⭐⭐⭐ Spectacular Things follows sisters Mia and Cricket Lowe, well known in their small Maine town as the daughters of a gifted single mother and as rising soccer royalty. From an early age, their paths feel set: Mia becomes the responsible, academically driven caretaker, while Cricket pours her talent and energy into the single-minded pursuit of soccer stardom. The novel traces the many sacrifices required to keep that dream alive—unfulfilled ambitions, family tragedy, and the quiet pressure placed on the sibling who is expected to hold everything together. Dorey-Stein is at her best when exploring grief, loyalty, and how love can slide into obligation without anyone quite noticing. I’m a soccer […]
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Four Women, One Kibbutz, and the Long Road to Healing
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Anita Diamant’s Day After Night opens in 1945, in a British detention camp in Palestine, where four very different women are thrown together after surviving the Holocaust. I’ll admit, I didn’t even know these holding camps for so-called “illegal immigrants” existed, so that piece of history immediately pulled me in. Each woman carries her own kind of damage—physical, emotional, moral—and Diamant treats them as individuals, not symbols. This is very much a character study, focused on what happens after survival, when freedom turns out to be messy and complicated. The friendships feel tentative, sometimes prickly, sometimes deeply moving, and often shaped by what these women can’t say out loud. […]
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A Tender Story About Finding the Truth—and Where You Truly Belong
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ The Edge of Belonging by Amanda Cox completely won me over. This is a dual-timeline novel that centers on Ivy Rose, who returns to her hometown to handle her grandmother Pearl’s estate. What begins as a simple estate sale slowly opens the door to long-buried truths about Ivy’s adoption and the circumstances surrounding her birth. Some answers heal. Others hurt. All of them matter. Running alongside Ivy’s story is one set twenty-four years earlier, when Harvey James—a homeless man living on the margins—finds an abandoned newborn in the woods. That baby gives Harvey purpose and connection for the first time in his life. His love for her is fierce and pure, but […]
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When One Choice Changes Everything
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Susan Meissner is such a fabulous storyteller, and Secrets of a Charmed Life shows her doing what she does best. The novel opens in modern-day Oxford, where young American scholar Kendra Van Zant interviews elderly Isabel McFarland, who is finally ready to share the truth she’s guarded for decades—starting with her real identity. What she passes on to Kendra is equal parts gift and weight, something that shakes Kendra’s tidy ideas about who she wants to be. Then Meissner sweeps us back to 1940s England. Emmy Downtree, fifteen and fiercely ambitious, dreams of returning to London to work in fashion, while her little sister Julia just wants to stay close to […]
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Don Winslow Bows Out with a Bang
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ I literally couldn’t put down City in Ruins. Don Winslow caps off both his Danny Ryan trilogy and his career with a knockout of a finale that’s equal parts brutal, beautiful, and heartbreaking. Former dockworker and Irish mob soldier Danny Ryan has transformed into a Las Vegas casino mogul, swimming in wealth and respectability. Life finally seems golden—he has a son he adores, a woman he might love, and enough money to last several lifetimes. But when Danny tries to buy a prime piece of real estate to build his dream resort, he stirs up a hornet’s nest of corrupt Vegas power brokers, a ruthless FBI agent bent on revenge, […]
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Dust, Secrets, and Stalled Dreams
3.5 stars rounded up to 4 Pay Dirt Road drops you into a small Texas town where the sun is relentless and everyone knows each other’s business. Annie McIntyre has come home after college with no real plan, which already feels like defeat. When a former coworker is murdered, she gets pulled into her grandfather’s private investigations work. The early chapters move slow, and some of the personal conflict feels cooked up just to keep the pot bubbling. But Samantha Jayne Allen’s writing gives the setting real texture. You can feel the heat, the empty fields, the heavy quiet. Annie’s struggles with identity, belonging, and disappointment feel real, which keeps […]
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A Fast-Paced FBI Thriller with One Head-Scratching Twist
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Flashpoint hooked me from the get-go. I went in cold, never having read the previous books in the series, and still felt right at home. Catherine Coulter wastes no time. The danger is real, the stakes are high, and the characters have that lively spark that keeps you leaning in, waiting to see what they’ll try next. Elizabeth Palmer is trying to rebuild her life after surviving a bombing, but someone clearly didn’t get the memo. Attempts on her life start piling up, and MI5 steps in before she can take a breath. Meanwhile, we follow Autumn Backman and Tash Navarro, two kids pulled into trouble through their strange “gift.” […]
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Krueger at His Best in Apostle’s Cove
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️½ rounded up to 5 After reading all twenty installments of the Cork O’Connor series, I can honestly say Apostle’s Cove might be my favorite yet. William Kent Krueger has once again struck that perfect balance between taut suspense and heartfelt storytelling. When Cork’s son reopens a decades-old case—one Cork himself helped close—it forces father and son to confront guilt, justice, and the murky space between right and wrong. Krueger’s signature blend of mystery, spirituality, and small-town Minnesota atmosphere shines here. The northwoods come alive with his evocative prose, and the characters—flawed, loyal, and deeply human—carry the emotional weight of the story. The dual timeline keeps the tension sharp, revealing secrets one […]
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Office Politics Turn Deadly in This Twisty Psychological Thriller
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Freida McFadden’s The Coworker takes a simple setup—a missing employee—and turns it into a devious psychological maze. Dawn Schiff is the office oddball: awkward, punctual to a fault, and obsessed with routines. When she suddenly vanishes, her bubbly coworker Natalie Farrell is the first to notice—and the first to realize something’s very wrong. As police and colleagues start digging, Natalie’s version of events begins to crack, and the truth becomes far murkier than anyone expected. McFadden keeps the tension high with alternating points of view and short, punchy chapters that make it nearly impossible to stop reading “just one more.” The twists land hard, especially the mid-book reveal that flips everything […]
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A Thrilling Ride with Fade In by Kyle Mills
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Kyle Mills delivers high-octane action, global stakes, and a protagonist who’s as broken as he is dangerous. In Fade In, ex-Navy SEAL Salam “Fade” al-Fayed wakes from a coma to find himself recruited by a shadowy billionaire-run outfit and thrown into a race against a viral catastrophe that could wipe out civilization. The pace is relentless, the action cinematic, and the villainy chilling. Mills adds emotional depth too—Fade’s inner turmoil and his willingness to keep walking into danger make him a fascinating hero. The writing is taut, the plot twists sharp, and the moral gray zones deliciously murky. On the downside, some of the side characters could’ve used more flesh, […]
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