📚 What I Read and Loved - 2023 Roundup
This week I'm all about all the wonderful books I read and enjoyed in 2023. Cheers!
Things that Make me Happy! is a weekly newsletter with recommendations of things that bring me joy. Click the subscribe button below to be notified of future posts!
This month I will be doing something different. I’m collecting everything I watched, read and brought me joy into big year roundups. That way you’ll have plenty entertainment and happiness recommendations for the holidays and beyond in 2024. Enjoy!
You can find last week’s big list of TV and Movie recos here
Ps. I’ll be back in January with the BAU weekly roundup.
The Arrow Collector: A forensic detective in the Patagonia unearths an archeological mystery. Think moody dark Nordic TV show vibes.
Midnight at the Blackbird Cafe: Southern small town charm, quirky characters and a bit of magical realism. I really needed cozy escapism as my work has started to ramp up after the holidays.
Crossroads: No one does a better job at portraying families than Jonathan Franzen. This time he depicts an “All American” midwestern family in his book. Raw, emotional and even sometimes funny, this is a can’t miss book.
The Kind worth Killing: light domestic thriller. The book is set in Maine and Boston and kept me guessing till the end.
When his flight gets delayed, Ted Severson meets Lily, a magnetic stranger in the airport bar. In the netherworld of international travel and too many martinis, he confesses his darkest secrets, about his wife's infidelity and how he wishes her dead. Without missing a beat she offers to help him carry out the task…
The Final Revival of Opal and Nev: I enjoyed Daisy Jones and the Six (soon to be a tv show), and I can say this is a much stronger story. A++
Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, Afro-punk before that term existed. Coming of age in Detroit, she can't imagine settling for a 9-to-5 job--despite her unusual looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her at a bar's amateur night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together for the fledgling Rivington Records.
Sea of Tranquility: I’m in awe of this novel (novella?) and I’m going to recommend this to every person I know. The writing is superb, beautiful, even. I can’t stop thinking about this one.
Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic. Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She’s traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony. Within the text of Olive’s best-selling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.
When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the black-skied Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.
The Candy House: Some years ago I read A Visit in the Goon Squad and it was by far the best book I read that year, I still think about it. I picked the “The Candy House” this week and while I didn’t like it as much the Goon Squad, it was a great read! Jennifer Egan masters an intricate storyline.
The Candy House opens with brilliant Bix Bouton, whose company, Mandala, is so successful that he is “one of those tech demi-gods with whom we’re all on a first name basis.” Bix is forty, with four kids, restless, and desperate for a new idea, when he stumbles into a conversation group, one of whom is experimenting with downloading or “externalizing” memory. Within a decade, Bix’s new technology, “Own Your Unconscious”—which allows you access to every memory you’ve ever had, and to share your memories in exchange for access to the memories of others—has seduced multitudes.
In the world of Egan’s spectacular imagination, there are “counters” who track and exploit desires and there are “eluders,” those who understand the price of taking a bite of the Candy House.
Black Cake: is one of those wonderful, all consuming family sagas that get me sucked in every time. Set in Jamaica and California, it tells a beautiful story of family and the ties that binds us together. Beautiful and gripping.
In present-day California, Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.
Can Byron and Benny reclaim their once-close relationship, piece together Eleanor’s true history, and fulfill her final request to “share the black cake when the time is right”?
Harsh Times: This, at heart, is a suspense political novel, a love story to literature and masterful writing. I’m so glad I got to experience this novel.
In this thrilling novel, Mario Vargas Llosa fuses reality with two fictions: that of the narrator, who freely re-creates characters and situations, and the one designed by those who would control the politics and the economy of a continent by manipulating its history.
Harsh Times is a gripping, revealing novel that directly confronts recent history. Not since The Feast of the Goat, his classic novel of the downfall of Trujillo’s regime in the Dominican Republic, has Vargas Llosa combined politics, characters, and suspense so unforgettably.
Nora goes off script is a romantic comedy turned into a book, with an amazing heroine and lots of character development. I also liked that that the leads are around my age and have kids (more relatable than single hot woman in the city kind of thing)
Nora Hamilton knows the formula for love better than anyone. As a romance channel screenwriter, it’s her job. But when her too-good-to-work husband leaves her and their two kids, Nora turns her marriage’s collapse into cash and writes the best script of her life. No one is more surprised than her when it’s picked up for the big screen and set to film on location at her 100-year-old home. When former Sexiest Man Alive, Leo Vance, is cast as her ne’er-do-well husband, Nora’s life will never be the same.
The morning after shooting wraps and the crew leaves, Nora finds Leo on her porch with a half-empty bottle of tequila and a proposition. He’ll pay a thousand dollars a day to stay for a week. The extra seven grand would give Nora breathing room, but it’s the need in his eyes that makes her say yes. Seven days: It’s the blink of an eye or an eternity depending on how you look at it. Enough time to fall in love. Enough time to break your heart.
Neapolitan Novels: I have a little tradition of choosing a series of books and reading one each year. Well, I’m currently in my Elena Ferrante’s saga reading the book 3 (of 4) and I think it’s a must read, following Elena and Lila through the decades has been a real treat.
Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante follow Elena and Lila, from their rough-edged upbringing in Naples, Italy, not long after WWII, through the many stages of their lives―and along paths that diverge wildly. Sometimes they are separated by jealousy or hostility or physical distance, but the bond between them is unbreakable, for better or for worse.
Trust: It's a complex and engrossing story about greed, money, and privilege, told from multiple perspectives. Diaz's writing is beautiful and evocative, and he does a masterful job of weaving together the different narratives.
Even through the roar and effervescence of the 1920s, everyone in New York has heard of Benjamin and Helen Rask. He is a legendary Wall Street tycoon; she is the daughter of eccentric aristocrats. Together, they have risen to the very top of a world of seemingly endless wealth—all as a decade of excess and speculation draws to an end. But at what cost have they acquired their immense fortune? This is the mystery at the center of Bonds , a successful 1937 novel that all of New York seems to have read. Yet there are other versions of this tale of privilege and deceit
Death by Dumpling: A Noodle Shop Mystery: Cozy mysteries are modern Agatha Christie-style novels that typically feature amateur sleuths and do not contain violence or graphic depictions. I find that cozy mysteries are a great way to get out of a reading slump, and I like to rotate them into my reading list every now and then. This book has grabbed my full attention this week.
The last place Lana Lee thought she would ever end up is back at her family’s restaurant. But after a brutal breakup and a dramatic workplace walkout, she figures that helping wait tables is her best option for putting her life back together.
Lana’s love life soon becomes yesterday’s news once the restaurant’s property manager, Mr. Feng, turns up dead - after a delivery of shrimp dumplings from Ho-Lee. But how could this have happened when everyone on staff knew about Mr. Feng’s severe, life-threatening shellfish allergy?
Now, with the whole restaurant under suspicion for murder and the local media in a feeding frenzy - to say nothing of the gorgeous police detective who keeps turning up for takeout - it’s up to Lana to find out who is behind Feng’s killer order...before her own number is up
The Hotel Nantucket is her best beach read yet. There’s something magical about summers in Nantucket and hers is the best depiction of it. Fluffy, yes, but that doesn’t mean is not wonderful.
Fresh off a bad breakup with a longtime boyfriend, Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is desperately seeking a second act. When she’s named the new general manager of the Hotel Nantucket, a once Gilded Age gem turned abandoned eyesore, she hopes that her local expertise and charismatic staff can win the favor of their new London billionaire owner, Xavier Darling, as well as that of Shelly Carpenter, the wildly popular Instagram tastemaker who can help put them back on the map. And while the Hotel Nantucket appears to be a blissful paradise, complete with a celebrity chef-run restaurant and an idyllic wellness center, there’s a lot of drama behind closed doors. Is the Hotel Nantucket destined for success or doom?
How Lucky by Will Leitch. It takes a different approach to the cozy mystery trope; for instance, the main character is male and there is no romance in the story. If you like Hitchcock’s “Rear Window” This is for you
Daniel leads a rich life in the university town of Athens, Georgia. He's got a couple close friends, a steady paycheck working for a regional airline, and of course, for a few glorious days each Fall, college football tailgates. He considers himself to be a mostly lucky guy--despite the fact that he's suffered from a debilitating disease since he was a small child, one that has left him unable to speak or to move without a wheelchair.
Largely confined to his home, Daniel spends the hours he's not online communicating with irate air travelers observing his neighborhood from his front porch. One young woman passes by so frequently that spotting her out the window has almost become part of his daily routine. Until the day he's almost sure he sees her being kidnapped
A House in the Pines: This won’t win a Nobel Prize, it’s a bit absurd and implausible, but seriously broke my reading rut. Read it in two seatings and kept me at the edge of my seat.
Maya was a high school senior when her best friend, Aubrey, dropped dead in front of the enigmatic man named Frank whom they’d been spending time with all summer.
Seven years later, Maya lives in Boston with a loving boyfriend and is kicking the secret addiction that has allowed her to cope with what happened years ago, the gaps in her memories, and the lost time that she can’t account for. But her past comes rushing back when she comes across a recent YouTube video in which a young woman suddenly keels over and dies in a diner while sitting across from none other than Frank. Then Maya heads to her Berkshires hometown to relive that fateful summer
At her mother’s house, she excavates fragments of her past and notices hidden messages in her deceased Guatemalan father’s book that didn’t stand out to her earlier. To save herself, she must understand a story written before she was born, but time keeps running out, and soon, all roads are leading back to Frank’s cabin.
Rock, Paper, Scissors by Alice Feeney. It is a suspenseful, twisty and creepy thriller that moves at a fast pace. I am listening to the audiobook on my hour-long commute to work, and it is the perfect companion for the journey.
The story follows a couple who are on the verge of divorce. They decide to spend a weekend at a remote chapel in the Scottish Highlands in an attempt to save their marriage. However, things quickly go wrong when they are snowed in and someone starts to stalk them. So,so good!
A Discovery of Witches is the first book of the ‘All Souls Series’ and centers on two characters, a vampire and a witch. This book truly has it all: romance, action, thrills and fantasy. Can’t wait to read more books in the series🙂
Diana Bishop, a young scholar and a descendant of witches, discovers a long-lost and enchanted alchemical manuscript, Ashmole 782, deep in Oxford's Bodleian Library. Its reappearance summons a fantastical underworld, which she navigates with her leading man, vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont.
The Word is Murder: Anthony Horowitz puts out the most perfect British crime novel. This one is not an exception, and it is the start of a four-book series that I will definitely read all of.
The author keeps you guessing and provides a breadcrumb trail of clues throughout. I also enjoy that the book has both a main story and a personal story happening at the same time. Both are equally good.
Diana Cowper - the wealthy mother of a famous actor - enters a funeral parlor. She is there to plan her own service. Six hours later she is found dead, strangled with a curtain cord in her own home.
Enter disgraced police detective Daniel Hawthorne, a brilliant, eccentric investigator who's as quick with an insult as he is to crack a case. Hawthorne needs a ghost writer to document his life; a Watson to his Holmes. He chooses Anthony Horowitz.
Drawn in against his will, Horowitz soon finds himself a the center of a story he cannot control. Hawthorne is brusque, temperamental and annoying but even so his latest case with its many twists and turns proves irresistible. The writer and the detective form an unusual partnership. At the same time, it soon becomes clear that Hawthorne is hiding some dark secrets of his own
Happy Place: Emily Henry is a safe bet. I usually love her books. They are very unputdownable and light, and let's face it, that's what I look for in summer reads. There's something about summers in New England that grabs me every time.
Harriet and Wyn have been the perfect couple . Except, now—for reason they’re still not discussing—they don’t. They broke up five months ago. And still haven’t told their best friends.
Which is how they find themselves sharing a bedroom at the Maine cottage that has been their friend group’s yearly getaway for the last decade
Only this year, Harriet and Wyn are lying through their teeth while trying not to notice how desperately they still want each other. Because the cottage is for sale and this is the last week they’ll all have together in this place. They can’t stand to break their friends’ hearts, and so they’ll play their parts. After years of being in love, how hard can it be to fake it for one week…in front of those who know you best?
A Witches Heart : I recommend it if you like fantasy or mythology. It’s a beautifully written magical story
Angrboda’s story begins where most witches’ tales end: with a burning. A punishment from Odin for refusing to provide him with knowledge of the future, the fire leaves Angrboda injured and powerless, and she flees into the farthest reaches of a remote forest. There she is found by a man who reveals himself to be Loki, and her initial distrust of him transforms into a deep and abiding love.
Their union produces three unusual children, each with a secret destiny, who Angrboda is keen to raise at the edge of the world, safely hidden from Odin’s all-seeing eye. But as Angrboda slowly recovers her prophetic powers, she learns that her blissful life—and possibly all of existence—is in danger.
With help from the fierce huntress Skadi, with whom she shares a growing bond, Angrboda must choose whether she’ll accept the fate that she’s foreseen for her beloved family…or rise to remake their future. From the most ancient of tales this novel forges a story of love, loss, and hope for the modern age.
Fourth Wing : I get the hype now. I really do. I couldn't put it down and went to bed at 3am (on a Sunday) because I was so obsessed. Since reading it, I'm now a proud member of the Fourth Wing subreddit.
The best way I can explain it is this: imagine if Harry Potter, How to Train Your Dragon, and The Hunger Games had a baby, but make it spicier.
Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general—also known as her tough-as-talons mother—has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders
With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter—like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.
Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.
Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda—because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die
VenCo: A story about a coven in a modern setting that is just so fun, cozy, and good-spirited. I highly recommend checking it out if you're looking for a new witchy read.
Lucky St. James is barely hanging on when she learns she’ll be evicted from the tiny Toronto apartment she shares with her grandmother Stella. But then one night, something calls out to her and connects her to a teeming network of witches across North America who have anxiously awaited her discovery.
Enter VenCo, a front company fueled by vast resources of dark money. VenCo’s witches hide in plain sight wherever women gather: Tupperware parties, Mommy & Me classes, suburban book clubs.
But as reckoning approaches, a very powerful adversary is stalking their every move. The final showdown will determine whether VenCo will usher in a new beginning…or remain underground forever.
The Housemaid: It was such a great beach read and definitely a page turner. I read it all in one sitting and can't wait to read the sequel.
Every day I clean the Winchesters’ beautiful house top to bottom. I collect their daughter from school. And I cook a delicious meal for the whole family before heading up to eat alone in my tiny room on the top floor.
I try to ignore how Nina makes a mess just to watch me clean it up. How she tells strange lies about her own daughter. And how her husband, Andrew, seems more broken every day. But as I look into Andrew’s handsome brown eyes, so full of pain, it’s hard not to imagine what it would be like to live Nina’s life. The walk-in closet, the fancy car, the perfect husband.
I only try on one of Nina’s pristine white dresses once. Just to see what it’s like. But she soon finds out...and by the time I realize my attic bedroom door only locks from the outside, it’s far too late.But I reassure myself: The Winchesters don’t know who I really am.
The Covenant of Water: What a beautiful book! Indian family sagas are always so splendid! This is one of those books that transports you to the time and the magic of the story.
Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.
The Wife Between Us: It's a 2018 book someone recommended it to me on Reddit, and the selling point was that it's narrated by Julia Whelan, the queen of audiobook voices. It's so entertaining!
When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Velvet Was the Night: I had devoured "Mexican Gothic" in 2021, so I had high hopes for this one. It's not gothic horror as I thought it would be, but rather a thrilling noir story. I couldn't put it down and read the whole thing in 3 days.
Mexico in the 1970s is a dangerous country, even for Maite, a secretary who spends her life seeking the romance found in cheap comic books and ignoring the activists protesting around the city. When her next-door neighbor, the beautiful art student Leonora, disappears under suspicious circumstances, Maite finds herself searching for the missing woman—and journeying deeper into Leonora’s secret life of student radicals and dissidents.
Mexico in the 1970s is a politically fraught land, even for Elvis, a goon with a passion for rock ’n’ roll who knows more about kidney-smashing than intrigue. When Elvis is assigned to find Leonora, he begins a blood-soaked search for the woman—and his soul.
Swirling in parallel trajectories, Maite and Elvis attempt to discover the truth behind Leonora’s disappearance, encountering hitmen, government agents, and Russian spies. Because Mexico in the 1970s is a noir, where life is cheap and the price of truth is high.
The Chateau: It’s twisty, dark and set in France. This book is a star among many 2023 lukewarm thrillers
Welcome to picturesque Provence, where the Lady of the Chateau, Séraphine Demargelasse, has opened its elegant doors to her granddaughter Darcy and three friends. Twenty years earlier, the four girlfriends studied abroad together in France and visited the old woman on the weekends, creating the group’s deep bond. But why this sudden invitation?
Amid winery tours, market visits, and fancy dinners overlooking olive groves and lavender fields, it becomes clear that each woman has a hidden reason for returning to the estate after all these years.
In the midst of a shocking crime, a sinister Instagram account pops up, exposing snapshots from the friends’ intimate moments at the chateau, while threatening to reveal more.The chateau houses many secrets…several worth killing for.
Demon Copperhead has been recommended by everyone I read on Substack and follow on Instagram, but what did it for me was a chat I had with my neighborhood’s librarian. She said to me, “You need to read this.” So, I did. And, reader, you need to read it. Point blank. It’s just so heartbreaking and beautiful and enraging, but oh so well written, I can’t stop thinking about it. I started the book on Friday afternoon and couldn’t put it down. I went to bed at 3 a.m. It’s that good.
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival. Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
Silver Nitrate: A book by Silvia Moreno-Garcia of 'Mexican Gothic' fame. I'm a huge fan of this author; I pick up everything she writes. This book is horror done right.
Montserrat has always been overlooked. She’s a talented sound editor, but she’s left out of the boys’ club running the film industry in ’90s Mexico City. And she’s all but invisible to her best friend, Tristán, a charming if faded soap opera star, though she’s been in love with him since childhood.
Then Tristán discovers his new neighbor is the cult horror director Abel Urueta, and the legendary auteur claims he can change their lives—even if his tale of a Nazi occultist imbuing magic into highly volatile silver nitrate stock sounds like sheer fantasy. The magic film was never finished, which is why, Urueta swears, his career vanished overnight. He is cursed.
Now the director wants Montserrat and Tristán to help him shoot the missing scene and lift the curse . . . but Montserrat soon notices a dark presence following her, and Tristán begins seeing the ghost of his ex-girlfriend.
As they work together to unravel the mystery of the film and the obscure occultist who once roamed their city, Montserrat and Tristán may find that sorcerers and magic are not only the stuff of movies.
China Room is a family saga (you know I love these) from 1930s India. The writing is beautiful, and the story is told gently. I devoured it in two sittings. I’ll pick up whatever she writes next.
Mehar, a young bride in rural 1929 Punjab, is trying to discover the identity of her new husband. Married to three brothers in a single ceremony, she and her now-sisters spend their days hard at work in the family’s “china room,” sequestered from contact with the men—except when their domineering mother-in-law, Mai, summons them to a darkened chamber at night.
Curious and strong willed, Mehar tries to piece together what Mai doesn’t want her to know. From beneath her veil, she studies the sounds of the men’s voices, the calluses on their fingers as she serves them tea. Soon she glimpses something that seems to confirm which of the brothers is her husband, and a series of events is set in motion that will put more than one life at risk. As the early stirrings of the Indian independence movement rise around her, Mehar must weigh her own desires against the reality—and danger—of her situation.
Same Time Next Summer: Another charming romance from the writer that penned “Nora Goes Off Script” that's right up my alley. You know me, I can't resist New England summers, impossible summer love, and the vulnerable guy trope. While it may not quite reach the level of the Nora novel, it's still pretty fantastic for some easy reading
Sam’s life is on track. She has the perfect doctor fiancé, Jack (his strict routines are a good thing, really), a great job in Manhattan (unless they fire her), and is about to tour a wedding venue near her family’s Long Island beach house. Everything should go to plan, yet the minute she arrives, Sam senses something is off. Wyatt is here. Her Wyatt. But there’s no reason for a thirty-year-old engaged woman to feel panicked around the guy who broke her heart when she was seventeen. Right?
Yet being back at this beach, hearing notes from Wyatt’s guitar float across the night air from next door as if no time has passed—Sam’s memories come flooding back: the feel of Wyatt’s skin on hers, their nights in the treehouse, and the truth behind their split. Sam remembers who she used to be, and as Wyatt reenters her life their connection is as undeniable as it always was. She will have to make a choice.
Billie Summers: An outstanding book by Stephen King. It's not quite horror like his usual books but rather a crime novel about a hired assassin and an unlikely relationship. Nonetheless, it might as well be horror, given its eerie and intense vibe.
Chances are, if you’re a target of Billy Summers, two immutable truths apply: You’ll never even know what hit you, and you’re really getting what you deserve. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business—but he’ll do the job only if the assignment is a truly bad person.
But now, time is catching up with him, and Billy wants out. Before he can do that though, there’s one last hit, which promises a generous payday at the end of the line even as things don’t seem quite on the level here. Given that Billy is among the most talented snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, and a virtual Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done, what could possibly go wrong? How about everything.
The Daydreams is super entertaining and sucks you in from the start. It has romance, comedy, and even tear-inducing moments. What a treat it was!
Back in 2004, The Daydreams had it all: a cast of innocent-seeming teenagers acting and singing their hearts out, amazing ratings, and a will-they-or-won’t-they romance that steamed up fan fiction forums. Then, during the live season two finale, it all imploded, leaving everyone scrambling to understand why.
Afterward, the four stars went down very different paths. Kat is now a lawyer in Washington, DC. Liana is the bored wife of a famous athlete. Noah, the show’s golden boy, emerged unscathed and is poised to become a household name. And Summer, the object of Noah’s fictional (and maybe real-life) affections, is the cautionary tale.
But now the fans are demanding a reunion special. The stars all have private reasons to come back: forgiveness, revenge, a second chance with a first love. But as they tentatively rediscover the magic of the original show, old secrets threaten to resurface—including the real reason behind their downfall.
Will this reunion be a chance to make things right? Or will it be the biggest mess the world has ever seen? No matter what, the ratings will be wild.
Yellowface: The story revolves around a white woman who steals a manuscript from her deceased POC friend and explores the consequences that follow. It's a breezy, mid-paced thriller with a touch of dark comedy woven in."
Authors June Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena’s a literary darling. June Hayward is literally nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls, June thinks.
So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse: she steals Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.
So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? Doesn’t this piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller? That’s what June claims, and the New York Times bestseller list seems to agree.
But June can’t get away from Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens to bring June’s (stolen) success down around her. As June races to protect her secret, she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.
Tom Lake: A charming story by the master storyteller, Ann Patchett. Since 'Bel Canto' and 'The Dutch House,' I turn to Ann's books when I need immersive and gentle storytelling, basically a book hug. I make it a point to experience her books through audiobooks because she consistently manages to have the most wonderful narrators, adding an extra layer of quality. (We're talking about Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, it doesn't get more elite than that). I'm enjoying it so far, but I want to add a disclaimer: I'm currently 70% through the book and have not finished it yet.
In the spring of 2020, Lara’s three daughters return to the family's orchard in Northern Michigan. While picking cherries, they beg their mother to tell them the story of Peter Duke, a famous actor with whom she shared both a stage and a romance years before at a theater company called Tom Lake. As Lara recalls the past, her daughters examine their own lives and relationship with their mother, and are forced to reconsider the world and everything they thought they knew.
Tom Lake is a meditation on youthful love, married love, and the lives parents have led before their children were born. Both hopeful and elegiac, it explores what it means to be happy even when the world is falling apart. As in all of her novels, Ann Patchett combines compelling narrative artistry with piercing insights into family dynamics. The result is a rich and luminous story, told with profound intelligence and emotional subtlety, that demonstrates once again why she is one of the most revered and acclaimed literary talents working today.
You, Again: An enemies-to-friends-to-lovers trope. The book is a light, fast-paced read that subtly reverses the gender roles. It's one of the best rom-coms I've read all year. They say never judge a book by its cover, but just look at this cover—I'm obsessed!
When Ari and Josh first meet, the wrong kind of sparks fly. They hate each other. Instantly.
Ari and Josh never expect their paths to cross again. But years later, as they’re both reeling from ego-bruising breakups, a chance encounter leads to a surprising connection: friendship. Turns out, spending time with your former nemesis is fun when you’re too sad to hate each other—and too sad for hate sex.
As friends-without-benefits, they find comfort in late-night Netflix binges, swiping through each other’s online dating profiles, and bickering across boroughs. It’s better than romance. Until one night, the unspoken boundaries of their platonic relationship begin to blur. . .
Holly: I'm a Holly fan since 'Mr. Mercedes' and, of course, 'The Outsider' (book and show). This book doesn't disappoint; it's chilly, descriptive, and so mischievous—exactly what you expect from Mr. King and more.
When Penny Dahl calls the Finders Keepers detective agency hoping for help locating her missing daughter, Holly is reluctant to accept the case. Her partner, Pete, has Covid. Her (very complicated) mother has just died. And Holly is meant to be on leave. But something in Penny Dahl’s desperate voice makes it impossible for Holly to turn her down.
Mere blocks from where Bonnie Dahl disappeared live Professors Rodney and Emily Harris. They are the picture of bourgeois respectability: married octogenarians, devoted to each other, and semi-retired lifelong academics. But they are harboring an unholy secret in the basement of their well-kept, book-lined home, one that may be related to Bonnie’s disappearance. And it will prove nearly impossible to discover what they are up to: they are savvy, they are patient, and they are ruthless.
Intimacies: This is absolutely one of my favorite reads of the year. A quick book that knocked my socks off. The depth of the characters and the inner dialogue is beautiful. It’s a treat that can be read in a few hours.
An interpreter has come to The Hague to escape New York and work at the International Court. A woman of many languages and identities, she is looking for a place to finally call home.
She's drawn into simmering personal dramas: her lover, Adriaan, is separated from his wife but still entangled in his marriage. Her friend Jana witnesses a seemingly random act of violence, a crime the interpreter becomes increasingly obsessed with as she befriends the victim's sister. And she's pulled into an explosive political controversy when she’s asked to interpret for a former president accused of war crimes.
A woman of quiet passion, she confronts power, love, and violence, both in her personal intimacies and in her work at the Court. She is soon pushed to the precipice, where betrayal and heartbreak threaten to overwhelm her, forcing her to decide what she wants from her life.
Iron Flame: I liked it, but I wasn't as obsessed as I was with the first in the series. I thought that the world-building was on point and loved the interaction with the other characters from the "Wing," but the relationship trope was not 100% to my liking. They def need a therapist! But you bet I'm still going to read the next one
Now the real training begins, and Violet’s already wondering how she’ll get through. It’s not just that it’s grueling and maliciously brutal, or even that it’s designed to stretch the riders’ capacity for pain beyond endurance. It’s the new vice commandant, who’s made it his personal mission to teach Violet exactly how powerless she is–unless she betrays the man she loves.
Although Violet’s body might be weaker and frailer than everyone else’s, she still has her wits—and a will of iron. And leadership is forgetting the most important lesson Basgiath has taught her: Dragon riders make their own rules. But a determination to survive won’t be enough this year. Because Violet knows the real secret hidden for centuries at Basgiath War College—and nothing, not even dragon fire, may be enough to save them in the end.
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