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2024 Bookish Books Reading Challenge (Hosted by Yours Truly)

My Progress:


30 / 30 books. 100% done!

2024 Literary Escapes Challenge

- Alabama (1)
- Alaska (1)
- Arizona (1)
- Arkansas (1)
- California (11)
- Colorado (1)
- Connecticut (2)
- Delaware (1)
- Florida (3)
- Georgia (3)
- Hawaii (1)
- Idaho (2)
- Illinois (4)
- Indiana (4)
- Iowa (1)
- Kansas (1)
- Kentucky (1)
- Louisiana (1)
- Maine (1)
- Maryland (1)
- Massachusetts (3)
- Michigan (1)
- Minnesota (2)
- Mississippi (1)
- Missouri (1)
- Montana (1)
- Nebraska (1)
- Nevada (2)
- New Hampshire (1)
- New Jersey (1)
- New Mexico (1)
- New York (9)
- North Carolina (4)
- North Dakota (1)
- Ohio (3)
- Oklahoma (2)
- Oregon (2)
- Pennsylvania (2)
- Rhode Island (1)
- South Carolina (1)
- South Dakota (1)
- Tennessee (1)
- Texas (4)
- Utah (4)
- Vermont (2)
- Virginia (2)
- Washington (3)
- West Virginia (1)
- Wisconsin (1)
- Wyoming (2)
- Washington, D.C.* (2)

International:
- Argentina (1)
- Australia (3)
- Bolivia (1)
- Canada (3)
- China (2)
- England (25)
- France (1)
- Ghana (1)
- India (1)
- Indonesia (1)
- Ireland (4)
- Italy (1)
- Poland (1)
- Russia (2)
- Scotland (3)
- The Netherlands (1)

My Progress:


51 / 51 states. 100% done!

2024 Historical Fiction Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 50 books. 104% done!

2024 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge


36 / 50 books. 72% done!

Booklist Queen's 2024 Reading Challenge

My Progress:


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

2024 52 Club Reading Challenge

My Progress:


50 / 52 books. 96% done!

2024 Build Your Library Reading Challenge

My Progress:


37 / 40 books. 93% done!

2024 Pioneer Book Reading Challenge


18 / 40 books. 45% done!

2024 Craving for Cozies Reading Challenge

My Progress:


25 / 25 cozies. 100% done!

2024 Medical Examiner's Mystery Reading Challenge

2024 Mystery Marathon Reading Challenge

My Progress


2 / 26.2 miles (4th lap). 8% done!

Mount TBR Reading Challenge

My Progress


43 / 100 books. 43% done!

2024 Pick Your Poison Reading Challenge

My Progress:


97 / 109 books. 89% done!

Around the Year in 52 Books Reading Challenge

My Progress


52 / 52 books. 100% done!

Disney Animated Movies Reading Challenge

My Progress


136 / 165 books. 82% done!

The 100 Most Common Last Names in the U.S. Reading Challenge

My Progress:


85 / 100 names. 85% done!

The Life Skills Reading Challenge

My Progress:


30 / 80 skills. 38% done!
Showing posts with label Tara Laskowski. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tara Laskowski. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 05, 2023

Top Ten Tuesday: Fall 2023 Mystery/Thriller Novels I Want to Read


Today's TTT prompt—Top Ten Books That Defied My Expectations (books you thought you wouldn't like but ended up loving, books you thought you'd love but didn't, etc.)— is a good one, but I'm just not feeling it. Even though it's early September and it's still a million degrees outside, I'm gearing up for some cozy Fall reading. To me, that means mysteries, mysteries, and more mysteries! Yes, I read this genre throughout the year, but it just seems especially suited for the cozy/spooky season. Maybe that's why there are so many intriguing-sounding ones still to be published this year. I'm going to highlight ten up-and-coming mystery/thrillers that I want to read.

First, though, be sure to click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl and give our host, Jana, some love. If you want to join in the TTT fun (and you do!), all the details are there.

Top Ten Fall 2023 Mystery/Thriller Novels I Want to Read


1. The Darkness Surrounds Us by Gail Lukasik (releases today!)—With the Spanish flu wreaking havoc on her Chicago home, nurse Nellie Lester needs to get out of town. She takes a job at a crumbling mansion on an isolated island in Michigan, hoping for a new start and to find answers to her mother's mysterious past. Not only does the place feel haunted by her mother's presence, but the discovery of the previous nurse's dead body proves there's something very sinister going on. Can Nellie figure out the island's deadly secrets before it's too late?


2. The Wings of Poppy Pendleton by Melanie Dobson (available September 19)—During a Gilded Age party at her family's castle in New York's Thousand Islands area, a young girl goes missing while her father lies dead in the smoking room. Seventy-five years later, a mysterious girl arrives on the island, prompting the owner of the island to look into the old mystery. What really happened to Poppy Pendleton?


3. Death and the Sisters by Heather Redmond (available September 26)—This opener begins a new historical mystery series starring a teenaged Mary Shelley, her stepsister, and Mary's future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley. When Mary discovers a man—who happens to be Percy's classmate and rival— dead in her home after a party, she and her cohorts use their collective smarts to solve the murder. 


4. The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok (available October 10)—Because of China's One Child Policy, Jasmine Yang's infant daughter was snatched away from her. Now in New York City without a penny to her name and on the run from her controlling husband, Jasmine is on a desperate hunt to find her stolen child. A wealthy publishing executive, Rebecca Whitney has the perfect life—including an adopted Chinese daughter. When the lives of these two very different women collide, it causes both to question everything they both know about identity, motherhood, and the true meaning of family.


5. What We Kept to Ourselves by Nancy Jooyoun Kim (available October 10)—A year later, the Kim Family is still baffled and devastated by their matriarch's mysterious disappearance. When they find the dead body of a stranger in their backyard, they're even more shocked, especially since he's carrying a letter addressed to the missing woman. Who is the unknown man? And what does he have to do with Sunny Kim? Where is Sunny and why did she vanish?


6. Murder by Degrees by Ritu Mukerji (available October 17)—It's 1875 and Lydia Weston is a professor and anatomist at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. When the body of a dead chambermaid is found in a Philadelphia river, a supposed suicide, Lydia becomes suspicious. Following clues on the corpse and in the dead woman's diary, she sets out to discover how the young woman really died.  


7. People to Follow by Olivia Worley (available October 31)—"In Real Life" is a hot new reality show that takes ten well-known teen influencers to a Caribbean island where they will completely unplug for three weeks of televised, non-filtered living. When the production crew fails to show and one of the influencers dies violently, the remaining nine find themselves stranded in a remote paradise with a killer. 


8. Last Night at the Hollywood Canteen by Sarah James (available November 7)—The Hollywood Canteen, a club for servicemen staffed by volunteers who are also Tinseltown stars, is the place to be in 1943. Aspiring playwright Annie Laurence hopes to make enough of a splash there to get the murder mystery film she's written produced. When a hated film critic is killed at the Canteen, Annie joins a group of amateur sleuths to figure out who murdered her.


9. The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon (available November 14)—When a man's dead body is found in the iced-over Kennebec River in 1789, the local midwife and healer is called upon to examine the corpse. A keeper of her town's secrets, Martha knows the dead man is one of the possible perpetrators of an alleged rape that happened several months ago. As both crimes are investigated, her small town is torn apart by scandal and prejudice. What will the truth do to Martha, her family, and her community?


10. The Weekend Retreat by Tara Laskowski (available December 26)—As the heirs to a copper fortune, the Van Ness siblings are constantly in the spotlight. They gather yearly at a luxury winery for the R&R they all desperately need. This year, their vacation is beset with the usual family drama as well as a torrential rainstorm and a shocking murder. Whodunit?

There you are, ten upcoming mystery/thriller novels I want to read. Which Fall releases are you excited about? If you did today's prompt, which books defied your expectations? I'd truly love to know. Leve me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Happy TTT!

Saturday, December 21, 2019

For a Thriller, This Generic Mystery Doesn't Really Thrill

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

In 1985, Maureen Haddaway—a young woman trying to start anew—arrives in Opal Beach, New Jersey, one summer with the traveling carnival for which she works.  Drawn to the wealth and sparkle that define life for the rich townies, Maureen's paycheck-to-paycheck existence becomes entwined with their idyllic lives.  Before the summer ends, she vanishes without a trace.  It's assumed that a vagabond like Maureen simply moved on without telling anyone, but is it true?  Or did something more sinister happen to her?

Thirty-plus years later, 40-year-old Allison Simpson comes to Opal Beach to lick her wounds.  After a video of the television meteorologist ranting wildly about her cheating husband goes viral, she's fired from her job.  With nothing left to lose, Allison accepts a house-sitting gig on the shore, figuring she can get some much-needed R&R while figuring out what to do with herself now.  She hears the story of Maureen Haddaway's disappearance from Maureen's former Opal Beach BFF.  Before she knows it, Allison is obsessed with figuring out what happened to the beautiful carnie.  It soon becomes evident that someone in town does not want Allison digging into the past.  Can Allison figure out what happened to Maureen before she becomes the next woman to mysteriously vanish from Opal Beach?

Yeah, yeah, I know the premise at the center of One Night Gone, a debut novel by Tara Laskowski, sounds awfully familiar.  I've read dozens of mystery/thrillers with the same basic plotline.  Still, it's one I'm always sucked in by, especially when an author puts their own unique spin on it.  Unfortunately, Laskowski doesn't do anything special with this one.  The story feels far-fetched and generic throughout.  Its cast consists of cliché, one-dimensional characters who aren't even likable.  While I did want to know what really happened to Maureen, I can't say I cared overly much about either her or Allison.  Neither one appealed to me.  As far as plot goes, the tale is predictable, with no real twists or turns to keep the reader on their toes.  Overall, then, this "thriller" didn't offer many thrills.  For me, it was an average read at best.  Bummer.

(Readalikes:  Reminds me of The Last House Guest by Megan Miranda)

Grade:


If this were a movie, it would be rated:


for language (a couple F-bombs, plus milder expletives), violence, sexual content, and depictions of underage drinking/partying and illegal drug use

To the FTC, with love:  I received an e-ARC of One Night Gone from the generous folks at Harlequin via those at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you!
Tuesday, September 24, 2019

Top Ten Tuesday: FALLing for New Books


A lot of fun Top Ten Tuesday topics come up during any given year, but my hands-down favorites are the seasonal reading prompts.  It's always fun to think about what I want to read in the upcoming months and it's even more enjoyable to see what books other bloggers are excited about.  The more the merrier, guys, so why don't you join in the fun?  All you have to do is click on over to That Artsy Reader Girl, read a few guidelines, make your own list, and then sit back and enjoy wandering around the book blogosphere checking out other people's posts.  Warning:  keep Goodreads open because you'll be adding a lot of great-sounding reads to your "I Need to Read it NOW" list.

I'm thrilled to have been selected as a YA fiction judge for the first round of The Cybils Awards.  I've never done this before, so I'm not exactly sure what it entails besides reading a lot of teen novels!  I assume that's what I'll be doing for most of the Fall, but since nominations don't open until November 1st, I don't have any specific titles to share.  In the meantime, then, here are the Top Ten Books on My Fall TBR List:

YA/Middle Grade


1. The Fountains of Silence by Ruta Sepetys (coming October 1, 2019)—I love Sepetys' historical fiction, so I've been eagerly waiting for this one to come out.  It's a love story set in Madrid after the country's Civil War.  I can't wait!


2.  Slay by Brittney Morris (out today, September 24, 2019)—When a conflict inside the Black Panther-inspired video game she secretly designed causes the death of a player, 17-year-old Kiera Johnson is thrust into a real-life battle that threatens the safe world she thought she had created for herself and other Black gamers.  Billed as Ready Player One meets The Hate U Give, this YA novel sounds intriguing and timely.


3.  The World Ends in April by Stacy McAnulty (out now)—As the granddaughter of a doomsday prepper, Eleanor knows she will survive the apocalypse just fine.  But what about her BFF, Mack?  Before she knows what's happening, Eleanor has become the president of an End of the World club at her school.  No matter what happens with the approaching apocalypse, her life is definitely changing.  This MG offering sounds fun.  Count me in, for sure!


4.  Color Me In by Natasha Diaz (out now)—I've always been intrigued by stories about struggles with racial identity, even before my husband and I adopted our bi-racial daughter ten years ago.  Now I'm especially drawn to them and this YA novel, about a bi-racial teen finding her way around her Black and Jewish roots, sounds exceptional.


5.  The Grey Sisters by Jo Treggiari (out today, September 24, 2019)—A trio of friends head to the mountains to visit the site of the plane crash that took their siblings' lives in order to find closure.  While they search for answers, they meet a mountain dweller searching for help.  Their meeting will change all of their lives.  I love a good survival tale; The Grey Sisters sounds like that and more.

Adult


6.  The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes (out October 8, 2019)—This historical novel, about an Englishwoman living in small-town Kentucky during the Depression who decides to become a book deliverer for Eleanor Roosevelt's traveling library campaign, sounds compelling.


7.  The Dutch House by Ann Patchett (out today, September 24, 2019)—This sweeping rags-to-riches family drama sounds like one I will really enjoy.

Of course, I can't make a TTT list without including a few mystery/thrillers:


8.  The Family Upstairs by Lisa Jewell (out November 5, 2019)—On the day she turns 25, Libby Jones finds out not just who her biological parents are, but also that she has inherited their posh home in London.  She soon discovers that the house has a dark, haunting history ... I love a ghostly story, especially around Halloween time.  This one sounds like it will fit the bill perfectly!


9.  One Night Gone by Tara Laskowski (out October 1, 2019)—When a woman is offered a house-sitting gig at a luxurious beach home, she jumps at the chance.  The more she learns about a 30-year-old mystery connected to the home, the more intrigued she becomes ... Another creepy house story - yaaassss!  I want them all!


10.  Before the Devil Fell by Neil Olson (out October 8, 2019)—This is another novel that sounds like a great spine-tingling Halloween read.  It concerns a man who returns to the hometown he fled in the wake of disturbing rumors about his mother and her "coven."  His assumption that his mother's interest in witchcraft was just a passing hippie phase is dissolved as he finds disturbing clues in his family history that hint at a much lengthier association with New England witchcraft.

There you have it, ten books I'm looking forward to reading this Fall.  How about you?  What's on your list?  I'd truly love to know.  Leave a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on yours. 

Happy TTT!
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2024 Reading Challenge

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2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction

2024 - Elementary/Middle Grade Nonfiction

2023 - Middle Grade Fiction

2023 - Middle Grade Fiction

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2022 - Middle Grade Fiction

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2020 - Middle Grade Fiction

2020 - Middle Grade Fiction