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Good Reads: Sharing Some of the Stories I've Read
25
items There isn’t much that compares to the joy of reading a good book. 📚 I will be updating this list on a rolling basis.
Sections
5
Mysteries & Thrillers
Literary Fiction
Contemporary Fiction
Romance
Historical Fiction
Mysteries & Thrillers
Mysteries and thrillers are, by far, my favorite genre of book to read. Here are some of my favorite stories.
So, I have a love-hate relationship with this book. First off, Catherine Steadman’s writing is absolutely captivating and this book was a solid 9/10. I listened to this in audiobook format and discovered that Catherine narrates all of her own books, ...
Something in the Water by Catherine Steadman
Like the majority of Karin Slaughter’s books, this story was amazingly good and very well-written. I’m a huge fan of her Will Trent series, so it’s no surprise that I enjoyed this book. While on their honeymoon at a remote, mountainside lodge, the ma...
This Is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter
I was pleasantly surprised at how good this book was! This story follows Lucy, who is suspected of murdering her best friend, Savvy, years ago. On the night of the murder, Lucy sustained a head injury that left her with no recollection of how her bes...
Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera
“The Last Widow” is my second favorite book in the Will Trent series. (My favorite is “This is Why We Lied”.) “The Last Widow” kicks off with a CDC scientist’s abduction from a shopping mall parking lot. The motivation behind the abduction is unclear...
The Last Widow by Karin Slaughter
This book was surprisingly good! I enjoyed the story so much that I finished it in two days. Nina turned out to be much more than what I expected, and I underestimated Millie. I wasn’t exactly shocked by the plot twist in the story, but the story was...
The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
I am not too big on sci-fi, but Dark Matter had me hooked. I literally finished it in a single day. This sci-fi thriller is told from the POV of Jason Dessen, a college physics professor. Jason is also well-known for his scientific invention that all...
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
This was a decent read. The story is written with a dual narrative that follows a teenage girl who wakes up in a ditch with no recollection of who she is or how she ended up there, and a teenage boy who is searching for his missing girlfriend while b...
That's Not My Name by Megan Lally
The Good Daughter was my intro to Karin Slaughter’s writing, and I’ve been hooked on her crime novels since finishing this book in 2022. This psychological thriller follows two sisters who, during their childhood, survive a violent attack on their fa...
The Good Daughter by Karin Slaughter
This is also one of my memorable reads from 2022. The Wife Between Us was such a good book! Nothing was truly as it seemed throughout this story. The book depicts an insane love triangle between Vanessa (the main character), her former husband Richar...
The Wife Between Us: A Novel
I love a good crime fiction story. I’ve read this story twice in the past year. Karin Slaughter does a really great job with making her characters multilayered and relatable. The Will/Angie trauma bond situation annoys me to no end.
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The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter
I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a story about a woman who is in a polygamous marriage with her husband, but the kicker is that she knows absolutely nothing about her husband’s other wives. One day, she finds a scrap of paper in her husba...
The Wives by Taryn Fisher
I'd say that this book is more of a suspense novel rather than a thriller. The main character is found walking alongside a road one day with a head injury and no recollection of who she is or how she ended up there. She later adopts the name Addison ...
The Stranger in the Mirror by Liv Constantine
None of This is True centers around two women, Alix and Josie, who meet while celebrating their 45th birthdays in the same bar. Alix, upon learning that she and Josie are birthday twins, invites Josie to take part in her documentary podcast. As the t...
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell
I almost had to DNF this book. It was a slow (and I mean slow) starter, but if you’re able to make it past the first few chapters, this book actually gets very interesting. If you’re into political fiction with a side of thriller/murder mystery, this...
The 6:20 Man by David Baldacci
This story is set in rural Virginia and follows small town sheriff Titus Crown as he investigates the killing of a teacher and student. The investigation uncovers a much bigger, deeper secret that rocks the foundation of the entire town.
This was a...
All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
Literary Fiction
I first read We Are Not Like Them in 2023. I reread it in 2025, and a few pages in, I was instantly reminded of how good a story it was.
We Are Not Like Them is narrated from the perspectives of the two main characters, Jen and Riley. Jen and Riley ...
We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride
The audacity of the main character in this book appalled me, but my gosh, this was such a good read!
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Yellowface by R.F. Kuang
Wahala was a bit different from the type of book I’d usually reach for. The story depicts the friendship of three British Nigerian women, all of whom have bonded over their shared identities and the emotional turmoil attached to the identities. Each ...
Wahala by Nikki May
I had high hopes for this book, but it just turned out to be very…weird. The beginning of the book reminded me a bit of Yellowface, as some of the themes were similar. However, the story took some very odd turns, making the first and second halves of...
Julie Chan Is Dead by Liann Zhang
Contemporary Fiction
Such a Fun Age was a really decent read. The book starts off with a crazy twist when Emira, the main character, is wrongly accused of kidnapping the child she’s babysitting. This event serves as a catalyst for a number of other situations that take p...
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid
This was a cute, contemporary fiction book. Sewanee, the main character, is an audiobook narrator who has lost sight of herself and her dreams after an accident. While working on an audiobook project for one of her favorite authors, Sewanee and her c...
Thank You for Listening by Julia Whelan
Romance
To this day, A Love Song for Ricki Wilde is one of my favorite books. I absolutely loved reading this book. I loved the Harlem Renaissance elements Tia Williams incorporated into the story, and how well Ezra's backstory was written. Ricki and Ezra we...
A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
At first glance, I thought this book would be your usual run-of-the-mill enemies-to-lovers trope. But I was pleasantly surprised at how decent a read this was, and how much I liked the main characters. While it is very unlikely I'd read this story ag...
Funny Story by Emily Henry
Historical Fiction
This book was written beautifully. I love how the author tells the story of not only Ailey (the main character), but also those of her maternal ancestors. One story cannot be told without the others. This multilayered story embodies the tragedy, loss...
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers
Have you ever finished a book and immediately wished that you could erase it from your memory just so that you could read the book again for the first time? Homegoing was that book for me. 🙂↕️
Where do I begin? Homegoing follows the lives of the d...
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi