en-US Wed, 02 Apr 2025 00:21:27 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 214331246 When you’ve been set up to lose everything you love, what is there left to fight for?

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

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

When Haymitch’s name is called, he can feel all his dreams break. He’s torn from his family and his love, shuttled to the Capitol with the three other District 12 tributes: a young friend who’s nearly a sister to him, a compulsive oddsmaker, and the most stuck-up girl in town. As the Games begin, Haymitch understands he’s been set up to fail. But there’s something in him that wants to fight . . . and have that fight reverberate far beyond the deadly arena.]]> 382 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Liz 5 4.68 2025
author: Suzanne Collins
name: Liz
average rating: 4.68
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves: on-my-shelf-own, own, mount-tbr, 2025, recommended
review:
Amazing!! I absolutely loved Haymitch’s story.
]]> 90588447
Andrew Peterson spins a quirky and riveting tale of the Igibys� extraordinary journey from Glipwood’s Dragon Day Festival and a secret hidden in the Books and Crannies Bookstore, past the terrifying Black Carriage, clutches of the horned hounds and loathsome toothy cows surrounding AnkleJelly Manor, through the Glipwood Forest and mysterious treehouse of Peet the Sock Man (known for a little softshoe and wearing tattered socks on his hands and arms), to the very edge of the Ice Prairies.

Full of characters rich in heart, smarts, and courage, On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness presents a world of wonder and a tale children of all ages will cherish, families can read aloud, and readers� groups are sure to discuss for its layers of meaning about life’s true treasure and tangle of the beautiful and horrible, temporal and eternal, and good and bad.]]> 304 Andrew Peterson 0593582470 Liz 0 to-read, middle-grade 4.31 2008
author: Andrew Peterson
name: Liz
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: to-read, middle-grade
review:

]]> 16644104 Watership Down is one of the most beloved novels of our time. Sandleford Warren is in danger. Hazel's younger brother Fiver is convinced that a great evil is about to befall the land, but no one will listen. And why would they when it is Spring and the grass is fat and succulent? So together Hazel and Fiver and a few other brave rabbits secretly leave behind the safety and strictures of the warren and hop tentatively out into a vast and strange world. Chased by their former friends, hunted by dogs and foxes, avoiding farms and other human threats, but making new friends, Hazel and his fellow rabbits dream of a new life in the emerald embrace of Watership Down...]]> 474 Richard Adams 0241953235 Liz 0 4.21 1972
author: Richard Adams
name: Liz
average rating: 4.21
book published: 1972
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/31
shelves: young-adult, classics, ni-group-read, own, audio, own-to-read, mount-tbr, currently-reading
review:

]]> 54860614
When Theseus, the Prince of Athens, arrives to vanquish the beast, Ariadne sees in his green eyes not a threat but an escape. Defying the gods, betraying her family and country, and risking everything for love, Ariadne helps Theseus kill the Minotaur. But will Ariadne's decision ensure her happy ending? And what of Phaedra, the beloved younger sister she leaves behind?

Hypnotic, propulsive, and utterly transporting, Jennifer Saint's Ariadne forges a new epic, one that puts the forgotten women of Greek mythology back at the heart of the story, as they strive for a better world.]]> 308 Jennifer Saint 125077358X Liz 3 3.78 2021
author: Jennifer Saint
name: Liz
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: international-bc-options, kindle-unlimited, 2025, botm-finished
review:

]]> 52838315 From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction.

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges - how to get relative with the inevitable - you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.�

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights - and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.]]> 289 Matthew McConaughey 0593139135 Liz 0 to-read, g-g, non-fiction 4.21 2020
author: Matthew McConaughey
name: Liz
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: to-read, g-g, non-fiction
review:

]]> 218505320 137 Samantha Harvey Liz 0 to-read, recommended, ni-rec 3.78 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Liz
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read, recommended, ni-rec
review:

]]> 33986447
Her new life takes an unexpected turn when she bonds with Connor, a classmate who also feels isolated because of his own disability, and they discover a room at Stagecoach Pass that holds bigger secrets than Aven ever could have imagined. It’s hard to solve a mystery, help a friend, and face your worst fears. But Aven’s about to discover she can do it all . . . even without arms.]]> 262 Dusti Bowling 1454923458 Liz 4 middle-grade, 2025 4.27 2017
author: Dusti Bowling
name: Liz
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves: middle-grade, 2025
review:

]]> 204158999 For readers of Remarkably Bright Creatures and A Man Called Ove, a warm, life-affirming debut about a zany case of mistaken identity that allows a lonely old man one last chance to be part of a family.

‘Would you mind terribly, old boy, if I borrowed the rest of your life? I promise I’ll take excellent care of it.'

Frederick Fife was born with an extra helping of kindness in his heart. If he borrowed your car, he’d return it washed with a full tank of gas. The problem is there’s nobody left in Fred’s life to borrow from. At eighty-two, he’s desperately lonely, broke, and on the brink of homelessness. But Fred’s luck changes when, in a bizarre case of mistaken identity, he takes the place of grumpy Bernard Greer at the local nursing home. Now he has warm meals in his belly and a roof over his head—as long as his poker face is in better shape than his prostate and that his look-alike never turns up.

Denise Simms is stuck breathing the same disappointing air again and again. A middle-aged mom and caregiver at Bernard's facility, her crumbling marriage and daughter's health concerns are suffocating her joy for life. Wounded by her two-faced husband, she vows never to let a man deceive her again.

As Fred walks in Bernard’s shoes, he leaves a trail of kindness behind him, fueling Denise's suspicions about his true identity. When unexpected truths are revealed, Fred and Denise rediscover their sense of purpose and learn how to return a broken life to mint condition.

Bittersweet and remarkably perceptive, The Borrowed Life of Frederick Fife is a hilarious, feel-good, clever novel about grief, forgiveness, redemption, and finding family.]]> 336 Anna Johnston 0063397293 Liz 3 not-owned, g-g, 2025 4.28 2024
author: Anna Johnston
name: Liz
average rating: 4.28
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/23
date added: 2025/03/23
shelves: not-owned, g-g, 2025
review:

]]> 127278666 Some people think foxes are similar to ghosts because we go around collecting qi, but nothing could be further than the truth. We are living creatures, just like you, only usually better looking . . .

Manchuria, 1908.
In the last years of the dying Qing Empire, a courtesan is found frozen in a doorway. Her death is clouded by rumors of foxes, which are believed to lure people by transforming themselves into beautiful women and handsome men. Bao, a detective with an uncanny ability to sniff out the truth, is hired to uncover the dead woman’s identity. Since childhood, Bao has been intrigued by the fox gods, yet they’ve remained tantalizingly out of reach—until, perhaps, now.

Meanwhile, a family who owns a famous Chinese medicine shop can cure ailments but can’t escape the curse that afflicts them—their eldest sons die before their twenty-fourth birthdays. When a disruptively winsome servant named Snow enters their household, the family’s luck seems to change—or does it?

Snow is a creature of many secrets, but most of all she’s a mother seeking vengeance for her lost child. Hunting a murderer, she will follow the trail from northern China to Japan, while Bao follows doggedly behind. Navigating the myths and misconceptions of fox spirits, both Snow and Bao will encounter old friends and new foes, even as more deaths occur.

New York Times bestselling author Yangsze Choo brilliantly explores a world of mortals and spirits, humans and beasts, and their dazzling intersection. Epic in scope and full of singular, unforgettable characters, The Fox Wife is a stunning novel about old loves and second chances, the depths of maternal love, and ancient folktales that may very well be true.]]> 390 Yangsze Choo 1250266017 Liz 3 not-owned, 2025 3.97 2024
author: Yangsze Choo
name: Liz
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/09
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: not-owned, 2025
review:

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

But when messages start arriving from a stranger who knows far more about her past than she knows herself, Sally's life will be thrown into chaos once again . . .]]> 384 Liz Nugent 1844885968 Liz 5 4.14 2023
author: Liz Nugent
name: Liz
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/14
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: ni-group-read, not-owned, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited, 2025
review:

]]> 898232 654 Kevin J. Anderson 0446610577 Liz 0 to-read, recommended, series 3.82 2002
author: Kevin J. Anderson
name: Liz
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, recommended, series
review:

]]> 56645963 In an empire on the brink of war...

Ahn is no one, with no past and no family.

Altan is a lost heir, his future stolen away as a child.

When they meet, Altan sees in Ahn a path to reclaiming the throne. Ahn sees a way to finally unlock her past and understand her arcane magical abilities.

But they may have to pay a far deadlier price than either could have imagined.

Ferocious action, shadowy intrigue, and a captivating romance collide in June CL Tan’s debut, a stunning homage to the Xianxia novel with a tender, beating heart, perfect for fans of The Bone Witch and We Hunt the Flame.]]> 464 June C.L. Tan 0063056364 Liz 0 to-read, recommended 3.70 2021
author: June C.L. Tan
name: Liz
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, recommended
review:

]]> 58328436 A fantasy about the power of generosity and love, and how a community suffers when they disappear.

Stone-in-the-Glen, once a lovely town, has fallen on hard times. Fires, floods, and other calamities have caused the people to lose their library, their school, their park, and even their neighborliness. The people put their faith in the Mayor, a dazzling fellow who promises he alone can help. After all, he is a famous dragon slayer. (At least, no one has seen a dragon in his presence.) Only the clever children of the Orphan House and the kindly Ogress at the edge of town can see how dire the town’s problems are.

Then one day a child goes missing from the Orphan House. At the Mayor’s suggestion, all eyes turn to the Ogress. The Orphans know this can’t be: the Ogress, along with a flock of excellent crows, secretly delivers gifts to the people of Stone-in-the-Glen.

But how can the Orphans tell the story of the Ogress’s goodness to people who refuse to listen? And how can they make their deluded neighbors see the real villain in their midst?]]> 392 Kelly Barnhill 1643750747 Liz 0 to-read, recommended 4.27 2022
author: Kelly Barnhill
name: Liz
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, recommended
review:

]]> 25488299
One morning, when Emmaline climbs over the wall of the hospital’s abandoned gardens, she discovers something incredible: a white horse with broken wings has left the mirror-world and entered her own.

Tucked into the garden’s once-gleaming sundial, Emmaline finds a letter from the Horse Lord. He is hiding the wounded white horse, named Foxfire, from a dark and sinister force—a Black Horse who hunts by colorless moonlight. If Emmaline is to keep the Black Horse from finding her new friend, she must collect colorful objects with which to blind him. But where can Emmaline find color when her world is filled with gray?]]> 240 Megan Shepherd 1101939761 Liz 0 to-read, recommended 4.00 2016
author: Megan Shepherd
name: Liz
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, recommended
review:

]]> 205977739
Mal and Christopher embark on a wild adventure, racing from island to island, searching for someone who can explain why the magic is fading and why magical creatures are suddenly dying. They consult sphinxes, battle kraken, and negotiate with dragons. But the closer they get to the dark truth of what's happening, the clearer it becomes: no one else can fix this. If the Archipelago is to be saved, Mal and Christopher will have to do it themselves.]]> 368 Katherine Rundell 0593809866 Liz 0 to-read, recommended 4.13 2023
author: Katherine Rundell
name: Liz
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/14
shelves: to-read, recommended
review:

]]> 71550 250 Camilo José Cela 1564782689 Liz 0 to-read, international-bc 3.62 1951
author: Camilo José Cela
name: Liz
average rating: 3.62
book published: 1951
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read, international-bc
review:

]]> 199415360
Arthur Parnassus lives a good life, built on the ashes of a bad one. He's the headmaster of a strange orphanage on a distant and peculiar island, and he hopes to soon be the adoptive father to the six magical and so-called dangerous children who live there.

Arthur works hard and loves with his whole heart so none of the children ever feel the neglect and pain that he once felt as an orphan on that very same island so long ago. And he is not alone: joining him is the love of his life, Linus Baker, a former caseworker in the Department in Charge of Magical Youth; Zoe Chapelwhite, the island's sprite; and her girlfriend, Mayor Helen Webb. Together, they will do anything to protect the children.

But when Arthur is summoned to make a public statement about his dark past, he finds himself at the helm of a fight for the future that his family, and all magical people, deserve.

And when a new magical child hopes to join them on their island home—one who finds power in calling himself monster, a name Arthur worked so hard to protect his children from—Arthur knows they're at a breaking point: their family will either grow stronger than ever or fall apart.

Welcome back to Marsyas Island. This is Arthur's story.]]> 406 T.J. Klune Liz 0 not-owned, mount-tbr, to-read 4.22 2024
author: T.J. Klune
name: Liz
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/09
shelves: not-owned, mount-tbr, to-read
review:

]]> 214151420 From eldest daughter Shari Franke, the shocking true story behind the viral 8 Passengers family vlog and the hidden abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother, and how, in the face of unimaginable pain, she found freedom and healing.

Shari Franke’s childhood was a constant battle for survival. Her mother, Ruby Franke, enforced a severe moral code while maintaining a façade of a picture-perfect family for their wildly popular YouTube channel 8 Passengers, which documented the day-to-day life of raising six children for a staggering 2.5 million subscribers. But a darker truth lurked beneath the surface—Ruby’s wholesome online persona masked a more tyrannical parenting style than anyone could have imagined.

As the family’s YouTube notoriety grew, so too did Ruby’s delusions of righteousness. Fueled by the sadistic influence of relationship coach Jodi Hildebrandt, together they implemented an inhumane and merciless disciplinary regime.

Ruby and Jodi were arrested in Utah in 2023 on multiple charges of aggravated child abuse. On that fateful day, Shari shared a photo online of a police car outside their home. Her caption had one word: “Finally.�

For the first time, Shari will reveal the disturbing truth behind 8 Passengers and her family’s devastating involvement with Jodi Hildebrandt’s cultish life coaching program, “ConneXions.� No stone is left unturned as Shari exposes the perils of influencer culture and shares for the first time her battle for truth and survival in the face of her mother’s cruelty.]]> 320 Shari Franke 1668065398 Liz 4 non-fiction, not-owned 4.44 2025
author: Shari Franke
name: Liz
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/08
date added: 2025/03/08
shelves: non-fiction, not-owned
review:

]]> 58784475 In this exhilarating novel, two friends—often in love, but never lovers—come together as creative partners in the world of video game design, where success brings them fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and, ultimately, a kind of immortality.

On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn't heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom. These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won't protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Liz 5
This was not a linear novel. It jumped around to different characters in different timelines. It was a little disjointed, but told in such an intentional way � to make different parts of the story more impactful based on where those bits were revealed. The characters in this book were well fleshed out. I wasn’t always a fan of them, although there were a couple I really loved. And there was so much growth.

This book took the idea of creating video games with friends to such a deep look into these characters and humanity and life’s difficulties. It was an astounding & difficult read, but I loved the power & real human struggle in it.

ATY prompt #9: long-listed for the Tournament of Books in any year

NI prompt #22: a book (with a scene) that made you emotionally charged-mad or sad]]> 4.12 2022
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Liz
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/02
date added: 2025/03/04
shelves: own, on-my-shelf-own, mount-tbr, botm-finished
review:
4.75* - This. Book. I don’t even know how to start. It rocked me pretty hard. I’m not a gamer, but I have some experience with them, & I have kids who are obsessed. I am a creative, so I loved seeing these brilliant minds come together and build these beautiful worlds for others to enjoy. To see their limitations and what they needed to do to make their visions a reality. To be frustrated with what they wanted to accomplish & it not being within reach because they didn’t have the skills yet. It just felt so real. So human.

This was not a linear novel. It jumped around to different characters in different timelines. It was a little disjointed, but told in such an intentional way � to make different parts of the story more impactful based on where those bits were revealed. The characters in this book were well fleshed out. I wasn’t always a fan of them, although there were a couple I really loved. And there was so much growth.

This book took the idea of creating video games with friends to such a deep look into these characters and humanity and life’s difficulties. It was an astounding & difficult read, but I loved the power & real human struggle in it.

ATY prompt #9: long-listed for the Tournament of Books in any year

NI prompt #22: a book (with a scene) that made you emotionally charged-mad or sad
]]> 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help her start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Liz 0 4.12 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: Liz
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read
review:

]]> 199700434 When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide.

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

As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.]]> 478 Liz Moore 0593418913 Liz 0 4.10 2024
author: Liz Moore
name: Liz
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read
review:

]]> 199798217 A heartfelt novel of friendship, betrayal, and redemption set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams of a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind, passionate girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions for becoming “lion women.�

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls� high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.]]> 327 Marjan Kamali 1668036584 Liz 0 4.48 2024
author: Marjan Kamali
name: Liz
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, botm, ni-rec, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read
review:

]]> 211004089
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers. But with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants, packing up the seeds before they are transported to safer ground. Despite the wild beauty of life here, isolation has taken its toll on the Salts. Raff, eighteen and suffering his first heartbreak, can only find relief at his punching bag; Fen, seventeen, has started spending her nights on the beach among the seals; nine-year-old Orly, obsessed with botany, fears the loss of his beloved natural world; and Dominic can’t stop turning back toward the past, and the loss that drove the family to Shearwater in the first place.

Then, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman washes up on shore. As the Salts nurse the woman, Rowan, back to life, their suspicion gives way to affection, and they finally begin to feel like a family again. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting her heart, begins to fall for the Salts, too. But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers the sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own dark secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, the characters must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.]]> 303 Charlotte McConaghy 1250827957 Liz 0 4.33 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Liz
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read
review:

]]> 210395729 The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue meets This is How You Lose The Time War in this fantastical love story that defies death as two souls reincarnate through the centuries.

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

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

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

1. Find the centuries-old devil who hunts her through each life―before they find her first.
2. Figure out why she’s being hunted and finally break their curse.
3. Try not to fall in love.]]> 352 Laura Steven 1250333881 Liz 0 to-read, young-adult 3.81 2025
author: Laura Steven
name: Liz
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, young-adult
review:

]]> 7632310
In the midst of it all, Samuel and Willadee’s outspoken eleven-year-old daughter, Swan, is a bright light. Her high spirits and fearlessness have alternately seduced and bedeviled three generations of the family. But it is Blade Ballenger, a traumatized eight-year-old neighbor, who soon captures Swan’s undivided attention. Full of righteous anger, and innocent of the peril facing her and those she loves, Swan makes it her mission to keep the boy safe from his terrifying father.

With characters who spring to life as vividly as if they were members of one’s own family, and with the clear-eyed wisdom that illuminates the most tragic—and triumphant—aspects of human nature, Jenny Wingfield emerges as one of the most vital, engaging storytellers writing today. In The Homecoming of Samuel Lake she has created a memorable and lasting work of fiction.]]> 352 Jenny Wingfield 0385344082 Liz 0 4.08 2011
author: Jenny Wingfield
name: Liz
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, kindle-own, own, kindle-still-to-read, own-to-read, ni-group-read
review:

]]> 198276006 I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.]]> 336 Leif Enger 0802162932 Liz 0 to-read, ni-rec, not-owned 3.96 2024
author: Leif Enger
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, ni-rec, not-owned
review:

]]> 60879779
I'm Ernest Cunningham. Call me Ern or Ernie. I wish I'd killed whoever decided our family reunion should be at a ski resort, but it's a little more complicated than that.

Have I killed someone? Yes. I have.

Who was it?

Let's get started.

EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE

My brother

My stepsister

My wife

My father

My mother

My sister-in-law

My uncle

My stepfather

My aunt

Me]]> 371 Benjamin Stevenson 0063279029 Liz 0 to-read, series 3.75 2022
author: Benjamin Stevenson
name: Liz
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read, series
review:

]]> 42412126 From the author of the beloved Hum If You Don't Know the Words comes a rich, unforgettable story of three unique women in post-Apartheid South Africa who are brought together in their darkest time and discover the ways that love can transcend the strictest of boundaries.

In a squatter camp on the outskirts of Johannesburg, seventeen-year-old Zodwa lives in desperate poverty, under the shadowy threat of a civil war and a growing AIDS epidemic. Eight months pregnant, Zodwa carefully guards secrets that jeopardize her life.

Across the country, wealthy socialite Ruth appears to have everything her heart desires, but it's what she can't have that leads to her breakdown. Meanwhile, in Zaire, a disgraced former nun, Delilah, grapples with a past that refuses to stay buried. When these personal crises send both middle-aged women back to their rural hometown to lick their wounds, the discovery of an abandoned newborn baby upends everything, challenging their lifelong beliefs about race, motherhood, and the power of the past.

As the mystery surrounding the infant grows, the complicated lives of Zodwa, Ruth, and Delilah become inextricably linked. What follows is a mesmerizing look at family and identity that asks: How far will the human heart go to protect itself and the ones it loves?]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0735219311 Liz 0 to-read 4.30 2019
author: Bianca Marais
name: Liz
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 215198466 In his most exhilarating novel yet, Britain’s greatest storyteller transports you from the vibrant streets of sixties London to the sun-soaked cobbles of Cadiz and the frosty squares of Warsaw, as an accidental spy is drawn into the shadows of espionage and obsession.

Gabriel Dax is a young man haunted by the memories of a every night, when sleep finally comes, he dreams about his childhood home in flames. His days are spent on the move as an acclaimed travel writer, capturing the changing landscapes in the grip of the Cold War. When he’s offered the chance to interview a political figure, his ambition leads him unwittingly into a web of duplicities and betrayals.

As Gabriel’s reluctant initiation takes hold, he is drawn deeper into the shadows. Falling under the spell of Faith Green, an enigmatic and ruthless MI6 handler, he becomes ‘her spy�, unable to resist her demands. But amid the peril, paranoia and passion consuming Gabriel’s new covert life, it will be the revelations closer to home that change the rest of his story.]]> 272 William Boyd 0802164870 Liz 0 to-read, ni-group-read 3.88 2024
author: William Boyd
name: Liz
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read, ni-group-read
review:

]]> 22749894
This new edition features an introduction by Philip Hensher, author of Scenes from Early Life, along with new cover art.]]> 220 Penelope Fitzgerald 054448410X Liz 0 3.71 1990
author: Penelope Fitzgerald
name: Liz
average rating: 3.71
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read, kindle-unlimited, not-owned, ni-rec
review:

]]> 28264701 Perfect for readers of The Secret Life of Bees and The Help, a perceptive and searing look at Apartheid-era South Africa, told through one unique family brought together by tragedy.

Life under Apartheid has created a secure future for Robin Conrad, a ten-year-old white girl living with her parents in 1970s Johannesburg. In the same nation but worlds apart, Beauty Mbali, a Xhosa woman in a rural village in the Bantu homeland of the Transkei, struggles to raise her children alone after her husband's death. Both lives have been built upon the division of race, and their meeting should never have occurred...until the Soweto Uprising, in which a protest by black students ignites racial conflict, alters the fault lines on which their society is built, and shatters their worlds when Robin’s parents are left dead and Beauty’s daughter goes missing.

After Robin is sent to live with her loving but irresponsible aunt, Beauty is hired to care for Robin while continuing the search for her daughter. In Beauty, Robin finds the security and family that she craves, and the two forge an inextricable bond through their deep personal losses. But Robin knows that if Beauty finds her daughter, Robin could lose her new caretaker forever, so she makes a desperate decision with devastating consequences. Her quest to make amends and find redemption is a journey of self-discovery in which she learns the harsh truths of the society that once promised her protection.

Told through Beauty and Robin's alternating perspectives, the interwoven narratives create a rich and complex tapestry of the emotions and tensions at the heart of Apartheid-era South Africa. Hum If You Don’t Know the Words is a beautifully rendered look at loss, racism, and the creation of family.]]> 432 Bianca Marais 0399575073 Liz 4
I read this book for my International Book Club - the setting, South Africa. I didn’t know anything about this book going in, but it grabbed me from the start. Initially it felt a bit disjointed because of the seemingly unrelated alternating narratives - one of a 9 year old white girl, & the other of a 49 year old black woman. I didn’t see how they fit together, but I trusted the process & waited for everything to align. It did so beautifully. What a powerful look at love, acceptance, grief, racism, prejudice, & personal growth. I loved Robin’s & Beauty’s relationship & the strength they both grew into. I loved learning more about apartheid. I loved many of the side characters - their kindness, as well as the humor some brought to the story. Without my book club, I doubt this book would have crossed my path, & I’m so glad I did.]]> 4.24 2017
author: Bianca Marais
name: Liz
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: international-bc, not-owned, 2025
review:
4.5*

I read this book for my International Book Club - the setting, South Africa. I didn’t know anything about this book going in, but it grabbed me from the start. Initially it felt a bit disjointed because of the seemingly unrelated alternating narratives - one of a 9 year old white girl, & the other of a 49 year old black woman. I didn’t see how they fit together, but I trusted the process & waited for everything to align. It did so beautifully. What a powerful look at love, acceptance, grief, racism, prejudice, & personal growth. I loved Robin’s & Beauty’s relationship & the strength they both grew into. I loved learning more about apartheid. I loved many of the side characters - their kindness, as well as the humor some brought to the story. Without my book club, I doubt this book would have crossed my path, & I’m so glad I did.
]]> 6369113
Goblin Fruit
In Victorian times, goblin men had only to offer young girls sumptuous fruits to tempt them to sell their souls. But what does it take to tempt today's savvy girls?

Spicy Little Curses
A demon and the ambassador to Hell tussle over the soul of a beautiful English girl in India. Matters become complicated when she falls in love and decides to test her curse.

Hatchling
Six days before Esme's fourteenth birthday, her left eye turns from brown to blue. She little suspects what the change heralds, but her small safe life begins to unravel at once. What does the beautiful, fanged man want with her, and how is her fate connected to a mysterious race of demons?]]> 272 Laini Taylor 0545055857 Liz 0 3.88 2009
author: Laini Taylor
name: Liz
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves: to-read, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read
review:

]]> 48805365 "No list of thrillers is complete without Robyn Harding", proclaims Real Simple. Now the USA Today best-selling author of The Party delivers a riveting tale about the toxic relationship between two couples after a night of sexual shenanigans and the manipulative teenager with an explosive secret at the center of it all.

Low Morrison is not your average teen. You could blame her hippie parents or her looming height or her dreary, isolated hometown on an island in the Pacific Northwest. But whatever the reason, Low just doesn’t fit in - and neither does Freya, a once-famous social media influencer who now owns the pottery studio in town.

After signing up for a class, Low quickly falls under Freya’s spell. And Freya, buoyed by Low’s adoration, is compelled to share her darkest secrets and deepest desires. Finally, both feel a sense of belonging...that is, until Jamie walks through the studio door. Desperate for a baby, she and her husband have moved to the island hoping that the healthy environment will result in a pregnancy. Freya and Jamie become fast friends, as do their husbands, leaving Low alone once again.

Then one night, after a boozy dinner party, Freya suggests swapping partners. It should have been a harmless fling between consenting adults, one night of debauchery that they would put behind them, but when one of the women becomes pregnant, Low finds the perfect opportunity to unleash her growing resentment.

Robyn Harding brings her acclaimed storytelling, lauded as "fast-paced, thrilling, gut-wrenching" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times<‘i> best-selling author of Daisy Jones and the Six, to this dark and suspenseful thriller for fans of Megan Miranda and Lisa Jewell.]]> 334 Robyn Harding 1982141786 Liz 0 to-read 3.64 2020
author: Robyn Harding
name: Liz
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 201465867
Michael is coming undone. Adrift after his wife's departure, he has begun taking himself on long, solitary walks across the English countryside. Becoming ever more reclusive, he’ll do anything to avoid his empty house.

Marnie, on the other hand, is stuck. Hiding alone in her London flat, she avoids old friends and any reminders of her rotten, selfish ex-husband. Curled up with a good book, she’s battling the long afternoons of a life that feels like it’s passing her by.

When a persistent mutual friend and some very unpredictable weather conspire to toss Michael and Marnie together on the most epic of ten-day hikes, neither of them can think of anything worse. Until, of course, they discover exactly what they’ve been looking for.

Michael and Marnie are on the precipice of a bright future . . . if they can survive the journey.]]> 368 David Nicholls 0063394057 Liz 0 3.97 2024
author: David Nicholls
name: Liz
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited, ni-rec
review:

]]> 59630961
1986: Adrien, Etienne and Nina are 10 years old when they meet at school and quickly become inseparable. They promise each other they will one day leave their provincial backwater, move to Paris, and never part.

2017: A car is pulled up from the bottom of the lake, a body inside. Virginie, a local journalist with an enigmatic past reports on the case while also reflecting on the relationship between the three friends, who were unusually close when younger but now no longer speak. . As Virginie moves closer to the surprising truth, relationships fray and others are formed.

Valérie Perrin has an unerring gift for delving into life. In Three, she brings readers along with her through a sequence of heart-wrenching events and revelations that span three decades. Three tells a moving story of love and loss, hope and grief, friendship and adversity, and of time as an ineluctable agent of change.]]> 512 Valérie Perrin Liz 0 4.26 2021
author: Valérie Perrin
name: Liz
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/23
shelves: to-read, kindle-own, kindle-still-to-read, own, own-to-read, ni-rec, audio
review:

]]> 219520756 Family is everything, even when it falls apart.

After the sudden death of a renowned artist, his four adult children travel to Italy to sort out his affairs with his much-younger wife, in this moving novel from the bestselling author of The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry.

World-famous artist Vic Kemp has relied on his four children ever since their mother died when they were young. Netta, the oldest, is a litigator who often serves as co-parent to her siblings; Susan, a housewife who cooks and cleans for both her husband and her father; Goose's own thwarted artistic ambitions have left him resigned to a job in Vic's studio; and Iris, the baby, drops everything the moment her father calls.Ìý

When Vic summons the siblings with the promise of big news, they hope their father is about to tell them he has finished the mysterious masterpiece he claims will be the capstone to his career. Instead, he announces he’s getting remarried.ÌýBella-Mae, his wife to be,Ìýis apparently beautiful, a fellow artist—and twenty-seven to his seventy-six years. When his children dare to express concern, Vic decamps with Bella-Mae to his summer home in Italy. Six weeks later, he is found dead. There is no sign of his will, or his promised final painting.Ìý

Netta, Susan, Goose, and Iris gather at the house on Lake Orta to piece together what happened and prepare to bring their father’s body home. They spend the summer in a waiting game, living under the same roof as Bella-Mae, and forced to confront Vic's legacy and the buried wounds they have incurred as his children. So who is Bella-Mae? Is she the woman their father believed her to be? Or is she the force that will destroy the family for good? How long can their old bonds hold?Ìý

With sparkling wit, compassion and tender insight, The Homemade God explores memory, identity, grief, healing, and the bonds of siblinghood—what happens when they splinter, and what it might take to find a new way forward.]]> 336 Rachel Joyce 0593448294 Liz 0 3.91
author: Rachel Joyce
name: Liz
average rating: 3.91
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/22
shelves: to-read, not-owned, mount-tbr, ni-group-read
review:

]]> 203325526 Fourth Wing meets The Serpent and the Wings of Night in this dark, alluring fantasy romance filled with tension, combat, magic, fae, fallen angels, vampyres, and two stubborn rivals.

Huntyr has fought for survival her entire life. Raised under Lord, the master of assassins in Midgrave, she has spent over twenty years learning to kill the blood-hungry, depraved vampyres that lurk in the darkness. Huntyr is the most lethal fae in the kingdom, which is why Lord chooses her to complete the next mission.

Huntyr must survive Moira Seminary and make it into The Golden City—the mysterious elite society of the few remaining angels and the magic fae who live in luxury with no crime, no poverty, and certainly no vampyres.

Only when she arrives at the academy, she’s forced to room with Wolf—the terrifying fallen angel who happens to know her assassin identity.

Determined to keep her head down in Moira, Huntyr tries her best to ignore Wolf. Over time, though, he not only becomes the only person she can lean on, but the one who might keep her alive through the life-threatening tests to get into The Golden City.

A wolf and his huntress. An academy designed to break them.

Huntyr will do anything to please the assassin master, but Wolf begins to test her in ways she never imagined. Is she strong enough to stick to the mission? Or will new truths—and alliances—put everything at risk?

Wings So Wicked is a new adult fantasy romance with fae, vampyres, fallen angels, magical trials, fierce main characters, dark themes, forced proximity, 'who did this to you' moments, possessive males, rivals to lovers, elite societies, hidden identities, and so much more. Readers who love academy settings, main characters riddled with darkness, angst, and slow burn romances will devour this story!]]> 381 Emily Blackwood Liz 0 3.75
author: Emily Blackwood
name: Liz
average rating: 3.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bookish-box, series, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 201123145 Love is a weakness the powerful cannot afford.

When Mina Wildfang wakes up in a dark hole beneath the sea, her memories have been erased. The one thing she remembers is who imprisoned her: her family. The only thing she wants is revenge. But when she escapes, someone has burned her home to the ground—with her family inside. Mina decides if she cannot have vengeance, she will have the truth.

All Ashbourne Claymore wants is to live an honest life as a private investigator. He can’t remember his past, and he doesn’t want to. When a mysterious new client asks him to murder a woman named Mina Wildfang, he staunchly refuses. But he cannot help but be curious about the woman he was asked to assassinate.

When the two are drawn together by a series of otherworldly fires plaguing the city, the similarities between them are too much to ignore. Desire lights a flame that rivals the inferno coming for them. Can they survive the heat, or will they succumb to the ghosts of their past and let the city burn?

Enter a dark and glittering world of fey and witches in the first book in The Aethereals Duology. The Hollow Plane is a sizzling mix of mystery and fantasy romance, perfect for fans of House of Bane and Blood, and The Alchemists of Loom.]]> 464 Allison Carr Waechter Liz 0 3.73
author: Allison Carr Waechter
name: Liz
average rating: 3.73
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bookish-box, series, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 157993
Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.]]> 96 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 0152023984 Liz 0 4.32 1943
author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
name: Liz
average rating: 4.32
book published: 1943
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, classics, middle-grade, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 28251249
Taking readers deep into a labyrinth of dark neurosis, We Have Always Lived in the Castle is perhaps the crowning achievement of Shirley Jackson’s brilliant career: a deliciously unsettling novel about a perverse, isolated, and possibly murderous family and the dramatic struggle that ensues when an unexpected visitor interrupts their unusual way of life.]]> 146 Shirley Jackson 0143129546 Liz 0 4.05 1962
author: Shirley Jackson
name: Liz
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1962
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, classics, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 2277378
It's spring in the tiny, forgotten village; buds are on the trees and the first flowers are struggling through the newly thawed earth. But not everything is meant to return to life. . .

When some villagers decide to celebrate Easter with a séance at the Old Hadley House, they are hoping to rid the town of its evil—until one of their party dies of fright. Was this a natural death, or was the victim somehow helped along?

Brilliant, compassionate Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec is called to investigate, in a case that will force him to face his own ghosts as well as those of a seemingly idyllic town where relationships are far more dangerous than they seem.]]> 310 Louise Penny 0755328949 Liz 0 4.10 2007
author: Louise Penny
name: Liz
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: series, to-read, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 29763245
That scrap of paper leads Anna to the Seoul apartment of the poor yet elegant Hong Jae-hee. Jae-hee recounts an epic tale that begins with the Japanese occupation of Korea and China during World War II, when more than two hundred thousand Korean women were forced to serve the soldiers as “comfort women.� Jae-hee knows the story well—she was one of them.

As Jae-hee’s narrative unfolds, Anna discovers that the precious tortoiseshell comb, with its two-headed ivory dragon, has survived against all odds through generations of her family’s women. And as its origins become clearer, Anna realizes that along with the comb, she inherits a legacy—of resilience and courage, love and redemption—beyond her wildest imagination.

Revised This edition of Daughters of the Dragon includes editorial revisions.]]> 363 William Andrews 1503991245 Liz 0 4.54 2008
author: William Andrews
name: Liz
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 7981456 A Long Walk to Water begins as two stories, told in alternating sections, about a girl in Sudan in 2008 and a boy in Sudan in 1985. The girl, Nya, is fetching water from a pond that is two hours� walk from her home: she makes two trips to the pond every day. The boy, Salva, becomes one of the "lost boys" of Sudan, refugees who cover the African continent on foot as they search for their families and for a safe place to stay. Enduring every hardship from loneliness to attack by armed rebels to contact with killer lions and crocodiles, Salva is a survivor, and his story goes on to intersect with Nya’s in an astonishing and moving way.]]> 128 Linda Sue Park 0547251270 Liz 0 4.21 2010
author: Linda Sue Park
name: Liz
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 35271523
Soon after arriving for his honeymoon at the Tower, the mild-mannered headmaster of a small village school, Thomas Senlin, gets separated from his wife, Marya, in the overwhelming swarm of tourists, residents, and miscreants.

Senlin is determined to find Marya, but to do so he'll have to navigate madhouses, ballrooms, and burlesque theaters. He must survive betrayal, assassins, and the long guns of a flying fortress. But if he hopes to find his wife, he will have to do more than just endure.

This quiet man of letters must become a man of action.

The first book in the stunning and strange debut fantasy series that's receiving major praise from some of fantasy's biggest authors such as Mark Lawrence and Django Wexler.]]> 448 Josiah Bancroft 0316517917 Liz 0 4.08 2013
author: Josiah Bancroft
name: Liz
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: series, to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 26891044
This phrase captures a universal human experience--we can't always get ourselves to do what we know is best for us. In Well Designed Life, you will learn that the solution to this stumbling block resides in coupling two brain science and design thinking. Brain and behavior sciences have exploded in recent years. This catalyzes new insights into why we do what we do--and how we can change. Meanwhile, major advances in consumer technology, service industries, and public health are rapidly changing how we live. This boom of innovation has been fueled by a creative approach to solving problems called design thinking. We are living in the age of design--and designers are the new rock stars.

Dr. Kyra Bobinet brings together over 25 years of successfully designing interventions, products, and experiences that change lives--to empower you as the designer of your life. Dr. Bobinet has gathered her top ten key concepts from psychology, behavior and neuroscience and shows you how to apply each of them to changing your health, relationships, and well-being. Bobinet insists that the success or failure of changing our lives hinges on both understanding what's going on inside our head and applying the flexible mindset of a designer.

She writes, "Designing behavior is equal parts art and science. Steve Jobs once said, "Design is not just what it looks like or feels like. Design is how it works." Adopting the mindset of a designer puts you in the driver's seat of making life work. Grounding yourself in the science of how we see the world and how our brain responds helps you design behaviors that work--in real life, for real people. This is 100 percent about you acting on what you always wished you would do. It's about stepping out of any areas of helplessness and into creative self-direction.

You have a design your life or let it design you!

Infused with relatable narratives that are at once witty and gripping, professional and personal, Bobinet takes you on a journey through the origins of your self-image, motivations, decisions, and unconscious behaviors--leaving you with the keys to free yourself from your conditioning and lead a well-designed life.]]> 414 Kyra Bobinet MD MPH 0996734570 Liz 0 3.96 2015
author: Kyra Bobinet MD MPH
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: recommended, on-my-shelf-own, own, non-fiction, health, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, to-read, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 29540318 Grey's Anatomy and Scandal and executive producer of How to Get Away with Murder and Catch, reveals how saying YES changed her life -- and how it can change yours too. With three hit shows on television and three children at home, Shonda Rhimes had lots of good reasons to say no when invitations arrived. Hollywood party? No. Speaking engagement? No. Media appearances? No. And to an introvert like Shonda, who describes herself as 'hugging the walls' at social events and experiencing panic attacks before press interviews, there was a particular benefit to saying no: nothing new to fear. Then came Thanksgiving 2013, when Shonda's sister Delorse muttered six little words at her: You never say yes to anything. Profound, impassioned and laugh-out-loud funny, in Year of Yes Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed -- and saved -- her life. And inspires readers everywhere to change their own lives with one little word: Yes.]]> 352 Shonda Rhimes 1471157326 Liz 0 4.04 2015
author: Shonda Rhimes
name: Liz
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 58838053
Jenna Jones, former It-girl fashion editor, is broke and desperate for a second chance. When she’s dumped by her longtime fiancé and fired from Darling magazine, she begs for a job at StyleZine.com from her old arch nemesis, Darcy Vale. But Jenna soon realizes she’s in over her head. She’s working with digital-savvy millennials half her age, has never even “Twittered,� and pretends to still be a Fashion Somebody while living a style lie (she sold her designer wardrobe to afford her sketched-out studio, and now quietly wears Walmart’s finest). Worse? The twenty-two-year-old videographer assigned to shoot her web series is driving her crazy. Wildly sexy with a smile Jenna feels in her thighs, Eric Combs is way off-limits � but almost too delicious to resist.

Written by the bestselling author of The Accidental Diva, The Perfect Find is a scandalously sexy, laugh-out-loud saga of star-crossed love and starting over.]]> 370 Tia Williams 1529420202 Liz 0 3.98 2016
author: Tia Williams
name: Liz
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 29437949
But it’s difficult, because you realize Jack and Grace are inseparable.

Some might call this true love. Others might wonder why Grace never answers the phone. Or why she can never meet for coffee, even though she doesn’t work. How she can cook such elaborate meals but remain so slim. Or why she never seems to take anything with her when she leaves the house, not even a pen. Or why there are such high-security metal shutters on all the downstairs windows.

Some might wonder what’s really going on once the dinner party is over, and the front door has closed.]]> 293 B.A. Paris 1250121000 Liz 0 3.96 2016
author: B.A. Paris
name: Liz
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 30199426
In 1518, in a small town in Alsace, Frau Troffea began dancing and didn’t stop. She danced until she was carried away six days later, and soon thirty-four more villagers joined her. Then more. In a month more than 400 people had been stricken by the mysterious dancing plague. In late-seventeenth-century England an eccentric gentleman founded the No Nose Club in his gracious townhome―a social club for those who had lost their noses, and other body parts, to the plague of syphilis for which there was then no cure. And in turn-of-the-century New York, an Irish cook caused two lethal outbreaks of typhoid fever, a case that transformed her into the notorious Typhoid Mary.

Throughout time, humans have been terrified and fascinated by the diseases history and circumstance have dropped on them. Some of their responses to those outbreaks are almost too strange to believe in hindsight. Get Well Soon delivers the gruesome, morbid details of some of the worst plagues we’ve suffered as a species, as well as stories of the heroic figures who selflessly fought to ease the suffering of their fellow man. With her signature mix of in-depth research and storytelling, and not a little dark humor, Jennifer Wright explores history’s most gripping and deadly outbreaks, and ultimately looks at the surprising ways they’ve shaped history and humanity for almost as long as anyone can remember.]]> 336 Jennifer Wright 1627797467 Liz 0 4.27 2017
author: Jennifer Wright
name: Liz
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, audio, own, health, own-to-read, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 31450766
Worsley examines the rooms, spaces and possessions which mattered to her, and the varying ways in which homes are used in her novels as both places of pleasure and as prisons. She shows readers a passionate Jane Austen who fought for her freedom, a woman who had at least five marriage prospects, but--in the end--a woman who refused to settle for anything less than Mr. Darcy.

Illustrated with two sections of color plates, Lucy Worsley's Jane Austen at Home is a richly entertaining and illuminating new book about one of the world’s favorite novelists and one of the subjects she returned to over and over in her unforgettable novels: home.]]> 387 Lucy Worsley 125013160X Liz 0 4.26 2017
author: Lucy Worsley
name: Liz
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 29099264 480 Michael W. Twitty 0062379283 Liz 0 3.80 2017
author: Michael W. Twitty
name: Liz
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, non-fiction, bipoc, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 32223884 The Enchanted about an investigator who must use her unique insights to find a missing little girl.

"Where are you, Madison Culver? Flying with the angels, a silver speck on a wing? Are you dreaming, buried under snow? Or is it possible you are still alive?"

Three years ago, Madison Culver disappeared when her family was choosing a Christmas tree in Oregon’s Skookum National Forest. She would be eight-years-old now, if she has survived. Desperate to find their beloved daughter, certain someone took her, the Culvers turn to Naomi, a private investigator with an uncanny talent for locating the lost and missing. Known to the police and a select group of parents as "the Child Finder," Naomi is their last hope.

Naomi’s methodical search takes her deep into the icy, mysterious forest in the Pacific Northwest, and into her own fragmented past. She understands children like Madison because once upon a time, she was a lost girl, too.

As Naomi relentlessly pursues and slowly uncovers the truth behind Madison’s disappearance, shards of a dark dream pierce the defenses that have protected her, reminding her of a terrible loss she feels but cannot remember. If she finds Madison, will Naomi ultimately unlock the secrets of her own life?

Told in the alternating voices of Naomi and a deeply imaginative child, The Child Finder is a breathtaking, exquisitely rendered literary page-turner about redemption, the line between reality and memories and dreams, and the human capacity to survive.]]> 256 Rene Denfeld 0062659073 Liz 0 3.92 2017
author: Rene Denfeld
name: Liz
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2017
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 36604545 The most spellbinding debut novel of 2019

Fleetwood Shuttleworth is 17 years old, married, and pregnant for the fourth time. But as the mistress at Gawthorpe Hall, she still has no living child, and her husband Richard is anxious for an heir. When Fleetwood finds a letter she isn¹t supposed to read from the doctor who delivered her third stillbirth, she is dealt the crushing blow that she will not survive another pregnancy.

When she crosses paths by chance with Alice Gray, a young midwife, Alice promises to help her give birth to a healthy baby, and to prove the physician wrong.

When Alice is drawn into the witchcraft accusations that are sweeping the North-West, Fleetwood risks everything by trying to help her. But is there more to Alice than meets the eye?

As the two women's lives become inextricably bound together, the legendary trial at Lancaster approaches, and Fleetwood¹s stomach continues to grow. Time is running out, and both their lives are at stake.

Only they know the truth. Only they can save each other.]]> 432 Stacey Halls Liz 0 3.86 2019
author: Stacey Halls
name: Liz
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 39863464 A tale of a single night. The story of a lifetime.

If you had to pick five people to sum up your life, who would they be? If you were to raise a glass to each of them, what would you say? And what would you learn about yourself, when all is said and done?

This is the story of Maurice Hannigan, who, over the course of a Saturday night in June, orders five different drinks at the Rainford House Hotel. With each he toasts a person vital to him: his doomed older brother, his troubled sister-in-law, his daughter of fifteen minutes, his son far off in America, and his late, lamented wife. And through these people, the ones who left him behind, he tells the story of his own life, with all its regrets and feuds, loves and triumphs.

Beautifully written, powerfully felt, When All Is Said promises to be the next great Irish novel.]]> 326 Anne Griffin 125020058X Liz 0 3.94 2019
author: Anne Griffin
name: Liz
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, ni-group-read, ni-rec, recommended, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 44178049 “You may be faking the relationship, but you’re not faking the orgasms.�

Downsized, broke, and dumped, 38-year-old Marley sneaks home to her childhood bedroom in the town she couldn’t wait to escape twenty years ago. Not much has changed in Culpepper. The cool kids are still cool. Now they just own car dealerships and live in McMansions next door. Oh, and the whole town is still talking about that Homecoming she ruined her senior year.

Desperate for a new start, Marley accepts a temporary teaching position. Can the girl banned from all future Culpepper High Homecomings keep the losing-est girls soccer team in school history from killing each other and prevent carpal tunnel in a bunch of phone-clutching gym class students?

Maybe with the help of Jake Weston, high school bad boy turned sexy good guy. When the school rumor mill sends Marley to the principal’s office to sign an ethics contract, the tattooed track coach, dog dad, and teacher of the year becomes her new fake boyfriend and alibi—for a price. The Deal: He’ll teach her how to coach if she teaches him how to be in a relationship.

Who knew a fake boyfriend could deliver such real orgasms? But it’s all temporary. The guy. The job. The team. There’s too much history. Rock bottom can’t turn into a foundation for happily ever after. Can it?

Warning: Story also includes a meet-puke, a bouffanted nemesis, a yard swan and donkey basketball, a teenage-orchestrated makeover, and a fake relationship that gets a little too real between the sheets.]]> 532 Lucy Score 1945631430 Liz 0 4.26 2019
author: Lucy Score
name: Liz
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 43078423 From ​the New York Times bestselling author comes a breathtaking fantasy of a cursed kingdom, warring clans, and unexpected salvation.

Bayr of Saylok, bastard son of a powerful and jealous chieftain, is haunted by the curse once leveled by his dying mother. Bartered, abandoned, and rarely loved, she plagued the land with her words: From this day forward, there will be no daughters in Saylok.

Raised among the Keepers at Temple Hill, Bayr is gifted with inhuman strength. But he’s also blessed with an all-too-human heart that beats with one purpose: to protect Alba, the first girl child born in nearly two decades and the salvation for a country at risk.

Now the fate of Saylok lies with Alba and Bayr, whose bond grows deeper with every whisper of coming chaos. Charged with battling the enemies of their people, both within and without, Bayr is fueled further by the love of a girl who has defied the scourge of Saylok.

What Bayr and Alba don’t know is that they each threaten the king, a greedy man who built his throne on lies, murder, and betrayal. There is only one way to defend their land from the corruption that has overtaken it. By breaking the curse, they could defeat the king…but they could also destroy themselves.]]> 391 Amy Harmon 1721386963 Liz 0 4.15 2019
author: Amy Harmon
name: Liz
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 43263520
In Garner County, girls are told they have the power to lure grown men from their beds, to drive women mad with jealousy. They believe their very skin emits a powerful aphrodisiac, the potent essence of youth, of a girl on the edge of womanhood. That’s why they’re banished for their sixteenth year, to release their magic into the wild so they can return purified and ready for marriage. But not all of them will make it home alive.

Sixteen-year-old Tierney James dreams of a better life—a society that doesn’t pit friend against friend or woman against woman, but as her own grace year draws near, she quickly realizes that it’s not just the brutal elements they must fear. It’s not even the poachers in the woods, men who are waiting for a chance to grab one of the girls in order to make a fortune on the black market. Their greatest threat may very well be each other.

With sharp prose and gritty realism, The Grace Year examines the complex and sometimes twisted relationships between girls, the women they eventually become, and the difficult decisions they make in-between.]]> 416 Kim Liggett 1250145449 Liz 0 4.11 2019
author: Kim Liggett
name: Liz
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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]]> 42519313
Madison’s twin stepkids are moving in with her family and she wants Lillian to be their caretaker. However, there’s a catch: the twins spontaneously combust when they get agitated, flames igniting from their skin in a startling but beautiful way. Lillian is convinced Madison is pulling her leg, but it’s the truth.

Thinking of her dead-end life at home, the life that has consistently disappointed her, Lillian figures she has nothing to lose. Over the course of one humid, demanding summer, Lillian and the twins learn to trust each other—and stay cool—while also staying out of the way of Madison’s buttoned-up politician husband. Surprised by her own ingenuity yet unused to the intense feelings of protectiveness she feels for them, Lillian ultimately begins to accept that she needs these strange children as much as they need her—urgently and fiercely. Couldn’t this be the start of the amazing life she’d always hoped for?]]> 288 Kevin Wilson 0062913484 Liz 0 3.95 2019
author: Kevin Wilson
name: Liz
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 44284637 In a small town where loyalty to family and to “your people� carries the weight of a sacred oath, defying those unspoken rules can be a deadly proposition.

After fifteen years of growing up in the Ozark hills with his widowed mother, high-school freshman Boady Sanden is beyond ready to move on. He dreams of glass towers and cityscapes, driven by his desire to be anywhere other than Jessup, Missouri. The new kid at St. Ignatius High School, if he isn’t being pushed around, he is being completely ignored. Even his beloved woods, his playground as a child and his sanctuary as he grew older, seem to be closing in on him, suffocating him.

Then Thomas Elgin moves in across the road, and Boady’s life begins to twist and turn. Coming to know the Elgins--a black family settling into a community where notions of “us� and “them� carry the weight of history--forces Boady to rethink his understanding of the world he’s taken for granted. Secrets hidden in plain sight begin to unfold: the mother who wraps herself in the loss of her husband, the neighbor who carries the wounds of a mysterious past that he holds close, the quiet boss who is fighting his own hidden battle.

But the biggest secret of all is the disappearance of Lida Poe, the African-American woman who keeps the books at the local plastics factory. Word has it that Ms. Poe left town, along with a hundred thousand dollars of company money. Although Boady has never met the missing woman, he discovers that the threads of her life are woven into the deepest fabric of his world.

As the mystery of her fate plays out, Boady begins to see the stark lines of race and class that both bind and divide this small town, and he is forced to choose sides.]]> 305 Allen Eskens 0316509744 Liz 0 4.31 2019
author: Allen Eskens
name: Liz
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2019
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, mini-mystery-bc, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 52377380
Mercy is hard in a place like this . . .
It’s February 1976, and Odessa, Texas, stands on the cusp of the next great oil boom. While the town’s men embrace the coming prosperity, its women intimately know and fear the violence that always seems to follow.

In the early hours of the morning after Valentine’s Day, fourteen-year-old Gloria Ramírez appears on the front porch of Mary Rose Whitehead’s ranch house, broken and barely alive. The teenager had been viciously attacked in a nearby oil field—an act of brutality that is tried in the churches and barrooms of Odessa before it can reach a court of law. When justice is evasive, the stage is set for a showdown with potentially devastating consequences.

Valentine is a haunting exploration of the intersections of violence and race, class and region in a story that plumbs the depths of darkness and fear, yet offers a window into beauty and hope. Told through the alternating points of view of indelible characters who burrow deep in the reader’s heart, this fierce, unflinching, and surprisingly tender novel illuminates women’s strength and vulnerability, and reminds us that it is the stories we tell ourselves that keep us alive.]]> 320 Elizabeth Wetmore 0062913263 Liz 0 3.73 2020
author: Elizabeth Wetmore
name: Liz
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 55029958
Divorced. Broke. Living with a pack of elderly roommates. And those hallucinations she's diligently ignoring? Her tarot card-dealing mom is convinced they're clairvoyant visions.

Just when things can't get worse, a so-hot-it-should-be-illegal private investigator shows up on her doorstep looking for a neighbor...who turns up murdered.

Nick Santiago doesn't play well with others. Unless the "others" are of the female persuasion. Wink. He's a rebel, a black sheep, a man who prefers a buffet of options to being stuck with the same entrée every night, if you catch his drift.

When the pretty, possibly psychic Riley lands at the top of the list of suspects, Nick volunteers to find out whodunit. Only because he likes solving mysteries not because he wants to flex his heroic muscles for the damsel in distress.

All they have to do is figure out who pulled the trigger, keep the by-the-book detective with a grudge at bay, and deal with a stranger claiming he was sent to help Riley hone her psychic gifts. All before the killer discovers she's a loose end that requires snipping.]]> 519 Lucy Score Liz 0 4.21 2020
author: Lucy Score
name: Liz
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bookish-box, on-my-shelf-own, own, own-to-read, on-my-shelf-to-read, series, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 48615751
As a child, Nezhukumatathil called many places home: the grounds of a Kansas mental institution, where her Filipina mother was a doctor; the open skies and tall mountains of Arizona, where she hiked with her Indian father; and the chillier climes of western New York and Ohio. But no matter where she was transplanted--no matter how awkward the fit or forbidding the landscape--she was able to turn to our world's fierce and funny creatures for guidance.

"What the peacock can do," she tells us, "is remind you of a home you will run away from and run back to all your life." The axolotl teaches us to smile, even in the face of unkindness; the touch-me-not plant shows us how to shake off unwanted advances; the narwhal demonstrates how to survive in hostile environments. Even in the strange and the unlovely, Nezhukumatathil finds beauty and kinship. For it is this way with wonder: it requires that we are curious enough to look past the distractions in order to fully appreciate the world's gifts.

Warm, lyrical, and gorgeously illustrated by Fumi Nakamura, World of Wonders is a book of sustenance and joy.]]> 165 Aimee Nezhukumatathil 1571313656 Liz 0 4.05 2020
author: Aimee Nezhukumatathil
name: Liz
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: not-owned, non-fiction, ni-rec, recommended, to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 54621094
All these things are true. And yet they are all lies...

You think you know what's inside the last house on Needless Street. You think you've read this story before. That's where you're wrong.

In the dark forest at the end of Needless Street, lies something buried. But it's not what you think...]]> 337 Catriona Ward 1788166167 Liz 0 3.83 2021
author: Catriona Ward
name: Liz
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 53238858 Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.�—Oprah Winfrey

This book is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?� to “What happened to you?�

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future—opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.]]> 304 Bruce D. Perry 1250223180 Liz 0 4.43 2021
author: Bruce D. Perry
name: Liz
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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]]> 51183428 Homegoing; Sing, Unburied, Sing; and The Water Dancer—that chronicles the journey of one American family, from the centuries of the colonial slave trade through the Civil War to our own tumultuous era.

The great scholar, W. E. B. Du Bois, once wrote about the Problem of race in America, and what he called “Double Consciousness,� a sensitivity that every African American possesses in order to survive. Since childhood, Ailey Pearl Garfield has understood Du Bois’s words all too well. Bearing the names of two formidable Black Americans—the revered choreographer Alvin Ailey and her great grandmother Pearl, the descendant of enslaved Georgians and tenant farmers—Ailey carries Du Bois’s Problem on her shoulders.

Ailey is reared in the north in the City but spends summers in the small Georgia town of Chicasetta, where her mother’s family has lived since their ancestors arrived from Africa in bondage. From an early age, Ailey fights a battle for belonging that’s made all the more difficult by a hovering trauma, as well as the whispers of women—her mother, Belle, her sister, Lydia, and a maternal line reaching back two centuries—that urge Ailey to succeed in their stead.

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.]]> 816 Honorée Fanonne Jeffers 006294293X Liz 0 4.51 2021
author: Honorée Fanonne Jeffers
name: Liz
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 57400334 In this evocative tale from the bestselling author of The Dressmaker’s Gift, a strange new city offers a young girl hope. Can it also offer a lost soul a second chance?

Morocco, 1941. With France having fallen to Nazi occupation, twelve-year-old Josie has fled with her family to Casablanca, where they await safe passage to America. Life here is as intense as the sun, every sight, smell and sound overwhelming to the senses in a city filled with extraordinary characters. It’s a world away from the trouble back home—and Josie loves it.

Seventy years later, another new arrival in the intoxicating port city, Zoe, is struggling—with her marriage, her baby daughter and her new life as an expat in an unfamiliar place. But when she discovers a small wooden box and a diary from the 1940s beneath the floorboards of her daughter’s bedroom, Zoe enters the inner world of young Josie, who once looked out on the same view of the Atlantic Ocean, but who knew a very different Casablanca.

It’s not long before Zoe begins to see her adopted city through Josie’s eyes. But can a new perspective help her turn tragedy into hope, and find the comfort she needs to heal her broken heart?]]> 315 Fiona Valpy 1542032091 Liz 0 4.41 2021
author: Fiona Valpy
name: Liz
average rating: 4.41
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, international-bc, not-owned, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 58070060 The Water Dancer meets The Prophets in this spare, gripping, and beautifully rendered novel exploring love and friendship among a group of enslaved Black strivers in the mid-19th century.

They call themselves the Stolen. Their owners call them captives. They are taught their captors� tongues and their beliefs but they have a language and rituals all their own.

In a world that would be allegorical if it weren’t saturated in harsh truths, Cato and William meet at Placid Hall, a plantation in an unspecified part of the American South. Subject to the whims of their tyrannical and eccentric captor, Cannonball Greene, they never know what harm may befall them: inhumane physical toil in the plantation’s quarry by day, a beating by night, or the sale of a loved one at any moment. It’s that cruel practice—the wanton destruction of love, the belief that Black people aren’t even capable of loving—that hurts the most.

It hurts the reserved and stubborn William, who finds himself falling for Margaret, a small but mighty woman with self-possession beyond her years. And it hurts Cato, whose first love, Iris, was sold off with no forewarning. He now finds solace in his hearty band of friends, including William, who is like a brother; Margaret; Little Zander; and Milton, a gifted artist. There is also Pandora, with thick braids and long limbs, whose beauty calls to him.

Their relationships begin to fray when a visiting minister with a mysterious past starts to fill their heads with ideas about independence. He tells them that with freedom comes the right to choose the small things—when to dine, when to begin and end work—as well as the big things, such as whom and how to love. Do they follow the preacher and pursue the unknown? Confined in a landscape marked by deceit and uncertainty, who can they trust?

In an elegant work of monumental imagination that will reorient how we think of the legacy of America’s shameful past, Jabari Asim presents a beautiful, powerful, and elegiac novel that examines intimacy and longing in the quarters while asking a vital question: What would happen if an enslaved person risked everything for love?]]> 272 Jabari Asim 198216316X Liz 0 4.19 2022
author: Jabari Asim
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bipoc, not-owned, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 60305071 At midnight, one of them is dead.
By morning, all of them are suspects.

It's a party to end all parties, but not everyone is here to celebrate.

On New Year’s Eve, Rhys Lloyd has a house full of guests. His vacation homes on Mirror Lake are a success, and he’s generously invited the village to drink champagne with their wealthy new neighbors.

But by midnight, Rhys will be floating dead in the freezing waters of the lake.

On New Year’s Day, Ffion Morgan has a village full of suspects. The tiny community is her home, so the suspects are her neighbors, friends and family—and Ffion has her own secrets to protect.

With a lie uncovered at every turn, soon the question isn’t who wanted Rhys dead…but who finally killed him.

In a village with this many secrets, murder is just the beginning. ]]> 432 Clare Mackintosh 172825096X Liz 0 3.70 2022
author: Clare Mackintosh
name: Liz
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 59807954 An enchanting tale filled with magical realism and moments of pure love that won’t let you go.

Between the real and the imaginary, there are stories that take flight in the most extraordinary ways.

Right off the coast of South Carolina, on Mallow Island, The Dellawisp sits—a stunning old cobblestone building shaped like a horseshoe, and named after the tiny turquoise birds who, alongside its human tenants, inhabit an air of magical secrecy.

When Zoey comes to claim her deceased mother’s apartment at the Dellawisp she meets her quirky and secretive neighbors, including a young woman with a past, two estranged middle-aged sisters, and a lonely chef, and three ghosts. The sudden death of one of Zoey's new neighbors sets off a search that leads to the island's famous author and to a long-estranged relative of the sisters.
Each of them has a story, and each story has an ending which hasn't yet been written.]]> 290 Sarah Addison Allen 1250019869 Liz 0 4.00 2022
author: Sarah Addison Allen
name: Liz
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, ni-group-read, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 57190453
It’s 1931 in Shanghai, and the stage is set for a new decade of intrigue.

Four years ago, Rosalind Lang was brought back from the brink of death, but the strange experiment that saved her also stopped her from sleeping and aging—and allows her to heal from any wound. In short, Rosalind cannot die. Now, desperate for redemption from her traitorous past, she uses her abilities as an assassin for her country.

Code name: Fortune.

But when the Japanese Imperial Army begins its invasion march, Rosalind’s mission pivots. A series of murders is causing unrest in Shanghai, and the Japanese are under suspicion. Rosalind’s new orders are to infiltrate foreign society and identify the culprits behind the terror plot before more of her people are killed.

To reduce suspicion, however, she must pose as the wife of another Nationalist spy, Orion Hong, and though Rosalind finds Orion’s cavalier attitude and playboy demeanor infuriating, she is willing to work with him for the greater good. But Orion has an agenda of his own, and Rosalind has secrets that she wants to keep buried. As they both attempt to unravel the conspiracy, the two spies soon find that there are deeper and more horrifying layers to this mystery than they ever imagined.]]> 528 Chloe Gong Liz 0 4.22 2022
author: Chloe Gong
name: Liz
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: young-adult, to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 44648641 Ohioana Book Award finalist Ruth Emmie Lang returns with a new cast of ordinary characters with extraordinary abilities.

Five years ago, Nora Wilder disappeared. The older of her two daughters, Zadie, should have seen it coming, because she can literally see things coming. But not even her psychic abilities were able to prevent their mother from vanishing one morning.

Zadie’s estranged younger sister, Finn, can’t see into the future, but she has an uncannily good memory, so good that she remembers not only her own memories, but the echoes of memories other people have left behind. On the afternoon of her graduation party, Finn is seized by an “echo� more powerful than anything she’s experienced before: a woman singing a song she recognizes, a song about a bird�

When Finn wakes up alone in an aviary with no idea of how she got there, she realizes who the memory belongs to: Nora.

Now, it’s up to Finn to convince her sister that not only is their mom still out there, but that she wants to be found. Against Zadie’s better judgement, she and Finn hit the highway, using Finn’s echoes to retrace Nora’s footsteps and uncover the answer to the question that has been haunting them for years: Why did she leave?

But the more time Finn spends in their mother’s past, the harder it is for her to return to the present, to return to herself. As Zadie feels her sister start to slip away, she will have to decide what lengths she is willing to go to to find their mother, knowing that if she chooses wrong, she could lose them both for good.]]> 326 Ruth Emmie Lang 1250246911 Liz 0 3.49 2022
author: Ruth Emmie Lang
name: Liz
average rating: 3.49
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 60468332
Florida is slipping away. As devastating weather patterns and rising sea levels wreak gradual havoc on the state’s infrastructure, a powerful hurricane approaches a small town on the southeastern coast. Kirby Lowe, an electrical line worker, his pregnant wife, Frida, and their two sons, Flip and Lucas, prepare for the worst. When the boys go missing just before the hurricane hits, Kirby heads out into the high winds in search of his children. Left alone, Frida goes into premature labor and gives birth to an unusual child, Wanda, whom she names after the catastrophic storm that ushers her into a society closer to collapse than ever before.

As Florida continues to unravel, Wanda grows. Moving from childhood to adulthood, adapting not only to the changing landscape, but also to the people who stayed behind in a place abandoned by civilization, Wanda loses family, gains community, and ultimately, seeks adventure, love, and purpose in a place remade by nature.

Told in four parts—power, water, light, and time� The Light Pirate mirrors the rhythms of the elements and the sometimes quick, sometimes slow dissolution of the world as we know it. It is a meditation on the changes we would rather not see, the future we would rather not greet, and a call back to the beauty and violence of an untamable wilderness.

Includes a Reading Group Guide.]]> 336 Lily Brooks-Dalton 1538708272 Liz 0 4.01 2022
author: Lily Brooks-Dalton
name: Liz
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 60784636
Except for the occasional catnap or small blackout where she loses track of time, she hasn’t slept in a year.

Isabelle's entire existence now revolves around finding him, but she knows she can’t go on this way forever. In hopes of jarring loose a new witness or buried clue, she agrees to be interviewed by a true-crime podcaster—but his interest in Isabelle's past makes her nervous. His incessant questioning paired with her severe insomnia has brought up uncomfortable memories from her own childhood, making Isabelle start to doubt her recollection of the night of Mason’s disappearance, as well as second-guess who she can trust... including herself. But she is determined to figure out the truth no matter where it leads.]]> 326 Stacy Willingham 1250803853 Liz 0 4.04 2023
author: Stacy Willingham
name: Liz
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 60784373
For decades afterward, the friends have kept a secret worth killing for. But now Olivia wants to tell, and Naomi sets out to find out what really happened in the woods―no matter how dangerous the truth turns out to be.]]> 336 Kate Alice Marshall 1250859883 Liz 0 3.93 2023
author: Kate Alice Marshall
name: Liz
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 92012907
Everyone in the small Midwestern town of Henderson looks up to my perfect parents. With dependable jobs as a midwife and the town sheriff, they help this close-knit community feel safe. But the locals didn’t grow up in my parents� house. They don’t know what I know. And they wouldn’t believe me if I told them�

After my best friend vanished when we were just fifteen, I left town and never looked back. I couldn’t prove it, but I think my parents killed her.

Now, years later, my little sister has vanished. I have no choice but to go home and play happy families again. Because I have to find out what my parents have done to her. I have to try to save her.

But when bones are discovered on a local farm, and all the evidence leads back to our front door, I realize I was wrong about absolutely everything. And that coming back was the deadliest thing I could do…]]> 389 Wendy Dranfield 1837902356 Liz 0 4.19 2023
author: Wendy Dranfield
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: not-owned, to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 205044632 A woman on the run. A crew of Viking mercenaries. A forbidden romance. And the secret which threatens them all.

Silla Nordvig is running for her life.

The queen of �seldur has sent warriors to bring Silla to Sunnavík, where death awaits her. When her father is killed, his last words set Silla on a perilous quest: travel the treacherous Road of Bones–a thousand-mile stretch haunted by warbands, creatures of darkness, and a mysterious murderer–and go to Kopa, where a shield-house awaits her.

After barely surviving the first stretch of road, a desperate Silla sneaks into a supply wagon belonging to the notorious Bloodaxe Crew. To make it to Kopa, she must win over Axe Eyes, the brooding leader of the Crew, while avoiding the Wolf, his distractingly handsome right-hand man. But the queen’s ruthless assassin has other plans and hunts Silla obsessively.

Will Silla make it safely to Kopa? Or will she fall prey to the perils of the Road of Bones?

Featuring an immersive world blending fairy tale with Vikings, The Road of Bones leads you on an adrenaline-fueled chase with fun banter and a slow-building enemies to lovers romance. The first book in the Ashen Series, you are one click away from reading it!]]> 500 Demi Winters 173899600X Liz 0 4.21 2023
author: Demi Winters
name: Liz
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, own, own-to-read, kindle-own, kindle-still-to-read
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]]> 63214317
Two weeks later, her sister disappeared, leaving nothing but a trail of blood in her wake.

Convinced the gods were responsible for the disappearance, Karys has spent the past five years plotting her revenge with the help of a cutthroat band of likeminded elven rebels. So when Dravyn—one of her world’s most powerful deities—descends upon her kingdom in search of humans worthy of serving him, Karys knows what she must do. Earning a place at the god’s side will allow her to find out what truly happened to her sister…and then destroy the gods from the inside out for what they did.

Thrown into the dazzling but deadly world of the divine courts, she must navigate complicated politics, strange magic, and dangerous trials to prove herself worthy of standing among the gods.

Among the most dangerous of these trials is Dravyn himself.

Karys knows better than to trust the enigmatic God of Fire. The flames of passion that stir between them are only divine trickery. And yet, the more she learns about him, the hotter the forbidden sparks burn. The more she begins to question all she thought she knew about the world of gods and mortals and everything in-between.

And the more she risks betraying her own secrets, which may be the most dangerous thing of all.

This is a romantic epic fantasy with some adult language and spicy content. Though it’s set in the same universe as the Shadows and Crowns series—in the distant past—it can be read and completely enjoyed without reading any previous books in this world. Book two will end with a HEA, but beware the cliffhanger at the end of this first book!]]> 662 S.M. Gaither Liz 0 3.89 2023
author: S.M. Gaither
name: Liz
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bookish-box, series, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 195138739
An heiress in the most notorious family in Lynchaven, Camilla Marchese is doing all she can to keep her family’s syndicate, the Iron Saint Railway, from slipping into bankruptcy. When the gorgeous and depraved Nicolai Attano, the leader of a rival family, offers to pay off the Inspector in exchange for her hand, she has no choice but to give up not only her throne—but her name.

Nico has his own motivations for their union beyond maintaining peace with her family. A serial kidnapper known as The Collector has been ravaging the streets of Remnant Row, stirring up mistrust between natives and descendants. If Milla can help restore safety to his streets, he’ll have no need for her or her family’s company. Find the Collector, prevent a war between their sides of the city, and pay off the family debt before she turns twenty-one. If Milla can fulfill her end of the bargain, she’ll walk away with more freedom than she’s ever had before.

But this deal plunges Milla into the city’s dark underbelly where remnant magic and arcane science compete in a deadly game of depravity. When forbidden feelings rise for her new husband and dark family secrets come to light, Milla must discover the truth about her past before it gets them both killed or worse—collected.

Set in a post-industrial age setting on a magical Isle, Peaky Blinders meets the magic system of the Grishaverse in this rivals-to-lovers adult fantasy romance.]]> 432 Alexis L. Menard Liz 0 3.99 2023
author: Alexis L. Menard
name: Liz
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 201054357 If he’s death, I crave oblivion.

I'm cursed to kill with a brush of my fingertips. My worst fear is attracting the attention of the kingdom’s magic hunters. Maelor is their mysterious, gorgeous leader--and my world falls apart when he learns my secret.

When he arrests me, my only hope is to survive a deadly competition, to win the mercy of our god. Strangely, Maelor is immune to my touch. Turns out, that’s because he’s secretly a vampire—lethally sexy, and dangerous as hell.

He's as drawn to me as I am to him. Can this beautiful monster help me survive, or will our dark attraction lead me to ruin?Ìý

Hallowed Games is the first book in a new series of fantasy romance, morally-grey characters, and deadly trials: perfect A Court of Thorns and Roses and Serpent and the Wings of Night.]]> 410 C.N. Crawford Liz 0 3.90 2023
author: C.N. Crawford
name: Liz
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 65213381
When she receives word of their tragic deaths, Inez inherits their massive fortune and a mysterious guardian, an archeologist in partnership with his Egyptian brother-in-law. Yearning for answers, Inez sails to Cairo, bringing her sketch pads and an ancient golden ring her father sent to her for safekeeping before he died. But upon her arrival, the old world magic tethered to the ring pulls her down a path where she soon discovers there’s more to her parent’s disappearance than what her guardian led her to believe.

With her guardian’s infuriatingly handsome assistant thwarting her at every turn, Inez must rely on ancient magic to uncover the truth about her parent’s disappearance—or risk becoming a pawn in a larger game that will kill her.

The Mummy meets Death on the Nile in this lush, immersive historical fantasy set in Egypt filled with adventure, a rivals-to-lovers romance, and a dangerous race.]]> 416 Isabel Ibañez 1250803373 Liz 0 3.83 2023
author: Isabel Ibañez
name: Liz
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 135679765
He’s an Army Ranger.
She’s a baker.

He’s organized and rigid.
She’s messy and carefree.

He doesn’t do relationships.
She’s following her heart.

His family chat blows up his phone.
She just buried her last living relative.

The holiday season doesn’t seem so jolly as they venture from one mode of transportation to the next. But, they have to become friends and rely on each other if they’re going to survive all the obstacles thrown their way.

As the miles grow shorter, vulnerabilities are shared, and by the time they reach their destination, neither one of them is sure what they really want for Christmas anymore.]]> 272 Piper Rayne Liz 0 3.91 2023
author: Piper Rayne
name: Liz
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, christmas, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 127542189
Sadie Thatcher’s life has fallen apart in spectacular fashion. In one fell swoop, she managed to lose her job, her apartment, and her boyfriend—all thanks to her big mouth. So when a fortune teller offers her one wish, Sadie jumps at the chance to redo her awful year. Deep down, she doesn’t believe magic will fix her life, but taking a leap of faith, Sadie makes her wish, opens her eyes, and . . . nothing has changed . And then, in perhaps her dumbest move yet, she kisses her brother’s best friend, Jacob.

When Sadie wakes up the next morning, she’s in her former apartment with her former boyfriend, and her former boss is expecting her at work. Checking the date, she realizes it's January 1 . . . of last year . ÌýAs Sadie navigates her second-chance year, she begins to see the red flags she missed in her relationship and in her career. Plus, she keeps running into Jacob, and she can’t stop thinking about their kiss . . . the one he has no idea ever happened. Suddenly, Sadie begins to wonder if her only mistake was wishing for a second chance.
Ìý±Õ±Õ> 336 Melissa Wiesner Liz 0 3.95 2023
author: Melissa Wiesner
name: Liz
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2023
rating: 0
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]]> 126919284
But to everyone’s surprise, Cam wants little to do with the house or the money—and even less to do with the surviving McTavishes. Instead, he rejects his inheritance, settling into a normal life as an English teacher in Colorado and marrying Jules, a woman just as eager to escape her own messy past.

Ten years later, Camden is a McTavish in name only, but a summons in the wake of his uncle’s death brings him and Jules back into the family fold at Ashby House. Its views are just as stunning as ever, its rooms just as elegant, but coming home reminds Cam why he was so quick to leave in the first place.

Jules, however, has other ideas, and the more she learns about Cam’s estranged family—and the twisted secrets they keep—the more determined she is for her husband to claim everything Ruby once intended for him to have.

But Ruby’s plans were always more complicated than they appeared. As Ashby House tightens its grip on Jules and Camden, questions about the infamous heiress come to light. Was there any truth to the persistent rumors following her disappearance as a girl? What really happened to those four husbands, who all died under mysterious circumstances? And why did she adopt Cam in the first place? Soon, Jules and Cam realize that an inheritance can entail far more than what’s written in a will—and that the bonds of family stretch far beyond the grave.]]> 294 Rachel Hawkins 1250280036 Liz 0 3.80 2024
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Liz
average rating: 3.80
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 199368721 She's been driving him wild for years . . . the good kind of wild.

The kind of wild that comes with wanting your best friend's little sister and knowing you can't have her.

Forbes may have labeled Ford Grant the World's Hottest Billionaire, but all he cares about is escaping the press and opening a recording studio in gorgeous small town Rose Hill. Something that comes to a screeching halt when he ends up face-to-face with a young girl who claims he's her biological father. Now, he spends his days balancing business with parenting a sullen twelve-year-old, all while trying desperately to keep his hands the hell off his best friend's sister, Rosie Belmont.

After living in the city, Rosie came blasting back into town like a storm. Beautiful, messy, and chaotic. And one wide-eyed, desperate plea for a job is all it takes for Ford to hire her. He vows to keep her at arm's length. Tries to stick to scowls and grumpy one-liners. But with her, verbal sparring is a type of foreplay―friction that soon turns to blistering heat.

Ford knows damn well he shouldn't cross this line. But shouldn't and can't are two very different things.

And the only thing he truly can't do is resist her.]]> 402 Elsie Silver 0349441626 Liz 0 3.99 2024
author: Elsie Silver
name: Liz
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 59808050 The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.

After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours.

The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows�

Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed.

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.]]> 352 Alice Feeney 1250843936 Liz 0 3.75 2022
author: Alice Feeney
name: Liz
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 51854625 A murder on the high seas. A detective duo. A demon who may or may not exist.

It's 1634 and Samuel Pipps, the world's greatest detective, is being transported to Amsterdam to be executed for a crime he may, or may not, have committed. Traveling with him is his loyal bodyguard, Arent Hayes, who is determined to prove his friend innocent.

But no sooner are they out to sea than devilry begins to blight the voyage. A twice-dead leper stalks the decks. Strange symbols appear on the sails. Livestock is slaughtered.

And then three passengers are marked for death, including Samuel.

Could a demon be responsible for their misfortunes?

With Pipps imprisoned, only Arent can solve a mystery that connects every passenger onboard. A mystery that stretches back into their past and now threatens to sink the ship, killing everybody on board.

The breathtaking new novel from Stuart Turton, author of the The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, winner of the Costa Best First Novel Award.]]> 463 Stuart Turton Liz 0 3.82 2020
author: Stuart Turton
name: Liz
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
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]]> 27406704
When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she finds work as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center. The fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts. Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?]]> 324 Fredrik Backman 1501142534 Liz 0 4.05 2014
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Liz
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, ni-group-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 57693416 The next electrifying novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author duo behind The Wife Between Us.

Wealthy Washington suburbanites Marissa and Matthew Bishop seem to have it all—until Marissa is unfaithful. Beneath their veneer of perfection is a relationship riven by work and a lack of intimacy. She wants to repair things for the sake of their eight-year-old son and because she loves her husband. Enter Avery Chambers.

Avery is a therapist who lost her professional license. Still, it doesn’t stop her from counseling those in crisis, though they have to adhere to her unorthodox methods. And the Bishops are desperate.

When they glide through Avery’s door and Marissa reveals her infidelity, all three are set on a collision course. Because the biggest secrets in the room are still hidden, and it’s no longer simply a marriage that’s in danger.]]> 329 Greer Hendricks 125027320X Liz 0 3.94 2022
author: Greer Hendricks
name: Liz
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 50892349
Where does the story of the Owens bloodline begin? With Maria Owens, in the 1600s, when she’s abandoned in a snowy field in rural England as a baby. Under the care of Hannah Owens, Maria learns about the “Nameless Arts.� Hannah recognizes that Maria has a gift and she teaches the girl all she knows. It is here that she learns her first important lesson: Always love someone who will love you back.

When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family. And it’s here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life. Love is the only thing that matters.

Magic Lessons is a celebration of life and love and a showcase of Alice Hoffman’s masterful storytelling.]]> 396 Alice Hoffman 1982108843 Liz 0 4.19 2020
author: Alice Hoffman
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, botm, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 208547062 SLEEPING BEAUTY x HADES & PERSEPHONE.

Tarian Hadez—thirty-three, real estate mogul, mob lord, most eligible bachelor in New England, god. The god-part is an exaggeration. If true deities existed, then the world would be a magical place, and it's really not. At least, my world isn't.

Calanthe Bloom. That's me. Twenty-four, college graduate drowning in debt, designer shoes and true crime podcast addict, florist by default, single by design. Although not living my best life, l'm enthusiastically pursuing it. Especially, in my dreams, which, since a recent flower-delivery snafu, all feature none other than lethally private Tarian.

Oh, the things he does to me when I sleep.

Wickedly surreal.

Except... are they?

Enter a world of gods and monsters where dreams are made of flesh. My Dark Beast is a standalone paranormal romance brimming with spice and intrigue.]]> 600 Olivia Wildenstein 1948463946 Liz 0 3.58 2024
author: Olivia Wildenstein
name: Liz
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2024
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, bookish-box, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, own, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 60727223 Now that day has come, forcing her to come face-to-face with what she’s hidden from: a dangerous, dark-haired, warrior king determined to marry her.
After she’s shoved into a black carriage pulled by six ominous steeds, Layala makes plans to take her captors� lives and free herself...
...but Thane has a secret that makes it impossible for Layala to slay him. She has an even darker truth that makes loving her forbidden, no matter how much Thane wants to touch.

Dare to dive into this whimsical and deeply romantic story inspired by Hades & Persephone, The Lord of the Rings, and a sprinkle of Norse mythology. A tale that will grip you from the first page and stay with you long after the last.]]> 488 J.M. Kearl Liz 0 3.92 2022
author: J.M. Kearl
name: Liz
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 53137974 An alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BYCWK6T can be found here.

Sally Hepworth, the author of The Mother-In-Law delivers a knock-out of a novel about the lies that bind two sisters in The Good Sister.

There's only been one time that Rose couldn't stop me from doing the wrong thing and that was a mistake that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Fern Castle works in her local library. She has dinner with her twin sister Rose three nights a week. And she avoids crowds, bright lights and loud noises as much as possible. Fern has a carefully structured life and disrupting her routine can be...dangerous.

When Rose discovers that she cannot get pregnant, Fern sees her chance to pay her sister back for everything Rose has done for her. Fern can have a baby for Rose. She just needs to find a father. Simple.

Fern's mission will shake the foundations of the life she has carefully built for herself and stir up dark secrets from the past, in this quirky, rich and shocking story of what families keep hidden.]]> 309 Sally Hepworth 1250120950 Liz 0 4.11 2020
author: Sally Hepworth
name: Liz
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 53137893 A delicious twist on a Gothic classic, The Wife Upstairs pairs Southern charm with atmospheric domestic suspense, perfect for fans of B.A. Paris and Megan Miranda.

Meet Jane. Newly arrived to Birmingham, Alabama, Jane is a broke dog-walker in Thornfield Estates––a gated community full of McMansions, shiny SUVs, and bored housewives. The kind of place where no one will notice if Jane lifts the discarded tchotchkes and jewelry off the side tables of her well-heeled clients. Where no one will think to ask if Jane is her real name.

But her luck changes when she meets Eddie Rochester. Recently widowed, Eddie is Thornfield Estates� most mysterious resident. His wife, Bea, drowned in a boating accident with her best friend, their bodies lost to the deep. Jane can’t help but see an opportunity in Eddie––not only is he rich, brooding, and handsome, he could also offer her the kind of protection she’s always yearned for.

Yet as Jane and Eddie fall for each other, Jane is increasingly haunted by the legend of Bea, an ambitious beauty with a rags-to-riches origin story, who launched a wildly successful southern lifestyle brand. How can she, plain Jane, ever measure up? And can she win Eddie’s heart before her past––or his––catches up to her?

With delicious suspense, incisive wit, and a fresh, feminist sensibility, The Wife Upstairs flips the script on a timeless tale of forbidden romance, ill-advised attraction, and a wife who just won’t stay buried. In this vivid reimagining of one of literature’s most twisted love triangles, which Mrs. Rochester will get her happy ending?]]> 290 Rachel Hawkins 1250245494 Liz 0 3.71 2021
author: Rachel Hawkins
name: Liz
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2021
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, kindle-own, own, kindle-still-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 44281326
Impossible choices are made, decisions that leave the survivors tormented with grief and regret. Unable to let go, Finn keeps vigil as they struggle to reclaim their shattered lives. Jack, her father, who seeks vengeance against the one person he can blame other than himself; her best friend, Mo, who bravely searches for the truth as the story of their survival is rewritten; her sister Chloe, who knows Finn lingers and yearns to join her; and her mother, Ann, who saved them all but is haunted by her decisions. Finn needs to move on, but how can she with her family still in pieces?

Heartrending yet ultimately redemptive, In an Instant is a story about the power of love, the meaning of family, and carrying on…even when it seems impossible.]]> 319 Suzanne Redfearn 1542006589 Liz 0 4.19 2020
author: Suzanne Redfearn
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, kindle-own, own, kindle-still-to-read, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 58724626 From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.]]> 165 T. Kingfisher 1250830753 Liz 0 3.86 2022
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Liz
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
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]]> 18373 Winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards, the powerful, classic story about a man who receives an operation that turns him into a genius...and introduces him to heartache.
Ìý
Charlie Gordon is about to embark upon an unprecedented journey. Born with an unusually low IQ, he has been chosen as the perfect subject for an experimental surgery that researchers hope will increase his intelligence � a procedure that has already been highly successful when tested on a lab mouse named Algernon.

As the treatment takes effect, Charlie's intelligence expands until it surpasses that of the doctors who engineered his metamorphosis. The experiment appears to be a scientific breakthrough of paramount importance, until Algernon suddenly deteriorates. Will the same happen to Charlie?]]> 311 Daniel Keyes 015603008X Liz 0 4.19 1966
author: Daniel Keyes
name: Liz
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, classics, audio, own, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 57007380 Featuring his famous literary detective Atticus Pund and Susan Ryeland, hero of the worldwide bestseller Magpie Murders, a brilliantly complex literary thriller with echoes of Agatha Christie from New York Times bestselling author Anthony Horowitz.

Retired publisher Susan Ryeland is living the good life. She is running a small hotel on a Greek island with her long-term boyfriend Andreas. It should be everything she's always wanted. But is it? She's exhausted with the responsibilities of making everything work on an island where nothing ever does, and truth be told she's beginning to miss London.

And then the Trehearnes come to stay. The strange and mysterious story they tell, about an unfortunate murder that took place on the same day and in the same hotel in which their daughter was married—a picturesque inn on the Suffolk coast named Farlingaye Halle—fascinates Susan and piques her editor’s instincts.Ìý

One of her former writers, the late Alan Conway, author of the fictional Magpie Murders, knew the murder victim—an advertising executive named Frank Parris—and once visited Farlingaye Hall. Conway based the third book in his detective series, Atticus Pund Takes the Case, on that very crime.Ìý

The Trehearne’s, daughter, Cecily, read Conway’s mystery and believed the book proves that the man convicted of Parris’s murder—a Romanian immigrant who was the hotel’s handyman—is innocent. When the Trehearnes reveal that Cecily is now missing, Susan knows that she must return to England and find out what really happened.

Brilliantly clever, relentlessly suspenseful, full of twists that will keep readers guessing with each revelation and clue, Moonflower Murders is a deviously dark take on vintage English crime fiction from one of its greatest masterminds, Anthony Horowitz.ÌýÌý±Õ±Õ> 608 Anthony Horowitz 0062955462 Liz 0 4.02 2020
author: Anthony Horowitz
name: Liz
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2020
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, not-owned, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 60784540
Picture a lovely cottage on a cliff, with sloping lawns, walking paths, and beautiful flowers. It’s Gabe and Pippa Gerard’s dream home in a sleepy coastal town. But their perfect house hides something sinister. The tall cliffs have become a popular spot for people to end their lives. Over the past several months, Gabe comes to their rescue, literally talking them off the ledge.

Until one day, he doesn’t. When Pippa discovers Gabe knew the victim, the questions spiral. . . .Did the victim jump? Was she pushed? And would Gabe, the love of Pippa’s life, her soulmate . . . lie? As the perfect façade of their marriage begins to crack, the deepest and darkest secrets begin to unravel. Because sometimes, the most convincing lies are the ones we tell ourselves.]]> 327 Sally Hepworth 1250229707 Liz 0 3.78 2022
author: Sally Hepworth
name: Liz
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: botm, to-read, own, on-my-shelf-own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 36337550
There are eight days, and eight witnesses for you to inhabit.

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

Understood? Then let's begin . . .

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

The most inventive debut of the year twists together a mystery of such unexpected creativity it will leave listeners guessing until the very last second.]]> 432 Stuart Turton Liz 0 3.78 2018
author: Stuart Turton
name: Liz
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2018
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, recommended, on-my-shelf-own, own, on-my-shelf-to-read, own-to-read, mount-tbr, kindle-unlimited
review:

]]> 23604559 A charming, warmhearted novel from the author of the New York Times bestseller A Man Called Ove.

Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.

When Elsa’s grandmother dies and leaves behind a series of letters apologizing to people she has wronged, Elsa’s greatest adventure begins. Her grandmother’s instructions lead her to an apartment building full of drunks, monsters, attack dogs, and old crones but also to the truth about fairy tales and kingdoms and a grandmother like no other.

My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry is told with the same comic accuracy and beating heart as Fredrik Backman’s bestselling debut novel, A Man Called Ove. It is a story about life and death and one of the most important human rights: the right to be different.]]> 372 Fredrik Backman 1501115065 Liz 0 4.04 2013
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Liz
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2025/02/21
shelves: to-read, audio, own, own-to-read, kindle-unlimited
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