A couple of years ago, I listened to to the Dirty John podcast. Having grown up in Orange County and having known more than a few people like Debra Newell and her daughters, I was totally drawn in to the story of the uber-rich woman who had made tons of money as an interior designer …
Danielle Henderson is a mid-40s African-American woman who has had a career as an author and editor, and she has led a fascinating life. In The Ugly Cry, she reveals all the pain and hurt she endured as a child and tells the reader in EXCRUCIATING detail stories about what happened, who was there, and …
Publication Date May 25, 2021 David Swinson’s City On The Edge is described as a “transformative crime story,” set in Beirut in the 1970s. Told from the perspective of 13-year-old Graham, who lives with his State Department father, younger brother, and the mother who is apparently drunk most of the time and fights with David’s …
John Glatt is one of my favorite authors in the true crime genre. Especially after reading his book on Chris Watts (EEWWW), I was happy to receive a copy of Golden Boy from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. Although I am an avid fan of true crime books and …
In 2016, 2018, and 2020 I read and reviewed Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, Spark of Light, and The Book of Two Ways, with each earning five stars (and two of the three getting my “You HAVE to read this book”). I also noted that “when a friend and former library co-worker basically sniffed her …
I love “unputdownable psychological thrillers,” and because I was a huge fan of B.A. Paris’s Behind Closed Doors (2016) and I enjoyed Bring Me Back (2018) and The Dilemma (2020), I was happy to receive a copy of The Therapist from St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in return for my honest review. One of the …
My first experience reading Kathy Reichs’ Temperance Brennan novels was in (gasp) 1997, and I really enjoyed the strong female character with the fascinating job, being a forensic anthropologist employed by agencies in both Montreal and North Carolina. Since, I have read and enjoyed most of the series, so I was happy to have a …
I have pretty consistently enjoyed Shari Lapena’s novels, rating The Couple Next Door, An Unwanted Guest, and A Stranger In the House all four stars. So I had four-star expectations when I picked up her latest, Not A Happy Family (thanks to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley for a copy in exchange for this honest …
Lauren Etter’s book The Devil’s Paybook appealed to me on so many levels. First, it has been compared to John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood, which told the story of a major clusterf^&k involving a Silicon Valley startup with some wacko and very greedy people trying to completely change how something extremely important (blood tests) is done. …
Because I really enjoyed previous selections of the “Read With Jenna” book club, including White Ivy and The Four Winds,I was inclined to read Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle, the group’s selection for May 2021. It has received many rave reviews and has one of those plotlines that encompasses two strong female characters in two very …
I had not read anything by Louise Candlish, but the premise of The Other Passenger was intriguing: an unreliable narrator is suddenly trying to prove his innocence. There really weren’t likable people anywhere in this book, to my view, but they were interesting. Jamie is the primary character, and we learn that he and his …
Nicci French is really two people…am I the only one who didn’t know that? Sean French has written 6 books, Nicci Gerard has written 8, and together (as Nicci French) they have written twenty-five. In any case, they have a new thriller coming out, and it’s a fun read! The main character is Tess, a …
Anyone who lived in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s probably has an opinion or at least some curiosity about the Zodiac killer. Never definitively identified, this serial killer was known for targeting young couples and following up his grisly crimes with letters and cards sent to various media outlets in the Bay …
I grew up in Southern California and was a huge fan of professional basketball, attending games through the 1980s, when the sport’s popularity put ticket prices out of my reach. I had a secret dream to be a sportswriter, so might be a tiny bit envious of the career of Scott Howard-Cooper, the author of …
Back in 2016, I read and reviewed James Lee Burke’s The Jealous Kind, noting that the book was “… part of the Holland family saga. Back in 1835, Sam Holland escaped from prison, fighting in the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Sam’s grandson, Hackberry Holland, was a Texas Ranger.” Hackberry’s grandson, Aaron Holland Broussard, …
Laura Dave has written several novels, but TBH I’d never heard of her before I got an advance copy of her latest, The Last Thing He Told Me, from Simon & Schuster and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. The premise sounded like it had the potential to be either ho-hum or terrific: husband …
I love Laura Lippman, and was super excited to get a copy of Dream Girl from William Morrow / Custom House and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. It is compared to Stephen King’s Misery and Lippman herself has referred to it as her first horror novel. I’m a fan of psychological suspense/thrillers, but …
In the 1960s and 1970s, I lived in Southern California and was a huge fan of professional basketball in general and the LA Lakers in particular. I followed the team closely, every season, through the playoffs, with the too-frequent finale being a loss to the Boston Celtics in the NBA Championship Finals. Back in the …
Harleigh Collier, who goes by Leigh, is a hard-working professional woman, working her way up at a fancy high profile law firm. One Sunday evening, she is at her daughter’s school play and gets a call from one of the law firm’s senior partners, asking her to defend a wealthy client accused of multiple counts …
The story of this book’s publication is almost as much fun as the book. A young woman named T.J. Newman spent years working as a flight attendant for major airlines. During and outside of her long flights, she made good use of her time thinking and writing about a terrifying story set around an airline …