The First Time I Saw Him by Laura Dave

Started: 1/27/2026

Finished: 1/28/2026

Year: 2026

Pages: 268

Genre: mystery

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: library book, continuing the series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Five years after her husband, Owen, disappeared, Hannah Hall and her stepdaughter, Bailey, have settled into a new life in Southern California. Together, they’ve forged a relationship with Bailey’s grandfather Nicholas and are putting the past behind them.

"But when Owen shows up at Hannah’s new exhibition, she knows that she and Bailey are in danger again.

"Hannah and Bailey are forced to go on the run in a relentless race to keep their past from catching up with them. As a thrilling drama unfolds, Hannah risks everything to get Bailey to safety—and finds there just might be a way back to Owen and their long-awaited second chance."

Opinion: Should read this soon after the first one-felt that I lost a lot of what had happened from the first book.

Everyone on This Train Is a Suspect by Benjamin Stevenson

Started: 1/25/2026

Finished: 1/26/2026

Year: 2023

Pages: 312

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book, continuing with series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "When the Australian Mystery Writers’ Society invited me to their crime-writing festival aboard the Ghan, the famous train between Darwin and Adelaide, I was hoping for some inspiration for my second whodunnit. Fiction, this time: I needed a break from real people killing each other. Obviously, that didn’t pan out.

"The program is a who’s who of crime writing royalty:

"the debut writer (me!)

"the forensic science writer

"the blockbuster writer

"the legal thriller writer

"the literary writer

"the psychological suspense writer

"But when one of us is murdered, the remaining authors quickly turn into five detectives. Together, we should know how to solve a crime.

"Of course, we should also know how to commit one."

Opinion: Lots of characters to be considered for murder and whodunit

A Ferry Merry Christmas by Debbie Macomber

Started: 1/24/2026

Finished: 1/24/2026

Year: 2025

Pages: 254

Genre: romance

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Avery and Reed Bond grew up sharing a close-knit relationship, weathering life’s storms side by side. Even so, Avery often finds herself exasperated by her brother’s relentless matchmaking, while Reed can’t resist teasing his sister—after all, isn’t that what siblings do?

"Facing their first Christmas without their beloved Grams, the woman who lovingly raised them, Reed and Avery decide to spend the holiday together at Reed’s home. However, their plans take an unexpected turn when the ferry Avery’s traveling on stalls in the middle of Puget Sound, stranding its passengers and leaving Reed waiting a now undetermined length of time for her arrival. What is at first an inconvenience threatens to ruin the plans of a number of commuters, but Avery and Reed soon discover that this unforeseen delay might end up being be a perfectly timed blessing in disguise.

"While stuck on the ferry, Avery meets a handsome sailor and witnesses a Christmas miracle that reignites her belief in the holiday spirit. Meanwhile, Reed runs into a coworker who’s also waiting for a family member to arrive, and sparks a surprising and delightful connection.

"In this tale of holiday magic, the Bond siblings find themselves taking a chance on love, proving that sometimes the best moments in life come when we least expect them."

Opinion: What we need in today's time-people coming together. Sweet romance. No smut.

Cruel and Unusual by Patricia Cornwell

Started: 1/20/2026

Finished: 1/23/2026

Year: 1993

Pages: 273

Genre: mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book, continuing with series

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "'Killing me won't kill the beast' are the last words of rapist-murderer Ronnie Joe Waddell, written four days before his execution. But they can't explain how Dr. Kay Scarpetta finds Waddell's fingerprints on another crime scene -- after she'd performed his autopsy. If this is some sort of game, Scarpetta seems to be the target. And if the next victim is someone she knows, the punishment will be cruel and unusual..."

Opinion: Interesting twists and turns and internal sabatage.

Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell

Started: 1/20/2026

Finished: DNF

Year: 2025

Pages: 357

Genre: mystery

Grade: F

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Nina Swann is intrigued when she received a condolence card from Nick Radcliffe, an old friend of her late husband, who is looking to connect after her husband’s unexpected death. Nick is a man of substance and good taste. He has a smile that could melt the coldest heart and a knack for putting others at ease. But to Nina’s adult daughter, Ash, Nick seems too slick, too polished, too good to be true. Without telling her mother, Ash begins digging into Nick’s past. What she finds is more than unsettling…

"Martha is a florist living in a neighboring town with her infant daughter and her devoted husband, Alistair. But lately, Alistair has been traveling more and more frequently for work, disappearing for days at a time. When Martha questions him about his frequent absences, he always has a legitimate explanation, but Martha can’t share the feeling that something isn’t right.

"Nina, Martha, and Ash are on a collision course with a shocking truth that is far darker than anyone could have imagined. And all three are about to wish they had heeded the same warning: Don’t let him in."

Opinion: The writing style did not appeal to me-so much so that I stopped reading. 

Epilogue to a Christmas Murder by Lauren Elliott

Started: 1/18/2026

Finished: 1/20/2026

Year: 2025

Pages: 360

Genre: cozy mystery

Grade: B

Reason for reading: library book, continuing with series

Type: paperback

Blurb (from Amazon): "There’s no place like the seaside Massachusetts town of Greyborne Harbor for the holidays, and there’s no better feeling for Addie than donating to the lighthouse museum’s Twelve Days of Christmas charity fundraiser. Of the dozen books she’ll be offering as prizes from her Beyond the Page Books and Curios shop, the most special volume is a first edition of The Gift of the Magi imported from England—signed by O. Henry! Addie receives an unexpected Christmas bonus when the book is hand delivered by visiting Detective Inspector Noah Parker, whom she met in England, and has been daydreaming about ever since.

"But on the night Addie delivers the book to the museum, someone posing as one of Santa’s Little Helpers swipes it—and the rest of the charity gifts. As if the theft wasn’t bad enough, a body is found on the rocks outside the lighthouse, believed to be murdered. Now, it’s up to Addie to connect the clues, find stolen goods, and catch a killer—in order to usher in a Happy New Year . . ."

Opinion: Much better now that Addie is back home. Murderer was predictable-motive was not. Decent.

Three Days in June by Anne Tyler

Started: 1/16/2026

Finished: 1/17/2026

Year: 2025

Pages: 165

Genre: literature

Grade: C

Reason for reading: library book

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "Gail Baines is having a bad day. To start, she loses her job—or quits, depending on whom you ask. Tomorrow her daughter, Debbie, is getting married, and she hasn’t even been invited to the spa day organized by the mother of the groom. Then, Gail’s ex-husband, Max, arrives unannounced on her doorstep, carrying a cat, without a place to stay, and without even a suit.

"But the true crisis lands when Debbie shares with her parents a secret she has just learned about her husband to be. It will not only throw the wedding into question but also stir up Gail and Max’s past."

Opinion: Um...ok....an everyday wedding weekend....about people I didn't really care about.

Burning Boy by Paul Auster

Started: 1/15/2026

Finished: DNF

Year: 2021

Pages: 738

Genre: biography

Grade: D

Reason for reading: goodreads.com giveaway

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "With Burning Boy, celebrated novelist Paul Auster tells the extraordinary story of Stephen Crane, best known as the author of The Red Badge of Courage, who transformed American literature through an avalanche of original short stories, novellas, poems, journalism, and war reportage before his life was cut short by tuberculosis at age twenty-eight.

"Auster’s probing account of this singular life tracks Crane as he rebounds from one perilous situation to the next: A controversial article written at twenty disrupts the course of the 1892 presidential campaign, a public battle with the New York police department over the false arrest of a prostitute effectively exiles him from the city, a star-crossed love affair with an unhappily married uptown girl tortures him, a common-law marriage to the proprietress of Jacksonville’s most elegant bawdyhouse endures, a shipwreck results in his near drowning, he withstands enemy fire to send dispatches from the Spanish-American War, and then he relocates to England, where Joseph Conrad becomes his closest friend and Henry James weeps over his tragic, early death."

Opinion: Auster seems a little bit obsessed with Crane's life and writings. I, like most people my age and older, read "The Red Badge of Courage" in highschool or middle school. I don't remember much of it but I know that I didn't hate it like so many others have over the years. Just too long of a biography.

The Woman in Suite 11 by Ruth Ware

Started: 1/12/2026

Finished: 1/16/2026

Year: 2025

Pages: 384

Genre: mystery

Grade: B-

Reason for reading: library book, sequel

Type: hardcover

Blurb (from Amazon): "When the invitation to attend the press opening of a luxury Swiss hotel—owned by reclusive billionaire Marcus Leidmann—arrives, it’s like the answer to a prayer. Three years after the birth of her youngest child, Lo Blacklock is ready to reestablish her journalism career, but post-pandemic travel journalism is a very different landscape from the one she left ten years ago.

"The chateau on the shores of Lake Geneva is everything Lo’s ever dreamed of, and she hopes she can snag an interview with Marcus. Unfortunately, he proves to be even more difficult to pin down than his reputation suggests. When Lo gets a late-night call asking her to come to Marcus’s hotel room, she agrees despite her own misgivings. She’s greeted, however, by a woman claiming to be Marcus’s mistress, and in life-or-death jeopardy."

Opinion: Definitely need to read the previous book to understand the character dynamics. Was a tad too long.