After her husband’s death, Tova Sullivan takes up the night shift at the Sowell Bay Aquarium, mopping floors and keeping busy the way she always has, especially in the thirty-plus years since her eighteen-year-old son Erik vanished on a boat in Puget Sound. But when she forms an unlikely friendship with Marcellus, a curmudgeonly giant…
Category: 5 Star Reads
The Burning Side
Sarah Damoff’s The Burning Side is a beautifully layered family drama about marriage, memory, and what survives after disaster. After a house fire forces April and Leo and their young children to move in with April’s family, old wounds and buried secrets rise to the surface, testing not only their marriage but their understanding of…
15 Books That Made Me Who I Am
Happy World Book Day. These are the books that shaped me as a reader, a person, and apparently a lifelong bookfluencer. I’ve been thinking about this post for a while. Not “what are the best books I’ve ever read” that list changes every month and depends on my mood (#moodreaderforever). But the books that actually…
Too Close to Home
Nothing in Cloverhill Lakes is as perfect as it seems. When Regan Hoffman’s car explodes at a Labor Day party, killing the wrong person, the carefully curated lives of this elite lakefront community begin to unravel. As secrets surface and a neighbor goes missing, Regan is thrust into a dangerous web of lies, made even…
She Fell Away
She Fell Away is a gripping international thriller set against the stunning backdrop of New Zealand. State Department diplomat Lake Harlowe is used to moving from country to country, both for her job and to stay ahead of the ghosts of her past. Hoping for a quieter assignment after a difficult posting in Cambodia, she…
Mad Mabel
Eighty-one-year-old Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick has lived on her quiet street for sixty years and knows absolutely everything about her neighbors. Known as a meddling curmudgeon, she’s also hiding a past she’s worked very hard to burybecause throughout her life, people around Elsie have had a strange habit of turning up dead. After all, no one…
This Story Might Save Your Life
This Story Might Save Your Life by Tiffany Crum, podcast hosts Benny Abbott and Joy Moore have built a massive following by sharing incredible “against all odds” survival stories with humor and heart. When Benny shows up to record their next episode and finds Joy and her husband Xander missing and their home in disarray, the situation…
Her Last Breath
Her Last Breath by Taylor Adams is a relentless, claustrophobic thriller that completely had me in its grip. The story follows best friends Tess and Allie as they embark on a long-delayed caving expedition that quickly turns into a nightmare. After a violent encounter deep underground leaves Tess trapped in a narrow crawl space, the narrative…
Scythe & Sparrow
Fionn Kane, a heartbroken small-town doctor hiding out in Nebraska, just wants a quiet life after his career and almost-fiancé imploded. Rose Evans, a motorcycle-riding circus performer who moonlights as an assassin, literally crashes into his world after a job goes wrong. What follows is a messy, hilarious, and emotionally charged entanglement full of secrets,…
Adrift
Peggy and Drew, two struggling writers, move with their teenage son onto a narrow canal boat hoping for a simpler, more peaceful life. But when Peggy’s writing career takes off and Drew’s doesn’t, jealousy festers, and he begins isolating their family deeper into the waterways. As Drew’s control tightens and his behavior turns manipulative and…