This year, I’m setting a goal to read/listen to 50 books. If the rest of the year is anything like January, I’m sure I’ll get there in no time!
A Season for Second Chances by Jenny Bayliss • ★★★☆☆
Last year, I listened to Jenny Bayliss’s The Twelve Dates of Christmas. It was seasonal rom-com perfection. Her second book didn’t capture the seasonal magic the same way but was still a good read.
After all, who doesn’t want to imagine escaping to the English seaside to start a book club, open a cafe and become a beloved part of the community? Because that’s what happens here and I really enjoyed it. Maybe I should bump it up to four stars?
The House of Whispers by Laura Purcell • ★★★☆☆
Every time I open a Laura Purcell book, I know it’s going to be a good time. The atmosphere is going to be ominous, the characters strange and something slightly paranormal or otherworldly imbues the whole thing. It’s terrific.
This one seemed to miss a few tricks when it came to really creeping me out, but was still a fast read.
The Quickening by Rhiannon Ward • ★★★☆☆
This book has all the basics of a satisfying read. An old estate in the English countryside going to run, a photographer, ghosts and secrets.
In The Quickening, Louisa gets invited to some Downton Abbey-esque home to photograph it for auction. While she’s there, the owners are planning a seance to replicate a seriously eerie one that was held there years ago.
Spooky stuff happens. It was good. Not great, but good.
The Second Life of Mirielle West by Amanda Skenandore • ★★★★☆
This wasn’t the book I was expecting, but that turned out to be a wonderful thing.
The Life of Mirielle West follows fictional Mirielle, married to one of Hollywood’s leading men. She’s used to soirees, cocktails and evening gowns. Then she gets diagnosed with leprosy and sent to a leper colony in Louisiana.
There Mirielle struggles to come to terms with the disease, her confinement and living a smaller life before learning how to find her place.
This story played out beautifully and was really moving.
People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry • ★★★★☆
I read Beach Read this past fall while on vacation and it was truly the perfect rom com. With that in mind, I had to grab another Emily Henry book.
I really enjoyed this one and the characters felt very real and funny to me (if not too good to be true, but everyone in romances is a little too pretty and a little too charming and a little too lucky). Anyways, in People We Meet on Vacation, friends Alex and Poppy reunite for a vacation to see if they can rekindle their friendship.
We all know how this one will end from the jump, but it doesn’t make getting there less fun.
The Romanov Sisters by Helen Rapapport • ★★★★☆
I bookmarked this title eons ago when a Bustle listicle suggested picking this title up if you read the Dear America series as a kid. I, of course, did. I also was obsessed with the animated movie Anastasia.
While it took me a while to grab this book (OK, download the audiobook from the library), I’m thrilled that I did. I’ve read and watched a lot about the Romanovs over the years, so I wasn’t expecting any major revelations here, but I learned so much in The Romanov Sisters.
A lot of documentaries focus on the very end of Romanov rule—like the last year or two—but Helen Rapapport dives in from the time that Nikolas and Alexandra wed and gives a lot of detail about each of the grand duchesses (and not just everyone’s favorite, Anastasia) from early childhood until their death.
This book had me thinking about the family in a very different way. Perhaps they weren’t suited for the lifestyle they were born to. If they weren’t royals, they would have been a very lovely, tight-knit family. But ultimately their insular nature and indecisiveness did them no favors.
While picking up a hefty nonfiction book might seem like a bit of a lift (and not as joyful as something like People We Meet on Vacation), I recommend listening to nonfiction. It’s sort of like a super long-form podcast with no commercials and a talented voice actor.
As always, you can follow along with my progress and see what I’ve read over on Goodreads!
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