Always With a Book

k2reader September 23, 2021

Review: The Last Thing He Told Me Laura Dave (audio)

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Published: May 4, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: We all have stories we never tell. Before Owen Michaels disappears, he manages to smuggle a note to his beloved wife of one year: Protect her. Despite her confusion and fear, Hannah Hall knows exactly to whom the note refers: Owen’s sixteen-year-old daughter, Bailey. Bailey, who lost her mother tragically as a child. Bailey, who wants absolutely…

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k2reader September 22, 2021

Review: These Toxic Things by Rachel Howzell Hall (audio)

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer / Brilliance Audio Published: September 1, 2021 Source: Print – Finished copy via Amazon Publishing / Audio – ALC via Brilliance Audio Summary: A dead woman’s cherished trinkets become pieces to a terrifying puzzle. Mickie Lambert creates “digital scrapbooks” for clients, ensuring that precious souvenirs aren’t forgotten or lost. When her latest client, Nadia Denham, a curio shop owner, dies from an apparent suicide, Mickie…

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k2reader September 21, 2021

Feature: Literati Book Club

A few months ago, I decided to join @Literati, an online book club that is unlike anything I’ve been part of before. Quite a few of my bookstagram friends were already part of this and I knew how much they enjoyed it, so I finally took the plunge and I’m so glad I did. This unique book club offers 13 different clubs that you get to choose from and the…

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k2reader September 21, 2021

Review: The Spires by Kate Moretti (audio)

Publisher: Thomas & Mercer / Brilliance Audio Published: September 21, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Amazon Publishing / Audio – ALC via Brilliance Audio Summary: A troubled woman becomes consumed by a past she’s desperate to forget in this unsettling psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Year. Strung between two teenagers, an unemployed husband, and a tenuous career, Penelope Cox barely has her life…

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k2reader September 19, 2021

Review: Forever Young by Hayley Mills (audio)

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing / Hachette Audio Published: September 7, 2021 Source: Print – Finished Copy via Grand Central / Audio – ALC via Hachette Audio Summary: Iconic actress Hayley Mills shares personal memories from her storied childhood, growing up in a famous acting family and becoming a Disney child star, trying to grow up in a world that wanted her to stay forever young. The daughter of acclaimed…

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k2reader September 16, 2021

Review: The Second Home by Christina Clancy (audio)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio Published: June 2, 2020 Source: Print: ARC E-copy via Netgalley / Audio via Library Summary: Some places never leave you… After a disastrous summer spent at her family’s home on Cape Cod when she is seventeen, Ann Gordon is very happy to never visit Wellfleet again. If only she’d stayed in Wisconsin, she might never have met Anthony Shaw, and she would…

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k2reader September 14, 2021

Most Anticipated Releases: September 2021

Back again with my five most anticipated releases coming out this month. With so many releases this month, it was hard to select just five books, but these are the ones that really stand out in my mind for some reason – either because I have loved the author’s previous books or it’s a debut novel and sounds amazing. And because this is coming out so late this month,…

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k2reader September 14, 2021

Blog Tour & Review: My Sweet Girl by Amanda Jayatissa

Publisher: Berkley Books Published: September 14, 2021 Source: E-copy via Netgalley /Publisher Summary: Paloma thought her perfect life would begin once she was adopted and made it to America, but she’s about to find out that no matter how far you run, your past always catches up to you… Ever since she was adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage, Paloma has had the best of everything—schools, money, and parents so perfect…

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k2reader September 13, 2021

Review: Apples Never Fall by Liane Moriarty (audio)

Publisher: Henry & Holt Co / Macmillan Audio Published: September 14, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Henry & Holt Co / Audio – ALC via Libro.fm Summary: From #1 New York Times bestselling author Liane Moriarty comes a novel that looks at marriage, siblings, and how the people we love the most can hurt us the deepest The Delaney family love one another dearly—it’s just that sometimes they want…

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k2reader September 11, 2021

Review: The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 by Garrett M. Graff (audio)

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio Published: September 10, 2019 Source: Publisher Summary: Over the past eighteen years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wright’s The Looming Tower to The 9/11 Commission Report. But one perspective has been missing up to this point—a 360-degree account of the day told through firsthand. Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff tells the story of the day…

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k2reader September 10, 2021

Review: Her Perfect Life by Hank Phillippi Ryan

Publisher: Forge Books Published: September 14, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via Publisher Summary: The next thrilling standalone novel by USA Today bestselling author Hank Phillippi Ryan. Everyone knows Lily Atwood—and that may be her biggest problem. The beloved television reporter has it all—fame, fortune, Emmys, an adorable seven-year-old daughter, and the hashtag her loving fans created: #PerfectLily. To keep it, all she has to do is protect one life-changing secret. Her…

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k2reader September 9, 2021

Book Spotlight: Catch Us When We Fall by Juliette Fay

This book is coming out in a few weeks and I’m so excited to share it with you today. I’ll be reading it soon, but in the meantime, read a little bit about the book and see what everyone has to say about it. Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks Published: September 21, 2021 Source: GetRed PR Summary: If you love the emotionally complex novels of JoJo Moyes and the…

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k2reader September 8, 2021

Blog Tour & Review: Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

Today, I’m so happy to be a tour stop on the blog tour for Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian. Thank you Park Row Books for inviting me to participate. Publisher: Park Row Books Published: September 7, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher Summary: Meet Chloe Sevre. She’s a freshman honor student, a leggings-wearing hot girl next door, who also happens to be a psychopath. Her hobbies…

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k2reader September 7, 2021

Blog Tour & Excerpt: What Passes As Love by Trisha R. Thomas – with link to #BookGiveaway

Today, I’m so happy to be a tour stop on the blog tour for What Passes as Love by Trisha R. Thomas. Thank you @OTRPR for inviting me to participate. As part of the book tour, there is a giveaway…but the giveaway is happening on my Instagram page!!! Enjoy this spotlight and the excerpt and then you can find out where to enter the giveaway below! Publisher: Lake Union Publishing…

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k2reader September 7, 2021

Review: High Stakes by Iris Johansen (audio)

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing / Hachette Audio Published: September 7, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: All bets are off as #1 New York Times bestselling author Iris Johansen introduces gambler Logan Tanner, a man with a secret past that’s about to come back to haunt him. Logan Tanner lives the exhilarating life of a professional gambler, taking risks with nerves of steel. From casinos in Macau to Monte Carlo to Milan, he’s…

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k2reader September 6, 2021

Review: The Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia (audio book)

Publisher: Amazon Crossing/ Brilliance Audio Published: August 16, 2019 Source: Personal Copy (print & audio) Summary: From a beguiling voice in Mexican fiction comes an astonishing novel—her first to be translated into English—about a mysterious child with the power to change a family’s history in a country on the verge of revolution. From the day that old Nana Reja found a baby abandoned under a bridge, the life of…

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k2reader September 3, 2021

Blog Tour & Review: Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

Publisher: Flatiron Books Published: August 7, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via Publisher Summary: Think you know the person you married? Think again… Things have been wrong with Mr. and Mrs. Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t…

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k2reader September 1, 2021

Month in Review: August 2021

And here are we in September…this year really is flying by! I had another great month of reading, this time reading quite a few of my own books and some backlist review books, too! It looks like this month coming up is amped up with great releases and I’m looking forward to quite a lot of them…I just need time to slow down so I can fit them all…

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k2reader August 31, 2021

Review: The Riviera House by Natasha Lester (audio)

Publisher: Forever / Hachette Audio Published: August 31, 2021 Source: Print: ARC Paperback via Forever / Audio: ALC via Libro.fm via Hachette Audio Summary: The New York Times bestselling author of The Paris Secret weaves a lush and engrossing novel of World War II inspired by a true story and perfect for fans of Kate Quinn and Pam Jenoff. Paris, 1939: The Nazis think Éliane can’t understand German. They’re wrong. They think she’s merely…

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k2reader August 31, 2021

Review: A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins (audio)

Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Published: August 31, 2021 Source: ALC via Libro.fm Summary: With the same propulsion that captivated millions of readers worldwide in The Girl on the Train and Into the Water, Paula Hawkins unfurls a gripping, twisting story of deceit, murder, and revenge. When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand…

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k2reader August 30, 2021

Review: The People We Keep by Allison Larkin (audio)

Publisher: Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster Audio Published: August 3, 2021 Source: Print: Personal copy via BOTM / Audio via Library Summary: The People we Keep is about a young songwriter longing to find a home in the world. Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a run-down motorhome, flunking out of school, and picking up shifts at the local diner. But when April realizes…

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k2reader August 29, 2021

Review: The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason

Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: August 17, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: Retired detective Konrad returns to a haunting cold case in The Darkness Knows by Arnaldur Indridason, the “undisputed King of the Icelandic thriller.” —The Guardian (UK) A frozen body is discovered in the icy depths of Langjökull glacier, apparently that of a businessman who disappeared thirty years before. At the time, an extensive search and police investigation yielded no results—one of the…

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k2reader August 29, 2021

Review: Two Truths and a Lie by Meg Mitchell Moore (audio)

Publisher: William Morrow / Harper Audio Published: June 16, 2020 Source: Print – Hardcopy via Publisher / Audio via Library Summary: From the author of The Islanders comes a warm, witty and suspenseful novel filled with small-town secrets, summer romance, big time lies and spiked seltzer, in the vein of Liane Moriarty. Truth: Sherri Griffin and her daughter, Katie, have recently moved to the idyllic beach town of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Rebecca…

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k2reader August 27, 2021

Review: We Were Never Here by Andrea Bartz (audio)

Publisher: Ballantine Books / Random House Audio Published: August 3rd, 2021 Source: Print & Audio – Personal copy Summary: An annual backpacking trip has deadly consequences in a chilling new novel from the bestselling author of The Lost Night and The Herd. Emily is having the time of her life–she’s in the mountains of Chile with her best friend, Kristen, on their annual reunion trip, and the women are feeling closer than…

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k2reader August 26, 2021

Review: 56 Days by Catherine Ryan Howard (audio)

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing Published: August 17, 2021 Source: Print & Audio via Publisher Summary: No one knew they’d moved in together. Now one of them is dead. Could this be the perfect murder? 56 DAYS AGO Ciara and Oliver meet in a supermarket queue in Dublin the same week Covid-19 reaches Irish shores. 35 DAYS AGO When lockdown threatens to keep them apart, Oliver suggests that Ciara move in…

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k2reader August 25, 2021

Review: My Mistress’ Eyes are Raven Black by Terry Roberts

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company Published: July 27, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: Ellis Island, 1920. New York Harbor’s immigration and public health authorities are slowly recovering from the war years when a young, pregnant Irish woman disappears from the Isolation Hospital on Ellis Island. Stephen Robbins, a specialist in finding missing persons, is assigned the case. Yet when he arrives at the isolation hospital, he discovers an inexplicable string…

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k2reader August 25, 2021

Review: Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson (print/audio)

Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster Audio Published: August 3, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Publisher / Audio – ALC via Publisher Summary: An epic, immersive debut, Damnation Spring is the deeply human story of a Pacific Northwest logging town wrenched in two by a mystery that threatens to derail its way of life. For generations, Rich Gundersen’s family has chopped a livelihood out of the redwood forest along…

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k2reader August 24, 2021

Review: Campus Bones by Vivian Barz (audio)

Publisher: Brilliance Audio Published: August 24, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: Amazon Charts bestselling author Vivian Barz reunites Special Agent Susan Marlan with Professor Eric Evans in a riveting installment in the Dead Remaining series. It’s been a year since Special Agent Susan Marlan and Professor Eric Evans worked a taxing missing persons case together on the Olympic Peninsula. Though the couple have since separated, Eric must reluctantly turn to…

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k2reader August 23, 2021

Review: Sisters in Arms by Kaia Alderson (audio)

Publisher: William Morrow / Harper Audio Published: August 3, 2021 Source: Print – Personal Copy / Audio via Library Summary: Kaia Alderson’s debut historical fiction novel reveals the untold, true story of the Six Triple Eight, the only all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps, who made the dangerous voyage to Europe to ensure American servicemen received word from their loved ones during World War II. Grace Steele and…

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k2reader August 22, 2021

Review: No Woods So Dark As These by Randall Silvis

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Published: August 4, 2020 Source: Publisher Summary: There are good reasons to fear the dark… Former Sergeant Ryan DeMarco’s life has been spent in defiance–he’s defied death, loneliness, and betrayal all while fighting the worst parts of humanity. He’s earned a break, and following the devastation of their last case, DeMarco and his girlfriend Jayme want nothing more than to live quietly in each other’s…

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k2reader August 22, 2021

Review: The Last Commandment by Scott Shepherd

Publisher: Mysterious Press Published: July 13, 2021 Source: Publisher: Summary: Christmastime in London. When three seemingly unconnected victims are murdered with matching sequential Roman numerals carved into their foreheads, Metropolitan Police Commander Austin Grant finds his answer in one of the last places he’d expect: the Holy Bible. Each of the deaths correspond to a transgression of one of the Ten Commandments, and Grant must find the killer before…

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k2reader August 19, 2021

Blog Tour & Review: The Family Plot by Megan Collins (audio)

Publisher: Atria Books / Simon & Schuster Audio Published: August 17, 2021 Source: Print: ARC Paperback via Atria Books / Print: ALC via Simon & Schuster Audio Summary: When a family obsessed with true crime gathers to bury their patriarch, horrifying secrets are exposed upon the discovery of another body in his grave in this chilling novel from the author of Behind the Red Door and The Winter Sister . At twenty-six, Dahlia Lighthouse has…

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k2reader August 18, 2021

Review: Half-Life by Jillian Cantor (print/audio)

Publisher: Harper Perennial / Harper Audio Published: March 23, 2021 Source: Print – Paperback via Publisher / Audio via Library Summary: The USA Today bestselling author of In Another Time reimagines the pioneering, passionate life of Marie Curie using a parallel structure to create two alternative timelines, one that mirrors her real life, one that explores the consequences for Marie and for science if she’d made a different choice. In Poland in 1891,…

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k2reader August 18, 2021

Review: All the Children Are Home by Patry Francis

Publisher: Harper Perennial Published: April 13, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: A sweeping saga in the vein of Ask Again, Yes following a foster family through almost a decade of dazzling triumph and wrenching heartbreak—from the author of The Orphans at Race Point. Set in the late 1950s through 1960s in a small town in Massachusetts, All the Children Are Home follows the Moscatelli family—Dahlia and Louie, foster parents, and their long-term foster children Jimmy,…

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k2reader August 17, 2021

Review: Limelight by Amy Poeppel (audio)

Publisher: Atria / Emily Bestler Books / Simon & Schuster Audio Published: May 14, 2019 (Paperback Release) / May 1, 2018 (Original Pub Date) Source: Print: Paperback via Author / Audio via library Summary: In a smart and funny novel by the author of the critically acclaimed “big-hearted, charming” (The Washington Post) Small Admissions, a family’s move to New York City brings surprises and humor. Allison Brinkley—wife, mother, and former…

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k2reader August 15, 2021

Review: The Noise by James Patterson & J.D. Barker (audio)

Publisher: Hachette Audio Published: August 16, 2021 Source: ALC via Hachette Audio / Libro.fm Summary: If you hear it, it’s too late. Can two sisters save us all? In the shadow of Mount Hood, sixteen-year-old Tennant is checking rabbit traps with her eight-year-old sister Sophie when the girls are suddenly overcome by a strange vibration rising out of the forest, building in intensity until it sounds like a deafening…

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k2reader August 15, 2021

Review: Gone for Good by Joanna Schaffhausen

Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: August 10, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: Gone For Good is the first in a new mystery series from award-winning author Joanna Schaffhausen, featuring Detective Annalisa Vega, in which a cold case heats up. The Lovelorn Killer murdered seven women, ritually binding them and leaving them for dead before penning them gruesome love letters in the local papers. Then he disappeared, and after twenty years with no…

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k2reader August 12, 2021

Review: The Sinful Lives of Trophy Wives by Kristin Miller

Publisher: Ballantine Books Published: July 20, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher Summary: Meet the trophy wives of Presidio Terrace, San Francisco’s most exclusive–and most deadly–neighborhood in this shrewd, darkly compelling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of In Her Shadow. Mystery writer Brooke Davies is the new wife on the block. Her tech-billionaire husband, Jack, twenty-two years her senior, whisked her to the Bay Area via private jet and purchased…

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k2reader August 11, 2021

Review: The Steal by C.W. Gortner & M.J. Rose

Publisher: Blue Box Press Published: August 10, 2021 Source: GetRedPR Summary: They say diamonds are a girl’s best friend – until they’re stolen. Ania Throne is devoted to her jewelry company. The daughter of one of the world’s most famous jewelers, she arrives in Cannes with a stunning new collection. But a shocking theft by the notorious thief known as the Leopard throws her into upheaval – and plunges…

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k2reader August 10, 2021

Review: The New Normal: A Roadmap to Resilience in the Pandemic Era by Jennifer Ashton, M.D., M.S.

Publisher: William Morrow Published: February 9, 2021 Source: Publisher Summary: From Dr. Jennifer Ashton—the Chief Medical Correspondent at ABC News covering breaking medical news for Good Morning America and GMA3: What You Need to Know—comes a doctor’s guide to finding resilience in the time of COVID, while staying safe and sane in a rapidly changing world. In March 2020, “normal” life changed, perhaps forever. In its place we were…

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k2reader August 7, 2021

Review: The Stranger Behind You by Carol Goodman

Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks Published: July 6, 2021 Source: Netgalley Summary: In the tradition of Daphne du Maurier and Shari Lapena, comes the newest mystery thriller from New York Times bestselling author Carol Goodman—a twisty, chilling story set in a former Magdalen Laundry in Manhattan that explores today’s #MeToo complexities. You’re never really alone Journalist Joan Lurie has written a seething article exposing a notorious newspaper tycoon as a sexual predator. But the…

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k2reader August 5, 2021

Most Anticipated Releases of the Month: August 2021

Back again with my five most anticipated releases coming out this month. With so many releases this month, it was hard to select just five books, but these are the ones that really stand out in my mind for some reason – either because I have loved the author’s previous books or it’s a debut novel and sounds amazing. As I’ve done before, if I’ve already read the book,…

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k2reader August 3, 2021

Review: The Guilt Trip by Sandie Jones (audio)

Publisher: Minotaur Books / Macmillan Audio Published: August 3, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Minotaur Books / Audio: ALC via Netgalley Summary: In the vein of the Reese’s Book Club x Hello Sunshine Book Club pick The Other Woman, Sandie Jones’s explosive new novel The Guilt Trip will have listeners gripped to the very last chapter. They went away as friends. They came back as suspects. Rachel and Jack. Paige…

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k2reader August 2, 2021

Review: Dark Roads by Chevy Stevens (audio)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press / Macmillan Audio Published: August 3, 2021 Source: Print: ARC Paperback via Publisher / Audio: ALC via Netgalley Summary: The acclaimed and beloved author of Still Missing is back with her most breathtaking thriller yet. The Cold Creek Highway stretches close to five hundred miles through British Columbia’s rugged wilderness to the west coast. Isolated and vast, it has become a prime hunting ground for predators. For…

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k2reader August 1, 2021

Month in Review: July 2021

How is it that we are already in August? This year is flying by! It was another month of amazing reads and yet, with as much as I read, my tbr remains overflowing? I don’t understand how that works? I guess it’s a good thing that I have more to read than I can get to, right? I’ve been participating in some amazing buddy reads and book club discussions…

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k2reader July 31, 2021

Review: Three Words for Goodbye by Hazel Gaynor & Heather Webb

Publisher: William Morrow Published: July 27, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via William Morrow Summary: From Hazel Gaynor and Heather Webb, the bestselling authors of Meet Me in Monaco, comes a coming-of-age novel set in pre-WWII Europe, perfect for fans of Jennifer Robson, Beatriz Williams, and Kate Quinn. Three cities, two sisters, one chance to correct the past . . . New York, 1937: When estranged sisters Clara and Madeleine Sommers learn…

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k2reader July 31, 2021

Review: The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore (print/audio)

Publisher: Kensington Books / HighBridge Audio Published: July 27, 2021 Source: Print: ARC Paperback via Kensingbooks & Bibliolifestyle / Audio: Library Summary: The glamorous world of a silent film star’s wife abruptly crumbles when she’s forcibly quarantined at the Carville Lepers Home in this page-turning story of courage, resilience, and reinvention set in 1920s Louisiana and Los Angeles. Based on little-known history, this timely book will strike a chord…

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k2reader July 29, 2021

Review: The Witness by Terry Lynn Thomas

Publisher: HQ Digital Published: April 23, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher Summary: From the USA Today bestselling author, comes the second explosive thriller about attorney Olivia Sinclair who must solve a cold-case murder to clear an innocent man’s name… HE SAW WHAT YOU DID… Teenager Ebby Engstrom witnesses a murder – and then passes out. The next morning, he wakes in his bed with no memory of how he…

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k2reader July 28, 2021

Review: Heavy by Kiese Laymon (print/audio)

Publisher: Scribner / Simon & Schuster Audio Published: October 16, 2018 Source: Print: Personal copy via Literati Book Club / Audio: Library Summary: In this powerful and provocative memoir, genre-bending essayist and novelist Kiese Laymon explores what the weight of a lifetime of secrets, lies, and deception does to a black body, a black family, and a nation teetering on the brink of moral collapse. Kiese Laymon is a…

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k2reader July 28, 2021

Review: What’s Left Unsaid by Emily Bleeker (print/audio)

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing / Brilliance Audio Published: July 27, 2021 Source: Print: ARC Paperback via Uplit Reads / Audio: ALC via Brilliance Audio Summary: An enthralling novel of secrets, second chances, and confronting the past by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of When I’m Gone. After a series of devastating losses, Chicago journalist Hannah Williamson has landed in Senatobia, Mississippi, to care for her bedridden grandmother and endure grunt work…

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