207 Book Talk

  Sarah Ellsworth is a mother of two teenage sons, one away at college and the other, Finn, still in high school. One night she and her husband Martin receive a frantic, disjointed call from Finn. They aren't sure what is wrong, but they know their son needs help. When they find him sick and disoriented in the woods, they also find the body of his girlfriend, who has injuries that make it look like she has been attacked. Sarah wants to do the right thing and call the police, but her husband, a member of one of the most prominent families in tow, has other ideas. He convinces Sarah to leave the body where it is and get their son home. He and his high-powered family have experience covering up incidents that might put them in a bad light, and the death of a teenage girl, perhaps at the hands of their son and grandson, is no different. Sarah goes along with the ruse, but is unhappy about it and becomes increasingly concerned about what exactly the Ellsworth's are covering up this ...

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James introduces us to Carly, a college student who has recently lost her mother. She leaves college and heads to New York to look into a family mystery that she was never allowed to ask about growing up. Her mother's sister Viv Delaney disappeared from her job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in 1982.  Shortly after arriving, things fall in to place for Carly to stay in Fell for longer than just a few days, perhaps long enough to solve her aunt's disappearance. She stumbles across Heather, another twenty-something looking for a roommate when she goes to see the apartment her aunt was living in when she vanished. When they go to see The Sun Down Motel for the first time, Heather notices a help wanted sign. The motel is looking fora night clerk, and Carly finds herself working the same job her aunt used to have. The motel hasn't changed much, if at all, since 1982. As Carly works to learn more about her aunt, strange things are happe...

I discovered author Rachel Lynn Solomon when voting for the 2020 Goodreads Choice Awards. Her novel  Today Tonight Tomorrow   was a nominee for Young Adult Fiction. I read it and loved it, and was pleased to see she had an adult romance coming out this year called  The Ex Talk .  I ordered it a signed copy from Seattle bookstore Third Place Books , and got right to it when it arrived. The Ex Talk  introduces us to Shay Goldstein, 29, single, and in love with public radio. She works as a producer for a local Seattle station, and is not impressed with recent Northwestern grad, new hire, and rising star Dominic Yun. Of course, being a romance novel, the two are paired up to host a new show. The problem with this relationship show, The Ex Talk, is the premise that Shay and Dom are exes, when they have never dated and barely know each other. Neither is comfortable with the lie they will be telling listeners, but both are eager to have the opportunity.  As the bo...

I found  Last Day  by Luanne Rice on Kindle Unlimited. I had never heard of the author, but the premise of the book sounded interesting so I borrowed it. I would encourage anyone that decides to read this murder mystery to also borrow it from somewhere, instead of buying it. It is not a keeper, in my opinion. Last Day  follows Kate and Conor as they try to solve the murder of Kate's younger sister, Beth. Conor is a police detective who also happens to have been the first officer on the scene many years before when teenagers Kate and Beth were found tied up in the basement of their family art gallery with their dead mother, Helen.  Beth is found bludgeoned and strangled in her bed by Kate and two local officers she called for help when her sister didn't pick up numerous phone calls over the course of several days. Beth's daughter Sam was away at a summer camp in Maine, and her super sleazy husband Peter was conveniently on a guys only sailing trip at the time of Beth'...

  The 20th Victim  is the twentieth entry in James Patterson's Women's Murder Club series. Like any series with this many books to its name, the storylines are never as good 15 or 20 books in as they were at the beginning, but this one felt closer to those earlier entries than other recent titles have. This time around Lindsay and Cindy are caught up in trying to solve a cross country killing spree aimed at taking down drug dealers. Cindy has been contacted by the killer, or one of the killers, directly and in her drive for the scoop she and Lindsay get into a disagreement over sharing details of the crimes sooner rather than later. Yuki is also dealing with a drug related crime and wondering whether its right to charge a teenager wheelman for the crimes committed by his passenger. Claire is dealing with some scary health issues, and is not an active participant in solving crimes as she was in past storylines. As with many of the stories in the Women's Murder Club series, t...

I read  One True Loves  by Taylor Jenkins Reid because she had written one of my favorite books of 2020,  Daisy Jones and the Six . I didn't realize it at first, but she also authored one of the best audiobooks I have ever listened to, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo .  If I did not know the same person had written all three, I never would have guessed. The storylines are incredibly different, but her writing is superb in all of them. One True Loves  opens with teenage Emma Blair questioning her relationships, with her sister, her parents, with books, with her big butt. She is surprised to discover it is possible for her to have a wicked crush when she sees Jesse Lerner for the first time during her freshman year of high school. They don't end up together then, but by senior year they are a couple, and move across the country together to live the life they've both felt unable to live in Massachusetts. Their love is real and true and all-encompassing, and come...

Would you go back in time, and face whatever potential consequences there might be for that choice, if you could erase a mistake or eliminate a painful memory? That is a central question of Recursion  by Blake Crouch .  I am a huge fan of this author, and I was excited to realize he had written another book since Dark Matter  (which I loved), and that it fit prompts for both the PopSugar and Around the Year in 52 books challenges for 2021.  I found the premise of this book super interesting at first, but then I really struggled to stay engaged when the focus first shifted from Barry to Helena, and I found throughout the story that I enjoyed the portions told from Barry's point of view much more than those told by Helena.  Basically (and this story is NOT basic... brace yourself for lots of neuroscience), NYPD Detective Barry Sutton goes to a call for a woman sitting on the ledge of a tall building in NYC. She is suffering from False Memory Syndrome, a known but ...

  I read Things You Save in a Fire  to kick off the new year. I posted about it on Twitter, and the author shared the link to a bridge chapter between that story and this one. I read the bridge last night, and ended up wanting to start How to Walk Away  immediately afterward, so I did. Margaret Jacobsen is on the verge of getting everything she has ever wanted... a great job, the ideal fiancé, and all the other hallmarks of a perfect life. Then, after being talked into doing something she most certainly does not want to do, everything changes.  Katherine Center writes her characters to perfection, because it is evident Maggie's fiancé Chip is a jerk from the very start. Who forces someone to do something they are terrified of doing, just to show off? Ugh. He was just so smarmy and self-centered. (Side note - why wasn't he charged with some sort of crime for "borrowing" and flying a plane without a license?!)  Maggie has to rework her whole life, while those arou...

  Dear Justyce  by Nic Stone is a follow up to her 2017 debut Dear Martin . Justice is back as a secondary character to Quan, the young man at the center of this story. If you haven't read  Dear Martin , you should. If you like audiobooks, it's one of the best I've ever listened to. How can two boys from the same neighborhood end up on such divergent paths? How much does your upbringing affect your choices? How does being a young African-American boy growing up in a country whose legal system is against you from the start fare compared to a young white boy who also gets in to trouble with the law?  Nic Stone gives readers a window in to these questions, and many more, with this incredible story. Quan is locked up again, this time facing a murder charge, when he begins exchanging letters with Justyce, who is now in his freshman year at Yale University. Quan considers the differences in where their lives have led them based on the choices they both made, and on the fac...

 First, in my defense, I had already started this book BEFORE I created the challenge for myself yesterday to only read books from certain TBR piles in my house and the CloudLibrary holds on my iPad. I didn't cheat! Now on to my review... A Good Girl's Guide to Murder   by Holly Jackson was a book that I heard about because I almost concurrently saw it on a friend's Goodreads profile and on the nominee's list for 2020 Goodreads Choice Award for Young Adult Fiction. The friend reading it happens to be a co-worker, and she lent me the book. It sat here on a stack of TBR's for a week or two, and then yesterday as I was finalizing my Popsugar and ATY52 challenge lists, I realized I could use it to fulfill a prompt for both, and here we are. This is the story of a high school student, Pippa Fitz-Amobi, who decides to do her senior capstone project on the infamous murder-suicide of two students that had occurred in her hometown 5 years before. She never really believed S...

Just finalized my list for the ATY52 challenge! Around the Year in 52 Books 2021 Reading Challenge:   1. A book related to “In the Beginning...” 📕  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 2. A book by an author whose name doesn't contain the letters A, T or Y 📘  The Round House 3. A book related to the lyrics for the song "My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music 📙  Concrete Rose 4. A book with a monochromatic cover 📗  Know My Name 5. A book by an author on USA Today's list of 100 Black Novelists You Should Read 📕  If Beale Street Could Talk 6. A love story 📘  The Notebook 7. A book that fits a prompt suggestion that didn't make the final list 📙  Untamed 8. A book set in a state, province, or country you have never visited 📗  Q is for Quarry 9. A book you associate with a specific season or time of year 📕  Winter Garden 10. A book with a female villain or criminal 📘  Little Fires Everywhere 11. A book to celebrate The Gr...

The Whisper Man  by Alex North came up as a recommendation for me on Goodreads. I checked out the Amazon preview of the book and I was intrigued enough to buy it. Before I got a chance to read it, I noticed it was a bargain book on Books-a-Million's website. That should have been my first clue that the 4.05 average the book has on Goodreads might be too good to be true. I have found in the past that recent titles in the bargain section of Books-a-Million are there for a reason. I just could not get in to this story. I am a quick reader, especially when I am interested in a story. Granted, there was a lot going on in the world this week that pulled my attention from reading, but when I enjoy a story I always find a way to make time to get plenty of reading done. Tom Kennedy and his young son Jake pack up and move to the town of Featherbank after the death of wife and mom Rebecca. Before they move, and immediately after they arrive, creepy things are happening. The story seemed like...

  I have been a fan of Karin Slaughter 's since the beginning of her Grant County series back in 2001. Just like any author with a long time writing career, some books end up better than others, and The Silent Wife  is definitely one of those better books.  This is the tenth entry in Slaughter's Will Trent series, and lots of familiar characters are back in action. Will and his feisty partner Faith are called out to help investigate a murder that took place during a prison riot. During the course of their work, they meet with a prisoner that has information to offer. Will, Faith, and the other members of their GBI team are in for a shock when the prisoner assures them he has proof that Jeffrey Tolliver was a crooked cop. Readers unfamiliar with the storyline, take note that Jeffrey is the murdered husband of Will's girlfriend, and GBI medical examiner, Sara. This accusation is a doozy, and it sends them scrambling to find the truth. This storyline goes deep and just gets ...

  The Silent Wife  by Karin Slaughter is the tenth entry in the Will Trent series. I am reading this book to satisfy prompts from both the Popsugar and ATY reading challenges. ATY prompt 18: Three books related to 'Past, Present, Future' - Book 1 (past) Popsugar Challenge prompt 3: A book that has a heart, diamond, club or spade on the cover

I started, and finished, this one today, and it was a good kick off for this year's reading. Things You Save in a Fire  by Katherine Center is the story of Cassie, a young woman working in the male dominated firefighting profession. She is in Austin at the start of the story, but gets a request from her long gone mother to move to Massachusetts for a year. She says no, but circumstances soon change, and she finds herself in a home with a woman she has tried hard to ignore for over a decade and in a new fire station with a crew that has never worked with a woman on their shift.  The book is billed under the romance genre, and there is some romance, but the heart of this story is a kick ass woman learning the art of forgiveness and vulnerability. Is the ending wrapped up with a pretty little bow? It is a "romance," so you can probably figure that out for yourself, but let me tell you, there is a lot of interesting stuff going on in between.  As the long time partner of a fi...

About to start Things You Save in a Fire   by Katherine Center. She is a new to me author. I came across this title on a GoodReads list. The cover colors caught my eye, and I am down to try any stories centering on firefighters, since I live with one. That might be a weird reason to try a book, but... 🤷🏻‍♀️. Romance is also a genre I have always shied away from in the past, until I realized there were several authors and stories I was reading and enjoying that are considered "romance." I don't read the bodice rippers, but if a story has a romance as a side angle on a life story or mystery, I will give it a whirl.

 Almost done with my ATY 2021 reading challenge list. Still need books for #6 (a love story) and #29 (a book you consider comfort reading), but those should be easy to decide on, whether I do it now or during the coming year. If you've seen the post with my 2021 PopSugar reading challenge list, you will notice lots of duplicate entries here. That is totally intentional on my part. I want to try to finish both challenges this coming year (I came within 3 books on PopSugar and 5 on ATY this year and could have done it, but just did not want to read any of the books I had chosen for the prompts I had left).  Even though both lists are supposedly made independently from one another, they often have so many common themes or elements that I start to wonder if their creators are checking in with each other as they compile their respective lists. Anyway, doing different books for each prompt would total 102 books. That number doesn't concern me. I usually read around 160 books a year ...