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It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 23 June 2025

This week I’m linking up to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date!

#IMWAYR is a weekly meme started on J Kaye’s blog and now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

Last Week I Read:Happily Never After by Paisley Nash

I received this one as an ARC and absolutely loved it! I’m just waiting for my signed special edition to come in the mail!

Only If You’re Lucky by Stacey Willingham

I’ve been in my rereading era lately and I enjoyed this one just as much as I did the first time!

Currently Reading:With A Vengeance by Riley Sager

I just received my copy of Riley Sager’s latest and dove right in. I’m enjoying it so far.

Caught Up by Navessa Allen

My current audiobook borrow from the library and I’m loving every minute. Do I like Junior more than Josh in Lights Out? That’s a tough one since Josh holds a special place in my heart but Junior is high up there too!

Reading Next:Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito

My audiobook hold on this one just came through from the library and I’m excited to finally read it.

What are you reading and loving this week? Have you read any of these?

The Sunday Post: Back… or Am I?

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.

Back… or am I?

Hey Book Blogger Friends! How have you been?

It’s been a while since I posted as I took several months away from blogging, preferring to be more active on other social platforms.

What have I been up to? In April I took a vacation to New Orleans and saw some really cool things and ate some amazing food. This past week I took a mini vacation to the Madison area here in Wisconsin and stayed at a gorgeous boutique hotel that is a converted dairy. On the way down I stopped in the Wisconsin Dells and took a boat tour to visit the Witches Gulch (below)

Other than that I’ve been struggling to balance my day job, working on my novel projects, reading, and continuing my weight loss journey which caused me to not have much time for blogging. So I’m taking a small step back in attempt not to overwhelm myself again.

Last Week on the Blog:

Release Day Blitz: Someone Knows by Vi Keeland

ARC Review: Happily Never After by Paisley Nash

This Week on the Blog:

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 23 June 2025

Top Ten Tuesday: Most Anticipated Books Releasing in the Second Half of 2025

Additional Posts TBD…

New Book Mail on My Shelves:Physical:

ARC Review: Happily Never After by Paisley Nash

Happily Never After by Paisley Nash

Small Town Ronance

eBook, Paperback, 479 pages

June 20, 2025 by The Witching Hour Publishing

Blurb:

My life was supposed to be simple.

Grow old on my family’s farm with my high school sweetheart. A few dogs, a bunch of kids. We had a plan.

I’d serve my country. She’d go to college. And then, we’d build our forever.

Four years in, forever together.

But life doesn’t always go as planned.

Now, I can’t even bring myself to step foot in the town I once loved. Heart Springs feels more like a ghost of the life I lost, a place filled with memories I’d rather forget. I’m an honorably discharged veteran, barely holding it together. Every day is a battle, and I’m just trying to make it to the next.

Then she shows up.

Georgia Rose.

A woman who doesn’t belong in my world.

Her sleek car and polished city-girl charm clash violently with my rough edges and the wreckage of who I used to be. She’s infuriating, too put-together for a man like me, and the sneer on her lips tells me she doesn’t think much of me either.

I don’t want anything to do with her.

But then she speaks the words that bring my world to a screeching halt.

Now, I have a choice. Face the ghosts of my past, or walk away and lose my chance at something I never thought I’d have again.

Can I take on the challenge she’s thrown in my lap? Or will the scars of my past keep me from the future I once dreamed of?

My Review:

This book was everything I hoped it would be going in, a small town that was well fleshed out to fall in love with, side characters that add humor and heart, and a couple with scorching chemistry and hilarious banter.

Happily Never After takes on some heavy topics like foster care and adoptions, PTSD, loss of a parent, and an immune disorder on page and I thought each was handled with the upmost care by the author.

Both of our main characters, Georgia and Kade have quite the journey from start to finish battling their own demons and when they come together it’s so beautiful. Their banter was everything and Kade is the king of dirty talk and I was there for it every second.

We have to talk about the side characters that rounded out the story – Griff, Wilde, Abby, Bea, and Kade’s sisters. They added so much to the story and I can’t wait to see more of them in future books.

Heart Springs itself, the town in which the story is set is just the right amount of small town that you wish you could step into the story and shop the shops and meet the locals at the coffee shop or the bar.

I knew from early on this would be a 5 star read for me, I loved it from start to finish and by the end I was so emotional and rooting for Kade and Georgia.

My Rating:

5 of 5 Knives!

Release Day Blitz: SOMEONE KNOWS by Vi Keeland

Title: Someone KnowsAuthor: Vi KeelandPublisher: S&S/Emily Bestler BooksGenre: Standalone ThrillerRelease Date: June 17, 2025BLURB

As a college English professor, Elizabeth looks forward to the start of each new semester teaching her creative writing seminar. At least until she reads chapter one of The Reckoning, a tale about a high school senior who has an affair with her teacher. To anyone else it would be the beginning of a great page-turner, but to Elizabeth it is the beginning of the end.

She knows this story. It’s all familiar because she lived it. The girl in the story was her best friend Jocelyn, and Elizabeth knows exactly how the story will end—with the teacher dead. Because she was the one who killed him.

Someone knows what Elizabeth did twenty years ago and her secret is about to be exposed, but who is the mystery student submitting the chapters? In an effort to find out, Elizabeth returns to her Louisiana hometown where it soon becomes clear that no matter how many years have gone by, she can’t escape her past.

GOODREADS BOOKBUB PURCHASE LINKSAMAZON / B&N / KOBOAPPLE BOOKS / GOOGLE PLAYBAM / BOOKSHOP AUTHOR BIO Vi Keeland is a #1 New York Times, #1 Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author. With millions of books sold, her titles are currently translated in twenty-seven languages and have appeared on bestseller lists in the US, Germany, Brazil, Bulgaria, Israel, and Hungary. Three of her short stories have been turned into films by Passionflix, and two of her books are currently optioned for movies. She resides in New York with her husband and their three children where she is living out her own happily ever after with the boy she met at age six.AUTHOR LINKSFACEBOOKPROFILE / PAGE / GROUP WEBSITE TIKTOK INSTAGRAM
TWITTER GOODREADS

ARC Review: Coram House by Bailey Seybolt

Coram House by Bailey Seybolt

Adult, Thriller, Standalone

eBook, Hardcover, Audiobook, 320 pages

April 15, 2025 by Atria Books

Blurb:

A haunting novel—inspired by a true story—about a crime writer who risks everything as she investigates the mystery of two deaths, decades apart, at a crumbling Vermont orphanage.

On a blistering summer day in 1968, nine-year-old Tommy vanishes without a trace from Coram House, an orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Some say a nun drowned him, others say he ran away. Or maybe he never existed. Fifty years later, his disappearance is still unsolved.

Struggling true crime writer Alex Kelley needs a fresh start. When she’s asked to ghostwrite a book about the orphanage—and the abuses that occurred there—she packs up her belongings and moves to wintry Burlington, Vermont.

As Alex tries to untangle the conflicting stories surrounding Tommy’s disappearance, her investigation takes a chilling turn when she discovers a woman’s body in the lake. Alex is convinced the death is connected to Coram House’s dark past, even if local police officer Russell Parker thinks she’s just desperate for a career-saving story. As the body count rises, Alex must prove that the key to finding the killer lies in Tommy’s murder, or risk becoming the next victim.

My Review:

While factionalized, this is inspired by the St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont and the abuses that occurred there. I found this story fascinating from start to finish!

Alex is a true crime novelist whose first novel made it big when she uncovered the truth behind a murder of sisters in Maine in the 1800s. Her second novel, written while her husband lay dying, mistakenly pointed the finger at the wrong man in the cold case murder of a child and was pulled from the shelves.

Now, widowed and living as a shell of her former self, Alex is trying to pick up the pieces and start fresh by ghost writing a novel about Coram House – an orphanage in Burlington, Vermont that was shuttered in 1977 after allegations of sexual misconduct by the Catholic Church were uncovered. Alex has been hired by the attorney that settled the case for the victims but as she begins digging through the old files one story sticks with her – the testimony of Sarah Dale and how she witnessed a nun throw a boy out of a boat and watched him drown. A story that was hushed up saying that the child ran away and Sarah being discredited.

The attorney, the police, even Alex’s friend Lola all tell her to forget about the boy and tell the story she was hired for but she can’t. And then she stumbles upon a body of a woman on her morning run. A woman with ties of her own to Coram House. Soon, Alex finds herself wrapped up in the middle of the investigation and she’ll have to unravel the truth – from back then and now – before she becomes the next victim.

This book was very well written. It pulls at your heart and leaves you breathless with anticipation as Alex follows up on leads. It kept me guessing and I was genuinely surprised by the ending! I also thought, though fictionalized, the author’s depiction of the orphanage was vivid on the page. I could see the orphanage so clearly in my head as well as the cruelty of the nuns and the abuses described. I immediately went to the website the author cites at the end to read more about the real orphanage.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more by this author!

My Rating:

5 of 5 Knives!

Can’t Wait Wednesday: The Goldens!

Can’t-Wait Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Wishful Endings, to spotlight and discuss the books we’re excited about that we have yet to read. Generally they’re books that have yet to be released.

The Goldens by Lauren Wilson

Thriller, Standalone

eBook, Hardcover, audiobook, 304 Pages

July 15, 2025 by Flatiron Books

Blurb:

A dark, intoxicating and unputdownable thriller, simmering with atmosphere

Chloe has always dreamed of becoming a bestselling writer. Then she meets enigmatic influencer Clara Holland, and at last, Chloe has something to write about. They bond instantly, and Chloe moves into Clara’s mansion. But as Clara’s fame skyrockets, she starts behaving strangely, hosting increasingly wild parties, complete with bonfire rituals and moonlit river baptisms.

Clara opens up her home to other girls desperate to live like her. The media call it a cult, and soon Chloe begins to hear unsettling rumours from Clara’s past. After one spectacular party, a girl goes missing and the rumours take on a sinister new meaning. If Chloe can’t escape Clara’s influence, she may be next …

THE GOLDENS is about to become your newest obsession.

Why I Want to Read This Book:

I first learned about this one when I got an email for Flatiron Books’s new influencer program and requested it as an ARC (fingers crossed!). You know I love thrillers where the MC is a writer and this sounds like the perfect summer thriller to look forward to!

Will you be checking this book out? What upcoming releases are you looking forward to?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 31 March 2025

This week I’m linking up to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date!

#IMWAYR is a weekly meme started on J Kaye’s blog and now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

Last Week I Read:Wild Love (Rose Hill Book 1) by Elsie Silver

I don’t know what took me so long to read this one but I absolutely loved it and can’t wait to read the rest of the series!

Natural Magick by Lindsay Squire

A friend of mine recommended this to me since we both follow this account on IG and I found it really informative!

Tears of the Wolf by Elisabeth Wheatley

You might have seen this author’s Book Goblin videos on social media, which is what drew me to her account and learning about this book and I’m so glad I did! I loved it! A fierce FMC working through grief. A patient and understanding love interest. A telepathic dog. What’s not to love?

Currently Reading:The Mirror by Nora Roberts

I’m about halfway into this one and loving it just as much as the first book. There’s just something comforting about Nora Roberts’s books. Maybe because my grandmother and I both shared a love for her books?

Reading Next:Folklore Magick by Lindsay Squire

This is this author‘s latest release and I just borrowed it from the library. I’m deciding on what else I want to start since this is an ebook.

What are you reading and loving this week? Have you read any of these?

ARC Review: Love Me by Jenn Plummer

Love Me (Aspen Ridge #3) by Jenn Plummer

Contemporary Romance, Aspen Ridge Series #3

ebook, Hardcover, Paperback, 410 Pages

March 25, 2025 by Wild Lupine Books LLC

Blurb:

Hannah
When my parents give me an ultimatum to settle down with my daughter’s father or they’ll sell the family business, which I’d hoped to inherit, my life crumbles around me. The man they expect me to marry? He has a secret life with a pregnant girlfriend in another city and zero interest in marrying me or stepping up as a father for our child. Luckily, the one man who hasn’t left my side since we were three, has a plan to fix it all. Marry him instead. It seems simple enough, but the attention he’s suddenly giving me is making me question everything.

Liam
I’ve been desperately in love with my best friend for years. Hannah may think we’re just role-playing to get her family to hand over the business she’s been running by herself, but there’s nothing fake about any of this for me. It’s time Hannah feels what it could be like to be with a real man who would do anything for her and her daughter. She just needs to open her eyes and finally see me. Because once I make her my wife, I’m not going anywhere.

**Love Me is book three in the interconnected Aspen Ridge Series and can be read as a standalone. HEA guaranteed!**

My Review:

I loved the 3rd book in the Aspen Ridge Series! Love Me couples Liam and his childhood best friend who he’s always loved, Hannah and I loved reading their friends-to-lovers, marriage of convenience story! Hannah is my type of girl, we even love the same horror movies.

Liam was such a sweetheart supporting Hannah every step of the way and being so patient with her and I loved how he was with her daughter.

This book gave me all the feels. This whole series is so bingeable giving all the small town tight-knit community readers are loving lately while also bringing the spice and Love Me slid perfectly in with the first two books! I can’t wait to read Carter’s story next! 

My Rating:

5 of 5 Knives!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 17 March 2025

This week I’m linking up to It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? Hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date!

#IMWAYR is a weekly meme started on J Kaye’s blog and now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date.

Last Week I Read:Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

This was a bit whimsical for me but also found it worth listening to for getting out of my creative slump.

Love Me by Jenn Plummer

I really enjoyed this one! Hannah was definitely my kind of character and Liam was the kind of book boyfriend we all aspire to find in real life!

Scythe and Sparrow by Brynne Weaver

I really loved Rosie and Fionn’s story! Rosie is just what Fionn calls her – mayhem in the most hilarious way. And you can’t miss Barbara the raccoon!

Currently Reading:Beautiful Villain by Rebecca Kenney

I’m almost 100 pages into this one and loving it! It’s a Gatsby reimagining with vampires!

Close Your Eyes and Count to 10 by Lisa Unger

This one is a super fast read and I’m really enjoying it!

Reading Next:Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

I wanted to read this one right away when it released but a bunch of audiobook holds came into the library and I had to listen to those first.

What are you reading and loving this week? Have you read any of these?

The Sunday Post: Learning French and Warm Afternoons

The Sunday Post is a weekly meme hosted by Kimberly @ Caffeinated Reviewer. It’s a chance to share news~ A post to recap the past week on your blog and showcase books and things we have received. Share news about what is coming up on our blog for the week ahead. See rules here: Sunday Post Meme.

Learning French and Warm Afternoons

Hey Book Blogger Friends! How was your week? I’ve been absent dealing with some pain/sick issues for a couple weeks and slowly coming back.

While I’ve been resting I’ve started learning French on Duolingo. My pronunciation is atrocious, the French would be horrified but I’m picking it up pretty well except I keep mixing up the masculine and feminine tense.

Friday was an absolutely gorgeous day, 70+ degrees and somewhat sunny. I took a drive and was going to go hiking but it’s still pretty muddy on the trails so I ended up just taking a long walk around town instead. Sadly the temperature is going down again this week. Boo!

Last Week on the Blog:

First Line Friday: 14 March 2025

Stacking the Shelves: 15 March 2025

This Week on the Blog:

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? – 17 March 2025

First Line Friday: 21 March 2025

New Book Mail on My Shelves:Physical:eARC: