June 2024 Book Review

We just got back from our 2nd Annual Swope Family Vacation in Port Aransas, but before I can share about our trip {including Trent's 15 birthday!!}, I have to start the month off with my book review!

This month I read 12 books - a definite rebound after my Anxiety-fueled May. Very happy to be feeling better and back to my normal reading habits. Lots of rom-coms from my favorite authors came out in May/June, so they dominated my reading this month - oh darn. {grin}

All Good People Here by Ashley Flowers - If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time you know I have mixed feelings about thrillers. I don't like unreliable narrators, I don't like ambiguous endings, etc. So some thrillers I love and some...not so much. This falls into the latter category because it has 1 of my pet peeves. The story was really good EXCEPT for that pet peeve {don't want to say what it is in case someone wants to read it}, but that one thing kind of ruined it for me. A reporter moves home to take care of her uncle with dementia but also gets looped back into the unsolved murder of her childhood best friend when another girl goes missing. I liked the plot and alternating timelines, I just couldn't get past that one point that will always bug me in a thriller. 

Lamb by Christopher Moore [audiobook] - Blog Friend Book Club selection! This book is exactly what the title says - the gospel according to Biff, Christ's childhood pal. This is Dumb & Dumber/Monty Python humor...which is not my humor. Would not recommend to anyone, unless that brand of humor is your jam.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner [audiobook] - This was a re-read for my in-person book club, and I think I enjoyed it more in my first read. It should be right up my alley - historical fiction with alternating timelines about a woman in present day England who finds an apothecary bottle and the apothecary from hundreds of years ago helped women kill their husbands - sounds good, right? It is good, just not quite great.

We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu [audiobook] - I haven't seen anything Simu has been in, but I love a good celebrity memoir, and this was excellent! I can forget that celebrities are real people with real problems and troublesome pasts. Simu shared his story with such heart and compassion, gosh, he's got a big fan in me now! It doesn't hurt that his first job was at Deloitte too - I cracked up when he described going to work as a 'death march' every day haha.

A Kingdom This Cursed & Empty by Stacia Stark [audiobook] - Book 2 in a fun romantacy series! I'm enjoying this - it isn't ACOTAR or Fourth Wing, but it's keeping me entertained, and I'm excited to see where it goes.

None of This is True by Lisa Jewell - And now a thriller by an author who understands what I don't like and never lets me down! 2 women born on the same day/year in the same hospital meet by chance while out celebrating their birthdays and some Single White Female sh*t starts happening. But who is telling the truth about the insanity that happens next?!? So good!!!

Inheritance by Nora Roberts - Y'all. I was really on the verge of quitting Nora. It was like she ran out of original plot lines, characters, conversations. I actually DNF'd her last trilogy {and I usually LOVE her trilogies!} but decided to give her one more try, and I loved this Book 1 in a new trilogy. A woman inherits a hundred-year-old mansion {perfect timing as her fiancé just cheated on her and she dumped him} and moves into it BUT it's haunted!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this and can't wait for the rest of the trilogy!

Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood - I have thoroughly enjoyed everything Ali Hazelwood has written - strong STEM women are a trope I can get behind. Yes, they are a bit formulaic and very trope-y, but I enjoy them. This one I definitely enjoyed but maybe not quite as much as some others. It had all the right elements, I just didn't find myself EAGER to pick it up as I usually am with her books.

The Paradise Problem by Christina Lauren - I really enjoy Christina Lauren's books - I think there's only been one I didn't enjoy - and this goes right in the list as a fun rom-com/chick lit read! Anna and Liam got married for housing reasons in college and years later, Liam needs Anna's help...and you can guess what happens. I thought this was highly enjoyable and I struggled to put it down!

The Rom-Commers by Katherine Center - I just adore Katherine Center, and this book was reason 1,298 why I adore her. Just the cream of the crop for a chick-lit, romance novel. Loved it! A very successful screenplay writer writes a flop and doesn't want help rewriting it but ends up getting help from an unknown writer and sparks fly. So, so fun! BUT one thing I love about Katherine's characters is the heart they have - there is usually something of meat in her stories that makes you feel a little something more, and this had that too. Really good.

This Summer Will Be Different by Carley Fortune - I was really hesitant to read another Carley Fortune book - I loved Every Summer After but thought Meet Me at the Lake was just ok. Well, this was more on-par with Ever Summer After, yay! Bee hooks up with her best friend's brother before she knows who he is and knows her BFF will NOT be happy, so they agree to pretend it never happened. Except it keeps happening! Alternating timelines and characters you want to meet? A delight of a book!

The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer - This was FASCINATING! It really makes you think about what you would be willing to do to survive a horrific life-or-death situation. Edith's story was tragic and very upsetting, but I was in awe of her strength and fortitude. This was just really, really good.

My total for the year is 64, ahead of my goal of 100 by 14 books. I had a lot of 4-star books, and my average for the month was 3.75!