Recent Reads

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

Thoughts - This was my last book of 2025. It has been a popular book and I can see why. I thoroughly enjoyed it even the annoying moments. Lilah was a lot but I liked her honesty when she was in front of Phoebe. There are so many societal pressures placed on us and you could see that they manifested in all the women differently. And here's the thing.. there is just no right or wrong way to be. We know that.. but we just can't help it sometimes to either revolt in unhealthy ways or to just be what people want you to be.. to settle.. to conform..it is the easier way. Most people go through their lives this way.. both men and women. I think it was an interesting and funny read. 

Synopsis - Willow has never felt like she belonged anywhere and is convinced that the only way to find a true home is to travel the world. But her plans to act on her dream are put on hold when her aloof and often absent mother drags Willow to Salem, Massachusetts, to wrap up the affairs of an aunt Willow didn’t even know she had. An aunt who may or may not have been a witch.
There, she meets Mason, a loner who’s always felt out of place and has been in and out of foster homes his entire life. He’s been classified as one of the runaways, constantly searching for ways to make it back to his mom; even if she can’t take care of him, it’s his job to try and take care of her. Isn’t it?
Naturally pulled to one another, Willow and Mason set out across Salem to discover the secret past of Willow’s mother, her aunt, and the ambiguous history of her family. During all of this, the two can’t help but act on their natural connection. But with the amount of baggage between them—and Willow’s growing conviction her family might be cursed—can they manage to hold onto each other?

Thoughts - This was my first book of the year and it was the first way to start. It was a cute book.. I liked all the characters. Loved all the witchy elements. But it wasn't just fluff. It dealt with addiction and abandonment. This one had been on my bookshelf was a long time and I'm glad I finally picked it up.  

Synopsis - Following their daughter's mysterious disappearance, Ryan and Elsie Delaney have taken the LAPD forensic lab hostage, and have given law enforcement an ultimatum: Find their daughter, Tilly, or they will destroy all the evidence they can find to other cold cases.
Detective Charlie Hoskins has been undercover in a deadly motorcycle gang for five years. With his cover blown, he has no choice but to find Tilly himself, or lose everything he's worked for as the lab burns.
Lynette Lamb was a police officer—until yesterday, when she was fired before her first beat. Figuring out what happened to Tilly is her one and only chance at rejoining the career she's prepared her whole life for.
Hoskins and Lamb will have to team up to solve this cold case, and will have to move fast—before the situation explodes.

Thoughts - I started this audio on a whim. I was looking for something fast paced. Was expecting it to be something James Paterson esque. But I really really enjoyed it. You do have to completely suspend your belief as you would for any other police procedural but honestly is was the Hoskins and Lamb duo that won me. They had such good chemistry, of the non romantic variety. 

Synopsis - When the battered body of a female jogger is found beneath the cliffs of an idyllic coastal community, these perfect neighbors suddenly don’t seem so perfect…
Lily Bradley is a respected psychotherapist married to a distinguished professor. They live in a dream house with their two children in close-knit Story Cove. Lily lives a well-ordered life. Or so it seems. As a therapist, she knows everyone keeps things hidden. Even her.
Then sensual and free-spirited Arwen Harper rolls into town in her hand-painted VW van, her sixteen-year-old son riding shotgun. Overnight, Story Cove’s secrets are no longer safe. Because Arwen might know her new neighbors better than they know themselves.
Now someone is dead, and it looks like murder. Brutal and personal. The death invites the shrewd eye of Detective Rue Duval. Rue’s job is to expose secrets. But she’s also an expert at keeping them.
As the lives of three women become inexorably entwined, one thing is clear: when it comes to survival, ordinary people can do the most terrible things.

Thoughts - This is my second book by this author. The first was Beneath Devil's Bridge. Both books were inspired by real crimes. This was a perfectly good read. I didn't guess the end but there were too many characters, too many timelines, too many possible killers. Nothing wrong with it just nothing wow about it. 

Synopsis - Washington, D.C., 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boarding house 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?

Thoughts - I had a really good reading month.. but this was the book. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" There are the words inscribed on the base of Lady Liberty. Our country was built on the backs of immigrants. But even then the 'Americans' hated them, forgetting that their ancestors also immigrated to this country. And then all you need is someone like Joseph McCarthy or the current administration to amplify that hate. 

This book had it all, strong women, history, murder, spies, love, food. I highly recommend it and don't skip out on the author's note at the end. It painted a more complete picture of the historical elements in the book, but save it till after your are done reading it as it contains a lot off spoilers.  

How has your month in books been?
                              

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