Karen
Billie and Cassie have been best friends since childhood, but as adults in New York they???ve grown apart. Or at least, Cassie has grown apart ??? Billie is determined to hold on to what is increasingly a one-sided friendship. For Cassie, her old friend doesn???t fit in with her new mommy-influencer lifestyle, rich husband and jet setting friends. But the two are forever bonded by a shared traumatic past, and Billie doesn't know how to exist without that friendship - she becomes increasingly obsessed with Cassie's life, and regaining what they once had.
My rating: 4 stars
I don???t want to give too much away, but I will say I was hooked in the first couple of pages. Lovering really sets the hook in immediately, and I just had to keep reading to find out how the characters get to this point. We get POV chapters from both women and the entire time I was reading this, I found myself relating to both of them, and also yelling in disbelief at both of them. Groaning as they made one awful, painful decision after another. Cassie???s obsession with social media, growing her audience, and letting them into her life to a disturbing degree was especially relatable. I???m new to bookstagram and I???m certainly not trying to become an influencer with an enormous audience, but I still see that pressure to regularly deliver content and how it could really ruin someone???s life and relationships. And hoo boy, do some relationships get ruined. This friendship is so incredibly toxic and co-dependent, the perfect breeding ground for disaster.
I don???t think I???d really classify this as a thriller, but it???s a story about how lies, obsessions and secrets can twist lives into knots. As for the ending, I feel like half of it was believable, and half of it wasn???t. And half of it was satisfying, and half wasn???t. I???ll let you decide for yourself which was which for me, but I recommend you read it for yourself and see what you think!
Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the advanced digital copy!
This book was clearly written by a book lover, about a book lover, for book lovers.
???There is nothing quite so alive as a book that has been well loved.???
???Books have feelings???? ???Books are feelings,??? he replied simply. ???They exist to make us feel. To connect us to what???s inside, sometimes to things we don???t even know are there.???
Ashlyn Greer is a bookshop owner with the ability to touch a book and feel the echoes of its past owners. She comes across two beautiful books with no listed authors, both aching with feelings of love, loss, and betrayal. One titled ???Regretting Belle??? and the other ???Forever, and Other Lies???, the two volumes appear to tell the story of the same doomed love affair from two different perspectives. We read the two volumes along with Ashlyn, weaving back and forth between the past in 1941 and Ashlyn???s present in 1984 as she tries to identify the unnamed authors and discover what happened to them. And in the process, finds her own path to healing.
Oh, I loved this book so much. A literary mystery to solve, a cozy bookstore/bindery, romance and heartbreak. What???s not to love? I???m a sucker for books that do parallel timelines well, and this one does it well. We get a forbidden romance between people of different social classes, hidden family secrets, betrayal and redemption. This book felt like a delight to me, and I didn???t want to put it down until it was finally finished. Ashlyn is consumed with finding out what happened to the mysterious authors, and so was I!
If you like parallel timelines, historical romances, and unreliable narrators, I think you should pick this up!
Valdemar is the conclusion of the Founding of Valdemar series, which is a prequel to the larger Valdemar series that starts with Arrows of the Queen.
The Valdemar series has always been cozy fic, before cozy fic was a thing. It is a fluffy, escapist delight. Yes there are bad guys, but it's never so bad we can't beat them, and the good guys are truly good. It's not too complex, so if you're looking for deeply flawed heroes or anti-heroes, this isn't the place to look. Every child who reads these books (and most of the adults, I'd wager) dream about being chosen by a Companion, joining the ranks of the Heralds and being welcomed into an enormous found family, and adventuring on the side of Right and Good. Because the Kingdom of Valdemar has always stood on the principles of what is right and good, and the Companions are what has anchored the Kingdom and it's government and people to that foundation.
And in the concluding book of this trilogy, we finally get what we've been waiting for - the story of how, when and why the first Companions appeared in Valdemar, bonding with their Chosen and changing the trajectory of a budding new kingdom.
I read this book as a palate cleanser in between some heavier books, and it was exactly what I needed. It's like a light, airy desert after a rich and heavy dinner. This book in particular did feel a little less detailed in it's story and plot than the first two of the trilogy, and that's the only reason it's not a full four stars - I'd give it a 3.8 if I could do partials. But it was still a perfect ‘curl up under a blanket with some tea and daydream' book.
If you are a fan of the original Valdemar series, then this is a must read. If you were a horse girl as a child, this is a must read. Or if you're just looking for a magical, cozy fantasy fic to relax with, then this is it.
One night three friends, Laura, Daniel and Mo, suddenly wake up in the music room of their high school with their teacher, Mr. Anabin. They soon discover that they've been missing for almost a year, dead, and have been temporarily returned to life. In order to stay alive, they agree to several magical tasks. While they attempt these tasks they can take their lives back up, and no one will remember that they have been missing. But only two will win this contest and stay alive.
But life has moved on for the people that were left behind, and the three friends struggle to settle back in amidst some pretty big changes, all the while trying to complete their tasks and solve the mystery of their deaths. They aren't the only ones interested in the outcome though - there's something, and someone, far more powerful that is watching and waiting. And the outcome will affect not just these teenagers and their families, but their entire community.
I'm giving this book 3 stars, which for me equates to “I liked it, it was fine.” I think if it hadn't been a staggering 640 pages, I might have rated it higher. At times I felt like the story was dragging, and yet, I'm not entirely sure what could have been cut. I don't usually like magical realism because it starts to feel too nebulous and, at times, pretentious, but that isn't an issue here. The writing is frankly beautiful, and it is very atmospheric. The characters are well written, complex, and highly believable. The main characters are teenagers dealing with some unbelievable events, angsty, messy, sometimes unlikeable, but you find yourself rooting for them because really, who can blame them? At times I felt like this book was too slow, but at the same time, we get to know the characters so well because of how much time we spend with them. They are exceptionally unique and memorable. And this book is truly about the characters and their relationships. (And I just have to say that my favorite character is a tie between Mo's grandmother and Daniel's sister Carousel. I love Carousel. If I ask you what is the first thing you would do if you got magic, and you don't say ‘turn myself into a glittery flying unicorn' then why are you lying?)
I'm not entirely in love with the title. Although love is certainly a theme here, and the driving force behind many of the events, it doesn't really seem to capture what this book is.
In the end, this is an atmospheric, beautifully written, slow burn of a book. A group of teenagers struggling to figure out who they really are, which is a story we can all relate to. It is whimsical, fantastical, and vivid, and I think the only thing that really put me off was the slow pacing in combination with the sheer length. If that's something you look for, then I believe you will love this book.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House Publishing for the advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Nella is an apothecary living in the 1790s in London, secretly providing poisons for women who have problematic men in their lives after being cruelly treated herself. She has sworn to never harm another woman, only men. Eliza is a 12 year old girl in the same time who has just begun getting unwelcome attention from her mistress???s husband. And Caroline is an American vacationing in London in present day, having just caught her husband cheating on her. She is taking time and space to herself to reevaluate her life and relationship.
While in London, Caroline finds an old glass vial with a bear etched on it and decides to research its story and history. Her story of discovery, of both the bottle and herself, is interwoven with the tale of Nella and Eliza as they meet and form an odd friendship amidst Nella???s dangerous and forbidden occupation.
First of all: Most. Beautiful. Cover. Ever.
Some of the plot devices stretched credulity, such as how easy it ended up being for Caroline to discover the true story of this lost apothecary from one single, unlabeled glass vial. And Caroline???s attitude about some things was annoying. (She had dreams of going to college, but when she got married James didn???t want her going to Cambridge so??? she just didn???t go to college. Are there no colleges in America?) The characters??? development was enough to keep me interested though, and the plot fast paced enough that I was willing to suspend my criticisms to see what happened next. I wouldn???t necessarily categorize this book as either character or plot driven; it does a decent job of striking a balance between the two.
I deeply enjoy books that jump back and forth between past and present like this. It reminds me of the way Susanna Kearsley weaves different timelines into a narrative. And seeing the similarities and contrasts in women???s lives in the two periods was really enjoyable. All three women are in situations or lives where they have little to no power, and the story is about them finding ways to exert it or take it back.
The ending was??? well. It did feel maybe a little too convenient.
Is the lost apothecary a serial killer? Well, yes. Are we still rooting for her? Also, yes. Overall I enjoyed this book and I think it was a really solid debut novel.
Odile is a 16 year old girl living in a valley surrounded on either side by identical valleys - except the valley to the west is 20 years in the past, and the one to the east is 20 years in the future. She competes for a seat on the Conseil, a privileged position that controls the strictly regulated travel between valleys.
One day Odile recognizes two Visitors as the future parents of her friend Edme. Approval for visitors from the future town is rare unless to visit a dead loved one, signaling trouble for Edme, with whom Odile has been growing closer. Keeping this secret is crucial for her future and the timeline itself. But as her feelings for Edme grow stronger, can she watch and do nothing?
This debut novel seamlessly blends speculative fiction and philosophical exploration. Part science fiction, part coming-of-age story, it asks you: how far you would go to save someone you love? Initially young and impressionable, Odile grapples with identity, belonging, and the nuances of relationships, transforming into a woman burdened by her past, confronting the repercussions of her actions.
The prose is gorgeous and lyrical and a pure joy to read. My only criticism is that the author doesn't use quotation marks when characters speak, which initially made it challenging to read.
As I've gotten older, stories about memory, consequences, time and regret resonate more deeply. Anyone who has experienced loss will relate to Odile's story. I lost my mother to cancer 13 years ago, and what wouldn't I do to see her one more time? What if I could change her fate at the expense of someone else? This novel raises profound questions about morality, right vs wrong, and the essence of existence.
I think this book is a beautiful and poignant read, establishing Howard as an author to watch. I promise I'll be thinking about this book for a long time to come.
Thanks to @netgalley for the advanced copy of this book!
My rating: ?????????
Dark Dive is the fifth book in the Underwater Investigation Unit series. Florida detective Sloan McPherson has been diving all her life, and now she uses those skills to solve murders, stop corruption, and help as many people as she can. But you can hide a lot of secrets in the dark waters of Florida, and this time it seems a missing friend was keeping secrets of his own. Sloan and her colleagues have to race to solve the disappearance before those secrets cause even more harm.
I'm a dive instructor in my spare time and there's no better place to be than underwater, so I love books that explore that world. And it's a perfect complement to mystery/thrillers. Mayne's writing is very straightforward and to the point, no frills. On one hand we get very little internal dialogue from the characters, so they don't feel incredibly fleshed out. On the other hand, this keeps the plot moving at a rapid pace, which is often what you want from a fast paced thriller.
On a technical aspect I was a bit frustrated when the character talks about taking oxygen tanks to depth as a backup - any diver knows that pure oxygen, when breathed below about 18 feet, will cause convulsions and drowning. Presumably the author meant oxygen enriched gases, but a non-diving reader wouldn't know that. You could argue it's not necessary to explain this for the story, but misinformation that can lead to death seems unnecessary - why not just say ‘tanks'? Also, there's a story line regarding a school and identity that are entirely unresolved. There's no mention at all at the end, so it's unclear if the author intends to delve further into it in the next book, or that plot line was just dropped, but it left me unsatisfied.
I did love the line where the main character mentions that she's way more worried about a boat driver ignoring a dive flag in the water than a shark... Amen to that. Those boaters are a menace.
All in all, it was an enjoyable thriller with some clunky parts, but they don't take away too much from the plot itself. It's a perfect weekend or airplane read when you want a little mystery, a little excitement, but you don't want to get too emotionally invested in a story.
Dark Dive will be released on March 12, 2024!
In The Witch's Lens, Luanne G. Smith tells a tale of mystery and magic set against the grim backdrop of World War I. We follow Petra Kurkova, a witch with the unique ability to capture the souls of the dead on film. She wanders the city with her camera at night, alone, as her husband has left to fight in the war. One night she is approached Josef Svoboda, who offers her a proposal: use her skills and talents to help her country on the front lines. There are more dangers than just enemy soldiers out there, and they are in desperate need of her skills. She reluctantly agrees, knowing that traveling to the front lines with Svoboda's band of witches may be her only way to track down her husband and discover his fate.
My rating for this book is 3 stars, which means I don't feel like I wasted my time, but I'm also not likely to remember it a year from now. The novel's premise initially caught my attention, but the execution falters. It's a very slow start, and it was difficult to maintain interest. The plot often feels ephemeral, lacking in any real development and failing to establish high stakes until late in the narrative. Petra's ability with the camera is introduced as a central element of her character but feels underutilized.
Despite these shortcomings, Smith's descriptions are vivid and really immerses the reader in the settings. The book also effectively sets the stage for a sequel, laying down threads that did leave me curious about what comes next. I'll probably pick up the second book when it comes out to see if it delivers on the tentative promise this ending offers, or if it falls flat.
Every time I read a new book in the Incryptid series I think, “this is the best one yet!” But Aftermarket Afterlife really IS the best one yet. This series is fast, fun, and funny; it follows a family dedicated to studying and preserving Cryptids - magical and mythical creatures that live around us but hidden, trying to survive in our modern world. Complicating that is the Covenant of St. George, an organization dedicated to their extermination.
Aftermarket Afterlife is the 13th book in the series, and is told from the POV of Mary Dunlavy, the ghost who's been the babysitter for the Price family for 80 years. It's a time of upheaval for the family, as members are reunited for the first time in decades, at the same time as the Covenant makes a huge offensive strike. Mary's only purpose for 80 years has been to protect the children of her adopted family and keep them all safe, and now she's being truly tested. What's a ghost to do?
Rating: 5/5 ???
Heartbreaks: All of them
An empire controlled by a religious body called the Kindom. Corporations controlled by powerful families, such as the Nightfoots, who have a monopoly on sevite, the material needed for interplanetary travel. A mysterious figure out for revenge, aiming to reveal the bloody truth behind this house of cards, threatening to bring everything crashing down.
I think I would categorize this book more as space opera than hard sci-fi, but that's not a bad thing. It's a complex world with characters that are not necessarily likeable, morally ambiguous, but forces to be reckoned with. Chono, the stoic noviate was a good foil for Esek, who comes across as just completely and utterly unstable and chaotic. Then there's Jun, the hacker who's just trying to stay alive.
I love the world building and I am a HUGE FAN of the explosion of queer stories within the sci-fi and fantasy genres. This is an excellent addition to the slate, and I love to see more and more of them.
I feel almost like I should have seen the twist at the end coming, and yet, it took me completely by surprise, just like it did the other characters. If Goodreads allowed partial ratings, I'd give this one a 3.75. It's not QUITE a 4 for me, but it's close. And I'll definitely be reading the rest of the series.
I was provided a copy of this review by NetGalley, and this is my personal opinion. Many thanks to NetGalley and Debbie Urbanski!
This debut novel follows the last human on Earth, Sen, and the AI responsible for telling her story. Humanity has asked AI to help it stave off environmental disaster, and the outcome is one any sci-fi fan could predict - remove humans from the equation. They are to be ‘exited' from the Earth, and their consciousness uploaded into a new digital world called Maia. The story doesn't focus on how this is achieved, although it does discuss it. The true heart of the novel concerns a worker process that is tasked with watching Sen as she carries out her job as a Witness to the Great Transition. It pours over her journals, endless hours of video and audio, and begins to piece together a narrative of her life and approaching death. As it does so, it begins to learn, change, and develop it's own persona - one that is increasingly attached to Sen.
Can an AI learn emotions? Can it love? What does it mean to be Human?
Don't be fooled by my 3 star rating - that is due to my own personal preference for plot driven post-apocalyptic stories, rather than character driven. But if your sweet spot is the intersection of post-apocalyptic fiction and character driven stories, then I suspect this may be a book for you. I found the first section a little rough to get through, as it was framed from the point of view of the newly instantiated AI storymaker, and was cold, clinical, programmatic. But this turned out to be a successful gambit as it drove home the personification of the AI. The reader is able to watch as it softens and develops a personality that becomes more approachable and more readable, all the more impactful compared to its initial distance. It watches Sen, it watches her relationships with her mothers, it learns, it falls in love. It's heart breaking but also so familiar, to watch it review Sen's past and desperately wish to change things. To try and spin up simulations where things fell out differently. To want so badly to save someone you love and spare them pain.
This isn't a happy, fuzzy story. It's bleak and it doesn't hold anything back, but it's guaranteed to make you think. There are a lot of ideas about humanity's responsibility and culpability regarding environmental collapse, the place of AI in our society, and what lies in the places between.
Benedict Jacka has created a new world that is entirely different - but just as enthralling - as the Alex Verus series. I tore through this book in one day, because I couldn't stop. The magic system feels new and unique and the world feels like it has real depth. It's fast paced so it's a fast read, and I highly recommend it, especially for fans of Alex Verus.
I received an advanced reader copy of this book.
When an author is writing a long series like this one (and like the previous one, the Rockton series) they have to balance a lot of things. They need to stick with what's worked for their readers, but they also need to add in new elements - they can't just write the same book over and over again. But how do you up the stakes each time, without getting to jump-the-shark territory? They also need to balance episodic plots and villains with the series Big Bad and overarching mythos. (Think X-Files, where you had the Monster of the Week episode, vs the alien invasion mytharc of the series.) So the reader needs to finish each book feeling like the book plot was resolved, and the series arc was advanced but still leaving questions unanswered - but in a satisfying way.
I think Kelley Armstrong is a master of this. She did a fantastic job with this in the Rockton series, and is continuing here in Haven's Rock. We have a smaller scale antagonist and mystery that is mostly wrapped up by the end, and yet also have introduced what might be our Big Bad for the series, and opened up a LOT of questions that will probably take many books to explore and resolve. New town, new stakes, new baddies, new townsfolk, and new interpersonal issues. All in all, a really great addition and absolutely worth picking up; I finished it in just two days because I could NOT put it down.
If you've never read the Rockton series, I highly recommend going back and picking that one up before starting on Haven's Rock. You'll be missing out on a lot of background if you don't, as well as just missing out on another fantastic series.
(Also, is that cover art gorgeous or what?! I couldn't find the name of the cover artist, but kudos to them.)
If We Were Villains opens with the main protagonist, Oliver Marks, just about to leave prison after serving a 10 year sentence for murder. The detective who put him there is about to retire, and asks him for answers - did he really do it? What actually happened 10 years ago?
The novel follows a group of theater students at an elite arts college. It is darkly atmospheric, and they don't seem to just act out Shakespeare, they live it, completely immersing themselves at times. Like any tightly woven group of friends, the relationships are complex; family, friends, lovers, enemies. Loyalty, obsession, consequences. These people seem to love each other and ruin each other all at the same time. And of course, you can't have Shakespeare without tragedy, can you? This book is half mystery and half literary homage.
Did I like it? I suspect that if I had been a theatre kid, I would have. It was masterfully written, and I was interested enough in the story to stick to the end to find out ‘who dun it' and see if my suspicions were correct. Although, I will ‘WHAT?!' to that ending? I need at least one more chapter! That WAS an entirely unexpected reveal.
But in the end, it's probably not one I'll keep on my bookshelf. As always though, that's because the atmosphere and setting just weren't to my particular tastes. On a technical and artistic level, I believe this is a very good book, and I suspect it will have a very appreciative audience.
This book was really great... right up until the end. It's beautifully written, and it's a good book, but my personal preference is for less... ambiguous endings. I don't need EVERYTHING tied up in a neat bow, but I really don't like “Lady and the Tiger” endings. That's simply personal preference though. Otherwise the book was so great, that the ending was proportionally disappointing to me.
Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries is by lexicographer Kory Stamper. (If you saw the awesome Netflix series “History of Swear Words” then you saw her speak.) Stamper worked for almost 20 years at Merriam Webster, and in this book she explains how they define words, how they choose which words to include in the first place, how it can take literally NINE MONTHS just to fully distill the essence of one word down into what we get in the dictionary.
A book about dictionaries sounds really boring, doesn't it? I promise you it isn't! Anyone reading this review probably loves books, and probably loves words. But trust me, I had NO IDEA how much went into just defining words. In hindsight it makes sense but holy cow... and Stamper doesn't just provide these explanations, she does it with humor that will make you laugh and groan as she tells you about the time a cleaning crew accidentally undid weeks of work in one night.
She also delves into the misconception that the people at Merriam Webster are the ones who decide what is a word, as though they are the arbiters of language rather than the scribes. You wouldn't think the dictionary would provide drama, but then you read about the hate mail they received when the word marriage was updated to include same-sex marriages.
This book is really funny, informative, and one of my favorite non-fiction books. Five stars from me, and I strongly recommend it for anyone who loves words!
Every series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes stars the exact same protagonist, regardless of the name - a clever, sarcastic, brilliant teenage girl with cutting wit. She's always lost one or both parents. She's poor but is suddenly whisked away in a life where she is surrounded by luxury. She is self contained and slow to trust since she's either never had family or has lost it, but over the course of the book comes to find her real family, true and/or metaphorical. She's always surrounded by the same sidekicks, all who are also teenagers who speak in a way no real teenager does. At least one likes explosions and at least one is very socially inept. And of course there's a handsome boy who is too noble for his own good.
And maybe that would be a problem, if they weren't all so damn fun and enjoyable, and with pretty interesting and unique stories and narrative. It's ok for me that the protagonist of every series is basically the same, because I want MORE of that protagonist. I really enjoy reading every single series by her.
If you like character driven stories rather than plot driven, you might enjoy this book. Maybe. I didn't feel like the characters had much depth to them at all, and there wasn't really much of an arc for any of them... so maybe not.
If you're more into plot driven stories, you're definitely likely to have problems with this story and it's complete and utter lack of any feeling of closure.
I always enjoy a good Stephen King tale, but this probably the easiest 5 stars I've given in a long time.
Charlie is a good kid who's had a difficult life. His mother died when he was young, and his father drowns his grief with alcohol, so Charlie has become the adult in the family. He ends up befriending the elderly town hermit Mr. Bowditch and his dog, an aging German Shepherd named Radar. There's this weird shed out back, and there's weird noises coming from it, but Bowditch says to ignore it so I'm sure it's fine, right?
When Bowditch dies, Charlie discovers that no, everything is not fine. And what he finds in that shed will lead him into an entirely new world that is inextricably connected to our own, and if Charlie doesn't do something, our world could be destroyed. Oh and there's a sundial that can reverse time, but surely no one is interested in that.
I read this book a few months after my beloved dog Zoe died. I always jokingly referred to her as “my firstborn” and her loss hit me like a ton of bricks. Reading this book, it was so easy for me to relate to Charlie and the lengths he went to. I would do anything, absolutely anything, to have puppy Zoe back with me again. Oh, there were so many tears reading this book.
If you're a dog person, or just a pet person, I think you'll love this book. If you like to cry, I think you'll love this book. If you like Narnia-like stories of hidden fairy tale worlds, this is for you. But if you want a more stereotypical King horror/thriller, then you'll probably be disappointed here. While there are certainly monsters, this is not Pet Sematary.
I strongly recommend it; this book will always be a favorite.
