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. :-)