This is always one of my favorite posts to share each quarter: The books I’ve read over the past several months. I have to say, over the past three months there were definitely more “great” books versus “pass” books. So if you’re looking for a new book to begin, I hope this is helpful. Below, I’m sharing a summary of what the books are about and whether or not I would recommend them… (I also feel as if I always need to add a disclaimer that I read purely for entertainment…. not here to break a book down and evaluate it on multiple levels. I sort of know what I like, and it takes a lot for me to not enjoy a book.).
And with that, I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead. We’ll be in celebration mode for TJ’s birthday over here, with a small family celebration, and then heading up north to Carmel for the weekend.
Cheers!
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- NONE OF THIS IS TRUE: This one might be a contender for one of my favorite books of the year. It was unique in its storyline and the best emoji I can use for it is the “mind-blown.” It was truly a psychological thriller. Sharing a snippet of the book below:
“Celebrating her forty-fifth birthday at her local pub, popular podcaster Alix Summer crosses paths with an unassuming woman called Josie Fair. Josie, it turns out, is also celebrating her forty-fifth birthday. They are, in fact, birthday twins.
A few days later, Alix and Josie bump into each other again, this time outside Alix’s children’s school. Josie has been listening to Alix’s podcasts and thinks she might be an interesting subject for her series. She is, she tells Alix, on the cusp of great changes in her life.
Josie’s life appears to be strange and complicated, and although Alix finds her unsettling, she can’t quite resist the temptation to keep making the podcast. Slowly she starts to realize that Josie has been hiding some very dark secrets, and before she knows it, Josie has inveigled her way into Alix’s life—and into her home.
But, as quickly as she arrived, Josie disappears. Only then does Alix discover that Josie has left a terrible and terrifying legacy in her wake, and that Alix has become the subject of her own true crime podcast, with her life and her family’s lives under mortal threat.
Who is Josie Fair? And what has she done?”
2. THE DRY: My mom read this book for her book club and recommended it to me. I took it with me on the flight to Italy this summer, and it was definitely a page turner. It’s filed with great twists and turns, and a layered storyline…. definitely one I would recommend.
“After getting a note demanding his presence, Federal Agent Aaron Falk arrives in his hometown for the first time in decades to attend the funeral of his best friend, Luke. Twenty years ago when Falk was accused of murder, Luke was his alibi. Falk and his father fled under a cloud of suspicion, saved from prosecution only because of Luke’s steadfast claim that the boys had been together at the time of the crime. But now more than one person knows they didn’t tell the truth back then, and Luke is dead.
Amid the worst drought in a century, Falk and the local detective question what really happened to Luke. As Falk reluctantly investigates to see if there’s more to Luke’s death than there seems to be, long-buried mysteries resurface, as do the lies that have haunted them. And Falk will find that small towns have always hidden big secrets.”
3. THE FIVE STAR WEEKEND: I picked up this book for a break in psychological thrillers and loved it. Something I appreciate about all of Elin Hilderbrand’s characters (of the books I’ve read) are that they are multilayered and well developed, which always allows me to feel connected to them in some way. This is another book I highly recommend.
“Hollis Shaw’s life seems picture-perfect. She’s the creator of the popular food blog Hungry with Hollis and is married to Matthew, a dreamy heart surgeon. But after she and Matthew get into a heated argument one snowy morning, he leaves for the airport and is killed in a car accident. The cracks in Hollis’s perfect life—her strained marriage and her complicated relationship with her daughter, Caroline—grow deeper.
So when Hollis hears about something called a “Five-Star Weekend”—one woman organizes a trip for her best friend from each phase of her life: her teenage years, her twenties, her thirties, and midlife—she decides to host her own Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket. But the weekend doesn’t turn out to be a joyful Hallmark movie.
The husband of Hollis’s childhood friend Tatum arranges for Hollis’s first love, Jack Finigan, to spend time with them, stirring up old feelings. Meanwhile, Tatum is forced to play nice with abrasive and elitist Dru-Ann, Hollis’s best friend from UNC Chapel Hill. Dru-Ann’s career as a prominent Chicago sports agent is on the line after her comments about a client’s mental health issues are misconstrued online. Brooke, Hollis’s friend from their thirties, has just discovered that her husband is having an inappropriate relationship with a woman at work. Again! And then there’s Gigi, a stranger to everyone (including Hollis) who reached out to Hollis through her blog. Gigi embodies an unusual grace and, as it happens, has many secrets.”
4. THE WIFE BETWEEN US: Alright, so this book is a great psychological thriller, no doubting that. I also thoroughly enjoyed it. Yet, my one “thing” with it was that it sounded very similar to several other books I’ve already read (“The Last Mrs. Parrish + The Housemaid). In fact, after my mom read it she asked me if we had already read this one. Despite that, it was still good, and I would recommend it… but if you want something completely different than the two aforementioned books, I would pass.
“When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love.
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing.
Twisted and deliciously chilling, Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen’s The Wife Between Us exposes the secret complexities of an enviable marriage – and the dangerous truths we ignore in the name of love.
Read between the lies.“
5. 28 SUMMERS: Loved this book so much, up until the end… because it made me cry, haha. So, consider that my fair warning about this book. In addition to leaving me in tears, I felt that there were a lot of lose ends that didn’t leave me feeling satisfied (I was informed there is a short sequel that will answer my pressing questions…). Despite the last 10 pages, it was good and I would recommend it.
“When Mallory Blessing’s son, Link, receives deathbed instructions from his mother to call a number on a slip of paper in her desk drawer, he’s not sure what to expect. But he certainly does not expect Jake McCloud to answer. It’s the late spring of 2020 and Jake’s wife, Ursula DeGournsey, is the frontrunner in the upcoming Presidential election.
There must be a mistake, Link thinks. How do Mallory and Jake know each other?
Flash back to the sweet summer of 1993: Mallory has just inherited a beachfront cottage on Nantucket from her aunt, and she agrees to host her brother’s bachelor party. Cooper’s friend from college, Jake McCloud, attends, and Jake and Mallory form a bond that will persevere—through marriage, children, and Ursula’s stratospheric political rise—until Mallory learns she’s dying.
Based on the classic film Same Time Next Year (which Mallory and Jake watch every summer), 28 Summers explores the agony and romance of a one-weekend-per-year affair and the dramatic ways this relationship complicates and enriches their lives, and the lives of the people they love.”
6. THE LOVE OF MY LIFE: I can’t technically count this as a book I read… because I’m 150 pages into it and giving up. It had such amazing reviews but has just fallen short for me. It falls under the “psychological thriller” genre and there has been nothing thrilling about it yet. Just when I think we’re getting somewhere, we take a few steps back. Not one I would recommend.
“Emma loves her husband Leo and their young daughter Ruby: she’d do anything for them. But almost everything she’s told them about herself is a lie.
And she might just have got away with it, if it weren’t for her husband’s job. Leo is an obituary writer; Emma a well-known marine biologist. When she suffers a serious illness, Leo copes by doing what he knows best – researching and writing about his wife’s life. But as he starts to unravel the truth, he discovers the woman he loves doesn’t really exist. Even her name isn’t real.
When the very darkest moments of Emma’s past finally emerge, she must somehow prove to Leo that she really is the woman he always thought she was . . .
But first, she must tell him about the other love of her life.”
