What We’ve Been Reading

The Collection

Explore our full library of honest reviews and literary recommendations.

Wild Dark Shore

Emily Dickinson wrote that hope was the thing with feathers. After reading Charlotte McConaghy’s phenomenal Wild Dark Shore, it seems to me that hope is a seed. I confess that,…

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Scotch on the Rocks

I love this book. It’s sexy, very funny, moving, grounded in its sense of place, and just—well—yummy. It’s easily the best contemporary romance I’ve read this year. Callum Macabe met…

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All the Missing Pieces

All the Missing Pieces is an excellent book—smart, sexy, and a blast to read. Julianna Keyes, in a break from her sharp, emotionally rich romances, has written a taut, knife-edged…

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Don’t Let Him In

Every reader has encountered books that require a leap of faith. Could Claire really have bounced through the centuries? Wouldn’t shifters face endless wardrobe malfunctions? And surely someone would have…

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Someone Knows

Vi Keeland, a powerhouse in romance, turns to thriller with Someone Knows, a novel that is fast, engrossing, and, in the end, deeply frustrating. Elizabeth, a mid-forties English professor, has…

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The Listeners

JANUARY 1942. THE AVALLON HOTEL AND SPA offers elegance and sophistication in an increasingly ugly world. Run with precision by June Hudson, the hotel’s West Virginia born-and-bred general manager, the…

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Left of Forever

Do you feel you’ve missed out in life by not being a marriage counselor? Do you long to spend hours of time in the company of two 30 somethings with…

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Tell Me What You Did

Poe Webb built her podcast, Tell Me What You Did, on the premise that people want to confess. Every week, anonymous callers admit to crimes—some petty, some monstrous—and Poe listens….

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Just This Once

This book should have been a novella. The premise is fine for 150 pages: a San Francisco marketing executive, burnt out and in need of a break, books a solo…

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Broken Souls and Bones

Broken Souls and Bones, the first book in L.J. Andrews’ Stonegate series, promises magic, mystery, and a slow-burn enemies-to-lovers romance set in a Viking-inspired fantasy world. Unfortunately, the execution is…

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Hardly a Gentleman

Desperate after her season comes to a spectacularly disastrous end, the Honorable Miss Clara Vetry jumps into a carriage hired to take a housekeeper to Scotland. The laird of Castle…

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Never Love a Lawman

Jo Goodman is reissuing her Reidsville (Colorado) series, starting with Never Love a Lawman. It’s about time. These books have been too hard to find for too long. Goodman’s Westerns…

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