Another month of reading reviewed! Hope you find something that interests you!
I love a good psychological thriller or mystery, and “The Only One Left” was pretty good. Lenora Hope supposedly murdered her whole family. The story was so well known that there were school chant about it. Kit shows up at the Hope family home to provide home health care for Lenora, when no one else would do it. She gets a lot more than she signed up for, and blows their family secret wide open.
I listened to “The Promised Prince” and enjoyed it for the most part. I realized after I finished it that it was the second book in a series, so hopefully at some point I can go back and listen to the first one! Renna has a random encounter with a handsome man, who turns out to be a Prince betrothed to her step sister. This is very much a dystopian romance, so the setting is a post desolation, where the alliance from the marriage is all important. Overall the story was good, but it did feel a little overly dramatic at time.
I love Kristy Woodson Harvey, and I absolutely love “A Happier Life.” I could see this being in my top five reads this year, I just really loved this story! I loved reading about Beaufort, North Carolina and the historic houses there…how one family home draws Keaton to move and oversee renovations to potentially sell it, but in the process she uncovers what really happened to her grandparents and their happy life…I just really enjoyed this one, there was so much to take away in living my own life.
“Daughter of Mine” sent me down a Megan Miranda rabbit hole haha…I really liked this book, great psychological thriller/murder mystery. Hazel inherits her family home after the sudden loss of her detective father. Her mom was a well known criminal, and there were so many unanswered questions about what happened to her and about her family. This one kept me reading, didn’t want to put it down!
I listened to “Everyone on This Train is a Suspect” and enjoyed it. I think I liked the first book better, but I also think I like listening to these books rather than reading them. Ernest is invited to a mystery writers convention, and while he’s always looking for ideas for his new book, he wasn’t expecting to get them first hand on this train. This book reminded me a lot of “Murder on the Orient Express” by Agatha Christi, overall I felt like it was a good read.
Ok, “Book Boyfriend” spoke to me haha…I am forever thinking, “these romcoms and romantasy books are forever having the most perfect guys”…Jennifer attends a conference for her favorite romantasy series, only to have her annoying co worker show up as well. He is determined to become everything that her book boyfriend entails, only in real life. It was a really cute read!
I hated this book haha…the whole entire time I listened to this I kept thinking, “WHY am I still listening to this?!?!” “Beach Town” was this weird story about a lady looking for movie sites, finding one, and then shooting the movie with a lot of really annoying over the top characters…there were some decent parts but there was language that seemed pointless, and really I should have stopped before I got so far in!
“Lies and Other Acts of Love” was decent, I love Kristy Woodson Harvey and just thought I would read one of her older books this month. Annabelle’s grandmother had a long devoted marriage, while she impulsively marries a musician after three days. Lots of family secrets involved, how much can a little while lie hurt?
After reading “Anxious Generation,” I had high hopes for “The Coddling of the American Mind,” but honestly, I was overall disappointed in this one. There were good take aways, but man there were a LOT of biased opinions and views in this book politically…I could see the point to some of it, but it was not balanced at all, and I really was bothered by that. Our nation is where we are today because of all sides, not one or the other. There were a lot of repeated things from his first book as well, which I found frustrating as I was looking for new content. Good takeaways, but you had too look for them.
Another good read by Megan Miranda, “The Only Survivors” kept me reading when I should have been sleeping! Ten years ago, there was a tragic accident involving two vans on a high school trip, where kids died and mysterious things happened. Each of these kids are linked from their past, but someone is out for revenge, taking each of them down, one by one.
Another month of great books! Thanks for stopping by and checking out my book reviews! If you’d like to see previous months from this year, check out the links below! I have more reviews from the last almost ten years under my Books tab! Follow me on Goodreads here!
What I’m Reading – January 2025