My very favorite Bossy July reads! Here are the books I most loved reading in the heat of July! If you've read any of these books, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 Will They or Won't They by Ava Wilder Ava Wilder's rom-com takes us behind the scenes of a hit teen TV show whose lead characters once liked each other in real life but now can't stand each other. This was funny, sweet, steamy, and poignant--a fantastic summer light-fiction read that I loved. Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are the stars of the popular paranormal television show Intangible, and for multiple seasons they've yearned for each other on screen, but their characters have never gotten together. Shane and Lilah detest each other. Their secret tryst at the end of season one ended badly, and they've been far from friendly ever since. In order to get through their final season, they'll have to play nice--and get more intimate on screen than either of them ever wanted to again. I LOVED this. The premise sounded like a slam dunk for me, and the reality of the book was a funny, poignant, banter-filled, behind-the-scenes, realistically complicated, wonderful story. There's a ton of steaminess as Lilah and Shane at times can't deny their attraction and act upon it. I smiled a lot, I teared up, and I loved this perfect summer read! For my full review, check out Will They or Won't They. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. 02 The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the lives of her characters in 2010s Ireland. In Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction The Rachel Incident, main character Rachel is an Irish university student working in a Cork bookstore in the 2010s. She's dating a boring but reliable young man from her high school and living at home when she meets James. James is irresistible, vivacious, and mischievous--and Rachel is immediately swept into his powerful orbit. Years later, Rachel runs into someone from her past, which spurs her to think back to the events and relationships that shaped her during her college years. Despite some of the questionable, haunting choices that are made at times in the story, I was so taken with the characters that my cringing didn't hamper my enjoyment of the celebration of friendship, circuitous routes to self-confidence, and heartwarming second chances. I loved The Rachel Incident--the story, the characters, and the vivid setting of 2010s Ireland. Click here for my full review of The Rachel Incident. 03 What Remains by Wendy Walker Wendy Walker's thriller focuses on a detective, her stalker, and the lengths both will go to to try to get what they want. This is a character-driven mystery with a twist. When Detective Elise Sutton stumbles into a crime--a gunman is wandering a big-box store, shooting--she draws her gun for the first time in her career and takes down the shooter, saving at least one bystander's life. But when guilt and self-doubt lead her to track down the almost-victim, Wade Austin, he assures her that her actions saved him. But then he insinuates himself into Elise's life in odd and alarming ways. It becomes clear that he has been learning from the online notes of a class Elise once taught on getting away with murder so that he may attract attention yet evade detection--and, most importantly, make sure Elise knows he's in control of her destiny. In order to keep her husband, young daughters, and partner safe, Elise may have to keep some crucial secrets and take unimaginable risks in an attempt to outsmart her stalker. The story is told with alternating chapters focused on a chilling crime that feels connected to the Elise-Wade situation, and this second storyline doesn't bode well for Elise's future. This is a character-driven mystery with an interesting twist. Click here for my full review of What Remains. 04 Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens Claudia Cravens's story of a young brothel worker in late nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, offers up a tough young heroine who makes mistakes but whose perseverance and loyalty lead her to an unorthodox life full of friends and adventure. Practical, tough sixteen-year-old Bridget arrives in 1877 Dodge City without a penny to her name or enough marketable skills to earn her keep. She begins working at the Buffalo Queen, using her bright-red hair and pure, country-girl appeal to her advantage. Then Bridget falls for a fellow "sporting woman," and when the Buffalo Queen is threatened, she must determine where her loyalties lie. Bridget is strong and no-nonsense yet also inexperienced and far from worldly. Her decision to become a prostitute is a choice between hunger and a full belly, and she isn't sentimental about sexual intimacy or about what might have been. The bedrock for Lucky Red is made up of wonderful historical fiction details of life in the dusty, volatile, lawless West. Please click here for my full review of Lucky Red. 05 Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Leigh Bardugo In the second installment in Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern series, Alex is as brave, scowling, and unapologetic as ever--and Darlington will need her mental fortitude, unorthodox thinking, and magical abilities if he has any hope of escaping from hell. Ninth House was the first in Bardugo's Alex Stern series. I love returning to Alex's creative, irresistibly unorthodox approach to life and her grumpy, undying loyalty to her small group of trusted loved ones. In Hell Bent, Alex Stern is determined to save Darlington from the clutches of hell, even if it costs her her precarious position as a student at Yale and her role at Lethe as an overseer of the university's secret society's magical goings-on. Alex and Dawes must work secretly to try to figure out how to reach Darlington and bring him back, because their activities are unsanctioned. The outcome seems to have little hope of being anything but deadly. Hell Bent is clever and sometimes darkly funny, yet a somber undertone runs throughout it. Alex's past is far from free of blemishes and pain, and some of her life-and-death decisions required fortitude that it's tough for her to lose in order to be vulnerable with those she cares about. For my full review, please check out Hell Bent. 06 Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine Julia Fine's Maddalena and the Dark is a gothic story set in 1700s Venice in which two young women's lives and destinies become intertwined through a series of dark, magical promises designed to secure the elusive destinies they desire. It's early 1700s Venice at a prestigious music school for orphans, the Ospedale della Pietà. Quiet, unassuming Luisa has always aimed to be the best at the violin. She wants to join the famed girls' orchestra and to one day become a protégé of Antonio Vivaldi. But her meek and mild manner invites only cold shoulders and contempt from her fellow students. That is, until the mysterious Maddalena arrives. Luisa and Maddalena become fast friends, and their link grows every deeper. Then Maddalena hatches a plan in which each of them might help the other achieve her ambitious dream. But a young woman in that time has little say over her destiny. The girls make dark deals and may need to give up all that is precious in order to secure the power they need to determine their fate. Maddalena and the Dark has a distinct gothic tone, and the story treads ever deeper into seedy, suspect, forbidding scenes of magical realism that seem to foretell certain destruction. For my full review, please see Maddalena and the Dark.

I couldn't get past the holes in the premise of this lighthearted, romantic, zany rom-com long enough to buy into the story of an artist with face blindness who falls for two men, despite not being able to identify them with any dependability. Sadie Montgomery thought she was at a high point in her life. She was a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition...but then she woke up unable to recognize faces as anything more than a jumble of features. The doctors tell her it's likely temporary, but she can't help but panic. Meanwhile she's got family issues to cope with--and she's falling for two different men. Hello Stranger has a zany premise, and the book is playful. But I found myself distracted and sometimes irritated by the over-the-top details. Sadie provides an absurd and incredibly unhealthy dog diet for her beloved pet Peanut (takeout Thai food, for example), who is having health crises. This just seemed harmful and felt too ridiculous for me to buy into. Her stepsister Parker is absurdly evil and vindictive. Eventually Parker is removed from the vicinity and only vaguely referenced again, but neither the years of systematic bullying and hateful behavior nor other family members' years of support of Parker and disbelief when Sadie attempted to unveil the truth are satisfyingly addressed. I couldn't let go of the fact that it certainly felt more potentially dangerous than playful to me for Sadie to be entering into vulnerable, one-on-one, and sometimes romantic situations with unidentifiable people who might mean her harm. And I just couldn't buy in to the idea that others' voices weren't a clue for Sadie as to their identity. She essentially shrugs and says she's not good with voices, but this just seemed so silly that I had difficulty buying into the premise necessary to perpetuate the lighthearted confusion--the heart of which you may easily identify. The best-friendship was lovely, the dialogue was often sweet and funny, and the attraction was sweet and steaminess was entertaining. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Katherine Center is also the author of What You Wish For, Things You Save in a Fire, The Bodyguard, How to Walk Away, Happiness for Beginners, and other books. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

In the second installment in Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern series, Alex is as brave, scowling, and unapologetic as ever--and Darlington will need her mental fortitude, unorthodox thinking, and magical abilities if he has any hope of escaping from hell. Ninth House, a book for adults whose story line is not connected to the Grishaverse, is the first in Bardugo's Alex Stern series. I love returning to Alex's creative, irresistibly unorthodox approach to life and her grumpy, undying loyalty to her small group of trusted loved ones. In Hell Bent, Alex Stern is determined to save Darlington from the clutches of hell, even if it costs her her precarious position as a student at Yale and her role at Lethe as an overseer of the university's secret society's magical goings-on. Alex and Dawes must work secretly to try to figure out how to reach Darlington and bring him back, because their activities are unsanctioned. The outcome seems to have little hope of being anything but deadly. They manage assemble an oddball group of allies (trusty local cop Turner, wonderfully loyal and nonmagical roommate Mercy, and hapless secret society outcast Tripp) that just might be able to pull off the impossible and bring Darlington home--but at what cost? Hell Bent is clever and sometimes darkly funny, yet a somber undertone runs throughout it. Alex's past is far from free of blemishes and pain, and some of her life-and-death decisions required fortitude that it's tough for her to lose in order to be vulnerable with those she cares about. The many hiccups and roadblocks to the scrappy group's attempts keep things interesting, and I was engaged throughout as Alex and friends bravely (and sometimes dirtily) fought for justice. This was a four-and-a-half star read for me until the logistics of the magic late in the book felt to me as though they bogged down the story somewhat, but I love Alex Stern and her unapologetic badassery. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series. She also wrote the King of Scars duology (you can find my review of book two, Rule of Wolves, here). Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse is made up of her Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, and the King of Crows duology discussed here, which is expected to be the end of the interconnected series.

ICYMI: When tough, stubborn Alex Stern is offered a new start after surviving a mysterious multiple homicide, she becomes an unlikely member of the Yale freshman class. But the darkness of her past may only be matched by the danger of the magic and rituals being used by the secret societies she's meant to be monitoring. But would it have mattered if she’d been someone else? If she’d been a social butterfly, they would have said she liked to drink away her pain. If she’d been a straight-A student, they would have said she’d been eaten alive by her perfectionism. There were always excuses for why girls died. I’ll happily read anything by Leigh Bardugo. Ninth House, fiction for adults, is the first in Bardugo's Alex Stern series. (I'll review Hell Bent, the second installment in the series, tomorrow on the blog.) Alex dropped out of high school and into a world of shady drug dealers, cruelty, and taking desperate measures to stay alive. But none of that broke her. She was the only survivor of a gruesome multiple homicide, and now she's the most surprising member of the Yale freshman class. Alex was handpicked by unknown benefactors to track the activities of Yale's secret societies--including the magical forces they use and questionable rituals they regularly take part in. She soon learns how nefarious their intentions are--and how much danger she is in because of her involvement. Ninth House is sometimes dark, especially as related to male-female power dynamics and sex, and the story undercovers secret societies, explores betrayal, and follows faulted characters on kind-of-noble quests. It's intriguing, and I was definitely hooked for the second book in the series. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series. She also wrote the King of Scars duology (you can find my review of book two, Rule of Wolves, here). Leigh Bardugo's interconnected Grishaverse is made up of her Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, and the King of Scars duology mentioned above.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm coming off another little Bossy break, courtesy of a great family trip to the beach, where I got lots of reading in! At the moment I'm reading the newest rom-com from Christina Lauren, The True Love Experiment, a spinoff of The Soulmate Equation, which I loved; I'm reading the upcoming Western mystery The Bitter Past by Bruce Borgos, about a sheriff who must delve into the past to solve a modern-day crime; and I'm listening to A Perilous Undertaking, the second in Deanna Raybourn's sassy Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The True Love Experiment by Christina Lauren I loved The Soulmate Equation from the writing team known as Christina Lauren. That book introduced the fantastic best-friend character of Felicity "Fizzy" Chen, and The True Love Experiment is Fizzy's story. Fizzy is a successful romance writer, but she's never been in love, only in lust. Now she's beginning to feel like she's been selling her readers a lie. Connor Prince is a single dad and documentary filmmaker slated by his boss to create a reality TV program about finding love. He's completely out of his comfort zone and the pressure is on--but when he meets Fizzy, he just knows he's found the perfect star for the show. The writing team Christina Lauren also authored the books The Unhoneymooners, In a Holidaze, Love and Other Words, Something Wilder, and Autoboyography. 02 The Bitter Past by Bruce Borgos Porter Beck was born and raised in the high desert of Nevada. He left to join the Army and worked for years in intelligence in far-flung places. Now Porter's back home, taking on the sheriff job his father held until dementia forced him to step down. Holding the position of sheriff has always been uneventful--but when a retired FBI agent is brutally tortured and killed nearby, Porter will need to delve into the area's history, ties to the Russians, and mysteries surrounding the onset of the nuclear era. I received a prepublication edition of this title, published July 18, courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press, Minotaur Books. 03 A Perilous Undertaking (Veronica Speedwell #2) by Deanna Raybourn I loved A Curious Beginning, the first book in Deanna Raybourn's sassy Veronica Speedwell series of historical fiction mysteries. In the second installment, A Perilous Undertaking, Victorian lepidopterist and adventurer Veronica Speedwell teams up with her natural-history and mystery-solving partner Stoker to try to prove that local art patron and society figure Miles Ramsforth is innocent of murdering his mistress and should not be executed in just a few days. But not everyone believes in Miles's innocence, and as Veronica and Stoker follow clues they venture from a royal palace to an artists' refuge to a strange underground grotto, realizing that someone will do anything to prevent the truth from coming out. Deanna Raybourn is also the author of the wonderful Killers of a Certain Age.

Do you have any favorite cold-setting books? When the heat of summer hits, I love to read a story set in a frigid climate. Other books I've loved that could have appeared on this list include Eowyn Ivey's The Snow Child, mentioned below, and Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy, both of which were listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love, as well as Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild and Into Thin Air. The books on the Greedy Reading List Six Captivating Nordic Stories would also fit nicely here. What other books would you include on this list? Do you like reading cold-setting books in the summer? Have you read any of these books? I'd love to hear your thoughts! 01 The Child Finder by Rene Denfeld This book is dark and beautiful, with such expansive descriptions of the mountains, the closed-in forests, and the traps and dangers of the winter and the wild that I could almost feel the cold. The elements that feel potentially familiar or could have felt overused from use in other stories (a tough, closed-off investigator, broken by her past; a strong, kind man’s singular, devoted but unrequited love for her; the general outline of the disturbing situation at the heart of the book’s main case) are cushioned by Denfeld’s skillful setting of the scene and lovely shaping of the story. I found this to be a fast and engrossing read. There's a second book in this Naomi Cottle series, The Butterfly Girl, which I haven't yet read, and Denfeld also wrote The Enchanted, which I thought was haunting and arresting. If you like unlikely heroines and missing-person plots, you might also like Before She Disappeared. 02 The North Water by Ian McGuire He finds the lying comes easy enough, of course. Words are just noises in a certain order, and he can use them any way he wishes. Pigs grunt, ducks quack, and men tell lies: that is how it generally goes. In 1859, a whaling ship sets sail for the Arctic Circle. It's full of rough characters and men eager to leave their pasts behind, including Patrick Sumner, a doctor who's desperate enough to take the job of ship's surgeon on the boat. But the ship's fate proves more disastrous than Sumner could have imagined when a cabin boy is brutally killed and the culprit turns out to be a cruel, ruthless murderer on board. This was probably 3.75 stars for me. The North Waters is a dark, disturbing exploration of failed second chances, revenge, and destructive base instincts. I found it haunting. McGuire is also the author of Incredible Bodies and The Abstainer. 03 First Light by Rebecca Stead Peter is a teenager from New York City thrilled to be accompanying his scientist parents on an expedition to Greenland. Thea and her people, long accused of witchcraft and magic, live within the Greenland ice, and Thea has never seen the sun. The two intersect within Stead's unique story as Peter tries to discover more about Thea's people's threat of extinction. The pacing of First Light is a little slow at first, and I would have liked to see more science-based details about global warming throughout. The standouts for me in First Light were the Greenland setting, the alternate world, the bitter cold, and the sentimentalism and mystery that were so vividly imagined. I was hooked. This was the author's first young adult book. Stead is also the author of the outstanding Goodbye Stranger, as well as other great books: When You Reach Me, Liar & Spy, and The List of Things That Will Not Change. 04 Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips Julia Phillips's interconnected stories follow in chapters that take place each month for a year after the disappearance of two girls on the edge of Russia. The rural Siberian settings are exquisitely wrought, with stark, rugged, lush landscapes serving as the backdrop for a mystery that shakes a small community. Disappearing Earth is a story that is as much about the varied cast of characters, the closed-off, remote community, and the vivid sense of place and cold setting that Phillips imagines as it is about the mystery itself. It isn't a police procedural; this is a starkly beautiful book that happens to have a mystery at its heart. This is Phillips's first book, and the author builds the story's pace steadily toward a crescendo. The ending doesn't necessarily provide all the answers, but Phillips provides enough pieces of the puzzle to create closure. I still think about Disappearing Earth from time to time, long after reading it. I also listed Disappearing Earth in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year. 05 The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition by Caroline Alexander In this beautiful nonfiction book, which includes striking black-and-white photographs by Frank Hurley, Alexander traces explorer Ernest Shackleton's 1914 voyage to the South Atlantic as he and his crew of twenty-seven men attempted to be the first to cross the Antarctic continent on foot. In what is now a famously ill-fated turn of events, the ship Endurance became trapped in the ice and crushed, leaving the crew marooned on the ice in a brutal fight for survival that lasted twenty months. The very existence of Hurley's images is incredible; the glass plate negatives lasted through months on ice floes, a week's travel in an open boat, and months buried in the snow. Eventually Hurley had to leave behind his professional camera and equipment, capturing the images here with "a pocket camera and three rolls of Kodak film." The book was published in conjunction with the American Museum of Natural History's extensive exhibition on Shackleton's exploration, which was one of the last great expeditions in the Age of Exploration. 06 To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey There is a mythical element to our childhood, it seems, that stays with us always. When we are young, we consume the world in great gulps, and it consumes us, and everything is mysterious and alive and fills us with desire and wonder, fear, and guilt. With the passing of the years, however, those memories become distant and malleable, and we shape them into the stories of who we are. We are brave, or we are cowardly. We are loving, or we are cruel. To the Bright Edge of the World is a story of discovery, adventure, tedious slogging, danger, and self-revelation in the wilds of nineteenth century Alaska, interspersed with scenes from a home life on a military base in Washington Territory--and a surprisingly meaningful modern-day correspondence linked to it all. Ivey's fantastical elements are inspired by Native American folklore and stories, and they work well here, causing the characters to broaden their views of the great unknown world, but without overshadowing the detailed, vibrant descriptions grounded in exploration and nature. Ivey also wrote The Snow Child, a book listed on the Greedy Reading List Six Magical Fairy Tales Grown-Ups Will Love.

Wendy Walker's thriller focuses on a detective, her stalker, and the lengths both will go to to try to get what they want. This is a character-driven mystery with a twist. When Detective Elise Sutton stumbles into a crime--a gunman is wandering a big-box store, shooting--she draws her gun for the first time in her career and takes down the shooter, saving at least one bystander's life. But when guilt and self-doubt lead her to track down the almost-victim, Wade Austin, he assures her that her actions saved him. But then he insinuates himself into Elise's life in odd and alarming ways. It becomes clear that he has been learning from the online notes of a class Elise once taught on getting away with murder so that he may attract attention yet evade detection--and, most importantly, make sure Elise knows he's in control of her destiny. In order to keep her husband, young daughters, and partner safe, Elise may have to keep some crucial secrets and take unimaginable risks in an attempt to outsmart her stalker. We all go to our graves covered in the scars from the things that we’ve done and the things done to us. The story is told with alternating chapters focused on a chilling crime that feels connected to the Elise-Wade situation, and this second storyline doesn't bode well for Elise's future. This is a character-driven mystery with an interesting twist. I received an audiobook edition of this title, narrated by Gabra Zackman and Peter Ganim, courtesy of Libro.fm and Blackstone Publishing. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Wendy Walker is also the author of Don't Look for Me, The Night Before, Emma in the Night, All Is Not Forgotten, Four Wives, and Social Lives.

Adjei-Brenyah's novel explores in disturbing detail a version of a society that may feel familiar: a corrupt, greedy prison system; the exploitation of "disposable" lives for money and entertainment; the impact of racial and socioeconomic disparities on imprisonment; and the impossible intersection of forced fights and undying loyalty. Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars explores an America in which prisoners in the private prison industry take part in profitable, popular, and controversial televised gladiator death-match performances in which they fight for their freedom. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" are lovers, teammates, and the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, a televised program at the heart of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment. Each Chain Gang is a group of prisoner fighters that make up a team, yet each must fight opponents to the death to have any hope of emerging from the prison system. Entering into the gladiator-styled lifestyle is presented as a choice, but the prisoners have few options and little control over their lives. Adjei-Brenyah offers glimpses of characters' histories and their lives before the tragedies that led to their imprisonment. The story includes perspectives from those who stand outside the stadiums to loudly protest the brutality and inhuman bargain pushed upon those in the show--as well as the rabid fans of the obscene entertainment and how they justify viewing and cheering for the show's glorified, regularly broadcast murders. Loretta is poised to earn her freedom in just a few more matches. She's bracing herself to leave behind her beloved teammates and Staxxx--but the corporate owners of CAPE will do anything to protect their investment and secure their profits. When those pulling the strings change the rules to force a dramatic showdown, key characters must make impossible choices, even as they seemed to have suspected there would be no graceful emergence from their doomed existence as was blithely promised. The ending is a showstopper. I listened to Chain-Gang All-Stars as an audiobook courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio. It was a difficult story to read but also a disturbingly fascinating exploration of the prison system, a collective obsession with violence, and the concept that there are few taboos on what might be televised and monetized. The author includes nonfiction footnotes that link race, socioeconomic disparity, and imprisonment. These tie the book's tragic, dystopian scenario to our current society in an uncomfortably close-to-home manner. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is also the author of Friday Black.

Caroline O'Donoghue's coming-of-age story celebrates friendship, young love, and life-changing decisions and missteps that shape the lives of her characters in 2010s Ireland. In Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction The Rachel Incident, main character Rachel is an Irish university student working in a Cork bookstore in the 2010s. She's dating a boring but reliable young man from her high school and living at home when she meets James. James is irresistible, vivacious, and mischievous--and Rachel is immediately swept into his powerful orbit. They move in together and she largely subsumes her life in order to be part of his. I wanted to protect him against the world's many disappointments, guard him with my body like I would a baby or a small dog. Meanwhile, she is bowled over by her handsome, opinionated literature professor, Dr. Byrne, and in an attempt to ingratiate herself to him, she insinuates herself into a complicated role of supporting the publication of his academic-press book through her bookstore job. Rachel meets another James, James Carey (who she calls "Carey," as she already has a James), falling for him despite his sometimes-flaky behavior. James comes out as gay, and a complicated web of relationships builds between Dr. Byrne, his wife, James, Carey, and Rachel. Rachel is dedicated to both James and to Carey, and The Rachel Incident is centered around Rachel and her Jameses coming of age, making mistakes and missteps, struggling with money crises and career decisions, and figuring out where and how they want to be in the world. Years later, Rachel runs into someone from her past, which spurs her to think back to the events and relationships that shaped her during her college years. Despite some of the questionable, haunting choices that are made at times in the story, I was so taken with the characters that my cringing didn't hamper my enjoyment of the celebration of friendship, circuitous routes to self-confidence, and heartwarming second chances. I loved The Rachel Incident--the story, the characters, and the vivid setting of 2010s Ireland. I am good at a few things, but I am great at being married. As I learned that year in Shandon Street, there is nothing that my personality or my humour thrives on more than being able to see the same person at the same time every day. I thrive on overexposure, on elaborate jokes, on private mythology. I received a prepublication copy of this title courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Caroline O'Donoghue is also the author of Scenes of a Graphic Nature, Promising Young Women, and the teen series All Our Hidden Gifts.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the second in Leigh Bardugo's Alex Stern series, Hell Bent, in which grumpy, tough, magical, irresistible Alex assembles a ragtag group of loyal allies to try to save her mentor from the clutches of hell; I'm listening to Wendy Walker's newest thriller, about a detective with a dangerous stalker; and I'm reading Katherine Center's upcoming (to be published tomorrow) Hello Stranger, light fiction about an artist with temporary face blindness. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Hell Bent (Alex Stern #2) by Leigh Bardugo Alex Stern is determined to save Darlington from the clutches of hell, even if it costs her her precarious position as a student at Yale and her role at Lethe as an overseer of the university's secret society's magical goings-on. Alex and Dawes must work secretly, as their activities are unsanctioned, and the outcome seems to have little hope of being anything but deadly. Yet they assemble an oddball group of allies that just might be able to pull off the impossible. Ninth House, a book for adults whose story line is not connected to the Grishaverse, is the first in Bardugo's Alex Stern series. I love returning to Alex's creative, irresistibly unorthodox approach to life and her grumpy, undying loyalty to her small group of trusted loved ones. I mentioned Leigh Bardugo's Shadow and Bone series in the Greedy Reading List Six Royally Magical Young Adult Series. She also wrote the King of Scars duology (you can find my review of book two, Rule of Wolves, here). Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse is made up of her Shadow and Bone trilogy, the Six of Crows duology, and the King of Crows duology discussed here, which is expected to be the end of the interconnected series. 02 What Remains by Wendy Walker When Detective Elise Sutton stumbles into a crime--a gunman is wandering a big-box store, shooting--she draws her gun for the first time in her career and takes down the shooter, saving at least one bystander's life. But when guilt and self-doubt lead her to track down the almost-victim, Wade Austin, he assures her that her actions saved him. But then he insinuates himself into Elise's life in odd and alarming ways. It becomes clear that he has been learning from the online notes of a class Elise once taught on getting away with murder in order to evade detection and make sure Elise knows he's in control of her destiny. In order to keep her husband, young daughters, and partner safe, Elise may have to keep some crucial secrets and take unimaginable risks in an attempt to outsmart her stalker. The story is told with alternating chapters focused on a chilling crime that feels connected to the Elise-Wade situation, and it doesn't bode well for Elise's future. I received an audiobook edition of this title, narrated by Gabra Zackman and Peter Ganim, courtesy of Libro.fm and Blackstone Publishing. 03 Hello Stranger by Katherine Center Sadie Montgomery thought she was at a high point in her life. She was a finalist in the North American Portrait Society competition...then she wakes up unable to recognize faces as anything more than a jumble of features. The doctors tell her it's likely temporary, but she can't help but panic. Meanwhile she's got family issues to cope with--and she's falling for two different men. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and St. Martin's Press. Hello Stranger is scheduled for publication July 11. Katherine Center is also the author of What You Wish For, Things You Save in a Fire, The Bodyguard, How to Walk Away, Happiness for Beginners, and other books. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

After the World Falls Apart I have a fascination with postapocalyptic (set in a time after a disaster) and dystopian (set in a time of darkness and desperation) books, and I think it's for the same reason I'm captivated by wartime stories: the books are about characters being pushed to their limits by an incredibly challenging situation, which allows them to show their true selves and discover their abilities. This category also includes the Hunger Games series, the Insurgent series, Station Eleven, The 5th Wave, The Chosen Ones, The Road, and The Handmaid's Tale. I think I have enough other favorite reads in these categories to make two more Greedy Reading Lists. Which other postapocalyptic or dystopian books do you love? 01 A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World by C.A. Fletcher And there may be no law left except what you make of it, but if you steal my dog, you can at least expect me to come after you. If we’re not loyal to the things we love, what’s the point?... That’s a kind of death, even if you keep breathing. The thief came and shattered what was left of young Griz's life. Now Griz and his dog are making their way through the world. Griz is capable of fury and revenge, but also great love and loyalty, bravery, and creativity. He's a fantastic character I loved. This great book by C.A. Fletcher was tough to read at times because of the frequent reckless, life-and-death, sometimes ill-advised decision-making in a postapocalyptic world. Fletcher somewhat frequently hints at later events in the book in the middle of early scenes, which added to my anxiety. The main protagonist Griz is tough as nails and determined and wonderful, and things do ultimately improve in satisfying ways. I thought this was wonderful. 02 The Grace Year by Kim Liggett It feels like freedom, but we know it's a lie. This is how they break us. They take everything away, our very dignity, and anything we get in return feels like a gift. The Grace Year is the type of book I could’ve stayed up all night reading. I was totally hooked by this Lord of the Flies-esque situation of trapped girls devolving into paranoia, mayhem, fury, and destruction, with a wonderfully strong and imperfect heroine trying to upend the situation. I felt as though the later sections glossed over some major issues (consorting with the gruesomely brutal enemy; the prospect of folding back into the world that created the horrific system of oppression, control, torture, and death—even with a promise of potential change; fast emotional movement past the loss of a beloved character), but there’s hope for the slow but significant evolution into a new era. I thought the teen girls’ “magic” and their perception of it (and especially the perceptions of the men and women in the society) was particularly haunting. This was a fast and engaging read. 03 The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad. I didn't have a clue what this book was about going in, which worked wonderfully for me. This is listed as an adult title but felt to me like a dark young adult postapocalyptic novel, and it offered several twists. I found this engrossing, really interesting, and also character driven, which feels unusual given one of the aforementioned twists. Some of this is odd, other parts are disturbing, and there are some wonderful implausibly amusing standoffs. And M.R. Carey's story is also hopeful, but not in the way I might have expected. If you like this one, you're going to also want to read Carey's The Boy on the Bridge, which is a standalone book in the same series, is fantastic, and is also on this list. 04 The Dog Stars by Peter Heller Hig somehow survived the flu pandemic that killed everyone he knows. Now his wife is gone, his friends are dead, and he lives in the hangar of a small abandoned airport with his dog, Jasper, and a mercurial, gun-toting misanthrope named Bangley. Then Hig gets an indication that he is not alone and that there is life out there after all. He must decide if he'll risk a one-way journey to seek out the good, bad, and ugly that may be awaiting him. It's a true life-or-death dilemma for a man with two stark options: safety and loneliness or potential danger and finally making contact with others. And he just might find himself questioning his decisions either way. My initial review of this book was "I loved this book. Nerve-wracking and beautiful, unconventional, real. I love this author. Love." This is one of my all-time favorite books. I'm in for reading anything Peter Heller writes (e.g., The River and The Painter, both of which I loved, and The Guide, none of which are postapocalyptic). 05 The Power by Naomi Alderman It follows that there are two ways for the nature and use of human power to change. One is that an order might issue from the palace, a command unto the people saying “It is thus.” But the other, the more certain, the more inevitable, is that those thousand thousand points of light should each send a new message. When the people change, the palace cannot hold. In The Power, Naomi Alderman offers a dark and fascinating look at a world where the traditional male-female and old-young power structures are turned on their heads. The Power explores the destructive nature of the greed for control and influence--especially damaging when coupled with the certainty that your opinion is infallible and correct. I found this book fascinating. 06 The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey Months into their save-the-world mission, the soldiers and scientists on the Rosalind Franklin (a tanklike RV with flamethrowers that's nicknamed Rosie) are close to retrieving all of the samples their predecessors left throughout Scotland during an earlier expedition to try to find a cure for the plague. But it begins to become clear that idealistic Dr. Samrina Khan, the head epidemiologist; single-minded young Stephen the wunderkind; gruff, bighearted Colonel Carlisle; and the others on board may not have been meant to succeed in their grand mission after all. Political machinations meant that some of their party needed to be out of the way for corrupt power plays back home. Against enormous odds, the team may just be finding some of the lifesaving answers they were sent to discover. But bringing back their surprising findings might very well mean the wholesale rounding up and destruction of those affected by the plague. The Boy on the Bridge offers adventure, twists, turns, love, scientific exploration, betrayal, and an odd twist of hope. This is the second M.R. Carey book on this list, but I couldn't help myself. There's a character in common between the two books; this person appears at the end of The Boy on the Bridge but is a main character in The Girl With All the Gifts.

Julia Fine's Maddalena and the Dark is a gothic story set in 1700s Venice in which two young women's lives and destinies become intertwined through a series of dark, magical promises designed to secure the elusive destinies they desire. There has already been a bargain, and this is something else that Luisa does not know. It's early 1700s Venice at a prestigious music school for orphans, the Ospedale della Pietà. Quiet, unassuming Luisa has always aimed to be the best at the violin. She wants to join the famed girls' orchestra and to one day become a protégé of Antonio Vivaldi. But her meek and mild manner invites only cold shoulders and contempt from her fellow students. That is, until the mysterious Maddalena arrives. Maddalena is sent to the Pietà temporarily after scandal threatens to ruin her family's longstanding reputation. Her attendance at the school is a last-ditch attempt to preserve her marriage prospects and assert some sense of propriety. Yet she desperately yearns for some measure of independence, which is not easily available to the women of that time. And what is there to trust? A mother who runs out on you? A brother who sells you like chattel and a father too busy to care? The other girls at school only know that Maddalena draws them into her orbit, and everyone wants to be near her. Some are puzzled when she chooses Luisa to be her bosom friend. Nevertheless, Luisa and Maddalena become fast friends, and their link grows every deeper. Then Maddalena hatches a plan in which each of them might help the other achieve her ambitious dream. But a young woman in that time has little say over her destiny. The girls make dark deals and may need to give up all that is precious in order to secure the power they need to determine their fate. Why is it that a girl must always lead the way into unpleasantness?... So many of the girls she grew up with have already been given to old widowers--no one says a word if a husband is sixty and his new bride is sixteen. So many of the girls she grew up with die in childbirth, to be replaced by fresh blood, ad infinitum, until the old man finally dies. Maddalena and the Dark has a distinct gothic tone, and the story treads ever deeper into seedy, suspect, forbidding scenes of magical realism that seem to foretell certain destruction. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Flatiron Books. Julia Fine is also the author of The Upstairs House and What Should Be Wild.

Ali Hazelwood's light fiction novel is wonderfully immersed in science, offering a forbidden relationship and an enemies-to-lovers dynamic, plus lots of steamy scenes. Elsie Hannaway is an adjunct physics professor, but her dream is to dedicate herself to a career in research. She's gotten some positive attention for her innovative work on liquid crystals, but her crochety male advisor assures her there's little interest in hiring her for full-time positions. To help pay the bills, Elsie is a paid escort (who does not have sex with her clients, as she keeps explaining to certain of them). She's fake-dating a nice man in order to keep his family off of his back. She uses a different last name and poses as a librarian rather than a physicist in order to stay anonymous. But her fake boyfriend's brother John seems suspicious of her story and oddly interested in the details of her life. Now Elsie has the interview of a lifetime, at MIT. But a series of coincidences and misunderstandings lead to her being unaware that the head physicist on site...is her fake boyfriend's brother. I loved the significant science element here, the jargon, the exploration of academic politics, and the passion for research and discovery. The factors keeping Elsie and Jack apart are one part zany (a fake-dating-the-brother code of silence) and two parts believable (longstanding professional conflict; a power mismatch). I was frustrated by Elsie's lack of assertiveness, although I recognized that it was set up in order to have her ultimately find her own opinions and set her course. I found the family dynamic related to her mother's demands of Elsie absurd. The situation with her twin brothers felt slapstick and silly to me. The steamy scenes, the twisty route to the relationship, the career shifts, and the science focus were all winners for me. I'd like to read more by Ali Hazelwood. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication audio version of Love, Theoretically, narrated by Thérèse Plummer, courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

Ava Wilder's rom-com takes us behind the scenes of a hit teen TV show whose lead characters once liked each other in real life but now can't stand each other. This was funny, sweet, steamy, and poignant--a fantastic summer light-fiction read that I loved. Maybe she was just as confused as he was about what they were to each other: unsure what she wanted, what was attainable, what was worth hoping for. Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are the stars of the popular paranormal television show Intangible, and for multiple seasons they've yearned for each other on screen, but their characters have never gotten together. Lilah has dreams of directing and of breaking into movies, but she's back for the sixth and final season of the show, in which her character and Shane's will finally get together. But in real life, Shane and Lilah detest each other. Their secret tryst at the end of season one ended badly, and they've been far from friendly ever since. In order to get through their final season, they'll have to play nice--and get more intimate on screen than either of them ever wanted to again. I LOVED this. The premise sounded like a slam dunk for me, and the reality of the book was a funny, poignant, banter-filled, behind-the-scenes, realistically complicated, wonderful story. The difficulties keeping Shane and Lilah apart felt realistic rather than manufactured--miscommunication and habitual defensiveness, the foolishness of youth, fear of vulnerability--so I happily bought into the will-they-won't-they tensions. There's a ton of steaminess as Lilah and Shane at times can't deny their attraction and act upon it. I smiled a lot, I teared up, and I loved this perfect summer read! Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group: Ballantine Dell. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading the first in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean series about a training college for wartime dragon riders, Fourth Wing; I'm reading Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction The Rachel Incident, about friendship and discovery with an Irish financial crisis as its backdrop; and I'm listening to Ali Hazelwood's newest science-focused rom-com about a complicated star-crossed relationship between physicists, Love, Theoretically. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Fourth Wing (Empyrean #1) by Rebecca Yarros Fourth Wing is the first in Rebecca Yarros's Empyrean fantasy series, about a war college for dragon riders. Twenty-year-old Violet was hoping to live out a studious, satisfyingly quiet future in the Scribe Quadrant. That is, until the cutthroat commanding general--who also happens to be Violet's mother--pushes her to vie with the rest of Navarre's young people to secure spots in the select Riders Quadrant, as dragon riders. Violet is smaller than average, without the drive to fight. But the war is raging, leadership is clearly keeping secrets, and working with the ruthless, deadly dragons is starting to feel like her best bet. You might also like these other books I've read and reviewed about dragons. 02 The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue In Caroline O'Donoghue's contemporary fiction The Rachel Incident, main character Rachel is an Irish university student working in a Cork bookstore, dating a boring but reliable young man from her high school, and living at home when she meets James. James is irresistible, vivacious, mischievous, he insists that he's heterosexual--and Rachel is immediately swept into his powerful orbit. They move in together and she subsumes her life in order to be part of his. Meanwhile, she is bowled over by her grumpy, handsome, strongly opinionated literature professor, Dr. Byrne, and in an attempt to ingratiate herself to him, she insinuates herself into a complicated role of supporting the publication of his academic-press book through her bookstore job. Years later, Rachel runs into an acquaintance from her past, which spurs her to think back to the events and relationships that shaped her during her college years. I received a prepublication copy of this title, published June 27, courtesy of NetGalley and Knopf. 03 Love, Theoretically by Ali Hazelwood Elsie Hannaway is an adjunct physics professor, but her dream is to dedicate herself to a career in research. She's gotten some positive attention for her innovative work on liquid crystals, but her crochety male advisor assures her there's little interest in hiring her for full-time positions. To help pay the bills, Elsie is a paid escort (who does not have sex with her clients, as she keeps explaining to them) who is fake dating a nice man and attending family functions in order to keep everyone off his back. Now Elsie has the interview of a lifetime, at MIT. But a series of coincidences and misunderstandings lead to her being unaware until she arrives that the head physicist on site...is her fake boyfriend's brother. I received a prepublication audio version of Love, Theoretically, narrated by Thérèse Plummer, courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

My very favorite Bossy June reads! First, would someone please explain how it's possibly the last day of June? This seems unlikely and also undesirable. Second, here are the books I most loved reading in June! The Second Ending, Michelle Hoffman's light-fiction novel about music, dark secrets, zany hijinks, and redemption; Beyond That the Sea, historical fiction set during World War II about a young girl balancing two worlds and families; Boys I Know, Anna Gracia's debut, young adult fiction about a wonderful young protagonist navigating sexuality, others' expectations, and shaping her own future; Charm City Rocks, Matthew Norman's layered light fiction about music, unorthodox family, growing up, and finding new beginnings; The Celebrants, Steven Rowley's exploration of friendship, loyalty, life and death, and moving on after tragedy; and Yours Truly, Abby Jimenez's irresistible newest rom-com, which had me laughing and also made me tear up a little. If you've read any of these books, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman Hoffman's novel is about facing dark realities, entering uncharted territory, leaning on music as a solace, and welcoming new beginnings. The Second Ending was fun and full of heart. Prudence Childs was a prodigy. She taught herself to play the piano as a toddler, became famous, played at the White House, and appeared on television. She inspired a generation to take up the piano. Then she realized her grandmother was exploiting her and she broke from both her family and her fame. She fell into a career writing jingles--creatively unsatisfying but it paid the bills. Decades later, Prudence's dark past threatens to upend her peaceful, if uneventful, adult life. One thing leads to another and she agrees to participate in a popular televised dueling piano competition--against Alexei Petrov, a young Russian pianist who has flawless technique. But Alexei's parents have always pushed him so ruthlessly, he never made friends or developed a life outside of music. When the two face off, they each have something to prove--to their families, their exes, those who have doubted them--and to themselves. There are a number of appealingly zany hijinks here as well as a surprising amount of heart. The Second Ending is about self-discovery, facing dark truths, taking a terrifying leap out of the safety of what is known, and opening the door to a boundless, uncharted future. I really enjoyed this. For my full review, check out The Second Ending. 02 Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash Beyond That, the Sea is a lovely character-driven historical fiction story about complicated relationships, found family, growing up, and balancing two lives, all set against the backdrop of World War II. She had tried, as best she could, to braid her life with theirs. She never thought then that their futures would diverge. That there would be two lines, heading in very different directions... [She was] caught between two worlds...one old England and one New. Beyond That, the Sea tells the story of two families on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. British parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make what feels like an impossible choice: to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. The Gregorys pull Bea into the heart of their Boston family and their New England life. Bea settles in, and soon her American family and life feel more familiar than the parents she left behind. Tragedy strikes both of her families, making Bea feel torn between the two lives she's led, each of which have without question shaped her into the person she is. The point of view frequently shifts, and many chapters are short, but I felt connected to each of the characters and thought the varied perspectives were one of the book's strengths. I loved witnessing the growth of each of the relationships in this character-driven historical fiction gem. Click here for my full review of Beyond That, the Sea. 03 Boys I Know by Anna Gracia Gracia's young adult debut digs into teenaged June's messy, sometimes disastrous, and ultimately heartwarming teen exploration of identity, sexuality, relationships, resisting parental expectations, and forging her own path. Despite the unrelenting pressure and sky-high expectations from June Chu's Taiwanese mother, June has always done just all right. She's got lots of third-place violin competition trophies, unlike her sister, who secured a full-ride violin scholarship to college, an achievement June is frequently reminded of. But June is more concerned with her crush on her lab partner, Rhys, and on getting to girlfriend-boyfriend status. After a disastrous encounter with Rhys, a new romantic opportunity arises...and June suddenly finds herself making complicated decisions that shape how she feels about gender roles, her sexuality, her identity, and what she wants for her future. Her explorations threaten to destroy her relationship with her mother even past the world-war-level disagreements they already have going. I loved this book. I was all in for June and her whole glorious, often painful, messy journey of discovering who she is and what she wants. Click here for my full review of Boys I Know. 04 Charm City Rocks: A Love Story by Matthew Norman Charm City Rocks is sweet, interesting, and layered. I loved this story about relationships, complications, famous/everyday person romance, and a love of music that binds. Billy Perkins is a music teacher living above a record store in Baltimore called Charm City Rocks with his beloved teen son Caleb. He's content co-parenting with his ex-partner Robyn, who is remarried. Margot Hammer, on the other hand, is miserable. The former drummer of the popular band Burnt Flowers is, decades later, a recluse living in New York City. When a documentary shines a light on Margot again, Billy's longtime crush on the musician is renewed. Caleb cooks up a scheme to get Margot to perform at Charm City Rocks so his dad, who Caleb thinks is lonely, can finally meet Margot and, if all goes as planned, hopefully forge a connection. The everyday-person/famous-person love is a favorite trope of mine, and Norman adds emotional complexities to each of the main characters' situations so that their ups and downs feel appealingly realistic. I was in love with Charm City Rocks. This is a perfect light-fiction read that's fun and funny, but never silly. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List, Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music. Please click here for my full review of Charm City Rocks. 05 The Celebrants by Steven Rowley Rowley brings humor to this heartwarming--but never cloying--exploration of friendship, connection, messy relationships, heartbreak, and life and death. To think about life is to contemplate death--it's what makes living so valuable. Our time here is limited, gone in the blink of an eye. The Celebrants centers around college friends who made a pact after Alec, one of the original six, died before their 1995 graduation: if any of them is going through a crisis and needs to know they are loved more than they love themselves, they can call upon the others to assemble, no questions asked--for affection, support, and the sharing of sentiments typically reserved for after a loved one is gone. The members of the group may have grown apart, but in the decades to come, when one of them feels adrift and lost, they come together in sassy, funny, imperfect, loving support. Rowley doesn't smooth over realistically tangled, messy, intriguing conflicts or sober themes, yet he doesn't position the friendships in such a way that their existences magically solve life's deepest problems. You can check out my full review of The Guncle here. Rowley's husband Byron Lane wrote another book I loved, A Star Is Bored. You can find my review of that book here. If you're intrigued by books about facing mortality, you might be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality. For my full review, please check out The Celebrants. 06 Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez Jimenez's rom-com frequently had me laughing, made me tear up a little, and kept me hooked on the fake-dating, will-they-won't-they tension while also digging into some deep themes. Briana Ortiz's divorce from her cheater husband is about to be finalized, her brother Benny's health is failing, and she's living in her childhood home, complete with its original flowered couches and shabby carpet. At least she can pour energy into her work. She's busy as an ER doctor and is poised to become the next Chief. But when a new doctor relocates to the hospital, Bri's promotion is in jeopardy. She's set to detest this interloper--but then he sends her a letter that changes everything. It's not unusual for me to feel frustrated by a drawn-out will-they/won't-they tension, or by a fake-dating setup between two characters who should obviously be together. But this novel had me eating out of Jimenez's hand. The banter between Bri and Jacob is funny and adorable, their attraction is sometimes steamy, the supporting characters are all wonderfully wrought, and I loved tracing Bri and Jacob's emotional self-discovery as they moved toward a hard-fought resolution to the issues initially stopping them from being together. Jimenez also digs into deep themes here: anxiety disorders, trauma, miscarriage, divorce, financial struggles, and more. Jimenez is also the author of Part of Your World, The Friend Zone, and The Happy-Ever-After Playlist. For my full review, please check out Yours Truly.

Claudia Cravens's story of a young brothel worker in late nineteenth-century Dodge City, Kansas, offers up a tough young heroine who makes mistakes but whose perseverance and loyalty lead her to an unorthodox life full of friends and adventure. Practical, tough sixteen-year-old Bridget arrives in 1877 Dodge City without a penny to her name or enough marketable skills to earn her keep. She begins working at the Buffalo Queen, using her bright-red hair and pure, country-girl appeal to her advantage. Then Bridget falls for a fellow "sporting woman," and when the Buffalo Queen is threatened, she must determine where her loyalties lie. I'm a big fan of Western-set stories and the hardscrabble details of life at that time, particularly stories with modern sensibilities superimposed on them. Bridget is strong and no-nonsense yet also inexperienced and far from worldly. Her decision to become a prostitute is a choice between hunger and a full belly, and she isn't sentimental about sexual intimacy or about what might have been. Just when I was beginning to wonder whether her life in a brothel was being too romanticized, the various dangers one could imagine befalling a brothel in Dodge City begin to destroy the peace and status quo. Bridget has a chance at a stable new beginning--yet she's young and can't stifle her yearning for adventure. (The way in which this itch is scratched is not likely one she would have chosen, but such is life.) The bedrock for Lucky Red is made up of wonderful historical fiction details of life in the dusty, volatile, lawless West. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group, Dial Press. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Novels Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Novels Set in the American West.

Beyond That, the Sea is a lovely character-driven historical fiction story about complicated relationships, found family, growing up, and balancing two lives, all set against the backdrop of World War II. She had tried, as best she could, to braid her life with theirs. She never thought then that their futures would diverge. That there would be two lines, heading in very different directions... [She was] caught between two worlds...one old England and one New. Beyond That, the Sea tells the story of two families on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. British parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make what feels like an impossible choice: to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. The Gregorys pull Bea into the heart of their Boston family and their New England life. Bea settles in, and soon her American family and life feel more familiar than the parents she left behind. Tragedy strikes both of her families, making Bea feel torn between the two lives she's led, each of which have without question shaped her into the person she is. Beyond That, the Sea follows Beatrix as she struggles to navigate both worlds, returning to postwar London but never forgetting the found family that took her in as one of their own. Her ties to the Gregorys fade in some ways and strengthen and transform her world in others. The events of the book occur because of World War II, but the story occurs largely outside of World War II tragedy and its life-and-death situations. The point of view frequently shifts, and many chapters are short, but I felt connected to each of the characters and thought the varied perspectives were one of the book's strengths. I loved witnessing the growth of each of the relationships in this character-driven historical fiction gem. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Beyond That, the Sea is Laura Spence-Ash's first book. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II or other World War II-set historical fiction books I've reviewed.

The fun first book in Tricia Levenseller's trilogy about a teenage female pirate captain sets up a long game toward obtaining a key treasure map and handling hard-to-please fathers--and it lays the groundwork for a forbidden romance between enemies. Alosa is a seventeen-year-old female pirate captain who didn't secure treasures or rule a ship of motley crew members by being a fool. So when she gets captured by her enemies, it's on purpose. She's got to search their ship and find the treasure map to end all treasure maps, and she's confident that she's clever enough to do it. The one complicating factor is the equally clever--and distractingly handsome--first mate on the enemy ship, Riden. Alosa is playful and sassy, and her banter with Riden is fun. The cross/double-cross setup and forbidden-love tension is intriguing. Alosa doesn't subsume her strength or powers unless she's doing so for a deliberate reason. She's also got a sneaky-thief ability that's a slam-dunk for me. Not until halfway through the book does it become clear that a possible power alluded to early on is in fact present, and its existence and use becomes a key plot point. The timing of this revelation surprised me; we had been privy to most of Alosa's inner dialogue, and this had been omitted from all of it. The book is clearly set up for a sequel--the ending felt abrupt enough that I paged forward in my Kindle to try to find more story, only to find that the book was over. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Daughter of the Pirate King is the first in a trilogy from Levenseller and is her debut novel. The second book is Daughter of the Siren Queen, and the third will be Vengeance of the Pirate King.

The Books I'm Reading Now You may have noticed a little Bossy hiatus last week. I was on a big, fun family trip to the UK, exploring castles in Outlander country, visiting dear friends in London, ghost-touring in Edinburgh, and hiking in the Scottish Highlands. While I wasn't posting or reading much during the trip, that transatlantic flight is made for some reading mania! Right now I'm reading the recent Lucky Red, Claudia Cravens's LGBTQ Western set in a brothel in 1877 Dodge City; I'm reading Tricia Levenseller's debut novel Daughter of the Pirate King, about a teenaged female pirate captain who allows herself to be captured by her enemies in order to search for the ultimate treasure map; and I'm reading Ava Wilder's upcoming romantic comedy Will They or Won't They, about on-screen loves who detest each other in real life. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Lucky Red by Claudia Cravens Practical, tough sixteen-year-old Bridget arrives in 1877 Dodge City without a penny to her name or enough marketable skills to earn her keep. She begins working at the Buffalo Queen, using her bright-red hair and pure country appeal to her advantage. Bridget falls for a fellow "sporting woman," and when the Buffalo Queen is threatened, she must determine where her loyalties lie. I received a prepublication version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group, Dial Press. Lucky Red was published June 20. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Historical Fiction Novels Set in the American West and Six More Great Historical Fiction Novels Set in the American West. 02 Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller Alosa is a seventeen-year-old female pirate captain who didn't secure treasures or rule a ship of motley crew members by being a fool. That's why when she gets captured by her enemies, it's on purpose. She's got to search their ship and find the treasure map to end all treasure maps, and she's confident that she's clever enough to do it. The one complicating factor is the equally clever--and distractingly handsome--the first mate on the enemy ship, Riden. Daughter of the Pirate King is the first in a duology from Levenseller and is her debut novel. The second book is Daughter of the Siren Queen. 03 Will They or Won't They by Ava Wilder Lilah Hunter and Shane McCarthy are the stars of the popular paranormal television show Intangible, and for multiple seasons they've yearned for each other on screen, but their characters have never gotten together. Lilah has dreams of directing and of breaking into movies, but she's back for the sixth and final season of the show, in which her character and Shane's will finally get together. But in real life, Shane and Lilah detest each other. Their secret tryst at the end of season one ended badly, and they've been far from friendly ever since. In order to get through their final season, they'll have to play nice--and get more intimate on screen than either of them ever wanted to again. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group: Ballantine Dell. Will They or Won't They is scheduled for publication June 27. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Rom-Coms Perfect for Summer Reading, Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading, and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

The Summer Favorites These titles aren't light "summer reads," but they were my favorite reads from a summer past, and they all stand the test of time. In case you missed them the first time around, I'm reposting them as this summer begins so you can add to your to-read list at will. If you've read any of these, I'd love to hear what you think! For classic light fiction that's also great for summer reading, check out these titles and Bossy reviews. 01 The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett Bennett explores the complicated implications of perception as reality when it comes to race and its meaning. In The Vanishing Half, Bennett follows the history of the fictional Vignes twins, Desiree and Stella, as they grow up in a town made up of those who identify as light-skinned black people. As teenagers they run from a prescribed future as maids in the small town, where tragedy in the form of evil white men took their father from them and left their mother scrambling to provide for them. Upon reaching freedom, their paths diverge. One twin secretly passes at work for white, then vanishes into a life based upon this premise. The other twin marries a dark-skinned black man and lives as a black woman. The book explores the complicated implications of perception as reality when it comes to race and its meaning; the subjectivity of and intense power within race labels; and the tension of living under false pretenses. For my full review, see The Vanishing Half. 02 Florence Adler Swims Forever by Rachel Beanland Atlantic City just before WWII, with its giant hotels, piers, and general hubbub, is the backdrop for the story of a few summer months in the life of an extended family. I loved watching the story's events unfold in this lovely debut from Rachel Beanland. Florence Adler Swims Forever, the story of a few summer months in the life of an extended family--including a stolid patriarch and matriarch, a free-spirited daughter, a spunky and fantastic granddaughter Gussie, a daughter with another grandchild on the way, a deadbeat son-in-law, and family friends to round out the group. There’s an undercurrent of concern about Hitler and his increasingly punitive behavior toward Jewish families’ businesses and emigration in Germany. I loved watching the book’s events unfold—even if I could predict some of them. Anything that was wrapped up a little too neatly didn’t bother me at all; I was all in and satisfied. Beanland based some of the basic events of her debut novel on her ancestors’ experiences, which I thought was fascinating but didn't realize until the end. Click here for my full review of Florence Adler Swims Forever. 03 Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby This is a fantastic blend of realistic complications, mistakes, adjustments, and spunk. It's action-packed yet character driven. Bug is a respectable business owner nowadays with a family. But some old acquaintances show up with an idea that might offer some financial breathing room--if the others on the job can keep their heads on straight, and that's looking like a big if. Blacktop Wasteland took a little while to get going for me, but just shy of halfway through, the setup is complete and the action starts singing along. I'm not inherently interested in the preparation and modification of vehicles or in skillful evasive driving, but I was all in for S.A. Cosby's writing about all of it. Bug is a wonderfully faulted character. who when not in crisis takes stock of himself and aims to be a better person. He's forced to consider what loyalty means, and to face how dark the path ahead might become when the bad guys are truly evil, very powerful, and the stakes couldn't be much higher. The ending of Blacktop Wasteland is a little abrupt and opaque, but not without hope. See my full review of Blacktop Wasteland here. 04 Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell In Utopia Avenue, Mitchell takes us through the twists and turns of a fictional psychedelic British sixties band on its rocky rise to popularity. Utopia Avenue explores the band members' crises, joys, fears, and triumphs. Mitchell made me care about a singer connecting with an audience, the cathartic heartbreak-writing of songs, and the magic spark of a performance. The book contains endless imagined cameos, fictional adventures, and gems of wisdom from real-life musicians like David Bowie, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Garcia, and members of the Rolling Stones--not to mention wild parties, betrayals, leaps of faith, breakups, and tragedy. But Mitchell expertly builds the band members into rich characters you're rooting for through their individual ups and downs as well as through the triumphs and setbacks of the band Utopia Avenue. Mitchell doesn't provide too easy or neat of an ending to this weird and wonderful book, but it felt fitting and left me satisfied. This was a really captivating story that kept me intrigued throughout. For my full review of Utopia Avenue, click here. 05 When These Mountains Burn by David Joy Joy offers an often dark work of Southern literary fiction through which bubbles of hope emerge. Ray has outlived his beloved wife in the mountains of North Carolina. He has a precious old girl of a dog, a fascination with (and healthy fear of) coyotes, a love of reading, and a no-nonsense manner that makes clear he doesn't brook fools. He has almost resigned himself to the heartbreaking idea that his addict son is too lost to be saved. There's an undercover cop nearby who's trying to help take down a robust drug ring, and then there's Ray, who uses old-fashioned methods and his knowledge of mountain terrain to address injustices in a straightforward way. When These Mountains Burn isn't always easy to read, but it isn't over the top, and Joy's characters are fascinatingly faulted and keep you humming right along. I read this in 24 hours while wishing I were making it last longer. For my full review of When These Mountains Burn, click here. 06 This Is All He Asks of You by Anne Egseth Luna has a unique and lovely voice and is an irresistibly odd bird of a twelve-year-old girl. I just loved This Is All He Asks of You. Luna stumbles into encounters that shape her life dramatically, in unorthodox and heartbreakingly meaningful ways. She is facing her mother’s decline in health and exploring her own identity and meaning in her life, and she shapes her sometimes practical but often mystical thoughts and reflections through writing letters to her father, who she has never met, in the conversational tone of a pen pal writing to someone who will love her and her words unconditionally. I simultaneously wanted to scoop up Luna and take care of her and to follow the lead of this wise-beyond-her-years, intensely spiritual young person. She has a unique and lovely voice and is an irresistibly odd bird of a twelve-year-old girl. For my full review of This Is All He Asks of You, click here.

Gracia's young adult debut digs into teenaged June's messy, sometimes disastrous, and ultimately heartwarming teen exploration of identity, sexuality, relationships, resisting parental expectations, and forging her own path. Anna Gracia's young adult novel centers around high schooler June Chu. Despite her Taiwanese mother's unrelenting pressure and sky-high expectations, June has always done just all right. She's got lots of third-place violin competition trophies, unlike her sister, who secured a full-ride violin scholarship to college, an achievement June is frequently reminded of. But June is more concerned with her crush on her lab partner, Rhys, and on getting to girlfriend-boyfriend status. After a disastrous encounter with Rhys, a new romantic opportunity arises...and June suddenly finds herself making complicated decisions that shape how she feels about gender roles, her sexuality, her identity, and what she wants for her future. Her explorations threaten to destroy her relationship with her mother even past the world-war-level disagreements they already have going. I loved this book. I was all in for June and her whole glorious, often painful, messy journey of discovering who she is and what she wants. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Boys I Know is Anna Gracia's debut novel. You can check out my Bossy reviews of other young adult novels here.

Hoffman's novel is about facing dark realities, entering uncharted territory, leaning on music as a solace, and welcoming new beginnings. The Second Ending was fun and full of heart. Prudence Childs was a prodigy. She taught herself to play the piano as a toddler, became famous, played at the White House, and appeared on television. She inspired a generation to take up the piano. Then she realized her grandmother was exploiting her and she broke from both her family and her fame. She fell into a career writing jingles--creatively unsatisfying but it paid the bills. Decades later, Prudence's dark past threatens to upend her peaceful, if uneventful, adult life. One thing leads to another and she agrees to participate in a popular televised dueling piano competition--against Alexei Petrov, a young Russian pianist who has flawless technique. But Alexei's parents have always pushed him so ruthlessly, he never made friends or developed a life outside of music. When the two face off, they each have something to prove--to their families, their exes, those who have doubted them--and to themselves. There are a number of appealingly zany hijinks here as well as a surprising amount of heart. The Second Ending is about self-discovery, facing dark truths, taking a terrifying leap out of the safety of what is known, and opening the door to a boundless, uncharted future. I really enjoyed this. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music.

Charm City Rocks is sweet, interesting, and layered. I loved this story about relationships, complications, famous/everyday person romance, and a love of music that binds. Billy Perkins is a music teacher living above a record store in Baltimore called Charm City Rocks with his beloved teen son Caleb. He's content co-parenting with his ex-partner Robyn, who is remarried. Margot Hammer, on the other hand, is miserable. The former drummer of the popular band Burnt Flowers is, decades later, a recluse living in New York City. When a documentary shines a light on Margot again, Billy's longtime crush on the musician is renewed. Caleb cooks up a scheme to get Margot to perform at Charm City Rocks so his dad, who Caleb thinks is lonely, can finally meet Margot and, if all goes as planned, hopefully forge a connection. I was in love with Charm City Rocks--the Baltimore love, the embracing of the beauty in an everyday life and in straightforward affection, the heartbreak of missed chances, and the soaring hearts who find renewed belief in true love. The everyday-person/famous-person love is a favorite trope of mine, and Norman adds emotional complexities to each of the main characters' situations so that their ups and downs feel appealingly realistic. There's no false-feeling angst or drummed-up (see what I did there?) drama in Charm City Rocks. The relationships are messy and wonderful, the characters are interesting, and I was captivated by the focus on making music as an escape, an outlet, or a compulsion. This is a perfect light-fiction read that's fun and funny, but never silly. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Dell. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List, Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music or the book I reviewed yesterday, The Second Ending.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Maddalena and the Dark, Julia Fine's upcoming novel about young friends and musicians in 1700s Vienna; I'm reading Beyond That, the Sea, Julia Spence-Ash's historical fiction novel about a young girl straddling two lives during and after World War II; and I'm reading J.R. Dawson's upcoming novel about a magical circus and time travel, The First Bright Thing. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Maddalena and the Dark by Julia Fine It's early 1700s Vienna at a prestigious music school, the Ospedale della Pietà, and Luisa has always aimed to be the best at the violin. She wants to join the famed girls' orchestra and become a protégé of Antonio Vivaldi. Maddalena is sent to the Pietà after scandal threatens to ruin her family's reputation in a last-ditch attempt to preserve her marriage prospects. Luisa and Maddalena become fast friends--and hatch a plan where each of them helps the other achieve their secret dream. I received a prepublication version of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Flatiron Books. Maddalena and the Dark is scheduled for publication June 13. 02 Beyond That, the Sea by Julia Spence-Ash Beyond That, the Sea tells the story of two families on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. British parents Millie and Reginald Thompson make an impossible choice: to send their eleven-year-old daughter Beatrix to America for her safety. The Gregorys pull Beatrix into the heart of their Boston family and their New England life. Beatrix settles in, and soon her American family and life feel more familiar than the parents she left behind. Beyond That, the Sea follows Beatrix as she navigates both worlds, returning to postwar London but never forgetting the family that took her in as one of their own. 03 The First Bright Thing by J.R. Dawson Rin flits from moment to moment in time while her wife Odette soars high above on the trapeze of their magical circus, the Circus of the Fantasticals. World War I is still fresh in everyone's minds, and the circus travels the United States lightening moods and offering escapism. A new war looms over the group and Rin's past threatens to catch up with her. A dark circus enters the scene, with a ringmaster ruling his crew with dark powers--and someone who's after what the Circus of the Fantasticals has going. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Tor Books. The First Bright Thing is scheduled for publication June 13. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore, Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories, and Six More Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore.

Funny and Sweet Light Fiction Is it really summer without some great rom-com reads teed up and ready to go by the pool, on the porch, at the beach, or anywhere you're soaking in a little bit of warm weather and (hopefully) a looser schedule? If you're into lighter fiction with some romance and laughs, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories. Are there any stories you've loved recently that fall under the romantic comedy category? 01 Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes, conflicting feelings surrounding coming home again, shifting dreams, and a satisfyingly layered resolution. Thirty-two-year-old Fern Brookbanks has pinned most of her romantic dreams on Will Baxter--despite the fact that they spent only 24 hours together in their twenties. A chance encounter blossomed into a glorious connection and a pact to meet up one year later at her family resort...but while Fern showed up to their romantic meet-up, Will did not. Fern has moved on. Now she's coping with a tragedy--and guess who shows up to meet Fern, nine years late? Within the book's summertime setting Fortune explores heavy issues related to mental illness, sudden death, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse--and also the complicated joy of having friends like family, facing responsibility and challenge, and acknowledging when long-held dreams have changed. The banter is fun, there are some steamy scenes, and I believed in the relationship and its ups and downs. Click here for my full review of Meet Me at the Lake. Carley Fortune is also the author of Every Summer After. 02 Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld Sittenfeld's funny and sweet take on an unlikely romance sparked by a longtime SNL-type weekly skit show immediately had me hooked, never felt too easy, and charmed me throughout. I love Curtis Sittenfeld's books, and in Romantic Comedy she offers an outstanding premise: Sally Milz is a sketch writer for a late-night comedy show, and she's sworn off love. That is, until she pokes fun at her fellow writer in a sketch about talented but average-looking men dating gorgeous women...and then gorgeous pop sensation and serial model-dater Noah Brewster hosts the show and turns his attentions on Sally. I was delighted to find that much of the book is focused on the behind-the-scenes making of the SNL-like Saturday night sketch comedy show in the book, The Night Owls, and I was fascinated by this aspect. Romantic Comedy offers lots of funny, funny dialogue that delighted me. This was the right book at the right time for me, and I loved everything about it. Sittenfeld is also the author of American Wife, You Think It, I'll Say It, Prep, Rodham, and Eligible. Click here for my full review of Romantic Comedy. 03 This Time It's Real by Ann Liang I was hooked by Liang's fake-dating, famous-everyday relationship duo setup, fantastically funny dialogue, and wonderfully imperfect characters with their hard-fought vulnerability and heartbreaking missteps. I devoured this in a rainy afternoon. In Ann Liang's young adult rom-com This Time It's Real, when seventeen-year-old Eliza's class essay about young love goes viral, it leads to the offer of a competitive internship and soaring popularity at her new school. She should be on cloud nine. The only problem is, she made it all up. She's never been in love. But the whirlwind around her pretend relationship is taking on a life of its own. So Eliza makes a desperate deal with a famous actor in her class: if he plays the role of her fake boyfriend at school, she'll help him write his college applications. He's already seen how convincing her writing can be, after all--she's got everyone fooled. When the line between acting and reality becomes blurred, will Eliza's grand plans end up in her own heartbreak? I love a fake-dating premise and a famous-everyday dating premise, and here they are combined. Ann Liang's funny dialogue, characters' various interpersonal challenges and victories, and messy family dynamics had me swooning. Yes to all of this! For my full review, please check out This Time It's Real. 04 Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez Jimenez's rom-com frequently had me laughing, made me tear up a little, and kept me hooked on the fake-dating, will-they-won't-they tension while also digging into some deep themes. Briana Ortiz's divorce from her cheater husband is about to be finalized, her brother Benny's health is failing, and she's living in her childhood home, complete with its original flowered couches and shabby carpet. At least she can pour energy into her work. She's busy as an ER doctor and is poised to become the next Chief. But when a new doctor relocates to the hospital, Bri's promotion is in jeopardy. She's set to detest this interloper--but then he sends her a letter that changes everything. Jimenez layers her characters with complex back stories, significant and interesting emotional baggage, and trauma from relationship disasters, all of which complicate their ability to be vulnerable. There's a health crisis and solution that involves the two main characters in key ways and which complicates things. There's a fake-dating situation that's designed to save the feelings of loved ones. And there's a professional environment to navigate within. It's not unusual for me to feel frustrated by a drawn-out will-they/won't-they tension, or by a fake-dating setup between two characters who should obviously be together. But this novel had me eating out of Jimenez's hand. For my full review of this book, check out Wrong Place, Wrong Time. 05 The Dead Romantics by Ashley Poston This romantic light fiction story includes sibling conflicts, loss, betrayal, a love that seems impossible...and a ghostwriter who's literally haunted by ghosts. In Ashley Poston's The Dead Romantics, Florence Day is a ghostwriter for a famous reclusive romance writer. But she's gone through a breakup because of her partner's betrayal, and she's having a hard time getting her mojo back to write about flowery love and happy endings. She's starting to think that her handsome new editor might just be the inspiration she needs. Then Florence's beloved father dies, and she returns to her hometown for the first time in many years. In town, she'll always be known as The Girl Who Solved a Murder Mystery by Talking to Ghosts, with all the fascination and suspicion one might expect. Oh, and Florence's family runs the local mortuary business. And Florence really can communicate with ghosts. Oh, and then her cute editor shows up in town...as a ghost. I loved the playful tone, the ghost angle within this light fiction, romantic story, and the focus on writing and books. For my full review of this book, please see The Dead Romantics. 06 Happy Place by Emily Henry Six longtime friends gather for one last Maine vacation--but each of them has been keeping secrets that impact their relationships. I was impatient with the prolonged lack of communication but loved the main characters' interactions once they began. Harriet and Win were attracted to each other from the start, but they spent ages trying to deny it for fear of upending their close-knit friend group if things didn't work out. Now they've been engaged for six years, they're desperately in love, and they've been dating long-distance while Harriet pursues her residency and Win, a furniture repair person, helps his sick mother at home in Montana. For years they've taken annual trips to their friend Sabrina's cottage in Maine with the rest of their group, building traditions, strengthening their friendships, and enjoying their happy place. So this year, when their friends surprise Harriet upon her arrival with the fact that Win was able to come after all, it should be a good--no, a great--thing. Except, Harriet and Win broke up months ago...and haven't told anyone yet. The grown-up friends' ability to move past the evolutions of their relationships was a highlight. Happy Place involves steamy scenes and will-they/won't-they tensions. Win and Harriet's interactions, when they do begin communicating, are lovely and sweet and funny and heartbreaking. For my full review of this book, please check out Happy Place.

The first in the series sets up a strong young Black heroine who bucks tradition as she explores her own heritage, flexes her newfound power, and digs into the story of her mother's mysterious death--while infiltrating a magical, centuries-old Arthurian secret society. “Two faults. My race and my gender. But they are not faults. They are strength. And I am more than this man can comprehend.” After sixteen-year-old Bree's mother dies in an accident, she escapes the painful memories of her childhood home and town in favor of a special program for gifted youth at UNC-Chapel Hill (Go Heeeels!). But her first night on campus, she witnesses the magical attack of a mythical creature on a student--then must evade a fellow student's attempts to wipe her memory of the event. The experience jogs a buried recollection: a wizard was present at the hospital after her mother's accident. Now Bree is determined to find the truth about what happened. Was her mother connected to all of these mysterious goings-on? Did her mother have some sort of abilities she never told Bree about? When Bree, who is Black, stumbles upon an all-white, powerful secret society, she ends up with more questions than answers. So she infiltrates the group, pretending to be interested in pledging--but the stakes are higher than she ever could have imagined. Bree is wonderfully bristly, with a loyal best friend, Alice, that I loved. Bree has to keep in her trusted longtime friend in the dark about her delving into magical worlds and secrets, and this leads to tensions between them. Her forged connections to those who knew her mother and knew of her mother were a story element I loved. Much of the book is about duty and being born into roles, and Bree frequently struggles against racial inequalities and assumptions. The novel frequently questions the importance society places upon birth into privilege or hardship, race, and other factors beyond an individual's control. In the face of restrictions and rules, Bree repeatedly challenges the world's limitations, forging her own path. I was reading Legendborn, with its Arthurian references, during the same period I was reading another (very different) young adult book with references to Arthur and his court, Silver in the Bone. Whereas Silver in the Bone was more playful, Legendborn felt more earnest. Bree spends much of the book researching and wondering, and I preferred when she was taking action. There's a lot of fairly chaste attraction with a heavy emphasis on romantic feelings. I found Bree's main love interest Nick a little overbearing after a time. Deonn seems to be setting up a clear love triangle for book two--duties and resulting romantic possibilities are dramatically shaken up by the end of the book. And war is coming. I felt a little disjointed by the many elements of the Shadowborn, Legendborn, multiple Merlins, shapeshifters, Scions, Roots, and the various embodiments of some of these. I wasn't sure the story was made stronger for me by the links to Arthurian legend at its heart--I found myself wishing Deonn had developed her own wholly independent network of magic, inheritance, bucking expectations, and pending danger for her strong young Black heroine who's figuring out her place in the world. I loved Bree's infiltration of the white, storied, generational power. The story's many correlations to slavery in the South are fascinating and chilling. And Bree dramatically shakes up the ritual-based, staid, formal foundations of the Legendborn by the story's end. I'm imagining that book two shows Bree coming into her own with her power, drawing strength from her heritage, and a major reckoning, and I am up for all of it. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Legendborn is the first in Tracy Deonn's young adult Legendborn Cycle series. I look forward to reading the second book in the series, Bloodmarked.

I loved the premise and start of this zany story in which a statistics geek braves his high school reunion, only to be mistaken for a drug kingpin named Santa Ana, but the prolonged gory and absurd scenes made me impatient. Santa Ana is a madcap story about a misfit who's mistaken for a drug kingpin at his high school reunion. The authors alternate points of view to show the perspectives of the statistics geek, the best friend intrigued by him, the meathead, the "it" girl, and an omniscient narrator with a twisted sense of humor who breaks the fourth wall and directly addresses the reader/listener. The California setting is vivid, and the story is zany, entertaining, and full of dark humor. I loved the bizarre twist on high school nostalgia. The absurdity of the premise had me hooked early on, but in the last quarter of the book the screwball events shift into an ongoing, gory bloodbath. This squashed much of my interest, as I couldn't let myself be lost in the insanity any longer because it was so violent. The drug-fueled hallucinations late in the book felt like an opportunity to explore pure feelings and for the straight-laced main protagonist to cut loose, but these went on too long for me, and I became impatient with them. I liked the sassy twists at the end of the book and the way the story is wrapped up, and I enjoyed the inclusion of the Santa Ana winds and their mythical, powerful, chaotic effects. The narrators were wonderfully animated. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I listened to Santa Ana courtesy of Libro.fm and Blackstone Publishing.

Jimenez's rom-com frequently had me laughing, made me tear up a little, and kept me hooked on the fake-dating, will-they-won't-they tension while also digging into some deep themes. Briana Ortiz's divorce from her cheater husband is about to be finalized, her brother Benny's health is failing, and she's living in her childhood home, complete with its original flowered couches and shabby carpet. At least she can pour energy into her work. She's busy as an ER doctor and is poised to become the next Chief. But when a new doctor relocates to the hospital, Bri's promotion is in jeopardy. She's set to detest this interloper--but then he sends her a letter that changes everything. Sometimes when I want to sink into a rom-com I'm distracted by what feel like overly manufactured roadblocks. (Really? They couldn't and wouldn't find five minutes to clear up this enormous misunderstanding?) BUT. In Yours Truly, Jimenez layers her characters with complex back stories, significant and interesting emotional baggage, and trauma from relationship disasters, all of which complicate their ability to be vulnerable. There's a health crisis and solution that involves the two main characters in key ways and complicates things. There's a fake-dating situation that's designed to save the feelings of loved ones. And there's a professional environment they must navigate within. It's not unusual for me to feel frustrated by a drawn-out will-they/won't-they tension, or by a fake-dating setup between two characters who should obviously be together. But this novel had me eating out of Jimenez's hand. I loved the letter-writing element and loved the looooove here! The banter between Bri and Jacob is funny and adorable, their attraction is sometimes steamy, the supporting characters are all wonderfully wrought, and I loved tracing Bri and Jacob's emotional self-discovery as they moved toward a hard-fought resolution to the issues initially stopping them from being together. Jimenez also digs into deep themes here: anxiety disorders, trauma, miscarriage, divorce, financial struggles, and more. I was hooked on Abby Jimenez's Part of Your World, but I loved Yours Truly even more. This book frequently had me laughing and also made me tear up at a couple of points. The very end of the book quotes from a personal set of writings and for some reason this felt a little jarring to me--I think I wanted to focus on Bri's internalizing the messages (which we as readers already understood) rather than jumping back and forth into them and then cutting to her reaction. If we're going to have a happy ending, we might as well fast-forward to a happy near-future scene and see it allll wrapped up--and Jimenez provides this for us. It doesn't feel like a spoiler to share that Yours Truly offers a clean ending without loose ends. Former enemies are best friends and almost everyone is in love with someone. If you've agonized through the main relationship's ups and downs throughout the story, you might just feel that Bri and Jacob--and frankly we the readers!--deserve this final section, which wraps up everything in a neat bow. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Jimenez is also the author of Part of Your World, The Friend Zone, and The Happy-Ever-After Playlist. You might also like the books on my Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Light Fiction Stories Perfect for Summer Reading and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, about an America in which those in the for-profit prison system fight to the death for others' entertainment--and for their freedom; I'm reading Yours Truly, Abby Jimenez's newest rom-com about two lonely ER doctors who forge a connection through writing each other letters; and I'm reading Matthew Norman's upcoming (to be published tomorrow) music-focused light fiction, Charm City Rocks. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah's Chain-Gang All-Stars explores an America in which prisoners in the private prison industry take part in profitable, popular, and controversial gladiator death-match performances in which they fight for their freedom. Loretta Thurwar and Hamara "Hurricane Staxxx" are lovers, teammates, and the stars of Chain-Gang All-Stars, a program at the heart of CAPE, or Criminal Action Penal Entertainment. Loretta is poised to earn her freedom in just a few more matches. She's bracing herself to leave behind her beloved teammates and Staxxx--but the corporate owners of CAPE will do anything to protect their investment and secure their profits. I'm listening to Chain-Gang All-Stars as an audiobook, courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio. 02 Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez Briana Ortiz's divorce from her cheater husband is about to be finalized, her brother Benny's health is failing, and she's living in her childhood home, complete with its original flowered couches and shabby carpet. At least she can pour energy into her work. She's busy as an ER doctor and is poised to become the next Chief. But when a new doctor relocates to the hospital, Bri's promotion is in jeopardy. She's set to detest this interloper--but then he sends her a letter that changes everything. Jimenez is also the author of Part of Your World, The Friend Zone, and The Happy-Ever-After Playlist. 03 Charm City Rocks: A Love Story by Matthew Norman Billy Perkins is a happy music teacher living above a record store in Baltimore called Charm City Rocks with his beloved teen son Caleb. Margot Hammer, on the other hand, is miserable. The former drummer of the band Burnt Flowers is now a recluse living in New York City. When a documentary shines a light on Margot again, Billy's longtime crush on the musician is renewed. Caleb cooks up a scheme to get Margot to perform at Charm City Rocks so his dad, who Caleb thinks is lonely, can finally meet Margot and hopefully forge a connection. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Dell. If this book sounds intriguing, you might also be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List, Six Rockin' Stories about Bands and Music.

My very favorite Bossy May reads! Here are the books I most loved reading in May: Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, Lucinda Williams's gritty, frank memoir about music, love, and life; The Trackers, wonderfully detailed historical fiction set during the Great Depression that centers around art, relationships, and journeys, by Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier; Meet Me at the Lake, Carley Fortune's rom-com novel about loss, adjusting goals and the pictures of our life as we age, and second chances; Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Gillian McAllister's fascinating time-twisting mystery, buoyed by the characters' complex relationships; This Time It's Real, Ann Liang's funny and sweet young adult rom-com about fake relationships, allowing vulnerability, and living as your true self; and Silver in the Bone, the first in Alexandra Bracken's young adult fantasy series of the same name, which offers Arthurian legends, dangerous journeys, and a brave young heroine. If you've read any of these books, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You by Lucinda Williams Lucinda Williams offers a gritty, honest, captivating, spare yet fully developed memoir in which she explores her musical influences and influential high and low moments in her personal life. In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, songwriter, singer, and musician Lucinda Williams shares stories of her childhood, her musical influences, and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. Williams takes us along as she digs into her life's trajectory and the various conflicts, explorations, realizations, and challenges that have shaped her. Her insights into her mindset and her creativity are often offbeat, and they always feel thoughtful. She writes songs about "sex, love, and the state of the world," and in one instance describes musical freedom as feeling like everything is “uncorked." As she digs into the inspirations for her music she quotes her own lyrics--along with, occasionally, others' poems--and it all feels like truth-telling poetry--in her case, often set to music. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You was wonderful--spare yet fully developed, often surprising, and always intriguing. With wry humor, gritty honesty, and refreshingly candid reflections, Williams's singular voice comes through steadily here. I listened to Williams's Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You as an audiobook and enjoyed hearing her tell her own story. For my full review, check out Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You. 02 The Trackers by Charles Frazier Frazier offers an immersive story that morphs from a WPA-funded rural art commission to a leisurely country-wide search, an unlikely obsession, moments of brutality, strange connections, and, finally, an upended set of circumstances. In The Trackers, Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier offers historical fiction featuring a Great Depression-era painter, Val Welch, traveling west to a small rural town in Wyoming. As part of a New Deal grant, Val has landed the job of painting a mural on the Dawes, Wyoming, post office. In Dawes, he meets eccentric, wealthy art lovers John and Eve Long--mysterious, possibly hiding something, and certainly unpredictable. When Eve takes off from Dawes with a piece of valuable artwork, Val agrees to follow her--and uncovers long-buried secrets that could change everything. Frazier's writing is gorgeous, evoking the stark western landscapes Val passes through, gritty San Francisco, and the powerful cliffside ocean as well as lush, wild, wet Florida and its accompanying corruption and danger. Click here for my full review of The Trackers. 03 Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes, conflicting feelings surrounding coming home again, shifting dreams, and a satisfyingly layered resolution. Thirty-two-year-old Fern Brookbanks has pinned most of her romantic dreams on Will Baxter--despite the fact that they spent only 24 hours together in their twenties. A chance encounter blossomed into a glorious connection and a pact to meet up one year later at her family resort...but while Fern showed up to their romantic meet-up, Will did not. Fern has moved on. Now she's coping with a tragedy--and guess who shows up to meet Fern, nine years late? Within the book's summertime setting Fortune explores heavy issues related to mental illness, sudden death, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse--and also the complicated joy of having friends like family, facing responsibility and challenge, and acknowledging when long-held dreams have changed. The banter is fun, there are some steamy scenes, and I believed in the relationship and its ups and downs. Click here for my full review of Meet Me at the Lake. Carley Fortune is also the author of Every Summer After. 04 Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep connections, and an unusual route to uncovering the truth. I loved it. Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery Wrong Place Wrong Time plays with time, and I love books that play with time. The story begins with a mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late one night. She peers out the window to see him walking down the street--then she sees that he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But when she awakens the next morning bracing to face the living nightmare her family has begun living in, she's relieved to find that her son hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been arrested, and in fact, none of last night's events have happened after all. She must be losing her mind. But she knows that last night was real. Somehow she's reliving yesterday again. She really and truly is. She can't explain what's happened, but she quickly realizes that now she may be able to stop the murder before it occurs. Can she shift the future by changing the past? The story was fascinating and touching and chilling and sweet. I absolutely loved it. Please click here for my full review of Wrong Place, Wrong Time. 05 This Time It's Real by Ann Liang I was hooked by Liang's fake-dating, famous-everyday relationship duo setup, fantastically funny dialogue, and wonderfully imperfect characters with their hard-fought vulnerability and heartbreaking missteps. I devoured this in a rainy afternoon. In Ann Liang's young adult rom-com This Time It's Real, when seventeen-year-old Eliza's class essay about young love goes viral, it leads to the offer of a competitive internship and soaring popularity at her new school. She should be on cloud nine. The only problem is, she made it all up. She's never been in love. But the whirlwind around her pretend relationship is taking on a life of its own. So Eliza makes a desperate deal with a famous actor in her class: if he plays the role of her fake boyfriend at school, she'll help him write his college applications. He's already seen how convincing her writing can be, after all--she's got everyone fooled. When the line between acting and reality becomes blurred, will Eliza's grand plans end up in her own heartbreak? I love a fake-dating premise and a famous-everyday dating premise, and here they are combined. Ann Liang's funny dialogue, characters' various interpersonal challenges and victories, and messy family dynamics had me swooning. Yes to all of this! For my full review, please check out This Time It's Real. 06 Silver in the Bone by Alexandra Bracken Alternative Arthurian legends twist through this first in a young adult fantasy series, but what hooked me was the fearless, hardened, fiercely loyal, savvy, and crafty main protagonist Tamsin as she struggled to find her place in both worlds of the story. In Alexandra Bracken's young adult novel Silver in the Bone, sorceresses and dark magical beings populate the underground beneath Boston. Tamsin Lark is separate from them all, as she was born without magic. She knows how to find things, she's crafty, she's ruthless, and she'll do anything for her brother Cabell. But when her last remaining parent figure disappears without a trace, Tamsin is forced to go to great lengths and seek enchanted relics--of dubious provenance and with potentially disastrous power--in order to keep herself and Cabell alive. Bracken's story offered sassy banter that I loved, a great enemies-to-(not-quite)-lovers setup, a strong young female protagonist with a heart of gold, female power all over the place, captivatingly creepy elements, and fidelity that in some cases are shown to be betrayals that take your breath away. The book ends on a cliffhanger, setting up book two, which will hopefully be published in 2024 and which I can't wait to read. For my full review, please check out Silver in the Bone.

Rowley brings humor to this heartwarming--but never cloying--exploration of friendship, connection, messy relationships, heartbreak, and life and death. To think about life is to contemplate death--it's what makes living so valuable. Our time here is limited, gone in the blink of an eye. Steven Rowley's first novel The Guncle is full of heart and humor, quirky family love, and fun references to musicals and movies--yet Rowley also offers poignancy, an exploration of grief, and the impossible-seeming prospect of going on after deep loss. His newest novel, The Celebrants, centers around college friends who made a pact after Alec, one of the original six, died before their 1995 graduation: if any of them is going through a crisis and needs to know they are loved more than they love themselves, they can call upon the others to assemble, no questions asked--for affection, support, and the sharing of sentiments typically reserved for after a loved one is gone. The members of the group may have grown apart, but in the decades to come, when one of them feels adrift and lost, they come together in sassy, funny, imperfect, loving support. "My purpose, in this life, has been to love and spend it with you." The Celebrants centers around the evolving, sometimes complicated relationships between the five friends, and the tone feels wonderfully similar to that of The Guncle. Rowley doesn't smooth over realistically tangled, messy, intriguing conflicts or sober themes, yet he doesn't position the friendships in such a way that their existences magically solve life's deepest problems. The friends love each other, even if they sometimes don't like each other for a bit. When they're entrenched in their own lives or have drifted away from the others, they may question the value of the pact itself and its intrusion upon their busy lives. Jordan, Jordy (the Jordans!), Marielle, Naomi, and Craig cope with difficult family dynamics, professional missteps, long-held secrets, the pressure of societal expectations, marital complexities, illness, reinvention, frustration with each other, and pure love. The circumstances that trigger the pact are sometimes unexpected, and The Celebrants offers resolutions, triumphs, and a version of a happy ending in which not everyone gets what they want, but life goes on. I adored this book. I loved the way Rowley dove into dark humor; funny banter; not always practical but deeply held connections; and life and death--particularly, how to live fully and how to best face our inevitable demise: by showing unconditional love to those who make your life worth living. This is deep but funny with an edge, and the book is never cloyingly sentimental although it's wonderfully sweet. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You can check out my full review of The Guncle here. Rowley's husband Byron Lane wrote another book I loved, A Star Is Bored. You can find my review of that book here. If you're intrigued by books about facing mortality, you might be interested in the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality. I received a prepublication edition of this book, published May 30, courtesy of NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons.

I was hooked by Liang's fake-dating, famous-everyday relationship duo setup, fantastically funny dialogue, and wonderfully imperfect characters with their hard-fought vulnerability and heartbreaking missteps. I devoured this in a rainy afternoon. In Ann Liang's young adult rom-com This Time It's Real, when seventeen-year-old Eliza's class essay about young love goes viral, it leads to the offer of a competitive internship and soaring popularity at her new school. She should be on cloud nine. The only problem is, she made it all up. She's never been in love. She's moved so many times in her life, by now she realizes no one's going to bother understanding her or listening to her story. She's not even sure she's cut out for real-life love. Anyway, so she made up a sweeping romantic story, so what? But the whirlwind around her pretend relationship is taking on a life of its own. Eliza makes a desperate deal with a famous actor in her class: if he plays the role of her fake boyfriend at school, she'll help him write his college applications. He's already seen how convincing her writing can be, after all--she's got everyone fooled. When the line between acting and reality becomes blurred, will Eliza's grand plans end up in her own heartbreak? I love a fake-dating premise and a famous-everyday dating premise, and here they are combined. Ding ding ding! In This Time It's Real, Ann Liang's funny dialogue, characters' various interpersonal challenges and victories, and messy family dynamics had me swooning. Eliza and Caz cope with lying and coming clean, drifting apart from treasured friends and trying to find their way back together, and allowing another person to know your true, imperfect self and establishing hard-fought vulnerability. Yes to all of this! Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Ann Liang is also the author of If You Could Also See the Sun. Other fake-dating rom-coms include The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren and a Bossy favorite, The Bodyguard by Katherine Center. I loved these two books with the premise in which a famous person dates a not-famous person: Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan and Very Sincerely Yours by Kerry Winfrey.

Alternative Arthurian legends twist through this first in a young adult fantasy series, but what hooked me was the fearless, hardened, fiercely loyal, savvy, and crafty main protagonist Tamsin as she struggled to find her place in both worlds of the story. In Alexandra Bracken's young adult novel Silver in the Bone, sorceresses and dark magical beings populate the underground beneath Boston. Tamsin Lark is separate from them all, as she was born without magic. She knows how to find things, she's crafty, she's ruthless, and she'll do anything for her brother Cabell. But when her last remaining parent figure disappears without a trace, Tamsin is forced to go to great lengths and seek enchanted relics--of dubious provenance and with potentially disastrous power--in order to keep herself and Cabell alive. They must make a dangerous journey, then while determining whether those they meet are friend or foe, they must discern whether a legendary ring from Arthurian times could save Cabell from a curse threatening his life. Along the way, they face deathly threats, mysterious magic, a tangled web of lore and superstition, and those who seem to be allies but may be hiding dark secrets. I was reading Silver in the Bone, with its Arthurian references, during the same period I was reading another (very different) young adult book with references to Arthur and his court, Legendborn. Bracken's story offered sassy banter that I loved, a great enemies-to-(not-quite)-lovers setup, a strong young female protagonist with a heart of gold, female power all over the place, captivatingly creepy elements, and fidelity that in some cases are shown to be betrayals that take your breath away. Tamsin struggles to be vulnerable and to build new loyalties, and I was hooked by her often awkward interpersonal exchanges, her imperfections, and her complex inner self. The book ends on a cliffhanger, setting up book two, which will hopefully be published in 2024 and which I can't wait to read. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Alexandra Bracken is also the author of Lore. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley, Random House Children's, and Knopf Books for Young Readers.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading The Guncle author Steven Rowley's upcoming novel, The Celebrants, about old friends holding living funerals for each other to cope with difficult periods in life; I'm listening to a madcap story about a nerdy misfit who's mistaken for a drug kingpin at his high school reunion, Addison J. Chapple and Rachael Flanery's Santa Ana; and I'm reading Michelle Hoffman's upcoming rom-com, The Second Ending. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 The Celebrants by Steven Rowley Steven Rowley's novel The Guncle was full of heart and humor, quirky family love, and fun references to musicals and movies--yet Rowley also offered poignancy, an exploration of grief, and the impossible-seeming prospect of going on after deep loss. His newest novel centers around college friends who made a pact after one of the six died before graduation: if any of them is going through a crisis and needs to know they are loved more than they love themselves, they can call upon the others to assemble, no questions asked. The members of the group may have grown apart, but when one of them feels adrift and lost, they come together in sassy, funny, messy and imperfect, loving support. You can check out my full review of The Guncle here. I received a prepublication edition of this book, to be published May 30, courtesy of NetGalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons. 02 Santa Ana by Addison J. Chapple with Rachael Flanery Santa Ana is a madcap story about a misfit who's mistaken for a drug kingpin at his high school reunion The authors alternate points of view to show the perspectives of the statistics geek, the best friend intrigued by him, the meathead, the "it" girl, and an omniscient narrator with a twisted sense of humor. The California setting is vivid, and the story is zany, entertaining, and full of dark humor. The absurdity is keeping me hooked so far. I'm listening to Santa Ana courtesy of Libro.fm and Blackstone Publishing. 03 The Second Ending by Michelle Hoffman Prudence Childs was a prodigy. She taught herself to play the piano as a toddler, became famous, played at the White House, and appeared on television. She inspired a generation to take up the piano--before realizing her grandmother was exploiting her, and breaking from both her family and her fame. She falls into a career writing jingles. It's creatively unsatisfying but pays the bills. Decades later, Prudence agrees to participate in a popular televised dueling piano competition--against Alexei Petrov, a young Russian pianist who has flawless technique. But Alexei's parents pushed him so ruthlessly, he never made friends or developed a life outside of music. When the two face off, they each have something to prove--to their families, their exes, those who have doubted them--and to themselves. I received a prepublication edition of this book, to be published May 30, courtesy of NetGalley and Ballantine Books.

You Had Me at "Time Travel" I love a time-travel story in any genre. This Greedy Reading List offers a little of everything: light fiction/rom-com, mystery, fantasy, contemporary fiction, and science fiction. Time-travel and time shifts allow the story to go places it otherwise never could, allowing for unusual perspective, second chances, and realizations. Books that play with time almost always go straight on my to-read list. If you're intrigued by time-travel stories, you might also like the books on the Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories. Are there any stories you love that play with time? 01 One Last Stop by Casey McQuiston McQuiston's love letter to New York offers charming song references, LGBTQ love, steamy scenes, character growth--and an irresistible playing-with-time element. In One Last Stop, twenty-three-year-old August keeps to herself--she's kind of cynical, she doesn't have a lot of friends, and she's holding true to form after her recent move to New York. Her mother dedicated her life to searching for her own brother, who disappeared decades ago, and enlisted daughter August in her obsessive research and in her driven questioning of even the most tangentially connected potential contacts in order to try to find out what happened. One Last Stop plays with time in a really fun, interesting way, and through the time-jump premise McQuiston's characters explore loyalty, love, connection, and heartbreak in poignant, funny, irresistible ways. The book revels in wonderful LGBTQ love and tons of sexiness; fantastic New York-centric details; and enough musical references that multiple Spotify playlists exist that are inspired by the songs in the book. For my full review of this book, check out One Last Stop. 02 The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell In Lisa Maxwell's The Last Magician, a smart master thief bends time and finds her loyalties divided in turn-of-the-century New York. I appreciated the character of Esta as a smart master thief who can bend time, and I loved the 1901 New York setting, Dolph Saunders as a kindly magical mobster, Viola as a lesbian tough girl (with a heart of gold!) who's a genius with knives, and Harte Darrigan as a stage (and actual) magician whose loyalties are difficult to pin down. Add in the Brink as a method of controlling those with magic, the Book and its unclear powers, and the discriminatory, powerful, and dangerous Order and there's a steady, sinister underlying feel to the story. I don't think it benefited me to listen to The Last Magician, the first in Maxwell's series, as an audiobook, what with the jumps through time; varied points of view; layered disloyalties, misdirections, and motivations; and the extensive double-crossing. Some of the twists at the end felt implausible, but others wrapped up frustrating revelations in satisfying ways. For my full review of this book, check out The Last Magician. 03 Lost in Time by A.G. Riddle A.G. Riddle's time-travel story centers around reconciling the inability to change what has already occurred, but the necessity of doing so to save loved ones. With a twist! When we created Absalom, we weren't trying to build a time machine. We were trying to build a machine that saved our families. In A.G. Riddle's 450-page multiple-timeline story Lost in Time, a group of scientists have developed a device called Absalom. First intended to revolutionize shipping, its limitations and its vast possibilities lead to a new purpose: to send dangerous criminals back in time. When Sam, one of the creators of the system, is framed for the murder of another creator, he finds himself about to be sent back in his own creation as punishment. But his physicist friends are determined to try to get him back to the present again somehow. If only Sam had had time to do more than give himself a crash course in reading about the Triassic Period (weather, Pangea, dinosaur identification) or to hear his friends' ambitious plan for his return before being whisked back in time. For my full review of this book, check out Lost in Time. 04 Wrong Place, Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister Gillian McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep connections, and an unusual route to uncovering the truth. I loved it. Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery begins with a mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late one night. She peers out the window to see him walking down the street--then she sees that he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But when she awakens the next morning bracing to face the living nightmare her family has begun living in, she's relieved to find that her son hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been arrested, and in fact, none of last night's events have happened after all. She must be losing her mind. But she knows that last night was real. Somehow she's reliving yesterday again. Can she shift the future by changing the past? Wrong Place, Wrong Time offers a smart, mind-bending structure that is complex and interesting but not difficult to follow. McAllister develops her characters fully and uses the time jumps wonderfully--to explore relationships, truth-telling and lies, assumptions, terrible realizations, and heartwarming reassurances. For my full review of this book, check out Wrong Place, Wrong Time. 05 This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub Straub offers a story that plays with time, explores sentimental moments, offers do-overs, and sweeps the reader into a love-filled, hopeful heartbreaker of a tale. On the eve of her 40th birthday, Alice’s job, apartment, and love life are solidly okay. The only dark spot in her life is her father’s grave illness. When she wakes up the next morning...it’s her 16th birthday again. And it isn't just that being in her teen body again shocks her, or that seeing her high school crush is jarring. It's incredible to see her healthy, vital, young dad. This Time Tomorrow indulged my own personal desire for sentimentality, while also emphasizing the value of cutting to the heart of a situation without wasting time. The story offers up lots of loving moments as well as perfectly imperfect decisions and mistakes. The story is heartbreaking and lovely in its ultimate insistence that one must let go of the past. This was one of my favorite reads of the year last year. For my full review of this book, please see This Time Tomorrow. 06 Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel In this nested story that spans centuries, Mandel explores a pandemic, moon colonization, the universal connection of music, the temptation to change the past, portals and time loops, loyalty, fear, love, and wonder. In this science fiction novel, Mandel plays with time and time travel as well as mysteries surrounding what may be a portal linking individuals through time. Mandel explores an emerging pandemic in a future with a colonized moon, considers the universal connection of music, and digs into the difficulty and danger in changing the past. But all of these players and times feel in place mainly to serve as a structure to surround our true main protagonist, Gaspary, and we see the most depth and development and change; loyalty and love and grief; wonder and danger; resignation and hope in his portion of the story. This was where I was captivated and delighted and emotionally engaged. This book appeared on the Greedy Reading List Six More Science Fiction Reads I Loved in the Past Year. Click here for my review of Mandel's Station Eleven. For my full review of this book, please check out Sea of Tranquility.

ICYMI: Poet Elizabeth Alexander writes a gorgeous account of her love affair with her husband and the trauma of his sudden death in a heartbreaking, heartwarming account of moving through the darkness and holding tight to life's beauty and its pain. “The story seems to begin with catastrophe but in fact began earlier and is not a tragedy but rather a love story. Perhaps tragedies are only tragedies in the presence of love, which confers meaning to loss. Loss is not felt in the absence of love.” In The Light of the World, Elizabeth Alexander writes gorgeously about Ficre Ghebreyesus, the husband she lost suddenly; the elements that made him irreplaceable to her and to the world; and the impossibility and inevitability of adjusting to life without him. Alexander shares the trauma surrounding this enormous loss--which occurred days after Ghebreyesus's fiftieth birthday surprise party--and her personal journey toward finding peace. Much of the book explores the beauty of companionship, and with poetic gorgeousness Alexander lays out her unique love story. “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand.” Reading his widow's account of life with Ficre made me feel deeply connected to him. This was exquisitely beautiful. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? I mentioned The Light of the World in my Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Memoirs to Explore. You might also be interested in the titles on the Greedy Reading List Six Powerful Memoirs about Facing Mortality.

ICYMI: Smith evokes a vivid sense of the regional South in her fiction, and in this memoir she traces her Appalachian youth, offering striking depth and, at times, darkness. “...the linear, beginning-middle-end form doesn’t fit the lives of any women I know. For life has turned out to be wild and various, full of the unexpected, and it’s a monstrous big river out here.” In her memoir Dimestore, Lee Smith traces her beginnings in the Appalachian coal-mining town of Grundy, Virginia, where the background of her life was filled with tent revivals, mountain music, and her daddy's dime store and the community that flocked to it. What could have been simply a charming memoir about growing up in Appalachia and an account the incredible changes in rural Virginia from the time of Smith's childhood to the present day is those things, but it's more: the depth and darkness of Dimestore surprised and intrigued me. I was taken with Smith's open exploration of the good, bad, and ugly in her life. I adored reading her mentions of University of North Carolina English professors, other Chapel Hill figures, and the hidden gems of places I love. I mentioned this book in my Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Memoirs to Explore. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Lee Smith has written numerous fictional stories about the Appalachian South, including Fair and Tender Ladies, On Agate Hill, The Last Girls, and Oral History. Her newest book is Silver Alert.

Lucinda Williams offers a gritty, honest, captivating, spare yet fully developed memoir in which she explores her musical influences and influential high and low moments in her personal life. In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, songwriter, singer, and musician Lucinda Williams shares stories of her childhood, her musical influences, and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. Williams takes us along as she digs into her life's trajectory and the various conflicts, explorations, realizations, and challenges that have shaped her. Her insights into her mindset and her creativity are often offbeat, and they always feel thoughtful. She writes songs about "sex, love, and the state of the world," and in one instance describes musical freedom as feeling like everything is “uncorked." I loved hearing how she got into music--really, how music took hold of her and never let go, and how expressing herself through songwriting and singing became an essential part of her. She offers peeks into her musical influences and shares key encounters with both well-known and little-known members of the music industry without any of it feeling like name-dropping. Williams resists categorization at all fronts and seems unsurprised as she notes that she was told early on by record executives that she was too country for rock and too rock for country. She recalls how as a young woman she felt hemmed in by hippie culture and also by the societal opposition to it; how she missed some world-changing musical movements because of her timing and age; and how her drive for social activism played a role in her view of the world and how she approached her life--and resulted in her expulsion from high school. In one great passage, she explains Blues musicians' perspective that there's no shame in drinking whiskey, having sex, or making mistakes, and how this resonated with her. Don't Tell Anybody is at times funny with a tragic undertone, as in the recounting of the song Lucinda sold when she was young, without an agent or lawyer and without an understanding of rights and repercussions. This song later shows up in a porn movie, and her then-representation determines there's nothing to be done but watch it. Lucinda casually outlines for us the (largely nonexistent) porn-movie plot in her dry way, then notes that now she doesn't even remember where in the film her song plays. This has the satisfying effect of feeling that Williams negates the power of those who took advantage of her youth and inexperience in the first place. As she digs into the inspirations for her music she quotes her own lyrics--along with, occasionally, others' poems--and it all feels like truth-telling poetry--in her case, often set to music. Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You was wonderful--spare yet fully developed, often surprising, and always intriguing. With wry humor, gritty honesty, and refreshingly candid reflections, Williams's singular voice comes through steadily here. I listened to Williams's Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You as an audiobook and enjoyed hearing her tell her own story. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you're interested in this title, you might also like the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Musicians' Memoirs that Sing.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Lucinda Williams's memoir, Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You; I'm reading a light-fiction romantic comedy about a fake relationship, Ann Liang's This Time It's Real; and I'm reading the third book in Tamsyn Muir's dark, eerie Locked Tomb series, Nona the Ninth. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You: A Memoir by Lucinda Williams In Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You, songwriter, singer, and musician Lucinda Williams shares stories of her childhood, her musical influences, and pivotal moments in her career and personal life. Williams takes us along as she digs into her life's trajectory and the various conflicts, explorations, realizations, and challenges that have shaped her. With wry humor, gritty honesty, and refreshingly candid reflections, Williams's singular voice is coming through wonderfully so far. I'm listening to Don't Tell Anybody the Secrets I Told You as an audiobook. If you're interested in this one, you might also like the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Musicians' Memoirs that Sing. 02 This Time It's Real by Ann Liang In Ann Liang's light fiction rom-com This Time It's Real, when seventeen-year-old Eliza's class essay about young love goes viral, it leads to a competitive internship and soaring popularity at her new school. She should be on cloud nine. The only problem is, she made it all up. She's never been in love. So Eliza makes a deal with a famous actor in her class: if he plays the role of her fake boyfriend at school, she'll help him write his college applications. He's already seen how convincing her writing can be, after all. She's got everyone fooled. When the line between acting and reality becomes blurred, will Eliza's grand plans end up in her own heartbreak? 03 Nona the Ninth (The Locked Tomb #3) by Tamsyn Muir One of the reasons they had called her Nona was that the first thing she had said, when they saved her and brought her here, was No, no. Nono became Nona, and Nona meant Nine, and nine was an important number. Nona's birthday is coming up and she just wishes she could have a normal party. But she woke up in a stranger's body six months ago and has lived in it ever since. Her city is under attack, and leaders want her to serve as a weapon against the forces aiming to tear apart her planet. It's complicated. The Locked Tomb series so far is dark dark dark, with death, nefarious plotting, and gleefully gruesome elements (bone work, etc.). But the books in the series also offer fantastically bratty episodes on the parts of various characters; frenzies of double-crossing, long-term plans for destruction, and evil impulses; and endless moments of silly and dark humor that make me laugh. I'm hoping for more of those elements in Nona the Ninth. For my review of the first book in this series, Gideon the Ninth, check out the info at this link. You can find my review of Harrow the Ninth, book two, here. Book four, Alecto the Ninth, is expected to be published early in 2024.

Six Great Australian Reads Fridays are for highlighting books I've loved, and I have a thing for books set in Australia (this is illustrated by my demonstrated Jane Harper obsession alone; two of her books are listed here and I stand by this wholeheartedly). Side note: Am I using "fair dinkum" correctly? I have a feeling someone will correct me if I'm wildly off base here. Other books with Australian settings that I've been hooked by include Jess Kidd's The Night Ship; Christina Baker Kline's The Exiles; two more by Jane Harper, The Dry and Force of Nature; Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country; The Rosie Project; Big Little Lies; and What Alice Forgot. If you've read any of the books mentioned here, I'd love to hear what you think! Do you have any favorite reads set in Australia? 01 Exiles (Aaron Falk #3) by Jane Harper The third in Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series offers procedural detail, a lush Australian setting, and character development I found heartwarming and immensely satisfying. I love Aaron Falk stories and I loved the twisty interconnectedness of the characters in Exiles. Harper allows for Falk to develop more fully as a character--as a friend, a romantic interest, a father figure, and a detective. Yet she allows for new opportunities for him that felt real and possible, which I again loved. I wasn't ever sure who was responsible for the multiple tragedies at the heart of the story, and the resolutions make sense. Meanwhile Harper explores loyalty, procedural details related to the past and near past, beginnings and endings, and looooove. Jane Harper's The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) is set in small-town Australia with dark secrets and twists and turns, and she offers more of her excellent pacing in Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2). I'm in for all Jane Harper and all Aaron Falk stories! Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me. For my full review, check out Exiles. 02 The Wife and the Widow by Christian White White's twisty mystery is set against the backdrop of an unforgiving winter on an Australian island, with two women attempting to piece together their husbands' secrets and lies. Christian White's The Wife and the Widow offers two intersecting storylines centering around female protagonists, family secrets, shame, and hidden selves. The tone of the story is shaped by its setting: an unforgiving winter on an Australian island. The perspectives alternate by chapter: Kate is a widow who uncovers her dead husband's secret life and must come to terms with it, while Abby is an island local whose husband has hidden something significant, and she fears it is his guilt. Only when the two women's worlds intersect can they piece together the full stories of their husbands' lives and understand the impact of their lies. White offers cleverness with timelines that create an intriguing twist, and I didn’t predict the denouement. The amateur taxidermy was fascinating and horrifying. For my full review, check out The Wife and the Widow. 03 The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton Morton offers a Secret Garden-type tale for grown-ups, with twisty stories connected across time. Cassandra is devastated. Her beloved grandmother Nell has just died, and Cassandra's life has felt shaky since a terrible accident a decade earlier. When Cassandra learns that she has inherited a book of dark fairy tales from Eliza Makepeace—the Victorian authoress who disappeared mysteriously in the early twentieth century—she begins a quest to discover the truth about her history, her family, and everything she thought she knew about her life. The Forgotten Garden was over 500 pages and I was engrossed the whole way through. This was like a Secret Garden for grown-ups, with intertwined, mysterious stories from 1900, 1975, and 2005 and a vivid setting, interesting characters, and enough twists to keep you guessing. Morton is also the author of The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden, The Distant Hours, The Secret Keeper, The Lake House, The Clockmaker's Daughter, and Homecoming. 04 Boy Swallows Universe by Trent Dalton The emotions and drives of the story feel real, but the tone is darkly playful. I loved spending time with main protagonist Eli as he navigated tough situations and emerged with hope. Eli Bell is a young man in a tough spot. His father's out of the picture, his mother's in jail, his stepfather is gone, and his best friend and most solid source of advice is a convicted felon and legendary prison escapee, Slim. Eli's beloved older brother August is brilliant, but he never speaks. Things are complicated. Oh, and there's a secret panel in the back of the wardrobe at Eli's house. Behind the panel is a tunnel, and at the end of the tunnel is a room. In the room is a red telephone, and the male voice on the line gives Eli advice. Who is the man? Can he be trusted? Is any of this even real? Eli lives in a bleak, distant suburb of Brisbane, Australia. He wants to grow up and become a journalist, but for now his main goal is trying not to attract too much attention or bring any trouble down on himself or his brother. Trent's debut novel sifts through everyday brutality, corruption, and the general neglect of people and possessions and reveals imperfect goodness and hope. Boy Swallows Universe has many larger-than-life characters, especially its villains. Despite the desperate behaviors of the adults in Eli's life (and the terrible consequences he suffers because of them), he emerges as a fantastic, oddball, singularly heroic character I loved spending time with. For my full review, check out Boy Swallows Universe. 05 Only Killers and Thieves by Paul Howarth This story was often brutal to read, but it was beautifully written, in a style that felt perfectly suited for the stark Australian outback setting. Only Killers and Thieves is set in the Australian outback at the end of the 19th century. It centers around one family’s conflicts with crooked and powerful neighbors; cruel and aggressive Native Police aiming to eradicate the aboriginal people; the killing drought; and each other. One poor judgment leads to another, foolish choices end in bloodshed, and one brother makes justifications for his actions and feels no remorse, while the other brother feels crushed by it all. Howarth explores questions such as: Can people really change? Is remorse useful, and does it make a person more redeemable? Can a person’s character or morality be decided in a moment, or in a series of defining moments? Toward the end of Only Killers and Thieves, we see messy second chances take shape, a little retribution, and an attempt at a changed existence—but the haunting memories of the past creep in relentlessly. For my full review, check out Only Killers and Thieves. 06 The Lost Man by Jane Harper Harper's mysteries read like twisty character-driven Westerns set in Australia, and things aren’t always what they seem. Nathan and Bub have always had their differences, but they come together to grieve the loss of their brother Cam. Cam had been bothered by something before he died unexpectedly in the Australian outback desert, but was his death really the out-of-character suicide it was meant to look like--or did someone kill him? Nathan is no detective, but he owes it to Cam not to give up until he figures out what happened. Harper skillfully builds the pool of potential culprits for Nathan to examine in this story of uncovering truths, family history, loyalty, stubbornness, and love. Her books read like Westerns to me, and her sometimes spare tone suits the setting, the stark situations in which she places her characters, and the straightforward characters themselves. Things aren’t what they seem in The Lost Man, but Harper isn’t manipulative or tricky, either. I thought this was great. For my full review, check out The Lost Man. I listed this book in the Greedy Reading List The Six Best Mysteries I Read Last Year.

Summertime is the backdrop to Fortune's Meet Me at the Lake, light fiction with an anchor in deeper issues, some steamy scenes, conflicting feelings surrounding coming home again, shifting dreams, and a satisfyingly layered resolution. Thirty-two-year-old Fern Brookbanks has pinned most of her romantic dreams on Will Baxter--despite the fact that they spent only 24 hours together in their twenties. A chance encounter blossomed into a glorious connection and a pact to meet up one year later at her family resort...but while Fern showed up to their romantic meet-up, Will did not. By all appearances, Fern has moved on. She's had her share of dalliances, she's been working toward her dream of owning an urban coffee shop, and she's aggressively avoided moving home. Then everything is upended by tragedy. Now Fern is trying to figure out how she ended up at home, working with the people she grew up being babysat by, or dated as a youngster, or saw every day for months in the dining room of the lakeside resort restaurant. Her longtime family friends are supportive and a welcome, essential part of her life, but is living at the lake and taking on the revamping of the resort what Fern really wants? To complicate matters, guess who shows up to meet Fern, nine years late--and who has also contracted with her mom to shore things up at the resort? Early in my reading I messaged my friend Hannah, who had just read this book, how I appreciated that the two main characters addressed the Longtime, Big Misunderstanding almost immediately. I'm almost unfailingly frustrated when protagonists are slipped up by various unlikely obstacles and can't manage to discuss the issue that has kept them apart. Here, Fortune doesn't allow for a quick or simple resolution, but the initial acknowledgment of the issue at hand satisfied me--as did the complexity of and exploration of the situation between Fern and Will, past and present. Within this summertime setting Fortune explores heavy issues related to mental illness, sudden death, unplanned pregnancy, substance abuse--and also the complicated joy of having friends like family, facing responsibility and challenge, and acknowledging when long-held dreams have changed. The banter is fun, there are some steamy scenes, and I believed in the relationship and its ups and downs. Meet Me At the Lake is narrated by A.J. Bridel & Carley Fortune. I received a complimentary audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Carley Fortune is also the author of Every Summer After, a book I really liked. For more books I've loved, check out the Greedy Reading Lists Six Great Light Fiction Stories and Six More Great Light Fiction Stories.

Gillian McAllister offers a smart, intriguing, twisty story that plays with time and offers second chances, revelations, betrayals, deep connections, and an unusual route to uncovering the truth. I loved it. Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery Wrong Place Wrong Time plays with time, and I love books that play with time. The story begins with a mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late one night. She peers out the window to see him walking down the street--then she sees that he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But when she awakens the next morning bracing to face the living nightmare her family has begun living in, she's relieved to find that her son hasn't killed anyone, he hasn't been arrested, and in fact, none of last night's events have happened after all. She must be losing her mind. But she knows that last night was real. But somehow she's reliving yesterday again. She really and truly is. She can't explain what's happened, but she quickly realizes that now she may be able to stop the murder before it occurs. Can she shift the future by changing the past? She wakes again the next day to find that it is now the day before yesterday. Time is moving backward, and if she can't figure out how it's happening, she must at least figure out why. Wrong Place, Wrong Time offers a smart, mind-bending structure that is complex and interesting but not difficult to follow. McAllister develops her characters fully and uses the time jumps wonderfully--to explore relationships, truth-telling and lies, assumptions, terrible realizations, and heartwarming reassurances. Main characters have plausible reactions of disbelief, wonder, irritation, and fatigue to the unfathomable goings-on, which I loved. McAllister's twists never feel like red herrings, nor do they make me feel irritated by manipulation. I loved watching every building block slot into place as we wound our way back through time toward the truth. The story was fascinating and touching and chilling and sweet. I absolutely loved it. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you like books like this, you may want to check out these other Bossy books I've read that play with time. My Greedy Reading Lists Six Riveting Time-Travel Stories to Explore and Six Second-Chance, Do-Over, Reliving-Life Stories highlight some of my very favorite books that twist time!

ICYMI: Sittenfeld shapes fully realized, fascinating characters that stuck with me in the ten stories of You Think It, I'll Say It. I loved it and rated the collection five stars. I had no idea, of course, that of all the feelings of my youth that would pass, it was this one, of an abundance of time so great as to routinely be unfillable, that would vanish with the least ceremony. At the start of this collection I was concerned that this was going to be a short story collection about people making poor choices, and I have loooots of trouble and get verrrry nervous reading those situations. But Sittenfeld has a fascinating way of turning situations on their heads and making the reader sympathetic to absurd, heartbreaking, sometimes dramatic everyday situations, as she does here. The ten stories in You Think It, I'll Say It explore expectations related to gender and relationships while Sittenfeld builds characters whose lives are shaped by missed connections, coincidences--and the aforementioned faulty decision-making. After I finished reading, I kept thinking about the characters and their realizations, compromises, and sometimes their resignation in the face of imperfect circumstances. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Sittenfeld is also the author of Romantic Comedy, American Wife, You Think It, I'll Say It, Prep, Rodham, and Eligible. If you enjoy short story collections, you might like to check out Six Short Story Collections to Wow You.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm listening to Carley Fortune's newest light fiction about a missed opportunity and second chances, Meet Me at the Lake; I'm reading a book club pick about three young Muslim women and their friendship, Salma El-Wardany's These Impossible Things; and I'm reading S.B. Divya's space opera, Meru. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Meet Me At the Lake by Carley Fortune Thirty-two-year-old Fern Brookbanks has pinned most of her romantic dreams on Will Baxter--despite the fact that they spent only 24 hours together in their twenties. A chance encounter blossomed into a glorious connection and a pact to meet up one year later...but while Fern showed up to their romantic meet-up, Will did not. Now Fern is trying to figure out how she ended up managing her mother's lakeside resort instead of living a glamorous life in the city. And just guess who shows up, nine years late? Meet Me At the Lake is narrated by A.J. Bridel & Carley Fortune. I received a complimentary audiobook version of this title courtesy of Libro.fm and Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group. 02 These Impossible Things by Salma El-Wardany Malak, Jenna, and Kees are best friends and always have been. They're good young Muslim women...and they also know how to skirt the rules, cover for each other, and find some freedom for themselves. These Impossible Things follows each girls' life trajectory as they experiment with love, sex, difficult truths, faith, and friendship. As the women prepare to graduate from college, one night of confessions could change their relationships forever. These Impossible Things is one of my book club's reads this year. 03 Meru (The Alloy Era #1) by S.B. Divya For five hundred years, humans have been restricted to living on Earth, while posthuman descendants, called alloys, roam freely throughout the galaxy. Jayanthi is the adopted child of alloy parents, and when the Earthlike planet of Meru is discovered, Jayanthi sees an opportunity to rehabilitate humans' reputation as selfish and destructive, while alloy pilot Vaha jumps at the chance to ensure a future with a successful journey. While building bonds and problem-solving their way to Meru, neither realizes the mission has been set up to fail. S.B. Divya is also the author of Machinehood, a book I listed on the Greedy Reading List Six More Fantastic Dystopian and Postapocalyptic Novels.

Some of my very favorite reads of the year...so far! I've also had three Bossy five-star reads in 2023, and I'm hoping I rack up some more for a post to be made up solely of the year's five-star reads. Meanwhile, here are the six books I've loved and have given 4.5 Bossy stars this year. If you've read any of these titles, I'd love to hear what you think! And I'd also love to hear: what are some of your recent favorite reads? 01 Exiles (Aaron Falk #3) by Jane Harper The third in Jane Harper's Aaron Falk series offers procedural detail, a lush Australian setting, and character development I found heartwarming and immensely satisfying. I love Aaron Falk stories and I loved the twisty interconnectedness of the characters in Exiles. Harper allows for Falk to develop more fully as a character--as a friend, a romantic interest, a father figure, and a detective. Yet she allows for new opportunities for him that felt real and possible, which I again loved. I wasn't ever sure who was responsible for the multiple tragedies at the heart of the story, and the resolutions make sense. Meanwhile Harper explores loyalty, procedural details related to the past and near past, beginnings and endings, and looooove. Jane Harper's The Dry (Aaron Falk #1) is set in small-town Australia with dark secrets and twists and turns, and she offers more of her excellent pacing in Force of Nature (Aaron Falk #2). I'm in for all Jane Harper and all Aaron Falk stories! Exiles was the right mystery at the right time for me. For my full review, check out Exiles. 02 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan Keegan's slim book may seem cozy and quiet at first, but she beautifully illuminates tiny moments alongside momentous decisions and explores how together, they form a person and make up a whole life. When Bill, a good-hearted coal merchant, discovers something shocking while making his regular delivery to the local convent, he must decide whether to carry on his way or to consider the uncomfortable implications of the Catholic church's deep influence on the community. Similarly, when he stumbles onto a truth about his own mysterious heritage--a mystery he felt he had made peace with--he must decide whether it changes his feelings about his childhood and his identity. The two issues are intertwined, and it's a joy to watch the manner in which Bill copes with both instances. The story comes alive through the little moments Keegan highlights; while she explores decisions often determined by instinctual black-and-white, right-and-wrong judgments, she also digs into the intense struggle involved in reaching out from comfortable safety and taking a risk in order to do what feels right. Keegan takes the small moments, impulses, generosities, omissions, and aversions that make up a day, a week, and a month and lays them alongside Big Moments of Realization--which often require grace and forgiveness, other times action and defiance--and with all of this in hand, she paints a picture full of the nuances choices, self-reflection, and possibilities that form the basis of a life. Please click here for my full review of Small Things Like These. 03 The Night Ship by Jess Kidd Kidd's dual-timeline historical fiction, based on actual events, shines in its vivid settings, richly imagined characters, sea voyage details, and magical realism elements. The Night Ship is historical fiction with a magical realism undercurrent that's told in two timelines. I didn't realize up front that this is based upon a true story, and now I'm even more deeply haunted. The Night Ship centers around the dilemmas, conflicts, and discoveries of two characters separated by three centuries: Mayken, a Dutch girl on an ocean voyage who is shipwrecked off the coast of Australia, and Gil, an eccentric Australian boy living three hundred years later on the same island, trying to move past trauma and make a home with his grandfather, a stranger to him. Jess Kidd is the author of Things in Jars, a mystery I gave four Bossy stars--and listed in two Greedy Reading Lists, Six Spooky, Gothic Tales and Six Historical Fiction Mysteries Sure to Intrigue You. For my full review, check out The Night Ship. 04 Solito by Javier Zamora Zamora's memoir of his grueling journey from El Salvador to the United States without family at age nine keeps the reader within each immediate, breathless, uncomfortable, fear-filled moment through and to the unknown. In Solito, the poet Javier Zamora shares the story of his grueling journey from El Salvador to the United States at age nine. Zamora keeps us in his nine-year-old perspective, which also serves to keep us focused on moment-by-moment sensations and concerns and makes the memoir feel immediate and breathless. Physical discomfort (he is tired, cold, hot, burned, thirsty, hungry), emotional turmoil (he feels loneliness, fear, concern, disconnectedness), and yearning (he is desperate for trust, for assurances, for safety and security, for reunification) are at the forefront. Zamora takes us through what often feels like his literal step-by-step journey, without summarizing or skipping over impactful moments of need and want and despair. Yet he doesn't mine the difficult situation in an effort to build drama; his account feels honest and without emotional manipulation. I listened to Solito as an audiobook. Click here for my full review of Solito. You might also be interested in the titles on my Greedy Reading List Six Fascinating Books about Immigrants' Experiences. 05 The Trackers by Charles Frazier Frazier offers an immersive story that morphs from a WPA-funded rural art commission to a leisurely country-wide search, an unlikely obsession, moments of brutality, strange connections, and, finally, an upended set of circumstances. In The Trackers, Cold Mountain author Charles Frazier offers historical fiction featuring a Great Depression-era painter, Val Welch, traveling west to a small rural town in Wyoming. As part of a New Deal grant, Val has landed the job of painting a mural on the Dawes, Wyoming, post office. In Dawes, he meets eccentric, wealthy art lovers John and Eve Long--mysterious, possibly hiding something, and certainly unpredictable. When Eve takes off from Dawes with a piece of valuable artwork, Val agrees to follow her--and uncovers long-buried secrets that could change everything. Frazier's writing is gorgeous, evoking the stark western landscapes Val passes through, gritty San Francisco, and the powerful cliffside ocean as well as lush, wild, wet Florida and its accompanying corruption and danger. If you're interested in Great Depression-era historical fiction like I am, you might also like the books The Giver of Stars, The Saints of Swallow Hill, Wingwalkers by Taylor Brown, Nocturne, which offers magical realism and a dance-focused storyline within a Great Depression setting, and This Tender Land. For my full review, please check out The Trackers. 06 As Good As Dead by Holly Jackson Jackson doesn't skimp on heart-pounding pacing, captivating character development, and dark turns in this third book in her young adult mystery series. I never would have predicted the twists. Sign me up for all Pippa Fitz-Amobi books, forever, please. As Good As Dead is the final book in A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, a series I've loved, and I've been delaying reading this third and final installment due to my willful denial that the series is ending, my intense love for the characters of Pip and Ravi, and Holly Jackson's smart, sassy, irresistible storytelling. Ever since Pip's book two detective work ended in an important resolution, she's been coping with the significant trauma of that case's dramatic final events. She's in danger of being sued for libel by Max Freaking Hastings, who Pip knows is a terrible person who has done terrible things--which is why she said so, passionately, on her podcast. And she can't shake a general sense of unease, as though she's missing something. The direction the book takes is fascinating. Jackson does not let off the gas pacing-wise. The unexpected twists and turns kept me riveted while Pip's unfailing bravery and her hero's struggles and emotional turmoil threatened to break my heart. For my full review (and links to my reviews of the other books in this series), check out As Good As Dead.

The transcripts of 200 audio files make up much of the novel, and I had difficulty feeling invested in this structure, which felt more tedious to me than intriguing. Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code explores a mysterious potential connection between a teacher's disappearance decades earlier and a potential code hidden in an old-fashioned, banned children's book. Steven Smith ("Smithy") was a mischievous orphan raised by his inept older brother. He hadn't yet become the convicted criminal of his adulthood. Now Smithy's out of prison and he mainly resists sinking back into illegal habits. But he's got a hunch that the mystery of the code in deceased author Edith Twyford's largely condemned, prejudiced stories may be linked to the vanishing of his teacher so many years earlier--that is, linked by a hidden fortune. The unreliable narrator gathers friends from primary school to compare accounts of that pivotal day of their beloved teacher's disappearance that occurred decades earlier so he can grab the fortune for himself if he can. I imagine that I would have preferred to read the print version of this title. The book is almost exclusively 200 transcripts of audio files, which is extremely tedious to listen to ("Voice one...voice two...audio quality...silence for X seconds..." entries). The pacing is slow, and the book is largely made up of various characters talking about conflicting memories of decades-old events and poring over simplistic book text for potential patterns and clues. At about three-fourths of the way through the story, events began to occur that spiked my interest, and it became clear that things were not as they seemed. But by then I had been feeling impatient for the bulk of the book and was feeling grumpy about the whole situation. I had predicted some of the twists that are eventually revealed, and I was too irritated to feel invested in the final outcome. I also didn't feel at all convinced that the person trying to sort out the convoluted situation at the end would bother to do so. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? You can find reviews of mysteries I've read and enjoyed here.

White's twisty mystery is set against the backdrop of an unforgiving winter on an Australian island, with two women attempting to piece together their husbands' secrets and lies. She sensed a primal darkness standing over them, following her like a shadow, and when she went downstairs and saw that body, it would clap around her shoulders, drag her down and stay with her forever. Christian White's The Wife and the Widow offers two intersecting storylines centering around female protagonists, family secrets, shame, and hidden selves. The tone of the story is shaped by its setting: an unforgiving winter on an Australian island. The perspectives alternate by chapter: Kate is a widow who uncovers her dead husband's secret life and must come to terms with it, while Abby is an island local whose husband has hidden something significant, and she fears it is his guilt. Only when the two women's worlds intersect can they piece together the full stories of their husbands' lives and understand the impact of their lies. White offers cleverness with timelines that create an intriguing twist, and I didn’t predict the denouement. I was in for the vaguely unsympathetic but interesting and evolving characters of Abby and Kate. The amateur taxidermy was fascinating and horrifying. I just could not get past it! I was provided with an advance copy of this book by St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? Christian White is also the author of The Nowhere Child and Wild Place.

The premise and setting of The Secret Book of Flora Lea are captivating. I was distracted by what felt like overly dramatic dialogue and exclamations as well as easily predicted events. Young Flora and her teen sister Hazel were evacuated in 1939 from the bombing and danger in wartime London to the English countryside, where they lived with a rural family. They spent their days walking by the river, and to keep Flora entertained and distracted, Hazel made up elaborate stories about a magical, secret world alongside the water. Then tragedy struck: Flora went missing and was presumed to be dead. Twenty years later, Hazel is working in a bookshop when she unwraps a package and can't believe her eyes. The book inside is about the made-up world she shared with Flora--but Hazel had never told another soul about the tales or the name of the secret, pretend place, Whisperwood. Someone out there knows about the stories and the imaginary world she shared with her sister. Could this mean that Flora is somehow still alive? Hazel begins to dig into the past, including her own young love (fractured by the tragedy of Flora's disappearance), anyone who might have been connected to Flora's disappearance, and the mysterious book about Whisperwood. She questions her current romantic relationship, her planned job change, and what her future might look like, while renewing her hope that against all odds she might find Flora alive and unharmed somewhere out in the world. I looooved the premise of The Secret Book of Flora Lea, and a World War II-set historical fiction tale is usually a slam dunk for me. The book involved some style choices that distracted me from the story--for example, dramatic shrieks of "No!" in conversations, which felt unlikely and jarring; a twist that's hinted at repeatedly and that I therefore anticipated early on; and repeated theatrical-seeming dialogue and expositions that didn't ring true for me. Henry based the evacuation element of her story upon the real-life Operation Pied Piper, which swiftly relocated a staggering one and a half million children from London to the countryside and around the world during World War II. I received a prepublication edition of this book courtesy of NetGalley and Atria Books. Do you have any Bossy thoughts about this book? If you're interested in World War II-set historical fiction, you might like the books on my Greedy Reading List Six Great Stories about Brave Women During World War II and these books set during World War II.

The Books I'm Reading Now I'm reading Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery that plays with time, Wrong Place Wrong Time; I'm reading Antarctica, a collection of short stories by one of my favorite authors, Claire Keegan; and I'm listening to Janice Hallett's unreliable narrator mystery, The Twyford Code. What are you reading these days, bookworms? 01 Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister Gillian McAllister's twisty mystery Wrong Place Wrong Time plays with time (like some of my favorite books do). A mother awaiting her teenage son's return home late at night peers out the window to see him--he is armed, and to her horror, she sees him kill another man on the street. But then she awakens and is relieved to find that she's reliving yesterday again. She can't explain what's happened, but the murder at her son's hands hasn't happened. Yet. Then she wakes again to find that it is now the day before yesterday. Time is moving backward, and she must figure out why--and how to save her son. 02 Antarctica by Claire Keegan I was emailing about books with my friend James this weekend and was raving about my obsession with Claire Keegan. When I fell in love with Keegan's Foster and Small Things Like These, I became an all-in Keegan fan for life. (The short story collection Walk the Blue Fields will be my next Keegan read.) In the stories of Keegan's acclaimed debut, Antarctica, a young wife leaves town to experience being with a man other than her husband; a Harvard student endures humiliation from his father on his graduation day; and a couple endures the deepest grief as one implodes and the other reaches out desperately to connect. Click here to read my reviews of Claire Keegan's Foster and Small Things Like These. 03 The Twyford Code by Janice Hallett Janice Hallett's The Twyford Code explores a mysterious potential connection between a teacher's disappearance decades earlier and a potential code hidden in a banned children's book. Steven Smith was a mischievous child raised by his older brother and hadn't yet become the convicted criminal of his adulthood. Now he's out of prison and mainly resists sinking back into illegal habits...but he's got a hunch that the mystery of the code in deceased author Edith Twyford's largely condemned, simplistic, prejudiced stories and the vanishing of his teacher so many years earlier may be linked by a hidden fortune. The untrustworthy narrator gathers friends from primary school to compare accounts of that pivotal day decades earlier so he can get the fortune for himself if he can.