C.J.'s bookshelf: all en-US Sat, 19 Apr 2025 06:39:16 -0700 60 C.J.'s bookshelf: all 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg Texas Christmas Cover-Up 227888748 A hunt for the truth
could be deadly.

When widowed FBI agent Kara Evans returns to sell her late mother’s home, eager to shed reminders of her tragic past, she’s assaulted by a masked attacker. With the house ransacked and a daughter to protect, Kara must turn to her former love, police chief Jeremy Hamilton, to track down her assailant. But when the trail of clues leads to unanswered questions about her father’s cold case murder, it’s clear that someone is determined to keep Kara from uncovering the truth. As a string of new murders unfolds, can they expose this deadly plot before Kara is silenced forever?

From Love Inspired Courage. Danger. Faith.]]> Terri Reed 0369772415 C.J. 0 to-read 0.0 Texas Christmas Cover-Up
author: Terri Reed
name: C.J.
average rating: 0.0
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Montana Cowboy Family (Montana Cowboys #2)]]> 223395279 Temporary family.

Sadie Young, a schoolteacher with a haunted past, discovers one of her students and his sisters have been abandoned. Without hesitation, she brings them to the saftey of her own home. But when the rugged and principled Logan Marshall offers to help her care for the children until their family is found, Sadie's walls go up. If he finds out her dark secret, everything she has fought to build will crumble.

Logan's not about to risk his heart and well-being on half truths. The secrets that both Sadie and the children refuse to share make him guard his heart. But as he helps Sadie care for the children, his barriers are threatened. His duty grows into something more.

As they navigate the challenges of caring for the abandoned children and their growing attraction to each other, Sadie and Logan must confront their fears and learn to trust in love.

Will these children find the permanent home they want and deserve? And will Sadie and Logan open their hearts to each other and learn to trust in love?

(previously published with HQ, Love Inspired)]]> 288 Linda Ford C.J. 0 to-read 4.84 Montana Cowboy Family (Montana Cowboys #2)
author: Linda Ford
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.84
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/04/19
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II]]> 40595446 The never-before-told story of one woman's heroism that changed the course of the Second World War

In 1942, the Gestapo sent out an urgent transmission: "She is the most dangerous of all Allied spies. We must find and destroy her."

This spy was Virginia Hall, a young American woman--rejected from the foreign service because of her gender and her prosthetic leg--who talked her way into the spy organization deemed Churchill's "ministry of ungentlemanly warfare," and, before the United States had even entered the war, became the first woman to deploy to occupied France.

Virginia Hall was one of the greatest spies in American history, yet her story remains untold. Just as she did in Clementine, Sonia Purnell uncovers the captivating story of a powerful, influential, yet shockingly overlooked heroine of the Second World War. At a time when sending female secret agents into enemy territory was still strictly forbidden, Virginia Hall came to be known as the "Madonna of the Resistance," coordinating a network of spies to blow up bridges, report on German troop movements, arrange equipment drops for Resistance agents, and recruit and train guerilla fighters. Even as her face covered WANTED posters throughout Europe, Virginia refused order after order to evacuate. She finally escaped with her life in a grueling hike over the Pyrenees into Spain, her cover blown, and her associates all imprisoned or executed. But, adamant that she had "more lives to save," she dove back in as soon as she could, organizing forces to sabotage enemy lines and back up Allied forces landing on Normandy beaches. Told with Purnell's signature insight and novelistic flare, A Woman of No Importance is the breathtaking story of how one woman's fierce persistence helped win the war.]]> 352 Sonia Purnell 073522529X C.J. 0 to-read 4.08 2019 A Woman of No Importance: The Untold Story of the American Spy Who Helped Win World War II
author: Sonia Purnell
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Forced to Hide (Love Inspired Suspense)]]> 61329269
Will they be his next victims?

When multiple bombs tear through a courtroom, deputy US marshal Brian Forrester must assume guard duty of Judge Adele Weston. Someone wants her dead. Is it the cartel leader whose case she’s presiding over or an unknown killer from her past? With danger trailing them through the Texas countryside, they’ll have to find a safe haven before the next explosion finishes them off.

From Love Inspired Suspense: Courage. Danger. Faith.]]> 224 Terri Reed 1335587527 C.J. 0 4.40 2023 Forced to Hide (Love Inspired Suspense)
author: Terri Reed
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/03/02
shelves:
review:

]]> The Business Trip 211003858
Stephanie and Jasmine have nothing and everything in common. The two women don’t know each other but are on the same plane. Stephanie is on a business trip and Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. After a few days, they text their friends the same exact messages about the same man—the messages becoming stranger and more erratic.

And then the two women vanish. The texts go silent, the red flags go up, and the panic sets in. When Stephanie and Jasmine are each declared missing and in danger, it begs the questions: Who is Trent McCarthy? What did he do to these women� or what did they do to him?

Twist upon twist, layer upon layer, where nothing is as it seems, THE BUSINESS TRIP takes you on a descent into the depths of a mastermind manipulator. But who is playing who?]]> 344 Jessie Garcia 1250364418 C.J. 0 to-read 3.62 2025 The Business Trip
author: Jessie Garcia
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Arizona Triangle 199743735
On the cusp of forty, Justine Bailen, better known as Jo, works for an all-female detective agency based in Tucson, Arizona. While staking out a cheating spouse, she learns that her long-estranged best friend from childhood, Rose, is missing, and that Rose’s mother wants to hire Jo to find her. This case is all kinds of wrong for Jo, but she has no choice but to head back to her hometown, an hour north and a world away from Tucson.

Back in Delphi, she learns that her high school boyfriend, Tyler—who is probably part of the reason her friendship with Rose went south—is the cop assigned to the case. It doesn’t take long for Jo to realize that he’s all mixed up in it, too. To have any hope of learning the truth about Rose’s disappearance, Jo must finally face the demons she thought she’d escaped.]]> 304 Sydney Graves 0063379996 C.J. 0 to-read 3.34 The Arizona Triangle
author: Sydney Graves
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.34
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Treasure Hunters Club 208580624
WELCOME TO MAPLE BAY, NOVA SCOTIA

For nearly a century, people have ventured to the idyllic seaside town of Maple Bay in search of a legendary lost pirate treasure, but locals know there’s more than just gold buried in the sand. As the paths of three strangers converge in Maple Bay, the truth is about to be blown wide open. But not before the bodies start to pile up.

Peter Barnett is rapidly approaching 40 with little to show for it when a mysterious letter invites him to Maple Bay and the mansion his estranged family has called home for generations.

Seventeen-year-old Dandy Feltzen is isolated and adrift following the death of her beloved grandfather, until his final request and a tantalizing clue sets her on a mission to solve the mystery he spent his entire life chasing.

Cass Jones has given up on her dream of being a successful author when an unexpected opportunity lands in her a housesitting gig in remote Maple Bay, where she stumbles on the perfect subject matter for her breakout book—and the handsome sailor who might be just the person to help her research it.

Peter, Dandy and Cass have never met, but they’re on a collision course with each other and the mystery that has defined Maple Bay for two centuries, and none of them are prepared for the shocking truths that may or may not still be buried there.]]> 384 Tom Ryan 0802163637 C.J. 0 to-read 3.74 2024 The Treasure Hunters Club
author: Tom Ryan
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2025/02/17
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)]]> 204811915 People) of a novel about new friendships, old loves, and the very human desire to leave a mark on the world.

With her remarkable insight into the human condition and silences that contain multitudes, Elizabeth Strout returns to the town of Crosby, Maine, and to her beloved cast of characters—Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, Bob Burgess, and more—as they deal with a shocking crime in their midst, fall in love and yet choose to be apart, and grapple with the question, as Lucy Barton puts it, “What does anyone’s life mean?�

It’s autumn in Maine, and the town lawyer Bob Burgess has become enmeshed in an unfolding murder investigation, defending a lonely, isolated man accused of killing his mother. He has also fallen into a deep and abiding friendship with the acclaimed writer Lucy Barton, who lives down the road in a house by the sea with her ex-husband, William. Together, Lucy and Bob go on walks and talk about their lives, their fears and regrets, and what might have been. Lucy, meanwhile, is finally introduced to the iconic Olive Kitteridge, now living in a retirement community on the edge of town. They spend afternoons together in Olive’s apartment, telling each other stories. Stories about people they have known—“unrecorded lives,� Olive calls them—reanimating them, and, in the process, imbuing their lives with meaning.

Brimming with empathy and pathos, Tell Me Everything is Elizabeth Strout operating at the height of her powers, illuminating the ways in which our relationships keep us afloat. As Lucy says, “Love comes in so many different forms, but it is always love.”]]> 326 Elizabeth Strout 0593446097 C.J. 5 3.98 2024 Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)
author: Elizabeth Strout
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2025/01/14
shelves: beautifully-written, book-club-reads, classics, favorite-author, heartfelt, memorable-fiction
review:
This book in which everything happens, but nothing happens, is profound in its humanity, deeply moving, and one of my top 10 reads ever. I devoured it in two days and know I will want to re-read it soon.
]]> Small Things Like These 58662236
Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.]]> 128 Claire Keegan 0802158749 C.J. 0 to-read 4.13 2021 Small Things Like These
author: Claire Keegan
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/12/05
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Paris Novel 195430688
Stella reached for an oyster, tipped her head and tossed it back. It was cool and slippery, the flavor so briny it was like diving into the ocean... Oysters, she thought, where have they been all my life?

When her estranged mother dies, Stella is left with an unusual a one-way plane ticket and a note reading Go to Paris . But Stella is hardly cut out for adventure; a childhood trauma has kept her confined to the strict routines of her comfort zone. When her boss encourages her to take time off, Stella resigns herself to honoring her mother’s last wishes.

Alone in a foreign city, Stella falls into old habits, living cautiously and frugally. Then she stumbles across a vintage store where she tries on a fabulous Dior dress. The shopkeeper insists that this dress was meant for Stella and, for the first time in her life, Stella does something impulsive. She buys the dress and together they embark on an adventure.

Her first iconic brasserie Les Deux Magots, where Stella tastes her first oysters, and then meets an octogenarian art collector who decides to take her under his wing. As Jules introduces her to a veritable who’s who of the 1980s Paris literary, art, and culinary worlds, Stella begins to understand what it might mean to live a larger life.

As weeks—and many decadent meals—go by, Stella ends up living as a “tumbleweed� at famed bookstore Shakespeare & Company, uncovers a hundred-year-old mystery in a Manet painting, and discovers a passion for food that may be connected to her past. A feast for the senses, this novel is a testament to living deliciously, taking chances, and finding your true home.]]> 288 Ruth Reichl 0812996305 C.J. 0 currently-reading 3.67 2024 The Paris Novel
author: Ruth Reichl
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Briar Club 181110045 A haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, D.C. boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation’s capital, where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; police officer’s daughter Nora, who is entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Bea, whose career has ended along with the women’s baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy’s Red Scare.

Grace’s weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears apart the house, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: Who is the true enemy in their midst?]]> 432 Kate Quinn 0063244748 C.J. 0 to-read 4.26 2024 The Briar Club
author: Kate Quinn
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)]]> 181350367 For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate.... Now it's up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.

In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?

As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.]]> 358 Kristen Perrin 0593474015 C.J. 0 to-read 3.76 2024 How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files, #1)
author: Kristen Perrin
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)]]> 219449299 A brand new series. An iconic new detective duo. And a puzzling new murder to solve...

Steve Wheeler is enjoying retired life. He does the odd bit of investigation work, but he prefers his familiar habits and routines: the pub quiz, his favorite bench, his cat waiting for him when he comes home. His days of adventure are over: adrenaline is daughter-in-law Amy’s business now.

Amy Wheeler thinks adrenaline is good for the soul. As a private security officer, she doesn’t stay still long enough for habits or routines. She’s currently on a remote island keeping world-famous author Rosie D’Antonio alive. Which was meant to be an easy job...

Then a dead body, a bag of money, and a killer with their sights on Amy have her sending an SOS to the only person she trusts. A breakneck race around the world begins, but can Amy and Steve stay one step ahead of a lethal enemy?]]> 387 Richard Osman 059365322X C.J. 0 to-read 4.06 2024 We Solve Murders (We Solve Murders, #1)
author: Richard Osman
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/11/14
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Burning (Maeve Kerrigan, #1)]]> 10769683

A determined young police constable goes it alone against an enigmatic killer and her bosses in a series debut for fans of Sophie Hannah and Tana French

The Burning Man. It's the name the media has given a brutal murderer who has beaten four young women to death before setting their bodies ablaze in secluded areas of London's parks. And now there's a fifth.

Maeve Kerrigan is an ambitious detective constable, keen to make her mark on the murder task force. Her male colleagues believe Maeve's empathy makes her weak, but the more she learns about the latest victim, Rebecca Haworth, from her grieving friends and family, the more determined Maeve becomes to bring her murderer to justice. But how do you catch a killer no one has seen when so much of the evidence has gone up in smoke?

Maeve's frenetic hunt for a killer in Jane Casey's gripping series debut will entrance even the most jaded suspense readers.

]]> 368 Jane Casey 0312614179 C.J. 0 3.83 2010 The Burning (Maeve Kerrigan, #1)
author: Jane Casey
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at: 2024/11/07
date added: 2024/11/07
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Heir to Blackwood Library]]> 61155405
With the stroke of a pen, twenty-three-year-old Ivy Radcliffe becomes Lady Hayworth, owner of a sprawling estate on the Yorkshire moors. Ivy has never heard of Blackwood Abbey, or of the ancient bloodline from which she’s descended. With nothing to keep her in London since losing her brother in the Great War, she warily makes her way to her new home.

The abbey is foreboding, the servants reserved and suspicious. But there is a treasure waiting behind locked doors: a magnificent library. Despite cryptic warnings from the staff, Ivy feels irresistibly drawn to its dusty shelves, where familiar works mingle with strange, esoteric texts. And she senses something else in the library too, a presence that seems to have a will of its own. Ěý

Rumors swirl in the village about the abbey’s previous owners, about ghosts and curses, and an enigmatic manuscript at the center of it all. And as events grow more sinister, it will be up to Ivy to uncover the library’s mysteries in order to reclaim her own story—before it vanishes forever.

Lush, atmospheric and transporting, The Last Heir to Blackwood LibraryĚýis a skillful reflection on memory and female agency, and a love letter to books from a writer at the height of her power.]]> 336 Hester Fox 1525804782 C.J. 3 3.30 2023 The Last Heir to Blackwood Library
author: Hester Fox
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.30
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2024/10/28
shelves:
review:

]]> The Banned Books Club 203854082 She left her hometown following a scandal—but family loyalty is dragging her back�

Despite their strained relationship, when Gia Rossi’s sister, Margot, begs her to come home to Wakefield, Iowa, to help with their ailing mother, Gia knows she has no choice. After her rebellious and at-times-tumultuous teen years, Gia left town with little reason to look back. But she knows Margot’s borne the brunt of their mother’s care and now it’s Gia’s turn to help, even if it means opening old wounds.

As expected, Gia’s homecoming is far from welcome. There’s the Banned Books Club she started after the PTA overzealously slashed the high school reading list, which is right where she left it. But there is also Mr. Hart, her former favorite teacher. The one who was fired after Gia publicly and painfully accused him of sexual misconduct. The one who prompted Gia to leave behind a very conflicted town the minute she turned eighteen. The one person she hoped never to see again.

When Margot leaves town without explanation, Gia sees the cracks in her sister’s “perfect� life for the first time and plans to offer support. But as the town, including members of the book club, takes sides between Gia and Mr. Hart, everything gets harder. Fortunately, she learns that there are people she can depend on. And by standing up for the truth, she finds love and a future in the town she thought had rejected her.]]> 352 Brenda Novak 0778369595 C.J. 0 currently-reading 3.65 2024 The Banned Books Club
author: Brenda Novak
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.65
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves: currently-reading
review:

]]> The Frog Prince 137072 371 Jane Porter 0446694495 C.J. 5 3.34 2005 The Frog Prince
author: Jane Porter
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.34
book published: 2005
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/22
shelves:
review:

]]> Spanish Fly 2218284 400 Will Ferguson 0670066842 C.J. 0 to-read 3.87 2007 Spanish Fly
author: Will Ferguson
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2007
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Extinction (Cash & Colcord #1)]]> 65213662 370 Douglas Preston 0765317702 C.J. 0 to-read 3.88 2024 Extinction (Cash & Colcord #1)
author: Douglas Preston
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Mistress of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #1)]]> 49570871 The first in an unforgettable historical saga from the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Alice Network.


First-century Rome: A ruthless emperor watches over all--and fixes his gaze on one young woman...

Thea is a slave girl from Judaea, purchased as a toy for the spiteful heiress Lepida Pollia. Now she has infuriated her mistress by capturing the attention of Rome's newest and most savage gladiator--and though his love brings Thea the first happiness of her life, their affair ends quickly when a jealous Lepida tears them apart.

Remaking herself as a singer for Rome's aristocrats, Thea unwittingly attracts another admirer: the charismatic Emperor of Rome. But the passions of an all-powerful man come with a heavy price, and Thea finds herself fighting for both her soul and her sanity. Many have tried to destroy the Emperor: a vengeful gladiator, an upright senator, a tormented soldier, a Vestal Virgin. But in the end, the life of Domitian lies in the hands of one woman: the Emperor's mistress.]]> 470 Kate Quinn 0425232476 C.J. 0 to-read 3.88 2010 Mistress of Rome (The Empress of Rome, #1)
author: Kate Quinn
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2010
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bloomsbury Girls 58428207
Bloomsbury Books is an old-fashioned new and rare book store that has persisted and resisted change for a hundred years, run by men and guided by the general manager's unbreakable fifty-one rules. But in 1950, the world is changing, especially the world of books and publishing, and at Bloomsbury Books, the girls in the shop have plans:

Vivien Lowry: Single since her aristocratic fiance was killed in action during World War II, the brilliant and stylish Vivien has a long list of grievances - most of them well justified and the biggest of which is Alec McDonough, the Head of Fiction.

Grace Perkins: Married with two sons, she's been working to support the family following her husband's breakdown in the aftermath of the war. Torn between duty to her family and dreams of her own.

Evie Stone: In the first class of female students from Cambridge permitted to earn a degree, Evie was denied an academic position in favor of her less accomplished male rival. Now she's working at Bloomsbury Books while she plans to remake her own future.

As they interact with various literary figures of the time - Daphne Du Maurier, Ellen Doubleday, Sonia Blair (widow of George Orwell), Samuel Beckett, Peggy Guggenheim, and others - these three women with their complex web of relationships, goals and dreams are all working to plot out a future that is richer and more rewarding than anything society will allow.]]> 353 Natalie Jenner 1250276691 C.J. 0 to-read 3.79 2022 Bloomsbury Girls
author: Natalie Jenner
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Dear Mrs. Bird (The Emmy Lake Chronicles, #1)]]> 36373413 The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and Lilac Girls.

London 1940, bombs are falling. Emmy Lake is Doing Her Bit for the war effort, volunteering as a telephone operator with the Auxiliary Fire Services. When Emmy sees an advertisement for a job at the London Evening Chronicle, her dreams of becoming a Lady War Correspondent seem suddenly achievable. But the job turns out to be typist to the fierce and renowned advice columnist, Henrietta Bird. Emmy is disappointed, but gamely bucks up and buckles down.

Mrs Bird is very clear: Any letters containing Unpleasantness—must go straight in the bin. But when Emmy reads poignant letters from women who are lonely, may have Gone Too Far with the wrong men and found themselves in trouble, or who can’t bear to let their children be evacuated, she is unable to resist responding. As the German planes make their nightly raids, and London picks up the smoldering pieces each morning, Emmy secretly begins to write letters back to the women of all ages who have spilled out their troubles.

Prepare to fall head over heels with Emmy and her best friend, Bunty, who are spirited and gutsy, even in the face of events that bring a terrible blow. As the bombs continue to fall, the irrepressible Emmy keeps writing, and readers are transformed by AJ Pearce’s hilarious, heartwarming, and enormously moving tale of friendship, the kindness of strangers, and ordinary people in extraordinary times.]]> 281 A.J. Pearce 1501170066 C.J. 0 to-read 3.76 2018 Dear Mrs. Bird (The Emmy Lake Chronicles, #1)
author: A.J. Pearce
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Measure 58884736
"A story of love and hope as interweaving characters display: how all moments, big and small, can measure a life. If you want joy, love, romance, and hope—read with us." —Jenna Bush Hager
A luminous, spirit-lifting blockbuster that asks: would you choose to find out the length of your life?

Eight ordinary people. One extraordinary choice.

It seems like any other day. You wake up, drink a cup of coffee, and head out.

But today, when you open your front door, waiting for you is a small wooden box. The contents of this mysterious box tells you the exact number of years you will live.

From suburban doorsteps to desert tents, every person on every continent receives the same box. In an instant, the world is thrust into a collective frenzy. Where did these boxes come from? What do they mean? Is there truth to what they promise?

As society comes together and pulls apart, everyone faces the same shocking choice: Do they wish to know how long they’ll live? And, if so, what will they do with that knowledge?

The Measure charts the dawn of this new world through an unforgettable cast of characters whose decisions and fates interweave with one another: best friends whose dreams are forever entwined, pen pals finding refuge in the unknown, a couple who thought they didn’t have to rush, a doctor who cannot save himself, and a politician whose box becomes the powder keg that ultimately changes everything.

Enchanting and deeply uplifting, The Measure is an ambitious, invigorating story about family, friendship, hope, and destiny that encourages us to live life to the fullest.]]> 353 Nikki Erlick 0063204207 C.J. 0 to-read 3.96 2022 The Measure
author: Nikki Erlick
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Mayfair Bookshop 58510725
1938: She was one of the six sparkling Mitford sisters, known for her stinging quips, stylish dress, and bright green eyes. But Nancy Mitford’s seemingly dazzling life was really one of turmoil: with a perpetually unfaithful and broke husband, two Nazi sympathizer sisters, and her hopes of motherhood dashed forever. With war imminent, Nancy finds respite by taking a job at the Heywood Hill Bookshop in Mayfair, hoping to make ends meet, and discovers a new life.

Present Day: When book curator Lucy St. Clair lands a gig working at Heywood Hill she can’t get on the plane fast enough. Not only can she start the healing process from the loss of her mother, it’s a dream come true to set foot in the legendary store. Doubly exciting: she brings with her a first edition of Nancy’s work, one with a somewhat mysterious inscription from the author. Soon, she discovers her life and Nancy’s are intertwined, and it all comes back to the little London bookshop—a place that changes the lives of two women from different eras in the most surprising ways.]]> 432 Eliza Knight 0063070588 C.J. 0 to-read 3.62 2022 The Mayfair Bookshop
author: Eliza Knight
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> When the World Fell Silent 204208184
Nora Crowell wants more than her sister’s life as a wife and mother. As WWI rages across the Atlantic, she becomes a lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corp. But trouble is looming and it won’t be long before the truth comes to light.

Having lost her beloved husband in the trenches and with no-one else to turn to, Charlotte Campbell now lives with his haughty relations who treat her like the help. It is baby Aileen, the joy and light of her life, who spurs her to dream of a better life.

When tragedy strikes in Halifax Harbour, nothing for these two women will ever be the same again. Their paths will cross in the most unexpected way, trailing both heartbreak and joy its wake…]]> 376 Donna Jones Alward 0008647046 C.J. 5 4.32 2024 When the World Fell Silent
author: Donna Jones Alward
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/13
date added: 2024/10/13
shelves: beautifully-written, book-club-reads, heartfelt, heartwarming, historical-fiction, i-learned-something, memorable-fiction, page-turners, romantic
review:
This is a fascinating, heartbreaking, and ultimately life affirming novel about a fascinating event in Canadian history: the explosion of a munitions-bearing ship in the Halifax harbor in WWI. My heart went out to the two main POV characters: brave, strong women who step up to face the most challenging adversities. Most importantly the story is written with such grace, dignity and heart. I loved this book.
]]> <![CDATA[The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club, #3)]]> 197036052
The police bring Judith, Suzie, and Becks in to investigate the murder as civilian advisors right from the start, so they have free rein to interview suspects and follow the evidence to their heart's content� which is perfect because Judith has no time for rules and standard procedure. But this case has the Marlow Murder Club stumped. Who would want to kill the affable mayor of Marlow? How did they even get the poison into his coffee? And is anyone else in danger? The Marlow Murder Club is about to face their most difficult case yet...]]> 272 Robert Thorogood 1728284473 C.J. 0 to-read 3.78 2024 The Queen of Poisons (The Marlow Murder Club, #3)
author: Robert Thorogood
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.78
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Death Comes to Marlow (Marlow Murder Club, #2)]]> 57366942
But during the soiree, there’s a crash from inside the house, and when the Marlow Murder Club rush to investigate, they are shocked to find the groom-to-be crushed to death in his study.

The study was locked from the inside, so the police don’t consider the death suspicious. But Judith disagrees. As far as she's concerned, Peter was murdered! And it’s up to the Marlow Murder Club to find the killer before he or she strikes again…]]> 366 Robert Thorogood 0008238316 C.J. 5 3.88 2023 Death Comes to Marlow (Marlow Murder Club, #2)
author: Robert Thorogood
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2024/10/06
date added: 2024/10/06
shelves:
review:
A delightful English puzzler with engaging, idiosyncratic main characters and a charming village setting. I absolutely loved it.
]]> <![CDATA[The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)]]> 58957615
Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit. Her mission? Kill or be killed. Suddenly the cold case has become red hot.

While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again?

From an upmarket spa to a prison cell complete with espresso machine to a luxury penthouse high in the sky, this third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club is full of the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect from Richard Osman's bestselling series.]]> 413 Richard Osman 0241512425 C.J. 5 4.32 2022 The Bullet That Missed (Thursday Murder Club, #3)
author: Richard Osman
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.32
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)]]> 55457493
Elizabeth has received a letter from an old colleague, a man with whom she has a long history. He's made a big mistake, and he needs her help. His story involves stolen diamonds, a violent mobster, and a very real threat to his life.

As bodies start piling up, Elizabeth enlists Joyce, Ibrahim and Ron in the hunt for a ruthless murderer. And if they find the diamonds too? Well, wouldn't that be a bonus?

But this time they are up against an enemy who wouldn't bat an eyelid at knocking off four septuagenarians. Can The Thursday Murder Club find the killer (and the diamonds) before the killer finds them?]]> 422 Richard Osman C.J. 5 4.36 2021 The Man Who Died Twice (Thursday Murder Club, #2)
author: Richard Osman
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)]]> 62226126
An old friend in the antiques business has been killed, and a dangerous package he was protecting has gone missing.

As the gang springs into action they encounter art forgers, online fraudsters and drug dealers, as well as heartache close to home.

With the body count rising, the package still missing and trouble firmly on their tail, has their luck finally run out? And who will be the last devil to die?]]> 421 Richard Osman 0241512441 C.J. 0 to-read 4.44 2023 The Last Devil to Die (Thursday Murder Club, #4)
author: Richard Osman
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/10/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Kidnapped Christmas Bride (Taming of the Sheenans #3; A Marietta Christmas #5)]]> 23616972
Trey Sheenan has cultivated his reputation as Marietta’s resident bad boy, until one day he lets things go too far and he loses everything—his freedom, his fiance McKenna Douglas, and his infant son.

McKenna has loved Trey since they were kids, but she’s had enough. When Trey is sent away for five years, McKenna is determined to do what’s right for her and baby TJ, which means putting her mistakes—namely Trey—behind her, and move on.

When Trey is released early, he returns to Marietta determined to beg McKenna’s forgiveness and become the father TJ needs him to be, only to discover that he’s too late. McKenna’s marrying local insurance agent Lawrence Joplin in a candlelight Christmas wedding.

Or is she?

Once again, Trey risks everything, but this time it’s for love�.and the memory of one perfect Christmas together as a family.

Taming of the Sheenan series
Book 1: Christmas at Copper Mountain
Book 2: Tycoon's Kiss
Book 3: The Kidnapped Christmas Bride]]> 206 Jane Porter 1942240252 C.J. 5 fun-read 4.16 2014 The Kidnapped Christmas Bride (Taming of the Sheenans #3; A Marietta Christmas #5)
author: Jane Porter
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2014
rating: 5
read at: 2014/12/01
date added: 2024/09/22
shelves: fun-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life]]> 18693910 A deeply rendered self-portrait of a lifelong surfer by the acclaimed New Yorker writer

Barbarian Days is William Finnegan’s memoir of an obsession, a complex enchantment. Surfing only looks like a sport. To initiates, it is something else entirely: a beautiful addiction, a demanding course of study, a morally dangerous pastime, a way of life. Raised in California and Hawaii, Finnegan started surfing as a child. He has chased waves all over the world, wandering for years through the South Pacific, Australia, Asia, Africa. A bookish boy, and then an excessively adventurous young man, he went on to become a distinguished writer and war reporter. Barbarian Days takes us deep into unfamiliar worlds, some of them right under our noses—off the coasts of New York and San Francisco. It immerses the reader in the edgy camaraderie of close male friendships annealed in challenging waves.

Finnegan shares stories of life in a whites-only gang in a tough school in Honolulu even while his closest friend was a Hawaiian surfer. He shows us a world turned upside down for kids and adults alike by the social upheavals of the 1960s. He details the intricacies of famous waves and his own apprenticeships to them. Youthful folly—he drops LSD while riding huge Honolua Bay, on Maui—is served up with rueful humor. He and a buddy, their knapsacks crammed with reef charts, bushwhack through Polynesia. They discover, while camping on an uninhabited island in Fiji, one of the world’s greatest waves. As Finnegan’s travels take him ever farther afield, he becomes an improbable anthropologist: unpicking the picturesque simplicity of a Samoan fishing village, dissecting the sexual politics of Tongan interactions with Americans and Japanese, navigating the Indonesian black market while nearly succumbing to malaria. Throughout, he surfs, carrying readers with him on rides of harrowing, unprecedented lucidity.

Barbarian Days is an old-school adventure story, an intellectual autobiography, a social history, a literary road movie, and an extraordinary exploration of the gradual mastering of an exacting, little understood art. Today, Finnegan’s surfing life is undiminished. Frantically juggling work and family, he chases his enchantment through Long Island ice storms and obscure corners of Madagascar.]]> 447 William Finnegan 1594203474 C.J. 0 to-read 4.27 2015 Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
author: William Finnegan
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Bel Canto 5826 318 Ann Patchett C.J. 5 3.93 2001 Bel Canto
author: Ann Patchett
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2001
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: beautifully-written, award-winners
review:
A stunning operatic achievement in novel form. Brava!
]]> <![CDATA[What We Buried (Greene and Kennicott #7)]]> 176443301
It’s been years since Daniel Kennicott’s brother, Michael, was shot and killed the night before he was about to depart for Gubbio, Italy. The case, never solved, has haunted Daniel ever since. Long suspecting the killing was tied to Michael’s planned trip but overwhelmed with grief, Daniel has put off going there—until now, the tenth anniversary of the murder.

As he’s about to leave, Daniel learns that his two mentors, detectives Ari Greene and Nora Bering, have been more involved in the investigation of Michael’s murder than he ever knew. And they’re concerned about Daniel’s safety. But why? Is Daniel risking his life—and those of others—by trying to uncover the truth?

When Daniel arrives in the bucolic Italian hill town, he learns the past has not been put to rest. Residents are still haunted by the brutal Nazi occupation, the brave acts of the local freedom fighters, and the swift savagery of German retribution.

And as Daniel delves into his family’s deadly connection to Gubbio, Ari Greene searches for a killer closer to home.

Inspired by the true story of the Forty Martyrs in Gubbio, Italy, during World War II, What We Buried is an extraordinary crime novel about troubled legacies, revenge, and the unbreakable bonds of family.]]> 320 Robert Rotenberg 1982179643 C.J. 5
Good: A modern day mystery with roots in Nazi atrocities from WWII, with richly drawn characters (especially Pam, but many, many others) told in a smooth, elegant prose.

Bad: Not much. The ending may not satisfy all.

Good: Really effective and creative writing. I'd love to take a writing course from this guy!]]> 3.75 2024 What We Buried (Greene and Kennicott #7)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2024
rating: 5
read at: 2024/09/08
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: beautifully-written, enjoyable-mystery-series
review:
I had a long travel day and this book was the perfect companion.

Good: A modern day mystery with roots in Nazi atrocities from WWII, with richly drawn characters (especially Pam, but many, many others) told in a smooth, elegant prose.

Bad: Not much. The ending may not satisfy all.

Good: Really effective and creative writing. I'd love to take a writing course from this guy!
]]> <![CDATA[Heart of the City (Greene and Kennicott, #5)]]> 34125726
When Detective Ari Greene was charged with the murder of the woman he loved, he stopped at nothing to clear his name and uncover the real killer. After his acquittal, Greene fled to London to get away from it all, but now he’s back. And he’s not alone—with Greene is his twenty-year-old daughter, Alison. The child he never knew he had.

Determined to leave his life as a cop behind him, Greene gets a job on a construction site for one of Toronto’s many new condos. It seems he has finally found peace as he settles into a new career and new role as a father, helping Alison adjust to life in Canada.

But when Greene stumbles upon the corpse of hated developer Livingston Fox, he is plunged back into the life he tried so hard to leave behind. As the body count rises, Greene is forced into a reluctant reconciliation with his former protégé, Daniel Kennicott. The pair must delve into the tight-knit world of downtown development, navigating tangled loyalties, unexpected corruption, and family secrets, some of which are closer to home than Greene could have ever imagined.

In a world where the stakes are high and the profits are even higher, Greene and Kennicott race against the clock as they follow the trail of blood and money to its shocking end.]]> Robert Rotenberg C.J. 0 to-read 3.79 2017 Heart of the City (Greene and Kennicott, #5)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stranglehold (Greene and Kennicott, #4)]]> 16074348
Ripped from the headlines, Stranglehold is bestselling author Robert Rotenberg’s most shocking book yet, featuring Detective Ari Greene in the fight of his life.

It is just after Labour Day and the city is kicking into gear. All eyes are on the hotly contested election for Toronto’s next mayor and crime is the big issue. Greene is no stranger to the worst of what the city has to offer, but even he is unprepared for what happens next when he stumbles upon a horrific homicide.

In one nightmare moment his world is flipped upside down. Soon Greene is pitted against his young protégé, Daniel Kennicott, who arrests him for first-degree murder. Tied down on house arrest as he awaits his trial, Greene has to find a way to clear his name, and also must face some very hard that he didn’t really know the people he believed in most; that there are unseen forces at work prepared to see him take the fall; and most of all, that he should never underestimate the price people will pay for love.

Eerily reminiscent of the scandal surrounding the current Toronto mayor, Stranglehold is Rotenberg’s fourth gripping mystery set on the streets and in the courtrooms of the city, capturing audiences with his masterful knowledge of the intricacies of the criminal justice system and feel for the emotions that make people tick.]]> 368 Robert Rotenberg 145164244X C.J. 0 to-read 4.14 2013 Stranglehold (Greene and Kennicott, #4)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Stray Bullets (Greene and Kennicott, #3)]]> 13497765
Rotenberg’s bestsellers do for Toronto what Ian Rankin has done for Edinburgh and Michael Connolly for Los Angeles.

In Stray Bullets, Rotenberg takes the reader to a snowy November night. Outside a busy downtown doughnut shop, gunshots ring out and a young boy is critically hurt. Soon Detective Ari Greene is on scene. How many shots were fired? How many guns? How many witnesses?

With grieving parents and a city hungry for justice, the pressure is on to convict the man accused of this horrible crime. Against this tidal-wave of indignation, defence counsel Nancy Parish finds herself defending her oldest, and most difficult, client.

But does anyone know the whole story?

Stray Bullets is Robert Rotenberg’s third intricate mystery set on the streets and, in the courtrooms, of Toronto.]]> 304 Robert Rotenberg 1451642350 C.J. 0 to-read 3.89 2012 Stray Bullets (Greene and Kennicott, #3)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2012
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Guilty Plea (Greene and Kennicott, #2)]]> 10592804
On the morning that his headline-grabbing divorce trial is set to begin, Terrance Wyler, youngest son of the Wyler Food dynasty, is found stabbed to death in the kitchen of his million-dollar home. Detective Ari Greene arrives minutes before the press and finds Wyler’s four-year-old son asleep upstairs. When Wyler’s ex-wife, a strange beauty named Samantha, shows up at her lawyer’s office with a bloody knife, it looks as if the case is over.

But Greene soon discovers the Wyler family has secrets they’d like to keep hidden, and they’re not the only ones. If there’s one thing Greene knows, it’s that the truth is never simple.]]> 336 Robert Rotenberg 141659289X C.J. 0 to-read 3.81 2011 The Guilty Plea (Greene and Kennicott, #2)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Old City Hall (Greene and Kennicott #1)]]> 4929544
Now all that should remain is legal procedure: document the crime scene, prosecute the case, and be done with it. The trouble is, Brace refuses to talk to anyone—including his own lawyer—after muttering those incriminating words. With the discovery that the victim was actually a self-destructive alcoholic, the appearance of strange fingerprints at the crime scene, and a revealing courtroom cross-examination, the seemingly simple case begins to take on all the complexities of a hotly–contested murder trial.]]> 384 Robert Rotenberg 0374225427 C.J. 0 to-read 3.68 2009 Old City Hall (Greene and Kennicott #1)
author: Robert Rotenberg
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/09/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Killer in King's Cove (Lane Winslow #1)]]> 29467155 A smart and enchanting postwar mystery written for fans of the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.


It is 1946, and war-weary young ex-intelligence officer Lane Winslow leaves London to look for a fresh start. When she finds herself happily settled into a sleepy hamlet nestled in the idyllic interior of British Columbia surrounded by a suitably eclectic cast of small-town characters she feels like she may finally be able to put her past to rest.

But then a body is discovered, the victim of murder, and although she works alongside the town’s inspectors Darling and Ames to discover who might have possibly have motivation to kill, she unknowingly casts doubt on herself. As the investigation reveals facts that she has desperately tried to keep a secret, it threatens to pull her into a vortex of even greater losses than the ones she has already endured.

A clever postwar mystery that will appeal to fan of historical mysteries with women sleuths like the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear or the Bess Crawford series by Charles Todd.]]> 432 Iona Whishaw 1771511982 C.J. 4 enjoyable-mystery-series 3.79 2015 A Killer in King's Cove (Lane Winslow #1)
author: Iona Whishaw
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2024/08/28
date added: 2024/08/28
shelves: enjoyable-mystery-series
review:
I love a good English-styled murder mystery--this one just happens to take place in the wilds of British Columbia in the post WWII period. The beautifully evoked setting, the cast of intriguing town characters, and the admirable "team" of Lane Winslow and Detective Darling made this book a winner for me.
]]> The Latecomer 57693566 From the New York Times bestselling author of The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz’s The Latecomer is a layered and immersive literary novel about three siblings, desperate to escape one another, and the upending of their family by the late arrival of a fourth.

The Latecomer follows the story of the wealthy, New York City-based Oppenheimer family, from the first meeting of parents Salo and Johanna, under tragic circumstances, to their triplets born during the early days of IVF. As children, the three siblings--Harrison, Lewyn, and Sally--feel no strong familial bond and cannot wait to go their separate ways, even as their father becomes more distanced and their mother more desperate. When the triplets leave for college, Johanna, faced with being truly alone, makes the decision to have a fourth child. What role will the “latecomer� play in this fractured family?

A complex novel that builds slowly and deliberately, The Latecomer touches on the topics of grief and guilt, generational trauma, privilege and race, traditions and religion, and family dynamics. It is a profound and witty family story from an accomplished author, known for the depth of her character studies, expertly woven storylines, and plot twists.]]> 439 Jean Hanff Korelitz 1250790794 C.J. 0 to-read 3.93 2022 The Latecomer
author: Jean Hanff Korelitz
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/21
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Eternal 40204619 What war destroys, only love can heal.

Elisabetta, Marco, and Sandro grow up as the best of friends despite their differences. Elisabetta is a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist; Marco the brash and athletic son in a family of professional cyclists; and Sandro a Jewish mathematics prodigy, kind-hearted and thoughtful, the son of a lawyer and a doctor. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, all of that begins to change as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis and altering the very laws that govern Rome. In time, everything that the three hold dear--their families, their homes, and their connection to one another--is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

As anti-Semitism takes legal root and World War II erupts, the threesome realizes that Mussolini was only the beginning. The Nazis invade Rome, and with their occupation come new atrocities against the city's Jews, culminating in a final, horrific betrayal. Against this backdrop, the intertwined fates of Elisabetta, Marco, Sandro, and their families will be decided, in a heartbreaking story of both the best and the worst that the world has to offer.

Unfolding over decades, Eternal is a tale of loyalty and loss, family and food, love and war--all set in one of the world's most beautiful cities at its darkest moment.]]> 480 Lisa Scottoline 052553976X C.J. 0 to-read 4.22 2021 Eternal
author: Lisa Scottoline
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.22
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin]]> 9938498
A mild-mannered professor from Chicago, Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the New Germany, she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodds experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler's true character and ruthless ambition.

Suffused with the tense atmosphere of the period, and with unforgettable portraits of the bizarre Goring and the expectedly charming—yet wholly sinister—Goebbels, In the Garden of Beasts lends a stunning, eyewitness perspective on events as they unfold in real time, revealing an era of surprising nuance and complexity. The result is a dazzling, addictively readable work that speaks volumes about why the world did not recognize the grave threat posed by Hitler until Berlin, and Europe, were awash in blood and terror.]]> 448 Erik Larson 0307408841 C.J. 0 to-read 3.87 2011 In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin
author: Erik Larson
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2011
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Broken Horses 54895726 The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about a life shaped by music in this candid, heartfelt, and intimate story.

Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, 14 times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood.

As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music.

In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes listeners through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art - from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat� in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over 15 years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans.

Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.]]> 336 Brandi Carlile 0593237242 C.J. 0 to-read 4.40 2021 Broken Horses
author: Brandi Carlile
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Frozen River 112975658 A gripping historical mystery inspired by the life and diary of Martha Ballard, a renowned 18th-century midwife who defied the legal system and wrote herself into American history.

Maine, 1789: When the Kennebec River freezes, entombing a man in the ice, Martha Ballard is summoned to examine the body and determine cause of death. As a midwife and healer, she is privy to much of what goes on behind closed doors in Hallowell. Her diary is a record of every birth and death, crime and debacle that unfolds in the close-knit community. Months earlier, Martha documented the details of an alleged rape committed by two of the town’s most respected gentlemen—one of whom has now been found dead in the ice. But when a local physician undermines her conclusion, declaring the death to be an accident, Martha is forced to investigate the shocking murder on her own.

Over the course of one winter, as the trial nears, and whispers and prejudices mount, Martha doggedly pursues the truth. Her diary soon lands at the center of the scandal, implicating those she loves, and compelling Martha to decide where her own loyalties lie.

Clever, layered, and subversive, Ariel Lawhon’s newest offering introduces an unsung heroine who refused to accept anything less than justice at a time when women were considered best seen and not heard. The Frozen River is a thrilling, tense, and tender story about a remarkable woman who left an unparalleled legacy yet remains nearly forgotten to this day.]]> 432 Ariel Lawhon 0385546874 C.J. 0 to-read 4.37 2023 The Frozen River
author: Ariel Lawhon
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store]]> 65678550
Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, which served the neighborhood's quirky collection of blacks and European immigrants, helped by her husband, Moshe, a Romanian-born theater owner who integrated the town's first dance hall. When the state came looking for a deaf black child, claiming that the boy needed to be institutionalized, Chicken Hill's residents—roused by Chona's kindess and the courage of a local black worker named Nate Timblin—banded together to keep the boy safe.

As the novel unfolds, it becomes clear how much the people of Chicken Hill have to struggle to survive at the margins of white Christian America and how damaging bigotry, hypocrisy, and deceit can be to a community. When the truth is revealed about the skeleton, the boy, and the part the town’s establishment played in both, McBride shows that it is love and community—heaven and earth—that ultimately sustain us.]]> 385 James McBride 0593422945 C.J. 0 to-read 3.83 2023 The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
author: James McBride
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/08/07
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Life On A Montana Ranch: Living Off The Land]]> 76704741 198 Stephen Hardiman C.J. 5 4.80 Life On A Montana Ranch: Living Off The Land
author: Stephen Hardiman
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.80
book published:
rating: 5
read at: 2024/04/27
date added: 2024/04/27
shelves: nature, true-story, i-learned-something, heartfelt
review:
I loved this account of a family living their dream on a Montana ranch. As someone who grew up on a farm (not a ranch) I could relate to a lot of the struggles and rewards of this life. And as someone who writes fiction set in rural Montana, I appreciated the up-close look at day-to-day and season-to-season routines. Thanks so much for sharing your story Stephen Hardiman. I do wish that our food producers were more fairly compensated for the risks they take and the hard work they do.
]]> <![CDATA[The Secret Scripture (McNulty Family)]]> 3419808
Told through their respective journals, the story that emerges is at once shocking and deeply beautiful. Refracted through the haze of memory and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope.]]> 300 Sebastian Barry 0571215289 C.J. 0 to-read 3.82 2008 The Secret Scripture (McNulty Family)
author: Sebastian Barry
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/03/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The River We Remember 101160844 In 1958, a small Minnesota town is rocked by the murder of its most powerful citizen, pouring fresh fuel on old grievances in this dazzling standalone novel.

On Memorial Day, as the people of Jewel, Minnesota gather to remember and honor the sacrifice of so many sons in the wars of the past, the half-clothed body of wealthy landowner Jimmy Quinn is found floating in the Alabaster River, dead from a shotgun blast. Investigation of the murder falls to Sheriff Brody Dern, a highly decorated war hero who still carries the physical and emotional scars from his military service. Even before Dern has the results of the autopsy, vicious rumors begin to circulate that the killer must be Noah Bluestone, a Native American WWII veteran who has recently returned to Jewel with a Japanese wife. As suspicions and accusations mount and the town teeters on the edge of more violence, Dern struggles not only to find the truth of Quinn’s murder but also put to rest the demons from his own past.

Caught up in the torrent of anger that sweeps through Jewel are a war widow and her adolescent son, the intrepid publisher of the local newspaper, an aging deputy, and a crusading female lawyer, all of whom struggle with their own tragic histories and harbor secrets that Quinn’s death threatens to expose.

Both a complex, spellbinding mystery and a masterful portrait of midcentury American life, The River We Remember is an unflinching look at the wounds left by the wars we fight abroad and at home, a moving exploration of the ways in which we seek to heal, and a testament to the enduring power of the stories we tell about the places we call home.]]> 432 William Kent Krueger 198217921X C.J. 0 to-read 4.19 2023 The River We Remember
author: William Kent Krueger
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants]]> 17465709 Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these lenses of knowledge together to show that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings are we capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learning to give our own gifts in return.]]> 408 Robin Wall Kimmerer 1571313354 C.J. 0 to-read 4.52 2013 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
author: Robin Wall Kimmerer
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.52
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Perma Red 237077 320 Debra Magpie Earling 0425190544 C.J. 0 to-read 4.06 2002 Perma Red
author: Debra Magpie Earling
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/13
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Passenger (The Passenger #1)]]> 60581087
Traversing the American South, from the garrulous barrooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.]]> 385 Cormac McCarthy 0593535227 C.J. 0 to-read 3.58 2022 The Passenger (The Passenger #1)
author: Cormac McCarthy
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.58
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/09
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Murder by the Book (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #1)]]> 38348958 Addie Greyborne loved working with rare books at the Boston Public Library—she even got to play detective, tracking down clues about mysterious old volumes. But she didn't expect her sleuthing skills to come in so handy in a little seaside town . . .

Addie left some painful memories behind in the big city, including the unsolved murder of her fiancé and her father's fatal car accident. After an unexpected inheritance from a great aunt, she's moved to a small New England town founded by her ancestors back in colonial times—and living in spacious Greyborne Manor, on a hilltop overlooking the harbor. Best of all, her aunt also left her countless first editions and other treasures—providing an inventory to start her own store.

But there's trouble from day one, and not just from the grumpy woman who runs the bakery next door. A car nearly runs Addie down. Someone steals a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Then, Addie's friend Serena, who owns a nearby tea shop, is arrested—for killing another local merchant. The police seem pretty sure they've got the story in hand, but Addie's not going to let them close the book on this case without a fight . .]]> 305 Lauren Elliott 1496720229 C.J. 0 to-read 3.68 2018 Murder by the Book (Beyond the Page Bookstore Mystery, #1)
author: Lauren Elliott
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/02/08
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Trust 58210933 An unparalleled novel about money, power, intimacy, and perception

Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly boundless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds, a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit.

Hernan Diaz's TRUST elegantly puts these competing narratives into conversation with one another—and in tension with the perspective of one woman bent on disentangling fact from fiction. The result is a novel that spans over a century and becomes more exhilarating with each new revelation.

At once an immersive story and a brilliant literary puzzle, TRUST engages the reader in a quest for the truth while confronting the deceptions that often live at the heart of personal relationships, the reality-warping force of capital, and the ease with which power can manipulate facts.]]> 402 Hernan Diaz 0593420314 C.J. 0 award-winners 3.77 2022 Trust
author: Hernan Diaz
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2024/01/16
shelves: award-winners
review:

]]> The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1) 55196813
Since Gran died a few months ago, twenty-five-year-old Molly has been navigating life's complexities all by herself. No matter—she throws herself with gusto into her work as a hotel maid. Her unique character, along with her obsessive love of cleaning and proper etiquette, make her an ideal fit for the job. She delights in donning her crisp uniform each morning, stocking her cart with miniature soaps and bottles, and returning guest rooms at the Regency Grand Hotel to a state of perfection.

But Molly's orderly life is upended the day she enters the suite of the infamous and wealthy Charles Black, only to find it in a state of disarray and Mr. Black himself dead in his bed. Before she knows what's happening, Molly's unusual demeanor has the police targeting her as their lead suspect. She quickly finds herself caught in a web of deception, one she has no idea how to untangle. Fortunately for Molly, friends she never knew she had unite with her in a search for clues to what really happened to Mr. Black—but will they be able to find the real killer before it's too late?

A Clue-like, locked-room mystery and a heartwarming journey of the spirit, The Maid explores what it means to be the same as everyone else and yet entirely different—and reveals that all mysteries can be solved through connection to the human heart.]]> 304 Nita Prose 0593356152 C.J. 4 3.71 2022 The Maid (Molly the Maid, #1)
author: Nita Prose
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2024/01/03
date added: 2024/01/03
shelves: fun-read, heartwarming, mystery
review:
A heartwarming read, perfect for relaxing post-Christmas.
]]> <![CDATA[Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty]]> 43868109 The highly anticipated portrait of three generations of the Sackler family, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions: Harvard, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Oxford, the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations to the arts and sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing OxyContin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis.

Empire of Pain is a masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, exhaustively documented and ferociously compelling.]]> 535 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385545681 C.J. 0 to-read 4.54 2021 Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/12/20
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Father of the Rain 7444174 Gardener Amory is a New England WASP who is beginning to feel the cracks in his empire. Nixon is about to be impeached, his wife is leaving him, and his worldview is rapidly becoming outdated. His daughter, Daley, has spent the first eleven years of her life carefully negotiating her parents� conflicting worlds: the liberal, socially committed realm of her mother, and the conservative, liquor-soaked life of her father. But when they divorce, and Gardiner’s basest impulses are unleashed, the chasm quickly widens and Daley feels herself stretched thinly across it.
As she grows into adulthood, Daley rejects the narrow world that nourished her father’s fears and prejudices, and embarks on her own separate life—until he hits rock bottom. Lured back home by the dream of getting her father sober and rebuilding a trust that was broken years ago, Daley risks losing everything she has found beyond him, including her new love, Jonathan, who represents so much of what Daley’s father claims to hate, and who has given her so much of what he could never provide.
Intimate in its detail yet epic in range, Father of the Rain is a raw, compelling journey into the emotional complexities, mercurial contours, and magnetic pull of family. It is also the stunning portrait of a deeply complex man and his daughter’s fierce, primal attachment to him.]]> 354 Lily King 0802119492 C.J. 4 favorite-author 3.95 2010 Father of the Rain
author: Lily King
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2010
rating: 4
read at: 2023/12/14
date added: 2023/12/14
shelves: favorite-author
review:

]]> The Shipping News 7354
A vigorous, darkly comic, and at times magical portrait of the contemporary American family, The Shipping News shows why E. Annie Proulx is recognized as one of the most gifted and original writers in America today.
(back cover)]]> 337 Annie Proulx 0743225422 C.J. 3 3.88 1993 The Shipping News
author: Annie Proulx
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 1993
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/31
shelves:
review:

]]> The Librarianist 62645180 From bestselling and award-winning author Patrick deWitt comes the story of Bob Comet, a man who has lived his life through and for literature, unaware that his own experience is a poignant and affecting narrative in itself.

Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.

Behind Bob Comet's straight-man facade is the story of an unhappy child's runaway adventure during the last days of the Second World War, of true love won and stolen away, of the purpose and pride found in the librarian's vocation, and of the pleasures of a life lived to the side of the masses. Bob's experiences are imbued with melancholy but also a bright, sustained comedy; he has a talent for locating bizarre and outsize players to welcome onto the stage of his life.

With his inimitable verve, skewed humor, and compassion for the outcast, Patrick deWitt has written a wide-ranging and ambitious document of the introvert's condition. The Librarianist celebrates the extraordinary in the so-called ordinary life, and depicts beautifully the turbulence that sometimes exists beneath a surface of serenity.]]> 352 Patrick deWitt 0063085127 C.J. 3 3.37 2023 The Librarianist
author: Patrick deWitt
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at:
date added: 2023/10/04
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Captured by Chocolate (Love at the Chocolate Shop, #11)]]> 35494925
After years of wandering the globe, Casey Michaels is tired and needs a break and while she didn’t plan on coming home for good, the idea is starting to grow on her. All she wants to do is spend time with her forever boyfriend, Dylan. But all she meets is suspicion as everyone waits for her to pack up her suitcase once again. To convince Dylan she’s home for good, she plans a grand gesture–a photography show celebrating Marietta life. And then, the phone rings. She’s needed in London…]]> 187 Steena Holmes 194677278X C.J. 0 4.19 2017 Captured by Chocolate (Love at the Chocolate Shop, #11)
author: Steena Holmes
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves:
review:

]]> The Perfect Secret 53329926
She was on cloud nine after accepting an offer of a lifetime. A simpler life that what you she was accustomed to. What could go wrong?
Ěý
Starla Bishop learned to survive in the foster-care-to-jail system in New YorkĚýCity. There she learned the tools and skills she put to work later to con jewel thieves, drug traffickers, and mobsters out their fortunes. Now fresh out of her latest stint in jail, she accepts a too-good-to-refuse offer—a perfect life on a silver platter. Starla has everything she ever wished for: a simpler life, a normal life, a new start with new job, a straight job—a receptionist for Soil and Springs Landscaping run by a famous botanist. And it got even better—a whirlwind romance and engagementĚýtoĚýher boss’sĚýcharmingĚýex-husband.
Ěý
ButĚýeverything comes with a price. When bodies start turning up in the gardens of her employer, Soil and Springs Landscaping, Starla and her fiancĂ© are hauled into jail for questioning. The revelation of Starla's secret, previous life and her special skills make her a prime suspect.
Ěý
How much doesĚýStarlaĚýwant the perfect life, and did she use her special skills to keep it, Ěýor is this just her biggest con yet?ĚýThe shocking truth is closer than anyone thinks?
Ěý
Everyone has secrets, some worth killing for.]]> 344 Steena Holmes 1987877241 C.J. 0 to-read 3.91 2020 The Perfect Secret
author: Steena Holmes
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.91
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Forgotten Ones 36223127 A spellbinding novel about an unspeakable secret that could destroy a family, from the New York Times bestselling author of Finding Emma.

Elle is a survivor. She’s managed to piece together a solid life from a childhood of broken memories and fairy tales her mom told her to explain away bad dreams. But weekly visits to her mother still fill Elle with a paralyzing fear she can’t explain. It’s just another of so many unanswered questions she grew up with in a family estranged by silence and secrets.

Elle’s world turns upside down when she receives a deathbed request from her grandfather, a man she was told had died years ago. Racked by grief, regrets, and a haunted conscience, he has a tale of his own to tell about her mother, an imaginary friend, and two strangers who came to the house one night and never left.

As Elle’s past unfolds, so does the truth—if she can believe it. She must face the reasons for her inexplicable dread. As dark as they are, Elle must listen—before her grandfather’s death buries the family’s secrets forever.]]> 345 Steena Holmes 1503939154 C.J. 0 to-read 4.07 2018 The Forgotten Ones
author: Steena Holmes
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Daisy Darker 59808050 The New York Times bestselling Queen of Twists returns…with a family reunion that leads to murder.

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

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

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

With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave readers reeling.]]> 352 Alice Feeney 1250843936 C.J. 0 to-read 3.75 2022 Daisy Darker
author: Alice Feeney
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Rock Paper Scissors 56269064 Think you know the person you married? Think again�

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts � paper, cotton, pottery, tin � and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.]]> 294 Alice Feeney 1250266106 C.J. 0 to-read 3.88 2021 Rock Paper Scissors
author: Alice Feeney
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/09/01
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Verity 59344312
Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read. Page after page of bone-chilling admissions, including Verity's recollection of what really happened the day her daughter died.

Lowen decides to keep the manuscript hidden from Jeremy, knowing its contents would devastate the already grieving father. But as Lowen's feelings for Jeremy begin to intensify, she recognizes all the ways she could benefit if he were to read his wife's words. After all, no matter how devoted Jeremy is to his injured wife, a truth this horrifying would make it impossible for him to continue to love her.]]> 336 Colleen Hoover 153872474X C.J. 0 to-read 4.29 2018 Verity
author: Colleen Hoover
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.29
book published: 2018
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/29
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Beach Read 52867387 A romance writer who no longer believes in love and a literary writer stuck in a rut engage in a summer-long challenge that may just upend everything they believe about happily ever afters.

Augustus Everett is an acclaimed author of literary fiction. January Andrews writes bestselling romance. When she pens a happily ever after, he kills off his entire cast.

They’re polar opposites.

In fact, the only thing they have in common is that for the next three months, they’re living in neighboring beach houses, broke, and bogged down with writer’s block.

Until, one hazy evening, one thing leads to another and they strike a deal designed to force them out of their creative ruts: Augustus will spend the summer writing something happy, and January will pen the next Great American Novel. She’ll take him on field trips worthy of any rom-com montage, and he’ll take her to interview surviving members of a backwoods death cult (obviously). Everyone will finish a book and no-one will fall in love. Really.]]> 371 Emily Henry 1984806734 C.J. 0 to-read 3.99 2020 Beach Read
author: Emily Henry
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2020
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/24
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories]]> 63934847 Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, with everything that readers love about her novels—the inventiveness, the verbal felicity, the sharp observations on human nature, and the deeply satisfying emotional wallop.

Nothing is quite as it seems in this collection of eleven dazzling stories. We meet a queen who makes a bargain she cannot keep; a secretary who watches over the life she has just left; a man who bets on a horse that may—or may not—have spoken to him.

A startling and funny feast for the imagination, these stories conjure a multiverse of subtly connected worlds while illuminating the webs of chance and connection among us all.]]> 212 Kate Atkinson 0385688237 C.J. 0 to-read 3.67 2023 Normal Rules Don't Apply: Stories
author: Kate Atkinson
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/22
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Happy Family 26245075 In Tracy Barone's mordantly funny debut, a fiercely independent woman is forced to come to terms with the family who raised her, the one who gave her away and the one she desperately wants.

Trenton, New Jersey, 1962: A pregnant girl staggers into a health clinic, gives birth, and flees. A foster family takes the baby in, and an unlikely couple, their lives unspooling from a recent tragedy, hastily adopts her.

Forty years and many secrets and lies later, Cheri Matzner is all grown up and falling apart. Ironic and unapologetic, she's a former cop-turned-disgruntled academic, a frustrated wife trying to get pregnant, an iconoclastic daughter bearing war-wounds from her overbearing mother and the deeply flawed but well-meaning father who has been dead for several years. Thrust into an odyssey of acceptance, Cheri discovers that sometimes it takes half a lifetime to come of age.

Written with a deep emotional intelligence and a biting wit, Happy Family weaves together the stories of the beautifully damaged people who have shaped Cheri's life--often in ways she has yet to discover. Asking if we can ever really know our parents outside their roles as our parents, Barone brilliantly explores the often vast divide between our beliefs about our families and the truth.]]> 393 Tracy Barone 0316342602 C.J. 4 3.37 2016 Happy Family
author: Tracy Barone
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.37
book published: 2016
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/08/16
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Promise Me Please, Cowboy (The 85th Copper Mountain Rodeo, #4)]]> 131798578 Marietta has a way of bringing people together�

Cowboy Chet Hardwick is in Marietta, Montana, to compete in the 85th Copper Mountain Rodeo. Chet’s not there to make any waves, he needs to focus on the rodeo, avoid his deadbeat father, and return home. But when the beautiful owner at his bed-and-breakfast needs assistance, Chet can’t resist stepping in to help.

After a life-altering accident, Amy Arden left her Wall Street job and impulsively bought Bramble House B&B. While she learns the ropes, she’s also determined to uncover a secret from her late mother’s past—Amy’s birth father. The staff aren’t happy with Amy’s new ideas and quit, leaving Amy struggling to keep the fully booked inn operating. She finds an unexpected ally in one of her guests, a handsome, lone wolf cowboy, who is surprisingly easy to talk to. But just as their friendship heats up, ghosts from both their pasts arrive at Bramble House.

Amy knows Chet is the man she wants, but as Chet receives news that will take him far from Marietta, will he find his way back to her?]]> C.J. Carmichael C.J. 0 to-read 4.69 Promise Me Please, Cowboy (The 85th Copper Mountain Rodeo, #4)
author: C.J. Carmichael
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.69
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/16
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life]]> 27213168
Yong, whose humor is as evident as his erudition, prompts us to look at ourselves and our animal companions in a new light—less as individuals and more as the interconnected, interdependent multitudes we assuredly are. The microbes in our bodies are part of our immune systems and protect us from disease. Those in cows and termites digest the plants they eat. In the deep oceans, mysterious creatures without mouths or guts depend on microbes for all their energy. Bacteria provide squids with invisibility cloaks, help beetles to bring down forests, and allow worms to cause diseases that afflict millions of people.

I Contain Multitudes is the story of these extraordinary partnerships, between the creatures we are familiar with and those we are not. It reveals how we humans are disrupting these partnerships and how we might manipulate them for our own good. It will change both our view of nature and our sense of where we belong in it.]]> 368 Ed Yong 0062368591 C.J. 0 to-read 4.16 2016 I Contain Multitudes: The Microbes Within Us and a Grander View of Life
author: Ed Yong
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/08/10
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Meaningful Life (New York Review Books Classics)]]> 3979476 214 L.J. Davis 1590173007 C.J. 0 to-read 3.60 1971 A Meaningful Life (New York Review Books Classics)
author: L.J. Davis
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.60
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/07/30
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway, #1)]]> 6688087 304 Elly Griffiths 0547229895 C.J. 0 3.88 2009 The Crossing Places (Ruth Galloway, #1)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.88
book published: 2009
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Chalk Pit (Ruth Galloway, #9)]]> 29910780
Meanwhile, DS Judy Johnson is investigating the disappearance of a local rough sleeper. The only trace of her is the rumour that she's gone 'underground'. This might be a figure of speech, but with the discovery of the bones and the rumours both Ruth and the police have heard of a vast network of old chalk-mining tunnels under King's Lynn, home to a vast community of rough sleepers, the clues point in only one direction. Local academic Martin Kellerman knows all about the tunnels and their history - but can his assertions of cannibalism and ritual killing possibly be true?

As the weather gets hotter, tensions rise. A local woman goes missing and the police are under attack. Ruth and Nelson must unravel the dark secrets of The Underground and discover just what gruesome secrets lurk at its heart - before it claims another victim.]]> 374 Elly Griffiths 1784296600 C.J. 0 4.06 2017 The Chalk Pit (Ruth Galloway, #9)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Last Remains (Ruth Galloway, #15)]]> 61812770 The discovery of a missing woman’s bones force Ruth and Nelson to finally confront their feelings for each other as they desperately work to exonerate one of their own in this not-to-be-missed Ruth Galloway mystery from USA Today bestselling author Elly Griffiths.

When builders discover a human skeleton during a renovation of a café, they call in archeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway, who is preoccupied with the threatened closure of her department and by her ever-complicated relationship with DCI Nelson. The bones turn out to be modern—the remains of Emily Pickering, a young archaeology student who went missing in 2002. Suspicion soon falls on Emily’s Cambridge tutor and also on another archeology enthusiast who was part of the group gathered the weekend before she disappeared—Ruth’s friend Cathbad.

As they investigate, Nelson and his team uncover a tangled web of relationships within the archeology group and look for a link between them and the café where Emily’s bones were found. Then, just when the team seem to be making progress, Cathbad disappears. The trail leads Ruth a to the Neolithic flint mines in Grimes Graves. The race is on, first to find Cathbad and then to exonerate him, but will Ruth and Nelson uncover the truth in time to save their friend?]]> 361 Elly Griffiths 0358726484 C.J. 5 4.23 2023 The Last Remains (Ruth Galloway, #15)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2023
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/15
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves: enjoyable-mystery-series, page-turners, romantic-mystery
review:
I am relatively new to Elly Griffiths and her wonderful Ruth Galloway series. What a pleasure it's been to come to this series with so many books ready and waiting. This latest, The Last Remains, is absolutely top notch with everything Elly Griffiths does so well: a fascinating setting, interesting flawed-yet-sympathetic characters, an intricate mystery, and gripping human drama. If you're an audiobook fan, Jane McDowell is a wonderful narrator.
]]> <![CDATA[The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway, #14)]]> 57039730 Pandemic lockdowns have Ruth Galloway feeling isolated from everyone but a new neighbor--until Nelson comes calling, investigating a decades-long string of murder-suicides that's looming ever closer. Three years after her late mother's death, Ruth is finally sorting through her things when she finds a curious relic: a decades-old photograph of Jean's Norfolk cottage with a peculiar inscription. Ruth returns to the cottage to uncover its meaning as Norfolk's first cases of COVID-19 make headlines, leaving her and Kate to shelter in place there. They struggle to stave off isolation by clapping for frontline workers each evening and befriending a kind neighbor, Zoe, from a distance. But when Nelson breaks quarantine to rush to Ruth's cottage and enlist her help in investigating a series of murder-suicides he has connected to an archeological discovery, he finds Zoe is hardly who she says she is. The further Nelson investigates these deaths, the closer they lead him to Ruth's friendly neighbor--until Ruth, Zoe, and Kate all go missing, and Nelson is left scrambling to find them before it's too late.]]> 375 Elly Griffiths 0358671396 C.J. 5 4.07 2022 The Locked Room (Ruth Galloway, #14)
author: Elly Griffiths
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/06/15
shelves:
review:

]]> <![CDATA[A Long Shadow (Chief Inspector Shadow Mystery #1)]]> 56787544 Old sins cast long shadows�

When the bodies of a young, homeless girl and a girl who disappeared thirty years ago are found on the same day, residents in the historic city of York are aghast. It seems unlikely the two cases are related, and yet some of the same players knew both victims. As Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow and his eager new partner, Sergeant Jimmy Chang, dive into their investigation, they uncover a complicated web of pop stars, pub owners, shopkeepers and old school friends who each have something to hide.

John Shadow is a man of contradictions. A solitary figure who shuns company, but is a keen observer of all he meets. A lover of good food, but whose fridge is almost always empty. He prefers to work alone and is perpetually trying to dodge his partner, who’s full of energy, modern ideas and theories.

But as the two men gradually learn to work together to solve the case, it’s clear that the past is never as far away as you think.]]> 226 H.L. Marsay 1952560845 C.J. 5 enjoyable-mystery-series 3.98 2021 A Long Shadow (Chief Inspector Shadow Mystery #1)
author: H.L. Marsay
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at: 2023/06/01
date added: 2023/06/01
shelves: enjoyable-mystery-series
review:
This is a new-to-me mystery series and one I really enjoyed. I loved the historic York setting and the cantankerous Inspector Shadow and his side-kick Jimmy. I look forward to more stories in the series.
]]> Homecoming 61683285
Sixty years later, Jess is a journalist in search of a story. Having lived and worked in London for almost twenty years, she now finds herself laid off from her full-time job and struggling to make ends meet. A phone call out of nowhere summons her back to Sydney, where her beloved grandmother, Nora, who raised Jess when her mother could not, has suffered a fall and been raced to the hospital.

Nora has always been a vibrant and strong presence: decisive, encouraging, young despite her years. When Jess visits her in the hospital, she is alarmed to find her grandmother frail and confused. It’s even more alarming to hear from Nora's housekeeper that Nora had been distracted in the weeks before her accident and had fallen on the steps to the attic—the one place Jess was forbidden from playing in when she was small.

At loose ends in Nora's house, Jess does some digging of her own. In Nora's bedroom, she discovers a true crime book, chronicling the police investigation into a long-buried tragedy: the Turner Family Tragedy of Christmas Eve, 1959. It is only when Jess skims through the book that she finds a shocking connection between her own family and this once-infamous crime—a crime that has never been resolved satisfactorily. And for a journalist without a story, a cold case might be the best distraction she can find�

An epic novel that spans generations, Homecoming asks what we would do for those we love, and how we protect the lies we tell. It explores the power of motherhood, the corrosive effects of tightly held secrets, and the healing nature of truth. Above all, it is a beguiling and immensely satisfying novel from one of the finest writers working today.]]> 547 Kate Morton 0063020890 C.J. 4 beautifully-written 4.00 2023 Homecoming
author: Kate Morton
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2023/05/29
date added: 2023/05/29
shelves: beautifully-written
review:
My recommendation is to read this one for the beautiful language, the memorable characters and the enchanting setting. The pace is leisurely and the plot holds few surprises but it's satisfying to see how the relationship between daughter/mother/grandmother shifts over time.
]]> Daisy Jones & The Six 40597810 Everyone knows DAISY JONES & THE SIX, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock ’n� roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.]]> 368 Taylor Jenkins Reid 1524798622 C.J. 0 to-read 4.20 2019 Daisy Jones & The Six
author: Taylor Jenkins Reid
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.20
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Diamond Eye 58490567 The New York Times bestselling author of The Rose Code returns with an unforgettable World War II tale of a quiet bookworm who becomes history's deadliest female sniper. Based on a true story.

In 1937 in the snowbound city of Kyiv, wry and bookish history student Mila Pavlichenko organizes her life around her library job and her young son--but Hitler's invasion of Ukraine and Russia sends her on a different path. Given a rifle and sent to join the fight, Mila must forge herself from studious girl to deadly sniper--a lethal hunter of Nazis known as Lady Death. When news of her three hundredth kill makes her a national heroine, Mila finds herself torn from the bloody battlefields of the eastern front and sent to America on a goodwill tour.

Still reeling from war wounds and devastated by loss, Mila finds herself isolated and lonely in the glittering world of Washington, DC--until an unexpected friendship with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and an even more unexpected connection with a silent fellow sniper offer the possibility of happiness. But when an old enemy from Mila's past joins forces with a deadly new foe lurking in the shadows, Lady Death finds herself battling her own demons and enemy bullets in the deadliest duel of her life.

Based on a true story, The Diamond Eye is a haunting novel of heroism born of desperation, of a mother who became a soldier, of a woman who found her place in the world and changed the course of history forever.]]> 435 Kate Quinn 0062943510 C.J. 0 to-read 4.26 2022 The Diamond Eye
author: Kate Quinn
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.26
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/05/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Lessons in Chemistry 58065033 390 Bonnie Garmus C.J. 5 4.23 2022 Lessons in Chemistry
author: Bonnie Garmus
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/05/09
shelves:
review:
Read (or listen to) this book and you will: Laugh out loud. Also cry. And be very glad you weren’t a young woman trying to be taken seriously in the fifties (unless you were).
]]> Demon Copperhead 60194162 "Anyone will tell you the born of this world are marked from the get-out, win or lose."

Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, this is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father's good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. In a plot that never pauses for breath, relayed in his own unsparing voice, he braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.

Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society. Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens' anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story. Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can't imagine leaving behind.]]> 560 Barbara Kingsolver 0063251922 C.J. 5 4.46 2022 Demon Copperhead
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.46
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2023/05/07
date added: 2023/05/07
shelves: book-club-reads, memorable-fiction
review:
Demon Copperhead is a unique creation, a memorable fictional character, and the ultimate underdog. His life is hard, and at times reading this story felt like a burden. But the language and the insights, the dashes of humor, and a faint glimmer of hope pulled me forward to an understated but lovely ending and a feeling of gratitude to Kingsolver for giving us this story.
]]> A Death at the Party 61273347 In this tense, spellbinding thriller set over the course of a single day, a woman prepares for a party that goes dreadfully wrong—for fans of Ashley Audrain and Lisa Jewell.

Nadine Walsh’s summer garden party is in full swing. The neighbors all have cocktails, the catered food is exquisite—everything’s going according to plan.

But Nadine—devoted wife, loving mother, and doting daughter—finds herself standing over a dead body in her basement while her guests clink glasses upstairs. What happened? How did it come to this?

Rewind to that morning, when Nadine is in her kitchen, making last-minute preparations before she welcomes more than a hundred guests to her home to celebrate her mother’s birthday. But her husband is of little help to her, her two grown children are consumed with their own concerns, and her mother—only her mother knows that today isn’t just a birthday party. It marks another anniversary as well.

Still, Nadine will focus just on tonight. Everyone deserves a celebration after the year they’ve had. A chance for fun. A chance to forget. But it’s hard to forget when Nadine’s head is swirling with secrets, haunting memories, and concerns about what might happen when her guests unite.]]> 304 Amy Stuart 1668009102 C.J. 4 3.53 2023 A Death at the Party
author: Amy Stuart
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at:
date added: 2023/04/21
shelves: mystery, psychological-thriller
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Home to River’s Edge (The Weaver Sisters, #1)]]> 81780570 She’s determined to start a new chapter, so why is she still drawn to a man from her past?

When Jasmine Weaver, the chief of staff to a powerful D.C. congresswoman, chose integrity, she didn’t anticipate ringing in the New Year disgraced, unemployed, and sleeping in her childhood bedroom. Now back in River’s Edge, Indiana, identical triplet Jazz has her sisters� support while she plans her next steps. She agrees to lead the committee for their high school’s fifteenth reunion, never dreaming that her co-chair is the man who broke her teenage heart.

As the new CEO of Walker Construction, Elias Walker has taken the family business to new levels of success. He’s buried himself in work to ease the grief of losing his fiancé several years earlier and wants nothing more than to be a carpenter again. Elias grudgingly agrees to co-chair the high school’s reunion committee, but when Jazz Weaver blows into town, suddenly anything seems possible.

These high school sweethearts have lived half their lives apart. Can they reinvent themselves back in the town where it all began?]]> 258 Nan Reinhardt 1959988123 C.J. 0 to-read 4.47 Home to River’s Edge (The Weaver Sisters, #1)
author: Nan Reinhardt
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.47
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> The Night Watchman 43721059
Thomas Wazhashk is the night watchman at the jewel bearing plant, the first factory located near the Turtle Mountain Reservation in rural North Dakota. He is also a Chippewa Council member who is trying to understand the consequences of a new “emancipation� bill on its way to the floor of the United States Congress. It is 1953 and he and the other council members know the bill isn’t about freedom; Congress is fed up with Indians. The bill is a “termination� that threatens the rights of Native Americans to their land and their very identity. How can the government abandon treaties made in good faith with Native Americans “for as long as the grasses shall grow, and the rivers run�?

Since graduating high school, Pixie Paranteau has insisted that everyone call her Patrice. Unlike most of the girls on the reservation, Patrice, the class valedictorian, has no desire to wear herself down with a husband and kids. She makes jewel bearings at the plant, a job that barely pays her enough to support her mother and brother. Patrice’s shameful alcoholic father returns home sporadically to terrorize his wife and children and bully her for money. But Patrice needs every penny to follow her beloved older sister, Vera, who moved to the big city of Minneapolis. Vera may have disappeared; she hasn’t been in touch in months, and is rumored to have had a baby. Determined to find Vera and her child, Patrice makes a fateful trip to Minnesota that introduces her to unexpected forms of exploitation and violence, and endangers her life.

Thomas and Patrice live in this impoverished reservation community along with young Chippewa boxer Wood Mountain and his mother Juggie Blue, her niece and Patrice’s best friend Valentine, and Stack Barnes, the white high school math teacher and boxing coach who is hopelessly in love with Patrice.

In the Night Watchman, Louise Erdrich creates a fictional world populated with memorable characters who are forced to grapple with the worst and best impulses of human nature. Illuminating the loves and lives, the desires and ambitions of these characters with compassion, wit, and intelligence, The Night Watchman is a majestic work of fiction from this revered cultural treasure.]]> 464 Louise Erdrich 0062671200 C.J. 5
Here is one of the ideas: "Things started going wrong, as far as Zhaanat was concerned, when places everywhere were named for people--political figures, priests, explorers--and not for the real things that happened in these places--the dreaming, the eating, the death, the appearance of animals."

Here's an example of the literature: "For a moment Zhaanat's face was exalted by ferocity, but then she slowly shifted her gaze to her daughter, and Patrice thought she was seeing her own face, lighted from below by a mirror of clouds and water. Yet it was only a bowl of soup that her mother was holding out to her, strong with bear meat and steaming hot."

]]> 4.05 2020 The Night Watchman
author: Louise Erdrich
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/04/18
date added: 2023/04/18
shelves: award-winners, book-club-reads
review:
The narrative and characters in this book slowly pull you in, and then subsume you. This book is a masterpiece. Both of ideas and literature.

Here is one of the ideas: "Things started going wrong, as far as Zhaanat was concerned, when places everywhere were named for people--political figures, priests, explorers--and not for the real things that happened in these places--the dreaming, the eating, the death, the appearance of animals."

Here's an example of the literature: "For a moment Zhaanat's face was exalted by ferocity, but then she slowly shifted her gaze to her daughter, and Patrice thought she was seeing her own face, lighted from below by a mirror of clouds and water. Yet it was only a bowl of soup that her mother was holding out to her, strong with bear meat and steaming hot."


]]> <![CDATA[Murder at Haven's Rock (Haven's Rock, #1)]]> 60784588 New York Times bestselling author Kelley Armstrong’s Rockton Novels had one of the most unique towns in crime fiction. Murder at Haven's Rock is a spinoff, a fresh start... with a few new dangers that threaten everything before it even begins.

Haven’s Rock, Yukon. Population: 0

Deep in the Yukon wilderness, a town is being built. A place for people to disappear, a fresh start from a life on the run. Haven’s Rock isn’t the first town of this kind, something detective Casey Duncan and her husband, Sheriff Eric Dalton, know first hand. They met in the original town of Rockton. But greed and deception led the couple to financing a new refuge for those in need. This time around, they get to decide which applicants are approved for residency.

There’s only one rule in Haven’s Rock: stay out of the forest. When two of the town's construction crew members break it and go missing, Casey and Eric are called in ahead of schedule to track them down. When a body is discovered, well hidden with evidence of foul play, Casey and Eric must find out what happened to the dead woman, and locate the still missing man. The woman stumbled upon something she wasn’t supposed to see, and the longer Casey and Eric don’t know what happened, the more danger everyone is in.]]> 340 Kelley Armstrong 1250865417 C.J. 0 to-read 3.99 2023 Murder at Haven's Rock (Haven's Rock, #1)
author: Kelley Armstrong
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/06
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Apollo Murders (Apollo Murders, #1)]]> 57007683 An exceptional debut thriller and “exciting journeyâ€� into the dark heart of the Cold War and the space race fromĚýNew York TimesĚýbestselling author and astronaut Chris Hadfield (Andy Weir, author of The Martian and Project Hail Mary).
Ěý
1973: a final, top-secret mission to the Moon. Three astronauts in a tiny spaceship, a quarter million miles from home. A quarter million miles from help.

NASA is about to launch Apollo 18. While the mission has been billed as a scientific one, flight controller Kazimieras "Kaz" Zemeckis knows there is a darker objective. Intelligence has discovered a secret Soviet space station spying on America, and Apollo 18 may be the only chance to stop it.

But even as Kaz races to keep the NASA crew one step ahead of their Russian rivals, a deadly accident reveals that not everyone involved is quite who they were thought to be. With political stakes stretched to the breaking point, the White House and the Kremlin can only watch as their astronauts collide on the lunar surface, far beyond the reach of law or rescue.
Ěý
Full of the fascinating technical detail that fans ofĚýThe MartianĚýloved, and reminiscent of the thrilling claustrophobia, twists, and tension ofĚýThe Hunt for Red October,ĚýThe Apollo MurdersĚýis a high-stakes thriller unlike any other. Chris Hadfield captures the fierce G-forces of launch, the frozen loneliness of space, and the fear of holding on to the outside of a spacecraft orbiting the Earth at 17,000 miles per hour as only someone who has experienced all of these things in real life can.
Ěý
Strap in and count down for the ride of a lifetime.]]> 480 Chris Hadfield 0316264539 C.J. 4 page-turners, thriller 3.86 2021 The Apollo Murders (Apollo Murders, #1)
author: Chris Hadfield
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/04/02
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: page-turners, thriller
review:
Chris Hadfield's book delivers the excitement of an Apollo space mission with the added thrill of murder and international espionage. While a lot of the technical descriptions went over my head, I appreciated the authenticity of the details. This is as close as I'll ever come to flying to the moon. Thank you Chris Hadfield. It's quite the ride.
]]> <![CDATA[Rabbit Remembered (Rabbit Angstrom #5)]]> 7745236 Set ten years after Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's death, RABBIT REMEMBERED returns listeners to the small Pennsylvania town where Harry's widow, Janice, and his son, Nelson, still reside. They are faced with a surprise when Annabelle, Harry's 39-year-old illegitimate daughter, arrives on the scene, bringing with her ghosts from the past.]]> John Updike 0739376497 C.J. 0 to-read 3.75 2002 Rabbit Remembered (Rabbit Angstrom #5)
author: John Updike
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2002
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rabbit at Rest (Rabbit Angstrom, #4)]]> 11666 606 John Updike 0449911942 C.J. 0 to-read 3.99 1990 Rabbit at Rest (Rabbit Angstrom, #4)
author: John Updike
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.99
book published: 1990
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rabbit Is Rich (Rabbit Angstrom, #3)]]> 85391
Ten years after Rabbit Redux, Harry Angstrom has come to enjoy prosperity as the Chief Sales Representative of Springer Motors. The rest of the world may be falling to pieces, but Harry's doing all right. That is, until his son returns from the West, and the image of an old love pays a visit to his lot....]]> 480 John Updike 0140249435 C.J. 0 to-read 3.92 1981 Rabbit Is Rich (Rabbit Angstrom, #3)
author: John Updike
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.92
book published: 1981
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rabbit Redux (Rabbit Angstrom, #2)]]> 46917 Rabbit, Run, John Updike resumes the spiritual quest of his anxious Everyman, Harry “Rabbit� Angstrom. Ten years have passed; the impulsive former athlete has become a paunchy thirty-six-year-old conservative, and Eisenhower’s becalmed America has become 1969’s lurid turmoil of technology, fantasy, drugs, and violence. Rabbit is abandoned by his family, his home invaded by a runaway and a radical, his past reduced to a ruined inner landscape; still he clings to semblances of decency and responsibility, and yearns to belong and to believe.]]> 440 John Updike 0449911934 C.J. 0 to-read 3.81 1971 Rabbit Redux (Rabbit Angstrom, #2)
author: John Updike
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1971
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> <![CDATA[Rabbit, Run (Rabbit Angstrom, #1)]]> 40656712 Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit� Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.]]> 337 John Updike C.J. 0 to-read 3.63 1960 Rabbit, Run (Rabbit Angstrom, #1)
author: John Updike
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.63
book published: 1960
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2023/04/02
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Five Little Indians 52214103
Alone and without any skills, support or families, the teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn’t want them. The paths of the five friends cross and crisscross over the decades as they struggle to overcome, or at least forget, the trauma they endured during their years at the Mission.

Fuelled by rage and furious with God, Clara finds her way into the dangerous, highly charged world of the American Indian Movement. Maisie internalizes her pain and continually places herself in dangerous situations. Famous for his daring escapes from the school, Kenny can’t stop running and moves restlessly from job to job—through fishing grounds, orchards and logging camps—trying to outrun his memories and his addiction. Lucy finds peace in motherhood and nurtures a secret compulsive disorder as she waits for Kenny to return to the life they once hoped to share together. After almost beating one of his tormentors to death, Howie serves time in prison, then tries once again to re-enter society and begin life anew.

With compassion and insight, Five Little Indians chronicles the desperate quest of these residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and, ultimately, find a way forward.]]> 304 Michelle Good 1443459194 C.J. 5 4.47 2020 Five Little Indians
author: Michelle Good
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.47
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2023/03/22
shelves: award-winners, recommended-to-me, book-club-reads
review:

]]> <![CDATA[The Lost and Found Bookshop (Bella Vista Chronicles, #3)]]> 48613318 In this thought-provoking, wise and emotionally rich novel, New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs explores the meaning of happiness, trust, and faith in oneself as she asks the question, "If you had to start over, what would you do and who would you be?"

There is a book for everything . . .

Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, there was a book that embodied exactly the things she was worrying about.

In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative—not counting her scoundrel father.

But the gruff, deeply kind Andrew has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem–Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. Natalie adores her grandfather; she’ll do whatever it takes to make his final years happy. Besides, she loves the store and its books provide welcome solace for her overwhelming grief.

After she moves into the small studio apartment above the shop, Natalie carries out her grandfather’s request and hires contractor Peach Gallagher to do the necessary and ongoing repairs. His young daughter, Dorothy, also becomes a regular at the store, and she and Natalie begin reading together while Peach works.

To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries and revelations, from unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls, to discovering the truth about her family, her future, and her own heart.
]]> 368 Susan Wiggs 006291409X C.J. 5 3.84 2020 The Lost and Found Bookshop (Bella Vista Chronicles, #3)
author: Susan Wiggs
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2020
rating: 5
read at: 2023/03/04
date added: 2023/03/04
shelves: romantic, heartwarming-romance
review:
I fell in love with the Lost and Found Bookshop and the marvelous characters who inhabit this story, especially Grandy and Peach. Romantic and sweet and poignant in turns, this story has fun "treasure hunt" elements as foretold by the title.
]]> Violeta 57933338 The epic story of Violeta del Valle, a woman whose life spans one hundred years and bears witness to the greatest upheavals of the twentieth century.

Violeta comes into the world on a stormy day in 1920, the first girl in a family of five boisterous sons. From the start, her life will be marked by extraordinary events, for the ripples of the Great War are still being felt, even as the Spanish flu arrives on the shores of her South American homeland almost at the moment of her birth.

Through her father's prescience, the family will come through that crisis unscathed, only to face a new one as the Great Depression transforms the genteel city life she has known. Her family loses all and is forced to retreat to a wild and beautiful but remote part of the country. There, she will come of age, and her first suitor will come calling. . . .

She tells her story in the form of a letter to someone she loves above all others, recounting devastating heartbreak and passionate affairs, times of both poverty and wealth, terrible loss and immense joy. Her life will be shaped by some of the most important events of history: the fight for women's rights, the rise and fall of tyrants, and, ultimately, not one but two pandemics.

Told through the eyes of a woman whose unforgettable passion, determination, and sense of humor will carry her through a lifetime of upheaval, Isabel Allende once more brings us an epic that is both fiercely inspiring and deeply emotional.]]> 322 Isabel Allende 0593496205 C.J. 4 3.97 2022 Violeta
author: Isabel Allende
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.97
book published: 2022
rating: 4
read at: 2023/02/19
date added: 2023/02/19
shelves: historical-fiction, book-club-reads, memorable-fiction
review:
A captivating story about a complex woman whose life spans the time period between two pandemics: the Spanish flu and covid.
]]> <![CDATA[The Marlow Murder Club (Marlow Murder Club, #1)]]> 50576230
Judith Potts is seventy-seven years old and blissfully happy. She lives on her own in a faded mansion just outside Marlow, there’s no man in her life to tell her what to do or how much whisky to drink, and to keep herself busy she sets crosswords for The Times newspaper.

One evening, while out swimming in the Thames, Judith witnesses a brutal murder. The local police don’t believe her story, so she decides to investigate for herself, and is soon joined in her quest by Suzie, a salt-of-the-earth dog-walker, and Becks, the prim and proper wife of the local Vicar.

Together, they are the Marlow Murder Club.

When another body turns up, they realise they have a real-life serial killer on their hands. And the puzzle they set out to solve has become a trap from which they might never escape…]]> 340 Robert Thorogood 0008238243 C.J. 4 enjoyable-mystery-series 3.73 2021 The Marlow Murder Club (Marlow Murder Club, #1)
author: Robert Thorogood
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2023/01/31
date added: 2023/01/31
shelves: enjoyable-mystery-series
review:
This was such a fun mystery read. The characters are original, layered, interesting...and funny! I'm looking forward to Judith, Suzie and Beck's next escapade!
]]> Euphoria 18467802 Inspired by the true story of a woman who changed the way we understand our world.

In 1933 three young, gifted anthropologists are thrown together in the jungle of New Guinea. They are Nell Stone, fascinating, magnetic and famous for her controversial work studying South Pacific tribes, her intelligent and aggressive husband Fen, and Andrew Bankson, who stumbles into the lives of this strange couple and becomes totally enthralled. Within months the trio are producing their best ever work, but soon a firestorm of fierce love and jealousy begins to burn out of control, threatening their bonds, their careers, and, ultimately, their lives...]]> 256 Lily King 0802122558 C.J. 0 to-read 3.84 2014 Euphoria
author: Lily King
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2014
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/12/27
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Five Tuesdays in Winter 57812401
Told in the intimate voices of unique and endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface, a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence at the hands of her employer's son becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in his granddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love.]]> 240 Lily King 0802158765 C.J. 5 3.69 2021 Five Tuesdays in Winter
author: Lily King
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2021
rating: 5
read at:
date added: 2022/12/27
shelves:
review:

]]> That Summer in Berlin 60048399
German power is rising again, threatening a war that will be even worse than the last one. The English aristocracy turns to an age-old institution to stave off war and strengthen political bonds—marriage. Debutantes flock to Germany, including Viviane Alden. On holiday with her sister during the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Viviane’s true purpose is more clandestine. While many in England want to appease Hitler, others seek to prove Germany is rearming. But they need evidence, photographs to tell the tale, and Viviane is a genius with her trusty Leica. And who would suspect a pretty, young tourist taking holiday snaps of being a spy?

Viviane expects to find hatred and injustice, but during the Olympics, with the world watching, Germany is on its best behavior, graciously welcoming tourists to a festival of peace and goodwill. But first impressions can be deceiving, and it’s up to Viviane and the journalist she’s paired with—a daring man with a guarded heart—to reveal the truth.

But others have their own reasons for befriending Viviane, and her adventure takes a darker turn. Suddenly Viviane finds herself caught in a web of far more deadly games—and closer than she ever imagined to the brink of war.]]> 464 Lecia Cornwall 0593197941 C.J. 5 historical-fiction 4.14 2022 That Summer in Berlin
author: Lecia Cornwall
name: C.J.
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2022
rating: 5
read at: 2022/11/29
date added: 2022/11/29
shelves: historical-fiction
review:
A deep dive into that fascinating period in history before World War II. Loved the characters and the unique perspective of this book!
]]> People We Meet on Vacation 54985743 Two best friends. Ten summer trips. One last chance to fall in love.

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?]]> 400 Emily Henry 1984806750 C.J. 0 to-read 3.85 2021 People We Meet on Vacation
author: Emily Henry
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.85
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/23
shelves: to-read
review:

]]> Anna: The Biography 59366098 This definitive biography of Anna Wintour follows the steep climb of an ambitious young woman who would—with singular and legendary focus—become one of the most powerful people in media.

As a child, Anna Wintour was a tomboy with no apparent interest in clothing but, seduced by the miniskirts and bob haircuts of swinging 1960s London, she grew into a fashion-obsessed teenager. Her father, an influential newspaper editor, loomed large in her life, and once he decided she should become editor-in-chief of Vogue, she never looked back.

Impatient to start her career, she left high school and got a job at a trendy boutique in London—an experience that would be the first of many defeats. Undeterred, she found work in the competitive world of magazines, eventually embarking on a journey to New York and a battle to ascend, no matter who or what stood in her way. Once she was crowned editor-in-chief of Vogue—in one of the stormiest transitions in fashion magazine history—she continued the fight to retain her enviable position, ultimately rising to dominate all of Condé Nast.

Based on extensive interviews with Anna Wintour’s closest friends and collaborators, including some of the biggest names in fashion, journalist Amy Odell has crafted the most revealing portrait of Wintour ever published. Weaving Anna’s personal story into a larger narrative about the hierarchical dynamics of the fashion industry and the complex world of Condé Nast, Anna charts the relentless ambition of the woman who would become an icon.]]> 464 Amy Odell 1982122633 C.J. 0 to-read 3.77 2022 Anna: The Biography
author: Amy Odell
name: C.J.
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2022/11/15
shelves: to-read
review:

]]>