Always With a Book

k2reader October 12, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 11, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 8, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 7, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 6, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 5, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 5, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 4, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader October 1, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader September 30, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader September 29, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader September 28, 2021

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…

View Post

k2reader September 25, 2021

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,…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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,…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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,…

View Post

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,…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post

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…

View Post