Unraveled Secrets by Jan Fields

Started: 8/27/2025

Finished: 8/29/2025

Year: 2015

Pages: 202

Genre: mystery

Grade: C

Reason for reading: TBR pile, finishing up the series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Emma Cotton and Kelly Grace, are still on the trail of who killed their best friend Rose. This book takes them to East Haddam, Connecticut and Newport, RI."

Opinion: An interesting ending-Emma and Kelly set off to CT and their mom and aunt head to RI in search of the last student. Overall the series was decent and a quick read.

James by Percival Everett

Started: 8/26/2025

Finished: 8/27/2025

Year: 2024

Pages: 303

Genre: Literature

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

"While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light."

Opinion: I read abridged illustrated versions of Finn and Sawyer when I was young so I don't remember much of Huck's story but I found this an interesting take of Twain's classic. I can see why it's been a popular read

Postmortem by Patricia Cornwell

Started: 8/22/2025

Finished: 8/26/2025

Year: 1990

Pages: 440

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book, starting the series

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "A killer is stalking the streets of Richmond, Virginia. When the bodies begin to mount, Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is pulled into a chilling investigation that blends high-stakes forensics with psychological warfare. Armed with cutting-edge science and unflinching resolve, Scarpetta must navigate hostile forces both inside and outside the investigation—because someone isn’t just trying to hide the truth. They’re trying to kill her."

Opinion: I have read this one a long time ago and several others out of order so I decided to start from 1 and go through the series in order. Decent introduction to Kay and her neice Lucy.

Sleep No More by Susan Crandall

Started: 8/18/2025

Finished: 8/21/2025

Year: 2010

Pages: 380

Genre: Romantic suspense

Grade: B

Reason for reading: TBR pile

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "The night was always Abby Whitman's enemy. As a young girl she walked in her sleep, and one night, she started a fire that scarred her sister for life and left Abby with unbearable guilt . . . and a loneliness that echoes within her. Now Abby has begun blacking out again--with apparently fatal results. A car accident has killed the son of a prominent family.

"Even though the evidence seems to exonerate her, Abby is plagued by doubts--and soon by mysterious threats. Psychiatrist Dr. Jason Coble is intrigued by Abby and offers to help her explore the dark recesses of her mind. Through this terrifying journey, Jason's interest turns to passion, and he yearns to give her the love she craves. But first, Abby must trust him--and shed light on secrets that will rock this Southern town and reveal a danger that threatens them both."

Opinion: Mystery was slightly predictable but the reasoning behind it was not. Romance was not over the top and was reasonable.

The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb

Started: 8/13/2025

Finished: 8/17/2025

Year: 2025

Pages: 461

Genre: literature

Grade: A

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Corby Ledbetter is struggling. New fatherhood, the loss of his job, and a growing secret addiction have thrown his marriage to his beloved Emily into a tailspin. And that’s before he causes the tragedy that tears the family apart. Sentenced to prison, Corby struggles to survive life on the inside, where he bears witness to frightful acts of brutality but also experiences small acts of kindness and elemental kinship with a prison librarian who sees his light and some of his fellow offenders, including a tender-hearted cellmate and a troubled teen desperate for a role model. Buoyed by them and by his mother’s enduring faith in him, Corby begins to transcend the boundaries of his confinement, sustained by his hope that mercy and reconciliation might still be possible. Can his crimes ever be forgiven by those he loves?"

Opinion: TRIGGERS!!!! I am surprised that there are not trigger warnings for this book-it could trigger almost anyone that has gone through anything traumatic. With that said, this was a heartbreaking, emotional story with an interesting ending. I can see why Oprah choose this as part of her book club. I would recommend this to anyone who isn't sensitive to traumatic events.

A Margin for Murder by Lauren Elliott

Started: 8/9/2025

Finished: 8/13/2025

Year: 2022

Pages: 313

Genre: mystery

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: library book, continuing with series

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Addie leaves her Greyborne Harbor bookstore, Beyond the Page Books and Curios, in the capable hands of her assistant while she travels to the neighboring town of Pen Hollow to attend a book sale at a library that is closing due to lack of funding. But the real find is a bookmobile bus, which she’s excited to refit as a traveling bookstore to hit all the summer festivals. The bookmobile also holds a surprising treasure: several classic first editions and an early edition of Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses.

"But before the bookmobile can be delivered to Addie, a fatal car crash occurs. When an autopsy reveals poison in the victim’s system and the first editions go missing, it’s up to Addie to determine what would drive someone to murder. If she’s not careful, however, she may be the next one to be dead on arrival . . ."

Opinion: Ending ended up being predictable but still a good twist.

Mind Prey by John Sandford

Started: 8/6/2025

Finished: 8/9/2025

Year: 1995

Pages: 323

Genre: mystery/thriller

Grade: B

Reason for reading: TBR pile, continuing with series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "In the wake of the abduction of a woman and her two young daughters, deputy chief Lucas Davenport faces the most challenging case of his career, while the victim, psychiatrist Andi Manette, applies all her skills to outwit her captor."

Opinion: Decent kidnapping mystery mixed with gaming.

Murder on Sex Island by Jo Firestone

Started: 8/4/2025

Finished: 8/6/2025

Year: 2023

Pages: 209

Genre: mystery

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "When a cast member goes missing from the hit reality show Sex Island, producers hire detective Luella van Horn to go undercover as a contestant and solve the case. What the producers don’t know is that the enigmatic Luella van Horn is actually a woman named Marie Jones, a divorced ex–social worker from Staten Island attempting to lead a double life as a private eye. The local press couldn’t get enough of Luella . . . until she horribly bungled her last case and a murderer went free.

"Unable to resist the opportunity to be a part of her favorite trashy TV show, travel to a remote island, and embark on a journey for redemption, Marie-as-Luella takes the case. But the more she learns about Sex Island’s dark underbelly, the harder it gets to make it out alive. She encounters shady producers, sleazy directors, contestants willing to do whatever it takes to win the $100,000 grand prize—and the dead body of the show’s missing fan-favorite in her bathtub.

"Will she find the killer? Will she find herself? Will she find . . . love?"

Opinion: Murder and Reality TV (Bachelor in Paradise, Love Island, etc). Decent mystery-certainly enough possibilities of whodunit.

A Dead Draw by Robert Dugoni

Started: 8/1/2025

Finished: 8/4/2025

Year: 2025

Pages: 377

Genre: mystery/thriller

Grade: A

Reason for reading: library book, continuing with series

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Detective Tracy Crosswhite isn’t one to lose her cool. Until her interrogation of the taunting and malicious Erik Schmidt, a suspect in two cold case killings. Schmidt also has unnerving ties to the monster who murdered Tracy’s sister, stirring memories of the crime that shaped Tracy’s life. After a critical mistake during a shooting exercise, Tracy breaks.

"Haunted by nightmares and flashbacks, Tracy heads to her hometown of Cedar Grove to refocus. Just a peaceful getaway with her husband, her daughter, and their nanny at their weekend house. But Tracy’s sleepless nights are only beginning. A legal glitch has allowed Schmidt to go free. And Tracy has every reason to fear that he’s followed her.

"Forced into a twisted game of cat and mouse, Tracy must draw on all her training, wits, and strength to defeat a master criminal before he takes away everyone Tracy loves."

Opinion: Great thrilling parts that worked well with Tracy's character and her history. Well worth waiting for...now to wait for the next one.

The Murder Room by Michael Capuzzo

Started: 7/29/2025

Finished: 8/1/2025

Year: 2010

Pages: 426

Genre: true crime

Grade: C

Reason for reading: TBR pile

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Three of the greatest detectives in the world were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice.

"The Murder Room draws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt ruthless killers, among them the grisly murderer of a millionaire's son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy."

Opinion: Unorganized writing-format needed a lot more editing-have a case from start to end. A good idea to highlight these detectives and their cases but something more was needed.