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  Nantucket sweetheart Lizbet Keaton is ready to start over. When she's  unexpectedly named General Manager of the once-renowned and since-haunted Hotel Nantucket by mysterious billionaire Xavier Darling, she pours every ounce of herself into reviving the hotel in time for the summer season. Surrounded by a staff of island folk and newcomers alike--many looking for the same fresh start--Lizbet dives headfirst into the bustling world of vacation hospitality, unaware of the new beginnings that are on her horizon. Well readers, the Queen of Beach Reads has done it again! I’ll never get enough of the summery, magical Nantucket Island setting of Elin Hilderbrand’s novels. As far as setting goes, "The Hotel Nantucket" was no exception and makes for a great vacation read that will instantly transport you to the bustling island coast in the heart of summer.  The large cast of characters between hotel staff and guests was admittedly a bit hard to keep track of,...

  The murder of 6 year-old January Jacobs sent shockwaves through the small, rural town of Wakarusa, Indiana back in 1994. Decades later, though the case has gone cold, the ghost of January's story still pulses through the community as her unknown killer roams free. When Margot Davies returns home to Wakarusa to care for her uncle, she finds herself propelled back to when her childhood friend January was murdered. Before long, another little girl just one town over goes missing, and the parallels between cases are enough to convince Margot: the killer is back. Sure to please fans of small-town crime fiction, I was so close to loving "All Good People Here," but its abrupt ending (loose ends left untied, be warned) and lack of descriptive writing made it a middle-of-the-road read for me. Reminiscent of Jess Lourey's dark midwest crime, the story is fast-paced and will keep you guessing. There are emotional elements throughout, but none profound enough to really tie me...

  Amelie doesn't know how she ended up in this pitch-dark, boarded-up room. She doesn't know her silent captors or why they took her from her glamorous home. For all she knows, time could be running out, but Amelie isn't all that eager to escape. In fact, what her captors don't know is that she's feeling much safer as a prisoner than she was in her marriage. And as far as a synopsis goes, that's all I'm able to spill without spoiling the unpredictable and wild ride that "The Prisoner" becomes. Somehow my first B.A. Paris novel, it sets the bar high in so many ways for a domestic suspense/thriller. Told in alternating perspectives from the present of Amelie's kidnapping to her past as a young woman alone in the world, the story is fresh, plausible, and one of the faster-paced ones I've read in a long time. Trust me when I say that this isn't going where you think it is, "The Prisoner" is chock-full of heart-pounding twists ...

  Hear me when I say, readers, that Riley Sager is back. Despite his near universal praise, I've really only liked "The Last Time I Lied" and loved "Home Before Dark." The rest of his books left little to no impact on me, and so when "The House Across the Lake" hit bookshelves everywhere, I told myself I'd give him one more chance. And am I ever glad that I did. Let's talk setting first: a family lakefront house in the deep woods of Vermont. This book is atmospheric and beautifully so; I thought Sager's descriptive writing really shined in this book in ways it hasn't before.  Now let's talk characters: our unreliable narrator and troubled alcoholic Casey Fletcher relocates to her family lake house to find solitude and escape the grief of unexpectedly losing her husband, Len. The glamorous yet mysterious Katherine and Tom Royce arrive shortly afterward to their own lake house, and soon Casey finds herself watching them (a la "Gi...

  Scintillating and strange, "Hurricane Girl" is another example of quirky literary fiction that'll likely land a place in my Top Books of 2022. The emotional and almost uncomfortably-raw human element to this story gripped me from page one and read like an observation window into the main character's life. Allison Brody loves the beach. She buys a beach house, and she loves her house fiercely for precisely one week until a hurricane blows it to bits, scattering its pieces across the North Carolina shoreline. Adrift but not quite alone, Allison meets a strange cameraman who proves her first instincts about strange men are usually correct.  What ensues is Allison's journey toward healing in more ways than one; "Hurricane Girl" is offbeat and odd, laugh-out-loud funny, and almost-horrifying, all wrapped up into a perfect less-than-300-pages. I found Dermansky's writing here unapologetically honest, wonderfully unique, and weird enough to make me think ...

  Before I lay out my thoughts on "The Path of Thorns," I'll say that this is a book intended to be read alongside a crackling fire on a stormy October evening with a hot mug of coffee in hand...not on a cruise ship passing through the Caribbean in the heart of a summer heat wave like I did. Nonetheless, I felt very present reading this and still found it very middle-of-the-road. Asher Todd has come to the Morwood Estate to act as governess to the three Morwood children.  With her, Asher brings a trunk full of witchcraft and a past full of secrets she'll do anything to keep hidden. Amidst the imposing, sprawling grounds of Morwood is a mysterious cast of characters--ranging from the well-intentioned house staff to the openly-hostile Mr. Morwood--that give the story a layer of murkiness that I never seemed to be able to clearly see through. "The Path of Thorns" is deeply-atmospheric and beautifully written, and yet, it fell flat for me for two reasons. One...

  Devoted Jess Lourey fans know that she has a darkly-immersive style all-her-own. Some might argue that she's mastered the 70s/80s midwest serial killer thriller, delivering plots designed to knock the wind out of you by the end. In some ways, "The Quarry Girls" delivers on what Lourey's readers will have come to expect. The year is 1977, and small-town secrets simmer deep below the surface in Pantown, Minnesota. Heather, Brenda, and Maureen are best friends and bandmates, soaking up everything teenage summers have to offer: county fairs, swimming in the deep quarries, and staying out late in the tunnels that lurk below Pantown. After all, everyone knows everyone in a small town...or do they? Overall, I'm disappointed to say that "The Quarry Girls" felt a bit been-there-done-that for Lourey. While the plot had its own unique spins, the general setting, characters, and even family dynamics written into the story felt strangely familiar and not novel ...

  Beth is a CIA analyst living an idyllic life on a quiet, suburban cul-de-sac, and she's been working tirelessly to uncover the identity of an Iranian intelligence agent known as "The Neighbor." While at work, "The Neighbor's" identity remains a mystery, at home, Beth knows her own neighbors (many of them CIA themselves) inside and out. Or does she? When Beth's life is upended in more ways than one, she's left questioning everything she thought she knew about the people on her cul-de-sac and even within her own four walls. What ensues in "The New Neighbor" is an entertaining, espionage-centered domestic thriller, with Beth at the center as our unreliable narrator. While I love a good domestic thriller and somehow never find myself growing bored with them, the espionage/CIA theme in this one didn't hold my interest the way I hoped it would. This plot, once the stage is set and the story gets moving, delivers twist-after-twist and so...

  The stars I gave "Hide," one of my most-anticipated books of this summer, are really just for concept alone. Kiersten White had such a unique, potentially-extraordinary concept on her hands with a group of strangers hiding out in an abandoned amusement park for a competition, but (in my opinion) she totally under-delivered and the book fell flat. It took a solid 100 pages for the world of “Hide” to be established, and even once it was, I found myself struggling to keep track of our cast of characters and to find any kind of emotional investment in them. Talk about a slow burn supposedly action-packed thriller? The odd, sort of clunky writing style here really stalled the action for me; there were so many points in this book where I was hoping for more excitement, more horror, and just more substance. This read like a been-there-done-that, low-budget horror movie from the plot to the dialogue, and it pains me to say that. I wanted to love it so much, but found it to be a was...

  Meg Howrey’s writing is almost unspeakably beautiful through this entire novel. Let me first say that I haven’t been so emotionally-moved by a story since “Call Me By Your Name,” and that’s certainly not to compare the two stories themselves, but the emotional undertone to them. The undeniable, complex humanness of Carlisle, Robert, James, and Isabel in “They’re Going to Love You” is a masterful feat, and really what drives this story.  I was utterly transported and transfixed by Howrey’s descriptions of everything—ballet choreography, movement, music, the Bank Street apartment, Carlisle’s emotional responses, the dreadful air of NYC during the height of the AIDS crisis. This, in short, is a masterpiece of a read. Coming in at under 300 pages, it’s a quick one, too. Surely to be in my top 5 books of 2022, I will think about this one for a long time. If you're looking for literary fiction that'll pack an emotional punch with its characters, this is it. Rating: 5 stars Publica...

  If you're looking for your next auto-buy author when it comes to twisty domestic suspense, A.R. Torre is it! "A Familiar Stranger" is now my third Torre novel, and I officially can't get enough of her unpredictable, read-it-in-one-sitting novels. Lillian Smith, our ordinary leading lady, lives a predictable and rather lackluster life as wife to Mike, mother to Jacob, and obituary writer for the prestigious LA Times. Enter David Laurent, the enticing stranger who may just change not only Lillian's life, but the course of everything else around her as well. Without giving too much away, as I find that Torre's novels are best devoured mostly-blind and in as few sittings as possible, this book is well-written, fast-paced, and out-of-the-box with its twists and characters. Even as the story unfolds, it stays plausible and intentional; Torre is not one (at least in my reading experience) to throw in dramatic dialogue or an unconvincing plot twist for shock or e...

  Debbie Macomber can always be counted on to deliver sweet, breezy, escapist fiction, and "The Best is Yet to Come" is no exception. Hope & Cade are both living in Oceanside, Washington looking for a fresh start from their painful pasts, both of which are riddled with loss of the people they love. When a chance encounter at an animal shelter brings them together, is it possible they've both found the new beginning they didn't realize they were looking for?  I flew through "The Best is Yet to Come" in 24 hours and found it--like all of Macomber's books I've read--a nice breath of fresh air between heavier reads, but a bit too fluffy for my liking. This is clean fiction, and with the genre comes a certain lightness that some readers may mistake for unrealistic shallowness. All in all, this heartwarming and redemptive story lacked some dimension and depth for me; it would translate beautifully as a Hallmark movie and is bound to please Macomber...

  A propulsive, heart-pounding courtroom procedural, "Reputation" takes its time setting the stage for the drama that ensues. Emma is a powerhouse politician, a recent divorcee, and a mom struggling to stay connected to 14 year-old Flora, whose struggles with being bullied turn her into someone Emma hardly recognizes. The first good bit of the book is the day-to-day world-building of Emma and Flora's lives, riddled with interesting peripheral characters that give them both more depth. I found myself really intrigued by (although not always invested in?) Emma as a protagonist because of her relentless professional ambition and her borderline-obsessive preoccupation with her public perception and...you guessed it, reputation. As the plot pulses on, I found myself noticing just how much Emma reflected on her reputation and even used the word; a bit of overkill there, but the story itself remained very plausible and held me in suspense until the end. With "Reputation,...

  "Mad Honey" is an absolutely captivating story. Many parts heart-pounding courtroom drama, some parts teenage love story, some parts still motherhood and finding oneself after loss (of many kinds), this book ticked all of the boxes for me and unfolded in a complex yet really beautiful way. The story centers on Olivia, an apiarist with a complicated history, and her son, Asher. When Asher's short-time girlfriend Lily is found dead in her own home, what ensues is a very character-driven story that somehow kept my interest the entire time despite it's staggering almost-500 pages. Picoult (as usual) and Boylan have crafted such nuanced, human characters in Olivia, Asher, Lily, and others that it's impossible for readers not to tumble head-first into their world as Asher is left scrambling for his innocence once accused of taking Lily's life. Told in alternating chapters between the present-day trial and past of Asher and Lily's relationship, their upbring...

  Admittedly, the fairytale retelling premise of "How to Be Eaten" is hard to resist. In this story, the lives of 5 women converge as they come together in a trauma small group in modern-day New York City. From tales of imprisonment to kidnapping to a near-deadly encounter with a giant wolf, these ladies have been through the ringer. Week after week, each woman tells her harrowing truth and processes her trauma, many for the first time. Some of the characters are very direct references to classic fairytales, while others weren't as obvious and kept me guessing--but unfortunately, not in a good way. Overall, "How to be Eaten" was clunky, strange, and not nearly as imaginative as I'd hoped it would be. There was an emotional element missing in this for me from the very first woman's story, and I found that any semblance of empathy or other emotion I felt while reading this was totally and immediately eclipsed by Adelmann's weird, out-of-left-field gr...

  "The Lioness" was my first Chris Bohjalian novel, and it won't be my last! The setting alone for this story was incredible--beloved hollywood movie star Katie Barstow and her small, close-knit entourage embarks on a guided safari in the Serengeti in the 1960s. What begins as an idyllic escape into the African wild for Katie and her guests quickly (and I mean within the first few pages quickly!) anything but. Right off the bat, "The Lioness" will command any reader's attention with how fast the action kicks off, and what ensues is a tense, emotional, and beautifully-written story of survival against not only the African elements, but much more, that never loses its plausibility. Each chapter focuses on just one perspective of the safari guests (Katie included), and bounces back and forth between past and present; in this way, Bohjalian masterfully builds his characters even as the present action is taking place so that while the story unfolds, readers will...

  Molly Raven is an identical twin. Her life in London is quiet, reserved, and governed by the belief that one can never (literally, never) be over-prepared for a bad situation. Halfway across the world, her twin sister Katie is living a vibrant life of partying and spontaneous jet-setting. That is, until she's found dead in her New York apartment with suspicions of foul play. If you are a reader that can easily suspend belief and prefers a punch-packing twist to a plausible plot and fully-formed characters, look no further than "First Born." Dean masterfully weaves not one, but several heart-pounding twists into his latest debut; and even more for the experienced reader, these will be hard to see coming. Personally, I never became fully invested in the story because of little plot holes, the characters feeling under-developed, and implausible dialogue. The story served up a lot of potential, but ultimately fell short for me even with its jaw-dropping twists and turns...