1-19-25: My 5th finished book of 2025! Written by the author of The Thursday Murder Club, is a new series. Amy, a body guard, Steve her father in law and Rosie the famous author, set out on an adventure around the globe to solve a case involving the murders of several influencers on Instagram. Steve is a retired cop and not involved in much until Amy starts getting implicated in the murders. And Rosie, she is along for the ride. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣5️⃣

1-11-25: My 4th finished book of 2025! Frieda McFadden never disappoints. Sydney is looking for love on a dating app called Cynch. After a horrific date that ends with a mystery man saving her, Sydney embarks on something that feels real for one. Tom Brewer, who we learn a lot about in flashbacks, is a doctor who is sweeping Sydney off her feet after a brutal murder leaves her feeling scared and alone. Is Tom “the one”? The twist was shocking!

1-7-25: My 3rd book of 2025! My 3rd memoir in a row. Thankfully, this one was written by someone who is alive and well and happy. Jane Lynch is a funny lady, I was first introduced to her on Glee and then I backtracked into all her movie appearances. She never ceases to crack me up with her wild antics. She has had a very interesting life so far. A few low points but nothing too dramatic. This was just a nice read compared to the last two.

1-5-25: My 2nd book of 2025! Yes, another sad memoir by someone who has already passed. I‘ve wanted to read this since it came out and I wish I had before he passed because I believe it would have hit different. It was a funny but very honest look at his life as an addict and alcoholic and how many times he tried to get clean. How he didn‘t die sooner is anyone‘s guess but I think he truly wanted to stay alive & help people which I hope this did.

1-1-25: My 1st finished book of 2025! I read this in a day. A fascinating look at the daughter of Elvis Presley‘s life through her own words and those of her daughter, Riley. Sadly, Lisa Marie passed away before this book was finished so her daughter‘s words are heard throughout the memoir to help flesh it out. Lisa Marie came from rock and roll royalty but had a difficult life with many ups and downs but she loved her children fiercely.

12-31-24: My Year in books for 2024. Supremely disappointed in only having read 53 books. I usually read over 100 but working a full time job has left me so tired after work that I tend to fall asleep when I read. My family still thinks it‘s insane that I even read this much, they‘re cute. Anyway, Happy New Year to all!! May 2025 be a great year of reading! 💖📖💚🎉

12-31-24: My 51st finished book and my final book of 2024! This was a re-read because of all the Wicked screenings and paraphernalia my daughter and I have purchased since the movie came out. When I read this the first time I loved it. Then I saw the musical and eventually the movie and I have to say I don‘t love it as much. Besides the characters names there is so much that is different. It was a tad disappointing. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣5️⃣1️⃣

12-26-24: My 50th finished book of 2024! When Deacon Thorpe is found dead at his Nantucket summer home, his best friend and manager becomes executor of Deacon‘s will and puts him in charge of gathering all 3 of Deacon‘s wives & 3 kids, out the the Nantucket home to discuss what‘s next and spread his ashes.1st wife Laurel and their son Hayes. Second wife Belinda and their adopted daughter Angie. And current wife Scarlett and their daughter Ellery.

12-23-24: My 49th finished book of 2024! A page turner with an anticlimactic ending. The Merton family don‘t like each other. After the deaths of the mother and father, a “robbery gone wrong”, all 3 adult children and the cleaning lady are under suspicion. What transpires is a back and forth of no one trusting anyone else. All 3 children stand to inherit millions and everyone knows it. Their aunt believes any of them could have done it.

12-21-24: My 48th finished book of 2024! Absolutely stunning book about the love between two best friends, they are chosen family. Dannie, a corporate attorney and Bella, the owner of an art gallery in NYC have been best friends since they were 7. Very different women who adore one another. Dannie has a plan but it is thwarted one night when she wakes up to an alternate situation with a man she‘s never met. It all comes full circle.

12-19-24: My 47th book of 2024! What can I say about Matt Haig…he seems like a genuinely decent human being and his latest shows that. Grace Winters is left a bungalow in Ibiza by an old colleague she hadn‘t spoken to since the 70s. Confused and alone in London she decides to brave the scariness of leaving for parts unknown and arrives to find a quirky cast of characters waiting for her. Including some underwater sea grass. She finds her way. 💖

12-11-24: My 46th finished book of 2024! This was a sexually charged novel about the life of a bisexual writer. From growing up in a small town in Vermont where his mother and stepfather taught him a love for Shakespeare to the town librarian who taught him a love for reading and himself. We follow him into his late 60s through his youth, to NYC and the AIDS epidemic, and back to Vermont again. A love letter to being true to yourself. 💖

11-30-24: My 45th finished book of 2024! Lauren gets home late one night to find her husband waiting for her. Problem is, when she left that evening she wasn‘t married. Can you imagine an attic that delivered you husbands? It‘s kind of a nightmare. I kept waiting for her to wake up but no, it was a magic attic. As Lauren cycles through husbands she learns a lot about herself most of it not great. How many should she go through? How can she choose?

11-29-24: My Wicked Tree! You can‘t see Glinda‘s wand but you get the idea 💖💚

11-28-24: Happy Thanksgiving to all!! It‘s my granddaughter‘s 1st Thanksgiving and of course we watched Charlie Brown‘s Thanksgiving. 🍁💖

11-26-24: My 44th finished book of 2024! Book 3 in the Sisterhood Series. In this story, we finally get to see what Myra, the leader of the sisterhood, has in store for the murderer of her daughter, Barbara. The whole series starts with Barbara‘s death but it isn‘t until book 3 that we meet the man who, with diplomatic immunity went free after mowing Barbara down. Myra gets her revenge and the Sisterhood is there with Charles to make it happen.

11-23-24: My 43rd finished book of 2024! Book 2 of The Sisterhood Series. Myra and Charles have been helping the Sisterhood with payback for crimes committed against the woman in the group. In book 2, we follow the storyline of Julia, a politician‘s wife who has been cheated on and left ill due to her husband‘s philandering. A second mission against an HMO company rounds out the story. The women are ruthless when it comes to getting revenge.

11-17-24: My 42nd finished book of 2024! This is Book@1 in the Sisterhood Series. Myra and Nikki lose the woman most important to them and get no justice for her death. So mayra puts together the Sisterhood. A group of wronged woman who are going to exact their own vengeance. In Book 1, we see Kathryn‘ story of violence and redemption play out. Each novel will follow a different woman‘s story with Myra at the helm. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣4️⃣2️⃣

11-13-24: My 41st finished book of 2024! Given to me by my dear friend, Dana, for my birthday, this sweeping tale of Julia and her family really moved me. Julia, Mark, Ben and Alma, a beautiful family with some issues. Julia grew up with a single mom who was not the best and it led to feelings of grief and inadequacies that took years if at all to overcome.Mark was her savior until she met Helen Russo and her life changed again.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣4️⃣1️⃣

11-4-24: My 40th finished book of 2024! Book 3 in the series. We meet up with Millie and her now husband, Enzo, about a decade after the second book. They have just moved to Long Island with their children, Ada and Nico. Of course, their neighbors are not great. We hate them from the start. What transpires was unforeseen until close to the end. I didn‘t love this one as much as the first two but it still had me guessing. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣4️⃣0️⃣

11-1-24: My 39th finished book of 2024! Book 2 in the series. The housemaid is Millie and she definitely has some secrets. Working for the Garricks is lucrative but something terrible is going on with the wife, Wendy, who hides behind closed doors whenever Millie is there to clean. As the story unfolds, we get some of Millie‘s back story, more than her boyfriend Brock is getting, but more importantly we learn how awful Mr. Garrick is, or is he?

10-31-24: Happy Halloween from Wednesday Addams and Thing! 🎃🎊🦇💖

10-28-24: My 38th finished book of 2024! Fabulous read. Riley Sager rarely disappoints. Ethan returns to Hemlock Circle after 30 years, to take over his parents house while they move to Florida. Problem is, 30 years ago Ethan‘s best friend Billy was stolen from their tent in the backyard and never seen again. Ethan hasn‘t slept right since. We learn what happened that night in various chapters and what Ethan is dealing with presently.

10-21-24: My 37th finished book of 2024! I enjoy Liz Moore‘s writing style. This story takes place in a few different time lines. The present is summer 1975 at Camp Emerson where a child has gone missing. The past is 1961, at the home called Self-Reliance, on the same land as the camp, where a child has gone missing. Two missing children, two different times, same family. Can investigator Judyta Luptack put it all together? ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣3️⃣7️⃣

10-13-24: My 36th finished book of 2024! Fabulous read. The Manor is a new destination spot created by Francesca Meadows, who as a young girl spent her summers there with her grandparents and twin brothers. Many faces from the past have joined the opening weekend unbeknownst to Francesca. Back in the mid 2000s, Francesca spent her summer evenings corrupting her friends and now some are back for revenge. There is so much to this book!

10-5-24: My 35th finished book of 2024! When their mother passes, Beth, Nicole & Michael return home to sort through what is left behind. After finding a box filled with VHS tapes and choosing one at random from the summer of 1999 reveals a major secret unearthed the trio start to investigate how something this awful could have happened right under their noses. Told from all 3 perspectives and their mom‘s from 1999, this one kept me guessing.

9-28-24: My 34th finished book of 2024! This one was so disturbing. A couple and their 7 year old daughter, vacationing in the middle of no where New Hampshire, are approached by 4 zealots who believe they are the there to save the world from the apocalypse. How to save it, a sacrifice must be made freely. Is it all a coincidence or is the world really ending? I feel like I didn‘t get the ending I wanted or expected. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖😫3️⃣4️⃣

9-20-24: My 33rd finished book of 2024! The Guncle Abroad is the sequel to the very popular The Gungle. Gay Uncle Patrick and his niece and nephew are traveling through Europe to get to the kid‘s dad‘s wedding in Italy. The kids are not in love with this situation so Patrick has to teach them all about love languages in the hopes that by the time they reach Lake Como he will have succeeded in making them see the light.

9-8-24: Starting a new one. So excited for this!

9-8-24: My 32nd finished book of 2024! Rowley is a lot of fun but he also knows how to bring a tear to your eye. 1990s NYC, James Smale is trying to get his first novel published. When his agent finally gets him a meeting with a possible new editor he doesn‘t mention that it‘s none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis! Remarkably, James doesn‘t faint when they meet. The story follows their time together finishing his book and it was lovely.

9-1-24: My 31st finished book of 2024! This is a sequel to Maynard‘s novel, Count The Ways. Eleanor has come back to the farm to help her ex husband, Cam, as he is dying. Following this, Eleanor has to decide if she will stay with her older, brain-injured son, Toby. The story goes back and forth in time between 1977 and 2024. Eleanor and her children, Toby, Al and Ursula all have their own lives and Eleanor is trying to find her path.

8-24-24: Today was the 2nd Annual Philly Book Crawl! My daughters and I hit numerous bookstores and came away with tons of stuff, none of which is pictured here. Here we were taking a breather and toasting my mother for her birthday (which was last week) and for giving us our love of reading. 💖📖💖

8-24-24: My 30th finished book of 2024! Book 6 in the series. This one picked up a bit more than the others have. Reggie Heath, barrister, has finally married his love, the famous Laura Rankin. Due to an immense amount of paparazzi, they fly to her hometown of Bodfyn, to honeymoon and hide out. But, Laura saw a Sherlock Holmes letter requesting her to return home to Bodfyn and once there a sinister man from her past shows up to sacrifice her.

8-19-24: My 29th finished book of 2024! I have no idea what I just read! It started off one way, woman who had a baby young and was cast out of her home returns to town with her baby now a teenager and her life in shambles. While her daughter is learning to live with her Dad, Madi is living in a motel reading palms. Then her old flame, Henry, shows up. He‘s been through major hardship and needs help finding his way. Then everything goes haywire.

8-12-24: Starting a new one on the beach in Rehobeth, Delaware. 💖📖🎺🏖️

8-11-24: My 28th finished book of 2024! This one surprised me. This story takes during a 14 day period from March 31, 2020 to April 13, 2020 right at the beginning of the pandemic. Due to the quarantine, the residents of 2 Rivington street are stuck in their apartments until slowly they start to congregate on the roof of their building to tell stories. There are 36 authors to this collaborative novel which I loved. Very interesting.

8-7-24: Reading poolside in Kansas City. 📖💖

8-5-24: My 27th finished book of 2024! Ricky Rice, a ex heroin addict, who grew up in a suicide cult, is sweeping up a bus station in Utica, NY when he receives a bus ticket to Vermont with a short letter attached. Upon arriving in Vermont he is enlisted to be a paranormal investigator for The Washburn Library. But the Library is under attack from within and it‘s up to Ricky and his unlikely coworker to save it. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣2️⃣7️⃣

7-31-24: My 26th finished book of 2024! What a powerful story. When Kitty Karr passes away she leaves her vast fortune to her next door neighbors 3 daughters. Making the oldest, Elise, the executor, she leaves her not only money but her secret life story. Told in present day with Elise and from Kitty‘s perspective from the past, we learn of her humble beginnings, and her rise to fame as a screen icon. It‘s the back story that will shock the world.

7-26-24: My 25th finished book of 2024! Siracusa is a town in Sicily where our 4 narrators travel together one summer. Taylor and Finn and their daughter Snow, and Lizzie and Michael. The four adults tell this story from all their points of view and not one of them is likable. As they travel around Italy and finally Siracusa their stories becomes more intense, their hatred for one another more palpable. The final act was a surprise.

7-21-24: My 24th finished book of 2024! Book 7 in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo series. Finished on the plane ride back from Florida to Philly. This was ok. Not Steig Larsson great but I was able to get through it. His first 3 books were amazing. The next 3 by David Lagercrantz were pretty good too, but this was one felt forced. It‘s always good to welcome Lisbeth Salander back. And to visit with Michel Blomkvist, as well.

7-20-24: Taking a break in Florida at my friend‘s pool. So thankful she is a reader like me! 💖📖

7-16-24: My 23rd finished book of 2024, finished at work, it‘s a slow day! Kittentits is Molly, a 10 year old potty mouth, who loves with her Dad in a collective Quaker home that has recently been on fire so only those 2 and Evelyn live there. Her mom is dead. Her new best friend, Jeanie, an ex-con, comes to live at the collective and Molly‘s whole world opens up. She finally meets her pen pal Demarcus and she causes a stir at the World‘s Fair.

7-10-24: My 22nd finished book of 2024! The Fury starts off with a singular narrator telling the story of the love of his life and how things unraveled through a series of events he tries to control. After learning of a treachery, Lana, a retired famous movie star, invites her closest friends to her island in Greece. As our narrator becomes more unreliable we learn through many twists that things are not what they seem. ⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣2️⃣2️⃣

7-7-24: My 21st finished book of 2024! What a bizarre story. When Belle learns her mother has passed she flies to California from her home in Montreal to take care of her mother, Noelle‘s, home and business. Noelle has left a lot for Belle to uncover. One thing being the spa like mansion on the cliff that sold Noelle all the jars of creams lining her walls. It‘s a story about mothers and daughters but also about the price of beauty.

7-2-24: My 20th finished book of 2024! 1993 in Mexico City. Montserrat and Tristan, friends since childhood, get mixed up in a magical catastrophe. Upon meeting an old director from the 60s who they admired, they helped to reenact a spell that would bring back the leader of an occultist group. Magic and mystery, Nazis and the occult, what fun this one was. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣2️⃣0️⃣

6-23-24: My 19th finished book of 2024! Sarah Slade and her husband, Joe, have started a new life. They‘ve decided to buy the Black Wood House to renovate and resell. But the house comes with a terrible past and the neighbors in Beacon are completely against them. Sarah, a therapist and media influencer isn‘t going to take it lying down. She is unlikeable and in need of her own therapist and besides the neighbors the house seems to be against her.

6-19-24: My 18th finished book of 2024! Meet the Padavano sisters-Julia, Sylvie, Cecelia and Emmie. They are an extremely close Italian American family living in Chicago. The story spans time from the 70s to 2008. The ins and outs of growing up, falling in love and finding yourself. Nothing is perfect for any sister, but that‘s life. And then there is William, the basketball player who tries his best to be apart of the Padavano family.

6-13-24: My local library in South Philadelphia 💖📖

6-13-24: My 17th finished book of 2024! Book 4 in the Thursday Murder Club series. Another fun read with the octogenarian murder club. Joyce, Elizabeth, Ron and Ibrahim are at it again but this time it‘s a friend who is murdered that starts them on a new chase for a killer. And there‘s heroin. And antiques. And forgery. And a new cop on the beat even though our regular Chris and Donna are here to help. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️📖#️⃣1️⃣7️⃣