All Books Considered

Boots Beneath Her Bed by Taylor Esposito Blurb from Goodreads : A mysterious horse trainer with a dark past ropes the heart of a guarded ranch foreman in this steamy cowboy romance by debut author Taylor Esposito. Grace Underwood has been hiding a dark secret about the night her parents died. Only her tyrannical Uncle Bellamy knows the truth, and he’s been using it against her ever since. He’s been treating her like dirt for a decade, forcing her to work tirelessly on his ranch, but once he crosses the line too many times, Grace finally risks everything to walk away. With nowhere to go, she can’t pass up the horse trainer position that lands in her lap at Halcyon Ranch, one of the biggest ranches in the state­–and her uncle’s most despised competitor. But the foreman, who’s also the owner’s son, isn’t going to make her job easy. Crew Caldwell knows that any association with Bellamy spells bad news, and he’s not about t...

The Scoop by Erin Van Der Meer Blurb from Goodreads : A piercing satire about a journalist working the night shift at a tabloid and the explosive consequences of her “harmless” clickbait.   Washed-up New York journalist Frankie Miller is getting desperate. Since the twenty-nine-year-old lost her dream job at a glossy magazine three months ago, her days have been filled with overdue bills, cereal for dinner, and a flood of rejection emails (not to mention her ex has a new girlfriend). So when she’s offered a job at The Scoop, a tabloid website run by tyrannical editor-in-chief David Brown, she can’t exactly afford to say no—even if it means swallowing her pride for clicks. Besides, for Frankie, it’s just a paycheck, a temporary detour. It’s not forever.   But the deeper she’s pulled into the breakneck world of tabloid journalism, the blurrie...

Mad Mabel by Sally Hepworth,  Narrated by  Hannah Fredericksen and Jenny Seedsman Blurb from Goodreads : There are two kinds of people no one ever expects to be murderers: little girls and old ladies. Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street for sixty years—longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past she's worked exceedingly hard at concealing—because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.   I usually love the twists and turns of a Sally Hepworth but this one just made me so sad.  I will say I was definitely surprised!  But I think ...

Liar's Creek (Clay Hawkins #1) by Matt Goldman; Narrated by Fred Berman Blurb from Goodreads : Riverwood, Minnesota is a scenic town threaded with trout streams carving their way through limestone bluffs. But beneath its picturesque facade, danger runs rampant. Clay Hawkins isn’t a stranger to the secrets of his hometown. After twenty years away, Clay has recently returned home from abroad with his twelve-year-old son, and his relationship with his father, the recently replaced sheriff, is as strained as ever. But when Clay’s beloved uncle disappears, the three generations of Hawkinses must overturn every stone in Riverwood and confront deep familial wounds to find the one person who brings them together. As danger looms, Clay worries that it might be too late to save his uncle—and that the rest of the family might be next.   I enjoyed this a ...

Bumblebee Season by Eileen Garvin Blurb from Goodreads : Beekeeper Jake Stevenson should be celebrating. His fledgling honey farm has been inundated with orders. Instead, Jake is worried. He can’t seem to hire anyone—with local teens more interested in jobs at Hood River’s hip waterfront—and there’s no way he can handle the approaching harvest all by himself, no matter how adept he’s become at maneuvering among the beehives in his wheelchair. Meanwhile Flaco López, a young migrant from Mexico, is lost on Mount Hood when he stumbles upon Jake’s beehives in a high alpine meadow. As Flaco takes refuge on Jake’s farm, they begin to form a tentative friendship. And the two soon cross paths with Abigail Plue, a scientist more interested in insects than people, who’s on Mount Hood studying a threatened native bumblebee. Then a local rabble rouser begins to rally support to build a commercial hunting camp that would destroy M...

Harmless by Miranda Shulman Blurb from Goodreads : A twisty novel of sisterhood, friendship, and obsession that Can we ever really outrun what haunts us most? Two years ago, Bea’s life was upended when her beloved twin sister died. Audrey was captivating, an extrovert, their mother’s golden child. Bea was “different,” too intense, and chronically lonely. Now, in her late twenties, Bea is back home in Park Slope, Brooklyn, her spirits finally buoyed by her plan to start a dog kennel. Inspired by the childhood dream she once shared with Audrey and old, now-estranged friends Tatum and Layla, she’s sure this will be the perfect ode to her sister’s memory. But as they reintegrate into one another’s lives, Audrey’s absence is keenly felt by all. Soon, simmering tensions and attractions emerge, and a sinister darkness breaks through to the surface. What d...

Spies and Other Gods by James Wolff Blurb from Goodreads : The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations. To make matters worse, Parliament's Intelligence and Security Committee - the body that oversees Sir William - has received an anonymous complaint from one of his officers. Sir William dimly recalls accepting that there should be a channel for whistleblowers, but he never expected that they would pick his most sensitive case, one involving an Iranian assassin and a trail of dead bodies, or that the person who turned up to poke their nose into his files should be a lowly parliamentary researcher named Aphra McQueen, who display...

Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History by Caroline Tracey, Narrated by Cassandra Campbell Blurb from Goodreads : More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth's surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse. Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn't know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination. In Salt Lakes, Tracey travels across four continents to seek out and describe these extraordinary vanishing lakes and the people dedicated to saving them. Running parallel to Tracey's environmental journey is an intimate, human her story of fi...

The Insomniacs by Allison Winn Scotch Blurb from Goodreads : The lives of four sleepless strangers intersect late at night as they attempt to solve not just their own anxieties but also the mysterious disappearance of one of their own, from New York Times bestselling author Allison Winn Scotch. In the city that never sleeps, it’s not always easy to share what’s on your mind with the people who know you best. Huddled in an all-night diner over coffee and pancakes, a lonely middle-aged mom, an injured baseball pro, an elusive retiree, and a young waitress examine the thoughts that plague them in the middle of the night. Empty-nester Sybil does what she does rolls up her sleeves and spearheads the efforts to turn this group of strangers into friends. Aimless after an injury threatens to ruin his career, Zeke finds genuine connection among the unlikely gro...