Ursa has the ability to travel through time and memory—but her gift comes at a cost. After fleeing her home for California’s counterculture in the 1950s, her unique power and ability draws a group of women to her secluded mansion in the woods outside of Santa Cruz. Soon the cult-like group of women, referred to as the mamas, takes an ominous tone, sparking Ursa’s son Ray and his pregnant girlfriend Cherry to run away. But escaping where they came from won’t be easy. A series of mysterious occurrences cause Cherry to leave Ray and their new baby girl Opal. As a teenager, Opal is heartbroken by the loss of her mother and must journey to her past to reveal the generations of secrets that made her who she is.

Thank you to @netgalley, MB Media, and @edanlepucki for the advance copy! I listened to the book on audio and the performance was wonderful. This novel is such a unique take on a family drama! The time travel was really different from anything else I have read, and it created a lot of great plot points for the book. The sci-fi aspect of books can sometimes be a bit of a turn off for me, but it was so well done and really helped develop the themes of motherhood, loss, and generational trauma. All of the characters were super complex and well developed, and I love how well we got to know them all. The writing was beautiful. Sometimes the plot was a bit slow but I didn’t mind it as we really got to dive into the the different characters and their thoughts and feelings. There were a lot of layers and complexities to this book, and it will definitely be on my mind for a while! Time’s Mouth is out now!

After a disastrous break up with her high school boyfriend, Lana has become a serial dater, jumping from relationship to relationship. She works as a dating and relationships columnist for a website in LA, but when she finally finds herself single on the night she thought she was going to get engaged, Lana is ready to reevaluate. Her plans are detailed when Seth, her ex boyfriend from high school, takes an assignment at Lana’s work, and the two find themselves pitted against each other in a competition: Lana has to remain single and write about it, and Seth has to settle down and write about his quest to try to find a steady relationship. Whoever’s series is more popular will win their own column. But as the competition progresses, Seth and Lana find that their jobs aren’t the only thing on the line.

This book was so cute! The competition between Lana and Seth was hilarious and brought out a lot of great banter and funny moments. I loved their relationships with their friends and coworkers too; a lot of the chapters ended with Slack messages between everyone and they were so funny. Definitely a slow burn with lots of angst and I loved that. Lana’s character was super relatable and I was so proud of her journey at the end. I also loved that Lana was obsessed with iced hazelnut lattes because they’re my favorite as well and I’ve never seen another character like anything hazelnut like that! I felt seen hahah. Super cute rom com!

 

Content warning ⚠️: child abuse, domestic violence, rape, drug abuse, alcohol abuse

Snyder, an advocate reporting on social issues impacting the lives of women worldwide, shared her own story in this memoir. After her mother’s death, Rachel was forced to move across the country with her father and abandon her mother’s Jewish heritage as her father demanded participation in his family’s stringent evangelical church. Snyder details the struggles and abuse she endured as a child, her rebellion and history of substance misuse, and how she eventually came to enjoy education and used it as a path out of her life. She eventually travelled the globe, first on a semester at sea and later as a journalist, and then settled in Cambodia. When she later returned to the United States to care for a sick family member, it is with a much different perspective than the one she left with.

Thank you to @netgalley for the ARC! I listened to this on audiobook and the performance was great and was read by the author. There was a lot of discussion about substance abuse, which was a big part of Snyder’s story, but I was a little surprised that so much of the book discussed this as it wasn’t mentioned at all in the description. I would have loved to hear more about Snyder’s experiences abroad, and I’m hoping those are touched in more in her nonfiction work about domestic violence called No Visible Bruises, which I added to my TBR about this. As a journalist Snyder has spent hours researching and writing about domestic violence, and her memoir definitely adds a lot of context to her life’s work. Readers who enjoyed Educated would probably enjoy this, although I did find it a lot heavier than Educated at times, so sensitive readers may want to pay mind to content warnings.

After serving an eighteen month prison sentence on a drug charge, Tara Connelly moves back in with her siblings Geraldine and Eddie while she works on rebuilding her life. Eddie and Geraldine have their own secrets and problems though, and Tara’s return adds some chaos to their lives. And to make matters more complicated, one of the detectives who arrested Tara keeps showing up unannounced. As Tara starts to build a life outside of prison, her siblings’ secrets start to unravel, causing them all to face the truth or risk losing each other forever. 

I love a good family drama, and this book definitely delivered! It’s been a while since I read Lange’s other book We Are the Brenners, but I think I liked this one more! The relationships the siblings had with each other were complex and had a lot of layers to them. The main protagonist Tara is so well written and you can’t help but feel her struggles and cheer her on. I really enjoyed the shifting perspectives the story was told in as well. The characters were so well developed and their strife and struggles felt so real. A great read I highly recommend! 

Persephone is the Goddess of Spring, but everything she touches withers. As a university student with dreams of becoming a journalist, the goddess disguises herself as a mortal and assumes abnormal life in New Athens. After a chance encounter with Hades, the God of the Dead and owner of a lucrative gambling empire in the mortal world, Persephone finds herself in a contact with Hades, and the terms are impossible. But the bet does more than expose Persephone’s lack of magic, and Persephone finds herself falling for Hades. The only problem? Their relationship is forbidden. 

I was really drawn in by the concept of this book and enjoyed the classic Greek myth retelling set in a reimagined and modern world. The storytelling was great without being too over the top in the world building, which I think is where I get a little lost in fantasy novels. The tension between Hades and Persephone was so good and I loved the forbidden romance trope the book explored. Definitely more of a slow burn but it made it all the better when the relationship fine caught fire! 

Michael Milken was the most successful and innovative financier of his time, until 1986, when the SEC and the U.S. Attorney began an investigation into Milken and the investment firm he worked for. Richard Sandler decided to represent Milken as his personal lawyer, and to be responsible for working with the lawyers they hired as well as overseeing the defense. But they could never have dreamed of the chaos that lay ahead. The injustice that Milken faced through the investigation and trial was of epic proportions. After 36 years, Sandler in this book decides to set the record straight by providing never-before-seen transcripts of court documents and a sharp analysis of each move and countermove.

This was my first @netgalley audiobook! This was definitely an interesting story and I learned a lot about white collar crime. Sometimes all the financial and investments talk was a bit over my head and the legalese was fine with me as a lawyer but might be a little complex for some. Overall this was a very compelling account of white collar crime and the unusual trial and sentencing of a genuinely good man who was used by the SEC and the U.S. Attorney as an example and a scapegoat. The audiobook performance was great!

Rachel is a university student who works at a bookstore while studying in Cork, Ireland. At the bookstore she meets James, who instantly becomes her best friend and the platonic love of her life. They decide to become roommates, setting their lives on a course that will change them forever. Rachel decides that she is in love with her married professor, Dr. Fred Byrne. She and James come up with a plan to seduce him that involves throwing a book release party at their bookstore, but her plan is thrown out the window when she catches James and Dr. Byrne kissing. Thus begins a series of secrets and compromises that intertwine the fates of Rachel, James, and Dr. Byrne forever. 

This book is a coming of age story filled with lots of chaos and drama. The plot was interesting and I was engaged throughout, wanting to see how all the drama and secrets would unfold. Throughout the whole novel I couldn’t decide if I liked any of the characters; they all seemed superficial, selfish, and naive. It was hard to be sympathetic to Rachel at times. Rachel and James’s codependency was so crippling to both of them and there wasn’t really any recognition or rectification of that fact. The book is described as funny and while there were a couple of things I chuckled at I wouldn’t call it humor. The writing was great and the audiobook performance felt very authentic, as it was performed by an Irish narrator. I’m not sure this book lived up to the hype for me but it was definitely entertaining!

Amelia, fresh from a breakup and getting fired after throwing a coffee mug at her ex-boyfriend’s head (and unfortunately missing), jets off to Europe to escape her problems in San Francisco. She backs out of her best friend’s wedding for the trip, causing a major falling out between them. Running away from reality, she winds up on a remote Greek island. After too much alcohol one night, Amelia and James, the only other guest at her hotel who is nice albeit a bit boring, wake up to find that that they are married. And to make matters worse, the owner of their hotel is dead and he’s left the hotel to the new couple. Amelia and James are forced to work together to figure out how to get out of their situation. But the more time she spends on the island, the harder Amelia finds it to go back to San Francisco and leave James, and she’ll have to decide where her home truly is. 

 

Thank you so much to @netgalley, @sourcebooks, and @sierragodfrey for the ARC! This story was an absolute DELIGHT! I devoured it over the course of an afternoon by the pool, which was the perfect way to read this. The plot was so cute and I really loved all of the characters (especially the multiple versions of Yorgos). The accidental marriage was hilarious, and there was a lot of great slow burn and tension building banter. The Greek island, though fictional, sounded like a dream and gave me the travel bug. I was a little annoyed with Amelia in the beginning when she blew off her friend’s wedding, but her character grew a lot and I loved her by the end of the book. The Second Chance Hotel comes out September 12!

Two law clerks for the Supreme Court are attacked, leaving one dead and the other in a coma. The ensuing cover-up leaves police with a puzzle to solve, and Chief Justice Clarissa Baxter with a target on her back. It will take a group effort from off the grid heroes with friends in high places to solve the case: retired FBI agent turned boardinghouse landlady Ethel Crestwater, and her tech savvy double-first-cousin-twice-removed Jessie Cooper. Ethel and Jesse uncover a political scandal and scramble to find the killer before they become the next targets.

 

Thank you so much to @netgalley, @poisonedpenpress, and @mdecastrique for the ARC! This book gripped me from the beginning as I love a good mystery. Add in the Supreme Court and I’m hooked! I really loved the plot; it was fast-paced and exciting. And Ethel is such a badass! Apparently this is the second book in a series following Ethel and Jesse. I didn’t find any information lacking so the books could definitely be read as stand alones, but now I want to read the other book! I also really loved the author’s note at the end and learned quite a bit from it. Dangerous Women comes out October 24!

Elodie is set to reluctantly return home to England for the first time in four years for her sister’s wedding. She’s avoiding going back due to the tragic passing of her friend Ed and failed relationship with Tomasz, the love of her life. But during some turbulence on the flight, Elodie is thrown back in time to the day she met Tomasz for the first time, and Ed is still alive. As she’s sent back in time over the years leading up to Ed’s death, Elodie magically has the chance to fix all of the things that went wrong and she left England. Can she save Ed and her relationship with Tomasz before it’s too late?

 

Thank you so much to @netgalley for the ARC! I enjoyed the second chance romance and time travel aspects of this book, and it was interesting to see how small changes had a big impact on the story. I feel as though the relationship between Elodie and Tomasz and Tomasz’s character in general were a little flat, mainly because so much of the story was focuses on Eloise’s journey to change the past instead of their relationship or who Tomasz is. The ending felt a little rushed to wrap up all of the story lines, but it was still a happy resolution.