en-US Sat, 05 Apr 2025 21:21:32 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 51901147
The odds are against him. He's been given the humiliating assignment of mentoring the female tribute from District 12, the lowest of the low. Their fates are now completely intertwined -- every choice Coriolanus makes could lead to favor or failure, triumph or ruin. Inside the arena, it will be a fight to the death. Outside the arena, Coriolanus starts to feel for his doomed tribute... and must weigh his need to follow the rules against his desire to survive no matter what it takes.]]> 541 Suzanne Collins Samantha 3 3.99 2020
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 36454667 Hadrian Marlowe, a man revered as a hero and despised as a murderer, chronicles his tale in the galaxy-spanning debut of the Sun Eater series, merging the best of space opera and epic fantasy.

It was not his war.
On the wrong planet, at the right time, for the best reasons, Hadrian Marlowe started down a path that could only end in fire. The galaxy remembers him as a the man who burned every last alien Cielcin from the sky. They remember him as a the devil who destroyed a sun, casually annihilating four billion human lives—even the Emperor himself—against Imperial orders.
But Hadrian was not a hero. He was not a monster. He was not even a soldier.
Fleeing his father and a future as a torturer, Hadrian finds himself stranded on a strange, backwater world. Forced to fight as a gladiator and into the intrigues of a foreign planetary court, he will find himself fight a war he did not start, for an Empire he does not love, against an enemy he will never understand.]]> 753 Christopher Ruocchio 0756413028 Samantha 0 currently-reading 4.01 2018
author: Christopher Ruocchio
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 207571151 Told in alternating timelines, The Lake of Lost Girls is a haunting novel that will thrill fans of All Good People Here and We Are All the Same in the Dark.

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

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

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

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

This propulsive and chilling suspense is a sharp examination of sisterhood and the culture of true crime.]]> 320 Katherine Greene 1639109080 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 3.83 2024
author: Katherine Greene
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

As the day dawns on the fiftieth annual Hunger Games, fear grips the districts of Panem. This year, in honor of the Quarter Quell, twice as many tributes will be taken from their homes.

Back in District 12, Haymitch Abernathy is trying not to think too hard about his chances. All he cares about is making it through the day and being with the girl he loves.

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Samantha 0 to-read 4.67 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 150247395
Called in to investigate this mystery is Ana Dolabra, an investigator whose reputation for brilliance is matched only by her eccentricities.

At her side is her new assistant, Dinios Kol. Din is an engraver, magically altered to possess a perfect memory. His job is to observe and report, and act as his superior’s eyes and ears--quite literally, in this case, as among Ana’s quirks are her insistence on wearing a blindfold at all times, and her refusal to step outside the walls of her home.

Din is most perplexed by Ana’s ravenous appetite for information and her mind’s frenzied leaps—not to mention her cheerful disregard for propriety and the apparent joy she takes in scandalizing her young counterpart. Yet as the case unfolds and Ana makes one startling deduction after the next, he finds it hard to deny that she is, indeed, the Empire’s greatest detective.

As the two close in on a mastermind and uncover a scheme that threatens the safety of the Empire itself, Din realizes he’s barely begun to assemble the puzzle that is Ana Dolabra—and wonders how long he’ll be able to keep his own secrets safe from her piercing intellect.

Featuring an unforgettable Holmes-and-Watson style pairing, a gloriously labyrinthine plot, and a haunting and wholly original fantasy world, The Tainted Cup brilliantly reinvents the classic mystery tale.]]> 410 Robert Jackson Bennett 1984820702 Samantha 0 to-read 4.28 2024
author: Robert Jackson Bennett
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56140813
We meet Mirabeau, Robespierre, and Danton, in all of their brilliance and vengefulness; we witness the failed escape and execution of Louis XVI; we see women demanding equal rights and black slaves wresting freedom from revolutionaries who hesitated to act on their own principles; and we follow the rise of Napoleon out of the ashes of the Reign of Terror.

Based on decades of scholarship, 'A NEW WORLD BEGINS,' will stand as the definitive treatment of the French Revolution.




RUNNING TIME => 21hrs. and 54mins.

©2019 Jeremy D. Popkin (P)2020 Dreamscape Media, LLC]]> Jeremy D. Popkin Samantha 0 currently-reading 3.71 2019
author: Jeremy D. Popkin
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 132556
Eleven-year-old Philip Noble has a big problem: His dad, who was killed in a car accident, appears as a bloodstained ghost at his own funeral and introduces Philip to the Dead Fathers Club. The club, whose members were all murdered, gathers outside the Castle and Falcon, the local pub that Philip’s family owns and lives above. Philip’s father tells him that Uncle Alan killed him and he must avenge his death. When Philip realizes that Uncle Alan has designs on his mom and the family pub, Philip decides that something must be done. But it’s a much bigger job than he anticipated, especially when he is caught up by the usual distractions of childhood—a pretty girl, wayward friends, school bullies, and his own self-doubt. The Dead Fathers Club is a riveting, imaginative, and quirky update of Shakespeare’s great tragedy that will establish Matt Haig as a young writer of great talent and imagination.]]> 336 Matt Haig 0670038334 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 3.20 2006
author: Matt Haig
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2006
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 228022844
Nesi is desperate to earn the patronage of one of the Ninety-Nine Pillars of Heaven. As a child with godly blood in her, if she cannot earn a divine chaperone, she will never be allowed to leave her temple home. But with ninety-six failed auditions and few options left, Nesi makes a risky prayer to T’sidaan, the Fox of Tricks.

In folk tales, the Fox is a loveable prankster. But despite their humor and charm, T’sidaan, and their audition, is no joke. They throw Nesi back in time three hundred years, when her homeland is occupied by the brutal Wolfhounds of Zemin.

Now, Nesi must ally with her besieged people and learn a trickster’s guile to snatch a fortress from the disgraced and exiled 100th Pillar: The Wolf of the Hunt.]]> 192 Martin Cahill 1616964448 Samantha 0 to-read 4.42 2025
author: Martin Cahill
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
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]]> 214175139
No one’s more surprised than Leigh when a prestigious MFA program in North Carolina accepts her. A former sorority girl, Leigh’s the first to admit she knows more about the lyrics of Taylor Swift than T.S. Eliot, and she’s never been able to shake the “all-style-no-substance� feedback her high school crush made in their poetry workshop. Bad enough that her tattooed, New Yorker tote bag-carrying classmates have read all the right authors and been published in the country's leading literary journals, Leigh's insecurities become all too real when Will, that same high school crush-turned-nemesis, shows up at orientation as a first-year in the program, too. And now, he’s William, exactly the kind of writer Leigh hates, complete with his pretentious sweater vests and tattered Moleskine.

Leigh’s determined to prove herself—and William—wrong by landing the program’s highly-coveted fellowship. But Will’s dead-set on it, too, and in a small cohort, they can't keep apart for long. When Will submits an intimate poem (that's maybe, probably, definitely about Leigh) to workshop, they’re both forced to realize there’s more to the other than what’s on the page. And what’s between the lines may be even more interesting.]]> 368 Katie Naymon 1538768550 Samantha 0 to-read 3.70 2025
author: Katie Naymon
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219446044 The fourth book in the Mr. Darcy & Miss Tilney Mystery series, which finds the amateur sleuths caught up in the whirlwind of the London Season—and in a murderous scheme involving the family of Edmund and Fanny Bertram.

Jonathan Darcy and Juliet Tilney understand each other perfectly; it's a pity their families do not. A series of misunderstandings, misplaced pride, and—indeed—prejudice, has led their parents to deem the pair unsuited to wed. Now, with the Season approaching, Juliet has been sent to London with a new wardrobe and orders to prove herself worthy of someone better than the snobby Darcys.

Meanwhile, Jonathan has been forced to accept an invitation to stay with old friends Edmund and Fanny Bertram at the house of Edmund's brother, Sir Thomas. Oblivious to and undesiring of female attention other than Juliet's, Jonathan is in danger of being ensnared by Caroline Bingley's plans to make herself—or her daughter—mistress of Pemberley.

But when the former husband of Edmund's sister Maria, Mr. Rushworth, is discovered dead, Jonathan and Juliet find themselves with problems far weightier than the marriage market.

In one of the greatest scandals of its day, Maria abandoned her husband for the notorious rake Henry Crawford and, when he wouldn't marry her, was forced to flee to the continent in disgrace. Now Maria is back, with a daughter she claims Mr. Rushworth fathered after their divorce—and who he wrote into his will just before his death.

Now Jonathan and Juliet must unmask a killer before the drama surrounding the Rushworth family fortune claims another victim.]]> Claudia Gray 0735247870 Samantha 4 advanced-copy 4.47
author: Claudia Gray
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: advanced-copy
review:
In the fourth installment of mysteries featuring Jane Austen's entire catalog of characters, Claudia Gray has once again plunged Mr. Jonathan Darcy and Miss Juliet Tilney into another murder investigation of characters you kinda wanted to see murdered during their novel of origin anyway. The author captures the voice of the beloved characters quite well, and the reader is free to bask in revisiting Jane Austen's world with the addition of a cozy mystery and overarching fresh romantic plotline that will hopefully resolve itself in the next installment.
]]> 222664707 A dark and enchanting fairy tale-inspired historical fantasy combining elements of "The Little Mermaid" and "Cinderella" into a wholly original tale of love, power, and betrayal.

Saint-Malo, Brittany, 1758.
For Lucinde Leon, the youngest daughter of one of Saint-Malo's wealthiest ship-owners, the high walls of the city are more hindrance than haven. While her sisters are interested in securing advantageous marriages, Luce dreams of escaping her elegant but stifling home and joining a ship's crew. Only Samuel—Luce's best friend and an English smuggler—understands her longing for the sea, secretly teaching her to sail whenever she can sneak away. For Luce, the stolen time on the water with Samuel is precious.

One stormy morning, Luce's plans are blown off course when she rescues Morgan de Chatelaine, the youngest son of the most powerful ship-owner in Saint-Malo, from the sea. Immediately drawn to his charm and sense of adventure, she longs to attend the glittering ball held in honor of his safe return and begins to contemplate a different kind of future for herself.

But it is not only Luce's hopes at stake—the local fae are leaving Brittany and taking their magic with them, while the long-standing war with the English means Saint-Malo is always at risk of attack. As Luce is plunged into a world of magic, brutality, and seduction, secrets that have long been lost in the shadowy depths of the ocean begin to rise to the surface. The truth of her own power is growing brighter and brighter, shining like a sea-glass slipper.

Or the scales of a sea-maid's tail.]]> Kell Woods 1250386047 Samantha 4
Thank you to NetGalley for providing an audio copy for me to review. :-)]]> 4.30 2025
author: Kell Woods
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves:
review:
Upon a Starlit Tide is an historical novel set during the Seven Years War that tells the story of Lucinde Leon. The story itself is a creative retelling/mash-up of The Little Mermaid and Cinderella, but don't let retelling of old stories fatigue stop you from passing this one over. The author takes great care to develop complex characters that don't neatly fit into "cruel stepsisters" or "evil stepmother" stereotypes. Additionally, the narrator for the audiobook, Esther Wane, does a fantastic job of bringing the story and its characters to life. If you have the chance to listen to it, take it.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing an audio copy for me to review. :-)
]]> 53677442
In 1553, England was about to experience the ‘monstrous regiment� - the unnatural rule - of a woman. But female rule in England also had a past. Four hundred years before Edward’s death, Matilda, daughter of Henry I and granddaughter of William the Conquerer, came tantalizingly close to securing her hold on the power of the crown. And between the 12th and the 15th centuries three more exceptional women - Eleanor of Aquitaine, Isabella of France, and Margaret of Anjou - discovered, as queens consort and dowager, how much was possible if the presumptions of male rule were not confronted so explicitly.

The stories of the women in 'SHE-WOLVES' - told here in all their vivid humanity - illustrate the paradox which the female heirs to the Tudor throne had no choice but to negotiate. Man was the head of woman; and the king was the head of all. How, then, could a woman be king, how could royal power lie in female hands?




RUNNING TIME � 16hrs. and 1min.

©2011 Helen Castor (P)2020 Tantor]]> Helen Castor Samantha 0 to-read 3.90 2010
author: Helen Castor
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 49200852
Lily spends her nights competing in a magical underground realm and her days unraveling the dangers of this new court. Although she needs the help of the Marinese prince, Lily knows she can't let herself grow too close to him. There's no time for romance when the duchy is about to fall to the encroaching darkness and the winner of the tournament faces a terrible fate.

But Lily and her twin have a secret advantage. And Lily grows increasingly determined to use their magical bond to defeat the tournament, save the princesses, and free Marin. Except she might have to sacrifice true love to do it.

In this reimagining of the classic fairy tale, The Twelve Dancing Princesses, there's a lot more at stake than worn out dancing slippers.

If you enjoy clean romance, adventure and intrigue, then try the books in the Beyond the Four Kingdoms series now! These interconnected fairy tale retellings each feature a different princess who has to fight for her happily ever after.

Beyond the Four Kingdoms reading order:

A Dance of Silver and Shadow: A Retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses
A Tale of Beauty and Beast: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast
And coming in 2018
A Crown of Snow and Ice: A Retelling of The Snow Queen
A Dream of Ebony and White: A Retelling of Snow White
A Captive of Wing and Feather: A Retelling of The Swan Princess
A Princess of Wind and Wave: A Retelling of The Little Mermaid]]> 11 Melanie Cellier Samantha 0 to-read 3.93 2017
author: Melanie Cellier
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 153853 Peter Pan is edited with an introduction by Jack Zipes in Penguin Classics.

When Peter Pan and his fairy companion Tinker Bell fly in through the window of Wendy's nursery one night, it is the beginning of an adventure that whisks Wendy and her brothers Michael and John off to Neverland. There they will find mermaids, fairies, pirates led by the sinister Captain Hook, and the crocodile who bit off his leg - and still pursues him in hope of the rest! Peter Pan originally appeared as a baby living a magical life among birds and fairies in J.M. Barrie's sequence of stories, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens. His adventures capture the spirit of childhood - and of rebellion against the role of adulthood in conventional society.

This edition includes the novel and the stories, and reproduces the original illustrations by Francis Donkin Bedford and Arthur Rackham. In his introduction, Jack Zipes sifts through the psychological interpretations that have engaged critics, explores the cultural and literary contexts in which we can appreciate Barrie's enduring creation, and shows why Peter Pan is fundamentally a work that urges adults to reconnect with their own imagination.]]> 234 J.M. Barrie 014243793X Samantha 5 favorites I really am just a big kid. 3.85 2005
author: J.M. Barrie
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at: 2005/11/01
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves: favorites
review:
I really am just a big kid.
]]> 59651553 It will take the frosty terrain of the Arctic to show these rival scientists that their chemistry burns hot.

Mara, Sadie, and Hannah are friends first, scientists always. Though their fields of study might take them to different corners of the world, they can all agree on this universal truth: when it comes to love and science, opposites attract and rivals make you burn�

Hannah’s got a bad feeling about this. Not only has the NASA aerospace engineer found herself injured and stranded at a remote Arctic research station—but the one person willing to undertake the hazardous rescue mission is her longtime rival.

Ian has been many things to Hannah: the villain who tried to veto her expedition and ruin her career, the man who stars in her most deliciously lurid dreams…but he’s never played the hero. So why is he risking everything to be here? And why does his presence seem just as dangerous to her heart as the coming snowstorm?

To read Mara and Sadie’s stories look for the novellas Under One Roof and Stuck with You available now from Berkley!]]> 112 Ali Hazelwood 0593437837 Samantha 1 3.57 2022
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 6115138 321 Linda Castillo 0312374976 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 4.02 2009
author: Linda Castillo
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2009
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/05
date added: 2025/02/05
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 50702014 Stephen's god died on the longest day of the year�

Three years later, Stephen is a broken paladin, living only for the chance to be useful before he dies. But all that changes when he encounters a fugitive named Grace in an alley and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now the pair must navigate a web of treachery, beset on all sides by spies and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind�

From the Hugo and Nebula Award winning author of Swordheart and The Twisted Ones comes a saga of murder, magic, and love on the far side of despair.]]> 366 T. Kingfisher Samantha 2 4.09 2020
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2020
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/18
date added: 2025/01/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 16054217 The #1 New York Times bestselling series finale and sequel to A Discovery of Witches and Shadow of Night

Bringing the magic and suspense of the All Souls Trilogy to a deeply satisfying conclusion, this highly anticipated finale went straight to #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. In The Book of Life, Diana and Matthew time-travel back from Elizabethan London to make a dramatic return to the present—facing new crises and old enemies. At Matthew’s ancestral home, Sept-Tours, they reunite with the beloved cast of characters from A Discovery of Witches—with one significant exception. But the real threat to their future has yet to be revealed, and when it is, the search for Ashmole 782 and its missing pages takes on even more urgency.]]> 561 Deborah Harkness 0670025593 Samantha 3 advanced-copy 4.15 2014
author: Deborah Harkness
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2014/06/26
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: advanced-copy
review:

]]> 50519007 A curmudgeonly but charming old woman, her estranged grandson, and a colony of penguins proves it's never too late to be the person you want to be in this rich, heartwarming story from the acclaimed author of Ellie and the Harpmaker.

Eighty-five-year-old Veronica McCreedy is estranged from her family and wants to find a worthwhile cause to leave her fortune to. When she sees a documentary about penguins being studied in Antarctica, she tells the scientists she’s coming to visit—and won’t take no for an answer. Shortly after arriving, she convinces the reluctant team to rescue an orphaned baby penguin. He becomes part of life at the base, and Veronica's closed heart starts to open.

Her grandson, Patrick, comes to Antarctica to make one last attempt to get to know his grandmother. Together, Veronica, Patrick, and even the scientists learn what family, love, and connection are all about.]]> 355 Hazel Prior 1984803816 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 3.99 2020
author: Hazel Prior
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/16
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 57240632 The last king of America, George III, has been ridiculed as a complete disaster who frittered away the colonies and went mad in his old age. The truth is much more nuanced and fascinating--and will completely change the way readers and historians view his reign and legacy.

Most Americans dismiss George III as a buffoon--a heartless and terrible monarch with few, if any, redeeming qualities. The best-known modern interpretation of him is Jonathan Groff's preening, spitting, and pompous take in Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda's Broadway masterpiece. But this deeply unflattering characterization is rooted in the prejudiced and brilliantly persuasive opinions of eighteenth-century revolutionaries like Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson, who needed to make the king appear evil in order to achieve their own political aims. After combing through hundreds of thousands of pages of never-before-published correspondence, award-winning historian Andrew Roberts has uncovered the truth: George III was in fact a wise, humane, and even enlightened monarch who was beset by talented enemies, debilitating mental illness, incompetent ministers, and disastrous luck.

In The Last King of America, Roberts paints a deft and nuanced portrait of the much-maligned monarch and outlines his accomplishments, which have been almost universally forgotten. Two hundred and forty-five years after the end of George III's American rule, it is time for Americans to look back on their last king with greater understanding: to see him as he was and to come to terms with the last time they were ruled by a monarch.]]> 784 Andrew Roberts 198487926X Samantha 4 4.21 2021
author: Andrew Roberts
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/07
date added: 2025/01/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Samantha 4 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
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]]> 210300489 Brandon Sanderson Samantha 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35717791
When their pet corgi goes missing on a trip to London, the Walker family search everywhere. But Henry has ended up in the one place they never think to look�

Henry has been mistaken for a royal corgi by the Queen’s Guard, and found himself in a very different sort of family home. In no time, Henry is getting the royal treatment in Buckingham Palace, from velvet thrones to a personal chef. If this is a dog’s life, he doesn’t mind it one bit.

Getting under the feet of royals and staff alike, this naughty dog will change the residents of Buckingham Palace’s lives in ways they could never have imagined …]]> 268 Georgie Crawley 0008263140 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 4.12 2017
author: Georgie Crawley
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/10
date added: 2024/12/12
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 205804793
What’s a witch to do when the coven of moral and ethical standards demands she untwist a curse—but an essential spell component no longer exists? There’s only one choice: go back in time.

Caught between self-exile and an Alcatraz cell, Rachel must find an Atlantean mirror to reverse the curse and prove to Cincinnati’s brand-new witch coven that, no, she does not practice illicit magic. Unfortunately, the only mirror of its kind in existence belonged to the insane demon Newt, forcing Rachel to go to the past to bargain with her for it.

But the time-travel spell goes awry, dragging Elyse, the young leader of the coven, into the past with Rachel. They expect to land five years in the past but instead arrive two days before Rachel’s long-lost love, Kisten, dies. Heartbroken and torn, Rachel knows she can't change the past.

Even with no allies, Rachel still has one thing going for her: Cincinnati is her city, now and forever. If she can find a way to work with Newt and prevent Elyse from becoming the demon’s next familiar, they might all get home.]]> 451 Kim Harrison 0593639987 Samantha 5 4.30 2024
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves:
review:

]]> 18007535
Now, in present day, nineteen-year-old Ruthie lives in Sara's farmhouse with her mother, Alice, and her younger sister. Alice has always insisted that they live off the grid, a decision that has weighty consequences when Ruthie wakes up one morning to find that Alice has vanished. In her search for clues, she is startled to find a copy of Sara Harrison Shea's diary hidden beneath the floorboards of her mother's bedroom. As Ruthie gets sucked into the historical mystery, she discovers that she's not the only person looking for someone that they've lost. But she may be the only one who can stop history from repeating itself.]]> 317 Jennifer McMahon 0385538499 Samantha 0 to-read, lsco-book-club 3.80 2014
author: Jennifer McMahon
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/09
shelves: to-read, lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 58735031 The first book in the Shady Hollow series, in which we are introduced to the village of Shady Hollow, a place where woodland creatures live together in harmony--until a curmudgeonly toad turns up dead and the local reporter has to solve the case.

Reporter Vera Vixen is a relative newcomer to Shady Hollow. The fox has a nose for news, so when she catches wind that the death might be a murder, she resolves to get to the bottom of the case, no matter where it leads. As she stirs up still waters, the fox exposes more than one mystery, and discovers that additional lives are in jeopardy.

Vera finds more to this town than she ever suspected. It seems someone in the Hollow will do anything to keep her from solving the murder, and soon it will take all of Vera's cunning and quickness to crack the case.

A VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD ORIGINAL.
]]> 222 Juneau Black 0593315715 Samantha 2 lsco-book-club 3.77 2015
author: Juneau Black
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at: 2024/10/07
date added: 2024/10/07
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 22471203 Are you pregnant and peevish? Between morning sickness, all those strangers who want to touch your belly and give you really good advice, deeper exhaustion than you've ever known, plus what passes for fashion in maternity underwear, no wonder your delicate condition is driving you crazy.
Also includes some really good advice, factoids, and cool resources.]]> 180 Kate Konopicky 1402249942 Samantha 4 3.73 2005
author: Kate Konopicky
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2017/03/28
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 58502645 A lost young woman returns to small-town New Hampshire under the strangest of circumstances in this one-of-a-kind novel of life, death, and whatever comes after from the acclaimed author of Rabbit Cake.

It was a source of entertainment at Maple Street Cemetery. Both funny and sad, the kind of story we like best.

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she's lost her way. A med school dropout, she's come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire to care for her father, dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.

Emma arrives home knowing she must face her dad's illness, her mom's judgement, and her younger brother's recent stint in rehab, but she's unprepared to find that her former best friend from high school is missing, with no one bothering to look for her. The police say they don't spend much time looking for drug addicts. Emma's dad is the only one convinced the young woman might still be alive, and Emma is hopeful he could be right. Someone should look for her, at least. Emma isn't really trying to be a hero—but somehow she and her father set in motion just the kind of miracle the town needs.

Set against the backdrop of a small town in the throes of a very real opioid crisis, Unlikely Animals is a tragicomic novel about familial expectations, imperfect friendships, and the possibility of resurrecting that which had been thought irrevocably lost.]]> 348 Annie Hartnett 0593160223 Samantha 4 4.05 2022
author: Annie Hartnett
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/18
date added: 2024/09/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 28227567
Out of the ashes of a burning city, Prince Varion, ruler of the Northern Kingdom, resurfaces, intent on ending the seven-hundred-year war once and for all. But he can’t succeed without Katelyn’s help. She has the powerful ability to find anything she seeks—even the enemy himself, Prince Raserion.

While the two armies gather strength for one final showdown, Katelyn finds herself on the frontlines of war, pinned between right and wrong, friend and foe, life and death. With Haven’s fate hanging in the balance, Katelyn’s struggle will not only decide her future, but the future of the broken Kingdom of Lastland.]]> 325 A.R. Ivanovich 1939106591 Samantha 3 4.31 2016
author: A.R. Ivanovich
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2016/01/19
date added: 2024/09/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 60392079 A razor-sharp suspense about two local librarians whose lives become dangerously intertwined.

No one knows Margo’s real name. Her colleagues and patrons at a small town public library only know her middle-aged normalcy, congeniality, and charm. They have no reason to suspect that she is, in fact, a former nurse with a trail of countless premature deaths in her wake. She has turned a new page, so to speak, and the library is her sanctuary, a place to quell old urges.

That is, at least, until Patricia, a recent graduate and failed novelist, joins the library staff. Patricia quickly notices Margo’s subtly sinister edge, and watches her carefully. When a patron’s death in the library bathroom gives her a hint of Margo’s mysterious past, Patricia can’t resist digging deeper—even as this new fixation becomes all-consuming.

Taut and compelling, How Can I Help You explores the dark side of human nature and the dangerous pull of artistic obsession.]]> 256 Laura Sims 059354370X Samantha 0 to-read 3.40 2023
author: Laura Sims
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.40
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17165932 320 Joelle Charbonneau 0547959206 Samantha 4 advanced-copy
]]> 3.94 2014
author: Joelle Charbonneau
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2013/08/21
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: advanced-copy
review:
My thanks to Edleweiss for letting me have a peek at this novel in advance.


]]> 9462815
Sure, her ex-boyfriend was Lucien Antonescu, son of Dracula, the prince of darkness. But that was before he (and their relationship) went up in flames. Now Meena's sworn off vampires for good ... at least until she can prove her theory that just because they've lost their souls doesn't mean demons have lost the ability to love.

Meena knows convincing her co-workers � including her partner, über-demon-hunter Alaric Wulf � that vampires can be redeemed won't be easy ... especially when a deadly new threat seems to be endangering not just the lives of the Palatine, but Meena's friends and family as well.

But Meena isn't the Palatine's only hope. Father Henrique � aka Padre Caliente � New York City's youngest, most charming priest, has also been assigned to the case.

So why doesn't Meena � or Alaric � trust him?

As she begins unraveling the truth, Meena finds her loyalties tested, her true feelings laid bare ... and temptations she never even imagined existed, but finds impossible to resist.

This time, Meena may finally have bitten off more than she can chew.]]> 275 Meg Cabot 0061735108 Samantha 2 3.35 2011
author: Meg Cabot
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2011
rating: 2
read at: 2011/07/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:
Given how detailed the first book was, this one just seemed rushed and shallow.
]]> 23920 Collected here is the ultimate Kindle edition of the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe—all of his tales and poems in one convenient, easy-to-use volume at a fantastic price.

Included in Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Tales and Poems are:

The complete text of all of the tales and poems written by Edgar Allan Poe (over 125 works), each elegantly formatted for ease of use and enjoyment on your Kindle reader.
Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the poems and tales in this collection.
An individual, active Table of Contents for each section accessible from the Kindle “go to� feature.
Perfect formatting in rich text compatible with Kindle’s Text-to-Speech features.
A low, can't-say-no price!
The Complete Tales and Poems
All of Poe's tales, poems, and essays are included—over 125 works. Some of the most notable are:

Tales:
"The Fall of the House of Usher"
"The Masque of the Red Death"
"The Pit and the Pendulum"
"The Premature Burial"
"The Purloined Letter"
"The Tell-Tale Heart"
Poems:
"Annabel Lee"
"The Bells"
"The City in the Sea"
"A Dream Within a Dream"
"To Helen"
"Lenore"
"The Raven"
"Ulalume"
Other Works:
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket—Poe's only complete novel
Collected Essays
Additional Fan Resources
Also included are special features for any Poe enthusiast, including:

A list of films and television series, both directly and indirectly inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe.
A Reading Guide to fictional works that feature the historical Edgar Allan Poe as a character.
Links to free, full-length audio recordings of the major poems and short stories in this collection.]]> 864 Edgar Allan Poe 0785814531 Samantha 3 4.42 1849
author: Edgar Allan Poe
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.42
book published: 1849
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 45032 488 Jane Austen Samantha 4 3.86 1814
author: Jane Austen
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1814
rating: 4
read at: 2001/07/01
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 123423832 Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back.

Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell—beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running—is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything�

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider—she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.]]> 362 Freida McFadden 172829620X Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 3.68 2023
author: Freida McFadden
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/08/03
date added: 2024/08/05
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 11218129
From the Hardcover edition.]]> 386 Mary Balogh 0345529987 Samantha 3 4.20
author: Mary Balogh
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2013/05/23
date added: 2024/07/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 203165138 For better or worse, a solar eclipse brought humans and paranormal beings together, sparking one woman’s battle to master magic or lose our world, in this riveting serialized adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Hollows series.

As time has passed, Dr. Renee Caisson has begun to see the demonic, alien August as more than a research subject or an unlikely colleague—they’ve become friends. And together she and August have helped the two societies of Nextdoor and Earth through the confusion of first contact, the danger of misunderstandings, and the anger of mistreatment.

But when a popular blogger and conspiracy theorist twists August’s words, an uproar ensues, turning a powerful section of human society against the Neighbors—and resulting in Renee’s house arrest. Her could-be boyfriend, Major Jackson, says it’s to protect her, though that’s not how Renee sees it.

Torn between duty and friendship, August jumps Renee to freedom, fully aware that the journey might reveal more to her than she should know. The wily Neighbor has pieced together that Renee has been unconsciously using their magic, a fact that, if revealed, will cause more, not less, conflict between the humans and Neighbors.

For if the people of Earth can master magic and exile August’s people again, the Neighbors will not survive. . . .]]> 192 Kim Harrison 0593816250 Samantha 4 Holy smokes, this was good! 4.15 2024
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/11
date added: 2024/06/11
shelves:
review:
Holy smokes, this was good!
]]> 29453805
Now, restless after having given up his smuggling habit, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks as she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games--an extravagant international competition of magic meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries--a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port.

And while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night will reappear in the morning. But the balance of magic is ever perilous, and for one city to flourish, another London must fall.]]> 16 Victoria E. Schwab Samantha 4 4.10 2016
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2016/06/15
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 66087062 A woman risks everything to end her family’s centuries-old curse, solve her mother’s disappearance, and find love in this mesmerizing novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Spells for Forgetting.

In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.]]> 320 Adrienne Young 0593598679 Samantha 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Adrienne Young
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60652997 Wealth. Power. Murder. Magic. Alex Stern is back and the Ivy League is going straight to hell.

Find a gateway to the underworld. Steal a soul out of hell. A simple plan, except people who make this particular journey rarely come back. But Galaxy “Alex� Stern is determined to break Darlington out of purgatory―even if it costs her a future at Lethe and at Yale.

Forbidden from attempting a rescue, Alex and Dawes can’t call on the Ninth House for help, so they assemble a team of dubious allies to save the gentleman of Lethe. Together, they will have to navigate a maze of arcane texts and bizarre artifacts to uncover the societies� most closely guarded secrets, and break every rule doing it. But when faculty members begin to die off, Alex knows these aren’t just accidents. Something deadly is at work in New Haven, and if she is going to survive, she’ll have to reckon with the monsters of her past and a darkness built into the university’s very walls.

Thick with history and packed with Bardugo’s signature twists, Hell Bent brings to life an intricate world full of magic, violence, and all too real monsters.]]> 481 Leigh Bardugo 1250313104 Samantha 0 to-read 4.09 2023
author: Leigh Bardugo
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 181344829 A dangerous alliance between a Vampyre bride and an Alpha Werewolf becomes a love deep enough to sink your teeth into in this new paranormal romance.

Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast—again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold a historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and she sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange—again...

Weres are ruthless and unpredictable, and their Alpha, Lowe Moreland, is no exception. He rules his pack with absolute authority, but not without justice. And, unlike the Vampyre Council, not without feeling. It’s clear from the way he tracks Misery’s every movement that he doesn’t trust her. If only he knew how right he was�.

Because Misery has her own reasons to agree to this marriage of convenience, reasons that have nothing to do with politics or alliances, and everything to do with the only thing she's ever cared about. And she is willing to do whatever it takes to get back what’s hers, even if it means a life alone in Were territory…alone with the wolf.]]> 410 Ali Hazelwood Samantha 3 3.98 2024
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/06/02
date added: 2024/06/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 61885029
Charlie's life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

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

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

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

In a dog-eat-dog world...be a cat.]]> 264 John Scalzi 0765389223 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 4.09 2023
author: John Scalzi
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/31
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 85302 here.

World-renowned Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to a Swiss research facility to analyze a cryptic symbol seared into the chest of a murdered physicist. What he discovers is unimaginable: a deadly vendetta against the Catholic Church by a centuries-old underground organization--- the Illuminati. Desperate to save the Vatican from a powerful time bomb, Langdon joins forces in Rome with the beautiful and mysterious scientist Vittoria Vetra. Together they embark on a frantic hunt through sealed crypts, dangerous catacombs, deserted cathedrals, and the most secretive vault on the earth... the long-forgotten Illuminati lair.]]> 569 Dan Brown 0671027360 Samantha 4 3.75 2000
author: Dan Brown
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2006/01/01
date added: 2024/05/31
shelves:
review:
It's just fiction folks. And a bloody good one at that.
]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman Samantha 0 to-read 4.49 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.49
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199605514
Someone is trying to kill Lady Catherine de Bourgh. Esteemed aunt of Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, generous patroness of Mr. William Collins, a woman of rank who rules over the estate of Rosings Park with an unimpeachable sense of propriety—who would dare ? Lady Catherine summons her grand-nephew, Mr. Jonathan Darcy, and his investigative companion, Miss Juliet Tilney, to find out.

After a year apart, Jonathan and Juliet are thrilled to be reunited, even if the circumstances—finding whoever has thus far sabotaged Lady Catherine's carriage, shot at her, and nearly pushed her down the stairs—are less than ideal. Also less than their respective fathers, Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy and Mr. Henry Tilney, have accompanied the young detectives to Rosings, and the two men do not interact with the same felicity enjoyed by their children.

With attempts against Lady Catherine escalating, and no one among the list of prime suspects seemingly capable of committing all of the attacks, the pressure on Jonathan and Juliet mounts—even as more gentle feelings between the two of them begin to bloom. The race is now on to provoke two one from the attempted murderer before it is too late—and one, perhaps, of love.]]> 335 Claudia Gray 0593686586 Samantha 4 4.00 2024
author: Claudia Gray
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/19
date added: 2024/05/19
shelves:
review:

]]> 199798488
What happens next is not the fairy tale you may be expecting.]]> 278 Peter S. Beagle 1668025272 Samantha 0 to-read 3.62 2024
author: Peter S. Beagle
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199690843 Listening Length: 5 hours and 30 minutes

After a solar eclipse opens a way between our world and a paranormal realm, and the dark side of first contact emerges, one woman’s loyalties will be tested in this gripping serialized adventure from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Hollows series.

Dr. Renee Caisson never expected that her scientific expertise would lead to a role playing interpreter between humans and the demonic-looking Neighbors. When the door between their worlds opened, she was drafted by the government to study the otherworldly beings and was able to prove her theory: the Neighbors had been to Earth before—and now they simply wanted to save their dying planet.

At least, that’s the story, and everyone—both human and Neighbor—is sticking to it. The Neighbor in charge of the new portal’s operation, Noel, isn’t that sure anymore. Having succeeded in finding a new planet to inhabit, the leaders of her world have made the dark truth of their existence clear to her: the Neighbors forcibly tried to make a foothold on Earth in the past—and they can’t afford to fail again.

But the Neighbors� ability to magically teleport from place to place has convinced Major Jackson that the only way to keep control of the situation is to embrace it and tell the world of the Neighbors� existence.

Unfortunately, not everyone agrees.]]> 6 Kim Harrison 0593870239 Samantha 4 3.92 2024
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/15
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 57427858 Luck is its own kind of magic, in this first book in an electrifying new contemporary fantasy series from the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Hollows novels.

Petra Grady has known since adolescence that she has no talent for magic—and that’s never going to change. But as a sweeper first-class, she’s parlayed her rare ability to handle dross—the damaging, magical waste generated by her more talented kin’s spellwork—into a decent life working at the mages� university.

Except Grady’s relatively predictable life is about to be upended. When the oblivious, sexy, and oh-so-out-of-reach Benedict Strom needs someone with her abilities for a research project studying dross and how to render it harmless, she’s stuck working on his team—whether she wants to or not.

Only Benedict doesn’t understand the characteristics of dross like Grady does. After an unthinkable accident, she and Benedict are forced to go on the run to seek out the one person who might be able to help: an outcast exiled ten years ago for the crime of using dross to cast spells. Now Grady must decide whether to stick with the magical status quo or embrace her own hidden talents . . . and risk shattering their entire world.]]> 452 Kim Harrison 0593437470 Samantha 4 3.71 2024
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/05/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 62334530 Lisa Jewell returns with a scintillating new psychological thriller about a woman who finds herself the subject of her own popular true crime podcast.

Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summers crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.

A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.

Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realise that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.

But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.

Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?]]> 390 Lisa Jewell 1982179007 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club
Probably a good read for people who like this genre, but not meant for me.]]> 4.08 2023
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/09
date added: 2024/05/09
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:
I read this for my book club and stopped about half-way. Thriller/suspense is not my genre as I have enough anxiety in real life that I don't need to supplement it with my leisure reading. However, my preferences are not the author's problem, so I will not rate it lower than three stars even though I didn't care for it. It was well-written. I liked the interspersal of the Netflix documentary interview. It was interesting trying to piece together the real story between all of the unreliable narrators.

Probably a good read for people who like this genre, but not meant for me.
]]> 111673828 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, and set in the world of A Darker Shade of Magic, V. E. Schwab opens a new door into perilous adventure and tangled schemes with The Fragile Threads of Power.

Once, there were four worlds, nestled like pages in a book, each pulsing with fantastical power, and connected by a single city: London. Until the magic grew too fast, and forced the worlds to seal the doors between them in a desperate gamble to protect their own. The few magicians who could still open the doors grew more rare as time passed and now, only three Antari are known in recent memory―Kell Maresh of Red London, Delilah Bard of Grey London, and Holland Vosijk, of White London.

But barely a glimpse of them have been seen in the last seven years―and a new Antari named Kosika has appeared in White London, taking the throne in Holland's absence. The young queen is willing to feed her city with blood, including her own―but her growing religious fervor has the potential to drown them instead.

And back in Red London, King Rhy Maresh is threatened by a rising rebellion, one determined to correct the balance of power by razing the throne entirely.

Amidst this tapestry of old friends and new enemies, a girl with an unusual magical ability comes into possession of a device that could change the fate of all four worlds.

Her name is Tes, and she's the only one who can bring them together―or unravel it all.]]> 648 Victoria E. Schwab 0765387492 Samantha 4 4.26 2023
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/07
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 36141137 Victoria E. Schwab Samantha 0 to-read 4.17
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.17
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 42874513
Georgiana Bridgerton isn't against the idea of marriage. She'd just thought she'd have some say in the matter. But with her reputation hanging by a thread after she's abducted for her dowry, Georgie is given two options: live out her life as a spinster or marry the rogue who has ruined her life.

Enter Option #3

As the fourth son of an earl, Nicholas Rokesby is prepared to chart his own course. He has a life in Edinburgh, where he's close to completing his medical studies, and he has no time -- or interest -- to find a wife. But when he discovers that Georgie Bridgerton -- his literal girl-next-door -- is facing ruin, he knows what he must do.

A Marriage of Convenience

It might not have been the most romantic of proposals, but Nicholas never thought she'd say no. Georgie doesn't want to be anyone's sacrifice, and besides, they could never think of each other as anything more than childhood friends... or could they?

But as they embark upon their unorthodox courtship they discover a new twist to the age-old rhyme. First comes scandal, then comes marriage. But after that comes love...]]> 288 Julia Quinn 0062975064 Samantha 3 3.73 2020
author: Julia Quinn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/17
date added: 2024/04/17
shelves:
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]]> 36137912
Fiercely independent and adventurous, Poppy Bridgerton will only wed a suitor whose keen intellect and interests match her own. Sadly, none of the fools from her London season qualify. While visiting a friend on the Dorset coast, Poppy is pleasantly surprised to discover a smugglers� hideaway tucked inside a cave. But her delight turns to dismay when two pirates kidnap her and take her aboard a ship, leaving her bound and gagged on the captain’s bed�

He found her at the wrong time�

Known to society as a rascal and reckless privateer, Captain Andrew James Rokesby actually transports essential goods and documents for the British government. Setting sail on a time-sensitive voyage to Portugal, he’s stunned to find a woman waiting for him in his cabin. Surely, his imagination is getting the better of him. But no, she is very real—and his duty to the Crown means he’s stuck with her.

Can two wrongs make the most perfect right?

When Andrew learns that she is a Bridgerton, he knows he will likely have to wed her to avert a scandal—though Poppy has no idea that he is the son of an earl and neighbor to her aristocratic cousins in Kent. On the high seas, their war of words soon gives way to an intoxicating passion. But when Andrew’s secret is revealed, will his declaration of love be enough to capture her heart�?]]> 391 Julia Quinn 0062388207 Samantha 3 3.99 2018
author: Julia Quinn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2018
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/16
date added: 2024/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 203085891 In the wake of the solar eclipse, a portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same, in this thrilling serialized adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hollows.

Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an attractive man in uniform drafting her into a secret government project—especially when Major Jackson makes it clear that he isn’t bothered by her questionable past. But when her labs come back with decidedly odd results, the Major is forced to come clean over who the government is actually studying. Renee is shocked to learn her subjects are demonic-looking beings who call themselves “Neighbors�—refugees from a dying world, who arrived during the nation-wide solar eclipse.

The Neighbors� technology is unlike anything Renee’s ever encountered. At first, she dismisses an injury that inexplicably heals as “just one of those things�. And surely August, the most gregarious Neighbor, begins to speak English overnight because of the team linguist’s skills?

Not until August begins evolving in real time to withstand Earth’s brighter, dryer atmosphere does she admit that the Neighbors� “tech� feels less like science and more like magic—the same magic that brought them here in the first place, and the same they’re trying to rekindle with a mysterious labyrinth in order to return home and save their world.

At least, that’s what August claims they came for…]]> 168 Kim Harrison 0593816234 Samantha 4 4.19 2024
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
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]]> 32620332
Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the �80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story nears its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.]]> 389 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1501139231 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 4.39 2017
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.39
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/02
date added: 2024/04/02
shelves: lsco-book-club
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]]> 31931722 An alternate cover edition for ISBN 9780062388186 can be found here.

While you were sleeping...

With her brother Thomas injured on the battlefront in the Colonies, orphaned Cecilia Harcourt has two unbearable choices: move in with a maiden aunt or marry a scheming cousin. Instead, she chooses option three and travels across the Atlantic, determined to nurse her brother back to health. But after a week of searching, she finds not her brother but his best friend, the handsome officer Edward Rokesby. He's unconscious and in desperate need of her care, and Cecilia vows that she will save this soldier's life, even if staying by his side means telling one little lie...

I told everyone I was your wife

When Edward comes to, he's more than a little confused. The blow to his head knocked out six months of his memory, but surely he would recall getting married. He knows who Cecilia Harcourt is—even if he does not recall her face—and with everyone calling her his wife, he decides it must be true, even though he'd always assumed he'd marry his neighbor back in England.

If only it were true...

Cecilia risks her entire future by giving herself—completely—to the man she loves. But when the truth comes out, Edward may have a few surprises of his own for the new Mrs. Rokesby.]]> 393 Julia Quinn Samantha 3 3.84 2017
author: Julia Quinn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/29
date added: 2024/03/29
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]]> 25657772 Sometimes you find love in the most unexpected of places...

This is not one of those times.

Everyone expects Billie Bridgerton to marry one of the Rokesby brothers. The two families have been neighbors for centuries, and as a child the tomboyish Billie ran wild with Edward and Andrew. Either one would make a perfect husband... someday.

Sometimes you fall in love with exactly the person you think you should...

Or not.

There is only one Rokesby Billie absolutely cannot tolerate, and that is George. He may be the eldest and heir to the earldom, but he's arrogant, annoying, and she's absolutely certain he detests her. Which is perfectly convenient, as she can't stand the sight of him, either.

But sometimes fate has a wicked sense of humor...

Because when Billie and George are quite literally thrown together, a whole new sort of sparks begins to fly. And when these lifelong adversaries finally kiss, they just might discover that the one person they can't abide is the one person they can't live without...]]> 375 Julia Quinn 0062388142 Samantha 3 3.90 2016
author: Julia Quinn
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/23
date added: 2024/03/24
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]]> 61250159 An imprisoned prince. A vengeful queen. And a battle that will determine the future of Elfhame.
Ìý
Prince Oak is paying for his betrayal. Imprisoned in the icy north and bound to the will of a monstrous new queen, he must rely on charm and calculation to survive. With High King Cardan and High Queen Jude willing to use any means necessary to retrieve their stolen heir, Oak will have to decide whether to attempt regaining the trust of the girl he’s always loved or to remain loyal to Elfhame and hand over the means to end her reign—even if it means ending Wren, too.
�
Ìý
With a new war looming on the horizon and treachery lurking in every corner, neither Oak’s guile nor his wit will be enough to keep everyone he loves alive. It’s just a question of whom he will doom.

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black comes the stunning blood-soaked conclusion to the Stolen Heir duology.
Ìý]]> 359 Holly Black 0316592730 Samantha 3 3.89 2024
author: Holly Black
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/18
date added: 2024/03/19
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]]> 127280062 Torn apart by war. Reunited by love?

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

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

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

As their connection deepens, the two of them will risk their very hearts and futures to change the tides of the war.]]> 420 Rebecca Ross 1250857457 Samantha 3 3.99 2023
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/16
date added: 2024/03/16
shelves:
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]]> 203578847 The long-awaited explosive climax to the first arc of the #1 New York Times bestselling Stormlight Archive―the iconic epic fantasy masterpiece that has sold more than 10 million copies, from acclaimed bestselling author Brandon Sanderson.

Dalinar Kholin challenged the evil god Odium to a contest of champions with the future of Roshar on the line. The Knights Radiant have only ten days to prepare―and the sudden ascension of the crafty and ruthless Taravangian to take Odium’s place has thrown everything into disarray.

Desperate fighting continues simultaneously worldwide―Adolin in Azimir, Sigzil and Venli at the Shattered Plains, and Jasnah at Thaylen City. The former assassin, Szeth, must cleanse his homeland of Shinovar from the dark influence of the Unmade. He is accompanied by Kaladin, who faces a new battle helping Szeth fight his own demons . . . and who must do the same for the insane Herald of the Almighty, Ishar.

At the same time, Shallan, Renarin, and Rlain work to unravel the mystery behind the Unmade Ba-Ado-Mishram and her involvement in the enslavement of the singer race and in the ancient Knights Radiants killing their spren. And Dalinar and Navani seek an edge against Odium’s champion that can be found only in the Spiritual Realm, where memory and possibility combine in chaos. The fate of the entire Cosmere hangs in the balance.]]> 1344 Brandon Sanderson 1250319188 Samantha 0 to-read 4.37 2024
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/11
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]]> 203356485 67 Brandon Sanderson Samantha 0 to-read 3.45 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2024/03/11
shelves: to-read
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]]> 90202302 “The first year is when some of us lose our lives. The second year is when the rest of us lose our humanity.� —Xaden Riorson

Everyone expected Violet Sorrengail to die during her first year at Basgiath War College—Violet included. But Threshing was only the first impossible test meant to weed out the weak-willed, the unworthy, and the unlucky.

Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders� capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.

Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules.

But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year.

Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.]]> 623 Rebecca Yarros 1649374178 Samantha 3 4.34 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/03/11
date added: 2024/03/11
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]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 665 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Samantha 3 4.56 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/02/29
date added: 2024/03/11
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]]> 36337550
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

We will only let you escape once you tell us the name of the killer.

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

Evelyn Hardcastle will die. Every day until Aiden Bishop can identify her killer and break the cycle. But every time the day begins again, Aiden wakes up in the body of a different guest. And some of his hosts are more helpful than others . . .

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.]]> 432 Stuart Turton Samantha 4 3.78 2018
author: Stuart Turton
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/26
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves:
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]]> 60784546 After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again�

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands � that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper � an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.]]> 357 Rebecca Ross 1250857430 Samantha 4 4.14 2023
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/18
date added: 2024/01/18
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]]> 56651967
Isolde de Lara considers her wedding day her death day. To end a years-long war, she is to marry vampire king, Adrian Aleksandr Vasiliev, and kill him.

But her assassination attempt is thwarted and Adrian threatens that if Isolde tries to kill him again, he will raise her as the undead. Faced with the possibility of becoming the thing she hates most, Isolde seeks other ways to defy him and survive the brutal vampire court.

Except it isn’t the court she fears most � it’s Adrian. Despite their undeniable chemistry, she wonders why the king � fierce, savage, merciless � chose her as consort.

The answer will shatter her world.]]> 391 Scarlett St. Clair Samantha 2 3.66 2021
author: Scarlett St. Clair
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves:
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]]> 35133922
Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara's older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she'd traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one's life through new eyes and the will to change it.]]> 352 Tara Westover 0399590501 Samantha 0 lsco-book-club, to-read 4.46 2018
author: Tara Westover
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: lsco-book-club, to-read
review:

]]> 60531406 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson expands his Cosmere universe shared by The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn with a new standalone novel for everyone who loved The Princess Bride.

The only life Tress has known on her island home in an emerald-green ocean has been a simple one, with the simple pleasures of collecting cups brought by sailors from faraway lands and listening to stories told by her friend Charlie. But when his father takes him on a voyage to find a bride and disaster strikes, Tress must stow away on a ship and seek the Sorceress of the deadly Midnight Sea. Amid the spore oceans where pirates abound, can Tress leave her simple life behind and make her own place sailing a sea where a single drop of water can mean instant death?]]> 443 Brandon Sanderson Samantha 5 lsco-book-club 4.35 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/09
date added: 2024/01/10
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:
Glad to know the speed at which I threw $200 at this man for books I knew nothing about was worth it. This is the first of those and I couldn’t put it down. Can’t wait for the others. The illustrations really are fabulous, too.
]]> 60531420 From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson―creator of The Stormlight Archive, the Mistborn Saga, and countless bestselling works of science fiction and fantasy―comes this standalone novel showing a rare glimpse of a future Cosmere universe.

Running. Putting distance between himself and the relentless Night Brigade has been Nomad’s strategy for years. Staying one or two steps ahead of his pursuers by skipping through the Cosmere from one world to the next.

But now, his powers too depleted to escape, Nomad finds himself trapped on Canticle, a planet that will kill anyone who doesn’t keep moving. Fleeing the fires of a sunrise that melts the very stones, he is instantly caught up in the struggle between a heartless tyrant and the brave rebels who defy him.

Failure means a quick death, incinerated by the sun� or a lifetime as a mindless slave. Tormented by the consequences of his past, Nomad must fight not only for his survival―but also for his very soul.]]> 447 Brandon Sanderson 1938570391 Samantha 4 4.28 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/22
date added: 2023/12/22
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]]> 61113288 'Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.'

'Twas the night before Hogswatch and all through the house . . . something was missing.

Superstition makes things work in the Discworld and undermining it can have consequences. When Death realizes that belief in the Hogfather is dangerously low, he decides to take on the job. But it's just not right to find a seven-foot skeleton creeping down your chimney and trying to say 'ho, ho, ho'.

It's the last night of the year, the time is turning, and if Susan, gothic governess and Death's granddaughter, doesn't sort everything out by morning, there won't be a morning. Ever again . . .

'Has the energy of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the inventiveness of Alice in Wonderland' Sunday Times

Hogfather is the fourth book in the Death series, but you can read the Discworld novels in any order. ]]> 430 Terry Pratchett 1804990353 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 4.30 1996
author: Terry Pratchett
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.30
book published: 1996
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/12
date added: 2023/12/12
shelves: lsco-book-club
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]]> 203357152
Can Rig find the thief, resolve the issues, and get back in time to add a little joy to FM's birthday?]]> 18 Brandon Sanderson Samantha 0 to-read 3.73 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
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]]> 43606308 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson comes the final book in an epic series about a girl who will travel beyond the stars to save the world she loves from destruction.

Spensa has made it out of the Nowhere, but what she saw in the space between the stars has changed her forever. She came face to face with the Delvers, and finally got answers to the questions she’s had about her own strange Cytonic gifts.

The Superiority didn’t stop in its fight for galactic dominance while she was gone, though. Spensa’s team, Skyward Flight, was able to hold Winzik off, and even collect allies to help with the cause, but it’s only a matter of time until humanity–and the rest of the galaxy–falls.

Defeating them will require all the knowledge Spensa gathered while in the Nowhere. But being Cytonic is more complicated than she ever could have imagined. Now, Spensa must ask herself: How far is she willing to go for victory, if it means losing herself–and her friends–in the process.

The final book in the Skyward series will free humanity, or see it fall forever.]]> 420 Brandon Sanderson 0593309715 Samantha 4 4.28 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/09
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves:
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]]> 61718053
They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

Which is how they find themselves sharing the largest bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade. Their annual respite from the world, where for one vibrant, blue week they leave behind their daily lives; have copious amounts of cheese, wine, and seafood; and soak up the salty coastal air with the people who understand them most.

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week� in front of those who know you best?

A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.]]> 400 Emily Henry 0593441273 Samantha 3 3.95 2023
author: Emily Henry
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/11/28
date added: 2023/11/28
shelves:
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]]> 58733693 Remarkably Bright Creatures, an exploration of friendship, reckoning, and hope, tracing a widow's unlikely connection with a giant Pacific octopus.

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

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

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

Shelby Van Pelt's debut novel is a gentle reminder that sometimes taking a hard look at the past can help uncover a future that once felt impossible.]]> 368 Shelby Van Pelt 0063204150 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 4.35 2022
author: Shelby Van Pelt
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/10/31
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 30244 368 Laurell K. Hamilton 0425209067 Samantha 4 4.14 1997
author: Laurell K. Hamilton
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.14
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2003/08/01
date added: 2023/10/21
shelves:
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]]> 60531416 #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson brings us a gripping story set in the Cosmere universe told by Hoid, where two people from incredibly different worlds must compromise and work together to save their worlds from ruin.

Yumi comes from a land of gardens, meditation, and spirits, while Painter lives in a world of darkness, technology, and nightmares. When their lives suddenly become intertwined in strange ways, can they put aside their differences and work together to uncover the mysteries of their situation and save each other’s communities from certain disaster?]]> 480 Brandon Sanderson 1938570375 Samantha 5 4.46 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/18
date added: 2023/10/18
shelves:
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]]> 60098288 From the notorious Lizzie Borden to the innumerable, haunted rooms of Sarah Winchester's mysterious mansion this offbeat, insightful, first-ever book of its kind explores the history behind America's female ghosts, the stereotypes, myths, and paranormal tales that swirl around them, what their stories reveal about us--and why they haunt us...

Sorrowful widows, vengeful jezebels, innocent maidens, wronged lovers, former slaves, even the occasional axe-murderess--America's female ghosts differ widely in background, class, and circumstance. Yet one thing unites them: their ability to instill fascination and fear, long after their deaths. Here are the full stories behind some of the best-known among them, as well as the lesser-known--though no less powerful.

Tales whispered in darkness often divulge more about the teller than the subject. America's most famous female ghosts, like New Orleans voodoo priestess Marie Laveau, and Bridget Bishop, the first person executed during the Salem witchcraft trials, mirror each era's fears and prejudices. Yet through urban legends and campfire stories, even ghosts like the nameless hard-working women lost in the infamous Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire --achieve a measure of power and agency in death, in ways unavailable to them as living women.

Riveting for skeptics and believers alike, with humor, curiosity, and expertise, A Haunted History of Invisible Women offers a unique lens on the significant role these ghostly legends play both within the spook-seeking corners of our minds and in the consciousness of a nation.

Foreword by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Linda D. Addison]]> 368 Leanna Renee Hieber 080654158X Samantha 0 lsco-book-club, to-read 3.66 2022
author: Leanna Renee Hieber
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/11
shelves: lsco-book-club, to-read
review:

]]> 63068377 The Frugal Wizard's Handbook for Surviving Medieval England, except his copy exploded during transit. The few fragments he managed to save provide clues to his situation, but can he figure them out in time to survive?]]> 366 Brandon Sanderson 1250899672 Samantha 4 3.75 2023
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/23
date added: 2023/09/23
shelves:
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]]> 62610073
Rachel Morgan, witch-born demon, suspected that protecting the paranormal citizens of Cincinnati as the demon subrosa would be trouble. But it’s rapidly becoming way more trouble than even she could have imagined.

While Rachel and her friends may have vanquished the trickster demon Hodin, his mysterious associate known only as “The Mage� is eager to finish what Hodin started, beginning with taking down Rachel’s power structure piece by piece.

When he frames Rachel for the death of a powerful coven member and the vampire leaders in DC threaten to send a new master vampire to take the city in hand, Rachel’s friends Ivy and Pike are forced into hiding, and even her lover, Trent, finds himself under fire. With her world falling apart, Rachel desperately needs help. But with all of her supporters under attack, her only hope is to make a deal with the unlikeliest of allies...]]> 464 Kim Harrison Samantha 4 4.59 2023
author: Kim Harrison
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/24
date added: 2023/08/24
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]]> 128094464
Returning home to run the family business is inevitable, but that doesn't mean I can't spend some time carving my own path of culinary success. In Paris. Because who doesn't love Paris? Because Paris has the best food scene in the world. And I want to earn this my way. Dammit.

Not to brag, but the first four months of living abroad and working at one of the chicest, up-and-coming restaurants in France � everything is going exactly as planned. I go to the market every morning, I run my own schedule, and I don't have to think about my cheating ex or Meredith-Blake-of-a-Mother. Croissant and espresso every morning? A given. Living abroad has been perfect. It's the Nancy Meyers' Dream.

That is, until a tall, all-American golden boy enters my space as the new Head Chef of Teaks. Chef James Sullivan is too attractive for his own good, and I've strictly written off workplace romances.

But, lucky for me, he only chooses to acknowledge my presence when he's critiquing my work every five minutes. Maybe I can tune out those broad shoulders and denim blue eyes....if only those eyes would stop staring at me so intently.

Au Revoir
- Claire Richards

"Yes, Chef" is an upbeat, closed-door sizzling-with-chemistry, romantic comedy that will have you believing in the magic of a 90's Rom-Com again. ]]> 312 Waitlyn Andrews Samantha 0 to-read 3.76 2023
author: Waitlyn Andrews
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 52578297
When Nora Seed finds herself in the Midnight Library, she has a chance to make things right. Up until now, her life has been full of misery and regret. She feels she has let everyone down, including herself. But things are about to change.

The books in the Midnight Library enable Nora to live as if she had done things differently. With the help of an old friend, she can now undo every one of her regrets as she tries to work out her perfect life. But things aren't always what she imagined they'd be, and soon her choices place the library and herself in extreme danger.

Before time runs out, she must answer the ultimate question: what is the best way to live?]]> 288 Matt Haig 0525559477 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 3.96 2020
author: Matt Haig
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/09
date added: 2023/08/09
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 54870256 Antimemes are real. Think of any piece of information which you wouldn't share with anybody, like passwords, taboos and dirty secrets. Or any piece of information which would be difficult to share even if you complex equations, very boring passages of text, large blocks of random numbers, and dreams... But anomalous antimemes are another matter entirely. How do you contain something you can't record or remember? How do you fight a war against an enemy with effortless, perfect camouflage, when you can never even know that you're at war? Welcome to the Antimemetics Division. No, this is not your first day.This ebook is an official release by me, qntm from the SCP Foundation wiki! PM me if you require confirmation. This ebook collects all of my Antimemetics Division SCP-055, SCP-2256 and the complete serials There Is No Antimemetics Division and Five Five Five Five Five.]]> 220 qntm Samantha 3 4.23 2020
author: qntm
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2023/06/10
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
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]]> 35887199
Journey through the Beatles years - from the band's first ever gig at the Cavern Club to the release of their final album Let It Be - in a visual exploration of their evolution from four young men to one of the greatest bands the world has ever seen.

From witty stories and surprising facts to beautiful visuals created from the data Beatles music left behind, even the most avid fan will discover something new. The book, divided into albums, enables you, in an instant, to spot patterns, anomalies and transformations. VISUALISING THE BEATLES transports readers back to the vibrant sixties and explosive days of Beatlemania through the beautiful world of infographics.

‘With Visualising the Beatles, John Pring and Rob Thomas trace the contours of the Beatles� incredible career in all of its pictorial splendor. Through an arresting collection of Beatles-oriented illustrations and infographics, they challenge casual fans and die-hard aficionados alike to “see� John, Paul, George, and Ringo in vastly new and revealing ways�
Huffington Post (Kenneth Womack, author of The Beatles Encyclopedia: Everything Fab Four)]]> 288 John Pring 0062790986 Samantha 3 4.08 2016
author: John Pring
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2023/07/22
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves:
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]]> 58476581 With the magical mafia knocking down the front door, the last thing Elara needs is to follow the seductive song calling her outside her shop�

Elara is well versed in creating beautiful things with the potential for great destruction, and the moment she meets Levi she knows that’s exactly what he is. Charmed and irritated by the seductive siren, Elara is drawn to him, but though his siren song pulls her in, his words push her away.

As a landlocked half-merman, rejected by his people, Levi is used to wanting things he can never have, and the soft-hearted and strong-willed Elara just hit the top of that list. She’s tempting, and that’s dangerous for him.

He should stay away.

But when an underwater city’s distant war comes to Elara’s doorstep, she’s suddenly in over her head, and Levi can no longer bear to keep his distance. Can she trust the mercurial siren that calls to her with more than his voice?

LEVIATHAN’S SONG is a slow-burn paranormal romance about a girl caught between multiple magical factions and the mysterious merman she longs for.

Content warning: Adult language, violence, adult sexual situations. There is NO cheating, NO cliffhangers, and HEA guaranteed.]]> 324 Elsie Winters Samantha 0 to-read 4.06 2021
author: Elsie Winters
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15705314 In a nightmarish, ruined world, slowly awakening to the light after sleeping in darkness, the infantile rediscoveries of science are secretly nourished by cloistered monks dedicated to the study and preservation of the relics and writings of the blessed Saint Isaac Leibowitz. From there, the story spans centuries of ignorance, violence, and barbarism, viewing through a sharp, satirical eye the relentless progression of a human race damned by its inherent humanness to recelebrate its grand foibles and repeat its grievous mistakes.
Seriously funny, stunning, tragic, eternally fresh, imaginative, and altogether remarkable, A Canticle for Leibowitz retains its ability to enthrall and amaze. It is now, as it always has been, a masterpiece.]]> 11 Walter M. Miller Jr. Samantha 4 3.68 1959
author: Walter M. Miller Jr.
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1959
rating: 4
read at: 2016/05/25
date added: 2023/07/22
shelves:
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]]> 37570548
What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888.

Their murderer was never identified, but the name created for him by the press has become far more famous than any of these five women.

In this devastating narrative of five lives, historian Hallie Rubenhold finally gives these women back their stories.]]> 352 Hallie Rubenhold Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 4.06 2019
author: Hallie Rubenhold
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2023/07/12
date added: 2023/07/12
shelves: lsco-book-club
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]]> 30315673 NEW YORK TIMES, WALL STREET JOURNAL, & USA TODAY bestselling series
Semi Finalist: Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ Choice Awards, Best Romance 2017

All is fair in love and auto maintenance.

Beau Winston is the nicest, most accommodating guy in the world. Usually.

Handsome as the devil and twice as charismatic, Beau lives a charmed life as everyone’s favorite Winston Brother. But since his twin decided to leave town, and his other brother hired a stunning human-porcupine hybrid as a replacement mechanic for their auto shop, Beau Winston’s charmed life has gone to hell in a handbasket.

Shelly Sullivan is not nice and is never accommodating. Ever.
She mumbles to herself, but won’t respond when asked a question. She glares at everyone, especially babies. She won’t shake hands with or touch another person, but has no problems cuddling with a dog. And her damn parrot speaks only in curse words. Beau wants her gone. He wants her out of his auto shop, out of Tennessee, and out of his life.

The only problem is, learning why this porcupine wears her coat of spikes opens a Pandora’s box of complexity—exquisite, tempting, heartbreaking complexity—and Beau Winston soon discovers being nice and accommodating might mean losing what matters most.]]> 393 Penny Reid 1942874316 Samantha 3 4.12 2017
author: Penny Reid
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/29
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves:
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]]> 58724801 Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with her bare hands. But the truth is, she's an elite bodyguard and she's just been hired to protect a superstar actor from his stalker.

Jack Stapleton's a Hollywood heartthrob - captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, rising out of the waves in clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity.

When Jack's mom gets sick, he comes home to the family's Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn't want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah - against her will and her better judgment - finds herself pretending to be Jack's girlfriend as a cover.

Protecting Jack should be easy. But protecting her own heart? That's the hardest thing she's ever done...]]> 302 Katherine Center 1250219396 Samantha 3 3.94 2022
author: Katherine Center
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/25
date added: 2023/05/25
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]]> 61897968 A small-town sweetheart and an emotionally unavailable bad boy try to find some common ground in this chemistry-filled romance from the author of The Cheat Sheet and When in Rome.

Annie Walker is on a quest to find her perfect match—someone who complements her happy, quiet life running the local flower shop in Rome, Kentucky. But finding her dream man may be harder than Annie imagined. Everyone knows everyone in her hometown, and the dating prospects are getting fewer by the day. After she overhears her latest date say she is “so unbelievably boring,� Annie starts to think the problem might be her. Is it too late to become flirtatious and fun like the leading ladies in her favorite romance movies? Maybe she only needs a little practice . . . and Annie has the perfect person in mind to be her tutor: Will Griffin.

Will—the sexy, tattooed, and absolutely gorgeous bodyguard—is temporarily back in Rome, providing security for Amelia Rose as excitement builds for her upcoming marriage to Noah Walker, Annie’s brother. He has one personal objective while on the job: stay away from Annie Walker and any other possible attachments to this sleepy town. But no sooner than he gets settled, Will finds himself tasked with helping Annie find the love of her life by becoming the next leading lady of Rome, Kentucky. Will wants no part in changing the sweet and lovely Annie. He knows for a fact that some stuffy, straitlaced guy won’t make her happy, but he doesn’t have the heart to say no.

Amid steamy practice dates and strictly “educational� tutoring lessons, Annie discovers there are more layers to Will’s usual stoic attitude. As the lines of their friendship become dangerously blurred, Annie reconsiders her dream guy. Maybe her love life doesn’t need to be perfect—it just needs to be real.]]> 335 Sarah Adams 0593500806 Samantha 3 4.00 2023
author: Sarah Adams
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2023/05/20
date added: 2023/05/21
shelves:
review:

]]> 61358660 This powerful reimagining of Jane Eyre, set in a modern-day law firm, is full of romance and hope as it follows the echoing heartbeats of the classic story.

A former foster kid, Jane has led a solitary life as a waitress in the suburbs, working hard to get by. Tired of years of barely scraping together a living, Jane takes classes to become a legal assistant and shortly after graduating accepts a job offer at a distinguished law firm in downtown Toronto. Everyone at the firm thinks she is destined for failure because her boss is the notoriously difficult Edward Rosen, the majority stakeholder of Rosen, Haythe & Thornfield LLP. But Jane has known far worse trials and refuses to back down when economic freedom is so close at hand.

Edward has never been able to keep an assistant--he's too loud, too messy, too ill-tempered. There's something about the quietly competent, delightfully sharp-witted Jane that intrigues him though. As their orbits overlap, their feelings begin to develop--first comes fondness and then something more. But when Edward's secrets put Jane's independence in jeopardy, she must face long-ignored ghosts from her past and decide if opening her heart is a risk worth taking.]]> 352 Melodie Edwards 0593440773 Samantha 4 3.92 2023
author: Melodie Edwards
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/18
date added: 2023/05/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 58446227 NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER - The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time travel, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

One of the Best Books of the Year: The New York Times, NPR, GoodReads

"One of [Mandel's] finest novels and one of her most satisfying forays into the arena of speculative fiction yet." --The New York Times

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.]]> 259 Emily St. John Mandel 0593321448 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 4.04 2022
author: Emily St. John Mandel
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/21
date added: 2023/04/21
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 50033
Woven into the novel are the following short stories: Illumination, Dandelion Wine, Summer in the Air, Season of Sitting, The Happiness Machine, The Night, The Lawns of Summer, Season of Disbelief, The Last--the Very Last, The Green Machine, The Trolley, Statues, The Window, The Swan, The Whole Town's Sleeping, Goodbye Grandma, The Tarot Witch, Hotter Than Summer, Dinner at Dawn, The Magical Kitchen, Green Wine for Dreaming.]]> 239 Ray Bradbury 0671037706 Samantha 0 to-read, lsco-book-club 4.07 1957
author: Ray Bradbury
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1957
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/19
shelves: to-read, lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 33652490 Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all.

Marked by the same wry humor that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic.]]> 242 Haruki Murakami 0385689454 Samantha 3 lsco-book-club 3.75 2014
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Samantha
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2014
rating: 3
read at: 2023/03/08
date added: 2023/03/08
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 23947089 Return to #1 New York Times bestseller Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn world of Scadrial as its second era, which began with The Alloy of Law, comes to its earth-shattering conclusion in The Lost Metal.

For years, frontier lawman turned big-city senator Waxillium Ladrian has hunted the shadowy organization the Set—with his late uncle and his sister among their leaders—since they started kidnapping people with the power of Allomancy in their bloodlines. When Detective Marasi Colms and her partner, Wayne, find stockpiled weapons bound for the Outer City of Bilming, this opens a new lead. Conflict between the capital, Elendel, and the Outer Cities only favors the Set, and their tendrils now reach to the Elendel Senate—whose corruption Wax and his wife, Steris, have sought to expose—and Bilming is even more entangled.

After Wax discovers a new type of explosive that can unleash unprecedented destruction and realizes that the Set must already have it, an immortal kandra serving Scadrial's god, Harmony, reveals that Bilming has fallen under the influence of another god: Trell, worshipped by the Set. And Trell isn't the only factor at play from the larger Cosmere—Marasi is recruited by offworlders with strange abilities who claim their goal is to protect Scadrial . . . at any cost.

Wax must choose whether to set aside his rocky relationship with God and once again become the Sword that Harmony has groomed him to be. If no one steps forward to be the hero Scadrial needs, the planet and its millions of people will come to a sudden and calamitous ruin.]]> 507 Brandon Sanderson 0765391198 Samantha 4 4.46 2022
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/22
date added: 2023/02/22
shelves:
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]]> 62562846
Catherine and Henry Tilney of Northanger Abbey are not entirely pleased to be sending their eligible young daughter Juliet out into the world the last house party she attended, at the home of the Knightleys, involved a murder—which Juliet helped solve. Particularly concerning is that she intends to visit her new friend Marianne Brandon, who's returned home to Devonshire shrouded in fresh scandal—made more potent by the news that her former suitor, the rakish Mr. Willoughby, intends to take up residence at his local estate with his new bride.

Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy of Pemberley are thrilled that their eldest son, Jonathan—who, like his father, has not always been the most socially adept—has been invited to stay with his former schoolmate, John Willoughby. Jonathan himself is decidedly less taken with the notion of having to spend extended time under the roof of his old bully, but that all changes when he finds himself reunited with his fellow amateur sleuth, the radiant Miss Tilney. And when shortly thereafter, Willoughby's new wife—whom he married for her fortune—dies horribly at the party meant to welcome her to town.

With rumors flying and Marianne—known to be both unstable and previously jilted by the dead woman's newly made widower—under increased suspicion, Jonathan and Juliet must team up once more to uncover the murderer. But as they collect clues and close in on suspects, eerie incidents suggest that the killer may strike again, and that the pair are in far graver danger than they or their families could imagine.

A VINTAGE ORIGINAL.]]> 390 Claudia Gray 0593313844 Samantha 4 4.02 2023
author: Claudia Gray
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/09
date added: 2023/02/09
shelves:
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]]> 21891348 146 Susan L. Phillips 1620361728 Samantha 0 to-read 4.00 2014
author: Susan L. Phillips
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55278507 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us an extraordinary space opera about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

The war is over. Its heroes forgotten. Until one chance discovery . . .

Idris has neither aged nor slept since they remade him in the war. And one of humanity's heroes now scrapes by on a freelance salvage vessel, to avoid the attention of greater powers.

After earth was destroyed, mankind created a fighting elite to save their species, enhanced humans such as Idris. In the silence of space they could communicate, mind-to-mind, with the enemy. Then their alien aggressors, the Architects, simply disappeared—and Idris and his kind became obsolete.

Now, fifty years later, Idris and his crew have discovered something strange abandoned in space. It's clearly the work of the Architects—but are they returning? And if so, why? Hunted by gangsters, cults and governments, Idris and his crew race across the galaxy hunting for answers. For they now possess something of incalculable value, that many would kill to obtain.]]> Adrian Tchaikovsky 1549106392 Samantha 4 lsco-book-club 4.09 2021
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/06
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: lsco-book-club
review:

]]> 58950674 The Arthur C. Clarke award-winning author of Children of Time brings us the second novel in an extraordinary space opera trilogy about humanity on the brink of extinction, and how one man's discovery will save or destroy us all.

After eighty years of fragile peace, the Architects are back, wreaking havoc as they consume entire planets. In the past, Originator artefacts � vestiges of a long-vanished civilization � could save a world from annihilation. This time, the Architects have discovered a way to circumvent these protective relics. Suddenly, no planet is safe.

Facing impending extinction, the Human Colonies are in turmoil. While some believe a unified front is the only way to stop the Architects, others insist humanity should fight alone. And there are those who would seek to benefit from the fractured politics of war � even as the Architects loom ever closer.

Idris, who has spent decades running from the horrors of his past, finds himself thrust back onto the battlefront. As an Intermediary, he could be one of the few to turn the tide of war. With a handful of allies, he searches for a weapon that could push back the Architects and save the galaxy. But to do so, he must return to the nightmarish unspace, where his mind was broken and remade.

What Idris discovers there will change everything.]]> 596 Adrian Tchaikovsky 1668604906 Samantha 0 to-read 4.12 2022
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/02/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15818563
Square Peg illuminates the struggles of millions of bright young children—and their frustrated parents and teachers—who are stuck in a one-size-fits-all school system that fails to approach the student as an individual. Rose shares his own incredible journey from troubled childhood to Harvard, seamlessly integrating cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology along with advances in the field of education, to ultimately provide a roadmap for parents and teachers of kids who are the casualties of America’s antiquated school system.

With a distinguished blend of humor, humility, and practical advice for nurturing children who are a poor fit in conventional schools, Square Peg is a game-changing manifesto that provides groundbreaking insight into how we can get the most out of all the students in our classrooms, and why today’s dropouts could be tomorrow’s innovators.]]> 256 Todd Rose 1401324274 Samantha 0 to-read 4.06 2013
author: Todd Rose
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 58340695
The desire to fit in is one of the most powerful, least understood forces in society.

Todd Rose believes that as human beings, we continually act against our own best interests because our brains misunderstand what others believe. A complicated set of illusions driven by conformity bias distorts how we see the world around us. From toilet paper shortages to kidneys that get thrown away rather than used for transplants; from racial segregation to the perceived “electability� of women in politics; from bottled water to “cancel culture,� we routinely copy others, lie about what we believe, cling to tribes, and silence people.

The question is, Why do we keep believing the lies and hurting ourselves?

Todd Rose proves that the answer is hard-wired in our DNA: our brains are more socially dependent than we realize or dare to accept. Most of us would rather be fully in sync with the social norms of our respective groups than be true to who we are. Using originally researched data, Collective Illusions shows us where we get things wrong and, just as important, how we can be authentic in forming opinions while valuing truth. Rose offers a counterintuitive yet empowering explanation for how we can bridge our inference gap, make decisions with a newfound clarity, and achieve fulfillment.]]> 304 Todd Rose 0306925680 Samantha 0 to-read 4.02
author: Todd Rose
name: Samantha
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/01/30
shelves: to-read
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]]>