It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a place to meet up 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 and 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.

It is my kiddos’ first full day of summer vacation, and it is a pretty crappy day out. Rainy, cloudy, and cool. I was hoping for a nice sunny day to sit in the sun and soak it up.

I now have a 4th grader (Miss R), a sophomore (Mr. Z), and a senior (Miss B). This upcoming school year is going to be interesting with Miss B. She only needed two credits to graduate and qualified for early graduation in December. But she declined and, instead, is taking CTE classes.

I am still banned from reviewing on Amazon, which sucks. But, in a way, it is more freeing. I don’t have to worry about Amazon’s censors pushing back on my reviews. And thankfully, all of my indie authors have been very understanding (and a couple were even mad for me).

We went thrifting this weekend and found some incredible deals. We got a pair of Revolution jeans for Miss B for $4. These jeans are $145 plus (I checked their website). We also found a pair of Garage jeans for Miss B for $4. They are $65 plus on the website. So, yeah, I was pretty happy and a little shocked.

So, here is what I plan on reading this week. Please let me know if you have read these or are planning on reading these.

What I am Reading Now:

“That place has been my whole life. Everything I thought I knew about myself was constructed in those few months I spent within touching distance of the sea. Everything I am is because Alistair loved me.”

Rachel has been in love with Alistair for fifteen years. Even though she’s now married to someone else. Even though she was a teenager when they met. Even though he is twenty years older than her.

Rachel and Alistair’s summer love affair on a remote, sun-trapped Greek island has consumed her since she was seventeen, obliterating everything in its wake. But as Rachel becomes increasingly obsessed with reliving the events of so long ago, she reconnects with the other girls who were similarly drawn to life on the island, where the nights were long, the alcohol was free-flowing and everyone acted in ways they never would at home. And as she does so, dark and deeply suppressed secrets about her first love affair begin to rise to the surface, as well as the truth about her time working for an enigmatic and wealthy man, who controlled so much more than she could have ever realized.

Joining a post #MeToo discourse, The Girls of Summer grapples with themes of power, sex, and consent, as it explores the complicated nature of memory and trauma––and what it takes to reframe, and reclaim, your own story.

Books I plan on reading later this week:

Celine Bower is a hometown girl living the quiet life and a successful veterinarian. She is twenty-six year sold. Then, she is drugged, kidnapped and gang-raped. The local police seem to be unable to find out who did it. Celine and her best frienddream of ways of getting even with the men responsible for her trauma and the crime. Thoughts of revenge consume Celine. Then a seemingly supernaturalforce gives her a sudden insight into who her unknown attackers are and also where she can find them. Systematically and unknown to anybody, she seeks out the assailants and strikes back viciously seeking her revenge Everyone in town begins to look for the mystery woman committing these acts of vengeance. Can Celine keep her true identity secret while she creates this new vengeful creature? Can she eliminate these predators before her own identity is revealed?

Be careful what you wish for. You might just get Dax Pierce…

The life of a small town girl is not my thing. I’ve waited twenty-six years to run from it.

My chance at freedom comes when my Hollywood crush, Dax Pierce, comes to Mistport, Maine.

The moment his burning amber eyes land on my face… and my ass, I shiver with longing.

When he lures me to Hollywood with the promise of stardom, I don’t hesitate. I walk away from my boring life and into the limelight.

Now everyone knows me as Emma Stanton, an up-and-coming Hollywood star. But I’m more than that. I’m Dax Pierce’s fiancée. The hot actor on the movie screen was mine all along and I didn’t even know it.

Now I have it all. Or do I?

To the world, I’m living a Hollywood fairytale. I used to think so too, but I’m not so sure anymore. There’s a dark side to Hollywood and its name is Dax Pierce.

No one told me that wearing his ring on my finger comes with a heavy price. A price I can’t afford to pay. A price I can’t afford NOT to pay.

What’s my name again? I can’t remember because I’m losing myself inside his web.

*This book contains dark themes that could trigger emotional distress in readers.*

He’s a cocky musician.

She showed up at a bar in her pajamas.

Is he stalking me?

I call it fate.

He’s cheesy.

I prefer the term romantic.

Maybe I was wrong about him.

I’m determined to make her mine.

I fell in love with him.

She’s my muse.

Life has other plans for us.

I’ll fight for her.

I’ll protect his image.

I miss her.

I watch his success from afar.

She’s mine.

I need to fix this.

I’ll give her the kind of love found in country songs.

From the author of Blind River and the Absence of Screams comes a new mystery you won’t be able to put down!

Norman Green is a disgraced former professional athlete turned private investigator. He has created a career out of working for those the police have turned their back on. The only people he won’t work with are child abusers, rapists, and journalists.

However, when Robin Sweetwater, a journalist working for the same paper that destroyed Norman’s athletic career, comes begging for help, Norman finds himself dragged into the same web of lies and deception that destroyed his life once before.

In order to find the truth surrounding the alleged suicide of Robin’s younger brother, a star athlete himself, Norman will need to wade through the dark depths of his past and unravel a conspiracy stretching farther than he could ever have imagined.