Giselle's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 27 Apr 2025 07:37:47 -0700 60 Giselle's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

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

They’re polar opposites.

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

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 371 Emily Henry 1984806734 Giselle 0 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read, 2020, age-adult, bought-in-store, from-home-sense, genre-contemporary, own
review:

]]> Book Lovers 58701063 One summer. Two rivals. A plot twist they didn't see coming....

Nora Stephens� life is books—she’s read them all—and she is not that type of heroine. Not the plucky one, not the laidback dream girl, and especially not the sweetheart. In fact, the only people Nora is a heroine for are her clients, for whom she lands enormous deals as a cutthroat literary agent, and her beloved little sister Libby.

Which is why she agrees to go to Sunshine Falls, North Carolina for the month of August when Libby begs her for a sisters� trip away—with visions of a small-town transformation for Nora, who she’s convinced needs to become the heroine in her own story. But instead of picnics in meadows, or run-ins with a handsome country doctor or bulging-forearmed bartender, Nora keeps bumping into Charlie Lastra, a bookish brooding editor from back in the city. It would be a meet-cute if not for the fact that they’ve met many times and it’s never been cute.

If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.]]> 377 Emily Henry Giselle 0 4.28 2022 Book Lovers
author: Emily Henry
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read, 2022, age-new-adult, bought-in-store, from-home-sense, genre-contemporary, own
review:

]]> People We Meet on Vacation 54985743 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806750 Giselle 0 3.85 2021 People We Meet on Vacation
author: Emily Henry
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read, 2021, age-new-adult, bought-in-store, from-home-sense, own
review:

]]> Conform 223239535
Centuries after a catastrophic world war nearly decimated the human population, a city arose from the ashes, ruled by an elusive and technologically advanced group called the Illum.

At twenty-seven, Emeline lives in limbo, wasting away her days in a job sorting ancient human art for destruction and waiting to be selected as a Mate for a procreation contract. Where others look forward to being chosen, Emeline has never felt like she fit into a society where a person’s worth is determined by constantly monitored genes, health, and the ability to procreate. She’s struggled to keep her discomfort secret, but when she is finally chosen, her Mate is revealed to be a member of the Illum named Collin, a man who seems to be harboring secrets of his own.

It is the first time an Illum has taken a Mate in decades, leaving Emeline—and others—baffled as to why she was chosen. Soon, she is swept into the dangerous game of Courting, filled with ballgowns, lavish dinners, and watchful eyes, where one wrong move can mean elimination. While parts of this elite lifestyle are unexpectedly appealing, the more embroiled she becomes, the more she sees its dark underbelly—and a rebellion rising in secret. Collin is confusing, both cold and protective, and worse, she finds herself drawn to the very last person she should be falling for: Hal, one of the resistance leaders.

As she draws closer to both Collin and Hal, the Illum exercise their power in increasingly brutal ways, forcing Emeline to question everything—most of all whether she’ll have to give up her heart and even her life to stop them.]]> 416 Ariel Sullivan Giselle 0 4.18 2025 Conform
author: Ariel Sullivan
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, 2025, genre-dystopia, genre-romance, age-adult
review:

]]> <![CDATA[These Memories Do Not Belong to Us]]> 221452836 For fans of Cloud AtlasԻThe Power, a hauntingly beautiful and profoundly prescient debut set in a future where China is the sole global superpower and citizens can record and transfer memories between minds.

When I was a boy, my mother used to tell me stories of a world before memories could be shared between strangers�

Decades from now, the world is run by an authoritarian state called Qin. In Qin, every citizen is fitted with a Mindbank, an intracranial device capable of not only recording but transferring memories between minds. The technology gives birth to a new economy, referred to as Memory Capitalism, where anyone with means can relive the life experiences of others. It also unleashes opportunities for manipulation—memories can be edited, marketed, and even corrupted for personal gain.

When a man inherits his deceased mother’s Mindbank—a collection of memories from before, during, and after the global war that landed Qin atop the international food chain—he’s unsure what he’ll find inside, or whether the Party has gotten to her memories first, altering the experiences she left for him. Either way, he is adamant that he must share them with the world before they are destroyed forever, even if the cost of doing so is his own life.

Powerful and provocative, These Memories Do Not Belong to Us is a kaleidoscopic look into the ways in which governments and media manipulate history and control our collective imagination. It encourages us to see beyond the sheen of convenient truths to unearth real stories of struggle, sacrifice, and love that, despite all odds, refuse to be eradicated. ]]> 224 Yiming Ma 0063413485 Giselle 0 4.41 2025 These Memories Do Not Belong to Us
author: Yiming Ma
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, age-adult, 2025, genre-dystopia, need-to-buy
review:

]]> Where the Axe Is Buried 211934965 All systems fail. All societies crumble. All worlds end.

In the authoritarian Federation, there is a plot to assassinate and replace the President, a man who has downloaded his mind to a succession of new bodies to maintain his grip on power. Meanwhile, on the fringes of a Western Europe that has renounced human governance in favor of ostensibly more efficient, objective, and peaceful AI Prime Ministers, an experimental artificial mind is malfunctioning, threatening to set off a chain of events that may spell the end of the Western world.

As the Federation and the West both start to crumble, Lilia, the brilliant scientist whose invention may be central to bringing down the seemingly immortal President, goes on the run, trying to break out from a near-impenetrable web of Federation surveillance. Her fate is bound up with a worldwide group of others fighting against the global status quo: Palmer, the man Lilia left behind in London, desperate to solve the mystery of her disappearance; Zoya, a veteran activist imprisoned in the taiga, whose book has inspired a revolutionary movement; Nikolai, the President’s personal physician, who has been forced into more and more harrowing decisions as he navigates the Federation’s palace politics; and Nurlan, the hapless parliamentary staffer whose attempt to save his Republic goes terribly awry. And then there is Krotov, head of the Federation’s security services, whose plots, agents, and assassins are everywhere.

Following the success of his debut novel, The Mountain in the Sea, Ray Nayler launches readers into a thrilling near-future world of geopolitical espionage. A cybernetic novel of political intrigue, Where the Axe is Buried combines the story of a near-impossible revolutionary operation with a blistering indictment of the many forms of authoritarianism that suffocate human freedom.]]> 336 Ray Nayler 0374615365 Giselle 0 4.12 2025 Where the Axe Is Buried
author: Ray Nayler
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, genre-dystopia
review:

]]> Alchemised 222490389 In this riveting dark fantasy debut, a woman with missing memories fights to survive a war-torn world of necromancy and alchemy—and the man tasked with unearthing the deepest secrets of her past.

“What is it you think you’re protecting in that brain of yours? The war is over. Holdfast is dead. The Eternal Flame extinguished. There’s no one left for you to save.�

Once a promising alchemist, Helena Marino is now a prisoner—of war and of her own mind. Her Resistance friends and allies have been brutally murdered, her abilities suppressed, and the world she knew destroyed.

In the aftermath of a long war, Paladia’s new ruling class of corrupt guild families and depraved necromancers, whose vile, undead creatures helped bring about their victory, holds Helena captive.

According to Resistance records, she was a healer of little importance within their ranks. But Helena has inexplicable memory loss of the months leading up to her capture, making her enemies wonder: Is she truly as insignificant as she appears, or are her lost memories hiding some vital piece of the Resistance’s final gambit?

To uncover the memories buried deep within her mind, Helena is sent to the High Reeve, one of the most powerful and ruthless necromancers in this new world. Trapped on his crumbling estate, Helena’s fight—to protect her lost history and to preserve the last remaining shreds of her former self—is just beginning. For her prison and captor have secrets of their own . . . secrets Helena must unearth, whatever the cost.]]> 1040 SenLinYu 0593972708 Giselle 0 4.58 2025 Alchemised
author: SenLinYu
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, genre-fantasy, genre-romance
review:

]]> American Rapture 203579244 370 C.J. Leede 1250857929 Giselle 0 4.05 2024 American Rapture
author: C.J. Leede
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, 2024, age-adult, genre-dystopia
review:

]]> Alien Clay 202776726
On the distant world of Kiln lie the ruins of an alien civilization. It’s the greatest discovery in humanity’s spacefaring history � yet who were its builders and where did they go?

Professor Arton Daghdev had always wanted to study alien life up close. Then his wishes become a reality in the worst way. His political activism sees him exiled from Earth to Kiln’s extrasolar labour camp. There, he’s condemned to work under an alien sky until he dies.

Kiln boasts a ravenous, chaotic ecosystem like nothing seen on Earth. The monstrous alien life interacts in surprising, sometimes shocking ways with the human body, so Arton will risk death on a daily basis. However, the camp’s oppressive regime might just kill him first. If Arton can somehow escape both fates, the world of Kiln holds a wondrous, terrible secret. It will redefine life and intelligence as he knows it, and might just set him free . . .]]> 432 Adrian Tchaikovsky 0316578975 Giselle 0 3.91 2024 Alien Clay
author: Adrian Tchaikovsky
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, 2024, genre-dystopia, genre-science-fiction, genre-space
review:

]]> Luminous 214151232 A highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea that tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

In a reunified Korea of the future, robots have been integrated into society as surrogates, servants, children, and even lovers. Though boundaries between bionic and organic frequently blur, these robots are decidedly second-class citizens. Jun and Morgan, two siblings estranged for many years, are haunted by the memory of their lost brother, Yoyo, who was warm, sensitive, and very nearly human.

Jun, a war veteran turned detective of the lowly Robot Crimes Unit in Seoul, becomes consumed by an investigation that reconnects him with his sister Morgan, now a prominent robot designer working for a top firm, who is, embarrassingly, dating one of her creations in secret.

On the other side of Seoul in a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through scraps looking for robotic parts that might support her failing body. When she discovers a robot boy named Yoyo among the piles of trash, an unlikely bond is formed since Yoyo is so lifelike, he’s unlike anything she’s seen before.

While Morgan prepares to launch the most advanced robot-boy of her career, Jun’s investigation sparks a journey through the underbelly of Seoul, unearthing deeper mysteries about the history of their country and their family. The three siblings must find their way back to each other to reckon with their pasts and the future ahead of them in this poignant and remarkable exploration of what it really means to be human.]]> 391 Silvia Park 1668021668 Giselle 0 3.86 2025 Luminous
author: Silvia Park
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read, age-adult, genre-dystopia
review:

]]> The Wives 43262893 New York Times bestselling author Tarryn Fisher delivers a pulse-pounding, fast-paced suspense novel that will leave you breathless. A thriller you won’t be able to put down!

Thursday’s husband, Seth, has two other wives. She’s never met them, and she doesn’t know anything about them. She agreed to this unusual arrangement because she’s so crazy about him.

But one day, she finds something. Something that tells a very different—and horrifying—story about the man she married.

What follows is one of the most twisted, shocking thrillers you’ll ever read.

You’ll have to grab a copy to find out why.

]]> 295 Tarryn Fisher 1488054355 Giselle 2 3.64 2019 The Wives
author: Tarryn Fisher
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: audiobook, from-overdrive-3m, genre-thriller
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Convenience Store by the Sea]]> 213819980 Welcome to Tenderness!

A quaint seaside town in Kitakyushu, Mojiko is full of hidden delights. And one unexpected treasure is the 24/7 convenience store, Tenderness.

At first glance, it’s a store like any other.

Sure, it’s a bit odd that the handsome manager has his own fan club. And perhaps the customers are somewhat eccentric. But there’s a warmth about Tenderness that draws you in.

The bright lights are always on. The employees know you by name. And the shelves are stacked with delicious treats, from strong hot coffee to sweet parfaits, egg sandos to ramen, crispy fried chicken to refreshing soba.

After a while, you get the feeling that whatever you need might just be waiting for you here�

Celebrating the joy of connection and community, The Convenience Store by the Sea is the heartwarming international bestseller from award-winning Japanese novelist Sonoko Machida.]]> 282 Sonoko Machida 1398722774 Giselle 0 3.83 2020 The Convenience Store by the Sea
author: Sonoko Machida
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, need-to-buy
review:

]]> People From My Neighbourhood 53345896 From the author of the internationally bestselling Strange Weather in Tokyo, a collection of interlinking stories that masterfully blend the mundane and the mythical—“fairy tales in the best Brothers Grimm tradition: naif, magical, and frequently veering into the macabre� (Financial Times).

A bossy child who lives under a white cloth near a t­ree; a schoolgirl who keeps doll’s brains in a desk drawer; an old man with two shadows, one docile and one rebellious; a diplomat no one has ever seen who goes fishing at an artificial lake no one has ever heard of. These are some of the inhabitants of People From My Neighborhood. In their lives, details of the local and everyday—the lunch menu at a tiny drinking place called the Love, the color and shape of the roof of the tax office—slip into accounts of duels, prophetic dreams, revolutions, and visitations from ghosts and gods. In twenty-six “palm of the hand� stories—fictions small enough to fit in the palm of one’s hand—Hiromi Kawakami creates a universe ruled by mystery and transformation.]]> 121 Hiromi Kawakami 1846276985 Giselle 0 to-read, 2020, need-to-buy 3.51 2020 People From My Neighbourhood
author: Hiromi Kawakami
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: to-read, 2020, need-to-buy
review:

]]> The Inmate 159790519 1) Treat all prisoners with respect.
2) Never reveal any personal information.
3) Never EVER become too friendly with the inmates.

But none of the staff at the prison knows Brooke has already broken the rules. Nobody knows about her intimate connection to Shane Nelson, one of the penitentiary's most notorious and dangerous inmates. And they certainly don't know that Shane was Brooke's high school sweetheart―the star quarterback who is now spending the rest of his life in prison for a series of grisly murders. Or that Brooke's testimony was what put him there.

But Shane knows. And he will never forget.]]> 336 Freida McFadden 172829617X Giselle 2 4.02 2022 The Inmate
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: age-adult, bought-in-store, from-indigo, genre-mystery, genre-thriller, 2-star, 2022
review:
Pretty bored with this one actually..the ending was a gruesome twist though!
]]> <![CDATA[The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales]]> 35397031
This collection, with an introduction and fresh new renderings of the tales by Neil Philip, includes not just "The Little Mermaid" but also such favorites as "The Tinderbox," "The Emperor's New Clothes," "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," and "The Little Match Girl."

Philip also includes some lesser known tales that reflect different facets of Andersen's genius, such as the tall tale "The Flying Trunk," with its witty story-within-a-story, the charming fantasy of "Little Ida's Flowers," the comic fable "The Collar," and a story about the magic of everyday reality, "The Gardener and His Master."

A special feature of the book is the inclusion of several fairy tales of spiritual search and redemption, including "The Bell," "The Toad," and, of course, "The Little Mermaid."

The book is illustrated throughout by Isabelle Brent's magical watercolors, lavishly embellished with gold leaf, making this handsome volume a book the whole family will treasure.]]> 240 Hans Christian Andersen 0062692593 Giselle 0 3.95 The Little Mermaid and Other Fairy Tales
author: Hans Christian Andersen
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.95
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves: to-read, 2018, age-children, own, from-home-sense, genre-fairytale, classics
review:

]]> Pretty Girls 25574782
Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.

Claire is convinced Julia's disappearance is linked.

But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same...]]> 432 Karin Slaughter 0062430874 Giselle 0 to-read 3.99 2015 Pretty Girls
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Watch Out for Her 58438555 Wherever you go�
she’ll be watching.

Sarah Goldman, mother to six-year-old Jacob, is relieved to move across the country. She has a lot she wants to leave behind, especially Holly Monroe, the pretty twenty-two-year-old babysitter she and her husband, Daniel, hired to take care of their young son last summer. It started out as a perfect arrangement—Sarah had a childminder her son adored, and Holly found the mother figure she’d always wanted. But Sarah’s never been one to trust very easily, so she kept a close eye on Holly, maybe too close at times. What she saw raised some questions, not only about who Holly really was but what she was hiding. The more Sarah watched, the more she learned—until one day, she saw something she couldn’t unsee, something so shocking that all she could do was flee.

Sarah has put it all behind her and is starting over in a different city with her husband and son. They’ve settled into a friendly suburb where the neighbors, a tight clique of good citizens, are always on the lookout for danger. But when Sarah finds hidden cameras in her new home, she has to wonder: Has her past caught up to her, and worse yet, who’s watching her now?

A tense psychological thriller about a mother who must keep watch at all times if she wants to keep her family safe—from USA TODAY and #1 national bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey.
A spine-tingling, page-turning novel from USA TODAY and #1 national bestselling author Samantha M. Bailey, Watch Out for Her is psychological suspense at its very best—a chilling look at trust, voyeurism, and obsession in the modern age, and how far we will go to watch out for those we love.]]> 336 Samantha M. Bailey 1982155191 Giselle 0 3.57 2022 Watch Out for Her
author: Samantha M. Bailey
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, own, age-adult, from-home-sense
review:

]]> Tender Is the Flesh 49090884
His wife has left him, his father is sinking into dementia, and Marcos tries not to think too hard about how he makes a living. After all, it happened so quickly. First, it was reported that an infectious virus has made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the “Transition.� Now, eating human meat—“special meat”—is legal. Marcos tries to stick to numbers, consignments, processing.

Then one day he’s given a a live specimen of the finest quality. Though he’s aware that any form of personal contact is forbidden on pain of death, little by little he starts to treat her like a human being. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost—and what might still be saved.]]> 209 Agustina Bazterrica 1982150920 Giselle 0 to-read, need-to-buy 3.75 2017 Tender Is the Flesh
author: Agustina Bazterrica
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, need-to-buy
review:

]]> His & Hers 45885495 There are two sides to every story: yours and mine, ours and theirs, His & Hers. Which means someone is always lying.

When a woman is murdered in Blackdown, a quintessentially British village, newsreader Anna Andrews is reluctant to cover the case. Detective Jack Harper is suspicious of her involvement, until he becomes a suspect in his own murder investigation. Someone isn’t telling the truth, and some secrets are worth killing to keep.

His & Hers is a twisty, smart, psychological thriller. A gripping tale of suspense, told by expertly-drawn narrators that will keep readers guessing until the very end.]]> 304 Alice Feeney 1250266076 Giselle 0 to-read, 2020, need-to-buy 4.03 2020 His & Hers
author: Alice Feeney
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, 2020, need-to-buy
review:

]]> Gallant 58064046 Everything casts a shadow. Even the world we live in. And as with every shadow, there is a place where it must touch. A seam, where the shadow meets its source.

Olivia Prior has grown up in Merilance School for girls, and all she has of her past is her mother’s journal—which seems to unravel into madness. Then, a letter invites Olivia to come home—to Gallant. Yet when Olivia arrives, no one is expecting her. But Olivia is not about to leave the first place that feels like home, it doesn’t matter if her cousin Matthew is hostile or if she sees half-formed ghouls haunting the hallways.

Olivia knows that Gallant is hiding secrets, and she is determined to uncover them. When she crosses a ruined wall at just the right moment, Olivia finds herself in a place that is Gallant—but not. The manor is crumbling, the ghouls are solid, and a mysterious figure rules over all. Now Olivia sees what has unraveled generations of her family, and where her father may have come from.

Olivia has always wanted to belong somewhere, but will she take her place as a Prior, protecting our world against the Master of the House? Or will she take her place beside him?]]> 338 Victoria E. Schwab 0062835777 Giselle 0 to-read, own 3.70 2022 Gallant
author: Victoria E. Schwab
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, own
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots, #3)]]> 214283601 A steamy chance encounter between a professional hockey player and the manic pixie dream girl he just can’t seem to forget takes a turn when the pair realize that their parents are engaged—in an all-new rom-com by #1 New York Times bestselling author Tessa Bailey.

When professional hockey player Sig Gauthier’s car breaks down and his phone dies, he treks into a posh private country club to call a tow truck, where he encounters the alluring Chloe Clifford, the manic pixie dream girl who captivates him immediately with her sense of adventure and penchant for stealing champagne.

Sparks fly during a moonlight kiss and the enamored pair can’t wait to see each other again, but when Sig finally arrives to meet his dad’s new girlfriend over dinner, Chloe is confusingly also there. Turns out the girlfriend is Chloe’s mother. Oh, and they’re engaged.

Sig’s dream girl is his future stepsister.

Though the pair is now wary of being involved romantically, Chloe, a sheltered harp prodigy, yearns to escape her controlling mother. Sig promises to teach her the ins and outs of independence in Boston—but not inside his bedroom. They both know there can never be more than friendship between a famous hockey player and his high-society, soon-to-be stepsister. But keeping their relationship platonic grows harder amid the developing family drama, especially knowing they were meant for so much more�


]]> 320 Tessa Bailey 0063380781 Giselle 0 3.44 2025 Dream Girl Drama (Big Shots, #3)
author: Tessa Bailey
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, own, age-new-adult, from-home-sense
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 229711879 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 1546188606 Giselle 0 to-read, own 4.87 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.87
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, own
review:

]]> Till There Was You 127281207
As Jake’s star rises and the world speculates about the subject of his song, Lexi keeps the affair to herself. After all, she’s finally found her footing at her new restaurant job, and even has a prospective romance with her coworker. But when a distraught Jake turns up on her doorstep late one night, her carefully-laid plans are thrown for a loop. Though she and Jake try to be friends, things between them soon reheat faster than a bowl of Lexi's matzah ball soup. But a relationship with Jake means risking her face in tabloids, withstanding cruel internet comments, and worst of all, jeopardizing her career. As Jake’s upcoming tour approaches, and rumors swirl about him and another pop star, Lexi has to decide if holding onto her meticulously-planned future is worth walking away from what could be the perfect recipe for love.

Set both in the chaos of fame and the high stakes world of New York City restaurants, this novel sprinkles in a second chance at love and a dollop of celebrity drama to create a romantic romp that will make even the most jaded reader smile.]]> 320 Lindsay Hameroff 1250902916 Giselle 0 3.67 2024 Till There Was You
author: Lindsay Hameroff
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves: to-read, own, age-new-adult, bought-in-store, from-home-sense
review:

]]> Beautiful Ugly 211004123 The million-copy bestselling Queen of Twists Alice Feeney returns with a gripping and deliciously dark thriller about marriage. . .
. . . and revenge.

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

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

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

Wives think their husbands will change but they don’t.
Husbands think their wives won’t change but they do.]]> 306 Alice Feeney 125033778X Giselle 0 3.63 2025 Beautiful Ugly
author: Alice Feeney
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, bought-in-store, from-indigo, genre-thriller, own
review:

]]> The Wife Between Us 34189556
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.

You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement � a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.

You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.

Assume nothing.

Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen's The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage - and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.

Read between the lies.]]> 432 Greer Hendricks 1250130921 Giselle 0 to-read, 2018 3.82 2018 The Wife Between Us
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2018
review:

]]> What Lies Between Us 53142315
Every other night, Maggie and Nina have dinner together. When they are finished, Nina helps Maggie back to her room in the attic, and into the heavy chain that keeps her there. Because Maggie has done things to Nina that can’t ever be forgiven, and now she is paying the price.

But there are many things about the past that Nina doesn’t know, and Maggie is going to keep it that way—even if it kills her.

Because in this house, the truth is more dangerous than lies.]]> 363 John Marrs 1542017025 Giselle 0 3.97 2020 What Lies Between Us
author: John Marrs
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2020, age-adult, from-amazon, own, bought-online, genre-thriller
review:

]]> The One 39968782 The One?

A simple DNA test is all it takes. Just a quick mouth swab and soon you'll be matched with your perfect partner--the one you're genetically made for.

That's the promise made by Match Your DNA. A decade ago, the company announced that they had found the gene that pairs each of us with our soul mate. Since then, millions of people around the world have been matched. But the discovery has its downsides: test results have led to the breakup of countless relationships and upended the traditional ideas of dating, romance and love.

Now five very different people have received the notification that they've been "Matched." They're each about to meet their one true love. But "happily ever after" isn't guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others...]]> 438 John Marrs 1335998853 Giselle 0 4.12 2016 The One
author: John Marrs
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2019, age-adult, from-amazon, genre-thriller, own, bought-online
review:

]]> You Killed Me First 212375021 Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?

It’s 5 November, and a woman awakens to a nightmare. Bound and gagged, she lies trapped in the heart of a towering bonfire. As the smoke thickens, panic sets in � she’s moments away from being engulfed in flames. How did it come to this?

Rewind eleven months: Margot, a faded TV star, and her long-suffering friend Anna watch as glamorous Liv and her flawless family move into their street. The three women soon fabricate the perfect pretence of friendship, but each harbours her own deadly secret � and newcomer Liv senses something is terribly wrong beneath the polished exteriors.

As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?]]> 385 John Marrs 166250649X Giselle 0 3.95 2025 You Killed Me First
author: John Marrs
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/04
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, genre-thriller
review:

]]> Do You Remember 61362720
She can’t recognize her home. Her bedroom is unfamiliar. And she can’t remember the handsome stranger lying next to her in bed. A stranger who claims he’s her husband.

Tess reads a letter in her own handwriting, composed during a rare lucid day, explaining her life as it now exists: She was in a terrible car accident one year ago. Every morning, she wakes up unable to remember most of the last decade. Including her own wedding.

Tess has no choice but to accept her new life and hope her memory will return. After all, why should she doubt the letter she wrote to herself? Or the kind man from the wedding photos on her dresser who seems to genuinely care about her well-being?

And then Tess receives a text message on her phone. One that changes everything:

"Don’t trust the man who calls himself your husband."]]> Freida McFadden Giselle 1 3.70 2022 Do You Remember
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 1
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: 2022, age-adult, audiobook, borrowed, genre-thriller
review:
No,.. just no. I thought there would be an epic twist.. it was terrible. Please don’t waste your time.
]]> Death Row (Alibis collection) 230824619 With all hope of an appeal fading away, the fate of a condemned murderess takes a shocking turn in a breathtaking short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid.

Talia Kemper is on death row for murdering her husband. She had an alibi and no known motive, yet Talia’s unwavering protestations of innocence have always been ignored. Then one day in the visiting area, she sees a recognizable stranger she’s certain is her husband. It turns out the man she’s been convicted of killing may not be dead after all. But as the days tick away toward Talia’s execution, what will it take for her to be believed?

Freida McFadden’s Death Row is part of Alibis, a collection of stories about lies, truth, and deception. It’s just a matter of what you can get away with. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 74 Freida McFadden 1662532261 Giselle 0 to-read, 2025 3.98 2025 Death Row (Alibis collection)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]> The Tenant 221733722 There’s no place like home�

Blake Porter is riding high, until he's not. Fired abruptly from his job as a VP of marketing and unable to make the mortgage payments on the new brownstone that he shares with his fiancee, he's desperate to make ends meet.

Enter Whitney. Beautiful, charming, down-to-earth, and looking for a room to rent. She's exactly what Blake's looking for. Or is she?

Because something isn't quite right. The neighbors start treating Blake differently. The smell of decay permeates his home, no matter how hard he scrubs. Strange noises jar him awake in the middle of the night. And soon Blake fears someone knows his darkest secrets...

Danger lives right at home, and by the time Blake realizes it, it'll be far too late. The trap is already set.

#1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden knocks at your door with a gripping story of revenge, privilege, and secrets turned sour�]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1464227314 Giselle 0 to-read, 2025, age-adult 4.44 2025 The Tenant
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult
review:

]]> The Crash 216223604 The nightmare she’s running from is nothing compared to where she’s headed.

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

She never arrives at her destination.

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

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

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

A gut-wrenching story of motherhood, survival, and twisted expectations, #1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden delivers a snowbound thriller that will chill you to the bone.
]]> 384 Freida McFadden 1464232989 Giselle 0 3.58 2025 The Crash
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, 2025, age-adult, bought-in-store, genre-thriller, own, from-indigo
review:

]]> Do Not Disturb 58778536
To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She'll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.

But first, she must survive the night.

Do Not Disturb is a Hitchcock-style psychological thriller that will keep you tearing through the pages until you reach the shocking conclusion!]]> 325 Freida McFadden Giselle 0 3.93 2021 Do Not Disturb
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, 2021, age-adult, from-indigo, genre-thriller
review:

]]> Ward D 214298301 spending the night on a locked psychiatric ward.

Amy has been dreading her evening working on Ward D, the hospital’s inpatient mental health unit. There are very specific reasons why she never wanted to do this required overnight rotation. Reasons nobody can ever find out.

And as the hours tick by, Amy grows increasingly convinced something terrible is happening within these tightly secured walls. When patients and staff start to vanish without a trace, it becomes clear that everyone on the unit is in grave danger.

Amy’s worst nightmare was spending the night on Ward D.

And now she might never escape.
]]> 320 Freida McFadden 1464233004 Giselle 0 to-read, genre-thriller, own 3.87 2023 Ward D
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read, genre-thriller, own
review:

]]> The Midnight Shift 226624924 A bestseller in Korea, a biting, fast-paced vampire murder mystery exploring queer love and the consequences of loneliness.

When four isolated elderly people commit suicide back-to-back at the same hospital by jumping out of the sixth-floor window, Su-Yeon doesn’t understand why she’s the only one at her precinct that seems to care. Dismissing the case as a series of unfortunate events due to the patients� loneliness, the police force doesn't engage. But Su-Yeon doesn’t have the privilege of looking her dearest friend, Grandma Eun-Shim, lives on the sixth floor, and Su-Yeon is terrified that something will happen to her next.

As Su-Yeon begins her investigation alone, she runs into a mysterious woman named Wanda at the crime scene. Wanda, hot on the trail of her ex-lover, Lily, gives Su-Yeon the answer to her a vampire did it. Su-Yeon is skeptical at first, but then a fifth victim jumps from the window and her investigation reveals the body was completely drained of blood. Desperate to discover the cause of the deaths, Su-Yeon considers Wanda’s explanation—that something supernatural is involved.

The Midnight Shift is a gripping mystery, overflowing with commentary about societal isolation and loneliness, the sharp knife of grief, and the effects of marginalization, perfect for readers of Cursed Bunny; Woman, Eating; and A Certain Hunger.]]> 280 Cheon Seon-ran 1526679825 Giselle 0 to-read, 2025 3.50 2021 The Midnight Shift
author: Cheon Seon-ran
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]> First Lie Wins 164444179 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780593492918.

Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.

The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.

Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn’t like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time.

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Giselle 0 to-read 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins
author: Ashley Elston
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> One by One 179947235 272 Freida McFadden 1728296196 Giselle 0 3.83 2020 One by One
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read, 2024, age-adult, bought-in-store, genre-thriller, from-indigo
review:

]]> Don't Let Him In 220160814 Three women are connected by one man in this kaleidoscopic thriller.

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

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

But Nick and Al may not be who they say they are, leading these three women on a shocking collision course, wishing they had heeded a warning: Don’t let him in.]]> 368 Lisa Jewell 1668033879 Giselle 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Don't Let Him In
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie]]> 220747099
My husband is dead.

I attended his funeral. I watched his casket be lowered six feet into the ground. (Actually, it may have been only five feet, but that still seems like more than enough.) And then we ate an array of finger sandwiches and deviled eggs and miniature beef wellingtons that cost more than my first car.

My point is, Grant is gone. And so are all his many, many deep, dark secrets which I never really ever bothered to ask him about. He is never coming back.

So why do I still see his face everywhere I go?

The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie is an utterly addictive, unputdownable, nail-biting, absolutely gripping psychological thriller novella with a shocking, breathtaking, heartstopping, spine-chilling twist that you won't see coming, will leave you stunned, and will literally have you picking your jaw up off the floor and bringing it to the nearest hospital for major facial reconstructive surgery.]]> Freida McFadden Giselle 3 2024, age-adult, audiobook 3.32 2024 The Widow's Husband's Secret Lie
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: 2024, age-adult, audiobook
review:
Hahah Freida does satire very well. That black and blue dress had a chokehold on all of us. Enjoyable and witty!
]]> This Book Will Bury Me 213570821 From the bestselling author of In My Dreams I Hold a Knife and Midnight is the Darkest Hour comes a chilling, compulsive story of five amateur sleuths, whose hunt for an elusive killer catapults them into danger as the world watches.

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

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

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

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


]]> 480 Ashley Winstead 1728270006 Giselle 0 to-read 3.68 2025 This Book Will Bury Me
author: Ashley Winstead
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Keep It in the Family 60109530
Mia and Finn are busy turning a derelict house into their dream home when Mia unexpectedly falls pregnant. But just when they think the house is ready, Mia discovers a chilling message scored into a skirting board: I WILL SAVE THEM FROM THE ATTIC. Following the clue up into the eaves, the couple make a gruesome discovery: their dream home was once a house of horrors.

In the wake of their traumatic discovery, the baby arrives and Mia can’t shake her fixation with the monstrous crimes that happened right above them. Haunted by the terrible things she saw and desperate to find answers, her obsession pulls her ever further from her husband.

Secrecy shrouds the mystery of the attic, but when shards of a dark truth start to emerge, Mia realises the danger is terrifyingly present. She is prepared to do anything to protect her family—but is it already too late?]]> 380 John Marrs 1542017289 Giselle 3 4.08 2022 Keep It in the Family
author: John Marrs
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: 2022, age-adult, borrowed, ebook, from-amazon-kindle-unlimited, genre-mystery, genre-thriller
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism]]> 223436601 An explosive memoir charting one woman’s career at the heart of one of the most influential companies on the planet, Careless People gives you a front-row seat to Facebook, the decisions that have shaped world events in recent decades, and the people who made them.

From trips on private jets and encounters with world leaders to shocking accounts of misogyny and double standards behind the scenes, this searing memoir exposes both the personal and the political fallout when unfettered power and a rotten company culture take hold. In a gripping and often absurd narrative where a few people carelessly hold the world in their hands, this eye-opening memoir reveals what really goes on among the global elite.

Sarah Wynn-Williams tells the wrenching but fun story of Facebook, mapping its rise from stumbling encounters with juntas to Mark Zuckerberg’s reaction when he learned of Facebook’s role in Trump’s election. She experiences the challenges and humiliations of working motherhood within a pressure cooker of a workplace, all while Sheryl Sandberg urges her and others to “lean in.�

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 382 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Giselle 0 to-read 4.29 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism
author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lock Every Door 46147591
The next heart-pounding thriller from New York Times bestselling author Riley Sager follows a young woman whose new job apartment sitting in one of New York’s oldest and most glamorous buildings may cost more than it pays.

No visitors. No nights spent away from the apartment. No disturbing the other residents, all of whom are rich or famous or both. These are the only rules for Jules Larsen's new job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of Manhattan's most high-profile and mysterious buildings. Recently heartbroken and just plain broke, Jules is taken in by the splendor of her surroundings and accepts the terms, ready to leave her past life behind.

As she gets to know the residents and staff of the Bartholomew, Jules finds herself drawn to fellow apartment sitter Ingrid, who comfortingly, disturbingly reminds her of the sister she lost eight years ago. When Ingrid confides that the Bartholomew is not what it seems and the dark history hidden beneath its gleaming facade is starting to frighten her, Jules brushes it off as a harmless ghost story . . . until the next day, when Ingrid disappears.

Searching for the truth about Ingrid's disappearance, Jules digs deeper into the Bartholomew's dark past and into the secrets kept within its walls. Her discovery that Ingrid is not the first apartment sitter to go missing at the Bartholomew pits Jules against the clock as she races to unmask a killer, expose the building's hidden past, and escape the Bartholomew before her temporary status becomes permanent.]]> 10 Riley Sager 1984891065 Giselle 2 3.61 2019 Lock Every Door
author: Riley Sager
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: 2019, age-adult, audiobook, borrowed, from-overdrive-3m, genre-mystery, genre-thriller
review:
Mmmh not as engaging as I hoped. The suspense was great but it seemed to drag on and on, and it was just too boring for me. I’ll give this author another shot though, he does write well.
]]> One of the Girls 90590104
It was supposed to be the perfect weekend away. Six very different women travel to a sun-drenched Greek island for a bachelorette party. From the shimmering ocean views to the quaint tavernas and whitewashed streets, the vacation feels like the ideal escape. But dangerous undercurrents run beneath the sunset swims and midnight cocktails � because each of the women is hiding a secret, and soon their masks begin to slip. Someone is determined to make sure that Lexi’s marriage never happens � and that one of the women doesn’t leave the island alive.

This scorching thriller signals the arrival of a major breakout talent. One of the Girls examines the pressures and joys of female friendship . . . as well as the deadly consequences when a relationship goes wrong.]]> 464 Lucy Clarke 059342266X Giselle 0 to-read 3.76 2022 One of the Girls
author: Lucy Clarke
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Home Before Dark 50833559 What was it like? Living in that house.

Maggie Holt is used to such questions. Twenty-five years ago, she and her parents, Ewan and Jess, moved into Baneberry Hall, a rambling Victorian estate in the Vermont woods. They spent three weeks there before fleeing in the dead of night, an ordeal Ewan later recounted in a nonfiction book called House of Horrors. His tale of ghostly happenings and encounters with malevolent spirits became a worldwide phenomenon, rivaling The Amityville Horror in popularity—and skepticism.

Today, Maggie is a restorer of old homes and too young to remember any of the events mentioned in her father’s book. But she also doesn’t believe a word of it. Ghosts, after all, don’t exist. When Maggie inherits Baneberry Hall after her father’s death, she returns to renovate the place to prepare it for sale. But her homecoming is anything but warm. People from the past, chronicled in House of Horrors, lurk in the shadows. And locals aren’t thrilled that their small town has been made infamous thanks to Maggie’s father. Even more unnerving is Baneberry Hall itself—a place filled with relics from another era that hint at a history of dark deeds. As Maggie experiences strange occurrences straight out of her father’s book, she starts to believe that what he wrote was more fact than fiction.

In the latest thriller from New York Times bestseller Riley Sager, a woman returns to the house made famous by her father’s bestselling horror memoir. Is the place really haunted by evil forces, as her father claimed? Or are there more earthbound—and dangerous—secrets hidden within its walls?]]> 389 Riley Sager 1524745170 Giselle 0 to-read, 2020 4.05 2020 Home Before Dark
author: Riley Sager
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, 2020
review:

]]> The Only One Left 62703226 At seventeen, Lenora Hope
Hung her sister with a rope

Now reduced to a schoolyard chant, the Hope family murders shocked the Maine coast one bloody night in 1929. While most people assume seventeen-year-old Lenora was responsible, the police were never able to prove it. Other than her denial after the killings, she has never spoken publicly about that night, nor has she set foot outside Hope’s End, the cliffside mansion where the massacre occurred.

Stabbed her father with a knife
Took her mother’s happy life

It’s now 1983, and home-health aide Kit McDeere arrives at a decaying Hope’s End to care for Lenora after her previous nurse fled in the middle of the night. In her seventies and confined to a wheelchair, Lenora was rendered mute by a series of strokes and can only communicate with Kit by tapping out sentences on an old typewriter. One night, Lenora uses it to make a tantalizing offer�I want to tell you everything.

“It wasn’t me,� Lenora said
But she’s the only one not dead

As Kit helps Lenora write about the events leading to the Hope family massacre, it becomes clear there’s more to the tale than people know. But when new details about her predecessor’s departure come to light, Kit starts to suspect Lenora might not be telling the complete truth—and that the seemingly harmless woman in her care could be far more dangerous than she first thought.]]> 383 Riley Sager 0593183223 Giselle 0 to-read 4.12 2023 The Only One Left
author: Riley Sager
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Our Infinite Fates (Proof) 216935016 The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.

They've loved each other in a thousand lifetimes. They've killed each other in every one.

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

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

1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.]]> 395 Laura/L.K. Steven Giselle 0 to-read, 2025 4.20 2025 Our Infinite Fates (Proof)
author: Laura/L.K. Steven
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]> The Coworker 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 Giselle 1
I already knew all of the turtle stats except the part about how they conceive LOL]]> 3.68 2023 The Coworker
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 1
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: 2024, age-adult, bought-in-store, from-indigo, genre-thriller
review:
Same formula. Most hated protagonists ever, this one was boring to me. Skip it if you like.

I already knew all of the turtle stats except the part about how they conceive LOL
]]> <![CDATA[The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II]]> 95784
This book tells the story from three perspectives: of the Japanese soldiers who performed it, of the Chinese civilians who endured it, and of a group of Europeans and Americans who refused to abandon the city and were able to create a safety zone that saved many.]]> 290 Iris Chang 0140277447 Giselle 0 to-read 4.23 1997 The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
author: Iris Chang
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.23
book published: 1997
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rock Paper Scissors 56269064 Think you know the person you married? Think again�

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts � paper, cotton, pottery, tin � and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.]]> 294 Alice Feeney 1250266106 Giselle 0 to-read, 2021 3.88 2021 Rock Paper Scissors
author: Alice Feeney
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: to-read, 2021
review:

]]> The Good Lie 55596836 Six teens murdered. A suspect behind bars. A desperate father. In a case this shadowy, the truth is easy to hide.

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

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

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

Six teenagers dead. Finally, the killer behind bars. But are the games just beginning?]]> 256 A.R. Torre 1542020166 Giselle 0 to-read, 2021 4.01 2021 The Good Lie
author: A.R. Torre
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read, 2021
review:

]]> All The Lies 59350637
On the surface, Amy and Jason have the perfect marriage, but Amy is trapped in a nightmare with a controlling, violent husband. Then on a short cruise without Jason, Amy befriends Liz, a young woman travelling alone on her way to meet her birth mother for the first time. Liz looks so much like Amy that they could be sisters.

When Amy regains consciousness after a terrible accident that takes the lives of many passengers, she finds that because of a mix-up in personal effects, everyone believes she is Liz. Only she knows it is Liz who has gone missing, presumed dead. Now, Amy has to make the most important decision of her life: tell the truth and return to a life of fear or become Liz for a while, until she figures out an escape plan.

But as Amy settles into Liz’s life, she finds that not everyone believes all the lies.

And she is only one mistake away from paying the price.]]> 240 Nicola Sanders Giselle 0 to-read 4.14 2020 All The Lies
author: Nicola Sanders
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Don't Let the Forest In 200982373 Once upon a time, Andrew had cut out his heart and given it to this boy, and he was very sure Thomas had no idea that Andrew would do anything for him. Protect him. Lie for him.

Kill for him.

High school senior Andrew Perrault finds refuge in the twisted fairytales that he writes for the only person who can ground him to reality―Thomas Rye, the boy with perpetually ink-stained hands and hair like autumn leaves. And with his twin sister, Dove, inexplicably keeping him at a cold distance upon their return to Wickwood Academy, Andrew finds himself leaning on his friend even more.

But something strange is going on with Thomas. His abusive parents have mysteriously vanished, and he arrives at school with blood on his sleeve. Thomas won't say a word about it, and shuts down whenever Andrew tries to ask him questions. Stranger still, Thomas is haunted by something, and he seems to have lost interest in his artwork―whimsically macabre sketches of the monsters from Andrew's wicked stories.

Desperate to figure out what's wrong with his friend, Andrew follows Thomas into the off-limits forest one night and catches him fighting a nightmarish monster―Thomas's drawings have come to life and are killing anyone close to him. To make sure no one else dies, the boys battle the monsters every night. But as their obsession with each other grows stronger, so do the monsters, and Andrew begins to fear that the only way to stop the creatures might be to destroy their creator...]]> 336 C.G. Drews 1250895669 Giselle 0 4.11 2024 Don't Let the Forest In
author: C.G. Drews
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/07
shelves: to-read, 2024, age-young-adult, ebook, own
review:

]]> The Teacher 195967140 A mind-bending, psychological thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Housemaid!

Lesson #1: trust no one

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except�

Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye.

Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says.

But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

From the New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a story of twisting secrets and long-awaited revenge.]]> 379 Freida McFadden 1728296218 Giselle 2 3.82 2024 The Teacher
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/04
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: age-adult, bought-online, from-book-outlet, genre-thriller, own, 2024, 2-star
review:
Damn. That was one twist after another. I’m here typing this with my mouth open. Geez Louise! If you throw out all logic, and continuity and plot, her books are hella enjoyable and entertaining.
]]> Count My Lies 214151565 A read-in-one-night suspense thriller narrated by a compulsive liar whose little white lies allow her to enter into the life and comfort of a wealthy married couple who are harboring much darker secrets themselves. For the millions of us still chasing those gone girls, this is perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell, Lucy Foley, and Laura Dave.

Sloane Caraway is a liar.

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

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

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

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

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

Careful what you lie for.]]> 336 Sophie Stava 1668079348 Giselle 0 to-read 3.73 2025 Count My Lies
author: Sophie Stava
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Rose Code 53914938 The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over.

1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of East-End London poverty, works the legendary code-breaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.

1947. As the royal wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip whips post-war Britain into a fever, three friends-turned-enemies are reunited by a mysterious encrypted letter—the key to which lies buried in the long-ago betrayal that destroyed their friendship and left one of them confined to an asylum. A mysterious traitor has emerged from the shadows of their Bletchley Park past, and now Osla, Mab, and Beth must resurrect their old alliance and crack one last code together. But each petal they remove from the rose code brings danger—and their true enemy...]]> 624 Kate Quinn 0062943472 Giselle 0 to-read 4.42 2021 The Rose Code
author: Kate Quinn
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.42
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age (DK Ultimate Guides)]]> 34350268
With entries on more than 350 of history's most important events, World History looks at turning points throughout the ages and the key thinkers, leaders, ideas, and inventions involved, to chart the story of humanity's journey. Boxes and feature spreads throughout the book introduce and explain technological advances, military campaigns, influencers, and more.

Packaged in a sturdy slipcase perfect for gift-giving.]]> 416 Philip Parker 1465462406 Giselle 0 4.11 World History: From the Ancient World to the Information Age (DK Ultimate Guides)
author: Philip Parker
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.11
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: age-adult, bought-online, non-fiction, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hidden Huntress (The Malediction Trilogy, #2)]]> 21851568 Sometimes, one must accomplish the impossible.

Beneath the mountain, the king’s reign of tyranny is absolute; the one troll with the capacity to challenge him is imprisoned for treason. Cécile has escaped the darkness of Trollus, but she learns all too quickly that she is not beyond the reach of the king’s power. Or his manipulation.

Recovered from her injuries, she now lives with her mother in Trianon and graces the opera stage every night. But by day she searches for the witch who has eluded the trolls for five hundred years. Whether she succeeds or fails, the costs to those she cares about will be high.

To find Anushka, she must delve into magic that is both dark and deadly. But the witch is a clever creature. And Cécile might not just be the hunter. She might also be the hunted…]]> 464 Danielle L. Jensen 0857664727 Giselle 0 3.83 2015 Hidden Huntress (The Malediction Trilogy, #2)
author: Danielle L. Jensen
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: 2015, canadian-authors, age-young-adult, bought-online, to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Surrounded by Psychopaths: How to Protect Yourself from Being Manipulated and Exploited in Business (and in Life) [The Surrounded by Idiots Series]]]> 56269189
#1 internationally bestselling author Thomas Erikson shows readers how to identify and avoid the psychopaths around them.

Charming, charismatic, and delightful or manipulative, self-serving, and cunning? Psychopaths are both and that’s exactly what makes them dangerous. Bestselling author of the international phenomenon Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson reveals how to identify the psychopaths in your life and combat their efforts to control and manipulate.

Using the same simple four-color system of behavior classification that made Surrounded by Idiots so popular, Surrounded by Psychopaths teaches readers how to deal with psychopaths in their lives by becoming aware of their own behavior and their weaknesses. Vivid example stories illustrate ways that psychopaths can take advantage of various behavior types, helping readers identify their own weaknesses and be proactive about protecting themselves. Erikson outlines some of the most common forms of manipulation used by psychopaths―and others―to influence those around them. Since manipulation can often be a feature of ordinary, non-psychopathic relationships, the book also includes practical methods and techniques to help readers confront controlling people and rehabilitate negative relationships into mutually respectful ones.

By understanding your behavior as well as the tendencies and strategies of psychopaths, Surrounded by Psychopaths will teach you to protect yourself from manipulative influence in your workplace, social life, and family.]]> 272 Thomas Erikson 1250816432 Giselle 0 3.62 2017 Surrounded by Psychopaths: How to Protect Yourself from Being Manipulated and Exploited in Business (and in Life) [The Surrounded by Idiots Series]
author: Thomas Erikson
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: 2021, age-adult, from-gift, non-fiction, own, to-read
review:

]]> House of Glass 200302487
The next thrilling novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sarah Pekkanen, House of Glass.

On the outside they were the golden family with the perfect life. On the inside they built the perfect lie.

A young nanny who plunged to her death, or was she pushed? A nine-year-old girl who collects sharp objects and refuses to speak. A lawyer whose job it is to uncover who in the family is a victim and who is a murderer. But how can you find out the truth when everyone here is lying?

Rose Barclay is a nine-year-old girl who witnessed the possible murder of her nanny - in the midst of her parent's bitter divorce - and immediately stopped speaking. Stella Hudson is a best interest attorney, appointed to serve as counsel for children in custody cases. She never accepts clients under thirteen due to her own traumatic childhood, but Stella's mentor, a revered judge, believes Stella is the only one who can help.

From the moment Stella passes through the iron security gate and steps into the gilded, historic DC home of the Barclays, she realizes the case is even more twisted, and the Barclay family far more troubled, than she feared. And there's something eerie about the house itself: It's a plastic house, with not a single bit of glass to be found.

As Stella comes closer to uncovering the secrets the Barclays are desperate to hide, danger wraps around her like a shroud, and her past and present are set on a collision course in ways she never expected. Everyone is a suspect in the nanny's murder. The mother, the father, the grandmother, the nanny's boyfriend. Even Rose. Is the person Stella's supposed to protect the one she may need protection from?]]> Sarah Pekkanen Giselle 3 3.69 2024 House of Glass
author: Sarah Pekkanen
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: age-adult, audiobook, borrowed, 2024
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)]]> 944073
Nobleman Captain Jezal dan Luthar, dashing officer, and paragon of selfishness, has nothing more dangerous in mind than fleecing his friends at cards and dreaming of glory in the fencing circle. But war is brewing, and on the battlefields of the frozen North they fight by altogether bloodier rules.

Inquisitor Glokta, cripple turned torturer, would like nothing better than to see Jezal come home in a box. But then Glokta hates everyone: cutting treason out of the Union one confession at a time leaves little room for friendship. His latest trail of corpses may lead him right to the rotten heart of government, if he can stay alive long enough to follow it.

Enter the wizard, Bayaz. A bald old man with a terrible temper and a pathetic assistant, he could be the First of the Magi, he could be a spectacular fraud, but whatever he is, he's about to make the lives of Logen, Jezal, and Glokta a whole lot more difficult.

Murderous conspiracies rise to the surface, old scores are ready to be settled, and the line between hero and villain is sharp enough to draw blood.

]]> 515 Joe Abercrombie 0575079797 Giselle 0 to-read 4.21 2006 The Blade Itself (The First Law, #1)
author: Joe Abercrombie
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2006
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Starless Crown (Moonfall, #1)]]> 57693169
A gifted student foretells an apocalypse. Her reward is a sentence of death.

Fleeing into the unknown she is drawn into a team of

A broken soldier, who once again takes up the weapons he’s forbidden to wield and carves a trail back home.

A drunken prince, who steps out from his beloved brother's shadow and claims a purpose of his own.

An imprisoned thief, who escapes the crushing dark and discovers a gleaming artifact - one that will ignite a power struggle across the globe.

On the run, hunted by enemies old and new, they must learn to trust each other in order to survive in a world evolved in strange, beautiful, and deadly ways, and uncover ancient secrets that hold the key to their salvation.

But with each passing moment, doom draws closer.

WHO WILL CLAIM THE STARLESS CROWN?

The Moonfall
The Starless Crown
The Cradle of Ice]]> 560 James Rollins 1250816777 Giselle 0 3.65 2022 The Starless Crown (Moonfall, #1)
author: James Rollins
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read, 2022, age-adult, genre-science-fiction
review:

]]> Gothikana 57426932 The eternal romance of Beauty and the Beast meets the gothic suspense of Dracula in this erotic dark academia story of epic love from bestselling author RuNyx.

An unusual girl. An enigmatic man. An ancient castle. What could go wrong?

An outcast her entire life, Corvina Clemm is left adrift after losing her mother. When she receives the admission letter from the mysterious University of Verenmore, she accepts it as a sign from the universe. The last thing she expects though is an old, secluded castle on top of a mountain riddled with secrets, deceit, and death.

An enigma his entire life, Vad Deverell likes being a closed book but knowing exactly everything that happens in the university. A part-time professor working on his thesis, Vad has been around long enough to know the dangers the castle possesses. And he knows the moment his path crosses with Corvina, she's dangerous to everything that he is.

They shouldn't have caught each other's eye. They cannot be. But a chill-inducing century-old mystery forces them to collide. People have disappeared every five years over the past century, Corvina is getting clues to unraveling it all, and Vad needs to keep an eye on her.

And so begins a tale of the mysterious, the morbid, the macabre, and a deep love that blossoms in the unlikeliest of places.]]> 456 RuNyx Giselle 0 to-read 3.78 2021 Gothikana
author: RuNyx
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Last Thing He Told Me 54981009
As Hannah’s increasingly desperate calls to Owen go unanswered, as the FBI arrests Owen’s boss, as a U.S. marshal and federal agents arrive at her Sausalito home unannounced, Hannah quickly realizes her husband isn’t who he said he was. Bailey just may hold the key to figuring out Owen’s true identity—and why he really disappeared.]]> 307 Laura Dave 1501171348 Giselle 0 to-read 3.78 2021 The Last Thing He Told Me
author: Laura Dave
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls, #1)]]> 214537839 A heart-pounding romantasy following a rebellious princess who must compete to the death against her siblings for the crown to ensure justice, while fighting her feelings for her country's most powerful enemy by debut author Alexandra Kennington.

Revna is no stranger to struggle. As the only member of the royal family without a magical ability, she is seen as an embarrassing mistake to her kingdom and a blight on her family tree. Luckily, Revna has found family in other outcasts in her kingdom. But when her two closest friends� lives are put in danger, she is determined to save them by any means necessary, no matter the cost. The Bloodshed Trials—a competition where the last sibling in the royal family standing takes the throne—might just be the ultimate price.

Revna turns down her arranged marriage and commits to competing for the throne only to be kidnapped by the mysterious and terrifyingly powerful Hellbringer, the general of her country’s greatest enemy. He has the ability to rend souls with the flick of his wrist and is every inch as intimidating as the war stories say he is. But Revna wonders if there may be some humanity left in him—especially when he reveals there are other parties who want her on the throne for their own furtive reasons.]]> 416 Alexandra Kennington 0593820118 Giselle 0 to-read 3.71 2025 Blood Beneath the Snow (Blood & Souls, #1)
author: Alexandra Kennington
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The River Has Roots 211004176 Follow the river Liss to the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, and meet two sisters who cannot be separated, even in death.

“Oh what is stronger than a death? Two sisters singing with one breath.�

In the small town of Thistleford, on the edge of Faerie, dwells the mysterious Hawthorn family.

There, they tend and harvest the enchanted willows and honour an ancient compact to sing to them in thanks for their magic. None more devotedly than the family’s latest daughters, Esther and Ysabel, who cherish each other as much as they cherish the ancient trees.

But when Esther rejects a forceful suitor in favor of a lover from the land of Faerie, not only the sisters� bond but also their lives will be at risk…]]> 133 Amal El-Mohtar 1250341086 Giselle 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The River Has Roots
author: Amal El-Mohtar
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Enemy of My Dreams 212431571 In the last days of the Roman Empire a desperate princess and brutal Goth warlord forge a dangerous alliance.

Julia, only daughter of the emperor of Rome, lives a life of excess and freedom. Wine, philosophy and scandal—she revels in hedonism. But when her father dies and her teenage brother takes the throne, he will stop at nothing to seize control of both the empire and his wayward sister. And now Alaric of the Visigoths, a ferocious warrior who has battled Rome for years, has come to the capital to bargain for his homeland.

When Julia rebels against the marriage her brother has ordered her to accept, he responds by publicly punishing her lover in the Colosseum. Realizing how perilous her position is, Julia impulsively turns to Alaric—the empire’s sworn enemy, and the one man who can make Rome tremble—and engineers her own kidnapping. Julia, the Roman princess, forges an uneasy alliance with Alaric, the brutal warrior king, in an edgy, sexy cat-and-mouse game of attraction, defiance and lust.

�Enemy of My Dreams is a romantic romp through the ashes of a dying empire.�
�Luna McNamara, author of Psyche and Eros

]]> 448 Jenny Williamson 1335080511 Giselle 0 to-read, 2025 3.67 Enemy of My Dreams
author: Jenny Williamson
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.67
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read, 2025
review:

]]> Strange Sally Diamond 62322008
Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and worried police, but also a sinister voice from a past she has no memory of. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, recluse Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends, finding independence, and learning that people don't always mean what they say.

But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .]]> 384 Liz Nugent 1844885968 Giselle 0 to-read 4.14 2023 Strange Sally Diamond
author: Liz Nugent
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Gift 63945326 It’s Christmas Eve and Stella Hansen is broke.

She is so broke that despite working two jobs, she can’t even afford a present for her husband on their first Christmas as man and wife. But then a mysterious storekeeper at a pawn shop offers Stella an intriguing trade.

Stella wants more than anything to buy her husband the Christmas gift of his dreams. But will it come at a terrible price?


The Gift is a gripping Christmas-themed thriller inspired by the classic O. Henry tale, The Gift of the Magi.]]> 47 Freida McFadden Giselle 2 3.24 2022 The Gift
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.24
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: 2-star, age-adult, audiobook, borrowed
review:

]]> Under the Whispering Door 53205888 Welcome to Charon's Crossing.
The tea is hot, the scones are fresh, and the dead are just passing through.

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

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

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

Hilarious, haunting, and kind, Under the Whispering Door is an uplifting story about a life spent at the office and a death spent building a home.]]> 376 T.J. Klune 1250217342 Giselle 0 to-read 4.11 2021 Under the Whispering Door
author: T.J. Klune
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Maid's Diary 60588456
When homicide cop Mallory Van Alst is called to a scene at a luxury waterfront home known as the Glass House, she’s confronted with evidence of a violent attack so bloody it’s improbable the victim is alive. But there’s no body. The homeowners are gone. And their maid is missing. The only witness is the elderly woman next door, who woke to screams in the night. The neighbor was also the last person to see Kit Darling alive.

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

And no one escapes their past.]]> 376 Loreth Anne White Giselle 0 to-read 4.23 2023 The Maid's Diary
author: Loreth Anne White
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Darling Girls 127280429 SISTERS, SECRETS, LOVE, AND MURDER... Sally Hepworth’s new novel has it all.

For as long as they can remember, Jessica, Norah, and Alicia have been told how lucky they are. As young girls they were rescued from family tragedies and raised by a loving foster mother, Miss Fairchild, on an idyllic farming estate and given an elusive second chance at a happy family life.

But their childhood wasn’t the fairy tale everyone thinks it was. Miss Fairchild had rules. Miss Fairchild could be unpredictable. And Miss Fairchild was never, ever to be crossed. In a moment of desperation, the three broke away from Miss Fairchild and thought they were free. Even though they never saw her again, she was always somewhere in the shadows of their minds. When a body is discovered under the home they grew up in, the foster sisters find themselves thrust into the spotlight as key witnesses. Or are they prime suspects?

A thrilling page-turner of sisterhood, secrets, love, and murder by New York Times bestselling author Sally Hepworth.]]> 359 Sally Hepworth 125028452X Giselle 0 to-read 3.98 2024 Darling Girls
author: Sally Hepworth
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Listen for the Lie 127279000 What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all and, if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. But after Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer.

It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life. But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast Listen for the Lie and its too-good looking host, Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one who did it.

The truth is out there, if we just listen.]]> 352 Amy Tintera 1250880319 Giselle 0 to-read 4.07 2024 Listen for the Lie
author: Amy Tintera
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Cross My Heart 214152422 She has his dead wife’s heart; the one she wants is his. The author of The Family Plot brings her signature prose to a twisty novel about a heart transplant patient who becomes romantically obsessed with her donor’s husband.

Rosie Lachlan wants nothing more than to find The One.

A year after she was dumped in her wedding dress, she’s working at her parents� bridal salon, anxious for a happy ending that can’t come soon enough. After receiving a life-saving heart transplant, Rosie knows her health is precious and precarious. She suspects her heart donor is Daphne Thorne, the wife of local celebrity author Morgan Thorne, who she begins messaging via an anonymous service called DonorConnect, ostensibly to learn more about Daphne. But Rosie has a secret: She’s convinced that now that she has his wife’s heart, she and Morgan are meant to be together.

As she and Morgan correspond, the pretense of avoiding personal details soon disappears, even if Rosie’s keeping some cards close to her chest. But as she digs deeper into Morgan’s previous marriage, she discovers disturbing rumors about the man she’s falling for. Could Morgan have had something to do with his late wife’s death? And can Rosie’s heart sustain another break—or is she next?]]> 309 Megan Collins 1668048078 Giselle 0 to-read 3.61 2025 Cross My Heart
author: Megan Collins
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Surrogate Mother 124822905
Abby wants a baby more than anything. But after years of failed infertility treatments and adoptions that have fallen through, it seems like motherhood is not in her future. That is, until her personal assistant Monica makes a generous offer that will make all of Abby's dreams come true. But it turns out Monica isn't who she says she is. The woman now carrying Abby's child has an unspeakable secret. And she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.]]> Freida McFadden Giselle 2 age-adult, audiobook 3.58 2018 The Surrogate Mother
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: age-adult, audiobook
review:
Can’t stop reading her books because they’re so entertaining even though I hate her characters. Even if they’re all the same main character.
]]> Kill for Me, Kill for You 176451879
One dark evening on New York City’s Upper West Side, two strangers meet by chance. Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realize they have much in common, especially loneliness and an intense desire for revenge against the men who destroyed their families. As they talk into the night, they come up with the perfect if you kill for me, I’ll kill for you.

In another part of the city, Ruth is home alone when the beautiful brownstone she shares with her husband, Scott, is invaded. She’s attacked by a man with piercing blue eyes, who disappears into the night. Will she ever be able to feel safe again while the blue-eyed stranger is out there?

Intricate, heart-racing, and from an author who “is the real deal� (Lee Child, #1 New York Times bestselling author), Kill for Me, Kill for You will keep you breathless until the final page.]]> 340 Steve Cavanagh 1668049341 Giselle 0 to-read 4.13 2023 Kill for Me, Kill for You
author: Steve Cavanagh
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Forbidden Alchemy 213660564 This stunning slow-burn romantasy follows a fated pair who uncover a world-changing secret and are thrust into a violent class war, navigating love, loss, and devastating betrayals.

Nina Harrow and Patrick Colson are twelve years old when they are whisked away from the shadows of their disenfranchised mining towns to dazzling Belavere City to discover their magical potential. Those who pass Belavere’s test will become Artisans, wielders of powerful elemental magic destined to fulfill the city’s grand ambitions. For Nina, the Artisan School symbolizes a dream and an escape from her harsh reality, while Patrick yearns to return to his Craftsman family, whose extraordinary physical strength serves the idium mines keeping the city alive.

And then they uncover a devastating truth: Artisans aren’t born, they’re chosen. They part ways on very different paths, leaving them to carry the burden of this secret alone.

In the years that follow, a Craftsman revolution ignites, thrusting Nina and Patrick into opposing factions of a brewing war. Now an elite Artisan with the very rare talent for charming earth, Nina has turned her back on the fight, haunted by the loss of her found family. But fate intervenes when she is captured by Patrick’s rebel group. Despite the years and conflict that separates them, Patrick hasn’t forgotten Nina. He desperately seeks her help for a mission that could shift the tides against Belavere City. Reluctantly, she agrees, battling the sparks flying between them. But when Nina’s first love reappears, asking her to betray Patrick for the sake of the Artisans, Nina faces an impossible choice that could alter the fate of their world.]]> 480 Stacey McEwan 1668076187 Giselle 0 to-read 4.62 A Forbidden Alchemy
author: Stacey McEwan
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.62
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Out on a Limb 198563657 414 Hannah Bonam-Young 0593872142 Giselle 0 to-read 4.35 2023 Out on a Limb
author: Hannah Bonam-Young
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)]]> 62627512 A special hardcover collector’s edition of It Ends with Us, featuring an exclusive Q&A between Colleen Hoover and her mother, a beautiful foil cover, an embossed case with the author’s signature, and newly designed endpapers—from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of It Starts with Us.

Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town where she grew up—she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. And when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life seems too good to be true.

Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating� rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place.

As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan—her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened.]]> 373 Colleen Hoover Giselle 2 3.86 2016 It Ends with Us (It Ends with Us, #1)
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2016
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/19
date added: 2025/02/20
shelves: 2-star, 2023, age-new-adult, genre-contemporary, genre-romance-instant-love, genre-romance-lust, over-hype-monster
review:
Errhh, kinda boring but that’s why I’m a fantasy girlie and not a contemporary girlie. Sometimes it’s just too boring and nothing really happens..This one is definitely predictable, and I can see why it was turned into a movie but I wasn’t a fan. She’s definitely not my type of author. I have to stop giving her a chance.
]]> None of This Is True 62334527
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author known for her “superb pacing, twisted characters, and captivating prose� (), 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 1797156594 Giselle 3 4.00 2023 None of This Is True
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: 3-star, age-adult, audiobook, borrowed, genre-contemporary, genre-thriller
review:
Great writing! And the story and characters had a lot more depth. Though I listened to the audiobook and I’m sure the novel had more details. Very skeptical of that ending though which I always like in thrillers.
]]> The It Girl 59345249
Vivacious, bright, occasionally vicious, and the ultimate It girl, she quickly pulled Hannah into her dazzling orbit. Together, they developed a group of devoted and inseparable friends—Will, Hugh, Ryan, and Emily—during their first term. By the end of the second, April was dead.

Now, a decade later, Hannah and Will are expecting their first child, and the man convicted of killing April, former Oxford porter John Neville, has died in prison. Relieved to have finally put the past behind her, Hannah’s world is rocked when a young journalist comes knocking and presents new evidence that Neville may have been innocent. As Hannah reconnects with old friends and delves deeper into the mystery of April’s death, she realizes that the friends she thought she knew all have something to hide� including a murder.

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of One by One returns with an unputdownable mystery following a woman on the search for answers a decade after her friend’s murder.

]]> 423 Ruth Ware 1982155264 Giselle 0 to-read 3.81 2022 The It Girl
author: Ruth Ware
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1)]]> 43822820 here.

Soon after her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones returns home from work to find the letter she’s been waiting for her entire life. She rips it open with one driving thought: I am finally going to know who I am.

She soon learns not only the identity of her birth parents, but also that she is the sole inheritor of their abandoned mansion on the banks of the Thames in London’s fashionable Chelsea neighborhood, worth millions. Everything in Libby’s life is about to change. But what she can’t possibly know is that others have been waiting for this day as well—and she is on a collision course to meet them.

Twenty-five years ago, police were called to 16 Cheyne Walk with reports of a baby crying. When they arrived, they found a healthy ten-month-old happily cooing in her crib in the bedroom. Downstairs in the kitchen lay three dead bodies, all dressed in black, next to a hastily scrawled note. And the four other children reported to live at Cheyne Walk were gone.

The can’t-look-away story of three entangled families living in a house with the darkest of secrets.]]> 352 Lisa Jewell 1501190105 Giselle 0 to-read 3.93 2019 The Family Upstairs (The Family Upstairs, #1)
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)]]> 211081101
The only route through a storm-ravaged world, the Bridge Kingdom enriches itself and deprives its rivals, including Lara's homeland. So when she’s sent as a bride under the guise of peace, Lara is prepared to do whatever it takes to fracture its impenetrable defenses. And the defenses of its king.

Yet as she infiltrates her new home and gains a deeper understanding of the war to possess the bridge, Lara begins to question whether she’s the hero or the villain. And as her feelings for Aren transform from frosty hostility to fierce passion, Lara must choose which kingdom she’ll save� and which kingdom she’ll destroy.

Passionate and violent, The Bridge Kingdom is a seductive fantasy perfect for fans of From Blood and Ash and A Court of Thorns and Roses.]]> 430 Danielle L. Jensen 0593975189 Giselle 0 to-read 4.01 2018 The Bridge Kingdom (The Bridge Kingdom, #1)
author: Danielle L. Jensen
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> In the Country: Stories 28503788
Mia Alvar's stunning debut gives us a vivid, insightful picture of the Filipino diaspora: exiles and emigrants and wanderers uprooting their families to begin new lives in the Middle East and America--and, sometimes, turning back. One man smuggles drugs from his pharmacy in New York to Manila for his ailing father, only to discover an alarming truth about his mother. A woman living in Bahrain faces a challenge that compels her to question her marriage. A college student in Manila struggling to write fiction knows that her brother, who has gone abroad to make money, is the one living a life that stories are made of. The novella-length title story follows the unexpected fates of a journalist and a nurse during the 1970s labor strikes in Manila. Exploring the universal experience of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined, In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home.

The kontrabida
The miracle worker
Legends of the white lady
Shadow families
The Virgin of Monte Ramon
Esmeralda
Old girl
A contract overseas
In the country]]> 347 Mia Alvar 0804171491 Giselle 4 4.10 2015 In the Country: Stories
author: Mia Alvar
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves: age-adult, authors-poc, borrowed, diverse-characters, ebook, filipino-authors
review:
Loved it! Trying to educate myself in my own culture, this book was filled with wonderful heartfelt stories from young and old. Highly recommended!
]]> <![CDATA[The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life]]> 33406322
For decades, we’ve been told that positive thinking is the key to a happy, rich life. "F**k positivity," Mark Manson says. "Let’s be honest, shit is f**ked and we have to live with it." In his wildly popular Internet blog, Manson doesn’t sugarcoat or equivocate. He tells it like it is—a dose of raw, refreshing, honest truth that is sorely lacking today. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is his antidote to the coddling, let’s-all-feel-good mindset that has infected modern society and spoiled a generation, rewarding them with gold medals just for showing up.

Manson makes the argument, backed both by academic research and well-timed poop jokes, that improving our lives hinges not on our ability to turn lemons into lemonade, but on learning to stomach lemons better. Human beings are flawed and limited�"not everybody can be extraordinary, there are winners and losers in society, and some of it is not fair or your fault." Manson advises us to get to know our limitations and accept them. Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties, once we stop running and avoiding and start confronting painful truths, we can begin to find the courage, perseverance, honesty, responsibility, curiosity, and forgiveness we seek.

There are only so many things we can give a f**k about so we need to figure out which ones really matter, Manson makes clear. While money is nice, caring about what you do with your life is better, because true wealth is about experience. A much-needed grab-you-by-the-shoulders-and-look-you-in-the-eye moment of real-talk, filled with entertaining stories and profane, ruthless humor, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k is a refreshing slap for a generation to help them lead contented, grounded lives.

Listening Length: 5 hours and 30 minutes]]> 6 Mark Manson Giselle 3 3.50 2016 The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
author: Mark Manson
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/04
date added: 2025/02/04
shelves:
review:
Straight forward no BS advice. Lots of swearing but that’s a given.
]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)]]> 91975625 As he continues showing me their incredible penthouse apartment, I have a terrible feeling about the woman behind closed doors. But I can't risk losing this job � not if I want to keep my darkest secret safe . . .

It's hard to find an employer who doesn't ask too many questions about my past. So I thank my lucky stars that the Garricks miraculously give me a job, cleaning their stunning penthouse with views across the city and preparing fancy meals in their shiny kitchen. I can work here for a while, stay quiet until I get what I want. It's almost perfect. But I still haven't met Mrs Garrick, or seen inside the guest bedroom. I'm sure I hear her crying. I notice spots of blood around the neck of her white nightgowns when I'm doing laundry. And one day I can't help but knock on the door. When it gently swings open, what I see inside changes everything...

That's when I make a promise. After all, I've done this before. I can protect Mrs. Garrick while keeping my own secrets locked up safe. Douglas Garrick has done wrong. He is going to pay. It's simply a question of how far I'm willing to go...]]> 327 Freida McFadden 1837901325 Giselle 2 2023 4.21 2023 The Housemaid's Secret (The Housemaid, #2)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves: 2023
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng]]> 218185743
These days nobody can reach Cora: not her aunt, who wants her to prepare for the Hungry Ghost Festival; not her weird colleagues; and especially not the slack-jawed shadow lurking around her door frame. After all, it can't be real—can it? After a series of unexplained killings in Chinatown, Cora believes someone might be targeting East Asian women, and something might be targeting Cora herself.]]> 304 Kylie Lee Baker 0778368459 Giselle 0 to-read 4.27 2025 Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng
author: Kylie Lee Baker
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Goodnight Tokyo 201072367 A symphony of interconnected lives that offers a compelling reflection on life in modern-day metropolises at the intersection of isolation and intimacy.

Set over several nights, between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m., in and around Tokyo, this mind-blowingly constructed book is an elaborate, energetic fresco of human nocturnal existence in all its mystery, an enigmatic literary mix of Agatha Christie, Teju Cole, and Heironymous Bosch.

On this journey through the labyrinthine streets and hidden corners of one of the world’s most fascinating cities, everybody is searching for something, and maybe searching in the wrong places. Elements of the fantastical and the surreal abound, as they tend to do in the early pre-dawn hours of the morning, yet the settings, the human stories, and each character’s search are all as real as can be.

Goodnight Tokyo offers readers a unique and intimate take on Tokyo as seen through the eyes of a large cast of colorful characters. Their lives, as disparate and as far apart as they may seem, are in fact intricately interconnected and as their fates converge against the backdrop of the city’s neon-lit streets and quiet alleyways, Yoshida masterfully portrays in captivating, lyrical prose the complexities of human relationships, the mystery of human connection, and the universal quest for meaning.]]> 176 Atsuhiro Yoshida Giselle 0 to-read 3.55 2018 Goodnight Tokyo
author: Atsuhiro Yoshida
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic Fairy Tales]]> 30187628 736 Various 1435161270 Giselle 0 4.02 2016 Beauty and the Beast and Other Classic Fairy Tales
author: Various
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves: own, 2016, classics, age-children, beautiful-covers, cover-buy, from-barnesandnobles, from-book-depository, to-read
review:

]]> Want to Know a Secret? 222441400 Freida McFadden 1666617024 Giselle 1 3.39 2021 Want to Know a Secret?
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves: age-adult, audiobook, borrowed, genre-thriller
review:
I just really dislike these characters and it was just so over top and overblown, yet I can’t stop listening to her audiobooks ☺️
]]> The Inheritance 211953338
Meet the Agarwals, who have gathered on a private, luxury island off the west coast of Scotland for a much-anticipated family reunion.

Raj, the patriarch and a business tycoon, is about to announce to his wife and three children the succession plan for his multimillon-dollar Delhi-based company. Shalini, the fragile matriarch, is ready to have her husband to herself after years of sacrifice to the family business. Myra, the golden child, owner of the island and host of the reunion, is, unbeknownst to her family, on the brink of bankruptcy. Aseem, the son and supposed heir, is torn between his love for his wife and his duty to family. Aisha, the youngest, a party girl whose antics are legendary, can’t pass up an opportunity to wreak havoc. And then there’s Zoe, Aseem’s wife, the outsider whose #InstaPerfect life is built on a foundation of lies.

They’ve all got secrets they would die to protect. Who will survive this high-stakes reunion, and who will become a victim of their own greed? One thing is certain: this family gathering will shatter more than just their illusions of unity.]]> 352 Trisha Sakhlecha 0593832566 Giselle 0 to-read 3.66 2025 The Inheritance
author: Trisha Sakhlecha
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Here One Moment 215992982 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.�

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0385699794 Giselle 0 to-read 4.12 2024 Here One Moment
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Heir (Heir Duology, #1) 206780522 An orphan.
An outcast.
A prince.

And a killer who will bring an empire to its knees.

Growing up in the Kegari slums, AIZ has seen her share of suffering. An old tragedy fuels her need for vengeance, but it is love of her people that propels her. Until one hotheaded mistake lands her in an inescapable prison, where the embers of her wrath ignite.

Banished from her people for an unforgivable crime, SIRSHA is a down-on-her-luck tracker who uses magic to trace her marks. Destitute, she agrees to hunt down a killer who has murdered children across the Martial Empire. All she has to do is carry out the job and get paid. But when a chance encounter leads to an unexpected attraction, Sirsha learns her mission might cost her far more than she's willing to give up.

QUIL is the crown prince of the Empire and nephew of a venerated empress, but he’s loath to take the throne when his aunt steps down. As the son of a reviled emperor, he, better than anyone, understands that power corrupts. When a vicious new enemy threatens the survival of the Empire, Quil must ask himself if he can rise above his tragic lineage and be the heir his people need.

Beloved storyteller Sabaa Tahir interweaves the lives of three young people as they grapple with power, treachery, love, and the devastating consequences of unchecked greed, on a journey that may cost them their lives―and their hearts. Literally.]]> 484 Sabaa Tahir 0593616944 Giselle 0 to-read 4.24 2024 Heir (Heir Duology, #1)
author: Sabaa Tahir
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Locked Door 223062642
While eleven-year-old Nora Davis was up in her bedroom doing homework, she had no idea her father was killing women in the basement.

Until the day the police arrived at their front door.

Decades later, Nora’s father is spending his life behind bars, and Nora is a successful surgeon with a quiet, solitary existence. Nobody knows her father was a notorious serial killer. And she intends to keep it that way.

Then Nora discovers one of her young female patients has been murdered. In the same unique and horrific manner that her father used to kill his victims.

Somebody knows who Nora is. Somebody wants her to take the fall for this unthinkable crime. But she’s not a killer like her father. The police can’t pin anything on her.

As long as they don’t look in her basement.

7 hrs. 25 min.]]> 8 Freida McFadden Giselle 1 age-adult, audiobook, 1-star 3.74 2021 The Locked Door
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2021
rating: 1
read at: 2025/01/05
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: age-adult, audiobook, 1-star
review:
Umm you can skip this one. Nothing much happens. And I was not invested in the storyline at all. Also why does she write unlikeable female main characters??? And perfect husbands or boyfriends? *gags*
]]> Witchcraft for Wayward Girls 207611566 There’s power in a book�

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

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

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

In Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, the author of How to Sell a Haunted House and The Final Girl Support Group delivers another searing, completely original novel and further cements his status as a “horror master� (NPR).]]> 482 Grady Hendrix 0593548981 Giselle 0 to-read 4.00 2025 Witchcraft for Wayward Girls
author: Grady Hendrix
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)]]> 61991328 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781538742570.

Every day I clean the Winchesters� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband Andrew seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.

I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out� and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.

But I reassure myself: the Winchesters don’t know who I really am.

They don’t know what I’m capable of…]]> 329 Freida McFadden Giselle 3 4.27 2022 The Housemaid (The Housemaid, #1)
author: Freida McFadden
name: Giselle
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/17
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: 2022, age-adult, bought-in-store, genre-contemporary, genre-thriller, 3-star
review:
That was..a little like GONE GIRL actually.. her writing is very easy to digest. I can’t help but keep reading her entire backlist. Very suspenseful and thrilling! I can see why it’s being made into a movie.
]]> Julie Chan Is Dead: A Novel 220160916 In this razor-sharp, diabolical debut thriller, a young woman steps into her deceased twin’s influencer life, only to discover dark secrets hidden behind her social media façade.

Julie Chan has nothing. Her twin sister has everything. Except a pulse.

Julie Chan, a supermarket cashier with nothing to lose, finds herself thrust into the glamorous yet perilous world of her late twin sister, Chloe VanHuusen, a popular influencer. Separated at a young age, the identical twins were polar opposites and rarely spoke, except for one viral video that Chloe initiated (Finding My Long-Lost Twin And Buying Her A House #EMOTIONAL). When Julie discovers Chloe’s lifeless body under mysterious circumstances, she seizes the chance to live the life she’s always envied.

Transforming into Chloe is easier than expected. Julie effortlessly adopts Chloe’s luxurious influencer life, complete with designer clothes, a meticulous skincare routine, and millions of adoring followers. However, Julie soon realizes that Chloe’s seemingly picture-perfect life was anything but.

Haunted by Chloe’s untimely death and struggling to fit into the privileged influencer circle, Julie faces mounting challenges during a weeklong island retreat with Chloe’s exclusive group of influencer friends. As events spiral out of control, Julie uncovers the sinister forces that may have led to her sister’s demise and realizes she might be the next target.]]> 320 Liann Zhang 1668079860 Giselle 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Julie Chan Is Dead: A Novel
author: Liann Zhang
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Silver Under Nightfall (Reaper, #1)]]> 60321513
When a terrifying new breed of vampire is sighted outside of the city, Remy prepares to investigate alone. But then he encounters the shockingly warmhearted vampire heiress Xiaodan Song and her infuriatingly arrogant fiancé, vampire lord Zidan Malekh, who may hold the key to defeating the creatures—though he knows associating with them won’t do his reputation any favors. When he’s offered a spot alongside them to find the truth about the mutating virus Rot that’s plaguing the kingdom, Remy faces a choice.

It’s one he’s certain he’ll regret.

But as the three face dangerous hardships during their journey, Remy develops fond and complicated feelings for the couple. He begins to question what he holds true about vampires, as well as the story behind his own family legacy. As the Rot continues to spread across the kingdom, Remy must decide where his loyalties lie: with his father and the kingdom he’s been trained all his life to defend or the vampires who might just be the death of him.]]> 512 Rin Chupeco 1982195711 Giselle 0 to-read 3.93 2022 Silver Under Nightfall (Reaper, #1)
author: Rin Chupeco
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun]]> 60018573 A Career in Books is a graphic novel for everyone who's wanted to work with books and had no idea what it entailed. It's for those who were taken aback by that first paycheck. It's for those who wanted a literary career even in the face of systemic racism, who dealt with the unique challenges of coming from an immigrant family, and whose group chat is their lifeline.

Shirin, Nina, and Silvia have just gotten their first jobs in publishing, at a University Press, a traditional publisher, and a trust-fund kid's indie publisher, respectively. And it's... great? ¯_(�)_/¯ They know they're paying their dues and the challenges they meet (Shirin's boss just assumes she knows Cantonese; Nina cannot get promoted by sheer force of will; and Silvia has to deal with daily microaggressions) are just part of "a career in books." When they meet their elderly neighbor, Veronica Vo, and discover she's a Booker Prize winner dubbed the "Tampax Tolstoy" by the press, each woman finds a thread of inspiration from Veronica's life to carry on her own path. And the result is full of twists and revelations that surprise not only the reader but the women themselves.

Charming, wry, and with fantastic black-and-white illustrations, A Career in Books is a modern ode to Rona Jaffe's The Best of Everything, and perfect for fans of Good Talk, Younger, and The Bold Type, as readers chart the paths of three Asian-American women trying to break through the world of books with hilarious, incisive, and heartbreaking results.]]> 270 Kate Gavino 059318548X Giselle 0 to-read 3.91 2022 A Career in Books: A Novel about Friends, Money, and the Occasional Duck Bun
author: Kate Gavino
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> La Tercera 63889653
Rosario Delgado, a Filipina novelist in New York City, learns of the death of her mother in the Philippines, but puts off her return to the country by burying herself in an investigation her family's history—and her mother’s supposed inheritance, La Tercera, a place that may or may not exist. As Rosario tries to understand her mother’s past and her own, she documents generations of family bequests and detritus, from maps of uncertain purpose and the rusted remains of chicken coops to family notebooks and news clippings. She grapples, too, with less tangible legacies: the lasting effects of fifty years of American rule; Filipino puns and jibes that play off of shifting overlays of language (English, Tagalog, Waray, Spanish); and the sensibilities of generations of Delgados, a blend of despair and pride, venom and humor—“the wit of the hunted.�

Each question Rosario asks seems to lead to more questions, and each life she explores opens onto a multitude of other lives. But as the search for La Tercera becomes increasingly labyrinthine, Rosario’s mother emerges in all her dizzying complexity—victor and victim, rebel and traitor, the one who abandons and the one who loves. Meanwhile, another narrative takes shape, made up of fragments from the country’s erased history of exploitation and slaughter at the hands of American occupying forces.]]> 480 Gina Apostol Giselle 0 to-read 3.17 2023 La Tercera
author: Gina Apostol
name: Giselle
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>