★★★★☆ Hazelwood takes fantasy and escapism up several notches in her most recent new adult romance novel. Like her previous works, this one features a highly educated woman in STEM, a supporting cast of science-oriented BFFs, a broad-shouldered male love interest, and steamy scenes galore.
Tag: book review
Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
★★★☆☆ Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica This suspenseful thriller immerses us in the cases of Shelby Tebow, Meredith Dickey, and her six-year-old daughter Delilah, who go missing from a quiet town. Shelby disappears after going for a late-night run. Shortly after, Delilah and Meredith vanish. Delilah returns eleven years after the disappearances, reigniting interest … Continue reading Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
★★★★★ Rick Rubin’s The Creative Act, which contains the record producer’s 78 areas of thought on creativity, argues that creativity is as essential to being human as breathing. As the subtitle suggests, Rubin believes creativity is a way of being in the world.
Good Morning, Midnight by Lily Brooks-Dalton
★★★☆☆ Though living worlds apart, Augustine, an astronomer living alone in the Arctic Circle in his twilight years, and Sully, an astronaut who left her young daughter to embark on a two-year mission to Jupiter, have more in common than their love of the stars.
The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You
★★★★☆ Elaine Aron is a leading expert on highly sensitive persons (HSPs) and her book is an excellent resource for understanding more about sensitivity, a trait that’s often misunderstood, and for providing strategies on how HSPs can use their sensitive natures to thrive.
Happy Place by Emily Henry
★★★★☆ In Happy Place, college sweethearts Harriet and Wyn are headed to a cottage in Maine to participate in a decades-long beach week tradition with their best pals. One problem: they broke off their engagement six months ago but haven’t confessed the news to their trip mates. The two are forced to keep up the charade of still being engaged to the people who are supposed to know them best.
How to Know a Person by David Brooks
★★★★☆ There’s a loneliness epidemic in America, and it’s having devastating consequences. I see the tragic impact that feeling isolated and misunderstood is having on college students in my daily work on a college campus. I thought How to Know a Person might give me some insight into how I could take steps in my own life to address this societal health crisis.
The Painter by Peter Heller
★★★★☆ A passionate artist, sensitive yet flawed father, detached lover, and contemplative fisherman with a faulty moral compass and an angry streak, Jim Stegner is a multidimensional man. These varied – and sometimes contradictory – elements of Jim’s personality make him a memorable character.
The Villa by Rachel Hawkins
★★★☆☆ Rachel Hawkins writes good escapist thrillers. Reckless Girls was deliciously wicked, and her Southern Gothic novel, The Wife Upstairs, had some fun twists. So, when I saw she had a new book, The Villa, I decided to check it out.
Celine by Peter Heller
★★★★☆ Celine Watkins is a 68-year-old private investigator who specializes in helping to reunite families. Gabriela Lamont, a fellow Sarah Lawrence alumna, hires Celine to find out what happened when her father, a National Geographic photographer, mysteriously disappeared twenty years before. The novel delves into Celine’s past as much as it focuses on the present-day investigation into why Paul Lamont vanished from the Wyoming wilderness.