Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023 (body-related words: the body itself or body-related works like heart, skin, liver, flesh…etc)—Broken Heart Syndrome
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (a book with a wild animal in the title. Common companion animals like dogs, cats, ferrets, fish, snakes, lizards, and horses do not count)—The Wolf Within
A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.
Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.
After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.
But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.
And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…
First Line:
Lindsay was laughing-really, genuinely laughing-for the first time in months.
A Killer in the Family by Gytha Lodge
A serial killer is on the loose in the English town of Southampton. With little clues to go on and DNA that isn’t in the system, the police are at a dead end. Until one of the DCIs suggests uploading the DNA to a genealogy website. Within days, they get a hit. But when interviewing the woman, Aisling, they have more questions than answers and must comb through Aisling’s past to find the killer. But Aisling is hiding a big secret that she hasn’t told anyone. How is Aisling connected to the Bonfire Killer? Will the police crack the case before the killer strikes again?
British crime dramas/mysteries (both televised and written) are a guilty pleasure of mine. I enjoy reading about how the police over there investigate crimes. So, I agreed when Random House approached me to read and review A Killer in the Family. I am glad that I did. This book was a twisty-turny mystery that kept me guessing who the killer was.
A Killer in the Family is the fifth book in the DCI Jonah Sheens series. You can read this as a stand-alone book. I suggest reading the first four books before this one. There were some references to relationships and previous books that I needed clarification on.
The main storyline of A Killer in the Family starts with the police search for the Bonfire Killer. From there, it breaks down into two main storylines. They are the police’s investigation into the killings and Aisling’s storyline. Both storylines were well-written and kept me guessing until the end.
The storyline detailing the police’s investigation into the killings was interesting. I liked that the author covered every aspect of the investigation and didn’t just keep the focus on the DCIs. She highlighted the CSI (not sure what they are called in England) and the lower-level investigators.
Aisling’s storyline was sad and a little confusing to follow. But that confusion has a point, and I believe the author intended to keep me off balance with this storyline. Everything that was revealed, from what happened to Aisling’s father, why she came to England, and what happened to her before her father left, took me by surprise. Put it this way, this storyline did not end as I thought it would, and I loved it.
Several secondary storylines seemed to have nothing to do with the main one. But, these secondary storylines are important in the second half of the book. They added extra depth and extra knowledge to the main storylines.
The mystery angle of A Killer in the Family was intense. The author kept me guessing who the killer was and how that person was related to Aisling. The author had red herrings everywhere in this book. I didn’t expect the killer to be who it was or the motive.
The end of A Killer in the Family was a little bittersweet. The author did wrap up the main storyline (the investigation and Aisiling’s) in a way I approved. But there were a couple of other storylines that weren’t ended. As for the very end of the book, I was shocked but not surprised. I saw what happened coming. I will have to read the next book to see how everything ended.
I would recommend A Killer in the Family to anyone over 21. There are no sexual situations, but there is violence and language.
Many thanks to Random House Publishing Group – Random House, Random House Trade Paperbacks, NetGalley, and Gytha Lodge for allowing me to read and review A Killer in the Family. All opinions stated in this review are mine.
If you enjoy reading books similar to A Killer in the Family, then you will enjoy these books:
It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet and share what you have been and are about to be reading over the week. It’s a great post to organize yourself. It’s an opportunity to visit, comment, and add to your groaning TBR pile! So welcome in everyone. This meme started on J Kaye’s blog and then was hosted by Sheila from Book Journey. Sheila then passed it on to Kathryn at The Book Date.
Jen Vincent, Teach Mentor Texts, and Kellee of Unleashing Readers decided to give It’s Monday! a kid-lit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle-grade novels, young adult novels, or anything in those genres – join them.
Personal:
I am sick of this hot weather. Not only is it hot, but it is humid, and it makes it very difficult to be outside for any length of time. We usually rely on afternoon thunderstorms to cool everything off in the evenings, but those haven’t happened either.
Considering what I said above, we did have severe storms roll through last Monday. Two tornados touched down that were part of the storms (they didn’t touch down here). My gazebo (which has survived everything) was a casualty of this storm. We have had a few huge branches fall. Thankfully, our city collects yard waste weekly, so the branches and such were handled.
The countdown to school is getting real. Miss B has senior pictures at the end of this week, and next week, Mr. Z will pick up his Chromebook, and Miss R has her Sneak Peek.
Miss R is back to riding!! I won’t get into the whole story, but she hasn’t had lessons between rain, last week’s storm, and her barn moving. She was so thrilled to be back riding.
Reading
I am right on track for where I want to be, reading-wise. I have made a huge dent in my ARCs from NetGalley. I am almost halfway through my author requests books too. Sticking to a schedule has helped a lot. Reading/reviewing on weekdays and reading what I want on weekends works for me.
I am on track with reviews also, which rarely happens. Again, I set up a schedule and forced myself to stick to it. I average about 4-5 reviews a week (with some scheduled later in the year).
Unfortunately, I am not doing that great with my reading challenges. I think I will only finish a couple of the challenges. But it’s alright. I knew I had overextended myself. Next year will be different.
Cooking
I didn’t cook anything last week. This damn weather is just too hot for cooking. We ate a lot of salads, cold cuts, and pizza.
Even though I didn’t cook last week, I am cooking this week. I am making chicken parm, two pasta recipes, and a quick beef goulash.
So, that’s my catch-up.
Anything exciting or different happen this week?
Make anything good this past week, or plan on making it this week?
Read anything new?
Read anything on this list?
Let me know!!
What I am Reading Now:
A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.
Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.
After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.
But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.
And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…
Books I plan on reading later this week:
Two years together.
Twenty years apart.
One day to change their story.
2000. Benjamin’s world is turned upside down the day he meets Clara. Instinctively, he knows that she is his person and he is hers, but a devastating mistake on one of their last nights at university will take their lives in very different directions.
20 years later, an explosion is reported in the city where Clara and Ben met, and she is pulled back to a place she tries not to remember and the first love she could never forget. Searching for Ben, Clara prays that twenty years of silence is about to end.
But is it too late to put right what went wrong?
Tabby Winslow will help her twin sister Sage with anything and everything—and that includes putting out the flames of suspicion when Sage’s boss is found murdered in this magical mystery, perfect for fans of Amanda Flower and Sofie Kelly.
December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. With all the festivities—including the traditional riverfront luminary display during the boat parade—twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead, and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name.
Soon, Tabby realizes that this is just one of the many problems they have. If being a suspect for murder wasn’t enough, there are more magical problems that they have to fix: Sage’s boyfriend is having a paranormal experience of his own he can’t control, there’s an energy vampire searching for his supposedly lost cousin, and oh—every time Tabby hiccups, she turns completely invisible. The suspect list grows with each day and it seems everyone has a reason or a connection to Loren Lee.
Tabby and Sage are burning the candle at both ends—but will it be enough to keep their friends safe and find this killer? Or will they be burned by their efforts?
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!!
What I am currently reading:
Terence Bailey is about to be released from prison for breaking and entering, though investigators have long suspected him in the murders of six women. As his freedom approaches, Bailey gets a surprise visit from Maddison Logan, a hot, young influencer with a huge social media following. Hours later, Maddison disappears, and police suspect she’s been kidnapped—or worse. Is Maddison’s disappearance connected to her visit to Bailey? Why was she visiting him in the first place?
When they hit a wall in the investigation, the FBI reluctantly asks for Rachel’s help in finding the missing influencer. Maddison seems only to exist on social media; she has no family, no friends, and other than in her posts, most people have never seen her. Who is she, really? Using a fake Instagram account, Rachel Krall goes undercover to BuzzCon, a popular influencer conference, where she discovers a world of fierce rivalry that may have turned lethal.
When police find the body of a woman with a tattoo of a snake eating its tail, the FBI must consider a chilling possibility: Bailey has an accomplice on the outside and a dangerous obsession with influencers, including Rachel Krell herself. Suddenly a target of a monster hiding in plain sight, Rachel is forced to confront the very real dangers that lurk in the dark corners of the internet.
Rachel Krall, the true crime podcaster star of Megan Goldin’s acclaimed Night Swim returns to search for a popular social media influencer who disappeared after visiting a suspected serial killer.
What I recently finished reading:
When Helene was young, she dreamed of the perfect man and filled her notebooks with stories about him and about love in its purest form. But after a messy divorce, she has let go of such naive fantasies. She has moved to a small town in Alaska, where she is ready to write her novel and build a new life without romance. Fate has other plans, though.
Helene soon meets Sebastien Montague, a handsome fisherman who is her invented hero made flesh, down to the most idiosyncratic details. But how can a man she created possibly exist in the real world?
While Helene tries to discover the truth behind his existence, Sebastien is determined to keep that truth from her, for he is a man scarred by serial tragedy, hiding a secret that has broken his heart time and again. Yet the shadows of the past emerge, endangering Helene and Sebastien’s future before it even begins–and it becomes clear that it won’t be easy to forge a new ending to the greatest love story of all time.
A woman fleeing her disastrous marriage discovers that she is part of a legendary love story that spans lives, years, and continents in this modern-day reimagining of Romeo and Juliet.
What I think I will read next:
Faythe Wentworth was taught by her father how to fight, and never shies from a conflict, no matter the odds. In her small settlement town, she has learned to always be on guard—especially with the Downing brothers, who threaten her at every opportunity. When Chloe, Faythe’s little sister, is viciously attacked, Faythe, armed with a knife and a burning obsession, is determined to seek vengeance, and bring justice to her sister and her family. But is she prepared to fight the superstitions and injustices that led to her family’s destruction? With compelling characters, strong female narratives, and an unpredictable plot, the Girl with a Knife series will have readers sitting at the edge of their seats until the very last page.
Who is Mister Magic? Former child stars reunite to uncover the tragedy that ended their show -and discover the secret of its enigmatic host -in this dark supernatural thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hide.
Thirty years after a tragic accident shut down production of the classic children’s program Mister Magic, the five surviving cast members have done their best to move on. But just as generations of cultishly devoted fans still cling to the lessons they learned from the show, the cast, known as the Circle of Friends, have spent their lives searching for the happiness they felt while they were on it. The friend-ship. The feeling of belonging. And the protection of Mister Magic
But with no surviving video of the show, no evidence of who directed or produced it, and no records of who-or what the beloved host actually was, memories are all the former Circle of Friends has.
Then, a twist of fate brings the castmates back together at the remote desert filming compound that feels like it’s been waiting for them all this time. Even though they haven’t seen each other for years, they understand one another better than anyone has since.
After all, they’re the only ones who hold the secret of that circle, the mystery of the magic man in his infinitely black cape, and, maybe, the answers to what really happened on that deadly last day. But as the Circle of Friends reclaim parts of their past, they begin to wonder: Are they here by choice, or have they been lured into a trap?
Because magic never forgets the taste of your friendship…
Two sisters navigate the turbulent, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and longing for a family they never had, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife
Southern California, 1960s: endless sunny days surfing in Malibu, followed by glittering neon nights at Whisky A-Go-Go. In an era when women are expected to be housewives, Carol Donelly is breaking the mold as a legendary female surfer struggling to compete in a male-dominated sport–and her daughters, Mindy and Ginger, bear the weight of her unconventional lifestyle.
The Donnelly sisters grow up enduring their mother’s absence–physically, when she’s at the beach, and emotionally, the rare times she’s at home. To escape questions about Carol’s whereabouts–and chase their mom’s elusive affection–they cut school to spend their days in the surf. From her first time on a board, Mindy shows a natural talent, but Ginger, two years younger, feels out of place in the water.
As they grow up and their lives diverge, Mindy and Ginger’s relationship ebbs and flows. Mindy finds herself swept up in celebrity, complete with beachside love affairs, parties at the Playboy Club, and USO tours to Vietnam. Meanwhile, Ginger–desperate for a community of her own–is tugged into the vibrant counterculture of drugs and cults. Through it all, their sense of duty to each other survives, as the girls are forever connected by the emotional damage they carry from their unorthodox childhood.
A gripping, emotional story set at a time when mothers were expected to be Donna Reed, not Gidget, California Golden is an unforgettable novel about three women living in a society that was shifting as tempestuously as the breaking waves.
Sometimes the most picturesque of places can hide the cruellest killer. Young Billy Jones comes from a notorious family of drunks and thieves. So, when he fails to return home it’s hardly a surprise. However, when mutilated remains are found it becomes apparent that a savage executioner is stalking the untamed windswept moorland that surround this northern town. The clues lead DS Lasser directly to the poverty-stricken Radfield family who once owned great swathes of local land. When another body is discovered, Lasser’s convictions are thrown into turmoil. Someone is playing a vicious game, someone with a burning hatred for the Radfield family. The body count rises and Lasser finds himself enmeshed in a tangled web of deceit as he tries to unravel the dark, twisted secrets that bind two families. Secrets stretching back over four decades, blackmail and murder reaching out to ensnare the innocent as well as the guilty.
Shy, reclusive Frankie and her best friend Lou obsess over Thomas G. Longley, as they reverently refer to him, for their entire first two years of medical school. So when he publically humiliates her at the student bar she is devastated.
Ten years later, Frankie has to work in the testosterone driven environment of Cardiology before she can start her palliative care training and, to her dismay, Tom is her boss.
Thankfully the subject of her long-term crush doesn’t seem to remember her and, given her ability to blend into the background, she’s not really surprised. What does surprise her is how cruel he is. Sure he squished her self esteem like a bug at Uni, but the Tom she spent many a pointless lunch break or library session covertly watching seemed easy going and quick to smile; not an uptight, overly critical bully.
Between passing out whilst assisting in theatre, struggling to force the team to see their bed blockers, and being covered head to foot in the bloody vomit of ‘Scary Glenda’ (A&E’s most frequent, frequent flyer), she can’t wait to get through the six months.
Although she’s too timid to tell Tom to jog on when she is his only target, when it’s her patients that he starts trampling she decides to grow a backbone, and Tom begins to see that she is not the cold, aloof woman he once thought.
As the misunderstandings of the past come to light, Tom realizes that the ‘complete-bastard’ routine he has been clinging to out of hurt pride might not have been his most stellar idea. He has a fight on his hands to win Frankie over and, unfortunately, it’s not just his past behaviour he’s fighting against. You see, Frankie knows all about being pushed around. She’s dealt with enough verbal and even physical abuse before to last a lifetime and she’s not going to be fooled into thinking that this ruthless alpha male has turned over a new leaf.
Even if he could convince her that he’s not really the bully he projected before, her low self-esteem would never allow her to believe that a man like Tom could really be into a boring, bland, nondescript girl like her.
Luckily for Frankie, Tom is used to getting what he wants. He’s determined to make her see herself clearly for the first time in her life and he’s just arrogant enough to believe that he can break through her defenses.
But Frankie’s past is not ready to let her go quite yet. There’s a reason that she spends next to no money but is always skint: a reason that she keeps her flat door open: a reason that she holds herself back from him.
Maybe he won’t manage to convince her and he’ll allow her to push him away. Or maybe (as Lou rightly puts it) he should ‘stop being a pussy and man up already.’
FBI Special Agent Duncan McGuire spends his days–and his nights–tracking real-life monsters. Most humans aren’t aware of the vampires and werewolves that walk among them. They don’t realize the danger that they face, but Duncan knows about the horror that waits in the darkness. He hunts the monsters, and he protects the innocent. Duncan just never expects to become a monster. But after a brutal werewolf attack, Duncan begins to change…and soon he will be one of the very beasts that he has hunted.
Dr. Holly Young is supposed to help Duncan during his transition. It’s her job to keep him sane so that Duncan can continue working with the FBI’s Para Unit. But as Duncan’s beast grows stronger, the passion that she and Duncan have held carefully in check pushes to the surface. The desire that is raging between them could be a very dangerous thing…because Holly isn’t exactly human, not any longer.
As the monsters circle in, determined to take out all of the agents working at the Para Unit, Holly and Duncan will have to use their own supernatural strengths in order to survive. But as they give up more of their humanity and embrace the beasts within them both, they realize that the passion between them isn’t safe, it isn’t controllable, and their dark need may just be an obsession that could destroy them both.
Author’s Note: THE WOLF WITHIN is an adult paranormal romance. It contains werewolves, vampires, adult language, sexy times, and lots of danger. Please consider yourself warned. THE WOLF WITHIN contains approximately 60,000 words.
Jay Zander was a cheerful ten year old living in the painfully quiet town of Mentis, home to only dust and daydreams. But, things take a terrifying turn when this serene town, and many others, are struck by a mysterious meteor shower, forcing Jay’s family to lock him away in frozen slumber as protection from the impending doomsday. Now, thirteen years later, Jay awakes in a new world overrun by vicious creatures know as shadows, where he embarks on a journey to unearth a legendary organization of powerful individuals who may hold the key to saving the planet completely lost in darkness.
A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.
Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.
After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.
But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.
And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…
Five harrowing novellas of horror and speculative fiction from the singular mind of the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
Josh Malerman is a master weaver of stories–and in this spine-chilling collection he spins five twisted tales from the shadows of the human soul:
A sister insists to her little brother that “Half the House Is Haunted” by a strange presence. But is it the house that’s haunted–or their childhoods?
In “Argyle,” a dying man confesses to homicides he never committed, and he reveals long-kept secrets far more sinister than murder.
A tourist takes the ultimate trip to outer space in “The Jupiter Drop,” but the real journey is into his own dark past.
In “Doug and Judy Buy the House Washer(TM),” a trendy married couple buys the latest home gadget only to find themselves trapped by their possessions, their history . . . and each other.
And in “Egorov,” a wealthy old cretin murders a young man, not knowing the victim was a triplet. The two surviving brothers stage a savage faux-haunting–playing the ghost of their slain brother–with the aim of driving the old murderer mad.
New York Times bestseller Allison Brennan’s latest standalone is an unputdownable race to the dramatic finish.
After five years in hiding from their murderous father, the day Kristen and Ryan McIntyre have been dreading has arrived: Boyd McIntyre, head of a Los Angeles crime family, has at last tracked his kids to a small Montana town and is minutes away from kidnapping them. They barely escape in a small plane, but gunfire hits the fuel line. The pilot, a man who has been raising them as his own, manages to crash land in the middle of the Montana wilderness. The siblings hike deep into the woods, searching desperately for safety—unaware of the severity of the approaching storm.
Boyd’s sister Ruby left Los Angeles for the Army years ago, cutting off contact in order to help keep her niece and nephew safe and free from the horrors of the McIntyre clan. So when she gets an emergency call that the plane has gone down with the kids inside, she drops everything to try save them.
As the storm builds, Ruby isn’t the only person looking for them. Boyd has hired an expert tracker to find and bring them home. And rancher Nick Lorenzo, who knows these mountains better than anyone and doesn’t understand why the kids are running, is on their trail too.
But there is a greater threat to Kristen and Ryan out there. More volatile than the incoming blizzard, more dangerous than the family they ran from or the natural predators they could encounter. Who finds them first could determine if they live or die. . .
2023 Monthly Themes (Continue a series or reread an author already read this year): Claim My Baby—Finished 3-31-23
Romanceopoly 2023! (Read a book where the main character works at or owns a bar)-About Love—Finished 4-1-23
Buzzword Reading Challenge 2023 (words in the title related to emotions, from happy to sad, smile to frown, pride to rage)—P.S. I Hate You—Finished 4-3-23
2023 Sami Parker Reads Title Challenge (a book with one of these words in the title: Sunny, Bright, Cloud or Rain): Brightest Shadow—Finished 4-6-2023
Cover Scavenger Hunt 2023 (a flower): A Spirited Manor—Finished 4-7-2023
The StoryGraph’s OnBoarding Reading Challenge 2023 (read one of the first 10 books you added to your to-read pile): The Night Swim—Finished 4-8-2023
The StoryGraph Reads the World 2023 (Italy): Find Me—Finished 4-10-2023
The StoryGraph’s Genre Challenge (a biography about someone you don’t know much about): Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot—Finished 4-11-2023
Beat the Backlist 2023 (take place primarily in winter or a cold region): Tainted—Finished 4-19-2023
Scavenger Hunt TBR Book Challenge (go to the acknowledgments of the last book you read for this prompt. What name did you first see? Find a book written by an author with that name): Frost Burn—Finished 4-20-2023
Scavenger Hunt (Book I found that day): Delicate Ink—Finished 4-20-2023
Popsugar Reading Challenge 2023 (a book by a first time author): The Fifth Floor—Finished 4-21-23
2023 TBR Toppler (continue a series): Ten Thousand Lies—Finished 4-22-23
2023 Reading Challenge (book that has been on my TBR for the longest time): Purple Death—Finished 4-23-23
2023 ABC Challenge (D): Descendants—Carrying over to May
2023 TBR Prompts (A BookTok Favorite): The Song of Achilles—Carrying over to May
What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
Here’s what has gone on since last week’s WWW Wednesday:
Actually, nothing too much happened over the past week. Well, nothing worth talking about.
So that’s the major things for this past week. How was your week?
As always, let me know if you have read or are planning to read any of these books!!
What I Recently Finished Reading:
A reality star and a cupcake-baking football player pretend to be a couple in order to save his bakery in this sweet and sexy romance from Jamie Wesley, Fake It Till You Bake It.
Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego’s newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell.
When a reporter mistakenly believes Jada and Donovan are an item, they realize they can use the misunderstanding to their advantage to help the struggling bakery and rehabilitate Jada’s image. Faking a relationship should be simple, but sometimes love is the most unexpected ingredient.
Fake it Till You Bake It is a sweet confection of a novel, the perfect story to curl up with and enjoy with a cupcake on the side.
What I am currently reading:
A god wages war—using all of humanity as its pawns—in the unforgettable conclusion to the Founders trilogy.
Sancia, Clef, and Berenice have gone up against plenty of long odds in the past. But the war they’re fighting now is one even they can’t win.
This time, they’re not facing robber-baron elites, or even an immortal hierophant, but an entity whose intelligence is spread over half the globe—a ghost in the machine that uses the magic of scriving to possess and control not just objects, but human minds.
To fight it, they’ve used scriving technology to transform themselves and their allies into an army—a society—that’s like nothing humanity has seen before. With its strength at their backs, they’ve freed a handful of their enemy’s hosts from servitude, even brought down some of its fearsome, reality-altering dreadnaughts. Yet despite their efforts, their enemy marches on—implacable. Unstoppable.
Now, as their opponent closes in on its true prize—an ancient doorway, long buried, that leads to the chambers at the center of creation itself—Sancia and her friends glimpse a chance at reaching it first, and with it, a last desperate opportunity to stop this unbeatable foe. But to do so, they’ll have to unlock the centuries-old mystery of scriving’s origins, embark on a desperate mission into the heart of their enemy’s power, and pull off the most daring heist they’ve ever attempted.
And as if that weren’t enough, their adversary might just have a spy in their ranks—and a last trick up its sleeve.
What books I think I’ll read next:
Two girls went into the woods. Only one came back. . . .
Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens is on the trail in this explosive crime novel from the acclaimed author of She Lies in Wait, Watching from the Dark, and Lie Beside Me
Jonah Sheens is enjoying a moment of peace in a pub garden on his day off when a teenage girl wanders out of the woods. She’s striking, with flame-red hair and a pale complexion. She’s also covered in blood.
When Jonah races to help, the girl insists she’s fine. Then she smiles. It’s her sister he needs to worry about. Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children’s home a week ago. Now Keely is here–but Nina’s still missing. Jonah is sure Keely knows where her sister is–but before she tells him anything, she insists, he has to listen to her story from the beginning.
Is she witness, victim, or killer? And if Jonah follows the trail of clues in her story, will they lead him to the missing girl–or distract him until it’s too late?
The discovery of a missing Amish bishop’s remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo…
You want to walk away from the things that were bad for you and never look back.
That’s what Corinne Callahan wants.
Cast out of the fundamentalist church she was raised in and cut off from her family, Corinne builds a new life for herself. A good one. But she never stops missing the life—and the love— she’s left behind.
It’s Enoch Miller who ruins everything for her. It was always Enoch Miller. She’ll never get him out from under her skin.
Set over fifteen years and told with astonishing intimacy, Rebecca Morrow’s Corinne is the story of a woman who risks everything she’s built for the one man she can never have.
The sleepy little farm that Laurel Early grew up on has awakened. The woods are shifting, the soil is dead under her hands, and her bone pile just stood up and walked away.
After dropping out of college, all she wanted was to resume her life as a tobacco hand and taxidermist and try not to think about the boy she can’t help but love. Instead, a devil from her past has returned to court her, as he did her late mother years earlier. Now, Laurel must unravel her mother’s terrifying legacy and tap into her own innate magic before her future and the fate of everyone she loves is doomed.
What are you currently reading? What did you recently finish reading? What do you think you’ll read next?
Personal:
Here’s what has gone on since last week’s**WWW Wednesday:
** I know that I missed two WWW Wednesdays since my last post. But I am lazy and didn’t want to mess with what I had originally written (I copy/paste it)
School has officially ended here in NC. I am proud to say that all 3 of my kids passed to the next grade. So, starting in August, I will have 9th, 11th, and 3rd graders!!
While I am on the subject of school, Mr. Z got back the results of his state tests. He got 4’s and 5’s (which put him in honors classes in August). Miss B got back her results too and she did very well. With the exception of math, she scored 3’s and 4’s (math, she scored a 2 but I wasn’t surprised, it was hard for her this year)
I attended Miss R’s end-of-school picnic. It was the first time in 2 years that they had it and it was a hit. Miss R was thrilled that I was there and I got to meet her friends. I also became the mom who adopted 4 kids because their parents couldn’t make it. We all sat on our towels and I listened to 2nd-grade gossip…lol.
The school is doing something different for school supplies this year. They set up an account for all grades with this company called School Kidz. This company packs a box filled with essential school supplies and sends it to the school. It cost me $41 (with no shipping, that the school covers) but Miss R will have waiting for her this list: wide-ruled paper, #2 pencils, dry erase markers, folders, 3 ring binder, composition notebooks, regular notebooks, glue sticks, crayons, pencil case, scissors (but in Miss R’s case, she needs lefty scissors so I will have her give the one that comes with the kit to the teacher), earbuds with case, and personalized ID labels. I am happy to have that done with and wish that the high school would do the same.
We went away on a glorious vacation to Fl for an entire week. We went to Legoland Waterpark, Animal Kingdom, saw my MIL, and spent a few days at the resort. It was a much-needed vacation and I read a ton of books (it was a 10-hour drive to and from).
Unfortunately, as soon as we got home, Miss R and I got sick. Miss R actually had a bad cold at the beginning of the trip (not COVID, we tested) that she passed to me. I had a miserable 4 days of coughing, laryngitis, and a sore throat. I ended up taking Miss R to the Dr last Wednesday because I thought she had swimmers ear. Nope, she had double ear infections and is still currently taking antibiotics.
We are hunkering down during this heat wave and my kids hate it. I hate it because we have a small pool (inflatable) and a slip and slide that Miss R loves but hasn’t used since the weekend. It is just too hot and humid. We have one more day of super-hot temps (tomorrow is supposed to get over 100 with a real feel of 105-107…..yuck) and then it will cool down slightly.
I signed Miss R up for a day camp at her barn today. It is next Friday, 9-4 and she will be with the other girls she knows (plus some that she doesn’t). She has a lesson right after and I am expecting her to be exhausted (actually I am planning on it). I figure since her surgery is on July 1st, I was going to squeeze as much stuff as I could for her before it.
Reading-wise, I am all caught up with my backlog and I am actually reading ahead of where I should be. I am super excited about that!! Now, I am furiously writing reviews and trying to get them posted. I am about 8-9 reviews behind where I want to be. But it’s better than being 8-9 books behind. Like I said above, I got a ton of reading done while on vacation.
So that’s the major things for this past week. How was your week?
As always, let me know if you have read or are planning to read any of these books!!
What I Recently Finished Reading:
In the first book of a visionary fantasy trilogy with its roots in the mythology of Africa and Arabia that “sings of rebellion, love, and the courage it takes to stand up to tyranny” (Samantha Shannon, author of The Priory of the Orange Tree), three women band together against a cruel empire that divides people by blood.
“The Final Strife is the real deal: epic fantasy turned on its head in the most compelling way imaginable.”—Kalynn Bayron, bestselling author of Cinderella Is Dead and This Poison Heart
ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF 2022—Book Riot
Red is the blood of the elite, of magic, of control. Blue is the blood of the poor, of workers, of the resistance. Clear is the blood of the slaves, of the crushed, of the invisible.
Sylah dreams of days growing up in the resistance, being told she would spark a revolution that would free the empire from the red-blooded ruling classes’ tyranny. That spark was extinguished the day she watched her family murdered before her eyes.
Anoor has been told she’s nothing, no one, a disappointment, by the only person who matters: her mother, the most powerful ruler in the empire. But when Sylah and Anoor meet, a fire burns between them that could consume the kingdom—and their hearts.
Hassa moves through the world unseen by upper classes, so she knows what it means to be invisible. But invisibility has its uses: It can hide the most dangerous of secrets, secrets that can reignite a revolution. And when she joins forces with Sylah and Anoor, together these grains of sand will become a storm.
As the empire begins a set of trials of combat and skill designed to find its new leaders, the stage is set for blood to flow, power to shift, and cities to burn.
Book One of The Ending Fire Trilogy
What I am currently reading:
A reality star and a cupcake-baking football player pretend to be a couple in order to save his bakery in this sweet and sexy romance from Jamie Wesley, Fake It Till You Bake It.
Jada Townsend-Matthews is the most reviled woman in America after turning down a proposal on a reality dating show. When she comes home to lick her wounds, Jada finds herself working at San Diego’s newest cupcake bakery, Sugar Blitz, alongside the uptight owner and professional football player Donovan Dell.
When a reporter mistakenly believes Jada and Donovan are an item, they realize they can use the misunderstanding to their advantage to help the struggling bakery and rehabilitate Jada’s image. Faking a relationship should be simple, but sometimes love is the most unexpected ingredient.
Fake it Till You Bake It is a sweet confection of a novel, the perfect story to curl up with and enjoy with a cupcake on the side.
What books I think I’ll read next:
A god wages war—using all of humanity as its pawns—in the unforgettable conclusion to the Founders trilogy.
Sancia, Clef, and Berenice have gone up against plenty of long odds in the past. But the war they’re fighting now is one even they can’t win.
This time, they’re not facing robber-baron elites, or even an immortal hierophant, but an entity whose intelligence is spread over half the globe—a ghost in the machine that uses the magic of scriving to possess and control not just objects, but human minds.
To fight it, they’ve used scriving technology to transform themselves and their allies into an army—a society—that’s like nothing humanity has seen before. With its strength at their backs, they’ve freed a handful of their enemy’s hosts from servitude, even brought down some of its fearsome, reality-altering dreadnaughts. Yet despite their efforts, their enemy marches on—implacable. Unstoppable.
Now, as their opponent closes in on its true prize—an ancient doorway, long buried, that leads to the chambers at the center of creation itself—Sancia and her friends glimpse a chance at reaching it first, and with it, a last desperate opportunity to stop this unbeatable foe. But to do so, they’ll have to unlock the centuries-old mystery of scriving’s origins, embark on a desperate mission into the heart of their enemy’s power, and pull off the most daring heist they’ve ever attempted.
And as if that weren’t enough, their adversary might just have a spy in their ranks—and a last trick up its sleeve.
Two girls went into the woods. Only one came back. . . .
Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens is on the trail in this explosive crime novel from the acclaimed author of She Lies in Wait, Watching from the Dark, and Lie Beside Me
Jonah Sheens is enjoying a moment of peace in a pub garden on his day off when a teenage girl wanders out of the woods. She’s striking, with flame-red hair and a pale complexion. She’s also covered in blood.
When Jonah races to help, the girl insists she’s fine. Then she smiles. It’s her sister he needs to worry about. Keely and her sister, Nina, disappeared from a children’s home a week ago. Now Keely is here–but Nina’s still missing. Jonah is sure Keely knows where her sister is–but before she tells him anything, she insists, he has to listen to her story from the beginning.
Is she witness, victim, or killer? And if Jonah follows the trail of clues in her story, will they lead him to the missing girl–or distract him until it’s too late?
The discovery of a missing Amish bishop’s remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo…
You want to walk away from the things that were bad for you and never look back.
That’s what Corinne Callahan wants.
Cast out of the fundamentalist church she was raised in and cut off from her family, Corinne builds a new life for herself. A good one. But she never stops missing the life—and the love— she’s left behind.
It’s Enoch Miller who ruins everything for her. It was always Enoch Miller. She’ll never get him out from under her skin.
Set over fifteen years and told with astonishing intimacy, Rebecca Morrow’s Corinne is the story of a woman who risks everything she’s built for the one man she can never have.
