January 2020 Goodreads Update
Oh boy. This is going to be a long one. Get a snack.
I just love the symmetry of the year 2020. It's easy to type; it's round. I just love it. I'm going to enjoy this year.
Anyway, here are all the books I added to my TBR since last month.
Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo - This author's first trilogy is on my to-read list, but I've heard this is better and you don't have to have read the other first. It's apparently a fantasy heist novel.
Magic for Liars by Sarah Gailey - Ivy is a private detective called to investigate a murder of a professor at the college where her sister is a professor. The job has her playing the "what if..." game. Especially since her sister has magic.
One of Us Is Next by Karen M. McManus - I'm sure you've heard me mention this one. It's the sequel to One of Us Is Lying. In the first one, 5 kids go to detention one day, but only 4 come out. Every one of them had reason to murder the one who died. So who did it? I have no idea what direction this one is going, but I am happy to go in not knowing.
A Heart So Fierce and Broken by Brigid Kimmerer - This is another sequel. Based on how A Curse So Dark and Lonely ended, I believe this one is told from the perspective of Grey, the main guard of Prince Rhen.
Blood and Honey - This one doesn't have a cover, yet! It is the sequel to Serpent and Dove, which I read last year. In that one, a young witch has run away from her coven and is living on the streets in a city with a special police force just to hunt out witches. What better way to hide than to marry an upright, outstanding guardsman? I didn't know there would be a sequel, but I'm happy to read it.
Don't Overthink It: Make Easier Decisions, Stop Second-Guessing, and Bring More Joy to Your Life by Anne Bogel - I will buy anything this woman writes. I love her podcast and her website and I have loved her two other books. This one seems very helpful.
Diana, Princess of the Amazons by Shannon Hale - This is a middle grade graphic novel. I love Shannon Hale, so I don't mind spending an hour on a novel about a young Wonder Woman.
Raising Hell: Backstage Tales from the Lives of Metal Legends by Jon Wiederhorn - You know how I love a book about rock stars.
Wow, No Thank You by Samantha Irby - This is a book of personal essays about her life which has gotten weird since her last book came out.
Joy at Work: The Career-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo - This is the work companion to her book about tidying up at home. After reading her first book, my sock drawer has been overhauled.
My Calamity Jane by Cynthia Hand, Jodi Meadows, and Brodi Ashton - This is the third book in a series of magical, humorous, retellings of historical personages named Jane. First, we had Lady Jane Grey. Then Jane Eyre. Now Calamity Jane gets the treatment.
We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby - This is the book that made the NYT Bestseller list and changed Irby's life.
Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch - The description of this book gave me Killers of the Flower Moon vibes. Lissa Yellow Bird is searching for a Native man who went missing from his reservation worksite in an area that has been invaded by government oil interests.
Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey - This book is set in a near future where the Wild West has returned. Our main character has stowed away on a wagon headed west that belongs to a librarian. She's running from her arranged marriage. The guy was once engaged to her best friend who was recently hanged for possession of resistance propaganda. Sounds like a romp.
Someday is Not a Day In the Week: 10 Hacks to Make the Rest of Your Life the Best of Your Life by Sam Horn - I saw this on my friend's Goodreads and I thought the title was cute. It might be too cute. We'll see.
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen - This might be more boring, but also more informative than the previous option.
The Book Charmer by Karen Hawkins - Look at that cover! This looks like it's a cute little story about a librarian with a gift of speaking to books and a girl who might be able to save the little town, if she will just give it a chance.
The Unhoneymooners by Christina Lauren - This is a romance, but it's gotten good reviews, so I'm willing to give it a shot. Everyone at a wedding gets food poisoning except the maid of honor and best man. The bride and groom tell them to take the honeymoon for them, but these two people hate each other. Now they have to pretend to be married.
Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier - This has been on the periphery of my interest for awhile. I saw a recent review of it on BookTube that made me go ahead and put it on the list.
Jane on the Brain: Exploring the Science of Social Intelligence with Jane Austen by Wendy Jones - I don't feel like I really need to expand on why I want to read this. It's Social Science and Jane Austen.
The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante - Here's another one that doesn't have a cover yet. Elena Ferrante wrote the Neopolitan series that starts with My Brilliant Friend. I haven't read that series yet, but I expect to like it.
The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett - This is about a pair of twins who ran away from home at age 16. Now as adults, one of them lives in a black community and the other passes as white.
The Boy in the Field by Margot Livesey - Three siblings find a bloody and unconscious boy in a field while they are walking home from school one day. Their intervention saves his life, and they are never the same afterwards.
A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende - This is a story about a couple fleeing Franco's Spain. It covers decades and continents, the way Allende does so well.
Deacon King Kong by James McBride - This is about a church deacon who shoots the local drug dealer at point blank range on the street in Brooklyn in 1969. It's about the aftermath of the event and all the people it involves.
Long Bright River by Liz Moore - This book sounds interesting. It's about a police officer whose sister is a heroin addict. She tries to keep track of her on the streets, but there are now a string of murders and her sister has disappeared.
A Saint From Texas by Edmund White - Here is another book about twins. The two girls are from a farm in East Texas that sits on oil. One twin goes to Paris and becomes a society maven. The other one goes to Colombia to become a nun.
The Lions of Fifth Avenue by Fiona Davis - Davis writes historical fiction about New York City. This one is about the Public Library, so you know I'm into that. There are two timelines: 1915 when Laura inches out of her small world as the wife of the library Superintendent to go to journalism school, and 1993 when her granddaughter is a curator at the NYPL.
The Woman Before Wallis: A Novel of Windsors, Vanderbilts, and Royal Scandal by Bryn Turnbull. Megxit is just the latest royal hullabaloo. I love this story because it shows the other side of a piece of the story I read last year about the Vanderbilts. Thelma Morgan married a Viscount Duke and then began an affair with Prince Edward, heir to the English throne. When her sister gets in a scandal involving Vanderbilts, she goes back to New York and leaves Edward in the care of her friend, Wallis Simpson. Well, we all know how that turned out.
The City In the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders - I just read the summary and I still don't have any idea what the plot is, but it is set on a planet that doesn't rotate. Therefore, the night and day never changes and time is a construct.
The Overdue Life of Amy Byler by Kelly Harms - This title sounds like it has something to do with books, but I'm not sure what it is. The main character is a single mom whose husband shows up and offers to take care of the kids for the summer. She goes to NYC to find herself and falls in love. Then she has to decide which life she wants to live.
Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips - This is a mystery set in a small Siberian community. When two sisters are abducted, it affects the whole area.
Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World by Lyndall Gordon - There are some awesome lady writers on this list. Mary Shelley, Emily Bronte, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner, and Virginia Woolf.
The Third Rainbow Girl: The Long Life of a Double Murder in Appalachia by Emma Copley Eisenberg - This is the investigation of a 30 year old murder in West Virginia.
The Castle on Sunset: Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont by Shawn Levy - I am obsessed with all the stuff went down at the Chateau Marmont over all the years.
Trace Elements by Donna Leon - This is the latest Commissario Brunetti novel.
Miss Austen by Gill Hornby - This is a novel about Cassandra in her 60's after Jane's death trying to find her stash of letters from Jane.
The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner - This is a novel about the creation of the Jane Austen Society in England after WWII.
Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader by Vivian Gornick - This is a memoir by a reader. A REreader. I'm so here for this.
Undercover Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams - This is the sequel to The Bromance Book Club which is also on my list. The first one is about a guy who wants to romance his wife and win back her love, so he joins a men's book club that reads historical romance novels.
That's the list! Whew!!! Took me all day to write this post! Once again, some of the covers are ginormous!
Do you see any that catch your fancy?