Simi's bookshelf: all

Simi's bookshelf: all en-US Sun, 20 Apr 2025 12:29:59 -0700 60 Simi's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town]]> 175837
How could the Jurgens kill a small child and get away with it? Determined to find answers, detectives Ron Meehan and Greg Kindle tracked down old witnesses and rebuilt the case brick by brick until they exposed the demons that drove an adopted parent to torture and eventually murder a helpless child. Just as compelling, they investigated why so many people watched and did absolutely nothing. A vivid portrait of an all-American town that harbored a killer, A Death in White Bear Lake is also the absorbing story of two detectives who refused to give up until they had the killer cold.]]> 544 Barry Siegel 0345432991 Simi 3 3.98 1990 A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town

A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town

author: Barry Siegel
name: Simi
average rating: 3.98
book published: 1990
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Say You'll Remember Me (Part of Your World, #4)]]> 216437557 disastrously close. A gorgeous veterinarian giving Greek god vibes—all while cuddling a tiny kitten? Immediately yes. That is until Xavier opens his mouth and proves that even sculpted gods can say the absolute wrong thing. Like, really wrong. Of course, there’s nothing Samantha loves more than proving an asshole wrong��

. . . unless, of course, he can admit he made a mistake. But after one incredible and seemingly endless date—possibly the best in living history—Samantha is forced to admit the truth, that her family is in crisis and any kind of relationship would be impossible. Samantha begs Xavier to forget her. To remember their night together as a perfect moment, as crushing as that may be.

Only no amount of distance or time is nearly enough to forget that something between them. And the only thing better than one single perfect memory is to make a life—and even a love—worth remembering.]]> 416 Abby Jimenez 0349442827 Simi 2 4.14 2025 Say You'll Remember Me (Part of Your World, #4)

Say You'll Remember Me (Part of Your World, #4)

author: Abby Jimenez
name: Simi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/20
date added: 2025/04/20
shelves:
review:
If you are a big TikTok person I think you will derive considerably more satisfaction from this book than I did. I didn’t find the relationship super compelling - it’s very surface level (actually every plot is very surface level). And some things were too much to be believed (the plane mixup is like her selling her hair for a watch fob and him selling his watch for hair combs; the ultimate solution to his practice financial issues is ludicrous). I had to Google who the male main character was supposed to be because I had never heard of him and she referenced this constantly.
]]> <![CDATA[Heirs and Graces (Her Royal Spyness Mysteries, #7)]]> 15808340 Here I am thinking the education I received at my posh Swiss finishing school would never come in handy. And while it hasn't landed me a job, or a husband, it has convinced Her Majesty the Queen, and the Dowager Duchess to enlist my help. I have been entrusted with grooming Jack Altringham, the Duke's newly discovered heir fresh from the Outback of Australia, for high society.
The upside is I am to live in luxury at one of England's most gorgeous stately homes. But upon arrival at Kingsdowne Place, my dearest Darcy has been sent to fetch Jack, leaving me stuck in a manor full of miscreants...none of whom are too pleased with the discovery of my new ward.
And no sooner has the lad been retrieved than the Duke announces he wants to choose his own heir. With the house in a hubbub over the news, Jack's hunting knife somehow finds its way into the Duke's back. Eyes fall, backs turn, and fingers point to the young heir. As if the rascal wasn't enough of a handful, now he's suspected of murder. Jack may be wild, but I'd bet the crown jewels it wasn't he who killed the Duke...]]> 295 Rhys Bowen 042526002X Simi 4 3.92 2013 Heirs and Graces (Her Royal Spyness Mysteries, #7)

Heirs and Graces (Her Royal Spyness Mysteries, #7)

author: Rhys Bowen
name: Simi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/18
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Raging Storm (Two Rivers, #3)]]> 65214534
Fierce winds, dark secrets, deadly intentions.

When Jem Rosco―sailor, adventurer, and legend―blows into town in the middle of an autumn gale, the residents of Greystone, Devon, are delighted to have a celebrity in their midst. But just as abruptly as he arrived, Rosco disappears again, and soon his lifeless body is discovered in a dinghy, anchored off Scully Cove, a place with legends of its own.

This is an uncomfortable case for Detective Inspector Matthew Venn. Greystone is a place he visited as a child, a community he parted ways with. Superstition and rumor mix with fact as another body is found, and Venn finds his judgment clouded.

As the winds howl, and Venn and his team investigate, he realizes that no one, including himself, is safe from Scully Cove’s storm of dark secrets.]]> 383 Ann Cleeves 1250836778 Simi 4 3.83 2023 The Raging Storm (Two Rivers, #3)

author: Ann Cleeves
name: Simi
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection]]> 220341389 John Green, the #1 bestselling author of The Anthropocene Reviewed and a passionate advocate for global healthcare reform, tells a deeply human story illuminating the fight against the world’s deadliest disease.

Tuberculosis has been entwined with humanity for millennia. Once romanticized as a malady of poets, today tuberculosis is a disease of poverty that walks the trails of injustice and inequity we blazed for it.

In 2019, John Green met Henry, a young tuberculosis patient at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone while traveling with Partners in Health. John became fast friends with Henry, a boy with spindly legs and a big, goofy smile. In the years since that first visit to Lakka, Green has become a vocal and dynamic advocate for increased access to treatment and wider awareness of the healthcare inequities that allow this curable, treatable infectious disease to also be the deadliest, killing 1.5 million people every year.

In Everything is Tuberculosis, John tells Henry’s story, woven through with the scientific and social histories of how tuberculosis has shaped our world and how our choices will shape the future of tuberculosis.]]> 208 John Green 0525556575 Simi 5 4.52 2025 Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection

author: John Green
name: Simi
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The Gray Man (Gray Man, #1) 6547865 Courtland Gentry is a good man. But he’s a great assassin.

To those who lurk in the shadows, he’s known as the Gray Man. He is a legend in the covert realm, moving silently from job to job, accomplishing the impossible and then fading away. And he always hits his target. Always.

But there are forces more lethal than Gentry in the world. Forces like money. And power. And there are men who hold these as the only currency worth fighting for. And in their eyes, Gentry has just outlived his usefulness.

But Court Gentry is going to prove that, for him, there’s no gray area between killing for a living and killing to stay alive…]]> 456 Mark Greaney Simi 4 4.12 2009 The Gray Man (Gray Man, #1)

author: Mark Greaney
name: Simi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2009
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

Careless People is a deeply personal account of why and how things have gone so horribly wrong in the past decade—told in a sharp, candid, and utterly disarming voice. A deep, unflinching look at the role that social media has assumed in our lives, Careless People reveals the truth about the leaders of Facebook: how the more power they grasp, the less responsible they become and the consequences this has for all of us.]]> 400 Sarah Wynn-Williams 1250391237 Simi 5 4.31 2025 Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

author: Sarah Wynn-Williams
name: Simi
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:
This book is really engaging and confirms how terrible everyone in senior leadership at FB is. I appreciated she names names. I did think the author was a little naive for so much of the book but I guess she was the proverbial boiled frog. Also, big thanks to everyone at Meta who tried to block this book - I never would have read it if they hadn’t tried to keep it under wraps, and I’m glad I read it and know exactly who they are
]]> <![CDATA[A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie, #1)]]> 1095730

Ex-St. Paul cop Rushmore McKenzie has more time, and more money, than he knows what to do with. In fact, when he's willing to admit it to himself (and he usually isn't), Mac is downright bored. Until he decides to do a favor for a friend facing a family tragedy: Nine-year-old Stacy Carlson has been diagnosed with leukemia, and the only one with the matching bone marrow that can save her is her older sister, Jamie. Trouble is, Jamie ran away from home years ago.

Mac begins combing the backstreets of the Twin Cities, tracking down Jamie's last known associates. He starts with the expected pimps and drug dealers, but the path leads surprisingly to some of the Cities' most respected businessmen, as well as a few characters far more unsavory than the street hustlers he anticipated. As bullets fly and bodies drop, Mac persists, only to find that what he's looking for, and why, are not exactly what he'd imagined.

David Housewright's uncanny ability to turn the Twin Cities into an exotic, brooding backdrop for noir fiction, and his winning, witty hero Rushmore McKenzie, serve as a wicked one-two punch in A Hard Ticket Home, a series debut that reinforces Housewright's well-earned reputation as one of crime fiction's rising stars.

]]> 326 David Housewright 084395681X Simi 3 3.72 2004 A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie, #1)

author: David Housewright
name: Simi
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> The Most Fun We Ever Had 41880044
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents'.

As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt--given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before--we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons' past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.]]> 532 Claire Lombardo 0385544251 Simi 4 3.88 2019 The Most Fun We Ever Had

author: Claire Lombardo
name: Simi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> Firstborn: A Memoir 214986210 A lapidary memoir of losing a child before she can be born, which the author began writing the day she came home from the hospital—a story��about the intimate closeness of our most searing losses and our brightest hopes

“Some days I still think this is all just a sad story I’ll tell Simone one day.��

Lauren Christensen is a 30-something editor in New York City when she meets her husband, Gabe, a writer with whom she falls in love right away. Her beloved grandfather is dying, but the young couple is bringing new life into the Lauren and Gabe joyfully discover she is pregnant with their daughter, Simone.

As she faces the prospect of becoming a mother herself, Lauren learns to let go of the fear of abandonment and need for control that growing up with a largely absent father and a high-powered mother who was always away on business instilled in her. She and Gabe are incandescently happy in their exuberant, messy, beautiful shared world. But just weeks after their wedding, they learn that their worst nightmare has come Simone is dying in the womb.

In fierce, intimate, spellbinding prose, Lauren Christensen brings us to the very heart of the human how do we live when everyone who makes up our world will someday be gone? And how can we mourn when the cosmic order has been turned upside down—when a child dies before she is born? As she comes up against the brutal limits of maternal healthcare, and the limitlessness of her love for her daughter, Lauren Christensen finds a key, generous and brave, in which to share her loss, a testimony whose diamond-like brilliance refracts a universal light.]]> 208 Lauren Christensen 0593831810 Simi 5 4.29 2025 Firstborn: A Memoir

author: Lauren Christensen
name: Simi
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lethal Prey (Lucas Davenport #35; Virgil Flowers #16)]]> 216310255 Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers join forces to track down a ruthless killer who will do whatever it takes to keep the past buried.

Doris Grandfelt, an employee at an accounting firm, was brutally stabbed to death . . . but nobody knew exactly where the crime took place. Her body was found the next night, dumped among a dense thicket of trees along the edge of an urban park, eight miles east of St. Paul, Minnesota. Despite her twin sister Lara Grandfelt’s persistent calls to the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the killer was never found.

Twenty years later, Lara has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Confronted with the possibility of her own death, she’s determined to find Doris’s killer once and for all. Finally taking matters into her own hands, she dumps the entire investigative file on every true-crime site in the world and offers a $5 million reward for information leading to the killer’s arrest. Dozens of true-crime bloggers show up looking for both new evidence and “clicks,�� and Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers are called in to review anything that might be a new lead.

When one of the bloggers locates the murder weapon, Lucas and Virgil begin to uncover vital details about the killer’s identity. But what they don’t know is the killer lurks in plain sight, and with the true-crime bloggers blasting every clue online, the killer can keep one step ahead. As the nation maneuvers the detectives closer to the truth, Lucas and Virgil will find that digging up Doris’s harrowing past might just get them buried instead.]]> 391 John Sandford 0593718429 Simi 4 4.33 2025 Lethal Prey (Lucas Davenport #35; Virgil Flowers #16)

Lethal Prey (Lucas Davenport #35; Virgil Flowers #16)

author: John Sandford
name: Simi
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:

]]> People Will Talk 199797820
When the Frank family throws their annual clambake at their gorgeous beachside home on Cape May, the seafood is always delivered to white-clothed tables on fine bone china. And Peter Frank, the beloved son and perennial heartbreaker, will make the rounds, charming every woman on the guest list.

Top of that list this year are Maya, his tennis star girlfriend just coming off the high of winning Wimbledon; Catherine, his high school sweetheart turned wildly successful wedding planner and influencer; and Leanne, the fiercely protective aunt and legal guardian of his only son. When Maya, Catherine, and Leanne arrive expecting an extravagant feast, they’re instead lured into a room together by a mysterious text to find Peter and…Tilly.

Tilly, all golden blonde hair and perfectly tan skin, explains to the three women that she and Peter plan to get married that night, that Maya and Peter are through, that Peter will no longer be investing in Catherine’s company, and that Leanne must give up guardianship of her nephew. The enraged women attend the impromptu wedding, but when a chandelier falls and crushes the bride, suddenly they’re three likely suspects with three perfect motives. Now they’ll have to work together to figure out who really did kill Tilly, and fast—because maintaining a good reputation in this crowd can be murder.]]> 320 Kieran Scott 1668038102 Simi 3 3.27 2024 People Will Talk

author: Kieran Scott
name: Simi
average rating: 3.27
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space]]> 199798785
On January 28, 1986, just seventy-three seconds into flight, the space shuttle Challenger broke apart over the Atlantic Ocean, killing all seven people on board. Millions of Americans witnessed the tragic deaths of a crew including New Hampshire schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe. Like 9/11 or JFK’s assassination, the Challenger disaster is a defining moment in 20th-century history—yet the details of what took place that day, and why, have largely been forgotten. Until now.

Based on extensive archival records and meticulous, original reporting, Challenger follows a handful of central protagonists—including each of the seven members of the doomed crew—through the years leading up to the accident, a detailed account of the tragedy itself, and into the investigation that followed. It’s a tale of optimism and promise undermined by political cynicism and cost-cutting in the interests of burnishing national prestige; of hubris and heroism; and of an investigation driven by leakers and whistleblowers determined to bring the truth to light. Throughout, there are the ominous warning signs of a tragedy to come, recognized but then ignored, and ultimately kept from the public.

Higginbotham reveals the history of the shuttle program, the lives of men and women whose stories have been overshadowed by the disaster as well as the designers, engineers, and test pilots who struggled against the odds to get the first shuttle into space.]]> 576 Adam Higginbotham 198217661X Simi 5 4.52 2024 Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

Challenger: A True Story of Heroism and Disaster on the Edge of Space

author: Adam Higginbotham
name: Simi
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
I thought I knew a lot about Challenger but this was a much more comprehensive account of what happened. So much hubris and so little respect for human life
]]> <![CDATA[The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport]]> 176822898 🎧Listening Length = 10 hours and 40 minutes

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Wall Street Journal reporters and authors of The Club, Joshua Robinson and Jonathan Clegg tell the riveting saga of how Formula 1 broke through in America, detailing the eclectic culture of racing obsessives, glamorous settings, gearheads, engineering geniuses, dashing racers, and bitter rivalries that have made F1 the world’s fastest growing sport.

For decades in America, car racing meant NASCAR, and to a lesser extent IndyCar, with Formula 1—the wealthiest racing league in the world—a distant third. Fast forward to 2023, and F1 has emerged at the front of the pack powered by a passionate yet nascent American fanbase. The F1 juggernaut has arrived, but this checkered flag was far from inevitable.

In The Formula, Robinson and Clegg tell the epic story of how F1 saved itself from collapse and finally conquered America through guile, fearlessness, and above all, reinvention. With fast cars, big money, glamorous locales, and beautiful people as the backdrop, The Formula reveals how F1’s sudden arrival in the US was actually decades in the making, a product of the sport’s near-constant state of transformation and experimentation. Bringing unique insight and access to F1’s most storied teams and personalities—from Ferrari to Bernie Ecclestone to Christian Horner to Lewis Hamilton��The Formula offers a riveting portrait of the drivers, corporations, cars, rivalries, and audacious gambles that have shaped the sport for half a century.

The end result is a high-octane history of how modern F1 racing came to be—the first book to tell the story of the outrageous successes and spectacular crashes that led F1 to this extraordinary yet precarious moment. More than just a sports story, The Formula is the tale of a disrupter that broke into the crowded American sports marketplace and claimed its place through cash, personality, and a new understanding of what a sport needs to be in the age of wall-to-wall entertainment.]]> 304 Joshua Robinson 0063318628 Simi 4 4.32 2024 The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport

The Formula: How Rogues, Geniuses, and Speed Freaks Reengineered F1 into the World's Fastest-Growing Sport

author: Joshua Robinson
name: Simi
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Suspect (Karl Alberg #1) 25960358 This Edgar Award-winning debut kicks off a cult favorite crime series with a noirish tale of murder set along Canada's Sunshine Coast.

To Karl Alberg, the coastal town of Sechelt, just north of Vancouver, looks like the perfect place to soothe a psyche that's been battered by big-city police work. Bees buzz among the roses, and the local librarian is attractive, intriguing, and unattached. Perhaps he has at last come in from the cold. But sunny towns can conceal a lot of secrets--some of them bleak enough to make a man yearn for some nice straightforward urban crime.

In 1986 L.R. Wright's The Suspect became the first Canadian novel to win an Edgar award, beating out titles by Ruth Rendell and Jonathan Kellerman. It went on to become a cult favorite among mystery fans, who prized its delicately etched sense of melancholy and intriguing character studies of the cop, his quarry, and the enigmatic librarian who proves an unlikely bridge between the two.]]> 252 L.R. Wright 1937384667 Simi 4 4.11 1985 The Suspect (Karl Alberg #1)

author: L.R. Wright
name: Simi
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1985
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
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]]> Dream Count 219521090 A publishing event ten years in the making��a searing, exquisite new novel by the best-selling and award-winning author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists��the story of four women and their loves, longings, and desires.

Chiamaka is a Nigerian travel writer living in America. Alone in the midst of the pandemic, she recalls her past lovers and grapples with her choices and regrets. Zikora, her best friend, is a lawyer who has been successful at everything until �� betrayed and brokenhearted �� she must turn to the person she thought she needed least. Omelogor, Chiamaka’s bold, outspoken cousin, is a financial powerhouse in Nigeria who begins to question how well she knows herself. And Kadiatou, Chiamaka’s housekeeper, is proudly raising her daughter in America �� but faces an unthinkable hardship that threatens all she has worked to achieve.

In Dream Count, Adichie trains her fierce eye on these women in a sparkling, transcendent novel that takes up the very nature of love itself. Is true happiness ever attainable or is it just a fleeting state? And how honest must we be with ourselves in order to love, and to be loved? A trenchant reflection on the choices we make and those made for us, on daughters and mothers, on our interconnected world, Dream Count pulses with emotional urgency and poignant, unflinching observations on the human heart, in language that soars with beauty and power. It confirms Adichie’s status as one of the most exciting and dynamic writers on the literary landscape.]]> 416 Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 059380273X Simi 2 3.96 2025 Dream Count

author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
name: Simi
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves:
review:
Man, I loved Americanah and really wanted to like this too. It’s well written but not good. The book and stories feel really dated or retrograde somehow, even though the pandemic plays an important role. For a book about four women, the books spends an interminable time talking about men (and all the men are honestly cartoonishly terrible). It almost feels as if she is arguing with some straw man critique of feminism that she’s created. I kept reading thinking something would change but alas.
]]> <![CDATA[We Have Always Been Who We Are]]> 124053605 From Pushcart Prize–nominated author Sofia T. Romero comes a breathtaking debut collection of interrelated stories suffused with magical realism.

In stories that evoke the haunting beauty of New England beaches and resonate with a bittersweet loneliness, Romero blurs the lines between life and death, reality and fantasy. A deceased woman counsels her son’s fiancée on how to be a good wife to him, with disastrous consequences. A mysterious, commanding cat appears in a young woman’s home, as inexplicable as the demise of her years-long relationship with her boyfriend. At turns humorous, sorrowful, and whimsical, this collection spans the familiar setting of a college town supermarket to eerie dystopias that are not just post-pandemic, but post-art. Romero masterfully conveys the follies of youth and the regrets of life, and a sense of loss—of a relationship, a child, a time before—pervades each page.

With this remarkable debut, Romero joins the ranks of writers such as Brenda Peynado and Marytza K. Rubio, offering a superb collection of speculative fiction with a distinctly Latina perspective. We Have Always Been Who We Are is at its heart a testament to the power of storytelling, and an invitation to develop our inner strength through the imagination.]]> 234 Sofia T. Romero Simi 4 3.59 2023

author: Sofia T. Romero
name: Simi
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[My Royal Showmance (Park Avenue Promise, #2)]]> 174060244 From New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake, discover The Park Avenue Promise Series...

Three young women make a pact in high school��
to always be friends and to one day make it big in Manhattan.

My Royal Showmance

Anika Fox knows exactly where she wants to be, and it’s not on the set of a reality TV dating show. She’s working her way up at the production company she works for and she’s close to achieving some of her dreams. The big boss just wants one thing from her. She’s got a potential problem with the director of The King Takes a Bride and she wants Anika to pose as a production assistant and report back.

As the king of a tiny European country, Luca St. Marten knows the world views him as one of the pampered royalty of the world. It couldn’t be further from the truth. His country is hurting and he’s right there on the front lines with his citizens. When he’s asked to do a dating show, his counselors point out that it could bring tourism back to Ralavia. It goes against his every desire, but he agrees.

When one of the contestants drops out at the last minute, Anika finds herself replacing the potential princess. She’s sure she’ll be asked to leave the first night, but Luca keeps picking her again and again. Suddenly she finds herself in the middle of a made-for-TV fantasy, and she’s unsure what’s real and what’s simply reality TV.]]> 260 Lexi Blake 1957568720 Simi 2 4.20 My Royal Showmance (Park Avenue Promise, #2)

My Royal Showmance (Park Avenue Promise, #2)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The Hypocrite 202102022 From a fiercely talented writer poised to be a new generation’s Rachel Cusk or Deborah Levy, a novel set between the London stage and Sicily, about a daughter who turns her novelist father’s fall from grace into a play, and a father who increasingly fears his precocious daughter’s voice.

August 2020. Sophia, a young playwright, awaits her father’s verdict on her new show. A famous author whose novels haven’t aged as gracefully into the modern era as he might hope, he is completely unaware that the play centers around a vacation the two took years earlier to an island off Sicily, where he dictated to her a new book. The play has been met with rave reviews but Sophia’s father has studiously avoided reading any of them. But when the house lights dim, he understands that his daughter has laid him bare, used the events of their summer to create an incisive, witty, skewering critique of the attitudes and sexual mores of men of his generation.

Set through one staging of the play, The Hypocrite seamlessly and scorchingly shifts through time and perspective, illuminating an argument between a father and his daughter that, with impeccable nuance, examines the fraught inheritances each generation is left to contend with, and the struggle to nurture empathy in a world changing at lightning-speed.]]> 240 Jo Hamya 0593701038 Simi 4 3.42 2024 The Hypocrite

author: Jo Hamya
name: Simi
average rating: 3.42
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World]]> 156425855
Ryan Murdock had visions of living a slow-paced island life on the Mediterranean while writing about his experiences, so in 2011 he moved from Canada to Malta. To the casual visitor, Malta is a sleepy place with sun-soaked shorelines and ancient fortified harbors. Murdock imagined it to be an archipelago island of warm weather, gorgeous views, busy cafes, and grilled fish dinners. On the surface, it was.

The six years Murdock spent in Malta revealed an insular culture whose fundamental baseline is amoral familism, a worldview in which any action taken to benefit one’s family or oneself is justifiable, regardless of whether it is legal or ethical. In such a place murder may or may not be wrong, depending on what one thinks of another’s politics. This pervasive perspective created a culture of corruption that rose all the way to the top of the island nation. The office of the prime minister was implicated in Caruana Galizia’s murder, and the investigation continues to reveal a government mired in money laundering, human trafficking, fuel smuggling, and the sale of EU passports to Russian and Middle Eastern oligarchs.

Interspersed with personal narrative, Murdock delves into Malta’s unique geopolitical, cultural, ethnic, and religious history—one that transformed it from a hub of prehistoric rule into a modern society where a powerful cabal of political and business leaders nearly got away with murder.]]> 272 Ryan Murdock 159534294X Simi 4 3.83 A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World

A Sunny Place for Shady People: How Malta Became One of the Most Curious and Corrupt Places in the World

author: Ryan Murdock
name: Simi
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves:
review:

]]> The True Love Experiment 62361081 Sparks fly when a romance novelist and a documentary filmmaker join forces to craft the perfect Hollywood love story and take both of their careers to the next level—but only if they can keep the chemistry between them from taking the whole thing off script.

Felicity “Fizzy�� Chen is lost. Sure, she’s got an incredible career as a beloved romance novelist with a slew of bestsellers under her belt, but when she’s asked to give a commencement address, it hits her: she hasn’t been practicing what she’s preached.

Fizzy hasn’t ever really been in love. Lust? Definitely. But that swoon-worthy, can’t-stop-thinking-about-him, all-encompassing feeling? Nope. Nothing. What happens when the optimism she’s spent her career encouraging in readers starts to feel like a lie?

Connor Prince, documentary filmmaker and single father, loves his work in large part because it allows him to live near his daughter. But when his profit-minded boss orders him to create a reality TV show, putting his job on the line, Connor is out of his element. Desperate to find his romantic lead, a chance run-in with an exasperated Fizzy offers Connor the perfect solution. What if he could show the queen of romance herself falling head-over-heels for all the world to see? Fizzy gives him a hard pass—unless he agrees to her list of demands. When he says yes, and production on The True Love Experiment begins, Connor wonders if that perfect match will ever be in the cue cards for him, too.

The True Love Experiment is the book fans have been waiting for ever since Fizzy’s debut in The Soulmate Equation. But when the lights come on and all eyes are on her, it turns out the happily ever after Fizzy had all but given up on might lie just behind the camera.]]> 409 Christina Lauren 1982173432 Simi 4 4.06 2023 The True Love Experiment

author: Christina Lauren
name: Simi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Lakesides and Longing (Michigan Millionaires, #6)]]> 59055252
Paige knows everyone thinks she’s crazy. Most of the time she doesn’t care. She has her house that is a work of art, the lake, and her studio. She doesn’t need people. But when someone breaks into her house in the middle of the night, her overbearing brother leaves his meathead friend to watch over her, and now her huge house feels small.

Will Blake and Paige overcome their differences and listen to their hearts, or will they lose the one opportunity they might both have to love again?]]> 157 Kimmy Loth Simi 2 3.92 2021 Lakesides and Longing (Michigan Millionaires, #6)

Lakesides and Longing (Michigan Millionaires, #6)

author: Kimmy Loth
name: Simi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:

]]> The Rom-Commers 195790586 She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.�� Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?]]> 336 Katherine Center 1250283809 Simi 4 4.06 2024 The Rom-Commers

author: Katherine Center
name: Simi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
review:

]]> Hello Tease (Hello, #7) 201741991 Men view love as a game. One you can walk away from.

At least that’s what the men in my life have taught me. My dad ran off when I was young, and just when I thought I was getting my own happily ever after, my ex left me on my own with two kids.

Trying to pick up the pieces, I move to a small town where I can have help from my children’s grandparents. I think I know what to expect from small-town life. Until I meet my new neighbor.

Knox Madigan. Local hero. Great smile. So hot I'm sure I’d be burned if I got too close.

Literally. He and my kids are in a major prank war. From whoopie cushions in my bed to snapping fireworks under my front door mat, I’ve witnessed it all. But I can’t hold it against him because my kids are smiling more than I’ve seen since their dad left.

Every meddling person in this town thinks we’d be the perfect match, but I know better.

History’s shown men view love as a game, and he’s an expert. But I can’t afford to play with my heart again. Especially since it’s not just my heart on the line.]]> 330 Kelsie Hoss Simi 3 4.27 Hello Tease (Hello, #7)

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 4.27
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hello Fake Boyfriend (Hello, #2)]]> 203884645 434 Kelsie Hoss Simi 3 3.92 2023

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1)]]> 61827543 Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective�� work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could �� because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands �� Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.]]> 339 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593549228 Simi 5 4.01 2023 Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1)

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers (Vera Wong, #1)

author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Simi
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Monkeys and Mayhem (Michigan Millionaires, #3)]]> 33410203
Hayden loves his work doing reconstruction work in the local hospital, but when a reminder of his damaging past shows up, he heads thousands of miles away to escape. He doesn't really want to practice in a plastic surgery clinic again, but it’s a small price to pay for peace of mind.

What he didn't expect was for Anna, who he'd only spent one night with, to show up on his porch asking for a place to stay. He can't turn her away in a foreign country, especially after she confides that instead of going to school, she spent her entire savings on a plane ticket to come see him.

With Hayden running from the past and Anna running from the future—will they allow themselves to embrace the present?]]> 276 Kimmy Loth Simi 3 4.06 2017 Monkeys and Mayhem (Michigan Millionaires, #3)

Monkeys and Mayhem (Michigan Millionaires, #3)

author: Kimmy Loth
name: Simi
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad's Fake Holiday Resort]]> 52378694
Providing a front for covert night-time activities, the holiday village allowed the agents to carry out an operation unlike any seen before. What began with one cryptic message pleading for help, turned into the secret evacuation of thousands of Ethiopian Jews who had been languishing in refugee camps, and the spiriting of them to Israel.

Written in collaboration with operatives involved in the mission, endorsed as the definitive account and including an afterword from the then Mossad director, this is the complete, never-before-heard, gripping tale of a top-secret and often hazardous operation.]]> 320 Raffi Berg 1785786008 Simi 4 4.25 2020 Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad's Fake Holiday Resort

Red Sea Spies: The True Story of Mossad's Fake Holiday Resort

author: Raffi Berg
name: Simi
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Cliffs 200634908 A novel of family, secrets, ghosts, and homecoming set on the seaside cliffs of Maine, by the New York Times best-selling author of Friends and Strangers.

On a secluded bluff overlooking the ocean sits a Victorian house, lavender with gingerbread trim, a home that contains a century’s worth of secrets. By the time Jane Flanagan discovers the house as a teenager, it has long been abandoned. The place is an irresistible mystery to Jane. There are still clothes in the closets, marbles rolling across the floors, and dishes in the cupboards, even though no one has set foot there in decades. The house becomes a hideaway for Jane, a place to escape her volatile mother.

Twenty years later, now a Harvard archivist, she returns home to Maine following a terrible mistake that threatens both her career and her marriage. Jane is horrified to find the Victorian is now barely recognizable. The new owner, Genevieve, a summer person from Beacon Hill, has gutted it, transforming the house into a glossy white monstrosity straight out of a shelter magazine. Strangely, Genevieve is convinced that the house is haunted—perhaps the product of something troubling Genevieve herself has done. She hires Jane to research the history of the place and the women who lived there. The story Jane uncovers—of lovers lost at sea, romantic longing, shattering loss, artistic awakening, historical artifacts stolen and sold, and the long shadow of colonialism—is even older than Maine itself.

Enthralling, richly imagined, filled with psychic mediums and charlatans, spirits and past lives, mothers, marriage, and the legacy of alcoholism, this is a deeply moving novel about the land we inhabit, the women who came before us, and the ways in which none of us will ever truly leave this earth.]]> 384 J. Courtney Sullivan 059331915X Simi 3 3.51 2024 The Cliffs

author: J. Courtney Sullivan
name: Simi
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/26
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves:
review:

]]> Conclave 29397486
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 288 Robert Harris Simi 4 4.02 2016 Conclave

author: Robert Harris
name: Simi
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> Memorial Days 212806569 A heartrending and beautiful memoir of sudden loss and a journey to��peace, from the bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of��Horse

Many cultural and religious traditions expect those who are grieving to step away from the world. In contemporary life, we are more often met with red tape and to-do lists. This is exactly what happened to Geraldine Brooks when her partner of more than three decades, Tony Horwitz �� just sixty years old and, to her knowledge, vigorous and healthy �� collapsed and died on a Washington, D. C. sidewalk.

After spending their early years together in conflict zones as foreign correspondents, Geraldine and Tony settled down to raise two boys on Martha’s Vineyard. The life they built was one of meaningful work, good humor, and tenderness, as they spent their days writing and their evenings cooking family dinners or watching the sun set with friends at Lambert’s Cove. But all of this came to an abrupt end when, on Memorial Day 2019, Geraldine received the phone call we all dread. The demands were immediate and many. Without space to grieve, the sudden loss became a yawning gulf.

Three years later, she booked a flight to a remote island off the coast of Australia with the intention of finally giving herself the time to mourn. In a shack on a pristine, rugged coast she often went days without seeing another person. There, she pondered the varied ways��those of��other cultures grieve, such as the people of Australia's First Nations, the Balinese, and the Iranian Shiites, and what rituals of her own might help to rebuild a life around the void of Tony's death.

A spare and profoundly moving memoir that joins the classics of the genre, Memorial Days is a portrait of a larger-than-life man and a timeless love between souls��that exquisitely captures the joy, agony, and mystery of life.]]> 224 Geraldine Brooks 059365398X Simi 5 4.34 2025

author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Simi
average rating: 4.34
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/23
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Life on Svalbard: Finding Home on a Remote Island Near the North Pole]]> 205435940 Join Cecilia Blomdahl in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, the world’s northernmost town.

Located in the Arctic Ocean near the North Pole, Svalbard is a unique archipelago that boasts stunning wintry landscapes, endangered Arctic animals, and awe-inspiring natural phenomena. Since 2015, Cecilia has called this beautiful and remote location home. Along with her partner, Christoffer, and her dog, Grim, she has adjusted to life at the top of the world—where polar bears roam free and northern lights shine bright.

With evocative text and spectacular photography, Cecilia shares the joys and challenges of adapting to an inhospitable climate. Her story begins in the darkness of polar night, and the allure of her remote location is revealed gradually as sunlight returns months later. Through personal stories and firsthand advice, Cecilia offers insight for anyone seeking to thrive in unusual living conditions.

Whatever your location, Life on Svalbard will give you a deeper understanding of why people choose to live in extreme environments and perhaps help you find the hidden magic of where you live too.]]> 256 Cecilia Blomdahl 0744095093 Simi 3 4.46 Life on Svalbard: Finding Home on a Remote Island Near the North Pole

Life on Svalbard: Finding Home on a Remote Island Near the North Pole

author: Cecilia Blomdahl
name: Simi
average rating: 4.46
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/22
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Uncultured: A Memoir 59808316 In the vein of Educated and The Glass Castle, Daniella Mestyanek Young's Uncultured is more than a memoir about an exceptional upbringing, but about a woman who, no matter the lack of tools given to her, is determined to overcome.

Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse��masked as godly discipline and divine love��and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.

At fifteen years old, fed up with The Family and determined to build a better and freer life for herself, Daniella escapes to Texas. There, she bravely enrolls herself in high school and excels, later graduating as valedictorian of her college class, then electing to join the military to begin a career as an intelligence officer, where she believes she will finally belong.

But she soon learns that her new world��surrounded by men on the sands of Afghanistan��looks remarkably similar to the one she desperately tried to leave behind.

Told in a beautiful, propulsive voice and with clear-eyed honesty, Uncultured explores the dangers unleashed when harmful group mentality goes unrecognized, and is emblematic of the many ways women have to contort themselves to survive.]]> 339 Daniella Mestyanek Young 1250280117 Simi 3 4.10 2022 Uncultured: A Memoir

author: Daniella Mestyanek Young
name: Simi
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:
The first part of the book was really illuminating about her cult - I didn’t know much about it before this, and it’s (as you may expect) full of terrible people. The author drops a lot of casual bigotry in the book - she’s okay about qualifying the racism around her but is pretty terrible with the homophobia. The last part of the book is about how terrible the army is (and she likens it to a cult), which I hadn’t been expecting. I listened to the audiobook and wished I hadn’t - I just don’t think her voice is the right “vibe�� for the book.
]]> The Unwedding 199262864
To add insult to injury, there’s a wedding at Broken Point scheduled during her stay. Ellery remembers how it felt to be on the cusp of everything new and wonderful, with a loved and certain future glimmering just ahead. Now she isn’t certain of anything except her love for her kids and a growing realization that this place, although beautiful, is unsettling.]]> 339 Ally Condie 1538757583 Simi 4 3.16 2024 The Unwedding

author: Ally Condie
name: Simi
average rating: 3.16
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/16
date added: 2025/02/16
shelves:
review:

]]> Sex, Lies and Sensibility 122993486 Two sisters roll up their sleeves to run a dilapidated, beach town inn but must learn to work with the locals in this deliciously spicy Sense and Sensibility inspired rom-com by Nikki Payne.

There's never a good time to learn ��ǳ�’r�� your father's secret second family—especially not at the reading of the will. To add insult to injury, Nora's racy leaked videos just went viral. Nora Dash has got no reputation, no dad, and only a forgotten beach house in rural Maine to her name. There are no other Black people for miles, the place is abandoned, but at least no one will recognize her O face in the backwoods. She and her free-spirited sister Yanne haven’t even knocked the traveling dust off last season's designer boots when the first problem pops up: a fake park ranger giving tours of their property like it's his own—and he’s hotter than the local lobster boil.

Ennis "Bear" Freeman is used to people showing up unannounced on his land. So when a beautiful city girl shows up with the deed to his unofficial headquarters in one manicured hand, he gives it a week before their whole crew packs up and leaves. But it isn't long before they find out they work better together than apart. To his surprise, Nora's damned good for Bear's business, and his own secrets might turn out to be the thing that sends them packing.]]> 400 Nikki Payne 059344096X Simi 3 3.60 2024 Sex, Lies and Sensibility

author: Nikki Payne
name: Simi
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/14
date added: 2025/02/14
shelves:
review:

]]> Symphony of Secrets 61111253
Bern Hendricks has just received the call of a lifetime. As one of the world’s preeminent experts on the famed twentieth-century composer Frederick Delaney, Bern knows everything there is to know about the man behind the music. When Mallory Roberts, a board member of the distinguished Delaney Foundation and direct descendant of the man himself, asks for Bern’s help authenticating a newly discovered piece, which may be his famous lost opera, RED, he jumps at the chance. With the help of his tech-savvy acquaintance Eboni, Bern soon discovers that the truth is far more complicated than history would have them believe.

In 1920s Manhattan, Josephine Reed is living on the streets and frequenting jazz clubs when she meets the struggling musician Fred Delaney. But where young Delaney struggles, Josephine soars. She’s a natural prodigy who hears beautiful music in the sounds of the world around her. With Josephine as his silent partner, Delaney’s career takes off—but who is the real genius here?

In the present day, Bern and Eboni begin to uncover more clues that indicate Delaney may have had help in composing his most successful work. Armed with more questions than answers and caught in the crosshairs of a powerful organization who will stop at nothing to keep their secret hidden, Bern and Eboni will move heaven and earth in their dogged quest to right history’s wrongs.]]> 448 Brendan Slocumb 0593315448 Simi 4 4.22 2023 Symphony of Secrets

author: Brendan Slocumb
name: Simi
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/13
date added: 2025/02/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[What in the World?!: A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings]]> 204316949 From dealing with your mean teenage daughter to rebelling against the latest diet trend, America’s newest standup sensation packs a hilarious punch with her real talk about what it’s like to be a regular woman today. For a long time, no one pulling the strings in the comedy world thought that an over-fifty woman from rural Tennessee could make it in the industry. But Leanne Morgan has defied the odds, reaching millions with her musings on menopause, Weight Watchers, and her opposites-attract relationship with her husband, Chuck. In her charming, Southern-accented voice, Morgan brings readers inside her quest to find her calling after so many years trying to figure out what that meant. Along the way, she discusses everything from growing up as a butcher’s daughter, to her strategy for landing a husband with health insurance, to the glories of aging and the comfort of wearing big old grannie panties. Equal parts warm and hilarious,��this book is a must-read by one of comedy’s rising stars—reminding you that every time life leaves you asking, “What in the world?��, something good is going to come out of it someday.]]> 240 Leanne Morgan 0593594398 Simi 4 4.35 What in the World?!: A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings

What in the World?!: A Southern Woman's Guide to Laughing at Life's Unexpected Curveballs and Beautiful Blessings

author: Leanne Morgan
name: Simi
average rating: 4.35
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/12
date added: 2025/02/12
shelves:
review:
The audiobook is the way to go to hear her intonations and emotions. This is a very sweet book.
]]> Hello Quarterback (Hello, #8) 213942112
Fake dating was not in the plan this year. Especially since I hardly have time for actual dating.

That is until Ford Madigan makes me an offer I can’t refuse: a fake relationship that will benefit us both. He’ll get away from the team owner’s entitled daughter while I score some points with members of the company’s board who love him more than they hate me.

It all seems like a simple business transaction–make a few public appearances and pretend we’re in love until we both get what we want.

The problem is�� I find out he’s more than just another jock. He’s a humanitarian using his fortune to help kids all over Texas. Not to mention, he isn’t intimidated by my success like most men.

Now I want more from him. I want something real.

But scars from his past keep him from risking his heart a second time.

I haven’t gotten where I am in life from settling, but I’m also not the kind of woman who will wait around for a man to realize what’s right in front of him.

Will he make this relationship more? Or will I be the one who got away?]]> 326 Kelsie Hoss Simi 3 4.17 2024 Hello Quarterback (Hello, #8)

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/11
date added: 2025/02/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[You'll Never Believe Me: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist]]> 211004894
"Kari Ferrell’s memoir is a zippy, intimate account of low-level trickery before the era of scams fully erupted." —The Atlantic

"Raw and riveting. With a combination of bruising vulnerability and self-deprecating humor, Ferrell’s audacious coming-of-age tale pairs the thrill of true crime with the redemptive arc of a good memoir. It’s a deliciously edgy testament to reinvention." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

The compelling, edgy, compassionate, laugh-out-loud memoir from Kari Ferrell, formerly known as the "Hipster Grifter"

Before Anna Delvey, before the Tinder Swindler, there was Kari Ferrell. Adopted at a young age by a Mormon family in Utah, Kari struggled with questions of self-worth and identity as one of the few Asian Americans in her insulated community, leading her to run with the “bad crowd�� in an effort to fit in.

Soon, stealing from superstores turned into picking up men (and picking their pockets), and before she knew it, Kari graduated from petty theft to Utah’s most wanted list. Though Kari was able to escape the Southwest, she couldn’t outrun her new moniker: the Hipster Grifter.

New York City’s indie sleaze scene had found its newest celebrity—just as Kari found herself in a heap of trouble. Jail time, riots, bad checks, and an explosion of internet infamy and fetishization put her name in the spotlight. Beyond the gossip and Gawker posts, there’s a side to Kari the media never saw—until now.]]> 288 Kari Ferrell 1250288223 Simi 4 3.34 2025 You'll Never Believe Me: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist

You'll Never Believe Me: A Life of Lies, Second Tries, and Things I Should Only Tell My Therapist

author: Kari Ferrell
name: Simi
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/10
date added: 2025/02/10
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Hello Heartbreaker (Hello, #6)]]> 199341643
His butchered haircut wasn’t entirely my fault, but now I’m questioning my decision to move back to my small hometown.

After years of working in the city and getting nowhere, I was given the opportunity of a lifetime, a chance to buy my own salon. All I have to do is prove to the current owner that I'm committed to the salon and Cottonwood Falls. Also located in Cottonwood Falls? Rhett Griffen, the one who broke my heart beyond repair all those years ago.

Rhett is hot as sin, and he knows it. Unfortunately, so does every other female in town. And while I was reeling from our breakup and working on my career, he was having the time of his life and not spending a second thinking about me.

But it’s been over a decade since then. I won’t let the playboy who turned my heart to stone be the one who keeps my dreams from coming true.

Even if he looks better than he did all those years ago.

Even if he’s determined to make it up to me and coaches his niece’s little league team like he has a secret heart of gold.

So I'll focus on my career and stay away from my first love, because second chances are only for the people who don't remember how much it hurt the first time around.

Hello Heartbreaker is a second chance romance with a reformed player, a determined curvy heroine, and enough spice to fill the whole cabinet ;).]]> 383 Kelsie Hoss 1956948376 Simi 3 4.03 Hello Heartbreaker (Hello, #6)

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/08
date added: 2025/02/09
shelves:
review:
This book is fine. If you seen the documentary on the Twin Flames cult and can read about twin flames sincerely without laughing every time you read the words on the page, then you are a better person than I.
]]> Hello Temptation (Hello, #3) 204204804 He’s my new coworker with a heart of gold and looks that could kill. And me? Well, I'm so perpetually single my grandma is setting me up on dates with guys from the grocery store.

By thirty, ��ǳ�’r�� supposed to have a home, a dog, a boyfriend or at least a string of lovers in the past. Instead, I’m a twenty-eight-year-old virgin living with my parents to save money. My job managing an apartment complex is the one thing I’m proud of–and that’s not just because a complete hottie just walked in the door.

Tyler Griffen is here working on a construction project for nine months, which means we’ll be seeing a lot of each other. Which I don’t mind one bit if it means getting more face time with those tattooed, muscled arms and his heart melting smile.

When my boss lays down a no-dating-coworkers rule, I almost laugh. Tyler and I couldn’t be more opposite if we tried, but the thing is�� I think he likes me. He’s always helping me with my hunk-of-junk car problems, saves me from the most awful blind date, and even appeases my grandma’s wish to attend my nephew’s birthday party.

What do you do when ��ǳ�’r�� thrust from being the funny fat friend into the main character of a steamy rom com you never expected?

And more importantly, how do you handle the heartbreak when he leaves?]]> 445 Kelsie Hoss 1956948457 Simi 3 3.98 Hello Temptation (Hello, #3)

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 3.98
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/07
date added: 2025/02/08
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman]]> 217159488 From generational icon Brooke Shields comes an intimate and empowering exploration of ageing that flips the script on the idea of what it means for a woman to grow older

Brooke Shields has spent a lifetime in the public eye. Growing up as a child actor and model, her every feature was scrutinised, her every decision judged. Today Brooke faces a different kind of that of being a 'woman of a certain age'.

And yet, for Brooke, the passage of time has brought freedom. At fifty-nine, she feels more comfortable in her skin, more empowered and confident than she did decades ago in those famous Calvin Kleins. Now, in Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old, she's changing the narrative about women and ageing.

This is an era, insists Brooke, when women are reclaiming agency and power, not receding into the shadows. These are the years when we get to decide how we want to live - when we get to write our own stories.

With remarkable candour, Brooke bares all, painting a vibrant and optimistic picture of being a woman in the prime of her life, while dismantling the myths that have, for too long, dimmed that perception. Sharing her own life experiences with humour and humility, and weaving together research and reporting, Brooke takes aim at the systemic factors that contribute to age-related bias.

By turns inspiring, moving, and galvanising, Brooke's honesty and vulnerability will resonate with women everywhere, and spark a new conversation about the power and promise of midlife.]]> 250 Brooke Shields 034944191X Simi 4 3.71 2025 Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman

Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Aging as a Woman

author: Brooke Shields
name: Simi
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Folly and Forever (Michigan Millionaires, #2)]]> 32862449 Imagine her surprise when the dead sexy Jamie Green shows up with his dog.
Bethany is tempted to tell him to get lost, but she needs the cash to keep her house. But Jamie has problems of his own that only Bethany can help fix.
Jamie presents a proposal that can fix both their problems—get married.
Will she say yes and risk her heart or no and risk losing her home that means so much to her?
Download now!]]> 229 Kimmy Loth Simi 3 4.05 2016 Folly and Forever (Michigan Millionaires, #2)

Folly and Forever (Michigan Millionaires, #2)

author: Kimmy Loth
name: Simi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/03
date added: 2025/02/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Broken Bodyguard (The Nightingales of Wall Street)]]> 222787886
It doesn’t matter that I can’t stop thinking about him. My only priority now is getting my life back on track after my ex. Even though said ex is determined to make things miserable for me…and when he crosses a line, suddenly *I* need a bodyguard.

Luckily, I know a guy. And he’s more than willing to whisk me away to safety. The only problem is, the longer we spend in this remote Kentucky cabin, the harder it is to imagine what life looks like after this.

I’m positive I can keep my head on straight…until Troy shows me all the ways he’s interested in me. All the parts of me that I see as broken, he sees as beautiful.

Something between us has me throwing logic out the window.

He’s a free-floating bachelor, and about to leave the country for a new assignment.

I’m a 1st grade teacher with a three-year-old.

In what universe does this make sense?

While it seems there’s no way forward for us, my heart is ready to do whatever it takes to make this fantasy become a reality.

Even though my ex is dead-set on the opposite.

Broken Bodyguard is a high heat, bodyguard romance and the first book in the Nightingales of Wall Street series. If you like poor boys turned good billionaires fighting to make their corner of the world a better place while falling for stubborn and sassy heroines, then you’ll love this series. Each book has a HEA and can be read as a standalone though there is cumulative drama throughout the series.]]> 161 Ember Leigh Simi 3 3.85 Broken Bodyguard (The Nightingales of Wall Street)

Broken Bodyguard (The Nightingales of Wall Street)

author: Ember Leigh
name: Simi
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/02/02
date added: 2025/02/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Frankie 210085071
Always just on the periphery, looking on, young Frankie is never quite sure enough of herself to take centre stage. But the outsider holds certain advantages, sees things others don't, can influence without drawing attention. And when the map has been lost, it's anyone's guess where you may end up, or the accidental choices you find you have made. Frankie discovers that life is not always the one we hope for, or the one others expect of us.

Travelling from post-war Ireland to the dazzling art scene of 1960s New York by way of London, Frankie is an immersive, decade-sweeping novel about love, bravery and what it means to live a significant life.]]> 291 Graham Norton Simi 4 4.30 2024 Frankie

author: Graham Norton
name: Simi
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/30
date added: 2025/01/30
shelves:
review:

]]> Rental House 208584952 From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations

Keru and Nate are college sweethearts who marry despite their family differences: Keru’s strict, Chinese, immigrant parents demand perfection (“To use a dishwasher is to admit defeat,�� says her father), while Nate’s rural, white, working-class family distrusts his intellectual ambitions and his “foreign�� wife.

Some years into their marriage, the couple invites their families on vacation. At a Cape Cod beach house, and later at a luxury Catskills bungalow, Keru, Nate, and their giant sheepdog navigate visits from in-laws and unexpected guests, all while wondering if they have what it takes to answer the big questions: How do you cope when your spouse and your family of origin clash? How many people (and dogs) make a family? And when the pack starts to disintegrate, what can you do to shepherd everyone back together?

With her “wry, wise, and simply spectacular�� style (People) and “hilarious deadpan that recalls Gish Jen and Nora Ephron�� (O, The Oprah Magazine), Weike Wang offers a portrait of family that is equally witty, incisive, and tender.]]> 224 Weike Wang 0593545540 Simi 3 3.30 2024 Rental House

author: Weike Wang
name: Simi
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President]]> 199797865
Theodore Roosevelt wrote in his senior thesis for Harvard in 1880 that women ought to be paid equal to men and have the option of keeping their maiden names upon marriage. It’s little surprise he’d be a feminist, given the women he grew up with.

His mother, Mittie, was witty and decisive, a Southern belle raising four young children in New York while her husband spent long stretches away with the Union Army. Theodore’s college sweetheart and first wife, Alice—so vivacious she was known as Sunshine—steered her beau away from science (he’d roam campus with taxidermy specimen in his pockets) and towards politics. Older sister Bamie would soon become her brother’s key political strategist and advisor; journalists called her Washington, DC, home “the little White House.�� Younger sister Conie served as her brother’s press secretary before the role existed, slipping stories of his heroics in Cuba and his rambunctious home life to reporters to create the legend of the Rough Rider we remember today. And Edith—Theodore’s childhood playmate and second wife—would elevate the role of presidential spouse to an American institution, curating both the White House and her husband’s legacy.

A dazzling and lyrical look at one America’s most significant presidents as we’ve never seen him before, The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt celebrates five extraordinary yet unsung women who opened the door to the American Century and pushed Theodore Roosevelt through it.]]> 464 Edward F. O'Keefe 1982145684 Simi 4 4.05 2024

The Loves of Theodore Roosevelt: The Women Who Created a President

author: Edward F. O'Keefe
name: Simi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/20
date added: 2025/01/20
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family, #2)]]> 57104580
Chloe Kingston’s life is exactly how she needs it: safe and stable. Right up until her reliable, low-risk fiancé jilts her on their fairy-tale wedding day. As she works her way through the reception champagne—and wonders where she’s going to live—she stumbles into her brother Linc’s ex-best friend.

If only Beckett Daniels was were hideous. But he’s not. He’s everything her erstwhile groom was not. Hot. Sexy. Dangerous. And she’s just buzzed enough to want all that Greek-god gorgeousness to show her the kind of fun she’s been missing.

Beck thrives on calculated risks, but taking advantage of Linc’s little sister isn’t one of them. What he can do is haul her tipsy, tulle-clad, tempting little butt to the bridal suite to sleep it off. Then move her into his spare room—which has the satisfying side effect of driving her brother crazy.

They can’t remain platonic roommates for long. Not when the sexual attraction sizzles out of control. But when tragedy threatens Beck, pain from his past reminds them both that life doesn’t come without risks…and this time, they’re gambling with their hearts.]]> 266 Carly Phillips 1947089986 Simi 3 4.07 2021 Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family, #2)

Just One Scandal (The Kingston Family, #2)

author: Carly Phillips
name: Simi
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> Kade (The Brash Brothers, #1) 63889733 Kade:

I did CPR on my mom three times before I was nine years old.

The last time, I failed.

So maybe I have a bit of a hero complex. And more money than god. Those two things combined make me irresistible to every messed up woman in the city. Been there, done that, failed to put humpty back together again.

I’m done. No more broken, needy women for me.

Except God must have a sense of humor, because I find a woman sleeping in a broken down car in front of my garage in the middle of the night.

I should send her on her way. Except she’s a little unhinged. And sassy. And has thick, biteable thighs.

So of course, I give her a job, and a place to stay. I’ve got a problem, alright. I already told you that.

But no way is her sunshine going to draw me in. I’m done with women.

Yeah, I don’t believe it either.

Becca:

So I got scammed, and ended up sleeping in my broken down car.

It’s par for the course since my dad died. Maybe I haven't been making the smartest choices, you know, like selling everything I own to pay the medical bills and moving to the city to be a waitress.

Stupid plan, since i've never waitressed and am more likely to punch someone out than smile and say "yes sir."

But the grouchy mechanic banging on my window at two in the morning turns out to be a knight in tarnished armor.

If he thinks i’ll let him pay to fix my car, he’s crazy.

I’m a badass, and I always pay my way.

Besides, he needs me way more than I need him.

He just doesn’t realize it yet.

CW: I write about characters from hard places. This book touches on addiction, loss of a parent, cancer, domestic violence. But mostly, this is a book about people learning how to get out of their own way so they can love and be loved.]]> 218 Jenna Myles 1738662616 Simi 2 4.19 2022 Kade (The Brash Brothers, #1)

author: Jenna Myles
name: Simi
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/15
date added: 2025/01/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)]]> 28187230 341 Ruth Ware 1501132938 Simi 3 3.73 2016

The Woman in Cabin 10 (Lo Blacklock, #1)

author: Ruth Ware
name: Simi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bayou Beloved (Butterfly Bayou, #6)]]> 61391799 When a woman returns home to Louisiana's Butterfly Bayou, her high school crush finally notices she exists, in a small-town contemporary romance from New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake.

Quaid Havery always planned to follow in his father's footsteps. He went to law school and then came home to take over his dad's legal practice. Being the only lawyer in small-town Papillon, Quaid is pretty sure he's seen everything. After all, he was once asked to sue an alligator for defamation of character. He's prepared for anything the town can throw at him, until he encounters Jayna Cardet. She's gorgeous, smart, funny, and unlike any woman he's met before....Except he has.

Jayna never thought she'd return to Papillon, but when her life gets turned around she must learn to live in the close-knit community again. She certainly never dreamed she would practice law in her little town, but she finds herself in the courtroom, and the opposing counsel is her former high school crush, Quaid. It wouldn't be so bad if the man had developed a beer belly, but Quaid is more handsome than ever. And instead of ignoring her like he did in high school, he's made it plain that he wants to get to know her.

Thus begins a courtship destined to end in a wedding or a war. Either way, the locals are popping some corn and eagerly awaiting the outcome.
]]> 336 Lexi Blake 0593439570 Simi 4 4.26 2023 Bayou Beloved (Butterfly Bayou, #6)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> Hello Doctor (Hello, #5) 182117432 He's the hot, newly single doctor who just moved back to his hometown, hoping to find some stability for his daughter. Meanwhile, I'm a hot mess, just fired from my job and ousted from company housing. I'm living in my old bedroom and trying to get my appointments in before my insurance runs out along with what little is left of my money.
That's when Fletcher tells me we may be able to help each other out. He needs a live-in nanny for his daughter over the summer, and the last three have quit after a day.
With no other job options in my small hometown, I quickly accept.
After all, I've dealt with pigheaded, balding middle managers. I can handle an eight-year-old girl... right?
If I can't help her and set aside my feelings for this hot single dad, I'll need to find a new job away from my family and outside of the town I love.
Hello Doctor is full of sweet moments with a firecracker of a little girl, her dad with a heart of gold, and the woman who brings them both together. Grab your copy of this spicy contemporary romance between a nanny and her smoldering boss today!]]> 386 Kelsie Hoss 195694835X Simi 3 4.01 2023 Hello Doctor (Hello, #5)

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/09
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> The Women 127305853 From the celebrated author of The Nightingale and The Four Winds comes Kristin Hannah's The Women—at once an intimate portrait of coming of age in a dangerous time and an epic tale of a nation divided.

Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances “Frankie�� McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm’s way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Simi 3 4.59 2024

author: Kristin Hannah
name: Simi
average rating: 4.59
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It]]> 60613920 298 Richard V. Reeves 1800750544 Simi 3 4.02 2022

Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It

author: Richard V. Reeves
name: Simi
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:
3.5 stars. I appreciated the focus on men and boys, especially when Reeves talked about K12 education (a particular interest of mine). And I agree with his premise that politicians are quick to use outcomes for boys to accrue power, not to make a difference. I also agree that gender parity needs to be for both boys and girls. But I found a lot of his ideas impractical and unworkable - what local taxpayer is eager to pay more taxes so that 50% of the population can have one more year of school? Who will pay for 6 months of paid family leave per parent? And I wish he had interrogated the circumstances that led men to be so successful in the past. Still, a lot of the data are helpful to understand how quickly the world has evolved.
]]> <![CDATA[That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America]]> 203579067 Part memoir, part manifesto, the inspiring story of a Louisiana librarian advocating for inclusivity on the front lines of our vicious culture wars. One of the things small town librarian Amanda Jones values most about books is how they can affirm a young person's sense of self. So in 2022, when she caught wind of a local public hearing that would discuss “book content,�� she knew what was at stake. Schools and libraries nationwide have been bombarded by demands for books with LGTBQ+ references, discussions of racism, and more to be purged from the shelves. Amanda would be damned if her community were to ban stories representing minority groups. She spoke out that night at the meeting. Days later, she woke up to a nightmare that is still ongoing. Amanda Jones has been called a groomer, a pedo, and a porn-pusher; she has faced death threats and attacks from strangers and friends alike. Her decision to support a collection of books with diverse perspectives made her a target for extremists using book banning campaigns-funded by dark money organizations and advanced by hard right politicians-in a crusade to make America more white, straight, and Christian. But Amanda Jones wouldn't give up without a she sued her harassers for defamation and urged others to join her in the resistance. Mapping the book banning crisis occurring all across the nation, That Librarian draws the battle lines in the war against equity and inclusion, calling book lovers everywhere to rise in defense of our readers.]]> 288 Amanda Jones 1639733531 Simi 4 3.81 2024 That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America

author: Amanda Jones
name: Simi
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/02
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> Choice 150778991
Together, these connected narratives raise the How free are we really to make our own choices? In a scathing, compassionate quarrel with the world, Neel Mukherjee confronts our fundamental assumptions about economics, race, appropriation, and the tangled ethics of contemporary life.]]> 304 Neel Mukherjee 1324075015 Simi 4 3.33 Choice

author: Neel Mukherjee
name: Simi
average rating: 3.33
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/01
date added: 2025/01/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Don't Let Me Go (Don't Let Me Go #2)]]> 61072062
And who do I have to thank for telling them about that little tidbit?

Theodore Taylor, aka my brother's best friend and the pain in my butt since third grade.

Then again, I'm kind of sick of this thing. My virginity, that is.

It's probably time I get rid of it.

Which would be a heck of a lot easier if Theo hadn't made it his mission to be my own personal chastity belt for the foreseeable future.

Which leaves me screwed.

In every way expect the literal sense. Lovely.]]> 430 Kelsie Rae Simi 1 3.93 Don't Let Me Go (Don't Let Me Go #2)

author: Kelsie Rae
name: Simi
average rating: 3.93
book published:
rating: 1
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:
I’m not sure I’ve ever disliked two romantic leads like I did in this book. I’m not sure why anyone would find either of them attractive. And the heroine - good lord she’s annoying. I lost count of how many times she told us “she’s not like other girls�� ugh
]]> <![CDATA[Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers]]> 517619
By providing specific accounts of dangerous cults and their destructive acts, Snow illustrates how seemingly innocent groups can turn pernicious when under the sway of a charismatic leader with an agenda, or when members take things too far. He offers advice on how to avoid falling victim to cult indoctrination, concluding with chapters on how to identify cults, how to protect yourself and your family, and what to do if a loved one is ensnared by such a group.]]> 248 Robert L. Snow 0275980529 Simi 3 3.21 2003 Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers

Deadly Cults: The Crimes of True Believers

author: Robert L. Snow
name: Simi
average rating: 3.21
book published: 2003
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/30
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bayou Beauty (Butterfly Bayou #4)]]> 55873273 ��
Sylvie Martine was prepared to take Washington D.C. by storm, but she put that dream on hold when her beloved hometown of Papillon, Louisiana, needed her most. Now Sylvie's the mayor of the tiny town on the bayou that holds her heart. But for Sylvie, this can only be a pit stop on the way to bigger and better things. The last thing she needs is an old love to resurface and threaten her goals.

Rene Darois’s whole life has been about serving his family—no matter how much it hurts. He’s used to sacrificing for his large extended family and the company his grandfather created. But he can’t believe the latest he needs to find a wife and quick or he could lose it all. It would be a horrible situation. But he has just the his high school sweetheart. Sylvie is everything he wants in a wife—smart, funny, and caring—and he planned to woo her anyway.
��
Now he just has to convince Sylvie that their love is worth it all, or he and the bayou will lose her forever.]]> 336 Lexi Blake 0593335465 Simi 3 4.14 2021 Bayou Beauty (Butterfly Bayou #4)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/26
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bayou Dreaming (Butterfly Bayou, #3)]]> 52087895 New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake’s heartfelt contemporary romance set in Louisiana's Butterfly Bayou.

Roxanne King left the big city looking for a simpler life, but after years of proving herself on a SWAT team in New York City, being deputy in a sleepy Louisiana parish is something of an adjustment. She's settling in, but she knows she made some mistakes in the beginning--Zep Guidry being the worst of them. Zep drifts through life on his looks and Cajun charm. Roxie learned the hard way he's not for her.

Zep is a man who knows what he wants, and what he wants is Roxie. He's just not sure how to get her. They spent one hot night together a year before and now all the lovely deputy seems interested in doing to him is arresting him. He's not used to a woman he can't charm, but Roxie seems immune. He's determined to win her back by any means necessary. Including becoming the kind of man she desires.

And when Roxie's past comes calling, it might be the opportunity Zep needs to show Roxie that the town bad boy might just be the man of her dreams.]]> 336 Lexi Blake 1984806610 Simi 3 4.31 2020 Bayou Dreaming (Butterfly Bayou, #3)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/26
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[One Night in London (The Truth About the Duke, #1)]]> 11315200
Neither wealth nor beauty will help Lady Francesca Gordon win custody of her young niece Georgina, saving the girl from a cruel stepmother; she needs London’s top solicitor for that. But when Edward de Lacey, son of the powerful Duke of Durham, hires away the one man who can do the job, Francesca decides Edward himself must champion her case . . . if only she can melt the dashing lord’s stony heart.

Edward has reason to be guarded, though. London’s tabloids have just exposed a secret that could ruin his entire family. When Francesca offers a unique chance to undo the damage, Edward is forced to agree to a partnership . . . and now, each moment together feeds the flames of his scandalous longing for the passionate widow. But when Georgina disappears, fate will test them both . . . and leave their love hanging in the balance.]]> 374 Caroline Linden Simi 3 3.86 2011 One Night in London (The Truth About the Duke, #1)

One Night in London (The Truth About the Duke, #1)

author: Caroline Linden
name: Simi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2011
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/24
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Revolusi: Indonesië en het ontstaan van de moderne wereld]]> 55253543
A story of staggering scope and drama, Revolusi is the masterful and definitive account of the epic revolution that sparked the decolonisation of the modern world.

On a sunny Friday morning in August 1945, a handful of tired people raised a homemade cotton flag and on behalf of 68 million compatriots announced the birth of a new nation. With the fourth largest population in the world, inhabiting islands that span an eighth of the globe, Indonesia became the first colonised country to declare its independence after the Second World War.

Four million civilians had died during the wartime occupation by the Japanese that ousted the Dutch colonial regime. Another 200,000 people would lose their lives in the astonishingly brutal conflict that ensued - as the Dutch used savage violence to reassert their control, and as the Allied troops of Britain and America became embroiled in pacifying Indonesia's guerrilla war of resistance: the 'revolusi'. It was not until December 1949 that the newly created United Nations forced The Netherlands to cede all sovereignty to Indonesia, finally ending 350 years of colonial rule and setting a precedent that would reshape the world.

Drawing on hundreds of interviews and eye-witness testimonies, David Van Reybrouck turns this vast and complex story into an utterly gripping narrative that is alive with human detail at every turn. A landmark publication, Revolusi shows Indonesia's struggle for independence to be one of the defining dramas of the twentieth century and establishes its author as one of the most gifted narrative historians at work in any language today.]]> 640 David Van Reybrouck 9403183403 Simi 5 4.54 2020 Revolusi: Indonesië en het ontstaan van de moderne wereld

Revolusi: Indonesië en het ontstaan van de moderne wereld

author: David Van Reybrouck
name: Simi
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/22
date added: 2024/12/23
shelves:
review:
I know so little about Indonesia and had no idea the forces of colonialism there and the impacts they had worldwide (for example - Pearl Harbor). This book is full of fascinating detail and is comprehensive and sprawling. I only wish it included more about post colonial Indonesia
]]> <![CDATA[The Misadventures of Miss Adelaide (School of Charm, #1)]]> 49194778
Miss Adelaide is down on her luck and on the run when she finally collapses at Evercliff Manor. Perhaps it's exhaustion that has her spilling her secrets to the kind doctor tending to her--or maybe it's his warm, compelling eyes. Then again, maybe it's just another case of sheer bad luck.

It turns out the kindly doctor who now knows her deepest, darkest secrets is not really a doctor at all. He's an earl. Worse, he's her employer. And he's decided that Adelaide will be his next project. With his assistance, and the help of her newfound friends at the Lovelace School of Charm, Miss Adelaide might just land on her feet. If only she doesn't lose her heart...]]> 176 Maggie Dallen Simi 3 3.84 2020 The Misadventures of Miss Adelaide (School of Charm, #1)

The Misadventures of Miss Adelaide (School of Charm, #1)

author: Maggie Dallen
name: Simi
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/21
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Entitlement 209330233 A novel of money and morality from the New York Times bestselling author of Leave the World Behind.

Brooke wants. She isn’t in need, but there are things she wants. A sense of purpose, for instance. She wants to make a difference in the world, to impress her mother along the way, to spend time with friends and secure her independence. Her job assisting an octogenarian billionaire in his quest to give away a vast fortune could help her achieve many of these goals. It may inspire new desires as well: proximity to wealth turns out to be nothing less than transformative. What is money, really, but a kind of belief?

Taut, unsettling, and alive to the seductive distortions of money, Entitlement is a riveting tale for our new gilded age, a story that confidently considers questions about need and worth, race and privilege, philanthropy and generosity, passion and obsession. It is a provocative, propulsive novel about the American imagination.]]> 288 Rumaan Alam 0593718461 Simi 2 3.00 2024 Entitlement

author: Rumaan Alam
name: Simi
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/20
date added: 2024/12/21
shelves:
review:

]]> Hello Billionaire (Hello, #4) 123212099 420 Kelsie Hoss 1956948287 Simi 3 4.03

author: Kelsie Hoss
name: Simi
average rating: 4.03
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/19
date added: 2024/12/19
shelves:
review:

]]> What Happened to Nina? 171793386
From the #1 internationally bestselling author of The Murder Rule comes an emotional novel of suspense about two families at war.

Nina and Simon are the perfect couple. Young, fun and deeply in love. Until they leave for a weekend at his family’s cabin in Vermont, and only Simon comes home.

WHAT HAPPENED TO NINA?

Nobody knows. Simon’s explanation about what happened in their last hours together doesn’t add up. Nina’s parents push the police for answers, and Simon’s parents rush to protect him. They hire expensive lawyers and a PR firm that quickly ramps up a vicious, nothing-is-off-limits media campaign.

HOW FAR WILL HIS FAMILY GO TO KEEP HIM SAFE?

Soon, facts are lost in a swirl of accusation and counter-accusation. Everyone chooses a side, and the story goes viral, fueled by armchair investigators and wild conspiracy theories and illustrated with pretty pictures taken from Nina’s social media accounts. Journalists descend on their small Vermont town, followed by a few obsessive "fans."

HOW FAR WILL HER FAMILY GO TO GET TO THE TRUTH?

Nina’s family is under siege, but they never lose sight of the only thing that really matters—finding their daughter. Out-gunned by Simon’s wealthy, powerful family, Nina’s parents recognize that if playing by the rules won’t get them anywhere, it’s time to break them.]]> 328 Dervla McTiernan Simi 4 4.05 2024 What Happened to Nina?

author: Dervla McTiernan
name: Simi
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II]]> 199793672
At the start of WWII, the US found itself in desperate need of an intelligence agency. The Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a precursor to today’s CIA, was quickly formed—and, in an effort to fill its ranks with experts, the OSS turned to academia for recruits. Suddenly, literature professors, librarians, and historians were training to perform undercover operations and investigative work—and these surprising spies would go on to profoundly shape both the course of the war and our cultural institutions with their efforts.

In Book and Dagger, Elyse Graham draws on personal histories, diaries, and declassified OSS files to tell the story of a small but connected group of humanities scholars turned unlikely spies. Among them are Joseph Curtiss, a literature professor who hunted down German spies and turned them into double agents; Sherman Kent, a smart-mouthed history professor who rose to become the head of analysis for all of Europe and Africa; and Adele Kibre, an archivist who was sent to Stockholm to secretly acquire documents for the OSS. These unforgettable characters would ultimately help lay the foundations of modern intelligence and transform American higher education when they returned after the war.

Thrillingly paced and rigorously researched, Book and Dagger is an inspiring and gripping true story about a group of academics who helped beat the Nazis—a tale that reveals the indelible power of humanities to change the world.]]> 400 Elyse Graham 0063280841 Simi 4 3.82 2024 Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II

author: Elyse Graham
name: Simi
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/16
date added: 2024/12/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Snowfall and Secrets (Michigan Millionaires, #1)]]> 31640741 212 Kimmy Loth Simi 3 3.59 2016

Snowfall and Secrets (Michigan Millionaires, #1)

author: Kimmy Loth
name: Simi
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 203956647 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 059365322X.]]> 400 Richard Osman Simi 4 4.07 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)

author: Richard Osman
name: Simi
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/09
date added: 2024/12/09
shelves:
review:

]]> The One That Got Away 15825773
Quando Evie aceitou se passar pela noiva de seu sócio, nem imagina que seu futuro cunhado seria Logan Black, o homem que partira seu coração no passado�� Agora eles têm que lidar com a atração que ainda sentem um pelo outro. Será que desta vez dará certo?]]> 224 Kelly Hunter 037320700X Simi 2 3.58 The One That Got Away

author: Kelly Hunter
name: Simi
average rating: 3.58
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Capture or Kill (Mitch Rapp, #23)]]> 207595657 Mitch Rapp faces an Iranian foe bent on destabilizing the Middle East in this latest novel from Vince Flynn’s #1 New York Times bestselling series, now written by Don Bentley.

April 2011: On a remote mountaintop overlooking the remains of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, Azad Ashani witnesses the successful demonstration of a new weapons system meant to upend the American-led war in Afghanistan. Ashani, director of the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Irene Kennedy’s former back channel to the Iranian government, recognizes the demonstration’s true significance, and the nation-ending conflict it will provoke. Alone, Ashani stands no chance of preventing this rush to madness.

But with the help of one man, he just might.

In Washington, DC, CIA director Irene Kennedy briefs the president that the operational window to kill or capture Osama bin Laden at his recently discovered compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan is rapidly closing. But before he’ll authorize a commando raid on Pakistani soil, the president demands irrefutable proof of bin Laden’s presence.

Proof he trusts just one man to provide.]]> 459 Don Bentley 1668045869 Simi 3 4.38 2024 Capture or Kill (Mitch Rapp, #23)

author: Don Bentley
name: Simi
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/03
date added: 2024/12/03
shelves:
review:

]]> Connie: A Memoir 206119058 In an industry dominated by white men, Connie Chung stood alone, the first and only Asian woman to break into the television news industry. This is her extraordinary story, told with incisive wit and remarkable candor. �� Connie Chung is a pioneer.��In 1969 at the age of 23, this once-shy daughter of Chinese parents took her first job at a local TV station in her hometown of Washington, D.C. and soon thereafter began working at CBS news as a correspondent.��Profoundly influenced by her family’s cultural traditions,��yet growing up completely Americanized in the United States, Chung describes her career as an Asian woman in a white male-centered world.��Overt sexism was a way of life,��but Chung was tenacious in her pursuit of stories �� battling rival reporters to secure scoops that ranged from interviewing Magic Johnson to covering the Watergate scandal �� and quickly became��a household name. She made history when she achieved her dream of being the first woman to co-anchor the��CBS Evening News��and the first Asian��to anchor any news program in the U.S. �� Chung pulls no punches as she provides a behind-the-scenes��tour of��her singular life. From��showdowns with��powerful men in and out of the newsroom to the stories behind some of her career-defining reporting and the unwavering support of her husband, Maury Povich, nothing is off-limits �� good, bad, or ugly. So be sure to tune in for an irreverent and inspiring this is CONNIE like you’ve never seen her before.]]> 336 Connie Chung 1538766981 Simi 5 4.10 2024 Connie: A Memoir

author: Connie Chung
name: Simi
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:
This book is an absolute delight - from her parents�� journey from China to the US through the twists and turns of her career. I had totally forgotten about her until the NYT article Generation Connie, which got me curious about her again. She names names and doesn’t hold back - I love how supportive Maury is (I had no idea they’ve been married 40 years!) and as for Dan Rather ... I hope someone upends a jar of glitter all over his carpet. I hope the fleas of a thousand camels infest his armpits. I hope he dies knowing Connie Chung persevered over his machinations. In short - I knew so little about her life and career, and I’m so glad I got to listen to her read this book!
]]> The God of the Woods 199698485 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide

Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found.

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 490 Liz Moore Simi 3 4.15 2024 The God of the Woods

author: Liz Moore
name: Simi
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/01
date added: 2024/12/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou, #1)]]> 51631035
Life in Dallas took a tragic turn for nurse practitioner Lila Daley. In need of a fresh start, she retreats to Papillon, Louisiana, a tiny town on the bayou. Sure she's greeted by a gator, finds herself in the middle of golf cart wars, and unwittingly adopts a scruffy dog, but Lila remains undaunted. She's focused on running the town's medical clinic, but fitting into the quirky community is harder than she imagined.

As a single dad, Sheriff Armie LaVigne embraces routine. But there is nothing routine about the town's newest resident. Lila is a gorgeous fish out of water and he’s ready to catch her. In fact, in no time at all, Armie knows Lila is the woman for him and he plans to win her heart. But when the past threatens their happiness, Armie will have to decide if he has the courage to trust Lila enough to find a true happily ever after.]]> 320 Lexi Blake 1984806564 Simi 3 4.03 2020 Butterfly Bayou (Butterfly Bayou, #1)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/28
date added: 2024/11/28
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Be Ready When the Luck Happens]]> 209192698 In her long-awaited memoir, Ina Garten—aka the Barefoot Contessa, author of thirteen bestselling cookbooks, beloved Food Network personality, Instagram sensation, and cultural icon—shares her personal story with readers hungry for a seat at her table.��

Here, for the first time, Ina Garten presents an intimate, entertaining, and inspiring account of her remarkable journey. Ina’s gift is to make everything look easy, yet all her accomplishments have been the result of hard work, audacious choices, and exquisite attention to detail. In her unmistakable voice (no one tells a story like Ina), she brings her past and her process to life in a high-spirited and no-holds-barred memoir that chronicles decades of personal challenges, adventures (and misadventures) and unexpected career twists, all delivered with her signature combination of playfulness and purpose.

From a difficult childhood to meeting the love of her life, Jeffrey, and marrying him while still in college, from a boring bureaucratic job in Washington, D.C., to answering an ad for a specialty food store in the Hamptons, from the owner of one Barefoot Contessa shop to author of bestselling cookbooks and celebrated television host, Ina has blazed her own trail and, in the meantime, taught millions of people how to cook and entertain. Now, she invites them to come closer to experience her story in vivid detail and to share the important life lessons she learned along the way: do what you love because if you love it you’ll be really good at it, swing for the fences, and always Be Ready When the Luck Happens.]]> 320 Ina Garten 0593799895 Simi 4 4.25 2024

author: Ina Garten
name: Simi
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/23
date added: 2024/11/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19)]]> 203578881 The nineteenth mystery in the #1 New York Times bestselling Armand Gamache series

Relentless phone calls interrupt the peace of a warm August morning in Three Pines. Though the tiny Québec village is impossible to find on any map, someone has managed to track down Armand Gamache, head of homicide at the Sûreté, as he sits with his wife in their back garden. Reine-Marie watches with increasing unease as her husband refuses to pick up, though he clearly knows who is on the other end. When he finally answers, his rage shatters the calm of their quiet Sunday morning.

That's only the first in a sequence of strange events that begin The Grey Wolf, the nineteenth novel in Louise Penny's #1 New York Times bestselling series. A missing coat, an intruder alarm, a note for Gamache reading "This might interest you," a puzzling scrap of paper with a mysterious list—and then a murder. All propel Chief Inspector Gamache and his team toward a terrible realization. Something much more sinister than any one murder or any one case is fast approaching.

Armand Gamache; Jean-Guy Beauvoir, his son-in-law and second in command; and Inspector Isabelle Lacoste can only trust each other, as old friends begin to act like enemies, and long-time enemies appear to be friends. Determined to track down the threat before it becomes a reality, their pursuit takes them across Québec and across borders. Their hunt grows increasingly desperate, even frantic, as the enormity of the creature they’re chasing becomes clear. If they fail, the devastating consequences would reach into the largest of cities and the smallest of villages.]]> 421 Louise Penny 1250328136 Simi 4 3.95 2024 The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19)

The Grey Wolf (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache, #19)

author: Louise Penny
name: Simi
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/16
date added: 2024/11/16
shelves:
review:
So I liked this, and it’s very propulsive, but there is a ton of suspension of disbelief you need to get through this book. The plot is wildly convoluted and if you aren’t paying close attention you’ll need to reread. How many vast conspiracies in Montreal can only be solved by Armand, Jean-Guy, and Isabelle???? Why so little Three Pines? The book ends on a cliffhanger, which seems totally unnecessary.
]]> <![CDATA[Waking Up Married (Waking Up, #1)]]> 16124019 Her first thought: "Who are you?"

It's the morning after her cousin's bachelorette party in Vegas and Megan Scott wakes up with the mother of all hangovers. Even worse, she's in a stranger's penthouse having woken up with something else as well - a funny, arrogant, sexy...husband!

Up until now, finding even a boyfriend had seemed impossible - been there, got the broken heart, sworn off men for good. Then a few martinis with Carter...no, Connor Reed and she's gone from first meet to marriage in one night!

Megan wants a lawyer. But Connor's shocking bombshell?

"I don't want a divorce."

]]> 251 Mira Lyn Kelly Simi 3 3.54 2012 Waking Up Married (Waking Up, #1)

author: Mira Lyn Kelly
name: Simi
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/14
date added: 2024/11/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Nest of Vipers (Bangalore Detectives Club #3)]]> 176050664
The mood of the prince's subsequent trip to Bangalore and Mysore in January 1922 appears, at first glance, very different and is made to large, welcoming crowds. But perhaps all is not what it seems to be. While exploring another (seemingly unrelated) crime scene, Kaveri and Ramu become tangled in a complex web of intrigue, getting pulled into a potentially dangerous plan that could endanger the life of the visiting prince.

This new novel also takes us into the world of jadoo—Indian street magic—with sleight-of-hand magicians, snake charmers, and rope tricks. Kaveri and Ramu continue their sleuthing, with help from the Bangalore Detectives Club, amidst the growing rumblings of Indian independence and the backdrop of female emancipation.

Listening Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins]]> 416 Harini Nagendra 1408715244 Simi 3 3.69 2024 A Nest of Vipers (Bangalore Detectives Club #3)

A Nest of Vipers (Bangalore Detectives Club #3)

author: Harini Nagendra
name: Simi
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/13
date added: 2024/11/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work]]> 199797924
In her early twenties, Charlotte Shane quit her women’s studies graduate program to devote herself to sex work because it was a way to devote herself to men. Her lifelong curiosity about male lust, love, selfishness, and social capital dovetailed with her own insatiable desire for intimacy to sustain a long career in escorting, with unexpectedly poignant results.

Shane uses her personal and professional history to examine how men and women struggle in their attempts at romantic and sexual bonding, no matter how true their intentions. As she takes stock of her relationships—with clients, with her father, with friends, with married men, and later, with her own husband—she tells a candid and haunting tale of love, marriage, and (in)fidelity, as seen through the eyes of the perpetual “other woman.��

Braiding the personal and the universal, Shane’s memoir is a merciless and moving love letter to straight men and an indictment of habitual dishonesty, a condemnation of every social constraint acting on heterosexual unions, and a hopeful affirmation of the possibility for true connection between men and women.]]> 192 Charlotte Shane 1982126868 Simi 3 3.17 2024 An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

An Honest Woman: A Memoir of Love and Sex Work

author: Charlotte Shane
name: Simi
average rating: 3.17
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/12
date added: 2024/11/12
shelves:
review:
I ended with a lot more questions about Charlotte than I did any of the work she did - some mechanical (how did she set prices) but more emotional or deeper (how did she get to be so man pleasing in HS and why is it so unexamined in this book). It’s really short and not as introspective as I would have liked
]]> <![CDATA[Just One Night (The Kingston Family, #1)]]> 56747800
The one he can't risk screwing up their relationship by sleeping with her.

Linc Kingston doesn't accept anything less than perfection. Not in his billion-dollar business or in his personal life. He has it all, except one thing: his personal assistant and best friend in his bed, moaning his name. No matter how much Linc wants her, she's completely off-limits.

Jordan Greene grew up the daughter of the housekeeper at the Kingston estate, where she met and bonded with Linc at a young age, despite their economic differences. But no matter how close they are now or how much their attraction simmers beneath the surface, they're still from two different worlds. Besides, Jordan isn't about to risk losing her best friend for one sensual night.

Jordan might be the only woman who can handle Linc and his domineering, bossy attitude, but beneath that gruff exterior is a vulnerable man who, despite his wealth, has had a less-than-charmed life. And when Linc's father dies, she's there for him--unwavering in her friendship.

Until one night of passion and a positive pregnancy test changes everything.]]> 282 Carly Phillips Simi 3 3.86 2021 Just One Night (The Kingston Family, #1)

Just One Night (The Kingston Family, #1)

author: Carly Phillips
name: Simi
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/09
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue]]> 203956642 From the New York Times bestselling and award-winning author of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, a re-examination of one of the 20th century’s greatest unsung power players When Pamela Churchill Harriman died in 1997, obituaries that followed were predictably sexist. Written off as a party girl, courtesan and social climber, her real legacy was overshadowed by a glamorous social life spent in glittering, elite circles of power. That is, until with a wealth of new research, interviews and newly discovered sources, Sonia Purnell is reclaiming her larger-than-life story of influence and power in full, spectacular depth for the first time. At age 20 Churchill’s beloved daughter-in-law became a “secret weapon�� during World War II, wining, dining, and seducing diplomats and envoys to help win over American sentiment (and secrets) for the cause. She transformed Gianni Agnelli into a savvy businessman and heir to the Fiat empire, and after moving to the US brought a struggling Democratic party back to life, hand-picking Bill Clinton from obscurity and vaulting him to the presidency. Picked as Ambassador to France, she deployed her legendary quiet, subtle power to charm world leaders and broker an end to the conflict in Bosnia, in effect rehabilitating the reputation of the US on the world stage. There are few people in history with a greater scope of impact over as many decades and across continents, and there is no one in 20th Century politics, culture, and fashion whom she did not know, including Aly Khan, Kay Graham, Jackie Onassis, Truman Capote, Gloria Steinem, Ed Murrow, and Frank Sinatra among her friends and lovers.��Written with the novelistic richness and investigative rigor that only Sonia Purnell could bring to this story full of sex, politics, yachts, and fabulous clothes, KINGMAKER re-asserts Harriman’s rightful place in history.]]> 528 Sonia Purnell 0593297806 Simi 5 4.09 Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue

Kingmaker: Pamela Harriman's Astonishing Life of Power, Seduction, and Intrigue

author: Sonia Purnell
name: Simi
average rating: 4.09
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/11
date added: 2024/11/11
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Start Us Up (Park Avenue Promise, #1)]]> 123275287 From New York Times bestselling author Lexi Blake, discover The Park Avenue Promise Series...

Three young women make a pact in high school��
to always be friends and to one day make it big in Manhattan.

She’s a high-tech boss who lost it all��

Ivy Jensen was the darling of the tech world, right up until her company fell apart completely after she trusted the wrong person. Her reputation in tatters, she finds herself back in the tiny apartment she grew up in, living with her mom. When a group of angel investors offer her a meeting, she knows she has to come up with the new big idea or her career is over.

He’s an up and coming coder��

Heath Marino has always been fascinated with writing code. He’s worked on a dozen games and apps and is considered one of the industry’s more eccentric talents. But now he’s back in New York to spend time with his grandmother. She was known as one of the city’s greatest matchmakers, and he wants to know why. Surely there’s some kind of code in his grandmother’s methods, and he’s going to find them.

When Ivy meets Heath it’s instant attraction, but she’s got a career to get back to and he just might be her on-ramp. It could be a perfect partnership or absolute heartbreak.

]]> 252 Lexi Blake 1957568658 Simi 4 4.02 Start Us Up (Park Avenue Promise, #1)

author: Lexi Blake
name: Simi
average rating: 4.02
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

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

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

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

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

Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there’s still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn’t be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . .]]> 340 Ashley Elston Simi 5 3.97 2024 First Lie Wins

author: Ashley Elston
name: Simi
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/06
date added: 2024/11/06
shelves:
review:

]]> One Last Summer 200121624
Clara Millen’s life is spiraling out of control: her dream job is a nightmare, she’s resoundingly single, and it’s been years since she’s taken some time off. Thankfully, the last problem she can fix—this year she’ll join her friends on their annual summer vacation to their beloved childhood sleepover camp for a much-needed escape.

But when Clara arrives at Pine Lake Camp, she faces yet another unwelcome change: the owners are retiring and selling the property. The news turns her plans for revelry into a night of reminiscing . . . and prompts a surprise heart-to-heart between Clara and Mack, her old camp nemesis and constant competitor, who's still just as annoying (and annoyingly handsome).

Soon the campfires aren't all that's throwing off sparks. And when one wildly passionate night turns into two (then too many to count!), Clara begins to wonder if she and Mack could have a future together. But when Clara's boss finally offers her everything she's worked so hard for, Clara will need to decide if the life she's always wanted is the life that makes her feel truly alive]]> 320 Kate Spencer 1538737663 Simi 3 3.45 One Last Summer

author: Kate Spencer
name: Simi
average rating: 3.45
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/05
date added: 2024/11/05
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars. For some reason this didn’t click with me - maybe it’s the second chance romance, maybe it’s the setting, maybe it’s that I didn’t find the leads compelling. I was more into her career drama. The book dragged for me in a lot of spots. I think if you were into second chance romances and/or have fond memories of summer camp, you’d enjoy this
]]> <![CDATA[The Rich People Have Gone Away]]> 201750876 343 Regina Porter 059324186X Simi 3 3.30 2024

author: Regina Porter
name: Simi
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/11/01
date added: 2024/11/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter]]> 209543060 Rising star New York Times technology reporters Kate Conger and Ryan Mac tell for the first time the full and shocking inside story of Elon Musk’s unprecedented hostile takeover of Twitter and the forty-four-billion-dollar deal’s seismic political, social, and financial fallout
The billionaire entrepreneur and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become inextricable from the social media platform that until 2023 was known as Twitter. Started in the mid-2000s as a playful microblogging platform, Twitter quickly became a vital nexus of global politics, culture, and media—where the retweet button could instantly catapult any idea to hundreds of millions of screens around the world, unleashing raw collective emotion like nothing else before. While its founder had idealistically dreamed of building a "digital town square," he detested Wall Street and never focused on building a profitable business.
Musk joined the platform in 2010 and, by 2022, had become one of the site’s most influential users, hooking over 80 million followers with a mix of provocations, promotion of his companies, and attacks on his enemies. To Musk, Twitter—once known for its almost absolute commitment to free speech—had badly lost its way. He blamed it for the proliferation of what he called the “woke mind virus�� and claimed that the survival of democracy and the human race itself depended on the future of the site. In January of 2022, Musk began secretly accumulating Twitter stock. By April, he was its largest shareholder, and soon after, made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company for the unimaginable sum of $44 billion dollars. Backed into a corner, Twitter’s board accepted his offer—but Musk quickly changed his mind, forcing Twitter to sue him to close the deal in October. The richest man on earth controlled one of the most powerful media platforms in the world—but at what price? Before long Twitter would be gone for good, replaced by something radically different, as Musk remade the company in his own image from the ground up.
The story of the showdown between Musk and Twitter and his eventual takeover of the company is unlike anything in business or media that has come before. In vivid, cinematic detail, Conger and Mac follow the inner workings of the company as Musk lays siege to it, first from the outside as one of its most vocal users, and then finally from within as a contentious and mercurial leader. Musk has shared some of his version of events, but Conger and Mac have uncovered the full story through exclusive interviews, unreported documents, and internal recordings at Twitter following the billionaire’s takeover. With unparalleled sources from within and around the company, they provide a revelatory, three-dimensional, and definitive account of what really happened when Musk showed up, spoiling for a brawl and intent on revolution, with his merciless, sycophantic cadre of lawyers, investors, and bankers.
This is the defining story of our time told with uncommon style and peerless rigor. In a world of viral ideas and emotion, who gets to control the narrative, who gets to be heard, and what does power really cost?]]> 480 Kate Conger 059365613X Simi 5 4.26 2024 Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter

author: Kate Conger
name: Simi
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/26
date added: 2024/10/26
shelves:
review:
I’m not a Twitter person, so some of the intricacies of the platform were unknown to me. This book totally solidifies Elon’s rep as a capricious, impulsive, thin-skinned, insecure, non-strategic, overly-impressed-with-himself guy. But it also goes into Silicon Valley culture - not a lot of people come out looking good in this book. Twitter may have gone downhill a lot faster post-Elon, but it wasn’t some great blue chip beforehand. A lot of people are responsible for how the platform is today.
]]> The House Hunt 203163999
She’s running late and needs you to show a man around your home.

You let him in and begin the tour.

But something about him feels wrong.

You ask him to leave and he refuses.

Then he tells you something about you �� something inconceivable.

Why? And how far would you go to find the truth?]]> 432 C.M. Ewan 1538766256 Simi 3 3.57 2023 The House Hunt

author: C.M. Ewan
name: Simi
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:
This book is an absolute page turner and is really claustrophobic. But I could not get over the lead character making so many dumb decisions like she’s in a horror movie. Several plot holes, I figured out the bad guy too quickly, characters are a little cartoonish and unlikable. Despite all that I read it in one night
]]> It's Elementary 202102044 A fast-paced, completely delightful new mystery about what happens when parents get a little too involved in their kids' schools, from NAACP Image Award nominee Elise Bryant.

Mavis Miller is not a PTA mom. She has enough on her plate with her feisty seven-year-old daughter, Pearl, an exhausting job at a nonprofit, and the complexities of a multigenerational household. So no one is more surprised than Mavis when she caves to Trisha Holbrook, the long-reigning, slightly terrifying PTA president, and finds herself in charge of the school’s brand-new DEI committee.
As one of the few Black parents at this California elementary school, Mavis tries to convince herself this is an opportunity for real change. But things go off the rails at the very first meeting, when the new principal's plans leave Trisha absolutely furious. Later that night, when Mavis spies Trisha in yellow rubber gloves and booties, lugging cleaning supplies and giant black trash bags to her waiting minivan, it’s only natural that her mind jumps to somewhere it surely wouldn’t in the light of day.
Except Principal Smith fails to show up for work the next morning, and has been MIA since the meeting. Determined to get to the bottom of things, Mavis, along with the school psychologist with the great forearms (look, it’s worth noting), launches an investigation that will challenge her views on parenting, friendship, and elementary school politics.

Brilliantly written, It's Elementary is a��quick-witted, escapist romp that perfectly captures just how far parents will go to give their kids the very best, all wrapped in a mystery that will leave you guessing to the very end.]]> 368 Elise Bryant 0593640780 Simi 4 3.73 2024 It's Elementary

author: Elise Bryant
name: Simi
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/24
date added: 2024/10/24
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Betrayal at Blackthorn Park (Evelyne Redfern, #2)]]> 203578919 With mystery, intrigue, and the hints of romance international bestselling author Julia Kelly is known for, Evelyne Redfern returns in Betrayal at Blackthorn Park.

Freshly graduated from a rigorous training program in all things spy craft, former typist Evelyne Redfern is eager for her first assignment as a field agent helping Britain win the war. However, when she learns her first task is performing a simple security test at Blackthorn Park, a requisitioned manor house in the sleepy Sussex countryside, she can’t help her initial disappointment. Making matters worse, her handler is to be David Poole, a fellow agent who manages to be both strait-laced and dashing in annoyingly equal measure. However, Evelyne soon realizes that Blackthorn Park is more than meets the eye, and an upcoming visit from Winston Churchill means that security at the secret weapons research and development facility is of the utmost importance.

When Evelyne discovers Blackthorn Park’s chief engineer dead in his office, her simple assignment becomes more complicated. Evelyne must use all of her—and David’s—detection skills to root out who is responsible and uncover layers of deception that could change the course of the war.]]> 320 Julia Kelly 1250865514 Simi 4 3.88 2024 Betrayal at Blackthorn Park (Evelyne Redfern, #2)

Betrayal at Blackthorn Park (Evelyne Redfern, #2)

author: Julia Kelly
name: Simi
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/22
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
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]]> Four Weekends and a Funeral 201751633
When thirty-year-old post-double-mastectomy BRCA 1 carrier and reluctant thrill-seeker Alison Mullally arrives at her ex-boyfriend Sam’s funeral to find that no one knows he dumped her, she agrees to play the grieving girlfriend for the sake of the family and pack up Sam’s apartment with his prickly best friend, Adam Berg. After all, it’ll only take four weekends . . .

But Adam doesn’t want Alison anywhere near him. Forced to spend long hours with the grump, and his monosyllabic demeanor, Alison decides she must put her people-pleasing abilities to the test. She will make him like her. And after awkward family affairs and packing up dilemmas, the two form a tenuous friendship . . . if “friendship�� means incredible chemistry and tension between them. Can Alison come clean and finally embrace the life and love she's always wanted? Or will her little white lie get in the way of her new, unexpected romance?]]> 368 Ellie Palmer Simi 4 3.70 2024 Four Weekends and a Funeral

author: Ellie Palmer
name: Simi
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/19
date added: 2024/10/20
shelves:
review:

]]> Margo's Got Money Troubles 199534613
“[An] enormously entertaining and lovable book.�� —Nick Hornby, New York Times Book Review

A bold, laugh-out-loud funny, and heartwarming story about one young woman’s attempt to navigate adulthood, new motherhood, and her meager bank account in our increasingly online world—from the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of The Knockout Queen.

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief, it isn’t brief enough to keep her from getting pregnant. Despite everyone’s advice, she decides to keep the baby, mostly out of naiveté and a yearning for something bigger.

Now, at twenty, Margo is alone with an infant, unemployed, and on the verge of eviction. She needs a cash infusion—fast. When her estranged father, Jinx, shows up on her doorstep and asks to move in with her, she agrees in exchange for help with childcare. Then Margo begins to form a plan: she’ll start an OnlyFans as an experiment, and soon finds herself adapting some of Jinx’s advice from the world of wrestling. Like how to craft a compelling character and make your audience fall in love with you. Before she knows it, she’s turned it into a runaway success. Could this be the answer to all of Margo’s problems, or does internet fame come with too high a price?

Blisteringly funny and filled with sharp insight, Margo’s Got Money Troubles is a tender tale starring an endearing young heroine who’s struggling to wrest money and power from a world that has little interest in giving it to her. It’s a playful and honest examination of the art of storytelling and controlling your own narrative, and an empowering portrait of coming into your own, both online and off.

“A wholly original novel. . . . Thorpe is both poetic and profound in the way she brings her remarkable story to an end.�� —The Associated Press]]> 304 Rufi Thorpe 0063356589 Simi 4 3.87 2024 Margo's Got Money Troubles

author: Rufi Thorpe
name: Simi
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/16
date added: 2024/10/16
shelves:
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]]> Whiskey Tender: A Memoir 158649919 An Oprah Daily "Best New Book" and "Riveting Nonfiction and Memoir You Need to Read" * A New York Times "New Book to Read" * A The New Yorker "Best Book out now" * An Esquire "Best Book (so far)" * A Zibby Mag "Most Anticipated Book" * An Elle "Best Book" * A Washington Post "Book to Read this Summer" * Publishers Weekly "Top 10 Memoir and Biography" * A San Francisco Chronicle "New Book to Cozy Up With" * A Publishers Weekly "Memoirs & Biographies: Top 10" * The Millions "Most Anticipated" * An Electric Lit “Books By Women of Color to Read" * An Amazon Editors "Best Book of the Month"

“We have more Native stories now, but we have not heard one like this. Whiskey Tender is unexpected and propulsive, indeed tender, but also bold, and beautifully told, like a drink you didn’t know you were thirsty for. This book, never anything less than mesmerizing, is full of family stories and vital Native history. It pulses and it aches, and it lifts, consistently. It threads together so much truth by the time we are done, what has been woven together equals a kind of completeness from brokenness, and a hope from knowing love and loss and love again by naming it so.�� Tommy Orange, National Bestselling Author of There There

Reminiscent of the works of Mary Karr and Terese Marie Mailhot, a memoir of family and survival, coming-of-age on and off the reservation, and of the frictions between mainstream American culture and Native inheritance; assimilation and reverence for tradition.

Deborah Jackson Taffa was raised to believe that some sacrifices were necessary to achieve a better life. Her grandparents—citizens of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo tribe—were sent to Indian boarding schools run by white missionaries, while her parents were encouraged to take part in governmental job training off the reservation. Assimilation meant relocation, but as Taffa matured into adulthood, she began to question the promise handed down by her elders and by American society: that if she gave up her culture, her land, and her traditions, she would not only be accepted, but would be able to achieve the “American Dream.��

Whiskey Tender traces how a mixed tribe native girl—born on the California Yuma reservation and raised in Navajo territory in New Mexico—comes to her own interpretation of identity, despite her parent’s desires for her to transcend the class and “Indian�� status of her birth through education, and despite the Quechan tribe’s particular traditions and beliefs regarding oral and recorded histories. Taffa’s childhood memories unspool into meditations on tribal identity, the rampant criminalization of Native men, governmental assimilation policies, the Red Power movement, and the negotiation between belonging and resisting systemic oppression. Pan-Indian, as well as specific tribal histories and myths, blend with stories of a 1970s and 1980s childhood spent on and off the reservation.

Taffa offers a sharp and thought-provoking historical analysis laced with humor and heart. As she reflects on her past and present—the promise of assimilation and the many betrayals her family has suffered, both personal and historical; trauma passed down through generations—she reminds us of how the cultural narratives of her ancestors have been excluded from the central mythologies and structures of the “melting pot�� of America, revealing all that is sacrificed for the promise of acceptance.]]> 304 Deborah Jackson Taffa 0063288516 Simi 5 4.12 2024 Whiskey Tender: A Memoir

author: Deborah Jackson Taffa
name: Simi
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Miss Aldridge Regrets (Canary Club Mystery #1)]]> 59576012
London, 1936. Lena Aldridge wonders if life has passed her by. The dazzling theatre career she hoped for hasn't worked out. Instead, she's stuck singing in a sticky-floored basement club in Soho, and her married lover has just left her. But Lena has always had a complicated life, one shrouded in mystery as a mixed-race girl passing for white in a city unforgiving of her true racial heritage.

She's feeling utterly hopeless until a stranger offers her the chance of a lifetime: a starring role on Broadway and a first-class ticket on the Queen Mary bound for New York. After a murder at the club, the timing couldn't be better, and Lena jumps at the chance to escape England. But death follows her onboard when an obscenely wealthy family draws her into their fold just as one among them is killed in a chillingly familiar way. As Lena navigates the Abernathy's increasingly bizarre family dynamic, she realizes that her greatest performance won't be for an audience, but for her life.

With seductive glamor, simmering family drama, and dizzying twists, Louise Hare makes her beguiling US debut.]]> 368 Louise Hare 0593439252 Simi 3 3.38 2022 Miss Aldridge Regrets (Canary Club Mystery #1)

Miss Aldridge Regrets (Canary Club Mystery #1)

author: Louise Hare
name: Simi
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2024/10/01
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind]]> 123226964 The surprising story of how declining marriage rates are driving many of the country’s biggest economic problems.

In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the�� US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity.

Based on more than a decade of economic research, including her original work, Kearney shows that a household that includes two married parents—holding steady among upper-class adults, increasingly rare among most everyone else—functions as an economic vehicle that advantages some children over others. As these trends of marriage and class continue, the compounding effects on inequality and opportunity grow increasingly dire. Their effects include not just children’s behavioral and educational outcomes, but a surprisingly devastating effect on adult men, whose role in the workforce and society appears intractably damaged by the emerging economics of America’s new social norms.

For many, the two-parent home may be an old-fashioned symbol of the idyllic American dream. But The Two-Parent Privilege makes it clear that marriage, for all its challenges and faults, may be our best path to a more equitable future. By confronting the critical role that family makeup plays in shaping children’s lives and futures, Kearney offers a critical assessment of what a decline in marriage means for an economy and a society—and what we must do to change course.

��]]> 237 Melissa S. Kearney 0226817784 Simi 4 3.87 2023 The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind

The Two-Parent Privilege: How Americans Stopped Getting Married and Started Falling Behind

author: Melissa S. Kearney
name: Simi
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/29
date added: 2024/09/29
shelves:
review:

]]> Creation Lake 207300960 416 Rachel Kushner 1982116528 Simi 4 3.35 2024

author: Rachel Kushner
name: Simi
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/27
date added: 2024/09/27
shelves:
review:

]]> The Ministry of Time 199798179 A time travel romance, a spy thriller, a workplace comedy, and an ingenious exploration of the nature of power and the potential for love to change it all:

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she’ll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering “expats�� from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible—for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time.

She is tasked with working as a “bridge��: living with, assisting, and monitoring the expat known as ��1847�� or Commander Graham Gore. As far as history is concerned, Commander Gore died on Sir John Franklin’s doomed 1845 expedition to the Arctic, so he’s a little disoriented to be living with an unmarried woman who regularly shows her calves, surrounded by outlandish concepts such as “washing machines,�� “Spotify,�� and “the collapse of the British Empire.�� But with an appetite for discovery, a seven-a-day cigarette habit, and the support of a charming and chaotic cast of fellow expats, he soon adjusts.

Over the next year, what the bridge initially thought would be, at best, a horrifically uncomfortable roommate dynamic, evolves into something much deeper. By the time the true shape of the Ministry’s project comes to light, the bridge has fallen haphazardly, fervently in love, with consequences she never could have imagined. Forced to confront the choices that brought them together, the bridge must finally reckon with how—and whether she believes—what she does next can change the future.]]> 339 Kaliane Bradley 1668045141 Simi 3 3.54 2024 The Ministry of Time

author: Kaliane Bradley
name: Simi
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/23
date added: 2024/09/23
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Locked in Pursuit (Electra McDonnell #4)]]> 195790680
Safecracker Ellie McDonnell hasn’t seen Major Ramsey―her handsome but aloof handler in the British government―since their tumultuous mission together three months before, but when she hears about a suspicious robbery in London she feels compelled to contact him. Together they discover that a rash of burglaries in the city all lead back to a hotbed of spies in the neutral city Lisbon, Portugal, and an unknown object brought to London by a mysterious courier.

As the thieves become more desperate and their crimes escalate, it becomes imperative that Ellie and Ramsey must beat them at their own game. Fighting shadowy assailants, enemy agents, and the mutual attraction they’ve agreed not to acknowledge, Ellie and Ramsey work together to learn if it truly takes a thief to catch a thief.]]> 272 Ashley Weaver 1250885906 Simi 4 4.17 2024 Locked in Pursuit (Electra McDonnell #4)

Locked in Pursuit (Electra McDonnell #4)

author: Ashley Weaver
name: Simi
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Playing It Safe (Electra McDonnell, #3)]]> 61885121
Ellie, ever-ready to aid her country, heads north, her safecracking tools in tow. But before she can rendezvous with the major, she witnesses an unnatural death. A man falls dead in the street in front of her, with a note clutched in his hand. Ellie’s instincts tell her that the man’s death is connected in some way to her mission.

Soon, Ellie and the major are locked in a battle of wits and a race against time with an unknown and deadly adversary, and a case that leads them to a possible Nazi counterfeiting operation. With bombs dropping on the city and a would-be assassin shadowing their every move, it will take all of Ellie’s resourcefulness and Major Ramsey’s fortitude to unmask the spymaster and avert disastrous consequences—for England and for their own lives.]]> 272 Ashley Weaver 1250885876 Simi 4 4.13 2023 Playing It Safe (Electra McDonnell, #3)

author: Ashley Weaver
name: Simi
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed]]> 201626940 From��New York Times��bestseller Maureen Callahan, a fierce, character-driven exposé of the real Kennedy Curse—the family’s generations-long legacy of misogyny, murder, and mayhem—and the women who have paid the price for our obsession with Camelot

The Kennedy name has long been synonymous with wealth, power, glamor, and—above all else—integrity. But this carefully constructed veneer hides a dark truth: the pattern of Kennedy men physically and psychologically abusing women and girls, leaving a trail of ruin and death in each generation’s wake. Through decades of scandal after scandal—from sexual assaults to reputational slander, suicides to manslaughter—the family and their defenders have kept the Kennedy brand intact.

Now, in Ask Not, bestselling author and journalist Maureen Callahan reveals the Kennedys�� hidden history of violence and exploitation, laying bare their unrepentant sexism and rampant depravity while also restoring these women and girls to their rightful place at the center of the dynasty’s story: from Jacqueline Onassis and Marilyn Monroe to Carolyn Bessette, Martha Moxley, Mary Jo Kopechne, Rosemary Kennedy, and many others whose names aren’t nearly as well known but should be.

Drawing on years of explosive reportage and written in electric prose, Ask Not is a long-overdue reckoning with this fabled family and a consequential part of American history that is still very much with us. At long last Callahan redirects the spotlight to the women in the Kennedys�� orbit, paying homage to those who freed themselves and giving voice to those who, through no fault of their own, could not.]]> 400 Maureen Callahan 0316276170 Simi 4 4.04 2024 Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed

author: Maureen Callahan
name: Simi
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:
This book is compulsively readable - a little gossipy, full of terrible anecdotes and terrible people, and definitely tarnishes any and all Kennedys. There are some editing errors - Robert Jr and Mary met when they were 21 and 14 but their age gap is 5 years? - that you’ll need to look past. While I knew they were all womanizers I had no idea the depths of their terribleness.
]]> All Fours 197798168
A semifamous artist announces her plan to drive cross-country, from LA to New York. Twenty minutes after leaving her husband and child at home, she spontaneously exits the freeway, beds down in a nondescript motel, and immerses herself in a temporary reinvention that turns out to be the start of an entirely different journey.

Miranda July’s second novel confirms the brilliance of her unique approach to fiction. With July’s wry voice, perfect comic timing, unabashed curiosity about human intimacy, and palpable delight in pushing boundaries, All Fours tells the story of one woman’s quest for a new kind of freedom. Part absurd entertainment, part tender reinvention of the sexual, romantic, and domestic life of a forty-five-year-old female artist, All Fours transcends expectation while excavating our beliefs about life lived as a woman. Once again, July hijacks the familiar and turns it into something new and thrillingly, profoundly alive.]]> 336 Miranda July 0593190262 Simi 2 3.53 2024 All Fours

author: Miranda July
name: Simi
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:
2.5 stars. This was a hard book because I neither liked it to be excited by it nor disliked it enough to DNF. I love the idea of this book - there should be more books about 40-something women exploring themselves! But this book isn’t sexy - I honestly think the people who say that maybe don’t read romance? - and it doesn’t feel profound or transgressive, just shock for shock’s sake. I couldn’t stand the navel-gazing narrator and how every problem is solved with just finding a new person to sleep with/fixate on, and in books like this I have trouble separating my feelings about the narrator from my feelings about the book.
]]>