what if this is as good as it gets?: 2026 Reading

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Title: Between Two Fires
Author: Christopher Buehlman
Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins / 432 pp

Published: May 2023
Genre: historical horror, medieval quests, dark fantasy
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/3
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This book is not my usual fare. I don't recall where the recommendation originated. Historical horror, medieval quests, dark fantasy, I'm trying to think what other genres I would use. The description was compelling, the writing is amazingly good, the story is gruesomely detailed, and I could not put it down! But what the hell? Or what the heaven? (If you read it, you'll understand.)

Set during the Black Death in 14th-century France, where disgraced, excommunicated knight, Thomas, lives as a brigand, escorts a mysterious young girl, Delphine, across a plague-ridden landscape to Avignon as fallen angels wage a second war against Heaven. Along their journey, they are joined by Father Matthieu, a guilt-ridden, alcoholic priest who finds a renewed sense of purpose in protecting the girl. The story blends medieval fiction with supernatural horror, following the travelers as they encounter demons, the undead, and other horrors, with the girl claiming divine guidance and the knight and priest seeking redemption.

I may have a new favorite narrator: Steve West is amazing!

From the publisher:

The year is 1348. Thomas, a disgraced knight, has found a young girl alone in a dead Norman village. An orphan of the Black Death, and an almost unnerving picture of innocence, she tells Thomas that plague is only part of a larger cataclysm—that the fallen angels under Lucifer are rising in a second war on heaven, and that the world of men has fallen behind the lines of conflict.

Is it delirium or is it faith? She believes she has seen the angels of God. She believes the righteous dead speak to her in dreams. And now she has convinced the faithless Thomas to shepherd her across a depraved landscape to Avignon. There, she tells Thomas, she will fulfill her mission to confront the evil that has devastated the earth, and to restore to this betrayed, murderous knight the nobility and hope of salvation he long abandoned.

As hell unleashes its wrath, and as the true nature of the girl is revealed, Thomas will find himself on a macabre battleground of angels and demons, saints, and the risen dead, and in the midst of a desperate struggle for nothing less than the soul of man.

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Title: Dead of Winter
Author: Darcy Coates
Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins / 352 pp

Published: July 2023
Genre: horror, mystery, thriller, suspense
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/4
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is a buddy read with my niece. She chose it. I went into it blindly, not realizing it's a mystery horror thriller. Winter is a character in this story. The isolation, frigid winds, abundant snow, white-outs, all of what makes winter winter are a character. As the characters are thrown together due to a storm, they slowly get to know each other. The slow reveal of personalities and budding camaraderie set the pace for the first half of the story. After the major plot reveal, which I will not spoil, the tension builds! It was well-crafted and paced second half of the story.

This book heightened my dislike of winter.

From the publisher:

When Christa joins a tour group heading deep into the snowy expanse of the Rocky Mountains, she's hopeful this will be her chance to put the ghosts of her past to rest. But when a bitterly cold snowstorm sweeps the region, the small group is forced to take shelter in an abandoned hunting cabin. Despite the uncomfortably claustrophobic quarters and rapidly dropping temperature, Christa believes they'll be safe as they wait out the storm.

She couldn't be more wrong.

Deep in the night, their tour guide goes missing...only to be discovered the following morning, his severed head impaled on a tree outside the cabin. Terrified, and completely isolated by the storm, Christa finds herself trapped with eight total strangers. One of them kills for sport...and they're far from finished. As the storm grows more dangerous and the number of survivors dwindles one by one, Christa must decide who she can trust before this frozen mountain becomes her tomb.

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Title: The Big Sleep
Author: Raymond Chandler
Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins / 231 pp

Published: February 1939
Genre: classic, mystery, noir, detective
Book Group: School

Finished: 1/7
My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

A classic noir mystery that didn't age well: disparaging descriptions of every single woman and minority were tedious after a while. However, the grit and lone wolf aspect of Private Detective Philip Marlowe were classic.

The plot was hard to follow because of the narrative thread, with lots of minute details about things that weren't relevant to the story--I got bogged down. I've seen the 1980s television series with Powers Boothe and adored Marlowe and the genre. But reading it just wasn't the same.

From the publisher:

When old man Sternwood, a dying millionaire, hires Philip Marlowe to expose the blackmailer of one of his troublesome daughters, Marlowe finds himself involved with more than simple extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, and seduction are just a few of the complications standing in the way of completing the task at hand. And just as Marlowe feels he’s getting ahold of the situation, he discovers the first body.

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Title: A Grim Reaper's Guide to Catching a Killer
Author: Maxie Dara
Length: 9 hrs and 12 mins / 352 pp

Published: October 2024
Genre: coay mystery, fantasy, paranormal
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/10
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is a delightful debut novel and first in a series; I will read more! I'm not sure how to classify it--it's a blend of cozy paranormal mystery with found family. And amusing, I even chuckled a couple of times. I hope future installments touch on main character Kathy Valence's backstory, but this introduction was plenty fun. Kathy's depicted as down-on-her-luck at forty-two, in the process of divorce, yet surprisingly pregnant with her soon-to-be ex-husband's baby. The secondary characters are charming and quirky. The audio is very well done.

From the publisher:

Sometimes it takes working with the dead to start living.

Kathy Valence is forty-two, mid-divorce, and pregnant with her ex's baby. She's also a modern-day grim reaper employed by S.C.Y.T.H.E. (Secure Collection, Yielding, and Transportation of Human Essences), but frankly that's the easiest part of her life right now. Or at least it was, until her latest client's soul goes missing.

When she finally tracks down seventeen-year-old Conner Ortiz, he angrily denies he died of natural causes, despite what his file says. He insists that someone at S.C.Y.T.H.E. murdered him, and he demands Kathy find out who and why.

Kathy has only forty-five days to figure out what happened to Conner and help him move on before the boy's soul is doomed to roam the Earth as a ghost forever. She’s forced to rely on the help of her retired mentor, her almost ex-husband—and some sneaky moves by Conner himself. This is the wildest case of her career. . .and one wrong move could cost Kathy her job, not to mention her life.

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Title: Midnight on the Potomac: The Last Year of the Civil War, the Lincoln Assassination, and the Rebirth of America
Author: Scott Ellsworth
Length: 9 hrs and 51 mins / 336 pp

Published: July 2025
Genre: military history, non-fiction, Civil War
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/13
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

A compelling non-fiction that kept me engaged. Lots of fresh information about the final year of the Civil War. Each chapter begins with an interesting anecdote or phrase as a hook. It's a good thing I have a substantial background in Civil War battles, especially since they are mentioned in broad strokes. But more than that, the book got me thinking about the rebirth of our nation. Such a thoughtful read.

From the publisher:

Told with a page-turning pace, New York Times bestselling author and historian Scott Ellsworth has written the most compelling new book about the Civil War in years. Focusing on the last, desperate months of the war, when the outcome was far from certain, Midnight on the Potomac is a story of titanic battles, political upheaval, and the long-forgotten Confederate terror war against the loyal citizens of the North. Taking us behind the scenes in the White House, along the battlefronts in Virginia, and into the conspiracies of spies and secret agents, Lincoln walks these pages, as do Grant and Sherman. But so do common soldiers, runaway slaves, and an unknown but intrepid female war correspondent named Lois Adams. Rarely, if ever, has a book about the Civil War featured such a rich and diverse cast of characters.

Midnight on the Potomac will also shatter some long-held myths. For more than a century and a half, the Lincoln assassination has been portrayed as the sole brainchild of a disgruntled, pro-South actor. But based on both obscure contemporary accounts and decades of long-ignored scholarship, Ellsworth reveals that for nearly one year before the tragic events at Ford’s Theatre, John Wilkes Booth had been working closely with agents of the Confederate Secret Service. And the real Booth is far from the one we’ve long been presented with.

Deeply researched yet captivatingly written, Midnight on the Potomac is a new kind of book about the Civil War. In it you will read about the Confederate attempt to burn down New York City, how Lincoln almost lost the presidency, about the Rebel general who nearly captured Washington, and how thousands of enslaved African Americans freed themselves—and helped secure their nation’s survival. In an age of deep political division such as our own, Scott Ellsworth’s book is an eloquent and gripping testament to the courage, grit, and greatness of the American people.

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Title: Wild Dark Shore
Author: Charlotte McConaghy
Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins / 298 pp

Published: March 2025
Genre: climate fiction, mystery, thriller
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/15
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is perhaps the most atmospheric book I've ever read. The isolation, the relentless winds, the driving rain, and the frigid sea were all characters that shaped relationships between the people and the physical world around them. The main female character, Rowan, dramatically washes up on the remote island, unleashing secrets, suspicion, and intrigue. There were many times I wanted to shake Rowan as she became entwined in the family's drama. The keepers of the island, the male main character Dominic Salt and his three children, have forged relationships with the animals of the island, and the youngest, Orly, is consumed by the seed vault. I loved the dynamics between the Salt children.

I'm relatively new to the Climate Fiction genre--this was a powerful study of precious resources. The audio narration was very well done.

From the publisher:

A family on a remote island. A mysterious woman washed ashore. A rising storm on the horizon.

Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late―and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.

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Title: The Sentence Is Death
Author: Anthony Horowitz
Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins / 384 pp

Published: November 2018
Genre: mystery, meta-narrative
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/17
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I like this quirky series. The author is a character alongside private detective Daniel Hawthorne, who is prickly and secretive. I liked that Anthony Horowitz pokes fun at himself and is bumbling in his attempt to solve the murder before Hawthorne. I enjoyed the first of the series--this installment is even better. And the audio narration is great!

From the publisher:

"You shouldn’t be here. It’s too late…"

These, heard over the phone, were the last recorded words of successful celebrity-divorce lawyer. Richard Pryce, found bludgeoned to death in his bachelor pad with a bottle of wine – a 1982 Chateau Lafite worth £3,000, to be precise.

Odd, considering he didn’t drink. Why this bottle? And why those words? And why was a three-digit number painted on the wall by the killer? And, most importantly, which of the man’s many, many enemies did the deed?

Baffled, the police are forced to bring in Private Investigator Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, the author Anthony, who’s really getting rather good at this murder investigation business.

But as Hawthorne takes on the case with characteristic relish, it becomes clear that he, too, has secrets to hide. As our reluctant narrator becomes ever more embroiled in the case, he realises that these secrets must be exposed – even at the risk of death…

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Title: We Are All Guilty Here
Author: Karin Slaughter
Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins / 439 pp

Published: August 2025
Genre: mystery, thriller, dual timelines
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/19
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

While this book felt a bit overlong, it was an impressive start to a new series. The novel’s greatest strength lies in its characters; even the secondary figures are so well-developed they feel like three-dimensional people. The mystery revolves around the gritty, disturbing disappearances of teenage girls across dual timelines—one in the present and another twelve years ago. I especially appreciated that it functions as both a police procedural and a deep dive into the psychology behind the crimes.

From the publisher:

Welcome to North Falls—a small town where everyone knows everyone. Or so they think.

Until the night of the fireworks. When two teenage girls vanish, and the town ignites.

For Officer Emmy Clifton, it’s personal. She turned away when her best friend's daughter needed help—and now she must bring her home.

But as Emmy combs through the puzzle the girls left behind, she realizes she never really knew them. Nobody did.

Every teenage girl has secrets. But who would kill for them? And what else is the town hiding?

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Title: Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction
Author: Elizabeth Vargas
Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins / 257 pp

Published: September 2016
Genre: memoir, addiction, mental health
Book Group: School

Finished: 1/19
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I don't think I ever would have picked this up--I don't watch TV, so I didn't know who Elizabeth Vargas is, and I'm not an addict, so I didn't connect with those passages, and I'm not wealthy, so I am not able to solve my problems with as much support as Elizabeth Vargas had. Having said all that, her personal story of sliding to rock bottom and regaining her footing in sobriety was authentic and not overly dramatic. She accepts responsibility and explains without blaming. I'm sure this will be an interesting book group discussion.

From the publisher:

From the moment she uttered the brave and honest words, "I am an alcoholic," to interviewer George Stephanopoulos, Elizabeth Vargas began writing her story, as her experiences were still raw. Now, in BETWEEN BREATHS, Vargas discusses her accounts of growing up with anxiety-which began suddenly at the age of six when her father served in Vietnam-and how she dealt with this anxiety as she came of age, to her eventually turning to alcohol for relief. She tells of how she found herself living in denial, about the extent of her addiction and keeping her dependency a secret for so long. She addresses her time in rehab, her first year of sobriety, and the guilt she felt as a working mother who had never found the right balance.

Honest and hopeful, BETWEEN BREATHS is an inspiring read.

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Title: Dungeon Crawler Carl
Author: Matt Dinniman
Length: 13 hrs and 31 mins / 450 pp

Published: September 2020
Genre: fantasy, dystopia, adventure, LitRPG
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/24
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

I was not prepared for this book. It is absolutely bonkers and bananas. I am not a gamer, so I was not familiar with some of the lingo. This is basically a dystopian role-playing game. I got it because I have read so much praise for the audio narration — which was well-deserved, indeed. So, Carl and his ex-girlfriend's cat, Princess Donut, are forced to team up to survive a deadly intergalactic reality game show after aliens destroy Earth and turn it into a multi-level dungeon. The book is the experience of Carl and Donut as they navigate the levels, figure out who to trust, who to get advice from, and work with other contestants. It's brutal, violent, and very funny. I laughed out loud several times. I have yet to decide if I'm up for more of the series (although part of me is curious as to the fate of Carl and Donut).

From the publisher:

The apocalypse will be televised!

A man. His ex-girlfriend's cat. A sadistic game show unlike anything in the a dungeon crawl where survival depends on killing your prey in the most entertaining way possible.

In a flash, every human-erected construction on Earth - from Buckingham Palace to the tiniest of sheds - collapses in a heap, sinking into the ground. The buildings and all the people inside have all been atomized and transformed into the an 18-level labyrinth filled with traps, monsters, and loot. A dungeon so enormous, it circles the entire globe. Only a few dare venture inside. But once you're in, you can't get out. And what's worse, each level has a time limit. You have but days to find a staircase to the next level down, or it's game over.

In this game, it's not about your strength or your dexterity. It's about your followers, your views. Your clout. It's about building an audience and killing those goblins with style. You can't just survive here. You gotta survive big. You gotta fight with vigor, with excitement. You gotta make them stand up and cheer. And if you do have that "it" factor, you may just find yourself with a following. That's the only way to truly survive in this game - with the help of the loot boxes dropped upon you by the generous benefactors watching from across the galaxy. They call it Dungeon Crawler World. But for Carl, it's anything but a game.

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Title: The Irish Goodbye
Author: Heather Aimee O'Neill
Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins / 275 pp

Published: September 2025
Genre: literary fiction, contemporary, family drama
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/28
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This character-driven family drama reverberates with the guilt, grief, and resentment stemming from beloved brother and son, Topher's, death. The narrative thread varies between the three sisters: Cait, Alice, and Maggie--and the sister dynamics resonated with me. The relationships among the sisters, the touch of sibling rivalry, and the deep devotion were authentic. And the parental relationships rang true, too. Especially how the sisters almost underestimate their aging parents' ability to relate to each modern conundrum. Knowing that an "Irish Goodbye" is slang for leaving a social gathering surreptitiously without saying farewell to anyone helped the title click.

It's hard to believe this is a debut novel. Although there were a few slow sections, the pace held my interest. The audio narration is very good.

From the publisher:

Three adult sisters grapple with a shared tragedy over a Thanksgiving weekend spent in their childhood home, navigating complex relationships and old tensions.

It’s been years since the three Ryan sisters were all home together at their family’s beloved house on the eastern shore of Long Island. Two decades ago, their lives were upended by an accident on their brother Topher’s a friend’s brother was killed, the lawsuit nearly bankrupted their parents, and Topher spiraled into a depression, eventually taking his life. Now the Ryan women are back for Thanksgiving, eager to reconnect, but each carrying a heavy secret. The eldest, Cait, still holding guilt for the role no one knows she played in the boat accident, rekindles a flame with her high school crush, Topher’s best friend and the brother of the boy who died. Middle sister Alice’s been thrown a curveball threatening the career she’s restarting and faces a difficult decision that may doom her marriage. And the youngest, Maggie, is finally taking the risk to bring the woman she loves home to her devoutly Catholic mother. Infusing everything is the grief for Topher that none of the Ryans have figured out how to carry together.

When Cait invites a guest to Thanksgiving dinner, old tensions boil over and new truths surface, nearly overpowering the flickering light of their family bond. Far more than a family holiday will be ruined unless the sisters can find a way to forgive themselves—and one another.

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Title: The Rachel Incident
Author: Caroline O'Donoghue
Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins / 304 pp

Published: June 2023
Genre: literary fiction, coming-of-age, Ireland
Book Group: no

Finished: 1/31
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I’ll preface this with a proclamation: I love all things Ireland. To find a novel set in my beloved Cork is delightful. Narrated by Rachel in the 2020s, married to James Carey, pregnant, and a noted writer, the story is both a funny and poignant look back at the pivotal years of 2009 and 2010.

Rachel grows from a sheltered, middle-class girl into a "bohemian-wannabe" navigating an intense college year where the job market is impossible, and the world feels bleak. However, the real engine of the story is her all-consuming friendship with James Devlin, her gay best friend and bookstore colleague. Their lives become so intertwined as they share a run-down house on Shandon Street that Rachel’s own identity often feels completely bent around his path.

The drama truly ignites when their lives collide with Dr. Fred Byrne, Rachel’s married professor. What begins as a student’s crush on Fred spirals into a chaotic web of secrets and romantic entanglements that force Rachel to determine her future career and her sense of self.

From the publisher:

A brilliantly funny novel about friends, lovers, Ireland in chaos, and a young woman desperately trying to manage all three

Rachel is a student working at a bookstore when she meets James, and it’s love at first sight. Effervescent and insistently heterosexual, James soon invites Rachel to be his roommate and the two begin a friendship that changes the course of both their lives forever. Together, they run riot through the streets of Cork city, trying to maintain a bohemian existence while the threat of the financial crash looms before them.

When Rachel falls in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne, James helps her devise a reading at their local bookstore, with the goal that she might seduce him afterwards. But Fred has other desires. So begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of James, Rachel, Fred, and Fred’s glamorous, well-connected, bourgeois wife. Aching with unrequited love, shot through with delicious, sparkling humor, The Rachel Incident is a triumph.

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Title: Heart The Lover
Author: Lily King
Length: 5 hrs and 52 mins / 256 pp

Published: September 2025
Genre: literary fiction, coming-of-age, romance
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/1
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

I fell in love with this book as I binge-listened to it. The surety of the trio of characters in their collegiate intellectual promise as they quoted obscure passages to each other drew me in. The love story between Jordan and Yash was full of yearning and tenderness, until it wasn't. As the characters emerge into adulthood, they have taken different paths. It's difficult to describe the story without spoiling it, so I'll say there's a poignant reconnection and unsatisfying resolution to the relationships. I want to learn to play Sir Hincomb Funnibuster.

I didn't realize it's a companion book to Writers & Lovers. I haven't read that, although I picked it up and it wasn't the right book at the right time for me. Maybe I'll try it again.

From the publisher:

You knew I’d write a book about you someday.

Our narrator understands good love stories—their secrets and subtext, their highs and their free falls. But her greatest love story, the one she lived, never followed the simple rules.

In the fall of her senior year of college, she meets two star students from her 17th-Century Lit class: Sam and Yash. Best friends living off-campus in the elegant house of a professor on sabbatical, the boys invite her into their intoxicating world of academic fervor, rapid-fire banter and raucous card games. They nickname her Jordan, and she quickly discovers the pleasures of friendship, love and her own intellectual ambition. Youthful passion is unpredictable though, and she soon finds herself at the center of a charged and intricate triangle. As graduation comes and goes, choices made will alter these three lives forever.

Decades later, Jordan is living the life she dreamed of, and the vulnerable days of her youth seem comfortably behind her. But when a surprise visit and unexpected news brings the past crashing into the present, Jordan returns to a world she left behind and is forced to confront the decisions and deceptions of her younger self.

Written with the superb wit and emotional sensitivity fans and critics of Lily King have come to adore, Heart the Lover is a deeply moving story that celebrates love, friendship, and the transformative nature of forgiveness. Wise, unforgettable, and with a delightful connective thread to Writers & Lovers, this is King at her very best, affirming her as a masterful chronicler of the human experience and one of the finest novelists at work today.

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Title: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 1
Author: Beth Brower
Length: 3 hrs and 15 mins / 127 pp

Published: November 2019
Genre: historical fiction, humor
Book Group: library

Finished: 2/2
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Losing myself in Victorian English journals is just the quirky read I needed. Our heroine, Emma M. Lion is recently returning to London only to find that her impending inheritance has been squandered by an ill-intentioned Cousin Archibald. Emma's travails as she settles back into city life. There are other eccentric relatives, flustered house staff, and odd neighbors making appearances in the journals. And I'm excited to get my hands on more!

From the publisher:

“I’ve arrived in London without incident. There are few triumphs in my recent life, but I count this as one. My existence of the last three years has been nothing but incident.”

The Year is 1883 and Emma M. Lion has returned to her London neighbourhood of St. Crispian’s. But Emma’s plans for a charmed and studious life are sabotaged by her eccentric Cousin Archibald, her formidable Aunt Eugenia, and the slightly odd denizens of St. Crispian’s. Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House.

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Title: Amelia Unabridged
Author: Ashley Schumacher
Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins / 304 pp

Published: February 2021
Genre: young adult, contemporary fiction, books about books, grief
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/7
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

It's been a while since I've read YA lit. This was a story about books and grief. It got a little repetitive and melodramatic for me, but it was poignant. And it did make me wonder why no one gets grief counseling. What I most enjoyed were the sections about books. The fictional world the author creates within the real world made me want to read the Orman Chronicles.

From the publisher:

Sparks fly between two teens as they grapple with grief, love, and the future.

Eighteen-year-old Amelia Griffin is obsessed with the famous Orman Chronicles, written by the young and reclusive prodigy N. E. Endsley. They’re the books that brought her and her best friend Jenna together after Amelia’s father left and her family imploded. So when Amelia and Jenna get the opportunity to attend a book festival with Endsley in attendance, Amelia is ecstatic. It’s the perfect way to start off their last summer before college.

In a heartbeat, everything goes horribly wrong. When Jenna gets a chance to meet the author and Amelia doesn’t, the two have a blowout fight like they’ve never experienced. And before Amelia has a chance to mend things, Jenna is killed in a freak car accident. Grief-stricken, and without her best friend to guide her, Amelia questions everything she had planned for the future.

When a mysterious, rare edition of the Orman Chronicles arrives, Amelia is convinced that it somehow came from Jenna. Tracking the book to an obscure but enchanting bookstore in Michigan, Amelia is shocked to find herself face-to-face with the enigmatic and handsome N. E. Endsley himself, the reason for Amelia’s and Jenna’s fight and perhaps the clue to what Jenna wanted to tell her all along.

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Title: The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion: Vol. 2
Author: Beth Brower
Length: 4 hrs and 31 mins / 164 pp

Published: November 2019
Genre: historical fiction, humor
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/7
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

In Volume 2, more about Emma's neighbors in St. Crispian's, is revealed. Emma's interactions with both Roland and the Duke of Islington are flirty banter at its best. And the Tenant, as a mysterious figure, makes me wonder if romance is in the air. I was greatly amused by the Jane Eyre gathering and the meeting, and the hijinks that ensued.

From the publisher:

“I was sitting at my desk reading, with a cup of tea, my windows flung open, when I heard The Tenant enter his garret, just on the other side of the wall from myself.”

Emma M. Lion offers up her Unselected Journals, however self-incriminating they may be, which comprise a series of novella-length volumes. Armed with wit and a sideways amusement, Emma documents the curious realities of her life at Lapis Lazuli House. In Volume 2, more about Emma's neighbors in St. Crispian's, is revealed. Emma's interactions with both Roland and the Duke of Islington are flirty banter at its best. And the Tenant, as a mysterious figure, makes me wonder if romance is in the air.

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Title: North Woods
Author: Daniel Mason
Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins / 372 pp

Published: September 2023
Genre: historical fiction, literary fiction, magical realism
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/10
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This is an unusual book; it doesn't follow a traditional narrative thread. There are no sweeping characters to relate to or despise. It's a story about a place and the many people who inhabit it over generations. It's quite dense and literary. I did enjoy figuring out the historical context clues so I had a general timeline. This would lend itself to quite a rousing book discussion of those who love it and those who loathe it.

The audio is wonderfully narrated.

From the publisher:

A sweeping novel about a single house in the woods of New England, told through the lives of those who inhabit it across the centuries—a daring, moving tale of memory and fate from the Pulitzer Prize finalist and author of The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become home to an extraordinary succession of inhabitants . An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins survive war and famine, only to succumb to envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave, but finds the ancient trees refuse to give up their secrets. A lovelorn painter, a conman, a stalking panther, a lusty beetle; as each one confronts the mysteries of the north woods, they come to realize that the dark, raucous, beautiful past is very much alive.

Traversing cycles of history, nature, and even literature, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we’re connected to our environment and to one another, across time, language and space. Written along with the seasons and divided into the twelve months of the year, it is an unforgettable novel about secrets and fates that asks the timeless how do we live on, even after we’re gone?

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Title: The Perfect Marriage
Author: Jeneva Rose
Length: 8 hrs and 48 mins / 337 pp

Published: July 2020
Genre: psychological thriller, mystery
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/13
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This twisty tale kept me up late! I thought I had mad skills at detecting plot twists, but I did not see some of these coming. Sarah, as an overachiever, sets the tone of the novel as a no-nonsense, high-powered, named partner at a prestigious law firm. Adam, as the other narrator, is a struggling author whose taste of success has left him with writer's block. Their marriage, although they still care for each other, is faltering. Adam is accused of killing his mistress, and Sarah steps up to defend him. Which is just one of the decisions I questioned. The world of privilege and affluence was an interesting facet of this story; it would have been a completely different book if they were struggling financially or part of a marginalized group.

The secondary characters were well-crafted. Each plays a significant role in twisting the storyline. I didn't see the ending coming!

From the publisher:

Would you defend your husband if he was accused of killing his mistress?

Sarah Morgan is a successful and powerful defense attorney in Washington D.C. At 33 years old, she is a named partner at her firm and life is going exactly how she planned.

The same cannot be said for her husband, Adam. He is a struggling writer who has had little success in his career. He begins to tire of his and Sarah’s relationship as she is constantly working.

Out in the secluded woods, at Adam and Sarah’s second home, Adam engages in a passionate affair with Kelly Summers.

Then, one morning everything changes. Adam is arrested for Kelly’s murder. She had been found stabbed to death in Adam and Sarah’s second home.

Sarah soon finds herself playing the defender for her own husband, a man accused of murdering his mistress.

But is Adam guilty or is he innocent?

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Title: People We Meet On Vacation
Author: Emily Henry
Length: 10 hrs and 46 mns / 364 pp

Published: May 2021
Genre: chick lit, contemporary romance
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/15
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

My niece and I are having another buddy-read, well, re-read for me, because we want to watch the Netflix movie. Since it's a re-read for me, I'll post my original thoughts... I have no new insights to add...

There is surprising depth to this chick-lit. At first, I wasn't sure about the narrative structure of flashbacks alternating with "this summer," but it worked. The characters are well-developed although sometimes the main character-narrator Poppy annoyed me. She's self-centered and slightly dishonest, but her character evolves by the end of the book. I liked the will-they-or-won't-they, opposites attract, friends to lovers tropes. I especially loved the inside jokes that Poppy and Alex maintain on their travel adventures. Lots of witty banter.

From the publisher:

Poppy and Alex. Alex and Poppy. They have nothing in common. She’s a wild child; he wears khakis. She has insatiable wanderlust; he prefers to stay home with a book. And somehow, ever since a fateful car share home from college many years ago, they are the very best of friends. For most of the year they live far apart—she’s in New York City, and he’s in their small hometown—but every summer, for a decade, they have taken one glorious week of vacation together.

Until two years ago, when they ruined everything. They haven’t spoken since.

Poppy has everything she should want, but she’s stuck in a rut. When someone asks when she was last truly happy, she knows, without a doubt, it was on that ill-fated, final trip with Alex. And so, she decides to convince her best friend to take one more vacation together—lay everything on the table, make it all right. Miraculously, he agrees.

Now she has a week to fix everything. If only she can get around the one big truth that has always stood quietly in the middle of their seemingly perfect relationship. What could possibly go wrong?

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Title: Fire Exit
Author: Morgan Talty
Length: 6 hrs and 34 mns / 243 pp

Published: June 2024
Genre: literary fiction, indigenous culture
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/16
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

This is masterful storytelling. Charles Lamosway deals with secrets, lies, and identity throughout this story. Actually, the secondary characters do, too. Having hopes and dreams crumble around him is really a theme of Charles's life, and in a lot of stories it would have made Charles a sadsack, but this story is almost hopeful. It was a fascinating look at indigenous reservation life--and I wish there had been a little more background on the Penobscot struggles to regain and retain tribal authority. I connected with this story, and I felt the sense of place and atmosphere. And it's like I was sitting in a coffee shop with Charles, listening to his life story.

From the publisher:

Does she remember this day? Does she remember it at all? Does she know this history―this story―her body holds secret from her?

From the porch of his home, Charles Lamosway has watched the life he might have had unfold across the river on Maine’s Penobscot Reservation. On the far bank, he caught brief moments of Roger and Mary raising their only child, Elizabeth―from the day she came home from the hospital to her early twenties. But there’s always been something deeper and more dangerous than the river that divides him from this family and the rest of the tribal community. It’s the secret that Elizabeth is his daughter, a secret Charles is no longer willing to keep.

Now it’s been weeks since he’s seen Elizabeth and Charles is worried. As he attempts to hold on and care for what he can: his home and property, his alcoholic, quick-tempered and big-hearted friend Bobby, and his mother, Louise, who is slipping ever-deeper into dementia―he becomes increasingly haunted by his past. Forced to confront a lost childhood on the reservation, a love affair cut short, and the death of his beloved stepfather, Fredrick, in a hunting accident―a death that he and Louise cannot agree where to lay the blame―Charles contends with questions he’s long been afraid to ask. Is it his secret to share? And would his daughter want to know the truth?

From award-winning author of Night of the Living Rez, Morgan Talty’s debut novel, Fire Exit, is a masterful and unforgettable story of family, legacy, bloodlines, culture and inheritance, and what, if anything, we owe one another.

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Title: Strange Sally Diamond
Author: Liz Nugent
Length: 10 hrs and 4 mns / 320 pp

Published: July 2023
Genre: psychological thriller, contemporary literature, Ireland
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/18
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I could not stop this book--I did not want to pause for any reason! I was heavily invested in Sally Diamond. Sally is one of the most complicated, complex characters I've ever read. The slow revelations about how her early life shaped her into the woman she became were compelling and bleak. Sally's willingness to confront her history and isolation made me root for her. And as dark and difficult as some parts of this book were, there is some humor in Sally making sense of the world around her. Secrets start to be revealed about halfway through the book; the narrative shifts between narrators, and suspense builds with each piece of the story. The author explores how early childhood experiences shape us--with reverberating consequences.

As I read, I was caught up in sympathy, compassion, disbelief, and anger. There were times I had to repeat sections to make sure I was getting it. Like, what the actual...?

From the publisher:

Sally Diamond cannot understand why what she did was so strange. She was only doing what her father told her to do, to put him out with the rubbish when he died.

Now Sally is the centre of attention, not only from the hungry media and police detectives, but also a sinister voice from a past she cannot remember. As she begins to discover the horrors of her childhood, Sally steps into the world for the first time, making new friends and big decisions, and learning that people don’t always mean what they say.

But who is the man observing Sally from the other side of the world? And why does her neighbour seem to be obsessed with her? Sally’s trust issues are about to be severely challenged . . .

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Title: The Lowering Days
Author: Gregory Brown
Length: 9 hrs and 55 mns / 288 pp

Published: March 2021
Genre: historical fiction, family drama, indigenous culture, eco literature
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/20
My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

An acquaintance recommended I read this. This debut novel tells many stories. There is a particular style of storytelling here: a meandering, multi-layered indigenous style. Set in Maine, along the Penobscot River, the setting is a character in itself.

The story centers on two families: the Ames and the Creel families. But there are other narrative threads with other sorts of secondary characters, I'll admit, and sometimes I got lost on who was doing what.

From the publisher:

An emotionally powerful saga, set in 1980s Maine, that explores family love, the power of myths and storytelling, survival and environmental exploitation, and the ties between cultural identity and the land we live on

If you paid attention, you could see the entire unfolding of human history in a story . . .

Growing up, David Almerin Ames and his brothers, Link and Simon, believed the wild patch of Maine where they lived along the Penobscot River belonged to them. Running down the state like a spine, the river shared its name with the people of the Penobscot Nation, whose ancestral territory included the entire Penobscot watershed--the land upon which the Ames family eventually made their home.

The brothers' affinity for the natural world derives from their iconoclastic parents, Arnoux, a romantic artist and Vietnam War deserter who builds boats by hand, and Falon, an activist journalist who runs The Lowering Days, a community newspaper which gives equal voice to indigenous and white issues.

But the boys' childhood reverie is shattered when a bankrupt paper mill, once the Penobscot Valley's largest employer, is burned to the ground on the eve of potentially reopening. As the community grapples with the scope of the devastation, Falon receives a letter from a Penobscot teenager confessing to the crime--an act of justice for a sacred river under centuries of assault.

For the residents of the Penobscot Valley, the fire reveals a stark truth. For many, the mill is a lifeline, providing working class jobs they need to survive. Within the Penobscot Nation, the mill is a bringer of death, spewing toxic chemicals and wastewater products that poison the river's fish and plants.

As the divide within the community widens, the building anger and resentment explodes in tragedy, wrecking the lives of David and those around him.

Evocative and atmospheric, pulsating with the rhythms of the natural world, The Lowering Days is a meditation on the flow and weight of history, the power and fragility of love, the dangerous fault lines underlying families, and the enduring land where stories are created and told.

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Title: One of Us Is Dead
Author: Jeneva Rose
Length: 9 hrs and 22 mns / 312 pp

Published: April 2022
Genre: contemporary fiction, mystery, suspense
Book Group: no

Finished: 2/22
My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

This was a quick read--and quite a thrill ride. As a fan of the Housewives franchises, I was instantly drawn into the bitchfest of this wealthy world. Once I was familiar with the five different narrative points of view, I figured out the tangle of relationships. The women of Buckhead are scrabbling over pecking order and prestige. And then there are the husbands: portrayed as dim-witted and devious. It's a fun way that the whole story weaves together, though. Not high literature but a great romp.

From the publisher:

Opulence. Sex. Betrayal … Sometimes friendship can be deadly.

Meet the women of Buckhead—a place of expensive cars, huge houses, and competitive friendships.

Shannon was once the queen bee of Buckhead. But she’s been unceremoniously dumped by Bryce, her politician husband. When Bryce replaces her with a much younger woman, Shannon sets out to take revenge …

Crystal has stepped into Shannon’s old shoes. A young, innocent Texan girl, she simply has no idea what she’s up against …

Olivia has waited years to take Shannon’s crown as the unofficial queen of Buckhead. Finally, her moment has come. But to take her rightful place, she will need to use every backstabbing, manipulative, underhand trick in the book …

Jenny owns Glow, the most exclusive salon in town. Jenny knows all her clients’ secrets and darkest desires. But will she ever tell?

Who amongst these women will be clever enough to survive Buckhead—and who will wind up dead? They say that friendships can be complex, but no one said it could ever be this deadly.