Every once in a while, I discover an author who's new to me, and they become someone that will now always jump off the bookshelf. Abbi Waxman immediately won me over with Other's People's Houses . Her hilarious and whip-smart writing made me an instant fan. This story is about a neighborhood and the people that live there. As the title hints at, one can never tell what's going on behind closed doors. This becomes glaringly clear after Frances Bloom, the main charact

I love a good soapy drama. A wicked, gossipy neighborhood tale just hits the spot sometimes. I was drawn to The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski because of its comparison to Big Little Lies , which is a favorite of this reader. In some ways it was similar, the school mothers forming cliques with a hierarchy of women. And they certainly had secrets to keep. But halfway through this novel my interest was waning, perhaps because the characters seemed like stereotypes

This is a story about a city pool except it isn't. It's a story about community and connectedness in the heart of London. Libby Page hits the nail on the head with the tone of The Lido , finding the perfect spot between sentimentality and determinism. Rosemary has been coming to the lido (a British word for municipal pool) for eighty years. She swam there as a girl during the second world war; met her beloved husband George at the lido and became engaged poolside; and

The Perfect Child by Lucinda Berry is a spine-tingling, unputdownable book. It sucks you in from page one and does not let go until the last one. Christopher and Hannah Bauer are a husband and wife who work at the same hospital. He an orthopedic surgeon and she a nurse. When a severely malnourished, battered and bruised child is brought into the emergency room one day, they can't help but be moved. Appearing to be no more than two, after Christopher performs surger

The Sweet Spot by Amy Poeppel is just that: a sweet story overflowing with memorable characters. A character from the Netflix show The Beast in Me just referred to a book as being "fluff but not drivel" and it struck me that that's what Amy Poeppel's novel is. And who doesn't want a satisfying confection once in a while? When Melinda is abandoned by her husband of over thirty years for a young, famous tv celebrity, with whom he fathers a baby, Melinda is filled with a

Caro Carver's Bad Tourists is a solid thriller. This plot-heavy novel was fascinating from page one, pulling this reader in with its immediate flashback to a mass murder in a European hostel. Over two decades later, three friends go on a trip to the Maldives, with the purpose of celebrating the divorce of one of the women. The three have a strong connection: they each have a tie to the mass murders of twenty years ago and the anniversary is happening the week of th

Say You'll Remember Me by Abby Jimenez is one to grab when you need a feel-good, uplifting read. Abby Jimenez pens a modern, clever romance that's easy yet fulfilling to read. Samantha and Xavier meet at his veterinarian clinic one day in Minnesota. The meeting is contentious, but they have an instant attraction for each other. When they finally go out on a date, they hit it off and both fall hard. Every good romcom has an obstacle to the couple being together.

Charlie Donlea is shaping up to be this blogger's favorite writer of crime fiction. In Twenty years Later , Donlea keeps the plot skipping along much like an edge-of-your-seat movie, and similar to Donlea's Guess Again . One of the most popular journalists on television, Avery Mason has a past life and a different name. Her father is Garth Montgomery, wanted for the biggest Ponzi scheme on record. Known as the Thief of Manhattan, he cheated many people out of their

Charlie's Donlea's Guess Again takes readers on a breakneck cat and mouse chase throughout Wisconsin, from Milwaukee to the northern tip. An insidious plan, concocted by unhinged people with haunting connections to each other, unfolds in this well-told thrilling novel. Ethan Hall is a former detective with the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation turned ER doctor. Burnt out by the barrage of grieving families inevitable in his line of work, Ethan left his

Shari Lapena wows with She Didn't See it Coming . With the on-point unfolding of details and Lapena's clear, concise writing, this reader was hooked on this whodunit from page one all the way to the surprising end. Brydon Frost doesn't pick up her three-year-old from daycare one day. Her husband Sam is called, and when he gets home with the girl, he sees that Brydon's computer, phone, and wallet are still inside of their apartment, but Brydon has disappeared. Nat

Wow, be prepared for a terrific page-turner with Jessie Garcia's The Business Trip . This psychological thriller from a first-time novelist and Wisconsin-based writer was top-notch. Two women prepare for a trip. One, Jasmine, has every reason to be frightened as she makes her stealthy escape from her controlling and abusive boyfriend. Having saved and scraped together money for months for her one-way airplane ticket, Jasmine doesn't know what she's going to do when sh

It's rare when a book is so good I finish it in one day. With Claire Lynch's A Family Matter , I sat right down at the library and devoured about a quarter of it right then and there. By 8:30 that night I was done but didn't want to be. In 2022, Heron (nicknamed from Henry) is dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis. His daughter, Maggie, and family don't know yet because Heron feels as if telling her will make it real. Maggie is everything to Heron because he raised

Everyone tries to imagine a future with AI taking more and more of a role in our society. The Family Experiment by John Marrs is a...

Freida McFadden can always be counted on for a quick-paced, easy to read page-turner. The Crash delivers just that as long as you're...

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I love a good wedding mystery and Ally Condie's The Unwedding was fun to hunker down with. Set in a remote, beautiful location where a...

Starting this book, something just told me that it was going to be uplifting. Maybe it was the humor Anna Johnston infuses throughout...

James by Percival Everett is a retelling of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn story, but through the eyes of Jim, a black slave. Riveting,...

Lisa Jewell has done it again with an unputdownable psychological thriller in Don't Let Him In . Stellar character development and a...

Alice McDermott's Absolution is a viewpoint of 1963 Vietnam from the officer's wives amidst the elevating conflict between North and...