Category: Uncategorized

August 2026–Part Two:

August 31, 2026

Book #63:

American Fantasy by Emma Straub (Length: 294 pages). I was a bit hesitant to pick up this contemporary novel given its mixed reviews, but I really enjoyed this one. I did listen to it and the narrator is great. The premise here is a middle-aged, divorced woman, Annie, takes a boy band themed cruise solo, as her sister (a bigger fan of this particular boy band) has to drop out last minute. This boy band was popular in the 1990s (so think Backstreet Boys or New Kids on the Block) and I’m not of that generation (Duran Duran is the band I loved as a teenager). However, I really enjoyed this story, told from three different points of view: Annie, Sarah (employee of talent management company) and Keith (one of the boy band members). The format here is a lot of fun, mimicking a cruise ship hourly itinerary (10 am, Lido Deck, pool party). I like Straub’s writing style, and I really enjoyed all three voices and the ending was perfect for what it is. 4 stars.

Book #64:

Crescent City: House of Earth and Blood by Sarah J. Maas (Length: 807 pages). This fantasy novel is SO FREAKING GOOD! I’ve waited awhile to pick it up given its page count, but since this author’s announcement that there will be a book 4, I have enjoyed seeing a few book podcasters and bookstagrammers start this series and thought, there’s no time like the present! The world building in this hefty book DOES take quite a long time to set up before the reader gets the lay of the land–almost 300 pages. So it was a bit of a slow and confusing start for me. But I stuck with it and I’m so glad I did as once the action starts up, it never stops. And it’s quite a fun (if violent) ride. I adore the supporting characters here (fae and animal) but Bryce and Hunt, the romantic leads, are the true stars here. I will definitely be picking up book #2 (from my daughter’s bookshelf) when I have the room in my TBR to tackle another hefty page count book, and I can’t wait to return to the magic of Crescent City. Five BIG stars from me.

August 2026–Part One:

August 18, 2026

Book #60:

Burn by Peter Heller (386 pages).  This dystopian adventure novel was my book club’s pick for August. Set in 2048 backwoods Maine, in a civil war where Maine secedes from the United States, two childhood friends Jess and Storey are on their annual moose-hunting trip and after two weeks, they emerge into burned-down small towns with few to zero survivors. This novel is violent, tense and un-putdownable. The author (of The River–excellent read!) tells this story in a mix of present day and flashbacks, so the reader really learns about the two protagonists, all from Jess’s point of view. The ending is pretty abrupt, but I was totally fine with it as it’s consistent with the novel’s story. One of my book club’s members actually lived in the backwoods area where this novel occurred and we were delighted to hear that the author’s account of these small towns and their culture is consistent with what she experienced. 4 stars.

Book #61:

Love Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood (Length: 400 pages). This is a favorite book of many romance readers, so I finally picked it up. This perfect novel features Jack, a renowned experimental physicist at MIT and Elsie, an up-and-coming theoretical physicist, stuck working as an adjunct professor at multiple universities to make rent and pay for medical expenses associated with her Type 1 diabetes. I ADORED this book. The characters’ dialogue rings authentic, their chemistry is totally believable and there are truly funny moments written throughout (ie, Elsie detesting her roommate’s angry hedgehog). I get the hype and I’m so glad I finally picked this one up. 5 stars.

Book #62:

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett (Length: 640 pages).   I am calling it–this will be my favorite book of this year. This epic novel (peep the page count!) is written by the author of The Help and is set in 1933 Oxford, Mississippi. This totally immersive story is told from two points of view: Birdie, a “spinster” who is helping her family try to save their family farm and travels to Oxford to beg for money from her sister’s rich new husband, and Meg, an 11-year-old who is recently orphaned and is trying to escape a dreadful orphanage via adoption. This is so easy to read, even with its tougher themes (given the time in history in which this novel takes place), because the writing is absolutely fantastic. The reader is able to empathize with both Birdie and Meg from the jump, and there are multiple supporting characters who you end up rooting for as well. This memorable story is sure to stick with you forever, a sign of a great book. I hear the audiobook is absolutely fantastic if that’s the way you prefer to take in your fiction. Five huge stars from me.

July 2026–Part Two:

August 1, 2026

Book #56:

The Astral Library by Kate Quinn (304 pages).  I’m a big fan of this author’s historical fiction novels (including The Huntress and The Diamond Eye) so I was excited to pick up her first foray into magical realism. This novel features Alix, a young adult who’s aged out of foster care and is barely making ends meet. She has multiple part-time jobs, including one with the Boston Public Library. Attached to this library is the Astral Library, a magical realm where people seeking refuge from their own lives can literally escape into a book. Alix stumbles into the Astral Library one day and discovers it’s under attack, and Alix may just be the heroine to save it. This is such a fun ride, it’s well-written (and I would expect nothing less from Kate Quinn) and I hope there’s a sequel coming. 5 stars.

Book #57:

One Way by S.J. Morden (Length: 358 pages). This book entered my orbit as a great read for people who enjoyed The Martian but want less discourse on the science behind surviving on Mars and more about how a base can actually be constructed on Maras, so of course I snapped this up. The greedy, money-hungry XO Corp (think: SpaceX) is a corrupt space technology company that convinces the federal government to bankroll their excursion to Mars and also convinces 8 convicts to travel to Mars on a one-way ticket to build the first base for NASA to follow and then populate. One of these convicts is Frank Kittridge, a former architect who shot and killed his son’s drug dealer. The convicts receive training on how to construct the base, are put in a deep sleep, and wake up on Mars. Murder and mayhem quickly ensue, all whilst the building of the base continues. This is a fascinating novel as the author does get into the technology and science required to build a base (again, low-level so it’s not confusing to the average reader) and it’s a lot of fun to follow the construction. The writing is excellent and the plot is very propulsive. It does end on a cliffhanger, but the sequel is also out, in this 2-book series and I immediately downloaded it from my library after I finished this. 5 stars.

Book #58:

Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley (Length: 352 pages).   I hugged this book (my Kindle) after I finished it. I LOVED it! This is a cute novel where the protagonist is a 57-year-old magazine therapist (think: modern-day advice columnist) who commutes via train in London. Iona meets a varied cast of characters during her daily commute, and this novel is about their interactions as well as their own lives and problems. The writing here is clever, with occasional commentary that links a few of the characters’ behaviors, like literary Easter eggs, as well as some lines that made me chuckle out loud. I loved learning about every character, especially Iona, and I wish this novel was even longer as I’d like to spend more time with all of them. This memorable novel is the perfect beach or vacation read. Five stars!

Book #59:

No Way by S.J. Morden (Length: 345 pages). This is Book 2 in the Frank Kittridge series, a sequel to One Way, reviewed above. WOW. This is such a satisfying wrap-up of the events that transpired in Book 1. The character development, the action, the setting are all top-notch here. This would make a fantastic TV series or movie and is especially timely given the ascendancy of Elon Musk’s Space-X. The warnings shouted here by this author should be heeded by our government, as what happened in these books may happen someday in the future. 5 stars!

July 2026–Part One:

July 14, 2026

Book #53:

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry (864 pages).  This Pulitzer-Prize winning Western novel has been on my TBR for years but its monster-sized length has scared me off. A family trip to Montana earlier this month was the perfect excuse to pull it out and I devoured this tale while in a hammock alongside the Bitterroot River (AKA, a reader’s dream spot to read). The hefty page count belies a very propulsive plot with multiple interesting, fully drawn characters who are on a cattle drive from Texas to Montana, specifically Yellowstone. The way the author refers to people of color and sex workers is very of the time but is a bit jarring to the modern-day reader, so be forewarned. All told, this was a completely immersive read, beautifully told and I will remember this forever. This is officially in my top 3 favorite books, so I’m absolutely glad I decided to finally tackle this masterpiece. 5 solid stars from me.

Book #54:

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books by Kirsten Miller (Length: 301 pages). This book keeps getting recommended to me so I finally picked it up thanks to a $2.99 Kindle daily deal. Lula Dean is the neighborhood “Karen” who marshals banned books as her topic de jour, and in support of encouraging “other” types of reading, installs a free little library in her front yard, stocked with garbage books from the local thrift shop like “Art of the Deal” and “Chicken Soup for the Soul”. An enterprising freethinker quickly rescues the banned library books from storage and replaces the thrift store books with the banned books behind the thrift dust jackets. Thus, unsuspecting readers find themselves reading literary classics such as “Beloved” and gay romances and even Judy Blume, causing them to challenge their own mistakenly held beliefs. I thought the concept here is a lot of fun, and I appreciated that it’s essentially an anti-MAGA playbook via a fun story. Where it falls short for me is its execution: the writing is a bit stilted and one-note and it makes me think of an adult version of those Mrs. Piggle Wiggle kids’ books where each chapter covers an etiquette or manners lesson via a cute story. Overally, I found this to be an impactful, enjoyable read. 4 stars from me.

Book #55:

Pitcher Perfect by Tessa Bailey (Length: 329 pages).   I adore Tessa Bailey for my brain candy reads, as they are always full of heart and solid writing, and her ancillary characters are typically former romantic leads in previous books, or they are leads we will see in future books. Here, in the #4 book in the Big Shots series, Skylar Paige is a Division 1 softball pitcher who enters into a fake dating scheme with Robbie Corrigan, a Bear Cat professional hockey player rookie who is mentioned in Book #2 The Au Pair Affair (reviewed here). The banter, chemistry and writing are all solid and this is another fun rom-com to throw in your beach bag. 3.5 stars.

June 2026–Part Two:

July 5, 2026

Book #50:

Five by Ilona Bannister (221 pages).  I was excited to get my hands on such a buzzy book but went in with low expectations. They were surpassed–by a lot! This is such an interesting concept and structure here where five people are waiting for a train, and you, as the reader, are told from the outset that within 5 minutes, one of them will be dead. The story then is told in alternating flashbacks, as we learn about each of the five people, one, a young child. NONE of these characters are easy to root for, and you aren’t supposed to like any of them. The author’s writing style is reminiscent of Fredrik Backman, who I ADORE, but if you find his style annoying, you may want to skip this fast, short summer read. I loved it. 5 easy stars!

Book #51:

Confessions by Kanae Minato (Length: 210 pages). This fantastic psychological thriller MUST be read on audio. A middle-school teacher’s 4-year-old daughter is murdered by 2 of the teacher’s students, and this tightly plotted novel begins with her outing them to their classmates, while outlining her macabre punishment. There are a few twists and turns and the writing is excellent. It’s a fast read/quick listen and was difficult to put down. 5 stars.

Book #52:

The Retirement Plan by Sue Hincenbergs (Length: 329 pages).   This is a mystery with a dark humor bent, that is a bit madcap in parts and is a whole lot of fun! The premise here is there are 3 friends in their 60s who concoct a plan to hire a hitman to knock off their husbands to collect on their life insurance policies, after being inspired to do so when the 4th friend in their group loses her husband due to a tragic accident. When Marlene is able to jet off to Florida to retire, the game is afoot. This is a shockingly fun story, with lots of silly coincidences that line up to ensure it’s not violent by any means. 4 stars for a fun summer read.