family secrets

    The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha

    Publication Date January 21, 2024 I didn’t know what to expect from The Inheritance by Trisha Sakhlecha – hadn’t read anything about it, never recall hearing or reading about the author. But it sounded intriguing, and I was happy to receive a copy from Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley in exchange for my honest review, …

    Blood In The Water by Casey Sherman

    Publication Date April 8, 2025 Much to my husband’s puzzlement, I am a big fan of true crime. I listen to podcasts, watch TV shows like Dateline and 48 hours, and read true crime books (another great thing about reading on a device rather than a printed book: you don’t have to cover up odd …

    Death At The Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson

    Publication Date September 3, 2024 Death At The Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson Shockingly, it has been TWENTY years since I “met” Jackson Brodie, the private investigator (who has been one of my favorite characters in recurring mystery series) in Kate’s Atkinson’s Case Histories.  So it shouldn’t have really shocked me when I …

    Things Don’t Break On Their Own by Sarah Easter Collins

    Publication Date July 16, 2024 “Things Don’t Break On Their Own” by Sarah Easter Collins is one twisty, well-written, character-driven thriller! There are many characters and various timeframes, so it seemed like actual work for me to keep everyone straight at first. But trust me, this one is worth the effort! The three main characters …

    What Have You Done? by Shari Lapena

    Publication Date July 30, 2024 Shari Lapena has been called “the queen of the one-sit read,” and that was EXACTLY the kind of book I was needing to take my mind off the news! Thanks to Penguin Group Viking and NetGalley, I received a copy of her latest, “What Have You Done?” in exchange for …

    Middle Of The Night by Riley Sager

    Publication Date June 18, 2024 Riley Sager, I’ve done it again! About four years ago I reviewed Home Before Dark, and noted that I had requested it because I misread the author’s name and thought it was a different author whose work I had enjoyed. Oops. Oh well, I enjoyed it…enough. Now, thanks to Penguin Group …

    All The Colors of the Dark by Chris Whitaker

    Publication Date June 25, 2024 A few years ago, I read Chris Whitaker’s book We Begin At The End, and I liked it a LOT, so I was happy to receive a copy of his new book All The Colors of the Dark, which I received  from NetGalley and Crown Publishing in exchange for my …

    Swan Song by Elin Hilderbrand

    Publication Date June 11, 2024 Elin Hilderbrand is well-known for being the “queen of beach reads.” About three years back, I read and reviewed her novel Golden Girl, and…was NOT impressed, in fact it was one of my very rare DNFs. But her string of books with titles like Summer of ‘69, 28 Summers, Trouble in …

    Perfectly Nice Neighbors by Kia Abdullah

    Publication Date September 12, 2023 I had not previously read anything by Kia Abdullah, but “legal thriller” is possibly my favorite genre, so I was happy to receive a copy of Perfectly Nice Neighbors from Penguin Group Putnam and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. The publisher’s blurb didn’t tell me much, other than …

    Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

    Publication Date August 29, 2023 2019’s Miracle Creek introduced Angie Kim, an amazing talent. It also introduced me to HBOT (hyperbaric oxygen treatment), a somewhat controversial treatment for what a center near me claims are “dozens of medical conditions…and used to improve athletic treatment and …for anti-aging.”   Ms. Kim has personal experience with HBOT, which …

    None Of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

    Publication Date August 8, 2023 Over the past several years, I have generally read and enjoyed Lisa Jewell’s books including  I Found You (2017), Watching You (2018), The Family Upstairs (2019), and Invisible Girl (2020) o I was happy to receive a copy of sNone Of This Is True from Atria Books and NetGalley in exchange for my honest …

    The Heaven & Earth Grocery store by James McBride

    Chicken Hill is a dilapidated residential area in Pottstown, Pennsylvania where immigrant Jews and African-Americans lived. In the early 1970s, workers were excavating in advance of building a new development, and were startled to find a skeleton. No one seems to know who it is or how it got there.  A couple named Moshe and …

    Hang The Moon by Jeannette Walls

    I love Jeannette Walls. The Glass Castle is one of my top five favorite books of ALL TIME, and I am still all tingly when I remember getting my courage to go up to her and talk a bit when she was guest speaking at a library conference in Oakland MANY years ago. But I …

    City Of Dreams by Don Winslow

    My perception of the books written by Don Winslow has been that they are the kind of books my husband loves: full of action, violence, drugs, sex, and maybe even some rock ‘n roll, but I could be wrong about that…in any case, I hadn’t read any of them, although I had started both The …

    Prom Mom by Laura Lippman

    Laura Lippman is a terrific writer, and I have enjoyed MOST of her books (although Dream Girl in 2021 was a surprise disappointment, but that may have been my own pandemic fatigue preventing my enjoyment of pretty much anything in 2021!). I loved 2019’s Lady In The Lake, and I was pleased to receive a …

    All He Has Left by Chad Zunker

    TBH, I’d never heard of Chad Zunker before reading Family Money (which I read and reviewed earlier this year). He wrote a series featuring Sam Callahan and the David Adams legal thriller An Equal Justice, but somehow he was new to me. I really enjoyed the plotting and pace of Family Money, so I was …

    Small Mercies by Dennis Lehane

    In the mid-1990s, Dennis Lehane published A Drink Before The War, the first in a series of mystery novels featuring Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. I was hooked. His writing includes both standalone novels as well as series – and in my opinion all can be read in any order (although as is often the …

    Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Boylan

    In 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2021 I read and reviewed Jodi Picoult’s Small Great Things, Spark of Light, The Book of Two Ways, and Wish You Were Here…and each one earned five stars (with two or three getting my “You HAVE to read this book”). I also noted in every review that  “when a friend …

    Family Money by Chad Zunker

    TBH, I’d never hear of Chad Zunker before reading Family Money (which I received from Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley in exchange for this honest review). He has written a series featuring Sam Callahan and the David Adams legal thriller An Equal Justice, but somehow he was new to me. In Family Money, a man …

    The Replacement Wife by Darby Kane

    If you enjoy stories with unreliable narrators, possibly unstable women, annoying characters in general, and a nice dose of gaslighting, here’s a book for you! Or possibly you just want something twisty and turny to get your mind off the death of democracy and a worldwide pandemic for a day or two, well, buckle up! …