This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page

This Book Made Me Think of You by Libby Page
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to Berkley Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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When Tilly Nightingale receives a call telling her there’s a birthday gift from her husband waiting for her at her local bookshop, it couldn’t come as more of a shock. Partly because she can’t remember the last time she read a book for pleasure. But mainly because Joe died five months ago....

When she goes to pick up the present, Alfie, the bookshop owner with kind eyes, explains the gift—twelve carefully chosen books with handwritten letters from Joe, one for each month, to help her turn the page on her first year without him.

At first Tilly can’t imagine sinking into a fictional world, but Joe’s tender words convince her to try, and something remarkable happens—Tilly becomes immersed in the pages, and a new chapter begins to unfold in her own life. Monthly trips to the bookstore—and heartfelt conversations with Alfie—give Tilly the comfort she craves and the courage to set out on a series of reading-inspired adventures that take her around the world. But as she begins to share her journey with others, her story—like a book—becomes more than her own.
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As a lifelong reader, I am always on the lookout for books about books. Therefore, when I heard about this new offering from Libby Page and saw its enchanting cover, I knew that I wanted to add it to my reading list. After spending much of today engrossed in Tilly's story, I can report that I am so happy that I discovered this beautiful and magical story of the transformative power that books can have in people's lives.

Tracing Tilly's journey from new widow to adventurer who is learning to trust herself again was a delightful way to spend the bulk of my afternoon. Readers get to follow her as she gets out of her home and starts to live her life again after suffering an unimaginable loss, and through the pages of this lovely novel, we get to know Tilly and her supporting cast of characters as they navigate the intricacies of grief.

There were moments that made me laugh and moments that had me shedding a tear, but most of all, I found myself rooting for Tilly and all the people that she had gathered on her journey as she learned to navigate life without her husband by her side. This is a special book and one that will stick in my mind for a long time, and it was an easy five-star rating for me.

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Love and Other Brain Experiments by Hannah Brohm

Love and Other Brain Experiments by Hannah Brohm
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to Atria Books via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Neuroscientist Dr. Frances Silberstein has success on the brain. As a grad student, she was offered a job by her brilliant boyfriend, but determined to make it on her own, she turned it—and him—down. Now, stuck in postdoc purgatory with no job security and no personal life to speak of, Frances is desperate to make a breakthrough. Her best shot is a summer conference packed with her field’s leading scientists. The only problem? It’s organized by her ex, who has found the success that’s eluded her. But backing out is not an option, because Frances desperately needs to network to save her career.

Enter Dr. Lewis North: her perceptive, meticulous, and inconveniently attractive rival. When their academic sniping gets mistaken for flirtatious chemistry, Frances doesn’t deny it—putting her integrity and career on the line. As soon as her prefrontal cortex is operational again, Frances realizes she needs to keep up the charade, or risk everything she’s worked for. Faking data is out of the question, but fake dating? That might just be the solution she needs.

But as Lewis starts to make her reward centers spark and a major setback has Frances questioning everything, she must confront what she’s willing to chase—for love, for science, and for the future she thought she wanted.
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As someone who has a laboratory science degree and learned long ago to embrace the nerdy side of my personality, I could tell immediately this book would be right up my alley, so I jumped at the chance to read it when I was offered an advanced electronic copy. I have to say that Brohm's debut novel did not disappoint. It had just enough science in it without getting too technical to go over most readers' heads, and the couple at the heart of the story were likable right away. There were some of the usual tropes that make modern romance novels fun, and I am not at all opposed to these tried and true plot points, so I will almost always enjoy a fake dating storyline. There was just enough conflict in it to keep things from feeling too predictable, and there were a couple of interesting side stories that lent themselves to the overall flow of the book. Overall, this was an enjoyable addition to my reading list, and I hope that this author continues to give us more of these STEM romances. I will definitely be looking out for them!

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The Unwritten Rules of Magic by Harper Ross

The Unwritten Rules of Magic by Harper Ross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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Emerson Clarke can’t remember a time when she felt in control of her life. Her father—a celebrated author—blew in and out of her childhood like a hurricane until he got Alzheimer’s. Her mother numbed loneliness with gin. And recently, her teen daughter has shut her out without explanation. The only place Emerson has ever been in charge is in front of the keyboard where, as a ghostwriter, she dictates everything that happens on the page. If only she could arrange reality the same way, life could be perfect. An impossible fantasy—or so she believes until she makes a startling discovery.

After her father’s wake, Emerson steals her father’s vintage typewriter—the very one he’d forbidden anyone to touch—and tests its keys by typing out a frivolous wish. After it comes true the very next day, she tries another. When those words also spring to life, she becomes obsessed with using the typewriter to engineer happiness for herself and her daughter. Easier said than done.

As Emerson shapes her real-life circumstances, she uncovers disturbing truths about her family’s history and the unexpected cost for each story-come-true. She should destroy the typewriter, but when her daughter's secret finally emerges, Emerson is torn between paying the price for bending fate and embracing the uncertainty of an unscripted life.
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The first magical realism book I ever read was one by Heather Webber, and just like that I was hooked. Therefore, when I was invited by the publisher to check out a debut novel in that genre, I jumped right on it. I am so glad I took a chance on this one! While the magic is more subtle than other books that fit that description, there still was a fantastical element that was the centerpiece of the story. However, most of all, this was a book about family...all the messy, beautiful, painful, joyful, difficult, rewarding parts of being a family.

While Emerson leaned toward almost unlikable at times for me, there was an earnestness to her actions that still made me root for her. I am sure we have all wondered at one time or another what we would wish for if a genie came along and granted us three wishes...reading what Emerson does when it seems she has an endless supply of wishes at her fingertips makes for a compelling and memorable novel that I could not put down. I read it in one afternoon.

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The Pain Brokers: How Con Men, Call Centers, and Rogue Doctors Fuel America's Lawsuit Factory by Elizabeth Chamblee Burch

The Pain Brokers: How Con Men, Call Centers, and Rogue Doctors Fuel America's Lawsuit Factory by Elizabeth Chamblee Burch
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria/One Signal Publishers for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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For decades, late-night television has blared a familiar refrain: If you or a loved one has been injured by X product…

But behind those ads lies a lesser-known world where elaborate scams revictimize the injured. Why else would thousands of women with health insurance take out loans with astronomical interest rates and fly to south Florida to have their pelvic mesh surgically removed at a chiropractor’s clinic?

The Pain Brokers, by law professor Elizabeth Burch, is a damning investigation of a scheme made possible by a medical and legal complex that too often views women’s bodies as cash machines and fails to take their pain seriously.

As Burch unfurls each level to the scheme, we meet an enthralling cast of characters, from a world class scam artist who reaped tens of millions of dollars at a south Florida call center, to the ultimate white shoe power lawyer who defended Big Pharma but became an unlikely hero, to a newly minted small-town Arkansas attorney who advocated for the unseen and unheard. But at the center are three women, Jerri, Barb, and Sharon, whose lives were upended by the very procedure they were told would save them.

A page-turning, urgently necessary work of public service journalism, The Pain Brokers is not only a chilling exposé of a legal system gone awry, but a wake-up call to the ways in which it harms those it is meant to help.
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Malpractice attorneys advertising their services to fight against things like cancer from asbestos or talcum powder exposure or medical mesh (the topic of this book) on late night television always gave off a feeling of "ick" to me. And it turns out I was not wrong, as I learned in this book from Elizabeth Chamblee Burch. Although I am not of the opinion that all lawyers are bad, there are definitely members of the profession that are unsavory, and we meet some of them in her book. While this is the story of three different women and their search for justice, it is also an indictment of a system that allows them to be exploited in the first place. While you might expect such a work to be dry and difficult to work through, as some nonfiction books can tend to be, Burch's style and focus on the humanity at the center of this story makes this a very readable book, and I found myself invested in the stories behind her cast of characters as much as in the very scheme that she came to expose.

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The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews

The Santa Suit by Mary Kay Andrews
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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When newly-divorced Ivy Perkins buys an old farmhouse sight unseen, she is definitely looking for a change in her life. The Four Roses, as the farmhouse is called, is a labor of love—but Ivy didn't bargain on just how much labor. The previous family left so much furniture and so much junk, that it's a full-time job sorting through all of it.

At the top of a closet, Ivy finds an old Santa suit—beautifully made and decades old. In the pocket of a suit she finds a note written in a childish hand: it's from a little girl who has one Christmas wish, and that is for her father to return home from the war. This discovery sets Ivy off on a mission. Who wrote the note? Did the man ever come home? What mysteries did the Rose family hold?

Ivy's quest brings her into the community, at a time when all she wanted to do was be left alone and nurse her wounds. But the magic of Christmas makes miracles happen, and Ivy just might find more than she ever thought possible: a welcoming town, a family reunited, a mystery solved, and a second chance at love.
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Mary Kay Andrews (or as we fans like to call her MKA) is always good for a sweet, feel-good Christmas story, and this book is no exception. Ivy is taking advantage of her second chance, and she finds herself starting over in a new small town in a new-to-her old house, and of course there is a hunky neighbor on hand to help her with her renovations. However, this is more than just a holiday romance. This story has at its heart a bit of a mystery, a bit of a miracle, and a supporting cast of characters to welcome Ivy to her new home. I could see reading this every Christmas as a way to get into the spirit of the season. It was the perfect feel-good holiday read.

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The Invisible Woman by James Patterson and Susan DiLallo

The Invisible Woman by James Patterson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Little, Brown and Company for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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No one sees her, but she sees everything. Elinor Gilbert was once a young woman with a thriving career at the FBI.
Now decades past solving crimes with the bureau, she is personally and professionally forgettable.
Which is exactly what her former FBI boss needs. He disguises Elinor as a middle-aged nanny, and casts her as an agent on the inside of his investigation into a New York art dealer suspected of ties to organized crime.
But as Elinor pushes toward the truth, her superpower—anonymity—morphs into a fatal flaw.
The more the invisible woman integrates into her “host” family, the more dangerously memorable she becomes.
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There is something about a good James Patterson book that can just pull me in and make me lose track of time as I spend a day engrossed in one of his compelling storylines. In this latest offering, he brings us one of those types of books, and I am happy to say that I spent this cold Sunday curled up on the couch, enjoying what he does best. The short chapters and propulsive storyline kept me entertained from the first page to the last. Elinor is a likable protagonist, and there are enough twists and turns to keep the action moving, without veering into any of the overused tropes that sometimes appear in the thriller genre. If you are a fan of Patterson's other standalone crime thrillers, this is the perfect book for you. I will always look forward to more from James Patterson and his co-authors.


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The Shippers by Katherine Center

The Shippers by Katherine Center
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I am not sure whose nice list I got on, but yesterday a magical email arrived with a widget for an ARC of this book, and suddenly my December has been made! As per last time Katherine Center’s publisher smiled down upon me and entrusted me with the honor of reading one of my most-anticipated releases of the (next) year early, I will probably spend today on my couch and will not emerge from the pages (?) of my Kindle until I am ready to review. Stay tuned!
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Thank you to St. Martin's Press via NetGalley for providing me with an advanced copy of this book in exchange for my honest review!
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After a whole lifetime of being bad at love, JoJo Burton decides to solve her intimacy issues once and for all at her sister’s destination wedding on a cruise ship. With the help of a little pop psychology, she diagnoses herself with a fixation on the neighborhood guy who was her first crush and first kiss (and who just happens to be a newly-divorced wedding guest ), and she decides to woo him during the cruise for some long-delayed closure. Only problem is, her sister’s a little busy being a bride at the moment—so JoJo ropes in her childhood bestie, Cooper Watts, to be her wing man. Cooper: who RSVPed no, but then showed up, anyway. Cooper: who left town without a word four years earlier and moved to London. Cooper: who was, if she’s honest, the worst heartbreak of JoJo’s life. It’s bliss for her to see him again, and it’s agony, too—and the more they team up for Project Conquest, the more she obsesses over questions she can’t bring herself to ask.

Shipboard antics ensue in this witty, heart-tugging, childhood-friends-to-lovers romance—as JoJo and Cooper fake flirt, slow dance, share a cabin, sing duets, treat sunburns, get jealous, rescue each other over and over, and finally, at last, figure it all out in the most blissful, swoony, romantic way.
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What is there even to say about another Katherine Center masterpiece being released into the world? Year after year, we get treated to the kind of romance that is absolutelyI fun to read. There are parts that are just laugh-out-loud funny. There's some excitement thrown in. There's plenty of will-they-or-won't-they tension (although we know we are going to get a HEA from this author, so of course they will in the end). And every year, Center finds some fun new central plot point to build her book around, and I have yet to be disappointed in one of them.

JoJo and Cooper's story is a witty, touching, satisfying journey from their childhood days all the way up until the last page of this summer romance. With shades of fake dating and the classic childhood-friends-to-lovers trope, along with some miscommunication (which is usually one of my least favorite tropes but works very well in this instance) and a bit of a redemption arc, we get some of Center's best, and I would recommend this to anyone who loves love. I often go back and purchase Center's book as audiobooks so that I can experience them again in a different format, and I can already tell The Shippers will be added to my audiobook library. It was an easy decision to rate this one five stars!

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