Amber's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 24 Jan 2025 05:02:49 -0800 60 Amber's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[How to Keep House While Drowning]]> 60139504 How to Keep House While Drowning will introduce you to six life-changing principles that will revolutionize the way you approach home care—without endless to-do lists. Presented in 31 daily thoughts, this compassionate guide will help you begin to get free of the shame and anxiety you feel over home care.

Inside you will learn:
· How to shift your perspective of care tasks from moral to functional;
· How to stop negative self-talk and shame around care tasks;
· How to give yourself permission to rest, even when things aren’t finished;
· How to motivate yourself to care for your space.]]> 151 K.C. Davis 166800285X Amber 0 currently-reading 4.22 2022 How to Keep House While Drowning
author: K.C. Davis
name: Amber
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/01/24
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Amber 0 to-read 4.15 2014 The Book of Life (All Souls, #3)
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Amber
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> Wool - Holston (Wool, #1) 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Amber 0 to-read 4.14 2012 Wool - Holston (Wool, #1)
author: Hugh Howey
name: Amber
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right]]> 28695425 Strangers in Their Own Land, the renowned sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild embarks on a thought-provoking journey from her liberal hometown of Berkeley, California, deep into Louisiana bayou country � a stronghold of the conservative right. As she gets to know people who strongly oppose many of the ideas she famously champions, Russell Hochschild nevertheless finds common ground and quickly warms to the people she meets � among them a Tea Party activist whose town has been swallowed by a sinkhole caused by a drilling accident � people whose concerns are actually ones that all Americans share: the desire for community, the embrace of family, and hopes for their children.

Strangers in Their Own Land goes beyond the commonplace liberal idea that these are people who have been duped into voting against their own interests. Instead, Russell Hochschild finds lives ripped apart by stagnant wages, a loss of home, an elusive American dream � and political choices and views that make sense in the context of their lives. Russell Hochschild draws on her expert knowledge of the sociology of emotion to help us understand what it feels like to live in "red" America. Along the way she finds answers to one of the crucial questions of contemporary American politics: why do the people who would seem to benefit most from "liberal" government intervention abhor the very idea?]]> 242 Arlie Russell Hochschild 1620972255 Amber 0 to-read 4.11 2016 Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right
author: Arlie Russell Hochschild
name: Amber
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2016
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/07/31
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.]]> 15790837
From here the story could take many turns. When this guy is David Sedaris, the possibilities are endless, but the result is always the same: he will both delight you with twists of humor and intelligence and leave you deeply moved.

Sedaris remembers his father's dinnertime attire (shirtsleeves and underpants), his first colonoscopy (remarkably pleasant), and the time he considered buying the skeleton of a murdered Pygmy.

With Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, David Sedaris shows once again why his work has been called "hilarious, elegant, and surprisingly moving" (Washington Post).

Machine generated contents note: Dentists Without Borders
Attaboy
Think Differenter
Memory Laps
A Friend in the Ghetto
Loggerheads
If I Ruled the World
Easy, Tiger
Laugh, Kookaburra
Standing Still
Just a Quick E-mail
A Guy Walks into a Bar Car
Author, Author
Obama!!!!!
Standing By
I Break for Traditional Marriage
Understanding Understanding Owls
#2 to Go
Health-Care Freedoms and Why I Want My Country Back
Now Hiring Friendly People
Rubbish
Day In, Day Out
Mind the Gap
A Cold Case
The Happy Place]]> 275 David Sedaris 0316154695 Amber 3 currently-reading 3.84 2013 Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls: Essays, Etc.
author: David Sedaris
name: Amber
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2014/03/02
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Happy-Go-Lucky 58989873 Ěý
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
Ěý
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
Ěý
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392456 Amber 0 to-read 4.15 2022 Happy-Go-Lucky
author: David Sedaris
name: Amber
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: to-read
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]]> Calypso 38348476
If you've ever laughed your way through David Sedaris's cheerfully misanthropic stories, you might think you know what you're getting with Calypso. You'd be wrong.

When he buys a beach house on the Carolina coast, Sedaris envisions long, relaxing vacations spent playing board games and lounging in the sun with those he loves most. And life at the Sea Section, as he names the vacation home, is exactly as idyllic as he imagined, except for one tiny, vexing realization: it's impossible to take a vacation from yourself.

With Calypso, Sedaris sets his formidable powers of observation toward middle age and mortality. Make no mistake: these stories are very, very funny--it's a book that can make you laugh 'til you snort, the way only family can. Sedaris's powers of observation have never been sharper, and his ability to shock readers into laughter unparalleled. But much of the comedy here is born out of that vertiginous moment when your own body betrays you and you realize that the story of your life is made up of more past than future.

This is beach reading for people who detest beaches, required reading for those who loathe small talk and love a good tumor joke. Calypso is simultaneously Sedaris's darkest and warmest book yet--and it just might be his very best.]]> 272 David Sedaris 0316392359 Amber 0 to-read 4.11 2018 Calypso
author: David Sedaris
name: Amber
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind]]> 23692271 512 Yuval Noah Harari Amber 0 to-read 4.34 2011 Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
author: Yuval Noah Harari
name: Amber
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Song of the Fae (Wildsong, #1)]]> 59998574
His loyalty lies with the Royal Fae Court and with his people. Love is a distraction that royal warrior, Nolan, will not let ruin his future.

Alone and distrustful, Imogen refuses to accept her attraction for the warrior after he steals her ship and forces her on a quest where Dark Fae battle good and magick rules the night.

A prophecy realized.

The Dark Fae have risen, determined to wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting people of Ireland. Their goal? To destroy the woman in the prophecy before she discovers her magick and shatters their chance to claim the throne.

Now, Imogen stands between the Dark Fae and their rise to power, and Nolan finds his need to protect her overshadows everything � even his loyalty to the crown.

Are they fated…or fools? A song cuts through the darkness, binding the two forever � if only they’ll open their hearts to listen.]]> 275 Tricia O'Malley 1951254422 Amber 0 currently-reading 4.17 2022 Song of the Fae (Wildsong, #1)
author: Tricia O'Malley
name: Amber
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves: currently-reading
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]]> <![CDATA[Court of Shadows (Institute of the Shadow Fae, #1)]]> 122753134
But my Friday night takes a bad turn when a lethally gorgeous fae--Ruadan--tries to assassinate me. He's taken a vow of silence until he’s slaughtered the outlaws on his kill list. Outlaws like me.

Ruadan lets me live on one condition: I have to earn my place at the Institute of the Shadow Fae. As a powerful demi-fae, I can take the competition.

But things fall apart when I’m given an impossible choice: betray my mentor Ruadan, or my best friend dies. Now, I face a quandary my gladiatorial past did not prepare me for.

This book is from the Demons of Fire and Night world.]]> 224 C.N. Crawford Amber 4 3.89 2018 Court of Shadows (Institute of the Shadow Fae, #1)
author: C.N. Crawford
name: Amber
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/25
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Rose of Fire (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2.5)]]> 15706286 The Shadow of the Wind, The Angel's Game, and now The Prisoner of Heaven.]]> 36 Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn 0062237047 Amber 4 3.78 2012 The Rose of Fire (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #2.5)
author: Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
name: Amber
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/16
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Midnight Palace (Niebla, #2)]]> 9440324 In the heart of Calcutta lurks a dark mystery. . . .

Set in Calcutta in the 1930s, The Midnight Palace begins on a dark night when an English lieutenant fights to save newborn twins Ben and Sheere from an unthinkable threat. Despite monsoon-force rains and terrible danger lurking around every street corner, the young lieutenant manages to get them to safety, but not without losing his own life. . . .

Years later, on the eve of Ben and Sheere’s sixteenth birthday, the mysterious threat reenters their lives. This time, it may be impossible to escape. With the help of their brave friends, the twins will have to take a stand against the terror that watches them in the shadows of the night—and face the most frightening creature in the history of the City of Palaces.
]]> 301 Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn 0316044733 Amber 0 to-read 3.69 1994 The Midnight Palace (Niebla, #2)
author: Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
name: Amber
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1994
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The City of Mist (Cemetery of Forgotten Books)]]> 57190576 Return to the mythical Barcelona library known as the Cemetery of Forgotten Books in this posthumous collection of stories from the New York Times bestselling author of The Shadow of the Wind and The Labyrinth of the Spirits.

Bestselling author Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn conceived of this collection of stories as an appreciation to the countless readers who joined him on the extraordinary journey that began with The Shadow of the Wind. Comprising eleven stories, most of them never before published in English, The City of Mist offers the reader compelling characters, unique situations, and a gothic atmosphere reminiscent of his beloved Cemetery of Forgotten Books quartet.

The stories are mysterious, imbued with a sense of menace, and told with the warmth, wit, and humor of ZafĂłn's inimitable voice. A boy decides to become a writer when he discovers that his creative gifts capture the attentions of an aloof young beauty who has stolen his heart. A labyrinth maker flees Constantinople to a plague-ridden Barcelona, with plans for building a library impervious to the destruction of time. A strange gentleman tempts Cervantes to write a book like no other, each page of which could prolong the life of the woman he loves. And a brilliant Catalan architect named Antoni GaudĂ­ reluctantly agrees to cross the ocean to New York, a voyage that will determine the fate of an unfinished masterpiece.

Imaginative and beguiling, these and other stories in The City of Mist summon up the mesmerizing magic of their brilliant creator and invite us to come dream along with him.

Blanca and the departure
Nameless
A young lady from Barcelona
Rose of fire
The prince of Parnassus
a Christmas tale
Alicia, at dawn
Men in grey
Kiss
GaudĂ­ in Manhattan
Two-minute apocalypse]]> 162 Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn 0063118092 Amber 0 to-read 3.95 2020 The City of Mist (Cemetery of Forgotten Books)
author: Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
name: Amber
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla, #3)]]> 18773989 It was an unforgettable summer....

When fourteen-year-old Irene Sauvelle moves with her family to Cape House on the coast of Normandy, she's immediately taken by the beauty of the place--its expansive cliffs, coasts, and harbors. There, she meets a local boy named Ishmael, and the two soon fall in love. But a dark mystery is about to unfold, involving a reclusive toymaker who lives in a gigantic mansion filled with mechanical beings and shadows of the past.

As strange lights shine through the fog surrounding a small, barren island, Irene's younger brother dreams of a dark creature hidden deep in the forest. And when a young girl is found murdered, her body at the end of a path torn through the woods by a monstrous, inhuman force, Irene and Ishmael wonder--has a demonic presence been unleashed on the inhabitants of Cape House? Together, they'll have to survive the most terrifying summer of their lives, as they try to piece together the many mysteries and secrets hidden in a town torn apart by tragedy, amidst a labyrinth of lights and shadows.]]> 289 Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn 031604475X Amber 0 to-read 3.90 1995 The Watcher in the Shadows (Niebla, #3)
author: Carlos Ruiz ZafĂłn
name: Amber
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1995
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Favorite Terrible Thing 183079537
Detective Nina Travers is so good at her job that she blends in like a benevolent Tom Ripley. She can be anyone. She can be no one. Nina wants to be someone . Her new case will finally get her noticed.

Bestselling author Claire Ross has disappeared from the Hamptons on her wedding day. How tragic that the author of an epic romance that captured the heart, soul, and imagination of the world should suddenly vanish on the happiest day of her life. Claire’s distraught family and friends, her mystified fiancé, and her zealous online fans all have their theories―from the sinister to the hopeful. Nina’s job is to find the truth, and she’s pursuing an angle that no one else has explored. She’s looking for a trail of clues in Claire’s novel.

Reading between its haunting lines, Nina follows a spiraling path of secret love, obsession, and death. What Nina finds is so shocking even she never saw it coming.]]> 285 Madeleine Henry 1662517459 Amber 4 3.53 2024 My Favorite Terrible Thing
author: Madeleine Henry
name: Amber
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves:
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]]> Cut and Thirst 209411839 Three women scheme to avenge an old friend in a darkly witty short story about loyalty, ambition, and delicious retribution by Margaret Atwood, the #1 bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Myrna, Leonie, and Chrissy meet every Thursday to sample fine cheeses, to reminisce about their former lives as professors, and lately, to muse about murder. Decades ago, a vicious cabal of male poets contrived—quite publicly and successfully—to undermine the writing career, confidence, and health of their dear friend Fern. Now, after Fern has taken a turn for the worse, her three old friends decide that it’s finally time to strike back—in secret, of course, since Fern is far too gentle to approve of a vendetta. All they need is a plan with suitably Shakespearean drama. But as sweet and satisfying as revenge can be, it’s not always so cut and dried.]]> 35 Margaret Atwood 1662523335 Amber 3 3.13 2024 Cut and Thirst
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Amber
average rating: 3.13
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/07
date added: 2024/04/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries #1)]]> 35565516 As a new century approaches, Edinburgh is a city divided. The wealthy residents of New Town live in comfort, while Old Town’s cobblestone streets are clotted with criminals, prostitution, and poverty.

Detective Inspector Ian Hamilton is no stranger to Edinburgh’s darkest crimes. Scarred by the mysterious fire that killed his parents, he faces his toughest case yet when a young man is found strangled in Holyrood Park.

With little evidence aside from a strange playing card found on the body, Hamilton engages the help of his aunt, a gifted photographer, and George Pearson, a librarian with a shared interest in the criminal mind. But the body count is rising. As newspapers spin tales of the “Holyrood Strangler,� panic sets in across the city. And with each victim, the murderer is getting closer to Hamilton, the one man who dares to stop him.

]]> 446 Carole Lawrence 1477828087 Amber 4 4.01 2017 Edinburgh Twilight (Ian Hamilton Mysteries #1)
author: Carole Lawrence
name: Amber
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/05
date added: 2024/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> Blank 162505506 234 Zibby Owens 1662511191 Amber 2 3.71 2024 Blank
author: Zibby Owens
name: Amber
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/03/10
date added: 2024/03/10
shelves:
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]]> <![CDATA[The Heart Goes Last (Positron, #4)]]> 17973071 Positron, her darkly comic Byliner Serial about life in a Big Brother America of the near future.

In the seemingly well-adjusted world of Consilience, it's dawning on the residents that they've thrown away the keys to more than their ragged former lives outside the high walls of their gated community. When they volunteered for this new social experiment, they also gave away the keys to their destinies, even their hearts.

Ask Charmaine and she'll tell you her husband is a dead man. Sure, marriage can be murder, but when Charmaine plunged a deadly hypodermic needle into Stan, because it was part of her job--dispatching undesirables in Positron Prison--Stan survived. His former jailer, a libidinous security chief named Jocelyn, had switched out the death drugs for knockout drugs and drafted him into a plot to undo the increasingly sinister social scheme. In so doing, she promoted him from her sexual plaything to full-blown subversive. The underground is housed in a manufacturing plant of one of Consilience's most successful products: sexbots, made to order.

Love, however, is not made to order, and despite a Darwinian labyrinth of betrayal after betrayal, including wild extramarital encounters and, yes, murder, Stan can't stop thinking about Charmaine. Not only because someone has requested a sexbot replica of her but because, well, she's home in a world without homes. In The Heart Goes Last, one of Atwood's darkest and most deviously entertaining inventions yet, the human heart proves more resilient and true than any mail-order machine.]]> 56 Margaret Atwood 161452081X Amber 3 3.69 2015 The Heart Goes Last (Positron, #4)
author: Margaret Atwood
name: Amber
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2015/11/30
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The House Witch (The House Witch, #1)]]> 61337597 A heartwarming and humorous blend of fantasy, romance, and mystery featuring a witch with domestic powers and the royal household he serves . . . dinner.

When Finlay Ashowan joins the staff of the King and Queen of Daxaria, he’s an enigma. No one knows where he comes from or how he came to be where he is, which suits Fin just fine. He’s satisfied simply serving as the royal cook, keeping nosy passersby out of his kitchen, and concocting some truly uncanny meals.

But Fin’s secret identity doesn’t stay hidden for long. After all, it’s not every day a house witch and his kitten familiar, Kraken, take to meddling in imperial affairs. As his powers are gradually discovered by the court, Fin finds himself involved in a slew of intrigues: going head-to-head with knights with less-than-chivalrous intentions, helping to protect the pregnant queen, fending off the ire of the royal mage, and uncovering a spy in the castle. And that’s only the beginning—because Fin’s past is catching up with him just as his love life is getting complicated . . .]]> 658 Delemhach 1039410243 Amber 3 4.16 2022 The House Witch (The House Witch, #1)
author: Delemhach
name: Amber
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/25
date added: 2024/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age]]> 188958520 Vivian Gordon went out before midnight in a velvet dress and mink coat. Her body turned up the next morning in a desolate Bronx park, a dirty clothesline wrapped around her neck. At her stylish Manhattan apartment, detectives discovered notebooks full of names—businessmen, socialites, gangsters. And something a letter from an anti-corruption commission established by Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Led by the imperious Judge Samuel Seabury, the commission had uncovered a police conspiracy to frame women as prostitutes. Had Vivian Gordon been executed to bury her secrets? As FDR pressed the police to solve her murder, Judge Seabury pursued the trail of corruption to the top of Gotham’s powerful political machine—the infamous Tammany Hall.

Ěý]]> 352 Michael Wolraich 1454948027 Amber 0 to-read 3.69 The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
author: Michael Wolraich
name: Amber
average rating: 3.69
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> Battleborn 13163921 Winner of the 2012 Story Prize
Recipient of the 2012 American Academy of Arts and Letters Rosenthal FoundationĚýAward
A National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" fiction writer of 2012

Like the work of Cormac McCarthy, Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Annie Proulx, Battleborn represents a near-perfect confluence of sensibility and setting, and the introduction of an exceptionally powerful and original literary voice. In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region's vast spaces, winning redemption despite - and often because of - the hardship and violence they endure. The arrival of a foreigner transforms the exchange of eroticism and emotion at a prostitution ranch. A prospecting hermit discovers the limits of his rugged individualism when he tries to rescue an abused teenager. Decades after she led her best friend into a degrading encounter in a Vegas hotel room, a woman feels the aftershock. Most bravely of all, Watkins takes on â€� and reinventsĚýâ€� her own troubled legacy in a story that emerges from the mayhem and destruction of Helter Skelter. Arcing from the sweeping and sublime to the minute and personal, from Gold Rush to ghost town to desert to brothel, the collection echoes not only in its title but also in its fierce, undefeated spirit the motto of her home state.Ěý]]> 304 Claire Vaye Watkins 1594488258 Amber 0 to-read 4.13 2012 Battleborn
author: Claire Vaye Watkins
name: Amber
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2)]]> 7967
In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.

Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.]]> 382 Orson Scott Card 0812550757 Amber 0 to-read 4.10 1986 Speaker for the Dead (Ender's Saga, #2)
author: Orson Scott Card
name: Amber
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1986
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Lies You Wrote (Raisa Susanto, #1)]]> 86497148 For a brilliant forensic linguist, crimes of the past hold clues to new series of murders in a twisting novel of suspense by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of A Familiar Sight.

The double murder of a married couple in a small Washington town draws FBI forensic linguist Raisa Susanto into an investigation that mirrors a decades-old crime. Twenty-five years ago—to the day—Alex Parker murdered his parents, then took his own life, leaving behind a note admitting everything.

Raisa, paired with forensic psychologist Callum Kilkenny, uses her skills to read between the lines. Especially now that paranoid postings on a conspiracy thread suggest that Alex was a victim himself—theories that have piqued the interest of a perceptive content moderator and a true-crime podcaster eager for a big break.

As old and new crimes converge, messages from the living and the confessions of the dead take on new meaning for Raisa. Something more sinister than a copycat crime is at play, and plundering the darkest corners of a killer’s mind leaves her vulnerable to a deadly twist even she never saw coming.]]> 350 Brianna Labuskes 1662511353 Amber 5 4.09 2024 The Lies You Wrote (Raisa Susanto, #1)
author: Brianna Labuskes
name: Amber
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/14
date added: 2024/01/14
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]]> The Witch of Tin Mountain 60864419
Blood and power bind three generations of women in the Ozark Mountains. So does an evil that’s followed them across the decades.

1931. Gracelynn Doherty lives peacefully on Tin Mountain, helping her adoptive granny work her cures. Despite whispers that the women are witches, the superstitious locals still seek them out, whether they suffer from arthritis or a broken heart. But when evangelist Josiah Bellflower comes to town touting miracle healing, full bellies, and prosperity, his revivals soon hold Tin Mountain in thrall—and Granny in abject fear.

Granny recognizes Josiah. Fifty years ago, in a dark and desperate moment, she made a terrible promise. Now Josiah, an enemy, has returned to collect his due.

As Granny sickens and the drought-ridden countryside falls under a curse, Gracelynn must choose: flee Tin Mountain and the only family she knows or confront the vengeful preacher whose unholy mission is to destroy her.]]> 328 Paulette Kennedy 1662507631 Amber 5 4.05 2023 The Witch of Tin Mountain
author: Paulette Kennedy
name: Amber
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/02
date added: 2024/01/02
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]]> Weyward 60654349 I am a Weyward, and wild inside.

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

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

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

Weaving together the stories of three extraordinary women across five centuries, Emilia Hart's Weyward is an enthralling novel of female resilience and the transformative power of the natural world.]]> 329 Emilia Hart 125028080X Amber 0 to-read 4.03 2023 Weyward
author: Emilia Hart
name: Amber
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/01
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Vine Witch (The Vine Witch, #1)]]> 46015350
For centuries, the vineyards at Château Renard have depended on the talent of their vine witches, whose spells help create the world-renowned wine of the Chanceaux Valley. Then the skill of divining harvests fell into ruin when sorcière Elena Boureanu was blindsided by a curse. Now, after breaking the spell that confined her to the shallows of a marshland and weakened her magic, Elena is struggling to return to her former life. And the vineyard she was destined to inherit is now in the possession of a handsome stranger.

Vigneron Jean-Paul Martel naively favors science over superstition, and he certainly doesn’t endorse the locals� belief in witches. But Elena knows a hex when she sees one, and the vineyard is covered in them. To stay on and help the vines recover, she’ll have to hide her true identity, along with her plans for revenge against whoever stole seven winters of her life. And she won’t rest until she can defy the evil powers that are still a threat to herself, Jean-Paul, and the ancient vine-witch legacy in the rolling hills of the Chanceaux Valley.]]> 269 Luanne G. Smith 1542007119 Amber 4 3.88 2019 The Vine Witch (The Vine Witch, #1)
author: Luanne G. Smith
name: Amber
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/25
date added: 2023/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Salt & Broom 123443274
"Salt and broom, make this room
Safe and tight, against the night."

Trunks packed with potions and cures, Jane Aire sets out on a crisp, clear morning in October to face the greatest challenge of her sheltered girls�-school existence. A shadow lies over Thornfield Hall and its reclusive master, Edward Rochester. And he’s hired her only as a last resort. Jane stumbles again and again as she tries to establish a rapport with her prickly new employer, but he becomes the least of her worries as a mysterious force seems to work against her. The threats mount around both Jane and Rochester—who’s becoming more intriguing and appealing to her by the day. Jane begins to fear her herb healing and protective charms may not be enough to save the man she’s growing to love from a threat darker and more dangerous than either of them imagined.]]> 282 Sharon Lynn Fisher 1662515685 Amber 5 4.12 2023 Salt & Broom
author: Sharon Lynn Fisher
name: Amber
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/12/08
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Witch’s Lens (The Order of the Seven Stars #1)]]> 98651418 As World War I rages, there are evils—both living and dead—that only a witch can see in a spellbinding novel by the Amazon Charts and Washington Post bestselling author of The Raven Spell.

With her husband off fighting at World War I’s eastern front, Petra Kurková embraces her fleeting freedom, roaming the city at night with her camera. A born witch, she’s discovered that she can capture the souls of the dead on film. Her supernatural skills don’t go unnoticed by the enigmatic Josef Svoboda. He’s recruiting a team of sorcerers to infiltrate the front lines, where the bloodshed of combat has resurrected foul creatures. Petra’s unique abilities will be needed against the most dangerous enemies of all—those ever present, undead, and unseen.

Deep in the cursed Carpathian Mountains, the ragtag team meets with an emissary of an ancient organization founded to maintain balance between worlds. Photographing the escalating horrors is beyond anything Petra imagined. So are the secrets among her fellow witches. But Petra can’t turn back. Not before she discovers her husband’s fate and the myriad ways her magic is manifesting. To defeat an occult foe, Petra must release the power she’s been concealing for so long, or risk damning a war-torn world to ashes.]]> 255 Luanne G. Smith 166251039X Amber 4 3.90 2023 The Witch’s Lens (The Order of the Seven Stars #1)
author: Luanne G. Smith
name: Amber
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/24
date added: 2023/11/24
shelves:
review:

]]> Year of Wonders 4965
Through Anna's eyes we follow the story of the fateful year of 1666, as she and her fellow villagers confront the spread of disease and superstition.

As death reaches into every household and villagers turn from prayers to murderous witch-hunting, Anna must find the strength to confront the disintegration of her community and the lure of illicit love.

As she struggles to survive and grow, a year of catastrophe becomes instead annus mirabilis, a "year of wonders."

Inspired by the true story of Eyam, a village in the rugged hill country of England, Year of Wonders is a richly detailed evocation of a singular moment in history. ]]> 304 Geraldine Brooks 0142001430 Amber 3 3.5 4.00 2001 Year of Wonders
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Amber
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2001
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/09
date added: 2023/11/11
shelves:
review:
3.5
]]> <![CDATA[The Village Healer’s Book of Cures]]> 112985714
Mary Fawcett refines the healing recipes she’s inherited from generations of Fawcett women before her—an uncanny and moral calling to empathize with the sick. When witchfinder Matthew Hopkins arrives in her small village, stoking the fires of hate, he sees not healing but the devil at work. Mary’s benevolent skills have now cast her and her young brother under suspicion of witchery.

Soon, the husband of one of Mary’s patients is found murdered, his body carved with strange symbols. For Hopkins, it’s further evidence of dark arts. When the whispering village turns against her, Mary dares to trust a stranger: an enigmatic alchemist, scarred body and soul, who knows the dead man’s secrets.

As Hopkins’s fervor escalates, Mary must outsmart the devil himself to save her life and the lives of those she loves. Unfolding the true potential of her gifts could make Mary a more empowered adversary than a witchfinder ever feared.]]> 282 Jennifer Sherman Roberts 1662511752 Amber 4 3.78 2023 The Village Healer’s Book of Cures
author: Jennifer Sherman Roberts
name: Amber
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/11/03
date added: 2023/11/03
shelves:
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]]> Housemoms 123157459 Three grown women find escape and camaraderie on sorority row in a delightfully exhilarating novel about fresh starts, whether you want them or not, by New York Times bestselling author Jen Lancaster.

How fast can charity fundraiser CeCe Barclay’s unimpeachable society life come tumbling down?

One minute she’s speaking before Chicago’s glitterati. The next, her financier husband is wanted for embezzlement. Her assets seized and her fall mortifyingly public, CeCe grasps for refuge—and employment—as a sorority housemom at Eli Whitney University, her daughter Hayden’s alma mater.

Tasked with preparing a stately—but in CeCe’s estimation shabby—house for rush, CeCe isn’t the only one navigating a new life. Janelle Smith’s last experience as a housemother was at a Jersey strip club, where she witnessed a mob hit. To keep her safe until trial, WITSEC finds her a new identity and a housemom position on Eli Whitney’s sorority row, where Janelle’s conflict mediation and tolerance for high estrogen levels make her a star employee. For Hayden, a barista at a hopelessly hip off-campus café, the goal is to flee everything the money, the scandals, and the exasperating family nonsense. What next?

Though CeCe’s not ready to sell her Chanel bag, she’s open to reinvention. Hayden might even admit she needs help in her new independent life. And Janelle’s due for a personal triumph. But big challenges loom between the alabaster columns of Eli Whitney, unexpected and dicey enough to bring them all together—if only to keep them from falling completely apart.]]> 251 Jen Lancaster 1662510160 Amber 3 3.53 Housemoms
author: Jen Lancaster
name: Amber
average rating: 3.53
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2023/10/15
date added: 2023/10/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Don’t Forget to Write 75349380 334 Sara Goodman Confino 1662512236 Amber 4 4.49 2023 Don’t Forget to Write
author: Sara Goodman Confino
name: Amber
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/01
date added: 2023/10/01
shelves:
review:

]]> The Murmur of Bees 42306076 From a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel—her first to be translated into English—about a mysterious child with the power to change a family’s history in a country on the verge of revolution.

From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of a small Mexican town forever changed. Disfigured and covered in a blanket of bees, little Simonopio is for some locals the stuff of superstition, a child kissed by the devil. But he is welcomed by landowners Francisco and Beatriz Morales, who adopt him and care for him as if he were their own. As he grows up, Simonopio becomes a cause for wonder to the Morales family, because when the uncannily gifted child closes his eyes, he can see what no one else can—visions of all that’s yet to come, both beautiful and dangerous. Followed by his protective swarm of bees and living to deliver his adoptive family from threats—both human and those of nature—Simonopio’s purpose in Linares will, in time, be divined.

Set against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution and the devastating influenza of 1918, The Murmur of Bees captures both the fate of a country in flux and the destiny of one family that has put their love, faith, and future in the unbelievable.]]> 471 SofĂ­a Segovia 1542090490 Amber 0 to-read 4.21 2015 The Murmur of Bees
author: SofĂ­a Segovia
name: Amber
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Broadway Butterfly 64651182 432 Sara DiVello 1662510144 Amber 3 3.97 2023 Broadway Butterfly
author: Sara DiVello
name: Amber
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/09/19
date added: 2023/09/19
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]]> The Adults 9061509
An irresistible chronicle of a modern young woman’s struggle to grow up, The Adults lays bare—in perfect pitch—a world where an adult and a child can so dangerously be mistaken for the same exact thing.]]> 307 Alison Espach 1439191859 Amber 4 3.46 2011 The Adults
author: Alison Espach
name: Amber
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2011
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/09/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Halfway to You 61844336 An ambitious podcaster and her reclusive interviewee embark on a life-altering journey to uncover long-lost truths in this immersive story about love, travel, and family secrets.

Forty years ago, aspiring writer Ann Fawkes left the United States for a Mediterranean adventure that opened her heart to travel and love. After a chance encounter propelled her into the publishing world, she released her first novel, an instant bestseller—and the last book she ever wrote.

Now, Ann lives a reclusive life in the San Juan Islands, hiding from the public and its probing questions. But when podcaster Maggie Whitaker convinces Ann to sit for an interview, Ann agrees on one condition: Maggie must keep her story off the record.

Determined to change Ann’s mind before she loses her job, Maggie agrees. But as she learns about Ann’s life—particularly the love affair that inspired her novel and the decisions she made in its wake—Maggie realizes Ann’s story intersects with her own in shocking, life-changing ways.

A sweeping, heart-wrenching novel that spans decades and continents, Halfway to You explores the distances we create between ourselves and the ones we love most and what it takes to finally bridge them.]]> 411 Jennifer Gold 1662509103 Amber 4 4.31 2023 Halfway to You
author: Jennifer Gold
name: Amber
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/20
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Call the Canaries Home 62589532 Three estranged sisters reconnect in their Louisiana hometown to face an unresolved past in a heartfelt novel about family, grief, secrets, and forgiveness.

Savannah was four years old when her twin sister, Georgia, went missing from their small Louisiana town, fracturing their family. Twenty-eight years later, Savannah convinces her estranged older sisters, Rayanne and Sue Ellen, to honor the pact they made as children and retrieve the time capsule they buried in their old backyard. But coming home means confronting old ghosts…and their stubborn grandmother, Meemaw.

Sifting through the artifacts, they come across a photograph taken on the day Georgia disappeared and spot a familiar woman lingering in the background. While Sue Ellen and Rayanne want to move on with their lives, Savannah is determined to find the woman—and perhaps a clue to the past.

When old tensions, rivalries, and memories resurface, the sisters must reconsider what they thought they knew about that fateful day, about each other, and about themselves. On their search to uncover what happened to Georgia, each of them will discover what Meemaw has known all along: family is everything.]]> 299 Laura Barrow 166251025X Amber 5 4.02 2023 Call the Canaries Home
author: Laura Barrow
name: Amber
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/29
date added: 2023/07/29
shelves:
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]]> You Look Beautiful Tonight 61914418 A secret admirer’s devotion turns deadly in a twisting novel of psychological suspense.

Mia Anderson is an invisible woman. An unremarkable thirty-two-year-old Tennessee librarian, she’s accustomed to disappearing in a crowd, unseen and unheard. Then she receives an anonymous note: You look beautiful today.

It doesn’t stop there. The attentive stranger—a secret admirer named Adam—has plans for Mia. With each new text comes a suggestion for her hair, clothes, or attitude, and for the first time in memory, Mia feels noticed. Slowly, she develops a confidence in herself she’s never had. But Adam has a surprise coming…and Mia finally sees him for who he is and what he’s prepared to do for her. Even kill.

Fearing she could be implicated in the murder, Mia’s forced to turn to the stranger in the shadows watching her every move. Adam’s game of cat and mouse begins with Mia as the prey. In order to survive, she must also become the predator.]]> 347 L.R. Jones 1662508875 Amber 1 3.70 2023 You Look Beautiful Tonight
author: L.R. Jones
name: Amber
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2023/06/27
date added: 2023/06/27
shelves:
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]]> Swan Light 61414963
1913. Eighty-three-year-old Silvestre Swan has dedicated his life to the care of his Newfoundland lighthouse. His petition to relocate Swan Light from its precarious cliff’s edge is going unheard by town patriarch Cort Roland—that is, until a terrible storm brings an unlikely ally into Swan’s life. But is it too late for the stone lighthouse?

2014. Marine archaeologist Mari Adams's attempts to fund her search for the notorious SS Californian are realized when she accepts a job to find the remains of Swan Light, rumored to have collapsed into the sea one hundred years ago. She teams up with salvager Julian Henry, and the pair unearth more than they bargained for in their search for the ruins. But when a group of treasure hunters threatens their mission, their hunt for the truth turns dangerous.

As past and present collide, the secrets hiding on the ocean floor begin to surface. Can Mari find the answers she is looking for—and at what price?]]> 271 Phoebe Rowe 1662507445 Amber 0 currently-reading 4.22 2023 Swan Light
author: Phoebe Rowe
name: Amber
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/20
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> Big Chicas Don't Cry 60193430 Four cousins navigate love, loss, and the meaning of family over the course of one memorable year in this heartfelt family drama.

Cousins Mari, Erica, Selena, and Gracie are inseparable. They aren’t just family but best friends—sharing secrets, traditions, and a fierce love for their abuelita. But their idyllic childhood ends when Mari’s parents divorce, forcing her to move away. With Mari gone, the girls� tight-knit bond unravels.

Fifteen years later, Mari’s got the big house and handsome husband, but her life is in shambles. Erica’s boyfriend just dumped her, and her new boss hates her. Selena can’t seem to find her place in the world—not Mexican enough for her family, not white enough for her colleagues. And Gracie is a Catholic school teacher with an all-consuming crush, but she can’t trust herself when it comes to romance.

As rocky as the cousins� lives have become, nothing can prepare them for the heartbreaking loss of a loved one. When tragedy reunites them, will they remember their abuelita’s lessons about family and forgiveness—or are fifteen years of separation too much to overcome?]]> 367 Annette Chavez Macias 1542039282 Amber 4 4.22 2022 Big Chicas Don't Cry
author: Annette Chavez Macias
name: Amber
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/27
date added: 2023/03/27
shelves:
review:

]]> Smoke & Summons (Numina, #1) 39736189 A cunning thief for hire, Rone owns a rare device that grants him immortality for one minute every day—a unique advantage that will come in handy in Sandis’s fight for freedom. But Sandis’s master knows how powerful she is. He’s determined to get her back, and he has the manpower to find her, wherever she runs.

Now, to outwit her pursuers, Sandis must put all her trust in Rone and his immortal device. For her master has summoned more than mere men to hunt her down�

]]> 329 Charlie N. Holmberg 1503957780 Amber 1 abandoned 3.93 2019 Smoke & Summons (Numina, #1)
author: Charlie N. Holmberg
name: Amber
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 1
read at: 2023/03/15
date added: 2023/03/15
shelves: abandoned
review:
Tried to read twice. Abandoned.
]]> Write My Name Across the Sky 56416637 The USA Today bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids returns with a tale of two generations of women reconciling family secrets and past regrets.

Life’s beautiful for seventysomething influencer Gloria Rose, in her Upper West Side loft with rooftop garden and scores of Instagram followers—until she gets word that her old flame has been arrested for art theft and forgery. Knowing her own involvement in his misdeeds decades earlier, Gloria realizes she could be the next arrest and must flee. But first, she needs to make sure her nieces are protected from any fallout.

The sisters, though in their thirties, are still constantly at odds with each other. Willow, struggling to live up to their mother’s fame as a singer-songwriter, is recovering from a failed album and yet another heartbreak, while Sam is desperate to revive her floundering video game company.

When circumstances out of their control bring the three women back together, they will each have to reckon with and reconcile their interwoven traumas, past loves, and the looming consequences that could either destroy their futures or bring them closer than ever.]]> 361 Barbara O'Neal 1542021634 Amber 4 4.30 2021 Write My Name Across the Sky
author: Barbara O'Neal
name: Amber
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/03/15
date added: 2023/03/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World]]> 61685989 The #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Happiness Project discovers a surprising path to a life of more energy, creativity, and love: by tuning in to the five senses.

For more than a decade, Gretchen Rubin had been studying happiness and human nature. Then, one day, a visit to her eye doctor made her realize that she’d been overlooking a key element of happiness: her five senses. She’d spent so much time stuck in her head that she’d allowed the vital sensations of life to slip away, unnoticed. This epiphany lifted her from a state of foggy preoccupation into a world rediscovered by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.

In this journey of self-experimentation, Rubin explores the mysteries and joys of the five senses as a path to a happier, more mindful life. Drawing on cutting-edge science, philosophy, literature, and her own efforts to practice what she learns, she investigates the profound power of tuning in to the physical world.

From the simple pleasures of appreciating the magic of ketchup and adding favorite songs to a playlist, to more adventurous efforts like creating a daily ritual of visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and attending Flavor University, Rubin show us how to experience each day with depth, delight, and connection. In the rush of daily life, she finds, our five senses offer us an immediate, sustainable way to cheer up, calm down, and engage the world around us—as well as a way to glimpse the soul and touch the transcendent.

Life in Five Senses is an absorbing, layered story of discovery filled with profound insights and practical suggestions about how to heighten our senses and use our powers of perception to live fuller, richer lives—and, ultimately, how to move through the world with more vitality and love.]]> 272 Gretchen Rubin 0593442741 Amber 0 to-read 3.70 2023 Life in Five Senses: How Exploring the Senses Got Me Out of My Head and Into the World
author: Gretchen Rubin
name: Amber
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Maid's Diary 60588452
When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

As Mal begins to uncover the secret that has sent the lives of everyone involved on a devious and inescapable collision course, she realizes that nothing is quite as it seems.

And no one escapes their past.]]> 369 Loreth Anne White 1542034450 Amber 5 4.12 2023 The Maid's Diary
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Amber
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/02/15
date added: 2023/02/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)]]> 53138099 Finlay Donovan is Killing It.

Finlay Donovan is killing it . . . except, she’s really not. She’s a stressed-out single-mom of two and struggling novelist, Finlay’s life is in chaos: the new book she promised her literary agent isn’t written, her ex-husband fired the nanny without telling her, and this morning she had to send her four-year-old to school with hair duct-taped to her head after an incident with scissors.

When Finlay is overheard discussing the plot of her new suspense novel with her agent over lunch, she’s mistaken for a contract killer, and inadvertently accepts an offer to dispose of a problem husband in order to make ends meet . . . Soon, Finlay discovers that crime in real life is a lot more difficult than its fictional counterpart, as she becomes tangled in a real-life murder investigation.

Fast-paced, deliciously witty, and wholeheartedly authentic in depicting the frustrations and triumphs of motherhood in all its messiness, hilarity, and heartfelt moment, Finlay Donovan Is Killing It is the first in a brilliant new series from YA Edgar Award nominee Elle Cosimano.]]> 355 Elle Cosimano 1250241707 Amber 0 to-read 3.99 2021 Finlay Donovan Is Killing It (Finlay Donovan, #1)
author: Elle Cosimano
name: Amber
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Under the Whispering Door 58724708 A Man Called Ove meets The Good Place in Under the Whispering Door, a delightful queer love story from TJ Klune, author of the New York Times and USA Today bestseller The House in the Cerulean Sea.



Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

When a reaper comes to collect Wallace from his own funeral, Wallace begins to suspect he might be dead.

And when Hugo, the owner of a peculiar tea shop, promises to help him cross over, Wallace decides he's definitely dead.

But even in death he's not ready to abandon the life he barely lived, so when Wallace is given one week to cross over, he sets about living a lifetime in seven days.

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 384 T.J. Klune 1250217393 Amber 0 to-read 4.16 2021 Under the Whispering Door
author: T.J. Klune
name: Amber
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Taste of Ginger 58262303 In Mansi Shah’s stunning debut novel, a family tragedy beckons a first-generation immigrant to the city of her birth, where she grapples with her family’s past in search of where she truly belongs.

After her parents moved her and her brother to America, Preeti Desai never meant to tear her family apart. All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.

But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her.]]> 317 Mansi Shah 1542031893 Amber 3 3.99 2021 The Taste of Ginger
author: Mansi Shah
name: Amber
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2023/02/06
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves:
review:

]]> A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1) 25316313 Twelve years ago, Sarah Baker was abducted by the Watt Lake Killer and sexually assaulted for months before managing to escape. The killer was caught, but Sarah lost everything: her marriage, her child, and the life she loved.

Struggling with PTSD, Sarah changes her name to Olivia West and finds sanctuary working on Broken Bar Ranch. But as her scars finally begin to heal, a cop involved with her horrific case remains convinced the Watt Lake Killer is still out there. He sets a lure for the murderer, and a fresh body is discovered. Now Olivia must face the impossible—could the butcher be back, this time to finish the job?

As a frigid winter isolates the ranch, only one person can help Olivia: Cole McDonough, a writer, adventurer, and ranch heir who stirs long-dormant feelings in her. But this time, Olivia’s determination to shut out her past may destroy more than her chance at love. It could cost her her life.

]]> 418 Loreth Anne White 1477878734 Amber 4
Spoiler: The dog lives]]> 4.25 2015 A Dark Lure (A Dark Lure, #1)
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Amber
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/25
date added: 2023/01/26
shelves:
review:
Decent thriller written from multiple points of view. Some romance, but not as much as other reviews claimed.

Spoiler: The dog lives
]]> The Glass Hotel 45754981 From the award-winning author of Station Eleven, an exhilarating novel set at the glittering intersection of two seemingly disparate events–a massive Ponzi scheme collapse and the mysterious disappearance of a woman from a ship at sea.

Vincent is a bartender at the Hotel Caiette, a five-star lodging on the northernmost tip of Vancouver Island. On the night she meets Jonathan Alkaitis, a hooded figure scrawls a message on the lobby’s glass wall: Why don’t you swallow broken glass. High above Manhattan, a greater crime is committed: Alkaitis is running an international Ponzi scheme, moving imaginary sums of money through clients� accounts. When the financial empire collapses, it obliterates countless fortunes and devastates lives. Vincent, who had been posing as Jonathan’s wife, walks away into the night. Years later, a victim of the fraud is hired to investigate a strange occurrence: a woman has seemingly vanished from the deck of a container ship between ports of call.

In this captivating story of crisis and survival, Emily St. John Mandel takes readers through often hidden landscapes: campgrounds for the near-homeless, underground electronica clubs, the business of international shipping, service in luxury hotels, and life in a federal prison. Rife with unexpected beauty, The Glass Hotel is a captivating portrait of greed and guilt, love and delusion, ghosts and unintended consequences, and the infinite ways we search for meaning in our lives.]]> 307 Emily St. John Mandel 0525521143 Amber 0 to-read 3.66 2020 The Glass Hotel
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Amber
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician #1)]]> 22521286 Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined—animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner—a practitioner of dark, flesh magic—invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.


From the imaginative mind of debut author Charlie N. Holmberg, The Paper Magician is an extraordinary adventure both dark and whimsical that will delight readers of all ages.

Short-Listed for the 2015 ALA Fantasy Reading List

]]> 234 Charlie N. Holmberg 147787383X Amber 2 3.84 2014 The Paper Magician (The Paper Magician #1)
author: Charlie N. Holmberg
name: Amber
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 2
read at: 2023/01/15
date added: 2023/01/15
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]]> <![CDATA[Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders]]> 58328366 320 Kathryn Miles 1616209097 Amber 5 3.91 2022 Trailed: One Woman's Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders
author: Kathryn Miles
name: Amber
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/01/01
date added: 2023/01/03
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]]> She's Up to No Good 59421417
Four years into her marriage, Jenna is blindsided when her husband asks for a divorce. With time on her hands and her life in flux, she agrees to accompany her eccentric grandmother Evelyn on a road trip to the seaside Massachusetts town where much of their family history was shaped.

When they hit the road, Evelyn spins the tale of the star-crossed teenage romance that captured her heart more than seventy years ago and changed the course of her life. She insists the return to her hometown isn’t about that at all—no matter how much she talks about Tony, her unforgettable and forbidden first love.

Upon arrival, Jenna meets Tony’s attentive great-nephew Joe. The new friendship and fresh ocean air give her the confidence and distance she needs to begin putting the pain of a broken marriage behind her.

As the secrets and truths of Evelyn’s past unfold, Jenna discovers a new side of her grandmother, and of herself, that she never knew existed—and learns that the possibilities for healing can come at the most unexpected times in a woman’s life.]]> 389 Sara Goodman Confino 1542033608 Amber 4 4.30 2022 She's Up to No Good
author: Sara Goodman Confino
name: Amber
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/12/29
date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Cleopatra and Frankenstein 57693262 For readers of Modern Lovers and Conversations with Friends, an addictive, humorous, and poignant debut novel about the shock waves caused by one couple's impulsive marriage.

Twenty-four-year-old British painter Cleo has escaped from England to New York and is still finding her place in the sleepless city when, a few months before her student visa ends, she meets Frank. Twenty years older and a self-made success, Frank's life is full of all the excesses Cleo's lacks. He offers her the chance to be happy, the freedom to paint, and the opportunity to apply for a Green Card. But their impulsive marriage irreversibly changes both their lives, and the lives of those close to them, in ways they never could've predicted.

Each compulsively readable chapter explores the lives of Cleo, Frank, and an unforgettable cast of their closest friends and family as they grow up and grow older. Whether it's Cleo's best friend struggling to embrace his gender queerness in the wake of Cleo's marriage, or Frank's financially dependent sister arranging sugar daddy dates to support herself after being cut off, or Cleo and Frank themselves as they discover the trials of marriage and mental illness, each character is as absorbing, and painfully relatable, as the last.

As hilarious as it is heartbreaking, entertaining as it is deeply moving, Cleopatra and Frankenstein marks the entry of a brilliant and bold new talent.]]> 384 Coco Mellors 1635576814 Amber 0 to-read 3.71 2022 Cleopatra and Frankenstein
author: Coco Mellors
name: Amber
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Other Birds 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

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

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

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 Amber 0 to-read 4.00 2022 Other Birds
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: Amber
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Notes on an Execution 57773248
Ansel Packer is scheduled to die in twelve hours. He knows what he’s done, and now awaits execution, the same chilling fate he forced on those girls, years ago. But Ansel doesn’t want to die; he wants to be celebrated, understood. He hoped it wouldn’t end like this, not for him.

Through a kaleidoscope of women—a mother, a sister, a homicide detective—we learn the story of Ansel’s life. We meet his mother, Lavender, a seventeen-year-old girl pushed to desperation; Hazel, twin sister to Ansel’s wife, inseparable since birth, forced to watch helplessly as her sister’s relationship threatens to devour them all; and finally, Saffy, the homicide detective hot on his trail, who has devoted herself to bringing bad men to justice but struggles to see her own life clearly. As the clock ticks down, these three women sift through the choices that culminate in tragedy, exploring the rippling fissures that such destruction inevitably leaves in its wake.

Blending breathtaking suspense with astonishing empathy, Notes on an Execution presents a chilling portrait of womanhood as it simultaneously unravels the familiar narrative of the American serial killer, interrogating our system of justice and our cultural obsession with crime stories, asking readers to consider the false promise of looking for meaning in the psyches of violent men.]]> 306 Danya Kukafka 0063052733 Amber 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Notes on an Execution
author: Danya Kukafka
name: Amber
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Now Is Not the Time to Panic 60415700
Sixteen-year-old Frankie Budge—aspiring writer, indifferent student, offbeat loner—is determined to make it through yet another sad summer in Coalfield, Tennessee, when she meets Zeke, a talented artist who has just moved into his grandmother’s unhappy house and who is as lonely and awkward as Frankie is. Romantic and creative sparks begin to fly, and when the two jointly make an unsigned poster, shot through with an enigmatic phrase, it becomes unforgettable to anyone who sees it. The edge is a shantytown filled with gold seekers. We are fugitives, and the law is skinny with hunger for us.

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

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

A bold coming-of-age story, written with Kevin Wilson’s trademark wit and blazing prose, Now Is Not The Time to Panic is a nuanced exploration of young love, identity, and the power of art. It’s also about the secrets that haunt us—and, ultimately, what the truth will set free.]]> 246 Kevin Wilson 0062913506 Amber 0 to-read 3.68 2022 Now Is Not the Time to Panic
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Amber
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> <![CDATA[How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water]]> 59808037
Structurally inventive and emotionally kaleidoscopic, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water is Angie Cruz’s most ambitious and moving novel yet, and Cara is a heroine for the ages.]]> 195 Angie Cruz 1250208459 Amber 0 to-read 3.87 2022 How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
author: Angie Cruz
name: Amber
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Honor 56271394 Ěý
IndianĚýAmerican journalistĚýSmita has returned to India to cover a story, but reluctantly: long ago she and her family left the country with no intention of ever coming back. As she follows the case of Meena—a Hindu woman attacked by members of her own village and her own family for marrying a Muslim man—Smita comes face to face with a society where tradition carries more weight than one’s own heart, and a story that threatens to unearth the painful secrets of Smita’s own past. While Meena’s fate hangs in the balance, Smita tries in every way she can to right the scales. She also finds herself increasingly drawn to Mohan, an Indian man she meets while on assignment. But the dual love stories of Honor are as different as the cultures of Meena and Smita themselves: Smita realizes she has the freedom to enter into a casual affair, knowing she can decide later how much it means to her.

In this tender and evocative novel about love, hope, familial devotion, betrayal, and sacrifice, Thrity Umrigar shows us two courageous women trying to navigate how to be true to their homelands and themselves at the same time.]]> 326 Thrity Umrigar 161620995X Amber 0 to-read 4.32 2022 Honor
author: Thrity Umrigar
name: Amber
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4) 60657583
Rich with empathy and emotion, Lucy by the Sea vividly captures the fear and struggles that come with isolation, as well as the hope, peace, and possibilities that those long, quiet days can inspire. At the heart of this story are the deep human connections that unite us even when we're apart--the pain of a beloved daughter's suffering, the emptiness that comes from the death of a loved one, the promise of a new friendship, and the comfort of an old, enduring love.]]> 291 Elizabeth Strout 0593446062 Amber 0 to-read 3.80 2022 Lucy by the Sea (Amgash #4)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: Amber
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Nightcrawling 58537371
One night, what begins as a drunken misunderstanding with a stranger turns into the job Kiara never imagined wanting but now desperately needs: nightcrawling. Her world breaks open even further when her name surfaces in an investigation that exposes her as a key witness in a massive scandal within the Oakland Police Department.]]> 277 Leila Mottley 0593318935 Amber 0 to-read 3.95 2022 Nightcrawling
author: Leila Mottley
name: Amber
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> True Biz 58395049 TRUE BIZ (adj./exclamation; American Sign Language): really, seriously, definitely, real-talk

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

This is a story of sign language and lip-reading, disability and civil rights, isolation and injustice, first love and loss, and, above all, great persistence, daring, and joy. Absorbing and assured, idiosyncratic and relatable, this is an unforgettable journey into the Deaf community and a universal celebration of human connection.]]> 386 Sara Nović 0593241509 Amber 0 to-read 4.06 2022 True Biz
author: Sara Nović
name: Amber
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 Amber 0 to-read 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Amber
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> This Time Tomorrow 59089704 What if you could take a vacation to your past?

With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes, and a different kind of love story.

On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice's life isn't terrible. She likes her job, even if it isn't exactly the one she expected. She's happy with her apartment, her romantic status, her independence, and she adores her lifelong best friend. But her father is ailing, and it feels to her as if something is missing. When she wakes up the next morning she finds herself back in 1996, reliving her 16th birthday. But it isn't just her adolescent body that shocks her, or seeing her high school crush, it's her dad: the vital, charming, 40-something version of her father with whom she is reunited. Now armed with a new perspective on her own life and his, some past events take on new meaning. Is there anything that she would change if she could?]]> 310 Emma Straub 052553900X Amber 0 to-read 3.78 2022 This Time Tomorrow
author: Emma Straub
name: Amber
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Olga Dies Dreaming 57693171
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets...

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

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream--all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.]]> 369 Xóchitl González 1250786177 Amber 0 to-read 3.95 2022 Olga Dies Dreaming
author: Xóchitl González
name: Amber
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Mad Honey 59912428 A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past, and what we choose to leave behind.

Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life—living in Boston, married to a brilliant cardiothoracic surgeon, raising a beautiful son, Asher—was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in, and taking over her father's beekeeping business.

Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start.

And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can she trust him completely . . .

Then one day, Olivia receives a phone call: Lily is dead, and Asher is being questioned by the police. Olivia is adamant that her son is innocent. But she would be lying if she didn’t acknowledge the flashes of his father’s temper in him, and as the case against him unfolds, she realizes he’s hidden more than he’s shared with her.

Mad Honey is a riveting novel of suspense, an unforgettable love story, and a moving and powerful exploration of the secrets we keep and the risks we take in order to become ourselves.]]> 464 Jodi Picoult 1984818384 Amber 0 to-read 4.05 2022 Mad Honey
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amber
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Our Missing Hearts 60149573 A novel about a mother’s unbreakable love in a world consumed by fear.

Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in a university library. Bird knows to not ask too many questions, stand out too much, or stray too far. For a decade, their lives have been governed by laws written to preserve “American culture� in the wake of years of economic instability and violence. To keep the peace and restore prosperity, the authorities are now allowed to relocate children of dissidents, especially those of Asian origin, and libraries have been forced to remove books seen as unpatriotic—including the work of Bird’s mother, Margaret, a Chinese American poet who left the family when he was nine years old.

Bird has grown up disavowing his mother and her poems; he doesn’t know her work or what happened to her, and he knows he shouldn’t wonder. But when he receives a mysterious letter containing only a cryptic drawing, he is pulled into a quest to find her. His journey will take him back to the many folktales she poured into his head as a child, through the ranks of an underground network of librarians, into the lives of the children who have been taken, and finally to New York City, where a new act of defiance may be the beginning of much-needed change.]]> 335 Celeste Ng 0593492544 Amber 0 to-read 3.74 2022 Our Missing Hearts
author: Celeste Ng
name: Amber
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Remarkably Bright Creatures 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

After Tova Sullivan's husband died, she began working the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and tidying up. Keeping busy has always helped her cope, which she's been doing since her eighteen-year-old son, Erik, mysteriously vanished on a boat in Puget Sound over thirty years ago.

Tova becomes acquainted with curmudgeonly Marcellus, a giant Pacific octopus living at the aquarium. Marcellus knows more than anyone can imagine but wouldn't dream of lifting one of his eight arms for his human captors--until he forms a remarkable friendship with Tova.

Ever the detective, Marcellus deduces what happened the night Tova's son disappeared. And now Marcellus must use every trick his old invertebrate body can muster to unearth the truth for her before it's too late.

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Amber 0 to-read 4.35 2022 Remarkably Bright Creatures
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Amber
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Winners (Beartown, #3) 60209470
As the locals of Beartown struggle to overcome the past, great change is on the horizon. Someone is coming home after a long time away. Someone will be laid to rest. Someone will fall in love, someone will try to fix their marriage, and someone will do anything to save their children. Someone will submit to hate, someone will fight, and someone will grab a gun and walk towards the ice rink.

So what are the residents of Beartown willing to sacrifice for their home?

Everything.

The long-awaited conclusion to the beloved New York Times bestselling and “engrossing� (People) Beartown series—which inspired an HBO series of the same name—follows the small hockey town’s residents as they grapple with change, pain, hope, and redemption.]]> 673 Fredrik Backman 1982112794 Amber 0 to-read 4.42 2022 The Winners (Beartown, #3)
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Amber
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/12/29
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]]> Wish You Were Here 57701764 New York Times bestselling author of Small Great Things and The Book of Two Ways comes comes a deeply moving novel about the resilience of the human spirit in a moment of crisis.

Jodi Picoult once again proves she is the master of wading through the darkness to find the light. Wish You Were Here is a powerfully evocative story of resilience and the triumph of the human spirit.
--Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of Malibu Rising

Synopsis
Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galapagos—days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time.

But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.

Almost immediately, Diana’s dream vacation goes awry. Her luggage is lost, the Wi-Fi is nearly nonexistent, and the hotel they’d booked is shut down due to the pandemic. In fact, the whole island is now under quarantine, and she is stranded until the borders reopen. Completely isolated, she must venture beyond her comfort zone. Slowly, she carves out a connection with a local family when a teenager with a secret opens up to Diana, despite her father’s suspicion of outsiders.

In the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin’s theory of natural selection was formed, Diana finds herself examining her relationships, her choices, and herself—and wondering if when she goes home, she too will have evolved into someone completely different.]]> 310 Jodi Picoult 1984818414 Amber 0 to-read 3.86 2021 Wish You Were Here
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amber
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Amber 0 to-read 4.12 2022 Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Amber
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/29
shelves: to-read
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]]> Through a Darkening Glass 59977013
England, 1940. Literature student Ruth Gladstone evacuates Cambridge University for Martynsborough, a tiny English village with a shadowy history. For Ruth, retreating to a forgotten corner of the country is more than a safety maneuver; it’s an opportunity to end an undesirable engagement and begin writing her first novel.

But upon her arrival, Ruth learns of a ghostly wraith haunting the villagers after decades of silence. Although Ruth is enthralled by the legend, the locals are less charmed by the wraith’s return. They blame the evacuees—and among them, Ruth—for stirring up restless spirits.

Undeterred, Ruth joins forces with Malcolm, an injured soldier, to unravel the mystery of the wraith. As Ruth and Malcolm draw closer to the truth, they’ll unearth long-buried secrets that could threaten them both…even as they craft a forbidden love story of their own.]]> 325 R.S. Maxwell 1662501072 Amber 5 3.91 2023 Through a Darkening Glass
author: R.S. Maxwell
name: Amber
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2022/12/23
date added: 2022/12/23
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]]> <![CDATA[Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem]]> 60727474 A laugh-out-loud spin on the realities, perks, opportunities, and inevitable courses of midlife.

Laurie Notaro has proved everyone she didn’t end up in rehab, prison, or cremated at a tender age. She just went gray. At past fifty, every hair’s root is a symbol of knowledge (she knows how to use a landline), experience (she rode in a car with no seat belts), and superpowers (a gray-haired lady can get away with anything).

Though navigating midlife is initially upsetting—the cracking noises coming from her new old body, receiving regular junk mail from mortuaries—Laurie accepts it. And then some. With unintentional abandon, she shoplifts a bag of russet potatoes. Heckles a rude driver from her beat-up Prius. And engages in epic trolling on Nextdoor.com. That, says Laurie, is the brilliance of growing older. With each passing day, you lose an equivalent amount of fear.

And the #1 New York Times bestselling author has never been so fearlessly funny as she is in this empowering, candid, and enlightening memoir about living life on the other side of fifty.]]> 243 Laurie Notaro 1542033527 Amber 4 3.97 2022 Excuse Me While I Disappear: Tales of Midlife Mayhem
author: Laurie Notaro
name: Amber
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/11/30
date added: 2022/12/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Witness (Shepard & Gray #1)]]> 58977516 From the bestselling author of A Killer’s Wife comes the thrilling first installment in the Shepard & Gray series, featuring a young sheriff who teams up with a former prosecutor to stop a copycat killer.

This is Reaper speaking.

So begins an anonymous letter published in a Utah newspaper after a young couple is viciously murdered. Tooele County sheriff Elizabeth Gray leads the investigation into the double homicide, which is eerily reminiscent of a string of brutal killings years ago. When the letter leads detectives to yet another body, Gray calls on an old friend for help.

Former prosecutor Solomon Shepard is still struggling to recover from the deadly courtroom attack that ended his career. He’s been keeping a safe distance from the action, teaching criminology seminars about serial murders and psychopathology—until Gray asks for his help on the Reaper case.

As the body count mounts, Shepard and Gray race to unravel the deranged design of a copycat killer—and find themselves in a face-off with an enemy they never saw coming.]]> 301 Victor Methos 1542038170 Amber 3 4.18 2022 The Secret Witness (Shepard & Gray #1)
author: Victor Methos
name: Amber
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2022/09/15
date added: 2022/11/14
shelves:
review:

]]> City Dark 59573872
On a steaming night in 1977, New York City is plunged into darkness and two boys, Joe and Robbie, are abandoned by their mother, Lois. Forty years to the day after this unforgivable moment, Joe is a hard-drinking ADA and Lois has resurfaced: Joe wakes from another alcoholic fog to learn she’s been found murdered on a Coney Island beach.

Joe throws himself into his work, struggling to reconcile his memories of Lois with the relative stranger found by the NYPD. And when another murder hits close to home and DNA links Joe to both crimes, he sinks deeper into the abyss. Joe can’t remember a thing. His last hope as the evidence mounts against him is Aideen Bradigan, a brilliant and dogged lawyer from his past.

It will take Aideen’s drive and Joe’s own shrewd legal mind to uncover a potentially terrifying truth—and to shatter the devastating secrets that claw back to that fateful night in the dark.]]> 352 Roger A. Canaff 1542039533 Amber 4 4.15 2022 City Dark
author: Roger A. Canaff
name: Amber
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/09/30
date added: 2022/11/14
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]]> <![CDATA[Keeper of Enchanted Rooms (Whimbrel House, #1)]]> 60596112
Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms has been trained in taming such structures in order to preserve their historical and magical significance. She understands the dangers of bespelled homes given to tantrums. She advises that it’s in Merritt’s best interest to make Whimbrel House their ally. To do that, she’ll need to move in, too.

Prepared as she is with augury, a set of magic tools, and a new staff trained in the uncanny, Hulda’s work still proves unexpectedly difficult. She and Merritt grow closer as the investigation progresses, but the house’s secrets run deeper than they anticipated. And the sentient walls aren’t their only concern—something outside is coming for the enchantments of Whimbrel House, and it could be more dangerous than what rattles within.]]> 347 Charlie N. Holmberg 1662500335 Amber 5 4.15 2022 Keeper of Enchanted Rooms (Whimbrel House, #1)
author: Charlie N. Holmberg
name: Amber
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/10/15
date added: 2022/11/14
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Burned by Winter (Rooker Lindström, #1)]]> 59980015 An investigative journalist on the edge. A serial killer testing his limits. What they have in common can freeze the blood.

Still reeling from a personal tragedy, investigative journalist Rooker Lindström finds a grim hideaway from the world. It’s the dilapidated cabin on Minnesota’s Deer Lake bequeathed to him by his late father—one of the most notorious serial killers in the state. If the walls of this murder house could talk, they’d scream.

Detective Tess Harlow needs something from Rooker only he can provide: a window into the mind of a murderer. A copycat is on the prowl, following in the footsteps of Rooker’s father. After reluctantly agreeing to take on the role of consultant, Rooker makes a chilling discovery. Every victim—five and counting—is a depraved taunt meant only for him. Rooker is not just tracking a killer playing sick games. In this brutal Minnesota winter, Rooker is confronting his past.

Maybe working with Tess is Rooker’s last chance at redemption. But to outrun his father’s legacy, he must follow a darker path still to come.]]> 335 Pete Zacharias 1542039665 Amber 2 4.09 2022 The Man Burned by Winter (Rooker Lindström, #1)
author: Pete Zacharias
name: Amber
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/09/11
date added: 2022/09/11
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]]> <![CDATA[The Way of the Gardener: Lost in the Weeds Along the Camino de Santiago]]> 56854682
The Camino de Santiago has been a journey for pilgrims for more than 1,000 years, testing—to varying degrees—their spirit, faith, and physical endurance. Lyndon Penner’s attention lies elsewhere. A renowned gardener and lover of literature, he revels in the plants, trees, and flowers that tell the history of the people and ecology of northern Spain.

Brimming with wry observations—of nature, himself, and other pilgrims on the road—The Way of the Gardener reveals the beauty and the darkness of the human condition while underscoring the deeply fascinating nature of nature itself. This textured work makes for perfect armchair—or garden—reading.]]> 224 Lyndon Penner Amber 0 to-read 3.86 2021 The Way of the Gardener: Lost in the Weeds Along the Camino de Santiago
author: Lyndon Penner
name: Amber
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/08/21
shelves: to-read
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]]> Family Money 59341950 A dead man’s secrets put a family in peril in a twisting novel of suspense by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of the David Adams series.

Alex Mahan is married to his high school sweetheart, Taylor. They have two daughters and a beautiful home, and Alex’s startup business is about to explode thanks to massive private funding from his compassionate and supportive father-in-law, Joe. With millions more to come, all is perfect—until Joe is abducted and murdered during a family trip in Mexico.

Alex’s world is about to be turned upside down. He can’t bear to tell his grieving wife why. The man they’ve both idolized has been keeping secrets. The pledged millions are nowhere to be found. The source of the original investment is a mystery, even to Joe’s financial adviser. No one, it seems, has any idea who the man they knew, loved, and trusted really was.

As Alex digs deeper into Joe’s shadowy life, the most shocking surprises are yet to come. Deadly ones, too, because every lie that Alex uncovers in Joe’s dark past puts his family in more danger.]]> 229 Chad Zunker 1542026172 Amber 4 4.03 2022 Family Money
author: Chad Zunker
name: Amber
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/05
date added: 2022/07/22
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]]> <![CDATA[At First Light (Dr. Evan Wilding #1)]]> 54477646
On the muddy banks of the Calumet River, a body has been found posed next to a series of mysterious glyphs and bearing wounds from a ritualistic slaying. Chicago detective Addie Bisset knows only one man who can decipher the message left by the killer: her friend Dr. Evan Wilding. A brilliant forensic semiotician, Evan decodes the etchings as Viking Age runes. They suggest either human sacrifice or righteous punishment. But to what god? And for what sins?

Only one thing is clear from the disturbing runic riddles: there are more victims to come.

As Evan races to determine the identity of the Viking Poet, he and Addie uncover the killer’s most terrifying secret yet: the motive. This startling discovery puts Evan’s life in mortal danger, and verse by ancient verse, time is running out.]]> 395 Barbara Nickless 1542026407 Amber 4 4.14 2021 At First Light (Dr. Evan Wilding #1)
author: Barbara Nickless
name: Amber
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/07/22
date added: 2022/07/22
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]]> London 12407442 1332 Edward Rutherfurd Amber 0 to-read 4.20 1997 London
author: Edward Rutherfurd
name: Amber
average rating: 4.20
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/07/10
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[The Quarter Storm (Mambo Reina, #1)]]> 58011476 A practitioner of Vodou must test the boundaries of her powers to solve a ritual murder in New Orleans and protect everything she holds sacred.

Haitian-American Vodou priestess Mambo Reina Dumond runs a healing practice from her New Orleans home. Gifted with water magic since she was a child, Reina is devoted to the benevolent traditions of her ancestors.

After a ritual slaying in the French Quarter, police arrest a fellow vodouisant. Detective Roman Frost, Reina’s ex-boyfriend—a fierce nonbeliever—is eager to tie the crime, and half a dozen others, to the Vodou practitioners of New Orleans. Reina resolves to find the real killer and defend the Vodou practice and customs, but the motives behind the murder are deeper and darker than she imagines.

As Reina delves into the city’s shadows, she untangles more than just the truth behind a devious crime. It’s a conspiracy. As a killer wields dangerous magic to thwart Reina’s investigation, she must tap into the strength of her own power and faith to solve a mystery that threatens to destroy her entire way of life.]]> 287 Veronica G. Henry 1542032202 Amber 2 3.77 2022 The Quarter Storm (Mambo Reina, #1)
author: Veronica G. Henry
name: Amber
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2022/06/16
date added: 2022/06/16
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]]> Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]> 336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X Amber 0 to-read 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Amber
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/06/06
shelves: to-read
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]]> The Best of Friends 52149789
Reeling from the worst night of their lives, the three mothers plunge into a desperate investigation of the bizarre incident. How could something so horrible happen in their wealthy Southern California suburb?

They soon discover that the accident was just the beginning, and troubling discoveries lead to chilling questions: Do they really know their children? Do they even know each other? As more secrets surface, a fog of doubt and suspicion threatens to poison their families, their friendships, and the whole community.

With the illusion of happiness and safety long gone, these women must now confront the hazards of heartbreak, the consequences of jealousy, and the dangers of living double lives.]]> 285 Lucinda Berry 1542022134 Amber 4 3.98 2020 The Best of Friends
author: Lucinda Berry
name: Amber
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/05/27
date added: 2022/05/27
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]]> <![CDATA[Standing in Another Man's Grave (Inspector Rebus, #18)]]> 14781507
For the last decade, Nina Hazlitt has been ready to hear the worst about her daughter's disappearance. But with no sightings, no body, and no suspect, the police investigation ground to a halt long ago, and Nina's pleas to the cold case department have led her nowhere.

Until she meets the newest member of the team: former Detective John Rebus.

Rebus has never shied away from lost causes - one of the many ways he managed to antagonize his bosses when he was on the force. Now he's back as a retired civilian, reviewing abandoned files. Necessary work, but it's not exactly scratching the itch he feels to be in the heart of the action.

Two more women have gone missing from the same road where Sally Hazlitt was last seen. Unlike his skeptical colleagues, Rebus can sense a connection - but pursuing it leads him into the crosshairs of adversaries both old and new.

Rebus may have missed the thrill of the hunt, but he's up against a powerful enemy who's got even less to lose.

On the twentieth anniversary of Ian Rankin's first American publication comes a novel bursting with the vitality and suspense that made its author one of crime fiction's most dazzling stars. Standing in Another Man's Grave is the triumphant return of John Rebus, and a riveting story of sin, redemption, and revenge.]]> 388 Ian Rankin 0316224588 Amber 0 to-read 4.05 2012 Standing in Another Man's Grave (Inspector Rebus, #18)
author: Ian Rankin
name: Amber
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/04/08
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To]]> 43723901
In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Sinclair, leading world authority on genetics and longevity, reveals a bold new theory for why we age. As he writes: “Aging is a disease, and that disease is treatable.�

This book takes us to the frontlines of research many from Dr. David Sinclair’s own lab at Harvard—that demonstrate how we can slow down, or even reverse, aging. The key is activating newly discovered vitality genes, the descendants of an ancient genetic survival circuit that is both the cause of aging and the key to reversing it.]]> 432 David A. Sinclair 1501191977 Amber 0 to-read 4.11 2019 Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To
author: David A. Sinclair
name: Amber
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/04/08
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]]> <![CDATA[Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot]]> 36687229 267 Mikki Kendall Amber 0 currently-reading 4.37 2020 Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot
author: Mikki Kendall
name: Amber
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/03/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Vanishing Half 51791252
Weaving together multiple strands and generations of this family, from the Deep South to California, from the 1950s to the 1990s, Brit Bennett produces a story that is at once a riveting, emotional family story and a brilliant exploration of the American history of passing. Looking well beyond issues of race, The Vanishing Half considers the lasting influence of the past as it shapes a person's decisions, desires, and expectations, and explores some of the multiple reasons and realms in which people sometimes feel pulled to live as something other than their origins.]]> 343 Brit Bennett 0525536299 Amber 4 4.12 2020 The Vanishing Half
author: Brit Bennett
name: Amber
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/31
date added: 2022/03/31
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]]> <![CDATA[Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously]]> 41577600 An introvert spends a year trying to live like an extrovert with hilarious results and advice for readers along the way.

What would happen if a shy introvert lived like a gregarious extrovert for one year? If she knowingly and willingly put herself in perilous social situations that she’d normally avoid at all costs? Writer Jessica Pan intends to find out. With the help of various extrovert mentors, Pan sets up a series of personal challenges (talk to strangers, perform stand-up comedy, host a dinner party, travel alone, make friends on the road, and much worse) to explore whether living like an extrovert can teach her lessons that might improve the quality of her life. Chronicling the author’s hilarious and painful year of misadventures, this book explores what happens when one introvert fights her natural tendencies, takes the plunge, and tries (and sometimes fails) to be a little bit braver.]]> 368 Jessica Pan 0857526154 Amber 5 3.86 2019 Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously
author: Jessica Pan
name: Amber
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2022/02/23
date added: 2022/03/19
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]]> Open Book 41571753 An alternate cover edition can be found here.

Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey.

Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.]]> 416 Jessica Simpson Amber 4 celebs 4.09 2020 Open Book
author: Jessica Simpson
name: Amber
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/23
date added: 2022/03/19
shelves: celebs
review:

]]> Cleopatra's Dagger 58990962
New York, 1880. Elizabeth van den Broek is the only female reporter at the Herald, the city’s most popular newspaper. Then she and her bohemian friend Carlotta Ackerman find a woman’s body wrapped like a mummy in a freshly dug hole in Central Park—the intended site of an obelisk called Cleopatra’s Needle. The macabre discovery takes Elizabeth away from the society pages to follow an investigation into New York City’s darkest shadows.

When more bodies turn up, each tied to Egyptian lore, Elizabeth is onto a headline-making scoop more sinister than she could have imagined. Her reporting has readers spellbound, and each new clue implicates New York’s richest and most powerful citizens. And a serial killer is watching every headline.

Now a madman with an indecipherable motive is coming after Elizabeth and everyone she loves. She wants a good story? She may have to die to get it.]]> 361 Carole Lawrence 1542014298 Amber 4 3.76 2022 Cleopatra's Dagger
author: Carole Lawrence
name: Amber
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2022/03/19
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]]> The Mermaid's Sister 22833921 There is no cure for being who you truly are�

In a cottage high atop Llanfair Mountain, sixteen-year-old Clara lives with her sister, Maren, and guardian, Auntie. By day, they gather herbs for Auntie’s healing potions; by night, Auntie spins tales of faraway lands and wicked fairies. Clara’s favorite story tells of three orphan infants—Clara, who was brought to Auntie by a stork; Maren, who arrived in a seashell; and their best friend, O’Neill, who was found beneath an apple tree.

One day, Clara discovers shimmering scales just beneath her sister’s skin: Maren is becoming a mermaid and must be taken to the sea or she will die. So Clara, O’Neill, and the mermaid-girl set out for the shore. But the trio encounters trouble around every bend. Ensnared by an evil troupe of traveling performers, Clara and O’Neill must find a way to save themselves and the ever-weakening Maren.

And always in the back of her mind, Clara wonders, if my sister is a mermaid, then what am I?]]> 236 Carrie Anne Noble 1477820884 Amber 4 3.49 2015 The Mermaid's Sister
author: Carrie Anne Noble
name: Amber
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2022/03/02
date added: 2022/03/02
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]]> <![CDATA[A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)]]> 58132544
As Jack and Adaira reluctantly work together, they find they make better allies than rivals as their partnership turns into something more. But with each passing song, it becomes apparent the trouble with the spirits is far more sinister than they first expected, and an older, darker secret about Cadence lurks beneath the surface, threatening to undo them all.]]> 480 Rebecca Ross 0063055988 Amber 0 to-read 4.06 2022 A River Enchanted (Elements of Cadence, #1)
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Amber
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> Greenlights 52838315 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> 289 Matthew McConaughey 0593139135 Amber 0 to-read 4.21 2020 Greenlights
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Amber
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> Inside Out 45167624 A Daily Mail Book of the Year. A Mail on Sunday Book of the Year.

Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir.

For decades, Demi Moore has been synonymous with celebrity. From iconic film roles to high-profile relationships, Moore has never been far from the spotlight � or the headlines.

Even as Demi was becoming the highest paid actress in Hollywood, however, she was always outrunning her past, just one step ahead of the doubts and insecurities that defined her childhood. Throughout her rise to fame and during some of the most pivotal moments of her life, Demi battled addiction, body image issues, and childhood trauma that would follow her for years � all while juggling a skyrocketing career and at times negative public perception. As her success grew, Demi found herself questioning if she belonged in Hollywood, if she was a good mother, a good actress � and, always, if she was simply good enough.

As much as her story is about adversity, it is also about tremendous resilience. In this deeply candid and reflective memoir, Demi pulls back the curtain and opens up about her career and personal life � laying bare her tumultuous relationship with her mother, her marriages, her struggles balancing stardom with raising a family, and her journey toward open heartedness. Inside Out is a story of survival, success, and surrender � a wrenchingly honest portrayal of one woman’s at once ordinary and iconic life.]]> 262 Demi Moore 0062049534 Amber 0 to-read 3.90 2019 Inside Out
author: Demi Moore
name: Amber
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood]]> 29780253
Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents� indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.]]> 289 Trevor Noah 0385689225 Amber 0 to-read 4.48 2016 Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood
author: Trevor Noah
name: Amber
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> Take the Lead 57587737 An inspiring and revealing essay about motherhood, self-acceptance, and overcoming the fears that hold you back by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Open Book.

“If I want to lead myself into something greater than yesterday, I have to surrender the things that scare me and hold me back.�

Jessica Simpson collected so much emotional baggage over the course of her life that she began to feel like she couldn’t carry anything else. She knew she needed to confront her fears. She made a to-do list for the life she wanted. No more struggling to please everyone else. No more dulling the pain. No more avoiding the scary stuff. From now on, she’ll focus only on the expectations she has for herself. With her inviting warmth and trademark intimacy, Jessica reflects on the example of her daughters and son, reclaiming her power and taking the lead in her own life.]]> 22 Jessica Simpson 1542031869 Amber 0 to-read 4.01 2021 Take the Lead
author: Jessica Simpson
name: Amber
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: to-read
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]]> <![CDATA[How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived]]> 55339007 Viral sensation and Emmy Award-winner Leslie Jordan regales fans with entertaining stories about the odd, funny, and unforgettable events in his life in this unmissable essay collection that echoes his droll, irreverent voice.

When actor Leslie Jordan learned he had “gone viral,� he had no idea what that meant or how much his life was about to change. On Instagram, his uproarious videos have entertained millions and have made him a global celebrity. Now, he brings his bon vivance to the page with this collection of intimate and sassy essays.

Bursting with color and life, dripping with his puckish Southern charm, How Y’all Doing? is Leslie doing what Leslie does best: telling stories that make us laugh and lift our spirits even in the darkest days. Whether he’s writing about his brush with a group of ruffians in a West Hollywood Starbucks, or an unexpected phone call from legendary Hollywood start Debbie Reynolds, Leslie infuses each story with his fresh and saucy humor and pure heart.

How Y’all Doing? is an authentic, warm, and joyful portrait of an American Sweetheart� a Southern Baptist celebutante, first-rate raconteur, and keen observer of the odd side of life whose quirky wit rivals the likes of Amy Sedaris, Jenny Lawson, David Rakoff, and Sarah Vowell.]]> 272 Leslie Jordan 0063076195 Amber 4 celebs 4.13 2021 How Y'all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived
author: Leslie Jordan
name: Amber
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/18
date added: 2022/02/23
shelves: celebs
review:
I listened to the audio book. The stories were so fun!! The book made me love LAJ even more.
]]> The Mothers 28815371
"All good secrets have a taste before you tell them, and if we'd taken a moment to swish this one around our mouths, we might have noticed the sourness of an unripe secret, plucked too soon, stolen and passed around before its season."

It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance—and the subsequent cover-up—will have an impact that goes far beyond their youth. As Nadia hides her secret from everyone, including Aubrey, her God-fearing best friend, the years move quickly. Soon, Nadia, Luke, and Aubrey are full-fledged adults and still living in debt to the choices they made that one seaside summer, caught in a love triangle they must carefully maneuver, and dogged by the constant, nagging question: What if they had chosen differently? The possibilities of the road not taken are a relentless haunt.

In entrancing, lyrical prose, The Mothers asks whether a "what if" can be more powerful than an experience itself. If, as time passes, we must always live in servitude to the decisions of our younger selves, to the communities that have parented us, and to the decisions we make that shape our lives forever.]]> 288 Brit Bennett 0399184511 Amber 4 3.88 2016 The Mothers
author: Brit Bennett
name: Amber
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2022/02/16
date added: 2022/02/16
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]]> <![CDATA[Ladies of the House: A Modern Retelling of Sense and Sensibility]]> 52024958 SET IN HIGH-SOCIETY GEORGETOWN, AN IRRESISTIBLE FAMILY DRAMA ABOUT TWO SISTERS AND THE PUBLIC SCANDAL THAT JUST MAY LEAD THEM TO REWRITE THE RULES...

*Named a Best Book of February by Good Morning America, Bustle, Popsugar, BookBub, and Frolic*

No surprise is a good surprise. At least according to thirty-four-year-old Daisy Richardson. So when it's revealed in dramatic fashion that her esteemed father had been involved in a public scandal before his untimely death, Daisy's life becomes complicated--and fast.

For one, the Richardsons must now sell the family home in Georgetown they can no longer afford, and Daisy's mother is holding on with an iron grip. Her younger sister, Wallis, is ready to move on to bigger and better things but falls fast and hard for the most inconvenient person possible. And then there's Atlas, Daisy's best friend. She's always wished they could be more, but now he's writing an exposé on the one subject she's been desperate to avoid: her father.

Daisy's plan is to maintain a low profile as she works to keep her family intact amid social exile, public shaming, and quickly dwindling savings. But the spotlight always seems to find the Richardsons, and when another twist in the scandal comes to light, Daisy must confront the consequences of her continued silence and summon the courage to stand up and accept the power of her own voice.]]> 384 Lauren Edmondson 1525895966 Amber 3 3.54 2021 Ladies of the House: A Modern Retelling of Sense and Sensibility
author: Lauren Edmondson
name: Amber
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2022/02/06
date added: 2022/02/10
shelves:
review:

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