Friday, April 19, 2024

Get Lucky

 Fiction by Katherine Center. 

Sarah has been unexpectedly fired from her fabulous advertising job in New York City just before Thanksgiving. But she decides she won’t think about that problem until she gets back from visiting her sister Mackie in Houston; maybe some solution will present itself during the holiday….

This was another fun romance by this author whose style I’m really fond of. I love the characters!


I also read recently by this author: The Lost Husband

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

It Didn’t Start With You

Subtitled: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle

Nonfiction by Mark Wolynn

This was an interesting psychology book about how the traumatic events our ancestors experienced can actually live on in our own DNA, even if we’re not aware of it. 

I really liked the case studies, and I kind of skimmed the more scholarly parts…

Sunday, April 14, 2024

First Witness

 Fiction by 

Emily is a lawyer who hasn’t been back to her small hometown in twenty years. When a bad breakup and other circumstances send her there, nearly the first person she sees is her old high school boyfriend, and he’s being arrested for murder! Will she take his case? (Duh.)

This was an okay legal thriller, light on the “thrill” part. I was surprised by the ending. 


Saturday, April 13, 2024

The Bay at Midnight

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 

In the summer of 1962, young sisters Isabel, Julie, and Lucy went down to the New Jersey shore with their parents, as they had every summer before that. But that year something terrible happened, and by the end of the summer Isabel would be murdered and Julie and Lucy would never be the same.

Now it’s forty-one years later, and some new evidence comes to light about Isabel’s death  now the whole thing will be raked up again. Will the truth be finally uncovered?

This was an interesting story with some surprises and great characters.

I also read recently by this author: The Shadow Wife

Thursday, April 11, 2024

Yellowface

 Fiction by R.F. Kuang

June and Athena are both writers and they’re sort-of friends. That is, they went to school together and have known each other for nearly ten years, going for drinks occasionally and hanging out. But they don’t appear to actually like each other.

The main problem is that Athena is successful and June is… not. Then one day June sees an opportunity to change that and she seizes it. What follows is a story that gave me a lot of secondhand embarrassment and Oh-No-I-Can’t-Look Syndrome.** 

Still, it was an interesting story and I did finish it. I can't really say I liked it...

** Oh-No-I-Can't-Look Syndrome

(See After Anna by Lisa Scottoline)

That's when you know a main character is making a major error in judgement that's going to have huge and terrible consequences.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Unsafe

Nonfiction by Cathy Glass

This story has three separate storylines that I thought might intersect but really didn’t. Of course, I know that with nonfiction everything can’t line up neatly, but I was kind of disappointed.

The main story of this book was about three brothers aged seven and under, and about their mother who was having trouble coping with three small kids. At the beginning Cathy Glass was only fostering the oldest boy, but it seemed like all three would come into care eventually. 

This was a pretty good book but definitely not one of this author’s best. 


I also read recently by this author: Unwanted

Sunday, April 7, 2024

The Shadow Wife

 Fiction by Diane Chamberlain 


This is a re-release of the book Cypress Point under a different title. Since I hadn't previously read that book before it didn't matter to me, but this seemed to be quite an issue in the reviews. So... heads-up, I guess.

Joelle is a hospital social worker who has recently discovered she is pregnant. The problem with that is: she's divorced and the father of this baby is married to someone else. Also he works at the hospital with her and she's in love with him.

This was a really good story.


I also read recently by this author: The Keeper of the Light Trilogy