Woah woah wee wow, Maycember is OVER and I survived it!! YIPPEEEE. Believe it or not (despite the 4 books) I had a SLOW reading month. I found myself in a rut with one of the books .. and then also just got caught up in all the busyness that this month brings that I didn’t find myself reaching for a book all that often. Even though it didn’t feel like a particularly book-heavy month to me, I did find some good reads that I’m excited to share with y’all; read on to find out more!

someone’s listening

My first read this month was Someone’s Listening by Seraphina Nova Glass. It was a thriller that landed at a solid 3.8 ⭐️ for me!

FROM AMAZON:

Faith Finley has it all: she’s a talented psychologist with a flourishing career, a bestselling author and the host of a popular local radio program, Someone’s Listening, with Dr. Faith Finley. She’s married to the perfect man, Liam Finley, a respected food critic.

Until the night everything goes horribly wrong, and Faith’s life is shattered forever.

Liam is missing—gone without a trace—and the police are suspicious of everything Faith says. They either think she has something to hide, or that she’s lost her mind.

And then the notes begin to arrive. Notes that are ripped from Faith’s own book, the one that helps victims leave their abusers. Notes like “Lock your windows. Consider investing in a steel door.”

As the threats escalate, the mystery behind Liam’s disappearance intensifies. And Faith’s very life will depend on finding answers.

This book was SUCH a fun thriller! It really had me guessing up until the very end … there were a few moments I thought I had it figured out but I was pleasantly surprised by the inevitable twist. If you’re looking for an easy thriller that will keep you engaged and guessing, give this one a try.

james

My second read was James by Percival Everett… and finally a 5 ⭐️ read after a few months without having one!

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 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.

It’s been awhile since I’ve read a book as compelling as James. This one is up for a Pulitzer Prize and I can TOTALLY see why. This book was recommended to me by my neighbor and can you believe that I was so dreading reading it that I put it off for weeks? LOL. And then when I finally decided to read it, I literally read it in ONE night, in about 3 hours?? It was THAT good. My only regret is that I didn’t remember much of Huckleberry Finn as I last read that book as a child; I think if I’d had a fresher memory of that book, it would have made my experience reading this one all the more enjoyable. 

from blood and ash

Next, I decided to give one of Jennifer Armentrout’s books a try and started the Blood and Ash series with From Blood and Ash. It ended up being an average 3 ⭐️ for me but considering it was dragging at a 2 ⭐️ for much of my read, the fact that it jumped up a whole star by the end says a lot.

FROM AMAZON:

A Maiden…
Chosen from birth to usher in a new era, Poppy’s life has never been her own. The life of the Maiden is solitary. Never to be touched. Never to be looked upon. Never to be spoken to. Never to experience pleasure. Waiting for the day of her Ascension, she would rather be with the guards, fighting back the evil that took her family, than preparing to be found worthy by the gods. But the choice has never been hers.
A Duty…
The entire kingdom’s future rests on Poppy’s shoulders, something she’s not even quite sure she wants for herself. Because a Maiden has a heart. And a soul. And longing. And when Hawke, a golden-eyed guard honor bound to ensure her Ascension, enters her life, destiny and duty become tangled with desire and need. He incites her anger, makes her question everything she believes in, and tempts her with the forbidden.
A Kingdom…
Forsaken by the gods and feared by mortals, a fallen kingdom is rising once more, determined to take back what they believe is theirs through violence and vengeance. And as the shadow of those cursed draws closer, the line between what is forbidden and what is right becomes blurred. Poppy is not only on the verge of losing her heart and being found unworthy by the gods, but also her life when every blood-soaked thread that holds her world together begins to unravel.

So I was pretty much regretting starting this book once I started reading it and told myself I didn’t have to finish the rest of the series if I could just get through this first book. BUT! Armentrout really pulled through in the second half of the book. At about the 60% mark the story got REALLY good and I finished it pretty quickly after that. Aaaand I probably will end up reading the rest of the series because juuust I’m interested and invested enough now … but heads up: this author is definitely the poor man’s Sarah J. Maas’. Her characters, plot, writing style, all felt a little more juvenile than what I’d expected, especially considering I’d heard her name so much in conjunction with the QUEEEN SARAH J. MAAS’ name. I guess that’s on me for expecting a little too much from her based on association alone, though.

funny story

My last read this month was Funny Story by Emily Henry and of course it came in at 4.8 ⭐️. I didn’t give it a full 5⭐️ because I still loved Book Lovers by her just smidge more but I mean … I knew I was going to love this book before I even read it.

FROM AMAZON:

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.
 
Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.
 
Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?
 
But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

I will never not love an Emily Henry book and this was no exception. I LOVED that the main character was a CHILDREN’S LIBRARIAN HELLO?? And the entire plot of this book had all the elements you’d want from a fun and easy love story. My favorite thing about Emily Henry’s books is she always gives all her characters such good closure, finishing one of her books leaves me feeling supremely satisfied and not in want of any more. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone but highly, highly recommend this book!