Review: The Book of Hope by Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams (audio)

Publisher: Celadon Books / Macmillan Audio Published: October 19, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Celadon Books / Audio – Borrowed via library   Summary: In a world that seems so troubled, how do we hold on to hope? Looking at the headlines–a global pandemic, the worsening climate crisis, political upheaval–it can be hard to feel optimistic. And yet hope has never been more desperately needed. In this urgent…

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Review: The Stillwater Girls by Minka Kent (audio)

Publisher: Brilliance Audio Published: April 9, 2019 Source: Personal copy   Summary: Two sisters raised in fear are about to find out why in a chilling novel of psychological suspense from the author of The Thinnest Air. Ignorant of civilization and cautioned against its evils, nineteen-year-old Wren and her two sisters, Sage and Evie, were raised in off-the-grid isolation in a primitive cabin in upstate New York. When the youngest grows…

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Review: One Little Mistake by Lucinda Berry (audio)

Publisher: Audible Originals Published: September 9, 2021 Source: Personal copy   Summary: From the best-selling author of The Secrets of Us and The Best of Friends comes a novella of deceit, desperation, and how one little mistake can unravel a life. When overwhelmed stay-at-home mom Alexis finds herself at odds with her husband after she’s charged with a DUI, she is given one chance to get her family back: complete AA and admit her…

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Blog Tour & Review: The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski

Today, I’m so happy to be a tour stop on the blog tour for The Mother Next Door by Tara Laskowski. Thank you Graydon House for inviting me to participate. Publisher: Graydon House Published: October 12, 2021 Source: ARC E-copy via Publisher   Summary: GOOD MOTHERS… Never show their feelings. Never spill their secrets. Never admit to murder. The annual Halloween block party is the pinnacle of the year on idyllic…

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Review: No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield

Publisher: William Morrow Published: October 12, 2021 Source: ARC E-copy via Publisher   Summary: A smart, witty, crackling novel of psychological suspense in which a girl from a hardscrabble small town meets a gorgeous Instagram influencer from the big city, with a murderous twist that will shock even the most savvy reader. On a beautiful October morning in rural Maine, a homicide investigator from the big city pulls into the…

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Most Anticipated Releases: October 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 – and this month, these are all books from authors I have read in the past. Some are continuation of series I absolutely adore and some are stand-alones books.…

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Review: Last Girl Ghosted by Lisa Unger

Publisher: Park Row Books Published: October 5, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via Publisher   Summary: Secrets, obsession and vengeance converge in this riveting thriller about an online dating match turned deadly cat-and-mouse game, from the New York Times bestselling author of Confessions on the 7:45. Think twice before you swipe. She met him through a dating app. An intriguing picture on a screen, a date at a downtown bar. What…

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Review: The Corpse Flower by Anne Mette Hancock (audio)

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books / Dreamscape Media LLC Published: October 12, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback – Let’s Talk Books Promo & Publisher / Audio – ALC via Netgalley   Summary: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo meets Sharp Objects in this internationally bestselling psychological thriller, for fans of Jo Nesbø and Henning Mankell, now for the first time in English A Danish journalist digs deep to uncover a web of…

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Review: No One Goes Alone by Erik Larson (audio)

Publisher: Random House Audio Published: September 28, 2021 Source: ALC via Libro.fm   Summary: From New York Times best-selling author Erik Larson comes his first venture into fiction, an otherworldly tale of intrigue and the impossible that marshals his trademark approach to nonfiction to create something new: a ghost story thoroughly grounded in history. Pioneering psychologist William James leads an expedition to a remote isle in search of answers after…

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Review: What’s Mine and Yours by Naima Coster (audio)

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing / Hachette Audio Published: March 2, 2021 Source: Finished copy via Grand Central Publishing / ALC via Hachette Audio   Summary: From the author of Halsey Street, a sweeping novel of legacy, identity, the American family-and the ways that race affects even our most intimate relationships. A community in the Piedmont of North Carolina rises in outrage as a county initiative draws students from the largely…

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Review: Nice Girls by Catherine Dang

Publisher: William Morrow Published: September 14, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher   Summary: A pulse-pounding and deviously dark debut, written with the psychological acuity and emotional punch of Luckiest Girl Alive and All the Missing Girls, that explores the hungry, angry, dark side of girlhood and dares to ask what is most dangerous to a woman: showing the world what it wants to see, or who she really is? What…

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Blog Tour & Review: The Lighthouse Witches by C.J. Cooke

Publisher: Berkley Books Published: October 5, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher   Summary: Two sisters go missing on a remote Scottish island. Twenty years later, one is found–but she’s still the same age as when she disappeared. The secrets of witches have reached across the centuries in this chilling Gothic thriller from the author of the acclaimed The Nesting. When single mother Liv is commissioned to paint a mural in…

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Review: I Am Not Who You Think I Am by Eric Rickstad (audio)

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing Published: October 5, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via Publisher / Audio via Netgalley   Summary: One secret. Eight cryptic words. Lifetimes of ruin. Wayland Maynard is just eight years old when he sees his father kill himself, finds a note that reads I am not who you think I am, and is left reeling with grief and shock. Who was his father if not the loving man…

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Review: The Rose Code by Kate Quinn (audio)

Publisher: William Morrow / Harper Audio Published: March 9, 2021 Source: Print – ARC Paperback via Publisher / Audio – via library   Summary: The New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Huntress and The Alice Network returns with another heart-stopping World War II story of three female code breakers at Bletchley Park and the spy they must root out after the war is over. 1940. As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very…

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Review: In Another Light by A.J. Banner (audio)

Publisher: Lake Union Publishing / Brilliance Audio Published: October 5, 2021 Source: ARC E-copy via GetRedPR & Netgalley / ALC via Brilliance Audio   Summary: The death of a look-alike stranger leads a grieving woman down a troubling path in this riveting novel by A. J. Banner, bestselling author of The Poison Garden. Three years ago mortuary cosmetologist Phoebe Glassman lost her husband in a tragic accident. No longer the…

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Review: No More Words by Kerry Lonsdale (audio)

Publisher: Brilliance Audio Published: July 6, 2021 Source: Publisher   Summary: From the Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author comes the first book in a trilogy about love, betrayal, and the secrets families keep. Forced to choose between abortion or adoption, Olivia Carson’s younger sister, Lily, runs away from home. Sixteen and pregnant, she never returns. But she writes. Once a year, Lily mails a picture of her…

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Month in Review: September 2021

Is it just me or did September fly by? It was definitely a busier month for me, and so while I still had a good reading month, I didn’t get in quite as many books as I have been…but I still managed to read some really good ones! And now we are heading into my favorite season – FALL!!! I love the cool, crisp air and snuggling up with a…

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Review: Hello, Transcriber by Hannah Morrissey

Publisher: Minotaur Books Published: November 30, 2021 Source: ARC Paperback via Author / Publisher   Summary: Hannah Morrissey’s Hello, Transcriber is a captivating mystery suspense debut featuring a female police transcriber who goes beyond the limits to solve a harrowing case. Every night, while the street lamps shed the only light on Wisconsin’s most crime-ridden city, police transcriber Hazel Greenlee listens as detectives divulge Black Harbor’s gruesome secrets. As an…

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Review: Watch Her Fall by Erin Kelly

Publisher: Mobius Books Published: November 9, 2021 Source: Publisher   Summary: Swan Lake is divided into the black acts and the white acts. The Prince is on stage for most of the ballet, but it’s the swans audiences flock to see. In early productions, Odette and Odile were performed by two different dancers. These days, it is usual for the same dancer to play both roles. Because of the faultless…

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Blog Tour & Review: The Ice Coven by Max Seeck

Publisher: Berkley Books Published: September 28, 2021 Source: Netgalley via Publisher   Summary: Investigator Jessica Niemi is in a race against time to find the link between a body with strange markings that has washed up on a frigid shore in Finland and two mysterious disappearances in this terrifying new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of the Witch Hunter. Six months have passed since Jessica’s encounter with the mysterious…

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Review: The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young (audio)

Publisher: Turner Publishing Company / Dreamscape Media Published: June 8, 2021 Source: Print – ARC via Turner Publishing / Audio – via library   Summary: A story of survival, sisters, and secrets. The Fehler sisters wanted to be more than bug girls but growing up in a fourth- generation family pest control business in rural Missouri, their path was fixed. The family talked about Fehler Family Exterminating at every meal,…

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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