Beautiful, poignant, why did I wait so long to read this? 

Just believe the reviews and the hype, this memoir is wonderful. Read it. 

The Broken Girls is the second Simone St. James book I have read, and I was so pleased to journey back into her immersive writing style that is so smooth and easy to settle into. The Broken Girls is told in alternating timelines of the small town of Barrons, Vermont in 1950 and 2014. The 2014 chapters all focus on Fiona Sheridan, a journalist of middling success whose sister was murdered twenty years ago. In the 1950 chapters, we read from various narrators who were girls at the now closed and abandoned boarding school, Idlewild Hall. 

When Fiona learns that Idlewild Hall, the site where her sister's murdered body was found, will be restored- she decides she must write about it. Quickly, construction halts when a body is found. And that's where St. James had me on tenterhooks, flying through the rest of this book. I loved the historical timeline, and while I initially thought the multiple 1950 narrators was a bit confusing I came around to it and enjoyed the end result. The integration of real and well researched history in this book is top notch and made it all the more unsettling for me. 

I must mention that St. James loves a ghost element. Ghost stories and paranormal elements aren't my favorite, but I like the way she does them.  If you like a dual timeline story and don't mind (or relish!) ghost elements, this one is worth picking up!

The Queen of Thieves is book two in the Moonwind Mysteries series, translated from Swedish. The first book, The Night Raven was an Amazon Prime Reads pick in October (that I actually read!) and I enjoyed it so much that I had already checked to see when book two would be released in English. I was trying to gear up for the months long wait when I saw The Queen of Thieves ARC and I'm here to say, it didn't disappoint!

This review will mostly cover a bit of book one to avoid spoilers. In book one, The Night Raven, Mika is an orphaned girl trying to get by during the most severe winter Sweden has seen in many years. The Night Raven is a sweet but dark middle grade story about how Mika ends up on the tail of a serial killer. 

You're thinking, "How could that be sweet?" and I hear you. There are some amazing main and side characters here that shine through the dark, mysterious setting and plot. You'll just have to pick it up to discover the sweetest unlikely friendship I've read in a long time. 

Now to speak to the second book, Mika is back along with some of the fantastic side characters of book one and she's ready to lay low for a bit, but of course that goes sideways. There is some crime in this book, that you'd guess from the title, but this time Mika's unlikely friend from the first book is less of a focus and we learn more about some of her fellow orphans. 

I am completely pleased with the second book in this series and I will be recommending this to adult and middle grade readers alike! 

Annabel Monaghan does it again with this upcoming release, Summer Romance. My first book by this author was Same Time Next Summer. Shortly after, I devoured Nora Goes Off Script. I was beyond excited to get my hands on this ARC, and even with through the roof expectations- it delivered!

So let's talk Summer Romance. Ali is in her early-ish thirties with three kids and a soon to be ex-husband, Pete. Pete is kind of a undercover jerk. He seems fine on the surface, but a closer look (which Ali is finally taking) reveals he is selfish, rude, and entitled. When Ali has a meet cute at the dog park, she's sure she will never see Ethan again but lo and behold, this is a romance novel and they meet again soon. And you know what? That's all you need to know. I love that the synopsis of this one is just the taste you need and doesn't ruin any of the early reveals so I won't ruin them either!

Even if you aren't a romance reader, I encourage you to give Annabel Monaghan a try. She writes beautiful characters that have been through heartbreak and are finding themselves and rediscovering how they can interact with the world without just being in constant service to others. I adored how Ali (FMC) was relatable and unique, and that Ethan (MMC) is not your cookie cutter male love interest. He's a whole human being and so is she. I will read everything Monaghan ever writes, and I plan to buy this when it comes out. It's just that good.

We Are All the Same in the Dark is a beautifully written novel that I'd put much further on the side of mystery than thriller. The story begins in the perspective of Wyatt when he is driving his truck and finds a nearly dead teenage girl on the side of the road. Despite hesitation, he brings her to his home to help her. When Wyatt realizes the girl has only one eye, he is shocked and beside himself with fear. 

Quickly thereafter, we shift to the perspective of Wyatt's old love and close friend, Odette. Odette lost one of her legs in a tragic car crash at sixteen. She comes to help rescue with the injured, mystery girl and we discover things are not as they have seemed. 

In short, this story is about small town secrets, unresolved murders, and a potential serial killer. I found the first half of the book quick and engaging and the second half quite slow. The ending was not what I had guessed, but it still managed to feel slow and haphazard. Ultimately, what I loved most about this book was the lovely but not overly verbose prose and the dynamic female characters living with disability in an ableist world. I wish the plot had delivered a bit more. 

The 57 Bus is a character driven nonfiction account of a crime in the early 2010s in San Francisco. One teen sets another teen on fire on a bus. The victim, Sascha, is agender and queer. 

This book provides a lot of exposition and background information about the LGBTQIA+ experience, identity, and community. As someone with a lot of that background knowledge, I found those parts a bit redundant- and I think they are very well written and will be incredibly helpful for teenage readers. 

The Twelve Days of Murder is a twist on the Agatha Christie classic And Then There Were None.  Over a decade ago, eight friends at university had a murder mystery club that they called the Masquerade Murder Society. Everything was always fictional - until their final Christmas Masquerade. One of the members disappeared and the case was never solved.

Flashforward to today and the remaining members of the group receive an invitation to a reunion masquerade at an isolated estate in Scotland. As you'd expect, this retelling has lots of unlikeable characters that start dropping one by one. The twist on the classic that made this more fun for me was that there is actual crime happening in the context of a murder mystery of fake crimes. It blurred the lines and definitely created some believability when the characters were clueless or befuddled.

I found a bit of this novel boring, but that's probably because I've read a few too many And Then There Were None retellings. The end had some fun, juicy twists that made up a bit for every character being so despicable. If you like a holiday novel and a Christie retelling, I think this one has a lot to offer!  

The Ministry of Time is an incredible debut that I'm glad I read, especially since it's out of my comfort zone. This novel is a mashup of so many genres- time travel sci-fi, romcom, office hijinks, and spy mystery. 

It's hard to sum up the engaging plot that Kaliane Bradley has created but I'll give it a try. Basically, a handful of "expats" have been saved from their original timeline and brought to live in modern day London. Each time traveler has an assigned "bridge"- a civil servant who must live with them and help them acclimate to the modern era. The focus on is on one particular bridge and her expat, Commander Gore, a Navy man from the 1800s. As their relationship grows from something strictly professional into something more, significant secrets and dangers come to light. 

This book had me laughing out loud and pining, sighing in agreement about how our pasts impact our present and future, and nodding in awe at the statements Bradley is able to make about systemic issues that permeate our culture now despite the passage of hundreds of years (and sometimes more). I don't say this often or lightly, I think this book has something to offer almost any reader and I strongly encourage you to give it a read. 

On the surface, Artie and the Wolf Moon is a middle grade graphic novel werewolf story. And beneath that, it is so much more. 

This story is emotionally compelling and deep, and open for so much interpretation by the reader. To me, this story spoke to inter generational trauma in the Black community and the very real danger of internalized racism. 

I highly recommend this one so you can see what the story symbolizes to you, and to enjoy a tender, adventurous young werewolf story too.