69. Going Zero by Anthony McCarten

listened on Libby

copyright 2023
304 pgs.
Adult mystery/thriller
Finished 9/30/2023
Goodreads rating: 3.90
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Washington, DC and the woods of PA

My comments: After completing this book, I am re-enraged about our government's secret agencies, information, and place in the world.  It's so easy to grow complacent, and I can actually understand why so many people get caught up in the idea of conspiracy theories.  I think I ight have rated this book a five, except the bad guy wins...and the chances of him ever losing are unknow as the last word is read.  Boo hoo hoo, I do like an HEA, and this was definitely not that .... but an interesting read.

Goodreads synopsis:  From four-time Academy Award-nominated screenwriter Anthony McCarten comes a breakneck, wickedly entertaining thriller for our times, a twisty, action-packed novel reminiscent of the best Michael Crichton technothrillers, in which a woman must find a way to elude the most powerful forces of government and high tech.

In the name of national security, the CIA in partnership with Silicon Valley wunderkind Cy Baxter have created the ultimate surveillance program known as FUSION. Ahead of its roll out, ten Americans have been carefully selected to Beta test the groundbreaking system.

At the appointed hour, each of the ten will have two hours to “Go Zero”—to turn their cellphones off, cut ties with friends and family, and use any means possible to disappear. They will then have 30 days to evade detection and elude the highly sophisticated Capture Teams tasked to find them using the most cutting-edge technology. The goal is to see if it is possible to successfully go “off the grid” and escape detection.

The stakes are immense. If FUSION is a success, Cy Baxter will secure a coveted 10-year, $100 billion dollar government contract and access to intelligence resources he truly believes will save lives. For any participant who beats the massive surveillance, it means a $3 million cash prize.

Among the contestants is an unassuming Boston librarian named Kaitlyn Day. She’s been chosen as the gimme, the easy target expected to be found first. But Kaitlyn excels at confounding expectations. Her talents at this particular game are far more effective than all the security experts suspect, and her reasons for playing far more personal than anyone can imagine. . . .

77. Gathering Dark by Candice Fox

listened on Chirp

2020
319 pgs.
Adult Mystery
Finished 12/13/22
Goodreads rating: 3.92
My rating: 4.5/5
Setting: Contemporary LA

My comments: Two points of view:  a female cop who's having a rough time with the rest of the cops in LA and an ex-con, ex-doctor who was convicted as an innocent person.  This book is rift with bad cops, which really, REALLY pissed me off to the point that I had to stop listening once in awhile.  Lots of tarnished characters...which is a great thing.  The plot is complicated and there are points that were really difficult to fathom because of so much ... badness.  But there's also positivity, lots and lots of it, and even humor thrown in.  I loved all the flawed personalities. I loved being kept on my toes throughout the story, and as unbelievable as it seemed in places, I really liked the way it was put together and told.  

Goodreads synopsis:  A convicted killer. A gifted thief. A vicious ganglord. A disillusioned cop. Together they’re a missing girl’s only hope.

Dr. Blair Harbour, once a wealthy, respected pediatric surgeon, is now an ex-con down on her luck. She’s determined to keep her nose clean and win back custody of her son. But when her former cellmate begs for help to find her missing daughter, Blair is compelled to put her new-found freedom on the line.

Detective Jessica Sanchez has always had a difficult relationship with the LAPD. And her inheritance of a multi-million dollar mansion as a reward for catching a killer has just made her police enemy number one.

It’s been ten years since Jessica arrested Blair for cold-blooded murder. So when Jessica opens the door to the disgraced doctor late one night she expects abuse, maybe even violence. What comes next is a plea for help…

74. Things You Save in a Fire by Katherine Center

listened on Audible

2019
320 pgs.
Adult Chicklit
Finished 12/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Rockport, MA

My comments: An almost too-good-to-be-true paramedic/firefighter moves to Rockport, Massachusetts to help her estranged terminally ill mother.  Too-good-to-be-true in that she is stronger, smarter, savvier than all the other (male) firefighters in her department.  At 26 years old she has sworn off love and has never even dated since two things happened on her 16th birthday - her mother abandoned her and she was raped.  But on her first day in her new job in Massachusetts she has partnered with a rookie firefighter who she instantly falls for.  Turned out to be a definite romance novel with a firefighting twist.

Goodreads synopsis:  Cassie Hanwell was born for emergencies. As one of the only female firefighters in her Texas firehouse, she's seen her fair share of them, and she's excellent at dealing with other people's tragedies. But when her estranged and ailing mother asks her to uproot her life and move to Boston, it's an emergency of a kind Cassie never anticipated.

The tough, old-school Boston firehouse is as different from Cassie's old job as it could possibly be. Hazing, a lack of funding, and poor facilities mean that the firemen aren't exactly thrilled to have a "lady" on the crew, even one as competent and smart as Cassie. Except for the handsome rookie, who doesn't seem to mind having Cassie around. But she can't think about that. Because she doesn't fall in love. And because of the advice her old captain gave her: don't date firefighters. Cassie can feel her resolve slipping...but will she jeopardize her place in a career where she's worked so hard to be taken seriously?

Katherine Center's Things You Save in a Fire is a heartfelt, affecting novel about life, love, and the true meaning of courage.

69. The Bookstore Sisters - a short story by Alice Hoffman,

read & listened on Kindle Unlimited/Audible

2022
36 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished  11/23/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.18
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary small island off the Maine coast

My comments: A sweet story that takes place on a small island on the Maine coast.  Two sisters who haven't spoken in over a decade reconcile...slowly....  When their mother died, the youngest, Isabel, totally retreated into herself and left eh older sister, Sophie, to deal with everything on her own.  This included the tiny bookstore that their dad ran after their mom's death.  When Isabel does finally return to the island, she faces her past history and wakes up for the first time since she was 12.

Goodreads synopsis:  From New York Times bestselling author Alice Hoffman comes a heartfelt short story about family, independence, and finding your place in the world.
Isabel Gibson has all but perfected the art of forgetting. She’s a New Yorker now, with nothing left to tie her to Brinkley’s Island, Maine. Her parents are gone, the family bookstore is all but bankrupt, and her sister, Sophie, will probably never speak to her again.

But when a mysterious letter arrives in her mailbox, Isabel feels herself drawn to the past. After years of fighting for her independence, she dreads the thought of going back to the island. What she finds there may forever alter her path—and change everything she thought she knew about her family, her home, and herself.

68. The Chalk Pit (#9 Ruth Galloway) by Elly Griffiths

listened on Audible

2017
374 pgs.
Adult mystery series
Finished 11/22/22
Goodreads rating: 4.14
My rating:  3.5
Setting: Contemporary King's Lynn, England

My comments: So many characters it was hard to keep them straight, but an interesting story about the possibility of (homeless) people living underground.  Somehow, though, much that happened was at least one step away from believability....and it ended with a huge question mark.  Michelle is pregnant.  Ruth and Nelson just happened to fall into bed together once again.  Very little build up for that.  I think too much was left for the imagination in this one, but my fullest attention wasn't on the story.  I kept listening when I got into bed and falling asleep....over and over again.  So this may have impacted some of my enjoyment.

Goodreads synopsis:  Boiled human bones have been found in Norwich's web of underground tunnels. When Dr Ruth Galloway discovers they are recent - the boiling not the medieval curiosity she thought - DCI Nelson has a murder enquiry on his hands.

Meanwhile, DS Judy Johnson is investigating the disappearance of a local rough sleeper. The only trace of her is the rumour that she's gone 'underground'. This might be a figure of speech, but with the discovery of the bones and the rumours both Ruth and the police have heard of a vast network of old chalk-mining tunnels under King's Lynn, home to a vast community of rough sleepers, the clues point in only one direction. Local academic Martin Kellerman knows all about the tunnels and their history - but can his assertions of cannibalism and ritual killing possibly be true?

As the weather gets hotter, tensions rise. A local woman goes missing and the police are under attack. Ruth and Nelson must unravel the dark secrets of The Underground and discover just what gruesome secrets lurk at its heart - before it claims another victim.

60. Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney

listened on Libby

copyright 2021
304pgs.
Adult mystery/thriller
Finished 9/19/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.97
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary Scotland

My comments: This was on of those unusual mysteries thrillers where you really have no clue about what is going on.  That doesn't happen to me very often and I truly enjoyed this.  Set in the middle of newhere in Scotland during a blizzard, a husband and wife stay in an abandoned church that has been converted into a home - like a airb&b experience.  Lots of dark happenings, lots of mystery really well told!

Goodreads synopsis:  Think you know the person you married? Think again…

Things have been wrong with Mr and Mrs Wright for a long time. When Adam and Amelia win a weekend away to Scotland, it might be just what their marriage needs. Self-confessed workaholic and screenwriter Adam Wright has lived with face blindness his whole life. He can’t recognize friends or family, or even his own wife.

Every anniversary the couple exchange traditional gifts – paper, cotton, pottery, tin – and each year Adam’s wife writes him a letter that she never lets him read. Until now. They both know this weekend will make or break their marriage, but they didn’t randomly win this trip. One of them is lying, and someone doesn’t want them to live happily ever after.

Ten years of marriage. Ten years of secrets. And an anniversary they will never forget.

Rock Paper Scissors is the latest exciting domestic thriller from the queen of the killer twist, New York Times bestselling author Alice Feeney.

49. The Hidden One (#14 Kate Burkholder) by Linda Castillo

listened on Audible

2022
320 pgs.
Adult Murder Mystery - Series

Finished 7/12/22
Goodreads rating: 4.35
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Lewistown, PA

My comments: This episode takes Kate to just outside Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where she is investigating a murder charge that has been imposed on her first love/lover.  The story of their encounters when she was 15 and he was 19 are interspersed throughout the story.  The murder was of an 86-year old Bishop who was an over-the-top asshole and as she discovers more and more about him the pieces start fitting together. There were a lot of coincidences ... need to sharpen up the story and make it either more believable or less believable, right now I'm not sure!  Kept my attention, better than some of her previous ones.

Goodreads synopsis:  The discovery of an Amish bishop's remains leads chief of police Kate Burkholder to unearth a chilling secret in The Hidden One, a new thriller from bestselling author Linda Castillo.

Over a decade ago, beloved Amish bishop Ananias Stoltzfus disappeared without a trace. When skeletal remains showing evidence of foul play are unearthed, his disappearance becomes even more sinister.

The town’s elders arrive in Painters Mill to ask chief of police Kate Burkholder for help, but she quickly realizes she has a personal connection to the crime. The handsome Amish man who stands accused of the murder, Jonas Bowman, was Kate’s first love. Forced to confront a painful episode from her past, Kate travels to Pennsylvania’s Kishacoquillas Valley, where the Amish culture differs dramatically from the traditions she knows. Though Bishop Stoltzfus was highly respected, she soon hears about a dark side to this complex man. What was he hiding that resulted in his own brutal death?

Someone doesn’t want Kate asking questions. But even after being accosted and threatened in the dead of night, she refuses to back down. Is she too close to the case―and to Jonas―to see clearly? There’s a killer in the Valley who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. Will they get to Kate before she can expose the truth? Or will the bishop’s secrets remain hidden forever?

47. The Ghost Fields by Elly Griffiths

#7 Ruth Galloway

read on Kindle
2015

370 pgs.
Genre/Level
Finished 7/5/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.09
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Norfolk, England

My comments: Kate is now five years old.  The mystery is interesting, a three generation family, the Blackstocks, that live in a huge old manor, finds one of the first generation's sons shot in the head and buried in an airplane in a place where he did not die.  Outside of the mystery, Michelle spends a good part of the year cheating on Nelson...and Ruth and Frank get together, though Ruth admits she's in love with someone else (Nelson of course)  A good one, though lots of bleakness.

Goodreads synopsis:  The chilling discovery of a downed World War II plane with a body inside leads Ruth and DCI Nelson to uncover a wealthy family’s secrets in the seventh Ruth Galloway mystery.

Norfolk is suffering from record summer heat when a construction crew unearths a macabre discovery—a downed World War II plane with the pilot still inside. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway quickly realizes that the skeleton couldn’t possibly be the pilot, and DNA tests identify the man as Fred Blackstock, a local aristocrat who had been reported dead at sea. When the remaining members of the Blackstock family learn about the discovery, they seem strangely frightened by the news.

Events are further complicated by a TV company that wants to make a film about Norfolk’s deserted air force bases, the so-called Ghost Fields, which have been partially converted into a pig farm run by one of the younger Blackstocks. As production begins, Ruth notices a mysterious man lurking on the outskirts of Fred Blackstock’s memorial service. Then human bones are found on the family’s pig farm. Can the team outrace a looming flood to find a killer?

Laced with dry humor and anchored by perennial fan favorite Ruth, The Ghost Fields will delight fans new and old.

47. The Verifiers by Jane Pek

listened on Libby

First in a new series!

2022
358 pgs.
Adult mystery
Finished 6/21/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.51
My rating: Wish I could remember, but I'm pretty sure I liked it, so I'll give it a four....

My comments: Well.  As I go to write this five months and 40 books later, I discover I never left any notes.  Woe is me!  From CriminalElement blog:  "Claudia Lin was more than happy to leave the stodgy world of corporate finance behind her in order to work at Veracity, a firm that seeks to help the lovelorn verify whether the potential matches they’re talking to online are actually who they say they are. Obsessed with mystery novels since she was a child, Claudia loves the investigative aspects of her new job, where she works in a small office under the supervision of her bosses, Komla Atsina and Becks Rittel."

Goodreads synopsis:  Introducing a sharp-witted heroine for the 21st century: a new amateur sleuth exploring the landscape—both physical and virtual—of New York in a debut novel about love, technology, and murder.

Claudia Lin is used to disregarding her fractious family’s model-minority expectations: she has no interest in finding either a conventional career or a nice Chinese boy. She’s also used to keeping secrets from them, such as that she prefers girls—and that she's just been stealth-recruited by Veracity, a referrals-only online-dating detective agency.

A lifelong mystery reader who wrote her senior thesis on Jane Austen, Claudia believes she's landed her ideal job. But when a client goes missing, Claudia breaks protocol to investigate—and uncovers a maelstrom of personal and corporate deceit. Part literary mystery, part family story, The Verifiers is a clever and incisive examination of how technology shapes our choices, and the nature of romantic love in the digital age.

42. Kismet by Lauren Blakely

2022

251 pgs.
Adult romance
Finished 5/27/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.60
My rating: 3
Setting: contemporary London

My comments: Unusual in that about 2/3 of the way through the book there s no heartbreaking secret that is finally exposed to the other half of the romantic couple!  There is nervous anticipation about what is going to happen about the two protagonists being up for the same job, but you never have any kind of nervousness about it because you know it will all be solved.  So, no strife, visiting places in London...quite a bit of steam, way too repetititive.....but a very non-angsty feel good novel.

Goodreads synopsis:  My first evening in London feels like kismet when I bump into a charming, book-loving Englishman, and by the end of the night, he’s making me see stars. I’m floating when we make plans to meet again.

Then fate decides to pull a fast one on me.

Turns out my smoldering new lover is my red-hot competition, and we’re vying for the same promotion at the elite auction house I crossed an ocean for.

If that’s not enough, the hottie and I are forced to work together on a brand new collection.
Every. Single. Tempting. Day.

What's an American woman in London to do?

Staying far, far away would be the safe choice, especially when I learn about his past and how it mirrors mine.

But I don’t always play it safe with my heart…

Contents Include: A grumpy/sunshine office romance, secret gardens, knee-weakening kisses by the river and a hero who loves books.

36. Thornyhold by Mary Stewart

read on Kindle

1988
207 pgs.
Adult Historical Fiction
Finished 5/1/2022
Goodreads rating: 3.83
My rating: 5
Setting: southern England

My comments: I’m sure I read this book years and years ago when I first got married… I read a lot of Mary Stewart that I found at the Northeast Harbor Library, where I hung out while Steve was at basic training. However, since this one was written in 1988 and Steve's basic training was in 1971, I must be wrong.  I did read lots of Mary Stewart's back then, though!

     I decided to read this book instead of listen to it. So I was able to digest it a little more slowly, and I completely enjoyed it. The Gothic feel of it, the witchiness, the description of cleaning out an old, isolated house in southern England… it’s flowers and brambles and old gardens. … with a thoroughly lovely, satisfying ending!

Goodreads synopsis:  The story is about a lonely child who is made to see the world through her cousin's unusual eyes. When the child becomes a young woman, she inherits her dead cousin's house, as well as her reputation among the local community as a witch. However, as she finds out, this is no normal community, and worries quickly present themselves.

35. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone St. James

listened on Libby - borrowed from the library

2022
344 pgs.
Mystery/Thriller - with ghosts
Finished 4/26/22
Goodreads rating: 3.94
My rating: 3
Setting: 1970's and contemporary Oregon

My comments: Two great female narrators, loved listening to them.  A ghost story, with everything based in reality except for one particular protagonist who is a dad, hateful ghost.  It didn't work for me, not at all.  Although I may remember this book in the future, it won't go down as a favorite.

Goodreads synopsis:  In 1977, Claire Lake, Oregon, was shaken by the Lady Killer Murders: Two men, seemingly randomly, were murdered with the same gun, with strange notes left behind. Beth Greer was the perfect suspect--a rich, eccentric twenty-three-year-old woman, seen fleeing one of the crimes. But she was acquitted, and she retreated to the isolation of her mansion.

Oregon, 2017. Shea Collins is a receptionist, but by night, she runs a true crime website, the Book of Cold Cases--a passion fueled by the attempted abduction she escaped as a child. When she meets Beth by chance, Shea asks her for an interview. To Shea's surprise, Beth says yes.

They meet regularly at Beth's mansion, though Shea is never comfortable there. Items move when she's not looking, and she could swear she's seen a girl outside the window. The allure of learning the truth about the case from the smart, charming Beth is too much to resist, but even as they grow closer, Shea senses something isn't right. Is she making friends with a manipulative murderer, or are there other dangers lurking in the darkness of the Greer house?

A true crime blogger gets more than she bargained for while interviewing the woman acquitted of two cold case slayings in this chilling new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Sun Down Motel.

33. Sea of Tranquility - Emily St. John Mandel

listened on Libby, borrowed from library.

2022
225 pgs.
Genre/Level
Finished 4/20/22
Goodreads rating: 
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Although it keeps going back to Vancouver Island, it takes place all over the world

My comments: What a fascinating story.  I bet I'll be thinking about this one for awhile.  Time travel, interesting characters, and pondering about what "anomaly" means.  Excellent science fiction.  The only thing I would've changed were some of the readers, although they read excellently, for some of them their voices were disconcertingly older that I felt they should be.

Goodreads synopsis:  The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon three hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.

Edwin St. Andrew is eighteen years old when he crosses the Atlantic by steamship, exiled from polite society following an ill-conceived diatribe at a dinner party. He enters the forest, spellbound by the beauty of the Canadian wilderness, and suddenly hears the notes of a violin echoing in an airship terminal--an experience that shocks him to his core.

Two centuries later a famous writer named Olive Llewellyn is on a book tour. She's traveling all over Earth, but her home is the second moon colony, a place of white stone, spired towers, and artificial beauty. Within the text of Olive's bestselling pandemic novel lies a strange passage: a man plays his violin for change in the echoing corridor of an airship terminal as the trees of a forest rise around him.

When Gaspery-Jacques Roberts, a detective in the Night City, is hired to investigate an anomaly in the North American wilderness, he uncovers a series of lives upended: The exiled son of an earl driven to madness, a writer trapped far from home as a pandemic ravages Earth, and a childhood friend from the Night City who, like Gaspery himself, has glimpsed the chance to do something extraordinary that will disrupt the timeline of the universe.

A virtuoso performance that is as human and tender as it is intellectually playful, Sea of Tranquility is a novel of time travel and metaphysics that precisely captures the reality of our current moment.

28. Serpent & Dove by Shelby Mahurin

#1 Serpent & Dove

started on Kindle, ended on Audible

2019
513 pgs.
Ya Fantasy series
Finished 4/3/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.02
My rating: 5

My comments:  A witch and a witch hunter.  Never a dull moment, with a huge cliffhanger ending.  The love story between Reid and Lou is a clever one, laced with humor, magic, "the church", and machismo.  I did love this story.  Not even a hint of boring!

Goodreads synopsis:  Bound as one to love, honor, or burn.

          Two years ago, Louise le Blanc fled her coven and took shelter in the city of Cesarine, forsaking all magic and living off whatever she could steal. There, witches like Lou are hunted. They are feared. And they are burned.

          Sworn to the Church as a Chasseur, Reid Diggory has lived his life by one principle: thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. His path was never meant to cross with Lou's, but a wicked stunt forces them into an impossible union—holy matrimony.

          The war between witches and Church is an ancient one, and Lou's most dangerous enemies bring a fate worse than fire. Unable to ignore her growing feelings, yet powerless to change what she is, a choice must be made.
          And love makes fools of us all.

21. The Trapped Girl by Robert Dugoni

#4 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

2017
424 pgs.
Adult murder mystery, police procedural
Finished 3/14/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.38
My rating: 4.5
Setting:  Contemporary Seattle & other parts of Washington state

My comments: A woman's body is found in a crab pot in Puget Sound, off Seattle, and has jurisdiction flip flopping back and forth, with Tracy never fully giving up looking for answers...   An excellently plotted mystery that keeps you guessing and figuring things out along with Tracy.  Dugoni is great with creating his characters, setting, and plot....liked this one a whole lot.  (Tracy ends up getting married to Dan at the very end so it's going to be interesting to see how that changes things.)

Goodreads synopsis:   When a woman’s body is discovered submerged in a crab pot in the chilly waters of Puget Sound, Detective Tracy Crosswhite finds herself with a tough case to untangle. Before they can identify the killer, Tracy and her colleagues on the Seattle PD’s Violent Crimes Section must figure out who the victim is. Her autopsy, however, reveals she may have gone to great lengths to conceal her identity. So who was she running from?

After evidence surfaces that their Jane Doe may be a woman who suspiciously disappeared months earlier, Tracy is once again haunted by the memory of her sister’s unsolved murder. Dredging up details from the woman’s past leads to conflicting clues that only seem to muddy the investigation. As Tracy begins to uncover a twisted tale of brutal betrayal and desperate greed, she’ll find herself risking everything to confront a killer who won’t go down without a deadly fight. Once again, New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni delivers a taut, riveting thriller in the fourth installment of his acclaimed Tracy Crosswhite series.

17. The Deepest of Secrets (#7 Rockton) by Kelley Armstrong

listened on Audible

2022

352 pgs.
Adult mystery series
Finished 2/21/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.16
My rating: 3.5 
Setting: Willywacks of Canadian wilderness - contemporary

My comments:  Probably the last of the Rockton saga, although I would love to watch them rebuild.  Wishful thinking??  It HAS stopped in a good place.  Not particularly thrilled with the plot of this final episode, it's a little weak IMO, but it did pull everything together well.  I wish Eric and Casey well in all their future endeavors!3.5 

Goodreads synopsis:  It’s not always easy to live in the hidden town of Rockton, something Detective Casey Duncan knows firsthand. Tucked away in the Yukon wilderness, the community survives—and thrives—because the residents' many secrets stay just that—secret.

But what happens when these secrets start to come out? Overnight, no one is safe. It’s not a question of if your secret will come out—but when.

Casey and her boyfriend, Sheriff Eric Dalton, need to find the culprit while protecting those who have been thrust into the spotlight. For a place built on privacy and new beginnings, Rockton isn’t handling these revelations very well. People are turning on one another, and when one of the loudest complainers turns up barely alive, it's clear that their trickster is actually a murderer.

The threat of exposure is reaching its breaking point, and no one knows what’s going to happen next.

10. The Last Cuentista by Donna Barba Higuera

2022 Newbery Award Winner

listened on Audible (used a credit for it)

2021

336 pgs.
Mid Grade SciFi
Finished 1/30/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.30
My rating: 4ish
Setting: 2060 New Mexico and 2400 Planet in another galaxy

My comments: This book was awarded the Newbery Medal last Monday, which sent me in a tailspin to obtain an audio reading asap.  It was read beautifully.  The cover is gorgeous. And it was an absolutely interesting piece of storytelling.  I'm not a big fan of folk/mythology/storytelling, and there were lots of places in the book where very important stories were told, stories that needed to be listened to in order to understand messages from Petra's grandmother, and then from herself.  I had to force myself to pay attention to these parts.  There seemed to me lots of repetitive places, and sometimes the story seemed to drag a bit. Creepy in places, sad in places, clever and adventurous in others.  Some of the pondering seemed more adult than child-centered. Lots to think about.  Good story, but I wouldn't have chosen it for a Newbery....but I never really like/agree with the Newbery choices, so ....

Goodreads synopsis:  There lived a girl named Petra Peña, who wanted nothing more than to be a storyteller, like her abuelita.

But Petra's world is ending. Earth has been destroyed by a comet, and only a few hundred scientists and their children – among them Petra and her family – have been chosen to journey to a new planet. They are the ones who must carry on the human race.

Hundreds of years later, Petra wakes to this new planet – and the discovery that she is the only person who remembers Earth. A sinister Collective has taken over the ship during its journey, bent on erasing the sins of humanity's past. They have systematically purged the memories of all aboard – or purged them altogether.

Petra alone now carries the stories of our past, and with them, any hope for our future. Can she make them live again?

9. Love and Other Words by Christina Lauren

listened on Libby, borrowed from library

2018
432 pgs.
Chick-Lit Romance
Finished 1/29/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.33
My rating: 5
Setting: Contemporary San Francisco, Berkeley, and Healdsburg, California

My comments: The setting was awesome, I knew everything they were talking about and could see it in my mind's eye.  Christina Lauren's storytelling gets better and better.  Not just the plot, but the way she weaves words together seems unusual for this sort of "chick-lit romance."  Bringing two time periods, 12 to 15 years apart, together, was done smoothly and deftly.  In the "then," two young people care intensely about each other, not pushing each other physically, but being able to talk about most everything without embarrassment.  And two 29-year olds in the "now," trying to make their way towards each other knowing that the caring is still as strong as it ever was.  This is a wonderful story, a true love story, as unbelievable as that might be!

Goodreads synopsis:  The story of the heart can never be unwritten.

Macy Sorensen is settling into an ambitious if emotionally tepid routine: work hard as a new pediatrics resident, plan her wedding to an older, financially secure man, keep her head down and heart tucked away.

But when she runs into Elliot Petropoulos—the first and only love of her life—the careful bubble she’s constructed begins to dissolve. Once upon a time, Elliot was Macy’s entire world—growing from her gangly bookish friend into the man who coaxed her heart open again after the loss of her mother...only to break it on the very night he declared his love for her.

Told in alternating timelines between Then and Now, teenage Elliot and Macy grow from friends to much more—spending weekends and lazy summers together in a house outside of San Francisco devouring books, sharing favorite words, and talking through their growing pains and triumphs. As adults, they have become strangers to one another until their chance reunion. Although their memories are obscured by the agony of what happened that night so many years ago, Elliot will come to understand the truth behind Macy’s decade-long silence, and will have to overcome the past and himself to revive her faith in the possibility of an all-consuming love.

8. Alone by Megan E. Freeman

Read on Kindle - it was in verse 

2021

404 pgs.
Middle grades/survival CRF
Finished 1/28/2022
Goodreads rating: 4.20
My rating: 5
Setting: contemporary-ish small town Colorado

My comments: A beautifully written novel in verse  Gorgeous words.  And an incredible story. I so wish there had been an additional five pages so that we could hear what had happened to her parents for the past three years.  Three years all alone in a deserted and abandoned Colorado town...at 12 years old, trusting yourself to figure out how to survive!  Wow!  I can't imagine kids not enjoying this, and I can't wait to begin reading it aloud to my fifth graders.

Goodreads synopsis:  When twelve-year-old Maddie hatches a scheme for a secret sleepover with her two best friends, she ends up waking up to a nightmare. She’s alone—left behind in a town that has been mysteriously evacuated and abandoned.

With no one to rely on, no power, and no working phone lines or internet access, Maddie slowly learns to survive on her own. Her only companions are a Rottweiler named George and all the books she can read. After a rough start, Maddie learns to trust her own ingenuity and invents clever ways to survive in a place that has been deserted and forgotten.

As months pass, she escapes natural disasters, looters, and wild animals. But Maddie’s most formidable enemy is the crushing loneliness she faces every day. Can Maddie’s stubborn will to survive carry her through the most frightening experience of her life?

7. The Loot by Craig Schaefer

#1 Charlie McCabe

listened on Audible

2019
329 pgs.
Adult Mystery Series
Finished 1/26/22
Goodreads rating: 4.08
My rating: 4
Setting: Contemporary Boston & suburbs

My comments: A female explosives expert returns from eight years duty in Afghanistan and joins a private security company.  Of course, her trial and first experience with the company has her (successfully) dealing with a bomb. There are lots and lots of ludicrous, longshot kind of figuring-out-clues that would never happen  Oh well.  It was fast paced and interesting, and somewhat believable.  Yes, I'd read more of these, I liked the main characters.

Goodreads synopsis:  She fought for her country. Now she’s fighting for her family.

When Sergeant Charlie McCabe returns from fighting in Afghanistan, she hopes to leave the war behind. Instead, she comes home to a father whose gambling has put him in deep trouble with a violent loan shark. She finds work as a professional bodyguard, but to save her father, she needs to get serious cash together fast.

However, her father isn’t the only one who needs saving. When Charlie’s first client—a wealthy executive with a shady past—narrowly escapes a bomb plot, Charlie’s investigation leads her into the heart of Boston’s criminal underworld. Along the way, she stumbles upon clues about a diamond heist gone wrong that’s been unsolved for decades.

With the clock ticking and chaos descending, Charlie sees a solution to both problems, but it won’t be easy, and it won’t be pretty. A “normal” life may await Charlie on the other side of this mess, but part of her knows that the battle has just begun.