Publisher: Penguin

Recent Reads | Parents Weekend and One Golden Summer

Posted June 9, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve had books by Alex Finlay on my TBR for a long time – I don’t know why this one is the one I finally read but I think it maybe gave me a good sense for his writing and overall style. I’m definitely interested in reading more books by him now! This was good. The story follows a parents weekend at a college in California. Five students (of parents attending the weekend) go missing and a newly relocated FBI agent, Keller (I guess she’s from some of his other books), is on the case. Many of them are rich and powerful so there are theories about why these kids were taken, by who, how, and – most important – where they are. A few things kinda bugged me (lots of red herrings and plot points that didn’t do anything) but overall I liked the format and writing. I did predict whodunnit. The more middling reviews I read, the more I think I should have lowered my rating to the 3.5 range… but honestly it kept me engaged the whole time. I was curious to read more and thought the multiple POVs were decent, albeit a little confusing. I’ll be especially curious to read more books featuring Keller! Carley Fortune is soooo good. I was really craving a summer read like this thanks to a conversation with my friend Jackie, and this totally hit the spot. I wrote a TTT about this and a summer bucket list within the last week […]

Recent Reads | The Maid’s Secret and Great Big Beautiful Life

Posted April 29, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

This series is a really fun time. Molly the Maid has solved now 3.5 mysteries around the Regency Grand Hotel and I thinkkk this may be her final one? Not sure if other books have been announced but this really feels like a last book. This was another generally enjoyable installment in this series, but definitely my least favorite. The story alternates between Molly’s daily life/the overall mystery and her gran’s diary entries. Unfortunately I wasn’t super invested in either timeline, but I especially didn’t enjoy the diary entries. I thought they were so boring. Yes, it helps move the story along in some ways, but I wasn’t at all invested. I think the main mystery was a little lame as well. I never felt like the stakes were really high and the story was just kind of plodding along. I think the series has run its course from a plot perspective but I have to be honest – I would read additional books if they were to come out. As I’ve said a hundred times before, there are a few authors where I am ANXIOUSLY awaiting their next release and can guarantee I’ll read them during pub week (or early enough if I get an egalley). These days that includes Emily Henry, Christina Lauren, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Carley Fortune, and Abby Jimenez. Typically these authors (for the most part) get fairly rave reviews but Henry and Jimenez always do…especially for me. 2025 has been weirdly polarizing for those two […]

Recent Reads | The Searcher and The Lodge

Posted April 7, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

My book club is really getting me out of my comfort zone at times but so far it hasn’t been a successful endeavor lol. I guess I just know what I like, and this kind of book is not it. The books that were already on my TBR when we selected them have generally worked out pretty well, and the two books I’ve read ONLY because of the club… not so much. Why do we need to read about annoying men? This book follows Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago cop who moves to Ireland to fix up an old house and live quietly post-divorce. When a young boy approaches him one day and asks for help looking for his missing brother, Cal can’t resist helping him out. Unfortunately, this was SO INCREDIBLY BORING. I could truly sum up the plot in three sentences (just add one to the paragraph above that describes the ending) and yet I had to read almost 500 pages. Even the reveal at the end was incredibly obvious. Most reviews were surprised by it but I thought it was pretty glaring who was involved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, I just don’t like reading about men. Or cops / ex-cops. Or guns and hunting. Unfortunately all three of these things were present in spades. Tana French wrote Cal Hooper in a way that a lot of men write women – stereotypically and frustratingly. Did we really need to hear about him adjusting […]

Recent Reads | Into the Woods and The Meadowbrook Murders

Posted February 28, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I put off reading CANADIAN BOYFRIEND for a while and now, with my review copy of INTO THE WOODS, I’ve spoiled a bit of that one. So I can generally recommend to not read this one first unless you have no interest in the first book in this shared universe lol. Moving on! This one follows Gretchen and Teddy as they work at an artsy summer camp. Gretchen is in the middle of buying a building to expand her dance studio but fills in for a pregnant friend, while Teddy is there reeling from his band’s breakup and hoping to work on a solo album. They have interesting and honestly sometimes off-putting personalities. I don’t know what it was but it took me a few chapters before I actually liked either one of them lol. The summer camp vibes are incredible here. I love the idea of adults at summer camp since I don’t read as much YA anymore. However, there was something about this story that just didn’t keep my interest. It took me SO long to read, which is not common for romance or books by Jenny Holiday for me. I was never in the mood to read this and think some of the story was a bit slow or repetitive through the middle. I feel like I could sum up the middle 50% of the book with a few sentences at most. Gretchen and Teddy were different than other romance book MCs – like I said, their […]

Holiday Review: The Holiday Honeymoon Switch

Posted January 1, 2025 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Story If you’re a fan of THE HOLIDAY (people switching houses around the holidays) and strong friendship stories, this could be a good Christmassy read for you. Holly and Ivy (lol yes they discuss how funny their names are together) are best friends. When Holly gets broken up with the day before her wedding, she can’t bear the idea of still going on her Hawaiian honeymoon but still needs an escape. Ivy had planned to head to an eco-friendly cabin in NY for her annual two-week art retreat during the same timeframe, so they end up switching places. Naturally some romance occurs in each location for the two main characters. I can’t decide if I didn’t love the characters themselves or if I just didn’t like how the author wrote them (like her writing style for them?). I didn’t feel overly connected to them and thought the writing style was just not great? The concept was good, the friendship vibes were strong, and the third act “breakups” / miscommunication were minimal, which is a plus. Wintery Setting & Holiday Feels The story alternates between a very Christmassy setting in upstate New York and a not-so-wintery Kauai. Both places had nice Christmas vibes though. It was fun because I’ve actually been to both settings in this book! I liked how they made holiday traditions in both settings even though one of them had warm, beachy weather. The small town in New York was really cute and holiday-ish, especially with the parade […]

Recent Reads | Love and Other Conspiracies and Hemlock House

Posted November 8, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I saw this book getting some love on Goodreads and decided to request it on a whim from the library. I really haven’t read a lot of romance this year and was hoping to find a win… and boy did this deliver! I absolutely loved this romance – A+, no notes. Hallie is in need of a breakthrough show for her job at Skroll (basically like Buzzfeed I guess but heavy on video content) when she finds a random conspiracy show on TV and falls for the guest of the episode, Hayden. She learns of his successful podcast and immediately thinks he has something special. The two of them begin a show where he discusses conspiracy theories and hunts cryptids. She’s the skeptic and he’s the believer, and their banter on the show quickly turns into something more. I absolutely loved the tension and chemistry in this book. Hayden honestly set the bar high for other romance heroes. He was thoughtful, caring, and sweet at every single turn. Hallie had a horrible previous relationship with her ex that still works at Skroll, so there was a lot of heaviness and gaslighting in this book. It was hard to read and I prefer my romances super fluffy, but the swooniess of everything else overpowered it. I was rooting for Hallie so hard. I knew pretty early on that this was going to be a five-star read and it maintained that level of excellence throughout the entire story. It will certainly go […]

Recent Reads | Worst Case Scenario and The God of the Woods

Posted October 14, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve been absolutely loving TJ Newman’s books lately – I know I haven’t looked that hard, but I don’t think a lot of authors are writing thrillers like these! (If you have recs, let me know!) They’re basically disaster thrillers where an airplane causes some kind of havoc – her first book was about a hijacked plane crashing, the second book had a plane sinking underwater and needing rescue, and this one is about a plane crashing into a freakin nuclear power plant. The setup, as a result, was a bit different – the plane has already crashed and the team at the power plant / in the small town have to rally together to figure out how to save everyone. There were definitely similar elements to her first two books, like going back and forth between different people involved, but not really a past/present situation. Everything is happening real time in this one. I didn’t expect to finish this book as quickly as I did and ended up kind of sobbing at the end of it! I think each of Newman’s books have gotten stronger (especially with characters and emotional punch) as they’ve come out. I feel like the ending was a little abrupt but otherwise this was super addicting. I cannot fathom the amount of research that must go in to all of her books… She has all of this stuff about nuclear power plants and underwater welding and crazy things that go beyond her normal flight attendant […]

Recent Reads | The Grandest Game and A Novel Love Story

Posted August 19, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 2 Comments

Jennifer Lynn Barnes is one of my auto-buy authors and really has been since 2015 with her criminally underrated THE FIXER series. It’s been banger after banger. This book was pretty much no exception to that! THE INHERITANCE GAMES series is the one that has stuck with me the most out of all of her books and series, I’d say… I love that she keeps adding to the world! The previous installment was a bit of a bridge book between the original series (with Avery as the main character), featuring some of the Hawthorne brothers. It definitely felt like a bridge and was a little hard to get into, so I was hopeful this “fresh start” series would be better. It certainly was! Avery, with her billions of dollars, developed an annual game to give away her money in the spirit of the way SHE got it… games and tricks and riddles and puzzles. This story is the second annual game and brings the POVs of characters like Rohan, Lyla, and Gigi to the table (along with other players in the game like Knox, Brady, and Odette). I’ll admit this did take me a while to get into, much like the previous book, but I think it’s because it’s a new story and I was on the fence about the characters. Once I got into it though… it was hard to put down! That’s what I count on JLA for. The story itself was fun and chockfull of different puzzles […]

Recent Reads | The Chamber and The Love of My Afterlife

Posted August 8, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Omg lol. I was hoping to finish this in July since apparently it was my worst reading month (ratings-wise) and it would have been nice to keep the bad vibes out of August… but I kept falling asleep on the last day of July when trying to finish this book! THE LAST ONE was one of my favorite thrillers last year. I know a ton of people had mixed ratings based on the infuriating ending but I kinda loved it. The book was so addicting; nothing could stop me from turning pages. I was so excited to see how his style would translate to this book and I have very few words to describe how disappointed I was. This book was as boring as his previous book was enthralling/addicting. I could literally sum up this entire plot in three sentences (which I immediately did for my husband). The same thing happens over and over for 80% of the book, no exaggeration. The divers tell stories from their time in the military or about their diving careers for more than 3/4 of the book while people die off. There is no suspense or intrigue, just repetitive events and conversations I did not care about. It was not claustrophobic or creepy like I was promised; I could barely picture what it looked like despite diagrams and a glossary! I don’t know what didn’t click for me but I basically pictured a small bunk area with a table. I know it was small […]

Summerween Reviews | Middle of the Night and One Perfect Couple

Posted July 9, 2024 / Book Reviews / 1 Comment

Summerween is a readathon hosted by GabbyReads that runs in early July each year. This year’s readathon was hosted July 5th through 11th with the following prompts: read a book in the dark, read a thriller or horror book, read a book with a night sky on the cover, read a book with 5 words in the title, and read a book set during the summer. For more information click HERE. I read one Riley Sager book before and didn’t love it as much as I had hoped. MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT was much better for me – I’m a big true crime consumer but only if it’s about missing persons and unsolved cases. This book scratched that itch for me for sure. The story follows Ethan as he returns to his childhood home 30 years after his best friend Billy was kidnapped from the tent they were camping in in the backyard. The crime remains cold and unsolved… until Ethan begins noticing some hints of Billy around the neighborhood. He sets out to solve the mystery with the help of old friends and neighbors. I really enjoyed this! The way that Sager structured the book is alternating chapters between present day and the day in 1994 when Billy went missing. There were a lot more POVs in the past chapters, which I really enjoyed – they were well-timed with what Ethan was discovering in the present. I was always itching to keep reading; Sager had some kind of cliffhanger or dramatic […]