When the Bough Breaks by Jonathan Kellerman

Started: 12/26/2023

Finished: 12/31/2023

Year: 1985

Pages: 426

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: starting the series, library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Dr. Morton Hander practiced a strange brand of psychiatry. Among his specialties were fraud, extortion, and sexual manipulation. Hander paid for his sins when he was brutally murdered in his luxurious Pacific Palisades apartment. The police have no leads, but they do have one possible witness: seven-year-old Melody Quinn.

"It’s psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware’s job to try to unlock the terrible secret buried in Meldoy’s memory. But as the sinister shadows in the girl’s mind begin to take shape, Alex discovers that the mystery touches a shocking incident in his own past. And behind it lies an unspeakable evil that Alex Delaware must expose before it claims another innocent victim."

Opinion: Not for the faint of hearts and there are triggers. But it's strange how a retired psychologist ends in this crazy world. I have read other books in the series and always enjoyed them so I thought that I'd start at the beginning and go through them all.

Before We Were Innocent by Ella Berman

Started: 12/18/2023

Finished: 12/18/2023

Year: 2023

Pages: 365

Genre: literature

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: Reese's book club pick, library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Ten years ago, after a sun-soaked summer spent in Greece, best friends Bess and Joni were cleared of having any involvement in their friend Evangeline’s death. But that didn’t stop the media from ripping apart their teenage lives like vultures.

"While the girls were never convicted, Joni, ever the opportunist, capitalized on her newfound infamy to become a motivational speaker. Bess, on the other hand, resolved to make her life as small and controlled as possible so she wouldn’t risk losing everything all over again. And it almost worked. . . .

"Except now Joni needs a favor, and when she turns up at her old friend's doorstep asking for an alibi, Bess has no choice but to say yes. She still owes her. But as the two friends try desperately to shake off their past, they have to face reality.

"Can you ever be an innocent woman when everyone wants you to be guilty?"

Opinion: An interesting look at an accident (?) and its ramifications a decade later.

Murder of a Real Bad Boy by Denise Swanson

Started: 12/18/2023

Finished: 12/18/2023

Year: 2006

Pages: 252

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: continuing with the series, library bok

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Still recovering from breaking up with her boyfriend and alienating half the people in town, Skye Denison has sworn off men—but she hires sexy contractor Beau Hamilton to renovate the old house she inherited. After all, who can ignore his qualifications? Golden hair, bronzed chest, muscular thighs—he’s just too good to be true.

"Sure enough, he has a reputation for conning the ladies. But before the not so naïve Skye can fire the hunk, he turns up dead. Since even bad boys deserve justice, Skye has to juggle more than a passionate police chief, a cagey brother with a secret, and a possibly haunted house. She’s got a killer to catch."

Opinion: A quick read. Once the killer was revealed, it made sense. Looking forward to the next one.

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel

Started: 12/13/2023

Finished: 12/18/2023

Year: 2020

Pages: 377

Genre: Literature

Grade: B+

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Eva Traube Abrams, a semi-retired librarian in Florida, is shelving books one morning when her eyes lock on a photograph in a magazine lying open nearby. She freezes; it’s an image of a book she hasn’t seen in sixty-five years—a book she recognizes as The Book of Lost Names.

"The accompanying article discusses the looting of libraries by the Nazis across Europe during World War II—an experience Eva remembers well—and the search to reunite people with the texts taken from them so long ago. The book in the photograph, an eighteenth-century religious text thought to have been taken from France in the waning days of the war, is one of the most fascinating cases. Now housed in Berlin’s Zentral- und Landesbibliothek library, it appears to contain some sort of code, but researchers don’t know where it came from—or what the code means. Only Eva holds the answer—but will she have the strength to revisit old memories and help reunite those lost during the war?

"As a graduate student in 1942, Eva was forced to flee Paris after the arrest of her father, a Polish Jew. Finding refuge in a small mountain town in the Free Zone, she begins forging identity documents for Jewish children fleeing to neutral Switzerland. But erasing people comes with a price, and along with a mysterious, handsome forger named Rémy, Eva decides she must find a way to preserve the real names of the children who are too young to remember who they really are. The records they keep in The Book of Lost Names will become even more vital when the resistance cell they work for is betrayed and Rémy disappears."

Opinion: A truly remarkable story based on real events during WWII. 

Fortune and Glory by Janet Evanovich

Started: 12/11/2023

Finished: 12/13/2023

Year: 2020

Pages: 304

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: continuing with the series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "When Stephanie’s beloved Grandma Mazur's new husband died on their wedding night, the only thing he left her was a beat-up old easy chair…and the keys to a life-changing fortune.

"But as Stephanie and Grandma Mazur search for Jimmy Rosolli’s treasure, they discover that they’re not the only ones on the hunt. Two dangerous enemies from the past stand in their way—along with a new adversary who’s even more formidable: Gabriela Rose, a dark-eyed beauty from Little Havana with a taste for designer clothes. She’s also a soldier of fortune, a gourmet cook, an expert in firearms and mixed martial arts—and someone who’s about to give Stephanie a real run for her money.

"Stephanie may be in over her head, but she’s got two things that Gabriela doesn’t: an unbreakable bond with her family and a stubborn streak that will never let her quit.

"She’ll need both to survive because this search for “fortune and glory” will turn into a desperate race against time with more on the line than ever before. Because even as she searches for the treasure and fights to protect her Grandma Mazur, her own deepest feelings will be tested—as Stephanie could finally be forced to choose between Joe Morelli and Ranger."

Opinion: Picked up right were the last one finished. Not a lot of information was provided about this Gabriela chick and the feelings about Morelli and Ranger are still up in the air.

We're Going Home by Cynthia Thayer

Started: 12/6/2023

Finished: 12/11/2023

Year: 2023

Pages: 231

Genre: Memoir

Grade: B

Reason for reading: review for librarything.com

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "They were an unlikely pair: a “fast and frantic” woman and a steady, “pickin' at it” man. And even though both had been raised in cities and knew nothing about farming, Bill and Cynthia Thayer moved to Maine, started an organic farm, and made it work for more than forty years. Then a mysterious disaster strikes and Bill is found lying in the road. In We're Going Home, Cynthia relates the aftermath of the accident, interspersed with recollections of her life with her beloved “Farmer Bill,” from their first meeting to their final goodbye―and her life beyond."

Opinion: A more thorough review is posted on Librarything.com

The Bookbinder by Pip Williams

Started: 12/1/2023

Finished: DNF

Year: 2023

Pages: 424

Genre: historical fiction

Grade: D

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "It is 1914, and as the war draws the young men of Britain away to fight, women must keep the nation running. Two of those women are Peggy and Maude, twin sisters who live on a narrow boat in Oxford and work in the bindery at the university press.

"Ambitious, intelligent Peggy has been told for most of her life that her job is to bind the books, not read them—but as she folds and gathers pages, her mind wanders to the opposite side of Walton Street, where the female students of Oxford’s Somerville College have a whole library at their fingertips. Maude, meanwhile, wants nothing more than what she has: to spend her days folding the pages of books in the company of the other bindery girls. She is extraordinary but vulnerable, and Peggy feels compelled to watch over her.

"Then refugees arrive from the war-torn cities of Belgium, sending ripples through the Oxford community and the sisters’ lives. Peggy begins to see the possibility of another future where she can educate herself and use her intellect, not just her hands. But as war and illness reshape her world, her love for a Belgian soldier—and the responsibility that comes with it—threaten to hold her back."

Opinion: Slow paced...too slow paced. 

Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs

Started: 11/13/2023

Finished: 12/1/2023

Year: 1999

Pages: 379

Genre: mystery/thriller

Grade: B

Reason for reading: continuing with the series, library book

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "Dr. Temperance Brennan must draw on all her forensic skills as she investigates a series of seemingly unrelated events, beginning with horrifying deaths in a Quebec fire and some startling discoveries in distant North Carolina and ranging to the ultimate showdown in Montreal."

Opinion: Cults are certainly interesting, especially when spanning over countries.