Finished: The God of the Woods (Moore) A good page-turner about a 13 year old girl who disappears in 1975 at summer camp. Barbara Van Laar is not just a camper, but she's the daughter of the rich Van Laar family who owns the camp. On the discovery of her empty bunk, we embark on a twisty story of interesting characters: Tracy, Barbara's new friend and bunkmate; TJ Hewitt, the camp director who has lived on the grounds with her father Vic since he was the groundskeeper for many years; Louise, the "townie" camp counselor who cherishes her job, but at the same time makes a few bad judgement calls; Judyta, the young, new female detective who investigates the disappearence along with her supervisor, Denny...but Judyta is the clever detective who puts most of the clues together and figures things out in the end. Is Barbara in peril somewhere, or has she run away from her family who is very controlling and still mourning the loss of their 8 year old son, Bear, the year before Barbara was born? The story goes back and forth between 1961 and 1975 as we find out that in 1961 Bear had also disappeared at the camp and his body has never been found. All the same characters, except Judyta and Denny, are part of the Bear story too. It's a good mystery with lots of suspects and an unsuspecting culprits in Bear's disappearance, who also become suspects in Barbara's. And, what comes of Barbara? Is she found? I won't give that away. I'm glad to be back to having time to read books again. :-) 

 Finished: Expiration Dates (Serles), First Lie Wins (Elston), Think Twice (Coben) and What Have You Done (Lapena). Well, I finally had time to look back through my reader and I did manage to read these four books between March 2024 and now, December 2024. Most of them were read on airplanes, traveling back and forth between Florida and Houston to oversee our new house in Texas. Any time in Florida in the six months it took us to move was spent packing, planning, organizing, and all that moving across the country after 25 years in the same house entails! We've been in Texas for almost two months now, and I still haven't picked up a new book to read...but I'm getting there just by looking through my reader and unpacking all the books into the new study! I am still reading Palmares, and have been since Christmas of last year. It is one that my son gave me that was a Pulitzer finalist, but didn't win. It's complex and long, and not the kind of book to make an airplane trip fly by. hee hee! Anyway, I will probably try to fnish that one before moving on. 

I do have my own thoughts in my head about the books above, but I'm just going to give very brief thoughts:

Expiration Dates: I was really looking forward to Expiration Dates, because it was written by the author who wrote In Five Years, a book I really loved! It was not quite as good, but the premise was interesting with a woman who has yet to find the true love of her life...because she always knows how long each relationship she has will last...literally! She gets a note just before each relationship with just the words of the time length written on it..."three years"...."two weeks"...."9 months"...."1 day". And then, she goes out on a blind date with a friend's friend and she doesn't get a note!! She takes this to mean he is THE one and goes about the relationship that way. No one knows where the notes come from, but they always come true. It was interesting, but not as heart-grabbing to me as In Five Years. Worth reading! 

First Lie Wins: I'm just putting the Amazon blurb for this one, but I really did enjoy it as a nice page-turner. And, it did have lots of twisty twists. If you enjoy puzzling books out, then you'd like this!

 "Evie Porter has everything a nice Southern girl could want: a doting boyfriend, a house with a white picket fence, a tight group of friends. The only catch: Evie Porter doesn’t exist.The identity comes first: Evie Porter. Once she’s given a name and location by her mysterious boss, Mr. Smith, she learns everything there is to know about the town and the people in it. Then the mark: Ryan Sumner. The last piece of the puzzle is the job.Evie isn’t privy to Mr. Smith’s real identity, but she knows this job isn't like the others. Ryan has gotten under her skin, and she’s starting to envision a different sort of life for herself. But Evie can’t make any mistakes—especially after what happened last time. Evie Porter must stay one step ahead of her past while making sure there's still a future in front of her. The stakes couldn't be higher—but then, Evie has always liked a challenge. . . ."

Think Twice: I'm a huge fan of Harlan Coben books, and a particularly huge fan when he continues the story of Myron Bolitar, an ex-pro basketball player turned sports agent turned sometimes detective because of all his complicated relationships. His best friend is Win, and he is a favorite character...ruthless, rich, deadly, but only to protect those dearest to him, like Myron and Myron's family. This book was a nice change because it was actually narrated by Win! Another good story that delves into something that happened in Myron's past. If you have read Harlan Coben, and enjoy him, you'll like this one too! 

What Have You Done?: A pretty good book about the mystery of a high school girl who is found murdered, and the arrest of her longtime boyfriend who she'd argued with and broken up with just the day before. I zoned in on who I thought was the real murderer pretty quickly, and I ended up being right. Not that it made me happy...because it's always someone who you don't really want it to be lol. Anyway, the truth comes out in the end. It's a pretty good airplane book. :-) 

I'm heading off to do some more unpacking! I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Holiday season! <3 <3 

 Finished: That's Not My Name (Lally) Another good mystery about a girl who wakes up injured in a ditch and doesn't remember who she is or how she got there. The local police officer of the small town takes her to the station and looks for hours through missing person reports trying to find her. He's about to call it a night when a frantic man shows up looking for his daughter, Mary. He's got pictures of them together and even her birth certificate. Though still skeptical, the officer takes her up to the secluded cabin that the man says they are staying at while their home is renovated. The girl doesn't recognize the man, but agrees to stay because he is acting so much like a panicked father, and is very kind to her. Meanwhile a few hours down the coast, a teenage boy, Drew, is being accused of murdering his girlfriend, Lola, who has been missing for five weeks. The entire town has turned on him and are begging him to tell the truth and reveal where her body is and what happened. Drew works frantically with his best friend, and Lola's best friend (who finally comes around to believing Drew) to discover exactly what has happened to Lola and find her before anything horrible can happen. A very good book that kept me reading and guessing until the end! 

 Finished: The Resemblance (Nossett) A pretty good page-turner about a detective, Marlitt Kaplan, who grew up on the University of Georgia campus where her mother was the dean. She knows the university inside and out, and is the detective on call when a popular fraternity boy is run down by a car at a crosswalk. Witnesses say the car sped up, and what's more...the driver looked identical to the dead boy! So begins an investigation of the Greek system at the university, along with the sons of many prominent locals, who themselves had been members. Add to that that Marlitt has her own past demons from her first year of attending Georgia that also involves the same fraternity!  A good one. :-)

Finished: Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six (Unger) A good page-turner about three couples who go for a weekend to a beautiful secluded cabin, only to be stuck there by a raging storm, and at the same time, unknowingly stalked by a dangerous person. Hannah and her husband, Bruce, have been married for awhile and have a baby daughter. When Hanna's high-tech "mogul" brother, Miko, insists that they, along with his wife Liza, and Hannah's best friend, Cricket and her new boyfriend, Joshua, join him at the expensive rental, secrets and demons are soon exposed. Is there still something between high school sweethearts Miko and Cricket? Why is Liza so distraught to be pregnant after two miscarriages? What kind of work does Bruce do for Miko that he can't share with Hannah? Are Miko's past deeds going to come back to haunt them all as the stalker closes in? Or, is Miko in danger from family connections that he's not even aware of? Bracken, the owner and caretaker of the cabin, is mysterious and a little bit suspicious. Then, every so often there is a chapter about Henry, who was orphaned as a young boy, but still managed to make something of himself. He must inevitably be connected to one of the other characters, but how? The book stays suspenseful as everything comes to a head with the deranged stalker there to do harm to whoever gets in the way of his/her mission! The perfect read for a couple of long airplane rides heading to vacation. :-)

Finished: Atlas the Story of Pa Salt (Riley & Whitaker) This is the final book in the Seven Sisters series, all written by Lucinda Riley. Pa Salt is the man who had adopted six of the sisters and raised them in safety, all while continuing to search the world for the 7th "missing sister". Each of Riley's books was dedicated to one of the sisters and what her actual heritage was. Pa Salt left the girls letters after he passed away (never having found the 7th and missing sister). The sisters all got together in the previous book of the series, The Missing Sister, to find Merry, their missing sister...and they succeeded! Atlas, the final book of the series, was partially written by Lucinda Riley, and finished by her son, Harry Whitaker, after Lucinda Riley passed away before it was finished. The book was a lovely wrap up to all their stories! We meet Atlas as a young boy in Russia! He suffers a trauma when his father must leave the struggling family in the freezing climate to put food on the table, and then his step-mother dies. His step-brother thinks that Atlas killed his mother and causes Atlas to flee for his life...and continue running for the rest of his life! We then get the life story of Atlas, as person after person, or family after family, takes him in or saves his life. He travels the world, and as he does so, we watch him grow up and eventually be thrown into each circumstance that leads to him adopting his six daughters. He also experiences true love with Elle, and after her seemingly voluntary exit from their relationship, he learns that she was pregnant with the 7th sister...actually his first and only biological child. I'm not going to give away any more spoilers. It's a very good ending to the series and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Finished: Small Things Like These (Keegan). I finished this short book while I waited for The Iron Flame to be available. I'd heard so much about it, and it truly didn't disappoint. Keegan writes beautiful prose that takes you right to what the character is thinking or seeing or feeling. I don't have the wherewithal right now to write my own update, but I did really appreciate this book! Here is the Amazon blurb:  

"It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. 

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers."

 

 Finished: The Iron Flame (Yarros). I finished the sequel to The Fourth Wing yesterday and I'm still reeling a bit from the ending! I've come to love most of the characters, and their relationships to each other. Violet and Xaden, the designated heroine and hero of the story, of course are now a couple in love who will do anything to keep the other safe. Violet has honed her lightening-wielding signet, which she developed in the first book, after bonding with TWO dragons, Tairn and Andarna. Xaden is one of the very best dragon riders and warriors, and he also has one too many secrets from Violet. He's got a secret mission going and he won't tell her about it....mainly because there are dragon riders who have memory reading abilities and he's afraid they'll see what he's up to with the secret resistance that is rebuilding by reading Violet's memories. He's also terrified of what Violet will think of a few of his secrets. Working closely with her presumed dead brother, who is very much alive, and her warrior sister, Violet, Xaden, and both of their teams put their entire energy into trying to figure out how to put power in the "wards", the magical protective barriers that can be raised around cities, by figuring out how the original ones were created, and just what the dragons have to do with it. I love that Violet finally confided in her best friend, Rhi, and their other close friends, Ridoc and Sawyer, the only four left from their wing of the first-years. It also makes it nerve-wracking to read the various battles and dangerous situations when each one of them, or their dragons, could perish at any time. It's another page-turning, really good book, as we watch all these relationships develop, watch the three Sorrengail siblings rebond after six years, and witness Violet and Xaden falling deeper in love. Is there anything that can tear them apart? You betcha. :-( Here's hoping there really are three more books to come! 

 Finished: The Fourth Wing (Yarros) This is such a good book! From the minute that 20 year old Violet Sorrengail steps into the prestigious, yet cutthroat Basgiath War College, the odds are highly against her. She's trained for years to enter the scribe academy, like her father before her. However, she is forced instead to go to the dragon riding academy like her brother and sister before her. Violet is smart as a whip, but small, frail and easily injured all her young life. Her warrior older sister tries to talk the general out of forcing violet in this direction, but the general is cold-hearted and stands by her decision to send Violet for the toughest challenge of all...to survive the dragon riding academy AND to then have a dragon actually select her to be its rider. Yes, the dragons get to choose, and often times burn to a crisp those potential riders who are too weak or not worthy. It's a terrifying process! Added to Violet's troubles is the "wing leader" she is assigned under, Xaden Riorsan. Xaden is a third year student, and the strongest and most respected in the school. He also happens to be the young man who killed Violet's brother in war....and, whose own father was killed during that same war by Violet's mother. Oh, did I mention that Violet's mother IS the cold-hearted general and head of the Basgiath War College?? There is a clear target planted on Violet's back, not just from the looming threat of Xaden, but from the threats of every other son or daughter of the people who rose up against the kingdom to break free. Xaden and the rest of the children had to watch as their parents were executed, and then they had to pledge to serve the kingdom loyally as dragon riders...if they survived the grueling process. There are lots of twists and turns as we see exactly how tough and smart Violet is, where everyone's loyalties lie, and just who is there to actually protect Violet instead of trying to murder her. This was a very entertaining read and hard to put down!! Of course, it ends on a great cliffhanger, but the sequel is out this coming week!!! I can't wait to read it next. :-) 

  Finished: Lessons in Chemistry (Garmus) I don't know why it took me so long to read this book, but I'm so glad I finally did. It really resonated with me and I enjoyed it so much. Elizabeth Zott is a brilliant chemist who works in a lab as a tech, because due to tragic circumstances, she was unable to complete the college education she needed to earn the title of chemist. Calvin Evans is a brilliant, Nobel prize nominated chemist who works in the same lab, but has his own space as he was the most sought after university graduate in the country when he was applying for jobs. Oh, did I mention that it's the 1950's and Elizabeth faces every male-dominated scenario you can imagine in the workplace? Though Calvin and Elizabeth clash over "stolen" test tubes at first, they quickly bond over their shared love of all things chemistry, and of proving their shared theory about abiogenesis, which states that life arose from simplistic, non-life forms. After several years, and lots of spoilers about their story which I won't share here, Elizabeth no longer works at the lab, but hosts a cooking show on television. Everything she cooks and all the choices she makes while cooking have a scientific reason, which she explains to all the housewives across America who are watching her show, soaking up her every word. She speaks to them like they are more intelligent than most people think they are, especially the men of the 1950's, and encourages them to "change the status quo" with the respect she shows them. There is so much rich story between Elizabeth and Calvin and 6:30 and rowing and their "chemistry", that I grew to love both characters. Both have risen about heartbreaking childhoods, stories which are integral to the entire book. It's definitely a book that deserves the accolades it received.  Love, love, LOVED it! :-)