43. His Nightly Obsession by Sadie King

listened on audible

48 pgs. - short story

2022
Adult
Finished 9/17/2025
Goodreads rating: 3.98
My rating:  1

My comments: Poorly written, stupid.

Goodreads synopsis:  I’m a simple fisherman with a dark secret…

Ever since I saw the curvy, troubled Mira, I knew she needed my protection.
I watch her at night, following her every move.
Her dreams become my dreams. Her burdens become my burdens to dispose of.
I’m a fisherman by day, her caretaker by night.
But she must never know what I’ve done to keep her safe, to protect what’s mine…

42. Rage by Linda Castillo

#17 Kate Burkholder

listened on Libby

304 pgs.

2025
Adult Mystery
Finished 9/15/2025
Goodreads rating:  4.24
My rating: 4
Setting: contemporary Painters Mill, Ohio

Goodreads synopsis: Summer has arrived with a vengeance in Painters Mill, and a macabre discovery by three Amish children brings the quiet to a grinding halt. Chief of Police Kate Burkholder arrives on scene to find the dismembered body of 21-year-old Samuel Eicher, a local Amish man who owned a successful landscaping business. What twisted individual murdered him in such a sadistic way?

The investigation has barely begun when, miles away, a second body is found, stuffed into a barrel and dumped in a ravine. The deceased is 21-year-old Aaron Shetler, Samuel Eicher’s best friend. What could these two young Amish men have done to deserve such violent ends?

With a heat wave bearing down, Kate learns quickly that, for reasons she doesn’t understand, no one is willing to talk about what happened to the men. Just as she begins to fear the case may be hopeless, a mystery woman comes forward and reveals that fun-loving Aaron and Samuel had recently befriended some very unsavory characters―individuals who may have ties to a larger, more sinister, black market.

To solve the case, Kate must delve into the most sordid corners of her community, but when she gets too close, the killers target Kate herself. Will the secrets simmering beneath the surface of Painters Mill take another life before she can expose the truth? Or will Kate be the final victim?

41. The Wedding People by Alison Espach

listened on Libby

367 pgs.

2024
Adult Romance
Finished 9/6/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.08
My rating:   4
Setting:  Contemporary Newport, RI

Goodreads synopsis:  It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She's immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamed of coming for years—she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him, at rock bottom, and determined to have one last decadent splurge on herself. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe and Phoebe's plan—which makes it that much more surprising when the two women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is ultimately an incredibly nuanced and resonant look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined—and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.