Review: When I'm With You - Book #3 Jane Austen Academy Series - Cecilia Gray - December 2012 Years ago, I stumbled upon The Jane Austen Academy series, and it's become one of those comfort reads I return to when the mood strikes. As a devoted mood reader, I have to wait for exactly the right moment to dive into each installment, and recently I found myself craving something fun and cozy. A YA retelling of Northanger Abbey? Perfect. When I'm With You centers on Kat, a character whose dual nature immediately captivated me. Off stage, she's awkward and naive, someone who hasn't quite found her footing in everyday interactions. But put her on stage, and she transforms completely confident, radiant, utterly alive. When she lands a position as Josh Wickham's PA on a real movie set over Christmas break, with the added bonus of working as an extra, it seems like a dream come true. What follows is a sobering education in the darker side of Hollywood glamour. Cecilia...

Review: Rumoured - Kelly and Kristina Mancaruso - July 2025 After abandoning my previous read as a DNF, I was desperately hoping my next book would reignite my reading spark. Enter Rumoured by sister duo Kelly and Kristina Mancaruso, purchased from BookHero NZ, and I'm thrilled to report I was absolutely hooked from the first page. The story opens with investigative journalist Naomi working for Celeb News in LA when breaking news explodes: beloved singer Harlow Hayes has been arrested for murder - multiple victims. The details are scarce, victims unnamed, and everything unfolds at breakneck speed. Naomi is immediately dispatched to New York to follow the story, but what begins as a celebrity scandal quickly transforms into something far more sinister and deeply personal. Upon arriving in New York, Naomi discovers unsettling connections between one of Harlow's alleged victims, Jade Dutton, and her own sister Faye's death. The similarities are too striking to ignore, and su...

Review: That Night - Amy Giles - October 2018 There's something about young adult fiction that doesn't shy away from the hard stuff that always draws me in. Give me a story that tackles grief, trauma, or those impossible questions we all wrestle with, and I'm there. That Night by Amy Giles landed on my radar because it does exactly that, it sits with the uncomfortable reality of mass shootings and asks: what comes after? The story follows Jess and Lucas, two teenagers forever changed by the Balcony shooting in their Queens neighborhood. Both lost siblings that night. Both survived when others didn't. And both are drowning in the aftermath in their own ways , Jess trying to hold her depressed mother together while her own grief threatens to swallow her whole, and Lucas channeling everything into boxing while his parents hover, terrified of losing him too. When they end up working together at Bruno's Hardware, something shifts. Their shared trauma becomes a bridge r...

Review: Blood on Vines - Book #1 The Matakana Series - Madeline Eskedahl - March 2021 There's something special about starting the new year with a physical book in hand, and Blood on Vines kicked off my 2026 reading perfectly. As always, I'm on a mission to clear my groaning bookshelves, and this New Zealand-set thriller was the ideal choice to begin that journey. What made this read particularly meaningful was its Martinborough setting, which transported me straight back to my childhood. When I was seven or eight, my family lived in Martinborough, and I have vivid memories of both my parents working on a vineyard during harvest season, picking grapes under the warm sun. Reading Madeline Eskedahl's descriptions of vineyard life felt like stepping back into those memories, and it added such a personal connection to the story that I hadn't anticipated. The plot kicks off with the murder of an ex-winemaker in Martinborough, a meticulously planned attack that signals the ...

Review: The Other Sister - Book #2 Family Secrets - Donna Hill - June 2020 You know how sometimes you end up reading a book completely by accident? That's exactly what happened with The Other Sister by Donna Hill – my first read of 2026! I was scrolling through my Kindle looking for another book with the same title, but when that one turned into a DNF, I just stayed on the search results page and clicked on Donna Hill's version instead. Best accidental click ever! Even though this is Book #2 in a series, you can absolutely read it as a standalone,  I had no trouble jumping right in. The story opens with Kimberly, who's just had her entire world turned upside down. Imagine discovering that your parents are actually your grandparents, your brother is really your father, and you're half Black when you've spent your whole life as a white Southern belle in high society. Talk about an identity crisis! What makes things even more complicated is Kimberly's husband, w...

Review: The Baby I Stole - McGarvey Black - February 2024 There's something about a good thriller that just hits the spot when you're in the right mood, isn't there? I'd read one of McGarvey Black's books before and thoroughly enjoyed it, so when I found myself craving another page-turner, I reached for The Baby I Stole. The premise alone had me hooked from the first page: a woman desperate for a baby makes a split-second decision at the beach and comes home with someone else's child. What happens next? Well, that's where things get deliciously complicated. Black certainly knows how to craft a compelling story. The setup is brilliant , you can feel the desperation radiating from our protagonist as she and her husband navigate the heartbreak of infertility and the agonizing wait to adopt. Then there's that moment at Rocky Point Beach when everything changes. Little Liam, with his red bow lips and chubby cheeks, becomes Jonah. And you're left wonderin...