207 Book Talk

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...

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 ...

  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...

My finalized list for the 2021 Popsugar reading challenge. I am attempting both the regular and advanced prompts this year, and love that I can shrink my TBR pile so much when I finish. REGULAR 1. A book that published in 2021 📘  Every Last Fear 2. An Afrofuturist book 📙  Kindred 3. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover 📕  The Silent Wife  ✔️ 4. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign 📗  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 5. A dark academia book 📕  Ninth House 6. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title 📘  The Nickel Boys 7. A book where the main character works at your current or dream job 📙  The Book of Two Ways 8. A book that has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 📘  Bel Canto 9. A book with a family tree 📙  Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family 10. A bestseller from the 1990s 📕  The Reader 11. A book about forgetting 📘  Recursion 12. A book you have se...

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.

Still a work in progress, but after hours and hours, and days and days, I have most of my 2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge list ready to go. Do you plan ahead, or read what you want and then hope it fits in to a category? 2021 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge REGULAR 1. A book that published in 2021 📘  Every Last Fear 2. An Afrofuturist book 📙  Kindred 3. A book that has a heart, diamond, club, or spade on the cover 📕  The Silent Wife 4. A book by an author who shares your zodiac sign 📗  Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind 5. A dark academia book 📕  Ninth House 6. A book with a gem, mineral, or rock in the title 📘  The Nickel Boys 7. A book where the main character works at your current or dream job 📙  The Book of Two Ways 8. A book that has won the Women’s Prize for Fiction 📘  Bel Canto 9. A book with a family tree 📙  Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family 10. A bestseller from the 1990s 📕  The Reader 11. A book...