One thing Carley Fortune books do is make you want a summer at a lake. This is a sequel to her first book and I think I liked it better, mostly bc the characters are adults throughout. Charlie and Alice are good characters and it was nice to check in with Percy & Sam.

I‘m trying to finish all my “summer” books before fall really arrives.

I like Hallie Rubenhold‘s take on true crime. She de-centers the criminal man and puts the focus on the women involved. In this case, it‘s the victim, the accomplice, and the women friends who made sure the case was investigated.
I wasn‘t as familiar with this case as her previous book, The Five, which is about the victims of Jack the Ripper but it was still an interesting read. The audiobook is read by Juliet Stevenson and she does a great job.

My Barack Obama inspired book stack. My library holds came in all at once of course (the top two plus two others that weren‘t on President Obama‘s list.

My #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin for September!

In August, I finished 12 books and got two bingos. I finished my #BookSpin and #doubleSpin picks also. My favorites were Zeal, The Other Side of Now, and A Lesson in Malice. Our #ChrisitiesCapers book,The Big Four, was a big disappointment, but otherwise it was a good reading month!

I love a sliding doors/path not taken story and this one was great. A famous actress wakes up in an a Irish village experiencing a life she might have had. The audiobook is read by the author (who has a theatre background) and she did great. It was fun and also sweet and poignant. I will definitely read what she writes next.

This thriller was a wild ride but it wasn‘t my favorite Eddie Flynn (which I‘ve been reading out of order). I just did not like being in the mind of the serial killer, or the fact that he was basically superhuman. But Eddie is always fun. He‘s so smart and his con man skills always come in handy.

It‘s still summer where I live until the end of September so I mixed in some final summer reads for this #BookSpinBingo list.

The tagged book and the S.A. Cosby book are the only two that were already on my TBR from President Obama‘s list. I always love getting his book picks!

This is the start of a new series by the author of the Ruth Galloway mysteries, which were my favorite, so I had to give this a chance. This one is a little out there bc it features time travel. It took a bit for me to get into the story but I ended up really liking it. There was some nervous tension in the story in a few ways and it kept me guessing.

This is the UK cover, which is much prettier than the US one I had. #DoubleSpin for August

I‘m reading along with #ChristiesCapers and this is our book for August and my #BookSpin for the month. If not for those two things, I don‘t think I‘d finish this. Maybe it‘s bc it came right after Roger Ackroyd but this was not fun. It was repetitive and often over the top. I just thought it would never end. Good thing Agatha Christie had quite a few more books to make up for this one!

I enjoy this series, which reminds me of cozy mysteries because it features a lawyer who keeps solving murder cases, but it‘s more gritty than a cozy. The MC is pretty prickly but I find her compelling. I have read all three of this series in one summer. I hope there will be more of them.

This book is beautiful, sad, upsetting, and uplifting. I know I‘ll be thinking about these characters for a long time. The book covers generations, starting in 1865, and these characters go through every trauma that‘s possible but I still loved it. I like how the author connected all of the threads.

Author events keep my TBR stack out of control! I really enjoyed tonight‘s event at Quail Ridge Books for Regina Black‘s new book. I had to leave with both her novels. August Black sounds so good and The Art of Scandal has been on my radar for a while.

This was a good mystery set at a college with some kind of weird tradition that both the MC and her daughter get involved in. I was a little confused by the end but after listening to that part twice I got it. I heard Megan Miranda talk briefly about this during her book tour for last year‘s book. It was inspired by some of the college tours she went on with her kid. Beyond the mystery, she captured that time in a parent‘s life well. Spoiler ⬇️

July was a pretty good reading month. I was unusually busy at work for part of it, so my reading slowed down. I finished 11 books (one isn‘t on the card) and got one bingo. I was glad to be able to mix in three nonfiction books along with my lighter summer fiction. Ready for August!

Here‘s my #BookSpin list for August! Some holdovers from July mixed in with some new picks. I have mixed feelings about August — my summer work schedule ends, but it‘s also the month of my birthday! July has been miserably hot here so I hope August will be unseasonably cool.

Excited to read these new nonfiction books. The Feather Detective is about an alumna of Meredith College (where I work) and her pioneering work as a forensic expert on feathers. The other is narrative nonfiction that was featured this week on The Stacks podcast and it sounded right up my alley.

Catherine Ryan Howard is one of my favorite crime novelists. This one is about a woman hired to ghost write for a famous athlete whose wife dies in questionable circumstances. It‘s inspired by OJ Simpson‘s “(If) I Did It.” It was a little twisty and definitely creepy. I liked her last book The Trap more, but this one was still a good read. This is my #BookSpin for July

Whether you enjoy this book or not might come down to whether you can stand to read about a problematic MC. Florence is a total mess and she definitely makes some bad decisions, but she attempts to solve the case when her son‘s classmate disappears during a field trip. I thought it was a fun read. I would have liked a little more of the ‘what now‘ at the end.

Last night I finished the 2025 PS (formerly PopSugar) Reading Challenge! Both the regular and advanced, so 50 prompts. This is the earliest I‘ve ever finished the challenge in all the years I‘ve done it. Thanks to @OriginalCyn620 for doing the challenge along with me.

There were definitely a few books I read just to fill prompts that I ended up really enjoying. That‘s why I like to do this challenge each year.

For some reason I wasn‘t interested in this when everyone else read it years ago but when I found out it was set in Canada that was enough for me to give it a shot. I ended up really enjoying it, even though the big secret was somewhat less than I expected. It wasn‘t a good decision but not worth 12 years of estrangement. Percy needed a get-a-grip friend. I‘m definitely up for the sequel!

Joanne Paul is a very engaging writer. I enjoyed this look at the Tudor period through the perspective of the Dudley family, who I (as an American) mostly knew because of Robert Dudley and his relationship to Queen Elizabeth I. It was interesting to see what life was like when your fortune and your very life depended on whether you found favor with the king or queen.

The Quiet Librarian is not what she seems. This book tells a dual timeline story of a woman who survived war in Bosnia but her new life in the U.S. is disrupted when her friend is killed. This would make a good movie or TV series. I‘d never read this author before but he did a good job with both parts of the story.

This is my center square for the July #BookSpinBingo card

I have been trying to get to both of these books for months! Glad to have the push to start them. #BookSpinBingo

This was the last book I finished in June. It‘s a memoir by a comedian/Daily Show host who was previously a lower level pro tennis player. I really enjoyed the parts of it about his pro days, which were nothing like what the top tennis stars experience. Wimbledon week was a great time to read it. This book was recommended by Sarah from Sarah‘s Bookshelves.

June was a great reading month for me, thanks to a reduced summer schedule and the fact that it‘s been too hot here to do much other than read! I finished 16 books and got 4 bingos. I think that‘s the best I‘ve done other than the one time I finished my card. Several of these were really great. I think my favorites were The Correspondent and The Force of Such Beauty. #BookSpinBingo

I really liked this book! It shows the dark side of the fairy tale we imagine for modern princesses. It took me longer than it should have to realize this was based on Princess Charlene of Monaco, who was rumored to have tried to run away before her wedding, with some Princess Diana mixed in. It dragged a bit at the beginning but later I was really into seeing where the story was going.

My July #BookSpin list! I have a couple of nonfiction picks but mostly books that I‘m hoping will be fun summer reads. It is 100+ degrees here where I live for the fifth or sixth consecutive day so I have to lean on the fun part of summer — books!

Jane Casey, author of my favorite Maeve Kerrigan crime series, recommended Catherine Kirwan so I had to give her a try. I enjoyed her debut, Darkest Truth, but I loved this. The MC works for a law firm but mostly works as an amateur investigator. She reminds me of Maeve without a badge, so that is fun. This one had a lot of story threads and they all came together in a surprising way. I plan on reading the next in the series right away.

I adored this book and cried at the end. I love epistolary novels because of how the reader gets to piece the story together from what is included in each letter. Sybil, the title character, lives through her letters to family, friends, authors, and people from her past. There‘s a lot of sadness in this book, be warned! But I could‘ve stayed with Sybil through many more letters.

Despite the title (which I think actually refers to the changes in Hong Kong at the time in which the story is set) this is a quiet novel about relationships. The MC is a young Irish woman who teaches English in Hong Kong and gets involved in two relationships. I really loved how deadpan the humor was as we follow her life. It definitely fits in the Sally Rooney style of modern Irish novels. I don‘t think it works for every reader but I loved it.

Another roadtrip book for the summer. This is a great book but don‘t be fooled by the cartoonish cover. A LOT of dark/sad stuff happens in this. I was fully engaged with where PJ was going and what would happen next. The cat, Pancakes, is a highlight so I thought my cat could show off the book. She does not share his ability, luckily.

I did not buy the premise of this thriller and it was convenient that the MC had a PI, a doctor, a lawyer, and a gangster in his circle when everything went down. Despite that, I did enjoy this because it was just the kind of over the top thriller that‘s fun to mix in with my other summer reading. The author note at the end shared the personal experiences that inspired the book, and that helped too. A quick read.

I enjoy Kevin Wilson. He does such a good job with quirky characters. While this one doesn‘t replace Nothing to See Here as my favorite, I liked it a lot. In this one, a set of half-siblings who don‘t know each other go on a road trip to find their father. It was especially interesting to see how the dad changed in every family and how that influenced who the kids became.

This was a creepy little book that I read bc it worked for a reading challenge prompt but ended up liking. I didn‘t exactly root for the main character, but I was interested in what she would do next. She thinks she has her reasons. There are flashbacks to her childhood that sort of explain why she‘s like she is, also.

I don‘t read a lot of fantasy but I enjoyed this one. I wanted to know what was happening, why these two kept living over and over, and why they were drawn together. I did not expect the explanation! Their many lives were sprinkled in through out the book and I enjoyed seeing those glimpses but I always wondered what happened to their families in each timeline.

This was my #BookSpin for June

First book of June, with the French Open on in the background. The premise of this one is intriguing! I‘m still working on my summer reading stack.

15 books read in May with two bingos! This was a good reading month. I liked almost all the books I read. (Zero Stars, was just ok). Ready for June!

My June #BookSpin list. I am still hoping to get another bingo for May before tomorrow ends.

1. The Secret Room by Jane Casey. Don‘t read it if you haven‘t read the whole series! I love this crime novel series.

2. Zeal by Morgan Jerkins. I‘m tried to get to it in May so I‘m moving it to the top of my stack for June.

#Two4Tuesday @TheSpineView

Catching up in the Karen Pirie series, which I really enjoy. This one finds Karen and her team trying to investigate a case during the 2020 pandemic lockdowns. It has a book with a book element too. You can‘t ever tell how everything is going to come together in the end, which works for me in a crime novel.

I finished five books over Memorial Day weekend (all but one I had already started and was in various stages of completion before Friday). But #JumpStartSummer gave me an excuse to buckle down and finish them! All of these were good in different ways. And I still have a big stack of books to get me though early summer!

I‘ve had this on my TBR for a while after reading Dear Committee Members a few years ago. This is satire but still familiar to anyone who has worked in higher ed or who has traveled with a group. I really enjoyed it! The MC is just a grumpy as before but he becomes more endearing as this one goes on. #JumpStartSummer

Kate Moore does a great job with women‘s history that isn‘t as known as it should be. Her narrative style reads very easily, even as the subject matter makes you madder and madder. It‘s hard on one hand to believe that women could be declared insane just for want to be learn, speaking her own mind, or even reading. I was really impressed by Elizabeth Packard‘s determination in her fight against injustice. Spoiler below. #SheSaid

This was a melancholy romance about a woman who completes her influencer sister‘s bucket list after the sister dies. She‘s motivated to do this because a sponsor promises to pay off the family‘s medical debts. Despite that set up, it‘s pretty sweet and the MC is a character you root for as she figures out how to make this all work. I‘d never read this author before, but she did a good job balancing all this. #JumpStartSummer

I really enjoy Dolen Perkins-Valdez‘s work. I loved her previous book so this one had to meet high expectations. She does a great job balancing the dual timelines and timing it so that it spools out the narrative just right. It was especially interesting to read this one since it is based on a true story in my home state. #JumpStartSummer

Today my work started out half day Friday summer schedule. I look forward to this all year. This weekend I want to #JumpStartSummer by making a start on my summer reading TBR. I want to finish Happy Land and start at least one other of this stack.

I love this series so much. Jane Casey has done a great job building an ongoing storyline for her main characters and weaving it into cases that keep the reader guessing. I was honestly not sure how either thread was going to resolve. You definitely need to start at the beginning with this series because you‘d miss a lot jumping in randomly.

This was my #BookSpin for May

We would all be in trouble. I keep thinking about this passage from this month‘s #SheSaid book.