All Books Considered

The Animators by Kayla Rae Whitaker Blurb from Goodreads : She was the first person to see me as I had always wanted to be seen. It was enough to indebt me to her forever.  At a private East Coast college, two young women meet in art class. Sharon Kisses, quietly ambitious but self-doubting, arrives from rural Kentucky. Mel Vaught, brash, unapologetic, wildly gifted, brings her own brand of hellfire from the backwaters of Florida. Both outsiders, Sharon and Mel become fervent friends, bonding over underground comics and dysfunctional families. Working, absorbing, drinking. Drawing: Mel, to understand her own tumultuous past, and Sharon, to lose herself altogether.   A decade later, Sharon and Mel are an award-winning animation duo, and with the release of their first full-length feature, a fearless look at Mel's childhood, they stand at the cusp of success. But while on tour to p...

The Signal Flame by Andrew Krivak Blurb from Goodreads : In a small town in Pennsylvania’s Endless Mountains Hannah and her son Bo mourn the loss of the family patriarch, Jozef Vinich. They were three generations under one roof. Three generations, but only one branch of a scraggy tree; they are a war-haunted family in a war-torn century. Having survived the trenches of World War I as an Austro-Hungarian conscript, Vinich journeyed to America and built a life for his family. His daughter married the Hungarian-born Bexhet Konar, who enlisted to fight with the Americans in the Second World War but brought disgrace on the family when he was imprisoned for desertion. He returned home to Pennsylvania a hollow man, only to be killed in a hunting accident on the family’s land. Finally, in 1971, Hannah’s prodigal younger son, Sam, was reported MIA in Vietnam. And so there is only Bo, a quiet man full of convict...

The Dry by Jane Harper Blurb from Goodreads : Luke Hadler turns a gun on his wife and child, then himself. The farming community of Kiewarra is facing life and death choices daily. If one of their own broke under the strain, well... When Federal Police investigator Aaron Falk returns to Kiewarra for the funerals, he is loath to confront the people who rejected him twenty years earlier. But when his investigative skills are called on, the facts of the Hadler case start to make him doubt this murder-suicide charge. And as Falk probes deeper into the killings, old wounds start bleeding into fresh ones. For Falk and his childhood friend Luke shared a secret... A secret Falk thought long-buried... A secret which Luke's death starts to bring to the surface... My Review:   I read this during an epic rain storm and subsequent flood and even with this interesting dichotomy, I could feel th...

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth  by Lindsey Lee Johnson Blurb from Goodreads : In an idyllic community of wealthy California families, new teacher Molly Nicoll becomes intrigued by the hidden lives of her privileged students. Unknown to Molly, a middle school tragedy in which they were all complicit continues to reverberate for her kids: Nick, the brilliant scam artist; Emma, the gifted dancer and party girl; Dave, the B student who strives to meet his parents expectations; Calista, the hippie outcast who hides her intelligence for reasons of her own. Theirs is a world in which every action may become public postable, shareable, indelible.  With the rare talent that transforms teenage dramas into compelling and urgent fiction, Lindsey Lee Johnson makes vivid a modern adolescence lived in the gleam of the virtual, but rich with the sorrow, passion, and beauty of life in any time, and at a...

WICKED COWBOY CHARM by Carolyn Brown Lucky Penny Ranch #4 On Sale: January 31, 2017 Add to Goodreads ONE BLIZZARD, ONE BUNKHOUSE, AND A WHOLE LOTTA TROUBLE . . . Josie Dawson is new in town, but it doesn't take a local to know that Deke Sullivan is trouble—in a smokin' hot package. He's sweet, sexy, and has charmed just about every woman in Dry Creek, Texas. Well, Josie won't be next. She'll keep her distance, even if he is great with babies and makes a mean cup of homemade hot chocolate. Deke Sullivan really is a one-woman type of guy. He just had to do a lot of looking to find that one woman. Now he thinks he's found her and he won't let a strong, sassy gal like Josie slip away. Just when he's wondering how to convince her he only has eyes for her, they get stranded in a tiny cabin during a major blizzard. If Deke can melt her heart before they dig out of the snow, he'll be the luckiest cowboy in Texas . . . EXCERPT: Josie...

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson Blurb from Goodreads : Growing up, Kate Priddy was always a bit neurotic, experiencing momentary bouts of anxiety that exploded into full-blown panic attacks after an ex-boyfriend kidnapped her and nearly ended her life. When Corbin Dell, a distant cousin in Boston, suggests the two temporarily swap apartments, Kate, an art student in London, agrees, hoping that time away in a new place will help her overcome the recent wreckage of her life. Soon after her arrival at Corbin’s grand apartment on Beacon Hill, Kate makes a shocking discovery: his next-door neighbor, a young woman named Audrey Marshall, has been murdered. When the police question her about Corbin, a shaken Kate has few answers, and many questions of her own—curiosity that intensifies when she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard, in the apartment facing Audrey’s. Alan saw...

  "Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine , that spotlights upcoming releases that you are eagerly anticipating. Today, I am waiting on:   We Shall Not All Sleep by Estep Nagy From Goodreads : The entangled pasts of two ruling class New England families come to light over three summer days on an island in Maine in this extraordinary debut novel. 1964. The Hillsingers and the Quicks have shared the small Maine island of Seven for generations. Though technically family—Jim Hillsinger and Billy Quick married Park Avenue sisters Lila and Hannah Blackwell—they do not mix. Now, on the anniversary of Hannah’s death, Lila feels grief pulling her toward Billy. Jim, a spy recently ousted from the CIA, decides to carry out the threat Lila explicitly forbid: to banish their youngest son, twelve-year-old Catta, to the neighboring island of Baffin for twenty-four hours in an attempt to make a man out of him. Set during three summer ...

The Chocolate Cure (Love at the Chocolate Shop #4) by Roxanne Snopek Blurb from Goodreads : No more chocolate! No more meddling! No more men! New Year’s resolutions are great. Announcing them in a crowded bar, with a chocolate martini in her hand? Not Maddie Cash’s finest moment. It’s time this new realtor got serious about her life and this time, she means it. But when hospital volunteering lands her at the bedside of bruised and battered Mick Meyer, who has no knowledge of Maddie’s reputation – and no memory of the kiss he begged from her during that long, pain-filled night, her best-laid plans are put in jeopardy. It’s not just his sweet tooth that’s tempting her. The hunky bush pilot with the concussion has an old family property to unload. Making this sale could be Maddie’s professional salvation. But when Mick turns on the charm, she’s in danger of forgetting all her best intentions… on chocola...

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia Blurb from Goodreads : Full of twists and turns, Everything You Want Me to Be reconstructs a year in the life of a dangerously mesmerizing young woman, during which a small town’s darkest secrets come to the forefront...and she inches closer and closer to her death. High school senior Hattie Hoffman has spent her whole life playing many parts: the good student, the good daughter, the good citizen. When she’s found brutally stabbed to death on the opening night of her high school play, the tragedy rips through the fabric of her small town community. Local sheriff Del Goodman, a family friend of the Hoffmans, vows to find her killer, but trying to solve her murder yields more questions than answers. It seems that Hattie’s acting talents ran far beyond the stage. Told from three points of view—Del, Hattie, and the new English teacher whose marriage is crumbling—Everythi...

2016 End of Year Book Survey: (hosted by Jamie @ The Perpetual Pageturner ) Number of books I read:  232. Number of re-reads:  29. Genre I read the most from: Contemporary adult. Best Book I read in 2016?  See my lists  HERE  (YA) and HERE  (Adult)  and   HERE  (Debuts) tl; dr:   Dear Fang, With Love The Raven King Every Exquisite Thing   The Underground Railroad Book you were excited and thought you were gonna love more but didn’t? Eligible :(  I love CS and Jane Austen but this was not a good fit Most surprising (in a good or bad way) book you read in 2016? Undecided and The Hating Game - I was leery to read both and they ended up to be some of my favorites of the year! Book you pushed people to read? Undecided   and   Every Exquisite Thing Best series you started in 2016? Best Sequel of 2016? Best Series Ender of 2016? Best series I started this year: IQ ...