Kiraz

This was a cozy-ish mystery with a ghostly twist. This is book 26 in the series, but I didn't realize that so it's the first one I read. I didn't feel like I missed out much by jumping in like this, though I'm sure I'd be more familiar with the characters if I had read the others.

Tell-Tale Bones is about a cold case of two missing women. The husband of one of the two wants her declared dead after 10 years which will also allow him to inherit her fortune. This causes the PI Sarah Booth to get pulled into the case. Sarah Booth and her partner Tinkie will try to figure out if these two are actually dead or alive, and if they are dead, who killed them?

What was cool about this mystery for me was all the literary references (especially The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe) and a ghost that helped the detective with cryptic clues. This is the first mystery I read that involved a sidekick ghost.

I found the characters charming, especially the main character. I also liked her boyfriend, the sheriff. I liked that he was supportive of her endeavors, and accepts her as she is, rather than fighting against her wish to jump into the middle of a mystery.

While this book has the shape of a cozy mystery, some of the themes are less cozy, such as domestic abuse and access to abortion. The book does a good job of highlighting the difficulty of getting out of abusive relationships and the difficulty of identifying when it's happening from the outside.

Onto the mystery, I found it quite intriguing and interesting, it kept me turning the pages. I continuously flipped back and forth between they must still be alive, and they must have been killed, getting pulled in directions by the red herrings and clues alike. The story goes in many interesting directions I wasn't expecting, I was kept on my toes throughout.

Rating: 3.6⭐

Thank you to St Martin's Press, Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the eARC!

This was the perfect cozy murder. Julia who's in her early 60s with a penchant for stumbling upon murders in the small (I think fictional) town of Berrywick in the Cotswolds, with gossipy townsfolk, low stakes crime and a detective happy to receive help from a retired social worker.

Even though this is book #2 in the series, and I haven't yet read #1, it's perfectly safe to pick up, since the book does a good job of giving you any context you might need.

The mystery itself was fun and twisty, while I guessed the who and the why pretty quickly, I don't necessarily think it was telegraphed too obviously, I'm just a little too familiar with cozy mysteries.

Come for the mystery, stay for the amazing philosophy.

If it wasnt for the ending I would give this either 4 or 5 stars. The ending was extremely disappointing.

Everyone should read this book.

It definitely has it's flaws and they aren't few. The author tries to criticize Islam by comparing fanatic Muslims to ordinary Christians/Jews. The oppression she talks about is definitely all there in Muslim religion but to say it is non-existent in other religions is just untrue. As she states in her book, the religious texts are about interpretation and she happens to experience the people who interpret one literally and the other more figuratively. There are countries and people who practice Christianity or Judaism with as much passion as the Muslims in her life and she could just as easily see some of the same problems within those religions if she were to compare that to a more relaxed view of Islam.

But this book deserves these 5 stars for everything that happens before it becomes more about the politics and the press. She draws a very vivid picture of life with a Muslim upbringing, with severe oppression against women. The picture she draws is definitely not pretty but it makes you question things no matter what your religion is. More importantly, she does a great job of understanding and explaining what oppression does to a person, to a nation. This book is relevant to everyone because it's not just about a family, a country or a religion that perhaps some don't think about in their daily life, but it's also about the people in our lives, friends and family, that are abused behind closed doors.

I had a love-hate relationship with this book. I really disliked the MMC. He seemed like a problematic manly dude, basically a peeping tom who called her “woman”. We didn't really see their connection build up, it was already there from the beginning, and it was hard to see why they liked each other so much. I also didn't love the writing style, felt quite over the top. Some of the aspects I had trouble with might be appreciated by dark romance readers (to be clear, there's no noncon). But I likely would have DNF'd this if it wasn't an ARC.

On the other hand I appreciated a lot of what it was doing. Bringing together two people who think they're broken, one with chronic pain, the other who has PTSD. The book gave them the space to figure out the strength within themselves and heal themselves, finding strength within one another.

Beyond the romance, there's also some mystery aspects going on, break ins, things moving around, a missing deed... I enjoyed this aspect though it was mostly in the background, and I kind of figured out what was going on

The setting is a bookstore, and there's plenty of love of books in this one. I liked how they cared about each other. I liked the small town setting and most of its occupants. I especially loved the elder lady couple.

The book is set in the kind of fictional Townsend Harbor in Washington. I say kind of because I'm 99% sure it's based on Port Townsend, WA which is a real place. I've been to it and I basically set the whole book there in my mind.

Overall rating: 2.5 ⭐

Thank you to Oliver Heber Books, Xpresso Book Tour and @netgalley for the eARC!

Emily Stone is the queen of emotional romances that kind of take place during Christmas but span a whole year of coincidences, connections and healing. This one might be my fave.

I could not put this book down!. I started it after midnight and I had to force myself to go to sleep once I hit 75% because I knew there was no other way I was getting any sleep that night.

I love books about connections between people and how we can enrich others' lives by being in them. Like found family but with more coincidental ties and even more emotionally healing one another. Love, Holly does this so well!

A big focus for Love, Holly is grief. There are three main people who are experiencing different kinds of loss, and they go through it in very different ways. I really enjoyed seeing them heal and rebuild some bridges and also how unique their approaches were. How seeing someone else go through something similar can give you a whole new perspective on your own pain. And how sometimes it's much easier to tend to other people than ourselves.

The romance is incredibly sweet as well. I felt like there was a bit more of it than her previous two books. Somehow Emily Stone keeps managing to make an instant connection and a year of coincidences feel not only absolutely believable, but also romantic and deep.

This book is still more about the individual characters and their journeys rather than the romance as a whole. I loved all three of the characters, the grumpy elderly lady especially. I loved seeing them change, grow, and accept that they do deserve love and happiness, that you can rely on others even if there is always the possibility of loss.

The only thing that bothered me was Holly's family's reaction to what happens at the beginning of the book. So much could have been avoided if any of them (but especially the parents) had approached it with a modicum of reason and communication skills.

Thank you so much to Random House Publishing Group, Ballantine Books, Dell Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!

Overall rating: 4.2⭐

Overall rating: 4.3⭐

I read The Secret Lives of Country Gentlemen just last month, and as soon as I was done, I requested this audiobook on NetGalley. K.J. Charles writes MLM historical romance deliciously. The romance, the intrigue, the tension, the chemistry... Her writing pulls you in with great descriptions of its settings, loveable characters, just kiss already vibes, and soon you lose herself in her story.

I highly recommend reading both of the books, even if you don't usually read historical romances. I don't read much histrom either, but these two were some of the top romances of the year for me. I read both in one sitting.

ANGTSAS is set in the same world as TSLOCG, only 13 years later, with Luke Doomsday as one of the two main characters. Both of the books involve a person whose life suddenly changes thanks to an inheritance, and a member of the Doomsdays, a family of smugglers in Kent. Despite having a similar premise on the surface, ANGTSAS has a completely different feel and dynamic, while keeping the adorable-ness and spiciness the same.

I loved the relationship between Rufus and Luke. I loved how they cared for each other, all the tension and chemistry between them, how they both change and grow. Luke's emotional journey was especially well done. Their relationship starts so unsure but over time really grows to be strong where they can trust and rely on each other. And the spice..!

low rating mostly because I was expecting a mystery book. even outside of that, would not really go above a 3.5.

A perfect book to curl up with all cozy in the cold winter months (or any other month).

B&B is a prequel to Legends & Lattes which practically started the current cozy fantasy trend. I absolutely loved Legends & Lattes. I didn't love this quiiite as much as Legends & Lattes but that doesn't mean it still wasn't a lovely read. I really enjoyed the commitment to focus on the coffeeshop in L&L and there's a bit more going on in this one than just the bookstore.

It's still a perfectly cozy read so if you're looking for a cozy fantasy read, and enjoyed Legends & Lattes, don't miss this book. You get to find out more about Viv's past as a younger orc.

B&B takes place at a bookstore, as the name would imply, and we get to see Viv discover the joy of reading and spend time and help out at a bookstore while recovering from an injury,. You can't go wrong with a bookstore setting, love of books and indie bookstores. A charming town, the power of community, found family, unique and diverse characters are major characteristics of this book like L&L.

If you haven't read either book, I think I still would recommend reading them in the publishing order rather than chronological order. I feel like this book is more fun knowing where Viv is going to end up. Though the events of this book bolsters the events of L&L and how Viv ends up as a coffeeshop owner in that book.

Baldree does a great job narrating his own book, so you can enjoy this either with your eyes, or your ears and know that you'll be having a good time.

Thank you to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the ALC!

I love reading mysteries in a unique format that pulls you into the story more. Murder in the Family is set up as a season of a true crime show. However, they're not just trying to relay what happened, they're also trying to solve the cold case. The season's director is the victim's step-son, giving the crew unprecedented access to the family and where he was murdered.

I found the format of the book very fun. I thought it was done very well overall with conversations in screenplay format with other information in emails, texts, newspaper clippings, maps, subreddit-like posts, and other images detailing the original case.

The cliff hangers from one episode to the next were done so well a handful of them had me audibly gasping. However, I liked those and the other reveals along the way a lot more than the actual resolution to the actual murder. Somewhere along the way we start to find out more about the background of the victim and I found that to be more interesting than the murder.

One downside of the format is that it got difficult for me to tell the people from the investigative team apart. It made it difficult for me to keep track of their backgrounds, and they really all started to blend together.

I think this might be a book best read in physical format. It could really benefit from taking notes and sticking tabs to keep track of everything and also help you feel even more like you're a part of the story, trying to solve this along with them.

All in all, I found this to be a very enjoyable experience. It was an immersive experience, an easy to read page-turner with many twists and turns, and while the final resolution (for me) was a bit of a let down, I still thoroughly enjoyed the journey and would recommend it, especially if you like mysteries with unique formats like The Appeal.

Thank you so much to William Morrow and NetGalley for the eARC!

With Love, from Cold World is a fun and cute romance that also handles some heavier topics (might wanna check the CWs). With a workplace competition a la The Hating Game, this found-family, grumpy-sunshine, enemies to lovers romance is hard to put down and will leave you with a smile.

While it's not really a holiday romance, it does mostly take place close to and around Christmas and it's set in a winter wonderland attraction in Florida, so could make a great holiday or winter read.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and found it really difficult to put down. The romance is delicate and beautiful. The characters have depth and growth, and are also relatable and likable. There was nothing here that I didn't find authentic. From their personal journeys to the development of their relationship, it all felt really genuine.

The book has two main characters that are shaped by their pasts. Processing their childhood trauma is at times as much of the story as their romance.

Lauren is all about rules, lists, and her career. She's learned it's best to keep people at a distance. It was beautiful watching Lauren start to bend some of her rules and open up to others, but still not lose what makes her her.

Asa's priority is friends and enjoying life. He's genuine, caring, funny and brings out the best (and at times worst) parts of Lauren. I appreciated that he wasn't a generic romance MMC, he's bi, has blue hair and minimal ambition. He's content with what he has and doesn't really want anything to change.

I was rooting for these two from the first moment, they're adorable, they have great banter and it gets spicy too!

Their trauma is handled beautifully, there are a few scenes that made me wanna give these characters a hug for their heart break, or applaud them for how they stood up for each other.

Thank you so much to Berkley Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!

I loved the premise of this book, so I was very excited to pick it up. I was expecting a heart warming story, similar to Freya Sampson's books. It was kind of like that, but possibly I had too high expectations, because I never fully got into the book. It definitely wasn't bad but it felt like it was missing some heart and charm.

I also didn't feel connected to the characters enough to care to keep reading through the slower parts. I had a hard time understanding the main character's motivations, and the decisions she was making just didn't make sense to me.

While from the blurb, it might seem the book is just about the museum, it really is more about the main character's life in general and her relationships. One of the other main plotlines is that the main character is dealing with the loss of her mother. I thought this was handled quite well. The book goes back and forth between two timelines, one where she's going through her moms stuff, and her journals to clear out her home after her passing.

Jess also has a boyfriend, Guy, that you will be begging her to dump throughout the whole book, but it really will take muuuuch longer than it should for some reason.

I also enjoyed the overall stance that objects are really big parts of our lives, they tell our stories, and we have emotional and physical connections to them. How we can learn about people through their belongings. How even the mundane can be someone's treasure.

Overall rating: 3.5⭐️

Thank you to Grand Central Publishing and NetGalley for the eARC!

Overall rating: 3.7 ⭐

This is a fun middle grade fantasy filled with Japanese gods and culture. There is a glossary and cute illustrations to introduce readers to much of the vocabulary. I think this would make for a cute and fun book for a young reader. The book is filled with adventure and action but it's also about identity, feeling of belonging, dealing with bullying, importance of family and friends...

Family Lore is a story of two generations of an immigrant family. Most of the family members possess unique powers, ranging wildly from the ability to predict death to having an affinity for limes. Beyond their powers though, they all also face many challenges which is where their inner strength shines through, and what the book is mostly focused on.

Throughout the book we get to know this family via mostly flashbacks as they prepare for one of the sisters' living funeral. Since this event is planned by the sister that can tell when someone will die, it makes the family face the possibility of losing her, and their own mortality. They're also each at a precipice of their own, making them face where they are in life.

Family Lore is made up of things I love: it's written by Elizabeth Acevedo, it's a family saga and it's magical realism. While I am glad I read it, and there were a lot of parts in it I really liked, I also never fully connected with it.

There are a lot of different topics handled in the book, infidelity, immigration, sexuality, infertility, and familial and romantic relationships. Acevedo handles each of these topics beautifully.

While I mostly appreciated reading their stories, my reading experience wasn't entirely smooth. I felt like it dragged in so many points that it just made me want to stop reading it altogether. I think partially this was because it's very vignette-like. If the character development or the writing were better, perhaps those might have gripped me. Basically, while there were many moving moments, I was not usually moved by them.

This was such a sweet and adorable book that filled me with all the gooey feelings. Was it very realistic? Absolutely not. But it was a heartwarming book that you'll read with a big goofy grin on your face.

This book inspired me to try my hand at a book collage for the first time, swipe through to the third slide to see!

Other books with similar vibes: Spell Bound - FT Lukens, The Charmed List - Julie Abe, The Tea Dragon Society - Kay O'Neill

I loved this book! One of the first books in a while that managed to keep me up almost all night because I couldn't put it down. Once I was done I wanted to flip back to the first page so I could read it all over again. There were parts that got me crying, parts where I was sure nothing was going to work out for our heroes, and so many parts that put a huge grin on my face.

When I first started reading this book, it was easy to draw parallels to many dystopian romance novels where the main character realizes that everything they thought they knew about their world was wrong. But quickly, this book managed to set itself apart with its deep nuance and the beautiful romance. The world building is so deceptively simple, I could talk about it for hours.

Keywords: enchanting, magical, witchy, atmospheric, emotional, passionate,

Threads That Bind is a fantasy that marries mythology, mystery and romance with a noir vibe.

I quite liked the world of this book, I thought it was a good twist on mythology and loved the general premise. It's set in a kind of post-apocalyptic world where descendents of Gods inherit some of their powers. The MC, Io, and her two sisters are descendents of the Fates, and she can see and cut threads of fate. I also liked that the world didn't just have Greek Gods, it was more regional, but this one definitely had a Greek mythology focus. I'm very familiar with and absolutely love Greek mythology so I enjoyed all the references.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a bit repetitive in how it gives you information which got a little tiring, but overall, I found the mystery to be intriguing, and I was very invested in the romance. Especially after a certain point I really couldn't put this book down.

The romance was quite interesting to me, because they're fated and because the MC can see threads of fate, she can see the thread connecting them. But the two don't just jump into it. It's not even clear if they'll actually end up together. This fated-ness causes dilemmas for the MC between fate, predetermination and free will. Do they give into fate, does that make their connection weaker or stronger or do they go with free will, would they even actually choose each other without fate? I really was rooting for them throughout though.

One of the other big relationships in the book is the one between Io and her sisters. Their connection is very strained and complicated especially because one of them is emotionally abusive and has abandoned the family. But at the same time because of their powers they're “three bodies, one soul”. This abuse and the complexity of the situation caused by their supernatural ties is handled quite well.

I didn't always agree with Io, thought she made many terrible decisions and abused her powers, which made it a bit annoying to read at times.

I hadn't realized this was a series when I started, but I'll likely be reading the next book.

Rating: 4 ⭐

Thank you to Penguin Teen and NetGalley for the eARC!

Mhairi McFarlane is one of my favorite authors. She is fantastic at creating realistic, flawed characters with great emotional depth, putting them into messy situations and having them change and grow. Her writing transports me and doesn't let me go until the final page. This book was no exception.

Between Us is about Roisin who starts to question if her boyfriend of ten years has been keeping secrets from her, based on parallels she notices in the new TV show he wrote.

As the main character goes through suspicion and doubt about her relationship of ten years, you go through the same. It almost becomes a romantic mystery, are her suspicions correct or is she making a mountain out of a molehill? As the reader, are you being led by an unreliable narrator?

I loved the romance in this book even though it was secondary to the story. (I don't want to expand more for spoilery reasons)

The author is also great at depicting dynamics of a friend group. The intricacies of long term friend groups: the ties that are stronger, the ones that don't seem to get along well at all, the WhatsApp group that generates many side WhatsApp groups... I loved many of the side characters within it. Plus they all knew each other from working at Waterstones, great tidbit for book lovers.

This one isn't as strong as Just Last Night by the same author, which is still one of my fave books, but I absolutely enjoyed it and found it hard to put down.

Overall rating: 4.2⭐

Thank you to Avon Books and NetGalley for the eARC!

Overall rating: 4.2 ⭐

This is a great celeb romance book with a main character that has general anxiety disorder. It's easy to read, hard to put down, and you really root for the relationship that they made a mess of over almost a decade. Hard not to see parallels with these two and Nina and Ian from The Vampire Diaries.

I've now read both of Ava Wilder's books, and I gotta say I enjoyed this one a lot more. I thought it struck a better balance between the personal issues and romance, and built a healthier relationship overall.

This was such a cute and fun YA! I loved the crushing, the fake dating, the uncertainty, the characters, the authenticity of emotions, and just how lovely it all was. An absolutely beautiful and heartwarming read, recommended for any readers of YA.

There's been a murder at an annual block party on memorial day. But who was it? Let's go back a year to see how we got here.

This was a fun mystery that reminded me a little bit of Big Little Lies or One of Us Is Dead by Jeneva Rose. Like BLL, in The Block Party, you know that someone will die by the end, but you don't know who or why. There are a number of affluent families, all with their own secrets, their own problems.

Every new character introduced feels like they could either be the victim or the perpetrator. This is a book with a focus on its women characters. The characters and their journey takes center stage as the mystery is also unfolding. It feels a bit like watching reality TV as all the drama unfolds over a year as things are building up to the murder.

This was a very fun read, filled with flawed characters, and there was really good character growth. I had such a great time reading it, I just could NOT put this down. I read it in one day in practically one sitting.

I jumped into this series with this book, because a cozy mystery around a deep dish pizza place in Wisconsin sounded fun, and I'm glad I did. The book does a good job of filling in whatever information that's important from the first book, and I didn't feel like I missed out on anything.

This was a fun and intriguing mystery with all the right ingredients of coziness. Perfect for cozy mystery fans.

This is book 3 in a series but I didn't feel like I missed anything by jumping in at this point.

This is a fun cozy mystery read for the Halloween or fall/winter seasons. It takes place during Halloween in a small town in Connecticut. The main character, Riley, used to work for the CIA as a librarian but now runs an ice-cream shop and mysteries fall on her lap. Even that background is so random and fun, just like the rest of the book.

This book could be the exact definition of cozy mystery, it's a bit slow, all about the vibes, and fun to read. This book brings the small town vibes, even with a Hollywood crew in their midst. With the small town Connecticut setting, and working at an inn, it was also hard not to imagine this place like the Gilmore Girls town.

There are many quirky suspects, almost everyone seems to have a motive to kill the deceased. What I didn't love was how each character was either too good or too bad, without much nuance or depth. All the villains were villainous through and through.

I wasn't able to guess the actual culprit, which I always appreciate, the book managed to keep me guessing.

I loved Riley's friendships and how protective of them she is, and how much she cares for them. She's the kind of friend we all deserve.

Rating: 3.5 ⭐️

Thank you to St Martin's Press and NetGalley for the eARC.

This was just such a fun read! It's like an undercover agent movie in book form and is so hard to put down! The mystery around the villain is quite predictable but you'll still be at the edge of your seat (especially during action scenes) wanting the two MCs to just be okay, and to just kiss already! I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.