My Husband's Wife by Jane Corry

I found this book on the shelf probably last year. It looked interesting, but I didn't grab it because I wasn't feeling this kind of thriller type of story. At the time I think I was pretty deep into YA books so I opted instead to snap up more of those.

Flash forward to a couple months ago. I was looking for a thriller, one that was messed up and weird, that would glue me to the page. I was having a hard time finding something that would interest me. 

Side note: H
as anyone else noticed that so many thrillers have to do with missing kids? Why?

Any way, this book stuck with me. When I was looking for a thriller I might really love, I remembered this book and I searched it out. 

This book is about a young woman who marries a  normal man, determined to make things work. She's a lawyer and meets another man in prison who she finds herself drawn to. There's also the neighbour child who starts becoming involved in their lives. Everyone has secrets, and when the neighbour child shows up on her doorstep years later all grown up, things start to unravel. 

This was a twisted, thrilling story. It wasn't really a full blown thriller, it was more of a slow burning one, but it totally satisfied my craving. 

Honestly, I didn't know what to expect, and I wasn't disappointed. 

It's definitely a book that sticks with you. Everyone had secrets in this one, everyone doing things that no one would suspect. It was twisted and strange, but it totally sucked me in and I couldn't let go. 

I read this one in two days, not really wanting to put it down. I guessed a little bit of what was going to happen, but honestly, I was surprised and it was great. 

Recommendation: If you're looking for a good thrilling read, this is it. I think you'll enjoy it as much as I did!

The Burning Room by Michael Connelly

This was the first book of Michael Connelly's I read that featured Harry Bosch as a main character. Before this one, I'd only read his Lincoln Lawyer series.

This series follows a detective by the name of Harry Bosch. He's a bit of a rough and tough cop who does what he needs to solve crimes. In this book, he's got a new partner and they are working on a case of some who died from a bullet wound almost 10 years after being shot.

I found this one to be just as interesting and just as engaging as the Lincoln Lawyer series. It had the same writing style I had enjoyed with the other series and it was a fairly easy read.

I didn't start this series from the beginning and I kind of wish I had. There are quite a few of these books though, and I wasn't sure if I was going to love them so I just grabbed a few that interested me. This one was actually book #17 in the series!

On Goodreads, some of the reviews say this one isn't as great as some of the other ones in this series and I'm wondering if I should actually make an effort to go back to the beginning and start the series fresh.

By the end I had questions (mostly about the story arc details that follow a reoccurring character from book to book) and I had to read the excerpt in the back for the next book to answer some things for me.

Have you read any of these? What did you think?

Recommendation: Great hard boiled detective book. Perhaps start with the first one though? Might enjoy it even more.

9 Dragons by Michael Connelly

This was the second book that I picked up in the Harry Bosch series by Michael Connelly. This one is actually book 14 in the series.

Again, I really need to read these all in order. I was still getting a feel for the series though before I jump in and start over at the beginning.

Honestly, I love detective novels, murder mysteries, all of that. However, this one was really heavy handed on the violence. I think I felt that way because I tend to read a lot of cosy mysteries that might have murder, but never overly violent ones.

This one follows Harry as he's investigating the shooting death of a Chinese liquor store owner. Then, his daughter who is living in Hong Kong with her mother, goes missing so Harry flies to Hong Kong to save her.

The details were pretty interesting. I really liked reading about the journey in Hong Kong, I found that really compelling. No idea how actually realistic it was, but I was still intrigued!

Another easy read, and I enjoyed it but there were some details that I think were lost on me because I haven't been following the character along over the series.

I'm still undecided on my overall feelings about this series. This is the third book I've reviewed in this series and I'm not sure how I feel. I loved the Lincoln Lawyer series which I seem to have forgotten to review on here and I will rectify that very soon.

Recommendation: For the lovers of hard boiled detective novels. For the lovers of easy to read, quick and rough mysteries.

Herding Cats by Sarah Andersen

This is the third Sarah Scribbles comic book by the amazing Sarah Andersen and I can't believe it's taken me this long to talk about it! (Find out about the first one here, and the second one here.)

I love her work. Hands down, she's my favourite, up there with my life long eternal favourite Charles M. Shultz (Peanuts).

I can see myself reflected back at me in her comic strips and I know I'm not the only one. She just gets us.

This one had so many gems and like the other two books she's done, I read it quickly while constantly stopping and forcing my fiancee to read them and feel all the feels with me.

If you need reminding, she's the creator of the comic that has a girl budgeting and saving when shopping until she walks into a book store. Then she is wearing a fur coat, sunglasses, and throwing handfuls of money into the air. You know, how we all do.

She's wonderful and if she keeps putting out books and things, I'll keep buying them because she creates things that are literally me (and I bet they are literally YOU too!)

She's also created two planners. One that ran from September 2017 to December 2018 (which I'm using right now) and one that runs September 2018 to December 2019 (which I already bought!).

Recommendation: Pick this up and flip through it. If you don't laugh, cry a little, and feel so deeply understood when you read this, then you are crazy my friend!

Prudence by Gail Carriger

Hopefully you'll already be acquainted with Gail Carriger's other series The Parasol Protectorate series, but if you haven't been yet, that's okay though you should rectify that as soon as possible. I'll be posting my thoughts on that series very soon as I just realized I had not yet talked about it on here!

That series and this one are both set back in the day when women still wore bustles, sent out cards before going visiting, and when there were rules to appearing in society. This one also features a few supernatural creatures of the werewolf and vampire variety.

This book is about a young woman named Prudence. She is given a dirigible and is sent off to India in pursuit of a new, delicious kind of tea. She assembles a crew and off they go. She stumbles onto some very interesting events and ends up involving herself in dire situations to sort it all out.

The thing about this is Prudence is the daughter of the main character in The Parasol Protectorate series, but it's not fully required of you to read the other series first (thought I recommend that you do).

The author's writing was wonderful, as usual. I found myself laughing out loud at times, enjoying myself immensely. It's quite the steampunk, supernatural, polite society read.

Beyond that, though, I had some problems. First, there are reoccurring characters from the other series. However, they felt weird to me in this series. Like I couldn't really wrap my head around the fact that I was reading about the same characters at some points.

There was also so veiled allusion to happenings from the previous series that kind of passed over my head, like I should know to what she was referring, but I wasn't sure that I did.

Overall, this book was good, but it wasn't the wonderful, amazing thing for me that the first series was. For what it was, it was a great story. I almost wish the author created a totally new person in the same world without bringing back in the other characters and then wrote this story, because I think I could have fallen in love with it then.

Recommendation: If you've read the other series, still read this. You might love it more than I did. If you love steampunk supernatural stories with tea drinking society women in fancy dress, you'll enjoy this.

July Wrap Up!

July was a busy month. In fact, the last few months have been pretty darn busy for me. My reading is suffering a little, but I'm not giving up! 

One of the things I think that really help are readathons! I can knock out two books in a weekend if I make it my goal to read for however many hours in two days. I think I might do my own little mini readathons more often! After all, to stay on track of reading 75 books this year, I need to be reading two a week (according to Goodreads!). 

On to the month of July: I read three books and two ebooks! 

It was funny, I went to do my wrap up the morning of July 31st but when I realized that I'd only read four books in total, I didn't feel like that was enough. Instead, I went and read another book! If only I could get myself to do that more often, I would have reached my goal for the year months ago!

The Dire King by William Ritter. 🌟🌟🌟

Brownies and Betrayal by Heather Justesen 🌟🌟🌟

The Beau & The Belle by R. S. Grey 🌟🌟🌟

A Study in Scarlet Women by Sherry Thomson 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Seraphina by Rachel Hartman 🌟🌟🌟.5

My review that includes The Dire King can be found here. As for the rest of the books, my reviews for them will be popping up soon (I hope!) 

I think for the month of August I want to shoot for 6 books read (hopefully more like 12 but let's start small!) 

November 9 by Colleen Hoover

This was my first Colleen Hoover. I picked it up on Book Outlet because I've seen her books all over bookstagram and this was the one that interested me the most. I figured it would be a perfect summer read and it hit the spot in that regard.

Overall, I don't really know how to feel about this book. It was a young adult type romance. It's about a girl and a boy who meet on the day she is moving away. They decide to meet up every November 9th for that day only. She can't fall in love till she's 23 and he is willing to wait. I'm making it so much simpler than it is because I really don't want to spoil anything.

I loved the idea though. It went along how I was hoping it would. There was some drama, some hot and heavy bits that I was so there for. It was good. I just don't know if I like how it all ended up.

What started out for me like a sweet book about two young people who are trying to be themselves and live their lives without changing for a serious relationship turned into something else. There's a whole other level the author added in that just kind of threw me and I don't know how I feel about it.

It was an okay book, but it didn't wow me in the same way other people have been saying it's wowed them. I think I would read more of her work, but I think it would have to be something I get from the library.

Honestly, this book was a out of character for me as far as what I read. I'm not a huge fan of romance to begin with and I typically stay away from all contempory young adult books as well because I know I won't love them like I'd love something else.

It was an easy read that I finished in a couple hours while out at a cabin enjoying some relaxation time. This book is totally a summer read, it's easy, it's got romance, and it's nothing too serious.

Recommendation: For the fans of Colleen Hoover of course, for fans of love stories, for triumphing over strife, fans of easy romantic type of reads, this is for you!