en-US Fri, 25 Apr 2025 08:45:52 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 220239094 A mysterious book with a legacy spanning from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day unites three women in this unforgettable novel from New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton.

London, 2024: When American expat Margo Reynolds is hired to source a book that’s more than one hundred and twenty years old, she thinks her greatest challenge is going to be that there’s only one copy in existence. However, it quickly becomes clear that her client isn’t the only person determined to procure the book at any cost. Thrust into a deadly quest, Margo teams up with an unlikely ally—the man she loved and lost—and is forced to confront the ghosts of her own past as the lingering feelings that simmer between them ignite.

Havana, 1966: Pilar Castillo’s days are spent working as a librarian in Havana, her nights spent hoping for her husband’s freedom after his unjust imprisonment. But Pilar has a secret that could jeopardize her life. She’s fighting Fidel’s regime in her own way, and when she comes into possession of a book that was published more than sixty years earlier, she must decide how much she’s willing to risk to protect the literary works entrusted to her care.

Boston, 1900: For Cuban teacher Eva Fuentes, traveling from Havana to Harvard to participate in the largest cultural exchange between Cuba and the United States is not only a chance to represent her country at a critical time in its bid for independence, but also an opportunity to work on the book she’s writing. When a moonlit encounter with an enigmatic stranger alters the course of Eva’s summer at Harvard, and as secrets, lies, and forbidden love rise to the surface, Eva’s life—and legacy—is irrevocably changed.]]> 352 Chanel Cleeton 0593816900 Shannon 0 to-read 4.30
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.30
book published:
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
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]]> 228177777 When a daughter and her famous mother return to Winthrop Island to confront their complicated past, they discover a secret trove of paintings that connect them to a mysterious woman who vanished on a luxury steamship two centuries earlier.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Husbands & Lovers comes an epic tale of family legacy, love, and truths that echo down generations.

Audrey Fisher has struggled all her life to emerge from the shadow of her famous mother by forging a career as a world-class chef. Meredith Fisher’s glamorous screen persona disguises the trauma of the tragic accident that haunts her dreams. Neither woman wants to return to the New England island they left behind and its complicated emotional ties, but Meredith has one last chance to sober up and salvage her big comeback, and where else but discreet, moneyed Winthrop Island can a famous actress spend the summer without the intrusion of other people? Until Audrey discovers an old wooden chest among the belongings of her estranged bartender father, Mike Kennedy, and the astonishing contents draw the women deep into Winthrop’s past and its many secrets…attracting the interest of their handsome neighbor, Sedge Peabody. How did a trove of paintings from one of America’s greatest artists wind up in the cellar of the Mohegan Inn? And who is the mysterious woman portrayed on every canvas?

On a stormy November night in 1846, Providence Dare flees Boston and boards the luxury steamship Atlantic one step ahead of the law��.or so she believes. But when a catastrophic accident leaves the ship at the mercy of a mighty gale, Providence finds herself trapped in a deadly game of cat and mouse with the one man who knows her real identity—the detective investigating the suspicious death of her employer, the painter Henry Irving. As the Atlantic fights for her life and the rocky shore of Winthrop Island edges closer, a desperate Providence searches for her chance to escape…before the sea swallows her without a trace.

In Under the Stars, the destinies of three women converge across centuries, as a harrowing true disaster at the dawn of the steamship era evokes a complex legacy of family secrets in modern-day New England. Williams has written a timeless epic of mothers and daughters, of love lost and found, and of the truths that echo down generations.]]> 368 Beatriz Williams 0593724259 Shannon 0 to-read 4.34 2025
author: Beatriz Williams
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
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]]> 62919847 A gripping, page-turning novel set in Jim Crow Florida that follows Robert Stephens Jr. as he’s sent to a segregated reform school that is a chamber of terrors where he sees the horrors of racism and injustice, for the living, and the dead.

Gracetown, Florida
June 1950

Twelve-year-old Robbie Stephens, Jr., is sentenced to six months at the Gracetown School for Boys, a reformatory, for kicking the son of the largest landowner in town in defense of his older sister, Gloria. So begins Robbie’s journey further into the terrors of the Jim Crow South and the very real horror of the school they call The Reformatory.

Robbie has a talent for seeing ghosts, or haints. But what was once a comfort to him after the loss of his mother has become a window to the truth of what happens at the reformatory. Boys forced to work to remediate their so-called crimes have gone missing, but the haints Robbie sees hint at worse things. Through his friends Redbone and Blue, Robbie is learning not just the rules but how to survive. Meanwhile, Gloria is rallying every family member and connection in Florida to find a way to get Robbie out before it’s too late.

The Reformatory is a haunting work of historical fiction written as only American Book Award–winning author Tananarive Due could, by piecing together the life of the relative her family never spoke of and bringing his tragedy and those of so many others at the infamous Dozier School for Boys to the light in this riveting novel.]]> 576 Tananarive Due 1982188340 Shannon 5 4.44 2023
author: Tananarive Due
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/27
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves:
review:
Tananarive Due accomplished an amazing feat and wrote a masterpiece. It’s heavy and nerve-wracking, and I loved it just the same.
]]> 22609310
For once, Auburn takes a chance and puts her heart in control, only to discover that Owen is hiding a huge secret. The magnitude of his past threatens to destroy everything Auburn loves most, and the only way to get her life back on track is to cut Owen out of it—but can she do it?]]> 306 Colleen Hoover 1476791457 Shannon 0 to-read 4.14 2015
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212924176
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.

When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.

One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.]]> 368 Tia Williams 1538726718 Shannon 5 3.98 2024
author: Tia Williams
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/03/03
date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 198385436
There are things Chelsea Devantez probably shouldn’t be telling you. Many of them are in this some are embarrassing (like when she tried to break her three year spell of celibacy using a guide of seduction tips). Some are confessional (getting sentenced to the “hell hill�� at Mormon church camp). Some are TMI (a series of outrageous doctor visits that ended with one doctor misdiagnosing her as “pregnant.�� Woopsies!).

Then there are things Chelsea really shouldn’t be telling like the time her biggest family secret was publicly outed, or about the drive-by shootings and the precipitating domestic violence she survived. Yet through it all, it’s the women in Chelsea’s life who kept her going �� from the lowest points of her childhood when she and her mom had only $100 left to their name, all the way to her career highs as the Emmy-nominated Head Writer for The Problem with Jon Stewart and sensational podcaster deemed “the celebrity memoir whisperer�� by her fans.

In I Shouldn't Be Telling You This, Chelsea centers each story around a different woman who shaped her life, taking us on a tour of friends and strangers, fictional characters and celebrities, heroes and villains who will destroy any Netflix algorithm for a “strong female lead.�� Reading it will feel kinda like that moment at a party when your friend beckons you close, sloshes her martini around, and covertly whispers, “I really shouldn’t say this, but…”]]> 272 Chelsea Devantez 1335455078 Shannon 5 3.88 2024
author: Chelsea Devantez
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/07/31
date added: 2024/12/30
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]]> 48037
But as Carmilla becomes increasingly strange and volatile, prone to eerie nocturnal wanderings, Laura finds herself tormented by nightmares and growing weaker by the day�� Pre-dating Dracula by twenty-six years, Carmilla is the original vampire story, steeped in sexual tension and gothic romance.]]> 108 J. Sheridan Le Fanu 0809510839 Shannon 0 3.88 1872
author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1872
rating: 0
read at: 2024/10/12
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> 220809660 ONE OF US IS LYING MEETS UNTIL DAWN IN THE MUST-READ NEW MYSTERY FROM MILLION-BESTSELLING AUTHOR SARRA CANNON��
Secrets can kill.
Vanessa Shaw was the kind of girl you either loved or you loved to hate. Over the course of our friendship, I’d done both. I never should have gone to her family's secluded cabin on the river that night, but it was meant to bring us all closer.�� One last party with our original group before senior year began.��


Instead, Vanessa disappeared without a trace, and her memory’s been haunting me ever since. Now, exactly one year later, her brother Kirin has brought us all back to the cabin to honor her life. Six of Vanessa's closest friends, each with a secret we’d do anything to protect.


But I have a feeling no one is leaving until we unbury the truth. After all, everyone there that night had a reason to want Vanessa gone ... Including me.

Don't miss this psychological thriller with a hint of the supernatural - perfect for fans of Pretty Little Liars and��A Good Girl's Guide To Murder. ]]> 432 Sarra Cannon 1624210953 Shannon 4 4.54
author: Sarra Cannon
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
Looked forward to getting back to this book every day—fast paced, engaging story, fun twists at every turn.
]]> 106393 Renowned hip-hop artist, political activist, and bestselling author Sister Souljah brings the streets of New York to life in a powerful and utterly unforgettable first novel.

I came busting into the world during one of New York's worst snowstorms, so my mother named me Winter. Ghetto-born, Winter is the young, wealthy daughter of a prominent Brooklyn drug-dealing family. Quick-witted, sexy, and business-minded, she knows and loves the streets like the curves of her own body. But when a cold Winter wind blows her life in a direction she doesn't want to go, her street smarts and seductive skills are put to the test of a lifetime. Unwilling to lose, this ghetto girl will do anything to stay on top.

Featuring a Special Collector’s Edition Reader’s Guide—including an author Q&A, detailed character analyses, and the author’s own remarks about the meaning of her story.]]> 430 Sister Souljah 1416521690 Shannon 0 10-from-shelf-in-25 4.48 1999
author: Sister Souljah
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.48
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 18528009 Excellent Book 256 Ana Castillo 1558618635 Shannon 0 to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-25 3.20 2014
author: Ana Castillo
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 625895
Billie Burke is smart, endlessly driven, and fabulous—it’s no accident she landed a job as the beauty editor at the world’s leading fashion magazine. Caught in a whirlwind of long office hours and fashion industry party-hopping, she hasn’t had time to focus on her nonexistent love life. Instead, she’s been living vicariously through her friends.

Then she meets Jay Lane, a gorgeous up-and-coming Brooklyn writer who pretty much knocks her right out of her stilettos. Soon Billie finds herself doing things with Jay in broad daylight that she’s never even dared to think about in the privacy of her own head. In no time at all she’s absolutely addicted to an affair that’s as crazy and seductive as New York itself. But there’s a lot she doesn’t know about Jay, whose rough past seems determined to start creeping back into their present....]]> 256 Tia Williams 0451215079 Shannon 0 to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-25 3.55 2004
author: Tia Williams
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 58640905 Guapo pobrecito��her grandmother calls him. The “poor handsome man.��

Professor Jeremiah Post, the poor handsome man, is in fact standing in the way of Alejandra “Alex�� Torres turning Loretta’s, her grandmother’s bar, into a viable business. The hot brainiac who sleeps in one of the upstairs tenant rooms already has all of her Mexican American family’s admiration; she won’t let him have the bar and building she needs to resurrect her career, too.

Alex blowing into town has rocked Jeremiah to his mild-mannered core, but the large, boisterous Torres clan is everything he never had. He doesn’t believe Alex has the best interest of her family, their community or the bar’s legacy in mind. To protect all three, he’ll stand up to the tough and tattooed bartender with whom he now shares a bedroom wall—and resist the insta-lust they both feel.

But when an old enemy threatens Loretta’s and the surrounding neighborhood, Alex and Jeremiah must combine forces. It will take her might and his mind to save the home they both desperately need.]]> 393 Angelina M. Lopez 1335639926 Shannon 0 3.75 2022
author: Angelina M. Lopez
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 23-in-2023, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 62171046 300 Katee Robert 1728262828 Shannon 0 10-from-shelf-in-25 3.46 2024
author: Katee Robert
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

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

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

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

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

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Shannon 0 10-from-shelf-in-25 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 60393672 Before It Ends with Us, it started with Atlas. Colleen Hoover tells fan favorite Atlas’s side of the story and shares what comes next in this long-anticipated sequel to the “glorious and touching�� (USA TODAY) #1 New York Times bestseller It Ends with Us.

Lily and her ex-husband, Ryle, have just settled into a civil coparenting rhythm when she suddenly bumps into her first love, Atlas, again. After nearly two years separated, she is elated that for once, time is on their side, and she immediately says yes when Atlas asks her on a date.

But her excitement is quickly hampered by the knowledge that, though they are no longer married, Ryle is still very much a part of her life—and Atlas Corrigan is the one man he will hate being in his ex-wife and daughter’s life.

Switching between the perspectives of Lily and Atlas, It Starts with Us picks up right where the epilogue for the “gripping, pulse-pounding�� (Sarah Pekkanen, author of Perfect Neighbors) bestselling phenomenon It Ends with Us left off. Revealing more about Atlas’s past and following Lily as she embraces a second chance at true love while navigating a jealous ex-husband, it proves that “no one delivers an emotional read like Colleen Hoover�� (Anna Todd, New York Times bestselling author).]]> 323 Colleen Hoover 1668001225 Shannon 0 3.80 2022
author: Colleen Hoover
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 23-in-2023, 10-from-shelf-in-24, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 54866589
A feud rages in Gilded Age New York City between newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. When Grace Harrington lands a job at Hearst’s newspaper in 1896, she’s caught in a cutthroat world where one scoop can make or break your career, but it’s a story emerging from Cuba that changes her life.

Unjustly imprisoned in a notorious Havana women’s jail, eighteen-year-old Evangelina Cisneros dreams of a Cuba free from Spanish oppression. When Hearst learns of her plight and splashes her image on the front page of his paper, proclaiming her, “The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba,�� she becomes a rallying cry for American intervention in the battle for Cuban independence.

With the help of Marina Perez, a courier secretly working for the Cuban revolutionaries in Havana, Grace and Hearst’s staff attempt to free Evangelina. But when Cuban civilians are forced into reconcentration camps and the explosion of the USS Maine propels the United States and Spain toward war, the three women must risk everything in their fight for freedom.]]> 367 Chanel Cleeton 0593098870 Shannon 0 3.89 2021
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 101124639
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 384 Jessica Knoll 1501153226 Shannon 0 3.99 2023
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24, 10-from-shelf-in-25
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]]> 123416326
Charon Ariti has been Hades's right-hand man for years. He's given everything to the lower city, but now he's ready to take something for himself. He's only too happy to give Eurydice a special kind of education…but is her heart really free enough to be claimed?

Orpheus Makos will do whatever it takes to make things right. Once the golden boy of the upper city, he's now a shadow of his former self. He'll do anything to get Eurydice back…even if it means she's not coming into his arms alone. Three hearts. Three futures. Countless ways to get it wrong.

But with enemies slipping through Olympus's faltering barrier to lay siege on the lower city, a trio of broken hearts will be the least of these would-be lovers' worries…]]> 316 Katee Robert Shannon 0 3.70 2024
author: Katee Robert
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: 10-from-shelf-in-24, to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-25
review:

]]> 57936251 He has a heart of ice...but for her, he'd burn the world.

Alex Volkov is a devil blessed with the face of an angel and cursed with a past he can't escape.

Driven by a tragedy that has haunted him for most of his life, his ruthless pursuits for success and vengeance leave little room for matters of the heart.

But when he's forced to look after his best friend's sister, he starts to feel something in his chest:

A crack.
A melt.
A fire that could end his world as he knew it.

***

Ava Chen is a free spirit trapped by nightmares of a childhood she can't remember.

But despite her broken past, she's never stopped seeing the beauty in the world...including the heart beneath the icy exterior of a man she shouldn't want.

Her brother's best friend.
Her neighbor.
Her savior and her downfall.

Theirs is a love that was never supposed to happen-but when it does, it unleashes secrets that could destroy them both...and everything they hold dear.]]> 358 Ana Huang 1087939275 Shannon 0 3.48 2021
author: Ana Huang
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24, 10-from-shelf-in-25
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]]> 198563695
The American department a palace of consumption that epitomized modern consumerism. Every wish could be met under one roof �� afternoon tea, a stroll through the latest fashions, a wedding (or funeral) planned. It was a place where women, shopper and shopgirl alike, could stake out a newfound independence. Whether in New York or Chicago or on Main Street, USA, men owned the buildings, but inside, women ruled.

In this hothouse atmosphere, three women rose to the top. Hortense Odlum of Bonwit Teller, Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor, and Geraldine Stutz of Henri Bendel's took risks, innovated and competed as very different kinds of career women, forging new paths for the women who followed in their footsteps. In the 1930s, Hortense came to her husband's department store as a housewife tasked with attracting more shoppers like herself, and wound up running the company. Dorothy championed American designers during World War II--before which US fashions were almost exclusively Parisian copies--and beyond, becoming the first businesswoman to earn a salary of more than $1.5 million. And Geraldine re-invented the look of the modern department store in the 1960s, and had a preternatural sense for trends, inspiring a devoted following of ultra-chic shoppers as well as decades of copycats.

In When Women Ran Fifth Avenue, journalist Julie Satow draws back the curtain on three American women who made twentieth-century department stores a mecca for women of every age, social class, and ambition. This stylish account, rich with personal drama and trade secrets, captures the department store in all its glitz, decadence, and fun, and showcases the women who made that beautifully curated world go round.]]> 295 Julie Satow 0385548753 Shannon 0 to-read 3.89 2024
author: Julie Satow
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 202165946 A thrilling new novel from the bestselling, award-winning Akwaeke Emezi, about five friends trying to outrun and outmatch a powerful, underground world

One weekend. The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city. A breakup that starts a spiral. A party that goes awry. A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed. Little Rot is a whirling journey through the city’s dark side, told through the eyes of five people, each determined to run from the twisted powers out to destroy them.

Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from his loss, visits a sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, intersect with the three old friends as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt underworld, they’re all looking for a way out of the trouble they’ve instigated, driven by loss and fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them. They careen madly in the face of the poison of power, sexual violence, murder, betrayals. Little Rot tests how far these five will go to save each other—or themselves—when confronted by evil, culminating in a shattering denouement.

With each novel, with each creation, Akwaeke Emezi shows their genius as a storyteller, as a visionary force who has created a thrilling tale of sex, power, and deviance in Little Rot. You won’t be able to look away.]]> 276 Akwaeke Emezi 0525541632 Shannon 5
Guess how *that* turned out.

Little Rot is a literary erotic thriller (that’s what I’m talking about) set in a fictional Nigerian metropolis. Sensuality, desire, spicy scenes flow through the entire book. Yaasss. It’s beautifully written, easy to read, lush, glamorous, propulsive.

I even made a playlist based on all the Nigerian musical artists mentioned.

Don’t expect anything like the author’s previous book “You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty��, however. This one’s dark, violent, and a bit bleak. It was fun while it lasted, though. ]]> 3.59 2024
author: Akwaeke Emezi
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/17
shelves:
review:
“You think you’ll never be a part of things you hate; you think you’re protected somehow, like the rot won’t ever get to you.�� —Chapter 2

Guess how *that* turned out.

Little Rot is a literary erotic thriller (that’s what I’m talking about) set in a fictional Nigerian metropolis. Sensuality, desire, spicy scenes flow through the entire book. Yaasss. It’s beautifully written, easy to read, lush, glamorous, propulsive.

I even made a playlist based on all the Nigerian musical artists mentioned.

Don’t expect anything like the author’s previous book “You Made a Fool of Death With Your Beauty��, however. This one’s dark, violent, and a bit bleak. It was fun while it lasted, though.
]]> 43521642 The thrilling follow-up to the award-winning Bluebird, Bluebird: Texas Ranger Darren Matthews is on the hunt for a boy who's gone missing - but it's the boy's family of white supremacists who are his real target.


9-year-old Levi King knew he should have left for home sooner; now he's alone in the darkness of vast Caddo Lake, in a boat whose motor just died. A sudden noise distracts him - and all goes dark.

Darren Matthews is trying to emerge from another kind of darkness; after the events of his previous investigation, his marriage is in a precarious state of re-building, and his career and reputation lie in the hands of his mother, who's never exactly had his best interests at heart. Now she holds the key to his freedom, and she's not above a little maternal blackmail to press her advantage.

An unlikely possibility of rescue arrives in the form of a case down Highway 59, in a small lakeside town where the local economy thrives on nostalgia for ante-bellum Texas - and some of the era's racial attitudes still thrive as well. Levi's disappearance has links to Darren's last case, and to a wealthy businesswoman, the boy's grandmother, who seems more concerned about the fate of her business than that of her grandson.

Darren has to battle centuries-old suspicions and prejudices, as well as threats that have been reignited in the current political climate, as he races to find the boy, and to save himself.

Attica Locke proves that the acclaim and awards for Bluebird, Bluebird were justly deserved, in this thrilling new novel about crimes old and new.]]> 295 Attica Locke 0316363405 Shannon 4 re-read 3.85 2019
author: Attica Locke
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: re-read
review:

]]> 6456016 Lily Ivory is not your average witch. Her spell-casting powers tend to draw mischievous spirits while keeping normal humans at a distance. But now her vintage clothing store could give her a chance to make friends in San Francisco....

Lily hopes for a normal life when she opens Aunt Cora's Closet. With her magical knack for vintage fashion -she can sense vibrations of the past from clothing and jewelry—her store becomes a big hit.

But when a client is murdered and children start disappearing from the Bay Area, Lily may be the only one who can unravel the crime. She tries to keep her identity a secret while investigating, but it's not easy—especially under the spells of sexy "mythbuster" Max Carmichael and powerful witch Aidan Rhodes. Will Lily's witchy ways be forced out of the closet?]]> 314 Juliet Blackwell 045122745X Shannon 4 re-read 3.89 2009
author: Juliet Blackwell
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves: re-read
review:
Totes enjoyed this one. Love the world building, and the blend of real world witchcraft, everyday life, and paranormal. Fun, intriguing, and endearing characters. Will definitely continue the series.
]]> 59831053
Isabel "Izzy" Crane and her family have just relocated to Sleepy Hollow, the town made famous by—and obsessed with—Washington Irving's legend of the Headless Horseman. But city slicker-skeptic Izzy has no time for superstition as she navigates life at a new address, a new school, and, with any luck, with new friends. Ghost stories aren't real, after all....

Then Izzy is pulled into the orbit of the town's teen royalty, Vicky Van Tassel (yes, that Van Tassel) and loveable varsity-level prankster Croc Byun. Vicky's weariness with her family connection to the legend turns to terror when the trio begins to be haunted by the Horseman himself, uncovering a curse set on destroying the Van Tassel line. Now, they have only until Halloween night to break it—meaning it's a totally inconvenient time for Izzy to develop a massive crush on the enigmatic Vicky.

Can Izzy's practical nature help her face the unknown—or only trip her up? As the calendar runs down to the 31st, Izzy will have to use all of her wits and work with her new friends to save Vicky and uncover the mystery of the legendary Horseman of Sleepy Hollow—before it's too late.]]> 176 Shannon Watters Shannon 4 3.98 2022
author: Shannon Watters
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/30
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
review:
A quintessential Halloween and spooky season book. Serious Scooby and the gang vibes which I adore. Artwork matched the tone and action perfectly.
]]> 59229378
Texas Ranger Darren Mathews isn’t sure he’s been a good cop, but believes he’s got a shot at being a good man—if he manages to dodge the potential indictment hanging over his head and if he, from here on out, pledges allegiance to the truth. It’s a virtue the country appears to have wholly lost its grip on, but one Darren sees as his salvation. He is in the midst of remaking his life with the woman he loves, hoping for the peace of country living at his beloved farmhouse, when he is visited by someone who couldn’t hold the truth on her tongue if it was dipped in sugar, a woman who’s always been bent of tearing his life apart. His mother. Armed with a tall tale about a missing Black college student, Sera (whose white sorority sisters insist she isn’t missing at all). Darren must decide if his can trust his mother is telling the truth—and what her ulterior motive may be, and what if that motive has to do with a grand jury deciding his fate.

Darren gets his hooks into the investigation, along the way discovering things about Sera’s family and her hometown that are odd at best, vaguely sinister at worst. Hamstrung by local law enforcement and the Texas Rangers who likewise doubt the account of a missing girl, if Darren wants answers, he’ll need help from the person whom he swore to never trust again—his mother.

In this emotionally stirring conclusion to the singular Highway 59 series, set three years after the events of Heaven, My Home, Darren reckons with his life’s purpose as he’s forced to choose between his own peace and the higher call to do good.]]> 320 Attica Locke 1788163982 Shannon 5 3.93 2024
author: Attica Locke
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
review:
Satisfying conclusion to the Highway 59 series. The evolution of Darren’s relationship with his estranged mother was central to the storyline and I love how that played out in the mystery plot and Darren’s character arc. Also, I finished this book on election night, if you can believe that. The last line in the book got me through the days following.
]]> 61812836 Colson Whitehead continues his Harlem saga in a novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory.

It's 1971. Trash piles up on the streets, crime is at an all-time high, the city is careening towards bankruptcy, and a shooting war has broken out between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army. Amidst this collective nervous breakdown furniture store owner and ex-fence Ray Carney tries to keep his head down and his business thriving. His days moving stolen goods around the city are over. It's strictly the straight-and-narrow for him -- until he needs Jackson 5 tickets for his daughter May and he decides to hit up his old police contact Munson, fixer extraordinaire. But Munson has his own favors to ask of Carney and staying out of the game gets a lot more complicated - and deadly.

1973. The counter-culture has created a new generation, the old ways are being overthrown, but there is one constant, Pepper, Carney's endearingly violent partner in crime. It's getting harder to put together a reliable crew for hijackings, heists, and assorted felonies, so Pepper takes on a side gig doing security on a Blaxploitation shoot in Harlem. He finds himself in a freaky world of Hollywood stars, up-and-coming comedians, and celebrity drug dealers, in addition to the usual cast of hustlers, mobsters, and hit men. These adversaries underestimate the seasoned crook - to their regret.

1976. Harlem is burning, block by block, while the whole country is gearing up for Bicentennial celebrations. Carney is trying to come up with a July 4th ad he can live with. ("Two Hundred Years of Getting Away with It!"), while his wife Elizabeth is campaigning for her childhood friend, the former assistant D.A and rising politician Alexander Oakes. When a fire severely injures one of Carney's tenants, he enlists Pepper to look into who may be behind it. Our crooked duo have to battle their way through a crumbling metropolis run by the shady, the violent, and the utterly corrupted.]]> 336 Colson Whitehead 0385545150 Shannon 5
It’s possible I liked this book even more than Harlem Shuffle, which I loved and read twice in a four-month span. For Crook Manifesto I did the immersive thing�� listened on audio (narrator Dion Graham is superb) while reading the hardcover (signed by the author from the author event!) and that was my happy place in November. It was so good to be back in this world with Carney and Pepper and the fam and the store crew. I love how the author makes the city and places and people’s routines come alive. The rhythm, the story-on-a-story narrative style, all of it. Vibrant with culture, especially the second caper. I’m ready for book three—I hope there’s a book three. There’d better be a book three. ]]> 3.82 2023
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/07
date added: 2024/12/08
shelves:
review:
“It was 1971 and the man and his city were versions of themselves, embers burying themselves in layers of their own ash.�� —p89

It’s possible I liked this book even more than Harlem Shuffle, which I loved and read twice in a four-month span. For Crook Manifesto I did the immersive thing�� listened on audio (narrator Dion Graham is superb) while reading the hardcover (signed by the author from the author event!) and that was my happy place in November. It was so good to be back in this world with Carney and Pepper and the fam and the store crew. I love how the author makes the city and places and people’s routines come alive. The rhythm, the story-on-a-story narrative style, all of it. Vibrant with culture, especially the second caper. I’m ready for book three—I hope there’s a book three. There’d better be a book three.
]]> 32620360
Then Charlotte collides with Adam, a gorgeous and soulful painter who seems just as lost as she feels. Their instant connection turns into a midnight drink�� and a whirlwind night of champagne, Chinese food, and the kind of conversation that only happens in romantic comedies. But the next morning, Adam gives Charlotte the cold shoulder, leaving her confused and hurt—and wondering if the few odd moments between them the night before were red flags in disguise.

Months later, Charlotte hasn’t been able to shake Adam, so she decides to find out what happened the morning after their magical night together. This fateful decision rewrites their wild love story, but what Charlotte doesn’t know yet is that the ending has already been written.]]> 320 Renee Carlino 1501105825 Shannon 0 to-read 3.97 2017
author: Renee Carlino
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 196219807
Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.]]> 320 J. Lynn 1464220646 Shannon 0 to-read 3.51 2013
author: J. Lynn
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206101581
Born with an intuition that never fails, Calista knows her talents are of great value to the power-hungry of the world, so she lives hidden as a courtesan of the Baron of Archwood. In exchange for his protection, she grants him information.

When her intuition leads her to save a traveling prince in dire trouble, the voice inside her blazes with warning―and promise. Today he’ll bring her joy. One day he'll be her doom.

When the Baron takes an interest in the traveling prince and the prince takes an interest in Calista, she becomes the prince’s temporary companion. But the city simmers with rebellion, and with knights and monsters at her city gates and a hungry prince in her bed, intuition may not be enough to keep her safe.

Calista must choose: follow her intuition to safety or follow her heart to her downfall.

Breathtaking suspense and scorching romance meet in this immersive new fantasy from a mega-bestselling force, Jennifer L. Armentrout.]]> 432 Jennifer L. Armentrout 1250750202 Shannon 0 to-read 4.07 2023
author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 11661651 For centuries, all three women have been forced to suppress their abilities. But then Freya, who is about to get married to the wealthy and mysterious Bran Gardiner, finds that her increasingly complicated romantic life makes it more difficult than ever to hide her secret. Soon Ingrid and Joanna confront similar dilemmas, and the Beauchamp women realize they can no longer conceal their true selves. They unearth their wands from the attic, dust off their broomsticks, and begin casting spells on the townspeople. It all seems like a bit of good-natured, innocent magic, but then mysterious, violent attacks begin to plague the town. When a young girl disappears over the Fourth of July weekend, they realize it's time to uncover who and what dark forces are working against them.
With a brand-new cast of characters, a fascinating and fresh world to discover, and a few surprise appearances from some of the Blue Blood fan favorites, this is a page-turning, deliciously fun, magical summer read fraught with love affairs, witchcraft, and an unforgettable battle between good and evil.]]> 292 Melissa de la Cruz 1401303781 Shannon 0 3.71 2011
author: Melissa de la Cruz
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at: 2016/05/08
date added: 2024/09/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 8179720 226 Chelsea Handler 1596916710 Shannon 5 3.68 2004
author: Chelsea Handler
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2004
rating: 5
read at: 2015/01/22
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 49833634
A year later, they're both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years at university, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. And as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.]]> 305 Sally Rooney 1984822187 Shannon 0 to-read 3.75 2018
author: Sally Rooney
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216346091 For twenty-one years, Talia of the Tenth House has been her house’s deepest shame. Now, she’s their last hope.

Each year at the Tournament of Gold, first-blooded and firstborn male warriors battle alongside their massive, otherworldly monsters for fame and power. But when Talia’s beloved younger brother is murdered on his way to the tournament—and his beast unexpectedly bonds with Talia—all hope for the Tenth is lost.

The powerful, arrogant, and dangerously seductive Fortiss of the First House would never let a woman vie for a seat on the Court of Talons. He might also be her brother’s killer. Desperate for answers and to protect her house, Talia assumes her brother’s identity and enters the tournament.

But beneath the pomp and glory of this year’s battles, Talia discovers a dark conspiracy carefully crafted to destroy the entire realm. In an ever-more-deadly dance across gilded ballrooms and brutal fighting pits, she must sacrifice her heart, her freedom, and even the precious, mystical bond she’s formed with her glorious monster to win at all costs.

Because only Talia understands the

If she’s discovered…she dies.

If she loses…she dies.

And if she doesn’t stop the evil screaming toward them through the shadows…everyone dies.]]> 451 Jennifer Chance Shannon 0 to-read 4.16
author: Jennifer Chance
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 211585947 #1 New York Times bestselling author Sylvia Day returns to the decadence of the multimillion-selling Crossfire® Saga with Ireland, a searing new tale of temptation, deception, and ice-cold vengeance.

Ireland Vidal is the third generation to control Vidal Records, and she’s on track to lead the recording company to greater heights. She’s the youngest of an affluent, prominent family headed by her eldest brother, Gideon Cross �� one of the richest men in the world. Despite her siblings�� outsized shadows, Ireland has carved her own identity. But the clever, stunning beauty with fierce tenacity and a heart of gold has yet to find a man with whom to share her life �� someone who doesn’t need her connections to be successful.

Then a chance meeting with Ronan Boudreaux sparks an irresistible attraction. He has it all: wealth, charm, a wickedly irresistible talent for seduction, and he can hold his own against her powerful family. He offers Ireland everything she’s ever wanted, but at what price?

Waiting in the wings, someone from the distant past bides his time until he can unleash his vendetta against the Vidals. He’s got old scores to settle and when he sets his plans in motion, everything and everyone Ireland loves is in his crosshairs.

From the soaring penthouses of high-stakes Manhattan to the opulent mansions and mysterious bayous of Louisiana, Ireland draws readers back into the illustrious lives of the beloved Vidal / Cross family, where the only thing more dangerous than desire is falling in love.]]> 382 Sylvia Day 1626500118 Shannon 0 to-read 4.46
author: Sylvia Day
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 43269446 This follow-up to The Underground Railroad brilliantly dramatizes another strand of American history through the story of two boys unjustly sentenced to a hellish reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida.

When Elwood Curtis, a black boy growing up in 1960s Tallahassee, is unfairly sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, he finds himself trapped in a grotesque chamber of horrors. Elwood's only salvation is his friendship with fellow "delinquent" Turner, which deepens despite Turner's conviction that Elwood is hopelessly naive, that the world is crooked, and that the only way to survive is to scheme and avoid trouble. As life at the Academy becomes ever more perilous, the tension between Elwood's ideals and Turner's skepticism leads to a decision whose repercussions will echo down the decades.

Based on the real story of a reform school that operated for 111 years and warped the lives of thousands of children, The Nickel Boys is a devastating, driven narrative that showcases a great American novelist writing at the height of his powers.]]> 213 Colson Whitehead 0345804341 Shannon 0 to-read 4.34 2019
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 202468470 368 Simone St. James 059364168X Shannon 0 to-read 3.71 2013
author: Simone St. James
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40864790 In Pumpkinheads author Rainbow Rowell and artist Faith Erin Hicks have teamed up to create this tender and hilarious story about two irresistible teens discovering what it means to leave behind a place―and a person―with no regrets.

Deja and Josiah are seasonal best friends.

Every autumn, all through high school, they’ve worked together at the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world. (Not many people know that the best pumpkin patch in the whole wide world is in Omaha, Nebraska, but it definitely is.) They say good-bye every Halloween, and they’re reunited every September 1.

But this Halloween is different—Josiah and Deja are finally seniors, and this is their last season at the pumpkin patch. Their last shift together. Their last good-bye.

Josiah’s ready to spend the whole night feeling melancholy about it. Deja isn’t ready to let him. She’s got a plan: What if—instead of moping and the usual slinging lima beans down at the Succotash Hut—they went out with a bang? They could see all the sights! Taste all the snacks! And Josiah could finally talk to that cute girl he’s been mooning over for three years . . .

What if their last shift was an adventure?]]> 209 Rainbow Rowell 125031285X Shannon 5 4.01 2019
author: Rainbow Rowell
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2024/08/21
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves:
review:
What a sweet, fun, quirky, cozy, autumnal book! Maybe I visit a pumpkin patch this year? Also, I want a pumpkin bomb.
]]> 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk�� city of “old traditions and new machinery,�� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning�� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Shannon 0 to-read 4.51 2024
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 50659467
At least, he’s not a beast all the time.

As she adapts to her new home, her feelings for the faerie, Tamlin, transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But something is not right in the faerie lands. An ancient, wicked shadow is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it, or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

From bestselling author Sarah J. Maas comes a seductive, breathtaking book that blends romance, adventure, and faerie lore into an unforgettable read.]]> 419 Sarah J. Maas 1635575567 Shannon 0 to-read 4.16 2015
author: Sarah J. Maas
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29401474
This is not a story of sugar and spice and everything nice.

When Nina Faye was fourteen, her mother told her there was no such thing as unconditional love. Nina believed her. Now Nina is sixteen. And she'll do anything for the boy she loves, just to prove she's worthy of him. But when he breaks up with her, Nina is lost. What if she is not a girlfriend? What is she made of?

Broken-hearted, Nina tries to figure out what the conditions of love are. She's been volunteering at a high-kill animal shelter where she realizes that for dogs waiting to be adopted, love comes only to those with youth, symmetry, and quietness. She also ruminates on the strange, dark time her mother took her to Italy to see statues of saints who endured unspeakable torture because of their unquestioning devotion to the divine. Is this what love is?]]> 200 Elana K. Arnold Shannon 0 to-read 3.77 2017
author: Elana K. Arnold
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23602569 Americanah, offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century, one rooted in inclusion and awareness. Drawing extensively on her own experiences and her deep understanding of the often masked realities of sexual politics, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman now—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.]]> 52 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 110191176X Shannon 0 to-read 4.46 2012
author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29517846
Business guru, Nick Caldwell, wants nothing to do with forever after’s and white picket fences, but in order to save his sister’s floundering matchmaking business, he goes undercover to spy on her biggest competitor. While posing as the world’s most difficult client to obtain Shelby’s matchmaking secrets, Nick accidentally falls hard for Shelby. But she has another man in her long-term plans. Can he borrow a trick or two from mischievous Chester to win Shelby’s heart?]]> 210 Tamra Baumann 0986447935 Shannon 0 to-read 4.35
author: Tamra Baumann
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203931725
The survivors, including key witness Pamela Schumacher, will be forever changed by this night. They have all become victims. But they tell their perspectives here, they remain masters of their stories. And they hunt the perpetrator on their own - against resistance from the justice system and the police; against public opinion, which idolizes the serial killer.]]> 400 Jessica Knoll 1501153234 Shannon 0 to-read 4.01 2023
author: Jessica Knoll
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 51541496
Razor-sharp, provocatively page-turning and surprisingly tender, Luster by Raven Leilani is a painfully funny debut about what it means to be young now.]]> 227 Raven Leilani 0374194327 Shannon 0 re-read 3.51 2020
author: Raven Leilani
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at: 2021/05/14
date added: 2024/07/11
shelves: re-read
review:

]]> 212721360 Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.]]> 380 Isabel Cañas 0593436733 Shannon 0 to-read 3.88 2023
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/07/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 61884832 A Black sheriff. A serial killer. A small town ready to combust.

Titus Crown is the first Black sheriff in the history of Charon County, Virginia. In recent decades, Charon has had only two murders. After years of working as an FBI agent, Titus knows better than anyone that while his hometown might seem like a land of moonshine, cornbread, and honeysuckle, secrets always fester under the surface.

Then a year to the day after Titus’s election, a school teacher is killed by a former student and the student is fatally shot by Titus’s deputies. Those festering secrets are now out in the open and ready to tear the town apart.

As Titus investigates the shootings, he unearths terrible crimes and a serial killer who has been hiding in plain sight, haunting the dirt lanes and woodland clearings of Charon. With the killer’s possible connections to a local church and the town’s harrowing history weighing on him, Titus projects confidence about closing the case while concealing a painful secret from his own past. At the same time, he also has to contend with a far-right group that wants to hold a parade in celebration of the town’s Confederate history.

Powerful and unforgettable, All the Sinners Bleed confirms S. A. Cosby as “one of the most muscular, distinctive, grab-you-by-both-ears voices in American crime fiction�� (The Washington Post).]]> 338 S.A. Cosby 1250831911 Shannon 5 Great blend of evocative literary writing style and propulsive "oh no what's going to happen next" pacing. The book's subject matter is dark and grisly, but because of the deep, vibrant humanity of the protagonist and the people around him I could handle it. Adam Lazarre-White is a great narrator and really did the book justice. I'm definitely going to check out S.A. Cosby's other books once I've had the chance to sit with this one. It's going to stay with me for awhile, that's for sure.]]> 4.19 2023
author: S.A. Cosby
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/19
date added: 2024/06/19
shelves:
review:
I was so on edge that last hour of the audio I had to get up and pace the room.
Great blend of evocative literary writing style and propulsive "oh no what's going to happen next" pacing. The book's subject matter is dark and grisly, but because of the deep, vibrant humanity of the protagonist and the people around him I could handle it. Adam Lazarre-White is a great narrator and really did the book justice. I'm definitely going to check out S.A. Cosby's other books once I've had the chance to sit with this one. It's going to stay with me for awhile, that's for sure.
]]> 52764796 From the stand-up comedian, actress, and host beloved for her cheeky swagger, unique voice, and unapologetic frankness comes a book of comedic essays for fans of Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me by Mindy Kaling and We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union.

If you’ve watched television or movies in the past year, you’ve seen Michelle Buteau. With scene-stealing roles in Always Be My Maybe, First Wives Club, Someone Great, Russian Doll, and Tales of the City; a reality TV show and breakthrough stand-up specials, including her headlining show Welcome to Buteaupia on Netflix, and two podcasts (Late Night Whenever and Adulting), Michelle’s star is on the rise. You’d be forgiven for thinking the road to success—or adulthood or financial stability or self-acceptance or marriage or motherhood—has been easy; but you’d be wrong.

Now, in Survival of the Thickest, Michelle reflects on growing up Caribbean, Catholic, and thick in New Jersey, going to college in Miami (where everyone smells like pineapple), her many friendship and dating disasters, working as a newsroom editor during 9/11, getting started in standup opening for male strippers, marrying into her husband’s Dutch family, IVF and surrogacy, motherhood, chosen family, and what it feels like to have a full heart, tight jeans, and stardom finally in her grasp.

Jersey strong --
Jersey wrong --
Unlikely rom-com --
Ya-Ya sistah hood of the traveling tank top --
Friendship --
Game of heauxs --
9/11 chronicles --
Fisher-Price my first road gig --
Survival of the thickest --
My holland tunnel --
Say yes to the stress --
Tooth be told --
IVF --
Surrogacy --
Motherhood --
Take me to church --
A light load]]> 320 Michelle Buteau 1982122587 Shannon 5 4.03 2020
author: Michelle Buteau
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/06/03
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:
Not a boring essay in the bunch. Infused with her effervescence, humor, amazing wordplay, point of view, and heart. Listening to her narrate made it all the more wonderful.
]]> 21412387
As a singer, model, and actress—a deluxe triple threat—Grace has consistently been an extreme, challenging presence in the entertainment world since her emergence as an international model in the 1970s. Celebrated for her audacious talent and trailblazing style, Grace became one of the most unforgettable, free-spirited characters to emerge from the historic Studio 54, recording glittering disco classics such as I Need a Man and La Vie en Rose. Her provocative shows in underground New York nightclubs saw her hailed as a disco queen, gay icon, and gender defying iconoclast.

In 1980, the always ambitious Grace escaped a crowded disco scene to pursue more experimental interests. Her music also broke free, blending house, reggae, and electronica into a timeless hybrid that led to classic hits such as Pull Up to the Bumper and Slave to the Rhythm. In the memoir she once promised never to write, Grace offers an intimate insight into her evolving style, personal philosophies, and varied career—including her roles in the 1984 fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and the James Bond movie A View to a Kill.

Featuring sixteen pages of stunning full-color photographs, many from her own personal archive, I’ll Never Write My Memoirs follows this ageless creative nomad as she rejects her strict religious upbringing in Jamaica; conquers New York, Paris, and the 1980s; answers to no-one; and lives to fight again and again.s.]]> 400 Grace Jones 1476765073 Shannon 5 3.75 2015
author: Grace Jones
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/01
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 55598105 As witch and vintage store owner Lily Ivory steps into her new role as leader of the Bay Area's magical community, she's faced with a mysterious death of magical proportions . . . Strange things are happening in Lily Ivory's San Francisco. First, she finds a vintage mermaid costume which dates from the 1939 San Francisco's Treasure Island World's Fair--and which gives off distinctly peculiar vibrations. Next, she stumbles upon a dead man in the office of her predecessor, and as the community's new leader, she feels compelled to track down the culprit. Just when Lily thinks things can't get any stranger, a man appears claiming to be her half-brother, spouting ideas about the mystical prophecy involving San Francisco and their family . . . When the dead man is linked to the mysterious mermaid costume, and then yet another victim is found on Treasure Island, Lily uncovers ties between the long-ago World's fair and the current murders, and begins to wonder whether the killer might be hiding in plain sight. But unless Lily can figure everything out in time, there may be yet another body floating in San Francisco Bay.]]> 352 Juliet Blackwell 0593097955 Shannon 4 4.00 2021
author: Juliet Blackwell
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 75339197 An edgy,��feminist campus novel about justice, gender, and power, following a woman who enrolls in law school and competes her way into an elite "Law and Literature" cohort to get revenge on the charismatic professor who wronged her sister

Most students would kill to be accepted into the prestigious Law and Literature��cohort at Franklin University. But for Jessie Mooney, enrollment in the course is about more than elite campus status, rigorous thought, and professional connections. It’s her chance to get close to charismatic professor Jay Crane—and take him down.

From the moment she discovered their secret relationship, Jessie's been convinced Crane is to blame for the events leading to her sister’s death. Still haunted by their last email exchange�� You know what you did —she'll cross any line to hold him accountable. But when Jessie finally earns Crane’s trust and the coveted position as one of his “favorites,�� attracting the other students�� envy and suspicion, the truth becomes darkly twisted. Is it justice Jessie craves, or revenge? And what does she stand to lose if she gets her way?

Shimmering with tension, this provocative novel explores the nature of obsession, the inequities of power, and the ways that anger, desire, and love reveal the best, and worst, of us.]]> 304 Rosemary Hennigan 1525805096 Shannon 4 3.25 2023
author: Rosemary Hennigan
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.25
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/26
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:
Active, motivated protagonist. Questionable actions become more obsessive so you keep reading because you want to see how far she’ll go. Yet it’s understand why she’s doing what she’s doing.
]]> 65214654 A passionate, powerful memoir by a trailblazing Black transgender activist, tracing her life of transformation and her work towards collective liberation.

In 2017, Raquel Willis took to the National Women’s March podium just after the presidential election of Donald Trump, primed to tell her story as a young Black transgender woman from the South. Despite having her speaking time cut short, the appearance only deepened her commitment to speaking up for communities on the margins.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, to Black Catholic parents, Raquel spent years feeling isolated, even within a loving, close-knit family. There was little access to understanding what it meant to be queer and transgender. It wasn’t until she went to the University of Georgia that she found the LGBTQ+ community, fell in love, and explored her gender for the first time. But the unexpected death of her father forced her to examine her relationship with herself and those she loved. These years of grief, misunderstanding, and hard-won epiphanies seeped into the soil of her life, serving as fertilizer for growth and allowing her to bloom within.

Upon graduation, Raquel entered a career in journalism against the backdrop of the burgeoning Movement for Black Lives, intersectional feminism going mainstream, and unprecedented visibility of the trans community. After hiding her identity as a newspaper reporter, her increasing awareness of the epidemic of violence plaguing trans women of color and the heightened suicide of trans teens inspired her to come out publicly. Within just a few short years of community organizing in Atlanta, Oakland, and New York, Raquel emerged as one of the most formidable Black trans activists in history.

In The Risk It Takes to Bloom, Raquel Willis recounts with passion and candor her experiences straddling the Obama and Trump eras, the possibility of transformation after tragedy, and how complex moments can push us all to take necessary risks and bloom toward collective liberation.]]> 384 Raquel Willis 1250275687 Shannon 5 4.29 2023
author: Raquel Willis
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/15
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 58687126
This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn’t always see me.

As I wrote Finding Me, my eyes were open to the truth of how our stories are often not given close examination. We are forced to reinvent them to fit into a crazy, competitive, judgmental world. So I wrote this for anyone running through life untethered, desperate and clawing their way through murky memories, trying to get to some form of self-love. For anyone who needs reminding that a life worth living can only be born from radical honesty and the courage to shed facades and be . . . you.

Finding Me is a deep reflection, a promise, and a love letter of sorts to self. My hope is that my story will inspire you to light up your own life with creative expression and rediscover who you were before the world put a label on you.]]> 304 Viola Davis 0063037327 Shannon 5 4.54 2022
author: Viola Davis
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/16
date added: 2024/06/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 63065383
And the one man I swore by all Olympus I would destroy.

Aphrodite has never flinched at getting her perfectly manicured hands dirty, and she's not about to start now—even if that means marrying Olympus's enemy number one, the new Hephaestus. She has a wicked plan to keep her deadly new husband off-balance, seducing the one person he seems to care about most in this world: Pandora, a woman as beautiful as she is sweet.

Two can play the seduction game, however, and Hephaestus is all too happy to put his new wife in her place. Her ex, Adonis, seems like he'll do the trick. It doesn't hurt that he's gorgeous in the way of fallen angels, either.

The only problem with using seduction as a weapon? Hearts are all too quick to get involved. With Hephaestus and Aphrodite trading venomous strikes that feel a whole lot like foreplay, lines become blurred and emotions entangled. But a broken heart may be the least of their worries. With unrest in Olympus reaching new heights, these bedroom games may have deadly consequences for themselves, their city, and everyone they've come to love.]]> 384 Katee Robert 1728262763 Shannon 0 to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24 3.68 2023
author: Katee Robert
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24
review:

]]> 56212888
A weave of biography, criticism, and memoir, Shine Bright is Danyel Smith’s intimate history of Black women’s music as the foundational story of American pop. Smith has been writing this history for more than five years. But as a music fan, and then as an essayist, editor (Vibe, Billboard), and podcast host (Black Girl Songbook), she has been living this history since she was a latchkey kid listening to “Midnight Train to Georgia�� on the family stereo.

Smith’s detailed narrative begins with Phillis Wheatley, an enslaved woman who sang her poems, and continues through the stories of Mahalia Jackson, Dionne Warwick, Aretha Franklin, Gladys Knight, and Mariah Carey, as well as the under-considered careers of Marilyn McCoo, Deniece Williams, and Jody Watley.

Shine Bright is an overdue paean to musical masters whose true stories and genius have been hidden in plain sight—and the book Danyel Smith was born to write.]]> 320 Danyel Smith 0593132718 Shannon 0 4.05 2022
author: Danyel Smith
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read, 23-in-2023, 10-from-shelf-in-24
review:

]]> 29763838 From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Crossfire® saga comes the beginning of a twisty tale of obsession and rage, as a trinity of women protect what they covet at any cost.

You can’t believe all of them, but can you trust any of them?

Widower Kane Black is still ruinously married to his late wife, Lily. Grief has hollowed him�� until he sees a woman with his wife’s inimitable beauty on the streets of Manhattan. He whisks her up to his towering penthouse, protectively under guard, nestling her in dark opulence where Lily’s memory is a possessive beguiling force.

Aliyah, Kane’s mother, deals in science. There are too many questions, too few answers, and too much at stake. “Lily�� has dangerous control over Kane and there can be only one queen on the throne.

Amy, Kane’s sister-in-law, has been bloodied by deceit and betrayal, and she’s devolving into murderous rage. She’s paid too high a price and now intends to claim what she’s owed.

Three women, linked by buried secrets, circle the man who unquestioningly accepts the return of his beloved long-dead wife. Kane is happier than he’s ever been, and he’ll do anything to stay that way.

Propulsive and sly, So Close is a lushly gothic novel of domestic suspense with the emotional intensity, scorching sensuality, and complex exploration of female trauma that are the hallmarks of multimillion-copy international bestseller Sylvia Day.]]> 326 Sylvia Day 1626500037 Shannon 0 3.37 2023
author: Sylvia Day
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read, 23-in-2023, 10-from-shelf-in-24
review:

]]> 203311062 A couple who broke up months ago make a pact to pretend to still be together for their annual weeklong vacation with their best friends in this glittering and wise new novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple since they met in college—they go together like salt and pepper, honey and tea, lobster and rolls. Except, now—for reasons they’re still not discussing—they don’t.

They broke up six months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.

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

Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends�� hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. Harriet will be the driven surgical resident who never starts a fight, and Wyn will be the laid-back charmer who never lets the cracks show. It’s a flawless plan (if you look at it from a great distance and through a pair of sunscreen-smeared sunglasses). After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?]]> 416 Emily Henry 0593441192 Shannon 0 to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24 4.00 2023
author: Emily Henry
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24
review:

]]> 201009490
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.]]> 277 Britney Spears Shannon 0 to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24 3.77 2023
author: Britney Spears
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/09
shelves: to-read, 10-from-shelf-in-24
review:

]]> 195790908 352 Questlove 0374614075 Shannon 0 to-read 3.93 2024
author: Questlove
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 195791388
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story––and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.

What’s the point of giving someone a beautiful death if you can’t give yourself a beautiful life?

From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a trip across the country to uncover a forgotten love story––and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 314 Mikki Brammer 1250870240 Shannon 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60417483 Set in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, a shattering novel about a young woman caught between allegiance to community and a dangerous passion.

Amid daily reports of violence, Cushla lives a quiet life with her mother in a small town near Belfast. By day she teaches at a parochial school; at night she fills in at her family's pub. There she meets Michael Agnew, a barrister who's made a name for himself defending IRA members. Against her better judgment - Michael is not only Protestant but older, and married - Cushla lets herself get drawn in by him and his sophisticated world, and an affair ignites. Then the father of a student is savagely beaten, setting in motion a chain reaction that will threaten everything, and everyone, Cushla most wants to protect.

As tender as it is unflinching, Trespasses is a heart-pounding, heart-rending drama of thwarted love and irreconcilable loyalties, in a place what you come from seems to count more than what you do, or whom you cherish. ]]> 304 Louise Kennedy 0593540891 Shannon 0 to-read 3.91 2022
author: Louise Kennedy
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 206305523 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593469445 Shannon 0 to-read 4.01 2023
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 198139899 Dana, a 1970s black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

This young adult edition includes a new foreword by Tomi Adeyemi, New York Times bestseller and Hugo and Nebula award winning author of fantasy titles Children of Blood and Bone and Children of Virtue and Vengeance. Adeyemi was also named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was named one of Forbes 30 Under 30 in Media.


From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius�� Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner

The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.

“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.��

Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon realizes the purpose of her summons to the past: protect Rufus to ensure his assault of her Black ancestor so that she may one day be born. As she endures the traumas of slavery and the soul-crushing normalization of savagery, Dana fights to keep her autonomy and return to the present.

Blazing the trail for neo-slavery narratives like Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad and Ta-Nehisi Coates’s The Water Dancer, Butler takes one of speculative fiction’s oldest tropes and infuses it with lasting depth and power. Dana not only experiences the cruelties of slavery on her skin but also grimly learns to accept it as a condition of her own existence in the present. “Where stories about American slavery are often gratuitous, reducing its horror to explicit violence and brutality, Kindred is controlled and precise�� (New York Times).

“Reading Octavia Butler taught me to dream big, and I think it’s absolutely necessary that everybody have that freedom and that willingness to dream.��
—N. K. Jemisin]]> 320 Octavia E. Butler 0807008095 Shannon 0 to-read 4.36 1979
author: Octavia E. Butler
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.36
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 355862 We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African American experience, the book is a national bestseller and its author feted on the Kenya Dunston television show. The book's success rankles all the more as Monk's own most recent novel has just notched its seventh rejection.

Even as his career as a writer appears to have stalled, Monk finds himself coping with changes in his personal life. In need of distraction from old memories, new responsibilities, and his professional stagnation, Monk composes, in a heat of inspiration and energy, a fierce parody of the sort of exploitative, ghetto wanna-be lit represented by We's Lives in Da Ghetto.

But when his agent sends this literary indictment (included here in its entirety) out to publishers, it is greeted as an authentic new voice of black America. Monk -- or his pseudonymous alter ego, Stagg R. Leigh -- is offered money, fame, success beyond anything he has known. And as demand begins to build for meetings with and appearances by Leigh, Monk is faced with a whole new set of problems.]]> 280 Percival Everett 0786888156 Shannon 0 to-read 4.17 2001
author: Percival Everett
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 186847211 As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s atmospheric new novel.

With the Great War finally behind them, thousands of civilians and business moguls alike flock to South Florida with their sights set on making a fortune. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Anna and Robert appear to have it all, but in a town like Miami, appearances can be deceiving, and one scandal can change everything.

Years later following the tragic death of her parents in Havana, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa, the grand home of her estranged older sister, Carolina, and her husband, Asher Wyatt. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems. The house has a treacherous legacy, and Carmen’s own life is soon in jeopardy . . . unless she can unravel the secrets buried beneath the mansion’s facade and stop history from repeating itself.]]> 336 Chanel Cleeton Shannon 0 to-read 3.89 2024
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 39280512 Tomi Adeyemi conjures a stunning world of dark magic and danger in her West African-inspired fantasy debut, perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo and Sabaa Tahir.

They killed my mother.
They took our magic.
They tried to bury us.

Now we rise.

Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls.

But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Now Zélie has one chance to bring back magic and strike against the monarchy. With the help of a rogue princess, Zélie must outwit and outrun the crown prince, who is hell-bent on eradicating magic for good.

Danger lurks in Orïsha, where snow leoponaires prowl and vengeful spirits wait in the waters. Yet the greatest danger may be Zélie herself as she struggles to control her powers—and her growing feelings for an enemy.

“The next big thing in literature and �ھ�����.����Ebony

“One of the biggest young adult fiction debut book deals of the year. Aside from a compelling plot and a strong-willed heroine as the protagonist, the book deals with larger themes, like race and power, that are being discussed in real time.����Teen Vogue

“A remarkable achievement.����Campus Lately

“Tomi Adeyemi is about to take both the literature and film world by storm.����Jet]]> 560 Tomi Adeyemi 1250294622 Shannon 0 to-read 4.12 2018
author: Tomi Adeyemi
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 186872399 As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide in New York Times bestselling author Chanel Cleeton’s atmospheric new novel.

With the Great War finally behind them, thousands of civilians and business moguls alike flock to South Florida with their sights set on making a fortune. When wealthy industrialist Robert Barnes and his wife, Anna, build Marbrisa, a glamorous estate on Biscayne Bay, they become the toast of the newly burgeoning society. Anna and Robert appear to have it all, but in a town like Miami, appearances can be deceiving, and one scandal can change everything.

Years later following the tragic death of her parents in Havana, Carmen Acosta journeys to Marbrisa, the grand home of her estranged older sister, Carolina, and her husband, Asher Wyatt. On the surface, the gilded estate looks like paradise, but Carmen quickly learns that nothing at Marbrisa is as it seems. The house has a treacherous legacy, and Carmen’s own life is soon in jeopardy . . . unless she can unravel the secrets buried beneath the mansion’s facade and stop history from repeating itself.]]> 336 Chanel Cleeton 059344051X Shannon 0 to-read 3.63 2024
author: Chanel Cleeton
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 178805 219 Zora Neale Hurston 0060931418 Shannon 5 23-in-2023 3.90 1937
author: Zora Neale Hurston
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1937
rating: 5
read at: 2024/01/06
date added: 2024/01/06
shelves: 23-in-2023
review:

]]> 182761726
The Secret Garden has enchanted readers for over a century with its story of second chances, found family, and the healing power of nature. Rediscover the timeless tale with this lush, illustrated volume featuring the unabridged text by Frances Hodgson Burnett and beautiful paintings by Kate Lewis created especially for this edition. Lewis’s immersive illustrations invite us to join Mary Lennox as she discovers the wonders of the overgrown garden and befriends the kind Dickon and the stubborn Colin. With new art on almost every page, this is a keepsake edition to be handed down through the generations.

A COLLECTIBLE CLASSIC FOR ALL The Secret Garden is a beloved story shared across generations through films, TV shows, and other adaptations. Now, readers of all ages can rediscover the original story in this sophisticated illustrated edition and add it to their collections as a personal keepsake.
��
GORGEOUS The colorful artwork of contemporary painter Kate Lewis fills the pages, bringing the English countryside to life in a fresh style. Readers will delight in the original art created for this new edition, from full-page scenes to floral page borders and illustrations of the curious robin and other animals from the garden and the moors.
��
LOVELY Featuring beautiful artwork on the cover and a matching ribbon marker, this elegantly designed hardcover is an eye-catching display book for the home. This is a great gift for adults who enjoyed The Secret Garden as children and for younger readers discovering the story for the first time. Share this new edition with a loved one on Mother’s Day or any special occasion!

Perfect]]> 304 Frances Hodgson Burnett 1797225189 Shannon 0 to-read 4.33 1911
author: Frances Hodgson Burnett
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1911
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48691825 A way to serve.
A way to save.

Simi prayed to the gods, once. Now she serves them as Mami Wata—a mermaid—collecting the souls of those who die at sea and blessing their journeys back home.

But when a living boy is thrown overboard, Simi goes against an ancient decree and does the unthinkable—she saves his life. And punishment awaits those who dare to defy the gods.

To protect the other Mami Wata, Simi must journey to the Supreme Creator to make amends. But all is not as it seems. There’s the boy she rescued, who knows more than he should. And something is shadowing Simi, something that would rather see her fail. . . .

Danger lurks at every turn, and as Simi draws closer, she must brave vengeful gods, treacherous lands, and legendary creatures. Because if she fails, she risks not only the fate of all Mami Wata, but also the world as she knows it.]]> 336 Natasha Bowen 0593120965 Shannon 0 to-read 3.81 2021
author: Natasha Bowen
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 142392376 Get Out, Us, and Nope, and founder of Monkeypaw Productions, curates this groundbreaking anthology of all-new stories of Black horror, exploring not only the terrors of the supernatural but the chilling reality of injustice that haunts our nation.

A cop begins seeing huge, blinking eyes where the headlights of cars should be that tell him who to pull over. Two freedom riders take a bus ride that leaves them stranded on a lonely road in Alabama where several unsettling somethings await them. A young girl dives into the depths of the Earth in search of the demon that killed her parents. These are just a few of the worlds of Out There Screaming, Jordan Peele’s anthology of all-new horror stories by Black writers. Featuring an introduction by Peele and an all-star roster of beloved writers and new voices, Out There Screaming is a master class in horror, and—like his spine-chilling films—its stories prey on everything we think we know about our world . . . and redefine what it means to be afraid.

Featuring stories by: Erin E. Adams, Violet Allen, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Maurice Broaddus, Chesya Burke, P. Djèlí Clark, Ezra Claytan Daniels, Tananarive Due, Nalo Hopkinson, N. K. Jemisin, Justin C. Key, L. D. Lewis, Nnedi Okorafor, Tochi Onyebuchi, Rebecca Roanhorse, Nicole D. Sconiers, Rion Amilcar Scott, Terence Taylor, and Cadwell Turnbull.]]> 387 Jordan Peele 059324379X Shannon 0 3.77 2023
author: Jordan Peele
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at: 2023/11/23
date added: 2023/12/08
shelves:
review:
Finished six of the stories. Really enjoyed three: “Eye and Tooth�� by Rebecca Roanhorse, “Dark Home�� by Nnedi Okorafor, and “The Rider�� by Tananarive Due. “Eye and Tooth�� was twisted in the right way, “Dark Home�� had me emotionally invested and spooked, and “The Rider�� was tightly plotted and deliciously steeped in the pathos, history and lore of resistance against American racism (Due’s trademark).
]]> 33590214
Meet Rachel Grossman.
She’ll stop at nothing to protect her daughter, Aviva, even if it ends up costing her everything.

Meet Jane Young.
She’s disrupting a quiet life with her daughter, Ruby, to seek political office for the first time.

Meet Ruby Young.
She thinks her mom has a secret. She’s right.

Meet Embeth Levin.
She’s made a career of cleaning up her congressman husband’s messes.

Meet Aviva Grossman.
The Internet won’t let her or anyone else forget her past transgressions.

This is the story of five women . . .
. . . and the sex sexist scandal that binds them together.

From Gabrielle Zevin, the bestselling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, comes another story with unforgettable characters that is particularly suited to the times we live in now . . .]]> 294 Gabrielle Zevin 1616205040 Shannon 0 3.77 2017
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at: 2019/08/25
date added: 2023/11/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 173404023
Leap years are a strange, enchanted time. And for some, even a single February can be life-changing.

Ricki Wilde has many talents, but being a Wilde isn’t one of them. As the impulsive, artistic daughter of a powerful Atlanta dynasty, she’s the opposite of her famous socialite sisters. Where they’re long-stemmed roses, she’s a dandelion: an adorable bloom that’s actually a weed, born to float wherever the wind blows. In her bones, Ricki knows that somewhere, a different, more exciting life awaits her.

When regal nonagenarian, Ms. Della, invites her to rent the bottom floor of her Harlem brownstone, Ricki jumps at the chance for a fresh beginning. She leaves behind her family, wealth, and chaotic romantic decisions to realize her dream of opening a flower shop. And just beneath the surface of her new neighborhood, the music, stories and dazzling drama of the Harlem Renaissance still simmers.

One evening in February as the heady, curiously off-season scent of night-blooming jasmine fills the air, Ricki encounters a handsome, deeply mysterious stranger who knocks her world off balance in the most unexpected way.

Set against the backdrop of modern Harlem and Renaissance glamour, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is a swoon-worthy love story of two passionate artists drawn to the magic, romance, and opportunity of New York, and whose lives are uniquely and irreversibly linked.]]> 352 Tia Williams 153872670X Shannon 0 to-read 3.97 2024
author: Tia Williams
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 60417438
But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white--her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths she must go to--for the protection of her family and her legacy--to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.]]> 368 Marie Benedict 0593101545 Shannon 0 to-read 3.98 2021
author: Marie Benedict
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63139797
In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect—a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.
��
Oregon, 2017 . Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases—a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea’s surprise, Beth says yes.
��
They meet regularly at Beth’s mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she’s not looking, and she could swear she’s seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn’t right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?]]> 368 Simone St. James 0440000238 Shannon 0 to-read 3.78 2022
author: Simone St. James
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63133205 The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.]]> 288 Britney Spears 1668009048 Shannon 0 to-read 3.83 2023
author: Britney Spears
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/11/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 58890948
The prize: enough money to change everything.

Even though everyone is desperate to win--to seize their dream futures or escape their haunting pasts--Mack feels sure that she can beat her competitors. All she has to do is hide, and she's an expert at that.

It's the reason she's alive, and her family isn't.

But as the people around her begin disappearing one by one, Mack realizes this competition is more sinister than even she imagined, and that together might be the only way to survive.

Fourteen competitors. Seven days. Everywhere to hide, but nowhere to run.

Come out, come out, wherever you are.]]> 240 Kiersten White 0593359232 Shannon 5 3.30 2022
author: Kiersten White
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/11/04
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves:
review:
Started on Halloween and kept reading every day until it was done. One night I got seriously creeped out but was right back at it next day. It played out like a movie in my head. Well-drawn motivated characters I rooted for and good commentary on exploitation. And what a setting�� that abandoned overgrown amusement park. It was a character all its own.
]]> 59559145
August knows he is not welcome on Saoirse, not after the night everything changed. As a fire raged on at the Salt family orchard, Lily Morgan was found dead in the dark woods, shaking the bedrock of their tight-knit community and branding August a murderer. When he returns to bury his mother’s ashes, he must confront the people who turned their backs on him and face the one wound from his past that has never healed—Emery. But the town has more than one reason to want August gone, and the emergence of deep betrayals and hidden promises spanning generations threaten to reveal the truth behind Lily’s mysterious death once and for all.]]> 351 Adrienne Young 0593358511 Shannon 5 3.85 2022
author: Adrienne Young
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/29
date added: 2023/11/06
shelves:
review:
Perfect blend of romance, mystery, atmosphere, and witchy vibes.
]]> 61812434
Discovered at twelve years old, Madison Beer was one of the first artists to have her entire life documented online. Over the past decade, she has navigated the spotlight as a child, through her teenage years, and now as a young woman in her twenties.

In The Half of It, Madison pulls back the curtain to show the behind-the-scenes of her journey, from reckoning with mass hate online and the time her private pictures were leaked, to battling suicidal thoughts while making her highly acclaimed debut album, Life Support, and her recovery since then. This memoir is an honest and unflinching account of self-love, mental health, and advocacy from one of the fastest-rising musical voices and most influential social media presences of her generation. It hammers home the point, more striking and urgent than ever, that no matter how close the internet may make us feel to people, we truly don’t know the half of it.]]> 176 Madison Beer 0063237695 Shannon 0 to-read 4.13 2023
author: Madison Beer
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 35297426 She was fifteen, her mother's golden girl. She had her whole life ahead of her. And then, in the blink of an eye, Ellie was gone.

NOW
It’s been ten years since Ellie disappeared, but Laurel has never given up hope of finding her daughter.

And then one day a charming and charismatic stranger called Floyd walks into a café and sweeps Laurel off her feet.

Before too long she’s staying the night at this house and being introduced to his nine year old daughter.

Poppy is precocious and pretty - and meeting her completely takes Laurel's breath away.

Because Poppy is the spitting image of Ellie when she was that age. And now all those unanswered questions that have haunted Laurel come flooding back.

What happened to Ellie? Where did she go?

Who still has secrets to hide?]]> 359 Lisa Jewell 1501154648 Shannon 5 4.02 2017
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/19
date added: 2023/10/22
shelves:
review:
Whew. This one was chilling. The kind where you're like wow, is it really going this twisted? and, yep, it sure is.
]]> 60587894
As he battles both the psychotic stalking of his family and the unseen enemy that haunts his sleep, Hilton's sense of reality is slipping away.]]> 1 Tananarive Due Shannon 5 3.86 1995
author: Tananarive Due
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1995
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/14
date added: 2023/10/22
shelves:
review:
Fresh and compelling horror premise, expertly plotted. Vivid imagery made everything feel too real. Now that the book is done, I still miss protagonist Hilton and his travails.
]]> 60310667 NAMED A BOOK WE LOVED BY NPR

A young Black girl finds herself trapped between desperation and her family’s dark history in this horror graphic novel

Aisha has suffered a devastating loss. Her parents were killed in a car crash, and now she must move to decrepit and derelict Detroit to live with her ailing grandmother. However, shortly after moving in, Aisha's grandmother's health rapidly deteriorates. With her dying breath, she summons the dark spirit that has protected their family for generations to watch over Aisha.

At first it seems that this spirit, whom Aisha refers to as the Keeper, is truly doing as her grandmother asked, caring for Aisha and keeping her safe; however, it soon becomes clear that this being can only sustain itself by stealing life from others. As the Keeper begins to prey on the apartment building's other residents, Aisha and her friends must come together to destroy it . . . or die trying.

Written by masters of horror Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes and illustrated by Marco Finnegan, The Keeper reflects on the horror Black Americans face every day, while still staying true to the genre.]]> 176 Tananarive Due 1419751557 Shannon 5 3.68
author: Tananarive Due
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.68
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/03
date added: 2023/10/11
shelves:
review:
The afterword says this was originally intended to be a script for a screenplay and it shows. This graphic novel has a big screen feel and lots of layers. The setting is giving me Candyman, with the urban myth inside the apartment building, and a bit of a Goonies vibe, with the motley crew of youth trying to figure out what the heck's going on. It's going to be a re-read for me because it's so rich with love and relationships I think I'll get something new out of it each time. I already started another book by this author that I'm also really liking.
]]> 63094957
Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.]]> 304 Caroline O'Donoghue 0593535707 Shannon 0 to-read 4.06 2023
author: Caroline O'Donoghue
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 63892214 Vampires and vaqueros face off on the Texas-Mexico border in this supernatural western from the author of The Hacienda.

As the daughter of a rancher in 1840s Mexico, Nena knows a thing or two about monsters—her home has long been threatened by tensions with Anglo settlers from the north. But something more sinister lurks near the ranch at night, something that drains men of their blood and leaves them for dead.

Something that once attacked Nena nine years ago.

Believing Nena dead, Néstor has been on the run from his grief ever since, moving from ranch to ranch working as a vaquero. But no amount of drink can dispel the night terrors of sharp teeth; no woman can erase his childhood sweetheart from his mind.

When the United States attacks Mexico in 1846, the two are brought abruptly together on the road to war: Nena as a curandera, a healer striving to prove her worth to her father so that he does not marry her off to a stranger, and Néstor as a member of the auxiliary cavalry of ranchers and vaqueros. But the shock of their reunion—and Nena’s rage at Néstor for seemingly abandoning her long ago—is quickly overshadowed by the appearance of a nightmare made flesh.

And unless Nena and Néstor work through their past and face the future together, neither will survive to see the dawn.]]> 371 Isabel Cañas 0593436725 Shannon 0 to-read 3.87 2023
author: Isabel Cañas
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 38355282
As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.

One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.

Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…]]> 320 Lisa Jewell 1501190075 Shannon 5 3.83 2018
author: Lisa Jewell
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2023/10/02
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves:
review:
What? Did I just become a Lisa Jewell fan off the first book I've ready by her? Story unfolded brilliantly. I was engaged with all the characters, even the off-putting ones, right up to the chilling end, which is going to stick with me for awhile.
]]> 54626223 From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…�� To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.]]> 318 Colson Whitehead 0385545134 Shannon 5
“Summer had come to Harlem.��

Purchased the book in paperback at the author event, which was fabulous, and immediately started reading it again. Even got my uncle to pick it up and he loved it, too. Thoroughly enjoyed the reread as well. Looking forward to the second book in the series.]]> 3.67 2021
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/09
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves:
review:
Once I got used to the storytelling style I really got into it. Can’t wait for book 2!

“Summer had come to Harlem.��

Purchased the book in paperback at the author event, which was fabulous, and immediately started reading it again. Even got my uncle to pick it up and he loved it, too. Thoroughly enjoyed the reread as well. Looking forward to the second book in the series.
]]> 53590505 Nnedi Okorafor’s story of Chioma, a young Nigerian-American woman whose destiny is revealed during a furious rainstorm—now in paperback, with bonus content including Q&As with the creative team and never-before-seen art and designs!After the Rain is an adaptation of Nnedi Okorafor’s short story, “On the Road.�� The adaptation, written by John Jennings and illustrated by David Brame, begins in Nigeria during a powerful and unexpected storm. While visiting her grandmother, a young Nigerian-American woman named Chioma answers a knock at the door and is horrified by what she sees—a young boy with a severe head wound is standing on the doorstep.�� �� When he touches Chioma, his hand burns like fire and just as suddenly as he arrived, he disappears. Her grandmother comes down to see what is wrong and chastises Chioma for opening the door for a stranger. Outside there are only footprints in the mud which vanish in the same manner as their owner. This event sets off a chain of mysterious occurrences that become more and more terrifying. Chioma knows that something is wrong, and that the boy has “marked�� her in some way. . . . Haunted and hunted, Chioma must embrace her heritage in order to survive.]]> 128 Nnedi Okorafor 1683358341 Shannon 4 23-in-2023 3.65 2021
author: Nnedi Okorafor
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/09/26
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves: 23-in-2023
review:
Talk about doin' it for the culture. Main character Chioma opens the door of her grandmother's house during a rainstorm in southeast Nigeria and immediately wishes she hadn't. The story starts off creepy and the creepitude just keeps building. The artwork, how all the pages are framed with extensions of the unsettling elements really intensifies the —you got it—creepy AF factor. It's got some body horror that might make some squeamish. I enjoyed the setting and the integration of Nigerian folklore. The ending takes a turn I didn't expect. I think the story has interesting things to say about the ways in which trauma is carried around inside of us.
]]> 197180399
Ice Age paleontologist and poisons expert Myrna P. Lee isn't a team player. Not because she doesn't want to be. She’s just terrible at it. At least, that’s what every one in her lab says. Even her dog, the amazing William Tell, gives her attitude.

Maybe she has a hard time trusting because of past betrayals by people she's loved the most.

So, it’s just fine with her when she’s dispatched to a remote billionaire's ranch in Northern New Mexico tasked with solving a mysterious environmental poisoning. Besides, there's a secret mammoth kill site on the ranch she desperately hopes will supply enough data so that her megafauna poisons grant won't be rescinded for lack of progress. Myrna is determined to complete her commission, gather her mammoth info, and save her faltering career—all by herself.

Maybe she’s used to being alone and doesn't need anything from anyone, no siree.

Until a handsome cowboy, assigned as her minder, moseys up to her side and sets her heart pounding, and a motley bunch of ranch hands embrace her as part of their found family.

Maybe that “alone�� part of her life is in the past.

When she and William Tell stumble onto a decades old unsolved murder, the handsome cowboy tells her it’s linked to a long-lost treasure and the mammoth kill site. And it’s hard to stay focused on solving the poisonings when everything she discovers places her in the sights of villains who don’t care who they hurt in pursuit of the treasure.

Then betrayal hits Myrna from all sides, and her world shatters into teeny, tiny pieces. Will she retreat back to being alone or fight for her happiness?

But questions remain.
�� Will Myrna solve the mysterious poisoning?
�� Will she figure out who committed the long-ago murder?
�� Will she find the treasure before the bad guys do?
�� Will she pick up the pieces of her broken heart and forgive?

And just how will she use those hand grenades she found on her quest for the treasure?

If you like stubborn smart heroines afraid to love, rugged cowboys with slow and sexy smiles who get caught in their own web of seduction, and a small dog who surprises the heck out of people when he's picked up, then you'll love Sting of Lies .]]> 360 Carol Potenza Shannon 0 to-read 4.42
author: Carol Potenza
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.42
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123195171 Bad Feminist and Hunger, Roxane Gay has continued to tackle big issues embroiling society—state-sponsored violence and mass shootings, women’s rights post-Dobbs, online disinformation, and the limits of empathy—alongside more individual topics: Can I tell my co-worker her perfume makes me sneeze? Is it acceptable to schedule a daily 8 am meeting?

In her role as a New York Times opinion section contributor and the publication’s “Work Friend�� columnist, Gay reaches millions of readers with her wise voice and sharp insights. Opinions is a collection of her best nonfiction pieces from the past ten years. Covering a wide range of topics—politics, feminism, the culture wars, civil rights, and much more—with an all-new introduction in which she reflects on the past decade in America, this sharp, thought-provoking anthology will delight Roxane Gay’s devotees and draw new readers to this inimitable talent.]]> 320 Roxane Gay 0063341468 Shannon 0 to-read 4.00 2023
author: Roxane Gay
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/10/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 57260659 A supernatural force on the loose in San Francisco and a family reunion keeps witch and vintage storeowner Lily Ivory on her toes as she prepares to walk down the aisle . . . When Lily Ivory stumbles on the uniform of a former prisoner from Alcatraz and SFPD inspector Carlos Romero's cousin is kidnapped, Lily suspects something dangerous has been unleashed on the ghost-ridden island of Alcatraz. She'll have to sleuth out the culprit--when she's not busy entertaining her visiting relatives and resolving romantic conflicts as her wedding date approaches. Could recent omens be pointing to the magical threat in her adopted city? If so, she'll have to line up her allies to change the fate of the Bay Area. Because no matter what, Lily's determined to celebrate her marriage with her friends by her side--even if it means battling a demonic foe before she can make it to the altar.]]> 0 Juliet Blackwell 1665212489 Shannon 5
I know I said book 9 was my favorite one in the series yet, but I think this one’s my favorite. It starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. Lots of atmosphere and spooky happenings and dark twists. This one integrates elements and story threads from previous books, showing how far Lily has come. Swoonworthy romance. Bad ass witch embracing her power vibes galore.]]> 4.50 2019
author: Juliet Blackwell
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at: 2023/09/21
date added: 2023/09/26
shelves:
review:
“I watched them leave, fighting the compulsion to run after them and jump on the craft as well. I didn’t have to see any more of the island to know that I’d seen enough.��

I know I said book 9 was my favorite one in the series yet, but I think this one’s my favorite. It starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. Lots of atmosphere and spooky happenings and dark twists. This one integrates elements and story threads from previous books, showing how far Lily has come. Swoonworthy romance. Bad ass witch embracing her power vibes galore.
]]> 61214136
From the day she watched her kindergarten teacher drop dead during a dramatic telling of Peter Rabbit , Clover Brooks has felt a stronger connection with the dying than she has with the living. After the beloved grandfather who raised her dies alone while she is traveling, Clover becomes a death doula in New York City, dedicating her life to ushering people peacefully through their end-of-life process.

Clover spends so much time with the dying that she has no life of her own, until the final wishes of a feisty old woman send Clover on a road trip to uncover a forgotten love story—and perhaps, her own happy ending. As she finds herself struggling to navigate the uncharted roads of romance and friendship, Clover is forced to examine what she really wants, and whether she’ll have the courage to go after it.

Probing, clever, and hopeful, The Collected Regrets of Clover is perfect for readers of The Midnight Library and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine as it turns the normally taboo subject of death into a reason to celebrate life.]]> 320 Mikki Brammer 1250284392 Shannon 0 to-read 4.14 2023
author: Mikki Brammer
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55333938 This is a previously-published edition of ISBN 9780593101537.

The remarkable, little-known story of Belle da Costa Greene, J. P. Morgan's personal librarian—who became one of the most powerful women in New York despite the dangerous secret she kept in order to make her dreams come true, from New York Times bestselling author Marie Benedict and acclaimed author Victoria Christopher Murray.

In her twenties, Belle da Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of rare manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture on the New York society scene and one of the most powerful people in the art and book world, known for her impeccable taste and shrewd negotiating for critical works as she helps build a world-class collection.

But Belle has a secret, one she must protect at all costs. She was born not Belle da Costa Greene but Belle Marion Greener. She is the daughter of Richard Greener, the first Black graduate of Harvard and a well-known advocate for equality. Belle's complexion isn't dark because of her alleged Portuguese heritage that lets her pass as white—her complexion is dark because she is African American.

The Personal Librarian tells the story of an extraordinary woman, famous for her intellect, style, and wit, and shares the lengths to which she must go—for the protection of her family and her legacy—to preserve her carefully crafted white identity in the racist world in which she lives.]]> 341 Marie Benedict Shannon 0 to-read 3.98 2021
author: Marie Benedict
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/23
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]]> 43386649 Roxane Gay, the prominent cultural influencer, novelist, and New York Times bestselling author of Hunger and Bad Feminist, provides the tools necessary for everyone who wants to make their voice heard.

Roxane Gay receives numerous requests from aspiring writers: "Will you please read my work and tell me if I have the talent to pursue writing?" What these hopeful wordsmiths all seek is encouragement and validation in a culture that is eager to reject creativity and those who pursue it, especially artists from underrepresented communities. These fans are desperate for someone to say, "Yes, you are good enough." They are looking for permission to use their voice.

In this invaluable guide, Gay provides realistic, frank, and humorous advice for inexperienced writers and those who aspire to the writing life. From the beginning she makes clear that anyone can be a writer—so long as you actually practice the craft. She also offers insight on what’s really required to succeed at virtually every endeavor: imagination, ambition, and perseverance.

Gay covers a range of topics to help you define the kind of writing life you want, making clear that writing is an art—and a profession. She gives you the inspiration and practical tools you need to find your voice, use it, and be heard. If your dream is to become a published author, Gay walks you through the publishing process, letting you know what to expect.

While there have been numerous writing guides, few speak to those whose talents have been overlooked or dismissed. Roxane Gay addresses their needs and aspirations while offering advice and insights useful to everyone.]]> 256 Roxane Gay 0062845934 Shannon 0 to-read 3.20 2026
author: Roxane Gay
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2026
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/17
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]]> 63083089
In an elite English boarding school where the girls kiss the marble statue of the famous dead author who used to walk the halls, a butch antipodean outsider arrives to take up the antiquated role of “matron.�� Within this landscape of immense privilege, where difference is met with hostility, the matron finds herself unsure of her role, her accent and her body.

That is until she meets Mrs. S, the headmaster’s wife, a woman who is her polar opposite—an assured, authoritative paragon of femininity. Over the course of a long, restless summer, their unspoken yearning blooms into an illicit affair of electric intensity. But, as the summer fades, a choice must be made.

Seductive, stylish, and disarmingly wry, K Patrick’s bold and revelatory debut smolders with the heat of summer as it explores the queer experience and the force of forbidden love.]]> 240 K. Patrick 1609458419 Shannon 0 to-read 3.61 2023
author: K. Patrick
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/04
shelves: to-read
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]]> 18624367 Okay, I admit it…I didn’t do it.

Yet.

This is normal, right?�� I mean, just because everyone I know has talked like they’ve already done it doesn’t mean that they’re telling the truth…right?

It’s not like I’m asking for that much. I don’t need the perfect guy. I don’t need candlelight or roses. Honestly, I don’t even need a real bed.

The guys I know complain that girls are always looking for Mr. Right—do I have to wear a sign that says I’m only looking for Mr. Right Now?

Sooooo…anyone out there want sex? Anyone? Hello? Just for fun?

I am not going to die a virgin. One way or another I am going to make this happen.

Hey, what have I got to lose? Besides the obvious.]]> 304 Radhika Sanghani 069816864X Shannon 0 to-read 3.31 2014
author: Radhika Sanghani
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/02
shelves: to-read
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]]> 9651654
This stunning and elegiac novel by the author of the internationally acclaimed Wind-Up Bird Chronicle has sold over 4 million copies in Japan and is now available to American audiences for the first time. It is sure to be a literary event.

Toru, a quiet and preternaturally serious young college student in Tokyo, is devoted to Naoko, a beautiful and introspective young woman, but their mutual passion is marked by the tragic death of their best friend years before. Toru begins to adapt to campus life and the loneliness and isolation he faces there, but Naoko finds the pressures and responsibilities of life unbearable. As she retreats further into her own world, Toru finds himself reaching out to others and drawn to a fiercely independent and sexually liberated young woman.

A poignant story of one college student's romantic coming-of-age, Norwegian Wood takes us to that distant place of a young man's first, hopeless, and heroic love.]]> 389 Haruki Murakami 0307744663 Shannon 0 to-read 3.85 1987
author: Haruki Murakami
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.85
book published: 1987
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> 43620021 318 Simone St. James 0451235681 Shannon 0 to-read 3.88 2012
author: Simone St. James
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/08/01
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]]> 52516332 In a novel-in-verse that brims with grief and love, National Book Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Acevedo writes about the devastation of loss, the difficulty of forgiveness, and the bittersweet bonds that shape our lives.

Camino Rios lives for the summers when her father visits her in the Dominican Republic. But this time, on the day when his plane is supposed to land, Camino arrives at the airport to see crowds of crying people��

In New York City, Yahaira Rios is called to the principal’s office, where her mother is waiting to tell her that her father, her hero, has died in a plane crash.

Separated by distance—and Papi’s secrets—the two girls are forced to face a new reality in which their father is dead and their lives are forever altered.

And then, when it seems like they’ve lost everything of their father, they learn of each other.]]> 432 Elizabeth Acevedo 0062882767 Shannon 5 4.22 2020
author: Elizabeth Acevedo
name: Shannon
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/07/19
date added: 2023/07/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 7507191 Magic is dangerous—but love is more dangerous still.

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks, and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.

Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa’s power for his own.

Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm’s length�� everyone, that is, but Tessa.

As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world�� and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.]]> 16 Cassandra Clare 1442334606 Shannon 0 3.78 2010
author: Cassandra Clare
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2014/07/15
date added: 2023/07/10
shelves:
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]]> 124962424 ��
It’s��2011:��America is in a deep recession and Occupy Wall Street is escalating. But at the elite Wrynn College of Art, students paint and sculpt in a rarefied bubble. Louisa Arceneaux is a thoughtful, observant nineteen-year-old when she transfers to Wrynn as a scholarship student, but she soon finds herself adrift in an environment that prizes novelty over beauty. Complicating matters is Louisa’s unexpected attraction to her charismatic roommate, Karina Piontek, the preternaturally gifted but mercurial daughter of wealthy art collectors. Gradually, Louisa and Karina are drawn into an intense sensual and artistic relationship, one that forces them to confront their deepest desires and fears. But Karina also can’t shake her fascination with Preston Utley, a senior and anti-capitalist Internet provocateur, who is publicly feuding with visiting professor and political painter Robert Berger—a once-controversial figurehead��seeking��to regain relevance.�� ��
����
When Preston concocts an explosive hoax, the fates of all four artists are upended as each is unexpectedly thrust into the cutthroat New York art world. Now all must struggle to find new identities in art, in society, and among each other. In the process, they must find either their most authentic terms of life—of success, failure, and joy—or risk losing themselves altogether.��

With��a canny, critical eye, Sirens & Muses overturns notions of class, money, art, youth, and a generation’s fight to own their��future.]]> 384 Antonia Angress 0593496450 Shannon 0 to-read 3.96 2022
author: Antonia Angress
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/01
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]]> 57233514 here

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER •��Look for special features inside. Join the Random House Reader’s Circle for author chats and more.
��
In the summer of 1977, Victoria Leonard’s world changes forever when Caitlin Somers chooses her as a friend. Dazzling, reckless Caitlin welcomes Vix into the heart of her sprawling, eccentric family, opening doors to a world of unimaginable privilege, sweeping her away to vacations on Martha’s Vineyard, an enchanting place where the two friends become “summer sisters.��
��
Now, years later, Vix is working in New York City. Caitlin is getting married on the Vineyard. And the early magic of their long, complicated friendship has faded. But Caitlin begs Vix to come to her wedding, to be her maid of honor. And Vix knows that she will go—because she wants to understand what happened during that last shattering summer. And, after all these years, she needs to know why her best friend—her summer sister—still has the power to break her heart.
��
Praise for Summer Sisters
��
“Compulsively readable . . . [Blume’s] powers are prodigious.����The New York Times Book Review
��
“As warm as a summer breeze blowing through your hair, as nostalgic as James Taylor singing ‘How Sweet It Is.�� You remember. So does Judy Blume. How sweet it was.����Chicago Tribune
��
“An exceptionally moving story that can leave the reader laughing and crying . . . sometimes at the same time . . . Blume creates a rich tapestry of characters.����The Denver Post
��
“Blume’s characters still tend to hover after the book is set aside. . . . She catches perfectly the well-armored love between longtime female friends.����The Seattle Times]]> 399 Judy Blume 0385337663 Shannon 0 to-read 3.78 1998
author: Judy Blume
name: Shannon
average rating: 3.78
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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date added: 2023/07/01
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]]>