Jennifer's bookshelf: all

Jennifer's bookshelf: all en-US Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:38:15 -0700 60 Jennifer's bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg <![CDATA[The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living]]> 18077950 A profusely illustrated, fun way for anyone to understand the principles of Acceptance and Committment Therapy (ACT), the liberating life practice described in Russ Harris's best-selling The Happiness Trap.

The life-changing practice of applied mindfulness called ACT is made even more accessible in this fun and easy-to-understand volume that illustrates all the principles with entertaining cartoons.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) can help readers
reduce stress and worry;
handle painful feelings and thoughts more effectively;
break self-defeating habits;
overcome insecurity and self-doubt; and
create a rich, full, and meaningful life

--all through mindfulness techniques anyone can do.]]> 166 Russ Harris 1611801575 Jennifer 5
This stereotype is alluded to in Kevin Hart’s comedy Night School character Theresa played by Mary Lynn Rajskub. She says, “I dropped out of high school, so I wanted to get my GED before I have to live in Randy’s parents laundry room...But I’m so blessed.�� #Blessed has 102,427,768 posts on Instagram. Blessed is the new happy in the Western Christian community. But is this type of blessed biblical? We often mask our misery by slapping on a smile and hashtagging our lives blessed. We skip over the books of Job and Lamentations, the minor prophets, and wallpaper our lives with post-it notes of Bible verses that make us feel good rather than grappling with the very suffering and fellowship with the Man of Sorrows to which we are called. Christianity calls us not to sweep our pain under the rug but to cast it at the foot of the Cross in the Light of the Son. Ours is a God who commands the flood, AND says that “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze�� (Is. 43:2). Ours is a God who sets a rainbow in the clouds in ALL its colors--including blue--as a reminder of His promise, whose radiance is as the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day. Ours is not a God of denial, but a God of deliverance not from but through. Culturally, we are taught to believe that the correct ending is happily ever after. But that is not Scriptural. The second to the last verse in the Bible is a groan, a longing, and anticipation, “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus�� (Rev. 22:20).
]]> 4.19 2007 The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

The Illustrated Happiness Trap: How to Stop Struggling and Start Living

author: Russ Harris
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2007
rating: 5
read at: 2018/12/06
date added: 2025/06/13
shelves:
review:
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands. I always thought this was a children’s hymn. As Christians, we are led to believe that we should be perpetually happy, praising God and bragging about our blessings. We marvel with admiration at those who are best able to conceal their struggles under a facade of strength. “I would have never guessed you were struggling with anxiety/depression/abuse!�� they exclaim, as if their mask were a badge of honor instead of a perpetuator of pain. Feelings are assigned moral value, and hiding negative feelings is a moral imperative.

This stereotype is alluded to in Kevin Hart’s comedy Night School character Theresa played by Mary Lynn Rajskub. She says, “I dropped out of high school, so I wanted to get my GED before I have to live in Randy’s parents laundry room...But I’m so blessed.�� #Blessed has 102,427,768 posts on Instagram. Blessed is the new happy in the Western Christian community. But is this type of blessed biblical? We often mask our misery by slapping on a smile and hashtagging our lives blessed. We skip over the books of Job and Lamentations, the minor prophets, and wallpaper our lives with post-it notes of Bible verses that make us feel good rather than grappling with the very suffering and fellowship with the Man of Sorrows to which we are called. Christianity calls us not to sweep our pain under the rug but to cast it at the foot of the Cross in the Light of the Son. Ours is a God who commands the flood, AND says that “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze�� (Is. 43:2). Ours is a God who sets a rainbow in the clouds in ALL its colors--including blue--as a reminder of His promise, whose radiance is as the appearance of the rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day. Ours is not a God of denial, but a God of deliverance not from but through. Culturally, we are taught to believe that the correct ending is happily ever after. But that is not Scriptural. The second to the last verse in the Bible is a groan, a longing, and anticipation, “Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus�� (Rev. 22:20).

]]> My Kitten 132720960 0 Patsy Scarry; Eloise Wilkin Jennifer 5 4.50

author: Patsy Scarry; Eloise Wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/06/13
date added: 2025/06/13
shelves:
review:
Meet the fluffiest, softest, cuddliest, cutest in the world. My Kitten is an introduction to the long and lazy, soft and silky, happy and sleepy Foolish Fluffy! The story is situated in Eloise Wilkin’s charmingly illustrated 1950s decor, and the climax of the plot occurs when the dog next door Pal meets Fluffy. Terrified, Fluffy leaps from his pram in a bonneted ball of fur. The conflict resolves when the dog and cat touch noses and become friends. But nothing can replace the love for a girl and her kitten.
]]> <![CDATA[Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures]]> 16158506 A Bookpage Best Books of 2012 pick

“At once a delicious depiction of Hollywood’s golden age and a sweet, fulfilling story about one woman’s journey through fame, love, and loss.”��Boston �ұ��ǲ��

In 1920, Elsa Emerson is born to the owners of the Cherry County Playhouse in Door County, Wisconsin. Elsa relishes appearing onstage, where she soaks up the approval of her father and the embrace of the audience. But when tragedy strikes her family, her acting becomes more than a child’s game of pretend. While still in her teens, Elsa marries and flees to Los Angeles. There she is discovered by Hollywood mogul Irving Green, who refashions her as an exotic brunette screen siren and renames her Laura Lamont. But fame has its costs, and while Laura tries to balance career, family, and personal happiness, she realizes that Elsa Emerson might not be gone completely. Ambitious and richly imagined, Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is as intimate—and as bigger-than-life—as the great films of the golden age of Hollywood.]]> 352 Emma Straub 1594631824 Jennifer 3
“The children called her Mother or Mama, her parents and Josephine called her Elsa in their letters, Harriet called her Miss Emerson, and Ginger called her Laura, which was what she called herself. The trick seemed to be commitment: Elsa Emerson was a good Wisconsin girl. Laura Lamont was going to be a star.��

“There were only a handful of moments Laura could think of, in the span of her entire life, when she was unable to identify the seam in between what she felt and what she said or did, moments during which all of the selves that she'd ever been lined up perfectly, with no cracks in between.

“When she found her sister's body, when Florence was born, when Clara first smiled, when Josephine called to say that their father had died, when she saw Irving hold their son in his arms for the first time, when she kissed Irving for the first time, when she and Irving first saw and touched and kissed each other's bodies for the first time, when they were married, and when she knew she was his, forever, forever, forever.��

“Lucky. Laura had never thought of herself as lucky…not since she'd shed the skin of Elsa Emerson and become this other, more glamorous beast. For that was how she thought of herself: the snake that had lived inside the body of a kitten. What was it for? Laura thought of Hildy, her beautiful sister…who had wanted to be a movie star…Laura was lucky…to have lived when Hildy had not. She was lucky to have three healthy, beautiful children. And she was lucky that she could get to choose what happened next.��

“No one could tell Laura Lamont what to do…Laura was going to sew herself into the shape of happiness all on her own.�� Emma Straub’s Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is a motion picture masterpiece! ]]> 3.29 2012 Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures

author: Emma Straub
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2012
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/12
date added: 2025/06/12
shelves:
review:
“If someone were going to write a movie about Laura's life, they would have to start here. There would be panning shots of cherry trees, the round red fruit hanging delicately off the thin stems. It would be the story of a girl and her sisters and their father…She wasn't the star of a romance, but a family drama, and a farce, and a tragedy. It seemed impossible to fit all the people she'd ever been into a single body, let alone a single moment.��

“The children called her Mother or Mama, her parents and Josephine called her Elsa in their letters, Harriet called her Miss Emerson, and Ginger called her Laura, which was what she called herself. The trick seemed to be commitment: Elsa Emerson was a good Wisconsin girl. Laura Lamont was going to be a star.��

“There were only a handful of moments Laura could think of, in the span of her entire life, when she was unable to identify the seam in between what she felt and what she said or did, moments during which all of the selves that she'd ever been lined up perfectly, with no cracks in between.

“When she found her sister's body, when Florence was born, when Clara first smiled, when Josephine called to say that their father had died, when she saw Irving hold their son in his arms for the first time, when she kissed Irving for the first time, when she and Irving first saw and touched and kissed each other's bodies for the first time, when they were married, and when she knew she was his, forever, forever, forever.��

“Lucky. Laura had never thought of herself as lucky…not since she'd shed the skin of Elsa Emerson and become this other, more glamorous beast. For that was how she thought of herself: the snake that had lived inside the body of a kitten. What was it for? Laura thought of Hildy, her beautiful sister…who had wanted to be a movie star…Laura was lucky…to have lived when Hildy had not. She was lucky to have three healthy, beautiful children. And she was lucky that she could get to choose what happened next.��

“No one could tell Laura Lamont what to do…Laura was going to sew herself into the shape of happiness all on her own.�� Emma Straub’s Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures is a motion picture masterpiece!
]]> <![CDATA[Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows, #1)]]> 217171544 Shield of Sparrows is a slow-burn, high-stakes romantasy perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Rebecca Yarros―where enemies become lovers, monsters stalk a cursed realm, and a forgotten princess finds the strength to tear off her crown and become the warrior she was never meant to be.

The gods sent monsters to the five kingdoms to remind mortals they must kneel.

I’ve spent my life kneeling―to their will and to my father's. As a princess, my only duty is to wear the crown and obey the king.

I was never meant to rule. Never meant to fight. And I was never supposed to be the daughter who sealed an ancient treaty with her own blood.

But that changed the fateful day I stepped into my father’s throne room. The day a legendary monster hunter sailed to our shores. The day a prince ruined my life.

Now I’m crossing treacherous lands beside a warrior who despises me as much as I despise him―bound to a future I didn’t choose and a husband I barely know.

Everyone wants me to be something I’m not―a queen, a spy, a sacrifice.

But what if I refused the role chosen for me? What if I made my own rules? What if there’s power in being underestimated?

And what if―for the first time―I reached for it?]]> 511 Devney Perry 1649378513 Jennifer 3
“It all came back to that hidden city. To a city that held the wealth of Turan knowledge. To a city barred to outsiders. To a city bound by blood oaths and magic. To the city of the Voster. Allesaria. Ozarth. Laine. Cave ginger. Alligasks. Korakin. Fenek. Magic…This kingdom was dangerous, but nothing he could have said would have prepared me for this reality. Turah was perilous. Majestic. Horrifying. Stirring. It was every emotion, good and bad, woven into a landscape that had stolen my heart.��

Odessa’s father plans to invade Turah. He's desperate to find Allesaria. He was always going to have to satisfy the Shield of Sparrows with a union to his daughter. For years he's been training her sister as a spy, but he needs a way to choose a different Sparrow, the weaker daughter, the lesser daughter. The throwaway princess. “She will be the prince’s bride for both the Shield of Sparrows and Chain of Sevens. She. Her. Me…She had the chance to tear down generations of mystery. To shine a light on a kingdom that seemed content to thrive in the dark. And now that task had been given to me.��

Fenek and tarkin and bariwolves and grizzurs: “Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made…if you’re not terrified, you’re doing it wrong…Maybe a better princess would insist there was another option. Maybe a better princess would find a way to stay at her prince's side. But I'd never been a good princess. So I unwound my arms from his waist and stepped away…Another princess might have mustered one last fight. A decent princess would have stood her ground. But I wasn't a good princess…If I were a better princess, a selfless princess, the notion of freedom wouldn’t be so appealing. What would I do if my life was my own?... ‘What are you doing, Princess?�� ‘Finding the truth.�� ‘And what will you do with this truth?�� ‘Set myself free.’”]]> 4.40 2025 Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows, #1)

Shield of Sparrows (Shield of Sparrows, #1)

author: Devney Perry
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/10
date added: 2025/06/10
shelves:
review:
Devney Perry's Shield of Sparrows “is a heart-stopping romantasy set in a world of deadly monsters and even deadlier mysteries…We invite you to grab a blade and prepare for a new world…You'll learn our traditions. In time. You'll find that they are simple, my queen. But our loyalty to our country, to our people, runs to the bone.��

“It all came back to that hidden city. To a city that held the wealth of Turan knowledge. To a city barred to outsiders. To a city bound by blood oaths and magic. To the city of the Voster. Allesaria. Ozarth. Laine. Cave ginger. Alligasks. Korakin. Fenek. Magic…This kingdom was dangerous, but nothing he could have said would have prepared me for this reality. Turah was perilous. Majestic. Horrifying. Stirring. It was every emotion, good and bad, woven into a landscape that had stolen my heart.��

Odessa’s father plans to invade Turah. He's desperate to find Allesaria. He was always going to have to satisfy the Shield of Sparrows with a union to his daughter. For years he's been training her sister as a spy, but he needs a way to choose a different Sparrow, the weaker daughter, the lesser daughter. The throwaway princess. “She will be the prince’s bride for both the Shield of Sparrows and Chain of Sevens. She. Her. Me…She had the chance to tear down generations of mystery. To shine a light on a kingdom that seemed content to thrive in the dark. And now that task had been given to me.��

Fenek and tarkin and bariwolves and grizzurs: “Not all monsters are born from the gods, my queen. Some of us were made…if you’re not terrified, you’re doing it wrong…Maybe a better princess would insist there was another option. Maybe a better princess would find a way to stay at her prince's side. But I'd never been a good princess. So I unwound my arms from his waist and stepped away…Another princess might have mustered one last fight. A decent princess would have stood her ground. But I wasn't a good princess…If I were a better princess, a selfless princess, the notion of freedom wouldn’t be so appealing. What would I do if my life was my own?... ‘What are you doing, Princess?�� ‘Finding the truth.�� ‘And what will you do with this truth?�� ‘Set myself free.’��
]]> Shopgirls 223798595 From the author of the “delightful�� ( New York Times Book Review ) Mary Jane , a new novel of found family, growing up, and the best and worst of the 1980s, revolving around San Francisco’s most exclusive department store, I. Magnin.

Nineteen-year-old Zippy can hardly believe she’s the newest and youngest salesgirl at I. Magnin, “San Francisco’s Finest Department Store.�� Every week, she rotates her three spruced-up Salvation Army outfits and Vaseline-shined pumps; still, she’s thrilled to walk those pumps through the employee entrance five days a week as she saves to buy something new. For a girl who grew up in a one-bedroom apartment above a liquor store with her mother and her mother’s madcap boyfriend, Howard; a girl who wanted to go to college but had no help in figuring out how; I. Magnin represents a real chance for a better and more elegant life. Or, at the very least, a more interesting one.

Zippy may not be in school, but she’s about to get an education that will stick with her for decades. Her fellow salesgirls (lifetime professionals) run the gamut from mean and indifferent to caring and helpful. The cosmetics ladies on the first floor share both samples and advice (“only date a man with a Rolex��); and her new roommate, Raquel, an ambitious lawyer, tells Zippy she can lose ten pounds easy if she joins Raquel in eating only every other day. Just when Zippy thinks she’s getting a handle on how to be an adult woman in 1985, two surprises threaten both her sense of self and her coveted position at I. Magnin.

Set in the Day-Glo colors of 1980s San Francisco, Shopgirls is an intoxicating novel of self-discovery, outrageous fashion, and family both biological and found.]]> 272 Jessica Anya Blau 0063464292 Jennifer 4
“I thought about clothes…wrappings, and wondered if what you wore could change who you were. I felt like a different person when I was dressed up for work. Maybe molecules moved, synapses fired, muscle and fat shifted to fit whatever wrappings one decided defined their ideal self. Was I a different person now that I was working at I.Magnin?...was there any difference between me and the rich wife from Marin who worked as a floater simply for fun?...Did acting the part (as I did every day I worked) help you become the part?...If you knew exactly who you were inside, did it matter if you had on the apron or the skirt?��

This is the story of Zippy Jane Tremblay, named after her mother’s affinity for speediness and pep. Miss Liaskis is in Formal Dresses. Miss Yolanda is the mean one with the candy ball in her mouth. Miss Dani is the manager, the fireplug. Of all of the Shopgirls, my favorite is Miss Lena, Zippy’s colleague in Petite Dresses. “Her brain didn't appear to operate in the low places of jealousy or self-loathing or shame and embarrassment…Miss Lena was all good. She loved Jesus more than anything, and she could see the better side of every person.��

Shopgirls is a reminder that “People were more or less the same…They were just hanging out in different surroundings. Some of them had more money (Sorority Girl); some were dressed better (Miss Meredith); some were a little crazy (Jeff); some were a little mean (Miss Yolanda); some had pure hearts (Miss Lena); and some loved me purely (my mother). Still, they were all simple humans.�� In the words of Miss Lena, “Jesus thinks each person is perfect exactly as he or she is born...I pray that they become better people.�� ]]> 3.50 2025 Shopgirls

author: Jessica Anya Blau
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/07
date added: 2025/06/07
shelves:
review:
For Jessica Anya Blau’s Shopgirls, selling “wasn’t only selling. It was understanding an entire social structure surrounding the dress, as well as understanding who the customer wanted people to think she was.�� Putting on a dress was aspirational, “an effort to create the ideal self…clothes were magic. Like fresh white snow on a gritty dirt road, they transformed the mundane into the spectacular.��

“I thought about clothes…wrappings, and wondered if what you wore could change who you were. I felt like a different person when I was dressed up for work. Maybe molecules moved, synapses fired, muscle and fat shifted to fit whatever wrappings one decided defined their ideal self. Was I a different person now that I was working at I.Magnin?...was there any difference between me and the rich wife from Marin who worked as a floater simply for fun?...Did acting the part (as I did every day I worked) help you become the part?...If you knew exactly who you were inside, did it matter if you had on the apron or the skirt?��

This is the story of Zippy Jane Tremblay, named after her mother’s affinity for speediness and pep. Miss Liaskis is in Formal Dresses. Miss Yolanda is the mean one with the candy ball in her mouth. Miss Dani is the manager, the fireplug. Of all of the Shopgirls, my favorite is Miss Lena, Zippy’s colleague in Petite Dresses. “Her brain didn't appear to operate in the low places of jealousy or self-loathing or shame and embarrassment…Miss Lena was all good. She loved Jesus more than anything, and she could see the better side of every person.��

Shopgirls is a reminder that “People were more or less the same…They were just hanging out in different surroundings. Some of them had more money (Sorority Girl); some were dressed better (Miss Meredith); some were a little crazy (Jeff); some were a little mean (Miss Yolanda); some had pure hearts (Miss Lena); and some loved me purely (my mother). Still, they were all simple humans.�� In the words of Miss Lena, “Jesus thinks each person is perfect exactly as he or she is born...I pray that they become better people.��
]]> <![CDATA[Capture the Moment (National Parks Summers, #1)]]> 220543418
Kate Cunningham is facing the opportunity of a lifetime. As a zoo photographer, she's spent years photographing animals in carefully controlled environments, but now National Geographic has dangled an irresistible prize: If Kate can snag a unique photo of a legendary bear in Grand Teton National Park, they just might publish it. It's the kind of challenge Kate has been waiting for, and she's eager to prove herself in the wild.��

With more enthusiasm than experience, Kate soon realizes that capturing an image of this bear isn't as simple as she hoped. Fortunately, she crosses paths with Grant Cooper, a seasonal park ranger who knows the terrain--and the bears--better than anyone. His tracking skills could be exactly what Kate needs to succeed, and it doesn't hurt that he's easy on the eyes. But they're not the only ones with an interest in the park's most famous bear. And his motives are far from innocent.

A clean, kisses-only contemporary romance and summer read by Suzanne Woods Fisher for wildlife, travel, and photography enthusiasts set in Grand Teton National Park.]]> 320 Suzanne Woods Fisher 0800745310 Jennifer 4
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? Over and over, she repeated those words. And, on their heels, Thank you, thank you, thank you, God…she had actually seen Grizzly Bear 399, up close and personal. If only she'd had her camera for that astonishing moment when the bear locked eyes with her.

“Less than two weeks had passed since Kate had arrived in Grand Teton National Park, yet she felt like a different person. Being here had taught her so much about herself. For the first time in her life, she realized that seeing things differently was a gift, not a burden. So maybe God hadn't made a mistake in wiring her brain the way it was. She wasn't a mistake.�� She was a miracle. And Someone was looking after her.

A beautiful tribute to the real life 399, Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Capture the Moment is about the “impressive collaboration here between rangers, law enforcement, and even a wildlife photographer�� catching a poacher, saving a bear. And it concludes with “The kind of kiss that swept a girl away from here and now, making time and space fade into the background. The kind of kiss that made tomorrow seem like a blank canvas, full of hope and endless opportunities. A perfect note…to end on.�� ]]> 4.28 Capture the Moment (National Parks Summers, #1)

Capture the Moment (National Parks Summers, #1)

author: Suzanne Woods Fisher
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.28
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/03
date added: 2025/06/03
shelves:
review:
“Casual but serious. Relaxed but focused. Laid-back but purposeful…I wish I could be fearless…Bold and brave. What’s the worst that can happen if I put myself out there?�� Kate Cunningham wonders before having “fallen into the river while photographing otters, forgotten to silence her phone while trying to catch sight of 399, and was now tagged as Zoo Girl by the truly professional wildlife photographers…There was still a story to be told about a grizzly named 399, and she was going to go after it. And the handsome ranger with the seawater eyes was going to help her get it.��

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Do you not perceive it? Over and over, she repeated those words. And, on their heels, Thank you, thank you, thank you, God…she had actually seen Grizzly Bear 399, up close and personal. If only she'd had her camera for that astonishing moment when the bear locked eyes with her.

“Less than two weeks had passed since Kate had arrived in Grand Teton National Park, yet she felt like a different person. Being here had taught her so much about herself. For the first time in her life, she realized that seeing things differently was a gift, not a burden. So maybe God hadn't made a mistake in wiring her brain the way it was. She wasn't a mistake.�� She was a miracle. And Someone was looking after her.

A beautiful tribute to the real life 399, Suzanne Woods Fisher’s Capture the Moment is about the “impressive collaboration here between rangers, law enforcement, and even a wildlife photographer�� catching a poacher, saving a bear. And it concludes with “The kind of kiss that swept a girl away from here and now, making time and space fade into the background. The kind of kiss that made tomorrow seem like a blank canvas, full of hope and endless opportunities. A perfect note…to end on.��
]]> <![CDATA[In Good Company (Pembroke Hills, #1)]]> 228569777
Callahan Hastings is relentless when it comes to getting what he wants, and what he wants is me–to be his private chef in the Hamptons for the summer.

My dream job served to me on a silver platter by one of the wealthiest members of Pembroke Hills Country Club.

The only catch? He’s my ex-boyfriend’s older brother with a reputation for being as charming as he is cunning.

But Cal doesn’t take no for an answer. He draws you in with flirty smiles and extravagant promises.

I should have seen him coming, but I didn’t. I should have stayed away, but I couldn’t.

His playful touches and burning gaze have ignited a fire in me. The more I resist him, the more irresistible he becomes.

I've always known there's an expiration date on the job–an expiration date on us.

But leaving isn't going to be easy with Cal on his knees, begging me to stay...]]> 386 Kat Singleton 1958292184 Jennifer 4
When I first saw Cal at Laurent Hughes's dinner party, I wanted nothing to do with him. Now, I don't want a life that doesn't include him in it. He's my home. My love. My teammate. Callahan Hastings. My former boss and my ex's older brother. My heart. Mine. For as long as I can remember, I've felt like I've had to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I wanted to be the perfect daughter for my parents and make sure they were taken care of. I didn't want to mess up, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make life easy on them, knowing they'd already been through so much. I hadn't realized how much carrying that weight was getting to me or how hard it was for me to let someone in because of the weight I was carrying.

It wasn't until Cal loved me fiercely and with no need for anything in return that I learned to let someone be there for me. He taught me that love can make us stronger and that it's okay to need someone else. Loving him is the best decision I've ever made…our life together has only just begun. This summer has been the best summer of my life, and I can't wait for many more. I'll be in good company with him by my side for all of it.”]]> 3.70 In Good Company (Pembroke Hills, #1)

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.70
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/06/02
date added: 2025/06/02
shelves:
review:
“I swallow back happy tears as I think back to the beginning of the summer. My only friend was Charlotte. I worked all the time and didn't know what it was like to find a family outside of my own…people who contributed to the best summer of my life. Charlotte, Jude, Beck, Margo, Emma, Preston, Ryker, Camille, Winnie, Archer…My eyes find the man sitting next to me, gratitude overwhelming me at how things have changed throughout the course of the summer with him.

When I first saw Cal at Laurent Hughes's dinner party, I wanted nothing to do with him. Now, I don't want a life that doesn't include him in it. He's my home. My love. My teammate. Callahan Hastings. My former boss and my ex's older brother. My heart. Mine. For as long as I can remember, I've felt like I've had to carry the weight of the world on my shoulders. I wanted to be the perfect daughter for my parents and make sure they were taken care of. I didn't want to mess up, and I wanted to do everything in my power to make life easy on them, knowing they'd already been through so much. I hadn't realized how much carrying that weight was getting to me or how hard it was for me to let someone in because of the weight I was carrying.

It wasn't until Cal loved me fiercely and with no need for anything in return that I learned to let someone be there for me. He taught me that love can make us stronger and that it's okay to need someone else. Loving him is the best decision I've ever made…our life together has only just begun. This summer has been the best summer of my life, and I can't wait for many more. I'll be in good company with him by my side for all of it.��
]]> <![CDATA[Spring Tide: Coastal University, Book 1]]> 228761910
For quite some time, Harper's been harboring a secret crush on Nate Gunderson, fellow Coastal U student and MLB-hopeful. In order to spend more time with him this semester, she finds herself spinning a ridiculous web of lies. Her first convincing her sports med professor that she's been dating a football player. After all, if she's romantically involved, it simply wouldn't be right for her to keep an internship with their team.

Unfortunately for Harper, this silly, frantic excuse to switch assignments quickly snowballs into an unstoppable rumor.

Luca Reynolds is the type of guy who prefers to set low expectations, both for himself and others, if only to avoid any inevitable disappointment. His football teammates would describe him as reserved, brooding, and occasionally stand-offish.

The truth? Luca doesn't feel like he belongs.

When an unexpected injury threatens to destroy Luca's long-term plans, he finds himself in need of help from a discreet professional—one who will assess his knee, provide some simple stretches, and assure him that everything's fine. Luckily, there's a scheming student intern that just might owe him a favor or two.

A secret for a secret. A lie for a lie. It's not really blackmail if she's the one who used him first.]]> Ki Stephens Jennifer 3
With a few white lies and a twist of fate, Harper becomes Luca’s wellness coach, physical therapist, and fake girlfriend, but it’s “only a temporary relationship. A mutually beneficial agreement.�� Harper’s “just providing a service or a simple swap of secrets…I’d like to think we’re building a real friendship [but] This might be an actual crush…where I get to know the real person and not just the one I created in my head.��

Harper is dying to know Luca’s type, but instead of a litany of physical characteristics, he says, “I like being alone…I don’t experience the same type of loneliness that some people do…I feel like I can finally be myself…I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me or if the things I’m saying and doing are coming off a certain way. I can just be…So when I think about my type, I think about someone that I can be myself around…Someone who doesn’t expect me to think or act or behave a certain way…because they’re content with the person that I already am…You make me want to be the best version of myself.��

“The truth…hit me like a tidal wave. This life is too damn good, too beautiful, to cry over greasy boys with sloppy tongues…it's okay to like something and then lose it. To love and then let go. Because something beautiful, something brilliant, is waiting just around the corner.��

As its gorgeous cover suggests, this book is like a bouquet of peonies, pale, pink and perfect, flowers that symbolize happiness and healing. Ki Stephens�� Spring Tide is a story with characters as layered as a croissant and a neurodivergent happily-ever-after as sweet as chocolate ice cream sprinkled with gummy bears on top! ]]> 4.00 2022 Spring Tide: Coastal University, Book 1

author: Ki Stephens
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/06/01
date added: 2025/06/01
shelves:
review:
For Harper St. James and Luca Reynolds, “the spaces between us are like the ocean at spring tide. The highest highs and the lowest lows; that’s what separates the two of us…that girl’s spirit is filled with sunshine and rainbows and…butterflies.�� And that boy is “careful and private and sensitive.�� He “works himself to the bone, yet…Luca never pretends to be someone he’s not. Those are all qualities I admire, regardless of how outwardly standoffish he might seem.��

With a few white lies and a twist of fate, Harper becomes Luca’s wellness coach, physical therapist, and fake girlfriend, but it’s “only a temporary relationship. A mutually beneficial agreement.�� Harper’s “just providing a service or a simple swap of secrets…I’d like to think we’re building a real friendship [but] This might be an actual crush…where I get to know the real person and not just the one I created in my head.��

Harper is dying to know Luca’s type, but instead of a litany of physical characteristics, he says, “I like being alone…I don’t experience the same type of loneliness that some people do…I feel like I can finally be myself…I don’t have to worry about what other people think of me or if the things I’m saying and doing are coming off a certain way. I can just be…So when I think about my type, I think about someone that I can be myself around…Someone who doesn’t expect me to think or act or behave a certain way…because they’re content with the person that I already am…You make me want to be the best version of myself.��

“The truth…hit me like a tidal wave. This life is too damn good, too beautiful, to cry over greasy boys with sloppy tongues…it's okay to like something and then lose it. To love and then let go. Because something beautiful, something brilliant, is waiting just around the corner.��

As its gorgeous cover suggests, this book is like a bouquet of peonies, pale, pink and perfect, flowers that symbolize happiness and healing. Ki Stephens�� Spring Tide is a story with characters as layered as a croissant and a neurodivergent happily-ever-after as sweet as chocolate ice cream sprinkled with gummy bears on top!
]]> The Lost Story 229269150 The Chronicles of Narnia, this wild and wondrous novel is a fairy tale for grown-ups who still knock on the back of wardrobes—just in case—from the author of The Wishing Game.

As boys, best friends Jeremy Cox and Rafe Howell went missing in a vast West Virginia state forest, only to mysteriously reappear six months later with no explanation for where they’d gone or how they’d survived.

Fifteen years after their miraculous homecoming, Rafe is a reclusive artist who still bears scars inside and out but has no memory of what happened during those months. Meanwhile, Jeremy has become a famed missing persons�� investigator. With his uncanny abilities, he is the one person who can help vet tech Emilie Wendell find her sister, who vanished in the very same forest as Rafe and Jeremy.

Jeremy alone knows the fantastical truth about the disappearances, for while the rest of the world was searching for them, the two missing boys were in a magical realm filled with impossible beauty and terrible danger. He believes it is there that they will find Emilie’s sister. However, Jeremy has kept Rafe in the dark since their return for his own inscrutable reasons. But the time for burying secrets comes to an end as the quest for Emilie’s sister begins. The former lost boys must confront their shared past, no matter how traumatic the memories.

Alongside the headstrong Emilie, Rafe and Jeremy must return to the enchanted world they called home for six months—for only then can they get back everything and everyone they’ve lost.]]> 352 Meg Shaffer 059359889X Jennifer 0 to-read 3.94 2024 The Lost Story

author: Meg Shaffer
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/06/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora]]> 200650018 304 Wendy Pearlman 1324092238 Jennifer 5
“This book explores the varied meanings of home through testimonies from thirty-eight displaced Syrians now on five continents,�� shifting the discourse from “refugee crisis�� to diaspora construction. “Each personal narrative is its own meditation�� on identifying something as home through the prism of experience–leaving and returning to home, losing and finding–or not finding–home, searching for home and scaffolding a new home, belonging and abiding.

Home is not a who, what, when, where or how; home is a hybrid of all of these questions in their complexity and multidimensionality. Home is a prism of leaving, searching, losing, building, and belonging that refracts through life experience. It’s a quilted patchwork of land and country and house and identity stitched together with the common thread of belonging, “a mother’s lap where we temporarily rest before we spring into action again.��

“Home is when you close your door and feel warm…And when people arrive at something that they feel is home…When I finally got a plate, knife, spoon, and fork �� when I was able to fry an egg �� the house transformed from a source of fear to a source of safety. It became the home I worked to make.��

“Building home is a story that reaches inward, into people's evolving sense of self and purpose. Belonging is a story that turns outward, anchoring home in the relationships that people develop with the physical and social worlds around them.�� A refugee’s story never ends with a full stop. A full stop means the end of a journey. A refugee pauses her story with three dots; because while this book must come to a conclusion, the stories therein are to be continued...]]> 4.53 The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora

The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora

author: Wendy Pearlman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.53
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/30
date added: 2025/05/30
shelves:
review:
“They say home is where the heart is. I don't believe that…Home is the details that you don't think about until you lose them.�� But “what is home and what is exile when the place of one’s birth represents not only ‘the nourishment of tradition’…but also degradation and violence? Such is the dilemma for millions of displaced Syrians today.��

“This book explores the varied meanings of home through testimonies from thirty-eight displaced Syrians now on five continents,�� shifting the discourse from “refugee crisis�� to diaspora construction. “Each personal narrative is its own meditation�� on identifying something as home through the prism of experience–leaving and returning to home, losing and finding–or not finding–home, searching for home and scaffolding a new home, belonging and abiding.

Home is not a who, what, when, where or how; home is a hybrid of all of these questions in their complexity and multidimensionality. Home is a prism of leaving, searching, losing, building, and belonging that refracts through life experience. It’s a quilted patchwork of land and country and house and identity stitched together with the common thread of belonging, “a mother’s lap where we temporarily rest before we spring into action again.��

“Home is when you close your door and feel warm…And when people arrive at something that they feel is home…When I finally got a plate, knife, spoon, and fork �� when I was able to fry an egg �� the house transformed from a source of fear to a source of safety. It became the home I worked to make.��

“Building home is a story that reaches inward, into people's evolving sense of self and purpose. Belonging is a story that turns outward, anchoring home in the relationships that people develop with the physical and social worlds around them.�� A refugee’s story never ends with a full stop. A full stop means the end of a journey. A refugee pauses her story with three dots; because while this book must come to a conclusion, the stories therein are to be continued...
]]> My Friends 217163829 #1��New York Times��bestselling author Fredrik Backman returns with an unforgettably funny, deeply moving tale of four teenagers whose friendship creates a bond so powerful that it changes a stranger’s life twenty-five years later.

Most people don’t even notice them—three tiny figures sitting at the end of a long pier in the corner of one of the most famous paintings in the world. Most people think it’s just a depiction of the sea. But Louisa, an artist herself, knows otherwise and she is determined to find out the story of these three enigmatic figures.

Twenty-five years earlier, in a distant town, a group of teenagers find refuge from their difficult home lives by spending their days laughing and telling stories out on a pier. There’s Joar, who never backs down from a fight; quiet and bookish Ted who is mourning his father; Ali, the daughter of a man who never stays in one place for long; and finally, there’s the artist, a boy who hoards sleeping pills and shuns attention, but who possesses an extraordinary gift that might be his ticket to a better life. These four lost souls find in each other a reason to get up each morning, a reason to dream.

Out of that summer emerges a transcendent work of art, a painting that will unexpectedly be put into eighteen-year-old Louisa’s care. As she struggles to decide what to do with this bequest, she embarks on a surprise-filled cross-country journey to learn the story of how the painting came to be. The closer she gets to the painting’s birthplace, the more she feels compelled to unleash her own artistic spirit, but happy endings don’t always take the form we expect in this fresh testament to the transformative power of friendship and art.]]> 448 Fredrik Backman 1982121653 Jennifer 5
“Ted looks out through the train window and sees a whole life. It's strange what our memories do to us, editing our feelings…Because he remembers now that this was how they dragged the artist back to life after Christian's funeral: one giggle at a time…she laughed so loudly that you could still hear it when she was underwater. And that was how the artist decided to paint them, not the way they looked, but how they made him feel. He decided to call the picture The One of the Sea…As if those four teenagers twenty-five years ago weren't a love story, belonging to each other forever, impossible to separate. Ashes or not.��

“Life is long, but it moves at high speed, a single step here or there can be enough to ruin everything…Perhaps it was fate, perhaps coincidence, perhaps the big brother would just remember what his little brother had said, the bit about picking friends that are better than you. Perhaps knowing that you are enough for one person goes a long way.��

“‘I love you and I trust you," he smiles, and pats the stone. Then he walks back to the gate, picks up his suitcase and the box containing the painting, and nods to Louisa: ‘Come on. Not far to go now.�� ‘To what?�� ‘The end of the story,�� he says…when they walk to the end of the pier and sit there dangling their legs over the edge, Louisa sees exactly what the four friends saw twenty-five years ago: an endless sea, a great friendship, a true love story. She hears them giggle. Detects the smell of a fart. All of it.�� My Friends is a masterpiece.]]> 4.58 2025

author: Fredrik Backman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/29
date added: 2025/05/29
shelves:
review:
When poet Mary Oliver asked, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do, with your one wild and precious life?" Fredrik Backman answered My Friends. On the run from a foster home and carrying a world-famous painting worth a fortune and traveling with a strange man whose last name she doesn’t even know, “Louisa is just a normal teenager, the best kind of humans.�� They escape together on an unforgettable journey.

“Ted looks out through the train window and sees a whole life. It's strange what our memories do to us, editing our feelings…Because he remembers now that this was how they dragged the artist back to life after Christian's funeral: one giggle at a time…she laughed so loudly that you could still hear it when she was underwater. And that was how the artist decided to paint them, not the way they looked, but how they made him feel. He decided to call the picture The One of the Sea…As if those four teenagers twenty-five years ago weren't a love story, belonging to each other forever, impossible to separate. Ashes or not.��

“Life is long, but it moves at high speed, a single step here or there can be enough to ruin everything…Perhaps it was fate, perhaps coincidence, perhaps the big brother would just remember what his little brother had said, the bit about picking friends that are better than you. Perhaps knowing that you are enough for one person goes a long way.��

“‘I love you and I trust you," he smiles, and pats the stone. Then he walks back to the gate, picks up his suitcase and the box containing the painting, and nods to Louisa: ‘Come on. Not far to go now.�� ‘To what?�� ‘The end of the story,�� he says…when they walk to the end of the pier and sit there dangling their legs over the edge, Louisa sees exactly what the four friends saw twenty-five years ago: an endless sea, a great friendship, a true love story. She hears them giggle. Detects the smell of a fart. All of it.�� My Friends is a masterpiece.
]]> <![CDATA[Bad Boy Blues (St. Mary's Rebels #0)]]> 60704566
In grade school, he pulled at her pigtails. In middle school, he spread false rumors about her. And in high school, he ruined her prom.

She hates that his smirks are unfairly sexy. And she definitely loathes that his dark eyes seem to follow her everywhere. Sometimes, even in her dreams.

It doesn’t matter that he’s rich and popular or that he lives in a freaking mansion full of butlers and maids. He’s rude and arrogant, and she wants to stay as far away from him as possible.

But unfortunately for Cleo, she lives in the same freaking mansion as Zach.

Only he’s the prince and she’s the lowly maid who serves him.

#EnemiesToLovers #ZachAndCleo #AssholeAlpha #Angst #NewAdult]]> 498 Saffron A. Kent 1088024068 Jennifer 3 romance
He’s watching her because he can’t stop. Because she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And because her blue hair reminds him of the sky and the ocean. Freedom. She wants to know what it feels like to be in love with a boy. Because all she ever felt for a guy was hate. The guy she hates is the only thing on her mind. “He's the first thing I think about when I open my eyes in the morning. He's the last thing I see when I close them. He doesn't even leave me alone in my dreams…Maybe I hate him so much that I'll never be able to love anyone…Maybe hate is just love wrapped up in a barbed wire.��

“I love the guy who hates love. Nothing could be more tragic…I’m that girl. I’ll go down in history as the girl who courts heartbreak and hence, deserves tragedy…This cycle of bullying that started with his dad. It ends with us. I’ll change our story. If he’s a false prince, then I’m his street Cinderella. I don’t need glass slippers or a pretty gown to change our stars. I can do it in my quiet leather boots and my gray uniform…I have my prince, I don’t need shoes…No matter what he thinks or says…I’m going to save him from his glass tower and I’m going to save him from all the cruel people in his life. And while I’m saving him, I’m also going to kiss him. On his mouth.��

“A heart can be a real pain in the ass. You never know where its loyalties lie. Hearts have their own kings and queens,�� or rich, bored princes and blue-haired maids, as the case may be. “Some stories are just doomed. They don’t have a life, no matter how alive they feel.�� Others stories are resurrections. “Fraught with electricity, emotions and energy,�� Saffron A. Kent’s Bad Boy Blues is a constellation! ]]> 3.32 2019 Bad Boy Blues (St. Mary's Rebels #0)

author: Saffron A. Kent
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.32
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/24
date added: 2025/05/24
shelves: romance
review:
“The name of our town is Princetown. The town with the heat of hell, with holes in the ground, with lines, with the north side and the south side, with The Pleiades…A town can handle only one bully and this town's already got one." He’s the prince of the college and she’s just…a blue-haired, weird girl. He’s rich and bored and bad and she’s the girl from the other side of the line.

He’s watching her because he can’t stop. Because she’s the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen. And because her blue hair reminds him of the sky and the ocean. Freedom. She wants to know what it feels like to be in love with a boy. Because all she ever felt for a guy was hate. The guy she hates is the only thing on her mind. “He's the first thing I think about when I open my eyes in the morning. He's the last thing I see when I close them. He doesn't even leave me alone in my dreams…Maybe I hate him so much that I'll never be able to love anyone…Maybe hate is just love wrapped up in a barbed wire.��

“I love the guy who hates love. Nothing could be more tragic…I’m that girl. I’ll go down in history as the girl who courts heartbreak and hence, deserves tragedy…This cycle of bullying that started with his dad. It ends with us. I’ll change our story. If he’s a false prince, then I’m his street Cinderella. I don’t need glass slippers or a pretty gown to change our stars. I can do it in my quiet leather boots and my gray uniform…I have my prince, I don’t need shoes…No matter what he thinks or says…I’m going to save him from his glass tower and I’m going to save him from all the cruel people in his life. And while I’m saving him, I’m also going to kiss him. On his mouth.��

“A heart can be a real pain in the ass. You never know where its loyalties lie. Hearts have their own kings and queens,�� or rich, bored princes and blue-haired maids, as the case may be. “Some stories are just doomed. They don’t have a life, no matter how alive they feel.�� Others stories are resurrections. “Fraught with electricity, emotions and energy,�� Saffron A. Kent’s Bad Boy Blues is a constellation!
]]> <![CDATA[The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, #2)]]> 200544094
Shane just moved into her apartment building and seems dedicated to sleeping his way through her entire cheerleading squad. Sure, he’s a tall, gorgeous hockey player, but he’s messing with her turf. This calls for some ground rules: no parties in her apartment, leave her teammates alone, and—most importantly—leave her alone.

What Diana doesn’t realize is that Shane’s sick of hookups and tired of being on the rebound after his long-term girlfriend called it quits. He wants a relationship. And when his ex comes back into the picture, he pretends he has one to make her jealous…and who better to play the girlfriend role than his sassy new neighbor?

Despite Diana’s reluctance to break her rule, a fake relationship is the perfect solution for her own ex issues, and soon she can’t deny something is sizzling between her and Shane. Something hot and completely unexpected.

And it might just be getting a little too real.]]> 496 Elle Kennedy 1728260728 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.22 2024 The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries, #2)

author: Elle Kennedy
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Oceans Apart Digest Edition Pb]]> 51986018
Airline pilot Connor Evans and his wife, Michele, seem to be the perfect couple living what looks like a perfect life. Then a plane goes down in the Pacific Ocean. One of the casualties is Kiahna Siefert, a flight attendant Connor knew well. Too well. Kiahna’s will is very clear: before her seven-year-old son, Max, can be turned over to the state, he must spend the summer with the father he’s never met, the father who doesn’t know he exists: Connor Evans. Now will the presence of one lonely child and the truth he represents destroy Connor’s family ? Or is it possible that healing and hope might come in the shape of a seven-year-old boy?]]> 0 Karen Kingsbury 031061743X Jennifer 3
Karen Kingsbury’s Oceans Apart is the story of seven year old Max, pilot Connor, his wife Michele, an idealistic faith-driven Kiahna, betrayal, forgiveness and the metamorphosis of second chances needed by them all. "One decision can affect so many people for all of time…The revelation of his…affair, the reality of the little boy, were not mere random events. Rather they were part of an intricate plan God was working in…all their lives.��

“Love is what happens when people forgive…Love wasn't based on how a person looked. It was how the person talked and played and spent time that mattered. How they lived and loved; that's what people remembered…All of us are caterpillars, really. Furry little creatures scooting along the ground wondering why we can't seem to fly. And then God, in all His goodness, encourages us to crawl in a hole, bury our old selves, and die to the life we once knew…if we'll trust Him with our entire existence, then He'll give us something beautiful in exchange. He'll give us…the ultimate wings…when we give our lives to Christ and let Him be Lord of our lives, our Savior.”]]> 3.50 2004 Oceans Apart Digest Edition Pb

author: Karen Kingsbury
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2004
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/21
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves:
review:
Before her untimely death in a plane crash, Kiahna has one request: that her seven year old son visit his father for two weeks. The only problem is, his father doesn’t know he has a son and his son doesn’t know who his father is. When Kiahna’s attorney locates the father, Connor Evans is shocked and agrees to fulfill Kiahna’s petition. When the trial period is over, Connor is faced with a choice: he can send him back and never contact him again. Or tell him the truth and keep him forever. Is he willing to destroy his marriage and ruin the family they share for a boy he’d never met?

Karen Kingsbury’s Oceans Apart is the story of seven year old Max, pilot Connor, his wife Michele, an idealistic faith-driven Kiahna, betrayal, forgiveness and the metamorphosis of second chances needed by them all. "One decision can affect so many people for all of time…The revelation of his…affair, the reality of the little boy, were not mere random events. Rather they were part of an intricate plan God was working in…all their lives.��

“Love is what happens when people forgive…Love wasn't based on how a person looked. It was how the person talked and played and spent time that mattered. How they lived and loved; that's what people remembered…All of us are caterpillars, really. Furry little creatures scooting along the ground wondering why we can't seem to fly. And then God, in all His goodness, encourages us to crawl in a hole, bury our old selves, and die to the life we once knew…if we'll trust Him with our entire existence, then He'll give us something beautiful in exchange. He'll give us…the ultimate wings…when we give our lives to Christ and let Him be Lord of our lives, our Savior.��
]]> <![CDATA[Fleet Landing (The Carolina Crossfire Series, #1)]]> 230108292

Enter tenacious TV reporter Sydney Quinn, whose pursuit of justice for a man wrongly convicted of arson puts her on a collision course with a sinister figure known only as the Falcon. As Sydney uncovers a decades-old conspiracy, she receives chilling warnings to back off.

Forced to work together, Coop and Sydney must navigate a labyrinth of lies and corruption. Their investigation ignites a powder keg of danger, testing Coop's ironclad principles and Sydney's journalistic integrity. But when danger strikes too close to home, the stakes become personal. With time running out and lives on the line, Coop and Sydney must fight to extinguish the threat before everything they love goes up in smoke.]]> 352 Wendy Gee 1953865879 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.00 Fleet Landing (The Carolina Crossfire Series, #1)

Fleet Landing (The Carolina Crossfire Series, #1)

author: Wendy Gee
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hopelessly Teavoted 224003529
Azrael Ashmedai Hart must be cursed. He’s a witch twice named for the devil. He’s making his way back to his family manor in Hallowcross after a failed screenwriting career. He’s adopted a cat he’s allergic to, and if all of that is not enough, he’s also forced to come face-to-face with his childhood best friend and former crush.

Victoria Starnberger, the bubbly girl-next-door Az lost touch with after an awkward incident in college, has just been disowned by her parents for quitting business school and buying Azrael’s late parents�� Hopelessly Teavoted tea shop against their wishes. Being cut off financially is one thing. But, now Vickie also owes a lesser devil for the souls her parents promised him in exchange for her gift to summon the dead by touching something they treasured in life, destroying the object in the process.

When spirits all over town, including Az’s parents, keep warning her about a sinister threat, Vickie and Az are forced to combine their powers to save the Hallowcross. But to do so, they must prevent her magic from immolating him after Vickie’s devil places a curse on them to keep them from touching until she repays her debt. As they race against the clock to find clever ways around their curse, they find it increasingly harder to deny that they’ve been hopelessly devoted to each other all along.]]> 368 Audrey Goldberg Ruoff 166806832X Jennifer 0 to-read 3.65 2025 Hopelessly Teavoted

author: Audrey Goldberg Ruoff
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Sheer 231363401 An electrifying, propulsive novel about the rise and fall of a controversial beauty mogul and the moral gray areas at the intersections of beauty, power, and ambition

It’s 2015 and Maxine Thomas, the founder and creative director of the cult makeup company Reveal, has just been suspended by her own Board for a scandalous transgression. Housebound in her New York City apartment, where she awaits the verdict on her future, Max recounts her version of the events that have brought her to this moment.

From her start as a precocious suburban child in the eighties to her decades as a workaholic visionary, Max proselytizes a sheer, dewy look—cosmetics through a female gaze—all while battling sexist investors, the whiplash of cultural change, and the mounting pressure to keep her sexuality a secret. But when Max’s story catches up to her present, she must contend with the cost of true transparency.

Told over nine intense days yet spanning a lifetime, Sheer is a gripping, incisive, and provocative tale of a complicated female vanguard’s insatiable drive and the slippery ground between empowerment and abuse of power.]]> 304 Vanessa Lawrence 0593854861 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.77 Sheer

author: Vanessa Lawrence
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.77
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Innocent 65646331
Tanner is the girl who can't let any boy get close to her. She won't even talk to her brother or father but nobody knows what happened. Every time someone attempts to get close to Tanner, she shakes them off and hopes they'll never return.

That's not the case with Aaron. Aaron knows something is wrong with her and he's determined to know what. No matter how much he's kicked, punched, or is thrown insults.

He will break Tanner, whether she likes it or not. He has to crack a warrior. He has to break someone who's already wounded. He has to earn trust from Tanner, something she hasn't done since her incident.]]> Amy Kulp Jennifer 0 to-read 4.77 Innocent

author: Amy Kulp
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.77
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Between the World and Me 34020369 “This is your country, this is your world, this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it.��
��
In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,�� a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?
��
Between the World and Me is Ta-Nehisi Coates’s attempt to answer these questions in a letter to his adolescent son. Coates shares with his son—and readers—the story of his awakening to the truth about his place in the world through a series of revelatory experiences, from Howard University to Civil War battlefields, from the South Side of Chicago to Paris, from his childhood home to the living rooms of mothers whose children’s lives were taken as American plunder. Beautifully woven from personal narrative, reimagined history, and fresh, emotionally charged reportage, Between the World and Me clearly illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.]]> 166 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0812983815 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.43 2015

author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A Love Letter to Whiskey 33598467
Whiskey stood there, on my doorstep, just like he had one year before. Except this time, there was no rain, no anger, no wedding invitation �� it was just us.

It was just him �� the old friend, the easy smile, the twisted solace wrapped in a glittering bottle.

It was just me �� the alcoholic, pretending like I didn’t want to taste him, realizing too quickly that months of being clean didn’t make me crave him any less.

But we can’t start here.

No, to tell this story right, we need to go back.

Back to the beginning.

Back to the very first drop.

This is my love letter to Whiskey. I only hope he reads it.]]> Kandi Steiner Jennifer 4 romance
“I didn’t coin the nickname Whiskey until much later, but it was that moment that I saw it for the first time—those were whiskey eyes. The kind of eyes you get lost in. The kind that drink you in……They were a darker, deeper brown, shaded with bad intentions.�� Whiskey is like Jamie’s spirit drink; he’s practically whiskey on legs. The color of his hair, his eyes, the way he smells.

“Each type of alcohol affects you in a different way. Jamie was whiskey, that much I was sure of. I couldn’t deny the way he burned, the way his taste lingered. Still, no one warned me that once a whiskey girl, always a whiskey girl…Ethan was like rum. He was sweet and fun, like a fruity cocktail on the beach. He said all the right things, took me to the right places, gave me the right gifts on holidays we celebrated together. For all intents and purposes, he was a perfectly fine libation. But I didn’t get drunk off rum the same way I did off Whiskey.��

“All I knew was that I couldn’t enjoy the spicy sweetness of rum if I was drinking it while still staring at a neat glass of Whiskey…That was the night I realized that no matter how easy it seemed to be to form a long-standing relationship with Whiskey, the truth was that it wasn’t simple at all, not even a little bit. He asked me for two things: tonight, and one day. But one day never came…It took too long for me to realize I’d dropped that beautiful bottle of whiskey. Too long to realize I’d broken it. By the time I figured it out, too long turned to too late, and I remembered all-too-well the other way Whiskey can burn.�� “But that’s the thing about whiskey, isn’t it? It’s strong, to the very last drop.��

Kandi Steiner’s A Love Letter to Whiskey is “like riding a magical unicorn down a rainbow road.��
]]> 4.02 2016

author: Kandi Steiner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/20
date added: 2025/05/20
shelves: romance
review:
“What would you do if everything you had planned for your future went up in flames and there was nothing you could do about it?...It was wrong and right and I wished I’d never started yet I never wanted to stop. Loving Jamie was the sickest and sweetest oxymoron.��

“I didn’t coin the nickname Whiskey until much later, but it was that moment that I saw it for the first time—those were whiskey eyes. The kind of eyes you get lost in. The kind that drink you in……They were a darker, deeper brown, shaded with bad intentions.�� Whiskey is like Jamie’s spirit drink; he’s practically whiskey on legs. The color of his hair, his eyes, the way he smells.

“Each type of alcohol affects you in a different way. Jamie was whiskey, that much I was sure of. I couldn’t deny the way he burned, the way his taste lingered. Still, no one warned me that once a whiskey girl, always a whiskey girl…Ethan was like rum. He was sweet and fun, like a fruity cocktail on the beach. He said all the right things, took me to the right places, gave me the right gifts on holidays we celebrated together. For all intents and purposes, he was a perfectly fine libation. But I didn’t get drunk off rum the same way I did off Whiskey.��

“All I knew was that I couldn’t enjoy the spicy sweetness of rum if I was drinking it while still staring at a neat glass of Whiskey…That was the night I realized that no matter how easy it seemed to be to form a long-standing relationship with Whiskey, the truth was that it wasn’t simple at all, not even a little bit. He asked me for two things: tonight, and one day. But one day never came…It took too long for me to realize I’d dropped that beautiful bottle of whiskey. Too long to realize I’d broken it. By the time I figured it out, too long turned to too late, and I remembered all-too-well the other way Whiskey can burn.�� “But that’s the thing about whiskey, isn’t it? It’s strong, to the very last drop.��

Kandi Steiner’s A Love Letter to Whiskey is “like riding a magical unicorn down a rainbow road.��

]]> Joyride: A Memoir 224003864 From the beloved New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, New York Times bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book and hailed as “a national treasure�� by The Washington Post, Joyride is a masterful memoir of finding her creative calling and purpose that invites us to approach life with wonder, curiosity, and an irrepressible sense of delight.

“The story of my life is the story of my stories,�� writes Susan Orlean in this extraordinary, era-defining memoir from one of the greatest practitioners of narrative nonfiction of our time. Joyride is a magic carpet ride through Orlean’s life and career, where every day is an opportunity for discovery and every moment holds the potential for wonder. Throughout her storied career, her curiosity draws her to explore the most ordinary and extraordinary of places, from going deep inside the head of a regular ten-year-old boy for a legendary profile (“The American Man Age Ten��) to reporting on a woman who owns twenty-seven tigers, from capturing the routine magic of Saturday night to climbing Mt. Fuji.

Not only does Orlean’s account of a writing life offer a trove of indispensable gleanings for writers, it’s also an essential and practical guide to embracing any creative path. She takes us through her process of dreaming up ideas, managing deadlines, connecting with sources, chasing every possible lead, confronting writer’s block and self-doubt, and crafting the perfect lede—a Susan specialty.

While Orlean has always written her way into other people’s lives in order to understand the human experience, Joyride is her most personal book ever—a searching journey through finding her feet as a journalist, recovering from the excruciating collapse of her first marriage, falling head-over-heels in love again, becoming a mother while mourning the decline of her own mother, sojourning to Hollywood for films based on her work including Adaptation and Blue Crush, and confronting mortality. Joyride is also a time machine to a bygone era of journalism, from Orlean’s bright start in the golden age of alt-weeklies to her career-making days working alongside icons such as Robert Gottlieb, Tina Brown, David Remnick, Anna Wintour, Sonny Mehta, and Jonathan Karp—forces who shaped the media industry as we know it today.

Infused with Orlean’s signature warmth and wit, Joyride is a must-read for anyone who hungers to start, build, and sustain a creative life. Orlean inspires us to seek out daily inspiration and rediscover the marvels that surround us.]]> 368 Susan Orlean 1982135166 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.44 2025 Joyride: A Memoir

author: Susan Orlean
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Mysterious Case of the Missing Dog Walker (The Redemption Detective Agency #2)]]> 234060632
First off, she’s tasked with looking for, of all things, a missing dog. And not just any missing dog, but one owned by the aunt of Nick Stewart’s girlfriend, Trisha.

Like she wants anything to do Nick. Ever. She’s dating someone new and ready to take her life back.

Except…that missing dog case takes a strange turn when the owner tells her she never had a dog.

Why would Trisha lie about a missing dog? Or is Trisha’s aunt the one is lying?

As Emily digs deeper into the case, she uncovers far more than she bargained for.

A spin-off from the Charlie Kingsley Mystery series! The Redemption Detective Agency is a funny, twisty cozy mystery series set in the 1990s featuring silver sleuths solving cold cases. Great for fans of the Thursday Murder Club.]]> Michele Pariza Wacek Jennifer 0 to-read 4.00 The Mysterious Case of the Missing Dog Walker (The Redemption Detective Agency #2)

The Mysterious Case of the Missing Dog Walker (The Redemption Detective Agency #2)

author: Michele Pariza Wacek
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Hard Copy 203579301 This is a story of girl meets printer.

A customer service assistant spends her long workdays printing letters. Her one friend is the printer and, in the dark confines of her office, she begins to open up to him, talking about her fears, her past, her hopes and dreams.

To her, it seems like a beautiful friendship is blossoming. To her boss, it seems like she's losing her mind.

Diagnosed with burnout and placed on leave, she faces severance and - worse - separation from her beloved printer. But she's not about to give up on her only friend without a fight. And, it turns out, neither is he...]]> 256 Fien Veldman 1035906449 Jennifer 4
“The printer is the only reason I like coming to the office. I take care of him all day long, dusting him, encouraging him, reassuring him, looking after him. I am there for him and he is there for me. I have more feelings for my printer than for anyone else…I simply want to print and send out my letters, replace the cartridge every so often. I want to run my finger over the paper so I can tell if it's fit for use, as I always do. I want to go up to my own little office every day and I want to be left alone in there. I want to switch on my printer in the morning and listen to its start-up sounds as I take my first sip of coffee from my mug, the same one I use every day. I want to spend all day with the machine, watch the printed letters stack up.��

“This machine knows everything about me. He knows my thoughts, my fantasies, my dreams. My love and my hate. And he is the only one who knows that story, the story for which there's barely any space, except in some dark storage room where no one ever goes. If anyone knows who I am, it is he. He was the listener, I the storyteller…it's a question of belief. The machine is just a device, almost just as ordinary as the printers in the copy shop. But for all that time, I thought he was different. I really thought he could hear me, that he understood me. But maybe I just imagined it all.��

This philosophical printer is a literary genius!]]> 3.23 2023 Hard Copy

author: Fien Veldman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/16
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves:
review:
“If some fateful day my present were to end and my future to vanish, then what I'd like most of all is for my life to be turned into a beautiful story. A story in which the materials and objects are described in all their dazzling glory. A story of gold, cashmere, dates, silk, airy chocolate mousse, fresh tobacco, gleaming oak wood and ripe mangos. A story where people have all the time in the world to land in unexpected situations, ending up in strangers' beds and tripping on acid. A story where the alarm never goes off, where credit cards are never declined.�� Fien Veldman’s Hard Copy’s the story of a girl meets printer.

“The printer is the only reason I like coming to the office. I take care of him all day long, dusting him, encouraging him, reassuring him, looking after him. I am there for him and he is there for me. I have more feelings for my printer than for anyone else…I simply want to print and send out my letters, replace the cartridge every so often. I want to run my finger over the paper so I can tell if it's fit for use, as I always do. I want to go up to my own little office every day and I want to be left alone in there. I want to switch on my printer in the morning and listen to its start-up sounds as I take my first sip of coffee from my mug, the same one I use every day. I want to spend all day with the machine, watch the printed letters stack up.��

“This machine knows everything about me. He knows my thoughts, my fantasies, my dreams. My love and my hate. And he is the only one who knows that story, the story for which there's barely any space, except in some dark storage room where no one ever goes. If anyone knows who I am, it is he. He was the listener, I the storyteller…it's a question of belief. The machine is just a device, almost just as ordinary as the printers in the copy shop. But for all that time, I thought he was different. I really thought he could hear me, that he understood me. But maybe I just imagined it all.��

This philosophical printer is a literary genius!
]]> <![CDATA[Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien]]> 217105705
Young Pauline Baynes lives in India, a land of towering mountains, sparkling lakes, and bright flowers. She even has a pet monkey that joins her for tea.

Then her life takes a turn, and Pauline is sent to dreary England. Books bring light and color to her world, so she sets out to paint the stories she loves. Years later, two iconic authors see her paintings and know she’s the illustrator for their stories—of fire-breathing dragons, towering giants, a golden lion, and four brave children.

Follow Pauline into some of the most beloved and prominent landscapes in all of children’s the magical lands of J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis.
]]> 48 Katie Wray Schon 1956393153 Jennifer 4 childrens-book 4.40 2025 Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

Painting Wonder: How Pauline Baynes Illustrated the Worlds of C. S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien

author: Katie Wray Schon
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/16
date added: 2025/05/16
shelves: childrens-book
review:
"Her name is Pauline Baynes. And here is what she will draw...A girl and a faun under an umbrella in the snow; a frigid witch; a formidable lion; and four children who would save the day." Pictures about C.S. Lewis' magical world of Narnia. Maps to depict J.R.R. Tolkien's famous fantastical Middle-earth of the Lord of the Rings. "Pictures that wing their way around the world to faraway places on the pages of books...from her hands all the way to yours." An artist in her own right, Katie Wray Schon's illustrated biography illuminates an iconic but often forgotten literary legend.
]]> I Want to Keep My Baby! 3254209 176 Joanna Lee 0451166264 Jennifer 4
When she asks Sue Ann, “‘Did you ever give much thought to what you wanted to be when you grew up?�� Sue Ann thought for a moment. When she was younger, there were so many things that seemed possible. A nurse, a great actress, a famous painter. So many things and all the time and freedom in the world to decide. Now it looked like the possibilities had to be put aside. But there was one thing she’d thought about that had already happened. She looked down at Elizabeth, and answered Miss Finer. ‘Yes,�� she said. ‘a mother.’��

“Her mind was suddenly filled with visions of all the events and occasions that would mark Elizabeth's growing up: her first steps, going to school, dating, her first job, getting married-things that Sue Ann wouldn't see�� ‘I had a talk with God after you went to sleep last night, and you know what? Even though we’re never going to see each other again here on this earth, He promised me that when we get to Heaven you'll know who I am, and you'll call me Mama…Goodbye until then, my baby.��"

Based on the television special by the same name, Joanna Lee’s I Want to Keep My Baby is a masterpiece.]]> 3.89 1977 I Want to Keep My Baby!

author: Joanna Lee
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.89
book published: 1977
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/15
date added: 2025/05/15
shelves:
review:
Sue Ann is a fifteen year-old daughter of a former teen mom, sister to two younger step siblings, and mother-to-be. When she is sent to a halfway house to have the baby, she meets an eclectic sisterhood: roommate Marta, a fourteen-year-old chicana from the barrio region of downtown L.A., Debbie Coulter, sixteen, moon-faced, vulnerable, an orphan. Holly Simpson, seventeen, the pert-faced, tart-tongued daughter of a prominent family. Shirley Williams, seventeen, black, shy and “street-wise about everything but that information which the streets, a masculine place, never provided–truth about females, their bodies, their consequences.�� And their social worker Miss Rae Finer, “Brooklyn born and bred, with an accent you could cut with a knife,�� plain of face “with a wild dark mop of naturally frizzy hair�� and fiercely caring.

When she asks Sue Ann, “‘Did you ever give much thought to what you wanted to be when you grew up?�� Sue Ann thought for a moment. When she was younger, there were so many things that seemed possible. A nurse, a great actress, a famous painter. So many things and all the time and freedom in the world to decide. Now it looked like the possibilities had to be put aside. But there was one thing she’d thought about that had already happened. She looked down at Elizabeth, and answered Miss Finer. ‘Yes,�� she said. ‘a mother.’��

“Her mind was suddenly filled with visions of all the events and occasions that would mark Elizabeth's growing up: her first steps, going to school, dating, her first job, getting married-things that Sue Ann wouldn't see�� ‘I had a talk with God after you went to sleep last night, and you know what? Even though we’re never going to see each other again here on this earth, He promised me that when we get to Heaven you'll know who I am, and you'll call me Mama…Goodbye until then, my baby.��"

Based on the television special by the same name, Joanna Lee’s I Want to Keep My Baby is a masterpiece.
]]> <![CDATA[Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men)]]> 58977239
From Wall Street Journal bestselling author Giana Darling comes an age gap, forbidden romance between an ex-con MC President and the daughter of the town’s mayor��

I was a good girl.
I ate my vegetables, volunteered at the local autism centre and sat in the front pew of church every Sunday.
Then, I got cancer.
What the hell kind of reward was that for a boring life well lived?
I was a seventeen-year-old paradigm of virtue and I was tired of it. So, when I finally ran into the man I'd been writing to since he saved my life as a little girl and he offered to show me the dark side of life before I left it for good, I said yes. Only, I didn't know that Zeus Garro was the President of The Fallen MC and when you made a deal with a man who is worse than the devil, there was no going back...

*This is Zeus Garro's story from Lessons In Corruption.

A forbidden romance standalone in The Fallen Men Series.]]> 503 Giana Darling Jennifer 4
Zeus Garro is “the kinda man, someone wrongs you, I cause him the equivalent in pain. I’m a man of loyalty and vengeance, violence and sex. Won’t make apologies for it and won’t have you romanticizin�� it. I’m an outlaw and this is an outlaw’s life…You may live by your own code, but you do the right thing at the end of the day and you adhere to your rules and loyalties like a knight would.��

Zeus is “part of a different kinda brotherhood…modern-day warriors,�� a knight in leather, straddling his great metallic dragon, “the rev of the engine like a warrior cry as we took off into the night…There are no sunsets for men like you and women like I am at the heart of me. Only inky night that clutches at you as you tear past, moving through the darkness like we own it, like we are only free inside the shadow vortex of it.��

She wants “the man who’ll always right your wrongs with blood and teach you all’a the dark ways of life.�� He treats her “like gold. Not glass, not like something fragile and overly precious, something to be looked after out of necessity. No, something made of gold—priceless, worthy, but difficult to destroy. He wanted to defile me and defend me in equal terms, a dirty knight in his leather armor.��

God has “different paths for everyone…some princesses needing dragons to protect them instead of Prince Charmings to save them…You ready to commit yourself to the dark side?�� Giana Darling’s Welcome to the Dark Side is “better than a cherry lollipop.�� ]]> 3.95 2018 Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men)

Welcome to the Dark Side (The Fallen Men)

author: Giana Darling
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/14
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves:
review:
“Tell me another story, a good one where the hero is kind of the villain and the happily ever after isn’t easy coming. I want to hear about adventures and bravery and living life outside of the lines.�� Loulou Lafayette is “living in a fairy tale. One of the horrible ones, Grimm brothers�� fairy tales where the wrong people die and the good guys don’t always win, but a fairy tale nonetheless.�� She’s beaten cancer–twice–watches two men integral to her life die right in front of her, and marries a thirty-six-year-old MC biker. She’s his little warrior, he’s her guardian monster.

Zeus Garro is “the kinda man, someone wrongs you, I cause him the equivalent in pain. I’m a man of loyalty and vengeance, violence and sex. Won’t make apologies for it and won’t have you romanticizin�� it. I’m an outlaw and this is an outlaw’s life…You may live by your own code, but you do the right thing at the end of the day and you adhere to your rules and loyalties like a knight would.��

Zeus is “part of a different kinda brotherhood…modern-day warriors,�� a knight in leather, straddling his great metallic dragon, “the rev of the engine like a warrior cry as we took off into the night…There are no sunsets for men like you and women like I am at the heart of me. Only inky night that clutches at you as you tear past, moving through the darkness like we own it, like we are only free inside the shadow vortex of it.��

She wants “the man who’ll always right your wrongs with blood and teach you all’a the dark ways of life.�� He treats her “like gold. Not glass, not like something fragile and overly precious, something to be looked after out of necessity. No, something made of gold—priceless, worthy, but difficult to destroy. He wanted to defile me and defend me in equal terms, a dirty knight in his leather armor.��

God has “different paths for everyone…some princesses needing dragons to protect them instead of Prince Charmings to save them…You ready to commit yourself to the dark side?�� Giana Darling’s Welcome to the Dark Side is “better than a cherry lollipop.��
]]> Sisters in the Wind 225699546 From the instant New York Times bestselling author of Firekeeper’s Daughter and Warrior Girl Unearthed comes a daring new mystery about a foster teen claiming her heritage on her own terms.

Ever since Lucy Smith’s father died five years ago, “home�� has been more of an idea than a place. She knows being on the run is better than anything waiting for her as a “ward of the state.�� But when the sharp-eyed and kind Mr. Jameson with an interest in her case comes looking for her, Lucy wonders if hiding from her past will ever truly keep her safe.

Five years in the foster system has taught her to be cautious and smart. But she wants to believe Mr. Jameson and his “friend-not-friend,�� a tall and fierce-looking woman who say they want to look after her.

They also tell Lucy the truth her father hid from her: She is Ojibwe; she has �� had �� a sister, and more siblings; a grandmother who’d look after her and a home where she would be loved.

But Lucy is being followed. The past has destroyed any chance of normal she has had, and now the secrets she’s hiding will swallow her whole and take away the future she always dreamed of.]]> 384 Angeline Boulley 1250328535 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.63 2025 Sisters in the Wind

author: Angeline Boulley
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.63
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Dad's Camera 38659074 A moving portrayal of love and loss captures who �� and what �� we leave behind once we’re gone.

One day Dad comes home with one of those old cameras, the kind that uses film. But he doesn’t take photos of the regular things people photograph. He takes pictures of his keys, his coffee cup, the objects scattered on his desk. He starts doing a lot of things that are hard to understand, like putting items that belong in the fridge in the cupboard and ones that belong in the cupboard in the fridge. In a sensitive, touching tale about losing a family member to a terminal illness, Ross Watkins and Liz Anelli prove that love is the one thing that can never be forgotten.]]> 40 Ross Watkins 1536201383 Jennifer 5 childrens-book 4.10 Dad's Camera

author: Ross Watkins
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.10
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/13
date added: 2025/05/13
shelves: childrens-book
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom]]> 176442817
Along the way, they dodged slave traders, military officers, and even friends of their enslavers, who might have revealed their true identities. The tale of their adventure soon made them celebrities, and generated headlines around the country. Americans could not get enough of this charismatic young couple, who traveled another 1,000 miles criss-crossing New England, drawing thunderous applause as they spoke alongside some of the greatest abolitionist luminaries of the day—among them Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown.

But even then, they were not out of danger. With the passage of an infamous new Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, all Americans became accountable for returning refugees like the Crafts to slavery. Then yet another adventure began, as slave hunters came up from Georgia, forcing the Crafts to flee once again—this time from the United States, their lives and thousands more on the line and the stakes never higher.

With three epic journeys compressed into one monumental bid for freedom, Master Slave Husband Wife is an American love story—one that would challenge the nation’s core precepts of life, liberty, and justice for all—one that challenges us even now.]]> 432 Ilyon Woo 1501191063 Jennifer 4
“They had survived slavery in the South, outwitted kidnappers in the North, outrun the laws of the nation they once called home. They had overcome illness and, finally, the throes of nature itself, to find freedom, at last, on a new shore. They had run so many miles: one thousand from South to North, a thousand more across New England, and these last three thousand miles over troubled waters. They had run for each other, with each other, and now had each other in this place and time, where, strong enough together, they would have room to explore their own identities apart. Whomever, whatever they may have lost, they could fulfill their dreams of building a family that no one could break down.��

“Through their audacious escape and daring lives, their restless improvisation, persistent innovation, inventive narration, for themselves and for others, the Crafts continually wrote and revised their own American love story. Their love for each other carried them over state lines and conti-nents, real and imagined markers, and made it possible for them to accomplish together what they might never have achieved apart. They ran for each other, with each other, and as they did, they pushed not only themselves and each other, but also the nation—and the world�� to reach for better. In this sense, the lack of a definitive happy ending to their story represents not so much a gap or absence, as, potentially, a space or an opening in the story of America, whose reckonings with the past have the power to transform.��

In Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo offers “an orchestral accompaniment to the melody the couple provide in their narrative, in harmony with a chorus of other voices [so that] this telling, together with the sources identified in notes, will spark further conversation about the past that will give new light to both present and future.”]]> 3.99 2023 Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom

author: Ilyon Woo
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/12
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves:
review:
“At heart, this is an American love story �� not in the fairytale sense, but an enduring relationship between a man and a woman, a couple and a country…Theirs is a love story that begins in a time of revolution �� a revolution unfinished in the American War for Independence, a revolution that endures.��

“They had survived slavery in the South, outwitted kidnappers in the North, outrun the laws of the nation they once called home. They had overcome illness and, finally, the throes of nature itself, to find freedom, at last, on a new shore. They had run so many miles: one thousand from South to North, a thousand more across New England, and these last three thousand miles over troubled waters. They had run for each other, with each other, and now had each other in this place and time, where, strong enough together, they would have room to explore their own identities apart. Whomever, whatever they may have lost, they could fulfill their dreams of building a family that no one could break down.��

“Through their audacious escape and daring lives, their restless improvisation, persistent innovation, inventive narration, for themselves and for others, the Crafts continually wrote and revised their own American love story. Their love for each other carried them over state lines and conti-nents, real and imagined markers, and made it possible for them to accomplish together what they might never have achieved apart. They ran for each other, with each other, and as they did, they pushed not only themselves and each other, but also the nation—and the world�� to reach for better. In this sense, the lack of a definitive happy ending to their story represents not so much a gap or absence, as, potentially, a space or an opening in the story of America, whose reckonings with the past have the power to transform.��

In Master Slave Husband Wife, Ilyon Woo offers “an orchestral accompaniment to the melody the couple provide in their narrative, in harmony with a chorus of other voices [so that] this telling, together with the sources identified in notes, will spark further conversation about the past that will give new light to both present and future.��
]]> The English Masterpiece 221132590
As the recently promoted assistant to the Tate's Modern Collections keeper Diana Gilden, Lily helps plan a world-class Picasso exhibit to honor the passing of the great artist--and she's waited her whole life for this moment. The opening is beyond anyone's expectations--the lighting, the champagne, the glittering crowd, and the international acclaim--until Lily does the unthinkable. She stops in front of a masterpiece and hears her own voice say, "It's a forgery." The gallery falls silent.

Lily's boss, Diana, is polished perfection, schooled in art, and descends from European high society. She's worked hard to become the trusted voice in London's modern art scene and respected across the Continent. The Tate's Picasso Commemorative is to be her crowning achievement, featuring not only the artist's most iconic and intimate works, but a newly discovered painting--one she advised an investor to purchase. But when Lily makes her outrageous declaration, suspicion and scandal threaten everything Diana has achieved, as museums and collectors across Europe, already doubting most post-war acquisitions, fall into chaos and rumors of a world-wide forgery run wild.

All Lily has ever wanted is to follow in Diana's footsteps and take the art world by storm in her own right. Yet one comment puts not only her own career at risk but also her mentor's. Unless . . . Was she right? With the clock ticking and the clues starting to pile up against her, Lily must uncover the truth behind the Picasso before she loses not only the career she's always wanted, but her freedom.

Block off your calendar and lose yourself in The English Masterpiece, a thrilling read that will keep you on the edge of your seat till the very end from the author who brought you The London House and The Berlin Letters.]]> 304 Katherine Reay 1400347270 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.24 2025 The English Masterpiece

author: Katherine Reay
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Roommating 220175510 Sizzling chemistry and tender friendship develops between two accidental roommates in this hilarious rom-com from the author of As Seen on TV.

Sabrina is too busy with grad school and her job as a library page to think about dating. Until Marcia, her elderly roommate, invites her estranged grandson Adam to move into their two-bedroom apartment in Manhattan temporarily to “find himself.�� Sabrina doesn’t mind sharing the small space with Adam if it helps Marcia repair her relationship with her grandson. But she’s not expecting to fall for him herself. Adam is not only gorgeous, he’s kind, funny, shares her love of reading, and clearly adores Marcia. After one too many accidental midnight rendezvous in the bathroom (him shirtless), the tension between them is hotter than ever.

But they’re not the only ones feeling the heat. After Marcia has a health scare, her doctors advise that one of her younger roommates must go. In a comical and sexy battle to prove who deserves to stay, the two pull out all the stops. All's fair in love and real estate, but in the end victory is not so sweet when winning the apartment could mean losing each other.��]]> 336 Meredith Schorr 1538758261 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.60 Roommating

author: Meredith Schorr
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.60
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Under a Maui Moon (Hideaway, #1)]]> 7140396 ��and she’s already stopped trusting her husband.

In the midst of her world tilting off center, she’s offered time at a hideaway on Maui. Hiding seems like the best way to respond to life’s overload, and the thought of being alone sounds like just the right balm to soothe her wounded heart.

The languid Hawaiian sun, white beaches, and warm-hearted people bring respite, but meeting handsome Kai causes Carissa to toy with the idea of being romantically involved with him. Then, under a Maui moon, she looks to God for guidance and hope for the future. That’s when she discovers His hand still is on her life, and that love is closer than she ever realized.

]]> 276 Robin Jones Gunn 1416583394 Jennifer 3 romance
Are men who struggle worth going after and helping through to the other side of addiction? Should she “attempt to be a courageous, strong, and determined woman who had chosen to ‘stay��?�� Will she meet someone new or discover “new love with an old husband��? “Honesty and transparency were powerful dragon slayers.�� As Carissa experiences “the all-encompassing beauty…in the midst of the fragile, broken world,�� she begins to wonder if perhaps “everything is redeemable.��

“The plump Maui moon hung overhead, looking fuller and closer than ever. It wasn’t like the half-moon that had stared unblinkingly at her when she had first arrived. Nor was it the mysterious floating moon that had cast its waving ribbon of light on the ocean when she was camping. This moon was stronger and brighter and was beaming at her…The shadows of the craters across the face of the moon gave a strong impression of a…life-giving grin…in the midst of her grave loss.��

“‘It’s the face of Ke Akua [God]. I think he’s smiling on us��...a silver jet stream appeared just beneath the golden orb, etching a smudged line through the illuminated night sky…the airplane seemed to be swimming through the foreboding midnight blue, determined to reunite some other woman with the one she loved…She had a pretty good idea the next chapter of their love story was about to begin right here, in this blessed hideaway, tucked in under a Maui moon.�� Amen and amene.

Robin Jones Gunn’s Under a Maui Moon is a story that comes from the heart that will most certainly touch the heart of its readers. Don’t just dip your toes in the water; “you must get all the way in or it’s not worth the journey.�� ]]> 3.91 2010 Under a Maui Moon (Hideaway, #1)

author: Robin Jones Gunn
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2010
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/07
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves: romance
review:
“Twenty-four years of marriage, one grown son, a thousand memories, yet only a single tear.�� Carissa suddenly finds herself jobless and potentially spouseless with an empty nest and a key to a door in Maui. Overwhelmed by life and love (or the lack thereof), Carissa jetsets to an island hideaway for the vacation she never imagined and the adventure she never knew she needed.

Are men who struggle worth going after and helping through to the other side of addiction? Should she “attempt to be a courageous, strong, and determined woman who had chosen to ‘stay��?�� Will she meet someone new or discover “new love with an old husband��? “Honesty and transparency were powerful dragon slayers.�� As Carissa experiences “the all-encompassing beauty…in the midst of the fragile, broken world,�� she begins to wonder if perhaps “everything is redeemable.��

“The plump Maui moon hung overhead, looking fuller and closer than ever. It wasn’t like the half-moon that had stared unblinkingly at her when she had first arrived. Nor was it the mysterious floating moon that had cast its waving ribbon of light on the ocean when she was camping. This moon was stronger and brighter and was beaming at her…The shadows of the craters across the face of the moon gave a strong impression of a…life-giving grin…in the midst of her grave loss.��

“‘It’s the face of Ke Akua [God]. I think he’s smiling on us��...a silver jet stream appeared just beneath the golden orb, etching a smudged line through the illuminated night sky…the airplane seemed to be swimming through the foreboding midnight blue, determined to reunite some other woman with the one she loved…She had a pretty good idea the next chapter of their love story was about to begin right here, in this blessed hideaway, tucked in under a Maui moon.�� Amen and amene.

Robin Jones Gunn’s Under a Maui Moon is a story that comes from the heart that will most certainly touch the heart of its readers. Don’t just dip your toes in the water; “you must get all the way in or it’s not worth the journey.��
]]> <![CDATA[Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)]]> 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.]]> 387 Suzanne Collins 1546171460 Jennifer 3
Haymitch’s risk is the greatest because he has the most to lose. President Snow “tries to strip him of everything: family, friends, lover, job, community, liberty, happiness, and the freedom to love anyone. His personal stakes couldn’t be higher.��

But before he goes, his love Lenora gifts him with a token of luck and love, “pretty with a purpose…It's a thin strip of metal, shaped like a C. My fingers naturally grip the curved back as I examine the colorful animals facing off at the opening. The head of a snake hisses at the beak of a long-necked bird. I flatten out my hand and see that their enameled scales and feathers travel around the piece until they merge and become indistinguishable. Two small rings are welded on, one behind each head. For a chain…The smooth steel edge isn't solely decorative. ‘It's a flint striker��...It takes a lot to break these two. They're survivors. I love it...And I love you like all-fire."

"From the Capitol's perspective, the Games are the best propaganda we have. You tributes, you're our stars. You carry it out. But only if we control the narrative. Don't let us…No more implicit submission for you, Haymitch Abernathy. Blow that water tank sky high. The entire country needs you to."

“Maybe it does make a difference if I resist as best I can. Maybe this is where I paint my own poster.�� Implicit submission, the uncertainty of inductive reasoning, propaganda, love. “Barbaric. Brutal. Bloody…Tear-soaked, blood-soaked, misery-soaked…Mad cheers and hot tears.�� Suzanne Collins�� Sunrise on the Reaping is triumphant.
]]> 4.56 2025 Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)

Sunrise on the Reaping (The Hunger Games, #0.5)

author: Suzanne Collins
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/05/06
date added: 2025/05/06
shelves:
review:
“I'm Haymitch Abernathy from District Twelve. I shouldn't be here. I was reaped illegally, but no one cares. My neighbor, Louella McCoy, was the only person here I gave a hang about, but you killed her and brought in a body double. So, that kind of frees me up to win these Games…and get back to the girl I risked everything for and the family I had a touching good-bye with.��

Haymitch’s risk is the greatest because he has the most to lose. President Snow “tries to strip him of everything: family, friends, lover, job, community, liberty, happiness, and the freedom to love anyone. His personal stakes couldn’t be higher.��

But before he goes, his love Lenora gifts him with a token of luck and love, “pretty with a purpose…It's a thin strip of metal, shaped like a C. My fingers naturally grip the curved back as I examine the colorful animals facing off at the opening. The head of a snake hisses at the beak of a long-necked bird. I flatten out my hand and see that their enameled scales and feathers travel around the piece until they merge and become indistinguishable. Two small rings are welded on, one behind each head. For a chain…The smooth steel edge isn't solely decorative. ‘It's a flint striker��...It takes a lot to break these two. They're survivors. I love it...And I love you like all-fire."

"From the Capitol's perspective, the Games are the best propaganda we have. You tributes, you're our stars. You carry it out. But only if we control the narrative. Don't let us…No more implicit submission for you, Haymitch Abernathy. Blow that water tank sky high. The entire country needs you to."

“Maybe it does make a difference if I resist as best I can. Maybe this is where I paint my own poster.�� Implicit submission, the uncertainty of inductive reasoning, propaganda, love. “Barbaric. Brutal. Bloody…Tear-soaked, blood-soaked, misery-soaked…Mad cheers and hot tears.�� Suzanne Collins�� Sunrise on the Reaping is triumphant.

]]> Groupies: A Novel 63076699 368 Sarah Priscus 006321802X Jennifer 4
“There’s groupies, there’s friends, there’s muses, and there’s girlfriends…those words were labels that did nothing to truly encompass our wealth of duty. Groupies weren’t fans—they were more, they were more, they were different, they were rare. Groupie was a collective brush used to paint every woman seeking closeness to the band…when someone calls me a groupie, I say ‘thank you very much.�� No one sneers and says ‘groupie�� unless they wish they were one.��

“Was I a groupie? I’d never met a groupie, but I could picture them: hungry-eyed, eager, and unafraid. It wouldn’t be so bad to be that way. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect insult the doorman thought it was. Was Josie a groupie? If she was, I wanted to be one, too. If it meant I could meet Holiday Sun, I’d be anything at all.��

“Painting each other’s faces and braiding each other’s hair and cheating the bill at restaurants and yelling back at catcallers and kissing strangers and chewing stolen breath mints and telling everyone we were important—all the bright, free pleasures of a discount-driven life lived out of motel rooms and strangers�� beds. They were sunset strip sisters for the span of the summer, and Groupies is their grand finale. “A study in groupiedom. In pain. In joy. In good. In evil. In life.�� A toast “to true love and true fans.�� Sarah Priscus�� debut is “everything copacetic.”]]> 3.33 2022 Groupies: A Novel

author: Sarah Priscus
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves:
review:
“First off, if you’re going to be friends with us, you need to respect us. We’re not a sacred circle of sisterhood, but I expect common decency from everyone I hang around with…You’ve got to commit to the band. You need to pay attention to them and tell them they’re good. They need us. Without us, there’s no music because there’s no inspiration. You’ve got to prioritize them. Go to their gigs, go to their parties, buy their albums, and make all your friends buy their albums. Finally, you’ve got to care. Not too much—not so much it hurts—but enough…If you care about them enough, they care about you…It was symbiosis��.Love the band, support the band, be kind to your friends, and care just enough—easy rules.��

“There’s groupies, there’s friends, there’s muses, and there’s girlfriends…those words were labels that did nothing to truly encompass our wealth of duty. Groupies weren’t fans—they were more, they were more, they were different, they were rare. Groupie was a collective brush used to paint every woman seeking closeness to the band…when someone calls me a groupie, I say ‘thank you very much.�� No one sneers and says ‘groupie�� unless they wish they were one.��

“Was I a groupie? I’d never met a groupie, but I could picture them: hungry-eyed, eager, and unafraid. It wouldn’t be so bad to be that way. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect insult the doorman thought it was. Was Josie a groupie? If she was, I wanted to be one, too. If it meant I could meet Holiday Sun, I’d be anything at all.��

“Painting each other’s faces and braiding each other’s hair and cheating the bill at restaurants and yelling back at catcallers and kissing strangers and chewing stolen breath mints and telling everyone we were important—all the bright, free pleasures of a discount-driven life lived out of motel rooms and strangers�� beds. They were sunset strip sisters for the span of the summer, and Groupies is their grand finale. “A study in groupiedom. In pain. In joy. In good. In evil. In life.�� A toast “to true love and true fans.�� Sarah Priscus�� debut is “everything copacetic.��
]]> Black Ties & White Lies 95586912
One minute you’re a struggling graphic designer in LA that's finally coming to terms with being single forever, and the next you're flying to New York in a private jet to get engaged to your ex-boyfriend’s older brother.

At least...that’s what everyone thinks. Forced to clean up his playboy image in order to protect his company, Beckham Sinclair, the city’s most eligible billionaire bachelor, wants me to be his fake fiancée and personal assistant.

Now I'm spending every spare second with a man I thought I’d never see again.

My freshly mended heart has barely recovered from the first time a Sinclair broke it. But with each passing day, Beck’s dirty mouth and lingering stares make me question his motives—and mine.

As the line blurs between real and pretend, only one thing is certain: there are secrets hiding in this city full of black ties and white lies.

Black Ties and White Lies is a billionaire, fake relationship, forced proximity, and ex's older brother novel and a complete standalone by Kat Singleton.]]> 418 Kat Singleton 1958292079 Jennifer 3 romance
Beckham Sinclair is a billionaire bachelor, the guy who dates models, actresses and heiresses. But when his brother cheats on his girlfriend, “I’d do whatever it took to make her mine. While my methods were rather unconventional, I can’t regret a single one of my choices. Who knew what would’ve happened if she actually did pick up my phone calls. If I didn’t have to resort to leaking information about my dating history and forcing myself into her life as her boss, I don’t know if we’d be where we are now.��

“Our first kiss felt like a promise of the possibility of more. This kiss is a promise of forever…I wondered if I’d ever have a present with her. I tried not to be too hopeful for a future. But now, that’s exactly what we have…I’ll buy you a million rings until you find the perfect one if it means you’re mine to love forever.��

Margot is moments away from coming face to face with her ex’s parents only to tell them she’s now engaged to their other son. “There’s just one minor issue. It’s not just Beck’s mom and dad at the table. We won’t be announcing our engagement face to face with only his parents. We’ll also be announcing it to Carter—my ex-boyfriend and Beck’s brother.��

But when his brother reveals the revenge behind the ring on Margot’s finger, Beck wonders, “What if she can’t get past the lies I told her to get her here? I’d thought I was telling small white lies that wouldn’t make a difference, but white lie after white lie has piled up. What if that isn’t something she’ll get past?�� Love “shouldn’t be based on a lie.�� What are the lengths he’d take for love?]]> 3.37 2023 Black Ties & White Lies

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/30
date added: 2025/04/30
shelves: romance
review:
“Margot is dating her boss. Margot is dating her ex-boyfriend’s brother. Margot is dating her future fake fiancé…When one brother breaks your heart, [date] the other one and get engaged to him as payback.��

Beckham Sinclair is a billionaire bachelor, the guy who dates models, actresses and heiresses. But when his brother cheats on his girlfriend, “I’d do whatever it took to make her mine. While my methods were rather unconventional, I can’t regret a single one of my choices. Who knew what would’ve happened if she actually did pick up my phone calls. If I didn’t have to resort to leaking information about my dating history and forcing myself into her life as her boss, I don’t know if we’d be where we are now.��

“Our first kiss felt like a promise of the possibility of more. This kiss is a promise of forever…I wondered if I’d ever have a present with her. I tried not to be too hopeful for a future. But now, that’s exactly what we have…I’ll buy you a million rings until you find the perfect one if it means you’re mine to love forever.��

Margot is moments away from coming face to face with her ex’s parents only to tell them she’s now engaged to their other son. “There’s just one minor issue. It’s not just Beck’s mom and dad at the table. We won’t be announcing our engagement face to face with only his parents. We’ll also be announcing it to Carter—my ex-boyfriend and Beck’s brother.��

But when his brother reveals the revenge behind the ring on Margot’s finger, Beck wonders, “What if she can’t get past the lies I told her to get her here? I’d thought I was telling small white lies that wouldn’t make a difference, but white lie after white lie has piled up. What if that isn’t something she’ll get past?�� Love “shouldn’t be based on a lie.�� What are the lengths he’d take for love?
]]> <![CDATA[Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue (Mrs. Plansky, #2)]]> 217388124
Already certain there's more going on than she's being told, Mrs. Plansky's curiosity turns to concern when Kev goes missing. Her suspicion gets the better of her and leads her to break into his house, only to find it ransacked.

But Kev isn't the only person Mrs. Plansky has to worry about. A conversation with her dad reveals that not long ago, he'd introduced Kev to Jack, Mrs. Plansky's wayward tennis pro son. And now, her dad—distracted by arrangements for his upcoming wedding—either can't remember or has no interest in divulging any details.

Worse? Now Jack has gone missing, too.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.]]> 304 Spencer Quinn 1250331838 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.88 2025 Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue (Mrs. Plansky, #2)

Mrs. Plansky Goes Rogue (Mrs. Plansky, #2)

author: Spencer Quinn
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs]]> 62039305
Hot dogs. Poor people created them. Rich people found a way to charge fifteen dollars for them. They’re high culture, they’re low culture, they’re sports food, they’re kids' food, they’re hangover food, and they’re deeply American, despite having no basis whatsoever in America's Indigenous traditions. You can love them, you can hate them, but you can’t avoid the great American hot dog.

Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs is part investigation into the cultural and culinary significance of hot dogs and part travelog documenting a cross-country road trip researching them as they’re served today. From avocado and spice in the West to ass-shattering chili in the East to an entire salad on a slice of meat in Chicago, Loftus, her pets, and her ex eat their way across the country during the strange summer of 2021. It’s a brief window into the year between waves of a plague that the American government has the resources to temper, but not the interest.

So grab a dog, lay out your picnic blanket, and dig into the delicious and inevitable product of centuries of violence, poverty, and ambition, now rolling around at your local 7-Eleven.]]> 301 Jamie Loftus 1250847745 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.89 2023 Raw Dog: The Naked Truth About Hot Dogs

author: Jamie Loftus
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Joy Moody Is Out of Time 217387839 From the author of the beloved novel Lenny Marks Gets Away With Murder comes another quirky and irresistible new crime novel

Strange things are happening behind the bright pink facade of Bayside’s premier laundromat, Joyful Suds; home to Joy Moody and her twin daughters.

For much of their lives, Joy has been lying to Cassie and Andie. What started as a colorful tale to explain how the twins came to live with her grew over the years and was always something she meant to set straight. Joy really did think she had more time. Worse still, Joy is struggling to define the truth from the lies.

The girls have long believed they are vital to the future and must stay hidden to stay safe. Joy has told them that their impending 21st birthday is significant; they will step into their roles as daughters of the future revolution and life as they know it will change. Joy was right - everything will change, just not in the way the expected. On Andie and Cassie’s birthday, Joy Moody is found dead and her girls face a world they are not prepared for without their mother. Joy Moody is out of time�� in more ways than one.]]> 352 Kerryn Mayne 1250340500 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.76 2024

author: Kerryn Mayne
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Lake Escape 217387729 The next riveting summer suspense by the author of THE BLOCK PARTY and ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY, Jamie Day.

WILL THIS BE THE BEST WEEK OF THEIR LIVES... OR THE LAST?

JULIA, DAVID, AND ERIKA grew up together spending summers at their idyllic Vermont lake homes for as long as they can remember. Now adults—with their own sullen teens, endless mortgages, and low-voltage sex lives—the three friends have amassed secrets over the years.

This summer, David is eager to show off his newly renovated home—which now blocks his friends�� cherished lake views—and his much-younger girlfriend. He also, unwittingly, brings a nanny with a hidden agenda. What could possibly go wrong?

When David’s girlfriend mysteriously vanishes after a shouting match, Julia and Erika wonder just how well they know their lifelong friend. The lake harbors a harrowing two young women, with no known connection, vanished without a trace thirty years ago. Did the lake take another?

As a search is mounted, an intricate web of lies, deceits, and betrayals spanning generations starts to surface, and everyone finds themselves in danger of becoming the next victim. Of the lake, or something darker.]]> 368 Jamie Day 1250358191 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.69 2025 The Lake Escape

author: Jamie Day
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Witch of the Wolves 222284050 When a powerful witch discovers she's the daughter of an Alpha werewolf and is taken by his Pack, she's determined to break free all the while denying her attraction to her abductor. Witch of the Wolves is perfect for fans of A Court of Thorns and Roses and From Blood and Ash.

Cordelia Levine comes from a long line of powerful witches. She's been flying under the radar in the human world, focused on strengthening her magic. She loves working at her aunt's apothecary in London, secretly serving supernaturals.

Until the truth about her family is revealed.

She always assumed her enhanced sense of smell came from her French perfumer father. But when Bishop Daniels abducts Cordelia at the request of her father, the Alpha, Cordelia learns she's a lycan--sharing both witch and werewolf traits. She's brought to Trevelyan, the pack estate, under the guise of protection from foreign threats who want to use her to continue their bloodline.

She quickly learns that to keep her from being sold off to another pack, her father intends to give Cordelia as a mate to Bishop. His second in command and the future Alpha.

Cordelia refuses to accept this as her fate. She can't rely on her magic alone to escape and when she learns Bishop plans to challenge her father's power, she reluctantly begins to trust him. The cracks within the Pack become evident and something is bound to break. And Cordelia and her growing desire for the man who shouldn't set her on fire are right at the center of it all.

Witch of the Wolves is the first book in this Victorian romantasy series, featuring an intense and sexy romance and a world on the brink of change.]]> 352 Kaylee Archer 1250393078 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.69 2025

author: Kaylee Archer
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Pretty Rings & Broken Things (Black Tie Billionaires, #2)]]> 199057596
Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop powerful men from trying. Which is why instead of getting the wedding I’d always dreamed of, I was forced to marry the heir to our rival company and join a family that we’ve hated for generations.

An arranged marriage to make our problem disappear.

Then again, I’m the one that snuck around behind my father’s back and ended up at the center of a scandal that could ruin my family’s reputation.

Now the only person who can protect me is the cold and calculated billionaire, Archer Moore.

The marriage was only supposed to be for show, but Archer can be very convincing. He’s demanded we move in together. That we kiss. That we make it look—and feel—real. He’s a man who is obsessed with getting what he wants—and I’m starting to think what he wants is me.

But the closer we get, and the less we pretend, the more I question if the grudges between our families are too much to overcome for a marriage that was built on pretty rings and broken things.

Pretty Rings and Broken Things is a billionaire, arranged marriage romance releasing early 2024. It is Winnie's book and a complete standalone.]]> 366 Kat Singleton Jennifer 4 romance
“You could say it wasn’t exactly love at first sight…I had no desire to seek him out. There are so many people to speak with at those events; how was I to know that the heir to my family’s rival wanted to speak with me?�� But “One pointed smile aimed at me and I’m almost melting at his feet. Or maybe it’s the ring he just placed on my finger that I’m well aware had to have had a hefty price tag.��

She’s soft and sweet. He’s hot and cold, mysterious but blunt, and one of the most coveted men. The two of them have a marriage on paper and for appearances only. He may call her his wife, but he’d better not expect to have her trust. She may call him her husband, but she’d better not make him out to be a good man.

He doesn’t mix business with pleasure, but will he make her pleasure his business? When Archer goes from him confessing his love to Winnie to telling her his family is planning to take everything hers has ever worked for, sparks fly. But “Love can ease even the harshest of grudges.��

Will they find a way to mend the bridge between the Bishops and the Moores and right the wrongs of their fathers and forefathers? Will going against their fathers ultimately bring hope for a better future for both their families? Can their kiss be the start of their forever and a happily ever after between two families everyone thought were feuding? Kat Singleton’s Pretty Rings and Broken Things is a constellation! ]]> 3.99 2024 Pretty Rings & Broken Things (Black Tie Billionaires, #2)

Pretty Rings & Broken Things (Black Tie Billionaires, #2)

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/28
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: romance
review:
Winnie Bishop didn’t do anything wrong “except maybe sleeping with someone within the family business.�� She’d gone to bed thinking she’d fallen for a man. She woke up to find that same man betrayed her. Now she’s forced to marry a man she was raised to hate. “Archer Moore—the cold, calculated man I’ve been told to avoid my entire life—is on his knees for me. And it might be my favorite thing I’ve ever seen.��

“You could say it wasn’t exactly love at first sight…I had no desire to seek him out. There are so many people to speak with at those events; how was I to know that the heir to my family’s rival wanted to speak with me?�� But “One pointed smile aimed at me and I’m almost melting at his feet. Or maybe it’s the ring he just placed on my finger that I’m well aware had to have had a hefty price tag.��

She’s soft and sweet. He’s hot and cold, mysterious but blunt, and one of the most coveted men. The two of them have a marriage on paper and for appearances only. He may call her his wife, but he’d better not expect to have her trust. She may call him her husband, but she’d better not make him out to be a good man.

He doesn’t mix business with pleasure, but will he make her pleasure his business? When Archer goes from him confessing his love to Winnie to telling her his family is planning to take everything hers has ever worked for, sparks fly. But “Love can ease even the harshest of grudges.��

Will they find a way to mend the bridge between the Bishops and the Moores and right the wrongs of their fathers and forefathers? Will going against their fathers ultimately bring hope for a better future for both their families? Can their kiss be the start of their forever and a happily ever after between two families everyone thought were feuding? Kat Singleton’s Pretty Rings and Broken Things is a constellation!
]]> Listen for the Lie 217387923 What if you thought you murdered your best friend? And if everyone else thought so too? And what if the truth doesn't matter?

After Lucy is found wandering the streets, covered in her best friend Savvy’s blood, everyone thinks she is a murderer. Lucy and Savvy were the golden girls of their small Texas town: pretty, smart, and enviable. Lucy married a dream guy with a big ring and an even bigger new home. Savvy was the social butterfly loved by all, and if you believe the rumors, especially popular with the men in town. It’s been years since that horrible night, a night Lucy can’t remember anything about, and she has since moved to LA and started a new life.

But now the phenomenally huge hit true crime podcast "Listen for the Lie," and its too-good looking host Ben Owens, have decided to investigate Savvy’s murder for the show’s second season. Lucy is forced to return to the place she vowed never to set foot in again to solve her friend’s murder, even if she is the one that did it.]]> 352 Amy Tintera 1250880335 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.04 2024 Listen for the Lie

author: Amy Tintera
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/28
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Founded on Goodbye (Mixtape, #1)]]> 54342842
That sentence would change my life after my dream job was dished to me on a shiny, silver platter.

All I had to do?

Hurt Nash Pierce enough to get him writing good music again.

The pop icon’s songs were no longer the phenomena they used to be. His team needed another breakthrough album—like the first he’d penned, using his heartbreak as fuel.

The plan was simple: I’d go on tour with him as a backup dancer…and make him fall in love with me. I was hired to inspire—to become embedded into every lyric he wrote. Then, I was to set fire to it all—to destroy every feeling we hoped he’d develop for me.

It seemed simple enough. Easy, even.

I didn’t expect to be consumed myself—to see so much in the man displayed in the tabloids. I didn’t foresee falling for him. It didn’t occur to me that, while attempting to break his heart, I might just shatter my own.

Most of all, I never thought I’d fight so hard to hold on to a relationship that had always been founded on goodbye.]]> 396 Kat Singleton Jennifer 3 romance
She’s Nora Mason, and she’s one of Nash’s dancers, but the real reason she’s here is to break his heart because his broken heart means better songs. “I gave my word to try to get Nash to fall in love with me. I didn’t give any thought to what would happen if I started to unintentionally fall for him in the process.�� “How do you tell someone that you love them and betrayed them in the same moment?...He deserves to know the truth, even if it means the end of us.��

Nora makes Nash fall in love with music again, and in the process, she makes him fall in love with her, too. “He was my great love—my rain show. A love that comes once in a lifetime, but not the kind I could keep forever…I hope our goodbye isn’t what ruins him when it was supposed to be the thing that rebuilt him.��

“Our love story was supposed to be doomed before we ever laid eyes on each other. But when you love someone enough, we’ve shown that you can overcome anything…Our love story is like a rain show…proof that even the best love stories can be founded on goodbye.”]]> 3.66 Founded on Goodbye (Mixtape, #1)

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.66
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/27
date added: 2025/04/27
shelves: romance
review:
“I’m Nash Pierce. The bad boy. I’m everything they’ve made me out to be. A playboy. An alcoholic. A hot head…talented. An artist. A singer. A lyrical genius.��

She’s Nora Mason, and she’s one of Nash’s dancers, but the real reason she’s here is to break his heart because his broken heart means better songs. “I gave my word to try to get Nash to fall in love with me. I didn’t give any thought to what would happen if I started to unintentionally fall for him in the process.�� “How do you tell someone that you love them and betrayed them in the same moment?...He deserves to know the truth, even if it means the end of us.��

Nora makes Nash fall in love with music again, and in the process, she makes him fall in love with her, too. “He was my great love—my rain show. A love that comes once in a lifetime, but not the kind I could keep forever…I hope our goodbye isn’t what ruins him when it was supposed to be the thing that rebuilt him.��

“Our love story was supposed to be doomed before we ever laid eyes on each other. But when you love someone enough, we’ve shown that you can overcome anything…Our love story is like a rain show…proof that even the best love stories can be founded on goodbye.��
]]> <![CDATA[Wes and Addie Had Their Chance]]> 221132650
When her life crashes and burns in a flurry of secrets and redacted information, Addie Atwater-Elwyn hightails it home to the tiny mountain town of Adelaide Springs, Colorado--back to living with her dad, back to working a low-paying job, back to a life of disappointments. Growing up, nobody expected their local girl to become a high-ranking CIA analyst, married to a gorgeous CIA operative. But that was Addie's life until she lost . . . well, everything.

Now she's trying to pick up the pieces of her broken life with a little help from old friends. But there's one old friend she knows her life is better without--Wesley Hobbes, her childhood sweetheart who left her standing at the altar when they were eighteen years old. Truth be told, Addie would be perfectly content never seeing Wes's stupid face ever again--which makes it very inconvenient that he's now a beloved senator and presidential frontrunner, his face everywhere she looks. But that has nothing to do with Addie personally. He might make history, but in her book, he is history.

So, when the unwelcome Wes appears back in their hometown, no one rolls out the red carpet--not Addie and not an entire town that was forced to pick sides (and unanimously chose Addie) decades ago. Senator Hobbes certainly won't win the popular vote in Adelaide Springs.

Wes, meanwhile, is sitting on a few secrets of his own, including the political scoop of the decade: he'd seriously rather gouge his eyes out than spend another minute in politics, much less ever go anywhere near the White House. Addie knows there has to be more to the story, and her curiosity is clouding her judgment. You can take the girl out of the CIA, but it's not so easy to shake the CIA out of the girl. Of course, it's not just curiosity (and the acknowledgement that his face isn't so stupid after all) that's been reawakened inside her. But after more than two decades, it's too late. Wes and Addie already had their chance. Right?]]> 320 Bethany Turner 1400345898 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.50 2025 Wes and Addie Had Their Chance

author: Bethany Turner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.50
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits]]> 215768414
On the brink of adulthood in the early 2000s, destiny intervened, catapulting the sisters into the spotlight as the pop sensation the Griffin Sisters, hitting all the touchstones of early aughts fame—SNL, MTV, Rolling Stone magazine—along the way.

But after a whirlwind year in the public eye, the band abruptly broke up.

Two decades later, Zoe’s a housewife; Cassie’s off the grid. The sisters aren’t speaking, and the real reason for the Griffin Sisters�� breakup is still a mystery. Zoe’s teenage daughter, Cherry, who’s determined to be a star in spite of Zoe’s warnings, is on a quest to learn the truth about what happened to the band all those years ago.

As secrets emerge, all three women must face the consequences of their choices: the ones they made and the ones the music industry made for them. Can they forgive each other—and themselves? And will the Griffin Sisters ever make music again?]]> 384 Jennifer Weiner 0063342448 Jennifer 4
“Griffin’s voice calls to mind a panoply of pop-rock divas…You can hear an encyclopedia’s worth of references in Griffin’s singing: Aretha’s vibrato; Mariah’s melisma; the powder-puff, featherlight sweetness of GoGos, the ironic, cool-girl remove of the Pretenders or Liz Phair; the raspy rocker-chick of Heart . . . but Griffin has a sound all her own.��

“Listening to a Griffin Sisters song felt like walking down a familiar street in the city where you’d always lived and looking up to see a building you’d never noticed, with gargoyles perched on its cornices, and the mouth of a dark alley you’d never seen before just beyond it. The songs invited you to keep walking until you realized you were somewhere else entirely. A different neighborhood. Even a different world.��

“This was inevitable. It was as if they were two stones that had been rolling toward each other since the world was made, working their way slowly around the earth’s diameter until they met…Zoe needed Cassie, to write the songs, the same way it seemed like Cassie needed Zoe to get on a stage. Maybe they really couldn’t do it without each other.��

For the mother and daughter and aunt, who have found their way back to each other and who love each other imperfectly as best they could. “For the boy, or the girl, who was out there somewhere, waiting to meet that special person, or to find out who to be.�� For the lover who’d broken your heart, for the loved one who had cared for you, then hurt you. “For the person you loved in spite of yourself, because you couldn’t do anything else.��

For all the songs yet to be written. For talent inherited. For these gifts and more, we are grateful. Jennifer Weiner’s The Griffin Sisters�� Greatest Hits is transcendent, a shimmering miracle.]]> 3.81 2025 The Griffin Sisters' Greatest Hits

author: Jennifer Weiner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves:
review:
Jennifer Weiner’s The Griffin Sisters�� Greatest Hits is a journey back in time to the early aughts, “when diet culture was ascendant and tabloids were at the peak of their power.�� This is a tribute to every woman musician who told her own story.

“Griffin’s voice calls to mind a panoply of pop-rock divas…You can hear an encyclopedia’s worth of references in Griffin’s singing: Aretha’s vibrato; Mariah’s melisma; the powder-puff, featherlight sweetness of GoGos, the ironic, cool-girl remove of the Pretenders or Liz Phair; the raspy rocker-chick of Heart . . . but Griffin has a sound all her own.��

“Listening to a Griffin Sisters song felt like walking down a familiar street in the city where you’d always lived and looking up to see a building you’d never noticed, with gargoyles perched on its cornices, and the mouth of a dark alley you’d never seen before just beyond it. The songs invited you to keep walking until you realized you were somewhere else entirely. A different neighborhood. Even a different world.��

“This was inevitable. It was as if they were two stones that had been rolling toward each other since the world was made, working their way slowly around the earth’s diameter until they met…Zoe needed Cassie, to write the songs, the same way it seemed like Cassie needed Zoe to get on a stage. Maybe they really couldn’t do it without each other.��

For the mother and daughter and aunt, who have found their way back to each other and who love each other imperfectly as best they could. “For the boy, or the girl, who was out there somewhere, waiting to meet that special person, or to find out who to be.�� For the lover who’d broken your heart, for the loved one who had cared for you, then hurt you. “For the person you loved in spite of yourself, because you couldn’t do anything else.��

For all the songs yet to be written. For talent inherited. For these gifts and more, we are grateful. Jennifer Weiner’s The Griffin Sisters�� Greatest Hits is transcendent, a shimmering miracle.
]]> <![CDATA[The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)]]> 216351856 When a daring art heist takes place at the Regency Grand, Molly’s life is threatened. The question is who’s out to get her, and why? Long-buried secrets will be revealed in this intriguing and heartwarming novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Maid and The Mystery Guest

A wedding. A heist. A secret.

Molly Gray’s life is about to change in ways she could never have imagined. As the esteemed Head Maid and recently promoted Special Events Manager of the Regency Grand Hotel, good things are just around the corner, including her marriage to her beloved fiancé, Juan Manuel, only two months away.��

But Molly’s entire existence is upended when a film crew descends upon the hotel to shoot the hit reality TV show Hidden Treasures, starring popular art appraisers Brown and Beagle. On a whim, Molly brings in a shoebox containing a few of her gran’s old things for appraisal, and much to everyone's surprise, one item turns out to be a rare and priceless treasure. Instantly, Molly is both a multi-millionaire and a media sensation—the world’s rags-to-riches darling—until the priceless piece vanishes from the hotel in the boldest, brashest antiquities heist in recent memory.

The key to the mystery lies in the past, in a long-forgotten diary written by Molly’s gran. For the first time ever, Molly learns about Gran’s true-to-life fairytale, a young girl to the manor born, the only child of a wealthy magnate. But when Gran falls head over heels in love with a young man her parents deem below her station, her life is thrown into turmoil. As fate would have it, the greatest love of Gran’s life is someone Molly knows quite well��.

Together with her friends, Molly combs the past and the present to catch the thief before looming threats against her become real.

A spirited heist caper and an epic love story, The Maid’s Secret is a spellbinding whodunnit that will capture and warm your heart.]]> 336 Nita Prose 0593875419 Jennifer 3
“Silver teaches you things. Never judge by appearances. A tarnished piece might be a hidden treasure…We should always look past the grime, for what lies beyond it may shine more brightly than anything imaginable…Your worth is not determined through the worldly goods you possess, nor will it ever decrease because someone refuses to see your value. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years: you can’t make people see what they don’t want to see. And the most precious treasures are often overlooked.��

“Faith is a wonderful thing. And being a believer is a virtue, provided what you believe in is the truth rather than lies. When faith is used for good, it can move mountains, but when it fuels injustice, it’s a terrorizing force. Be careful what you believe in, Molly. And listen when your instincts speak.��

“The moral of the story: be grateful for what you have, especially if you’re loved…if we do not cultivate kindness, malice springs from the soil and poisons everything. For every loss I’ve suffered in this life, I’ve gained compassion, comprehension, and empathy. And if I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t exchange these riches for all the gold in the world.�� Nita Prose’s The Maid’s Secret is the pièce de résistance of the quadrilogy, “a marzi-miracle.�� ]]> 3.88 2025 The Maid's Secret (Molly the Maid, #3)

author: Nita Prose
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/24
date added: 2025/04/24
shelves:
review:
Meet Molly Gray—maid, marvel, and millionaire. “Normally, we’d call this a ‘rags-to-riches�� story, but as you can see . . . it’s rag-to-riches in Molly’s case.�� Thanks to the “great elation and immense consternation�� of a Fabergé egg. This maid has got it made! Until the golden huevo goes hasta luego! She’s about to become a multimillionaire until she isn’t. She’s popular until she isn’t. Instead, she becomes the victim of theft and threats. Beware: “When you have something of value, there’s always someone ready to take it from you…You may be a coveted treasure one day and pitched to the curb the next.��

“Silver teaches you things. Never judge by appearances. A tarnished piece might be a hidden treasure…We should always look past the grime, for what lies beyond it may shine more brightly than anything imaginable…Your worth is not determined through the worldly goods you possess, nor will it ever decrease because someone refuses to see your value. Here’s what I’ve learned over the years: you can’t make people see what they don’t want to see. And the most precious treasures are often overlooked.��

“Faith is a wonderful thing. And being a believer is a virtue, provided what you believe in is the truth rather than lies. When faith is used for good, it can move mountains, but when it fuels injustice, it’s a terrorizing force. Be careful what you believe in, Molly. And listen when your instincts speak.��

“The moral of the story: be grateful for what you have, especially if you’re loved…if we do not cultivate kindness, malice springs from the soil and poisons everything. For every loss I’ve suffered in this life, I’ve gained compassion, comprehension, and empathy. And if I had to do it all again, I wouldn’t exchange these riches for all the gold in the world.�� Nita Prose’s The Maid’s Secret is the pièce de résistance of the quadrilogy, “a marzi-miracle.��
]]> Known But Unknown 218579614 It is winter in D.C. and Covid has shuttered the city. When a friend offers Leyla James her an apartment in sunny Florida, she packs her belongings and law files in her car and escapes to a happier and warmer place for a six month respite.

But she’s barely unpacked in paradise when she discovers the body of a young woman on a nature trail.

Although Leyla has vowed to curb her instinct to investigate and right wrongs, she’s shocked to realize that this young woman has faked her identity and her family may never learn of her fate. When the local police chief, who’s without adequate staff, learns of her background as an investigator, Leyla is coerced into getting involved in the mystery of the Jane Doe’s murder and ultimately risking her own life.

Known But Unknown is the thrilling fourth book in the Leyla James Mystery series. If you like bold detectives, tropical settings, and dangerous twists, you’ll love A. Eveline’s new adventure.]]> 222 A. Eveline 1633378608 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.33 2024 Known But Unknown

author: A. Eveline
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> My Thousand Treasures 125170889 Now that he’s in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimer’s, Raini is forced to live with her irritable, Scottish great-aunt who’s intent on connecting her with her estranged father. Raini refuses, and her new life of strict rules and terrible food makes escaping out of her bedroom window a necessity.
During one such escape, Raini spies on two boys digging at a park when a security truck disrupts their progress and causes them to flee. Seizing the opportunity, she pockets their forgotten gold coin.
No longer able to rely on her grandfather’s wisdom, Raini begins to unravel the coin’s unknown past with the help of a professor at her grandfather’s nursing home. However, the coin’s value puts her in grave danger from those who will stop at nothing to get it back.
In a race against time, Raini decides her only option is to return the coin to its rightful owner. In the process, she uncovers deep-held family secrets about the coin, that have been hidden for generations. Could the coin be cursed?
More importantly, will Raini’s estranged father, who knows something is wrong, finally earn her trust in time before it’s too late?]]> 219 Licia Chenoweth 164538490X Jennifer 0 to-read 4.33 My Thousand Treasures

author: Licia Chenoweth
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.33
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> West from the Fallen Wall 211526860 From debut author Ryan Lucas Henderson comes this collection of short stories set in Europe, just before coronavirus and the Russian invasion of Ukraine—just before the post-Cold War era changed forever. The book features original illustrations by U.S. Army Capt. James Seawright and an introduction by Ben Braddock.

One almost never plans to ram a car through a makeshift barricade at a military training area, but Croatian First Lieutenant Kovač hadn’t expected to find himself between a U.S. Army live-fire exercise and a sleepy, Croatian village, either. Neither had a young, American paratrooper imagined he’d join an eccentric band of retired, Italian mountain soldiers on a hidden trail through the southern Alps. Nor, of course, was explosives expert Colonel Anderson prepared to team up with a group of archaeologists for an excavation in Normandy, much less prepared for what they'd find.

Nor did most Americans expect their country to station soldiers in Europe decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. When vets return home from Europe, their countrymen, some surprised, some sneering, some earnest, some thumping their chests, often ask, “What’s the U.S. military doing in Europe, anyway?�� There are as many answers to that question as there are soldiers and civilians. Here are nine stories. They’re fiction, and they’re a start.

]]> 271 Ryan Lucas Henderson Jennifer 0 to-read 4.71 West from the Fallen Wall

author: Ryan Lucas Henderson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.71
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Ice Contact 226245552
Hayes Larson, the newest star center for the Milwaukee Steel Riders, never imagined how much his life would change when he first saw Olivia Brooks. Fresh from a painful breakup, Hayes doubted he'd ever find true love again. But the instant he locked eyes with Olivia, he felt an overwhelming connection he couldn't ignore.

Three weeks later, their worlds collide in a way neither of them saw coming. As Olivia sings the national anthem at the home opener, her heart stops when she spots the stranger from that night staring back at her from across the ice.

With everything on the line—her career, her relationship, and her chance at love—will they risk it all for a shot at happiness?]]> 302 Ellie K. Drake Jennifer 0 to-read 3.25 Ice Contact

author: Ellie K. Drake
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.25
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Ghostwriter 217506549
The Taylor family shatters in a single night when two teenage siblings are found dead in their own home. The only surviving sibling, Vincent, never shakes the whispers and accusations that he was the one who killed them. Decades later, the legend only grows as his career as a horror writer skyrockets.

Ghostwriter Olivia Dumont has spent her entire professional life hiding the fact that she is the only child of Vincent Taylor. Now on the brink of financial ruin, she's offered a job to ghostwrite her father's last book. What she doesn't know, though, is that this project is another one of his lies. Because it's not another horror novel he wants her to write.

After fifty years of silence, Vincent Taylor is finally ready to talk about what really happened that night in 1975.]]> 328 Julie Clark 1464221286 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.19 2025 The Ghostwriter

author: Julie Clark
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Such a Good Mom 211004215 Bestselling author Julia Spiro's Such a Good Mom is a brilliant standalone mystery that's the perfect beach read. In the heat of summer, a murder on Martha's Vineyard rocks one new mom to the core, leaving her to search for answers.

With a healthy newborn baby, a devoted husband, a successful career, and a busy life on Martha’s Vineyard, Brynn Nelson should be the happiest she’s ever been. But Brynn is struggling. Her husband, Ross, grows more distant by the day, and the challenges and exhaustion of postpartum make Brynn feel like she’s slowly losing pieces of herself to motherhood. Pieces that she might never get back.

But it’s summer on the Vineyard, a beacon for wealthy visitors, and a place so beautiful that it seems immune to tragedy and crime. Except for locals, like Brynn, who know all too well that tragedy can strike at any point. And this time, it hits close to home when a friend of the family is found washed ashore. Dead. And Brynn’s already hectic life is turned upside down when Ross is arrested for the crime.

Left reeling with more questions than answers, Brynn’s only path forward is to find out who really killed Cecelia Buckley, even if it means it was her husband. She’s not sure who she’s able to trust anymore. And with dizzying, endless cycle of sleepless nights, diapers, and bottles, Brynn’s not even sure she can trust herself. She’s not sure of anything anymore, but she won’t stop until she finds the truth.

Bestselling author Julia Spiro is known for writing characters readers instantly connect to. With Such a Good Mom, Spiro brings the real and layered Martha’s Vineyard to life through the eyes of a new mom trying to get her family out of the eye of the storm that is a murder investigation.]]> 304 Julia Spiro 1250324173 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.52 2025 Such a Good Mom

author: Julia Spiro
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.52
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Recipe for Love 231179683
Rumors started flying when all of the businesses on Main Street in Cloverdale Falls sold last month. Bakery owner Maisie Carpenter finds herself appointed to uncover the mysterious new owner’s identity, and in the process hopefully allay some of the residents' fears. What happens when she solves the mystery and discovers the man connected with purchasing the businesses is the very man she has recently fallen in love with?

Take a trip Cloverdale Falls in this hilarious Christian rom-com, the second in the Small Town Shenanigans Series. Recipe for Love is a standalone with new characters or can be read in conjunction with Love in the Headlines.

Please note that Recipe for Love is a faith-based Christian contemporary romance.]]> 279 Penny Zeller 195784745X Jennifer 0 to-read 4.84

author: Penny Zeller
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Six Days in Bombay 231368692
When renowned painter Mira Novak arrives at Wadia hospital in Bombay after a miscarriage, she's expected to make a quick recovery, and Sona is excited to spend time with the worldly woman who shares her half-Indian identity, even if that's where their similarities end. Sona is enraptured by Mira's stories of her travels and shocked by accounts of the many lovers she's left scattered through Europe. Over the course of a week, Mira befriends Sona, seeing in her something bigger than the small life she's living with her mother. Mira is released from the hospital just in time to attend a lavish engagement party with all of Bombay society and invites Sona along. But the next day, Mira is readmitted to the hospital in worse condition than before, and when she dies under mysterious circumstances, Sona immediately falls under suspicion.

Before leaving the hospital in disgrace, Sona is given a note Mira left for her, along with her four favorite paintings. But how could she have known to leave a note if she didn't know she was going to die? The note sends Sona on a mission to deliver three of the paintings—the first to Petra, Mira's childhood friend and first love in Prague; the second to her art dealer Josephine in Paris; the third to her first painting tutor, Paolo, with whom both Mira and her mother had affairs. As Sona uncovers Mira's history, she learns that the charming facade she'd come to know was only one part of a complicated and sometimes cruel woman. But can she discover what really happened to Mira and exonerate herself?

Along the way, Sona also comes to terms with her own complex history and the English father who deserted her and her mother in India so many years ago. In the end, she'll discover that we are all made up of pieces, and only by seeing the world do we learn to see ourselves.]]> Alka Joshi 1038939151 Jennifer 4
“Miss Novak left these paintings in my care along with this note…The initials on the paintings match the names in the note…They're people who mattered to Miss Novak. A lifelong girlfriend. A former painting tutor. Her art dealer. I think I'm meant to deliver these paintings to their new owners. And they may tell me things about her I don't yet know or need to know in order to exonerate myself…Petra is in Prague. Josephine is in Paris. And Paolo is in Florence.��

Situated in the climate of 1937 when resistance movements were bubbling under the surface throughout Europe and India, Six Days in Bombay takes the reader on a journey through Prague, Paris, Florence, Istanbul, London and Bombay and invites readers to ask, What if what you find isn't what you expected?

Mira Novak “was charming. She was bright. She was generous. But you only knew her for six days. The deeper you delve into her past relationships, you may encounter versions of her that surprise you. Versions that may confuse you…people are not always what they seem, my dear."

“There seemed to be many different Miras. I had known several versions of her. Mira the painter. Mira the patient. Mira the lover…Somehow, even after all I'd learned about her in Europe the betrayals, the slights, the lies, the abuses—I could only see Mira as the girl who loved art and books and music and painted things greater than herself, than all of us. She was not as sure of herself as I'd thought, as I'd wanted to think. I needed a heroine, and she became mine.�� Alka Joshi’s Six Days in Bombay is a masterpiece! ]]> 3.71 2025

author: Alka Joshi
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
“I was Miss Novak’s nurse. She took ill in Bombay. I’m afraid she did not live more than six days.�� For six days in Bombay, “I knew her, she and I talked as if we'd known each other forever. Like we were sisters. She was so worldly, something I was in awe of-and envious of. I loved the way she seemed to move through life…Being bedridden had forced her to slow down, to reflect on her life and share confidences, regrets and memories about those closest to her. And I'd been there to listen, happily. The six days with her had felt elastic. As if we'd known each other for years.��

“Miss Novak left these paintings in my care along with this note…The initials on the paintings match the names in the note…They're people who mattered to Miss Novak. A lifelong girlfriend. A former painting tutor. Her art dealer. I think I'm meant to deliver these paintings to their new owners. And they may tell me things about her I don't yet know or need to know in order to exonerate myself…Petra is in Prague. Josephine is in Paris. And Paolo is in Florence.��

Situated in the climate of 1937 when resistance movements were bubbling under the surface throughout Europe and India, Six Days in Bombay takes the reader on a journey through Prague, Paris, Florence, Istanbul, London and Bombay and invites readers to ask, What if what you find isn't what you expected?

Mira Novak “was charming. She was bright. She was generous. But you only knew her for six days. The deeper you delve into her past relationships, you may encounter versions of her that surprise you. Versions that may confuse you…people are not always what they seem, my dear."

“There seemed to be many different Miras. I had known several versions of her. Mira the painter. Mira the patient. Mira the lover…Somehow, even after all I'd learned about her in Europe the betrayals, the slights, the lies, the abuses—I could only see Mira as the girl who loved art and books and music and painted things greater than herself, than all of us. She was not as sure of herself as I'd thought, as I'd wanted to think. I needed a heroine, and she became mine.�� Alka Joshi’s Six Days in Bombay is a masterpiece!
]]> <![CDATA[Watch Me (Shatter Me: The New Republic, #1)]]> 216364830 Lose yourself in this exhilarating return to the #1 global bestselling Shatter Me universe, the first book in a new series set ten years after the fall of The Reestablishment. This breathtaking custom deluxe edition

Shimmery jacket with holographic foilGorgeous designed endpapersFoil case design with a quote from the novelStunning holographic edgesQuantities are limited for this deluxe edition��so be sure to preorder now!

James Anderson had a plan.��Or half of one. All that matters is that he managed to do what his older brother, the famous Aaron Warner Anderson, never infiltrate Ark Island, the last refuge of The Reestablishment. In the past decade no outsider has breached the stronghold of the authoritarian regime, but James is��in. In a prison cell, sure, but as far as James is concerned, a win is a win.

It’s been ten years since the fall of The Reestablishment. Ten years since the notorious duo—Juliette Ferrars and Aaron Warner Anderson—led a worldwide rebellion and established the New Republic of the West. But after a decade of unsettling quiet, The Reestablishment is ready to make a devastating move, and they have the perfect person for the job.

Rosabelle Wolff had a plan.��She always has a plan. On Ark Island, where constant surveillance is packaged as security, even emotions must be experienced with caution. A trained assassin, her every movement is monitored by synthetic intelligence—and when she’s given an order to kill, she never hesitates.

Brimming with pulse-pounding action and torturous romance,��Watch Me��is an explosive��journey through a dystopian landscape where enemies-to-lovers has never felt more��impossible. Step into a beloved and breathtaking world that demands an answer to a desperate question��

Who are we when no one is watching? ]]> 368 Tahereh Mafi 0063425181 Jennifer 4
“James confuses me at every turn, rewarding me with patience and kindness when he should be assigning me a prison cell and a violent inquisition. I'm not practiced in this kind of subtle warfare…I'm beginning to make positive associations with his name, with the sight of his face. When I think of him, I don't feel fear at all…When I look at him, I see home.��

“His eyes are a kaleidoscope of blues; like the sea, at turns tranquil and turbulent…I wish I could gather up his calm and pull it over me, sleep beneath it as if it were a blanket…I’d like to curl up inside his shirt and rest. I want to be dropped in his pocket and left to sleep. I want to stand close to him just to be near to him.��

“‘Can you trust me?�� This question strikes me through the heart, rendering me silent. James steps somehow closer, his hands loose at his sides…He is, himself, the greatest weapon against my defenses. In his presence my shields warp, my heart slows, my fears quiet. In his presence my body yields to its original form: ice releasing under sunlight, returning to the sea. ‘Rosabelle,�� he says. ‘Do you trust me?�� I look up into his eyes, astonishing myself when I say, softly, ‘Yes��... ‘If you trust me…we can fix this together. If you trust me, everything is simple…I've been there. It's hard, but it's not impossible�� ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’�� (Matthew 19:26).

“This is what’s wrong with me–This is why I can't seem to die and stay dead, why my skin keeps burning, my heart keeps racing, my head keeps spinning–He is what’s wrong with me. After so many years being dead inside, James makes me feel alive.�� Jesus is my James, unconditional love, forgiveness, mercy and grace. My resurrection. ]]> 4.43 2025 Watch Me (Shatter Me: The New Republic, #1)

Watch Me (Shatter Me: The New Republic, #1)

author: Tahereh Mafi
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/19
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves:
review:
“When I look at myself, I see my mother. Death. My sister. Suffering. My father. Betrayal…James called me beautiful…I swore I felt the earth move. His voice, low and steady, slid inside of me, circled my dead heart and squeezed, pumping blood to my veins with a force I'd never felt before. I couldn't look away from him. I had no idea what he was about to say to me, how he might condemn me.��

“James confuses me at every turn, rewarding me with patience and kindness when he should be assigning me a prison cell and a violent inquisition. I'm not practiced in this kind of subtle warfare…I'm beginning to make positive associations with his name, with the sight of his face. When I think of him, I don't feel fear at all…When I look at him, I see home.��

“His eyes are a kaleidoscope of blues; like the sea, at turns tranquil and turbulent…I wish I could gather up his calm and pull it over me, sleep beneath it as if it were a blanket…I’d like to curl up inside his shirt and rest. I want to be dropped in his pocket and left to sleep. I want to stand close to him just to be near to him.��

“‘Can you trust me?�� This question strikes me through the heart, rendering me silent. James steps somehow closer, his hands loose at his sides…He is, himself, the greatest weapon against my defenses. In his presence my shields warp, my heart slows, my fears quiet. In his presence my body yields to its original form: ice releasing under sunlight, returning to the sea. ‘Rosabelle,�� he says. ‘Do you trust me?�� I look up into his eyes, astonishing myself when I say, softly, ‘Yes��... ‘If you trust me…we can fix this together. If you trust me, everything is simple…I've been there. It's hard, but it's not impossible�� ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’�� (Matthew 19:26).

“This is what’s wrong with me–This is why I can't seem to die and stay dead, why my skin keeps burning, my heart keeps racing, my head keeps spinning–He is what’s wrong with me. After so many years being dead inside, James makes me feel alive.�� Jesus is my James, unconditional love, forgiveness, mercy and grace. My resurrection.
]]> <![CDATA[Every Hour Until Then (Timeless, #5)]]> 220543432
In 1888, in a race against fate, Kathryn is assisted by her handsome childhood friend in hunting down history's most elusive killer. As they unravel the threads of mystery woven through time, Kathryn must decide if she'll unmask the murderer history has chosen to hide, forfeiting a life with the man she loves to save her sister.

Bestselling author Gabrielle Meyer presents yet another thrilling time-travel tale of intrigue, loyalty, and romance--threaded with suspense and decisions that could change history.]]> 352 Gabrielle Meyer 0764243012 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.76 Every Hour Until Then (Timeless, #5)

author: Gabrielle Meyer
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.76
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> A New Leash on Life 223148794 A tale that will leave paw prints on your heart.

Welcome to the dog-friendly town of Dragonfly Cove, where you’ll find plenty of heartwarming moments that blend canine companionship into the everyday lives of ordinary people, to create extraordinary stories. If you loved books like Wish Me Home by Kay Bratt, the Second Chance series by Casey Wilson, and the Guiding Emily series by Barbara Hinske, you will enjoy the books in the bestselling Dragonfly Cove Dog Park series; heartwarming stories of the dogs who rescue us!

A New Leash On Life, the ninth book in the Dragonfly Cove Dog Park series, is a tender story of unexpected change.

Libby Moore has been a caregiver to her loving husband, Don, for three years. An early diagnosis of dementia for Don turned their world upside down. With the help of of PSA’s, Libby was able to continue being a librarian at the elementary school. Evenings and weekends were devoted to Don until it was no longer possible to care for him. Retirement gave Libby options for travel and some free time. Suddenly her son, transferred to Australia for three months, needed a big favor. Could cat-owner Libby take in a new pup for a short time until his family returned to Dragonfly Cove? Libby questions how she would ever adjust to the demands of a dog, even if it was temporary. But she cannot say no to the pleas of her grandchildren. A heartwarming story of how embracing the unexpected with an open heart can lead to remarkable discoveries. Life’s surprises often remind us that beauty lies in unpredictability, and that the best experiences often come in ways we never imagined.

�� Don’t miss any of the Dragonfly Cove books! Download them all today! ��
Book 1: Pick of the Litter
Book 2: Collar Me Crazy by Kay Bratt
Book 3: Hearts Unleashed by Tammy L. Grace
Book 4: Back in the Pack by Barbara Hinske
Book 5: Loyal & True by Ev Bishop
Book 6: Coming Home to Heel by Jodi Allen Brice
Book 7: Unleashed Melody by Julie Carobini
Book 8: Teacher's Pet by David Johnson
Book 9: A New Leash on Life by Patricia Sands]]> 156 Patricia Sands 1069128104 Jennifer 0 to-read 5.00

author: Patricia Sands
name: Jennifer
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Library of Lost Dollhouses]]> 216269038 When a young librarian discovers historic dollhouses in a hidden room, she embarks on an unexpected journey that reveals surprising secrets about the lost miniatures.

Tildy Barrows, Head Curator of a beautiful archival library in San Francisco, is meticulously dedicated to the century’s worth of inventory housed in her beloved Beaux Art building. She loves the calm and order in the shelves of books and walls of art. But Tildy’s uneventful life takes an unexpected turn when she, first, learns the library is on the verge of bankruptcy and, second, discovers two exquisite never-before-seen dollhouses. After finding clues hidden within these remarkable miniatures, Tildy starts to believe that Belva Curtis LeFarge, the influential heiress who established the library a century ago, is conveying a significant final message.

With a newfound sense of spontaneity, Tildy sets out to decipher the secret history of the dollhouses, aiming to salvage her cherished library in the process. Her journey to understand introduces her to a world of ambitious and gifted women in Belle Époque��Paris, a group of scarred World War I veterans in the English countryside, and Walt Disney’s bustling Burbank studio in the 1950s. As Tildy unravels the mystery, she finds not only inspiring, overlooked history, but also a future for herself, filled with exciting possibilities—and an astonishing familial revelation.

Spanning the course of a century, The Library of Lost Dollhouses is a warm, bright, and captivating story of secrets and love that embraces the importance of illuminating overlooked women of the past.]]> 320 Elise Hooper 0063382148 Jennifer 4
“Each dollhouse contained an extraordinary universe of tiny things…There’s actually a psychological rationale to explain our affinity for small things: dollhouses offer us a sense of control and imagination. They can provide a feeling of agency. Miniatures allow us to create the world as we’d like to see it.��

“Dollhouses remind us how easy it is to disappear, but this exhibit is about claiming one’s place in the world, not disappearing…They revealed stories of ordinary women who’d kept extraordinary secrets about themselves in their dollhouses. Hidden careers and relationships, family secrets—the dollhouses told many important truths.�� Artist Cora Hale sets about helping her clients hide important truths about themselves.

“For most women, the home is their stage. What if I produced a portrait of a woman, not by creating a likeness of her, but by showing the stage that defined her role in life? I’d always hoped to produce portraits that hinted at the interiority of my subjects—what would happen if I took a very literal approach to such a piece?��

A secret room, a series of dollhouses, a mother’s past, and the questions of identity dredged up through a trail of miniatures. Elise Hooper’s The Library of Lost Dollhouses “will encourage everyone to approach others with bigger hearts, more understanding and compassion.�� Pairs well with a Coratini! ]]> 3.94 2025

author: Elise Hooper
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:
Immerse yourself in a world where dollhouses solve mysteries, where art saves the day. A world where dollhouses contain clues about their previous owners�� life. What would happen if a collection of mysterious dollhouses was found hidden inside a library? “And what would happen if these dollhouses, which had been owned by notable women of the early 1900s, revealed unknown aspects of their lives and rewrote history?�� From those questions, populated by characters inspired by real-life women, Elise Hooper’s The Library of Lost Dollhouses takes shape.

“Each dollhouse contained an extraordinary universe of tiny things…There’s actually a psychological rationale to explain our affinity for small things: dollhouses offer us a sense of control and imagination. They can provide a feeling of agency. Miniatures allow us to create the world as we’d like to see it.��

“Dollhouses remind us how easy it is to disappear, but this exhibit is about claiming one’s place in the world, not disappearing…They revealed stories of ordinary women who’d kept extraordinary secrets about themselves in their dollhouses. Hidden careers and relationships, family secrets—the dollhouses told many important truths.�� Artist Cora Hale sets about helping her clients hide important truths about themselves.

“For most women, the home is their stage. What if I produced a portrait of a woman, not by creating a likeness of her, but by showing the stage that defined her role in life? I’d always hoped to produce portraits that hinted at the interiority of my subjects—what would happen if I took a very literal approach to such a piece?��

A secret room, a series of dollhouses, a mother’s past, and the questions of identity dredged up through a trail of miniatures. Elise Hooper’s The Library of Lost Dollhouses “will encourage everyone to approach others with bigger hearts, more understanding and compassion.�� Pairs well with a Coratini!
]]> Sisters in the Wind 225515153 From the internationally bestselling author of Firekeeper's Daughter comes an explosive story about seeking justice for a past that won't let you go.

Seventeen-year-old Lucy Smith is on the run. Years of hell as an Ojibwe child in foster care have taught her to be smart, cautious. But when the kind-eyed Mr. Jameson tracks her down and shows interest in her case, Lucy begins to wonder if things could be different.

Still, you can’t escape the past, no matter how fast you are. Soon Lucy is under investigation with the police. She knows she can clear her name from the chaos that has followed her everywhere, but saving the people she loves could cost Lucy her life.]]> Angeline Boulley 1836430663 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.00 2025 Sisters in the Wind

author: Angeline Boulley
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.00
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The English Masterpiece 221367759
As the recently promoted assistant to the Tate's Modern Collections keeper Diana Gilden, Lily helps plan a world-class Picasso exhibit to honor the passing of the great artist--and she's waited her whole life for this moment. The opening is beyond anyone's expectations--the lighting, the champagne, the glittering crowd, and the international acclaim--until Lily does the unthinkable. She stops in front of a masterpiece and hears her own voice say, "It's a forgery." The gallery falls silent.

Lily's boss, Diana, is polished perfection, schooled in art, and descends from European high society. She's worked hard to become the trusted voice in London's modern art scene and respected across the Continent. The Tate's Picasso Commemorative is to be her crowning achievement, featuring not only the artist's most iconic and intimate works, but a newly discovered painting--one she advised an investor to purchase. But when Lily makes her outrageous declaration, suspicion and scandal threaten everything Diana has achieved, as museums and collectors across Europe, already doubting most post-war acquisitions, fall into chaos and rumors of a world-wide forgery run wild.

All Lily has ever wanted is to follow in Diana's footsteps and take the art world by storm in her own right. Yet one comment puts not only her own career at risk but also her mentor's. Unless . . . Was she right? With the clock ticking and the clues starting to pile up against her, Lily must uncover the truth behind the Picasso before she loses not only the career she's always wanted, but her freedom.

Block off your calendar and lose yourself in The English Masterpiece, a thrilling read that will keep you on the edge of your seat till the very end from the author who brought you The London House and The Berlin Letters.]]> Katherine Reay 1400347289 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.15 2025 The English Masterpiece

author: Katherine Reay
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves: to-read
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]]> Tough Luck 211003970 In this homage to True Grit, a young woman makes a perilous journey west in 1863 in search of her gold-mining father.

After their mother dies, Haidie Richards and her younger brother, Boots, are put to work in an orphanage. Their father left four years earlier to find a gold mine in Colorado Territory, and since then he’s sent only three letters. Still, Haidie is certain that he is alive, has struck gold, and will soon send for them.

But patience is not one of Haidie’s virtues and soon she and her brother make a break for it. Boots and Haidie, disguised as a boy, embark on a dangerous journey deep into Western territory. Along the way, Haidie learns fast not only how to handle mules, oxen, and greedy men, but also that you are better off in a community. Hers includes a card shark, independent “spinster�� sisters, and a very fierce dog. Once she arrives in Colorado and finds out the truth about her father, Haidie will need all her new friends for a get-even plot worthy of The Sting.

Filled with vivid period detail, colorful characters, and the irreverent voice of our scrappy heroine, Tough Luck celebrates both the tenacity of youth and the persistence of the heart in the great American West.]]> 288 Sandra Dallas 1250352304 Jennifer 4
“Right here, I'm going to inform you of something you ought to know about me. I lie. I do not do it to be ornery or because I am wicked. I lie because it is to my benefit, and it might be to yours, too, if you'd like to try it…I may be a liar, but when I give my word, I keep it…Something else you should know about me is I can be a sneak thief if I want to be…Another thing about me is I am good at plans.�� So when Cheet dumps Haidie and her younger brother Boots at the Good Shepherd Home, she forms one: “We’re going to be the best damn orphans they ever had. Then…we’re going to run off and find Pa.��

“I come from a family of cheats…my brother does. And Grandpap did, too. And I am myself awful good at it…The best scammers looked just like somebody’s brother.�� And as Haidie’s brother Cheet once said, “only a fool loses, when he can win by cheating.�� “We are all confederates in this crime.�� Cards are also a family calling, and when Haidie’s pa discovers the Hangover Mine, he wins five thousand dollars on it and deposits the money and the deed at the bank for safekeeping.

"But the next morning when I went to get the money and the deed, the banker said he'd never seen me in his life. I showed him the receipt, and he said it wasn't one of his, and that wasn't his signature, either. I could see I was in a bad way, so I told him he could keep the money if he'd just give me back the deed. But he claimed he'd won it off a fellow in a poker game. Then he smiled at me and said, ‘Tough luck!’�� But when the dust stirred up by Mr. Thacker’s carriage settles and the curtain is pushed back, who will have the final call for “Tough luck��?!!

Of insolents and incorrigibles, Sandra Dallas�� Tough Luck is grandiloquent!]]> 3.87 2025

author: Sandra Dallas
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/13
date added: 2025/04/13
shelves:
review:
It’s 1863, the Civil War is raging across North and South, and Mary Haidie Richards has been snookered. Her pa has gone out West to seek his fortune in gold and her Ma has died unexpectedly. True to his name, her older brother Cheet sells the farm to gamble on a riverboat. “I am nineteen, and I can dispose of it any way I want to. You are fourteen and a girl and have no rights. Tough luck."

“Right here, I'm going to inform you of something you ought to know about me. I lie. I do not do it to be ornery or because I am wicked. I lie because it is to my benefit, and it might be to yours, too, if you'd like to try it…I may be a liar, but when I give my word, I keep it…Something else you should know about me is I can be a sneak thief if I want to be…Another thing about me is I am good at plans.�� So when Cheet dumps Haidie and her younger brother Boots at the Good Shepherd Home, she forms one: “We’re going to be the best damn orphans they ever had. Then…we’re going to run off and find Pa.��

“I come from a family of cheats…my brother does. And Grandpap did, too. And I am myself awful good at it…The best scammers looked just like somebody’s brother.�� And as Haidie’s brother Cheet once said, “only a fool loses, when he can win by cheating.�� “We are all confederates in this crime.�� Cards are also a family calling, and when Haidie’s pa discovers the Hangover Mine, he wins five thousand dollars on it and deposits the money and the deed at the bank for safekeeping.

"But the next morning when I went to get the money and the deed, the banker said he'd never seen me in his life. I showed him the receipt, and he said it wasn't one of his, and that wasn't his signature, either. I could see I was in a bad way, so I told him he could keep the money if he'd just give me back the deed. But he claimed he'd won it off a fellow in a poker game. Then he smiled at me and said, ‘Tough luck!’�� But when the dust stirred up by Mr. Thacker’s carriage settles and the curtain is pushed back, who will have the final call for “Tough luck��?!!

Of insolents and incorrigibles, Sandra Dallas�� Tough Luck is grandiloquent!
]]> <![CDATA[Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?]]> 226381562
In 1990 Lu Tibbott is under the gun to complete her senior thesis in modern American history. Instead of spending weeks in dusty archives, Lu decides to dig into a true twentieth-century mystery and write about her aunt Lori, now the Mother Abbess at a cloistered convent in rural New England. Biographers, bloggers, and media types have long speculated about her aunt’s sudden departure from Hollywood. Mother Lori, however, has refused all requests for interviews—until Lu arrives at the abbey with a tape recorder in hand. To her delight, Mother Lori announces she’s finally ready to talk...but only if Lu is truly ready to listen.]]> 336 Sarah McCoy 0063338742 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.22 Whatever Happened to Lori Lovely?

author: Sarah McCoy
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.22
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Unnatural (Men and Monsters, #2)]]> 228171278 A new heart-pounding, suspenseful, and supremely romantic novel from New York Times bestseller Mia Sheridan.

She'd carried her boy made of moonlight in her heart all this time, the driving force that kept her searching, kept her looking for answers even when they seemed impossible to attain.

And he'd carried her with him as well.

Autumn Sterling knows more than she'd like to about pain and survival. As one of only a handful of children who made it to adulthood after being exposed to a horrific drug that swept impoverished communities decades earlier, Autumn is focused on living a full, rich life as a nurse.

And yet, she can't seem to let go of him: the boy she once called her moonlight monster. The boy they tried to convince her was merely a dream brought on by her medications. But how could he be anything but real when she touched him, felt him, made him laugh? When she woke with tangible signs of him still on her skin?

Years later, when Autumn spots that same moonlit hair on a busy city street, her new life turns upside down. The boy, now a man, has suffered on a level even Autumn can't imagine. And it is this anguished soul—Sam, her moonlight monster—who is the link to every question about her past that's ever haunted her.

As a murky picture of cruelty and corruption emerges, it's only Sam who can fully expose an evil too ghastly to comprehend…and it's only Autumn he'll let close enough to his dark and wounded heart to see the truth.]]> 432 Mia Sheridan 1464221812 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.00 Unnatural (Men and Monsters, #2)

author: Mia Sheridan
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.00
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality]]> 58082563 Virginia Living Favorite Book (2021)

A provocative case for how the science of genetics can help create a more just society. In recent years, scientists like Kathryn Paige Harden have shown that DNA makes us different in ways that matter for our health, educational success, and economic prosperity. The Genetic Lottery dismantles dangerous ideas about racial superiority and challenges us to grapple with what equality really means in a world where people are born different.

Weaving together personal stories with the latest findings in genetics, Harden shows why our refusal to recognize the power of DNA perpetuates the myth of meritocracy, and argues that we must acknowledge the role of genetic luck if we are ever to create a fair society. Reclaiming genetic science from the legacy of eugenics, this groundbreaking book offers a bold new vision of a society where everyone thrives, regardless of how one fares in the genetic lottery.]]> 320 Kathryn Paige Harden 0691232938 Jennifer 4
“How can one hope to reduce the tapestry of sensorial and cultural experience�� that is the human identity into a single number? Harden uses the metaphor of a lottery to describe genetic inheritance with each person’s genome as the outcome of “nature’s Powerball.�� Like a specific 6-ball combination in Powerball, all humans are born with a specific DNA sequence created from all possible DNA sequences that could have resulted from the union of father and mother.

A cocktail of attributes and environment in which those skills can be put to economic use is like winning the Powerball. A myriad of lucky events have to converge in a person's life in order for those attributes to be cultivated and remunerated. “Each one of our genomes is the ultimate result of generations upon generations of random events that could have gone another way. There is no part of our genome for which we can take credit.��

Human genetics is a reflection of divine grace: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God�� not by works, so that no one can boast�� (Ephesians 2:8-9).

“A society that protects�� nay, loves—its most vulnerable with its choices must be able to see who is most vulnerable, so that it can see how its choices affect them.�� Harden’s book is a clarion call to use genetics to leverage equity and access among our schools and medical facilities, businesses and financial institutions regardless of the outcome of the genetic lottery. ]]> 3.20 2021 The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality

The Genetic Lottery: Why DNA Matters for Social Equality

author: Kathryn Paige Harden
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.20
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/11
date added: 2025/04/11
shelves:
review:
“We ordinarily think of luck as a thing outside ourselves. But luck is not just something outside of ourselves that happens to us. It is also stitched into us.�� In The Genetic Lottery, Harden introduces genetics as a lens through which we perceive the types of luck that matter in our lives. By reenvisioning the relationship between genetic science and equality, Harden argues that data demonstrating the relationship between genes and educational outcomes is critically important in effort to establish a more equitable society.

“How can one hope to reduce the tapestry of sensorial and cultural experience�� that is the human identity into a single number? Harden uses the metaphor of a lottery to describe genetic inheritance with each person’s genome as the outcome of “nature’s Powerball.�� Like a specific 6-ball combination in Powerball, all humans are born with a specific DNA sequence created from all possible DNA sequences that could have resulted from the union of father and mother.

A cocktail of attributes and environment in which those skills can be put to economic use is like winning the Powerball. A myriad of lucky events have to converge in a person's life in order for those attributes to be cultivated and remunerated. “Each one of our genomes is the ultimate result of generations upon generations of random events that could have gone another way. There is no part of our genome for which we can take credit.��

Human genetics is a reflection of divine grace: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God�� not by works, so that no one can boast�� (Ephesians 2:8-9).

“A society that protects�� nay, loves—its most vulnerable with its choices must be able to see who is most vulnerable, so that it can see how its choices affect them.�� Harden’s book is a clarion call to use genetics to leverage equity and access among our schools and medical facilities, businesses and financial institutions regardless of the outcome of the genetic lottery.
]]> The Story She Left Behind 214151359 Inspired by a true literary mystery, New York Times bestselling author of the mesmerizing The Secret Book of Flora Lea returns with the sweeping story of a legendary book, a lost mother, and a daughter’s search for them both.

In 1927, eight-year-old Clara Harrington’s magical childhood shatters when her mother, renowned author, Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham, disappears off the coast of South Carolina. Bronwyn stunned the world with a book written in an invented language that became a national sensation when she was just twelve years old. Her departure leaves behind not only a devoted husband and heartbroken daughter, but also the hope of ever translating the sequel to her landmark work. As the headlines focus on the missing author, Clara yearns for something far deeper and more her beautiful mother.

By 1952, Clara is an illustrator raising her own daughter, Wynnie. When a stranger named Charlie Jameson contacts her from London claiming to have discovered a handwritten dictionary of her mother’s lost language. Clara is skeptical. Compelled by the tragedy of her mother’s vanishing, she crosses the Atlantic with Wynnie only to arrive during one of London’s most deadly natural disasters—the Great Smog. With asthmatic Wynnie in peril, they escape the city with Charlie and find refuge in the Jameson’s family retreat nestled in the Lake District. It is there that Clara must find the courage to uncover the truth about her mother and the story she left behind.

Told in Patti Callahan Henry’s lyrical, enchanting prose, The Story She Left Behind is a captivating novel of mystery and family legacy that captures the profound longing for a mother and the evergreen allure of secrets.]]> 352 Patti Callahan Henry 1668011875 Jennifer 3
“The lost words of my mother and the translation of her sequel were never going to answer the questions at the heart of me. The answer was in me—who I am in the world, who I love, and how I forgive and live and create. A pile of pages had never the answer. The way this place and these people feel is what I yearn for when I yearn. They are what I want when I want. They are what I attempt to create when I create…This wild world holds more than you can see…Invisible, not imaginary…The eternal mystery–how do we believe in make-believe?��

The Story She Left Behind is “an intention of love to the only place she’d ever believed, understood or heard her–the unseen places where imagination lived and beat a drum for her attention, and her character [who] waited for a new story…tales that sustain us and brought my family to the right moment and place. Stories are made of unseen things, of imagination, of old tales and edges of lakes.��

“The novel is about the invisible world and fairies and fantasy…But also, it's about finding home. It's about knowing where you belong and then doing something about that truth. It's about that sometimes awful and sometimes wonderful journey that can take you in wrong directions, but then being willing to begin again and find your way."

"To new stories…To our stories…All mystery. All beauty." Patti Callahan Henry’s The Story She Left Behind is “an object of wonder, a miraculum.��
]]> 4.08 2025

author: Patti Callahan Henry
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/10
date added: 2025/04/10
shelves:
review:
“A lost novel written in a secret language was bait for anyone who loved a good mystery…My mother’s history is a blank book…written in disappearing ink…an amalgam of who and what the world deemed Bronwyn Newcastle Fordham to be: a missing genius, a literary mystery, or a cocktail party anecdote. But for me, she was only one thing: my mother.��

“The lost words of my mother and the translation of her sequel were never going to answer the questions at the heart of me. The answer was in me—who I am in the world, who I love, and how I forgive and live and create. A pile of pages had never the answer. The way this place and these people feel is what I yearn for when I yearn. They are what I want when I want. They are what I attempt to create when I create…This wild world holds more than you can see…Invisible, not imaginary…The eternal mystery–how do we believe in make-believe?��

The Story She Left Behind is “an intention of love to the only place she’d ever believed, understood or heard her–the unseen places where imagination lived and beat a drum for her attention, and her character [who] waited for a new story…tales that sustain us and brought my family to the right moment and place. Stories are made of unseen things, of imagination, of old tales and edges of lakes.��

“The novel is about the invisible world and fairies and fantasy…But also, it's about finding home. It's about knowing where you belong and then doing something about that truth. It's about that sometimes awful and sometimes wonderful journey that can take you in wrong directions, but then being willing to begin again and find your way."

"To new stories…To our stories…All mystery. All beauty." Patti Callahan Henry’s The Story She Left Behind is “an object of wonder, a miraculum.��

]]> <![CDATA[How to Identify Core Civic Virtues (Civic Virtue: Let's Work Together)]]> 39019315 24 Joshua Turner 150816679X Jennifer 3 childrens-book 3.00

How to Identify Core Civic Virtues (Civic Virtue: Let's Work Together)

author: Joshua Turner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.00
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/08
date added: 2025/04/08
shelves: childrens-book
review:
Laws are mirrors of a culture's core civic virtues; influenced by Greek and Roman, our core civic virtues include education, military service, volunteering, and voting.
]]> The Maui Effect 205644861
'Iwa Young’s life is high in the Maui rainforest. As a field biologist, she’s happiest in company with trees and birds and waterfalls. When a developer arrives with plans for a so-called "eco resort" in the middle of a forest full of endangered species, 'Iwa puts all her energy into the fight to protect it. But a chance encounter threatens to distract her. His name is Dane Parsons, and he’s a big-wave surfer from California. 'Iwa has a few unbreakable rules, and at the top of her list: never date a surfer.

Dane Parsons is part of an underground group of big-wave riders, and his connection to the ocean runs deep. When he meets 'Iwa, he can’t get her out of his mind. But 'Iwa wants nothing to do with Dane until he offers to help protect her beloved forest and waterfall. Always on the hunt for the ultimate ride, Dane suddenly glimpses something even greater, but just out of reach.

In this thunderous love story, we travel deep into the Maui rainforest and hop across the globe from Hawai'i to California to Portugal, chasing waves the size of nine-story buildings—where the unthinkable is always just one breath away.]]> 352 Sara Ackerman 0778369560 Jennifer 3 romance If so, I have a literary affliction, and I was obsessed with The Maui Effect!

“This book was born from memories, and living in a community built around surfing…Maui is such a special island.�� For author Sara Ackerman it was a dream come true to finally be “able to set one of my novels on this beautiful island…this is my love story to the ocean and to surfing, but also the native Hawaiian forest…Any fool can destroy these things that cannot save themselves. Saving them is up to us…Never stop fighting for what is right and good in this world.��

But while we can save the planet, “we can’t save people, all we can do is love them.�� While I adored the romance between mainland surfer Dane and island conservationist Iwa, it was hippie guru Yeti who stole my heart! “That's Yeti for you. He took it harder than anyone, naturally. He went off alone to the mountains for years. No one even knew where he went, but he'd send postcards every few months letting us know he was alive. When he emerged, he had this new inner power. Seems like grief can flay you, shatter you to pieces, and then slowly reconstruct you with new facets and fortifications.�� Now, I need a sequel, a novel about Yeti’s story!

For me, The Maui Effect uncorked “Rainwater tears. Waterfall tears. Tears of the ocean and friendship and love…A hui hou. Until we meet again.�� ]]> 3.63

author: Sara Ackerman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.63
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: romance
review:
Negative ions are little euphoria generators that are partly to blame for our afflictions/addictions.
If so, I have a literary affliction, and I was obsessed with The Maui Effect!

“This book was born from memories, and living in a community built around surfing…Maui is such a special island.�� For author Sara Ackerman it was a dream come true to finally be “able to set one of my novels on this beautiful island…this is my love story to the ocean and to surfing, but also the native Hawaiian forest…Any fool can destroy these things that cannot save themselves. Saving them is up to us…Never stop fighting for what is right and good in this world.��

But while we can save the planet, “we can’t save people, all we can do is love them.�� While I adored the romance between mainland surfer Dane and island conservationist Iwa, it was hippie guru Yeti who stole my heart! “That's Yeti for you. He took it harder than anyone, naturally. He went off alone to the mountains for years. No one even knew where he went, but he'd send postcards every few months letting us know he was alive. When he emerged, he had this new inner power. Seems like grief can flay you, shatter you to pieces, and then slowly reconstruct you with new facets and fortifications.�� Now, I need a sequel, a novel about Yeti’s story!

For me, The Maui Effect uncorked “Rainwater tears. Waterfall tears. Tears of the ocean and friendship and love…A hui hou. Until we meet again.��
]]> Really Good, Actually 60877616 A hilarious and painfully relatable debut novel about one woman’s messy search for joy and meaning in the wake of an unexpected breakup, from comedian, essayist, and award-winning screenwriter Monica Heisey

Maggie is fine. She’s doing really good, actually. Sure, she’s broke, her graduate thesis on something obscure is going nowhere, and her marriage only lasted 608 days, but at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, Maggie is determined to embrace her new life as a Surprisingly Young Divorcée��.

Now she has time to take up nine hobbies, eat hamburgers at 4 am, and “get back out there�� sex-wise. With the support of her tough-loving academic advisor, Merris; her newly divorced friend, Amy; and her group chat (naturally), Maggie barrels through her first year of single life, intermittently dating, occasionally waking up on the floor and asking herself tough questions along the way.

Laugh-out-loud funny and filled with sharp observations, Really Good, Actually is a tender and bittersweet comedy that lays bare the uncertainties of modern love, friendship, and our search for that thing we like to call “happiness��. This is a remarkable debut from an unforgettable new voice in fiction.]]> 370 Monica Heisey 0063235412 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.14 2023 Really Good, Actually

author: Monica Heisey
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.14
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Viva Violetta & Verdi 223321501 A Love Affair Inspiring the World's Most Unforgettable Operas

Experience the intense, lifelong love affair between Giuseppe Verdi and Giuseppina Strepponi, the brilliant and seductive soprano who shaped his legacy. As his muse, lover, and wife, Strepponi was the inspiration behind Verdi's most iconic works, including La Traviata and Aida. Her influence was pivotal, as she became the architect of his creative triumphs and the heart of his operatic genius.

Set against the backdrop of Italy's Risorgimento, this sweeping novel intertwines their turbulent relationship with the nation's fierce struggle for independence. Through the heartbreak of three brutal wars, Verdi and Strepponi's passion, betrayal, and artistic ambition come alive, mirroring the era's fiery spirit.

Rich with themes of love, power, food, wine, and unrelenting passion, Viva Violetta & Verdi is an unforgettable exploration of art, resilience, and the enduring bond that transformed both an artist and a nation.

"A stunning, significant book...that is rich, lush and drenched in knowledge. It is nothing less than a gift." - Sheila Weller

"Smith's historic drama embraces universal themes of class and religious persecution, and weaves gorgeous language with an intimate knowledge of Italian food, music, and political hypocrisy that contemporary readers will find irresistible." - Jessica Keener

"Viva Violetta & Verdi is a well-researched love letter to Verdi; fans are sure to love."��- Leslie Zemeckis

"Perfection. You are right there, inhaling and breathing in the words, the smell, and each piece of music. Bravo. It is both a love song and a love letter to the irrefutable power of Verdi's muse, Violetta." - Amy Ferris]]> 303 Howard Jay Smith 1962465861 Jennifer 5
“Back then opera was not only the most popular of all entertainments in the Italian speaking world, it was the universal language that united us all. Every city and town had a theater and everyone, from peasants to the Pope, knew the songs and knew the stories. And consequently…opera houses which massed crowds into a single venue, would easily become sources of political combustion if not constrained.��

“One of the greatest comforts of this life is friendship; and one of its virtues is that of having someone we can trust with a secret.�� In his own act of rivoluzione, Verdi embedded within his operas, canzonatinis–“secret information necessary for the advancement of our political and military objectives…woven through codes into musical scores that could be easily transported and circulated without attracting the attention of the Austrian police.��

“If you wanted to succeed in any endeavor, you needed three ‘p’s:�� passione, passione e passione…Why be mundane, when with passion, you can be monumental?...Verdi's message is simple…we feel the fires and witness the fate of those who fight against justice and humanity and are damned for eternity. In those screaming, wailing torturous voices of the choir we experience passion in reverse, the anguished cries…the hell of our wars of independence�� ‘Nothing Unavenged Remains��...Verdi's Requiem is a street fight between us and God…Verdi leaves us a path to the future that is nothing but a question mark.�� A magnum opus! ]]> 5.00 Viva Violetta & Verdi

author: Howard Jay Smith
name: Jennifer
average rating: 5.00
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:
Howard Jay Smith’s Viva Violetta & Verdi is “fueled by great food, fabulous wines, and endless stories�� of love, pain, life, death, the war, the Risorgimento, letting go, and departures to eternity that last forever.�� He tells about the Italian people and their seemingly perpetual struggle against the oppressive forces that bedeviled them, including their highly corrupted clergy and the rapacious aristocrats who held their people in abject poverty. And “No one has captured the spirit of the Italian people and our struggles better than Verdi.��

“Back then opera was not only the most popular of all entertainments in the Italian speaking world, it was the universal language that united us all. Every city and town had a theater and everyone, from peasants to the Pope, knew the songs and knew the stories. And consequently…opera houses which massed crowds into a single venue, would easily become sources of political combustion if not constrained.��

“One of the greatest comforts of this life is friendship; and one of its virtues is that of having someone we can trust with a secret.�� In his own act of rivoluzione, Verdi embedded within his operas, canzonatinis–“secret information necessary for the advancement of our political and military objectives…woven through codes into musical scores that could be easily transported and circulated without attracting the attention of the Austrian police.��

“If you wanted to succeed in any endeavor, you needed three ‘p’s:�� passione, passione e passione…Why be mundane, when with passion, you can be monumental?...Verdi's message is simple…we feel the fires and witness the fate of those who fight against justice and humanity and are damned for eternity. In those screaming, wailing torturous voices of the choir we experience passion in reverse, the anguished cries…the hell of our wars of independence�� ‘Nothing Unavenged Remains��...Verdi's Requiem is a street fight between us and God…Verdi leaves us a path to the future that is nothing but a question mark.�� A magnum opus!
]]> <![CDATA[The Crime Brûlée Bake Off (A Claire Walker Mystery, #1)]]> 208174924 An unexpected romance. A haunting mystery. Pastries to die for. The Great British Baking Show meets a cozy mystery with a contemporary romance and a Regency-era twist.

Amateur baker Claire Walker is thrilled to be a contestant on Britain’s Battle of the Bakers. She can almost smell the fresh pastries wafting through the air. If she can win the grand prize, she can ditch her teaching job and launch her baking career.

The Viscount of Colburn, Jonathan Ainsley, is the custodian of Blackfirth Park and an eligible bachelor. He reluctantly agrees to allow the cooking competition show to film on his estate, but when a contestant is found dead soon after filming begins, Jonathan is forced to get involved. To make matters worse, the baker’s death stirs up rumors of the legendary death of the tenth Viscountess of Colburn two hundred and fifty years earlier.

Even as suspicion falls on some of the bakers, a decidedly different kind of heat begins to simmer between Claire and Jonathan. If they are to have any hope of a future romance, they must first solve the mystery before the show gets canceled or someone else falls prey to what some believe is the Blackfirth Park ghost.]]> 320 Rebecca Connolly 1639933042 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.61 2025 The Crime Brûlée Bake Off (A Claire Walker Mystery, #1)

The Crime Brûlée Bake Off (A Claire Walker Mystery, #1)

author: Rebecca Connolly
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Do Not Cry When I Die: A Holocaust Memoir of a Mother and Daughter's Survival In Jewish Ghettos, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen]]> 218155629 One of the oldest living Holocaust survivors recounts her family’s imprisonment at Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen in this moving memoir of love, loss, courage, and hope.

“I only survived because of my mother's love.��

When German soldiers invaded Poland in September 1939, it began a six year journey for then-ten-year-old Renee Salt and her mother Sala. Until their liberation in 1945, Renee and Sala were imprisoned in ghettos and concentration camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen. The only light in the darkness and brutality for Renee was the unwavering grasp of her mother’s hand in hers–enduring, against all odds.

It was this unbreakable bond, along with a few miracles, that kept Renee alive. Sala’s staggering courage to defy the will of SS guards saved both her and her daughter from the gas chambers, and the pair survived the deadliest days in Auschwitz’s history.

After suffering the nightmarish conditions at Bergen-Belsen, Renee and her mother were liberated in April 1945–but Sala died soon after they were saved. To this day, Renee attributes her survival to the love and bravery of her beloved mother.

Do Not Cry When I Die is an incredibly moving and deeply crucial book that tells the shocking story of one of the oldest Auschwitz-Birkenau and Bergen-Belsen survivors—and the mother’s love that saved her life.]]> 272 Renee Salt Jennifer 4
“Dehumanisation. Subjugation. Erosion of…civil liberties and rights. Persecution. Violence. Selections. Disease. Starvation. Ghettos. Camps. Slave labour. The murder of almost [my] entire family…Some of the pages…are drenched in horror but, every so often, a little hope and humanity shines out.��

“The book is written in the third and first person. Renee was 10 when war broke out, 15 when it finished, and existed largely in a bubble of terror, sickness, exhaustion and starvation. Events happened to her and around her. By telling the detail of the stories that directly affected her, which she cannot possibly have known in that moment,�� Kate Thompson provides a more detailed picture, for both Renee and the reader. “On the significant 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camps, we look to Renee and the dwindling band of survivors for the authenticity that comes from saying, ‘I was there.’��

“No story is ever truly finished…resolutions and healing can come when you least expect them…This publication will be part of the legacy so graciously left for the next generation to come. This is a harrowing and emotionally overwhelming story, but its backbone is faith and love. The love from her mother and father, who kept her alive. The love for a little sister who never got to grow up…all the millions of empty chairs at the table…It’s not my right to forgive. Instead, I choose to live with love…May you long find strength to continue your brave resolve.”]]> 4.61 2024 Do Not Cry When I Die: A Holocaust Memoir of a Mother and Daughter's Survival In Jewish Ghettos, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen

Do Not Cry When I Die: A Holocaust Memoir of a Mother and Daughter's Survival In Jewish Ghettos, Auschwitz, and Bergen-Belsen

author: Renee Salt
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.61
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/02
date added: 2025/04/02
shelves:
review:
“My name is Renee Salt. I am 95 years old, and…I am a witness to history…I’ve always loved stories and being transported into imaginary worlds…This book is my attempt to make sense of a story which happened to me…Not just the backbone, but the softer, in-between details.��

“Dehumanisation. Subjugation. Erosion of…civil liberties and rights. Persecution. Violence. Selections. Disease. Starvation. Ghettos. Camps. Slave labour. The murder of almost [my] entire family…Some of the pages…are drenched in horror but, every so often, a little hope and humanity shines out.��

“The book is written in the third and first person. Renee was 10 when war broke out, 15 when it finished, and existed largely in a bubble of terror, sickness, exhaustion and starvation. Events happened to her and around her. By telling the detail of the stories that directly affected her, which she cannot possibly have known in that moment,�� Kate Thompson provides a more detailed picture, for both Renee and the reader. “On the significant 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camps, we look to Renee and the dwindling band of survivors for the authenticity that comes from saying, ‘I was there.’��

“No story is ever truly finished…resolutions and healing can come when you least expect them…This publication will be part of the legacy so graciously left for the next generation to come. This is a harrowing and emotionally overwhelming story, but its backbone is faith and love. The love from her mother and father, who kept her alive. The love for a little sister who never got to grow up…all the millions of empty chairs at the table…It’s not my right to forgive. Instead, I choose to live with love…May you long find strength to continue your brave resolve.��
]]> <![CDATA[In Too Deep (Jack Reacher, #29)]]> 223329055
The last thing Reacher can recall is the car he hitched a ride in getting run off the road. The driver was killed. His captors assume Reacher was the driver’s accomplice and patch up his wounds as they plan to make him talk. A plan that will backfire spectacularly...]]> 352 Lee Child 0593725824 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.89 2024 In Too Deep (Jack Reacher, #29)

author: Lee Child
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Bright Lights and Summer Nights (Black Tie Billionaires #3)]]> 226110746 Summer nights can be full of surprises.

As a single, unemployed, and unapologetic twenty-five-year-old mess, I came to the Hamptons this summer for one reason—to focus on myself and work out my quarter-life crisis. I didn't come here planning to sneak into a private party and meet a handsome stranger.

I definitely didn't come here expecting that stranger to be Preston Rhodes—billionaire and superstar quarterback for the Manhattan Mambas.

And that's not even the crazy part.

He asked me to be his pretend girlfriend for a week while his family was in town. He needed a date for his sister's wedding, and I'd never turn down the opportunity to be spoiled by a rich man.

The only thing is Preston's not very good at pretending.

Now, instead of discovering myself, I'm spending the week discovering what life would be like with him. Instead of focusing on me, I'm focusing on how he looks at me, how he touches me, how he wants me.

Now that neither one of us is faking it, I only hope that we can hold on to what we have through the bright lights and summer nights.

From the author who brought you Black Ties and White Lies and Pretty Rings and Broken Things, comes an all-new standalone in the Black Tie Billionaires Series. Bright Lights and Summer Nights is a billionaire, fake dating, sports romance. It is Emma's book and a complete standalone. It is the third and final book in the series.]]> Kat Singleton Jennifer 4 romance
“One thing I know about myself is I love crazy ideas, and what I love even more is a wild story. What’s wilder than agreeing to pretend to be the fake girlfriend of this super hot guy who clearly is rich as fuck?...Whatever happens when we trade our summer nights for both the bright lights of the stadiums and the public interest in our relationship is something we’re going to have to figure out.��

"Emma Turner, Preston Rhodes' girlfriend. Damn, that's hot.�� Even though Preston was named a billionaire by Forbes before he ever turned thirty-five, “he’s a total softie–almost a teddy bear, really–underneath that reformed bad-boy attitude and football star muscles…I may not know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, but this week, I’ll be living the life of luxury with an incredibly hot man as my tour guide…I can’t say no to an adventure–especially when it’s a week full of rich people things. Count me in.��

“This summer is all about self-discovery and self-love, and I’m excited to take you on the journey with me.�� Kat Singleton’s Bright Lights Summer Nights is your invitation to a fully furnished guest house in the Hamptons for the summer. Your itinerary includes breaking and entering into a fancy, exclusive party at a club, a garden party, a tennis match, a spa day complete with a (very steamy!) sauna and (highly combustible!) couples massages, ending in a black tie wedding (with a side of Super Bowl and best friends�� babies!). Mix up a big bowl of candy salad, settle in for the perfect girls night getaway, and prepare to lose yourself in a good book…because sometimes it takes getting lost to find yourself and be found. ]]> 3.33 2024 Bright Lights and Summer Nights (Black Tie Billionaires #3)

Bright Lights and Summer Nights (Black Tie Billionaires #3)

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.33
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/29
date added: 2025/03/29
shelves: romance
review:
“My name is Emma, and I’m kind of a mess…I wanted tonight to be just that one night of fun. We'd share some laughs–probably a few too –many drinks and I'd go home alone and wonder for the rest of my life if I should've let the smooth-talking man in the Hamptons take me home for the night. Never did I think I'd find him asking me to be his pretend girlfriend for a week to appease his family. Never did I think I might actually consider it.��

“One thing I know about myself is I love crazy ideas, and what I love even more is a wild story. What’s wilder than agreeing to pretend to be the fake girlfriend of this super hot guy who clearly is rich as fuck?...Whatever happens when we trade our summer nights for both the bright lights of the stadiums and the public interest in our relationship is something we’re going to have to figure out.��

"Emma Turner, Preston Rhodes' girlfriend. Damn, that's hot.�� Even though Preston was named a billionaire by Forbes before he ever turned thirty-five, “he’s a total softie–almost a teddy bear, really–underneath that reformed bad-boy attitude and football star muscles…I may not know what I’m doing for the rest of my life, but this week, I’ll be living the life of luxury with an incredibly hot man as my tour guide…I can’t say no to an adventure–especially when it’s a week full of rich people things. Count me in.��

“This summer is all about self-discovery and self-love, and I’m excited to take you on the journey with me.�� Kat Singleton’s Bright Lights Summer Nights is your invitation to a fully furnished guest house in the Hamptons for the summer. Your itinerary includes breaking and entering into a fancy, exclusive party at a club, a garden party, a tennis match, a spa day complete with a (very steamy!) sauna and (highly combustible!) couples massages, ending in a black tie wedding (with a side of Super Bowl and best friends�� babies!). Mix up a big bowl of candy salad, settle in for the perfect girls night getaway, and prepare to lose yourself in a good book…because sometimes it takes getting lost to find yourself and be found.
]]> Eloise Wilkin's Mother Goose 2348554 24 Eloise Wilkin 0307601234 Jennifer 5 childrens-book ]]> 4.12 1961

author: Eloise Wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.12
book published: 1961
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: childrens-book
review:
Nursery Rhymes are situated in a miniature world filled with Little Girls and Little Boys: Little Jack Horner, Little Miss Muffet, Little Polly Flinders, Little Boy Blue, Little Bo Peep. They are also rife with corporal punishment. The Old Woman spanked her many children “all soundly, And sent them to bed.�� Little Polly Flinders�� mother “spanked her little daughter, for spoiling her nice new clothes.�� Tom, Tom, the Piper’s Son “was beat, And Tom went crying Down the street.�� As new generations reflect on nursery rhymes of the past and create their own for the future, maybe we can minimize the spanking and maximize the subjects.

]]> <![CDATA[Prayers for Children (a Little Golden Book)]]> 17448288 24 Eloise Wilkin Jennifer 5 ]]> 4.03 1942

Prayers for Children (a Little Golden Book)

author: Eloise Wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1942
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
Through doing something for someone, we express our love for God; He watches us with the million eyes of the constellations.

]]> Baby's Christmas 437888 24 Esther Burns Wilkin 030798785X Jennifer 5 ]]> 4.05 1959

author: Esther Burns Wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.05
book published: 1959
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves:
review:
“Find baby Jesus asleep in the hay For He was born on Christmas Day.��

]]> <![CDATA[The Once-Upon-a-Time Scratch and Sniff Book (A Golden Scratch & Sniff Book)]]> 1129628 030713525X Jennifer 5 childrens-book 4.33 1978

The Once-Upon-a-Time Scratch and Sniff Book (A Golden Scratch & Sniff Book)

author: ruthanna-long-eloise-burns-wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.33
book published: 1978
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/28
date added: 2025/03/28
shelves: childrens-book
review:
Scratch, sniff, read, repeat and savor the scents of pine and pumpkin pie from The Musicians of Bremen, brown bread and gingerbread from Hansel and Gretel, and honeysuckle and strawberry tarts from Little Red Ridinghood. This book not only engages the sense of smell but touch and sound, too! “There’s a terrible monster in that house�� of The Musicians of Bremen! “First it spat on me and scratched me with his long nails. Then it stabbed me with a knife, and after that it hit me with a club…the donkey brayed, the dog barked, the cat meowed, and the rooster crowed.�� And just when Gretel is convinced, “we’re lost in the forest. Do you think we’ll ever get out?�� Hansel reassures, “Don’t worry…We’ll find our way home.�� A literary homecoming feast for all the senses!
]]> The Christmas ABC 17162388 24 Florence Johnson 0307978915 Jennifer 3 childrens-book ]]> 3.78 2013

author: Florence Johnson
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2013
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/27
date added: 2025/03/27
shelves: childrens-book
review:
“J is for Jesus, Who was born Christmas Day, The baby God sent us to teach us His way.��

]]> Last Twilight in Paris 212378273
London, 1953. Louise is still adjusting to her postwar role as a housewife when she discovers a necklace in a box at a secondhand shop. The box is marked with the name of a department store in Paris, and she is certain she has seen the necklace before when she worked with the Red Cross in Nazi-occupied Europe —and that it holds the key to the mysterious death of her friend Franny during the war.

Following the trail of clues to Paris, Louise seeks help from her former boss Ian, with whom she shares a romantic history. The necklace leads them to discover the dark history of Lévitan—a once-glamorous department store that served as a Nazi prison, and Helaine, a woman who was imprisoned there, torn apart from her husband when the Germans invaded France.

Louise races to find the connection between the necklace, the department store and Franny’s death. But nothing is as it seems, and there are forces determined to keep the truth buried forever. Inspired by the true story of Lévitan, Last Twilight in Paris is both a gripping mystery and an unforgettable story about sacrifice, resistance and the power of love to transcend in even the darkest hours.]]> 336 Pam Jenoff 0778307980 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.92 2025

author: Pam Jenoff
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Jackal's Mistress 214537772 In this Civil War love story, inspired by a real-life friendship across enemy lines, the wife of a missing Confederate soldier discovers a wounded Yankee officer and must decide what she’s willing to risk for the life of a stranger, from the New York Times bestselling author of such acclaimed historical fiction as Hour of the Witch and The Sandcastle Girls.

��Virginia, 1864—Libby Steadman’s husband has been away for so long that she can barely conjure his voice in her dreams. While she longs for him in the night, fearing him dead in a Union prison camp, her days are spent running a gristmill with her teenage niece, a hired hand, and his wife, all the grain they can produce requisitioned by the Confederate Army. It’s an uneasy life in the Shenandoah Valley, the territory frequently changing hands, control swinging back and forth like a pendulum between North and South, and Libby awakens every morning expecting to see her land a battlefield.��
��And then she finds a gravely injured Union officer left for dead in a neighbor’s house, the bones of his hand and leg shattered. Captain Jonathan Weybridge of the Vermont Brigade is her enemy �� but he’s also a human being, and Libby must make a terrible decision: Does she leave him to die alone? Or does she risk treason and try to nurse him back to health? And if she succeeds, does she try to secretly bring him across Union lines, where she might negotiate a trade for news of her own husband?��
��A vivid and sweeping story of two people navigating the boundaries of love and humanity in a landscape of brutal violence, The Jackal’s Mistress is a heart-stopping new novel, based on a largely unknown piece of American history, from one of our greatest storytellers.]]> 320 Chris Bohjalian 0385547641 Jennifer 3
“‘My name is Jonathan. But you can call me Jackal.’�� When southern belle Jubilee meets her aunt Libby’s undercover act of kindness Jonathen Weybridge, she is incensed. “‘I ain't ever seen a jackal. But I still know you can't trust 'em…It's in their nature…Jackals are just born bad. Criminal…The thing about a jackal is this: you can't turn your back on one. Always keep eye contact…We appreciate you givin' a leg and a hand on our behalf.��

Jonathan recalls the expression a West Point officer had heard from an ancient French general who'd served under Napoleon: the term was the mistress bullet. “The French gave it that name because it was the bullet you saved for yourself when all hope was gone. The last bullet. Death with dignity. This was the bullet that would do for you the things your wife never would: that's why they called it the mistress bullet.��

What begins as Libby’s act of kindness transforms her into “The Jackal's mistress…I have not been with a man since Peter was home briefly in the fall of 1862…I don't know what awfulness tomorrow's going to bring. But tonight? I have you, and you have me, and the thing that has me most tired is being lonely. Tonight, I am the goddamn Jackal's mistress and putting us both, at least for a little while, out of our goddamn misery.’��

Yankee and Rebel, Vermonter and Virginian, two married people on opposite sides of the Mason Dixon, these unlikely characters take readers by the hand and lead us through the dark of the story in a kind of Romeo and Juliet Civil War masterpiece.]]> 4.06 2025 The Jackal's Mistress

author: Chris Bohjalian
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/26
date added: 2025/03/26
shelves:
review:
The Jackal’s Mistress was conceived with a question: Reader’s Digest editor Gary Sledge invited Chris Bohjalian to research and write an article about an little known friendship during the Civil War between a Yankee and a rebel: a Vermont lieutenant left to die in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley and the Confederate woman who saved his life.

“‘My name is Jonathan. But you can call me Jackal.’�� When southern belle Jubilee meets her aunt Libby’s undercover act of kindness Jonathen Weybridge, she is incensed. “‘I ain't ever seen a jackal. But I still know you can't trust 'em…It's in their nature…Jackals are just born bad. Criminal…The thing about a jackal is this: you can't turn your back on one. Always keep eye contact…We appreciate you givin' a leg and a hand on our behalf.��

Jonathan recalls the expression a West Point officer had heard from an ancient French general who'd served under Napoleon: the term was the mistress bullet. “The French gave it that name because it was the bullet you saved for yourself when all hope was gone. The last bullet. Death with dignity. This was the bullet that would do for you the things your wife never would: that's why they called it the mistress bullet.��

What begins as Libby’s act of kindness transforms her into “The Jackal's mistress…I have not been with a man since Peter was home briefly in the fall of 1862…I don't know what awfulness tomorrow's going to bring. But tonight? I have you, and you have me, and the thing that has me most tired is being lonely. Tonight, I am the goddamn Jackal's mistress and putting us both, at least for a little while, out of our goddamn misery.’��

Yankee and Rebel, Vermonter and Virginian, two married people on opposite sides of the Mason Dixon, these unlikely characters take readers by the hand and lead us through the dark of the story in a kind of Romeo and Juliet Civil War masterpiece.
]]> Bad Publicity 217927382 A sparkling rom-com in which an unexpected reunion could lead to a career-ending catastrophe or a second-chance romance . . .

When Andie lands her dream job as a senior book publicist, she’s ready to take the world of New York publishing by storm.

Until her first day, when she discovers that her biggest author is Jack Carlson—the same Jack who ruined her life at university. Whom she hasn’t spoken to in five years. Who is not only still infuriatingly hot but also incredibly successful. And whose campaign she definitely cannot mess up, if she wants to keep her job.

To make matters even worse, the central part of this career-defining campaign is a book tour. For a month, Andie will have to travel across Europe with the man whom, if she were being totally honest, she’d like to hit with her car.

But she will not lose this opportunity, especially not because of him. One month on tour with Jack Carlson, visiting some of the most romantic spots in Europe. Deep breath. She can do this.]]> 336 Bianca Gillam 014313860X Jennifer 0 to-read 3.17 Bad Publicity

author: Bianca Gillam
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.17
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant (A Merritt & Blunt Mystery)]]> 220239079 A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

Olivia Blunt doesn't want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor and renowned investigator, Aubrey Merritt, but the latter is no easy grader.

After weeks of fielding phone calls from parties desperate for the world-renowned detective’s help, a case comes across Olivia’s desk that just might be worthy of Merritt’s skills. On the evening of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police have ruled it a suicide, but her daughter Haley thinks it was murder.

Merritt is ever the skeptic, but Olivia believes Haley. Plus, she’s desperate to prove her investigative skills to her aloof boss. But the Summersworth family drama is a complicated web.

Olivia realizes she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing... or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one she’d started with.]]> 400 Liza Tully 0593816773 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.72 2025 The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant (A Merritt & Blunt Mystery)

The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant (A Merritt & Blunt Mystery)

author: Liza Tully
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The River Knows Your Name 215057185 From the acclaimed author of The Girls in the Stilt House comes a long-awaited novel both atmospheric and lyrical, a haunting Southern story about memory, family secrets, and fierce and fragile love.

For nearly thirty years, Nell has kept a childhood promise to never reveal what she and Evie found tucked inside a copy of Jane Eyre in their mother's bookcase—a record of Evie's birth naming a stranger as her mother. But lately, Nell has been haunted by hazy memories of their early life in Mississippi, years their reclusive mother, Hazel, has kept shrouded in secrecy. Evie recalls nothing before their house on Clay Mountain in North Carolina, but Nell remembers abrupt moves, odd accommodations, and the rainy night a man in a dark coat and a hat pulled low climbed their porch steps with a very little girl—Evie—then left without her.

In dual storylines, Nell, forty-two in 1971, reaches into the past to uncover dangerous, long-buried secrets, and Becca, a young mother in the early 1930s, presses ahead, each moving toward 1934, the catastrophic year that would forever link them.��

From a windswept ghost town long forgotten, to a river house in notorious Natchez Under-the-Hill, to a moody nightclub stage, Evie's other mother emerges from the shadows of Depression-era Mississippi in a story of hardship and perseverance, of betrayal and trust, and of unexpected redemption in a world in which the lines between heroes and culprits are not always clearly drawn.]]> 432 Kelly Mustian 1464230374 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.91 2025 The River Knows Your Name

author: Kelly Mustian
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> All the Men I've Loved Again 218615956 From Christine Pride, the beloved coauthor of the Good Morning America Book Club Pick We Are Not Like Them, comes a dazzling solo debut novel about a woman who finds herself in the impossible situation of being in love with the same two men who won her heart in her early twenties again as she nears forty.

It’s 1999, TLC’s “No Scrubs�� is topping the charts, y2k is looming on everyone’s mind, and Cora Belle has arrived at college ready to change her life. She’s determined to grow out of the shy, sheltered girl who attended an all-white prep in her all-white suburb. Cora is ready to conquer her fears and find her people, her place in the world, and herself.

What she’s totally unprepared for is Lincoln, with his dark skin, charming southern drawl, and that smile. Because how can you ever prepare yourself for the rollercoaster of first love with all its glorious, bewildering contradictions? Just when Cora thinks she’s got things figured out, a series of surprises and secrets threaten to upend everything she thought she understood about love and loyalty.

In the wake of these developments and a shocking tragedy, a new man enters Cora’s life—Aaron—further complicating everything. He’s the only one who seems to get her, and the letters she writes to him when the two are separated reveal the truth of their inescapable connection. There’s only one problem—how can she fall in love with one man when her heart belongs to another?

Twenty years later, and Cora is all grown up, or mostly, and has cloaked herself in loneliness like a warm blanket. It’s the safest choice. But then an unexpected reconnection and a chance encounter puts her right back where she started. The same two men, the same agonizing decision.

Finding herself in this position—again—will test everything Cora thought she knew about fate, love, and most importantly, herself. All The Men I’ve Loved Again is a big-hearted coming-of-age story for anyone who’s thought what if about a past love and what it would be like to have a second chance.]]> 320 Christine Pride 1668049538 Jennifer 0 to-read 3.50 All the Men I've Loved Again

author: Christine Pride
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Palace of Sinners and Saints]]> 220160416 In this action-packed thrill ride perfect for fans of Jack Reacher, a small band of mercenaries must infiltrate a 12th-century Middle Eastern castle turned black-site prison, where the life of a hero of democracy hangs in the balance.

Irfan Mirza is the ultimate killing machine. Kidnapped as a child and forced to train to become an elite gun for hire at an “orphanage,�� he is now a ruthless, freelance mercenary.

In a wealthy Middle Eastern kingdom surrounded by desert, the despotic King Nimir is determined to quash all dissidents calling for free elections. Billionaires, clerics, influencers, and journalists who dared to challenge King Nimir’s regime have vanished without a trace. Unfortunately for him, the latest person he has “disappeared�� happens to be Irfan’s “sister.��

Now things are personal, and Irfan Mirza doesn’t like personal. He likes justice.

Assembling a ragtag team of specialists, a.k.a. his “family,�� Irfan sets off on a wild rescue mission, determined to save the imprisoned from a medieval fortress, now transformed into a heavily fortified black-site. The palace is surrounded by endless stretches of uninhabited sand, difficult to approach and impossible to escape.

The Palace of Sinners and Saints is an absolute thrill ride, perfect for fans of Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series, where courage and loyalty reign and anyone who wants freedom must pay a price.]]> 352 Ammar Merchant 1668067587 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.18 The Palace of Sinners and Saints

author: Ammar Merchant
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.18
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Junie 212806648 A young girl must face a life-altering decision after awakening her sister’s ghost, navigating truths about love, friendship, and power as the Civil War looms.

Sixteen years old and enslaved since she was born, Junie has spent her life on Bellereine Plantation in Alabama, cooking and cleaning alongside her family, and tending to the white master’s daughter, Violet. Her daydreams are filled with poetry and faraway worlds, while she spends her nights secretly roaming through the forest, consumed with grief over the sudden death of her older sister, Minnie.

When wealthy guests arrive from New Orleans, hinting at marriage for Violet and upending Junie’s life, she commits a desperate act—one that rouses Minnie’s spirit from the grave, tethered to this world unless Junie can free her. She enlists the aid of Caleb, the guests�� coachman, and their friendship soon becomes something more. Yet as long-held truths begin to crumble, she realizes Bellereine is harboring dark and horrifying secrets that can no longer be ignored.

With time ticking down, Junie begins to push against the harsh current that has controlled her entire life. As she grapples with an increasingly unfamiliar world in which she has little control, she is forced to ask herself: When we choose love and liberation, what must we leave behind?]]> 368 Erin Crosby Eckstine 0593725115 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.20 2025 Junie

author: Erin Crosby Eckstine
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Before the King (Women of the Way, #2)]]> 214974624
Years later, Joanna is forever changed when a rabbi comes preaching a new kingdom and healing the sick. Yet, she treads a perilous path between a court that mocks Jesus of Nazareth, a community of believers who views her with suspicion, and a husband who guards his own secrets. As pressure increases, Joanna must protect her allegiance to the Christ, whose message is as compelling as it is dangerous.

In this gripping narrative, rising author Heather Kaufman weaves a tale of faith, resilience, and love amid the danger of King Herod's court.]]> 368 Heather Kaufman 1540903575 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.70 Before the King (Women of the Way, #2)

author: Heather Kaufman
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.70
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Chase Our Forever (Sutten Mountain, #3)]]> 199057593
𝘐’�� 𝘣𝘦𝘦𝘯 𝘳𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘮𝘺 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘔𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘵𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘦.

𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵’�� 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘐 𝘮𝘦𝘵 𝘢 𝘣𝘳𝘰𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘥𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳.

𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘥 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥𝘯’�� 𝘬𝘦𝘦𝘱 𝘢 𝘯𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘺. 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘨𝘪𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘱.

𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘧 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘐 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘦𝘤𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘰𝘣.

𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘦𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘳𝘺, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘋𝘦𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘶𝘱 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘺. 𝘚𝘦𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘴 𝘮𝘦 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦.

𝘕𝘰𝘸, 𝘐’�� 𝘴𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘚𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯—𝘢𝘯�� 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘴𝘴.

𝘐 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘺𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘶𝘱 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢 𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘴𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘦’�� 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯.

𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦, 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘱 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘵𝘰 𝘧𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘸𝘦’𝘷�� 𝘤𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘳𝘶𝘯 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝙘𝙝𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧.

𝘊𝘩𝘢𝘴𝘦 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘍𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘮𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘥, 𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘰𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦. 𝘐𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘳𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘯 𝘔𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯.]]> 354 Kat Singleton Jennifer 4 romance
“Of all the people in the world I could care about more than I should, it's for my daughter's nanny…she hadn't ever planned to stay in Sutten. She seems to have a past she doesn't want to talk about, which I won't force her to do. But…with each passing day I spend with her, I think I want to be a part of her future.��

All Liv has ever wanted is to have a family. To feel like she belongs. Liv never expected Dean and Clara to become her family, but they have. “Family doesn't have to be blood. It can be the people you choose...the people who choose you…Before I ever stumbled upon Sutten Mountain, I had no idea what true happiness felt like. I didn't know what I was doing with my life, and I didn't feel like I had a purpose. All I'd ever known was doing life on my own. Then, I met Dean and Clara. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the grumpy single dad and his sassy toddler. The two of them became the family I'd been missing my entire life…I never knew a happiness like this existed until I found Sutten Mountain.��

Dean has spent years running away from the pain of loving someone. “Liv made me want to stop running. For the first time in my life, I didn't want to run. I wanted to chase. A forever with her and Clara is everything I want. I'm so excited for a future with her by my side. I can't wait to chase our forever.”]]> 4.16 Chase Our Forever (Sutten Mountain, #3)

author: Kat Singleton
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.16
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves: romance
review:
“Dean Livingston is a lot of things. He's kind underneath his tough exterior. He's the best father. A surprisingly excellent cook. Apparently, an excellent businessman who is even more attractive by the way he doesn't flaunt the excess of money everyone says he has. He's charming and witty when you least expect it. And he's got a body that deserves to be on TV screens.��

“Of all the people in the world I could care about more than I should, it's for my daughter's nanny…she hadn't ever planned to stay in Sutten. She seems to have a past she doesn't want to talk about, which I won't force her to do. But…with each passing day I spend with her, I think I want to be a part of her future.��

All Liv has ever wanted is to have a family. To feel like she belongs. Liv never expected Dean and Clara to become her family, but they have. “Family doesn't have to be blood. It can be the people you choose...the people who choose you…Before I ever stumbled upon Sutten Mountain, I had no idea what true happiness felt like. I didn't know what I was doing with my life, and I didn't feel like I had a purpose. All I'd ever known was doing life on my own. Then, I met Dean and Clara. It didn't take long for me to fall in love with the grumpy single dad and his sassy toddler. The two of them became the family I'd been missing my entire life…I never knew a happiness like this existed until I found Sutten Mountain.��

Dean has spent years running away from the pain of loving someone. “Liv made me want to stop running. For the first time in my life, I didn't want to run. I wanted to chase. A forever with her and Clara is everything I want. I'm so excited for a future with her by my side. I can't wait to chase our forever.��
]]> <![CDATA[Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian]]> 37704255 She knew they would only have a few fleeting months together, but in that time Sarah's unborn daughter would transform her understanding of beauty, worth, and the gift of life.

Happily married and teaching history at the University of Oxford, Sarah Williams had credentials, success, and knowledge. It took someone who would never have any of these things to teach her what it means to be human.

This extraordinary true story begins with the welcome news of a new member of the Williams family. Sarah's husband, Paul, and their two young daughters share her excitement. But the happiness is short-lived, as a hospital scan reveals a lethal skeletal dysplasia. Birth will be fatal.

Sarah and Paul decide to carry the baby to term, a decision that shocks medical staff and Sarah's professional colleagues. Sarah and Paul find themselves having to defend their child's dignity and worth against incomprehension and at times open hostility. They name their daughter, Cerian, Welsh for "loved one." Sarah writes, "Cerian is not a strong religious principle or a rule that compels me to make hard and fast ethical decisions. She is a beautiful person who is teaching me to love the vulnerable, treasure the unlovely, and face fear with dignity and hope."

In this candid and vulnerable account, Sarah brings the reader along with her on the journey towards Cerian's birthday and her deathday. It's rare enough to find a writer who can share such a heart-stretching personal experience without sounding sappy, but here is one who at the same time has the ability to articulate the broader cultural issues raised by Cerian's story. In a society striving for perfection, where worth is earned, identity is constructed, children are a choice, normal is beautiful, and deformity is repulsive, Cerian's short life raises vital questions about what we value and where we are headed as a culture.

Perfectly Human was first published in the United Kingdom as The Shaming of the Strong. This edition includes a new afterword by the author.]]> 180 Sarah C. Williams 0874866693 Jennifer 4
“Principles, however sound they might be, were simply not enough to give us the capacity to go on. They stopped short, leaving a great chasm of pain…I can only say we felt God speak a message to our hearts as clearly as if he had been talking with us in person. Here is a sick and dying child. Will you love this child for me? The question reframed everything. It was no longer primarily a question of abstract ethical principle but rather the gentle imperative of love. Before we finished praying, the chasm between the principle and the choice had been filled.��

“Cerian is Welsh for 'loved one.�� The word is a general term of endearment like 'my darling.�� If God were Welsh he would call each of us 'Cerian -my loved one��...The quiet beauty of Cerian's life goes on challenging me: What does it really mean to be human?...personhood is not a work of self-definition and self-creation. Instead, it is a gift.��

“It is not only the personal resonance of Cerian's story that prompts me to write about her…it is also a deep and enduring conviction that Cerian–along with thousands like her whose physical bodies and mental capacities have never allowed them to live a so-called ‘normal life�� has something vital to say to a world that is restless and frantic, anxious and lonely.�� Nine Months with Cerian is a literary cocktail of pain and beauty, bereavement and joy.]]> 4.62 2005 Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian

Perfectly Human: Nine Months with Cerian

author: Sarah C. Williams
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.62
book published: 2005
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/25
date added: 2025/03/25
shelves:
review:
“We often separate stories from ideas, narratives from academic treatises, the private from the public, our hearts from our minds. I believe these dimensions always belong together; indeed, in this book broad existential questions concerning the whole of human society meet the messy realities of ordinary life…What does it mean to be human? This is the question our daughter Cerian raised for me, and this is the question that lies at the core of this book.��

“Principles, however sound they might be, were simply not enough to give us the capacity to go on. They stopped short, leaving a great chasm of pain…I can only say we felt God speak a message to our hearts as clearly as if he had been talking with us in person. Here is a sick and dying child. Will you love this child for me? The question reframed everything. It was no longer primarily a question of abstract ethical principle but rather the gentle imperative of love. Before we finished praying, the chasm between the principle and the choice had been filled.��

“Cerian is Welsh for 'loved one.�� The word is a general term of endearment like 'my darling.�� If God were Welsh he would call each of us 'Cerian -my loved one��...The quiet beauty of Cerian's life goes on challenging me: What does it really mean to be human?...personhood is not a work of self-definition and self-creation. Instead, it is a gift.��

“It is not only the personal resonance of Cerian's story that prompts me to write about her…it is also a deep and enduring conviction that Cerian–along with thousands like her whose physical bodies and mental capacities have never allowed them to live a so-called ‘normal life�� has something vital to say to a world that is restless and frantic, anxious and lonely.�� Nine Months with Cerian is a literary cocktail of pain and beauty, bereavement and joy.
]]> A Map to Paradise 214986213 1956, Malibu, Something is not right on Paradise Circle.

With her name on the Hollywood blacklist and her life on hold, starlet Melanie Cole has little choice in company. There is her next-door neighbor, Elwood, but the screenwriter’s agoraphobia allows for just short chats through open windows. He’s her sole confidante, though, as she and her housekeeper, Eva, an immigrant from war-torn Europe, rarely make conversation.

Then one early morning Melanie and Eva spot Elwood’s sister-in-law and caretaker, June, digging in his beloved rose garden. After that they don’t see Elwood at all anymore. Where could a man who never leaves the house possibly have gone?

As they try to find out if something has happened to him, unexpected secrets are revealed among all three women, leading to an alliance that seems the only way for any of them to hold on to what they can still call their own. But it’s a fragile pact and one little spark could send it all up in smoke…]]> 352 Susan Meissner 0593332865 Jennifer 3
“Even the strongest of hopes were still as delicate as paper outside the confines of the heart. Choosing to do something differently if she could crawl inside a time machine still meant she'd have to wait to see if messing with the past had been worth it. And what would happen to the lessons learned from a past she'd erased? Would she get to keep them? Would she be willing to lose them if she couldn't? If she could go back…would she find herself just wishing for another time machine somewhere farther down the road? Would the rest of her life just be one constant stretch of regrets and disastrous attempts at do-overs? What was the good in that? A time machine would be a portal to hell if that's what would happen…the past had to amount to more than just the spent years of that one life each person gets. Something weightier. Maybe the past's allure wasn't that it could be changed if time machines were real but that it begged to be remembered. Maybe it was the ability to hold on to all those years—to remember where she'd been, the choices she'd made, the paths she'd chosen–that made the future something she was capable of stepping into. Maybe it was the only thing that did.��

“Sometimes you belong only to the moment…that one singular snippet of time owns your fate. You belong only to that moment and to nowhere else. And then sometimes the moment belongs to you.�� Susan Meissner’s A Map to Paradise is a masterpiece. ]]> 3.60 2025

author: Susan Meissner
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/24
date added: 2025/03/24
shelves:
review:
A blacklisted actress with “a nephew she hadn’t known she had, a displaced Russian maid, and a widow who’d buried her brother-in-law in her backyard…The three of them were unlikely companions with hardly anything in common, yet Melanie had felt an alliance between them based on the one thing they did share: their desire to recover that exquisite feeling of knowing you are right where you belong, and that you can rest there because no one is trying to take it from you. There had been a time once when all three of them knew what it was like to own a happy little corner of paradise. They’d each found it before without a map, and she had to believe they could all find it again, the same way. Because there is no map to paradise. There is only the dream that such a place exists, as does the desire to possess it, and the determination to find it again when it’s been lost.��

“Even the strongest of hopes were still as delicate as paper outside the confines of the heart. Choosing to do something differently if she could crawl inside a time machine still meant she'd have to wait to see if messing with the past had been worth it. And what would happen to the lessons learned from a past she'd erased? Would she get to keep them? Would she be willing to lose them if she couldn't? If she could go back…would she find herself just wishing for another time machine somewhere farther down the road? Would the rest of her life just be one constant stretch of regrets and disastrous attempts at do-overs? What was the good in that? A time machine would be a portal to hell if that's what would happen…the past had to amount to more than just the spent years of that one life each person gets. Something weightier. Maybe the past's allure wasn't that it could be changed if time machines were real but that it begged to be remembered. Maybe it was the ability to hold on to all those years—to remember where she'd been, the choices she'd made, the paths she'd chosen–that made the future something she was capable of stepping into. Maybe it was the only thing that did.��

“Sometimes you belong only to the moment…that one singular snippet of time owns your fate. You belong only to that moment and to nowhere else. And then sometimes the moment belongs to you.�� Susan Meissner’s A Map to Paradise is a masterpiece.
]]> <![CDATA[A Mirror Mended (Fractured Fables, #2)]]> 58724595 A Mirror Mended is the next installment in USA Today bestselling author Alix E. Harrow's Fractured Fables series.

Zinnia Gray, professional fairy-tale fixer and lapsed Sleeping Beauty, is over rescuing snoring princesses. Once you’ve rescued a dozen damsels and burned fifty spindles, once you’ve gotten drunk with twenty good fairies and made out with one too many members of the royal family, you start to wish some of these girls would just get a grip and try solving their own narrative issues.

Just when Zinnia’s beginning to think she can't handle one more princess, she glances into a mirror and sees another face looking back at her: the shockingly gorgeous face of evil, asking for her help. Because there’s more than one person trapped in a story they didn’t choose. Snow White's Evil Queen has found out how her story ends, and she's desperate for a better ending. She wants Zinnia to help her before it’s too late for everyone. Will Zinnia accept the Queen's poisonous request and save them both from the hot-iron shoes that wait for them, or will she try another path?]]> 128 Alix E. Harrow 1250766648 Jennifer 3
"Moving between worlds…keeps me skipping from world to world like a stone across the cold surface of the universe…the universe is like a book…And each world is like a page. And if you tell the same story enough times, you can bleed through to another page…I must write down my own story.��

“Branches and ballgowns, towers and thorns, dozens of dark tales told so many times they came true…The existence of any story implies the existence of a storyteller…the only thing stopping me from writing a new story is the fact that I'm bad at it…But maybe every story is a lie until it isn't…I set the quill to the page and write: Once upon a time…I don't know what happens next…It's your story. You tell me."

“When you save someone, sometimes they save you right back…We don't all get to choose the parts we're given to play, but we all get to choose what we do next…This time, when I touch the mirror and fall into the space between worlds, I'm not running away or rushing to anyone's rescue. I'm not looking for a new once upon a time or hoping, secretly and shamefully, for my happily ever after. This time I'm just trying to live. Happily.��

Alix E. Harrow’s fractured fairytale A Mirror Mended pairs well with Disney’s new Snow White, a 2025 American musical fantasy. ]]> 3.72 2022 A Mirror Mended (Fractured Fables, #2)

author: Alix E. Harrow
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.72
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/19
date added: 2025/03/19
shelves:
review:
“I spent the first twenty-one years of my life being Zinnia Gray the Dying Girl, killing time until my story ended…But I'm also Zinnia Gray the Dimension-Hopping, Damsel-Saving Badass, and I can't quit now. I may not have much of a happily ever after, but I'm going to give away as many as I can before I go…I know I'm not at my sharpest-having been zapped into a dozen different universes, lightly tortured, imprisoned, kissed, nearly executed, rescued, and chastised by pretty much everyone I've ever met.��

"Moving between worlds…keeps me skipping from world to world like a stone across the cold surface of the universe…the universe is like a book…And each world is like a page. And if you tell the same story enough times, you can bleed through to another page…I must write down my own story.��

“Branches and ballgowns, towers and thorns, dozens of dark tales told so many times they came true…The existence of any story implies the existence of a storyteller…the only thing stopping me from writing a new story is the fact that I'm bad at it…But maybe every story is a lie until it isn't…I set the quill to the page and write: Once upon a time…I don't know what happens next…It's your story. You tell me."

“When you save someone, sometimes they save you right back…We don't all get to choose the parts we're given to play, but we all get to choose what we do next…This time, when I touch the mirror and fall into the space between worlds, I'm not running away or rushing to anyone's rescue. I'm not looking for a new once upon a time or hoping, secretly and shamefully, for my happily ever after. This time I'm just trying to live. Happily.��

Alix E. Harrow’s fractured fairytale A Mirror Mended pairs well with Disney’s new Snow White, a 2025 American musical fantasy.
]]> Let's Call Her Barbie 211671383 She was only eleven-and-a-half inches tall, but she would change the world. Barbie is born in this bold new novel by USA Today bestselling author Renée Rosen.

When Ruth Handler walks into the boardroom of the toy company she co-founded and pitches her idea for a doll unlike any other, she knows what she’s setting in motion. It might just take the world a moment to catch up.

In 1956, the only dolls on the market for little girls let them pretend to be mothers. Ruth’s vision for a doll shaped like a grown woman and outfitted in an enviable wardrobe will let them dream they can be anything.

As Ruth assembles her team of creative rebels—head engineer Jack Ryan who hides his deepest secrets behind his genius and designers Charlotte Johnson and Stevie Klein, whose hopes and dreams rest on the success of Barbie’s fashion—she knows they’re working against a ticking clock to get this wild idea off the ground.

In the decades to come—through soaring heights and devastating personal lows, public scandals and private tensions�� each of them will have to decide how tightly to hold on to their creation. Because Barbie has never been just a doll—she’s a legacy.]]> 432 Renée Rosen 0593335686 Jennifer 5
“Barbara Millicent Roberts–the full name they cooked up for Barbie along with the fictitious hometown of Willows, Wisconsin�� was inspired by the Bild Lilli doll based on the adult risqué German comic strip character in the Bild-Zeitung tabloid. However, unlike her predecessor, the invention of Barbie “helped shape a whole new way of thinking about what girls can do, what girls can become.��

For inventor and entrepreneur Ruth Handler, “the doll was more than just a business opportunity.�� She wanted Barbie to be a role model and show girls what it meant to be feminine and strong. “Barbie was supposed to deliver a new, fresh message for the next generation to grow into.�� She “helped to reset the expectations and lift some of the limitations�� and “unlock the imaginations of little girls. They can pretend they're grown-up, just like their doll. And they can make their Barbie do whatever they want. She can be anything they want. She can be a career girl, a fashion model, she can travel the world. She can take those girls beyond their bedroom walls�� and “pave the way for young girls to explore all kinds of possibilities.��

“Barbie is certainly a mononymous figure.�� The story of Barbie and Mattel is as complex and controversial as it is fascinating and “includes an ensemble cast of Barbie heroes and villains as well as a timeline spanning three decades.�� “There are definitely three sides to the Barbie story: Ruth [Handler]’s, Jack [Ryan]’s, and the truth.�� While Let’s Call Her Barbie is a work of fiction, it is based on the facts as Rosen found and interpreted them.

While there’s talk about a Barbie sequel, storyteller Lynn Rymarz brought her story to life through her reenactment of Ruth Handler and the Barbie story at Messenger Public Library. “One thing is certain: Barbie is evergreen.”]]> 4.03 2025 Let's Call Her Barbie

author: Renée Rosen
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/18
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves:
review:
“Naming a toy is like naming a baby. A name attaches a personality to that child…You could call it the Barbara doll. Or the Babs doll. Or hey, even better–what about Barbie?...It’s fun spirited, bouncy, and perky. It’s got a certain pizazz and presence. It’s perfect.�� Ruth’s daughter, Jack’s wife: “A tribute to both our Barbaras…Let’s call her Barbie.��

“Barbara Millicent Roberts–the full name they cooked up for Barbie along with the fictitious hometown of Willows, Wisconsin�� was inspired by the Bild Lilli doll based on the adult risqué German comic strip character in the Bild-Zeitung tabloid. However, unlike her predecessor, the invention of Barbie “helped shape a whole new way of thinking about what girls can do, what girls can become.��

For inventor and entrepreneur Ruth Handler, “the doll was more than just a business opportunity.�� She wanted Barbie to be a role model and show girls what it meant to be feminine and strong. “Barbie was supposed to deliver a new, fresh message for the next generation to grow into.�� She “helped to reset the expectations and lift some of the limitations�� and “unlock the imaginations of little girls. They can pretend they're grown-up, just like their doll. And they can make their Barbie do whatever they want. She can be anything they want. She can be a career girl, a fashion model, she can travel the world. She can take those girls beyond their bedroom walls�� and “pave the way for young girls to explore all kinds of possibilities.��

“Barbie is certainly a mononymous figure.�� The story of Barbie and Mattel is as complex and controversial as it is fascinating and “includes an ensemble cast of Barbie heroes and villains as well as a timeline spanning three decades.�� “There are definitely three sides to the Barbie story: Ruth [Handler]’s, Jack [Ryan]’s, and the truth.�� While Let’s Call Her Barbie is a work of fiction, it is based on the facts as Rosen found and interpreted them.

While there’s talk about a Barbie sequel, storyteller Lynn Rymarz brought her story to life through her reenactment of Ruth Handler and the Barbie story at Messenger Public Library. “One thing is certain: Barbie is evergreen.��
]]> Quid Pro Quo 228941953
Millionaire investor, Nicholas Beaucroft, is a man used to getting what he wants. But all he wants is the one thing he could never have... the love of his older stepsister, Justine. Once he idolized her; now his obsession has become warped and depraved, and there is nothing he won't do, and no game he won't play, if it means satisfying his dark passions.

Jay Varens was twenty-three when she fled from her screwed up family and their dark web of secrets, lies, and mind games. After eight years, she began to believe she was finally free from their twisted machinations--but Nicholas isn't about to let her go so easily, and when he plunges her back into her own personal gilded hell, Jay's about to learn that all things have a price.

Including her own soul.]]> 506 Nenia Campbell Jennifer 0 to-read 3.65 2021 Quid Pro Quo

author: Nenia Campbell
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> One Good Thing 214268979 From the New York Times��bestselling author of We Were the Lucky Ones, an unforgettable story of hardship and hope, courage and resilience, that follows one young woman’s journey through war-torn Italy

1940, Emilia Romagna. Lili and Esti have been best friends since meeting at the University of Ferrara; when Esti’s son Theo is born, they become as close as sisters. There is a war being fought across borders, and in Italy, Mussolini’s Racial Laws have deemed Lili and Esti descendants of an ‘inferior�� Jewish race, but life somehow goes on—until Germany invades northern Italy, and the friends find themselves in occupied territory

Esti, older and fiercely self-assured, convinces Lili to flee first to a villa in the countryside to help hide a group of young war orphans, then to a convent in Florence, where they pose as nuns and forge false identification papers for the Underground. When disaster strikes at the convent, a critically wounded Esti asks Lili to take a much bigger step: To go on the run with Theo. Protect him while Esti can’t.

Terrified to travel on her own, Lili sets out on an epic journey south toward Allied territory, through Nazi-occupied villages and bombed-out cities, doing everything she can to keep Theo safe.

A remarkable tale of friendship, motherhood, and survival,One Good Thing is a tender reminder that love for another person, even amidst darkness and uncertainty, can be reason to keep going.]]> 432 Georgia Hunter 1984880934 Jennifer 4
"The world will right itself…And when it does…she'll find her father, her best friend…She'll gather up the tattered scraps of her old life and stitch them together into some semblance of normalcy. What her new tapestry will look like, she has no idea. But at the moment, that's the least of her worries. For now, her only thought is to keep herself and Theo safe. And, she thinks with an inward smile, to win her next hand.��

One Good Thing is an invitation to slip into Lili’s rain-splattered loafers and step back in time and imagine: Would you spend the foreseeable future raising your best friend’s son on your own in Bologna? Searching for answers, knowing that you may come up empty? Or when the answers do surface, they likely won't be the ones you'd hoped for? Would you move to Switzerland, to be near your father and what's left of your family? Or would you consider trailing a man you've just met across the Atlantic, starting a new life, a new family, giving yourself the chance to love�� to be loved?

Georgia Hunter’s One Good Thing is a story “of nervous anticipation. Of nostalgia. Of hope.�� Its ending isn't a goodbye. “It's arrivederci. Until we see each other again."]]> 4.25 2025

author: Georgia Hunter
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:
Best friends Lili and Estia “grew up in Bologna…We lived in Ferrara at the start of the war…We stayed there for a while, then moved to Nonantola…then to Florence, then Assisi. We’ve been on the road since…They’ve come so far, the two of them. She’d tried to tell herself that leaving him was the smart choice, as selfish as it felt. That he’d be sheltered here at the hospital. That Esti would understand. But she knows now she was wrong. She can’t leave him…because he’s all she has. The one good thing left in her life. There’s no certainty any longer in her war-torn world, her future. The ground is no longer solid beneath her feet. But Theo–loving him, protecting him–this at least is real. Something she can hold on to…And she can’t protect him if she’s not with him…Words don’t come, just a thought, lodged deep in the folds of her heart, an inescapable truth: Esti would do it for her.��

"The world will right itself…And when it does…she'll find her father, her best friend…She'll gather up the tattered scraps of her old life and stitch them together into some semblance of normalcy. What her new tapestry will look like, she has no idea. But at the moment, that's the least of her worries. For now, her only thought is to keep herself and Theo safe. And, she thinks with an inward smile, to win her next hand.��

One Good Thing is an invitation to slip into Lili’s rain-splattered loafers and step back in time and imagine: Would you spend the foreseeable future raising your best friend’s son on your own in Bologna? Searching for answers, knowing that you may come up empty? Or when the answers do surface, they likely won't be the ones you'd hoped for? Would you move to Switzerland, to be near your father and what's left of your family? Or would you consider trailing a man you've just met across the Atlantic, starting a new life, a new family, giving yourself the chance to love�� to be loved?

Georgia Hunter’s One Good Thing is a story “of nervous anticipation. Of nostalgia. Of hope.�� Its ending isn't a goodbye. “It's arrivederci. Until we see each other again."
]]> <![CDATA[Linda and Her Little Sister: A Little Golden Book]]> 60682571 24 Esther Burns Wilkin Jennifer 5 childrens-book 3.80

Linda and Her Little Sister: A Little Golden Book

author: Esther Burns Wilkin
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.80
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/15
date added: 2025/03/15
shelves: childrens-book
review:
This is the first Little Golden Book by an author-artist sister team. Linda and Her Little Sister is author Esther Wilkin’s first Little Golden Book; her sister Eloise Wilkin has illustrated many favorites. “Little One’s�� vintage car seat and stroller are precious, but they may not be up to today’s safety code; Daddy’s after dinner pipe and Little One’s plumber’s crack before bath are endearing, they may be censored by today’s PC standards–all of which make Linda and Her Little Sister all the more nostalgic. However, nearly every spread separates the sisters on opposite pages and portrays mother and Little One’s close bond, while Linda is left on her own to play with her doll independently. Even on the final page, Mother cuddles Little One close to her heart while Linda kneels on the floor in prayer beside her, subconsciously reinforcing the message that the Little One deserves her mother’s full attention while the oldest child should learn to be independent. Overall, however, Eloise Wilkin’s illustrations never fail to capture my heart and Linda and Her Little Sister–written and illustrated by the author and her sister–reminds me of me and my little sister and is one of my newfound favorites!
]]> The Pharisee's Wife 214758112 From the beloved author of Love Comes Softly comes an inspiring work of historical fiction about a young Jewish woman, plucked from obscurity and thrust on perilous journey, only to witness the world’s most life-changing story.

Like most young women in ancient Israel, Mary has little control over her own destiny. When Enos, a rising pharisee, sees her one day in the market—the most beautiful woman he has ever laid eyes on—and determines to make her his wife, Mary’s fate is quickly sealed. His exorbitant bride price is the only hope her parents have of rising out of abject poverty, but surely the fact that such a devout and esteemed man has chosen a girl of her station must be a sign of blessing.

When Mary enters training to become the proper pharisee’s wife, it is as though she has been abandoned in a foreign land, where one misstep could cost her greatly. That feeling only deepens when she discovers Enos is all she feared he might be, treating her merely as a prize he has won—and worse. Then rumors of a miracle-working, traveling Prophet change everything, and Mary and Enos are swept up in events that will challenge all they hold dear and forever alter both their futures.

Full-length standalone biblical fiction from the bestselling author whose novels have sold more than 30 million copiesFor fans of historical fiction by Tessa Afshar, Mesu Andrews, and Connilyn CossetteIncludes discussion questions for book groups]]> 336 Janette Oke Jennifer 3
When aspiring Pharisee Enos glimpses Mary’s face in the marketplace, he wants to possess her at any bride price. She is of lower status. But he has ways to correct that, starting with her name. “He wished for a name that would complement her youth and yet leave her room to mature to be a woman of strength and beauty…charm and charisma.�� Thus Mary becomes Simona, and Enos approaches her father for her hand in marriage.

“You could not ask for a higher honor than for your daughter to be wedded to a Pharisee…She will be a lady of high standing. She will live in dignity and comfort, be honored and envied.�� But “there is nothing better than the strong bond between father and child–be it boy or girl.�� Mary is the nourisher of her father’s heart and restorer of her father’s joy, of more worth than anything a bride price could buy–except the deliverance of the family from debilitating debt and financial ruin. “He may have purchased her body, but he had never won her heart.��

On the day of her wedding, “Mary dutifully dressed in the garments her mother tossed to her…in poor shape. All except the head shawl. It had been brought back by her father from one of his business trips to Capernaum before he had the accident that had made him an invalid. Mary cherished that shawl. It was beautiful and represented so much love. She pulled it close around her face and felt unbidden tears spill into its rich fabric…There were many things that might soon be lost to her, but she knew that her father’s love was not one of them.�� Nor was the love of her Heavenly Father, as Mary discovers when she encounters the Messiah. Janette Oke’s The Pharisee’s Wife is her magnus opus!]]> 3.87 The Pharisee's Wife

author: Janette Oke
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.87
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:
You might be a Pharisee if “you are an impulsive young man. And ambitious. You are most anxious to reach the highest ranks of the Pharisees. You like to impress others with knowledge, power, and position…It is important to you to have the best available. You have seen a young woman [and] conclude her beautiful enough to tempt others to jealousy.��

When aspiring Pharisee Enos glimpses Mary’s face in the marketplace, he wants to possess her at any bride price. She is of lower status. But he has ways to correct that, starting with her name. “He wished for a name that would complement her youth and yet leave her room to mature to be a woman of strength and beauty…charm and charisma.�� Thus Mary becomes Simona, and Enos approaches her father for her hand in marriage.

“You could not ask for a higher honor than for your daughter to be wedded to a Pharisee…She will be a lady of high standing. She will live in dignity and comfort, be honored and envied.�� But “there is nothing better than the strong bond between father and child–be it boy or girl.�� Mary is the nourisher of her father’s heart and restorer of her father’s joy, of more worth than anything a bride price could buy–except the deliverance of the family from debilitating debt and financial ruin. “He may have purchased her body, but he had never won her heart.��

On the day of her wedding, “Mary dutifully dressed in the garments her mother tossed to her…in poor shape. All except the head shawl. It had been brought back by her father from one of his business trips to Capernaum before he had the accident that had made him an invalid. Mary cherished that shawl. It was beautiful and represented so much love. She pulled it close around her face and felt unbidden tears spill into its rich fabric…There were many things that might soon be lost to her, but she knew that her father’s love was not one of them.�� Nor was the love of her Heavenly Father, as Mary discovers when she encounters the Messiah. Janette Oke’s The Pharisee’s Wife is her magnus opus!
]]> <![CDATA[The French Winemaker’s Daughter]]> 199743730
1942. Seven-year-old Martine hides in an armoire when the Nazis come to take her father away. Pinned to her dress is a note with her aunt’s address in Paris, and in her arms, a bottle of wine she has been instructed to look after if something happened to her papa. When they are finally gone, the terrified young girl drops the bottle and runs to a neighbor, who puts her on a train to Paris.

But when Martine arrives in the city, her aunt is nowhere to be found. Without a place to go, the girl wanders the streets and eventually falls asleep on the doorstep of Hotel Drouot, where Sister Ada finds her and takes her to the abbey, and watches over her.

1990. Charlotte, a commercial airline pilot, attends an auction with her boyfriend Henri at Hotel Drouot, now the oldest auction house in Paris. Successfully bidding on a box of wine saved from the German occupation during the Second World War, Henri gives Charlotte a seemingly inferior bottle he finds inside the box. Cleaning the label, Charlotte makes a shocking discovery that sends her on a quest to find the origins of this unusual—and very valuable—bottle of wine, a quest that will take her back fifty years into the past. . . .

A powerful tale of love, war, and family, The French Winemaker’s Daughter is an emotionally resonant tale of two women whose fates are intertwined across time. Loretta Ellsworth’s evocative and poignant page-turner will linger in the heart, and make you think about luck, connection, and the meaning of loyalty.]]> 288 Loretta Ellsworth 0063371812 Jennifer 4
A vintage wine bottle from the World War II French Resistance. A handwritten message hidden underneath a label. A father’s last wish for his daughter’s safety. A small wooden box with an image painted on the top of The Red Vineyard by Vincent van Gogh. Each of these finds is a miracle, a reminder of the resilience and strength of countrymen. “So many miracles that had kept her alive. Had she lived in a way that honored the life she'd been given?��

“Life doesn't always work out the way we expect it will. But we must embrace that which makes us happy. Make good memories while you can. They will give your soul something to hold on to when you're old like me…Discover your own joy, wherever it leads you…don't confuse accomplishment with joy. You need both to survive. You must find your joie de vivre…Embrace what makes you happy, no matter how many complications are involved…there are no guarantees in life…Sometimes it is about letting go and enjoying life, and seeing where it takes you.��

Pick up a copy of Loretta Ellsworth’s The French Winemaker’s Daughter and prepare to be whisked away to “enjoy the picturesque rolling hills of Burgundy, walk down the cobbled paths, and savor the excellent wines. And don't forget to eat some crepes. And perhaps some creme brulee.�� ]]> 3.94 2024

author: Loretta Ellsworth
name: Jennifer
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/12
date added: 2025/03/12
shelves:
review:
“It all began at the Hôtel Drouot, a place that took no responsibility for selling other people's history. It had thrived during WWII, selling artwork from Jews across the country as they entered concentration camps. Jews weren't even allowed to bid on items during that time. And as recently as a tew months ago, the auction house had sold bottles of wine confiscated from French wineries. But what if a person had a chance to set one thing right? One tiny thing to put the universe just a little more on track?��

A vintage wine bottle from the World War II French Resistance. A handwritten message hidden underneath a label. A father’s last wish for his daughter’s safety. A small wooden box with an image painted on the top of The Red Vineyard by Vincent van Gogh. Each of these finds is a miracle, a reminder of the resilience and strength of countrymen. “So many miracles that had kept her alive. Had she lived in a way that honored the life she'd been given?��

“Life doesn't always work out the way we expect it will. But we must embrace that which makes us happy. Make good memories while you can. They will give your soul something to hold on to when you're old like me…Discover your own joy, wherever it leads you…don't confuse accomplishment with joy. You need both to survive. You must find your joie de vivre…Embrace what makes you happy, no matter how many complications are involved…there are no guarantees in life…Sometimes it is about letting go and enjoying life, and seeing where it takes you.��

Pick up a copy of Loretta Ellsworth’s The French Winemaker’s Daughter and prepare to be whisked away to “enjoy the picturesque rolling hills of Burgundy, walk down the cobbled paths, and savor the excellent wines. And don't forget to eat some crepes. And perhaps some creme brulee.��
]]> <![CDATA[Love's Promise (Wyoming Sunrise, #4)]]> 209693341
After Amaya Alvarado lost her fiancé to a senseless tragedy, she vows never to love again. Two years later, at her grandmother’s request, she travels to Poplar Springs to assist with the mercantile and help care for her ailing grandfather. During a stagecoach accident and a confrontation with nefarious outlaws, she crosses paths with a man named Silas McFadden who rescues her and the other passengers. A bond between them soon forms.

Silas is not the man he once was. After a stint on the wrong side of the law, he’s now a respectable rancher in Poplar Springs, Wyoming. After becoming a man of faith, he determines to live his life for the One who gave him a second chance. He just never imagined that second chance might include Amaya. Now all he has to do is ensure his past doesn’t return and destroy his and Amaya’s fragile relationship.

Amaya’s and Silas’s friendship soon grows, and she begins to trust him with everything but her heart. Can she push her growing feelings for him aside? After all, isn’t it betraying her fiancé to care for another man the way she has grown to care for Silas?

When the past comes back to haunt him and revenge is sought, can Silas protect the woman he has come to love?

Can be enjoyed as a standalone or take a return trip to Poplar Springs, Wyoming, for Silas and Amaya's story.

A surprise reunion brings all of your favorite Wyoming Sunrise characters together in this well-loved series.

Wyoming Sunrise Series
Prequel: Love's New Beginnings (Lydie and Solomon's story)
Book One: Forgotten Memories
Book Two: Dreams of the Heart
Book Three: When Love Comes
Book Four: Love's Promise
Once Upon a Christmas: Heartwarming novelette featuring Ambrose as an adult.

Also available: An Unexpected Arrival for newsletter subscribers

Please note: All of the books in the Wyoming Sunrise Series are faith-based Christian romances.

Happily-ever-after, faith-filled romances by award-winning author, Penny Zeller:

Love's New Beginnings
Forgotten Memories
Dreams of the Heart
When Love Comes
Love's Promise
Once Upon a Christmas
Over the Horizon
Dreams on the Horizon
Beyond the Horizon
Love on the Horizon
Love in Disguise
Love in Store
Love in Time
Love from Afar
Love Unforeseen
Love Most Certain
Levi's Vow
Heart of Courage
Freedom’s Flight
An Unexpected Arrival (newsletter subscribers)

Love in the Headlines
Recipe for Love
Love Under Construction
Henry and Evaline

Forgotten Identity
Unexpected Witness
Unexpected Danger
Unexpected Target]]> 388 Penny Zeller 1957847387 Jennifer 0 to-read 4.75 Love's Promise (Wyoming Sunrise, #4)

author: Penny Zeller
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.75
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Leopard Tamed: 50th Anniversary Edition]]> 63332678 A Leopard Tamed reads like the story of another world, of another time—but it is very much of our world, our time.

Eleanor Vandevort is an American missionary who lived with the Nuer tribe in Nasir for thirteen years. A Leopard Tamed is the vivid, exciting description of what those years were like for her. Eleanor became friendly with Kuac, a small boy whose burning ambition was “to do the work of God.�� He proved invaluable in helping her. He taught her his language, which enabled her to translate the Bible for the Nuer people for the first time. After she discovered he was a born teacher, he even led Bible classes for her. Although Kuac is the central figure in this engrossing story, it is also the story of the whole Nuer tribe.

A Leopard Tamed stirs the reader with strange tribal customs—such as the brutal rites initiating young boys into manhood; a typical native wedding; detailed description of housing, cooking, child-bearing, and so on. The author transports us to a land “that lies flat on its back, rolled out like a pie crust and crisscrossed with a network of footpaths linking village to village. The path is the highway in this land, covering hundreds and hundreds of miles, the imprint of a people who walk in order to communicate and who must communicate in order to live.��

This special 50th anniversary edition includes the original introduction by Elisabeth Elliot and a new introduction by Valerie Elliot Shepard.]]> 263 Eleanor Vandevort 1496470095 Jennifer 4
“I was among people who sought God, but the way they sought Him was alien and mysterious and incredible to me…Is it not immoral, I thought, to overpower people against their will, without their invitation or consent, thrusting oneself upon them in the guise of goodness? We were missionaries. We had meant only to bring people the Gospel: salvation, and the benefits of the Gospel: love, peace, joy, and freedom from the fear of death. But our possessions came with us, our trucks, our motor boats, our electricity. These were the things we were using to evangelize…We did not foresee that our things would become more important to the people than our Gospel, that they would want them…were we not becoming more of a stumbling block than a help to the people?��

“Hard questions were the pathway to well-tested faith…great mysteries can lead to great certainties–not certainties of outcomes, but certainties about the character of God…If you have come up against life and are looking for a way through, if you are looking for a story that reveals a path of faith in the midst of paradox and mystery…read on in earnest.�� A Leopard Tamed “is a reminder that no story is ever truly complete…at any moment more of the story may be revealed…a perceived ending might yet be changed.�� ]]> 4.57 A Leopard Tamed: 50th Anniversary Edition

A Leopard Tamed: 50th Anniversary Edition

author: Eleanor Vandevort
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.57
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves:
review:
“Eleanor Vandevort was a woman of profound Christian faith, certain of Jesus Christ and yet ready to question everything else…a study in mystery and paradox.�� When this single white woman moves to Sudan, “I was full of excitement that day, nerved with the hope of helping these people, confident that life could and would be better for them. It never crossed my mind then that my definition of their need was meaningless to them, that for all practical purposes I would have to invent a need in order to validate the message I had come to give.�� She meets Kuac, which means “leopard�� in honor of his father’s friend who brought him a leopard skin on the day Kuac was born.

“I was among people who sought God, but the way they sought Him was alien and mysterious and incredible to me…Is it not immoral, I thought, to overpower people against their will, without their invitation or consent, thrusting oneself upon them in the guise of goodness? We were missionaries. We had meant only to bring people the Gospel: salvation, and the benefits of the Gospel: love, peace, joy, and freedom from the fear of death. But our possessions came with us, our trucks, our motor boats, our electricity. These were the things we were using to evangelize…We did not foresee that our things would become more important to the people than our Gospel, that they would want them…were we not becoming more of a stumbling block than a help to the people?��

“Hard questions were the pathway to well-tested faith…great mysteries can lead to great certainties–not certainties of outcomes, but certainties about the character of God…If you have come up against life and are looking for a way through, if you are looking for a story that reveals a path of faith in the midst of paradox and mystery…read on in earnest.�� A Leopard Tamed “is a reminder that no story is ever truly complete…at any moment more of the story may be revealed…a perceived ending might yet be changed.��
]]> <![CDATA[See It Through (Kelly Ranch #1)]]> 220232050 This house isn't big enough for the both of us...

As my older brother’s best friend, Remington Town used to be like a member of my family. But the minute he turned eighteen, he left our small town of Sugar Brush, Wyoming and never looked back.

Thirteen years later, Remi shows up to settle his father’s estate, but as far as I’m concerned, he should’ve stayed gone. Besides, he’s in for a big surprise when he finds out the old farmhouse he intends to sell is now half mine.

I expect Remi to hit the road just like he did all those years ago, but infuriatingly, he settles in like he plans on staying for a while. It’s impossible to avoid him since I run my farrier business out of the house he’s now haunting. Everywhere I turn, I seem to find him, with his easy smiles and endless patience, no matter what I throw at him—literally.

When push comes to shove and I’m in danger, Remi stands by me without question. His steady, surprisingly gentle presence softens me to him. Soon, a tentative friendship leads to a fiery passion neither of us saw coming.

Remi and I find solace and beauty in each other, but behind the picturesque facade of our small town lurks an ugliness. Someone doesn’t like me having all that I do, and if they have their way, I’ll be left with nothing at all.

See It Through is a small town, western romance featuring the Kelly family. It can be read as a complete standalone, however this series is second generation. The Kelly kids' parents are Lock and Elena, and their story starts in Sweet Like Poison. This is Hannah Kelly's story.

]]> 344 Julia Wolf Jennifer 0 to-read 4.11 2024 See It Through (Kelly Ranch #1)

author: Julia Wolf
name: Jennifer
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>