booklistqueen's Reviews (634)

A single mom and a former detective, Mickey Gibson is trying to balance life with two small children and her work for ProEye, a global investigation firm focused on tax and credit fraud. When a woman pretending to be a colleague sends Mickey to investigate a vacant home, Mickey discovers the body of a former mob boss who was in Witness Protection. Soon Mickey is caught in a game of cat-and-mouse with an unknown woman who has a deadly endgame in mind.

With plenty of twists and turns and strong female protagonists, I thought I would love David Baldacci's latest standalone psychological thriller. Instead, I found I was forcing myself to pick it up and constantly checking how much I had left. I just couldn't get into the convoluted narrative and found the story dragging too much. An underwhelming read that doesn't showcase Baldacci at his best.

 While studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver Marks and his theater classmates get caught up with dangerous drama backstage. When one student ends up dead, they use all their acting ability to convince the police that they are blameless. After serving ten years for a crime he may or may not have committed, Oliver is released and the soon-to-be retired Detective Colborne is desperate to know what really happened. 

Rio's novel had all the dark academia vibes akin to Donna Tartt's The Secret History, but you had better know Shakespeare because the references are thick and inescapable. In all, I thought the story was okay though the character motivations were undeveloped. My advice to readers is that you'll know right away if this book is for you: if you don't like the beginning, you'll want to DNF instead of pushing through because it doesn't get any better. 

Just before graduation, an apartment of students at Berkley is shocked when their roommate Alec overdoses. Gathering together, they make a pact that when they are in desperate need, they can each request a  living "funeral" - a gathering where they are reminded that life is still worthwhile. They've been there through Marielle's divorce, Naomi's parents' death, and Craig's art fraud conviction. But now Jordan's diagnosis has him and his husband facing a living funeral that might preceed an actual funeral.

I wanted to like The Celebrants more than I did. I liked the idea of the book - the examination of life's struggles and our need for deeper connections. Yet, the characters fell flat for me and the friendships didn't seem genuine. In Rowley's last book, The Guncle, I felt drawn to every single character but in The Celebrants, none of the characters evoked any emotion in me. The funeral format of the plot resulted in a lot of telling about the characters instead of showing details of their lives. In all, The Celebrants was a heartfelt story that missed the mark for me.

 When his boss retires, longtime bartender Malcolm jumps at the chance to buy The Half Moon. But Malcolm quickly learns that turning a profit is harder than he anticipated. Meanwhile, his wife Jess's long battle with infertility has her reassessing her life dreams. Three months after Jess walked out, Malcolm learns a secret about her, a bar patron goes missing, and a blizzard strikes in this tale of a marriage in crisis.

Having loved Keane's last novel, Ask Again, Yes, I found myself disappointed while reading The Half Moon. Keane's novel takes place over a week, but the excess of long flashbacks of their complicated marriage interrupted the flow of the story. The emotional draw just wasn't there; I didn't really feel for any of the characters. I'm not even sure what message the book was trying to convey.

 Perry Firekeeper-Birch's laid-back summer hits a snag when she crashes her car and is forced to work at her indigenous tribe's summer internship program. Soon, Perry becomes fascinated with the federal law about the return of ancestral remains and sacred items but is caught between the glacially slow pace of diplomacy and working within the law and the desperate desire to take action into her own hands. When Native women start disappearing and her family is caught in the middle of a high-profile murder investigation, Perry plans a heist to save her ancestors and her tribe members before all is lost.

Warrior Girl Unearthed is not exactly a sequel to Firekeeper's Daughter. Set 10 years later, it can be read as a standalone, but reading Firekeeper's Daughter first will help you understand the side characters better. Like her previous book, Warrior Girl Unearthed is a fun Young Adult novel, conveying a deeper message along with its high-action plot. Although I felt like I learned a lot, the story felt a bit forced and over-the-top.

When increasingly disturbing letters written in fruit-scented markers are sent to actress Meribel Mills, she turns to the police for help. Yet without a name, the police can do nothing to help. After realizing he's been in her home, Meribel desperately moves her and her autistic teenage daughter to Atlanta. But Meribel can still feel eyes on her and begins to question the motives of every man she meets: her ex-husband, her ex-boyfriend, and her new neighbor, wondering if they might be the crazy stalker who refuses to give her up.

Usually I can count on Joshilyn Jackson for a compulsively readable escapist thriller, but With My Little Eye was just so unsatisfying. More than anything, Meribel was irritating. Although she's a good mother, the entire book is dedicated to her thoughts on the men in her life. To make it worse, the chapters from the deranged male characters' point-of-view were off-putting. I will say, the one bright spot of the novel was Meribel's daughter, Honor. She was a fantastic character brilliantly written and was the absolute highlight of the book.

On December 26, 1811, Richmond, Virginia's only theater is packed with holiday revelers waiting to watch the Placide & Green Company perform. When the theater goes up in flames, split-second decisions by four people - a new widow who realizes how little women have in the world, an abused slave who sees her chance for escape, a young stagehand got in a moral quandary, and a local enslaved blacksmith hailed as a hero - have lasting repercussions in this novel based on a true event.

Beanland takes the true story of the Richmond fire and then gives a peek at how it might have changed the lives of four people. Quickly you are caught up in the world of slavery of colored people but also a world that disempowers women. Beanland keeps the historical fiction fairly grounded, making each of the characters feel very plausible. The blacksmith actually was a hero of the fire. Although the story lacked a powerful concluding message, I found the story interesting and engaging.

In 1940, Millie and Reginald Thompson make the heartbreaking decision to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America to escape the dangers in London. For the next five years, Bea finds herself enveloped into the Gregory family, sandwiched between sons William and Gerald. Although Bea has made a life for herself in America, she is forced to leave her new family behind to return to England after the war, finding herself caught between two worlds.

Told in short vignettes from different point-of-views, Beyond That, the Sea is a bittersweet character-driven story about being caught between two worlds. And by short vignettes, I mean very short vignettes; most chapters are only a page or two. I absolutely adored this enveloping story. The story spends much of its time on the war years, developing the relationships between all the characters. Then the narrative jumps forward twice more to reflect on the evolution of their relationships in a slow, thoughtful way.

Twenty-five years ago, five teenagers formed an unbreakable bond when they shot and buried someone while living at Savior House, an abusive group home for wayward teens. Although they didn't keep in contact, they've all gone on to lead successful lives: a drunk rock star, a judge, a tech billionaire, a gambling-addicted tv producer, and a former assassin. When the judge is murdered and assassination attempts are made on all the others, they are forced into a reunion none of them wanted to find the killer.

What Have We Done is a non-stop action-hero thriller. The plot was utterly ridiculous; one girl was basically just Black Widow from the Marvel comics. Is it great literature? Of course not. The character development was terrible and the narrative had absolutely no nuance. However, I will say the high action keeps you flipping pages, so if you want something mindlessly entertaining, What Have We Done will do.

Spoiled rich Nisha Cantor has the perfect life money can buy until her gym bag is stolen. Then her husband completely cuts her off, forcing her to work as a maid in the five-star hotel where they lived, desperately trying to get her possessions back. Meanwhile, downtrodden Sam Kemp is caught in a marriage with a depressed husband who ignores her and in a job with a sexist boss who mistreats her. 
When Sam tries on a pair of expensive shoes from a gym bag she took by accident, the jolt of confidence inspires her to recognize she deserves more in life.

Jojo Moyes delivers a fun contemporary read perfect for the beach or your next vacation. The story is funny and light although the character's situations are depressing. Someone Else's Shoes is nowhere near the author's best work, lacking depth and relying heavily on overexaggerations. Yet, Moyes did enough to make this far-fetched tale enjoyable that I would still recommend it.