The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) by Rabih Alameddine was delightful. “In a tiny Beirut apartment, sixty-three-year-old Raja and his mother live side by side. A beloved high school philosophy teacher and “the neighborhood homosexual,” Raja relishes books, meditative walks, order, and solitude. Zalfa, his octogenarian mother, views her son’s desire for privacy as a personal affront. She demands to know every detail of Raja’s work life and love life, boundaries be damned. When Raja receives an invite to an all-expenses-paid writing residency in America, the timing couldn’t be better. It arrives on the heels of a series of personal and national disasters that have left Raja longing for peace and quiet away from his mother and the heartache of Lebanon. But what at first seems a stroke of good fortune soon leads Raja to recount and relive the very disasters and past betrayals he wishes to forget. Told in Raja’s irresistible and wickedly funny voice, the novel dances across six decades to tell the unforgettable story of a singular life and its absurdities—a tale of mistakes, self-discovery, trauma, and maybe even forgiveness. Above all, The True True Story of Raja the Gullible (and His Mother) is a wildly unique and sparkling celebration of love.” (Amazon) This was a great read and I highly recommend it.

Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney was a free audiobook and a great listen. “After years of avoiding each other, Daisy Darker’s entire family is assembling for Nana’s 80th birthday party in Nana’s crumbling gothic house on a tiny tidal island. Finally back together one last time, when the tide comes in, they will be cut off from the rest of the world for eight hours. The family arrives, each of them harboring secrets. Then at the stroke of midnight, as a storm rages, Nana is found dead. And an hour later, the next family member follows…Trapped on an island where someone is killing them one by one, the Darkers must reckon with their present mystery as well as their past secrets, before the tide comes in and all is revealed. With a wicked wink to Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Daisy Darker’s unforgettable twists will leave listeners reeling.” (Amazon)

I was on hold for King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby for a very long time. I really enjoy his work (All the Sinners Bleed, Blacktop Wasteland, Razorblade Tears). The audiobook was certainly worth the wait. It was a great story and listen. Amazon: “When eldest son Roman Carruthers is summoned home after his father’s car accident, he finds his younger brother, Dante, in debt to dangerous criminals and his sister, Neveah, exhausted from holding the family—and the family business—together. Neveah and their father, who run the Carruthers Crematorium in the run-down central Virginia town of Jefferson Run, see death up close every day. But mortality draws even closer when it becomes clear that the crash that landed their father in a coma was no accident and Dante’s recklessness has placed them all in real danger. Roman, a financial whiz with a head for numbers and a talent for making his clients rich, has some money to help buy his brother out of trouble. But in his work with wannabe tough guys, he’s forgotten that there are real gangsters out there. As his bargaining chips go up in smoke, Roman realizes that he has only one thing left to offer to save his brother: himself, and his own particular set of skills. Roman begins his work for the criminals while Neveah tries to uncover the long-ago mystery of what happened to their mother, who disappeared when they were teenagers. But Roman is far less of a pushover than the gangsters realize. He is willing to do anything to save his family. Anything. Because everything burns.” Highly recommend.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan has gotten great reviews and they are all deserved. It was a wonderful book and even though I thought it was a little too long, I am giving it five stars because I loved it so much. Amazon: “In Bonhomie, Ohio, a stolen moment of passion, sparked in the exuberant aftermath of the Allied victory in Europe, binds Cal Jenkins, a man wounded not in war but by his inability to serve in it, to Margaret Salt, a woman trying to obscure her past. Cal’s wife, Becky, has a spiritual gift: She is a seer who can conjure the dead, helping families connect with those they’ve lost. Margaret’s husband, Felix, is serving on a Navy cargo ship, out of harm’s way—until a telegram suggests that the unthinkable might have happened. Later, as the country reconstructs in the postwar boom, a secret grows in Bonhomie—but nothing stays buried forever in a small town. Against the backdrop of some of the most transformative decades in modern America, the consequences of that long-ago encounter ripple through the next generation of both families, compelling them to reexamine who they thought they were and what the future might hold.” A wonderful choice that I VERY highly recommend.

Mary Kubica is always good for a thriller and She’s Not Sorry was a free audiobook available when I needed one from the library (how many thousands of dollars have I saved?! AND I don’t hate my new longer commute because it allows for more “reading” in a week). Amazon: “Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below. When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was a crime committed? Did someone actually push Caitlin, and if so, who… and why? Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in the mystery surrounding her. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims…” This was a solid thriller and a good audiobook. I recommend it.

I can’t even express how fortunate we are to have the library system we have. I so rarely purchase a book because, if you just wait long enough, it will come from the library. Don’t get me wrong, I love to hold my own book, but I have saved so many thousands of dollars over the years because of this incredible resource. Reese Witherspoon has great people who pick her books. Spectacular Things by Beck Dorey-Stein was no exception. “Mia and Cricket have always been close. The gifted daughters of a young single mother, the “Lowe girls” are well-known in the small Maine town they call home. Each sister has a role to fill: The responsible and academically minded Mia assumes the position of caregiver far too young, while Cricket, a bouncing ball of energy and talent, seems born for soccer stardom. But the cost of achieving athletic greatness comes at a steep price. As Mia and Cricket grow up, they must grapple with the legacy of their mother’s secret past while navigating their own precarious future. Can Mia allow herself to fall in love at the risk of repeating a terrible history? Will Cricket’s relentless chase of a lifelong goal drive her sister away? When does loyalty become self-sabotage?” (Amazon) This was a good read – you knew where it was going and how it would end, but it had unexpected moments of surprise and a good premise. I really enjoyed it.

I got Downeast: Five Maine Girls and the Unseen Story of Rural America by Gigi Georges a long time ago, but never read it. It was a fascinating story and one I very much enjoyed reading. “Nestled in Maine’s far northeast corner, Washington County sits an hour’s drive from the heart of famed and bustling Acadia National Park. Yet it’s a world away. For Willow, Vivian, McKenna, Audrey, and Josie—five teenage girls caught between tradition and transformation in this remote region—it’s home. Based on four years of intimate reporting, Downeast follows their journeys of heartbreak and hope in uncertain times, creating a nuanced and unique portrait of small-town life with women at its center. It crafts a powerful and optimistic counternarrative to the dominant downbeat stories about rural America as a place of hopelessness and despair. All five girls know the pain and joy of life in a region whose rugged beauty and stoicism mask dwindling populations, vanishing job opportunities, and pervasive opioid addiction. As the girls reach adulthood, they discover that despite significant challenges, there is much to celebrate in ‘the valley of the overlooked.’ Their stories remind us of the value of timeless ideals: strength of family and community, resilience in the face of hurdles, reverence for nature’s rule, dignity in cracked hands and muddied shoes, and the enduring power of home.” (Amazon) Highly recommend, especially if you have any relationship to Maine.

A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham was another audiobook that was available from the library when I needed one. Amazon: “When Chloe Davis was twelve, six teenage girls went missing in her small Louisiana town. By the end of the summer, her own father had confessed to the crimes and was put away for life, leaving Chloe and the rest of her family to grapple with the truth and try to move forward while dealing with the aftermath. Now twenty years later, Chloe is a psychologist in Baton Rouge and getting ready for her wedding. While she finally has a fragile grasp on the happiness she’s worked so hard to achieve, she sometimes feels as out of control of her own life as the troubled teens who are her patients. So when a local teenage girl goes missing, and then another, that terrifying summer comes crashing back. Is she paranoid, seeing parallels from her past that aren’t actually there, or for the second time in her life, is Chloe about to unmask a killer?” This was a good listen and I definitely didn’t predict the ending. Good thriller.

I am not sure where I got the recommendation for The Last Illusion of Paige White. “Gorgeous, charismatic Paige White has always lived a picture-perfect life. Her meticulously curated social pages exude an old-fashioned, wholesome lifestyle set against a picturesque town in Australia. Images of breakfasts lakeside with her daughter, sunny afternoons in the family van, and romantic picnics with her husband are the envy of her thousands of followers. But when a dark, brooding image pops up on Paige’s page, where she appears waterlogged and disheveled—and shortly after she’s discovered drowned—alarm bells go off. Jane Masters, Paige’s childhood best friend, has returned for the funeral. Jane left years ago to pursue a bigger life as a journalist in Sydney, putting everyone from her early days in the rearview mirror. But as Jane sinks deeper into the community she thought she’d never return to, she begins to discover that darker things lurk beneath the sparkle of the lake. Told partially through Paige’s reflections on her life from limbo, The Last Illusion of Paige White is a smart, introspective, impeccably-plotted mystery that will have readers second-guessing what is truth and what is illusion, and their own obsessions with their online worlds.” (Amazon) This was a good thriller that kept you guessing until the end. It was a little dull in the middle, but overall, a good read.