life in a cult.

An only child who often had to fend for herself and always wanted a place to belong, Lenz found the safe haven she’d been searching for in a Bible study group with other Hollywood creatives. However, the group soon morphed into something more sinister—a slowly woven web of manipulation, abuse, and fear under the guise of a church covenant called The Big House Family. Piece by piece, Lenz began to give away her autonomy, ultimately relocating to the Family’s Pacific Northwest compound, overseen by a domineering minister who would convince Lenz to marry one of his sons and steadily drained millions of her TV income without her knowledge. Family “minders� assigned to her on set, “Maoist struggle session”–inspired meetings in the basement of a filthy house, and regular counseling with “Leadership� were just part of the tactics used to keep her loyal.

Only when she became a mother did Lenz find the courage to leave and spare her child from a similar fate. After nearly a decade (and with the unlikely help of a One Tree Hill superfan), she finally managed to escape the family’s grip and begin to heal from the deep trauma that forever altered her relationship with God and her understanding of faith. Written with powerful honesty and dark humor, Dinner for Vampires is an inspiring story about the importance of identity and understanding what you believe.]]>
303 Bethany Joy Lenz 1668067307 Dani 0 to-read 4.28 2024 Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While Also in an Actual Cult!)
author: Bethany Joy Lenz
name: Dani
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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Confess 34324605
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]>
320 Colleen Hoover 1501176838 Dani 0 to-read 4.02 2015 Confess
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Dani
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2015
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/30
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Bring Me Back 36448554
Twelve years later, Finn has built a new life with Ellen, Layla’s sister, when he receives a phone call. Someone has seen Layla. But is it her � or someone pretending to be her? If it is her, what does she want? And what does she know about the night she disappeared?]]>
291 B.A. Paris 1250151333 Dani 0 to-read 3.45 2018 Bring Me Back
author: B.A. Paris
name: Dani
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/29
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The Familiar 133938808
What begins as simple amusement for the bored nobility takes a perilous turn when Luzia garners the notice of Antonio Pérez, the disgraced secretary to Spain's king. Still reeling from the defeat of his armada, the king is desperate for any advantage in the war against England's heretic queen—and Pérez will stop at nothing to regain the king's favor.

Determined to seize this one chance to better her fortunes, Luzia plunges into a world of seers and alchemists, holy men and hucksters, where the line between magic, science, and fraud is never certain. But as her notoriety grows, so does the danger that her Jewish blood will doom her to the Inquisition's wrath. She will have to use every bit of her wit and will to survive—even if that means enlisting the help of Guillén Santángel, an embittered immortal familiar whose own secrets could prove deadly for them both.]]>
387 Leigh Bardugo Dani 4 4.01 2024 The Familiar
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Dani
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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This Girl's a Killer 202206709 Ask Cordelia Black why she did it. The answer will always be: He had it coming.

Cordelia Black loves exactly three things: Her chosen family, her hairdresser (worth every penny plus tip), and killing bad men.

By day she's an ambitious pharma rep with a flawless reputation and designer wardrobe. By night, she culls South Louisiana of unscrupulous men—monsters who think they've evaded justice, until they meet her. Sure, the evening news may have started throwing around phrases like "serial killer," but Cordelia knows that's absurd. She's not a killer, she is simply karma. And being karma requires complete and utter control.

But when Cordelia discovers a flaw in her perfectly designed system for eliminating monsters, pressure heightens. And it only intensifies when her best friend starts dating a man Cordelia isn't sure is a good person. Someone who might just unravel everything she has worked for.

Soon enough Cordelia has to come face to face with the choices she's made. The good, the bad, and the murderous. Both her family, and her freedom, depend on it.]]>
435 Emma C. Wells 1464218633 Dani 2 3.60 2024 This Girl's a Killer
author: Emma C. Wells
name: Dani
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
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Reliquary (Pendergast, #2) 39030 464 Douglas Preston 0765354950 Dani 3 4.03 1997 Reliquary (Pendergast, #2)
author: Douglas Preston
name: Dani
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1997
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/11/25
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Funny Story 194803835 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]>
400 Emily Henry 0593441281 Dani 0 to-read 4.18 2024 Funny Story
author: Emily Henry
name: Dani
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/16
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Daughter of Ruins 210296785
Demitra, a young artist, comes of age in post-World War II Greece, struggling with her widowed father's emotional unavailability as she dreams her dead mother watches over her, like the goddesses she reads about in her mythology books.

While visiting family on Corfu, Demitra defies her father's commands to return home and marry the man he chose for her. She instead stays on Corfu, where she falls in love with painting and a forbidden man. But after suffering a devastating betrayal, Demitra has no choice but to return home to Cephalonia and ask forgiveness from her father. Before they can make amends, the island is struck by a massive earthquake that kills thousands and reduces entire villages to rubble. Amid the ruins, Demitra finds the courage to confront her father and start a new life in America centered around her art.

Set among the lush Ionian islands of Corfu and Cephalonia, Demitra's story is steeped in the myths and traditions of Greece. Over the course of decades, Demitra fights to find her voice and independence at a time when women are only as valuable as their dowries, ultimately learning the devastating secret of her family's history and the unforgivable act of revenge and betrayal that cemented her fate and future.]]>
416 Yvette Manessis Corporon 1400236118 Dani 0 to-read 4.23 2024 Daughter of Ruins
author: Yvette Manessis Corporon
name: Dani
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/11/10
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The Best Lies 200554208 Bestselling and award-winning author David Ellis delivers a fast-paced, twisty thriller that will surprise readers at every turn.

Leo Balanoff is a diagnosed pathological liar with unthinkable skeletons in his family's closet. He's also a crusading attorney who seeks justice at all costs. When a ruthless drug dealer is found dead and Leo’s fingerprints show up on the murder weapon, no one believes a word he says. But he might be the FBI’s only shot at taking down the dealer’s brutal syndicate.

Risk his life going undercover for the feds or head straight to prison for murder? Leo accepts the FBI’s offer—but it comes with a price, including a collision course with his ex, Andi Piotrowski, a former cop and “the one who got away.� Forced to walk a tightrope between an ambitious FBI agent and a cruel, calculating crime boss, Leo’s trapped in a corner. But he has more secrets than anyone realizes, and a few more cards left to play …]]>
379 David Ellis 0698162005 Dani 5 4.12 2024 The Best Lies
author: David Ellis
name: Dani
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
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<![CDATA[A Talent for Murder (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #3)]]> 199116296
Martha Ratliff conceded long ago that she’d likely spend her life alone. She was fine with it, happy with her solo existence, stimulated by her job as an archival librarian, constantly surrounded by thought-provoking ideas and the books she loved. But then she met Alan, a charming and sweet-natured divorcee with a job that took him on the road for half the year. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, even though he still felt a little bit like a stranger.

A year in and the marriage was good, except for that strange blood streak on the back of one of his shirts he’d worn to a conference in Denver. Her curiosity turning to suspicion, Martha investigates the cities Alan visited over the past year and uncovers a disturbing pattern—five unsolved cases of murdered women.

Is she married to a serial killer? Or could it merely be a coincidence? Unsure what to think, Martha contacts an old friend from graduate school for advice. Lily Kintner once helped Martha out of a jam with an abusive boyfriend and may have some insight. Intrigued, Lily offers to meet Alan to find out what kind of man he really is . . . but what Lily uncovers is more perplexing and wicked than they ever could have expected.]]>
320 Peter Swanson 006320505X Dani 2 3.82 2024 A Talent for Murder (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner, #3)
author: Peter Swanson
name: Dani
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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<![CDATA[My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)]]> 56312400
In her quickly gentrifying rural lake town Jade sees recent events only her encyclopedic knowledge of horror films could have prepared her for in this latest chilling novel that “will give you nightmares. The good kind, of course� ( BuzzFeed ) from the Jordan Peele of horror literature, Stephen Graham Jones.

“Some girls just don’t know how to die…�

Shirley Jackson meets Friday the 13th in My Heart Is a Chainsaw , written by the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians Stephen Graham Jones, called “a literary master� by National Book Award winner Tananarive Due and “one of our most talented living writers� by Tommy Orange.

Alma Katsu calls My Heart Is a Chainsaw “a homage to slasher films that also manages to defy and transcend genre.� On the surface is a story of murder in small-town America. But beneath is its beating heart: a biting critique of American colonialism, Indigenous displacement, and gentrification, and a heartbreaking portrait of a broken young girl who uses horror movies to cope with the horror of her own life.

Jade Daniels is an angry, half-Indian outcast with an abusive father, an absent mother, and an entire town that wants nothing to do with her. She lives in her own world, a world in which protection comes from an unusual source: horror movies� especially the ones where a masked killer seeks revenge on a world that wronged them. And Jade narrates the quirky history of Proofrock as if it is one of those movies. But when blood actually starts to spill into the waters of Indian Lake, she pulls us into her dizzying, encyclopedic mind of blood and masked murderers, and predicts exactly how the plot will unfold.

Yet, even as Jade drags us into her dark fever dream, a surprising and intimate portrait emerges…a portrait of the scared and traumatized little girl beneath the Jason Voorhees mask: angry, yes, but also a girl who easily cries, fiercely loves, and desperately wants a home. A girl whose feelings are too big for her body. My Heart Is a Chainsaw is her story, her homage to horror and revenge and triumph.]]>
412 Stephen Graham Jones Dani 4 3.59 2021 My Heart Is a Chainsaw (The Indian Lake Trilogy, #1)
author: Stephen Graham Jones
name: Dani
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/02
date added: 2024/11/02
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<![CDATA[Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1)]]> 123257687
ASSISTANT WANTED: Notorious, high-ranking villain seeks loyal, levelheaded assistant for unspecified office duties, supporting staff for random mayhem and terror, and other Dark Things In General. Discretion a must. Excellent benefits.

With ailing family to support, Evie Sage's employment status isn't just important, it's vital. So when a mishap with Rennedawn’s most infamous Villain results in a job offer―naturally, she says yes. No job is perfect, of course, but even less so when you develop a teeny crush on your terrifying, temperamental, and undeniably hot boss. Don’t find evil so attractive, Evie.

But just when she’s getting used to severed heads suspended from the ceiling and the odd squish of an errant eyeball beneath her heel, Evie suspects this dungeon has a huge rat…and not just the literal kind. Because something rotten is growing in the kingdom of Rennedawn, and someone wants to take the Villain―and his entire nefarious empire―out.

Now Evie must not only resist drooling over her boss but also figure out exactly who is sabotaging his work…and ensure he makes them pay.

After all, a good job is hard to find.]]>
342 Hannah Nicole Maehrer 1649375808 Dani 0 to-read 3.88 2023 Assistant to the Villain (Assistant to the Villain, #1)
author: Hannah Nicole Maehrer
name: Dani
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
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<![CDATA[Anathema (The Eating Woods, #1)]]> 209741142 A spellbinding gothic dark fantasy about a shunned woman who is forced beyond the mortal realm's forbidden boundary, into a terrifying world of cursed souls and grotesque creatures.

Only the banished know what lies beyond the woods ...

There are whispers about what lurks in Witch Knell—the forest where sinners go to die. The villagers call it The Eating Woods because what’s taken is never given back. Only those who’ve lost their senses would dare to go near it.

Or the banished.

Maevyth Bronwick knows better than to breach the misty labyrinth of trees, but a tragic turn of events compels her beyond the archway of bones, to a boundary no mortal has crossed before. One that cloaks a dark and fantastical world that’s as dangerous as it is alluring.

It’s there that he dwells, the cursed lord of Eidolon. The one tasked to keep her hidden from the magehood that seeks to crucify her in the name of an arcane prophesy. Zevander Rydainn, known to his prey as The Scorpion, is the coldest, most calculated assassin in all of Aethyria and he’d sooner toss his feisty ward to a pack of vicious fyredrakes than keep her safe.

If only he could.

Maevyth’s blood is the key to breaking his despised curse and vanquishing the slumbering evil in Witch Knell. Unfortunately for Lord Rydainn, fate has other plans for the irresistible little enchantress. And his growing obsession with her threatens to destroy everything.

Including himself.

Anathema is a full-length, gothic dark fantasy, the first book in The Eating Woods duology. Perfect for readers who enjoy a plot-heavy and atmospheric story with a unique magic system, a slow-burn romance and a touch of horror.]]>
688 Keri Lake Dani 0 to-read 4.14 2024 Anathema (The Eating Woods, #1)
author: Keri Lake
name: Dani
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
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The Secret Book of Flora Lea 61964751
In the war-torn London of 1939, fourteen-year-old Hazel and five-year-old Flora are evacuated to a rural village to escape the horrors of the Second World War. Living with the kind Bridie Aberdeen and her teenage son, Harry, in a charming stone cottage along the River Thames, Hazel fills their days with walks and games to distract her young sister, including one that she creates for her sister and her sister alone—a fairy tale about a magical land, a secret place they can escape to that is all their own.

But the unthinkable happens when young Flora suddenly vanishes while playing near the banks of the river. Shattered, Hazel blames herself for her sister’s disappearance, and she carries that guilt into adulthood as a private burden she feels she deserves.

Twenty years later, Hazel is in London, ready to move on from her job at a cozy rare bookstore to a career at Sotheby’s. With a charming boyfriend and her elegantly timeworn Bloomsbury flat, Hazel’s future seems determined. But her tidy life is turned upside down when she unwraps a package containing an illustrated book called Whisperwood and the River of Stars . Hazel never told a soul about the imaginary world she created just for Flora. Could this book hold the secrets to Flora’s disappearance? Could it be a sign that her beloved sister is still alive after all these years?

As Hazel embarks on a feverish quest, revisiting long-dormant relationships and bravely opening wounds from her past, her career and future hang in the balance. An astonishing twist ultimately reveals the truth in this transporting and refreshingly original novel about the bond between sisters, the complications of conflicted love, and the enduring magic of storytelling.]]>
355 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011832 Dani 0 to-read 4.03 2023 The Secret Book of Flora Lea
author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Dani
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves: to-read
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The Nature of Witches 50355409 Practical Magic meets Twister in this debut contemporary fantasy standalone about heartbreaking power, the terror of our collapsing atmosphere, and the ways we unknowingly change our fate.

For centuries, witches have maintained the climate, their power from the sun peaking in the season of their birth. But now their control is faltering as the atmosphere becomes more erratic. All hope lies with Clara, an Everwitch whose rare magic is tied to every season.

In Autumn, Clara wants nothing to do with her power. It's wild and volatile, and the price of her magic―losing the ones she loves―is too high, despite the need to control the increasingly dangerous weather.

In Winter, the world is on the precipice of disaster. Fires burn, storms rage, and Clara accepts that she's the only one who can make a difference.

In Spring, she falls for Sang, the witch training her. As her magic grows, so do her feelings, until she's terrified Sang will be the next one she loses.

In Summer, Clara must choose between her power and her happiness, her duty and the people she loves...before she loses Sang, her magic, and thrusts the world into chaos.]]>
297 Rachel Griffin 172822943X Dani 4 3.89 2021 The Nature of Witches
author: Rachel Griffin
name: Dani
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/19
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Carved (The Road to Hell, #2) 31128480 River
As the perilous journey across a country I believed destroyed begins, I no longer know who I am or what I’m becoming.

With every passing day, my abilities grow stronger, as does my fear of what comes next. My only certainties are that I will do anything to avoid becoming like Lucifer, and I will protect those I love... even if it means protecting them from me.

Kobal
With an unknown number of enemies between us and the gateway, protecting River proves to be more difficult than I anticipated, but I won’t stop until I destroy Lucifer and reclaim River’s heart.

ĚýI’ll never let anything keep us apart—not even her. Ěý

When an attack leaves our troops vulnerable, I realize there are things I can never share with River� even if it means those secrets tear us apart.

*** Due to sexual content, violence, and language, this book is recommended for readers 18+ years of age.***

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388 Brenda K. Davies Dani 4 4.36 2016 Carved (The Road to Hell, #2)
author: Brenda K. Davies
name: Dani
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
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If Something Happens to Me 198112011
With no trace of Ali or the car, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Ryan. But with no proof and a good lawyer, he’s never charged, though that doesn’t matter to the podcasters and internet trolls. Now, Ryan has changed his last name, and entered law school. He's put his past behind him.

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

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

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

In classic Alex Finlay form, If Something Happens to Me is told by several distinct, compelling characters whose paths intersect, detonating into a story of twist after pulse-pounding twist. The novel cements Finlay as one of the leading thriller writers today.]]>
336 Alex Finlay 1250863805 Dani 4 4.03 2024 If Something Happens to Me
author: Alex Finlay
name: Dani
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/11
date added: 2024/10/11
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<![CDATA[Good Intentions (The Road to Hell, #1)]]> 30007826 RIVER

Thirteen years have passed since the war started, bombs fell, and the central states became a thing of the past.

When the war ended, the government erected a wall to divide the surviving states from the destroyed ones. I never expected to leave my town, but unlike those who volunteered to go, I wasn’t given a choice.

With a dim knowledge of my strange abilities, the soldiers came for me. They took me beyond the wall, where I learned the truth is far more terrifying than I imagined. Alone, with humans and demons eager to see what I can do, I find myself irresistibly drawn to the one man I should avoid most—a man who isn’t even really a man.

KOBAL

I’ve spent my entire life with one mission� reclaim my throne from Lucifer and fix what the angels tore apart when they cast him from Heaven.

Not even when the humans tore open the gates, and unleashed Hell on Earth, did I waver from my goal.

I’ve never been closer to my throne, yet I find myself risking everything because I can’t stay away from her� the woman who might be the key to destroying Lucifer.

*** Due to sexual content, violence, and language, this book is recommended for readers 18+ years of age.***]]>
374 Brenda K. Davies Dani 4 4.24 2016 Good Intentions (The Road to Hell, #1)
author: Brenda K. Davies
name: Dani
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves:
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