Source: Book of the Month

Recent Reads | A Killing Cold and The Five Year Lie

Posted February 19, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve been saying for years that I need to read a Kate Alice Marshall book and I’m glad I finally did! Apparently it just took me getting it in my BOTM. (By the way, I am getting much better at reading those…) The book follows Theo as she heads to her new fiance’s remote cabin in the woods to meet his family for the first time in their whirlwind romance. The mysterious, uber-wealthy family has spent years of summers and Christmases at their compound with cabins up in Vermont. When she finds a photo of herself in the abandoned cabin, memories of her childhood slowly come back. Is it possible she’s somehow been there before? I really loved this one and read the majority of it in a day. I found myself continually turning the pages to see what happened next. I was suspicious of the entire family at different points in the book and it really wasn’t what I expected to be honest. I think the majority of things I could discuss would be spoilery so I’ll just say that the atmosphere of this book was really well-done and perfect to read on a snowy weekend like I did! Some things were a little convenient (fate? IYKYK) and didn’t seem realistic at all. There were a couple of explanations for those things but do think the reader needs to suspend their disbelief to really buy into it. I ended up really liking the end of the book and the […]

Recent Reads | Onyx Storm and Beautiful Ugly

Posted February 6, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

If you thought IRON FLAME was a slog to get through with all of the filler and unnecessary fighting, allow me to introduce you to ONYX STORM! Also a slog with even more filler and (at least) less fighting. This book would be boring for 100 pages and then offer 50 pages of intrigue and then keep repeating until the end of the book. I’m starting to question the sanity of myself and others who continue to read the series – I genuinely don’t get it. FOURTH WING was a comparatively fun ride, especially for those nostalgic for old school YA fantasy, aged up into romantasy with sex scenes. I still didn’t really understand the five star reviews of that book because of the horrible, repetitive romance and writing style but at least I could understand why the experience was fun for folks. This book and its predecessor brought to the table a whole lot of nothing except for at the very end. And this one doesn’t have me itching to pick up the next book like IRON FLAME did. I’m wondering if this is where me and my FOMO part ways with this series… We’ll see how I feel when the next one comes out but as of now I’m mostly frustrated and confused. I’m gonna go read some theories because this book pretty much answered nothing that was brought up in the previous two books. If it’s true that this was originally a trilogy and got pushed to […]

Recent Reads | Beg, Borrow, or Steal and The Favorites

Posted January 23, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Sarah Adams doesn’t miss. She really doesn’t. I put her up there with Emily Henry and Abby Jimenez in terms of “guaranteed five-star read” for me. Her writing is similar with the banter and excellent characters, but her books feel so real – the banter never verges on “people don’t talk like this in real life” like other books can. I loved Emily and Jack so much; their dynamic was really fun. They both have complex histories and family relationships that just added to everything. Emily is very much the older sister in the family – she’s type A, organizes everyones lives, and keeps her siblings in line. Jack was once engaged and moved away, only to return to his job as a teacher with Emily in Rome… and single… and living next door. There was a lot of of bickering in this hate-to-love romance and I loved how well the two of them could read each other no matter what. There was a slow burn realization that they likely had feelings for each other and they started using those perception skills for good instead of evil. There’s something about these books that are simultaneously sweet without being cringy, sexy without a lot of spice scenes, and charming without being overbearing. I just love this little town and all of the people in it! As always, the cameos with the other couples and siblings were so good. I can’t wait for the final book – it better be Madison and […]

Recent Reads | Only If You’re Lucky and Lost Man’s Lane

Posted January 16, 2025 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I’ve been meaning to read this author forever and I’m pleased that I think I’ll enjoy her other books – maybe even more than this one based on reviews! This story follows Margot at the end of her freshman year of college – she lost her best friend Eliza before school and is just trying to get through the year. When enigmatic Lucy randomly invites Margot to live with her and her two friends, she jumps at the chance to forge some real friendships again. The book flashes “before” and “after” – in the after, Lucy is missing and a frat boy from Margot’s hometown is dead. How is everything connected? The author did a great job of making me wonder that the entire story, but my biggest complaint is around pacing. The story starts and builds pretty slow. There’s a lot of “privileged kids getting drunk and doing drugs” to build up the friendship dynamics, which made sense, but it didn’t feel like a mystery/thriller for the bulk of it. Don’t get me wrong: the college setting was super fun and I want more books there… but the beginning felt like a YA contemporary. However! Once the twists started, I was enthralled. There were a number of reveals I absolutely didn’t see coming, though there were a couple I had predicted. The ending was really surprising and enjoyable. I feel like some pieces were unbelievable but I didn’t really care – it was well-plotted in many ways. Willingham will […]

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 Unmaking of June Farrow and The Finder’s Keepers Library

Posted July 22, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

This book intrigued me from the start but I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. It doesn’t help that almost everyone gave it five-stars! I was truly expecting to be blown away lol. I think my expectations got the best of me and I really expected MORE from the elements that I knew the book contained: time travel, mystery spanning generations, romance, and general magical realism. I don’t know how to even review this, especially after sitting with it for a few days. The story follows June Farrow, the last in line of the Farrow women, after her grandmother passes away. They all have some kind of “illness” that makes them hallucinate doors and other things. June begins to investigate what’s happening to hear and steps through a door that appears. Cue the time travel science that was hard to follow but I just ignored it while pretending I understood. I realized that there’s a good chance literary mysteries are not for me – it made the book only somewhat intriguing and also quite boring, pulling the weaker elements from both genres together. I wanted more twists and intensity like I’d get in a mystery while also seeing some strong character development and romance. All of the elements of this story felt surface-level. I heard people describe this as a fever dream and discuss how much they loved the characters and didn’t want to leave them behind, which totally baffled me. I felt zero connection to any of the characters […]

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 […]

Recent Reads | The Paradise Problem and The Search Party

Posted May 24, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

Man, Christina Lauren has truly done it again. I know I’m a relatively new reader of theirs but I just think they’re in the top-echelon of contemporary romance / rom-com writers. I noted on my Instagram caption that each year I most look forward to new books by Emily Henry, Abby Jimenez, and Christina Lauren. These gals are my top auto-read authors for romance… and none of them have disappointed. ALL three 2024 releases by them were five stars for me. THE PARADISE PROBLEM has a marriage of convenience trope, super duper rich people with inheritance on the line, a tropical setting with a wedding involved… genuinely what more could I want? Excellent characters with fun personalities, a ton of sexual tension, and really funny moments? Yes, all of those too! Anna and West got married almost five years ago to secure cheap family student housing. Anna didn’t exactly read the finer details of their contract and surprise! They’re still married and West needs her to be his guest to his sister’s wedding on a private island in Indonesia so he can collect his multi-hundred-million-dollar inheritance. While this was the usual steamy, tension-filled rom-com from Christina Lauren, there were definitely some heavier elements involved too. West’s family is…something else. The two of them were not set up for an easy trip, especially with Anna actually being a broke artist instead of the med student he thought she was when they first got married. It was so frustrating to read about […]

Recent Reads | First Lie Wins and Red String Theory

Posted January 18, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I haven’t read a lot of books centered around con women/men before so I wasn’t sure what to expect. All I knew going into it is that Ashley Elston wrote it, and I love her YA books! Happy to support any of my favorite authors if they make a genre and/or age target jump. I didn’t even read the synopsis before I dove into the story. FIRST LIE WINS follows Evie Porter as she works on her next assignment. She doesn’t really know what the purpose is but she’s meant to get close to Ryan Sumner; her mysterious boss Mr. Smith hasn’t given her anything else to go on. I liked getting to know “Evie” and unraveling her past throughout the story. I will say that the first half was fairly boring, unfortunately. I was generally curious about what was happening but that also led to the question… what is the point of all this? It took a little too long to get there for me. Elston did a really great job of connecting people from her past and linking the flashbacks to present day – it was really well done and made for a great end of the story. The final half of the book flew by for me and I was finally curious to know what was going on. There was a bit of an info dump at one point to explain a bunch of things but I guess there really wasn’t a way around it. The story […]

Review Roundup | The Honeymoon Crashers, None of This is True, and One of Us is Back

Posted September 14, 2023 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

I was so excited when I learned that THE UNHONEYMOONERS was getting a “sequel” in any capacity. Learning it was an audio exclusive with a full cast, sound effects, and generally full production was even MORE exciting for me. This novella-length audiobook follows the best man and maid of honor for Olive and Ethan’s wedding on Maui! The two announce to Olive’s family they’re just going to elope and get married on the island alone. Cue her twin sister Ami and brother Diego deciding instead to invite 18 family members to surprise the two of them there with a real wedding instead of an elopement. The production here was awesome, and appropriately sparse (if that makes sense) – there were a handful of scenes with background noise and sound effects like the ocean or breezy music, but not all the time. It was perfectly done to not be distracting! Many of the conversations between characters alternated between them like they were actually talking, with the voice actors taking turns and no “he said” or “she said” in between like you would read in the book. I liked Ami and Brody a lot – I think the book did a good job of building up their romance and chemistry in a shorter time period, but I totally could have seen this being a full-length book instead. They had different personalities but in a way that balanced each other out. Plus, you learn a bit more about Brody at the end of […]