Here in New Zealand, Thanksgiving doesn't exist. There are no turkeys on supermarket shelves in November, no Black Friday frenzy (well, mostly), and absolutely no cultural pressure to go around a table listing the things you're grateful for. The Fourth of July is just a Wednesday, or whatever day it lands on, and Memorial Day passes without so much as a barbecue in sight. I've always watched American holidays from the outside, the way you watch a parade through a rainy window  aware of the noise and colour, but not quite part of it. That changed when I went down the Ancestry.com rabbit hole. It started innocently enough, the way all great reading adventures do. One link led to another, one census record to a ship manifest, one name to a date that made my jaw drop. Because there, nestled in my family tree like a well-worn bookmark, was a name I recognised from every American history textbook I'd ever read as a book nerd obsessed with the colonial era: Edward Doty. Th...

A Little Getaway Bonnie Traymore Publication date: October 9th 2024 Genres: Adult, Suspense, Thriller “Traymore’s page-turner is a tension-filled psychological thriller, where the line between friend and foe is razor thin.” Tracey Devlin, USA TODAY bestselling author A little getaway takes a deadly turn for Morgan and Kyle Murphy in this spicy suspense thriller about a marriage filled with passion, dark secrets, and suspicions. Morgan Murphy has always longed for a romance for the ages. And she’s found it with the love of her life, husband Kyle Murphy—until their spicy marriage suddenly starts to cool off. Is Kyle preoccupied and distant because of a problem with his development project? Or is it something worse? Could Kyle Murphy be…cheating? He’s hiding something, that’s for sure. And Morgan’s determined to find out what it is. With the help of gal pal Carla Flores, Morgan tracks her husband’s movements, and the signs increasingly point to infidelity, the ultimate sin in...

Review: One by One - Freida McFadden - July 2020 I have always been a big fan of thrillers and near the end of last year, this author Freida McFadden started to pop up on my radar and I found myself enjoying her psychological thrillers except of course for the one book that was a DNF for me. I was looking forward to One by One as it features one of my favourite thriller tropes - yes, it's been done a thousand times in books and movies, but the whole revenge-based killing off - one by one, is a trope that I have loved especially when the author does it right which is what Freida did in her title "One by One". The book starts with three couples heading off to the woods for a week's holiday in a cute Air BNB Cabin. It is a breakaway that everyone longs for, especially Claire and Jack. The thing though is Claire and Jack aren't married Claire is married to Jack's best friend Noah. For the past few months, Claire and Noah's marriage has started to disintegra...

Title: What Happens in Sorrento Series: What Happens In #1 Author: Gilli Bradley Genre: Contemporary Romance Tropes: Billionaire/Opposites Attract/He Falls First One Night Stand/Spicy/European Vacation Release Date: June 18, 2024 BLURB Finding each other again was pure serendipity. Or maybe it was just fate teasing them with an impossible dream… MADDIE I never thought I’d see him again, but he’s here. Our one-night stand was…everything. I wanted him more than my next breath. I still do. But this time, I know he’s the billionaire CEO of a luxury hotel chain. Completely out of my league. And he has a girlfriend. I didn’t expect my summer to begin like this. I can only hope it won’t end in heartbreak… HENRY The woman who has haunted my dreams for years is here. And now that I have this second chance, I fully intend to take it. Not that it will be easy. I have a famous ex-girlfriend the world thinks I’m still with, an empire to run, and family obligations to uphold. Falling f...

Review: You Shouldn't Have Come Here - Jeneva Rose - April 2023 I had tried one of Jeneva Rose's books One of Us is Dead and couldn't get into it and it ended up being a DNF. When I saw this one, I was on the fence due to the previous experience but I decided to still give it a go and I am glad I did as this is one of those thrillers that despite being a little bit of a slow burn, that ending with the last chapter just POW - pops out of nowhere and was OMG and left the reader reeling as it was like WOAH out of left-field but yet so good and in a way was like justice served. The book starts with Grace taking her annual two-week leave and this year it is happening in a small middle-of-nowhere town in Wyoming. Every year, Grace closes her eyes and picks somewhere different to travel to, and the more remote the better. I also liked Grace's character as she turned up with 5 books to read, one in each genre. A romance, a comedy, a thriller, a non-fiction, and an ugly cry. ...