A busy November meant not as much reading time

 This month was the month of a series. I got hooked and just couldn’t stop.  I ended up reading 7 books. A total of 2,338 pages. An average of 75 pages a day (which is not quite up to snuff with my regular monthly averages). But let’s get to the books, shall we?

Hooked by Emily McIntire (300 pages). The first of the Never After Series. James “Hook” Barrie is part of a crime syndicate (The Lost Boys) that sells pixie dust (clearly drugs) and runs Boston. Wendy is the daughter of Peter Michaels, owner of NevAirLand Planes. When Hook sees Wendy at his bar, the Jolly Roger, he decides he must have her. Because Hook has some unfinished business with Peter. But Hook has never let anyone in before. Until Wendy. This was not a reimagining of a fairytale. This was a full on naughty reinvention. And I loved it!  The character names (the twins, Curly, Smee) and location names (the Lagoon, the Jolly Roger) were such a creative way to keep the magic of the original but also completely recreate it. I finished in 3 days. 

Scarred by Emily McIntire (337 pages). Book 2 in the series. Lady Sara Beatreaux has spent her adult life knowing one thing- that she will avenge her father’s death by destroying the Faasa line of royalty in the kingdom of Gloria Terra. Her betrothal to the king will allow her to do just that. But what Sara didn’t anticipate was the king’s brother Tristan, the scarred prince. Tristan, doesn’t want to destroy his family’s line; he just wants to destroy his brother. As they begin to fall wildly (and quite dirtily) in love and lust, they realize that their goals aren’t that dissimilar. A little Hamlet and a lot of 50 Shades. Again, the characters were great. Even though this wasn’t inspired by a fairy tale (at least not one I know), I might have liked it more than Hooked! I finished in 4 days.

Wretched by Emily McIntire (268 pages).  Book 3 in the series. Woo hoo- the jolly old land of Oz!  Evelina is the youngest of three sisters- oldest sister Nessa died when Evie was 17 and middle sister Dorothy is the reason she’s dead. And her father is the head of an Irish crime family. Seven years later, Nicholas is the DEA agent assigned to go undercover and bust the drug ring. A drug ring that Evie is intimately involved in. And when Nick and Evie become intimately involved, everything shifts. For both of them. So many shoutouts to Oz. A bar called Winkies. A drug called Flying Monkey. A hacker named Oz. A strip club called Yellow Brick. A yacht named My Toto. A mother named Glinda. And another naughty naughty reinvention. I finished in 3 days.

Twisted by Emily McIntire (366 pages). Book 4 in the series. A twisted Aladdin. Yasmin is the only child of Ali, owner of the worldwide diamond company Sultans. His right hand man is Julian. And Yasmin’s first love is Aiden, the boy who grew up on her father’s estate as the son of one of the staff. But when Ali learns that he has very little time left, he lets Yasmin know that only her husband will be inheriting Sultans. And Yasmin isn’t married. But Julian is bitter that HE isn’t the one who will inherit. So he tricks Yasmin into marrying him. All while sending Aiden off to find a legendary lamp. I’m not sure how I felt about this one. Part of me liked it, part of me was super bothered by the Stockholm Syndrome that clearly occurred with Yasmin and Julian. I finished in 4 days.

Crossed by Emily McIntire (403 pages). The 5th and final book in the series. I’d say this was a reimagining of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, but honestly it was just a modernization of it in a lot of ways. The small town of Festivale, Vermont, is a little bit of Paris in America. Amaya works at the Chapel, a strip club, as Esmeralda in order to provide for herself and her younger brother Quinten  (when their mother left, she left them indebted to Parker, the local criminal in charge). But when Father Cade arrives at Notre Dame to bring renewed religion to the town, his obsession with Amaya becomes overwhelming. Nothing different than Victor Hugo imagined with that one. The biggest difference?  Amaya feels the same draw to Cade. Honestly, I think this one was my favorite of the whole series. I finished in 6 days.

The Girl Beyond the Gate by Becca Day (326 pages). Jodie Madison needs a fresh start. And the exclusive gated community of Kensington Grove seems like just the spot. But you can never escape the ghosts of your past. And try as Jodie might, she can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong with her next-door neighbor, Norah Williams, and Norah’s terminally ill daughter Lacey. As the months go by, Jodie becomes even more suspicious. When the safe little community is rocked by a murder, Jodie becomes even more convinced that she needs to save Lacey. But are her suspicions merited?  Or is it her own guilt, coming back to mess with her head?  I finished in 2 days.

The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose (338 pages). OMG!  This book!  Sarah and Adam Morgan seem to be the perfect couple. She is a super successful defense attorney in DC. He is a struggling author who spends most of his time at their lake house in Virginia. But there are always secrets. And Adam’s is that he’s been carrying on an affair with Kelly Summers, a local woman near their lake house. One night, after an encounter with Kelly, Adam heads home to Sarah. But when the housekeeper arrives at the lake house, she finds Kelly’s lifeless body, stabbed 37 times. Adam is immediately charged with her murder. And Sarah puts away her heartbreak at the affair by agreeing to represent him. And that’s all I’m going to say. The investigation. The trial and outcome. So, so good. I finished in 3 days. 

This month’s favorite is…….The Perfect Marriage. 

Last month was a little Booktober

 This month was pretty good. I got 9 books read. A total of 2,873 pages. An average of 93 pages a day.  Not the best month ever, but respectable. And a nice range of genres

Where the Sky Begins by Rhys Bowen (389 pages).  Josie Banks is happy when her husband is sent to war and she begins working at a tea shop in London. But when the shop owner dies and her own apartment is bombed, Josie is evacuated to the country to recuperate. She is placed in the mansion of a rather crotchety spinster and her housekeeper. To keep herself busy, she starts a garden. And a tea room.  And finds an RAF officer who makes her happy.  But Josie is still a married woman. And if her husband survives the war, the new life she has created for herself will be destroyed. Y’all know I love a good WWII historical fiction!  This one was great- references to other parts of WWII that I already knew about (Bletchley Park) and a very sweet story to boot.  I finished in 4 days. 

A Long Time Coming by Megan Quinn (446 pages). Another book in the sexy billionaire Cane brothers series. This one focuses on youngest brother Breaker. With Huxley and JP happily married off to sisters Lottie and Kelsey, it’s time for Breaker’s story. 10 years ago, Breaker met his best friend Lia in college. They are both total nerds. And remain nothing but friends. But when Lia’s boyfriend surprises her with a proposal and his mother surprises her with a 5 week timeline for the wedding, Breaker begins to realize that Lia is more than just his best friend. And when Lia begins to realize that her fiancé isn’t the man she needs (who wants a man who can’t even stand up to his mother for you?), she ends things. Huxley and JP encourage Breaker to tell Lia how he truly feels. Luckily, a decade of friendship is the best foundation for the rest of their lives!  I loved Breaker. I’m not sure about Lia. I loved her nerdiness. I didn’t love that she thought it was appropriate to sleep in the bed with Breaker “just as friends” when she was engaged to another man because they’d done it before. I really enjoy this author though. Her pop culture references are <chef’s kiss> perfection!  I finished in 1 day. 

Evidence of the Affair by Taylor Jenkins Reid (88 pages). I love this author. Literally I love everything she’s written. I love how she intertwines characters throughout (in this one, one character listens to Joni Mitchell and Daisy Jones when she is sad). This was (obviously) a short story. It was a series of letters between Carrie and David, two people who have never met but discovered that their spouses are having an affair. Over a series of months, they exchange letters and support (and copies of the letters their spouses exchanged). They even meet up to commiserate. But eventually, when the affair ends, one of them remains with their spouse. And the other doesn’t. I finished in 1 day (30 minutes actually). 

The Girl in Cabin 13 by A.J. Rivers (223 pages). Emma Griffin is an undercover agent with the FBI. She’s had a rough go of it- her mother was killed, her father and boyfriend have both disappeared, she bungled a big case. But she is assigned to a case (or rather cases) that has everyone baffled. People are going missing in a small town and no one has answers. The night she arrives at her rented cabin, there’s a knock on her door. She opens it to a man who promptly drops dead. A man who has a piece of paper with her name on it clasped in his hand. Emma immediately gets to work, investigating the case.  Her case work is (in my opinion) shoddy at best. When she finally figures out whodunit, it’s only because she stumbles into it. And we still don’t have an answer as to how the dead guy showed up on her door with her name written down (the killer says he didn’t figure out who she was until later). It was a little all over the place. Good pace, interesting premise, but disappointing. I finished in 4 days.

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen (401 pages). Juliet Browning is just 18 years old the first time she visits Venice in 1928. She meets Leonardo da Rossi, a young man from a wealthy family, and falls hard in one day. But her life is in London. Until she is given the opportunity to return, first on a tour with her students and then as a student herself in 1938. By this time, Leo is married. But he is still in love with Juliet. So she stays, even as a war rages across Europe. In 2001, Caroline Grant’s life is falling apart. Her husband has left her and is keeping their son with him in America after 9/11. And her beloved Great Aunt Lettie is dying. When she kneels at Lettie’s deathbed, she is given a sketchbook, 3 keys and the whispered word “Venice.”  So Caroline heads off to Venice to discover what secrets Lettie had and to scatter her ashes in what seems to be her favorite city. A little bit of WWII history (I don’t hill I ever knew much about Italy’s contribution to the War, other than the fact that Mussolini idolized Hitler. I finished in 4 days.

The Guilty Husband by Stephanie DeCarolis (308 pages). Vince Taylor is the CEO and founder of KitzTech, a very successful tech company. He literally has it all- money, fame, and the love of his life, his wife Nicole. All that is missing is a family. When intern Layla Bosch comes to work for him, she manages to seduce him. And when she is found dead in Central Park, all clues point to Vince as the murderer. But as Detective Allison Barnes and her partner begin to investigate, she begins to wonder if they have the right man. I love a good whodunit murder mystery. I finished in 4 days.

Night Road by Kristen Hannah (387 pages). 14 year old Lexi Baill has been in and out of foster homes her whole life. But she’s finally found a home with her great aunt in a small town in Washington State. 14 year old twins Mia and Zach Farraday couldn’t be more opposite- Mia is painfully shy and Zach is Mr Popular. But their helicopter mom Jude has always been there for them. The first day of high school, Mia and Lexi meet and immediately become best friends. Three years later, it’s senior year. The girls are inseparable. And Zach and Lexi have finally admitted that they love each other. As the school year ends, one decision leads to an accident that changes everyone’s lives. And years later, the pieces of this family, and Lexi’s place in it, needs to be put back together. In a way that only love and forgiveness can do. I bawled like a baby about 10 times. I finished in 4 days.

Hemlock Island by Kelley Armstrong (294 pages). This was a special edition Spooky Halloween from Once Upon a Book Club. So gifties on social (per usual). Laney Kilpatrick loves her vacation home on a private island in Lake Superior. But she doesn’t like the fact that she has to rent it out to vacationers in order to keep it after the pandemic fuels her divorce. When renters start reporting strange occurrences (bones, hex circles, blood), Laney and her niece Madison show up to investigate. On their way, they run into her ex husband Kit and his sister Jayla (who used to be Laney’s best friend). And before they know it, another former friend Sadie and her brother, policeman Garrett, show up. By the time they find a hand poking up out of the ground, their only means of escape is gone. And they are left on an island with a murderer. As the day progresses, they begin to realize that maybe it’s not a murderer they need to be scared of. This book was not what I expected. But I didn’t hate that!  I finished in 3 days.

My Roommate is a Vampire by Jenna Levine (337 pages). This was my Sweet Halloween special edition Once Upon a Book Club box. So stinking cute!  When struggling artist Cassie Greenberg answers an ad for a roommate, with rent of only $200 a month in a ritzy Chicago neighborhood, she isn’t sure what to expect. But she certainly didn’t expect Frederick J Fitzwilliam. He sleeps all day and looks like he walked out of an 1800’s novel. She also didn’t expect to find herself charmed by him. And she definitely didn’t expect to learn that he is a centuries old vampire, in need of a modern day “tutor,” to help him learn about the 21st century. But the more time she spends with him, the more she realizes how much she cares about him. It was kind of cute. I finished in 3 days.

This month’s favorite is…….The Venice Sketchbook. With Night Road coming in a close second