My TBR for 2023 is a little lengthy and I’m sure it will continue to grow and grow and grow! So many books, so little time!
Ugly Love
Colleen Hoover
But of course there is a Colleen Hoover on my list. What kind of list would it be without her?
When Tate Collins meets airline pilot Miles Archer, she doesn’t think it’s love at first sight. They wouldn’t even go so far as to consider themselves friends. The only thing Tate and Miles have in common is an undeniable mutual attraction. Once their desires are out in the open, they realize they have the perfect set-up. He doesn’t want love, she doesn’t have time for love, so that just leaves the sex. Their arrangement could be surprisingly seamless, as long as Tate can stick to the two rules Miles has for her.
Never ask about the past.
Don’t expect a future.
They think they can handle it, but realize almost immediately they can’t handle it at all.
Hearts get infiltrated.
Promises get broken.
Rules get shattered.
Love gets ugly.
(Via Amazon)
The Boys From Biloxi
John Grisham
I haven’t read too many John Grisham novels, but I love all the movies made from his books. I don’t know why I don’t usually read him. Wandering through Costco the other day this one caught my eye and once I picked it up, it had to come home with me.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Two families. One courtroom showdown. • John Grisham’s most gripping thriller yet. • “A legal literary legend.” —USA Today
John Grisham returns to Mississippi with the riveting story of two sons of immigrant families who grow up as friends, but ultimately find themselves on opposite sides of the law. Grisham’s trademark twists and turns will keep you tearing through the pages until the stunning conclusion.
For most of the last hundred years, Biloxi was known for its beaches, resorts, and seafood industry. But it had a darker side. It was also notorious for corruption and vice, everything from gambling, prostitution, bootleg liquor, and drugs to contract killings. The vice was controlled by small cabal of mobsters, many of them rumored to be members of the Dixie Mafia.
Keith Rudy and Hugh Malco grew up in Biloxi in the sixties and were childhood friends, as well as Little League all-stars. But as teenagers, their lives took them in different directions. Keith’s father became a legendary prosecutor, determined to “clean up the Coast.” Hugh’s father became the “Boss” of Biloxi’s criminal underground. Keith went to law school and followed in his father’s footsteps. Hugh preferred the nightlife and worked in his father’s clubs. The two families were headed for a showdown, one that would happen in a courtroom.
Life itself hangs in the balance in The Boys from Biloxi, a sweeping saga rich with history and with a large cast of unforgettable characters.
(Via Amazon)
Waxing On: The Karate Kid and Me
Ralph Macchio
Oh my gosh! Who didn’t love this series as a kid? I just knew I was going to grow up and marry Daniel LaRusso. I may have been a little off in my assessment there, I didn’t factor in that I would actually have to meet him… fall in love… and well… you know, stuff.
To say that I was completely stoked when the Netflix series Cobra Kai came out starring Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence is a complete understatement—Yes I’m sure they probably have real names, but to me they will always be Daniel and Johnny.
Since The Karate Kid first crane-kicked its way into the pop culture stratosphere in June 1984, there hasn’t been a week Ralph Macchio hasn’t heard friendly shouts of “Wax on, wax off” or “Sweep the leg!” Now, with Macchio reprising his role as Daniel LaRusso in the #1 ranked Netflix show Cobra Kai, he is finally ready to look back and cele-brate the legacy of The Karate Kid in cinema, pop culture, and his own life.
The result, Waxing On, is a comprehensive look at the film that shaped Macchio as much as it influenced the world. He shares an insider’s perspective of the untold story behind the scenes—the innocence of the early days; the audition process; his experiences working with Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, and William Zabka; and so much more. He also takes readers through the birth of some of the film’s most iconic moments, including the creation of the famous crane kick and the touching scenes that revealed Mr. Miyagi’s intriguing backstory.
Ultimately, the book centers on Ralph’s indelible connection to the film itself, focusing on the reason that the characters and themes have endured in such a powerful way, and how these personal experiences have impacted Macchio’s life as well. It brings readers back to the day they met Daniel LaRusso and Mr. Miyagi for the first time, but also provides a fascinating lens into how our pasts shape all of us, and how they can come back to enrich our lives in surprising and wonderful ways.
(Via Amazon)
Shadow Work Journal for Self-Love
Latha Jay and Valerie Inez
Okay… so honestly, who doesn’t need to work on themselves a little bit, huh? I know I do, and this seems like a fun way to do just that.
Practice self-love with guided shadow work exercises and journaling prompts that help you heal old wounds, break harmful cycles, and accept all parts of yourself.
Shadow work is the process of uncovering the parts of you that you subconsciously hide or reject, such as unwanted traits or characteristics suppressed during childhood, and bringing them into your awareness. It allows you to identify, heal, and accept all parts of yourself—including the “bad” parts you’ve repressed—so you’re no longer held back by emotional triggers, self-sabotaging behaviors, and self-limiting beliefs.
With Shadow Work Journal for Self-Love, you’ll connect with your inner child, release shame, guilt, and fear, and face the world anew as your whole, authentic self.
- Embrace your shadow to embrace yourself with a step-by-step approach to shadow work that prioritizes self-love
- Use guided shadow work exercises and activities to find your most vulnerable parts and hold them with gentle awareness
- Support yourself with loving self-care rituals to care for your mind, body, and spirit as you explore uncharted territory
- Grow more self-aware with 75 journaling prompts to explore your shadow and its impact on your life
(Via Amazon)
No One Needs to Know
Lindsay Cameron
Well… I kinda need to know—what this book is all about, that is.
Lindsay Cameron is new on my list too, but they hooked and reeled me in at “Big Little Lies meets Gossip Girl.”
When an anonymous neighborhood forum gets hacked, the darkest secrets of New York’s wealthiest residents come to light—including some worth killing for—in this gripping suspense novel from the author of Just One Look.
“Big Little Lies meets Gossip Girl in this unputdownable read as smart and witty as it is delectable . . . I raced through it!”—Liv Constantine, author of The Last Mrs. Parrish
It was all confidential. Right up to the moment when it wasn’t.
UrbanMyth: It was lauded as an alternative to the performative, show-your-best-self platforms—an anonymous discussion board grouped by zip code. The residents of Manhattan’s exclusive Upper East Side disclosed it all, things they would never share with their friends or their spouses: secret bank accounts, steamy affairs, tidbits of juicy gossip. The same people who, as parents, go to astonishing lengths to ensure that their children gain admission to the most prestigious boarding schools and universities. So when a “hacktivist” group breaks into the forum and exposes the real identity of each poster, the repercussions echo down Park Avenue with a force that none could have anticipated.
And someone ends up dead.
Is the murderer Heather, the outsider who would do anything to get her daughter into the elite’s good graces and into their even better schools? Norah, the high-powered executive failing to balance work with the emotional responsibilities of motherhood? Or Poppy, whose perfect-on-the-outside façade conceals more than her share of secrets?
Each of them has something to hide.
Each of them will do anything to keep secrets hidden.
And each of them just might kill to protect their own.
(Via Amazon)
Escape
James Patterson and David Ellis
This is another Costco find. I swear I could spend all day circling the book table there—my daughter already complains that I do.
James Patterson has been one of my go to’s from the beginning. The short chapters in his books make for a super easy read.
In this companion to #1 New York Times bestseller The Black Book, Detective Billy Harney chases down a billionaire crime boss and a prison escape artist while a young girl’s life hangs in the balance.
As Chicago PD’s special-ops leader, Detective Billy Harney knows well that money is not the only valuable currency. The filthy rich man he’s investigating is down to his last twenty million. He’s also being held in jail.
For now.
Billy’s unit is called in when an escape plan results in officers down and inmates vanished.
In an empty lot, Billy spots two Kevlar vests. Two helmets. Two assault rifles. And a handwritten note:
Hi, Billy
Are you having fun yet?
(Via Amazon)
Out of the Corner: A Memoir
Jennifer Grey
No one puts baby in a corner! Well… except maybe Hollywood.
I have probably seen this movie over 100 times. Okay… to be fair, the love was probably more for Patrick Swayze than it was for Jennifer Grey, but she was still my second favorite in the movie.
I can see why she became Americas sweetheart. What I can’t see is why Hollywood would have dropped her due to plastic surgery, I’m doubtful that they operated on her acting skills, so IMHO it shouldn’t have mattered.
I think we, as a society, spend a little too much time digging into the personal lives of others when we should probably be looking inward first.
If a nose job makes someone feel good, who are we to judge? I get that her notoriety may have suffered a little, but acting is acting. People change, Looks change.
Take Jerry O’Connell. He doesn’t look anything like Vern from Stand by Me—Side note, I know this because I totally nerded out this weekend and went to Brownsville, Or. to attend Stand by Me Day. Yes that’s a real thing. A lot of the movie was filmed there, and on July 23rd every year they hold this festival complete with a blueberry pie eating contest.
Anyway, naturally after wandering around the filming locations, I had to rush home and watch the movie—Which of course, prodded me to look up who played each of the characters.
I was shocked to see that Jerry O’Connell played Vern. I think he is nearly unrecognizable as Vern. Yet that’s what he looked like at the time. Doesn’t mean he suddenly can’t act anymore just because he looks different.
Okay… rant over.
“A funny, dishy, occasionally heartbreaking coming-of-age story.”—The New York Times
“Savage and engaging . . . Grey’s memoir is interesting not only for her journey out of darkness but also for what her story reveals about what women encounter in the entertainment business, and the fortitude required to make it.”—The Washington Post
In this beautiful, close-to-the bone account, Jennifer Grey takes readers on a vivid tour of the experiences that have shaped her, from her childhood as the daughter of Broadway and film legend Joel Grey, to the surprise hit with Patrick Swayze that made her America’s sweetheart, to her inspiring season eleven win on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars.
Throughout this intimate narrative, Grey richly evokes places and times that were defining for a generation—from her preteen days in 1970s Malibu and wild child nights in New York’s club scene, to her roles in quintessential movies of the 1980s, including The Cotton Club, Red Dawn, and her breakout performance in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. With self-deprecating humor and frankness, she looks back on her unbridled, romantic adventures in Hollywood. And with enormous bravery, she shares the devastating fallout from a plastic surgery procedure that caused the sudden and stunning loss of her professional identity and career. Grey inspires with her hard-won battle back, reclaiming her sense of self from a culture and business that can impose a narrow and unforgiving definition of female worth. She finds, at last, her own true north and starts a family of her own, just in the nick of time.
Distinctive, moving, and powerful, told with generosity and pluck, Out of the Corner is a memoir about a never-ending personal evolution, a coming-of-age story for women of every age.
(Via Amazon)
Final Girls
Riley Sager
This book literally could probably be the phonebook and I would be excited to read it. I have loved everything this man has written and I’m sure this probably won’t be the exception.
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls: Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout’s knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them and, with that, one another. Despite the media’s attempts, they never meet.
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.
That is until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit; and Sam, the second Final Girl, appears on Quincy’s doorstep. Blowing through Quincy’s life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa’s death come to light, Quincy’s life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam’s truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.
(Via Amazon)
Behind Her Eyes
Sarah Pinborough
I actually found this one while I was looking through Netflix. It’s an original series. Once I found out that it was based off a novel, I knew I had to read it. The book is always so much better!
“An eerie thriller…Pinborough keeps us guessing about just who’s manipulating whom – until the ending reveals that we’ve been wholly complicit in this terrifying mind game.” ―The New York Times Book Review
Why is everyone talking about the ending of Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes?
Louise is a single mom, a secretary, stuck in a modern-day rut. On a rare night out, she meets a man in a bar and sparks fly.
When Louise arrives at work on Monday, she meets her new boss, David. The man from the bar. The very married man from the bar…who says the kiss was a terrible mistake, but who still can’t keep his eyes off Louise.
And then Louise bumps into Adele, who’s new to town and in need of a friend. But she also just happens to be married to David. And if you think you know where this story is going, think again, because Behind Her Eyes is like no other book you’ve read before.
David and Adele look like the picture-perfect husband and wife. But then why is David so controlling? And why is Adele so scared of him?
As Louise is drawn into David and Adele’s orbit, she uncovers more puzzling questions than answers. The only thing that is crystal clear is that something in this marriage is very, very wrong. But Louise can’t guess how wrong―and how far a person might go to protect their marriage’s secrets.
In Behind Her Eyes, Sarah Pinborough has written a novel that takes the modern day love triangle and not only turns it on its head, but completely reinvents it in a way that will leave readers reeling.
(Via Amazon)
The Woods
Harlan Coben
I’ve only read one Harlan Coben to date, and I absolutely loved the book. Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You. Needless to say, I am looking forward to this one. The Woods is also a Netflix original under the name of the Stranger.
Paul Copeland, a New Jersey county prosecutor, is still grieving the loss of his sister from twenty years ago—the night she walked into the woods, never to be seen again. But now, a homicide victim is found with evidence linking him to the disappearance. The victim could be the boy who vanished along with Paul’s sister. And, as hope rises that his sister could still be alive, dangerous secrets from his family’s past threaten to tear apart everything Paul has been trying to hold together….
(Via Amazon)
Find Her
Lisa Gardner
I absolutely love the Detective DD Warren series. She is a kickass, no-nonsense detective and she always gets her man.
This is number 8 in the series. I did a little sneak peek into the first couple of chapters already. I can already tell this is going to be good! This book introduces us to Flora Dane, who will appear in other books down the line in this series.
Seven years ago, Flora Dane was kidnapped while on spring break. For 472 days, Flora learned just how much one person can endure.
Miraculously alive after her ordeal, Flora has spent the past five years reacquainting herself with the rhythms of normal life, working with her FBI victim advocate, Samuel Keynes. She has a mother who’s never stopped loving her, a brother who is scared of the person she’s become, and a bedroom wall covered with photos of other girls who’ve never made it home.
When Boston detective D. D. Warren is called to the scene of a crime—a dead man and the bound, naked woman who killed him—she learns that Flora has tangled with three other suspects since her return to society. Is Flora a victim or a vigilante? And with her firsthand knowledge of criminal behavior, could she hold the key to rescuing a missing college student whose abduction has rocked Boston? When Flora herself disappears, D.D. realizes a far more sinister predator is out there. One who’s determined that this time, Flora Dane will never escape. And now it is all up to D. D. Warren to find her.
(Via Amazon)
I positively cannot wait to dive into this mound of books! Have you read any of them? Drop me a line in the comments section below and let me know what you thought or what you’re looking forward to reading.
If you haven’t already, you can get any of these books here on Amazon, or get one for free when you sign up for a free trial from Audible.
Until next time, stay brash, stay bookish and stay true to you!
