Source: Purchased

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 | I Need You to Read This and Such Charming Liars

Posted September 13, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I was one of the people who loved THE GOLDEN SPOON but I totally understand why people didn’t. That book was exactly what I wanted and expected it to be – basically a cozy mystery taking place at GBBO. I wasn’t expecting high-stakes thrills. Because of that, I went into I NEED YOU TO READ THIS with the same expectation. I think, for that reason, I enjoyed this more than others (though not as much as her adult debut). Her mysteries are not fully cozy but they’re not fast-paced thrillers either. I think this one took a while to get grooving – the main character was going through a lot but it wasn’t necessarily a thriller. Yes, she wanted to figure out what happened to the previous Dear Constance but there weren’t scary moments necessarily. I got halfway through the book and didn’t feel like anything happened. I thought some of the “twists” were incredibly obvious while others would have been, in my opinion, impossible to figure out (and not in a good way). I always hear people talk about “fair play mysteries” where you as the reader have all the information you need to solve the crime or mystery within the pages. No random boogeyman can come out and be the culprit. While I *do* think this technically counts as a fair play mystery, one of the elements came out of nowhere and it didn’t feel fair in a way. I won’t spoil it. The ending or whodunnit wasn’t […]

Recent Reads | Death at Morning House and Just Playing House

Posted August 28, 2024 / Book Reviews, Review Roundup / 0 Comments

Much like the INHERITANCE GAMES series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, Maureen Johnson’s TRULY DEVIOUS books are some of my favorite ones to read – I can’t explain why or how these series are so cozy to me but the writing style, unique character voices, and fun mysteries have a lot to do with it. I’ve said over and over again that Johnson could write a hundred TRULY DEVIOUS books starring Stevie Bell and I would read them like they’re Nancy Drew mysteries. There’s something indescribable about her writing style that will keep me coming back over and over again, even as I stray away from young adult fiction. When I heard (during her last book’s tour stop at RJ Julia) that she was pausing the TD series to bring a new standalone mystery set on a creepy island, I was still pretty excited. This book ended up having very similar vibes to TD but with juuuust a bit less magic for me. I think the story could have honestly fit into the series and starred Stevie – that’s how similar it felt at times. Truthfully, I think that I missed Stevie and that’s the main reason I wish it was a TD book; this main character was kind of annoying. Marlowe is very stuck on the girl she left behind in her hometown when she leaves for the summer so it’s hard to get invested in any other romance potentials on the island or even if we SHOULD ship her with […]

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 […]

Summerween Reviews | Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies and Summers End

Posted July 18, 2024 / Book Reviews / 0 Comments

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. Okay, this was really fun for me! I can absolutely see this as a polarizing book and the low-ish rating doesn’t surprise me. I think you have to be in the mood for something a little different, where the narrator breaks the third wall and involves the reader in the story. There are a couple of other reasons people don’t love this one but I’ll get into that shortly. This book follows Eleanor, bestselling author of the Vacation Mysteries series, as she travels on a “book tour” kind of giveaway event in Italy. Along for the ride are a few other authors (including her ex), the man who inspired her first book, her sister (slash person who manages her entire life), and some fans who won a giveaway to join them. Connor, the hero-turned-nemesis, thinks someone is trying to kill him and the group spends the book trying to figure out who’s doing it, if he’s the real target, and more. I haven’t yet read EVERYONE IN MY FAMILY HAS KILLED SOMEONE but from what I understand about the narrative style, […]

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 Midnight Feast and The Ballad of Darcy and Russell

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

I am a Lucy Foley fangirl and kind of think she can do no wrong. I even loved THE PARIS APARTMENT and would tell you if you didn’t, this one may bring you back to her. For some reason this was yet another highly anticipated book that took me forever to get into but really paid off by the end. Like her other books, I totally could have read it in one sitting if I tried. The book centers around multiple POVs and I thought all of them were super interesting (and relevant by the end). As the synopsis states, we follow the founder, the husband, the mystery guest, the kitchen help… and then a couple more I won’t spoil just in case. Foley does such a good job with the initial slow drip of information through each person and timeline that makes you curious to learn what happened, and then the multiple twists toward the end bringing everything home. I was convinced I wouldn’t love this one compared to her others but there were a LOT of good twists. The little horror-esque elements didn’t turn me off like I expected, and I really loved how all of that ended up. The Birds and local lore were fascinating elements and I can now see how the info she shared during her book signing connects to everything. She was inspired by similar events (non-local people buying up land and making posh getaways in the farm-y countryside to piss off locals) but […]

Recent Reads | True Crime Story and Very Bad Company

Posted June 20, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 1 Comment

This is one of those books that has intrigued me for years and I just kept delaying picking it up. I knew it was going to (likely) be right up my alley based on its mixed media format (mostly interviews, some newspaper clippings, etc.) and topic (a girl disappearing). I knew the book was a bit meta and weird, including a self-insert by the author, and that it reads more like a true crime book than fiction. It reminded me a lot of THE MYSTERIOUS CASE OF THE ALPERTON ANGELS and MURDER IN THE FAMILY, which are really good mixed media mysteries that also have similar vibes plot/author-wise. The book centers around the disappearance of Zoe Nolan from a university party right before Christmas, never to be seen again. Joseph Knox, the author, is a character in the story – he’s compiling all these interviews with Zoe’s friends and family along with emails between himself and the woman who begins researching what happened to Zoe. It kind of has a slow start – it’s just a lot of interviews and finger-pointing between Zoe’s friends. I like that the tension slowly built up throughout the book. Even though it felt like not much was happening and the plot wasn’t progressing, I couldn’t put this down. The audiobook has a full cast and it’s excellent, so I was frequently going back and forth to finish it quickly. I got spooked and didn’t want to read it at night! Knox did a great […]

Recent Reads | The Last Murder at the End of the World and Past Present Future

Posted June 12, 2024 / Book Reviews, Recent Reads / 0 Comments

I enjoyed Turton’s debut after being pretty confused throughout the story, and the same thing basically happened here. I was expecting a weird mystery and that’s exactly what I got – it’s not the type of mystery I’d pass along to my mom to read. She would hate it lol. Turton clearly has a specialty for writing odd mysteries with extremely unique premises and I definitely commend him for that. The end of EVELYN HARDCASTLE, to me, made up for the confusion I experienced throughout. The same can’t be said for this latest release unfortunately. The story follows a post-apocalyptic society living on an island, trapped by a deadly fog. One of the scientists is brutally murdered and a villager (Emory) and her daughter (Clara) try to figure out what happened in order to save them all. The fog will inch closer and closer until the murder is resolved. It definitely had a lot of sci-fi elements in a way that makes it hard to classify. It also barely felt like a mystery novel. Yes, there IS a murder mystery at the base of the plot but there was so much other stuff with world-building that took me out of it. Emory and the other characters ask so many questions and tell random stories – it felt like a lot of telling instead of showing. She would have realizations about things that the reader didn’t see so she just talks it out and gets everyone on board. There was a […]