Lynnm's bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 26 Apr 2025 10:22:23 -0700 60 Lynnm's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg The Wedding People 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Lynnm 5 4.11 2024 The Wedding People
author: Alison Espach
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Love in the Time of Bertie (44 Scotland Street, #15)]]> 58775939
Warm hearted, humorous and wonderfully wise, Love in the Time of Bertie offers philosophical insight as well as sartorial elegance. Catch up once again with the extended family at No 44, in this the latest instalment in the Scotland Street series.]]> 256 Alexander McCall Smith 1846975727 Lynnm 5 4.17 2021 Love in the Time of Bertie (44 Scotland Street, #15)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/04/01
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]]> The Wishing Game 62926992
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

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

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

. . . You might just get it.]]> 304 Meg Shaffer 0593598830 Lynnm 5 4.02 2023 The Wishing Game
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2025/03/22
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]]> Somebody's Fool 62952125 The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Empire Falls returns to North Bath, in upstate New York, and to the characters that captured the hearts and imaginations of millions of readers in his beloved best sellers Nobody's Fool and Everybody's Fool.

Ten years after the death of the magnetic Donald "Sully" Sullivan, the town of North Bath is going through a major transition as it is annexed by its much wealthier neighbor, Schuyler Springs. Peter, Sully's son, is still grappling with his father's tremendous legacy as well as his relationship to his own son, Thomas, wondering if he has been all that different a father than Sully was to him.

Meanwhile, the towns' newly consolidated police department falls into the hands of Charice Bond, after the resignation of Doug Raymer, the former North Bath police chief and Charice's ex-lover. When a decomposing body turns up in the abandoned hotel situated between the two towns, Charice and Raymer are drawn together again and forced to address their complicated attraction to one another. Across town, Ruth, Sully's married ex-lover, and her daughter Janey struggle to understand Janey's daughter, Tina, and her growing obsession with Peter's other son, Will. Amidst the turmoil, the town's residents speculate on the identity of the unidentified body, and wonder who among their number could have disappeared unnoticed.

Infused with all the wry humor and shrewd observations that Russo is known for, Somebody's Fool is another classic from a modern master.]]> 464 Richard Russo 0593317890 Lynnm 5 4.16 2023 Somebody's Fool
author: Richard Russo
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Christmas Tree Farm (Dream Harbor, #3)]]> 206318178 From the author of the viral TikTok sensation, The Pumpkin Spice Café, comes the only spicy grumpy x sunshine Christmas romcom you need this year!

Kira North hates Christmas. Which is unfortunate since she just bought a Christmas tree farm in a town that’s too cute for its own good.

Bennett Ellis is on vacation in Dream Harbor taking a break from his life in California. And most importantly, taking a break from his latest run of disastrous dates.

After a run in with Kira in her fields, Ben has no intention of offering to help the grumpy owner set up her tree farm, despite the fact she’s clearly got no idea what she’s doing.

Kira knows she should stop being so stubborn, but her farm is not all cute and cozy like people always show on social media, it’s borderline dangerous with no heating, and she’d rather no one saw it.

But somehow fate finds Ben at Kira’s farm once more, and as Kira watches him swing an ax at the first tree, she finds herself appreciating his strength and questionning why she refused help in the first place..

The Christmas Tree Farm is a spicy romantic mystery for fans of Gilmore Girls with a HEA guaranteed!

Tropes:

� grumpy x sunshine
� small town
� forced proximity
� one bed]]> 369 Laurie Gilmore 0008610738 Lynnm 5 3.66 2024 The Christmas Tree Farm (Dream Harbor, #3)
author: Laurie Gilmore
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)]]> 196241667 From the author of the Sunday Times bestseller and viral TikTok phenomenon, The Pumpkin Spice Café, comes a brand new spicy romance set in Dream Harbor!

When a secret message turns up hidden in a book in the Cinnamon Bun Bookstore, Hazel can't understand it. As more secret codes appear between the pages, she decides to follow the trail of clues� she just need someone to help her out.

Gorgeous and outgoing fisherman, Noah, is always up for an adventure. And a scavenger hunt sounds like a lot of fun. Even better that the cute bookseller he's been crushing on for months is the one who wants his help!

Hazel didn’t go looking for romance, but as the treasure hunt leads her and Noah around Dream Harbor, their undeniable chemistry might be just as hot as the fresh-out-of-the-oven cinnamon buns the bookstore sells�

The Cinnamon Bun Book Store is a cozy romantic mystery with a HEA guaranteed!

Tropes:
� opposites attract
� small town
� forced proximity
� he falls first]]> 384 Laurie Gilmore Lynnm 5 3.67 2024 The Cinnamon Bun Book Store (Dream Harbor, #2)
author: Laurie Gilmore
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Pumpkin Spice Café (Dream Harbor, #1)]]> 139391940 A spicy small-town romance and TikTok phenomenon, perfect for fans of Hannah Grace and Stephanie Archer.

When Jeanie's aunt gifts her the beloved Pumpkin Spice Café in the small town of Dream Harbor, Jeanie jumps at the chance for a fresh start away from her very dull desk job.

Logan is a local farmer who avoids Dream Harbor's gossip at all costs. But Jeanie's arrival disrupts Logan's routine and he wants nothing to do with the irritatingly upbeat new girl, except that he finds himself inexplicably drawn to her.

Will Jeanie's happy-go-lucky attitude win over the grumpy-but-gorgeous Logan, or has this city girl found the one person in town who won't fall for her charm, or her pumpkin spice lattes�

The Pumpkin Spice Café is a cozy romantic mystery for fans of Gilmore Girls, with a grumpy x sunshine dynamic, a small-town setting and a HEA guaranteed!

Tropes:

� grumpy x sunshine
� small town
� found family
� spicy]]> 373 Laurie Gilmore 0008610665 Lynnm 5 3.36 2023 The Pumpkin Spice Café (Dream Harbor, #1)
author: Laurie Gilmore
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.36
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> Notes from the Underground 436982 Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Possessed and The Brothers Karamazov � Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821�1881) penned the darkly fascinating Notes from the Underground. Its nameless hero is a profoundly alienated individual in whose brooding self-analysis there is a search for the true and the good in a world of relative values and few absolutes. Moreover, the novel introduces themes � moral, religious, political and social � that dominated Dostoyevsky's later works. Notes from the Underground, then, aside from its own compelling qualities, offers readers an ideal introduction to the creative imagination, profundity and uncanny psychological penetration of one of the most influential novelists of the nineteenth century. Constance Garnett's authoritative translation is reprinted here, with a new introduction.]]> 96 Fyodor Dostoevsky Lynnm 5 4.09 1864 Notes from the Underground
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1864
rating: 5
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]]> Nicholas Nickleby 325085 817 Charles Dickens 0140435123 Lynnm 5 3.92 1839 Nicholas Nickleby
author: Charles Dickens
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1839
rating: 5
read at: 2012/04/01
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]]> The Mystery of Edwin Drood 329957 The Mystery of Edwin Drood is edited with an introduction by David Paroissien in Penguin Classics.

Edwin Drood is contracted to marry orphan Rosa Bud when he comes of age, but when they find that duty has gradually replaced affection, they agree to break off the engagement. Shortly afterwards, in the middle of a storm on Christmas Eve, Edwin disappears, leaving nothing behind but some personal belongings and the suspicion that his jealous uncle John Jasper, madly in love with Rosa, is the killer. And beyond this presumed crime there are further intrigues: the dark opium dens of the sleepy cathedral town of Cloisterham, and the sinister double life of Choirmaster Jasper, whose drug-fuelled fantasy life belies his respectable appearance. Dickens died before completing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, leaving its tantalising mystery unsolved and encouraging successive generations of readers to turn detective.

This edition contains an introduction by David Paroissien, discussing the novel's ending, with a chronology, notes, original illustrations by Samuel Luke Fildes, appendices on opium use in the nineteenth century, the 'Sapsea Fragment' and Dickens's plans for the story's conclusion.

Charles Dickens is one of the best-loved novelists in the English language, whose 200th anniversary was celebrated in 2012. His most famous books, including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield and The Pickwick Papers, have been adapted for stage and screen and read by millions.

If you enjoyed The Mystery of Edwin Drood, you might like Dickens's Little Dorrit, also available in Penguin Classics.]]> 432 Charles Dickens 0140439269 Lynnm 5 3.67 1870 The Mystery of Edwin Drood
author: Charles Dickens
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1870
rating: 5
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]]> The Count of Montecristo 12512180 721 Alexandre Dumas Lynnm 5 4.62 1846 The Count of Montecristo
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.62
book published: 1846
rating: 5
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]]> The Three Musketeers 7190 The Three Musketeers is the most famous of Alexandre Dumas' historical novels and one of the most popular adventure novels ever written.

Dumas' swashbuckling epic chronicles the adventures of d'Artagnan, a brash young man from the countryside who journeys to Paris in 1625 hoping to become a musketeer and guard to King Louis XIII. Before long, he finds treachery and court intrigue,and also three boon companions, the daring swordsmen Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. Together, the four strive heroically to defend the honor of their queen against the powerful Cardinal Richelieu and the seductive spy Milady.]]> 625 Alexandre Dumas Lynnm 5 4.09 1844 The Three Musketeers
author: Alexandre Dumas
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1844
rating: 5
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]]> Spy Hook (Bernard Samson, #4) 482128 ]]> 208 Len Deighton 0345420160 Lynnm 5 4.02 1988 Spy Hook (Bernard Samson, #4)
author: Len Deighton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.02
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Spy Sinker (Bernard Samson, #6)]]> 171619 Spy Hook and Spy Line returns for a final bow in Len Deighton's thrilling novel, Spy Sinker. British agent Bernard Samson's family and career are about to be betrayed and crushed by his wife - lovely, brilliant Fiona Samson.

Recruited by the Russians as an Oxford student, Fiona's risen to the rank of colonel in the KGB. She's also the golden girl of British intelligence, their East German superspy. Or is she?

Fiona. Double agent. Traitor and patriot. Wife and mother. Now, she's on a desperate, violent, unparalleled mission of worldwide importance...so important that there is only one way she can succeed: through terrible treachery to the ones she loves most.

]]> Len Deighton 0517080613 Lynnm 5 4.10 1990 Spy Sinker (Bernard Samson, #6)
author: Len Deighton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1990
rating: 5
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]]> Spy Line (Bernard Samson, #5) 482126 ]]> 323 Len Deighton 0345420179 Lynnm 5 4.07 1989 Spy Line (Bernard Samson, #5)
author: Len Deighton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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]]> The Red Tent 4989 The Red Tent combines rich storytelling with a valuable achievement in modern fiction: a new view of biblical women's society.]]> 324 Anita Diamant 0312353766 Lynnm 5 4.21 1997 The Red Tent
author: Anita Diamant
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1997
rating: 5
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]]> City of God 24912
In his workbook, a New York City novelist records the contents of his teeming brain--sketches for stories, accounts of his love affairs, riffs on the meanings of popular songs, ideas for movies, obsessions with cosmic processes. He is a virtual repository of the predominant ideas and historical disasters of the age. But now he has found a story he thinks may be-come his next novel: The large brass cross that hung behind the altar of St. Timothy's, a run-down Episcopal church in lower Manhattan, has disappeared...and even more mysteriously reappeared on the roof of the Synagogue for Evolutionary Judaism, on the Upper West Side. The church's maverick rector and the young woman rabbi who leads the synagogue are trying to learn who committed this strange double act of desecration and why. Befriending them, the novelist finds that their struggles with their respective traditions are relevant to the case. Into his workbook go his taped interviews, insights, preliminary drafts...and as he joins the clerics in pursuit of the mystery, it broadens to implicate a large cast of vividly drawn characters - including scientists, war veterans, prelates, Holocaust survivors, cabinet members, theologians, New York Times reporters, filmmakers, and crooners - in what proves to be a quest for an authentic spirituality at the end of this tortured century.

Daringly poised at the junction of the sacred and the profane, and filled with the sights and sounds of New York, this dazzlingly inventive masterwork emerges as the American novel readers have been thirsting for a defining document of our times, a narrative of the twentieth century written for the twenty-first.]]> 272 E.L. Doctorow 0452282098 Lynnm 5 3.42 2000 City of God
author: E.L. Doctorow
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> Sister Carrie 126609
Theodore Dreiser: Βαθιά πολιτικοποιημένος, ακτιβιστής, δούλεψε για το Χόλυγουντ, συνεργάτης του Τσάπλιν, στη μαύρη λίστα του Μακάρθι.]]> 580 Theodore Dreiser 0393960420 Lynnm 5 3.77 1900 Sister Carrie
author: Theodore Dreiser
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1900
rating: 5
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]]> Middlemarch 19089 "People are almost always better than their neighbours think they are"

George Eliot’s most ambitious novel is a masterly evocation of diverse lives and changing fortunes in a provincial community. Peopling its landscape are Dorothea Brooke, a young idealist whose search for intellectual fulfillment leads her into a disastrous marriage to the pedantic scholar Casaubon; the charming but tactless Dr Lydgate, whose pioneering medical methods, combined with an imprudent marriage to the spendthrift beauty Rosamond, threaten to undermine his career; and the religious hypocrite Bulstrode, hiding scandalous crimes from his past. As their stories interweave, George Eliot creates a richly nuanced and moving drama, hailed by Virginia Woolf as "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people".]]> 912 George Eliot 0451529170 Lynnm 5 4.00 1872 Middlemarch
author: George Eliot
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1872
rating: 5
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]]> Silas Marner 54539 262 George Eliot Lynnm 5 3.67 1861 Silas Marner
author: George Eliot
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.67
book published: 1861
rating: 5
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]]> Foucault’s Pendulum 17841
Bored with their work, three Milanese editors cook up "the Plan," a hoax that connects the medieval Knights Templar with other occult groups from ancient to modern times. This produces a map indicating the geographical point from which all the powers of the earth can be controlled � a point located in Paris, France, at Foucault’s Pendulum. But in a fateful turn the joke becomes all too real, and when occult groups, including Satanists, get wind of the Plan, they go so far as to kill one of the editors in their quest to gain control of the earth.

Orchestrating these and other diverse characters into his multilayered semiotic adventure, Eco has created a superb cerebral entertainment.]]> 623 Umberto Eco 015603297X Lynnm 5 3.92 1988 Foucault’s Pendulum
author: Umberto Eco
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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]]> The Horse Whisperer 479415 A forty-ton truck hurtles out of control on a snowy country road, a teenage girl on horseback in its path. In a few terrible seconds the life of a family is shattered. And a mother's quest beings - to save her maimed daughter and a horse driven mad by pain. It is an odyssey that will bring her to...

THE HORSE WHISPERER

He is the stuff of legend. His voice can calm wild horses and his touch heal broken spirits. For secrets uttered softly into pricked and troubled ears, such men were once called Whisperers. Now Tom Booker, the inheritor of this ancient gift, is to meet his greatest challenge.

Annie Graves has traveled across a continent with her daughter, Grace, and their wounded horse, Pilgrim, to the Booker ranch in Montana. Annie has risked everything - her career, her marriage, her comfortable life - in her desperate belief that the Whisperer can help them. The accident has turned Pilgrim savage. He is now so demented and dangerous that everyone says he should be destroyed. But Annie won't give up on him. For she feels his fate is inextricably entwined with that of he daughter, who has retreated into a heartrending, hostile silence. Annie knows that if the horse dies, something in Grace will die too.

In the weeks to come, under the massive sky of the Rocky Mountain Front, all their lives - including Tom Booker's - will be transformed forever in a way none could have foretold. At once an epic love story and a gripping adventure, The Horse Whisperer weaves an extraordinary tale of healing and redemption - a magnificent emotional journey that explores our ancient bonds with earth and sky and hearts untamed. It is a stirring elegy to the power of belief and self-discovery, to hopes lost and found again.]]> 451 Nicholas Evans 0440222656 Lynnm 5 3.87 1995 The Horse Whisperer
author: Nicholas Evans
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)]]> 19691 Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on...

]]> 432 Tom Clancy 0425172902 Lynnm 5 4.11 1984 The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan, #3)
author: Tom Clancy
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1984
rating: 5
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]]> Patriot Games (Jack Ryan, #1) 32682
Tom Clancy's Patriot Games is filled with the exceptional realism and authenticity that distinguished the author's two previous bestsellers, Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. Patriot Games puts us on the cutting edge of another type of war � the international battle of terrorism.
It is fall. Years before the defection of a Soviet submarine will send him hurtling into confrontation with the Soviets, historian, ex-Marine and CIA analyst Jack Ryan is vacationing in London with his wife and young daughter, when a terrorist attack takes place before his eyes. Instinctively, he dives forward to break it up, and is shot. It is not until he wakes up in the hospital that he learns whose lives he has saved -- the Prince and Princess of Wales and their new young son -- and which enemies he has made -- the Ulster Liberation Army, an ultra-left-wing splinter of the IRA.

By his impulsive act, he has gained both the gratitude of a nation and then enmity of hits most dangerous men -- men who do not sit on their hate. And in the weeks and months to come, it is Jack Ryan, and his family, who will become the targets of that hate.

]]> 794 Tom Clancy 0425134350 Lynnm 5 4.17 1987 Patriot Games (Jack Ryan, #1)
author: Tom Clancy
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.17
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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]]> The Red Badge of Courage 35220 Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

Henry Fleming has joined the Union army because of his romantic ideas of military life, but soon finds himself in the middle of a battle against a regiment of Confederate soldiers. Terrified, Henry deserts his comrades. Upon returning to his regiment, he struggles with his shame as he tries to redeem himself and prove his courage.

The Red Badge of Courage is Stephen Crane’s second book, notable for its realism and the fact that Crane had never personally experienced battle. Crane drew heavy inspiration from Century Magazine, a periodical known for its articles about the American Civil War. However, he criticized the articles for their lack of emotional depth and decided to write a war novel of his own. The manuscript was first serialized in December 1894 by The Philadelphia Press and quickly won Crane international acclaim before he died in June 1900 at the age of 28.]]> 149 Stephen Crane 1580495869 Lynnm 5 3.28 1895 The Red Badge of Courage
author: Stephen Crane
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.28
book published: 1895
rating: 5
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]]> Timeline 7669 489 Michael Crichton 0099244721 Lynnm 5 3.87 1999 Timeline
author: Michael Crichton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)]]> 40024
The newly appointed police commissioner, Theodore Roosevelt, in a highly unorthodox move, enlists the two men in the murder investigation, counting on the reserved Kreizler's intellect and Moore's knowledge of New York's vast criminal underworld. They are joined by Sara Howard, a brave and determined woman who works as a secretary in the police department. Laboring in secret (for alienists, and the emerging discipline of psychology, are viewed by the public with skepticism at best), the unlikely team embarks on what is a revolutionary effort in criminology-- amassing a psychological profile of the man they're looking for based on the details of his crimes. Their dangerous quest takes them into the tortured past and twisted mind of a murderer who has killed before--and will kill again before the hunt is over.

Fast-paced and gripping, infused with a historian's exactitude, The Alienist conjures up the Gilded Age and its untarnished underside: verminous tenements and opulent mansions, corrupt cops and flamboyant gangsters, shining opera houses and seamy gin mills. Here is a New York during an age when questioning society's belief that all killers are born, not made, could have unexpected and mortal consequences.]]> 498 Caleb Carr 0812976142 Lynnm 5 4.06 1994 The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)
author: Caleb Carr
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.06
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> The Canterbury Tales 2696 The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the standard literary language across western Europe, the magnitude of his achievement is even more remarkable. But Chaucer's genius needs no historical introduction; it bursts forth from every page of The Canterbury Tales.

If we trust the General Prologue, Chaucer intended that each pilgrim should tell two tales on the way to Canterbury and two tales on the way back. He never finished his enormous project and even the completed tales were not finally revised. Scholars are uncertain about the order of the tales. As the printing press had yet to be invented when Chaucer wrote his works, The Canterbury Tales has been passed down in several handwritten manuscripts.

]]> 504 Geoffrey Chaucer 0140424385 Lynnm 5 3.51 1400 The Canterbury Tales
author: Geoffrey Chaucer
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.51
book published: 1400
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Blazing World and Other Writings]]> 354620
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 272 Margaret Cavendish 0140433724 Lynnm 5 3.26 The Blazing World and Other Writings
author: Margaret Cavendish
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.26
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rating: 5
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]]> Heart of Darkness 4900
A reflection on corruptive European colonialism and a journey into the nightmare psyche of one of the corrupted, Heart of Darkness is considered one of the most influential works ever written.]]> 188 Joseph Conrad 1892295490 Lynnm 5 3.43 1899 Heart of Darkness
author: Joseph Conrad
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.43
book published: 1899
rating: 5
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]]> The Stranger 49552 The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."]]> 123 Albert Camus Lynnm 5 4.04 1942 The Stranger
author: Albert Camus
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1942
rating: 5
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]]> The Awakening 58345 The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank treatment of a then-controversial subject, the novel is widely admired today for its literary qualities. Edmund Wilson characterized it as a work "quite uninhibited and beautifully written, which anticipates D. H. Lawrence in its treatment of infidelity." Although the theme of marital infidelity no longer shocks, few novels have plumbed the psychology of a woman involved in an illicit relationship with the perception, artistry, and honesty that Kate Chopin brought to The Awakening.]]> 195 Kate Chopin 0543898083 Lynnm 5 3.69 1899 The Awakening
author: Kate Chopin
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.69
book published: 1899
rating: 5
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]]> The Brothers Karamazov 4934
This award-winning translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky remains true to the verbal inventiveness of Dostoevsky’s prose, preserving the multiple voices, the humor, and the surprising modernity of the original. It is an achievement worthy of Dostoevsky’s last and greatest novel.]]> 796 Fyodor Dostoevsky 0374528373 Lynnm 5 4.36 1880 The Brothers Karamazov
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1880
rating: 5
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]]> Crime and Punishment 8824448 318 Fyodor Dostoevsky 8126139374 Lynnm 5 4.53 1866 Crime and Punishment
author: Fyodor Dostoevsky
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.53
book published: 1866
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[U is for Undertow (Kinsey Millhone, #21)]]> 6193821
He tells her a story. More than two decades ago, a four-year-old girl disappeared, and a recent newspaper story about her kidnapping has triggered a flood of memories. Sutton now believes he stumbled on her secret burial and could identify the killers if he saw them again. He wants Kinsey's help in locating the grave and finding the men. It's way more than a long shot, but he's persistent and willing to pay cash up front. Reluctantly, Kinsey agrees to give him one day of her time.

It isn't long before she discovers Sutton has an uneasy relationship with the truth. In essence, he's the boy who cried wolf. Is his story true, or simply one more in a long line of fabrications?

Moving between the 1980s and the 1960s, and changing points of view as Kinsey pursues witnesses whose accounts often clash, Sue Grafton builds multiple subplots and memorable characters. Gradually we see how everything connects. And as always, at the heart of her fiction is Kinsey Millhone, a sharp-tongued, observant loner who never forgets that under the thin veneer of civility is often the roiling dark side of the soul.]]> 403 Sue Grafton 039915597X Lynnm 5 3.95 2009 U is for Undertow (Kinsey Millhone, #21)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone, #17)]]> 262229
The case fell to the Santa Teresa County Sheriff's Department, but the detectives had little to go on. The woman was young, her hands were bound with a length of wire, there were multiple stab wounds, and her throat had been slashed. After months of investigation, the murder remained unsolved.

That was eighteen years ago. Now the two men who found the body, both nearing the end of long careers in law enforcement, want one last shot at the case. Old and ill, they need someone to help with their legwork and they turn to Kinsey Millhone. Kinsey is intrigued and agrees to the job. But revisiting the past can be a dangerous business; it becomes a high-risk hunt for her killer with Kinsey in the middle of it all.

"Q is for Quarry" is based on an actual unsolved homicide that occurred in 1969, and Grafton's interest in the case has generated renewed police efforts. The body was exhumed in 2001 and a nationally known forensic artist did the facial reconstruction that appears in the closing pages of "Q is for Quarry." Both Grafton and the dedicated members of the Santa Barbara Sheriff's Department are hoping the photograph will trigger memories that may lead to a positive identification. This had not yet occurred as of 2020.

On the day Jane Doe was reburied, many officers were at the gravesite. "It's eerie," Grafton writes, "to think about the power this woman still has. Here we are, thirty-three years later, and she still wants to go home."]]> 618 Sue Grafton 0739429337 Lynnm 5 3.94 2002 Q is for Quarry (Kinsey Millhone, #17)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2002
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[P is for Peril (Kinsey Millhone, #16)]]> 380976
The 69-year-old doctor said goodnight to colleagues at the Pacific Meadows nursing home, climbed into his car and drove away - never to be seen again. His embittered first wife Fiona is convinced he is still alive. His second wife, Crystal, a former stripper forty years his junior, is just as sure he is dead.

Enter private investigator Kinsey Millhone, hired by Fiona to find out just what happened to the man the two women loved. And also enter Tommy Hevener, a flame-haired, twenty-something who has set his romantic sights on Kinsey. It doesn't take long before we find out that Tommy is a man with a very interesting past. The word 'peril?' It applies most of all to Kinsey herself!]]> 370 Sue Grafton 0449003795 Lynnm 5 3.87 2000 P is for Peril (Kinsey Millhone, #16)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2000
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The World According to Bertie (44 Scotland Street, #4)]]> 616160 Rare book 368 Alexander McCall Smith 1846970172 Lynnm 5 4.04 2007 The World According to Bertie (44 Scotland Street, #4)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> Light a Penny Candle 41962
Writing with warmth, wit and great compassion, Maeve Binchy tells a magnificent story of the lives and loves of two women, bound together in a friendship that nothing could tear asunder -- not even the man who threatened to come between them forever.]]> 832 Maeve Binchy 009949857X Lynnm 5 3.92 1982 Light a Penny Candle
author: Maeve Binchy
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1982
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals]]> 3109 What should we have for dinner? For omnivore like ourselves, this simple question has always posed a dilemma. When you can eat just about anything nature (or the supermarket) has to offer, deciding what you should eat will inevitably stir anxiety, especially when some of the foods on offer might shorten your life. Today, buffered by one food fad after another, America is suffering from what can only be described as a national eating disorder. The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.
The Omnivore's Dilemma is groundbreaking book, in which one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves?
To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.
The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Ultimately, this is a book as much about visionary solutions as it is about problems, and Pollan contends that, when it comes to food, doing the right thing often turns out to be the tastiest thing an eater can do. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.]]> 450 Michael Pollan 1594200823 Lynnm 5 4.18 2006 The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
author: Michael Pollan
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto]]> 315425 The Omnivore's Dilemma, launched a national conversation about the American way of eating; now In Defense of Food shows us how to change it, one meal at a time. Pollan proposes a new answer to the question of what we should eat that comes down to seven simple but liberating words: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Pollan's bracing and eloquent manifesto shows us how we can start making thoughtful food choices that will enrich our lives, enlarge our sense of what it means to be healthy, and bring pleasure back to eating.,,,]]> 205 Michael Pollan 1594201455 Lynnm 5 4.07 2008 In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto
author: Michael Pollan
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal]]> 1097
Schlosser's myth-shattering survey stretches from California's subdivisions where the business was born to the industrial corridor along the New Jersey Turnpike where many fast food's flavors are concocted. Along the way, he unearths a trove of fascinating, unsettling truths -- from the unholy alliance between fast food and Hollywood to the seismic changes the industry has wrought in food production, popular culture, and even real estate.
(back cover)]]> 383 Eric Schlosser 0060838582 Lynnm 5 3.75 2001 Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal
author: Eric Schlosser
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2001
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[A Is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone #1)]]> 64863
A IS FOR ACCUSED. That's why she draws desperate clients like Nikki Fife. Eight years ago, she was convicted of killing her philandering husband. Now she's out on parole and needs Kinsey's help to find the real killer. But after all this time, clearing Nikki's bad name won't be easy.

A IS FOR ALIBI. If there's one thing that makes Kinsey Millhone feel alive, it's playing on the edge. When her investigation turns up a second corpse, more suspects, and a new reason to kill, Kinsey discovers that the edge is closer--and sharper--than she imagined.]]> 308 Sue Grafton 0312938993 Lynnm 5 3.87 1982 A Is for Alibi (Kinsey Millhone #1)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1982
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[B is for Burglar (Kinsey Millhone, #2)]]> 64865
Kinsey's hunch proves true when she begins her inquiries into Elaine's whereabouts and discovers that the attractive widow was last seen in a flashy lynx coat boarding a plane for Boca Raton. But the more Kinsey searches for Elaine the more questions she encounters. Is Elaine's disappearance tied in to the brutal murder several months ago of one of her bridge partners? And what happened to Elaine's Persian cat who seems to have also vanished?

Things take a turn for the worse when a stranger vandalizes the home of one of Elaine's neighbors and another neighbor turns up murdered. With her reputation and career on the line, Kinsey risks all to find a missing woman and a killer who's waiting in the shadows to strike again…]]> 320 Sue Grafton 0312939000 Lynnm 5 3.86 1985 B is for Burglar (Kinsey Millhone, #2)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1985
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[C is for Corpse (Kinsey Millhone, #3)]]> 89656 How do you go about solving an attempted murder when the victim has lost a good part of his memory? It's one of Kinsey's toughest cases yet, but she never backs down from a challenge. Twenty-three-year-old Bobby Callahan is lucky to be alive after a car forced his Porsche over a bridge and into a canyon. The crash left Bobby with a clouded memory. But he can't shake the feeling it was no random accident and that he's still in danger�

C IS FOR CRIME
The only clues Kinsey has to go on are a little red address book and the name "Blackman." Bobby can't remember who he gave the address book to for safekeeping. And any chances of Bobby regaining his memory are dashed when he's killed in another automobile accident just three days after he hires Kinsey.

C IS FOR CORPSE
As Kinsey digs deeper into her investigation, she discovers Bobby had a secret worth killing for―and unearthing that secret could send Kinsey to her own early death…]]> 243 Sue Grafton 0312939019 Lynnm 5 3.91 1986 C is for Corpse (Kinsey Millhone, #3)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1986
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[M is for Malice (Kinsey Millhone, #13)]]> 64854
Malek Construction is a mega-million-dollar company that grew out of modest soil to become one of the big three in California construction—and one of the few still in family hands. Today, the three Malek sons stand to inherit a fortune, but in order for any one of them to claim his share, the missing fourth brother must be found.

M is for MISSING�

Now it’s up to Kinsey Millhone to find Guy Malek, the man who, eighteen years ago, vanished without a trace. Did he run away—or was he abducted? Did he intend to make something of himself on his own, apart from the wealth and prowess of his family, or were his motives something more sinister?

M is for MALICE...

The ties that bind. The rivalries of brotherhood. The fall of an empire� As Kinsey tries to unravel the mystery of the missing Malek brother she finds herself in a heart-stopping race against time in which loyalties are tested, greed is rampant, and no one—including Kinsey herself—is safe…]]> 337 Sue Grafton 0449223604 Lynnm 5 4.09 1996 M is for Malice (Kinsey Millhone, #13)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.09
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[D is for Deadbeat (Kinsey Millhone, #4)]]> 64857
Limardo pays her with another check as the retainer. It bounces and Kinsey discovers she's been had. She learns that he is really John Daggett—an ex-con with a drinking problem, two wives to boot, and a slew of people who would like to see him dead. Kinsey is out $400 and she's now in hot pursuit of Daggett.

When Daggett's corpse shows up floating in the Santa Teresa surf, the cops rule it an accident. Kinsey thinks it's murder. But seeking justice for a man who everyone seemed to despise is a lot tougher than she bargained for—and what awaits her at the end of the road is much more disturbing than she could've ever imagined.]]> 307 Sue Grafton 0312939027 Lynnm 5 3.86 1987 D is for Deadbeat (Kinsey Millhone, #4)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1987
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[E is for Evidence (Kinsey Millhone, #5)]]> 64860
But something was annoying her. Two days after Christmas she received a bank slip showing a credit of five thousand dollars.

The account number was correct but Kinsey hadn’t made the deposit.

It wasn't long before the phone call came and suddenly everything was clear. The frame-up had clicked in and Kinsey was trapped . . .]]> 320 Sue Grafton 0312939035 Lynnm 5 3.91 1988 E is for Evidence (Kinsey Millhone, #5)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.91
book published: 1988
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[G is for Gumshoe (Kinsey Millhone, #7)]]> 257990
It's this last matter that convinces Kinsey that even she can't handle whoever's been hired to whack her, and she gets herself a bodyguard: Robert Dietz, a Porsche-driving P.I. He takes guarding Kinsey's body very seriously. With Dietz watching her for the merest sign of her usual recklessness, Kinsey plunges into her case. And before it's over, she unearths the gruesome truth about a long-buried betrayal and, in the process, comes face-to-face with her own mortality. . .]]> 261 Sue Grafton 0449000621 Lynnm 5 3.93 1990 G is for Gumshoe (Kinsey Millhone, #7)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1990
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone, #9)]]> 643974
When Kinsey Millhone agrees to take over for Morley Shine, she thinks it is a simple matter of tying up loose ends. Morley might have been careless about his health, but he was an old pro at the business. So, it comes as a shock when she finds his files in disarray, his key informant less than credible, and his witnesses denying ever having spoken with him. It comes as a bigger shock when she finds that every claim David Barney has made checks out. But if Barney didn't murder his wife, who did?

Somewhere out there, a killer waits to see just what Kinsey will find out. Somewhere out there, someone's been getting away with murder, and this time it just might turn out to be Kinsey's.]]> 329 Sue Grafton 0449221512 Lynnm 5 3.94 1992 I is for Innocent (Kinsey Millhone, #9)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1992
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone, #10)]]> 89165
What did Kinsey Millhone have to say? "In truth, the facts about Wendell Jaffe had nothing to do with my family history, but murder is seldom tidy and no one ever said revelations operate in a straight line. It was my investigation into the dead man's past that triggered the inquiry into my own, and in the end the two stories became difficult to separate."

Five years ago, when Jaffe's thirty-five-foot ketch was found drifting off the Baja coast, it seemed a sure thing he'd gone overboard. The note he left behind admitted he was flat broke, his business bankrupt, and his real estate gambit nothing but a huge Ponzi scheme about to collapse with criminal indictment certain to follow. When the authorities descended on his bank and his books soon after, there was nothing left; Jaffe had stripped the lot.

But Jaffe wasn't quite without assets. There was his $500,000 life insurance policy made out to his wife and underwritten by California Fidelity. With no corpse to prove death, however, the insurance company was in no hurry to pay the claim. Dana Jaffe had to wait out the statutory five years until her missing husband could be declared legally dead. Just two months before Wendell Jaffe was sighted in that Mexican bar, California Fidelity finally paid in full. Now they wanted the truth. And they were willing to hire Kinsey Millhone to dig it up.

J is for judgment - the kind we're quick to make and often quicker to regret. It's about family, Wendell's and Kinsey's.

"J Is for Judgment" is Kinsey Millhone's tenth excursion into the dark places of the heart where duplicity is the governing rule and murder the too-frequent result.]]> 360 Sue Grafton 0449000656 Lynnm 5 4.04 1993 J is for Judgment (Kinsey Millhone, #10)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.04
book published: 1993
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[K is for Killer (Kinsey Millhone, #11)]]> 380975
Kinsey pieces together Lorna's young life: a dull day job a the local water treatment plant spiced by sidelines in prostitution and pornography. She tangles with Lorna's friends: a local late-night DJ, a sweet, funny teenaged hooker, Lorna's sloppy landlord and his exotic wife. But to find out which one, if any, turned killer, Kinsey will have to inhabit a netherworld from which she may never return.

Now it's your turn to join Kinsey Millhone as she looks for a killer.]]> 292 Sue Grafton 0449000664 Lynnm 5 3.98 1994 K is for Killer (Kinsey Millhone, #11)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1994
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[L is for Lawless (Kinsey Millhone, #12)]]> 643962
'L is for Lawless,' but you could call it 'Kinsey Millhone in Bad Company.' Call it a mystery without a murder, a treasure hunt without a map, a quest novel with truly mixed-up motives. Call it the return of Kinsey as a bad girl - quick-witted and quick-silvery. She pokes her nose into everybody's dirty laundry as she joins up with a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde in an 'Our Gang' comedy that will take her halfway across the country and leave her with a major headache and an empty bank balance.

America's favorite borderline delinquent is back with her one-liners and her energy level on high, romping through her fastest and funniest adventure in this, her twelfth foray into the alphabet of crime.]]> 336 Sue Grafton 0449221490 Lynnm 5 3.92 1995 L is for Lawless (Kinsey Millhone, #12)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1995
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[T is for Trespass (Kinsey Millhone, #20)]]> 410445 trespass \'trespes\ n: a transgression of law involving one's obligations to God or to one's neighbor; a violation of moral law; an offense; a sin
-Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, Unabridged

In what may be her most unsettling novel to date, Sue Grafton's T is for Trespass is also her most direct confrontation with the forces of evil. Beginning slowly with the day-to-day life of a private eye, Grafton suddenly shifts from the voice of Kinsey Millhone to that of Solana Rojas, introducing readers to a chilling sociopath. Rojas is not her birth name. It is an identity she cunningly stole, an identity that gives her access to private caregiving jobs. The true horror of the novel builds with excruciating tension as the reader foresees the awfulness that lies ahead. The suspense lies in whether Millhone will realize what is happening in time to intervene. Though set in the late eighties, T is for Trespass could not be more topical: identity theft; elder abuse; betrayal of trust; the breakdown in the institutions charged with caring for the weak and the dependent. It reveals a terrifying but all-too-real rip in the social fabric. Once again, Grafton opens up new territory with startling results.]]> 387 Sue Grafton 0399154485 Lynnm 5 3.95 2007 T is for Trespass (Kinsey Millhone, #20)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[N is for Noose (Kinsey Millhone, #14)]]> 64864
Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office for years--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died suddenly, the townsfolk were saddened but not surprised. Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, smoked too much, and exercised too little. That plus an appetite for junk food made him a poster boy for an American Heart Association campaign.

Newquist's widow didn't doubt the coroner's report. But what Selma couldn't accept was not knowing what had bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night, that had him brooding constantly? Selma wanted to find out what it was that had so bedeviled her husband.

The case was vague and hopeless, like looking for a needle in a haystack. Kinsey set up shop in Nota Lake where she found that looking for that needle can draw blood. Very likely, her own. "N Is for Noose" is a novel in which Kinsey Millhone becomes the target and an entire town seems in for the kill.]]> 353 Sue Grafton 0330348779 Lynnm 5 3.99 1998 N is for Noose (Kinsey Millhone, #14)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[R is for Ricochet (Kinsey Millhone, #18)]]> 64862
Now, at thirty-two, Reba is about to be paroled, having served twenty-two months of a four-year sentence. Nord wants to be sure she stays straight, and stays at home - away from the drugs, the booze, and the gamblers.

He reaches out to Kinsey Millhone. As the blurb at the front of the book puts it, "It seems a straightforward assignment for Kinsey: babysit Reba until she settles in, make sure she follows all the rules of her parole. Maybe all of a week's work. Nothing untoward - the woman seems remorseful and friendly. And the money is good." But life is never that simple, especially for Kinsey. Reba is out of prison less than twenty-four hours when her old crowd begins to circle round.]]> 363 Sue Grafton 0425203867 Lynnm 5 3.96 2004 R is for Ricochet (Kinsey Millhone, #18)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone, #19)]]> 142079
Now, thirty-five years later, Daisy wants closure.

Reluctant to open such an old cold case Kinsey Millhone agrees to spend five days investigating, believing at first that Violet simply moved on to pastures new. But very soon it becomes clear that a lot of people shared a past with Violet, a past that some are still desperate to keep hidden. And in a town as close-knit as Serena there aren't many places to hide when things turn vicious . . .]]> 352 Sue Grafton 0425212696 Lynnm 5 3.92 2005 S is for Silence (Kinsey Millhone, #19)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2005
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[O is for Outlaw (Kinsey Millhone, #15)]]> 262228
Kinsey gets a call on a Monday morning from a guy who scavenges defaulted storage units at auction. Last week he bought a stack of boxes. They had stuff in them—Kinsey stuff. For thirty bucks, he'll sell her the lot. She has never been one for personal possessions, but curiosity wins out and she hands over a twenty. Kinsey may be curious but she loves to bargain! What she finds amid childhood memorabilia is an old undelivered letter.

It will force her to reexamine her beliefs about the breakup of her first marriage, about the honor of Mickey, that first husband, and about an old unsolved murder. It will put her life in the gravest peril. "O Is for Outlaw" is Kinsey Millhone's fifteenth adventure into the dark side of human nature.]]> 354 Sue Grafton 0449003787 Lynnm 5 3.95 1999 O is for Outlaw (Kinsey Millhone, #15)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.95
book published: 1999
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[F is for Fugitive (Kinsey Millhone, #6)]]> 169211
The people of the town don't pay a whole lot of mind to past history, especially when Bailey Fowler, the self-confessed killer, had been convicted. They weren't even unduly concerned when, a year after the murder, Fowler walked away from the men's prison at San Luis Obispo, never to be seen again. After all, everyone knew Jean was a wild kid. "Like mother, like daughter," some said--though never within hearing of Shana Timberlake who, whatever her faults, still mourned her murdered child.

And then, by sheer fluke, the cops stumbled on Bailey Fowler. And a case seventeen years dead came murderously to life again. For Royce Fowler, old and sick with not much time left, his son's reappearance was the chance to heal an old wound. For Kinsey Millhone, the case was a long shot, but she agreed to take it on. She couldn't know then that it would lead her to probe passions buried just below the surface of family relations. That's where old wounds fester and the most cherished emotions become warped until they fuse into deadly, soul-destroying time bombs.]]> 320 Sue Grafton 0312939043 Lynnm 5 3.92 1989 F is for Fugitive (Kinsey Millhone, #6)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1989
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[H is for Homicide (Kinsey Millhone, #8)]]> 102525
When PI Kinsey Millhone's good friend and colleague Parnell Perkins is found murdered in the parking lot behind California Fidelity Insurance, she can't believe he had any enemies. The only clue that raises a red flag for Kinsey is one of Parnell's files on a Bibianna Diaz, who appears to have made a lucrative career out of scamming insurance companies with phony claims.

H IS FOR HAZARDOUS�

Taking an alias, Kinsey goes undercover to befriend Bibianna, hoping she'll get close enough to catch the con artist at her own game. But Kinsey never dreams that hanging out with Bibianna will get them both thrown in jail. And when they're released, Bibianna's very jealous, very dangerous ex-fiancé Raymond Maldonado is waiting for them.

H IS FOR HOMICIDE

Kinsey soon discovers the short-tempered thug is the kingpin behind Bibianna's and countless other phony insurance claims. But was Raymond also responsible for Parnell's death? All Kinsey knows is that she'll have to think quick to nab one of the most treacherous criminals she's come face to face with―and keep herself alive…]]> 305 Sue Grafton 044900063X Lynnm 5 3.92 1991 H is for Homicide (Kinsey Millhone, #8)
author: Sue Grafton
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1991
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)]]> 97875 44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 1

The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother.

Welcome to 44 Scotland Street, home to some of Edinburgh's most colorful characters. There's Pat, a twenty-year-old who has recently moved into a flat with Bruce, an athletic young man with a keen awareness of his own appearance. Their neighbor, Domenica, is an eccentric and insightful widow. In the flat below are Irene and her appealing son Bertie, who is the victim of his mother’s desire for him to learn the saxophone and italian–all at the tender age of five.

Love triangles, a lost painting, intriguing new friends, and an encounter with a famous Scottish crime writer are just a few of the ingredients that add to this delightful and witty portrait of Edinburgh society, which was first published as a serial in The Scotsman newspaper.]]> 325 Alexander McCall Smith 1400079446 Lynnm 5 3.61 2004 44 Scotland Street (44 Scotland Street, #1)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2004
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Love Over Scotland (44 Scotland Street, #3)]]> 238543 355 Alexander McCall Smith 0349119716 Lynnm 5 3.98 2006 Love Over Scotland (44 Scotland Street, #3)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Espresso Tales (44 Scotland Street, #2)]]> 15903 44 SCOTLAND STREET - Book 2

The residents and neighbors of 44 Scotland Street and the city of Edinburgh come to vivid life in these gently satirical, wonderfully perceptive serial novels, featuring six-year-old Bertie, a remarkably precocious boy—just ask his mother.

Back are all our favorite denizens of a Georgian townhouse in Edinburgh. Bertie the immensely talented six year old is now enrolled in kindergarten, and much to his dismay, has been clad in pink overalls for his first day of class. Bruce has lost his job as a surveyor, and between admiring glances in the mirror, is contemplating becoming a wine merchant. Pat is embarking on a new life at Edinburgh University and perhaps on a new relationship, courtesy of Domenica, her witty and worldly-wise neighbor.McCall Smith has much in store for them as the brief spell of glorious summer sunshine gives way to fall a season cursed with more traditionally Scottish weather.

Full of McCall Smith’s gentle humor and sympathy for his characters, Espresso Tales is also an affectionate portrait of a city and its people who, in the author’s own words, “make it one of the most vibrant and interesting places in the world.”]]> 345 Alexander McCall Smith Lynnm 5 3.87 2006 Espresso Tales (44 Scotland Street, #2)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street, #5)]]> 3113296 344 Alexander McCall Smith 1846970571 Lynnm 5 3.96 2008 The Unbearable Lightness of Scones (44 Scotland Street, #5)
author: Alexander McCall Smith
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2008
rating: 5
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]]> Desert Solitaire 214614 Desert Solitaire is one of Edward Abbey’s most critically acclaimed works and marks his first foray into the world of nonfiction writing. Written while Abbey was working as a ranger at Arches National Park outside of Moab, Utah, Desert Solitaire is a rare view of one man’s quest to experience nature in its purest form.

Through prose that is by turns passionate and poetic, Abbey reflects on the condition of our remaining wilderness and the future of a civilization that cannot reconcile itself to living in the natural world as well as his own internal struggle with morality. As the world continues its rapid development, Abbey’s cry to maintain the natural beauty of the West remains just as relevant today as when this book was written.]]> 337 Edward Abbey 0345326490 Lynnm 5 4.18 1968 Desert Solitaire
author: Edward Abbey
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.18
book published: 1968
rating: 5
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]]> Abbey's Road 118539 198 Edward Abbey 0452265649 Lynnm 5 4.08 1979 Abbey's Road
author: Edward Abbey
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1979
rating: 5
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]]> The Children's Book 6280379
When Olive Wellwood’s oldest son discovers a runaway named Philip sketching in the basement of the new Victoria and Albert Museum—a talented working-class boy who could be a character out of one of Olive’s magical tales—she takes him into the storybook world of her family and friends.

But the joyful bacchanals Olive hosts at her rambling country house—and the separate, private books she writes for each of her seven children—conceal more treachery and darkness than Philip has ever imagined. As these lives—of adults and children alike—unfold, lies are revealed, hearts are broken, and the damaging truth about the Wellwoods slowly emerges. But their personal struggles, their hidden desires, will soon be eclipsed by far greater forces, as the tides turn across Europe and a golden era comes to an end.

Taking us from the cliff-lined shores of England to Paris, Munich, and the trenches of the Somme, The Children’s Book is a deeply affecting story of a singular family, played out against the great, rippling tides of the day. It is a masterly literary achievement by one of our most essential writers.]]> 675 A.S. Byatt 0307272095 Lynnm 5 3.67 2009 The Children's Book
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2009
rating: 5
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]]> The Pickwick Papers 229432 The Pickwick Papers�-a comic masterpiece that catapulted its 24-year-old author to immediate fame. Readers were captivated by the adventures of the poet Snodgrass, the lover Tupman, the sportsman Winkle &, above all, by that quintessentially English Quixote, Mr Pickwick, & his cockney Sancho Panza, Sam Weller. From the hallowed turf of Dingley Dell Cricket Club to the unholy fracas of the Eatanswill election, via the Fleet debtor’s prison, characters & incidents sprang to life from Dickens’s pen, to form an enduringly popular work of ebullient humour & literary invention.]]> 801 Charles Dickens Lynnm 5 3.83 1837 The Pickwick Papers
author: Charles Dickens
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.83
book published: 1837
rating: 5
read at: 2011/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
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]]> Pride and Prejudice 5509256 253 Jane Austen Lynnm 5 4.22 1813 Pride and Prejudice
author: Jane Austen
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.22
book published: 1813
rating: 5
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]]> Wuthering Heights 9267887 300 Emily Brontë Lynnm 5 4.05 1847 Wuthering Heights
author: Emily Brontë
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1847
rating: 5
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]]> Possession 41219 A beautiful hardback edition of the Booker Prize-winning novel. A romance, a literary quest, a modern classic.

A pair of young scholars investigate the lives of two Victorian poets. Following a trail of letters, journals and poems they uncover a web of passion, deceit and tragedy, and their quest becomes a battle against time. Possession is an exhilarating novel of wit and romance, at once a literary detective novel and a triumphant love story.]]> 555 A.S. Byatt 0679735909 Lynnm 5 3.89 1990 Possession
author: A.S. Byatt
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1990
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3)]]> 8300755 Lisbeth Salander - outsider and apparent enemy of society - is charged with attempted murder. The state has also ruled that she is mentally unstable, and should be locked away in an institution once again But she is closely guarded in a hospital having taken a bullet to the head so how will she prove her innocence?

The Enemy
Pulling the strings of the prosecution is the powerful inner circle of Säpo, the state security police. Determined to protect the secrets and corruption at Sweden's rotten core, Säpo is not an adversary to take on alone.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest
Only with the help of Mikael Blomkvist and the journalists at Millennium magazine can Salander avoid the fate that has been decided for her. Together they form a compelling and dynamic alliance. This final volume of the Millenium Trilogy is the culmination of one of the most mesmerizing fictional achievements of our time.]]> 675 Stieg Larsson Lynnm 5 4.37 2007 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (Millennium, #3)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)]]> 8115818 Millenium publisher Mikael Blomkvist has made his reputation exposing corrupt establishment figures. So when a young journalist approaches him with an investigation into sex trafficking, Blomkvist cannot resist waging war on the powerful figures who control this lucrative industry.

The Murder
When a young couple is found dead in their Stockholm apartment, it's a straightforward job for Inspector Bublanski and his team. The killer left the weapon at the scene - and the fingerprints on the gun point in only one direction.

The Girl Who Played with Fire
Ex-security analyst Lisbeth Salander is wanted for murder. Her history of unpredictable and vengeful behaviour makes her an official danger to society - but no-one can find her. The only way Salander can be reached is by computer. But she can break into almost any network she chooses...]]> 738 Stieg Larsson Lynnm 5 4.37 2006 The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium #2)
author: Stieg Larsson
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2006
rating: 5
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]]> 1984 5470 328 George Orwell Lynnm 5 4.15 1949 1984
author: George Orwell
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1949
rating: 5
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]]> <![CDATA[Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)]]> 61272658 The McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts - a luxurious, clandestine college dedicated to the fine art of murder where earnest students study how best to "delete" their most deserving victim.


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

Prepare for an education you’ll never forget. A “fiendishly funny� (Booklist) mix of witty wordplay, breathtaking twists and genuine intrigue, Murder Your Employer will gain you admission into a wholly original world, cocooned within the most entertaining book about well-intentioned would-be murderers you’ll ever read.]]> 400 Rupert Holmes 1451648219 Lynnm 5 3.79 2023 Murder Your Employer (The McMasters Guide to Homicide, #1)
author: Rupert Holmes
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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]]> Yellowface 62047984
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.]]> 319 R.F. Kuang 000853277X Lynnm 5 3.69 2023 Yellowface
author: R.F. Kuang
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/12/27
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]]> The Cricket on the Hearth 549938
The title creature is a sort of barometer of life at the home of John Peerybingle and his much younger wife Dot. When things go well, the cricket on the hearth chirps; it is silent when there is sorrow. Tackleton, a jealous old man, poisons John's mind about Dot, but the cricket through its supernatural powers restores John's confidence and all ends happily.]]> 82 Charles Dickens 0809500418 Lynnm 4 3.48 1845 The Cricket on the Hearth
author: Charles Dickens
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.48
book published: 1845
rating: 4
read at: 2012/12/02
date added: 2024/12/09
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]]> Wandering Stars 174147294
Colorado, 1864. Star, a young survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre, is brought to the Fort Marion Prison Castle, where he is forced to learn English and practice Christianity by Richard Henry Pratt, an evangelical prison guard who will go on to found the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, an institution dedicated to the eradication of Native history, culture, and identity. A generation later, Star’s son, Charles, is sent to the school, where he is brutalized by the man who was once his father’s jailer. Under Pratt’s harsh treatment, Charles clings to moments he shares with a young fellow student, Opal Viola, as the two envision a future away from the institutional violence that follows their bloodlines.

Oakland, 2018. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield is barely holding her family together after the shooting that nearly took the life of her nephew Orvil. From the moment he awakens in his hospital bed, Orvil begins compulsively googling school shootings on YouTube. He also becomes emotionally reliant on the prescription medications meant to ease his physical trauma. His younger brother, Lony, suffering from PTSD, is struggling to make sense of the carnage he witnessed at the shooting by secretly cutting himself and enacting blood rituals that he hopes will connect him to his Cheyenne heritage. Opal is equally adrift, experimenting with Ceremony and peyote, searching for a way to heal her wounded family.

Extending his constellation of narratives into the past and future, Tommy Orange once again delivers a story that is by turns shattering and wondrous, a book piercing in its poetry, sorrow, and rage—a masterful follow-up to his already-classic first novel, and a devastating indictment of America’s war on its own people.]]> 315 Tommy Orange 0593318250 Lynnm 5 3.83 2024 Wandering Stars
author: Tommy Orange
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/12/03
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]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 Lynnm 5 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/12/02
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]]> The Lost Bookshop 65137920 The Keeper of Stories meets The Lost Apothecary in this evocative and charming novel full of mystery and secrets.

‘The thing about books,� she said ‘is that they help you to imagine a life bigger and better than you could ever dream of.�

On a quiet street in Dublin, a lost bookshop is waiting to be found�

For too long, Opaline, Martha and Henry have been the side characters in their own lives.

But when a vanishing bookshop casts its spell, these three unsuspecting strangers will discover that their own stories are every bit as extraordinary as the ones found in the pages of their beloved books. And by unlocking the secrets of the shelves, they find themselves transported to a world of wonder� where nothing is as it seems.]]> 432 Evie Woods 0008609209 Lynnm 5 4.03 2023 The Lost Bookshop
author: Evie Woods
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/11/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Never Been Kissed (Boy Meets Boy, #1)]]> 57352258 Dear (never-been-quite-over-you) Crush,
It's been a few years since we were together, but I can't stop thinking about the time we almost...

Wren Roland has never been kissed, but he wants that movie-perfect ending more than anything. Feeling nostalgic on the eve of his birthday, he sends emails to all the boys he (ahem) loved before he came out. Morning brings the inevitable Oh God What Did I Do?, but he brushes that panic aside. Why stress about it? None of his could-have-beens are actually going to read the emails, much less respond. Right?

Enter Derick Haverford, Wren's #1 pre-coming-out-crush and his drive-in theater's new social media intern. Everyone claims he's coasting on cinematic good looks and his father's connections, but Wren has always known there's much more to Derick than meets the eye. Too bad he doesn't feel the same way about the infamous almost-kiss that once rocked Wren's world.

Whatever. Wren's no longer a closeted teenager; he can survive this. But as their hazy summer becomes consumed with a special project that may just save the struggling drive-in for good, Wren and Derick are drawn ever-closer...and maybe, finally, Wren's dream of a perfect-kiss-before-the-credits is within reach.

A feel-good summer LGBTQIA+ New Adult RomCom, perfect for fans ofRed White & Royal Blue,Boyfriend Material, andWhat If It's Us.]]> 279 Timothy Janovsky 1728250587 Lynnm 5 3.65 2022 Never Been Kissed (Boy Meets Boy, #1)
author: Timothy Janovsky
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/11/09
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]]> <![CDATA[A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel (The Doomsday Books, #2)]]> 75505273
The earl and the smuggler should be natural enemies, but cocksure, enragingly competent Luke is a trained secretary and expert schemer—exactly the sort of man Rufus needs by his side. Before long, Luke becomes an unexpected ally...and the lover Rufus had never hoped to find.

But Luke came to Stone Manor with an ulterior motive, one he's desperate to keep hidden even from the lord he can't resist. As the lies accumulate and family secrets threaten to destroy everything they hold dear, master and man find themselves forced to decide whose side they're really on...and what they're willing to do for love.]]> 336 K.J. Charles 1728255902 Lynnm 5 4.24 2023 A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel (The Doomsday Books, #2)
author: K.J. Charles
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/21
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]]> Hour of the Witch 54063343 A young Puritan woman--faithful, resourceful, but afraid of the demons that dog her soul--plots her escape from a violent marriage in this riveting and propulsive historical thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Flight Attendant.

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four years old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where every neighbor is watching for signs of the devil, a woman like Mary--a woman who harbors secret desires and finds it difficult to tolerate the brazen hypocrisy of so many men in the colony--soon finds herself the object of suspicion and rumor. When tainted objects are discovered buried in Mary's garden, when a boy she has treated with herbs and simples dies, and when their servant girl runs screaming in fright from her home, Mary must fight to not only escape her marriage, but also the gallows. A twisting, tightly plotted thriller from one of our greatest storytellers, Hour of the Witch is a timely and terrifying novel of socially sanctioned brutality and the original American witch hunt.]]> 406 Chris Bohjalian 0385542437 Lynnm 5 3.76 2021 Hour of the Witch
author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/10/05
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]]> The Violin Conspiracy 58386733 A mystery about a Black classical musician whose family heirloom violin is stolen on the eve of the most prestigious classical music competition in the world.

Ray McMillian loves playing the violin more than anything, and nothing will stop him from pursuing his dream of becoming a professional musician. Not his mother, who thinks he should get a real job, not the fact that he can't afford a high-caliber violin, not the racism inherent in the classical music world. And when he makes the startling discovery that his great-grandfather's fiddle is actually a priceless Stradivarius, his star begins to rise. Then with the international Tchaikovsky Competition—the Olympics of classical music—fast approaching, his prized family heirloom is stolen. Ray is determined to get it back. But now his family and the descendants of the man who once enslaved Ray's great-grandfather are each claiming that the violin belongs to them. With the odds stacked against him and the pressure mounting, will Ray ever see his beloved violin again?]]> 345 Brendan Slocumb 0593315413 Lynnm 5 4.06 2022 The Violin Conspiracy
author: Brendan Slocumb
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2022
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/09/02
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]]> <![CDATA[The Grandest Game (The Grandest Game, #1)]]> 197392670 Get caught up in the puzzles, games, danger, romance, and riches of this lush new chapter in the #1 bestselling Inheritance Games saga—set a year after we last saw Avery and the Hawthornes.

Seven tickets. An island of dreams. The chance of a lifetime.

Welcome to the Grandest Game, an annual competition run by billionaire Avery Grambs and the four infamous Hawthorne brothers, whose family fortune she inherited. Designed to give anyone a shot at fame and fortune, this year’s game requires one of seven golden tickets to enter. With millions on the line, those seven players will do whatever it takes to win.

Some of the players are in it for the money. Some for power. Some for reasons all their own. Every single one of them has secrets. Amidst it all is Grayson Hawthorne, tasked with a vital role in this year’s game. But as tensions rise and the mind-bending challenges push the players to their limits—physically, mentally, and emotionally—it soon becomes clear that not everyone is playing by the rules.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Lynn Barnes delivers a new series in the world of The Inheritance Games, where fan-favorite and new characters collide in a game you’ll never forget.

Do you have what it takes to play?]]> 384 Jennifer Lynn Barnes 0316481017 Lynnm 5 3.93 2024 The Grandest Game (The Grandest Game, #1)
author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/15
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]]> Mansfield Park 45032 488 Jane Austen Lynnm 5 3.86 1814 Mansfield Park
author: Jane Austen
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/07
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]]> <![CDATA[Millennium Approaches (Angels in America, #1)]]> 92250
The play is a complex, often metaphorical, and at times symbolic examination of AIDS and homosexuality in America in the 1980s. Certain major and minor characters are supernatural beings (angels) or deceased persons (ghosts). The play contains multiple roles for several of the actors. Initially and primarily focusing on a gay couple in Manhattan, the play also has several other storylines, some of which occasionally intersect.]]> 119 Tony Kushner 1559360615 Lynnm 0 4.27 1993 Millennium Approaches (Angels in America, #1)
author: Tony Kushner
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.27
book published: 1993
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/08/06
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]]> The Seven Year Slip 62926938 An overworked book publicist with a perfectly planned future hits a snag when she falls in love with her temporary roommate…only to discover he lives seven years in the past, in this witty and wise new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Dead Romantics.

Sometimes, the worst day of your life happens, and you have to figure out how to live after it.

So Clementine forms a plan to keep her heart safe: work hard, find someone decent to love, and try to remember to chase the moon. The last one is silly and obviously metaphorical, but her aunt always told her that you needed at least one big dream to keep going. And for the last year, that plan has gone off without a hitch. Mostly. The love part is hard because she doesn’t want to get too close to anyone—she isn’t sure her heart can take it.

And then she finds a strange man standing in the kitchen of her late aunt’s apartment. A man with kind eyes and a Southern drawl and a taste for lemon pies. The kind of man that, before it all, she would’ve fallen head-over-heels for. And she might again.

Except, he exists in the past. Seven years ago, to be exact. And she, quite literally, lives seven years in his future.

Her aunt always said the apartment was a pinch in time, a place where moments blended together like watercolors. And Clementine knows that if she lets her heart fall, she’ll be doomed.

After all, love is never a matter of time—but a matter of timing.]]> 336 Ashley Poston Lynnm 5 4.17 2023 The Seven Year Slip
author: Ashley Poston
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/08/04
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]]> The Celebrants 62049729
It’s been a minute—or five years—since Jordan Vargas last saw his college friends, and twenty-eight years since their graduation when their adult lives officially began. Now Jordan, Jordy, Naomi, Craig, and Marielle find themselves at the brink of a new decade, with all the responsibilities of adulthood, yet no closer to having their lives figured out. Though not for a lack of trying. Over the years they’ve reunited in Big Sur to honor a decades-old pact to throw each other living “funerals,� celebrations to remind themselves that life is worth living—that their lives mean something, to one another if not to themselves.

But this reunion is different. They’re not gathered as they were to bolster Marielle as her marriage crumbled, to lift Naomi after her parents died, or to intervene when Craig pleaded guilty to art fraud. This time, Jordan is sitting on a secret that will upend their pact.

A deeply honest tribute to the growing pains of selfhood and the people who keep us going, coupled with Steven Rowley’s signature humor and heart, The Celebrants is a moving tale about the false invincibility of youth and the beautiful ways in which friendshiphelps uscelebrate our lives, even amid the deepest challenges of living.]]> 320 Steven Rowley 0593540425 Lynnm 5 3.59 2023 The Celebrants
author: Steven Rowley
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/07/06
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]]> A Winter in New York 101673373
When Iris decides to move to New York to restart her life, she realizes she underestimated how big the Big Apple really is—all the nostalgic movies set in New York she’d watched with her mom while eating their special secret-recipe gelato didn’t quite do it justice.

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

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

Iris offers her services as a chef to help them re-create the flavor and finds herself falling for Gio and his family. But when Gio’s uncle finally wakes up, all of the secrets Iris has been keeping threaten to ruin the new life—and new love—she’s been building all winter long.]]> 384 Josie Silver 0593724933 Lynnm 5 3.64 2023 A Winter in New York
author: Josie Silver
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/06/22
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]]> <![CDATA[Portrait of a Spy (Gabriel Allon, #11)]]> 9975779 448 Daniel Silva 0062072188 Lynnm 5 4.24 2011 Portrait of a Spy (Gabriel Allon, #11)
author: Daniel Silva
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2011
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
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]]> The Ex Hex (The Ex Hex, #1) 56554626 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Hawkins, writing as Erin Sterling, casts a spell with a spine-tingling romance full of wishes, witches, and hexes gone wrong.

Nine years ago, Vivienne Jones nursed her broken heart like any young witch would: vodka, weepy music, bubble baths…and a curse on the horrible boyfriend. Sure, Vivi knows she shouldn’t use her magic this way, but with only an “orchard hayride� scented candle on hand, she isn’t worried it will cause him anything more than a bad hair day or two.

That is until Rhys Penhallow, descendent of the town’s ancestors, breaker of hearts, and annoyingly just as gorgeous as he always was, returns to Graves Glen, Georgia. What should be a quick trip to recharge the town’s ley lines and make an appearance at the annual fall festival turns disastrously wrong. With one calamity after another striking Rhys, Vivi realizes her silly little Ex Hex may not have been so harmless after all.

Suddenly, Graves Glen is under attack from murderous wind-up toys, a pissed off ghost, and a talking cat with some interesting things to say. Vivi and Rhys have to ignore their off the charts chemistry to work together to save the town and find a way to break the break-up curse before it’s too late.]]> 308 Erin Sterling 006302747X Lynnm 5 3.46 2021 The Ex Hex (The Ex Hex, #1)
author: Erin Sterling
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/06/03
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]]> Wolfsong (Green Creek, #1) 62039417
Oxnard Matheson was twelve when his father taught him that Ox wasn’t worth anything and people would never understand him. Then his father left.

Ox was sixteen when the energetic Bennett family moved in next door, harboring a secret that would change him forever. The Bennetts are shapeshifters. They can transform into wolves at will. Drawn to their magic, loyalty, and enduring friendships, Ox feels a gulf between this extraordinary new world and the quiet life he’s known, but he finds an ally in Joe, the youngest Bennett boy.

Ox was twenty-three when murder came to town and tore a hole in his heart. Violence flared, tragedy split the pack, and Joe left town, leaving Ox behind. Three years later, the boy is back. Except now he’s a man � charming, handsome, but haunted � and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

The beloved fantasy romance sensation by New York Times bestselling author TJ Klune, about love, loyalty, betrayal, and family.

The Green Creek Series is for adult readers.

Now available from Tor Books.]]> 528 T.J. Klune 1250890314 Lynnm 5 4.04 2016 Wolfsong (Green Creek, #1)
author: T.J. Klune
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/30
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]]> Stories from Suffragette City 49672320
Stories From Suffragette City is a collection of short stories from the leading voices in historical fiction that all take place on a single day. The day one million women marched for the right to vote in New York City in 1915. A day filled with a million different stories, and a million different voices longing to be heard. Taken together, these stories from writers at the top of their bestselling game become a chorus, stitching together a portrait of a country looking for a fight, and echo into a resounding force strong enough to break even the most stubborn of glass ceilings.
With stories from:
Lisa Wingate
M. J. Rose
Steve Berry
Paula McLain
Katherine J. Chen
Christina Baker Kline
Jamie Ford
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Megan Chance
Alyson Richman
Chris Bohjalian
and Fiona Davis]]> 272 M.J. Rose 1250241324 Lynnm 5 3.82 2020 Stories from Suffragette City
author: M.J. Rose
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/05/26
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]]> Seven Empty Houses 60206505
This was the collection that established Samanta Schweblin at the forefront of a new generation of Latin American writers. And now in English it will push her cult status to new heights. Seven Empty Houses is an entrypoint into a fiercely original mind, and a slingshot into Schweblin's destablizing, exhilarating literary world.

In each story, the twists and turns will unnerve and surprise: Schweblin never takes the expected path and instead digs under the skin and reveals uncomfortable truths about our sense of home, of belonging, and of the fragility of our connections with others. This is a masterwork from one of our most brilliant writers.]]> 208 Samanta Schweblin 052554139X Lynnm 5 3.51 2015 Seven Empty Houses
author: Samanta Schweblin
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/18
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]]> <![CDATA[Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)]]> 60879779
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 371 Benjamin Stevenson 0063279029 Lynnm 5 3.75 2022 Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone (Ernest Cunningham, #1)
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/14
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]]> How to End a Love Story 63247365
“Emotional, relatable and binge-worthy." –Tessa Bailey

“I’ll read anything she writes. An absolute star." –Emily Henry

“I was hooked on the very first page. Don't miss this one!" � Carley Fortune

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

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

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

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

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

When secrets come to light, they must reckon with the fact that theirs was never meant to be any kind of love story. And yet� the key to making peace with their past—and themselves—might just lie in holding on to each other in the present.]]> 384 Yulin Kuang Lynnm 5 3.61 2024 How to End a Love Story
author: Yulin Kuang
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
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]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 422 Richard Osman Lynnm 5 4.36 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: Lynnm
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/04/21
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]]> Wreck the Halls 75663742 A sexy, hilarious standalone holiday rom-com about the adult children of two former rock stars who team up to convince their estranged mothers to play a Christmas Eve concert�

Melody Gallard may be the daughter of music royalty, but her world is far from glamorous. She spends her days restoring old books and avoiding the limelight (one awkward tabloid photo was enough, thanks). But when a producer offers her a lot of money to reunite her mother’s band on live tv, Mel begins to wonder if it’s time to rattle the cage, shake up her quiet life� and see him again. The only other person who could wrangle the rock and roll divas.

Beat Dawkins, the lead singer’s son, is Melody’s opposite—the camera loves him, he could charm the pants off anyone, and his mom is not a potential cult leader. Still, they might have been best friends if not for the legendary feud that broke up the band. When they met as teenagers, Mel felt an instant spark, but it’s nothing compared to the wild, intense attraction that builds as they embark on a madcap mission to convince their mothers to perform one last show.

While dealing with rock star shenanigans, a 24-hour film crew, brawling Santas, and mobs of adoring fans, Mel starts to step out of her comfort zone. With Beat by her side, cheering her on, she’s never felt so understood. But Christmas Eve is fast approaching, and a decades-old scandal is poised to wreck everything—the Steel Birds reunion, their relationships with their mothers, and their newfound love.]]> 351 Tessa Bailey 0063308304 Lynnm 5 3.34 2023 Wreck the Halls
author: Tessa Bailey
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2023
rating: 5
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date added: 2024/03/31
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]]> Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 371 Emily Henry 1984806734 Lynnm 5 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: Lynnm
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/03/16
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