Spring is Springing!

Hi friends, how are ya?! We’re already past the April showers and into the May flowers here, how about you?! Here’s what I’ve read in the last couple of weeks… what about you?

–Marissa

Have You Seen Her by Catherine McKenzie was an audiobook listen that kept me engaged throughout. Cassie Peters is working as Search & Rescue in Yosemite for the summer, after fleeing New York City and thus returning home to her old stomping grounds. This plotline combines with the stories of two other summer campers that end up tangling all together. This was a solid suspense novel and I enjoyed the setting.

The Return of Ellie Black by Emiko Jean is a slow burn psychological suspense novel, featuring detective Chelsey Calhoun, who is trying to unravel the mystery of where Ellie Black has been for two years after she was reported missing then stumbles out of the woods one day, as well as looking back at the murder-suicide of her sister a decade before. This is just enough creepy and compelling and atmospheric that I really got into it. Dark but satisfying!

Weyward by Emilia Hart is another trio story (I seem to have a theme going here!) of three women tied together through history – 1619’s Altha, 1942’s Violet and 2019’s Kate. This audiobook listen was rough – we’ve got alllll kinds of trigger warnings (ranging from rape and abuse to pregnancy loss and oh yeah, a women being tried as a witch), but you feel for each of the women and their personal entrapments in their situations. Pretty cover, rough story, but very well done tying the women together along with a treatise on the natural world.

A Short Walk Through a Wide World by Douglas Westerbeke (a fellow librarian!) is a book that pulls in you in from page one and keeps it moving and moving throughout (though I found the end dragged on a bit, prolonging the finale) along with Aubrey Torvel, who must keep moving every few days or she is hit with a mysterious affliction that nearly bleeds her to death. We travel all around the world with Aubrey, meet the people she meets, and weaves in a reverence for books, the world, and being independent. This gave me *serious* The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue vibes, so if you liked that, you’ll most likely enjoy this one!

Just for the Summer by Abby Jimenez was just a fun, funny, sexy romance novel about two people who meet online then IRL, both of whom have a *lot* going on behind the scenes but can’t seem to quit each other. This novel is big on the *feelings* and issues that are saddled onto our leads, but their romance is just so swoony. I loved this one!