Tag: Book Reviews

September 2025 Part Two:

September 30, 2025

Book #64:

The Identicals by Elin Hilderbrand (Length: 433 pages).  I really enjoyed this one! Set in both Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, the two main characters are identical twin sisters: Harper and Tabitha Frost. They are estranged, due in part to Parent Trap-style machinations years ago and part due to emotional traumas. This is a very fun read, with Hilderbrand’s strong writing per usual; it is a bit cheesy in parts but the propulsive plot and writing style makes this one more memorable than most of her books. 4.5 stars from me.

Book #65:

The Carpool Detectives by Chuck Hogan (Length: 336 pages). I’m OBSESSED with this non-fiction book! I listened to this one on audio, and it’s definitely the way to go here. At the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, four stay at home moms investigated a cold case murder of a couple whose car had gone over the guardrail into a deep ravine outside of Santa Monica, California. Because it was COVID lockdown, everyone who was a potential witness (including the case detectives) were at home and the women just cold-called them, starting to break this complex case open. This is so well-written and reads like a murder novel. It’s propulsive and you won’t be able to stop reading or listening. The audio was excellent here, with the reading of the group chats adding extra interest. This is absolutely a five-star book. Let me know if you pick this one up!

Book #66:

The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods (Length: 448 pages).   There seem to be so many fiction books with the words “Bookshop” or “Bookstore” in them and apparently, I’m on a quest to read all of them. This particular novel has a blend of magical realism and romance and is set in two time periods: the 1920s through 1950s and present day. Opaline Carlisle is a woman in Ireland who opens a bookshop in the 1920s, which was very unusual for the time period. And in present day, Martha and Henry are two young people in Ireland who are connected to and are looking for this bookshop which has mysteriously vanished. This is a sweet story with likeable characters, but it’s a bit over-dramatic in parts. I enjoyed the focus on books here, especially those written by the Bronte sisters. This is a memorable, fun read. 4 stars.

Book #67:

Is She Really Going Out With Him? by Sophie Cousens (Length: 367 pages). Romantic comedies with older protagonists are rare, and I’m so happy when I pick one up that’s actually really well written, as this one is. Anna Appleby is 38, freshly divorced with two kids, and works as a journalist for a local magazine called Bath Living, about the goings on in Bath, England. To save her job, Anna agrees to write a dating column with the premise of her kids choosing who she dates and what they are to do on the date. There is of course, a separate love interest, and the chemistry between Anna and this person is fantastic. The dialogue is witty and charming, and I thought about these characters even when I wasn’t reading this. 5 stars.

Book #68:

A Marriage at Sea by Sophie Elmhirst (Length: 251 pages). This non-fiction account of an English couple, Maralyn and Maurice, who were lost at sea in 1973 after their boat capsized en route to New Zealand, thanks to a breaching whale. Forced to survive on an inflatable raft and small dinghy, this is partially an adventure story but it’s mostly about them as people and as a couple. This is a riveting, fast read and well-paced (although it does slow down a bit in the last third). 4 stars from me.

Book #69:

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion by Beth Brower (Length: 208 pages). This volume is the best volume so far! Emma is trying to figure out options for her financial future, but this takes a backseat as her friendship with a trio of 3 different men continues to deepen. This quartet recognizes they have a unique chemistry together and it’s fun to see this develop. Emma, of course, gets into more hilarious adventures and her witty repartee shines even more here. These are so well-written and just so funny. I find myself smiling as I read them. 5 stars, of course.

September 2025–Part One

September 15, 2025

Book #59:

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 2 by Beth Brower (Length: 164 pages).  Clearly, I’m loving this series that seems to be everywhere on Bookstagram and various book podcasts. Here, in the second volume, Emma is getting more settled into her life at Lapis Lazuli house. The same characters that were in the first volume are here which is nice, as the focus in this volume is more on the plot. Now the plot is essentially Emma’s daily life but her antics are still on full display here. Emma doesn’t feel the need to act as a typical woman would in 1880s London; for example, she doesn’t have a chaperone, as she doesn’t feel the need for one. The writing is excellent, and the character development is where this author truly shines. Another 5 stars from me.

Book #60:

Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya (Length: 321 pages). This is a food memoir I’ve had on my bookshelf for quite a while and in the interests of clearing my shelves, I finally picked it up. The author writes about growing up in Versailles, Indiana, in the 1960s and 1970s, a town so small, she and her family were the only Japanese-Americans who lived there. Told through the various meals and foods her mother made for the family, Linda explores what it was like growing up during this time period in middle America, including the racism she and her family experienced. The writing quality here is mid-level but it’s still an interesting read. I enjoyed her food descriptions the most, and I am passing the book on to someone I know who would enjoy this account. Three stars from me.

Book #61

The Hungry Ocean by Linda Greenlaw (Length: 286 pages).   This is a non-fiction account written by the only female swordfish captain in America, the captain of the Hannah Boden. The author and her ship were referenced in Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm (an account of the tragic loss of the Andrea Gale fishing boat). Here, the author intersperses an account of a “typical” 30-day swordfish run in international fishing waters in the Atlantic Ocean with snippets of her personal history. This is very well-written and very propulsive. She gets into the nuts and bolts of what it takes to operate a fishing boat, and her perspective as a female captain is riveting. She is a phenomenal writer (taking a year to write this book, she comments that running a fishing boat is actually easier than writing a book) and I enjoyed every page here. 5 stars.

Book #62:

One’s Company by Ashley Hutson (Length: 272 pages).  I listened to this one and the narrator is great. Now, this is a bleak book with a strange premise. A young woman win’s the nation’s largest lottery in history and uses the proceeds to reconstruct the entire “world” of the TV show “Three’s Company”, down to the entire apartment building, furnished exactly as it is in the show, down to period-specific daily newspapers. There is some traumatic history here which is obviously driving this, but the pacing and writing are top-notch. Ultimately, the narrator Bonnie isn’t causing harm to anyone else by doing this and we are along for the ride. Riveting account but it’s a bit unnerving to follow along at times. 4 stars.

Book #63:

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion Vol. 3 by Beth Brower (Length: 229 pages). Clearly I’m a fan of this series and it just keeps getting better. In this installment, Emma gets invited to a society ball on her own and not as a foil to help her better suited cousin find a husband. There are so many laugh out loud lines here, and Emma’s innate intelligence and her grit make her a truly well-rounded and likable heroine. There are 5 more volumes in this series so far, and I’m intending to read all of them so fair warning. 😉. Five stars, once again.

August 2025–Part Two

September 1, 2025

Book #55:

Practice Makes Perfect by Sarah Adams (Length: 338 pages).  This is the second novel in the When in Rome romance series. Will, the bodyguard to pop star Amelia from Book 1, and Anne, flower shop owner and soon-to-be sister-in-law to Amelia, take part in the fake dating trope here. It’s cheesy, but there’s a reason it’s used so often in romances–because it works. I loved the townspeople and the fun banter here. (The scene at the Little League game had me laughing out loud). There are some annoying edits that were missed which are so distracting (ie, pumping the “breaks”) but those aside, I really enjoyed this fun read. Four stars.

Book #56:

The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion-Volume 1 by Beth Brower (Length: 127 pages). What a fun read! I heard about this series on a few different book podcasts, so I decided to give the first volume a try, and I’m SO glad I did. These are the delightful “journals” of a young woman living in 1883 London. Emma is a feisty and likeable protagonist with a quirky sense of humor. This one is a VERY quick read, but apparently the volumes get longer as the series develops which is a great thing. You will not be able to stop at volume 1 if you’re anything like me. My local library doesn’t have this series yet, which is a downer, but the entire series is available on Kindle Unlimited if you have access that way. A solid five stars from me.

Book #57:

You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith (Length: 336 pages).  This is a memoir written by the award-winning poet, Maggie Smith. The focus here is the author discovering her husband’s infidelity, and her recovery from that. Told in essays or vignettes, the author looks back at how they started and tries to discover what went wrong. The writing is (obviously) gorgeous here, with no sentence wasted. The entire memoir is about divorce, however, so it may not be for every reader. However, there is so much to ponder and learn about oneself, even if you’re not going through a divorce yourself. (Also, this would make an excellent gift for someone you care about who is going through one, if you think they’d benefit from it). 4 stars.

Book #58:

The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy by Brigitte Knightley (Length: 383 pages).  This book is so much FUN! It’s a romantasy, heavier on the fantasy, world-building, and quite chaste when it comes to the romance part. (Although in no universe is the writing PG or even PG-13). Two sworn enemies are forced to work together to overcome their own obstacles. For her, it’s to find funding for a vaccine for a pox killing children, and for him, to save his magic and by extension, his life. She’s a scientist and he’s an assassin for hire, and their chemistry is fantastic, if extremely slow building. The writing is so strong here, with witty banter and lushly drawn worlds. There are so many laugh out loud lines and clever wordplay (various pubs serve as way stones for travel between places and their names are fantastic). This does end on a bit of a cliffhanger as it’s a duology. Five stars from me!

August 2025–Part One

August 28, 2025

Book #52:

The Grey Wolf by Louise Penny (Length: 425 pages).  This is Book #19 of this author’s Three Pines mystery series featuring the esteemed head of homicide in Quebec: Armand Gamache. I’m obsessed with this series and this author and while this isn’t my favorite of the series (by a long shot), I never regret reading one of Louise Penny’s novels. This particular novel involves eco-terrorism, specifically the aspect of poisoning the domestic water supply. There are entirely too many characters to keep straight here, for my liking, so I’m glad I read this one in print instead of struggling through the audio version. The build up to the action is slow here, but the ending is very exciting with a cliffhanger. (Her 20th novel in this series is The Black Wolf). Not a lot of time is spent in Three Pines here, which makes me sad, but a few of the characters DO visit the monastery featured in my favorite book of the series, #9: A Beautiful Mystery. Overall, I’ll give this a solid 4 stars from me because Louise Penny can do no wrong, in my eyes.

Book #53:

Murder in the Dollhouse by Rich Cohen (Length: 353 pages). I had heard about this book being an excellent true-crime book and what I heard is correct. This is fantastic, but so, so sad. Jennifer Dulos was the uber-wealthy heiress who married Fotis Dulos, a Greek immigrant who didn’t come from money, but who was charming and charismatic. You learn in the first few pages that Fotis murdered Jennifer so there’s no mystery here. Instead, the author sets the scene and tries to determine the why of what happened, to the extent anyone can truly do this. The author does a fantastic job of setting the scene and giving the reader the backgrounds of this couple. This was very well-paced and hard to put down. The couple left 5 children behind, and Jennifer’s body still hasn’t been found, which are just 2 reasons why this is so heart-breaking. Solid 4.5 stars from me

Book #54:

Leave Only Footprints by Conor Knighton (Length: 322 pages).   In my quest to read all of the good books involving hiking, the outdoors and national parks, I listened to this fantastic read on audio. This is the very interesting account of the author’s visit to every national park in the United States in his attempt to get over a failed engagement. While his accounts are surface level on many parks, likely due to space and time constraints, I really enjoyed his stories, anecdotes and historical tidbits he included throughout this book. This is great on audio and would make excellent listening during a road trip, or even a walk or hike. 4 stars.

July 2025–Part Two

August 1, 2025

Book #49:

The Favorites by Layne Fargo (Length: 433 pages).  This is billed as a novel about revenge, sabotage and romance through the lens of ice dancing and is a favorite of many readers. There’s a lot of drama, on almost every page, with the thru line of the protagonist, Katarina, determined to win an Olympic gold medal, come hell or high water. I will say that overall, this is a fun and frothy read, so it’s perfect for the pool or the beach, but I honestly could not stand the protagonist and found it hard to root for her (and to care whether or not she earned that medal). 3.5 stars from me.

Book #50:

The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Length: 291 pages). I ADORE this epistolary novel so much. This well-written novel tells the story of Sybil’s life told solely via her letters to various people (friends, family, authors, former coworkers). Sybil is a retired attorney and judicial law clerk and she’s very self-aware, which is refreshing. As cranky as she can be, she’s supremely lovable (and beloved). This is such a memorably story and way to tell her story and this would be great discussion fodder for a book club. It’s a short and fast read too, and easy to consume in a few sittings. 5 solid stars from me.

Book #47:

The Names by Florence Knapp (Length: 336 pages).   Bear, Julian and Gordon . . . these are the 3 different names that the baby’s mother Cora is considering for her child. There are three storylines, each based on what happens to the child (and Cora) based on which name he bears and the author checks in with the child (and his family) every 7 years. I absolutely LOVED this book. Domestic abuse is the thru line of this novel and starts from the jump, but it’s not the main narrative and it isn’t too graphic. How these three storylines evolve is a literary feat and I could not stop reading. It’s like a choose your own adventure/life but make it literary fiction. I can’t stop thinking about (or recommending) this incredible novel. 5 stars from me.