en-US Fri, 02 May 2025 09:13:07 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 231435643 New York Times bestselling author Joe Hill.

Dennis awakens something evil when he removes a decades-old jackknife from the trunk of a gnarled old sycamore. Once pinned in place—now thoughtlessly freed—the tree returns to its roots. An act of vigilante justice took place under its boughs long ago. But its taste for blood has only grown stronger��

Joe Hill’s Jackknife is part of The Shivers, a collection of haunting stories that reveal the otherworldly terrors all around us. Once you know, there’s no going back. Read or listen to each story in one unsettling sitting.]]> 1 Joe Hill Howard 0 currently-reading 3.30 2025
author: Joe Hill
name: Howard
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 38245458 0 Sue Fuller 1538495546 Howard 4
I found the guided practices to be helpful as I’m trying to fall asleep. It was nice having something to guide me and help calming my mind and allow me to get the sleep that I need. ]]> 3.72
author: Sue Fuller
name: Howard
average rating: 3.72
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction, health-and-wellness
review:
4 Stars for Sleep Well (audiobook) by Sue Fuller

I found the guided practices to be helpful as I’m trying to fall asleep. It was nice having something to guide me and help calming my mind and allow me to get the sleep that I need.
]]> 60617094
Meet the Hanrahan family, gathering for a momentous weekend as famous artist and notorious egoist Ray Hanrahan prepares for a new exhibition of his art �� the first in many decades �� and one he is sure will burnish his reputation for good.

His three children will be there: beautiful Leah, always her father’s biggest champion; sensitive Patrick, who has finally decided to strike out on his own; and insecure Jess, the youngest, who has her own momentous decision to make . . .

And what of Lucia, Ray’s steadfast and selfless wife? She is an artist, too, but has always had to put her roles as wife and mother first. What will happen if she decides to change? For Lucia is hiding secrets of her own, and as the weekend unfolds and the exhibition approaches, she must finally make a choice.

The Exhibitionist is the extraordinary fifth novel from Charlotte Mendelson, a dazzling exploration of art, sacrifice, toxic family politics, queer desire, and personal freedom.]]> Charlotte Mendelson 1529052777 Howard 2 audiobooks, fiction
I should have looked at the ratings and reviews before I read this. But it has a great cover and it’s supposed to be funny. I really wanted a funny story, I guess somebody might find it funny but it just didn’t work for me. ]]> 2.69 2022
author: Charlotte Mendelson
name: Howard
average rating: 2.69
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/05/02
date added: 2025/05/02
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
2 Stars for The Exhibitionist (audiobook) by Charlotte Mendelson read by Juliet Stevenson.

I should have looked at the ratings and reviews before I read this. But it has a great cover and it’s supposed to be funny. I really wanted a funny story, I guess somebody might find it funny but it just didn’t work for me.
]]> 20821159 William Gibson returns with his first novel since 2010's New York Times–b����ٲ���������Բ� Zero History.

Where Flynne and her brother, Burton, live, jobs outside the drug business are rare. Fortunately, Burton has his veteran's benefits, for neural damage he suffered from implants during his time in the USMC's elite Haptic Recon force. Then one night Burton has to go out, but there's a job he's supposed to do—a job Flynne didn't know he had. Beta-testing part of a new game, he tells her. The job seems to be simple: work a perimeter around the image of a tower building. Little buglike things turn up. He's supposed to get in their way, edge them back. That's all there is to it. He's offering Flynne a good price to take over for him. What she sees, though, isn't what Burton told her to expect. It might be a game, but it might also be murder.]]> 485 William Gibson 0399158448 Howard 5 3.90 2014
author: William Gibson
name: Howard
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2019/05/10
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: favorite, science-fiction, fiction, 2020-reread, currently-reading
review:

]]> 63060799 William Gibson Howard 0 to-read 4.00
author: William Gibson
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229408613 From award-winning author Rachel Lacey comes the second installment in the Ms. Right a captivating romance about a reluctant bookseller finding love in unexpected places.

Lia Harris is tired of being the odd one out. She’s never quite fit in with her uptight family, and now that her roommates have all found love, she’s starting to feel like a third wheel in her own apartment. Fed up with her mother’s constant meddling in her love life, Lia drops hints about a girlfriend she doesn’t have. But with her brother’s London nuptials approaching, she needs to find a date to save face. Lia turns to her best friend, Rosie, for help, and Rosie delivers - with the fun, gorgeous Grace Poston.

Grace loves to have a good time, hiding her insecurities behind a sunny smile. Her recent move to London has provided her with a much-needed fresh start. Grace isn’t looking for love, and she hates weddings, having weathered more than her fair share of heartache. Friendships are different, though, so for Rosie’s sake, she reluctantly agrees to pose as Lia’s adoring girlfriend for the wedding festivities.

Both Grace and Lia are prepared for an awkward weekend, complete with prying family members and a guest room with only one bed. As it turns out, they get along well - spectacularly, in fact. Before they know it, the chemistry they’re faking feels all too real. But is their wedding weekend a fleeting performance or the rehearsal for a love that’s meant to last?]]> Rachel Lacey Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction, romance
Lia needs a date desperately for her brother’s wedding. She’s told her parents that she has a girlfriend to get them off her back. But really there’s no special person in her life right now. Fortunately Grace is available to play the role of girlfriend. It may be awkward for a few days but it will be good practice for the women just in case they meet Ms. Right. ]]> 3.50 2022
author: Rachel Lacey
name: Howard
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, romance
review:
4 Stars for No Rings Attached: Ms. Right, Book 2 (audiobook) by Rachel Lacey read by Zara Hampton-Brown.

Lia needs a date desperately for her brother’s wedding. She’s told her parents that she has a girlfriend to get them off her back. But really there’s no special person in her life right now. Fortunately Grace is available to play the role of girlfriend. It may be awkward for a few days but it will be good practice for the women just in case they meet Ms. Right.
]]> 61037437
Three factions vie for control of the galaxy. Rig, a gunslinging, thieving, rebel with a cause, doesn’t give a damn about them and she hasn’t looked back since abandoning her faction three years ago.

That is, until her former faction sends her a message: return what she stole from them, or they’ll kill her twin sister.

Rig embarks on a journey across the galaxy to save her sister �� but for once she’s not alone. She has help from her network of resistance contacts, her taser-wielding librarian girlfriend, and a mysterious bounty hunter.

If Rig fails and her former faction finds what she stole from them, trillions of lives will be lost--including her sister's. But if she succeeds, she might just pull the whole damn faction system down around their ears. Either way, she’s going to do it with panache and pizzazz.]]> Ciel Pierlot Howard 4
I can’t come up with a better description for this book than the one the publisher used. Lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space. I think that says it all. ]]> 4.00 2022
author: Ciel Pierlot
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/01
date added: 2025/05/01
shelves: action-adventure, audiobooks, fiction, romance, science-fiction
review:
4 Stars for Bluebird (audiobook) by Ciel Pierlot read by Stephanie Cannon.

I can’t come up with a better description for this book than the one the publisher used. Lesbian gunslinger fights spies in space. I think that says it all.
]]> 158043792 "We’re mysterious aliens in the crowd. We jump like fleas from future to past and back again, and float like clouds of gas between nebulae; in a flash, we can reach the edge of the universe, or tunnel into a quark, or swim within a star-core. . . . We’re as unassuming as fireflies, yet our numbers grow like grass in spring. We sci-fi fans are people from the future."—Cixin Liu, from the essay "Sci-Fi Fans"

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer, and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

"Science fiction without guile, without snark, without ironic disaffection and all its exhausting modern baggage. It just asks what would happen? Waits for someone to answer. And then it asks again."—NPR on the works of Cixin Liu

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 201 Cixin Liu 1250292123 Howard 0 to-read 3.55 2023
author: Cixin Liu
name: Howard
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 34323029 Listening length: 11 hours and 36 minutes

Jina Modell works in Communications for a paramilitary organization, and she really likes it. She likes the money, she likes the coolness factor—and it was very cool, even for Washington, DC. She liked being able to kick terrorist butts without ever leaving the climate-controlled comfort of the control room.

But when Jina displays a really high aptitude for spatial awareness and action, she’s reassigned to work as an on-site drone operator in the field with one of the GO-teams, an elite paramilitary unit. The only problem is she isn’t particularly athletic, to put it mildly, and in order to be fit for the field, she has to learn how to run and swim for miles, jump out of a plane, shoot a gun...or else be out of a job.

Team leader Levi, call sign Ace, doesn’t have much confidence in Jina--who he dubbed Babe as soon as he heard her raspy, sexy voice--making it through the rigors of training. The last thing he needs is some tech geek holding them back from completing a dangerous, covert operation. In the following months, however, no one is more surprised than he when Babe, who hates to sweat, begins to thrive in her new environment, displaying a grit and courage that wins her the admiration of her hardened, battle-worn teammates. What’s even more surprising is that the usually very disciplined GO-team leader can’t stop thinking about kissing her smart, stubborn mouth…or the building chemistry and tension between them.

Meanwhile, a powerful Congresswoman is working behind the scenes to destroy the GO-teams, and a trap is set to ambush Levi’s squad in Syria. While the rest of the operatives set off on their mission, Jina remains at the base to control the surveillance drone, when the base is suddenly attacked with explosives. Thought dead by her comrades, Jina escapes to the desert where, brutally tested beyond measure, she has to figure out how to stay undetected by the enemy and make it to her crew in time before they’re exfiltrated out of the country.

But Levi never leaves a soldier behind, especially the brave woman he’s fallen for. He’s bringing back the woman they left behind, dead or alive.]]> 12 Linda Howard 0062695061 Howard 4
Nina works in communications for a paramilitary organization based in DC. She loves her job where she gets to help take down terrorists from her air conditioned control room. Unfortunately for her, the custom video games that she’s been playing in the office were actually a test to see who is most qualified to fly drones in the field. And she had the highest score. Management wants her to go through training and deploy with one of the Go-Teams so she can provide her team with the best surveillance. This desk jockey is going into the field with some of the best trained soldiers in the world. She better get training. ]]> 3.62 2018
author: Linda Howard
name: Howard
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: action-adventure, audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for The Woman Left Behind: Go-Team, Book 2 (audiobook) by Linda Howard read by Saskia Maarleveld.

Nina works in communications for a paramilitary organization based in DC. She loves her job where she gets to help take down terrorists from her air conditioned control room. Unfortunately for her, the custom video games that she’s been playing in the office were actually a test to see who is most qualified to fly drones in the field. And she had the highest score. Management wants her to go through training and deploy with one of the Go-Teams so she can provide her team with the best surveillance. This desk jockey is going into the field with some of the best trained soldiers in the world. She better get training.
]]> 60728517
James Patterson, bestselling author of the Alex Cross novels Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, and Pop Goes the Weasel, offers the first of a new series dubbed The Women's Murder Club, featuring a four-woman team that occasionally works outside the system. None of the gritty darkness or frenzied action is lost in 1st to Die, although the female protagonists offer an even deeper emotional context to this suspense thriller.

Inspector Lindsay Boxer of the San Francisco Police Department suddenly finds herself in the middle of two horrifying situations: The first is that she's just learned she has an often-fatal blood disease. The second is a double homicide case she is now heading up that involves the murder of newlyweds on their wedding night. Burdened with Chris Raleigh, a new partner reassigned from the mayor's office, Lindsay finds that she has too much to deal with and turns to her best friend, Claire, the head ME on the case. Claire offers helpful advice and human, friendly contact amid a job filled with violence, cruelty, and fear.

Soon a fledgling newspaper reporter, Cindy, makes contact with Lindsay looking for a career-making story. Although Lindsay can't officially comment on the case, the two women form a rapport, and Cindy joins Lindsay and Claire for their weekly meeting. When a second pair of newlyweds is murdered, and later a third, the investigation leads to a prominent crime writer, Nicholas Jenks, who has a history of spousal abuse and a predilection for kinky, dangerous sex games. With the help of an understanding assistant D.A., Jill Bernhardt, Lindsay tries to make a case against Jenks, who even had an affair with one of the slain women. Eventually Jill joins the Murder Club, and the four ladies share private interdepartmental information in an effort to track and stop the killer before he strikes again.

The major subplot -- Lindsay's facing up to her illness even while she learns to fall in love again -- carefully compensates for the novel's coarse scenes of brutality. Lindsay Boxer is't merely an obsessed cop trailing a maniac; she's also a terrified woman confronting the onslaught of disease. The story lines balance out to show us the true mettle of someone who puts the safety of others before her own.

Again, Patterson's skill for producing furiously paced fiction are evident as the novel breezes by rapidly. The short chapters keep the narrative leaping with increasingly taut plot elements, but there's an emotional commitment that makes our protagonist even more amiable and involving. 1st to Die is a novel that works as an intense series of character portraits that will leave the reader touched and delighted.

--Tom Piccirilli]]> James Patterson 1607880687 Howard 0 to-read 3.50 2001
author: James Patterson
name: Howard
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2001
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228394708 Rachel Lacey, author of Stars Collide , serves up a steamy tale of Hollywood fame and subterfuge about a glamorous actress and the sexy bodyguard posing as her girlfriend.

Natalie Keane is one of Hollywood’s top leading ladies, but she’s paid a steep price for her fame. After she was stalked eight years ago, the ensuing media frenzy almost broke her. So when a new threat arises, Natalie agrees to extra security, but she wants to keep it under wraps. The last thing she needs is another tabloid spectacle, especially during awards season.

Taylor Vaughn has made a career as a bodyguard to the stars, but an injury has kept her sidelined for the past three months, jeopardizing her future in the job she loves. When an opportunity arises to work for Natalie Keane, Taylor jumps at the chance—even before knowing the details of the assignment.

From the moment they meet, Natalie knows this could Taylor, the bodyguard, masquerading as her girlfriend. The perfect cover story. But as circumstances push the two women closer, the lines between fantasy and reality begin to blur.]]> Rachel Lacey Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction, romance
This is a bodyguard to lovers romance. A famous actress needs extra protection since her former kidnapper is now being released from prison. She needs someone who can fly under the paparazzi radar. A woman that could pretend to be her girlfriend would be perfect. She could be there 24/7 guarding everything but her heart. ]]> 4.00
author: Rachel Lacey
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, romance
review:
4 Stars for Cover Story: Stars Collide, Book 2 (audiobook) by Rachel Lacey read by Quinn Riley.

This is a bodyguard to lovers romance. A famous actress needs extra protection since her former kidnapper is now being released from prison. She needs someone who can fly under the paparazzi radar. A woman that could pretend to be her girlfriend would be perfect. She could be there 24/7 guarding everything but her heart.
]]> 124822905
Abby wants a baby more than anything. But after years of failed infertility treatments and adoptions that have fallen through, it seems like motherhood is not in her future. That is, until her personal assistant Monica makes a generous offer that will make all of Abby's dreams come true. But it turns out Monica isn't who she says she is. The woman now carrying Abby's child has an unspeakable secret. And she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.]]> Freida McFadden Howard 5
How can a fun read like this evoke so many emotions? This is just a roller coaster ride of anxiety and hope. The level of betrayal that this couple endured is unimaginable. ]]> 3.58 2018
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2018
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4.5 Stars for The Surrogate Mother (audiobook) by Freida McFadden read by Alyson Crawchuk.

How can a fun read like this evoke so many emotions? This is just a roller coaster ride of anxiety and hope. The level of betrayal that this couple endured is unimaginable.
]]> 157377057
The many lives of theoretical physicist Elsie Hannaway have finally caught up with her. By day, she’s an adjunct professor, toiling away at grading labs and teaching thermodynamics in the hopes of landing tenure. By other day, Elsie makes up for her non-existent paycheck by offering her services as a fake girlfriend, tapping into her expertly honed people pleasing skills to embody whichever version of herself the client needs.

Honestly, it’s a pretty sweet gig—until her carefully constructed Elsie-verse comes crashing down. Because Jack Smith, the annoyingly attractive and broody older brother of her favorite client, turns out to be the cold-hearted experimental physicist who ruined her mentor’s career and undermined the reputation of theorists everywhere. And that same Jack who now sits on the hiring committee at MIT, right between Elsie and her dream job.

Elsie is prepared for an all-out war of scholarly sabotage but…those long, penetrating looks? Not having to be anything other than her true self when she’s with him? Will falling into an experimentalist’s orbit finally tempt her to put her most guarded theories on love into practice?]]> 13 Ali Hazelwood 0593684788 Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction, romance
Maybe fake dating to help pay the bills isn’t so bad if you get to fall for your fake date’s brother. Elise is having trouble moving up the ladder at her university. She seems to be stuck as an adjunct professor just getting by but her goal is to get tenure. But the crazy thing she did to help pay the bills may lead to her falling in love. ]]> 3.92 2023
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Howard
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, romance
review:
4 Stars for Love, Theoretically (audiobook) by Ali Hazelwood read by Thérèse Plumber.

Maybe fake dating to help pay the bills isn’t so bad if you get to fall for your fake date’s brother. Elise is having trouble moving up the ladder at her university. She seems to be stuck as an adjunct professor just getting by but her goal is to get tenure. But the crazy thing she did to help pay the bills may lead to her falling in love.
]]> 50503898
All they want to do is avoid each other, and their past, for as long as possible. But now that they're forced to share a bathroom, and therefore a shower, keeping their distance from one another becomes less difficult than keeping their hands off each other. Welcome to the hallway of awkward tension and sexual frustration, folks. Get comfy. It’s going to be a long summer.]]> 9 Chelsea Fine Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction, romance
A young woman is having trouble moving from losing her best friend in a car accident. Not only was she in the car too but her friend’s brother was driving. He had stopped the girls from driving drunk and was driving them home when another car hit them. Now that a little time has gone by can she get over losing her friend and find the love she has for the brother. ]]> 3.00 2014
author: Chelsea Fine
name: Howard
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, romance
review:
4 Stars for Best kind of Broken: Finding Fare, Book 1 (audiobook) by Chelsea Fine read by Susanna Duff.

A young woman is having trouble moving from losing her best friend in a car accident. Not only was she in the car too but her friend’s brother was driving. He had stopped the girls from driving drunk and was driving them home when another car hit them. Now that a little time has gone by can she get over losing her friend and find the love she has for the brother.
]]> 27161240 New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Linda Howard.

For Morgan Yancy, an operative and team leader in a paramilitary group, nothing comes before his job. But when he’s ambushed and almost killed, his supervisor is determined to find out who’s after the members of his elite squad—and why. Due to worries that this unknown enemy will strike again, Morgan is sent to a remote location and told to lay low and stay vigilant. But between a tempting housemate he’s determined to protect and a deadly threat waiting in the shadows, keeping under the radar is proving to be his most dangerous mission yet.

The part-time police chief of a small West Virginian mountain town, Isabeau “Bo�� Maran finally has her life figured out. She’s got friends, a dog, and a little money in the bank. Then Morgan Yancy shows up on her doorstep. Bo doesn’t need a mysterious man in her life—especially a troublemaker as enticing and secretive as Morgan.

The harder they fight the intense heat between them, the closer Morgan and Bo become, even though she knows he’s hiding from something. But discovering the truth could cost Bo more than she’s willing to give. And when Morgan’s cover is blown, it might just cost her life.]]> 14 Linda Howard 0062467174 Howard 4
An elite operative is nearly killed and needs a safe place to recover. His boss decides to sends him to the bosses step sister’s house in a small town where it should be safe as they are trying to figure out who’s behind the assassination attempt. The step sister can’t stand her step brother and can’t believe what he’s trying to saddle her with. But she’s willing to be nursemaid for a lot of money. And slowly these enemies become lovers and so much more. ]]> 3.35 2016
author: Linda Howard
name: Howard
average rating: 3.35
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: action-adventure, fiction, audiobooks, suspense-mystery, romance
review:
4 Stars for Troublemaker: Go-Team, Book 1 (audiobook) by Linda Howard read by Tanya Eby.

An elite operative is nearly killed and needs a safe place to recover. His boss decides to sends him to the bosses step sister’s house in a small town where it should be safe as they are trying to figure out who’s behind the assassination attempt. The step sister can’t stand her step brother and can’t believe what he’s trying to saddle her with. But she’s willing to be nursemaid for a lot of money. And slowly these enemies become lovers and so much more.
]]> 212375021 Three women. Three smouldering secrets. Who will make it out alive?

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

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

As cracks widen in the veneer of perfection and lies escalate out of control, tension ignites. Bonfire Night is approaching and someone is set to burn…But who will it be?]]> 385 John Marrs 166250649X Howard 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: John Marrs
name: Howard
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 26240937 2 Joshua Piven 1593162677 Howard 0 to-read 2.50 1999
author: Joshua Piven
name: Howard
average rating: 2.50
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 219623719
How far would you go to belong?

Maya has returned to Princeton for her college reunion—it’s been a decade since she graduated, and she is looking forward to seeing old faces and reminiscing about her time there. This visit is special because Maya will also be attending the graduation of her little sister, Naomi.

But what should have been a dream weekend becomes Maya’s worst nightmare when she receives the news that Naomi is dead. The police are calling it an accident, but Maya suspects that there is more to the story than they are letting on.

As Maya pieces together what happened in the months leading up to her sister’s death, she begins to realize how much Naomi hid from her. Despite Maya’s warnings, Naomi had joined Sterling Club, the most exclusive social club on campus—the same one Maya belonged to. And if she had to guess, Naomi was likely tapped for the secret society within it.

The more Maya uncovers, the more terrified she becomes that Naomi’s decision to follow in her footsteps might have been what got her killed. Because Maya’s time at Princeton wasn’t as wonderful as she’d always made it seem—after all, her sister wasn’t the first young woman to turn up dead. Now every clue is leading Maya back to the past . . . and to the secret she’s kept all these years.]]> Lauren Ling Brown 0593909496 Howard 4
Big sister is attending her Princeton college reunion and while she’s there she’s going to get to see her younger sister graduate. But instead the younger sister ends up being killed. The older sister is desperate to find out how this happened and who is responsible. ]]> 3.31 2024
author: Lauren Ling Brown
name: Howard
average rating: 3.31
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/26
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
3.5 Stars for Society of Lies (audiobook) by Lauren Ling Brown read by Brie Carter and Chandler Gregoire.

Big sister is attending her Princeton college reunion and while she’s there she’s going to get to see her younger sister graduate. But instead the younger sister ends up being killed. The older sister is desperate to find out how this happened and who is responsible.
]]> 50392187 Set in the universe of the New York Times bestselling Three-Body Problem trilogy, The Redemption of Time continues Cixin Liu’s multi-award-winning science fiction saga. This original story by Baoshu―published with Liu’s support―envisions the aftermath of the conflict between humanity and the extraterrestrial Trisolarans.

In the midst of an interstellar war, Yun Tianming found himself on the front lines. Riddled with cancer, he chose to end his life, only to find himself flash frozen and launched into space where the Trisolaran First Fleet awaited. Captured and tortured beyond endurance for decades, Yun eventually succumbed to helping the aliens subjugate humanity in order to save Earth from complete destruction.

Granted a healthy clone body by the Trisolarans, Yun has spent his very long life in exile as a traitor to the human race. Nearing the end of his existence at last, he suddenly receives another reprieve―and another regeneration. A consciousness calling itself The Spirit has recruited him to wage battle against an entity that threatens the existence of the entire universe. But Yun refuses to be a pawn again and makes his own plans to save humanity’s future…]]> 10 Baoshu Howard 0 to-read 3.32 2011
author: Baoshu
name: Howard
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 228682205 I beseech thy heavenly help.
For a seductive serpent
has found it fit
to infiltrate my lady garden and
enchant my convent
with her feminine wiles.
My daily thoughts drift
to her most holy of places,
before they become
my most fanny-fluttering nightmares.
Lead me not into her slippery path,
for I fear her ultimate pleasure
would lead to my ultimate punishment.
Give me, I prithee,
chastened strength, forsooth.
May I pluck out my eye
that I cast upon her rotund derrière.
May I cut off my arm
that aches to caress her ample bosom.
Keep her womanly entrance
and her blasphemous booty
from my hallucinatory escapades.
Guide my hand so I might smite
this plaid clad vixen’s descent
upon my henhouse.
Transmute me
into a voluptuous vessel
for your wrath,
Give me the vengeance
I implore
Before the demoness sees fit
to devour us all.
Pray for us sinners,
Mother Superior 💋]]> Phrique Howard 0 to-read 4.70
author: Phrique
name: Howard
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17947830 Dalton Trumbo 140012655X Howard 5
This is the story of a severely wounded WWI soldier. The doctors saved him but all of his limbs were amputated and he was blind and deaf. He is literally trapped inside his body. In this story he tries to come to terms with all that is wrong with him.

This story was originally published in 1939 but was pulled from publication in 1941 as WWII getting started. After the war there was a lot of demand for the book so eventually it was published again.

This story ultimately inspired a very dark and creepy movie that was released in 1971. And in 1988 the band Metallica released their first music video that used a lot that footage from Johnny Got His Gun. And that became a huge anti war anthem. And that was the year that I signed up for Selective Service. That was hard knowing that some rich and powerful people could send me off to fight in a war and how fundamentally changed I could come back home. ]]> 4.11 1939
author: Dalton Trumbo
name: Howard
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1939
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
5 Stars for Johnny Got His Gun (audiobook) by Dalton Trumbo read by William Dufris.

This is the story of a severely wounded WWI soldier. The doctors saved him but all of his limbs were amputated and he was blind and deaf. He is literally trapped inside his body. In this story he tries to come to terms with all that is wrong with him.

This story was originally published in 1939 but was pulled from publication in 1941 as WWII getting started. After the war there was a lot of demand for the book so eventually it was published again.

This story ultimately inspired a very dark and creepy movie that was released in 1971. And in 1988 the band Metallica released their first music video that used a lot that footage from Johnny Got His Gun. And that became a huge anti war anthem. And that was the year that I signed up for Selective Service. That was hard knowing that some rich and powerful people could send me off to fight in a war and how fundamentally changed I could come back home.
]]> 17446538
Until the telephone call came for him on April 12, 1975, the world of Moon Mathias had settled into a predictable routine. He knew who he was. He was the disappointing son of Victoria Mathias, the brother of the brilliant, recently dead Ricky Mathias and a man who could be counted on to solve small problems. But the telephone caller was an airport security officer, and the news he delivered handed Moon a problem as large as Southeast Asia.

His mother, who should be in her Florida apartment, is fighting for her life in a Los Angeles hospital -- stricken while en route to the Philippines to bring home a grandchild they hadn't known existed. The papers in her purse send Moon into a world totally strange to him. They lure him down the back streets of Manila, to a rural cockfight, into the odd Filipino prison on Palawan Island and finally across the South China Sea to where Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge is turning Cambodia into killing fields and Communist rockets are beginning to fall on the outskirts of Saigon.

Finding Moon is many things: a latter-day adventure epic, a deftly orchestrated romance, an arresting portrait of an exotic realm engulfed in turmoil, and a neatly turned tale of suspense. Most of all, it is a singular story of how a plain, uncertain man finds his best self.]]> Tony Hillerman 0062284800 Howard 4
A man is challenged with bringing home his recently deceased brother’s child from Southeast Asia. It’s April of 1975 and the world is kind of chaotic as the war in Vietnam is coming to an end. The family wasn’t aware of the child until recently and now it’s a race to try and find them and bring them back so they can meet their ailing grandmother.

]]> 3.46 1995
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Howard
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1995
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/25
date added: 2025/04/25
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Finding Moon (audiobook) by Tony Hillerman read by Erik Bergmann.

A man is challenged with bringing home his recently deceased brother’s child from Southeast Asia. It’s April of 1975 and the world is kind of chaotic as the war in Vietnam is coming to an end. The family wasn’t aware of the child until recently and now it’s a race to try and find them and bring them back so they can meet their ailing grandmother.


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

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

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

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

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

#1 New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden knocks at your door with a gripping story of revenge, privilege, and secrets turned sour��]]> 368 Freida McFadden 1464227314 Howard 0 to-read 4.44 2025
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13642212 The slyly funny, sweetly moving memoir of an unconventional dad’s relationship with his equally offbeat son—complete with fast cars, tall tales, homemade explosives, and a whole lot of fun and trouble
��
Misfit, truant, delinquent. John Robison was never a model child, and he wasn’t a model dad either. Diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at the age of forty, he approached fatherhood as a series of logic puzzles and practical jokes. When his son, Cubby, asked, “Where did I come from?�� John said he’d bought him at the Kid Store and that the salesman had cheated him by promising Cubby would “do all chores.�� He read electrical engineering manuals to Cubby at bedtime. He told Cubby that wizards turned children into stone when they misbehaved.

Still, John got the basics right. He made sure Cubby never drank diesel fuel at the automobile repair shop he owns. And he gave him a life of adventure: By the time Cubby was ten, he’d steered a Coast Guard cutter, driven a freight locomotive, and run an antique Rolls Royce into a fence.

The one thing John couldn’t figure out was what to do when school authorities decided that Cubby was dumb and stubborn—the very same thing he had been told as a child. Did Cubby have Asperger’s too? The answer was unclear. One thing was clear, though: By the time he turned seventeen, Cubby had become a brilliant chemist—smart enough to make military-grade explosives and bring state and federal agents calling. Afterward, with Cubby facing up to sixty years in prison, both father and son were forced to take stock of their lives, finally coming to terms with being “on the spectrum�� as both a challenge and a unique gift.

By turns tender, suspenseful, and hilarious, this is more than just the story of raising Cubby. It’s the story of a father and son who grow up together.

Praise for John Robison's first book, Look Me In the Eye:

"Lean, powerful in its descriptive accuracy and engaging in its understated humor...Emotionally gripping." --Chicago Tribune

"A fantastic life story told with grace, humor, and a bracing lack of sentimentality." --Entertainment Weekly

"Endearing...Robison is a natural storyteller." --Boston Globe]]> John Elder Robison 0307881369 Howard 5
This is a loving tribute to a son who is extremely intelligent but may be lacking in some modern sensibilities. The book chronicles the life of the father and an overview of raising his son. And it ends with a parent’s worst nightmare, his son is facing multiple felony charges that could land him in prison for several decades. For me, one of the most fascinating things about this book is that the author is the brother of Augusten Burroughs who wrote Running With Scissors.
They would have one crazy family reunion if they all got together. And I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Asperger Syndrome or autism. ]]> 3.94 2013
author: John Elder Robison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2013
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction, quirky, biography, asperger-autism
review:
5 Stars for Raising Cubby: A Father and Son’s Adventures with Asperger’s, Trains, Tractors and High Explosives (audiobook) by John Elder Robison read by the author.

This is a loving tribute to a son who is extremely intelligent but may be lacking in some modern sensibilities. The book chronicles the life of the father and an overview of raising his son. And it ends with a parent’s worst nightmare, his son is facing multiple felony charges that could land him in prison for several decades. For me, one of the most fascinating things about this book is that the author is the brother of Augusten Burroughs who wrote Running With Scissors.
They would have one crazy family reunion if they all got together. And I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Asperger Syndrome or autism.
]]> 40554109 432 Hallie Rubenhold 0857524488 Howard 0 to-read 4.35 2019
author: Hallie Rubenhold
name: Howard
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23392
Desperately, Walker searches for explanations, only to realize he’s trapped in a horrifying nightmare that is all too real. Instead of being a rich hotshot at the top of the food chain, Walker discovers he’s just another amusing novelty, part of a cargo of “cute�� aliens from primitive planets—destined to be sold as pets to highly advanced populations in “civilized�� regions of the galaxy.

Even if he weren’t constantly watched by his captors, Walker has few options. After all, there is no escape from a speeding starship. Another man might resign himself to the inevitable and hope to be sold to a kindly owner, but not Walker. This former college football star has plenty of American ingenuity and no intention of admitting defeat, now or ever. In fact, he’s only just begun to fight.]]> 256 Alan Dean Foster 0345461274 Howard 0 to-read 3.68 2004
author: Alan Dean Foster
name: Howard
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2004
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1073574 235 F.X. Toole 006081926X Howard 0 to-read 4.10 2000
author: F.X. Toole
name: Howard
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2000
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 1266404
Despite their very different personalities, both sisters experience great sorrows in their affairs, Marianne demonstrably wretched and Elinor allowing no-one to see her private heartache. Yet it is the qualities common to them both - discernment, constancy and integrity in the face of the fecklessness of others - that allow them entry into a new life.]]> 288 Jane Austen 0747524467 Howard 0 to-read 4.11 1811
author: Jane Austen
name: Howard
average rating: 4.11
book published: 1811
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 84927
An L.A. Theatre Works full cast performance featuring:

Steven Brand as Baron van Swieten
James Callis as Mozart
Michael Emerson as Salieri
Darren Richardson as Venticello 2
Alan Shearman as Count Orsini-Rosenberg
Mark Jude Sullivan as Venticello 1
Simon Templeman as Joseph II
Brian Tichnell as Count Johann Kilian Von Strack
Jocelyn Towne as Constanze

Directed by Rosalind Ayres. Recorded in Los Angeles before a live audience at The James Bridges Theater, UCLA in September of 2016.]]> 160 Peter Shaffer 0060935499 Howard 0 to-read 4.16 1979
author: Peter Shaffer
name: Howard
average rating: 4.16
book published: 1979
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25989448
It’s where he was born. It’s where he and Ma eat and sleep and play and learn. There are endless wonders that let loose Jack’s imagination-the snake under Bed that he constructs out of eggshells; the coziness of Wardrobe beneath Ma’s clothes, where she tucks him in safely at night, in case Old Nick comes.

Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it’s the prison where she’s been held since she was nineteen-for seven long years. Through her fierce love for her son, she has created a life for him in that eleven-by-eleven-foot space. But Jack’s curiosity is building alongside her own desperation, and she knows that Room cannot contain either indefinitely . . .

Told in the inventive, funny, and poignant voice of Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience-and a powerful story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible.]]> 432 Emma Donoghue 144344961X Howard 0 to-read 3.99 2010
author: Emma Donoghue
name: Howard
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 781787 Out of Africa is Isak Dinesen's memoir of her years in Africa, from 1914 to 1931, on a four-thousand-acre coffee plantation in the hills near Nairobi. She had come to Kenya from Denmark with her husband, and when they separated she stayed on to manage the farm by herself, visited frequently by her lover, the big-game hunter Denys Finch-Hatton, for whom she would make up stories "like Scheherazade." In Africa, "I learned how to tell tales," she recalled many years later. "The natives have an ear still. I told stories constantly to them, all kinds." Her account of her African adventures, written after she had lost her beloved farm and returned to Denmark, is that of a master storyteller, a woman whom John Updike called "one of the most picturesque and flamboyant literary personalities of the century."

Isak Dinesen (1885��1962) was born Karen Christence Dinesen in Rungsted, Denmark. She wrote poems, plays, and stories from an early age, including Seven Gothic Tales, Winter's Tales, Last Tales, Anecdotes of Destiny, Shadows on the Grass and Ehrengard. Out of Africa is considered her masterpiece.]]> 401 Isak Dinesen 0679600213 Howard 0 to-read 3.94 1937
author: Isak Dinesen
name: Howard
average rating: 3.94
book published: 1937
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 454856
After fleeing his parents and dropping out of high school, his savant-like ability to visualize electronic circuits landed him a gig with KISS, for whom he created their legendary fire-breathing guitars. Later, he drifted into a “real�� job, as an engineer for a major toy company. But the higher Robison rose in the company, the more he had to pretend to be “normal�� and do what he simply couldn’t communicate. It wasn’t worth the paycheck.
It was not until he was forty that an insightful therapist told him he had the form of autism called Asperger’s syndrome. That understanding transformed the way Robison saw himself—and the world.

Look Me in the Eye is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn’t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as “defective,�� who could not avail himself of KISS’s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people’s given names (he calls his wife “Unit Two��). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors .

Ultimately, this is the story of Robison’s journey from his world into ours, and his new life as a husband, father, and successful small business owner—repairing his beloved high-end automobiles. It’s a strange, sly, indelible account—sometimes alien, yet always deeply human.]]> 288 John Elder Robison 0307395987 Howard 0 to-read 3.91 2007
author: John Elder Robison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 8674411 “I believe those of us with Asperger’s are here for a reason, and we have much to offer. This book will help you bring out those gifts.��

In his bestselling memoir, Look Me in the Eye, John Elder Robison described growing up with Asperger’s syndrome at a time when the diagnosis didn’t exist. He was intelligent but socially isolated; his talents won him jobs with toy makers and rock bands but did little to endear him to authority figures and classmates, who were put off by his inclination to blurt out non sequiturs and avoid eye contact.

By the time he was diagnosed at age forty, John had already developed a myriad of coping strategies that helped him achieve a seemingly normal, even highly successful, life. In Be Different, Robison shares a new batch of endearing stories about his childhood, adolescence, and young adult years, giving the reader a rare window into the Aspergian mind.

In each story, he offers practical advice—for Aspergians and indeed for anyone who feels “different”—on how to improve the weak communication and social skills that keep so many people from taking full advantage of their often remarkable gifts. With his trademark honesty and unapologetic eccentricity, Robison addresses questions like:

�� How to read others and follow their behaviors when in uncertain social situations
�� Why manners matter
�� How to harness your powers of concentration to master difficult skills
�� How to deal with bullies
�� When to make an effort to fit in, and when to embrace eccentricity
�� How to identify special gifts and use them to your advantage

Every person, Aspergian or not, has something unique to offer the world, and every person has the capacity to create strong, loving bonds with their friends and family. Be Different will help readers and those they love find their path to success.]]> 304 John Elder Robison 0385670338 Howard 0 to-read 3.95 2011
author: John Elder Robison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 23995406 An extraordinary memoir about the cutting-edge brain therapy that dramatically changed the life and mind of John Elder Robison, the New York Times bestselling author of Look Me in the Eye

Imagine spending the first forty years of your life in darkness, blind to the emotions and social signals of other people. Then imagine that someone suddenly switches the lights on.

It has long been assumed that people living with autism are born with the diminished ability to read the emotions of others, even as they feel emotion deeply. But what if we’ve been wrong all this time? What if that “missing�� emotional insight was there all along, locked away and inaccessible in the mind?
��
In 2007 John Elder Robison wrote the international bestseller Look Me in the Eye, a memoir about growing up with Asperger’s syndrome. Amid the blaze of publicity that followed, he received a unique invitation: Would John like to take part in a study led by one of the world’s foremost neuroscientists, who would use an experimental new brain therapy known as TMS, or transcranial magnetic stimulation, in an effort to understand and then address the issues at the heart of autism? Switched On is the extraordinary story of what happened next.
��
Having spent forty years as a social outcast, misreading others�� emotions or missing them completely, John is suddenly able to sense a powerful range of feelings in other people. However, this newfound insight brings unforeseen problems and serious questions. As the emotional ground shifts beneath his feet, John struggles with the very real possibility that choosing to diminish his disability might also mean sacrificing his unique gifts and even some of his closest relationships. Switched On is a real-life Flowers for Algernon, a fascinating and intimate window into what it means to be neurologically different, and what happens when the world as you know it is upended overnight.]]> 321 John Elder Robison 1101888857 Howard 0 to-read 3.84 2016
author: John Elder Robison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13620787
A gun dealer has died violently, and his stock of high-powered weapons has been cleaned out. Suspicion falls upon rancher Alton Hosfield, an armed separatist at war with the federal government and the local law—with everyone, in fact, whom he perceives as a threat to his independent way of life.

Joanna Brady suspects the solution is not so cut-and-dried—especially when the cold-blooded slaying is followed by a series of others, equally horrific and perplexing. At best, an incendiary "Ruby Ridge" situation is brewing. At worst, a maniacal serial killer has come to feed on her unsuspecting community. But Joanna's preoccupation with bringing a murderer to justice could take a terrible toll on her private life . . . and unravel threads of family, love, and responsibility that might never again be retied.
__________
12 hours, 29 minutes, 59 seconds]]> 13 J.A. Jance 0061967246 Howard 4
Cochise County Sheriff, Joanna Brady is really out gunned this time. There’s a killer on the loose and he just robbed a gun store in Bisbee and made off with the whole inventory. Including several 50 caliber sniper rifles. It also looks like he’s been practicing with the rifles, a woman was shot from a great distance along the a cow and an irrigation pump. What kind of maniac would do such a thing. ]]> 4.00 1998
author: J.A. Jance
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published: 1998
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Rattlesnake Crossing: Joanna Brady, Book 6 (audiobook) by J. A. Jance read by C. J. Critt.

Cochise County Sheriff, Joanna Brady is really out gunned this time. There’s a killer on the loose and he just robbed a gun store in Bisbee and made off with the whole inventory. Including several 50 caliber sniper rifles. It also looks like he’s been practicing with the rifles, a woman was shot from a great distance along the a cow and an irrigation pump. What kind of maniac would do such a thing.
]]> 462993 368 J.A. Jance 0380792486 Howard 0 to-read 3.96 1999
author: J.A. Jance
name: Howard
average rating: 3.96
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 199311253 An unforgettable YA debut by Jamison Shea.

Ace of Spades meets House of Hollow in a thrilling horror novel about the toll of giving everything to a world that will never love you back.

Laure Mesny is determined to make it in the cutthroat world of ballet, and she will do anything to prove that this Black girl can take centre stage. Anything.... Even if it means entering into a bargain with a primordial power in the Catacombs beneath Paris.

Laure is promised influence and adoration - and she gets it. But that alone is not enough, not for the cruel and privileged people who surround her. Her climb to stardom leaves broken bodies in her wake, some of which aren't her doing. As she finds herself deep within this monstrous world, she is faced with the ultimate choice: will she retreat or succumb to the darkness forever?

THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

Author's Note read exclusively for the audiobook by author Jamison Shea.]]> Jamison Shea 1471414884 Howard 4
How many bodies will this young dancer leave in her wake as she ascends to the top of the ballet world. I just loved having horror mixed in with ballet. So much of this story actually takes place in rehearsals and on stage. I’m so glad that there’s a sequel, I can’t wait to read it.]]> 3.63 2023
author: Jamison Shea
name: Howard
average rating: 3.63
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/21
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: audiobooks, fantasy, fiction, suspense-mystery, ballet, horror
review:
4 Stars for I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast Is Me: I Feed Her to the Beast, Book 1 (audiobook) by Jamison Shea read by Kristolyn Lloyd.

How many bodies will this young dancer leave in her wake as she ascends to the top of the ballet world. I just loved having horror mixed in with ballet. So much of this story actually takes place in rehearsals and on stage. I’m so glad that there’s a sequel, I can’t wait to read it.
]]> 200982292 Monsters and mortals, rejoice! Acheron is back . . .

Though Laure has tried to close the lid on her ballet shoes and the feelings she once held for dance since the Palais Garnier incident two months ago, Laure is spinning out. Between partying, drinking, and avoiding anything and, well, everyone, she has no time to be anything but a monster.

But when Laure stumbles across a mysterious dead body during one of her nights out, she’s forced to notice the cracks stretching beyond herself. Below the streets of Paris, Elysium is dying, and Acheron and Lethe’s influence is spilling into the streets like a blight. Laure isn’t the only of Elysium’s beasts to rise from the ruins of Palais Garnier, and someone is mobilizing an army of monsters with plans greater than Laure, Andor, and Keturah could have ever guessed.

While Laure is warring between her wants and Acheron’s ever-demanding appetite, she and her circle of monsters are left to reckon with a not-so-simple how do you save yourself from oblivion?

Jamison Shea's sharp and unflinching voice will bring readers to terrifying new heights in this vicious sequel to the "relentlessly gory and almost euphoric in its embrace of the horrific" (NPR) I Feed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me.]]> 336 Jamison Shea 1250909589 Howard 0 to-read 3.79 2024
author: Jamison Shea
name: Howard
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 225967080 407 J. Beauclerc Howard 0 to-read 4.00 2025
author: J. Beauclerc
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 2621048 0 Ben Stein 1401902383 Howard 4 audiobooks, non-fiction
I just love Ben Stein’s very dry sense of humor. I remember first seeing him in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and then later on his game show on MTV. He has an interesting way of cutting through the nonsense and relating to people. And in this book he shows how if you exhibit some of these traits then you’re on the right track to ruin your life. Unfortunately most of the people that need to hear this will never read this book. ]]> 3.33 2002
author: Ben Stein
name: Howard
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/17
date added: 2025/04/17
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction
review:
4 Stars for How to Ruin Your Life (audiobook) by Ben Stein read by the author.

I just love Ben Stein’s very dry sense of humor. I remember first seeing him in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and then later on his game show on MTV. He has an interesting way of cutting through the nonsense and relating to people. And in this book he shows how if you exhibit some of these traits then you’re on the right track to ruin your life. Unfortunately most of the people that need to hear this will never read this book.
]]> 18656446 361 Chelsea Fine 1455583146 Howard 0 to-read 4.00 2014
author: Chelsea Fine
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55227192 Wild.

In 1964 teenage Geraldine Waters was sent away by her parents to an unwed mothers�� home, where she gave up her newborn for adoption. Ever since, she’s lived an alternative narrative. Decades later, it’s time for Geraldine to reconcile the telling of her life, to finally grieve, and to discover what happened to that part of her past that slipped away.

Cheryl Strayed’s This Telling is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Running time: 41 minutes]]> 1 Cheryl Strayed Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction
This is kind of a multiverse approach to telling the story of a teenage girl who just figured out that she’s pregnant. We get glimpses into her life as she makes different decisions. And ultimately we get to years later where those choices take her. ]]> 3.70 2020
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Howard
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/16
date added: 2025/04/16
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4 Stars for This Telling: Out of Line Series (audiobook) by Cheryl Strayed read by Kristen Bell.

This is kind of a multiverse approach to telling the story of a teenage girl who just figured out that she’s pregnant. We get glimpses into her life as she makes different decisions. And ultimately we get to years later where those choices take her.
]]> 211004043 An electrifying debut about a nonbinary corporate burnout embarking on a road trip from Chicago to Arkansas to find their conspiracy-theorist father, who has gone missing—for fans of Detransition Baby and Chain-Gang All-Stars

The newly nameless narrator of Make Sure You Die Screaming has rejected the gender binary, has flamed out with a vengeance at their corporate gig, is most likely brain damaged from a major tussle with their now ex-boyfriend, and is on a bender to end all benders.

A call from their mother with the news that their MAGA-friendly, conspiracy-theorist father has gone missing launches the narrator from Chicago to deep red Arkansas in a stolen car. Along the way, the narrator and their new bestie—a self-proclaimed "garbage goth" with her own emotional baggage (and someone on her tail)—unpack the narrator’s childhood and a recent personal loss that they refuse to face head-on.

An unflinching interrogation of class rage, economic (im)mobility, gender expression, and the rot at the heart of capitalism, Make Sure You Die Screaming is the loud, funny, tragic, suspenseful road trip novel of our times.]]> 224 Zee Carlstrom 1250365678 Howard 0 to-read 3.78 2025
author: Zee Carlstrom
name: Howard
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 216522748 One Day meets a contemporary Bridgerton in this high-drama, escapist wonder of a love story, Paige Toon’s best yet.

Three days to fall in love. Six years to try to forget.

Ellie didn’t expect to fall in love while interrailing through Europe. But she also didn’t expect to meet a man like Ash. Three blistering days in Lisbon is all it takes to form an unforgettable connection—a bond deep enough for them to scrap their itineraries and plan to meet again in Spain. But Ellie arrives late, and Ash is nowhere to be found.

Six years later, Ellie has landed her dream job working as a gardener for a viscount and viscountess on their sprawling five-hundred-year-old estate in Wales. She finds peace amongst the towering topiary hedges and colorful gardens, but her idyll is shattered when Ash crashes back into her life. And when it becomes clear why he didn’t show in Madrid, her heart breaks anew—for what the truth means for her, and for his fate.

But they have never been able to resist each another, and when the sparks of their attraction fly, Ellie’s life will catch flame. She will have to make a choice.]]> 416 Paige Toon 0593718739 Howard 0 to-read 3.95 2025
author: Paige Toon
name: Howard
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55120448 Audible narration by Samira Wiley (The Handmaid’s Tale)
From New York Times bestselling author Roxane Gay comes an unforgettable tale of nightmarish bureaucracy in which genetic profiling has redefined the “unfit mother.��

A trip to the library prompts one woman to question her fate in this galvanizing short story. For a woman like Hadley, deemed not acceptable to procreate, there’s only one recourse. Unlicensed for motherhood, she can alleviate her grief and frustration at a “baby library,�� where a curiously endless supply of infants is available for a two-week loan. But the borrowed life that serves as a temporary balm leads to a journey of self-discovery that will forever change the direction of Hadley’s future.

Roxane Gay’s Graceful Burdens is part of Out of Line, an incisive collection of funny, enraging, and hopeful stories of women’s empowerment and escape. Each piece can be read or listened to in a single thought-provoking sitting.

Running time: 45 minutes]]> 1 Roxane Gay Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction
This is a short story about a world where you have to have a license to have a child and the unlicensed are allowed to check babies out of the library to help soothe their desires. ]]> 3.96 2020
author: Roxane Gay
name: Howard
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4 Stars for Graceful Burdens: out of line series by Roxane Gay read by Samira Wiley.

This is a short story about a world where you have to have a license to have a child and the unlicensed are allowed to check babies out of the library to help soothe their desires.
]]> 56551027
With his passion for romance novels, it was only a matter of time before Vlad took up the pen to write a novel the Bromance Book Club would swoon over.

Elena Konnikova has lived her entire adult life in the shadows. As the daughter of a Russian journalist who mysteriously disappeared after speaking out against government corruption, she escaped danger the only way she knew how. She agreed to marry her childhood friend, Vladimir, and move to the United States, where he is a professional hockey player in Nashville.

Vlad, aka The Russian, thought he could be content with his marriage of convenience. But after four years, it's become too difficult to continue in a one-sided relationship. He joined the Bromance Book Club to learn how to make his wife love him, but all he's learned is that he deserves more. He's ready to create his own sweeping romance—both on and off the page.

The Bros are unwilling to let Vlad forgo true love—and this time they're not operating solo. They join forces with Vlad's senior citizen neighbors, a group of meddling widows who call themselves The Loners. Just when things finally look promising, the danger from Elena's past life intrudes, and the book club will face their first-ever life-or-death grand gesture as they race to a happy ever after.]]> Lyssa Kay Adams 0593410270 Howard 5 audiobooks, fiction
We finally get the backstory of the Russian. His wife wants a divorce and plans on returning to Russia. She wants to be a journalist like her father. He was killed trying to expose a human trafficking ring and now she plans on finishing his story. Come to find out, their marriage was one of convenience. Vlad married her so she could immigrate to America. He is such a sweet guy but at times he can be so dense and frustrating. ]]> 3.96 2021
author: Lyssa Kay Adams
name: Howard
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4.5 Stars for Isn’t It Bromantic?: Bromance Book Club, Book 4 (audiobook) by Lyssa Kay Adams read by Andrew Eiden.

We finally get the backstory of the Russian. His wife wants a divorce and plans on returning to Russia. She wants to be a journalist like her father. He was killed trying to expose a human trafficking ring and now she plans on finishing his story. Come to find out, their marriage was one of convenience. Vlad married her so she could immigrate to America. He is such a sweet guy but at times he can be so dense and frustrating.
]]> 53344292


RUNNING TIME �� 8hrs. and 9mins.]]> 7 David Rosenfelt 978593165X Howard 4
A German Shepherd that was involved in a crime ends up in an animal shelter with around the clock police protection. No one has ever seen this kind of security for a dog and now it’s Andy’s job to try and bail out this dog from doggy jail. What must the owner of the dog been up to warrant this kind of action?]]> 4.05 2010
author: David Rosenfelt
name: Howard
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Dog Tags: Andy Carpenter, Book 8 (audiobook) by David Rosenfelt read by Grover Gardner.

A German Shepherd that was involved in a crime ends up in an animal shelter with around the clock police protection. No one has ever seen this kind of security for a dog and now it’s Andy’s job to try and bail out this dog from doggy jail. What must the owner of the dog been up to warrant this kind of action?
]]> 57721481
Jean Hanff Korelitz’s 'THE PLOT' is a psychologically suspenseful novel about a story too good not to steal, and the writer who steals it.

Jacob Finch Bonner was once a promising young novelist with a respectably published first book. Today, he’s teaching in a third-rate MFA program and struggling to maintain what’s left of his self-respect; he hasn’t written—let alone published—anything decent in years. When Evan Parker, his most arrogant student, announces he doesn’t need Jake’s help because the plot of his book in progress is a sure thing, Jake is prepared to dismiss the boast as typical amateur narcissism. But then . . . he hears the plot.

Jake returns to the downward trajectory of his own career and braces himself for the supernova publication of Evan Parker’s first novel: but it never comes. When he discovers that his former student has died, presumably without ever completing his book, Jake does what any self-respecting writer would do with a story like that - a story that absolutely needs to be told.

In a few short years, all of Evan Parker’s predictions have come true, but Jake is the author enjoying the wave. He is wealthy, famous, praised and read all over the world. But at the height of his glorious new life, an e-mail arrives, the first salvo in a terrifying, anonymous campaign: You are a thief, it says.

As Jake struggles to understand his antagonist and hide the truth from his readers and his publishers, he begins to learn more about his late student, and what he discovers both amazes and terrifies him. Who was Evan Parker, and how did he get the idea for his “sure thing�� of a novel? What is the real story behind the plot, and who stole it from whom?]]> Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250804876 Howard 5
A writer who is teaching writing at a college gets to read part of a truly amazing story. The writer, his student is a no it all jerk but he’s really on to something with this story. Not only is it a sure thing to be published but it should take the world by storm. A couple of years later the teacher is wondering what ever happened to that book. Surely it should have been published by now. He does a little research and finds out that the author died not long after taking his class. How can he let such an amazing story go unpublished. ]]> 3.66 2021
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Howard
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4.5 Stars for The Plot: The Book Series, Book 1 (audiobook) by Jean Hanff Korelitz read by Kirby Heyborne.

A writer who is teaching writing at a college gets to read part of a truly amazing story. The writer, his student is a no it all jerk but he’s really on to something with this story. Not only is it a sure thing to be published but it should take the world by storm. A couple of years later the teacher is wondering what ever happened to that book. Surely it should have been published by now. He does a little research and finds out that the author died not long after taking his class. How can he let such an amazing story go unpublished.
]]> 229038609
But when Zoë's daughter is diagnosed with dyslexia, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice, moving two hours from Manhattan in order to enroll Maya in an excellent school for children with learning differences.

Stranded in a rural paradise, Zoë must grapple with isolation, coyote howls, and the lack of good delivery services. But when she decides to overcome her fear of driving and take lessons, she meets Mack, an unnervingly attractive townie, back from the war in Iraq and trying to adjust to civilian life.

With a budding new romance and a reporting gig for the local paper, Zoë just might survive in the wilderness of small-town America after all.]]> Alisa Kwitney Howard 0 to-read 0.0 2007
author: Alisa Kwitney
name: Howard
average rating: 0.0
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 203578763 The Afterword. After all, how hard can it really be to write a universally lauded bestseller?

But when Anna publishes her book and indulges in her own literary acclaim, she begins to receive excerpts of a novel she never expected to see again, a novel that should no longer exist. Something has gone wrong, and someone out there knows far too much about her late brother, her late husband, and possibly about Anna herself. What does this person want, and what are they prepared to do? She has come too far and worked too hard to lose what she values most: the sole and uncontested right to her own story—and she is, by any standard, a master storyteller.]]> 304 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250875471 Howard 0 to-read 3.59 2024
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: Howard
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32707185
We expect our judges to be honest and wise. Their integrity and impartiality are the bedrock of the entire judicial system. We trust them to ensure fair trials, to protect the rights of all litigants, to punish those who do wrong, and to oversee the orderly and efficient flow of justice.

But what happens when a judge bends the law or takes a bribe? It’s rare, but it happens.

Lacy Stoltz is an investigator for the Florida Board on Judicial Conduct. She is a lawyer, not a cop, and it is her job to respond to complaints dealing with judicial misconduct. After nine years with the Board, she knows that most problems are caused by incompetence, not corruption.

But a corruption case eventually crosses her desk. A previously disbarred lawyer is back in business with a new identity. He now goes by the name Greg Myers, and he claims to know of a Florida judge who has stolen more money than all other crooked judges combined. And not just crooked judges in Florida. All judges, from all states, and throughout U.S. history.

What’s the source of the ill-gotten gains? It seems the judge was secretly involved with the construction of a large casino on Native American land. The Coast Mafia financed the casino and is now helping itself to a sizable skim of each month’s cash. The judge is getting a cut and looking the other way. It’s a sweet deal: Everyone is making money.

But now Greg wants to put a stop to it. His only client is a person who knows the truth and wants to blow the whistle and collect millions under Florida law. Greg files a complaint with the Board on Judicial Conduct, and the case is assigned to Lacy Stoltz, who immediately suspects that this one could be dangerous.

Dangerous is one thing. Deadly is something else.]]> 13 John Grisham 0399565167 Howard 5
This was a really unique story. A whistleblower has evidence that a judge is taking huge bribes in return for beneficial rulings. The money is being generated by an Indian casino and it’s being laundered through high end condos and golf courses. The Florida Board on Judicial Conduct is investigating the charges. The evidence shows that the Judge is corrupt but can they take down the head of the organization? An investigator was killed and maybe finally the FBI will take on the case. ]]> 3.53 2016
author: John Grisham
name: Howard
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2016
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4.5 Stars for The Whistler (audiobook) by John Grisham read by Cassandra Campbell.

This was a really unique story. A whistleblower has evidence that a judge is taking huge bribes in return for beneficial rulings. The money is being generated by an Indian casino and it’s being laundered through high end condos and golf courses. The Florida Board on Judicial Conduct is investigating the charges. The evidence shows that the Judge is corrupt but can they take down the head of the organization? An investigator was killed and maybe finally the FBI will take on the case.
]]> 35297106
On his last combat deployment, Lieutenant Commander James Reece’s entire team was killed in a catastrophic ambush that also claimed the lives of the aircrew sent in to rescue them. But when those dearest to him are murdered on the day of his homecoming, Reece discovers that this was not an act of war by a foreign enemy but a conspiracy that runs to the highest levels of government.

Now, with no family and free from the military’s command structure, Reece applies the lessons that he’s learned in over a decade of constant warfare toward avenging the deaths of his family and teammates. With breathless pacing and relentless suspense, Reece ruthlessly targets his enemies in the upper echelons of power without regard for the laws of combat or the rule of law.

An intoxicating thriller that cautions against the seduction of absolute power and those who would do anything to achieve it, The Terminal List is perfect for fans of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, Stephen Hunter, and Nelson DeMille.]]> 407 Jack Carr 1501180819 Howard 0 to-read 4.24 2018
author: Jack Carr
name: Howard
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 16109627
The world's best-selling mystery with over 100 million copies sold!

Ten people, each with something to hide and something to fear, are invited to a lonely mansion on Indian Island by a host who, surprisingly, fails to appear. On the island they are cut off from everything but each other and the inescapable shadows of their own past lives. One by one, the guests share the darkest secrets of their wicked pasts. And one by one, they die....

This title was previously published as Ten Little Indians.

©1939 Agatha Christie Limited (P)2003 HarperCollins Publishers]]> 7 Agatha Christie Howard 4
What a classic locked door murder mystery set on an island. The plot is based around a nursery rhyme where each person is picked off one by one. But everyone is dead now but who could be the murderer?]]> 4.15 1939
author: Agatha Christie
name: Howard
average rating: 4.15
book published: 1939
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for And Then There Was None (audiobook) by Agatha Christie read by Dan Stevens.

What a classic locked door murder mystery set on an island. The plot is based around a nursery rhyme where each person is picked off one by one. But everyone is dead now but who could be the murderer?
]]> 199818767 ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES' BEST ROMANCES OF THE YEAR!

"One of the most perfect books I’ve read this year."�� New York Times

A USA Today Bestseller!

An Amazon's Best Romances of August!

One of the New York Public Library's Best Books of 2023!

She has a to-do list a mile long and falling for her coworker isn't on it—yet somehow he’s become her top priority in this romantic comedy from the national bestselling author of Love in the Time of Serial Killers .

Lauren Fox is the bookkeeper for Cold World, a tourist destination that's always a winter wonderland despite being located in humid Orlando, Florida. Sure, it’s ranked way below any of the trademarked amusement parks and maybe foot traffic could be better. But it’s a fun place to work, even if “fun�� isn’t exactly Lauren’s middle name.

Her coworker Asa Williamson, on the other hand, is all about finding ways to enliven his days at Cold World—whether that means organizing the Secret Santa or teasing Lauren. When the owner asks Lauren and Asa to propose something ( anything , really) to raise more revenue, their rivalry heats up as they compete to come up with the best idea. But the situation is more dire than they thought, and it might take these polar opposites working together to save the day. If Asa thought Lauren didn't know how to enjoy herself, he's surprised by how much he enjoys spending time together. And if Lauren thought Asa wasn't serious about anything, she's surprised by how seriously he seems to take her .

As Lauren and Asa work to save their beloved wintery spot, they realize the real attraction might be the heat generating between them.]]> Alicia Thompson Howard 3 audiobooks, fiction
This is cute workplace romance at a really unique amusement park. It’s always winter in Florida. There’s lots of ways for the public to experience winter and Christmas anytime they want. But the business is struggling and the employees are given a challenge to try and turn things around. This side project helps give a couple of workers a chance to get to know each other a little better.

I love the idea of a winter wonderland tourist trap. The whole place is kept at 68 degrees all year long. I wish we had one in Phoenix, the only thing we have that’s close to that is the cold storage rooms at Costco.

]]> 3.76 2023
author: Alicia Thompson
name: Howard
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
3 Stars for With Love, From Cold World (audiobook) by Alicia Thompson read by Lindsey Dorcus.

This is cute workplace romance at a really unique amusement park. It’s always winter in Florida. There’s lots of ways for the public to experience winter and Christmas anytime they want. But the business is struggling and the employees are given a challenge to try and turn things around. This side project helps give a couple of workers a chance to get to know each other a little better.

I love the idea of a winter wonderland tourist trap. The whole place is kept at 68 degrees all year long. I wish we had one in Phoenix, the only thing we have that’s close to that is the cold storage rooms at Costco.


]]> 12448284 0 Tony Hillerman 1556901364 Howard 4
A plane crashed on Navajo land apparently trying to making a drug drop. Jim Chee is told to not investigate and leave it for the Feds. He has plenty of work to already, he still hasn’t figured out who is repeatedly vandalizing a windmill. But what if a Navajo or Hopi is involved with the drug smuggling?]]> 3.99 1981
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Howard
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1981
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for The Dark Wind: Leaphorn & Chee, Book 5 (audiobook) by Tony Hillerman read by George Guidall.

A plane crashed on Navajo land apparently trying to making a drug drop. Jim Chee is told to not investigate and leave it for the Feds. He has plenty of work to already, he still hasn’t figured out who is repeatedly vandalizing a windmill. But what if a Navajo or Hopi is involved with the drug smuggling?
]]> 215361843 A lottery ticket + donuts = love in this steamy new fake dating romance from beloved author Denise Williams.

Who needs love? Not Sybil Sweet. After years of bouncing from job to job in search of something that feels right and from man to man in search of something special, Sybil is embracing her role as the directionless, floundering member of her family. All she really wants now is a little financial stability and carb comfort. Lucky for her, she’s got just enough in the bank to buy a lottery ticket, and the late-night donut store is open.

Kiran Anderson abandoned his dreams of becoming a doctor to take over running his family’s bakery, and after two years of fighting a losing battle to save the place, he’s exhausted and broke. But when a whirlwind of a woman sweeps in late one night, flirty energy gives way to more…until she runs out the next morning, leaving behind her winning lottery ticket.

Lucky for Kiran, his attempt to return the ticket looks like a grand romantic gesture and goes viral, sending sales through the roof. In an effort to keep the store afloat and to get Sybil’s family off of her back, they agree to fake a relationship for three months. Even with hundreds of millions of dollars, finding each other might end up being the sweetest bit of luck for both of them.]]> 400 Denise Williams 0593641434 Howard 0 to-read 3.49 2025
author: Denise Williams
name: Howard
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 48118 301 Tony Hillerman 006100345X Howard 0 to-read 4.10 1984
author: Tony Hillerman
name: Howard
average rating: 4.10
book published: 1984
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 221828767 Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.
A high school girl has vanished from Erika's quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst—murder. And Erika's teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.
Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he's innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can't deny the truth—Liam may have done the unthinkable.
Now she must ask herself:
How far will she go to protect her son?]]> 8 Freida McFadden 1666196894 Howard 5 3.69 2019
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 214227889
Can you keep a secret? ... I'm in love with my best friend.

There are three things you should know about me.

�� I hate running. No, really. I only run when someone's chasing me, and thankfully that's never happened.
�� My ideal Friday night includes pizza, The Princess Bride, and dancing with abandon.
�� And I'm madly in love with my best friend.

That right there—that's my secret. Trevor and I grew up next door to one another. Yes. He's the boy next door. Even now, we rent opposite sides of a duplex, and we work across the aisle from one another at The Corn Corners Tribune. Basically, there isn't a part of my life Trevor hasn't touched. I take that back.

He hasn't touched me. He's made it clear we're in the friend zone, and whatever feelings he had for me were a passing thing for him, whereas mine keep growing like a Chia pet on a humid summer day in the Midwest—unruly and apparently pointless. So now I'm resigned to get Trevor out of my system once and for all.]]> Savannah Scott Howard 2 audiobooks, fiction
I didn’t realize that this was going to be a male and female best friends to lovers. This story line just doesn’t work for me. ]]> 3.00
author: Savannah Scott
name: Howard
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
2 Stars for Friendshipped (audiobook) by Savannah Scott read by Amy McFadden and Will Damron.

I didn’t realize that this was going to be a male and female best friends to lovers. This story line just doesn’t work for me.
]]> 229834302
From the author of Recipe for Second Chances comes a smart, sexy, heartfelt romance about a single mother juggling homelife and career who finds unexpected complications while in Ireland for work.

Beatrice Leal’s personal life is complicated between her divorce and her precocious six-year-old. But the job she loves is the one thing she counts on to be straightforward—that is, until her boss’s own divorce prompts a move from NYC back to Ireland.

Now Bea’s in Ireland twice a month for work. It’s wreaking havoc on the custody agreement she and her moody ex are sorting out while he lives downstairs in the brownstone they co-own. And to top it off, her company’s new CTO turns out to be the boy who once broke her Jack Sander.

It’s been twenty years since Bea and Jack saw each other. Their lives are both messy. So when they hook up one night in Ireland, they plan to just keep it a work fling that stays there. But the more time they spend together, the more Bea wonders if happiness might not always mean needing to have your life in order.]]> 10 Ali Rosen Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction
Beatrice is recently divorced and has a young son. She has a stressful career in New York and now the CEO has decided that the senior management needs to meet up in Ireland every two weeks. And if that’s not enough the company has just hired the guy that broke her heart in high school. Could things get any more complicated?]]> 3.88 2024
author: Ali Rosen
name: Howard
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4 Stars for Alternate Endings (audiobook) by Ali Rosen read by Maria Marquis.

Beatrice is recently divorced and has a young son. She has a stressful career in New York and now the CEO has decided that the senior management needs to meet up in Ireland every two weeks. And if that’s not enough the company has just hired the guy that broke her heart in high school. Could things get any more complicated?
]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters�� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

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

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

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

They don’t know what I’m capable of��

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Howard 5
I’m not sure how the good characters can be so bad and the bad characters are so good but this is a roller coaster of story. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen everything ended up changing. I’m so glad that this is a series, I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book. ]]> 4.31 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: e-book, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
5 Stars for The Housemaid, Book 1 (ebook) by Freida McFadden

I’m not sure how the good characters can be so bad and the bad characters are so good but this is a roller coaster of story. Every time I thought I knew what was going to happen everything ended up changing. I’m so glad that this is a series, I can’t wait to see what happens in the next book.
]]> 55891914
A tense and atmospheric standalone thriller from best-selling author Jo Nesbø.

Roy has never left the quiet mountain town he grew up in, unlike his little brother Carl who couldn't wait to get out and escape his troubled past. Just like everyone else in town, Roy believed Carl was gone for good. But Carl has big plans for his hometown. And when he returns with a mysterious new wife and a business opportunity that seems too good to be true, simmering tensions begin to surface and unexplained deaths in the town's past come under new scrutiny. Soon powerful players set their sights on taking the brothers down by exposing their role in the town's sordid history.

But Roy and Carl are survivors, and no strangers to violence. Roy has always protected his younger brother. As the body count rises, though, Roy's loyalty to family is tested. And then Roy finds himself inextricably drawn to Carl's wife, Shannon, an attraction that will have devastating consequences. Roy's world is coming apart and soon there will be no turning back. He'll be forced to choose between his own flesh and blood and a future he had never dared to believe possible.]]> 20 Jo Nesbø 1984892029 Howard 5
The author is a master at making the reader feel really uncomfortable and every time things settle down he hits us again with another tragic and bleak situation. Just how many cars are going to have to slide off the mountain road and kill the occupants for these two brothers to succeed? It’s a good thing Harry Hole isn’t on this case, one or both of the brothers would be in jail and it wouldn’t make for a very good series. ]]> 3.65 2020
author: Jo Nesbø
name: Howard
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
5 Stars for The Kingdom: Kongeriket, Book 1 (audiobook) by Jo Nesbø read by Euan Morton.

The author is a master at making the reader feel really uncomfortable and every time things settle down he hits us again with another tragic and bleak situation. Just how many cars are going to have to slide off the mountain road and kill the occupants for these two brothers to succeed? It’s a good thing Harry Hole isn’t on this case, one or both of the brothers would be in jail and it wouldn’t make for a very good series.
]]> 227932643
My delicate newborn, Lola, is just perfect. She’s made our family complete. My wonderful husband Max has his own children. He doesn’t like to talk about his first wife �� and I knew it would be hard, becoming a stepmother. But now I have a child of my own, I can forget about the past.

My stepchildren say they love their new little sister, and Max is so happy. But accidents keep happening around the house. My family look at me pityingly. I know what they’re thinking. She can’t cope. But why can’t I shake the feeling something else is going on?

Then one day I go to check on Lola and what I see changes everything��

Because my baby isn't there. And my first thought is��

Is this payback for what I’ve done?

An edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller perfect for fans of Frieda McFadden, Jeneva Rose and The Girl in Seat 2A. Prepare to stay up all night reading!]]> 324 A.J. Campbell 1836186274 Howard 0 to-read 4.20
author: A.J. Campbell
name: Howard
average rating: 4.20
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 123432188 The New York Times Bestselling series is now available in Kindle Unlimited for the first time and includes an exclusive NEW novella at the end.They dive so humanity survives��
More than two centuries after World War III poisoned the planet, the final bastion of humanity lives on massive airships circling the globe in search of a habitable area to call home. Aging and outdated, most of the ships plummeted back to earth long ago. The only thing keeping the two surviving lifeboats in the sky are Hell Divers—men and women who risk their lives by skydiving to the surface to scavenge for parts the ships desperately need.

When one of the remaining airships is damaged in an electrical storm, a Hell Diver team is deployed to a hostile zone called Hades. But there’s something down there far worse than the mutated creatures discovered on dives in the past—something that threatens the fragile future of humanity.

Dive into this award-winning Military Post-Apocalyptic Series from New York Times and USA Today Bestseller Nicholas Sansbury Smith. This definitive version includes an exclusive new novella featuring X in his quest for survival as well as custom artwork. Available only on Amazon. Grab your copy today!

"Smith really knows how to deliver a powerful story.����Orson Scott Card, NYT Bestselling author of Ender's Game]]> 465 Nicholas Sansbury Smith Howard 0 to-read 4.36
author: Nicholas Sansbury Smith
name: Howard
average rating: 4.36
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229198797 Heartbreak. Trauma. Loss. Healing. Rebirth.

Some wounds don’t just fade—they shape us.

Breathing in Broken Spaces is an unfiltered and deeply personal poetry collection that delves into the rawest corners of heartbreak, trauma, and survival. Through piercingly honest verses, Belinda Daou lays bare the loneliness of grief, the weight of past wounds, and the quiet, aching process of piecing oneself back together after being shattered.

This book is for those who have loved and lost, for the ones carrying silent battles within them, and for anyone searching for words that echo their unspoken pain. It is a safe space where emotions aren’t just expressed—but truly seen, understood, and honored.

This collection gives voice to the devastation of toxic love, the suffocation of manipulation, and the slow erosion of self-worth at the hands of the wrong person. It speaks to the ones who have stayed too long, who have fought for love that only broke them, and who are now learning to unlearn the lies they were told about themselves.

More than just poetry, Breathing in Broken Spaces is a reckoning with the past and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. It is breathtakingly raw, unapologetically vulnerable, and deeply real. It is the brutal honesty of suffering, the messy in-between of healing, and the quiet strength it takes to keep breathing, even when the air feels heavy.

This collection is not just about pain—it is about survival. About learning to breathe again through the cracks of brokenness. About reclaiming the parts of yourself you thought were lost forever.

For those who have been lost in the darkness, this book is a
You are not alone. You were never too much. You deserve to be whole. ]]> 218 Belinda Daou Howard 0 currently-reading 4.88
author: Belinda Daou
name: Howard
average rating: 4.88
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 230824619 With all hope of an appeal fading away, the fate of a condemned murderess takes a shocking turn in a breathtaking short story by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Housemaid.

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

Freida McFadden’s Death Row is part of Alibis, a collection of stories about lies, truth, and deception. It’s just a matter of what you can get away with. They can be read or listened to in one sitting.]]> 74 Freida McFadden 1662532261 Howard 0 to-read 3.98 2025
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 13620722
Brianna "Bree" O'Brien never returned from Skeleton Canyon. Someone brutally murdered the pretty, popular teenager who had stolen away under cover of darkness to rendezvous with her boyfriend. Perhaps youthful rage, jealousy and savage passion cost young Bree her life. Or maybe she stumbled onto something too dangerous to know. Sheriff Joanna Brady of Cochise County knows only too well the pain of losing a loved one to violence. But she is disturbed by the O'Brien's insistence that Bree's boyfriend is responsible for their daughter's slaying. Joanna senses there are words not being spoken, and dark mysteries locked behind doors of the sprawling O'Brien family compound. But it is the strange disappearance of a good friend that is pulling Sheriff Brady ever closer to the lethal nest of lies, greed and secrets hiding in a desolate corner of the Arizona desert - where the next blood that feeds the parched, cracked earth could be her own.]]> J.A. Jance 006195392X Howard 4
The Cochise County Sheriff, Joanna Brady is called in when a girl goes missing. But the girl has already turned 18 and she told her parents when she would be home. She’s not even late getting back yet. Is her over protective father with ties to the Arizona governor just making something out of nothing? Or is there more to this, and somehow the girl is in trouble?]]> 3.73 1997
author: J.A. Jance
name: Howard
average rating: 3.73
book published: 1997
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
3.5 Stars for Skeleton Canyon: Joanna Brady, Book 5 (audiobook) by J. A. Jance read by c. J. Critt.

The Cochise County Sheriff, Joanna Brady is called in when a girl goes missing. But the girl has already turned 18 and she told her parents when she would be home. She’s not even late getting back yet. Is her over protective father with ties to the Arizona governor just making something out of nothing? Or is there more to this, and somehow the girl is in trouble?
]]> 204622964 1 Cheryl Strayed Howard 4 biography, non-fiction
The author’s mother in-law is given weeks to live so Cheryl and her husband try and come to terms with how her mother in-law has treated her. The relationship was sometimes loving but often it was cold and distant. But they took those final days to try and understand as they were saying goodbye. ]]> 3.65
author: Cheryl Strayed
name: Howard
average rating: 3.65
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: biography, non-fiction
review:
4 Stars for Two Women Walk Into a Bar (audiobook) by Cheryl Strayed.

The author’s mother in-law is given weeks to live so Cheryl and her husband try and come to terms with how her mother in-law has treated her. The relationship was sometimes loving but often it was cold and distant. But they took those final days to try and understand as they were saying goodbye.
]]> 1173576 He says that's his best offer. Is it?

She says she agrees. Does she?

The interview went great - or did it?

He said he'd never do it again. But he did.

Read this book and send your nonverbal intelligence soaring. Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to "speed-read" people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You'll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you. You will discover:


The ancient survival instincts that drive body language
Why the face is the least likely place to gauge a person's true feelings
What thumbs, feet, and eyelids reveal about moods and motives
The most powerful behaviors that reveal our confidence and true sentiments
Simple nonverbals that instantly establish trust
Simple nonverbals that instantly communicate authority
Filled with examples from Navarro's professional experience, this definitive book offers a powerful new way to navigate your world.]]> 250 Joe Navarro 0061438294 Howard 0 to-read 3.90 2008
author: Joe Navarro
name: Howard
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 229793654
Rybczynski explores how cars have been reflections of national character (the charming Italian Fiat Cinquecento), icons of a subculture (the VW bus for American hippies), and even emblems of an era (the practical Chrysler minivan). He explains key developments in automotive technology, including the electric starter, rack-and-pinion steering, and disc brakes, bringing to light how the modern automobile is the result of more than a century of trial and error. And he weaves in charming accounts of the many cars he's owned and driven, starting with his first-the iconic Volkswagen Beetle. The Driving Machine is a fascinating history of design.

"]]> Witold Rybczynski Howard 4 audiobooks, non-fiction
It was interesting to hear another view of how car design has evolved. The author seems to have a fondness for European cars and included many popular designs. And of course many American cars were highlighted too. The author did a fine job of describing the cars and their design characteristics and I’ve seen most of the cars that were described but there were a few cars that I just couldn’t remember what they looked like and I was wishing that I could see a picture. I guess that’s a problem with audiobooks. I really wouldn’t recommend this audiobook for anyone who isn’t already familiar with automotive design. ]]> 4.00
author: Witold Rybczynski
name: Howard
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction
review:
4 Stars for The Driving Machine: A Design History of the Car (audiobook) by Witold Rybczynski read by Lyle Blaker.

It was interesting to hear another view of how car design has evolved. The author seems to have a fondness for European cars and included many popular designs. And of course many American cars were highlighted too. The author did a fine job of describing the cars and their design characteristics and I’ve seen most of the cars that were described but there were a few cars that I just couldn’t remember what they looked like and I was wishing that I could see a picture. I guess that’s a problem with audiobooks. I really wouldn’t recommend this audiobook for anyone who isn’t already familiar with automotive design.
]]> 75267038
We think a lot of things. It was perhaps inevitable that some of them would turn out to be wrong.

When the great incursion occurred, no one was prepared. How could they have been? Of all the things physicists had predicted, “the fabric of reality might rip open and giant monsters could come pouring through�� had not made the list. But somehow, on a fine morning in May, that was precisely what happened.

For sisters Susan and Katharine Black, the day of the incursion was the day they lost everything. Their home, their parents, their sense of normalcy…and each other, because when the rift opened, Susan was on one side and Katharine was on the other, and each sister was stranded in a separate form of reality. For Susan, it was science and study and the struggle to solve the mystery of the altered physics inside the zones transformed by the incursion. For Katharine, it was monsters and mayhem and the fight to stay alive in a world unlike the world of her birth.

The world has changed. The laws of physics have changed. The girls have changed. And the one universal truth of all states of changed matter is that nothing can be completely restored to what it was originally, no matter how much you might wish it could be.

Nothing goes back.]]> Mira Grant Howard 4
Sisters and separated as the fabric of the universe is ripped apart. One sister struggles to understand the bizarre physics in this new strange world and the other sister gets to deal with monsters and leaning to live in a world of mayhem. ]]> 3.78 2021
author: Mira Grant
name: Howard
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/02
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, science-fiction
review:
4 Stars for Square3 (audiobook) Mira Grant read by Rachel F. Hirsch.

Sisters and separated as the fabric of the universe is ripped apart. One sister struggles to understand the bizarre physics in this new strange world and the other sister gets to deal with monsters and leaning to live in a world of mayhem.
]]> 6988066 From the author of The Glass Castle and Hang the Moon��“Walls vividly depicts her astonishing, resilient grandmother with a lightness of touch that is plainspoken yet heartfelt�� (Chicago Tribune). Half Broke Horses has transfixed readers everywhere.

“Those old cows knew trouble was coming before we did.�� So begins the story of Lily Casey Smith, Jeannette Walls’s no-nonsense, resourceful, and spectacularly compelling grandmother. By age six, Lily was helping her father break horses. At fifteen, she left home to teach in a frontier town—riding five hundred miles on her pony, alone, to get to her job. She learned to drive a car and fly a plane. And, with her husband, Jim, she ran a vast ranch in Arizona. She raised two children, one who is Jeannette’s memorable mother, Rosemary Smith Walls, unforgettably portrayed in The Glass Castle.

Lily survived tornadoes, droughts, floods, the Great Depression, and the most heartbreaking personal tragedy. She bristled at prejudice of all kinds—against women, Native Americans, and anyone else who didn’t fit the mold. Rosemary Smith Walls always told Jeannette that she was like her grandmother, and in this true-life novel, Jeannette Walls channels that kindred spirit. Half Broke Horses is Laura Ingalls Wilder for adults, as riveting and dramatic as Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa or Beryl Markham’s West with the Night. Destined to become a classic, it will transfix readers everywhere.]]> 272 Jeannette Walls 0743597230 Howard 5
This is a must read for everyone who loved Glass Castle. This is the story of the grandmother with a can’t quit attitude. At fifteen she rode her horse five hundred miles to take a job as a teacher in a very small town. She did this by herself and with only an eighth grade education. She went on to learn to drive and fly planes and run a ranch. And of course she raised a rather unconventional family. And the best part for me was that so much of the story took place in Arizona. I just love when the story takes place in places that I’ve been. ]]> 4.12 2009
author: Jeannette Walls
name: Howard
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2009
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: audiobooks, biography, favorite, historical-fiction, non-fiction
review:
5 Stars for Half Broke Horses: A True-Life Novel (audiobook) by Jeannette Walls read by the author.

This is a must read for everyone who loved Glass Castle. This is the story of the grandmother with a can’t quit attitude. At fifteen she rode her horse five hundred miles to take a job as a teacher in a very small town. She did this by herself and with only an eighth grade education. She went on to learn to drive and fly planes and run a ranch. And of course she raised a rather unconventional family. And the best part for me was that so much of the story took place in Arizona. I just love when the story takes place in places that I’ve been.
]]> 45286961
You’re riding in your self-driving car when suddenly the doors lock, the route changes and you have lost all control. Then, a mysterious voice tells you, “You are going to die.��

Just as self-driving cars become the trusted, safer norm, eight people find themselves in this terrifying situation, including a faded TV star, a pregnant young woman, an abused wife fleeing her husband, an illegal immigrant, a husband and wife, and a suicidal man.

From cameras hidden in their cars, their panic is broadcast to millions of people around the world. But the public will show their true colors when they are asked, "Which of these people should we save?...And who should we kill first?"]]> John Marrs 0593151178 Howard 4
This is kind of 21st century version of Speed. Hackers have taken over a group of self driving cars and are threatening to kill the occupants of the cars. This is happening across all of social media and it seems like everyone in world is watching.
The hackers decide to let one person live and they are leaving it up to each passenger’s popularity on social media. ]]> 4.07 2019
author: John Marrs
name: Howard
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/31
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for The Passengers (audiobook) by John Marrs read by Clare Corbett and Roy McMillan.

This is kind of 21st century version of Speed. Hackers have taken over a group of self driving cars and are threatening to kill the occupants of the cars. This is happening across all of social media and it seems like everyone in world is watching.
The hackers decide to let one person live and they are leaving it up to each passenger’s popularity on social media.
]]> 18684816 In the follow up to Dead Until Dark, telepathic friend of the undead (and vampire bar cocktail waitress) Sookie Stackhouse puts her newfound powers to the test. After an unfortunate incident, Sookie finds herself beholden to a group of Louisiana vampires. So she agrees to travel to Dallas with her undead boyfriend Bill and track down a missing vamp, but only if the vampires promise to let local humans go unharmed. That seems easier said than done when an upstart religious cult threatens to destroy all things vampire - including Sookie, who is quickly scheduled for sacrifice.]]> 9 Charlaine Harris Howard 4 audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
Sookie has to keep her promise to help a vampire with her special gift of reading minds. A vampire has gone missing and it’s her job to figure out what happened that night. ]]> 3.75 2002
author: Charlaine Harris
name: Howard
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2002
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
review:
3.5 Stars for Living Dead in Dallas: Sookie Stackhouse, Book 2 (audiobook) by Charlaine Harris read by Johanna Parker.

Sookie has to keep her promise to help a vampire with her special gift of reading minds. A vampire has gone missing and it’s her job to figure out what happened that night.
]]> 157578060
In a 2019 study, 40% of people reported censoring themselves out of fear that voicing their views would alienate them from the people they care about most. Those people should probably not read this book in public.

In You Can’t Joke About That, Kat Timpf shows why much of the way we talk about sensitive subjects is wrong. We’ve created all the wrong rules. We push ourselves into unnecessary conflicts when we should feel like we’re all in this together. When someone says “you can’t joke about that,�� what they really mean is “this is a subject that makes people sad or angry.��

Hilariously and movingly, Timpf argues that those subjects are actually the most important to joke about. She shows us we can find healing through humor regarding things you probably don't want to bring up in polite conversation, like traumatic break-ups, cancer, being broke, Dave Chappelle, rape jokes, aging, ostomy bags, religion, body image, dead moms, religion, the lab leak theory, transgender swimmers, gushing wounds, campus censorship, and bad Christmas presents.

This book is Kat Timpf with her hair down, except since hers is mostly extensions, this book is Kat Timpf with her hair out. Listen to it because you want to get to know her better. Listen to it because it’s the best book on free speech and comedy in a generation. Listen to it because you want to laugh out loud�� even at the kind of stuff we’re afraid to say out loud. Just listen to it, and you’ll be glad you did.

Read by the author.]]> 8 Kat Timpf Howard 5
This a wonderful deep dive into the world comedy and culture. And why it’s so important to be able to say what you mean. We also get some interesting details about the author’s life in and out of her life in comedy. ]]> 3.66 2023
author: Kat Timpf
name: Howard
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/30
date added: 2025/03/30
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction, biography
review:
4.5 Stars for You Can’t Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All In this Together (audiobook) by Kat Timpf read by the author.

This a wonderful deep dive into the world comedy and culture. And why it’s so important to be able to say what you mean. We also get some interesting details about the author’s life in and out of her life in comedy.
]]> 50001665 Everyone has secrets. They know yours...

In the 21st century information is king. But computers can be hacked, files can be broken into. So a unique government initiative has been borne. Five ordinary people have been selected to become the latest weapon in thwarting cyber terrorism. A revolutionary medical procedure has turned them into the ultimate secret keepers - the country's most secretive information has been taken offline and turned into genetic code implanted inside their heads.

Together, the five know every secret �� the truth behind every Government lie, conspiracy theory and cover up. Only somebody has discovered who the secret keepers are. And one by one, they are being hunted down...

'One of the most exciting, original thriller writers out there. I never miss one of his book' �� SIMON KERNICK]]> 433 John Marrs 1473572207 Howard 0 to-read 3.69 2020
author: John Marrs
name: Howard
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 40670312 How far would you go to find The One?

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

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

Now five very different people have received the notification that they’ve been “Matched.�� They’re each about to meet their one true love. But “happily ever after�� isn’t guaranteed for everyone. Because even soul mates have secrets. And some are more shocking than others��

A word-of-mouth hit in the United Kingdom, The One is a fascinating novel that shows how even the simplest discoveries can have complicated consequences.]]> 418 John Marrs Howard 0 to-read 4.09 2016
author: John Marrs
name: Howard
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 209880552 Listening Length: 11 hours and 35 minutes

From New York Times bestselling author J.T. Ellison comes a taut thriller about one author at the pinnacle of her career, whose past threatens to destroy everything she has—and everyone she knows.

A great writer knows when to deliver a juicy plot twist. But for one author, the biggest twist of all is her own murder.

With twenty hit titles, and a highly anticipated movie tie-in, celebrated novelist Columbia Jones is at the top of her game. Fans around the world adore her. But on the final night of her latest book tour, one face in the crowd makes the author collapse. And by the next morning, she’s lying dead in a pool of blood.

Columbia’s death shocks the world and leaves Darian, her daughter and publicist, reeling. The police have nothing to go on—at first. But then details emerge, pointing to the author’s illicit past. Turns out many people had motive to kill Columbia. And with a hungry reporter and frustrated cop on the trail, her secrets won’t stay buried long. But how many lives will they shatter as the truth comes out?]]> 12 J.T. Ellison Howard 4 3.73 2024
author: J.T. Ellison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
A daughter that’s been overseeing her mother’s writing career finds out the hard way that her mother’s books aren’t the only fictional tales that she has been telling.
]]> 60890851 Thou shalt not date thine teammates.

The UNS Women’s Lacrosse team doesn’t have an official policy against inter-teammate relationships, but those words might as well be carved into stone tablets in the middle of the field. After witnessing way too much drama in the past, Captain Becca Moore is intent on keeping her players�� love lives out of the locker room.

Becca has no time or tolerance for any distractions from the game. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Hope Hastings has been since the day she showed up for tryouts: one walking, talking, charismatically dorky and way-too-kissable distraction.

Hope knew she was headed straight to the danger zone from the moment she saw Becca’s flame-red hair and surly captain smirk. She’s spent the past two years writing off her attraction as a harmless crush, but starting a new semester fresh out of an awful relationship makes Hope realize just how far from harmless the heat between her and Becca really is.

The friendships of a tight-knit team and their shot at the title are all lying on the line, but as Hope and Becca get closer to bending rules they’ve sworn never to break, they realize they’ve put their hearts on that line too. Losing has never been an option, but winning might cost more than they’re willing to pay.

Catch and Cradle is a New Adult F/F romance from Katia Rose that’s filled with all the hilarity and heartache of finding your way through college while discovering love, friendship, and what it means to be yourself.]]> Katia Rose Howard 4 audiobooks, fiction
It’s tough when you start falling for one of your teammates on your college lacrosse team. Particularly when you’re the captain and it was your previous relationship that got the rule about not dating teammates started. But you just can’t control who your heart falls for. ]]> 3.56 2021
author: Katia Rose
name: Howard
average rating: 3.56
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4 Stars for Catch and Cradle (audiobook) by Katia Rose read by Sophie Daniels.

It’s tough when you start falling for one of your teammates on your college lacrosse team. Particularly when you’re the captain and it was your previous relationship that got the rule about not dating teammates started. But you just can’t control who your heart falls for.
]]> 11065176
Rick hasn't had it easy. He was a math whiz at an early age, but developed a similarly uncanny ability to find ever-deepening trouble that nearly ruined his life. With the birth of his son, he sobered up, reconnected with his dad, and they started their booming business together.

License to Pawn also offers an entertaining walk through the pawn shop's history. It's a captivating look into how the Gold & Silver works, with incredible stories about the crazy customers and the one-of-a-kind items that the shop sells. Rick isn't only a businessman; he's also a historian and keen observer of human nature. For instance, did you know that pimps wear lots of jewelry for a reason? It's because if they're arrested, jewelry doesn't get confiscated like cash does, and ready money will be available for bail. Or that WWII bomber jackets and Zippo lighters can sell for a freakishly high price in Japan? Have you ever heard that the makers of Ormolu clocks, which Rick sells for as much as $15,000 apiece, frequently died before forty thanks to the mercury in the paint?

Rick also reveals the items he loves so much he'll never sell. The shop has three Olympic bronze medals, a Patriots Super Bowl ring, a Samurai sword from 1490, and an original Iwo Jima battle plan. Each object has an incredible story behind it, of course. Rick shares them all, and so much more--there's an irresistible treasure trove of history behind both the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop and the life of Rick Harrison.]]> 256 Rick Harrison 1401324304 Howard 0 to-read 3.85 2011
author: Rick Harrison
name: Howard
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 230196279
As Pearl navigates the dark halls of Maryndom castle, she begins to uncover a forgotten magic still exists, and it lies much closer at hand than she expects. But with it comes a dangerous power—one that could alter the fate of the kingdom forever.

Amid the growing tensions, Pearl encounters a mysterious stranger who promises her the power to overthrow Queen Alba and claim the throne for herself. Torn between loyalty to her sister and the promise of a dark and enticing future, Pearl must decide how far she is willing to go for power, and whether she can trust the very magic that beckons her.

In this gripping origin story, witness the birth of the evil queen—a ruler forged in shadows and ambition, destined to change the kingdom forever.]]> 407 Brooke Nelson Howard 0 to-read 5.00
author: Brooke Nelson
name: Howard
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 62588510
New York City, 1956: Nineteen-year-old Marion is over the moon to have been selected to be one of the Rockettes, Radio City Music Hall’s glamorous precision-dancing troupe. It’s an honor to perform in the world’s most spectacular theater, an art deco masterpiece. But with four shows a day as well as grueling rehearsals, not to mention exacting standards of perfection to live up to, Marion quickly realizes that the life of a Rockette has both extraordinary highs and devastating lows.

Then one night a bomb explodes in the theater. It’s only the latest in a string of explosions around the city orchestrated by a person the press has nicknamed the "Big Apple Bomber." They have been terrorizing the citizens of New York for sixteen years by planting bombs in popular, crowded spaces. With the public in an uproar over the lack of any real leads after a yearslong manhunt, the police, at Marion’s urging, turn in desperation to a radical new technique: psychological profiling.

As Marion finds herself pulled deeper into the investigation, she realizes that as much as she’s been training herself to blend in—performing in perfect unison with all the other identical Rockettes—if she hopes to catch the bomber, she’ll need to stand out and take a terrifying risk. But she may be forced to sacrifice everything she’s worked for, as well as the people she loves the most.]]> 368 Fiona Davis Howard 0 to-read 4.24 2023
author: Fiona Davis
name: Howard
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 15820115
Since discovering the special role she plays among the other angel-bloods, Clara has been determined to protect Tucker Avery from the evil that follows her . . . even if it means breaking both their hearts. Leaving town seemed like the best option, so she’s headed back to California—and so is Christian Prescott, the irresistible boy from the vision that started her on this journey in the first place.

As Clara makes her way in a world that is frighteningly new, she discovers that the fallen angel who attacked her is watching her every move. And he’s not the only one. . . . With the battle against the Black Wings looming, Clara knows she must finally fulfil her destiny. But it won’t come without sacrifices and betrayal.

In the riveting finale of the Unearthly series, Clara must choose her fate once and for all.]]> Cynthia Hand 0062224506 Howard 4 audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
Clara has moved back to California but she can tell that the Black Wings are keeping tabs on her. She’s 3/4 Angel but that just doesn’t help with her relationships with family and friends. Particularly when God has a plan for her. She would have never guessed that her destiny would take her to hell to save people from that evil world. ]]> 3.92 2013
author: Cynthia Hand
name: Howard
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2013
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
review:
4 Stars for Boundless: Unearthly, Book 3 (audiobook) by Cynthia Hand read by Samantha Quan.

Clara has moved back to California but she can tell that the Black Wings are keeping tabs on her. She’s 3/4 Angel but that just doesn’t help with her relationships with family and friends. Particularly when God has a plan for her. She would have never guessed that her destiny would take her to hell to save people from that evil world.
]]> 226380643
An American mathematician’s assignment in Russia spirals into a high-stakes maze of shifting loyalties and intrigue in a propulsive short thriller by #1New York Timesbestselling author Lee Child.

Nathan Tyler is an unassuming professor at a middling American university with a rather obscure specialty in mathematics—in short, a nobody from nowhere. So why is the White House calling? Summoned to Washington, DC, for a top-secret briefing, Nathan discovers that he’s the key to a massive foreign intelligence breakthrough. Reading between the lines of a cryptic series of equations, he could open a door straight into the heart of the Kremlin and change the global balance of power forever. All he has to do is get to a meeting with the renowned Russian mathematician who created it. But when Nathan crashes headlong into a dangerous new game, the odds against him suddenly look a lot steeper.]]> Lee Child Howard 4
An American mathematician is thrown into the high stakes world of espionage. He’s sent to Russia to contact a mathematician there and ends up in prison. He’s going to have to use all of his wits to escape this situation before he grows old in that prison. ]]> 3.83 2025
author: Lee Child
name: Howard
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Eleven Numbers (audiobook) by Lee Child read by Anderson Foster.

An American mathematician is thrown into the high stakes world of espionage. He’s sent to Russia to contact a mathematician there and ends up in prison. He’s going to have to use all of his wits to escape this situation before he grows old in that prison.
]]> 16179190
©1980 Frank Abagnale, Jr.; (P)2001 Blackstone Audiobooks]]> 9 Frank W. Abagnale Howard 4
This is the most amazing con stories that I’ve ever heard. It’s really entertaining, the cons keep getting bigger and bigger. But I’m starting to wonder about this true story and is this book part of the con?]]> 3.77 1980
author: Frank W. Abagnale
name: Howard
average rating: 3.77
book published: 1980
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Catch Me If You Can (audiobook) by Frank W. Abagnale read by Barrett Whitener.

This is the most amazing con stories that I’ve ever heard. It’s really entertaining, the cons keep getting bigger and bigger. But I’m starting to wonder about this true story and is this book part of the con?
]]> 49319740
Taking place in an alternate timeline created when the Starship Kelvin was destroyed by a Romulan invader from the future, this bold new novel follows Captain James T. Kirk and an inexperienced crew commandeering a repaired U.S.S. Enterprise out of spacedock for a simple shakedown cruise. When a distress call comes in, the Enterprise must aid a large colony ship of alien refugees known as the Perenorean, who are under siege by an unknown enemy. But Kirk and his crew will find that the situation with the peaceful Perenorean is far more complicated than they bargained for, and the answers as to why they were attacked in the first place unfold in the most insidious of ways…]]> Alan Dean Foster 1797105043 Howard 5
It was interesting to see where Alan Dean Foster wanted to take the crew of the Starship Enterprise. He boldly stepped into the world of Star Trek and dreamt up some great new species for Captain Kirk and crew to contact. Kirk quickly step in and saves a group of aliens called the Perenorean. They seem to be peaceful, they have no weapons but another group is trying to wipe them out. A new home is found for them on an unused moon where a slightly less advanced civilization is living. And the Perenorean are thrilled with this solution and they quickly show their gratitude. What could possibly go wrong, Kirk is about to find out why that other group was so mad. ]]> 3.33 2020
author: Alan Dean Foster
name: Howard
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, science-fiction
review:
4.5 Stars for The Unsettling Stars: Star Trek (audiobook) by Alan Dean Foster read by Robert Petkoff.

It was interesting to see where Alan Dean Foster wanted to take the crew of the Starship Enterprise. He boldly stepped into the world of Star Trek and dreamt up some great new species for Captain Kirk and crew to contact. Kirk quickly step in and saves a group of aliens called the Perenorean. They seem to be peaceful, they have no weapons but another group is trying to wipe them out. A new home is found for them on an unused moon where a slightly less advanced civilization is living. And the Perenorean are thrilled with this solution and they quickly show their gratitude. What could possibly go wrong, Kirk is about to find out why that other group was so mad.
]]> 200453781 After years of hard work, Dr. Charly McKenna finally has it

A prosperous career as a dermatologist? Check.

Spacious apartment overlooking Central Park? Check.

Handsome lawyer husband? Double check.

Then, one night a bullet rips through the right side of her skull and she loses everything.

As Charly struggles to recover from her brain injury, she begins to realize that the events of that fateful night are trapped in the damaged right side of her brain. Now, she must put the jigsaw pieces together to discover the identity of the man who tried to kill her...before he finishes the job he started.]]> Freida McFadden Howard 0 to-read 3.58 2016
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

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

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

"Don’t trust the man who calls himself your husband."]]> Freida McFadden Howard 0 to-read 3.70 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Howard
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 27161826 New York Times Bestseller Mira Grant's acclaimed Newsflesh series, with two new never-before-published novellas and all eight short works available for the first time in print.

We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, a man-made virus taking over bodies and minds, filling them with one, unstoppable command...FEED.

Countdown
"Everglades"
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats
How Green This Land, How Blue This Sea
The Day the Dead Came to Show and Tell
Please Do Not Taunt the Octopus
All the Pretty Little Horses
Coming to You Live]]> 644 Mira Grant 0316309583 Howard 0 to-read 4.40 2016
author: Mira Grant
name: Howard
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 212808709 A competitive diver and an ace swimmer jump into forbidden waters in this steamy college romance from the New York Times bestselling author of The Love Hypothesis.

Scarlett Vandermeer is swimming upstream. A Junior at Stanford and a student-athlete who specializes in platform diving, Scarlett prefers to keep her head down, concentrating on getting into med school and on recovering from the injury that almost ended her career. She has no time for relationships—at least, that’s what she tells herself.

Swim captain, world champion, all-around aquatics golden boy, Lukas Blomqvist thrives on discipline. It’s how he wins gold medals and breaks records: complete focus, with every stroke. On the surface, Lukas and Scarlett have nothing in common. Until a well-guarded secret slips out, and everything changes.

So they start an arrangement. And as the pressure leading to the Olympics heats up, so does their relationship. It was supposed to be just a temporary, mutually satisfying fling. But when staying away from Lukas becomes impossible, Scarlett realizes that her heart might be treading into dangerous water...]]> 464 Ali Hazelwood Howard 0 to-read 3.93 2025
author: Ali Hazelwood
name: Howard
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 53365637
The story is told through a series of letters recounting a young Jonathan Harker, a lawyer who visits Count Dracula to arrange a real estate transaction and realizes before long that he has been taken hostage there. Harker escapes after a series of horrifying events, and Dracula makes it his mission to go after the young lawyer �� and his lovely fiancé, Mina, and Mina's friends.

With the assistance of an old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the tide turns against Dracula with Van Helsing chasing the Count back to his Transylvania castle, where the ultimate battle takes place.]]> Bram Stoker Howard 4
It was interesting to find out how these iconic characters got their start. This is the first story of Van Helsing chasing down Dracula and battling him. Unfortunately the writing style can be hard to follow. It was written over a hundred and twenty five years ago and the writing sensibilities have changed. It’s written as series of correspondence and from different perspectives. But it was worth it for me to see how iconic characters first came to life. ]]> 3.68 1897
author: Bram Stoker
name: Howard
average rating: 3.68
book published: 1897
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves: audiobooks, fiction, suspense-mystery
review:
4 Stars for Dracula (audiobook) by Bram Stoker read by Tavia Gilbert and J. P. Guimont.

It was interesting to find out how these iconic characters got their start. This is the first story of Van Helsing chasing down Dracula and battling him. Unfortunately the writing style can be hard to follow. It was written over a hundred and twenty five years ago and the writing sensibilities have changed. It’s written as series of correspondence and from different perspectives. But it was worth it for me to see how iconic characters first came to life.
]]> 218427298 Patterson’s greatest crime-solving team since the Women’s Murder Club is the Bird Sisters.��

Rhonda and Barbara “Baby�� Bird are half-sisters—and full partners in their Los Angeles detective agency.��They agree on nothing.
��
Rhonda, a former attorney, takes a by-the-book approach to solving crimes, while teenage Baby relies on her street smarts.����
��
But when they take a controversial case of a loner whose popular wife has gone missing, they’re accused of being PIs who can’t tell a client from a killer.��
����
The Bird sisters share a late father, but not much else…except their willingness to fight.
��
Fight the system. Fight for the underdog. Fight for the truth. If they can stop fighting��each other��long enough to work together.
��]]> 362 James Patterson 1538758482 Howard 0 to-read 3.88 2025
author: James Patterson
name: Howard
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215749267 Her bestsellers explore the wildest, strangest crimes. Now her husband has been murdered�� is she a target, a victim, or is this even darker?��

NYPD Detective Declan Shaw gets the call from his lieutenant at 9:42 p.m.��How fast can you get to 211 Central Park West? The Beresford Building.

At Apartment 18A, Shaw’s partner briefs him. The woman inside called 911 to report a break-in—and the murder of her husband. She fired a round at first responders, then made a baffling demand.��Nobody comes in but Detective Declan Shaw.

The woman answers, covered in blood. She appears to be in shock. A body is lying dead on the floor of the luxurious living room.��

Shaw walks in and spots floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hardcover books. He recognizes the name—bestselling true-crime author Denise Morrow. When he looks closer, he sees they all show the same familiar picture on the back.��

“This is you?�� Shaw asks. “You’re a writer?��
��
The real question Is she also a killer?]]> 400 James Patterson 0316570001 Howard 0 to-read 4.28 2025
author: James Patterson
name: Howard
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55311741
Then a local boy appeals to him for help. His brother is missing, and no one in the village, least of all the police, seems to care. And once again, Cal feels that restless itch.

Something is wrong in this community, and he must find out what, even if it brings trouble to his door.]]> 23 Tana French 1984838032 Howard 0 to-read 3.69 2020
author: Tana French
name: Howard
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 17611195
Now, torn between her love for Tucker and her complicated feelings about the roles she and Christian seem destined to play in a world that is both dangerous and beautiful, Clara struggles with a shocking revelation: Someone she loves will die in a matter of months. With her future uncertain, the only thing Clara knows for sure is that the fire was just the beginning.

In this compelling sequel to Unearthly, Cynthia Hand captures the joy of first love, the anguish of loss, and the confusion of becoming who you are.]]> 10 Cynthia Hand Howard 4 audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
Clara is trying to get her life back on track and then she gets a new vision of someone in her life is going to die. Life can get extra complicated when you’re part angel. It looks like she’s not going to be able to save someone close to her. But on that journey to find out who she learns that her family is much larger than she thought. ]]> 3.77 2012
author: Cynthia Hand
name: Howard
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2012
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: audiobooks, fantasy, fiction
review:
4 Stars for Hallowed: Unearthly, Book 2 (audiobook) by Cynthia Hand read by Samantha Quan.

Clara is trying to get her life back on track and then she gets a new vision of someone in her life is going to die. Life can get extra complicated when you’re part angel. It looks like she’s not going to be able to save someone close to her. But on that journey to find out who she learns that her family is much larger than she thought.
]]> 220633879 The astonishing inside story of how Bud Light lost its position as the most popular beer in the United States from a longtime Anheuser-Busch executive.

Anson Frericks, a former president at Anheuser-Busch—formerly the home of America’s most popular brewery—watched as the company unraveled at the hands of globe-trotting financiers and progressive middle management.

Rather than pursue shareholder profits, Anheuser-Busch suddenly became focused on stakeholder capitalism and the vague mandates of environment, social, and governance (ESG). This ill-advised change cumulated in the shocking evaporation of $30 billion in market cap after releasing an advertising campaign starring political activist Dylan Mulvaney.

Now, Anheuser-Busch’s evolution and its subsequent fallout is brought to light as never before with this ultimate insider’s look. Compelling, candid, and eye-opening, Last Call for Bud Light is the unforgettable story of the downfall of an American icon.]]> 1 Anson Frericks 1668116472 Howard 5 audiobooks, non-fiction
It was interesting to hear the history of this iconic brand. How the Busch family founded the company and how the different generations of the family had success and made new innovations. But then the financial crisis of 2008 left the company vulnerable to takeover. The Busch family ultimately lost their company and the new Brazilian ownership had different strategies for success. And then Wall Street started applying new pressures to conform and ultimately this led to the disaster. But it’s not too late to turn things around. From the author’s inside knowledge of the company, he lays out a compelling plan to help the company regain its top spot in the market. ]]> 5.00
author: Anson Frericks
name: Howard
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: audiobooks, non-fiction
review:
5 Stars for Last Call for Bud Light: The Fall and Future of America’s Favorite Beer by Anson Frericks read by Kirby Heyborne.

It was interesting to hear the history of this iconic brand. How the Busch family founded the company and how the different generations of the family had success and made new innovations. But then the financial crisis of 2008 left the company vulnerable to takeover. The Busch family ultimately lost their company and the new Brazilian ownership had different strategies for success. And then Wall Street started applying new pressures to conform and ultimately this led to the disaster. But it’s not too late to turn things around. From the author’s inside knowledge of the company, he lays out a compelling plan to help the company regain its top spot in the market.
]]> 68737538 0 Robinne Lee Howard 5 audiobooks, favorite, fiction
This is one of the best age gap romances that I’ve read. The whole story seems so natural and believable. Two people fall in love, but that love affects so many other people and then there’s the fame. Maybe the relationship would have worked before social media. Before the whole world has an opinion about this couples love for each other.

This is a wonderful first novel, I’m really impressed. I was hoping that Robinne Lee had written more books but when I looked her up the only thing I found was that she did one of the voices in the audiobook Daisy Jones & The Six. Now it makes sense why she did such a great job with the narration. She did a great job with all of the different voices in this novel. She probably could have done all of the voices in Daisy Jones. ]]> 3.55 2017
author: Robinne Lee
name: Howard
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2017
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: audiobooks, favorite, fiction
review:
5 Stars for The Idea of You (audiobook) by Robinne Lee read by the author.

This is one of the best age gap romances that I’ve read. The whole story seems so natural and believable. Two people fall in love, but that love affects so many other people and then there’s the fame. Maybe the relationship would have worked before social media. Before the whole world has an opinion about this couples love for each other.

This is a wonderful first novel, I’m really impressed. I was hoping that Robinne Lee had written more books but when I looked her up the only thing I found was that she did one of the voices in the audiobook Daisy Jones & The Six. Now it makes sense why she did such a great job with the narration. She did a great job with all of the different voices in this novel. She probably could have done all of the voices in Daisy Jones.
]]> 221349815
Monsters that know how to wield revenge against even the purest of hearts.

When Zale’s crew and their families fall into a pattern of unexplained deaths, it becomes clear that they have brought home more than just treasures from their they are cursed. The doomed fate of their loved ones is a heavy burden to bear, especially when the charming Marea steals Zale’s heart with just one smile.

Will the Tide Breaker captain break the curse in time to save his loved ones? Or will the unforgiving sea god feast victorious?]]> 38 Ivy H. Marikova Howard 0 to-read 4.24
author: Ivy H. Marikova
name: Howard
average rating: 4.24
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 176662928 He wants revenge, but he wants her more.

Once Upon A Time, there was a little boy.
His belly full of laughter, his life full of joy.
Until one day, something changed; stripped his innocence away.
The hole inside making space for the devil to come and play.
His dreams gone forever, he grew up way too fast.
An endless night of crocodiles, and watches made of glass.
He grew into a villain, the taste of vengeance on his tongue.
Craving to make his enemies pay for the misdeeds they had done.
Instead he found a darling girl, and refused to let her go.
For what better way to make the man pay, than to steal his little shadow.

*Hooked is a full-length, complete standalone and the first in The Never After Series: A collection of fractured fairy tales where the villains get the happy ever after. This is a DARK Contemporary romance (not fantasy) featuring mature themes and content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised.* ]]> 416 Emily McIntire Howard 5 audiobooks, fiction
Maybe I should have read the entire description before I started reading. This was way darker and spicier than I was expecting. But after I got over the shock I really enjoyed the story. And I’m going to continue reading the series. But I don’t think that this story is for everyone. ]]> 3.28 2021
author: Emily McIntire
name: Howard
average rating: 3.28
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/16
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: audiobooks, fiction
review:
4.5 Stars for Hooked: Never After, Book 1 (audiobook) by Emily Mclntire read by Felicity Munroe and Rupert Hawthorne.

Maybe I should have read the entire description before I started reading. This was way darker and spicier than I was expecting. But after I got over the shock I really enjoyed the story. And I’m going to continue reading the series. But I don’t think that this story is for everyone.
]]> 59512586 She doesn't belong to him...she belongs to the crown.

Prince Tristan Faasa was never destined for the throne. That was always his brother, Michael. The same brother responsible for both Tristan's tormented childhood and the scar that mars his face. When their father dies, Michael is set to assume the throne, and Tristan is set to steal it. The leader of a secret rebellion, Tristan will stop at nothing to end his brother's reign. But when Michael's new betrothed, Lady Sara Beatreaux arrives, Tristan finds himself in the middle of a new kind of war. The kind that begs the question of what's more important, the crown or the woman about to wear it.

Sara has one plan. Marry the King and eradicate the Faasa line, even at the risk of her own peril. But she never expects the Scarred Prince. He's dangerous. Forbidden. And one of the men she's been sent to kill. But the line between hatred and passion has never seemed so thin, and as secrets come to light, Sara grows unsure of whom she can trust—torn between vengeance and the villain she was never supposed to love.

Scarred is a DARK Royal Romance and a complete standalone within The Never After Series (A series of fractured fairy tales inspired by our favorite villains). It is not a retelling or fantasy. It contains subject matter which may be triggering for some. Reader discretion is advised. ]]> 447 Emily McIntire Howard 0 to-read 3.87 2022
author: Emily McIntire
name: Howard
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>