36. Black Woods Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey

listened on Libby

306 pgs. (11:34)

Adult Magical Realism/ Dark Fairy Tale
Finished 77/23/25
Goodreads rating: 3.71
My rating: 4
Setting: Small Town Alaska - in the woodsy mountains

My comments: Oh my, what a story.  It was fairly slow-paced, which for once didn't really bother me, and I guess I'd consider it a realistic dark fairy tale.  Someone called it haunting.  Oh yes.  And tragic.  Sad.  Mesmerizing.  Long-winded in places....and touching. Told in three voices:  Birdie, the mother; Amaleen, her daughter; and Arthur's father.  Most of the story focuses around Arthur.  And although I wasn't too fond of listening to the endless ramblings of six-year-old Amaleen, I realized by the end how important her voice is to the story.

Goodreads synopsis:  An unforgettable dark fairy tale that asks, Can love save us from ourselves?

Birdie’s keeping it together; of course she is. So she’s a little hungover sometimes, and she has to bring her daughter, Emaleen, to her job waiting tables at an Alaskan roadside lodge, but she’s getting by as a single mother in a tough town. Still, Birdie can remember happier times from her youth, when she was free in the wilds of nature.

Arthur Neilsen, a soft-spoken and scarred recluse who appears in town only at the change of seasons, brings Emaleen back to safety when she gets lost in the woods. Most people avoid him, but to Birdie he represents everything she’s ever longed for. She finds herself falling for Arthur and the land he knows so well. Against the warnings of those who care about them, Birdie and Emaleen move to his isolated cabin in the mountains on the far side of the Wolverine River.

It’s just the three of them in the vast black woods, far from roads, telephones, electricity, and outside contact, but Birdie believes she has come prepared. At first, it’s idyllic, but soon Birdie discovers that Arthur is something much more mysterious and dangerous than she could have imagined, and that like the Alaska wilderness, a fairy tale can be as dark as it is beautiful.

35. The Love Haters by Katherine Center

listened on Libby (TPPL)

320 pgs.

2025
Adult CRF/Romance - Chick Lit
Finished 7/22/25
Goodreads rating: 3.85
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Key West, Florida

My comments: 4.5  This is a just-plain-feel-good book.  You KNOW that all the bad stuff that happens will end up okay, and there's so much humor, even in the serious places, that you're chuckling the whole way through.  You have to let go of some of the feelings of disbelief (would this really ever happen?) as well as a little of the protagonist's SEL ramblings (which are explained really nicely by the author in the afterword of the book).  I loved Frank Bailey, 170-pound Great Dane extraordinaire, which is saying a lot because I'd never be considered a "dog person."

Goodreads synopsis:  It’s a thin line between love and love-hating.

Katie Vaughn has been burned by love in the past—now she may be lighting her career on fire. She has two choices: wait to get laid off from her job as a video producer or, at her coworker Cole’s request, take a career-making gig profiling Tom “Hutch” Hutcheson, a Coast Guard rescue swimmer in Key West.

The catch? Katie’s not exactly qualified. She can’t swim—but fakes it that she can.

Plus: Cole is Hutch’s brother. And they don’t get along. Next stop paradise!

But paradise is messier than it seems. As Katie gets entangled with Hutch (the most scientifically good looking man she has ever seen . . . but also a bit of a love hater), along with his colorful Aunt Rue and his rescue Great Dane, she gets trapped in a lie. Or two.

Swim lessons, helicopter flights, conga lines, drinking contests, hurricanes, and stolen kisses ensue—along with chances to tell the truth, to face old fears, and to be truly brave at last.

34. A Cold Trail by Robert Dugoni

#7 Tracy Crosswhite

listened on Audible

355 pgs.

2020
Adult mystery/police procedural
Finished 7/21/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.37
My rating: 4.25
Setting: contemporary Cedar Grove, WA

My comments:  In this, the 7th in a series, Dugoni changes up the setting a bit (back to Tracy's hometown) and gives us yet another solid mystery.  With her 2-month old daughter, almost-too-perfect husband, a new Irish nanny, and visits from her Seattle partner, Tracy solves a cold-case murder that's bothered her for over 20 years.

Goodreads synopsis:  “Tracy Crosswhite is one of the best protagonists in the realm of crime fiction today, and there is nothing cold about A Cold Trail.” —Associated Press

In New York Times bestselling author Robert Dugoni’s riveting series, Seattle homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite returns home to a brutal murder and her haunted past.

The last time homicide detective Tracy Crosswhite was in Cedar Grove, it was to see her sister’s killer put behind bars. Now she’s returned for a respite and the chance to put her life back in order for herself, her attorney husband, Dan, and their new daughter. But tragic memories soon prove impossible to escape.

Dan is drawn into representing a local merchant whose business is jeopardized by the town’s revitalization. And Tracy is urged by the local PD to put her own skills to work on a new the brutal murder of a police officer’s wife and local reporter who was investigating a cold-case slaying of a young woman. As Tracy’s and Dan’s cases crisscross, Tracy’s trail becomes dangerous. It’s stirring up her own haunted past and a decades-old conspiracy in Cedar Grove that has erupted in murder. Getting to the truth is all that matters. But what’s Tracy willing to risk as a killer gets closer to her and threatens everyone she loves?

33. Nightshade by Michael Connelly

#1 Det. Stilwel, Catalina Island, CA

listened on Libby

345 pgs.

2025
Adult Murder Mystery
Finished 7/14/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.16
My rating: 4.5
Setting: Contemporary Catalina Island, California

My comments: A new character and a new setting for Michael Connelly!  "Stil" is a detective on Catalina Island, which looks like its main offices are in Long Beach (not LA).  He's been sent there for unwarranted reasons, all the cops they want to "get rid of" are sent there.  He's got a girlfriend and has come to very much like living and working on the island.  Then all sorts of you-know-what hits the fan.  Robberies, beheadings of protected wildlife, murder....and more.  A HUGE variety of partially related problems that keep him on his toes.  He's smart and he's good at what he does, although he's pretty abrasive.  I'm not sure if I 100% like him, so I'm looking forward (already!) to the next in the series so I can form a better opinion.

Goodreads synopsis:  #1 New York Times bestselling author Michael Connelly introduces a new cop relentlessly following his mission in the seemingly idyllic setting of Catalina island.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Stilwell has been “exiled” to a low-key post policing rustic Catalina Island, after department politics drove him off a homicide desk on the mainland. But while following up the usual drunk-and-disorderlies and petty thefts that come with his new territory, Detective Stilwell gets a report of a body found weighed down at the bottom of the harbor—a Jane Doe identifiable at first only by a streak of purple dye in her hair. At the same time, a report of poaching on a protected reserve turns into a case fraught with violence and danger as Stilwell digs into the shady past of an island bigwig.

Crossing all lines of protocol and jurisdiction, Stilwell doggedly works both cases. Though hampered by an old beef with an ex-colleague determined to thwart him at every turn, he is convinced he is the only one who can bring justice to the woman known as “Nightshade.” Soon, his investigation uncovers closely guarded secrets and a dark heart to the serene island that was meant to be his escape from the evils of the big city.

32. The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young

listened on Libby

320 pgs. (10:08)

Beautifully narrated by Brittany Pressley

2023
Adult Fantasy 
Finished 7/11/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.13
My rating: 5
Setting: Jasper, North Carolina (an author-created town in the mountains of West NC) in 2022 and 1950.

My comments: This was such a compelling book!  A beautifully written story that could have been incredibly complicated, but it was woven so well that it wasn't at all. (This sort of story usually has me confused, but not this one!)  June Farrow's life....and plight....and mysteries swallowed me up completely. I look forward to seeing if there are other books by Adrienne Young that I've missed out on.  Highly recommended.

Goodreads synopsis:  In the small mountain town of Jasper, North Carolina, June Farrow is waiting for fate to find her. The Farrow women are known for their thriving flower farm—and the mysterious curse that has plagued their family line. The whole town remembers the madness that led to Susanna Farrow’s disappearance, leaving June to be raised by her grandmother and haunted by rumors.

It’s been a year since June started seeing and hearing things that weren’t there. Faint wind chimes, a voice calling her name, and a mysterious door appearing out of nowhere—the signs of what June always knew was coming. But June is determined to end the curse once and for all, even if she must sacrifice finding love and having a family of her own.

After her grandmother’s death, June discovers a series of cryptic clues regarding her mother’s decades-old disappearance, except they only lead to more questions. But could the door she once assumed was a hallucination be the answer she’s been searching for? The next time it appears, June realizes she can touch it and walk past the threshold. And when she does, she embarks on a journey that will not only change both the past and the future, but also uncover the lingering mysteries of her small town and entangle her heart in an epic star-crossed love.  

With The Unmaking of June Farrow, Adrienne Young delivers a brilliant novel of romance, mystery, and a touch of the impossible—a story you will never forget.

30. The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali

listened on Libby

327 pgs.

2024
Adult Hist Fiction
Finished 7/2/2025
Goodreads rating: 4.49
My rating: 5
Setting: Set mostly in Tehran, moving from the 1950s forward to contemporary America, but most was in Tehran.

My comments: What a wonderful read...full of history that I can remember, relationships, feminism, family, striving for a quality life, and so many of the past and current tensions/frustrations in our world.  Beautifully written....such a great story!

Goodreads synopsis:  An “evocative read and a powerful portrait of friendship, feminism, and political activism” (People) set against three transformative decades in Tehran, Iran—from nationally bestselling author Marjan Kamali.

In 1950s Tehran, seven-year-old Ellie lives in grand comfort until the untimely death of her father, forcing Ellie and her mother to move to a tiny home downtown. Lonely and bearing the brunt of her mother’s endless grievances, Ellie dreams for a friend to alleviate her isolation.

Luckily, on the first day of school, she meets Homa, a kind girl with a brave and irrepressible spirit. Together, the two girls play games, learn to cook in the stone kitchen of Homa’s warm home, wander through the colorful stalls of the Grand Bazaar, and share their ambitions of becoming “lion women.”

But their happiness is disrupted when Ellie and her mother are afforded the opportunity to return to their previous bourgeois life. Now a popular student at the best girls’ high school in Iran, Ellie’s memories of Homa begin to fade. Years later, however, her sudden reappearance in Ellie’s privileged world alters the course of both of their lives.

Together, the two young women come of age and pursue their own goals for meaningful futures. But as the political turmoil in Iran builds to a breaking point, one earth-shattering betrayal will have enormous consequences.

“Reminiscent of The Kite Runner and My Brilliant Friend, The Lion Women of Tehran is a mesmerizing tale” (BookPage) of love and courage, and a sweeping exploration of how profoundly we are shaped by those we meet when we are young.