WWW Wednesday: September 20th, 2023

WWW Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam at Taking on a World of Words.

The Three Ws are:

What are you currently reading?

What did you recently finish reading?

What do you think you’ll read next?

Here is what I am currently reading, recently finished, and plan to read from Thursday to Wednesday.

Let me know if you have read or are planning on reading any of these books!!

Happy Reading!!

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What I am currently reading:

It’s beginning to look a lot like murder in the sixth installment of this charming cozy mystery series, perfect for fans of Donna Andrews and Jacqueline Frost.

It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.

Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition? Everyone in the cast and crew is a potential suspect, including Aline, Merry’s mother, and Merry’s shop assistant Jackie O’Reilly, who was desperate for a starring role.

It could be curtains for Christmas—and for Merry—unless the killer can be ferreted out of the wings.

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What I recently finished reading:

Amy Chua’s debut novel, The Golden Gate, is a sweeping, evocative, and compelling historical thriller that paints a vibrant portrait of a California buffeted by the turbulent crosswinds of a world at war and a society about to undergo massive change.

In Berkeley, California, in 1944, Homicide Detective Al Sullivan has just left the swanky Claremont Hotel after a drink in the bar when a presidential candidate is assassinated in one of the rooms upstairs. A rich industrialist with enemies among the anarchist factions on the far left, Walter Wilkinson could have been targeted by any number of groups. But strangely, Sullivan’s investigation brings up the specter of another tragedy at the Claremont, ten years the death of seven-year-old Iris Stafford, a member of the Bainbridge family, one of the wealthiest in all of San Francisco. Some say she haunts the Claremont still.

The many threads of the case keep leading Sullivan back to the three remaining Bainbridge heiresses, now Iris’s sister, Isabella, and her cousins Cassie and Nicole. Determined not to let anything distract him from the truth―not the powerful influence of Bainbridges’ grandmother, or the political aspirations of Berkeley’s district attorney, or the interest of China’s First Lady Madame Chiang Kai-Shek in his findings―Sullivan follows his investigation to its devastating conclusion.

Chua’s page-turning debut brings to life a historical era rife with turbulent social forces and groundbreaking forensic advances, when race and class defined the very essence of power, sex, and justice, and introduces a fascinating character in Detective Sullivan, a mixed race former Army officer who is still reckoning with his own history.

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What I think I will read next:

Members of Anyone have gone missing.

The Circle is still determined to take down the rebel faction, Anyone, by any means necessary. After infiltrating The Capitol, Logan and Reina are shocked to find their comrades are being kidnapped, then returned– chipped, forcing them to come to heel beneath The Circle’s thumb.

The only way to level the playing field is to destroy the devices controlling the people. Logan and Reina must set out to find the small, hidden tech, and disable the chips that are turning friends into foes. The only problem? There’s a mole in the ranks of their allies revealing the duo’s next move before they can act.

Can Logan and Reina uncover the traitor before The Circle forces Anyone to destroy itself?

The battle for The Capitol has begun.

Logan and Reina have revealed the truth of what The Circle has been doing for a century. Citizens now realize that their beautiful utopia was built upon their stolen dreams. With The Circle unmasked, everyone now has a choice of whether to rise up against them for their tyrannical crimes, or stand aside.

Despite being seemingly defeated, The Circle has one more card to play: their martyr, and Logan’s best friend, Jonas Basker.
As the face of propaganda against Anyone, the late Jonas still has some pull amongst the people. That is why Logan and Reina must prove Anyone’s innocence by showing citizens how subverted The Circle really is. Luckily, their new friend has a secret worth going to the grave for.

With the government’s covert archives being targeted for destruction, time is running out to save what little remains of the good still left in Logan’s world.
Can The Circle truly be stopped?

A new romantic comedy that will stop readers in their tracks…

For cynical twenty-three-year-old August, moving to New York City is supposed to prove her right: that things like magic and cinematic love stories don’t exist, and the only smart way to go through life is alone. She can’t imagine how waiting tables at a 24-hour pancake diner and moving in with too many weird roommates could possibly change that. And there’s certainly no chance of her subway commute being anything more than a daily trudge through boredom and electrical failures.

But then, there’s this gorgeous girl on the train.

Jane. Dazzling, charming, mysterious, impossible Jane. Jane with her rough edges and swoopy hair and soft smile, showing up in a leather jacket to save August’s day when she needed it most. August’s subway crush becomes the best part of her day, but pretty soon, she discovers there’s one big problem: Jane doesn’t just look like an old school punk rocker. She’s literally displaced in time from the 1970s, and August is going to have to use everything she tried to leave in her own past to help her. Maybe it’s time to start believing in some things, after all.

Casey McQuiston’s One Last Stop is a magical, sexy, big-hearted romance where the impossible becomes possible as August does everything in her power to save the girl lost in time.

What would you sacrifice to bring to light the greatest discovery in human history?

Quentin Darnell was only a boy when his anthropologist parents were overcome by a professional failure so crushing it led to his father’s suicide. Now a schoolteacher, Quentin is looking for answers that can only be found in the wild terrains of Indonesian Papua, where years ago his parents studied an isolated aboriginal tribe.

Quentin leads his wife, son, and six students on a field trip to experience Papua’s pristine tropical forests. When their plane tragically crashes in the wilderness, Quentin becomes trapped in a vicious fight to protect the ones he loves.

Just as resources and hope run out, several mysterious tribesmen appear, bearing a substance with extraordinary healing properties. The material promises to benefit all of humanity. But it’s much more than medicine. It creates creatures unknown to science. And it brings to life what should remain dead—including Quentin’s own son, Addison.

Logic and sanity begin to unravel. Addison speaks a new language. He knows things he shouldn’t. And he’s a killer.

For the others to escape, Quentin must face a decision no parent should have to make.