Vinegar Girl is a modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew. It focuses on Kate, who is working as an assistant at a preschool and is living at home with her father and sister. Their home life is amusing _ Kate_s family relies on her to keep the ship afloat, which she does by leaning on routine and without any zeal or creativity.returnreturnHer father is a scientist and has a brilliant research assistant, Pyotr, with an expiring visa. Kate_s father cooks up a scheme to have Kate marry Pyotr to ensure the success of his research, which Kate is disgusted by. Tyler_s way of bringing all of these characters together proves to be such good fun and is hilarious. The dialogue in this book is blunt and comedic, given that Kate_s character is brutally honest and lacks the social niceties that help one get by in the world.returnreturnThis is not great literature but if you are looking for a quick summer read that will make you smile and lift your spirits for a bit, then I would press this book into your hands. There is only one caveat that I would share _ given that I was a teenager in the late 90s/early 2000s, I absolutely could not picture these characters as anyone other than the actors from 10 Things I Hate About You. This isn_t necessarily a bad thing and is no fault of Tyler_s writing, but something to consider if you want to read this with a fresh perspective.

This is the second installment in the Inspector Gamache series set in Three Pines, Quebec. A truly wretched woman has moved into town - CC de Poitiers - and has everyone on edge. CC claims to have created a spiritual way of life that involves feeling no emotions in order to achieve balance, which is the general theme of her life: to wipe away anything that doesn't fit with her appearance to the public. CC has a husband and daughter that she treats with disdain and tears apart on a daily basis.

No one quite understands what drew CC to the small village because she does nothing that wouldn't bring her money or fame - and that's hard to find in Three Pines. During an annual curling tournament, CC is murdered by electrocution. No one saw what happened, so Inspector Gamache and his team track down every possibility that they can find in order to find the killer. We learn that CC's reason for moving is closely tied with her murder as Penny weaves seemingly disconnected storylines together to create a shocking ending.

This the first book in the Inspector Gamache series. I kept hearing about this on different podcasts and decided to take the plunge into Three Pines, the small Canadian village that's not on any map. I am so glad that I did. This is the perfect contemporary cozy mystery!

A well-loved retired teacher is found dead in the woods. It's reportedly a hunting accident, but Inspector Gamache smells murder. This book dives right into eccentric personalities and small town secrets to uncover the truth.

This was laugh out loud funny in several places, nail biting near the end, and completely charming. If you're looking for a fun mystery to take to the beach or to curl up by the fire with a cup of tea, grab this one!

This was the story of Nicolette - a young woman from a small town just trying to forget about her past. Until she gets a call from her brother - their father has been suffering from Alzheimers and has been in a nursing home for a while, but now they need to sell his house in order to continue paying for his treatment.

We quickly learn about Corinne, her childhood friend who mysteriously disappeared when they were teenagers. Everyone was a suspect - Nic, Nic's brother, Nic's boyfriend, Nic's father, and everyone else in town. Her disappearance was never explained and the turmoil Corinne's disappearance caused was a major factor in Nic's "running away" from town. When Nic returns, she bumps into Tyler, her old high school boyfriend, who is has a new girlfriend, Annaleise. Shortly after Nic returns to town, Annaleise disappears.

This was a mystery told in a unique format - backwards. We unravel the mysteries starting 14 days after Annaleise's disappearance, and the audience is slowly brought into what the characters have already uncovered.

I listened to this on audiobook and really enjoyed it - it's not for everyone, given its unique and sometimes confusing structure, but it worked for me. Just be careful to not take long breaks from the book, because it might difficult to remember where you are in the story!

This is the third book I've read by McMahon and I love her. Her stories are creepy to the core, set in New England, and just good fun. I heard a clip of her talking about this one on a Books on the Nightstand Podcast and knew that I needed to read it asap. This was a blend of the movie Now and Then with Psycho - which makes my heart go pitter patter!
Much like Now and Then, this is set up as flashbacks to Piper, Margot, and Amy's childhood. As young teenagers, the girls play at The Tower Motel, the motel that Amy's grandfather built and was a roaring success while Amy's mother and her Aunt Sylvie were children. But much like Psycho, after the highway was built, the guests stopped coming and the motel became rundown and unused. Aunt Sylvie dreamed of being a Hollywood starlet, and one day she just up and left, never to be heard from again.

While playing at the motel, the girls find a clue that makes them believe that Aunt Sylvie might not have made it to Hollywood and that Amy's grandmother is hiding something. They spend the summer trying to uncover the mystery. Present day, Amy is accused of a terrible crime, which brings this group of friends back together and back into that mystery in order to prove Amy's innocence. Keep the lights on for this one!

This book has been several years in the making. I started the series in 2012 and flew through the first three books. When I got to this one, it was an immediate stop. Westeros overload. But when this season of GoT started on HBO, I decided that I had to start reading the series again. Martin is so smart in the way that he structures his books - the first 2/3 consists of long chapters that set a strong foundation for what's coming. The last 1/3 is short, quick chapters that make the story feel much more fast-paced and action packed. When I got to that point, I just could not stop reading.returnreturnThis part of the story focuses mainly on Brienne, Sansa (Alayne), Arya, Sam, Jaime, and Cersei, among a few others. When I read this, I kept asking myself why do I keep reading these?? They are so full of heartbreak and misery - but I think that's exactly why I keep trudging through the series: I just want to know what happens! It's hard to say much more because the suspense of the stories is what makes these books addictive. If you started the series but haven't finished - I would urge you not to give up! Get to the books when you can devote the time and energy, but don't force it. While heartbreaking, it is certainly a good, sweeping story!

This is Kondo's follow up to her mega hit The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. If you haven't read the first one, Kondo's main advice is to discard anything in your home that doesn't give you joy. Her belief is that by paring down our possessions to only the things that we truly love - ridiculous and unusable or not - we can find true happiness and our life's path. Sound dramatic? Well, it is a little bit.returnreturnI don't buy into everything that she says but I have been working hard on de-cluttering for years, and these books fit right into this mindset. What I liked about this companion piece is that it has illustrated guides on the "proper" way to store all sorts of things... and those guides work! I recently got a new bureau and put clothes in it, but was disappointed because it wasn't holding quite as much as I had hoped it would. By taking everything out, getting rid of what didn't spark joy, and properly folding things, I combined three drawers into one, which allowed me to pull clothes out of my over-stuffed closet and store in the bureau. Even better, I can see absolutely every piece of clothing that I own, which has never happened.returnreturnIf you already own the first one, there's no need to buy this one. Get it from the library! Much of the text is the same but there are a few more helpful stories from challenges she faced with different clients. The true gems are the illustrated guides, but once you get the formula right, you can fold anything without the guide.

This one has been talked about nearly everywhere and for good reason. Has anyone been able to put their finger on the reason why stories set in Europe during WWII are so fascinating? They are my absolute favorite!returnreturnThis book starts in 2013 in the US. Who it starts with is a mystery - but we do know that she is an elderly woman moving into an assisted living facility and she is remembering life in France as the Nazis took over the country.returnreturnThe flashbacks involve two sisters, Vianne and Isabelle. These are two very different women that played important and secretive roles during the Nazi occupation. The author drew a beautiful and heartbreaking picture - I could picture myself in the garden with Vianne, trying to feed my family on the little food that I could grow. I was walking down the streets of Paris with Isabelle, dodging the Nazi officers and fighting for the people of France. returnreturnThis was a tragic story - I was sobbing in several places - and while fiction, I can't help believe that much of the tragedy actually happened to people during that time period. I hugged my babies a little closer and remembered not to take them for granted.

Warning: DO NOT pick up this book to read on an airplane. It prominently features and keeps revisiting a tragic plane crash in incredible detail. returnreturnThis was one of those books that I couldn't put down. It centers around a family in the midst of tragedy that buys an old Victorian House in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. They are desperate for a fresh start, so it's not until they move in that they notice the strange door in the basement that's has been securely covered using 39 carriage bolts. The father, with PTSD and some features of depression and psychosis, is staying at home to fix up the house and becomes obsessed with knowing what's on the other side of this door. returnreturnThe town of Bethel seems a bit unusual as well. There's a large group of women that all have names that are flowers or herbs (Sage and Clary, for example) and they all own beautiful greenhouses teeming with exotic and domestic plants. Some say they are witches. The women take special interest in the children of this new family - twin girls - and take them under their wings to teach them their knowledge about the plants that they so carefully cultivate.returnreturnThis novel's plot is constantly moving forward and I found myself breathless in so many places. The description of the plane crash is so vivid, as are the thoughts and fears of the passengers and pilot aboard. As a new mother, my heart broke for some of the passengers and their stories, and I found myself tearful and hugging my babies a little closer. returnreturnThis was my first Bohjalian, and if his other novels are anything like this one, it won't be my last.