The God of The Woods by Liz Moore
Goodreads blurb: When a teenager vanishes from her Adirondack summer camp, two worlds collide. Early morning, August 1975: a camp counselor discovers an empty bunk. Its occupant, Barbara Van Laar, has gone missing. Barbara isn’t just any thirteen-year-old: she’s the daughter of the family that owns the summer camp and employs most of the region’s residents. And this isn’t the first time a Van Laar child has disappeared. Barbara’s older brother similarly vanished fourteen years ago, never to be found. As a panicked search begins, a thrilling drama unfolds. Chasing down the layered secrets of the Van Laar family and the blue-collar community working in its shadow, Moore’s multi-threaded story invites readers into a rich and gripping dynasty of secrets and second chances. It is Liz Moore’s most ambitious and wide-reaching novel yet.
My take: 4.75 out of 5. This was weird in the best of ways. It’s like a mystery thriller with a family drama? The level of flaws of all the characters is intense and it makes it more believable . Like seriously all these characters could have done something bad. I keep reading summer camp books and I just can’t get the appeal, but this one makes more sense to me – more than happy camp stories I’m all about creepy camp stories that aligns with the image in my mind. Also I might be showing my age but were here kids not a tad too young g for the stories like is 13 now a days they precocious ?
Love Story by Lindsey Kelk
Goodreads blurb: She’s a small-town schoolteacher. He’s a hotshot marketing director. Together, it’s hate at first sight. Sophie Taylor has a secret and Joe Walsh thinks he knows it (all). He’s devilishly handsome, incredibly hot – and far too sure of himself. Unfortunately, Sophie desperately needs his help. She has lost her laptop – and her sequel to the sensational, spicy romance that everybody’s talking about. Because Sophie is not just hiding something small. She is Este Cox, the mysterious romance author the entire world is desperate to unmask. When a trip to Sophie’s home town leads to the disgruntledpair sharing a one-bed cottage, it’s a short step to sharing a whole lot more besides… Can Sophie trust Joe with the truth – and be herself?
This is an ARC review thanks to a gift from the publisher. Book comes out Sept 17
My take: 4.25 out of 5. A sweet romance I stayed up way past my bedtime to finish this and that is as strong endorsement as you can get from me. I loved the banter, the enemies to lovers, the family shenanigans, and as absurd as her hiding her persona is I kind of felt for her too. Also Joe Walsh was a great book romance. In general I loved how much of a love letter to romances and female authors it was and an empowerment of all reading habits. Two of my favorite quotes:
- “instalove is my least favorite trope” i strongly agree!
- “that’s why I think modern romance novels are so brilliant they celebrate women exactly as they are”
Slow Dance by Rainbow Rowell
Goodreads blurb: Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary. They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change. Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed. Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned. When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything? The answer is yes. And yes. And yes. Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost. It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.
My take: 4 out of 5. It was an intricate deep dive into a second chance romance and the dual timeline was very well done. It does lack a bit of excitement it’s more expository than action packed but it was still sweet and I read it fairly quickly Shiloh personality was a bit weird for me to get my heard around her. Her complete aversion to making friends was odd and made the stress of this slow burn second chance even more because you knew if it was not end game for both of them, meeting new people was going to be terrible.
Daydream by Hannah Grace
Goodreads blurb: The third in the New York Times bestselling Maple Hills series follows fan-favorite Henry and a bookish fellow student who come up with a plan to help them both overcome their respective challenges in a difficult year. When his procrastination lands him in a difficult class with his least favorite professor, Henry Turner knows he’s going to have to work extra hard to survive his junior year of college. And now with his new title of captain for the hockey team—which he didn’t even want—Henry absolutely cannot fail. Enter Halle Jacobs, a fellow junior who finds herself befriended by Henry when he accidentally crashes her book club. Halle may not have the romantic pursuits of her favorite fictional leads, but she’s an academic superstar, and as soon as she hears about Henry’s problems with his class reading material, she offers to help. Too bad being a private tutor isn’t exactly ideal given her own studies, job, book club, and the novel she’s trying to write. But new experiences are the key to beating her writer’s block, and Henry’s promising to be the one to give them to her. They just need to stick to their rule book.
My take: 3.5 out of 5. I am going to copy word for word what I wrote in Icebreaker review because it totally applies here: A quick read and an addictive romance and I really love all the characters. The downside, I’m 40 and as it sometimes happens when I read YA I get annoyed at some of the more immature aspects of it. There were some super cute art scenes of henry making art for Halle, but the body paint sex was a bit much maybe for me. Also I think as much as this was the book about henry, I think we got more of a deep dive into Halle than Henry. It’s dual timeline but I think it felt more leaning towards Halle (maybe its because we have heard about Henry in the prior books. Also i hate how much my memory disappears after I rad a book because I really enjoyed Aurora and Russ in the Wildfire and I still loved them here but I can not for the life of me remember half the things that happened in that book. I wanted more book recommendations I want to know what they were reading in book club, but I appreciated all the Taylor music and the Cardigan cameo.
Wives Like Us by Plum Skyes
Goodreads blurb: Take a grand English country house, one (heartbroken) American divorcee, three rich wives, two tycoons, a pair of miniature sausage dogs and one (bereaved) butler; put them all into the blender and out comes the impossibly funny Wives Like Us, the new novel from the best-selling author of Bergdorf Blondes and Party Girls Die In Pearls, Plum Sykes. If you think the English countryside is all green wellies, muddy Land Rovers, and grey-haired ladies in tweed, then you’ve never visited The Bottoms. Welcome to the rose-strewn county of Oxfordshire, and the tony Cotswold villages of Little Bottom, Middle Bottom, Great Bottom, and Monkton Bottom, recently annexed by a glittering new breed of female: the Country Princess. Following a ghastly row about a missing suite of diamonds, Tata Hawkins has flounced out of Monkton Bottom Manor with her daughter, Minty, and Executive Butler Ian Palmer in tow, decamping to The Old Coach House to teach her husband, Bryan, a lesson. But things don’t go to plan. Bryan disappears to Venice with a bikini designer; Selby Fairfax, the glamorous American divorcée who has inherited the beautiful estate next door—Great Bottom Park—is refusing Tata’s overtures at friendship; Tata’s two best friends, Sophie Thompson and Fernanda Ovington-Williams, are distracted by their own problems; worst of all, Ian has nowhere to store his collection of vintage Gucci loafers. Will Tata ever return to the comforts of the Manor? Will Sophie’s husband start appreciating her? Will Fernanda ever find a replacement Manny for her friendless son, Luca? Will Selby believe in love again? With the help of a pig farmer-ess moonlighting as a Personal Assistant, a male model moonlighting as a stable hand, a London barrister moonlighting as a gentleman farmer, and a hypochondriac American tech mogul lying in a hospital bed, is there any hope that Ian can restore harmony to The Bottoms?
My take: 2.5 out of 5. This had potential that for me was wasted. I finished this book reading at 2.4x just because given the investment I actually wanted to know what happened but I really just needed to know quickly and efficiently. The Shenanigans o the ultra rich in the Cotswold’s is a great premise and the three main women are quite interesting in their own over the top way. But i could just not get into a lot of what was around it. The whole description of people with what age they were and what age they actually looked like I found quite irritating. Additionally this whole book was a miscommunication trope (my least favorite) but also in the stupidest of ways. Half of what was wrong with the main conflict which was Tata and Bryan was just absurd. In general everything was miscommunication (like three different miscommunication crisis at the same time) and it just got annoying. Additionally a huge plot point was just let go completely (the fire). The fat that everything just gets tied up in a quick epilogue whilst we had to go through an 11 hour read to get there made no sense.
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