ginasbookreport

The Last Invitation by Darby Kane Publisher:  William Morrow & Company Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Mystery / Thriller / Domestic Suspense Read This If You Love: The Good Fight “Getting out is impossible.” Another great read from author Darby Kane. I’ve written a post before about my love for her other books and you can find that here . So I was excited to grab an audiobook of The Last Invitation  from my local library. I listened to it in one day while doing chores and updating my journals. This book stands out from Kane’s other books for me. It shows a bit more depth along the way and hits with all the twists you could ever want at the end. In many ways, I enjoyed this novel the most out of her catalog. From the Publisher’s Marketing Copy: They meet the second Tuesday of every month and vote…and then someone dies. Over the last few years, prominent people—a retired diplomat, beloved basketball coach, the CEO of an empire—have died in a series of fluke accidents and s

The Bat by Jo Nesbo Publisher:  Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc. Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️ Genre: Mystery / Thriller / Suspense Read This If You Love: Michael Connelly Bosch series I typically like Nordic Noir and I’ve read such wonderful things about Jo Nesbo’s Snowman . I decided to start with book one in his Harry Hole series by reading The Bat . Unfortunately, I really didn’t like the book, Harry, or the writing style at all. As they say, “It’s just not for me.” I did finish the book, so it did earn that second star, although I think I only made it through because I read it partially via audiobook and partially paperback. So, what were my issues with the book? It leans on all the male detective tropes that drive me a bit crazy: recovering/relapsing alcoholic, tragic love life in past, sleeping way through women tangentially involved in cases, massive trauma that has “changed them,” and lots of “manly man” gotta fight scenes. It all just

Sad Cypress by Agatha Christie Publisher:  William & Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Cozy Mystery / Mystery  Read This If You Love: Cozy mysteries and legal thrillers Come away, come away, death, And in sad cypress, let me be laid; — Twelfth Night Elinor is on trial for murdering Mary…did she do it? She would have motive as her expected husband was in love with Mary. Plus, all her aunt’s money is up to be inherited. Enter Poirot who unravels every step of what happened. “Old sins have long shadows.” Sad Cypress  is in the Hercule Poirot series and is unique as one of the only Christie novels to partially take place in a courtroom. You get a legal thriller in the first half and a cozy mystery detective novel in the second half before it all comes together. In her typical writing style, the book flows through mostly dialogue and all the clues are there for you to solve…if you are as observant as Poirot! This was a re-read for m

Cover Story by Susan Rigetti Publisher:  William Morrow, an imprint of Harper Collins Publishers Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Literature / Chick Lit Read This If You Love:  Inventing Anna  / Catch Me If You Can / Queen of the Con (podcast) Lora Rick wants to make her dream of becoming a fashion magazine editor a reality. When her actual life is falling apart, she lands an internship at Elle . There she crosses paths with Cat Wolff—a charismatic and enthralling figure living off her billionaire father’s dime. Except…who IS Cat…really? A magical persona or a masterful con artist?  Socialite con artist meets Catch Me If You Can  is told via emails, texts, reports, and diary entries. A great and easy-to-read thrill of a ride, it is the perfect pool or beach read when you need some low mental investment entertainment.  When I’m not reading a book, I’m often listening to podcasts and one of my favorites is Queen of the Con  by Johnathan Walton. Walton experienced his own con art

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin Publisher:  Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Literature Read This If You Love: Gen-X nostalgia, Sea of Tranquility (from a character-development perspective), & if you felt let down by The Interestings “How strange and beautiful human beings are. And how fragile.”—Sadie Wow. My first thought after I closed this book was that there are thousands of books that have tried to BE this book. No, really! When I saw this book on all the best lists of 2022 and all over social media, it actually made me not want to read it. So often, books can get overhyped with people singing the praises and just aren’t as enjoyable as expected. After I got over my hesitancy and cracked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow open, I couldn’t put it down and LOVED it. Publisher Synopsis On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid th

Spare by Prince Harry Publisher:  Random House Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Memoir / Non-fiction Read This If You Love:  Autobiographies “Carpe your diem while you may.” Spare  is a heartbreakingly raw and personal story of someone the world thinks we know, but (spoiler alert) we don’t. A rare look at the inner-workings of one of the world’s most public families is what will entice a lot of readers to this book. However, this is one man’s story of his life…a life that at 38 is packed full of complex experiences. While so much has been made of his statements about his family members, I was struck by the honesty of his daily life—eating dinner over the sink and being lonely, dealing publicly with grief and anxiety, and finding a way to carve out his own life when so many expectations lay on his shoulders.  My number one takeaway is that Harry has done tons of therapy work to deal with trauma and family dysfunction. I dare say that his family is like a lot of families when so

We Are the Light by Matthew Quick Publisher:  Avid Reader Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre: Literature / Fiction Read This If You Love: Now Is Not the Time to Panic “Sometimes you have to bend to not break.” When the town of Majestic is the latest scene of massive tragedy, the survivors must find a way to process their pain and loss. Told through letters written by Lucas to his analyst Karl, we follow how Lucas helps take care of his community and how they help take care of him. Leaving no stone unturned, Quick doesn’t back away from showing pain in its awful realness.   We Are the Light  is a breathtaking look at how we process grief, healing, and understanding. The character development is so deep and strong…a full depiction of a person as a whole—the concept and recognition that we are not all good and not all bad. While the backdrop of the Majestic Theater tragedy is horrific and gut-wrenching, We Are the Light  to me was really ab

Pigeon-Blood Red by Ed Duncan Publisher:  Next Chapter Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Suspense / Thriller Read This If You Love:  Nelson DeMille Rico is part of the Chicago underworld and is set on a path to enforce payment to his boss. Through a series of events, he ends up chasing a mark to Hawaii. When two people not involved in nefarious activity find themselves in the line of fire, it’s a full on race to see how the tale will end. Personally, from the cover, I was hoping for more of a spy mystery, but this is a short novel (203 pages) and fits into the gritty suspense space. The first half of the book sets the stage for the second half by establishing contained vignette stories. All of these individual character stories hit on a collision course in the second half.  This was a book that was outside of my normal reading comfort zone. I’m not big on testosterone heavy plots, so to speak. If the book had started with establishing Evelyn and Robert’s story first, it would hav