en-US Mon, 12 May 2025 10:55:23 -0700 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 72536 you know?

Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?
Your sadistic high school gym teacher?
Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?
The colleague who stole your idea and passed it off as her own?

In the pages of The Sociopath Next Door, you will realize that your ex was not just misunderstood. He’s a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.

We are accustomed to think of sociopaths as violent criminals, but in The Sociopath Next Door, Harvard psychologist Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people—one in twenty-five—has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse. One in twenty-five everyday Americans, therefore, is secretly a sociopath. They could be your colleague, your neighbor, even family. And they can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt.

How do we recognize the remorseless? One of their chief characteristics is a kind of glow or charisma that makes sociopaths more charming or interesting than the other people around them. They’re more spontaneous, more intense, more complex, or even sexier than everyone else, making them tricky to identify and leaving us easily seduced. Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love. Sociopaths learn early on to show sham emotion, but underneath they are indifferent to others�� suffering. They live to dominate and thrill to win.

The fact is, we all almost certainly know at least one or more sociopaths already. Part of the urgency in reading The Sociopath Next Door is the moment when we suddenly recognize that someone we know—someone we worked for, or were involved with, or voted for—is a sociopath. But what do we do with that knowledge? To arm us against the sociopath, Dr. Stout teaches us to question authority, suspect flattery, and beware the pity play. Above all, she writes, when a sociopath is beckoning, do not join the game.

It is the ruthless versus the rest of us, and The Sociopath Next Door will show you how to recognize and defeat the devil you know.]]> 256 Martha Stout 0767915828 Nancy 0 currently-reading 3.76 2005
author: Martha Stout
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 62039222 The devolution of the Sullivan Institute, from psychoanalytic organization to insular, radical cult.



In the middle of the Ozzie and Harriet 1950s, the birth control pill became available and a maverick psychoanalytic institute, the Sullivan Institute for Research in Psychoanalysis, opened its doors in New York City. Its founders wanted to start a revolution, one grounded in ideals of creative expression, sexual liberation, and freedom from societal norms, and the revolution needed to begin at home. Dismantling the nuclear family--and monogamous marriage--would free kids from the repressive forces of their parents. The movement attracted many brilliant people as patients, including the painter Jackson Pollock and a swarm of other artists, the singer Judy Collins, and the dancer Lucinda Childs. By the 1960s, it had become an urban commune of hundreds of people, with patients living with other patients, leading a creative, polyamorous life.

By the mid-1970s, under the leadership of its cofounder Saul Newton, it devolved from a radical communal experiment into an insular cult, with therapists controlling virtually every aspect of their patients' lives, from where they lived to how often they saw their children. Although the group was highly secretive, even after its dissolution in 1991, Alexander Stille has reconstructed the inner life of this hidden parallel world. Through countless interviews and personal papers, The Sullivanians reveals the nearly unbelievable story of a fallen utopia in the heart of New York City.]]> 432 Alexander Stille 0374600392 Nancy 4 3.45 2023
author: Alexander Stille
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/12
date added: 2025/05/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 25733573 Matt Haig’s accessible and life-affirming memoir of his struggle with depression, and how his triumph over the illness taught him to live.

Like nearly one in five people, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt’s inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (and now-wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it.

Everyone’s lives are touched by mental illness: if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does. Matt’s frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, Matt is adamant that the oldest cliché is the truest—there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.]]> 256 Matt Haig 0143128728 Nancy 5 4.04 2015
author: Matt Haig
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/05/07
date added: 2025/05/07
shelves:
review:

]]> 212924015
After nearly losing the election to a geriatric but wildly popular donkey named Maurizio, newly installed Mayor Delizia Miccuci can’t help but feel like the sun has finally set on the rural Italian village of Lazzarini Boscarino. Tourists only stop by to ask for directions, Nonna Amara’s cherished ristorante is long shuttered, and the town hall is disgustingly overrun with glis glis poo—even Postman Duccio has been disgraced. All that’s left is Bar Celebrità, a rustic establishment where weary locals gather to quibble over decades-long disputes, submit their poor stomachs to bartender Giuseppina’s volcanic espresso, and wonder what will become of the place where together they’ve spent their entire lives.

Little do the villagers know that, mere miles away in the forest, local truffle hunter Giovanni Scarpazza has just happened upon something that could change everything. Swollen to massive proportions, soaking the atmosphere in its pungent fumes, potentially worth six figures in certain international circles, a truffle—un tartufo, that is—sits beneath the soil with the power to either be the greatest gift or the foulest curse the village has ever seen—they’re not completely sure which since Giuseppina’s psychic was a bit unclear on the matter.

Tartufo is much more than a charming romp through the foothills of Tuscany. Written in the same enchanting style and raucous humor that defines Hollow Kingdom and Feral Creatures, Buxton’s newest story is a reflection on the interconnectedness of life in all its manifestations—and how holding on to harmony in the face of hardship can grow something beautiful and rare beneath the surface.]]> 352 Kira Jane Buxton 1538770814 Nancy 4 3.75 2025
author: Kira Jane Buxton
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 198902277 Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9781250899576.

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

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

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.]]> 384 Alison Espach Nancy 4 4.10 2024
author: Alison Espach
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 215805924 Vera Wong is back and as meddling as ever in this follow-up to the hit Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers.��

Ever since a man was found dead in Vera's teahouse, life has been good. For Vera that is. She’s surrounded by loved ones, her shop is bustling, and best of all, her son, Tilly, has a girlfriend! All thanks to Vera, because Tilly's girlfriend is none other than Officer Selena��Gray. The very same Officer Gray that she had harassed while investigating the teahouse murder. Still, Vera wishes more dead bodies would pop up in her shop, but one mustn't be ungrateful, even if one is slightly...bored.

Then Vera comes across a distressed young woman who is obviously in need of her kindly guidance. The young woman is looking for a missing friend. Fortunately, while cat-sitting at Tilly and Selena's, Vera finds a treasure Selena's briefcase.��Inside is a file about the death of an enigmatic influencer—who also happens to be the friend that the young woman was looking for.

Online, Xander had it a parade of private jets, fabulous parties with socialites, and a burgeoning career as a social media influencer. The only problem is, after his body is fished out of Mission Bay, the police can't seem to actually identify him. Who is Xander Lin? Nobody knows. Every contact is a dead end. Everybody claims not to know him, not even his parents.

Vera is determined to solve Xander's murder. After all, doing so would surely be a big favor to Selena, and��there is nothing she wouldn't do for her future daughter-in-law.]]> 325 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593546253 Nancy 4 4.25 2025
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/05/05
date added: 2025/05/05
shelves:
review:

]]> 62060274
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books�� previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.

With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers�� tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.]]> 431 Barbara Davis 1542038154 Nancy 0 to-read 4.27 2023
author: Barbara Davis
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/05/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29405093 Inside Amy Schumer and the acclaimed film Trainwreck has taken the entertainment world by storm with her winning blend of smart, satirical humor. Now, Amy Schumer has written a refreshingly candid and uproariously funny collection of (extremely) personal and observational essays.

In The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy mines her past for stories about her teenage years, her family, relationships, and sex and shares the experiences that have shaped who she is - a woman with the courage to bare her soul to stand up for what she believes in, all while making us laugh.

Ranging from the raucous to the romantic, the heartfelt to the harrowing, this highly entertaining and universally appealing collection is the literary equivalent of a night out with your best friends - an unforgettable and fun adventure that you wish could last forever. Whether she's experiencing lust-at-first-sight while in the airport security line, sharing her own views on love and marriage, admitting to being an introvert, or discovering her cross-fit instructor's secret bad habit, Amy Schumer proves to be a bighearted, brave, and thoughtful storyteller that will leave you nodding your head in recognition, laughing out loud, and sobbing uncontrollably - but only because it's over.]]> 323 Amy Schumer 1501139886 Nancy 3 3.71 2016
author: Amy Schumer
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2016
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/15
date added: 2025/04/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 53137938
Noah is at the pinnacle of his career. With book and movie deals galore, there isn’t much the “golden boy�� of modern fiction hasn’t accomplished. But he can’t walk away from what might be the best book of the century—the one his idol, Scarlett Stanton, left unfinished. Coming up with a fitting ending for the legendary author is one thing, but dealing with her beautiful, stubborn, cynical great-granddaughter, Georgia, is quite another.

But as they read Scarlett’s words in both the manuscript and her box of letters, they start to realize why Scarlett never finished the book—it’s based on her real-life romance with a World War II pilot, and the ending isn’t a happy one. Georgia knows all too well that love never works out, and while the chemistry and connection between her and Noah is undeniable, she’s as determined as ever to learn from her great-grandmother’s mistakes—even if it means destroying Noah’s career.]]> 400 Rebecca Yarros 1682815668 Nancy 4 4.26 2021
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/14
date added: 2025/04/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 205478762 The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.

They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.

Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.]]> 381 Richard Powers 1324086033 Nancy 4 4.15 2024
author: Richard Powers
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 194802722 A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common, from #1 New York Times bestselling author Emily Henry.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé, Peter, told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it... right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned-up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex... right?]]> 400 Emily Henry Nancy 4 4.21 2024
author: Emily Henry
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/12
date added: 2025/04/12
shelves:
review:

]]> 213034913 The origin story of one of the most influential and transformative business leaders and philanthropists of the modern age.

The business triumphs of Bill Gates are widely known: the twenty-year-old who dropped out of Harvard to start a software company that became an industry giant and changed the way the world works and lives; the billionaire many times over who turned his attention to philanthropic pursuits to address climate change, global health, and U.S. education.

Source Code is not about Microsoft or the Gates Foundation or the future of technology. It’s the human, personal story of how Bill Gates became who he is today: his childhood, his early passions and pursuits. It’s the story of his principled grandmother and ambitious parents, his first deep friendships and the sudden death of his best friend; of his struggles to fit in and his discovery of a world of coding and computers in the dawn of a new era; of embarking in his early teens on a path that took him from midnight escapades at a nearby computer center to his college dorm room, where he sparked a revolution that would change the world.

Bill Gates tells this, his own story, for the first time: wise, warm, revealing, it’s a fascinating portrait of an American life.]]> 336 Bill Gates 059380158X Nancy 4 4.07 2025
author: Bill Gates
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/09
date added: 2025/04/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 25809756 Becky Bloomwood and a hilarious cast of beloved family and friends (plus one enemy!) set off in a van to find her missing father, last heard from in Las Vegas.

Becky’s father Graham and her best friend’s husband, Tarquin, have disappeared from Los Angeles saying simply they have “something to take care of.��

But Tarquin’s wife Suze who is Becky’s best friend, and Becky’s mother Jane, are convinced the two men are hiding something and are in danger—their imaginations run wild. They must track them down!

Hijinks ensue as husband Luke drives Becky, daughter Minnie, Jane, Suze and other favorite Kinsella characters across country from LA to Las Vegas in search of the missing men.

Becky feels deeply guilty about ignoring her father while he was in LA, in addition Becky feels her enemy Alicia is threatening her friendship with Suze.]]> 368 Sophie Kinsella 0812998251 Nancy 3 3.57 2015
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2015
rating: 3
read at: 2025/04/06
date added: 2025/04/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 214312329
“What Does It Feel Like? is fiction, but it is my most autobiographical work to date. Eve’s story is my story.”—Sophie Kinsella

Eve is a successful novelist who wakes up one day in a hospital bed with no memory of how she got there. Her husband, never far from her side, explains that she has had an operation to remove the large, malignant tumor growing in her brain.

As Eve learns to walk, talk, and write again—and as she wrestles with her diagnosis, and how and when to explain it to her beloved children—she begins to recall what’s most important to her: long walks with her husband’s hand clasped firmly around her own, family game nights, and always buying that dress when she sees it.

Recounted in brief anecdotes, each one is an attempt to answer the type of impossible questions recognizable to anyone navigating the labyrinth of grief. This short, extraordinary novel is a celebration of life, shot through with warmth and humor—it will both break your heart and put it back together again.

“Why did I write such a personal book? I have always processed my life through writing. Hiding behind my fictional characters, I have always turned my own life into a narrative. It is my version of therapy, maybe. Writing is my happy place, and writing this book, although tough going at times, was immensely satisfying and therapeutic for me.”—Sophie Kinsella]]> 144 Sophie Kinsella 0593977564 Nancy 4 4.25 2024
author: Sophie Kinsella
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/05
date added: 2025/04/05
shelves:
review:
Quick read. So sad when I heard yesterday that the author has glioblastoma. I've loved her books.
]]> 195790586 She’s rewriting his love story. But can she rewrite her own?

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. She’s spent her life studying, obsessing over, and writing romantic comedies―good ones! That win contests! But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her kind-hearted dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to re-write a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates―The Charlie Yates! Her personal writing god!―it’s a break too big to pass up.

Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for six weeks for the writing gig of a lifetime. But what is it they say? Don’t meet your heroes? Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone―much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.�� Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus! He doesn’t even care about the script―it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. Oh, and he thinks love is an emotional Ponzi scheme.

But Emma’s not going down without a fight. She will stand up for herself, and for rom-coms, and for love itself. She will convince him that love stories matter―even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But . . . what if that kiss is accidentally amazing? What if real life turns out to be so much . . . more real than fiction? What if the love story they’re writing breaks all Emma’s rules―and comes true?]]> 336 Katherine Center 1250283809 Nancy 5 4.05 2024
author: Katherine Center
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/04/03
date added: 2025/04/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 52616342
Erika Cass has a perfect family and a perfect life. Until the evening when two detectives show up at her front door.

A high school girl has vanished from Erika's quiet suburban neighborhood. The police suspect the worst--murder. And Erika's teenage son, Liam, was the last person to see the girl alive.

Erika has always sensed something dark and disturbed in her seemingly perfect older child. She wants to believe he's innocent, but as the evidence mounts, she can't deny the truth--Liam may have done the unthinkable.

Now she must ask herself:

How far will she go to protect her son?]]> 373 Freida McFadden Nancy 4 4.03 2019
author: Freida McFadden
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/04/01
date added: 2025/04/01
shelves:
review:

]]> 211004155 The Last Thing He Told Me meets Fleishman Is in Trouble in this page-turning story of a couple who flee winter in the Midwest for Palm Springs, where they find their relationship at a crossroads.

Kim and Grant are at a turning point. A couple for thirty years, their "separate but together" partnership is running up against the realities of late middle age: Grant’s mother has died, the college where he taught philosophy was shuttered, and their twin girls are grown and gone. Escaping the bitter cold of a Midwestern winter for the hot desert sun of Palm Springs seems as good a solution as any to the more intractable problems they face.

When they arrive at Le Desert, a quirky condo community where everyone knows everyone’s business, Kim immediately embraces the opportunity to make new friends and explore a more adventurous side of her personality. Meanwhile, Grant struggles to find his footing in this unfamiliar landscape, leaving Kim to wonder if their relationship can survive the snowbird season. But when Grant goes missing on a hike in the Palm Springs mountains, Kim is forced to consider two terrifying outcomes: either Grant is truly lost, or this time he’s really left her.

Is it ever too late to become the person we wanted to be—and is there still time to change into someone better? The exhilarating, but often confusing transitions of midlife are pitched against the promise and glamour of Palm Springs in this tender, honest story of what it takes to commit to someone for a lifetime. With compassion and humor, Clancy explores the redemptive power of finding ourselves, and of being found.]]> 304 Christina Clancy 1250284953 Nancy 5 3.48 2025
author: Christina Clancy
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.48
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 208516656 If you knew your future, would you try to fight fate?

Aside from a delay, there will be no problems. The flight will be smooth, it will land safely. Everyone who gets on the plane will get off. But almost all of them will be forever changed.

Because on this ordinary, short, domestic flight, something extraordinary happens. People learn how and when they are going to die. For some, their death is far in the future—age 103!—and they laugh. But for six passengers, their predicted deaths are not far away at all.

How do they know this? There were ostensibly more interesting people on the flight (the bride and groom, the jittery, possibly famous woman, the giant Hemsworth-esque guy who looks like an off-duty superhero, the frazzled, gorgeous flight attendant) but none would become as famous as “The Death Lady.��

Not a single passenger or crew member will later recall noticing her board the plane. She wasn’t exceptionally old or young, rude or polite. She wasn’t drunk or nervous or pregnant. Her appearance and demeanor were unremarkable. But what she did on that flight was truly remarkable.

A few months later, one passenger dies exactly as she predicted. Then two more passengers die, again, as she said they would. Soon no one is thinking this is simply an entertaining story at a cocktail party.

If you were told you only had a certain amount of time left to live, would you do things differently? Would you try to dodge your destiny?

Liane Moriarty’s Here One Moment is a brilliantly constructed tale that looks at free will and destiny, grief and love, and the endless struggle to maintain certainty and control in an uncertain world. A modern-day Jane Austen who humorously skewers social mores while spinning a web of mystery, Moriarty asks profound questions in her newest I-can’t-wait-to-find-out-what-happens novel.]]> 512 Liane Moriarty 0593798600 Nancy 4 3.98 2024
author: Liane Moriarty
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/20
date added: 2025/03/20
shelves:
review:

]]> 213890792 New from the author of Presumed Innocent, the #1 bestseller that redefined the legal thriller and is the basis for Apple TV+’s most-watched drama series ever.

Rusty is a retired judge attempting a third act in life with a loving soon-to-be wife, Bea, with whom he shares both a restful home on an idyllic lake in the rural Midwest and a plaintive hope that this marriage will be his best, and his last. But the peace that’s taken Rusty so long to find evaporates when Bea’s young adult son, Aaron, living under their supervision while on probation for drug possession, disappears. If Aaron doesn’t return soon, he will be sent back to jail.

Aaron eventually turns up with a vague story about a camping trip with his troubled girlfriend, Mae, that ended in a fight and a long hitchhike home. Days later, when she still hasn’t returned, suspicion falls on Aaron, and when Mae is subsequently discovered dead, Aaron is arrested and set for trial on charges of first degree murder.

Faced with few choices and even fewer hopes, Bea begs Rusty to return to court one last time, to defend her son and to save their last best hope for happiness. For Rusty, the question is not whether to defend Aaron, or whether the boy is in fact innocent—it’s whether the system to which he has devoted his life can ever provide true justice for those who are presumed guilty.]]> 544 Scott Turow 1538706369 Nancy 4 4.21 2025
author: Scott Turow
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/17
date added: 2025/03/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 213243915 The #1 New York Times bestselling author, whose books so many love, brings us a fresh, contemporary story of a woman and her unruly blended family

Lila Kennedy has a lot on her plate. A broken marriage, two wayward daughters, a house that is falling apart, and an elderly stepfather who seems to have quietly moved in. Her career is in freefall and her love life is... complicated. So when her real dad—a man she has barely seen since he ran off to Hollywood thirty-five years ago—suddenly appears on her doorstep, it feels like the final straw. But it turns out even the family you thought you could never forgive might have something to teach about love, and what it actually means to be family.]]> 450 Jojo Moyes 1984879324 Nancy 4 3.86 2025
author: Jojo Moyes
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/13
date added: 2025/03/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 22544024 The author of A Bridge Across the Ocean and The Last Year of the War journeys from the present day to World War II England, as two sisters are separated by the chaos of wartime...

Current day, Oxford, England. Young American scholar Kendra Van Zant, eager to pursue her vision of a perfect life, interviews Isabel McFarland just when the elderly woman is ready to give up secrets about the war that she has kept for decades...beginning with who she really is. What Kendra receives from Isabel is both a gift and a burden—one that will test her convictions and her heart.

1940s, England. As Hitler wages an unprecedented war against London’s civilian population, hundreds of thousands of children are evacuated to foster homes in the rural countryside. But even as fifteen-year-old Emmy Downtree and her much younger sister Julia find refuge in a charming Cotswold cottage, Emmy’s burning ambition to return to the city and apprentice with a fashion designer pits her against Julia’s profound need for her sister’s presence. Acting at cross purposes just as the Luftwaffe rains down its terrible destruction, the sisters are cruelly separated, and their lives are transformed...]]> 386 Susan Meissner Nancy 5 4.21 2015
author: Susan Meissner
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2015
rating: 5
read at: 2025/03/11
date added: 2025/03/11
shelves:
review:
A wonderful and well-crafted story!
]]> 212994452 'A modern-day Mrs. Caliban, BLOB is a book that looks at identity and desire in profoundly interesting ways'
Kevin Wilson, author of Nothing to See Here

A hilarious and moving debut novel about a young woman who decides to turn a sentient blob into her perfect boyfriend...

The daughter of a Taiwanese father and white mother, Vi Liu has never quite fit into her Midwestern college town. Now at twenty-three, after getting dumped and dropping out of college, Vi works as a front desk attendant at a hotel where she refills cucumber water samovars and fends off overtures of friendship from her bubbly blond coworker, Rachel. But when Vi decides to accompany Rachel to a local drag show, her life changes forever. In the alley outside the bar, next to a trash can, is a blob with beady black eyes. Unable to leave it behind, Vi picks up the creature and, in a moment of drunken desperation, takes it home with her.

As her pet blob becomes sentient, Vi realizes it obeys her commands and she decides to mold the blob into her ideal partner. She feeds it sugary cereal and a stream of pop culture, and soon the creature transforms into a movie-star handsome white man. But as Vi's desire to be loved unconditionally threatens to spiral out of control, she is forced to confront her lonely childhood, the ex-boyfriend who has unfriended her, and the racial marginalization that has defined her relationships. Ultimately, Vi embarks on a journey of self-discovery and learns that it's impossible to control those you love.

Blending the familiar with the fantastical, BLOB tells a witty, heartfelt story of what it means to be human.

'An inventive, utterly unique debut'
Kimberly King Parsons, author of Black Light]]> 256 Maggie Su 0063358646 Nancy 4 3.38 2025
author: Maggie Su
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves:
review:
Writing was very good. I didn't identify much with the main character, but creative story. I always love "fish out of water" stories.
]]> 207297957
Matt Rife is well aware that he’s both the most loved and the most controversial comic in America today. And honestly, he thinks that’s your problem.

Matt reveals (without apology, of course) what led him to becoming comedy’s biggest lightning rod before he reached thirty, in a story full of bold and hysterical takes on everything from Justin Bieber tramp stamps and rap battles with ex-cons to Matt’s struggles with depression and his many brushes with failure before finally hitting it big.

Born in trashy backwoods Ohio, Matt was saved by his foul-mouthed but loving grandpa Steve, who fostered his passion for standup. He started hitting comedy clubs before he could even drink, cutting his teeth in front of crowds who dared him to succeed. Matt honed a brand of razor-sharp, brutally honest standup that took no prisoners—and took him to the most famous stages of Atlanta and LA before he graduated high school. Along the way, he broke the hearts of MILFs everywhere, finally hit puberty at the ripe age of twenty-two, and never, ever backed down.

Full of Matt opening up, at his unfiltered best, about his life for the very first time, this book will give his millions of fans everything they want and more—and might even get his insecure enemies to change their minds.]]> 272 Matt Rife 1668060418 Nancy 3 3.83
author: Matt Rife
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.83
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/03/10
date added: 2025/03/10
shelves:
review:

]]> 27406704
When Britt-Marie walks out on her cheating husband and has to fend for herself in the miserable backwater town of Borg—of which the kindest thing one can say is that it has a road going through it—she finds work as the caretaker of a soon-to-be demolished recreation center. The fastidious Britt-Marie soon finds herself being drawn into the daily doings of her fellow citizens, an odd assortment of miscreants, drunkards, layabouts. Most alarming of all, she’s given the impossible task of leading the supremely untalented children’s soccer team to victory. In this small town of misfits, can Britt-Marie find a place where she truly belongs?]]> 324 Fredrik Backman 1501142534 Nancy 4 4.05 2014
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/03/06
date added: 2025/03/06
shelves:
review:
Charming. Will appeal to fans of Alexander McCall Smith and A Man Called Ove.
]]> 32822135
Archer's Voice is the story of a woman chained to the memory of one horrifying night and the man whose love is the key to her freedom. It is the story of a silent man who lives with an excruciating wound and the woman who helps him find his voice. It is the story of suffering, fate, and the transformative power of love.]]> 377 Mia Sheridan 1538727374 Nancy 4 4.14 2014
author: Mia Sheridan
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/28
date added: 2025/02/28
shelves:
review:

]]> 214151301 Set over the course of one day, a heart-racing story about a woman facing the unimaginable, determined to find safety

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when a massive earthquake hits Portland, Oregon. With no way to reach her husband, no phone or money, and a city left in chaos, she realizes there’s nothing to do but walk.

Making her way across the wreckage of Portland, Annie experiences human desperation and kindness: strangers offering help, a riot at a grocery store, and an unlikely friendship with a young mother. As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. She’s determined to change her life if she can just make it home.]]> 229 Emma Pattee 1668055473 Nancy 0 to-read 3.67 2025
author: Emma Pattee
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 36284785 William C. Morris YA Debut Award Winner!


A hilarious YA contemporary realistic novel about a witty Black French Canadian teen who moves to Austin, Texas, and experiences the joys, clichés, and awkward humiliations of the American high school experience—including falling in love. Perfect for fans of Nicola Yoon, When Dimple Met Rishi, and John Green.��This young adult novel is an excellent choice for accelerated tween readers in grades 7 to 8, especially during homeschooling. It’s a fun way to keep your child entertained and engaged while not in the classroom.


Norris Kaplan is clever, cynical, and quite possibly too smart for his own good. A Black French Canadian, he knows from watching American sitcoms that those three things don’t bode well when you are moving to Austin, Texas.

Plunked into a new high school and sweating a ridiculous amount from the oppressive Texas heat, Norris finds himself cataloging everyone he the Cheerleaders, the Jocks, the Loners, and even the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Making a ton of friends has never been a priority for him, and this way he can at least amuse himself until it’s time to go back to Canada, where he belongs.

Yet against all odds, those labels soon become actual people to Norris…like loner Liam, who makes it his mission to befriend Norris, or Madison the beta cheerleader, who is so nice that it has to be a trap. Not to mention Aarti the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, who might, in fact, be a real love interest in the making.

But the night of the prom, Norris screws everything up royally. As he tries to pick up the pieces, he realizes it might be time to stop hiding behind his snarky opinions and start living his life—along with the people who have found their way into his heart.]]> 384 Ben Philippe 0062824139 Nancy 4 3.76 2019
author: Ben Philippe
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/25
date added: 2025/02/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 176443920
When her new husband joins an elite Army unit, Simone Gorrindo is uprooted from New York City and dropped into Columbus, Georgia. With her husband frequently deployed, Simone is left to find her place in this new world, alone—until she meets the wives.

Gorrindo gives us an intimate look into the inner lives of a remarkable group of women and a tender, unflinching portrait of a marriage. A love story, an unforgettable coming-of-age tale, and a bracing tour of the intractable divisions that plague our country today, The Wives offers a rare and powerful gift: a hopeful stitch in the fabric of a torn America.]]> 416 Simone Gorrindo 1982178493 Nancy 4 3.73 2024
author: Simone Gorrindo
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 199605519
When Lydia takes a job running the Senior Citizens�� Social Club three afternoons a week, she assumes she’ll be spending her time drinking tea and playing gentle games of cards.

The members of the Social Club, however, are not at all what Lydia was expecting. From Art, a failed actor turned kleptomaniac to Daphne, who has been hiding from her dark past for decades to Ruby, a Banksy-style knitter who gets revenge in yarn, these seniors look deceptively benign—but when age makes you invisible, secrets are so much easier to hide.

When the city council threatens to sell the doomed community center building, the members of the Social Club join forces with their tiny friends in the daycare next door—as well as the teenaged father of one of the toddlers and a geriatric dog—to save the building. Together, this group’s unorthodox methods may actually work, as long as the police don’t catch up with them first.]]> 337 Clare Pooley 0593831497 Nancy 4 4.12 2024
author: Clare Pooley
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/24
date added: 2025/02/24
shelves:
review:

]]> 214151333 A breathless, riveting novel about a young woman diagnosed with bipolar disorder who rejects the stability and approval found in a traditionally “normal�� life for a career in stand-up comedy.

Maddy Banks is just like any other stressed-out freshman at NYU. Between schoolwork, exams, navigating life in the city, and a recent breakup, it’s normal to be feeling overwhelmed. It doesn’t help that she’s always felt like the odd one out in her picture-perfect Connecticut family. But Maddy’s latest low is devastatingly low, and she goes on an antidepressant. She begins to feel good, dazzling in fact, and she soon spirals high into a wild and terrifying mania that culminates in a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

As she struggles to find her way in this new reality, navigating the complex effects bipolar has on her identity, her relationships, and her life dreams, Maddy will have to figure out how to manage being both too much and not enough.

With her signature “deep empathy and insight�� (Booklist), Harvard-trained neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author Lisa Genova has crafted another profoundly moving novel that makes complicated mental health issues accessible and human. More or Less Maddy is destined to become another classic like Still Alice.]]> 368 Lisa Genova 1668026163 Nancy 4 4.21 2025
author: Lisa Genova
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.21
book published: 2025
rating: 4
read at: 2025/02/18
date added: 2025/02/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 214974562
Writer and podcaster Erin Moon has questions, and this book is her open letter for anyone who feels iffy, conflicted, or just downright devastated by this disconnect. With empathy, insight, and the therapy of memes and a good laugh, Erin maps out not a rigid prescription but an open-hearted pathway for you to reclaim what you once loved about your faith home and light a match to the rest.

As it turns out, God is not afraid of your questions. To the contrary, the fullness of the Christian story is found not in a certainty checklist but a vision of a people who wrestle with God. This is the story to which Erin turns and guides you through, as you

- understand the good, bad, ugly, and just plain bizarre of your faith origins
- find permission to lament, ask questions, and name pressure points
- make peace as you set your own new boundaries and rebuild

Consider this your open invitation to get gut-level honest about where it started, and heart-level hopeful about where it can go from here.]]> 256 Erin Hicks Moon 1540904083 Nancy 5 4.55 2025
author: Erin Hicks Moon
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.55
book published: 2025
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/17
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves:
review:
So timely. Lots to consider. Well done, Erin.
]]> 210943364
The first of the book’s three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist, Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the “steampunk�� city of “old traditions and new machinery,�� but everywhere he goes he feels as if he’s in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.

He takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he meets an educator whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates’s own books. There he discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed by the “racial reckoning�� of 2020. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over its public squares.

And in Palestine, Coates discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we’ve accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians—the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young, who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him—and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.

Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.]]> 232 Ta-Nehisi Coates 0593230388 Nancy 0 currently-reading 4.51 2024
author: Ta-Nehisi Coates
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/07
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> 203337138 From the New York Times bestselling co-author of Mad Honey comes an “inspiring�� (Elle) novel about two women, centuries apart—one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare’s plays—who are both forced to hide behind another name.

Young playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. But seeing it performed is unlikely, in a theater world where the playing field isn’t level for women. As Melina wonders if she dares risk failure again, her best friend takes the decision out of her hands and submits the play to a festival under a male pseudonym.

In 1581, young Emilia Bassano is a ward of English aristocrats. Her lessons on languages, history, and writing have endowed her with a sharp wit and a gift for storytelling, but like most women of her day, she is allowed no voice of her own. Forced to become a mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, who oversees all theatre productions in England, Emilia sees firsthand how the words of playwrights can move an audience. She begins to form a plan to secretly bring a play of her own to the stage—by paying an actor named William Shakespeare to front her work.

Told in intertwining timelines, By Any Other Name, a sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire centers two women who are determined to create something beautiful despite the prejudices they face. Should a writer do whatever it takes to see her story live on . . . no matter the cost? This remarkable novel, rooted in primary historical sources, ensures the name Emilia Bassano will no longer be forgotten.]]> 528 Jodi Picoult 0593497228 Nancy 5 4.12 2024
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/02/06
date added: 2025/02/06
shelves:
review:
An astounding novel. The juxtaposition of modern day and Elizabethan England combine to produce a story I will never forget. Thankful to know more about theories on a subject of which I was aware but had not known why.
]]> 213911757 You're invited to the lake house.

When newly engaged Sidney is out on a date with her fiance, she runs into an old flame, Cole, and his girlfriend. Initially, Sidney resists when Cole invites them to join his table but when the couples hit it off, she sets aside her reservations.

Soon after, Cole's invitation extends to a stay at their remote lake house.

What starts as a picturesque weekend unravels into a chilling nightmare when misunderstandings turn to paranoia and tensions reach a boiling point.


Sidney tries to escape when she realizes the truth.
Leaving was never an option.]]> 251 James Caine Nancy 2 3.74
author: James Caine
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.74
book published:
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/31
date added: 2025/01/31
shelves:
review:
Hated the protagonist. Found so many things unbelievable.
]]> 61369435 Includes a 30-Day fasting reset that uses the power of your cycle—even if you no longer have one!

A go-to fasting manual created specifically to address women’s needs based on their hormones and menstrual cycle by Dr. Mindy Pelz, a well-known expert on women and fasting, whose fast-growing YouTube channel has become the destination for women who want to learn about fasting.

Are you among the many women who feel unheard and unseen by their doctors and health professionals? Have you become exhausted by the promise of quick-fix diets that only leave you disappointed? Well in Fast Like a Girl, Dr. Mindy helps you to take back control of your health by using the quickest path back to better health—fasting.

While most fasting advice has been a one-size-fits-all approach that leaves women with more questions than answers, in this book Dr. Mindy shares the proven strategies, specific protocols to use if you are trying to overcome a condition, fasting hacks, and tools that she has used to help hundreds of thousands of women thrive with their fasting lifestyles.

Dr. Mindy will teach you:

· the rights steps on how to go from eating all day to intermittent fasting (13-15 hours)

· how to safely fast longer if you choose to do so (15-72 hours)

· how to time fasting according to your menstrual cycle (although if you don’t have a cycle, she has you covered)

· the best foods to break your fast to achieve better metabolic health

This book also includes more than 50 recipes based on the two food plans—ketobiotic and hormone feasting—she created to best support women’s hormones. And, it has recipes specifically created to break a fast such as her Coconut Cacao Chia Pudding.

Inspired by the thousands of women she has worked with who have reclaimed their health with fasting, Dr. Mindy wrote this book because, “once a woman knows how to build a fasting lifestyle around her cycle, she becomes unstoppable.”]]> 336 Mindy Pelz 1401969925 Nancy 3 A bit overwhelmed. 4.21
author: Mindy Pelz
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.21
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/27
date added: 2025/01/27
shelves:
review:
A bit overwhelmed.
]]> 45916267
But Khosrou's stories, stretching back years, and decades, and centuries, are beautiful, and terrifying, from the moment he, his mother, and sister fled Iran in the middle of the night, stretching all the way back to family tales set in the jasmine-scented city of Isfahan, the palaces of semi-ancient kings, and even the land of stories.

We bounce between a school bus of kids armed with paper clip missiles and spitballs, to the heroines and heroes of Kosrou's family's past, who ate pastries that made them weep, and touched carpets woven with precious gems.

Like Scheherazade in a hostile classroom, author Daniel Nayeri weaves a tale of Khosrou trying to save his own life: to stake his claim to the truth. And it is (a true story).

It is Daniel's.]]> 368 Daniel Nayeri Nancy 4 4.30 2020
author: Daniel Nayeri
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/24
date added: 2025/01/24
shelves:
review:
Started it over this week. So many beautiful truths woven into history and memories.
]]> 7173336
Days in the mountains become weeks, as their hope for rescue dwindles. How will they make it out of the wilderness and if they do, how will this experience change them forever? Heart-wrenching and unputdownable, The Mountain Between Us will reaffirm your belief in the power of love to sustain us.]]> 326 Charles Martin 0767927001 Nancy 4 4.14 2010
author: Charles Martin
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 195967140 A mind-bending, psychological thriller from Freida McFadden, the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Housemaid!

Lesson #1: trust no one

Eve has a good life. She gets up each day, gets a kiss from her husband Nate, and heads off to teach math at the local high school. All is as it should be. Except��

Last year, Caseham High was rocked by a scandal involving a student-teacher affair, with one student, Addie, at its center. But Eve knows there is far more to these ugly rumors than meets the eye.

Addie can't be trusted. She lies. She hurts people. She destroys lives. At least, that's what everyone says.

But nobody knows the real Addie. Nobody knows the secrets that could destroy her. And Addie will do anything to keep it quiet.

From the New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden comes a story of twisting secrets and long-awaited revenge.]]> 379 Freida McFadden 1728296218 Nancy 4 3.82 2024
author: Freida McFadden
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/23
date added: 2025/01/23
shelves:
review:

]]> 55711683 The New York Times bestselling author of the The Book of Lost Names returns with an evocative coming-of-age World War II story about a young woman who uses her knowledge of the wilderness to help Jewish refugees escape the Nazis—until a secret from her past threatens everything.

After being stolen from her wealthy German parents and raised in the unforgiving wilderness of eastern Europe, a young woman finds herself alone in 1941 after her kidnapper dies. Her solitary existence is interrupted, however, when she happens upon a group of Jews fleeing the Nazi terror. Stunned to learn what’s happening in the outside world, she vows to teach the group all she can about surviving in the forest—and in turn, they teach her some surprising lessons about opening her heart after years of isolation. But when she is betrayed and escapes into a German-occupied village, her past and present come together in a shocking collision that could change everything.

Inspired by incredible true stories of survival against staggering odds, and suffused with the journey-from-the-wilderness elements that made Where the Crawdads Sing a worldwide phenomenon, The Forest of Vanishing Stars is a heart-wrenching and suspenseful novel.]]> 376 Kristin Harmel 198215893X Nancy 4 4.22 2021
author: Kristin Harmel
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/14
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves:
review:
Probably more like 4 1/2 stars
]]> 75665890
After nearly winning the eleventh iteration of Rabbits, the mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses the entire world as its canvas, Emily Connors suddenly finds herself trapped in a dimensional stream where the game does not exist. At all. Except . . . why do sinister figures show up to stop her every time she goes looking? Does Rabbits truly not exist, or is it being hidden? And if it’s being hidden, why—and by whom?

Meanwhile, architect and theme park designer Rowan Chess is having the weirdest month of his life, full of odd coincidences and people who appear one moment and vanish the next, with no trace they ever even existed. The game that is hiding from Emily seems to have found Rowan—with a vengeance.

But only when Rowan and Emily meet do things start to get dangerous, for together they uncover a conspiracy far deeper and deadlier than either of them expected—one that could forever change the nature not only of the game, but of reality itself.]]> 432 Terry Miles 059349640X Nancy 3 3.96 2023
author: Terry Miles
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/13
date added: 2025/01/13
shelves:
review:

]]> 12287209
Or you'll get what you wish for.]]> 56 Hugh Howey Nancy 0 4.14 2012
author: Hugh Howey
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 59883984
First, there was the arrangement.
A simple, yet salacious fix to the problems looming in their marriage.
But when things took a tragic turn, Peter’s and Ainsley’s lives quickly fell into disarray.

Now, their secrets have been exposed.
They know the truth—about each other and their marriage.
As they struggle to move on from their past and the damage they’ve caused, new problems begin to surface.

Someone they love is hiding a catastrophic secret. The fragile ground they stand on is starting to crumble. Their family is being torn apart at the seams. And, maybe worst of all, a threat from the past is lurking, ready to unveil the things they’d kill to keep hidden.

They thought the nightmare they’d made it through was over, but the worst is just beginning��

Once, they vowed to do anything to make their marriage work.
Now, that vow will push every boundary they have left.

In order to survive, they’ll need to completely trust each other.
But can they?
Last time they did, things went terribly wrong��
This time, it might be worse.
If there’s one thing that’s certain, their secrets are too big to let anyone walk away alive.]]> 214 Kiersten Modglin Nancy 2 4.00 2022
author: Kiersten Modglin
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at: 2025/01/06
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves:
review:
First book was good. This one lost me. Went to crazytown. I finished it while thinking, just stop.
]]> 56484743 It’s what she prides herself on.

So, when she realizes her marriage is at its breaking point, she makes a decision to repair it, no matter the cost. Approaching her husband to propose the arrangement is supposed to be the hard part, but Peter agrees to the salacious plan almost immediately.

The rules are simple:
They will each date someone new once a week.
They will never discuss what happens on the dates.

Soon, though, the rules are broken, turning terrible mistakes into unspeakable consequences.

When the only person they can count on to keep their darkest secret is each other, new questions and deceits surface. Can they truly trust the person they share a life with, or will the vicious lies that have mounted over the years destroy everything they’ve built?

Once, Peter and Ainsley vowed to stand together forever, but as they push boundaries of deception, suspicion, and temptation, each begins to wonder if ’til death do us part may come sooner than they’d intended.]]> 228 Kiersten Modglin Nancy 3 4.09 2021
author: Kiersten Modglin
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 3
read at: 2025/01/04
date added: 2025/01/06
shelves:
review:
Definitely took a few unexpected turns. Planning to read #2
]]> 200028726 From the beloved author of We All Want Impossible Things, a moving, hilarious story of a family summer vacation full of secrets, lunch, and learning to let go.

For the past two decades, Rocky has looked forward to her family’s yearly escape to Cape Cod. Their humble beach-town rental has been the site of sweet memories, sunny days, great meals, and messes of all kinds: emotional, marital, and—thanks to the cottage’s ancient plumbing—septic too.

This year’s vacation, with Rocky sandwiched between her half-grown kids and fully aging parents, promises to be just as delightful as summers past—except, perhaps, for Rocky’s hormonal bouts of rage and melancholy. (Hello, menopause!) Her body is changing—her life is, too. And then a chain of events sends Rocky into the past, reliving both the tenderness and sorrow of a handful of long-ago summers.

It's one precious week: everything is in balance; everything is in flux. And when Rocky comes face to face with her family’s history and future, she is forced to accept that she can no longer hide her secrets from the people she loves.]]> 240 Catherine Newman 0063345161 Nancy 4 3.54 2024
author: Catherine Newman
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.54
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:

]]> 124745333 Six summers to fall in love. One summer to change everything.

Liv and Finn meet six summers ago working in a bar on the rugged Cornish coastline, their futures full of promise. When a night of passion ends in devastating tragedy they are bound together inextricably. But Finn’s life is in LA with his band, and Liv’s is in Cornwall with her family—so they make a promise. Finn will return every year, and if they are single they will spend the summer together.

This summer Liv crosses paths with Tom—a mysterious new arrival in her hometown. As the wildflowers and heather come into bloom, they find themselves falling for one another. For the first time Liv can imagine a world where her heart isn’t broken every autumn. Now Liv must make an impossible choice. And when she discovers the shocking reason that Tom has left home, she’ll need to trust her heart even more . . .]]> 441 Paige Toon 1529157927 Nancy 5 4.11 2024
author: Paige Toon
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2025/01/03
date added: 2025/01/03
shelves:
review:
I'm quite picky about romance books, but this one hit all the right marks for me.
]]> 1620913
The land of the Forest Dwellers has been decimated by the Horde under the watchful eye of the vilest of all creatures, Teeleh. Thomas Hunter, supreme commander of the Forest Guard, is forced to lower the recruitment age of his army from 18 to 16. From among thousands, four new recruits are chosen to lead--and perhaps die--for the greater good.

The chosen four are sent on a quest to prove their character, but their mission takes a dramatic turn when they are intercepted, sworn to secrecy, and redirected to a different endgame. Now they must find the seven lost Books of History. Books that have power over the past, present, and future. Books whose words are alive. Books sought by the Dark One that control not only the destiny of their world...but that of ours as well.]]> 260 Ted Dekker 159554657X Nancy 0 try-again-later 3.91 2007
author: Ted Dekker
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves: try-again-later
review:

]]> 59641216
So begins the riveting story of acclaimed actor Matthew Perry, taking us along on his journey from childhood ambition to fame to addiction and recovery in the aftermath of a life-threatening health scare. Before the frequent hospital visits and stints in rehab, there was five-year-old Matthew, who traveled from Montreal to Los Angeles, shuffling between his separated parents; fourteen-year-old Matthew, who was a nationally ranked tennis star in Canada; twenty-four-year-old Matthew, who nabbed a coveted role as a lead cast member on the talked-about pilot then called Friends Like Us. . . and so much more.

In an extraordinary story that only he could tell—and in the heartfelt, hilarious, and warmly familiar way only he could tell it—Matthew Perry lays bare the fractured family that raised him (and also left him to his own devices), the desire for recognition that drove him to fame, and the void inside him that could not be filled even by his greatest dreams coming true. But he also details the peace he’s found in sobriety and how he feels about the ubiquity of Friends, sharing stories about his castmates and other stars he met along the way. Frank, self-aware, and with his trademark humor, Perry vividly depicts his lifelong battle with addiction and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that is both intimate and eye-opening—as well as a hand extended to anyone struggling with sobriety. Unflinchingly honest, moving, and uproariously funny, this is the book fans have been waiting for.]]> 250 Matthew Perry 1250866448 Nancy 5 3.89 2022
author: Matthew Perry
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/11/20
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 198494052
Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism, until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with brutally killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. And he quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what is at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.

Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in the Commonwealth. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.

Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecution’s deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.

Over a decade in the writing, A Calamity of Souls breathes richly imagined and detailed life into a bygone era, taking the reader through a world that will seem both foreign and familiar.]]> 480 David Baldacci 1538765020 Nancy 4 4.38 2024
author: David Baldacci
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/30
date added: 2025/01/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 198281740
“What looks like magic is simply a part of life we don’t understand yet…��

When retired math teacher Grace Winters is left a run-down house on a Mediterranean island by a long-lost friend, curiosity gets the better of her. She arrives in Ibiza with a one-way ticket, no guidebook and no plan.

Among the rugged hills and golden beaches of the island, Grace searches for answers about her friend’s life, and how it ended. What she uncovers is stranger than she could have dreamed. But to dive into this impossible truth, Grace must first come to terms with her past.

Filled with wonder and wild adventure, this is a story of hope and the life-changing power of a new beginning.]]> 324 Matt Haig 0593489276 Nancy 5 3.45 2024
author: Matt Haig
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.45
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/12/29
date added: 2024/12/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 43708884
Here, you will find them together in this book of Charlie's most-loved drawings, adventuring into the Wild and exploring the thoughts and feelings that unite us all.]]> 128 Charlie Mackesy 1529105102 Nancy 0 to-read 4.56 2019
author: Charlie Mackesy
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 55481226 Conspiracies abound in this surreal and yet all-too-real technothriller in which a deadly underground alternate reality game might just be altering reality itself, set in the same world as the popular Rabbits podcast.

It's an average work day. You've been wrapped up in a task, and you check the clock when you come up for air��4:44 pm. You go to check your email, and 44 unread messages have built up. With a shock, you realize it is April 4th��4/4. And when you get in your car to drive home, your odometer reads 44,444. Coincidence? Or have you just seen the edge of a rabbit hole?

Rabbits is a mysterious alternate reality game so vast it uses our global reality as its canvas. Since the game first started in 1959, ten iterations have appeared and nine winners have been declared. Their identities are unknown. So is their reward, which is whispered to be NSA or CIA recruitment, vast wealth, immortality, or perhaps even the key to unlocking the secrets of the universe itself. But the deeper you get, the more deadly the game becomes. Players have died in the past—and the body count is rising.

And now the eleventh round is about to begin. Enter K—a Rabbits obsessive who has been trying to find a way into the game for years. That path opens when K is approached by billionaire Alan Scarpio, the alleged winner of the sixth iteration. Scarpio says that something has gone wrong with the game and that K needs to fix it before Eleven starts or the whole world will pay the price.

Five days later, Scarpio is declared missing. Two weeks after that, K blows the deadline and Eleven begins. And suddenly, the fate of the entire universe is at stake.]]> 422 Terry Miles 1984819658 Nancy 4 3.60 2021
author: Terry Miles
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/27
date added: 2024/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 60556912
Every day I clean the Winchesters�� beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.

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

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

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

They don’t know what I’m capable of��

An unbelievably twisty read that will have you glued to the pages late into the night. Anyone who loves The Woman in the Window, The Wife Between Us and The Girl on the Train won’t be able to put this down!]]> 329 Freida McFadden 1803144378 Nancy 0 4.31 2022
author: Freida McFadden
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.31
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at: 2024/02/27
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 204316949 From dealing with your mean teenage daughter to rebelling against the latest diet trend, America’s newest standup sensation packs a hilarious punch with her real talk about what it’s like to be a regular woman today. For a long time, no one pulling the strings in the comedy world thought that an over-fifty woman from rural Tennessee could make it in the industry. But Leanne Morgan has defied the odds, reaching millions with her musings on menopause, Weight Watchers, and her opposites-attract relationship with her husband, Chuck. In her charming, Southern-accented voice, Morgan brings readers inside her quest to find her calling after so many years trying to figure out what that meant. Along the way, she discusses everything from growing up as a butcher’s daughter, to her strategy for landing a husband with health insurance, to the glories of aging and the comfort of wearing big old grannie panties. Equal parts warm and hilarious,��this book is a must-read by one of comedy’s rising stars—reminding you that every time life leaves you asking, “What in the world?��, something good is going to come out of it someday.]]> 240 Leanne Morgan 0593594398 Nancy 4 4.34
author: Leanne Morgan
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.34
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 202102018 From the best-selling author of The Dog Stars, a novel about two men—friends since boyhood—who emerge from the woods of rural Maine to a dystopian country racked by bewildering violence

Every year, Jess and Storey have made an annual pilgrimage to the most remote corners of the country, where they camp, hunt, and hike, leaving much from their long friendship unspoken. Although the state of Maine has convulsed all summer with secession mania—a mania that has simultaneously spread across other states—Jess and Storey figure it’s a fight reserved for legislators or, worst-case scenario, folks in the capital.

But after weeks hunting off the grid, the men reach a small town and are shocked by what they find: a bridge blown apart, buildings burned to the ground, and bombed-out cars abandoned on the road. Trying to make sense of the sudden destruction all around them, they set their sights on finding their way home, dragging a wagon across bumpy dirt roads, scavenging from boats left in lakes, and dodging armed men—secessionists or U.S. military, they cannot tell—as they seek a path to safety. Then, a startling discovery drastically alters their path and the stakes of their escape.

Drenched in the beauty of the natural world and attuned to the specific cadences of male friendship, even here at the edge of doom, Burn is both a blistering warning about a divided country’s political strife and an ode to the salvation found in our chosen families.]]> 291 Peter Heller 0593801628 Nancy 3 3.51 2024
author: Peter Heller
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.51
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/12/25
date added: 2024/12/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 776407 180 A.A. Milne 0525444440 Nancy 0 4.37 1928
author: A.A. Milne
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.37
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 219876684 In a hilarious short story from New York Times bestselling author Fredrik Backman, the absurdities of modern life cause one man’s solitary world to spin suddenly, and comically, out of control.

Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone?

Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.

Told in Fredrik Backman’s singular witty style with sharply drawn characters and relatable antics, The Answer Is No is a laugh-out-loud portrait of a man struggling to keep to himself in a world that won’t leave him alone.]]> 68 Fredrik Backman 1662526520 Nancy 0 to-read 3.94 2024
author: Fredrik Backman
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 25574782
Now another girl has disappeared, with chilling echoes of the past. And it seems that she might not be the only one.

Claire is convinced Julia's disappearance is linked.

But when she begins to learn the truth about her sister, she is confronted with a shocking discovery, and nothing will ever be the same...]]> 432 Karin Slaughter 0062430874 Nancy 4 3.99 2015
author: Karin Slaughter
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/18
date added: 2024/12/18
shelves:
review:

]]> 41880044
When Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, they are blithely ignorant of all that's to come. By 2016, their four radically different daughters are each in a state of unrest: Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator-turned-stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt when the darkest part of her past resurfaces; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. Above it all, the daughters share the lingering fear that they will never find a love quite like their parents'.

As the novel moves through the tumultuous year following the arrival of Jonah Bendt--given up by one of the daughters in a closed adoption fifteen years before--we are shown the rich and varied tapestry of the Sorensons' past: years marred by adolescence, infidelity, and resentment, but also the transcendent moments of joy that make everything else worthwhile.]]> 532 Claire Lombardo 0385544251 Nancy 4 3.88 2019
author: Claire Lombardo
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/14
date added: 2024/12/14
shelves:
review:

]]> 18607160
Shocked and betrayed, Alix learns that Swanee has been leading a double life--secretly dating a girl named Liana the entire time she's been with Alix. Alix texts Liana from Swanee's phone, pretending to be Swanee in order to gather information before finally meeting face-to-face to break the news.

Brought together by Swanee's lies, Alix and Liana become closer than they'd thought possible. But Alix is still hiding the truth from Liana. Alix knows what it feels like to be lied to--but will coming clean to Liana mean losing her, too?]]> 256 Julie Anne Peters 0316234974 Nancy 4 3.69 2014
author: Julie Anne Peters
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 37798194 Tommy Orange's wondrous and shattering novel follows twelve characters from Native communities: all traveling to the Big Oakland Powwow, all connected to one another in ways they may not yet realize.

Among them is Jacquie Red Feather, newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind. Dene Oxendene, pulling his life together after his uncle's death and working at the powwow to honor his memory. Fourteen-year-old Orvil, coming to perform traditional dance for the very first time. Together, this chorus of voices tells of the plight of the urban Native American--grappling with a complex and painful history, with an inheritance of beauty and spirituality, with communion and sacrifice and heroism.

Hailed as an instant classic, There There is at once poignant and unflinching, utterly contemporary and truly unforgettable.]]> 293 Tommy Orange Nancy 4 3.98 2018
author: Tommy Orange
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2018
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/11
date added: 2024/12/11
shelves:
review:

]]> 42201959 In July 1913, twenty-five-year-old Annie Clements had seen enough of the world to know that it was unfair. She’s spent her whole life in the copper-mining town of Calumet, Michigan where men risk their lives for meager salaries—and had barely enough to put food on the table and clothes on their backs. The women labor in the houses of the elite, and send their husbands and sons deep underground each day, dreading the fateful call of the company man telling them their loved ones aren’t coming home. When Annie decides to stand up for herself, and the entire town of Calumet, nearly everyone believes she may have taken on more than she is prepared to handle.

In Annie’s hands lie the miners�� fortunes and their health, her husband’s wrath over her growing independence, and her own reputation as she faces the threat of prison and discovers a forbidden love. On her fierce quest for justice, Annie will discover just how much she is willing to sacrifice for her own independence and the families of Calumet.

From one of the most versatile writers in contemporary fiction, this novel is an authentic and moving historical portrait of the lives of the men and women of the early 20th century labor movement, and of a turbulent, violent political landscape that may feel startlingly relevant to today.]]> 352 Mary Doria Russell 1982109580 Nancy 4 4.08 2019
author: Mary Doria Russell
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 4
read at: 2024/12/02
date added: 2024/12/02
shelves:
review:

]]> 65214218 From Mary Kay Andrews, New York Times bestselling author of The Homewreckers and The Santa Suit, comes a novella celebrating love and the warm, glittering charm of the holiday season.

When fall rolls around, it’s time for Kerry Tolliver to leave her family’s Christmas tree farm in the mountains of North Carolina for the wilds of New York City to help her gruff older brother & his dog, Queenie, sell the trees at the family stand on a corner in Greenwich Village. Sharing a tiny vintage camper and experiencing Manhattan for the first time, Kerry’s ready to try to carve out a new corner for herself.

In the weeks leading into Christmas, Kerry quickly becomes close with the charming neighbors who live near their stand. When an elderly neighbor goes missing, Kerry will need to combine her country know-how with her newly acquired New York knowledge to protect the new friends she’s come to think of as family,

And complicating everything is Patrick, a single dad raising his adorable, dragon-loving son Austin on this quirky block. Kerry and Patrick’s chemistry is undeniable, but what chance does this holiday romance really have?

Filled with family ties, both rekindled and new, and sparkling with Christmas magic, Bright Lights, Big Christmas delivers everything Mary Kay Andrews fans adore, all tied up in a hilarious, romantic gem of a novel.]]> 288 Mary Kay Andrews 125028581X Nancy 4 3.74 2023
author: Mary Kay Andrews
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/27
date added: 2024/11/27
shelves:
review:

]]> 61431922 Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders...

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile�� humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die]]> 517 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Nancy 4 4.56 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.56
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/11/22
date added: 2024/11/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 176443295
1976: Rebecca “Becks�� Saint James has made a name for herself as the best hostess North Carolina has ever seen. Her annual summer suppers have become the stuff of legend, and locals and out-of-towners alike clamor for an invitation to her stunning historic home. But she’s struggling behind the façade. Becks strives to make the lives of those around her as easy as possible, but this summer she is facing a dilemma that even she can’t solve. And as the end of the season looms, she is brought to a decision she never wanted to make.

As both Keaton and Becks face new challenges and chapters, they are connected through time by the house on Sunset Lane, which has protected the secrets, hopes, and dreams of the women in their family for generations.]]> 384 Kristy Woodson Harvey 1668012197 Nancy 0 to-read 4.15 2024
author: Kristy Woodson Harvey
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.15
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/04
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 29397486
Behind the locked doors of the Sistine Chapel, one hundred and eighteen cardinals from all over the globe will cast their votes in the world’s most secretive election.

They are holy men. But they have ambition. And they have rivals.

Over the next seventy-two hours one of them will become the most powerful spiritual figure on earth.]]> 288 Robert Harris Nancy 0 to-read 4.03 2016
author: Robert Harris
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 101016900 The first in a crime series set in the Louisiana bayou, introducing the uncensored amateur sleuth Glory Broussard.

It’s a hot and sticky Sunday in Lafayette, Louisiana, and Glory has settled into her usual after-church routine, meeting gamblers at the local coffee shop, where she works as a small-time bookie. Sitting at her corner table, Glory hears that her best friend—a nun beloved by the community—has been found dead in her apartment. When police declare the mysterious death a suicide, Glory is convinced that there must be more to the story and, with her reluctant daughter, with troubles of her own, in tow, launches a shadow investigation in a town of oil tycoons, church gossips, and a rumored voodoo priestess. As a Black woman of a certain age who grew up in a segregated Louisiana, Glory is used to being minimized and overlooked. But she’s determined to make her presence known as the case leads her deep into a web of intrigue she never realized Lafayette could harbor.]]> 271 Danielle Arceneaux 1639364846 Nancy 4 3.73 2023
author: Danielle Arceneaux
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/10/29
date added: 2024/10/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 359410 Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.

Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?

This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned.]]> 277 Gabrielle Zevin Nancy 0 to-read 3.90 2005
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2005
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves: to-read
review:

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

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

Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow is a dazzling and intricately imagined novel that examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love. Yes, it is a love story, but it is not one you have read before.]]> 401 Gabrielle Zevin 0735243344 Nancy 5 4.12 2022
author: Gabrielle Zevin
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/30
date added: 2024/09/30
shelves:
review:
Lush and insightful. I dare not call myself a gamer, but I do have a handheld and have spent months of my life immersed in games, even if I wasn’t particularly good at them. For this reason the backdrop of video game design added an element that interested me into what was really a character driven novel, which are my favorite kind. Definitely one of the best books I’ve read in 2022, but not for everyone.
]]> 198137999
Summer 1999: Twentysomething Sawyer is striving to make it in New York. Between her assistant job in publishing, her secret dreams of becoming a writer, and her upcoming wedding to her college boyfriend, her is plate full. Only one problem: She is facing an incredibly lonely summer as her fiancé has been spending longer and longer hours at work . . . with an all-too-close female colleague, Kendra.

When Kendra’s boyfriend, Nick, invites Sawyer to meet up and compare notes about their suspicions, the meeting goes awry. She finds Nick cocky and cynical, and he finds her stuck in her own head. But then Nick seeks out Sawyer online to apologize, and a friendship develops.

Soon, Sawyer’s lonely summer takes an unexpected turn. She and Nick begin an unofficial ritual—exploring New York City together every summer Friday. From hot dogs on the Staten Island Ferry and Sea Breezes in a muggy East Village bar to swimming at Coney Island, Sawyer feels seen by Nick in a way that surprises her. He pushes her to be braver. To ask for what she wants. Meanwhile, Sawyer draws Nick out of his hard shell, revealing a surprisingly vulnerable side. They both begin living for their Friday afternoons together.

But what happens when the summer is over?]]> 432 Suzanne Rindell 0593473914 Nancy 0 to-read 3.94 2024
author: Suzanne Rindell
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.94
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/26
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 83818310 Five years ago, he broke her heart. Now, he’ll do anything to win her back.

FARRAH

When Farrah walked into her lunch meeting, she didn’t expect to see him.

Blake Ryan.
Her first love.
Her first heartbreak.
And now, her first client as a freelance interior designer.

It’s been five years, but she’ll never forget the way he shattered her.
He whispers pretty words, but she’ll never believe him.
Her body craves his, but she’ll never give him her heart.

Not again.
Not ever.

BLAKE

Money. Looks. A booming sports bar empire.
On the surface, Blake has it all.

But inside, he's haunted—both by nightmares of a tragic loss, and dreams of the girl he once betrayed.

When fate reunites them, he sees it as a sign:
It’s time to get the love of his life back.
No matter what it takes.


If the Sun Never Sets is book two of the If Love duet. It's a steamy, angsty second chance romance with plenty of groveling and an HEA.

Recommended for 18+ due to profanity and explicit content.]]> 304 Ana Huang Nancy 4 3.73 2020
author: Ana Huang
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 83818333 Every heart has a price.

She offered him $10,000 to seduce her father’s gold-digging fiancée.

He countered with $15,000 and a kiss—from her. At any time he chose.

Kris should’ve said no, but she was desperate to get rid of her stepmother-to-be, and the gorgeous actor with the wicked grin was perfect for the job.

So she agreed to his terms—not knowing that doing so would cost her a lot more than money and a kiss...

��

He did it for the money, which he desperately needed.

The kiss was just a bonus, or so he told himself.

Melting an ice princess like Kris started as a challenge, but by the time Nate realized there was more to Kris than meets the eye, it was too late: he had fallen.

But they’re not just from opposite sides of the track—they’re from different worlds. And when those worlds collide, Kris and Nate must decide whether they’re willing to give up what they have for what could be��

If Love Had a Price is book three in the If Love series but can be read as a complete standalone. It takes place between books one (If We Ever Meet Again) and two (If the Sun Never Sets). No cliffhanger!

Recommended for 18+ due to adult language and explicit content. ]]> 370 Ana Huang Nancy 3 3.82 2020
author: Ana Huang
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2024/09/22
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves:
review:

]]> 15716291 304 Charles de Lint Nancy 0 to-read 4.17 2013
author: Charles de Lint
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 10137823
As the son of a lowly chalkmaker at Armedius Academy, Joel can only watch as Rithmatist students learn the magical art that he would do anything to practice. Then students start disappearing—kidnapped from their rooms at night, leaving trails of blood. Assigned to help the professor who is investigating the crimes, Joel and his friend Melody find themselves on the trail of an unexpected discovery—one that will change Rithmatics—and their world—forever.]]> 378 Brandon Sanderson 0765320320 Nancy 0 to-read 4.23 2013
author: Brandon Sanderson
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 83818248
19-year-old Farrah Lin is going to fall in love for the first time during her year abroad in Shanghai. She's sure of it.

The only problem? Her would-be leading man is her new friend’s boyfriend.

There’s nothing worse than being in love with someone you can’t have...or at least, she thinks it’s love.

But if that’s true, why can’t she stop fantasizing about someone else, specifically the cocky blond athlete with the world’s biggest ego (and greatest dimples)?


***
Blake Ryan is—was—a college football star who shocked the sports world when he quit after his third national championship. Instead of dealing with the fallout, he escapes to Shanghai, where he vows to keep life simple.

No football. No commitments. No romance.

But no matter how hard he tries, he can’t keep a certain beautiful brunette off his mind...or out of his heart.

What starts as a physical attraction develops into something much deeper as Blake and Farrah get swept up in the magic of Shanghai—and each other. But they only have one year, and there are forces outside their control that threaten to rip them apart.

Can their relationship survive the test...or was it just not meant to be?

WARNING: This is the first book in a duet. It's a full-length novel with no sudden cliffhangers, but Blake and Farrah’s story concludes in book two, If the Sun Never Sets, which takes place five years later.

If We Ever Meet Again is a steamy strangers to friends to lovers romance. Recommended for 18+ due to adult language and explicit content.]]> 294 Ana Huang Nancy 4 3.53 2020
author: Ana Huang
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/17
date added: 2024/09/17
shelves:
review:

]]> 156023123
She’s learning, too.

Doug says he loves that Annie’s artificial intelligence makes her seem more like a real woman, but the more human Annie becomes, the less perfectly she behaves. As Annie's relationship with Doug grows more intricate and difficult, she starts to wonder whether Doug truly desires what he says he does. In such an impossible paradox, what does Annie owe herself?]]> 231 Sierra Greer 0063312697 Nancy 4 3.81 2024
author: Sierra Greer
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 159116833
The Bobiverse is a different place in the aftermath of the Starfleet War, and the days of the Bobs gathering in one big happy moot are far behind. There’s anti-Bob sentiment on multiple planets, the Skippies playing with an AI time bomb, and multiple Bobs just wanting to get away from it all.

But it all pales compared to what Icarus and Daedalus discover on their 26,000-year journey to the center of the galaxy. Sure, it could settle the Fermi Paradox for good (and what Bob doesn’t want to solve a mystery of the universe?). But it also reveals a threat to the galaxy greater than anything the Bobs could have imagined.

Just another average day in the Bobiverse.]]> 413 Dennis E. Taylor Nancy 5 4.25 2024
author: Dennis E. Taylor
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.25
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/16
date added: 2024/09/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 24987313 75 Lena Beckéus 1483550176 Nancy 0 to-read 3.62 2015
author: Lena Beckéus
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 56791389 Alternate cover edition of ASIN B08BKGYQXW


The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the universe: a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth—from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds—collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground.

The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the dungeon: an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe.

Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over. In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style.

You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big.

You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game—with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy.

They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.]]> 446 Matt Dinniman Nancy 0 to-read 4.48 2020
author: Matt Dinniman
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.48
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/31
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 32920306 I expected more of a reaction the first time I hit her.

Oliver Ryan, handsome, charismatic, and successful, has long been married to his devoted wife, Alice. Together they write and illustrate award-winning children’s books; their life together one of enviable privilege and ease—until, one evening after a delightful dinner, Oliver delivers a blow to Alice that renders her unconscious, and subsequently beats her into a coma.

In the aftermath of such an unthinkable event, as Alice hovers between life and death, the couple’s friends, neighbours, and acquaintances try to understand what could have driven Oliver to commit such a horrific act. As his story unfolds, layers are peeled away to reveal a life of shame, envy, deception, and masterful manipulation.]]> 320 Liz Nugent 1501167758 Nancy 4 3.71 2014
author: Liz Nugent
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2014
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/15
date added: 2024/08/15
shelves:
review:
I REALLY enjoyed this creative story!
]]> 197511201 Patrick O'Hara is called back to his guncle duties . . . This time for a big family wedding in Italy.

Patrick O’Hara is back. It’s been five years since his summer as his niece Maisie and nephew Grant’s caretaker after their mother’s passing. The kids are back in Connecticut with their dad, and Patrick has relocated to New York to remain close by and relaunch his dormant acting career. After the run of his second successful sit-com comes to a close, Patrick feels on top of the world . . . professionally. But some things have had to take a back seat. Looking down both barrels at fifty, Patrick is single again after breaking things off with Emory. But at least he has a family to lean on. Until that family needs to again lean on him.

When Patrick's brother, Greg, announces he’s getting remarried in Italy, Maisie and Grant are not thrilled. Patrick feels drawn to take the two back under his wing. As they travel through Europe on their way to the wedding, Patrick tries his best to help them understand love, much as he once helped them comprehend grief. But when they arrive in Italy, Patrick is overextended managing a groom with cold feet; his sister, Clara, flirting with guests left and right; a growing rivalry with the kids�� charming soon-to-be-launt (lesbian aunt), and two moody young teens trying to adjust to a new normal, all culminating in a disastrous rehearsal dinner.

Can Patrick save the day? Will teaching the kids about love help him repair his own love life? Can the change of scenery help Patrick come to terms with finally growing up?

Gracing the work with his signature blend of humor and heart, Steven Rowley charms with a beloved story about the complicated bonds of family, love, and what it takes to rediscover yourself, even at the ripe age of fifty.]]> 320 Steven Rowley 0593540468 Nancy 3 3.90 2024
author: Steven Rowley
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/09
date added: 2024/07/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 61237068 Happily Ever Afters meets You've Got Mail�� in this geeky, Black Girl Magic filled debut romance about cosplay and finding the courage to be yourself.��

Ramona Lambert is a typical shy, artistic sixteen-year-old. She has a best friend whom she’s known since they were in diapers; parents who love her; a love for cosplay; and a crush on the cute boy in her class.

The only problem? Her best friend moved away; her parents don't quite understand her love of cosplay; and she is pretty sure her crush has no idea she exists.����

To escape her troubles, Ramona turns to cosplay and her original character, Rel, who gives her the confidence and freedom that she lacks in real life. Embracing this confidence, she decides to strike up an email conversation with her crush, Caleb Woolf, from her cosplay account in the hopes getting to know him . . . and maybe win his heart. Then as Caleb and Ramona are swept up in their emails back and forth to each other, and Ramona falls even harder as he opens up about his hopes, insecurities, and his own geeky loves. However, as Caleb starts to grow closer and closer to Rel, he also strikes up a friendship with Ramona, who knows she can't keep the truth about Rel from Caleb but isn't sure she is ready to risk losing him. With an important cosplay convention coming up and the anxiety of her double-life weighing on her, Ramona has to decide if��she’ll hide behind her cosplay character forever or take the chance and let Caleb see the real her--because he might actually like her for who she is.]]> 272 Alisha Emrich 0762480688 Nancy 3 3.50
author: Alisha Emrich
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.50
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2024/07/09
date added: 2024/07/09
shelves:
review:

]]> 123182776 From New York Times bestselling author Lauren Layne--and her real life husband and high school sweetheart, Anthony LeDonne--comes a new holiday romcom that is sure to warm even the coldest heart.

Katherine, an ambitious NYC attorney, gets diagnosed with a concussion and must be monitored for 48 hours to make sure it doesn't get worse. Unfortunately, she forgot to update her emergency contact so the person they call is her ex-husband, Tom. Unable to be left alone, Katherine reluctantly agrees to travel to Chicago with Tom for the holidays. But thanks to a blizzard, what should have been a quick plane ride turns into an antagonistic overnight misadventure that stirs up old feelings even as Tom prepares to propose to his girlfriend on Christmas Eve.

A delightful meet-cute between The Proposal and Planes, Trains, and Automobiles, Emergency Contact is perfect for fans of Christina Lauren and Sally Thorne.]]> 250 Lauren Layne Nancy 4 Predictable but adorable. 3.88 2023
author: Lauren Layne
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/26
date added: 2024/06/26
shelves:
review:
Predictable but adorable.
]]> 2704877 183 Adolfo Best-Maugard 048626436X Nancy 0 try-again-later 3.46 1990
author: Adolfo Best-Maugard
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.46
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: try-again-later
review:

]]> 42972008
For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now �� just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity �� the rain clouds are lifting. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community �� its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs �� and a coming-of-age tale like no other. Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.]]> 400 Niall Williams 163557420X Nancy 0 try-again-later 4.17 2019
author: Niall Williams
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/06/25
shelves: try-again-later
review:

]]> 127305853
Women can be heroes. When twenty-year-old nursing student Frances "Frankie" McGrath hears these words, it is a revelation. Raised in the sun-drenched, idyllic world of Southern California and sheltered by her conservative parents, she has always prided herself on doing the right thing. But in 1965, the world is changing, and she suddenly dares to imagine a different future for herself. When her brother ships out to serve in Vietnam, she joins the Army Nurse Corps and follows his path.

As green and inexperienced as the men sent to Vietnam to fight, Frankie is over-whelmed by the chaos and destruction of war. Each day is a gamble of life and death, hope and betrayal; friendships run deep and can be shattered in an instant. In war, she meets—and becomes one of—the lucky, the brave, the broken, and the lost.

But war is just the beginning for Frankie and her veteran friends. The real battle lies in coming home to a changed and divided America, to angry protesters, and to a country that wants to forget Vietnam.

The Women is the story of one woman gone to war, but it shines a light on all women who put themselves in harm's way and whose sacrifice and commitment to their country has too often been forgotten. A novel about deep friendships and bold patriotism, The Women is a richly drawn story with a memorable heroine whose idealism and courage under fire will come to define an era.]]> 471 Kristin Hannah 1250178630 Nancy 4 I never thought Jamie was dead. (Rye surprised me). Frank/Frankie was such a huge dichotomy of strength and conformity.

Also, the amount of times her friends flew/drove back and forth didn't seem logical. (Nitpick)]]> 4.58 2024
author: Kristin Hannah
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/10
date added: 2024/06/10
shelves:
review:
I feel like a big fat traitor, but I thought it was predictable and very much like the Danielle Steele novels I read back in my twenties.
I never thought Jamie was dead. (Rye surprised me). Frank/Frankie was such a huge dichotomy of strength and conformity.

Also, the amount of times her friends flew/drove back and forth didn't seem logical. (Nitpick)
]]> 63241104 In this beautiful and moving novel about family, love, and growing up, Ann Patchett once again proves herself one of America’s finest writers.

In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.

Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.]]> 309 Ann Patchett 006332752X Nancy 4 3.92 2023
author: Ann Patchett
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/06/06
date added: 2024/06/06
shelves:
review:

]]> 61827543 Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective�� work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could �� because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands �� Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.]]> 339 Jesse Q. Sutanto 0593549228 Nancy 5 4.01 2023
author: Jesse Q. Sutanto
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
Delightful romp! Far fetched but adorable.
]]> 179439653
After twenty-three years of building careers and raising kids together, Jason and Nicole Elswick are ready for a break from their daily lives. Jason has spent years planning his dream sabbatical—ditching work for a nine-month-long motorcycle trip through South America. Problem is, that’s Jason’s dream, not Nicole’s. After years working retail and parenting in Portland, Nicole craves the sun of the Southwest and the artistic community in Santa Fe, where she wants to learn jewelry design.

A chance encounter at a dinner party presents a surprising—and intriguing—way out of their dilemma. Over a little too much wine, Jason and Nicole’s married neighbors sing the praises of the 500 Mile Rule: their policy of enjoying themselves however they wish—and with whomever they wish—when they’re temporarily far apart. It seems like the perfect solution: nine months pursuing their own adventures—with a bit of don’t-ask-don’t-tell—and then a return to their shared lives. It’ll be a sabbatical from their marriage as well as their day jobs. As Jason bikes his way across a continent and Nicole reclaims the art she’s long neglected, they discover the pleasures and pitfalls of the 500 Mile Rule, confronting temptations of all kinds, uncomfortable truths about themselves, and gaining new perspective on their partnership. But all sabbaticals come to an end…then what?]]> 288 Lian Dolan 0063270617 Nancy 5 3.64 2024
author: Lian Dolan
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/05/23
date added: 2024/05/23
shelves:
review:
Lian's writing gets better with every book and she's up there with the best writers now! I thought this premise to be original and the story kept me interested throughout. Can't wait for the next one!
]]> 198276006 I Cheerfully Refuse is the tale of Rainy, an aspiring musician setting sail on Lake Superior in search of his departed, deeply beloved, bookselling wife. An endearing bear of an Orphean narrator, he seeks refuge in the harbors, fogs, and remote islands of the inland sea. After encountering lunatic storms and rising corpses from the warming depths, he eventually lands to find an increasingly desperate and illiterate people, a malignant billionaire ruling class, a crumbled infrastructure, and a lawless society. As his guileless nature begins to make an inadvertent rebel of him, Rainy’s private quest for the love of his life grows into something wider and wilder, sweeping up friends and foes alike in his wake.]]> 336 Leif Enger 0802162932 Nancy 3 3.95 2024
author: Leif Enger
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2024
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves:
review:

]]> 123423832 Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back.

Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.

So when Dawn doesn't show up to the office one morning, her coworker Natalie Farrell—beautiful, popular, top sales rep five years running—is surprised. Then she receives an unsettling, anonymous phone call that changes everything��

It turns out Dawn wasn't just an awkward outsider—she was being targeted by someone close. And now Natalie is irrevocably tied to Dawn as she finds herself caught in a twisted game of cat and mouse that leaves her wondering: who's the real victim?

But one thing is incredibly clear: somebody hated Dawn Schiff. Enough to kill.

The Coworker is a tense, unputdownable thriller from New York Times bestselling author Freida McFadden that explores the dark ways the past can echo through the present―with deadly consequences.]]> 362 Freida McFadden 172829620X Nancy 3 3.68 2023
author: Freida McFadden
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2024/05/16
date added: 2024/05/16
shelves:
review:
This solidified for me that I'm just not interested in this kind of book. My mom loves them and keeps giving them to me. For all of you that love them, I'm so glad. It just wasn't for me.
]]> 33253215 real Avery or at least that’s what his adoptive parents tell him. And he never will be. But if he isn’t a real Avery, then who is he?

Born out of wedlock to a teenage girl cast out from her rural Irish community and adopted by a well-to-do if eccentric Dublin couple via the intervention of a hunchbacked Redemptorist nun, Cyril is adrift in the world, anchored only tenuously by his heartfelt friendship with the infinitely more glamourous and dangerous Julian Woodbead.

At the mercy of fortune and coincidence, he will spend a lifetime coming to know himself and where he came from �� and over his three score years and ten, will struggle to discover an identity, a home, a country and much more.

In this, Boyne's most transcendent work to date, we are shown the story of Ireland from the 1940s to today through the eyes of one ordinary man. The Heart's Invisible Furies is a novel to make you laugh and cry while reminding us all of the redemptive power of the human spirit.]]> 582 John Boyne Nancy 4 4.51 2017
author: John Boyne
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.51
book published: 2017
rating: 4
read at: 2023/08/28
date added: 2024/05/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 62926992
Lucy Hart knows better than anyone what it’s like to grow up without parents who loved her. In a childhood marked by neglect and loneliness, Lucy found her solace in books, namely the Clock Island series by Jack Masterson. Now a twenty-six-year-old teacher’s aide, she is able to share her love of reading with bright, young students, especially seven-year-old Christopher Lamb, who was left orphaned after the tragic death of his parents. Lucy would give anything to adopt Christopher, but even the idea of becoming a family seems like an impossible dream without proper funds and stability.

But be careful what you wish for. . . .

Just when Lucy is about to give up, Jack Masterson announces he’s finally written a new book. Even better, he’s holding a contest at his home on the real Clock Island, and Lucy is one of the four lucky contestants chosen to compete to win the one and only copy.

For Lucy, the chance of winning the most sought-after book in the world means everything to her and Christopher. But first she must contend with ruthless book collectors, wily opponents, and the distractingly handsome (and grumpy) Hugo Reese, the illustrator of the Clock Island books. Meanwhile, Jack “the Mastermind�� Masterson is plotting the ultimate twist ending that could change all their lives forever.

. . . You might just get it.]]> 304 Meg Shaffer 0593598830 Nancy 4 4.01 2023
author: Meg Shaffer
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/05/04
date added: 2024/05/04
shelves:
review:

]]> 78508 The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt’s harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

The River of Doubt—it is a black, uncharted tributary of the Amazon that snakes through one of the most treacherous jungles in the world. Indians armed with poison-tipped arrows haunt its shadows; piranhas glide through its waters; boulder-strewn rapids turn the river into a roiling cauldron.

After his humiliating election defeat in 1912, Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped, rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Together with his son Kermit and Brazil’s most famous explorer, Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, Roosevelt accomplished a feat so great that many at the time refused to believe it. In the process, he changed the map of the western hemisphere forever.

Along the way, Roosevelt and his men faced an unbelievable series of hardships, losing their canoes and supplies to punishing whitewater rapids, and enduring starvation, Indian attack, disease, drowning, and a murder within their own ranks. Three men died, and Roosevelt was brought to the brink of suicide. The River of Doubt brings alive these extraordinary events in a powerful nonfiction narrative thriller that happens to feature one of the most famous Americans who ever lived.
From the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest to the darkest night of Theodore Roosevelt’s life, here is Candice Millard’s dazzling debut.]]> 416 Candice Millard 0767913736 Nancy 3 4.18 2005
author: Candice Millard
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.18
book published: 2005
rating: 3
read at: 2024/04/29
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 54870208
The house may look respectable on the outside, but inside it’s a literal and figurative mess: clutter on every surface, IMPEACHMENT: Now More Than Ever bumper stickers on the doors, cereal and takeout for dinner. And even more troublesome (were Mary Jane’s mother to know, which she does not): The doctor is a psychiatrist who has cleared his summer for one important job—helping a famous rock star dry out. A week after Mary Jane starts, the rock star and his movie star wife move in.

Over the course of the summer, Mary Jane introduces her new household to crisply ironed clothes and a family dinner schedule, and has a front-row seat to a liberal world of sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll (not to mention group therapy). Caught between the lifestyle she’s always known and the future she’s only just realized is possible, Mary Jane will arrive at September with a new idea about what she wants out of life, and what kind of person she’s going to be.��]]> 320 Jessica Anya Blau 0063052296 Nancy 5 4.09 2021
author: Jessica Anya Blau
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/29
date added: 2024/04/29
shelves:
review:

]]> 452235 ��
For a young lawyer on the make, it was an offer Mitch McDeere couldn’t a position at a law firm where the bucks, billable hours, and benefits are over the top. It’s a dream job for an up-and-comer—if he can overlook the uneasy feeling he gets at the office. Then an FBI investigation into the firm’s connections to the Mafia plunges the straight and narrow attorney into a nightmare of terror and intrigue.��With no choice but to pit his wits, ethics, and legal skills against the firm’s deadly secrets—if he hopes to stay alive…]]> 501 John Grisham 044021145X Nancy 0 4.26 1991
author: John Grisham
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1991
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/25
shelves:
review:

]]> 8855321
Jim Holden is XO of an ice miner making runs from the rings of Saturn to the mining stations of the Belt. When he and his crew stumble upon a derelict ship, the Scopuli, they find themselves in possession of a secret they never wanted. A secret that someone is willing to kill for—and kill on a scale unfathomable to Jim and his crew. War is brewing in the system unless he can find out who left the ship and why.

Detective Miller is looking for a girl. One girl in a system of billions, but her parents have money and money talks. When the trail leads him to the Scopuli and rebel sympathizer Holden, he realizes that this girl may be the key to everything.

Holden and Miller must thread the needle between the Earth government, the Outer Planet revolutionaries, and secretive corporations—and the odds are against them. But out in the Belt, the rules are different, and one small ship can change the fate of the universe.]]> 592 James S.A. Corey 1841499889 Nancy 0 to-read 4.30 2011
author: James S.A. Corey
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.30
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> 59109077 A discarded painting in a junk pile, a skeleton in an attic, and the greatest racehorse in American history: from these strands, a Pulitzer Prize winner braids a sweeping story of spirit, obsession, and injustice across American history

Kentucky, 1850. An enslaved groom named Jarret and a bay foal forge a bond of understanding that will carry the horse to record-setting victories across the South. When the nation erupts in civil war, an itinerant young artist who has made his name on paintings of the racehorse takes up arms for the Union. On a perilous night, he reunites with the stallion and his groom, very far from the glamor of any racetrack.

New York City, 1954. Martha Jackson, a gallery owner celebrated for taking risks on edgy contemporary painters, becomes obsessed with a nineteenth-century equestrian oil painting of mysterious provenance.

Washington, DC, 2019. Jess, a Smithsonian scientist from Australia, and Theo, a Nigerian-American art historian, find themselves unexpectedly connected through their shared interest in the horse--one studying the stallion's bones for clues to his power and endurance, the other uncovering the lost history of the unsung Black horsemen who were critical to his racing success.

Based on the remarkable true story of the record-breaking thoroughbred Lexington, Horse is a novel of art and science, love and obsession, and our unfinished reckoning with racism.]]> 401 Geraldine Brooks 0399562966 Nancy 5 4.17 2022
author: Geraldine Brooks
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.17
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/12
date added: 2024/04/12
shelves:
review:
A really excellent narrative non-fiction detailing American horse-racing, equine art of the pre-Civil War period, as well as other artists of that time (Pollock). It’s one of the best books I’ve read in a long while.
]]> 63133205 The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.]]> 288 Britney Spears 1668009048 Nancy 4 3.83 2023
author: Britney Spears
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 28268515 Ignorance is bliss except in self-awareness...

What you don't know about yourself can hurt you and your relationships―and even keep you in the shallows with God. Do you want help figuring out who you are and why you're stuck in the same ruts? The Enneagram is an ancient personality typing system with an uncanny accuracy in describing how human beings are wired, both positively and negatively.

In The Road Back to You Ian Morgan Cron and Suzanne Stabile forge a unique approach―a practical, comprehensive way of accessing Enneagram wisdom and exploring its connections with Christian spirituality for a deeper knowledge of ourselves, compassion for others, and love for God. Witty and filled with stories, this book allows you to peek inside each of the nine Enneagram types, keeping you turning the pages long after you have read the chapter about your own number. Not only will you learn more about yourself, but you will also start to see the world through other people's eyes, understanding how and why people think, feel, and act the way they do. Beginning with changes you can start making today, the wisdom of the Enneagram can help take you further along into who you really are―leading you into places of spiritual discovery you would never have found on your own, and paving the way to the wiser, more compassionate person you want to become.]]> 238 Ian Morgan Cron 0830846190 Nancy 4 4.20 2016
author: Ian Morgan Cron
name: Nancy
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at: 2024/04/08
date added: 2024/04/08
shelves:
review:

]]> 36399096 We’ve been waiting for an hour. That’s what Audrey says. She states it with a little bit of an edge, her words just bordering on cursive. That’s the thing I think first. Not: Audrey Hepburn is at my birthday dinner, but Audrey Hepburn is annoyed.

At one point or another, we’ve all been asked to name five people, living or dead, with whom we’d like to have dinner. Why do we choose the people we do? And what if that dinner was to actually happen? These are the questions Rebecca Serle contends within her utterly captivating novel, The Dinner List, a story imbued with the same delightful magical realism as One Day, and the life-changing romance of Me Before You.

When Sabrina arrives at her thirtieth birthday dinner she finds at the table not just her best friend, but also three significant people from her past, and well, Audrey Hepburn. As the appetizers are served, wine poured, and dinner table conversation begins, it becomes clear that there’s a reason these six people have been gathered together.

Delicious but never indulgent, sweet with just the right amount of bitter, The Dinner List is a romance for our times. Bon appetit.]]> 288 Rebecca Serle Nancy 0 try-again-later 3.53 2018
author: Rebecca Serle
name: Nancy
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/04/01
shelves: try-again-later
review:

]]>