The Secret of Clouds

 Fiction by Alyson Richman

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

In 1987, Katya and Sasha are a Ukrainian couple in the USSR. Katya's recent injury has stalled her ballet career, and Sasha know he can find work in his field of biology anywhere, so when the Soviet Union offers a chance for some Ukrainian Jews to go to the USA, they take it.

In 1999, Maggie Topper is a young fifth-grade teacher with boundless enthusiasm who takes on the task of home-tutoring their American-born son Yuri whose heart condition makes it impossible to attend school.

This was a good story; I will look for more by this author.

Code Name Verity

 Fiction by Elizabeth Wein

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this story a young British girl is captured by the Nazis in Occupied France during World War Two. She tortured and starved and forced to write a confession, which she takes as an opportunity to write down her life story, in a kind of convoluted third-person way.

I didn't really like this book, although I did skim-finish it because I wanted to know what happened.

This Bird Has Flown

 Fiction by Susanna Hoffs

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

This book caught my eye with the author's name (Susanna Hoffs was the songwriter/singer for the Bangles) and the pretty cover (see below).

The story is about Jane Start, a one-hit-wonder singer who is still trying desperately to get that second hit after ten years. She takes an opportunity to fly to England and get out of her parents' basement, where she's been living. While she's there, she may find love, or even finally jump-start her career...

It was an okay book but I didn't love it.

Here's the cover of the edition that I read, which as you can see is similar, but not the same as the one above. I like this one much better.

https://www.goodreads.com

Symphony of Secrets

 Fiction by Brendan Slocumb

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

Dr. Bern Hendricks is a musician and a historian, and his specialty is early 20th century composer Frederick Delaney. So when the Delaney Foundation calls him to say they have found documents needing review, he jumps at the chance to fly to New York and study them. After all, there is still some mystery surrounding Delany's work, and Bern longs to be the one to find out the truth. He enlists help from his friend Eboni Washington, a computer tech expert who had helped him with his Delaney dissertation some years before.

But soon Bern gets the feeling that the Delaney Foundation may not be interested in the truth. Or is it just because he and Eboni are the only Black scholars working with the all-white Foundation members that makes him uneasy? The reader knows something more is definitely going on! Then the book makes a time shift back to the early 1900's and the real Frederick Delaney's life and the plot thickens.

This was a really good book, a blend of historical and mystery fiction with interesting musical and cultural aspects as well. I highly recommend it!

I also read by this author: The Violin Conspiracy

Electric God

 Fiction by Catherine Ryan Hyde

https://www.goodreads.com

Hayden Reese has an anger problem that lands him periodically in jail for assault, but he is also a caring man who loves animals. The people in the small town he lives in try to give him the benefit of the doubt because he has a tragic past: Hayden is an orphan, and his wife and fifteen year old daughter both died before he came to live there.

But then a young woman named Allegra Reese shows up to town looking for her father, and it seems that maybe Hayden hasn't told the truth about his past. The reader begins to get a look into his real past, however, and it's a different type of tragic. There's a reason he's so angry.

This book has a strange title but it was still a very good story. This author writes good characters.

I also read recently by this author: Funerals for Horses

Listen for the Lie

 Fiction by Amy Tintera

https://www.audible.com

Lucy Chase doesn't know what happened the night her friend Savannah died, but she maintains that she would never have murdered her best friend. Unfortunately nobody believes that, and although there is not enough evidence to charge Lucy with murder, pretty much everyone in Plumpton, Texas, thinks she is guilty.

So Lucy fled to California and started over. But now, five years later, "Listen for the Lie" (a popular true-crime podcast) has resurrected the whole thing, and host Ben Owens says he will find the truth. But can he really? And will Lucy be able to handle the truth if it comes out?

This was a pretty good story but I didn't love the characters. There was a surprise at the end.

Willow’s Story

 Nonfiction by Louise Allen

https://www.amazon.com

Foster carer Louise Allen takes in a thirteen-year-old girl called Willow in this story. Willow has been in the sole care of her mentally-challenged father for most of her life, and something is going wrong. It's up to Louise to figure out what exactly has happened, and how to help Willow. 

(POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT!!!)

But then it turns out that Louise will not be permitted to help, and instead she has to watch Child Services screw the child up further.

This book was terribly upsetting, and it makes it so much worse to know it's true. I may not be able to read any more of Louise's books; they are getting progressively more depressing...

I also read recently by this author: Marilyn's Story

Something Wilder

 Fiction by Christina Lauren

https://www.barnesandnoble.com

At the beginning of this book Lily Wilder, daughter of the famous treasure hunter Duke Wilder, thinks she's finally found happiness and home with her boyfriend Ian on her family's ranch. But suddenly it's ten years later, and Lily is still single and living out a semi-nomadic existence bartending and running "treasure hunts" of her own (taking city dwellers on Wild-West-themed vacation excursions.) What happened in between?

Well, the reader is about to find out when circumstances bring Ian back into Lily's life and the two of them have to face why their seemingly perfect relationship ended... while on a treasure hunt, of course!

This was a fun and exciting romance/mystery story.

I also read by this author: Roomies

For We Are Many

 Audible Original Fiction by Dennis Taylor

https://www.audible.com

This book is the sequel to We Are Legion (We Are Bob), which I listened to a little while ago. It chronicles the further adventures of The Bobs, an ever-increasing group of AI clones who run spaceships in the future. (It’s a bizarre premise, but just go with it.)

It’s definitely different, and the story is pretty interesting.

I also read by this author: We Are Legion (We Are Bob)

I also read from Audible Originals:  Scum of the Earth