ginasbookreport

Ruthless Vows by Rebecca Ross Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Fantasy / Romantasy / Young Adult Read This If You Love: Divine Rivals / Iron Flame “The magic still gathers, and the past is gilded; I see the beauty in what has been but only because I have tasted both sorrow and joy in equal measures.” Ruthless Vows picks up immediately after the events in Divine Rivals. Kitt and Winnow managed to survive Avalon Bluff, but the actions of the gods continue to rip fractures in their world and love. Will Roman be able to overcome what has happened to him and the position in which he finds himself? Will Iris be able to help save her home through her dedication to reporting? How will these lovers find one another when everything is built against them? How will they turn the tides? “In war, there are always debts.” ***While I often will read series books as a standalone or out of order, I would highly recommend that you read Divine Rivals  before venturin

Yellowface by R. F. Kuang Publisher: William Morrow Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Literature / Thriller / Psychological Mystery Read This If You Love: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow “What more can we want as writers than such immortality? Don’t ghosts just want to be remembered?” Athena Liu is a literary success. June Hayward can only wish to achieve the same accomplishments. Well…maybe she could literally have Athena’s writing to help her earn the praise she so seeks? When Athena tragically dies, June takes Athena’s newest manuscript and claims it as her own. Publishing it as Juniper Song, which is all sorts of inappropriate and misleading. What unfolds from there is an exploration of the publishing industry, respecting cultural stories, and what we will do to be successful. I loved this book! Writing an entirely first-person narrative and making it so immersive and engaging for the reader is a high bar, but Kuang does it so effortlessly. The messages in Yellowface ab

Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson Publisher: Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre: Literature Read This If You Love: Tom Lake  by Ann Patchett “She turned off the light and backed out of the room, full of the understanding that her children were going to be totally f*#@ed up.” Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson tells the story of the Stockton clan. Told via sisters Darley and Georgiana and their sister-in-law Sasha, readers are taken on a journey through the layers of what it means to be a member of an old-money family. Darley is a mother of two rambunctious and entertaining children that made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. She is navigating having put her own career ambitions on hold. Georgiana is making her way from youth to maturity via a bumpy road filled with bad choices and heartache. Sasha is treated as an outsider by the Stocktons who, not so secretly, refer to her as The Gold Digger. Can these three women find support

The Other Half by Charlotte Vassell Publisher: Anchor Books, Penguin Random House Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre:  Domestic Suspense / Thriller / Mystery / Satire Read This If You Love: The Block Party  by Jamie Day “She deserved better than to die there. To die because of him.” The Other Half  by Jenny Jackson is a quick-paced mystery wrapped in a satire about an ultra-wealthy British friend group. Full of toxic characters and attributes, everyone is a suspect when a dead body is found in the polished garden. DS Caius Beauchamp and his co-workers Matt and Amy are a delight to have as the guides through this story. Thank goodness, because I really didn’t like any of the other characters. Yikes! I almost  stopped reading after the first two chapters, but I’m glad I didn’t. It was an entertaining read and the car scene toward the end was one of my favorite scenes in any book I’ve read in the last year. This book was part of the Crime by the Box subscription, which is run by Abby

My Murder by Katie Williams Publisher: Riverhead Books Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre:  Domestic Suspense / Mystery / Fantasy Read This If You Love: Dark Matter by Blake Crouch “What did it feel like to meet my murderer? It’s a perfectly reasonable question to ask. Somehow, it felt like nothing at all.” My Murder  by Katie Williams is an unusual mix of murder mystery and science fiction. Louise was murdered by a serial killer, but she is alive now. Isn’t she? Is she really herself? How did she become a victim of Edward Early and a line in the poem about his killings? She sets off to find out the truth behind her murder and who she is. This book brought to mind Dark Matter , for me. That is a book that I loooove.  My Murder didn’t hit as successfully for me. While I was very intrigued at the beginning of the book, by the end I was conflicted and found the ending to be unsettling and somewhat predictable. I do appreciate the efforts to tell a unique story and the world-building

The Women by Kristin Hannah Publisher:  St. Martin’s Press Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Genre:  Historical Fiction / Literature / Feminism Read This If You Love:  The Nightingale / The Alice Network “Men keep us in boxes, make us wear starched virgin white, and tell us that docs are gods. And the worst part is, we believe them.” The Women  by Kristin Hannah is a breathtaking epic novel that delves into the women who served in the Vietnam War. Francis McGrath has lived a privileged life, but longs for something meaningful. After she suffers a great loss, she trains to be a nurse and finds herself out of her depth and in the muck in Vietnam. The grueling work and fighting is in stark contrast to what is being reported in the news. While the days are long and bloody, Frankie makes the tightest bonds of her life befriending her bunk mates and fellow nurses. She finds love, loss, death, life, joy, and pain. Through her story of service and return to state-side life, Hannah weaves a h

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett Publisher: Del Ray, Penguin Random House Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5 Genre: Mystery / Fantasy / Urban Fantasy / Science Fiction Read This If You Love: The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow “You’re saying someone weaponized a contagion?” The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett is an excellent urban fantasy mystery novel. Set in the Empire of Khanum, Din (an apprentice investigator and engraver) is assigned to the quirky and mysterious Ana Dolabra. An Imperial officer is dead and the investigation into his possible murder threatens to unravel a plot that could bring down the Empire. While everyone else is focused on the dangers of approaching leviathans, Ana and Din must solve the mystery before the entire security of realm is in jeopardy. Ana and Din are a fantastical version of Holmes and Watson with hints of Nero Wolfe. From Ana’s brilliance and eccentric investigation techniques to Din’s clever ways to manage situation

The Quiet Boy by Ben H. Winters Publisher: Mulholland Books Ginasbookreport Rating:  ⭐️⭐️⭐️.75 Genre: Science Fiction Read This If You Love: The Policeman trilogy by Ben H. Winters / Fans of Blake Crouch This was a buddy read book that I read and so did my husband, Patrick. You will find our individual takes on the book here. Gina’s Review of the The Quiet Boy “He’s got the future inside of him. It’s got to come out.” Wes suffers an injury that locks him into his 16-year-old body. He doesn’t change, sleep, eat…just walks continuously, but how can that be? Does he really have the mysterious Syndrome J? Was it a result of malpractice? Is there a way to reach Wes? Jay Shenk takes on the case to try and get a legal and financial verdict for Wes’s family and swears to always be their lawyer. Decades later, Jay’s son Ruben is an investigator who picks up the case when Wes’s dad is in need. But while The Quiet Boy  still is locked in his own mind, a mysterious man and his followers have a new