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readingwitherin's reviews
434 reviews
Hooked on the Boxer by Piper Rayne
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 50%.
I'm struggling to get into this one. I thought I would enjoy it because the first book in the series was fun and liking the characters. This time for me it's just a little too much spice and not enough of the other storyline.
Home for the Holidays by Sara Richardson
emotional
hopeful
lighthearted
medium-paced
4.0
Home for the Holidays follows three different sisters all in different stages of lives and dealing with their own struggles.
Dahlia is divorced and is now a single mom of two kids, all while still having to deal with things for her ex-husband because he doesn’t know how to do certain things for the kids. She is also on PTA, etc in order to stay busy with the kids, and her life full and busy.
Rose is engaged to be married to a social-lite family and is dealing with trying to plan a wedding with an extremely pushy mother-in-law to be and a fiancee who is zero help. She’s also kind of lost herself because she hasn’t had time to do her own work that she loves which is interior design because of how busy her mother-in-law to be has her with wedding planning.
Finally, we have Magnolia who is struggling with infertility and this struggle has put a big strain on her and her marriage. They’ve had losses and heartbreaks and they’ve been dealing with it all on their own and not telling anyone close to them which has made the strain on them even worse when it comes to handling it all. Magnolia also runs her own bakery and has kept busy with that.
Overall I loved this book. Home for the Holidays was very focused on the sister relationship and them helping each other deal with what they were struggling with in their lives. We also see them having to make the tough choice of what to do with their favorite place from their childhood and making big decisions and changes in their lives. I felt for each of the sisters at different times and the emotions they were feeling from happiness, sadness, worry, and just being unsure what to do at times came across so well in the book. From Rose having to choose between what she thought she wanted and what she actually wants now, and Dahlia learning how to move on and start doing more things for her, and Magnolia possibly getting what she’s always wanted it was just so special to see happening. The sisters were always there for one another and even though they hadn’t been spending much time together, they still knew each other’s tells for when something was wrong and they needed the other person. Just that special sister relationship without them fighting over ridiculous things or trying to one-up each other in the Christmas game instead this book was just happiness and love for each other.
I’m interested in reading more by this author now because of how well she did on keeping the focus being on the sisters and family in general and not just making this one into a typical romance book like it could have gone. It was focused on family and I love that no matter what time of year it is.
Dahlia is divorced and is now a single mom of two kids, all while still having to deal with things for her ex-husband because he doesn’t know how to do certain things for the kids. She is also on PTA, etc in order to stay busy with the kids, and her life full and busy.
Rose is engaged to be married to a social-lite family and is dealing with trying to plan a wedding with an extremely pushy mother-in-law to be and a fiancee who is zero help. She’s also kind of lost herself because she hasn’t had time to do her own work that she loves which is interior design because of how busy her mother-in-law to be has her with wedding planning.
Finally, we have Magnolia who is struggling with infertility and this struggle has put a big strain on her and her marriage. They’ve had losses and heartbreaks and they’ve been dealing with it all on their own and not telling anyone close to them which has made the strain on them even worse when it comes to handling it all. Magnolia also runs her own bakery and has kept busy with that.
Overall I loved this book. Home for the Holidays was very focused on the sister relationship and them helping each other deal with what they were struggling with in their lives. We also see them having to make the tough choice of what to do with their favorite place from their childhood and making big decisions and changes in their lives. I felt for each of the sisters at different times and the emotions they were feeling from happiness, sadness, worry, and just being unsure what to do at times came across so well in the book. From Rose having to choose between what she thought she wanted and what she actually wants now, and Dahlia learning how to move on and start doing more things for her, and Magnolia possibly getting what she’s always wanted it was just so special to see happening. The sisters were always there for one another and even though they hadn’t been spending much time together, they still knew each other’s tells for when something was wrong and they needed the other person. Just that special sister relationship without them fighting over ridiculous things or trying to one-up each other in the Christmas game instead this book was just happiness and love for each other.
I’m interested in reading more by this author now because of how well she did on keeping the focus being on the sisters and family in general and not just making this one into a typical romance book like it could have gone. It was focused on family and I love that no matter what time of year it is.
Christmas on Main Street by Alexis Morgan, Luann McLane, JoAnn Ross, Susan Donovan
Did not finish book. Stopped at 59%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 59%.
I have been trying to get myself to finish this set of short stories and I'm just not enjoying them. They have interesting back stories, but I'm just not liking them for some reason. I'm sure others will enjoy them especially if they already know some of the side characters as they all seem to be from series's.
Village in the Dark by Iris Yamashita
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
5.0
Thank you to Netgalley and Berkley for an e-arc!
May Contain Spoilers if you haven't read City Under One Roof.
I have been waiting for the second book in the Cara Kennedy detective series since City Under One Roof ended. Village in the Dark did not disappoint and we finally, finally have answers to the cliffhangers we were left with last time.
Village in the Dark follows three different characters. Cara, Ellie, and Mia.
Cara is the main character from the first book and the one the story follows the most as the entire series is focused around her.
Ellie is a character we met in the first book City Under One Roof that rents out rooms to people visiting Point Mettier.
Lastly, we have a new character Mia who is a young woman who is on her own in the world for the most part and because of this gets herself into a dangerous situation.
Surprisingly for once I enjoyed all of the different perspectives! They were all so interesting and well done without it being too much.
Village in the Dark starts with Cara investigating her husband and son's deaths, and reopening the case to find out what really happened to them as it is still unsolved. She is doing this all on her own and paying for it through a private company to get the DNA matched. She is doing this because at the end of the first book she finds a photo of her husband and son on a gang member's phone making her believe that they were murdered and it wasn't an accident. Cara's husband and son's photos were not the only ones photos on this phone as several other people who are also missing or dead are also on it. This leads Cara to start investigating with some help from her friends in Point Mettier as she tries to put the pieces together of what happened to them.
Overall I loved this book! It was such a quick read because I just had to know what happened next, and the author kept the pacing nice and steady to keep everything connecting and going until the end. The three different perspectives worked great and showed how what happened to them became this huge thing and how it affected so many different people's lives. Ellie was amazing in this book with how she put things together when it came to her own loss and how she recruited people to help find out information as well. Mia was a bit of a wild card and I wasn't sure how she would be connected to the story, but she had so much information that was vital to the entire thing.
I was not expecting things to go the way they did in the end and that ending was huge! So many things happened in a short amount of time, and it was great to see all the different pieces that had been found out piece together to show how much bigger this all ended up being and how it all snowballed together. I cannot wait to see what happens next in this series! (Has it been confirmed that this is a series yet? I keep seeing conflicting information)
I would also like to applaud the author's knowledge and research into Indigenous culture and beliefs as they did such a good job of making sure that was included and a big part of the story.
May Contain Spoilers if you haven't read City Under One Roof.
I have been waiting for the second book in the Cara Kennedy detective series since City Under One Roof ended. Village in the Dark did not disappoint and we finally, finally have answers to the cliffhangers we were left with last time.
Village in the Dark follows three different characters. Cara, Ellie, and Mia.
Cara is the main character from the first book and the one the story follows the most as the entire series is focused around her.
Ellie is a character we met in the first book City Under One Roof that rents out rooms to people visiting Point Mettier.
Lastly, we have a new character Mia who is a young woman who is on her own in the world for the most part and because of this gets herself into a dangerous situation.
Surprisingly for once I enjoyed all of the different perspectives! They were all so interesting and well done without it being too much.
Village in the Dark starts with Cara investigating her husband and son's deaths, and reopening the case to find out what really happened to them as it is still unsolved. She is doing this all on her own and paying for it through a private company to get the DNA matched. She is doing this because at the end of the first book she finds a photo of her husband and son on a gang member's phone making her believe that they were murdered and it wasn't an accident. Cara's husband and son's photos were not the only ones photos on this phone as several other people who are also missing or dead are also on it. This leads Cara to start investigating with some help from her friends in Point Mettier as she tries to put the pieces together of what happened to them.
Overall I loved this book! It was such a quick read because I just had to know what happened next, and the author kept the pacing nice and steady to keep everything connecting and going until the end. The three different perspectives worked great and showed how what happened to them became this huge thing and how it affected so many different people's lives. Ellie was amazing in this book with how she put things together when it came to her own loss and how she recruited people to help find out information as well. Mia was a bit of a wild card and I wasn't sure how she would be connected to the story, but she had so much information that was vital to the entire thing.
I was not expecting things to go the way they did in the end and that ending was huge! So many things happened in a short amount of time, and it was great to see all the different pieces that had been found out piece together to show how much bigger this all ended up being and how it all snowballed together. I cannot wait to see what happens next in this series! (Has it been confirmed that this is a series yet? I keep seeing conflicting information)
I would also like to applaud the author's knowledge and research into Indigenous culture and beliefs as they did such a good job of making sure that was included and a big part of the story.
The Gospel of Mary Magdalene by Jean-Yves LeLoup
Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.
Did not finish book. Stopped at 40%.
I liked reading the part that Mary supposedly wrote, she was straight to the point and I loved that! I did get tired of the long-winded explanations from the translator. I did get this as a physical inter-library loan so it had to go back after a week, and I don't see myself requesting it again at the moment. I would like to if at all possible get the part of what Mary wrote so I can look over that again during Lent.