en-US Sun, 20 Sep 2026 15:31:16 -0700 60 144 41 https://www.goodreads.com/images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 60889740 A manifesto to change how you eat and how you think about the human body.

It’s not you, it’s the food.

We have entered a new age of eating. For the first time in human history, most of our calories come from an entirely novel set of substances called Ultra-Processed Food. There’s a long, formal scientific definition, but it can be boiled down to this: if it’s wrapped in plastic and has at least one ingredient that you wouldn’t find in your kitchen, it’s UPF.

These products are specifically engineered to behave as addictive substances, driving excess consumption. They are now linked to the leading cause of early death globally and the number one cause of environmental destruction. Yet almost all our staple foods are ultra-processed. UPF is our food culture and for many people it is the only available and affordable food.

In this book, Chris van Tulleken, father, scientist, doctor, and award-winning BBC broadcaster, marshals the latest evidence to show how governments, scientists, and doctors have allowed transnational food companies to create a pandemic of diet-related disease. The solutions don’t lie in willpower, personal responsibility, or exercise. You’ll find no diet plan in this book―but join Chris as he undertakes a powerful self-experiment that made headlines around the world: under the supervision of colleagues at University College London he spent a month eating a diet of 80 percent UPF, typical for many children and adults in the United States. While his body became the subject of scientific scrutiny, he spoke to the world’s leading experts from academia, agriculture, and―most important―the food industry itself. But more than teaching him about the experience of the food, the diet switched off Chris’s own addiction to UPF.

In a fast-paced and eye-opening narrative he explores the origins, science, and economics of UPF to reveal its catastrophic impact on our bodies and the planet. And he proposes real solutions for doctors, for policy makers, and for all of us who have to eat. A book that won’t only upend the way you shop and eat, Ultra-Processed People will open your eyes to the need for action on a global scale.]]> 376 Chris van Tulleken 1529900050 Frances 4 physical-tbr, non-fiction 4.40 2023
author: Chris van Tulleken
name: Frances
average rating: 4.40
book published: 2023
rating: 4
read at: 2026/09/19
date added: 2026/09/20
shelves: physical-tbr, non-fiction
review:

]]> 240475043 Return to Camelot in the much anticipated and funny follow-up to the instant New York Times bestselling and YA Book Prize winning Gwen and Art Are Not in Love.

They fell in love. They won a great battle. It should have been happily ever after. But now, Camelot’s famous couples have fallen apart.

Newly crowned King Gabriel is having panic attacks in cupboards in-between council meetings. He can't tell Arthur just how not okay he is – so he's set him free, to find love with someone who can get through the day without breaking down.

Bridget has lost her spark for sparring, forfeiting again and again in the lists. When she’s invited to join Gabriel's round table, she hopes it’ll be the change she needs. But trying to navigate the post-happily-ever-after reality of a relationship with Gwen, when Bridget no longer feels like the dashing knight Gwen fell in love with, feels impossible.

With the kingdom still reeling from an attempted uprising, and rumoured sightings of the holy grail, the questing beast and the green knight happening across the country, the gang depart on a PR tour destined for disaster. Can Gabriel be the king his country deserves? Can Bridget get her jousting groove back? And will they find their way back to the courtly love that once seemed fated?]]> 411 Lex Croucher 1250404800 Frances 4 4.05 2026
author: Lex Croucher
name: Frances
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/09/18
date added: 2026/09/18
shelves: historical-fiction, lgbt, romance
review:

]]> 245318009 Sparks fly in this Gilded Age novel of mystery, magic, and romance by the author of the New York Times–bestselling Beasts of Prey.

Nineteen-year-old Vesper Evans has always resented Basalton’s high society, and the sorcery that provides them with a luxurious life unimaginable to most. Orphaned as a child and rescued by the editor of The Basalton Globe, Vesper is now an ambitious reporter determined to keep her newspaper afloat.

While covering a lavish society gala, Vesper happens upon a shocking the murdered body of an inventor whose new machine promised to bring the benefits of sorcery to everyone. Several of the powerful magical elite may want the man dead, but the prime suspect is wealthy industrialist Maximilian Kite.

Max soon makes Vesper a tempting Find the culprit and restore his reputation in exchange for a substantial fee. Despite her distaste for Max’s world, Vesper agrees—the money would save the Globe, and the story would be the scoop of a lifetime. There’s only one In order for her to infiltrate society, the two must pose as a courting couple.

Their investigation takes them from the highest echelons of privilege to the seediest backstreets of Basalton. As they unearth the city’s secrets and scandals, Vesper finds herself in grave danger—while falling for one of the most infuriating, arrogant, handsome men she has ever met . . .]]> 341 Ayana Gray 1250411246 Frances 0 4.01 2026
author: Ayana Gray
name: Frances
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: historical-fiction, mystery-thriller, tbr, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 247230391
When the crew begins sorting through piles of junk, they stumble upon Flayne's journals, in which he details his obsession with his missing mother, his discovery of a place called Bewise, and - most mysteriously - his belief in another realm lying parallel to ours, along with coded instructions as to how it might be reached.

As the students delve deeper into the house's secrets, one of them becomes obsessed with deciphering Flayne's strange opus and its promise of another world... and they may be willing to sacrifice everything, and everyone, to get there.]]> 512 Will Maclean 080216868X Frances 0 3.86 2026
author: Will Maclean
name: Frances
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: gothic-horror, mystery-thriller, tbr, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 249791551 A behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story that brilliantly confronts the private cost of a public life

For rising young actors Kai Laramie and Juniper Castillo, being cast in the buzzy biopic Andy Warhol Never Gets Old is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for. They’re on the verge of breaking out, and maybe even falling in love. Soon the movie is blowing up and so are their lives—in exciting but also terrifying ways.

John Green artfully blends a behind-the-scenes Hollywood love story with an unflinching examination of the insatiable attention economy. Told through dual points of view, the novel follows Kai and Juniper from their first days on location to the movie’s premiere, brilliantly juxtaposing their story with the on-screen study of Warhol’s life at the dawn of celebrity culture.

Hollywood, Ending is a deeply observed novel about the tension between a public and a private life, and finding your safe someone to hold onto. Tender, heartbreaking, and shrewdly funny, this is a story as only Green can tell it.]]> 304 John Green 0525426078 Frances 0 tbr, upcoming-releases 4.58 2026
author: John Green
name: Frances
average rating: 4.58
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/09
shelves: tbr, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 230873490 'Sophie out-jars The Bell Jar with this dark and gleaming masterpiece' EILEEN MYLES

Everything falls into she will get sober, she will eat well, she will start sleeping properly, she will work hard, she will resurrect her career, she will make The Lakes, she will charm Mitch, she will be somebody

Pearl is a thirty-something filmmaker balanced precariously on the edge of an addiction-fueled breakdown. But when she is invited to interview her idol and crush, lesbian cult filmmaker Mitch Meyer, her stilted life restarts.

Buoyed and seduced by Mitch's interest in her and her work, Pearl swaps alcoholism for romantic obsession, and London for a summer in New York with Mitch. All the while she is haunted by a project she has been toying with for a film about Veronica Lake, a 1940s film star who drank herself into obscurity.]]> 208 Sophie Robinson 034912762X Frances 0 tbr, lgbt 3.92
author: Sophie Robinson
name: Frances
average rating: 3.92
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/08
shelves: tbr, lgbt
review:

]]> 18300265 301 Jane Austen 009958932X Frances 4 4.13 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: Frances
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1817
rating: 4
read at: 2026/09/08
date added: 2026/09/08
shelves: recs, romance, classics, re-read
review:

]]> 241304023 Casey McQuiston meets The Secret History in this unmissable dark academia fantasy from New York Times bestselling author Lex Croucher following former childhood best friends who reunite at magical boarding school after years, only to find themselves enemies on opposite sides of the ugly secrets hidden within the gilded walls.

Welcome to the Temple School of Thaumaturgy ... and your newest dark academia obsession.

For as long as they can remember, Briar Jones dreamed of attending the Temple School of Thaumaturgy. Behind its looming ornate gates, the elite prep school—the place that has produced the most CEOs and Prime Ministers in British history—is whispered to be magical. 

Briar's best friend, Sebastian Wolfe, never cared about Temple or believed in the rumors. He just wanted them to stay together forever. 

When, at age 11, Seb gets an acceptance letter and Briar doesn't, their childhood friendship is shattered. Seb vanishes onto Temple's grounds and Briar resigns themself to a mundane life. But they can't completely forget their yearning for Temple, for the extraordinary, to be one of the chosen in the ivory tower. 

Seven years later, a summer job advert a temp position sorting through the junk in Temple’s attics. Briar takes it. And they discover that quiet, sensitive Seb, the boy they once loved more than anything else in the world, has become a beautiful, arrogant villain feared by most of the school. And worse, the secrets Temple is hiding might not be so magical after all, but a dark conspiracy with implications that extend far beyond the gates. ]]> 464 Lex Croucher 0063460238 Frances 0 tbr, fantasy-sf 3.81 2026
author: Lex Croucher
name: Frances
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/06
shelves: tbr, fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 41302953 Katherine Addison returns to the glittering world she created for her beloved novel, 'The Goblin Emperor', in this stand-alone sequel.

When the young half-goblin emperor Maia sought to learn who had killed his father and half-brothers, he turned to an obscure resident of his Court, a Prelate of Ulis and a Witness for the Dead. Thara Celehar found the truth, though it did him no good to discover it. He lost his place as a retainer of his cousin the former Empress, and made far too many enemies among the many factions vying for power in the new Court. The favor of the Emperor is a dangerous coin.

Now Celehar lives in the city of Amalo, far from the Court though not exactly in exile. He has not escaped from politics, but his position gives him the ability to serve the common people of the city, which is his preference. He lives modestly, but his decency and fundamental honesty will not permit him to live quietly. As a Witness for the Dead, he can, sometimes, speak to the recently dead: see the last thing they saw, know the last thought they had, experience the last thing they felt. it is his duty to use that ability to resolve disputes, to ascertain the intent of the dead, to find the killers of the murdered.

Celehar's skills now lead him out of the quiet and into a morass of treachery, murder, and injustice. No matter his own background with the imperial house, Celehar will stand with the commoners, and possibly find a light in the darkness.]]> 240 Katherine Addison 0765387441 Frances 0 tbr, fantasy-sf 4.09 2021
author: Katherine Addison
name: Frances
average rating: 4.09
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/06
shelves: tbr, fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 1513879 384 Patricia Neal 0671625012 Frances 0 tbr, non-fiction 4.01 1988
author: Patricia Neal
name: Frances
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1988
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/09/05
shelves: tbr, non-fiction
review:

]]> 244081561 Could this be the Season she wins his heart?

Henrietta has secretly loved Arthur, Lord Allerton, since childhood. He is the only man who is interested in her rather than her fortune – just not in the way that she wants.

After three years away at war, Arthur has returned to London to find everything changed. His finances are ruined, his family in chaos. And sweet, shy Hetty is … different.

For Hetty has set herself a she has one summer to become the charming, dashing Diamond she’s always wished to be. And either Arthur will notice her, or she’ll give up her dreams entirely.

But in a glittering Season plagued by scandal and intrigue, is there still room for love...?

If you love Bridgerton, you'll love Georgette Heyer!

Praise for Georgette

'[My] generation's Julia Quinn' Adjoa Andoh, star of Bridgerton
'The greatest writer who ever lived' Antonia Fraser
'Utter, immersive escapism' Sophie Kinsella

Praise for Sophie

'A must-buy author for me' Taylor Jenkins Reid
'A formidable Austentacious talent' Janice Hallett
'Charming, witty and infectiously exuberant' Santa Montefiore]]> 359 Sophie Irwin 1804957100 Frances 3 historical-fiction, romance 3.85
author: Sophie Irwin
name: Frances
average rating: 3.85
book published:
rating: 3
read at: 2026/08/28
date added: 2026/08/28
shelves: historical-fiction, romance
review:

]]> 220966619 New York Admirals goalie Eric never thought his friends-with-benefits arrangement with much-younger Kyle would leave them both wanting more…

Veteran goaltender Eric Bennett has faced down some of the toughest shooters on the ice, but nothing prepared him for his latest challenge—life after hockey. It’s time to make some big changes, starting with finally dating men for the first time.

Graduate student Kyle Swift moved to New York nursing a broken heart. He’d sworn to find someone his own age to crush on (for once). Until he meets a gorgeous, distinguished silver fox hockey player. Despite their intense physical attraction, Kyle has no intention of getting emotionally involved. He’ll teach Eric a few tricks, have some mutually consensual fun, then walk away.

Eric is more than happy to learn anything Kyle brings to the table. And Kyle never expected their friends-with-benefits arrangement to leave him wanting more. Happily-ever-after might be staring them in the face, but it won’t happen if they’re too stubborn to come clean about their feelings.

Everything they both want is within reach… They just have to be brave enough to grab it.]]> 335 Rachel Reid Frances 3 lgbt, romance 3.64 2020
author: Rachel Reid
name: Frances
average rating: 3.64
book published: 2020
rating: 3
read at: 2026/08/23
date added: 2026/08/23
shelves: lgbt, romance
review:

]]> 57119466
When their paths cross at the point of a sword, Istvhan and Clara will be pitched headlong into each other’s quests, facing off against enemies both living and dead. But Clara has a secret that could jeopardize the growing trust between them, a secret that will lead them to the gladiatorial pits of a corrupt city, and beyond...]]> 445 T. Kingfisher Frances 4 fantasy-sf 4.16 2021
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Frances
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2026/08/12
date added: 2026/08/12
shelves: fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 10997 416 Daniel Handler 0060733861 Frances 0 tbr, mystery-thriller 3.80 1999
author: Daniel Handler
name: Frances
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/04
shelves: tbr, mystery-thriller
review:

]]> 1009140
In Sheila Kohler's brilliant 1999 novel, a beautiful schoolgirl mysteriously disappears into the South African veld. Forty years later, thirteen members of the missing girl's swimming team gather at their old boarding school for a reunion, and look back to the long, dry weeks leading to Fiamma's disappearance. As teenage memories and emotions resurface, the women relive the horror of a long-buried secret. A stunning and singular tale of the passion and tribalism of adolescence, Cracks lays bare the violence that lurks in the heart of even the most innocent.]]> 176 Sheila Kohler 1590512057 Frances 0 3.40 1999
author: Sheila Kohler
name: Frances
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1999
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/08/04
shelves: under-300, lgbt, mystery-thriller, to-read
review:

]]> 243042935 The second book in Maggie Stiefvater's #1 NYT bestselling series The Raven Cycle, now a stunning graphic novel!

Ronan Lynch is made of secrets. His longest kept one? He can pull impossible things out of dreams. It's a secret that's nearly killed him more than once.

Waking the ley line should have led Blue and the Raven Boys straight to Glendower, the Whelsh king rumored to be sleeping beneath the mountains of Henrietta.

But instead, the forest of Cabeswater has disappeared, energy hums and sputters beneath the town, and the Raven Boys' search is at a dead end. Ronan's dreams may be the key to finding Glendower, but none of the Raven Boys are prepared for what will be unleashed in Ronan's desperate attempt to finally control his power. 

Reimagined as a stunning full-color graphic novel adapted and illustrated by Sas Milledge, Dream Thieves blurs the line between reality and nightmare until they are one and the same.]]> 288 Sas Milledge 0593621239 Frances 4 4.38 2026
author: Sas Milledge
name: Frances
average rating: 4.38
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/08/02
date added: 2026/08/02
shelves: fantasy-sf, under-300, graphic-novel, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 57941410
'This story, like so many stories, begins with a gift. The gift, like so many gifts, was a book...' So begins the essay by Robert Macfarlane that inspired this collection.

In this cornucopia of an anthology, you will find essays by some of the world's most beloved novelists, nonfiction writers, essayists and poets.

'You will see books taking flight in flocks, migrating around the world, landing in people's hearts and changing them for a day or a year or a lifetime.

'You will see books sparking wonder or anger; throwing open windows into other languages, other cultures, other minds; causing people to fall in love or to fight for what is right.

'And more than anything, over and over again, you will see books and words being given, received and read - and in turn prompting further generosity.'

Published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of global literacy non-profit, Room to Read, The Gifts of Reading forms inspiring, unforgettable, irresistible proof of the power and necessity of books and reading.

Inspired by Robert Macfarlane

Curated by Jennie Orchard]]> 352 Jennie Orchard 1474624936 Frances 0 4.05 2016
author: Jennie Orchard
name: Frances
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2016
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: tbr, non-fiction, physical-tbr, essays-short-stories
review:

]]> 231127166 Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.

In the waning years of the Azalea Dynasty, the emperor is dying, the land consumed by famine, and poetry magic lost to all except the powerful.

Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.

Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel heir of the beautiful and brutal Azalea House.

But in a twist of fate, the palace stands on the knife-edge of civil war with Wei trapped in its center…at the side of a violent prince.

To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself. Even if it means becoming a poet in a world where women are forbidden to read—and composing the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of death...and love.

The Poet Empress is an epic fantasy that explores darker themes, subjects, and scenes that may not be suitable for all readers. Please see the author's content note at the beginning of the book.]]> 400 Shen Tao Frances 0 tbr, fantasy-sf 4.37 2026
author: Shen Tao
name: Frances
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: tbr, fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 28282
And that's just the problem, according to Mr. M -- a.k.a. Jim McAllister, faculty, advisor to the Student Government Association and a popular Winwood history teacher. In the name of democracy -- not to mention a simmering grudge against Tracy Flick -- Mr. M recruits the perfect opposition candidate. Paul Warren is a golden boy, a football hero with a brain and a heart, eager to bulk up his meager resume.

As Winwood High experiences election fever, Mr. M is distracted by a sudden attraction to his wife's best friend. The two dramas he has created -- one personal and private, the other public and political -- unfurl simultaneously, with all the players sharing in a life-altering conclusion.

Part satire, part soap opera, Election is an uncommon look at an ordinary American high school, and the extraordinary people who inhabit it.]]> 210 Tom Perrotta 0425167283 Frances 0 under-300, to-read 3.80 1998
author: Tom Perrotta
name: Frances
average rating: 3.80
book published: 1998
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: under-300, to-read
review:

]]> 232209447 Amidst the devastation of Ireland’s Great Famine, a young woman is salvaged from certain death when offered a mysterious position at a remote manor house haunted by a strange power and the horror of her own memories in this chillingly evocative historical novel braided with gothic horror and supernatural suspense for readers of Katherine Arden’s The Warm Hands of Ghosts and The Silence Factory by Bridget Collins.

County Clare, 1848: In the scant few years since the potato blight first cast its foul shadow over Ireland, Maggie O’Shaughnessy has lost everything—her entire family and the man she trusted with her heart. Toiling in the Ennis Workhouse for paltry rations, she can see no future either within or outside its walls—until the mysterious Lady Catherine arrives to whisk her away to an old mansion in the stark limestone landscape of the Burren.

Lady Catherine wants Maggie to impersonate her late daughter, Wilhelmina, and hoodwink solicitors into releasing Wilhelmina’s widow pension so that Lady Catherine can continue to provide for the villagers in her care. In exchange, Maggie will receive freedom from the workhouse, land of her own, and the one thing she wants more than a chance to fulfill the promise she made to her brother on his deathbed—to live to spite them all.

Launching herself into the daunting task, Maggie plays the role of Wilhelmina as best she can while ignoring the villagers’ tales of ghostly figures and curses. But more worrying are the whispers that come from within. Something in Lady Catherine’s house is reawakening long-buried memories in Maggie—of a foe more terrifying than hunger or greed, of a power that calls for blood and vengeance, and of her own role in a nightmare that demands the darkest sacrifice . . .]]> 368 Maria Tureaud 1496755413 Frances 0 tbr, gothic-horror 4.00 2026
author: Maria Tureaud
name: Frances
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: tbr, gothic-horror
review:

]]> 238142754
​It’s now been a decade since Catharine abandoned the farm and has done her best to reinvent her life, until an email from a charismatic journalist interrupts her peace. Her first instinct is to ignore the stranger’s prying questions—whether she knew about a mysterious “cult” in central Florida, whether she is the same “Catharine-with-an-A” who lived there for a time. But when she realizes the journalist knows far more than he’s letting on, she reconsiders. If Catharine can stay one step ahead of him, she may be able to find the one thing she never wanted to leave behind—her sister, Linna—and make sure her own secrets remain buried too.

Sharp-eyed and sweltering, Little One masterfully captures the dread of facing your deepest desires, when the hunger to become your best self threatens to drown out everything else. An achingly astute look at modern womanhood and wellness culture, it tackles the enduring How far would you go to be good?]]> 320 Olivia Muenter 0316594563 Frances 0 tbr, mystery-thriller 3.74 2026
author: Olivia Muenter
name: Frances
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: tbr, mystery-thriller
review:

]]> 218569826 Underland delivers a revelatory book that transforms how we look at the natural world—and life itself.

Hailed as “a naturalist who can unfurl a sentence with the breathless ease of a master angler” (Holly Morris, New York Times), Robert Macfarlane brings his glittering style to a profound work of travel writing, reporting, and natural history. Is a River Alive? is a joyous exploration into an ancient, urgent idea: that rivers are living beings who should be recognized as such in imagination and law. Macfarlane takes readers on three unforgettable journeys teeming with extraordinary people and places: to the miraculous cloud-forests and mountain streams of Ecuador, to the wounded creeks and lagoons of India, and to the spectacular wild rivers of Canada—imperiled by mining, pollution, and dams. Braiding these journeys is the life story of the fragile chalk stream a mile from Macfarlane’s house, which flows through his own years and days. Powered by Macfarlane’s dazzling prose and lit throughout by other voices, Is a River Alive? will open hearts, challenge perspectives, and remind us that our fate flows with that of rivers—and always has.]]> 384 Robert Macfarlane 0393242137 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.14 2025
author: Robert Macfarlane
name: Frances
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/07/30
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 242976081 Safina is a city ship, two hundred years into its voyage from the ruins of Earth towards a new habitable world. Its crew maintain the ship, generation after generation, while protecting their 'ancestors'—the final remnants of Earth's doomed Network Empire—by keeping them alive in cryostasis.

But a lot can change in two hundred years, and people are starting to ask questions. Why should the crew continue to toil for people none of them remember? What exactly gives Administration its authority over everyone else?

And when the blackouts start, they set in motion a chain of events that will change life on the Safina forever. A reckoning is coming. The system is only secure so long as those in power maintain the obedience of those beneath them.

And the crew has had enough.

A science fiction odyssey of breathtaking scope, The Republic of Memory, is a gripping examination of what divides us, and what brings us together. This is a modern and ambitious work of Arabfuturism, and is perfect for fans of The Expanse, A Memory Called Empire or Children of Time.]]> 480 Mahmud El Sayed 1668207192 Frances 3 fantasy-sf 3.75 2026
author: Mahmud El Sayed
name: Frances
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2026
rating: 3
read at: 2026/07/22
date added: 2026/07/22
shelves: fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 236293100 Emily Austin, the bestselling “queen of darkly quirky, endearingly flawed heroines” (Sarah Haywood, author of The Cactus), returns with a luminous new novel following a librarian who comes back to work after a mental breakdown only to confront book-banning crusaders in an empowering story of grief, love, and the power of libraries.

Darcy’s life turned out better than she could have ever imagined. She is a librarian at the local branch, while her wife Joy runs a book binding service. Between the two of them, there is no more room on their shelves with their ample book collections, various knickknacks and bobbles, and dried bouquets. Rounding out their ideal life is two cats and a sun-soaked house by the lake.

But when Darcy receives the news that her ex-boyfriend, Ben, has passed away, she spirals into a pit of guilt and regret, resulting in a mental breakdown and medical leave from the library. When she returns to work, she is met by unrest in her community and protests surrounding intellectual freedom, resulting in a call for book bans and a second look at the branch’s upcoming DEI programs.

Through the support of her community, colleagues, and the personal growth that results from examining her previous relationships, Darcy comes into her own agency and the truest version of herself. Is This a Cry for Help? not only offers a moving portrait of queer life after coming of age but also powerfully explores questions about sexuality, community, and the importance of libraries.]]> 304 Emily R. Austin Frances 4 recs 3.89 2026
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Frances
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/01/20
date added: 2026/07/09
shelves: recs
review:

]]> 240118923 'My name was Natalie Heller Mills, and I was perfect at being alive.'

Natalie lives a traditional lifestyle – and has the social media accounts to prove it. Her charming farmhouse on her working ranch is artfully cluttered, her husband is a handsome cowboy, her homemade sourdough boules are each more beautiful than the last. So what if there are nannies and producers and industrial-grade ovens behind the scenes? What Natalie’s followers don’t know won’t hurt them.

Then, one morning, Natalie wakes up in a strange, horrible version of reality. Her home, her husband, her children—they’re all familiar, but something’s off. Is this a hoax? A reality show? A test from God? One thing Natalie does know is that it’ll make one hell of an Instagram post…]]> 390 Caro Claire Burke 0008742782 Frances 4 4.02 2026
author: Caro Claire Burke
name: Frances
average rating: 4.02
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/05/16
date added: 2026/07/09
shelves: historical-fiction, mystery-thriller, recs
review:

]]> 227614059
Stephen, a broken paladin, spends his time knitting socks and working as a bodyguard, living only for the chance to be useful. But that all changes when he saves Grace and witnesses an assassination attempt gone wrong. Now, Stephen and Grace must navigate a web of treachery and poisoners, while a cryptic killer stalks one step behind.]]> 358 T. Kingfisher 0356524310 Frances 4 fantasy-sf, romance, recs 4.00 2020
author: T. Kingfisher
name: Frances
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/05
date added: 2026/07/09
shelves: fantasy-sf, romance, recs
review:

]]> 18839 Orlando 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature', playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Spanning three centuries, the novel opens as Orlando, a young nobleman in Elizabeth's England, awaits a visit from the Queen and traces his experience with first love as England under James I lies locked in the embrace of the Great Frost. At the midpoint of the novel, Orlando, now an ambassador in Constantinople, awakes to find that he is now a woman, and the novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of women in the 18th and 19th centuries. As the novel ends in 1928, a year consonant with full suffrage for women. Orlando, now a wife and mother, stands poised at the brink of a future that holds new hope and promise for women.]]> 336 Virginia Woolf 0141184272 Frances 0 3.87 1928
author: Virginia Woolf
name: Frances
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1928
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/06
shelves: under-300, lgbt, currently-reading
review:

]]> 235672421 Cat Sebastian’s long-awaited foray into contemporary romance! A witty, emotional, and deliciously slow burn enemies-to-lovers romance between two costars on a popular sci-fi television series.

Simon and Charlie, actors on a long-running sci-fi show, can’t stand one another. Charlie is impetuous, outgoing, and basically feral, and Simon thinks he should have stayed in reality television where he belongs. They’ve spent the better part of a decade quarreling over the spotlight and pretty much everything else, and everybody in the industry knows it. Now that Simon’s contract is finally done, he can move to New York, start fresh with work he actually likes, and get away from Charlie.

Simon’s only problem is that people might assume he’s been pushed off the show due to being impossible to work with. And he is kind of difficult to work with. He doesn’t get along with people—unlike Charlie, who somehow tricked everyone on the show into adoring him despite some outrageously bad on-set behavior during the show’s first season. Simon would rather never have to see Charlie again, but reluctantly agrees to stage a very public friendship during the short time before he moves. When Charlie has to leave town to deal with a family emergency, this means Simon comes along. Their road trip brings Simon to places he would never have willingly chosen to visit—and he finds he’s actually not having a terrible time.

The more he gets to know Charlie, the more Simon suspects he’s underestimated his former coworker. Simon also realizes that after seven years, Charlie might know him better than anyone ever has. Even stranger, Charlie seems to be starting to actually like him, despite knowing him so well. Still, Simon is about to move three thousand miles away, so whatever’s starting between him and Charlie can’t really amount to anything... right?

Tropes:

Enemies to Lovers

Opposites Attract

Forced Proximity

Slow Burn]]> 384 Cat Sebastian 0063429586 Frances 3 lgbt, romance 4.01 2026
author: Cat Sebastian
name: Frances
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2026
rating: 3
read at: 2026/07/06
date added: 2026/07/06
shelves: lgbt, romance
review:

]]> 207590442
Nine Minds delves into the extraordinary lives of nine neurodivergent men and women from around the globe. From a Fields Medal-winning mathematician to a murder detective, a pioneering surgeon to a bestselling novelist, each is remarkable in their field, and each is changing how the world sees those on the spectrum.

Exploding the tired stereotypes of autism, Daniel Tammet - acclaimed author and an autistic savant himself - reaches across the divides of age, gender, sexuality and nationality to draw out the inner worlds of his subjects. Telling stories as richly diverse as the spectrum itself, this illuminating, life-affirming work of narrative nonfiction celebrates the power and beauty of the neurodivergent mind, and the daring freedom with which these individuals have built their lives.]]> Daniel Tammet Frances 0 non-fiction, tbr 3.46
author: Daniel Tammet
name: Frances
average rating: 3.46
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/04
shelves: non-fiction, tbr
review:

]]> 31159766 The Library of Congress called it one of the ten most influential books in America; the "New York Times" pronounced it an enduring work of survival literature; and "O, The Oprah Magazine" praised it as one of the most significant books of the twentieth century. "Man s Search for Meaning" has long riveted readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. This new young readers edition brings a beloved classic to a new generation of readers, offering a universal tribute to coping with suffering and finding one s purpose. An abridged text of the original book (emphasizing Frankl s personal story, while omitting some material on his psychological theory of logotherapy) is presented here, along with supplemental materials that vividly bring Frankl s story to life, and a foreword by prominent young adult author John Boyne. "Man s Search for Meaning: A Young Adult Edition" will help readers ages twelve to eighteen grasp Frankl s enduring lessons on perseverance and strength with clarity and depth."]]> 192 Viktor E. Frankl 0807067997 Frances 0 non-fiction, tbr 4.35 2017
author: Viktor E. Frankl
name: Frances
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/07/03
shelves: non-fiction, tbr
review:

]]> 244445769 In this darkly funny and irreverent memoir, the daughter of a mail-order bride unpacks her undocumented childhood in America.

The perfect read for fans of the jaw-dropping twists of 90 Day Fiancé and the emotional gut punch of I'm Glad My Mom Died.

Growing up undocumented in Houston, Texas, Katya Suvorova learned that keeping her family together meant dodging the police, enduring her mother’s many husbands, and baby-sitting her younger sister instead of finishing the third grade.

Her understanding of her life shifted dramatically at seventeen, when Katya discovered her mother’s advertisement in a forgotten Eastern European mail-order bride catalogue from the 1990s. As she grew older, Katya came to better understand what her mother had risked when she smuggled herself and her then three-year-old daughter from Russia into the US. 

When your parents sacrifice their lives so yours can be better, to whom do you owe your future?

Ungrateful Immigrant Daughter explores difficult questions and stories both shocking and hilarious across Katya’s childhood through to an adulthood estranged from the woman who sacrificed everything for her. Her sharp, dry wit engages readers in a deeply relatable take on the experience of being a child of immigrants and unraveling a landscape of family secrets and lies, sharing her unique story of being the undocumented daughter of a mail-order bride.]]> 352 Katya Suvorova Frances 0 4.75 2026
author: Katya Suvorova
name: Frances
average rating: 4.75
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/21
shelves: non-fiction, tbr, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 243154990 272 Leanne Calvert 1802050418 Frances 4 non-fiction 4.50
author: Leanne Calvert
name: Frances
average rating: 4.50
book published:
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/19
date added: 2026/06/19
shelves: non-fiction
review:

]]> 25010941
Now, years later, the surviving musicians, along with their friends and lovers—including a psychic, a photographer, and the band’s manager—meet with a young documentary filmmaker to tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?]]> 176 Elizabeth Hand 1504007182 Frances 4 gothic-horror, recs 3.71 2015
author: Elizabeth Hand
name: Frances
average rating: 3.71
book published: 2015
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/14
date added: 2026/06/14
shelves: gothic-horror, recs
review:

]]> 243806826 A moment is all it takes to shatter a family. The echoes last a lifetime...

One evening, ten-year-old Louisa and her father, Serk, take a walk out on the breakwater. They are spending the summer in a coastal Japanese town. Hours later, Louisa wakes on the beach, soaked to the skin. Her father is missing: presumably drowned.

This sudden event shatters their small family. As Louisa and her American mother return to the US, Serk's disappearance reverberates across time and space, and the mystery of what really happened that night slowly unravels.]]> 528 Susan Choi 1529932513 Frances 0 tbr 3.76 2025
author: Susan Choi
name: Frances
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/14
shelves: tbr
review:

]]> 238226944 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The dramatic story of the Jewish Bund—a revolutionary movement from a vanished world—and its radical vision of solidarity in an age of division.

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, Sam Rothbort created “memory paintings” with the hope of resurrecting the vanished world of his shtetl childhood. Decades later, his great-granddaughter, the award-winning artist Molly Crabapple, discovered these paintings and one stood out: a girl, her dress the color of sky, hurling a rock through a cottage window. Itka the Bundist, Breaking Windows.

Itka is how Crabapple met the Jewish Labor Bund. Once the most influential Jewish political force in eastern Europe, the Bund was secular, socialist, and uncompromisingly anti-Zionist. The Bundists fought for dignity and equality, not in an imagined homeland in Palestine but “here where we live.”

In the first popular history of the Bund, Crabapple re-creates their extraordinary world through dramatic portraits of insurgent poets and antireligious rebels, clandestine revolutionaries and lovers on the barricades. The Bundists live deeply within this violent, volatile, and somehow hopeful period, as their stories interweave with the Russian Revolution and the Holocaust. The Bund’s rise and fall raises the vital question: What can we learn from a movement that, for all its toughness, imagination, and moral clarity, was largely destroyed?

Here Where We Live Is Our Country reanimates a band of idealists who broadened our global political imagination. As we once again contend with nationalism, repression, and the struggle for belonging, the Bund’s remarkable story and message—that liberation, dignity, and solidarity must begin where we stand—reaches across time as a guide to our own urgent moment.]]> 480 Molly Crabapple 0593229452 Frances 0 non-fiction, tbr 4.54
author: Molly Crabapple
name: Frances
average rating: 4.54
book published:
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/08
shelves: non-fiction, tbr
review:

]]> 464260 The Fire Next Time galvanized the nation and gave passionate voice to the emerging civil rights movement. At once a powerful evocation of James Baldwin’s early life in Harlem and a disturbing examination of the consequences of racial injustice, the book is an intensely personal and provocative document. It consists of two “letters,” written on the occasion of the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, that exhort Americans, both black and white, to attack the terrible legacy of racism. Described by The New York Times Book Review as “sermon, ultimatum, confession, deposition, testament, and chronicle…all presented in searing, brilliant prose,” The Fire Next Time stands as a classic of our literature.]]> 106 James Baldwin 067974472X Frances 0 non-fiction, tbr, under-300 4.56 1963
author: James Baldwin
name: Frances
average rating: 4.56
book published: 1963
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/06/08
shelves: non-fiction, tbr, under-300
review:

]]> 216009057 178 Meg Smitherman Frances 2 under-300, fantasy-sf 4.06 2024
author: Meg Smitherman
name: Frances
average rating: 4.06
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at: 2026/06/02
date added: 2026/06/02
shelves: under-300, fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 18300264
"Jane Austen is a genius, and Northanger Abbey is hugely underrated." — Martin Amis]]> 286 Jane Austen 009958929X Frances 4 3.90 1817
author: Jane Austen
name: Frances
average rating: 3.90
book published: 1817
rating: 4
read at: 2026/06/01
date added: 2026/06/01
shelves: recs, romance, under-300, classics
review:

]]> 62086891 This is an alternative cover edition for ISBN 9780571376483

Demon's story begins with his traumatic birth to a single mother in a single-wide trailer, looking 'like a little blue prizefighter.' For the life ahead of him he would need all of that fighting spirit, along with buckets of charm, a quick wit, and some unexpected talents, legal and otherwise.

In the southern Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, poverty isn't an idea, it's as natural as the grass grows. For a generation growing up in this world, at the heart of the modern opioid crisis, addiction isn't an abstraction, it's neighbours, parents, and friends. 'Family' could mean love, or reluctant foster care. For Demon, born on the wrong side of luck, the affection and safety he craves is as remote as the ocean he dreams of seeing one day. The wonder is in how far he's willing to travel to try and get there.

Suffused with truth, anger and compassion, Demon Copperhead is an epic tale of love, loss and everything in between.]]> 546 Barbara Kingsolver Frances 3 4.43 2022
author: Barbara Kingsolver
name: Frances
average rating: 4.43
book published: 2022
rating: 3
read at: 2026/05/14
date added: 2026/05/15
shelves:
review:

]]> 58388343 While we live, the enemy shall fear us.

All her life Kyr has trained for the day she can avenge the murder of planet Earth. Raised in the bowels of Gaea Station alongside the last scraps of humanity, she readies herself to face the Wisdom, the all-powerful, reality-shaping weapon that gave the Majoda their victory over humanity.

They are what’s left. They are what must survive. Kyr is one of the best warriors of her generation, the sword of a dead planet. But when Command assigns her brother to certain death and relegates her to the nursery to bear sons until she dies trying, she knows she must take humanity’s revenge into her own hands.

Alongside her brother’s brilliant but seditious friend and a lonely, captive alien, she escapes from everything she’s ever known into a universe far more complicated than she was taught and far more wondrous than she could have imagined.

A thrillingly told queer space opera about the wreckage of war, the family you find, and who you must become when every choice is stripped from you, Some Desperate Glory is award-winning author Emily Tesh’s highly anticipated debut novel.]]> 438 Emily Tesh 1250834988 Frances 3 fantasy-sf, lgbt 4.00 2023
author: Emily Tesh
name: Frances
average rating: 4.00
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2025/12/05
date added: 2026/04/30
shelves: fantasy-sf, lgbt
review:

]]> 220447241 The story of an anthropologist's monumental discovery and the clash of civilizations it sets off over the fate of the land that holds us

When a body is found in a bog in northwest England, Agnes, an American forensic anthropologist, is called to investigate. But this body is not like any she has ever seen: Although its bones prove it was buried more than two thousand years ago, it is almost completely preserved.

Soon Agnes is drawn into a mystery from the distant past, called to understand and avenge the death of an Iron Age woman more like her than she knows. Along the way she must contend with peat-cutters who want to profit from the bog and activists who demand that the land be left undisturbed. Then there is the moss itself: a complex repository of artifacts and remains with its own dark stories to tell. As Agnes faces the deep history of what she has unearthed, she is also forced to question what she thought she knew about her talent, her self-reliance, and her place in the world.

Flashing between the uncertainty of post-Brexit England and the druidic order of Celtic Europe at the dawn of the Roman era, Bog Queen brims with contemporary urgency and ancient wisdom as it connects two young women learning to harness their strange strengths in a mysterious and complex landscape.]]> 264 Anna North 1399629972 Frances 3 mystery-thriller, under-300 3.75 2025
author: Anna North
name: Frances
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2025
rating: 3
read at: 2026/01/23
date added: 2026/04/30
shelves: mystery-thriller, under-300
review:

]]> 127279203
A Mississippi woman pushes through the ruin of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. She has escaped her life, signed up to catalog all the species growing in this place. Crawling along the stones, she wonders how she has landed here, a reluctant botanist amid a snarl of tourists in comfortable sandals. She hunts for a scientific agenda and a direction of her own.

In 1854, a woman pushes through the jungle of the Roman Colosseum, searching for plants. As punishment for her misbehavior, she has been indentured to the English botanist Richard Deakin, for whom she will compile a flora. She is a thief, and she must find new ways to use her hands. If only the woman she loves weren’t on a boat, with a husband. But love isn’t always possible. She logs 420 species.

Through a list of seemingly minor plants and their uses―medical, agricultural, culinary―these women calculate intangible a changing climate, the cost of knowledge, and the ways repeated violence can upend women’s lives. They must forge their own small acts of defiance and slip through whatever cracks they find. How can anyone survive?

Lush, intoxicating, and teeming with mischief, Katy Simpson Smith’s The Weeds is a tense, mesmerizing page-turner about science and survival, the roles women are given and have taken from them, and the lives they make for themselves.]]> 320 Katy Simpson Smith 1250321778 Frances 0 tbr, historical-fiction, lgbt 3.75 2023
author: Katy Simpson Smith
name: Frances
average rating: 3.75
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/30
shelves: tbr, historical-fiction, lgbt
review:

]]> 59561285 The newest novel from one of Colombia’s most distinguished and beloved writers is a gripping thriller about corruption deep within the foundations of the Churches in Latin America.

When a horribly violent confrontation occurs outside of Cauca, Colombia, only a young boy is around to witness it. But no sooner does the violence happen than it disappears, vanished without a trace. Nobody claims to have seen anything. Nobody claims to have heard anything. That is, until an anonymous accusation catalyzes a dangerous investigation into the deep underbelly of the Christian churches present today in Latin America. The Night Will Be Long is a dark, twisting thriller filled with moments of humor and pain—a story that will stick with readers long after they turn the last page.]]> 392 Santiago Gamboa 1609457110 Frances 0 3.60 2019
author: Santiago Gamboa
name: Frances
average rating: 3.60
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/30
shelves: mystery-thriller, physical-tbr, to-read
review:

]]> 61409468 A trailblazing conversation-starting history of women's health--from Ancient Greece to hormones and autoimmune diseases--brought together in a fascinating sweeping narrative

In thirteenth-century Europe, Roman Catholicism decreed that menstruation was the curse of Eve, part of the punishment issued by God to all earthly women. In the 1860s, female circumcision was considered a respective cure for misunderstood diseases including endometriosis and epilepsy. At the University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, between 1950 and 1954, three women aged twenty-eight, thirty-two, and forty-three and identified only as housewives, underwent prefrontal lobotomies as cures for ulcerative colitis. Initial clinical trials of birth control were conducted in Puerto Rico, on some of the poorest residents of the United States. Of those who participated in the trial, many suffered debilitating side effects and three died--but their deaths were never reported in the subsequent release of the pill. In Unwell Women, Elinor Cleghorn explores this almost unbelievable history of how medicine has failed women, and shows how the legacy of disenfranchisement and discrimination is alive and well in the contemporary relationship between women and sickness.

When Cleghorn was finally correctly diagnosed with an autoimmune disease after years of being told her symptoms were anything from psychosomatic to a possible pregnancy, she was inspired to unpack the roots of the perpetual misunderstanding, mystification, and misdiagnosis of women's bodies. The result is an authoritative and groundbreaking history of the relationship between women and medical practice, from the wandering womb of Ancient Greece to the rise of witch trials across Europe, and from the dawn of hysteria as a catchall for difficult-to-diagnose disorders to the first forays into autoimmunity and the shifting understanding of hormones, menstruation, and menopause. Packed with character studies and case histories of women who have suffered, challenged, and rewritten medical orthodoxy--and the men who controlled their fate--this is a revolutionary examination of the relationship between women, illness, and medicine. With these case histories, Elinor pays homage to the women whose bodies were sacrificed to make strides in this still-evolving area of medicine and to show how far we still have to go in terms of understanding the female body.]]> 478 Elinor Cleghorn 1474616879 Frances 0 4.10 2021
author: Elinor Cleghorn
name: Frances
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/30
shelves: tbr, non-fiction, physical-tbr
review:

]]> 41078131 The enthralling story of the rise and reign of O-Six, the celebrated Yellowstone wolf, and the people who loved or feared her.

Before humans ruled the earth, there were wolves. Once abundant in North America, these majestic creatures were hunted to near extinction in the lower 48 states by the 1920s. But in recent decades, conservationists have brought wolves back to the Rockies, igniting a battle over the very soul of the West.

With novelistic detail, Nate Blakeslee tells the gripping story of one of these wolves, O-Six, a charismatic alpha female named for the year of her birth. Uncommonly powerful, with gray fur and faint black ovals around each eye, O-Six is a kind and merciful leader, a fiercely intelligent fighter, and a doting mother. She is beloved by wolf watchers, particularly renowned naturalist Rick McIntyre, and becomes something of a social media star, with followers around the world.

But as she raises her pups and protects her pack, O-Six is challenged on all fronts: by hunters, who compete with wolves for the elk they both prize; by cattle ranchers who are losing livestock and have the ear of politicians; and by other Yellowstone wolves who are vying for control of the park’s stunningly beautiful Lamar Valley.

These forces collide in American Wolf, a riveting multi-generational saga of hardship and triumph that tells a larger story about the ongoing cultural clash in the West—between those fighting for a vanishing way of life and those committed to restoring one of the country’s most iconic landscapes.]]> 320 Nate Blakeslee 1101902809 Frances 0 tbr, non-fiction 4.37 2017
author: Nate Blakeslee
name: Frances
average rating: 4.37
book published: 2017
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/29
shelves: tbr, non-fiction
review:

]]> 238226991 A spellbinding account of a family devastated by the sudden death of their nineteen-year-old son, only to discover that he had created a secret life which drew him into the dangerous criminal underworld that lies beneath London’s glittering surface

In the early morning of November 29th, 2019, surveillance cameras at the headquarters of MI6, Britain’s spy agency, captured video of a young man pacing back and forth on a high balcony of Riverwalk, a luxury tower on the bank of the river Thames. At 2:24 AM he jumped into the river.

In a quiet London neighborhood several miles away, Rachelle Brettler was worried about her son. Zac had told her that he had gone to stay with a friend, but then he did not come home. Days later, a police car pulled up and two officers relayed the dreadful news: her son was dead.

In their unbearable grief, Rachelle and her husband, Matthew, struggled to understand what had happened to Zac. He had his troubles, but in no way seemed suicidal. As they would soon discover, however, there was a lot they did not know about their son. Only after his death did they learn that he had adopted a fictitious alter-ego: Zac Ismailov, son of a Russian oligarch and heir to a great fortune. Under this guise, Zac had become entangled with a slippery London businessman named Akbar Shamji, and a murderous gangster known as “Indian Dave.” As the Brettlers set about investigating their son’s death, they were pulled into a different and more dangerous London than the one they’d always known, and came to believe that something much more nefarious than a suicide had claimed Zac’s life. But to their immense frustration, Scotland Yard seemed unable—or unwilling—to bring the perpetrators to justice.

In a bravura feat of reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe chronicles the Brettlers’ quest, peeling back layers of mystery and exposing the seedy truths behind the glamorous London of posh mansions and private nightclubs, a city in which everything is for sale, and aspirational fantasies are underwritten by dirty money and corruption. London Falling is a mesmerizing investigation of an inexplicable death and a powerful narrative driven by suspense and staggering revelations. But it is also an intimate and deeply poignant inquiry into the nature of parental love and the challenges of being a parent today, a portrait of a family trying to solve the riddle not just of how their son died, but of who he really was in life.]]> 361 Patrick Radden Keefe 0385548532 Frances 4 non-fiction, recs 4.27 2026
author: Patrick Radden Keefe
name: Frances
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2026
rating: 4
read at: 2026/04/25
date added: 2026/04/25
shelves: non-fiction, recs
review:

]]> 56066852
As these groups converge upon the town, the habitants, who up until this point have been under strict curfew, begin to stir from their dwellings, demanding answers from the intruders. A deadly stand-off emerges from which no one will escape unscathed.]]> 296 Oisín Fagan 1529329817 Frances 3 historical-fiction, under-300 3.39 2019
author: Oisín Fagan
name: Frances
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2019
rating: 3
read at: 2026/04/24
date added: 2026/04/24
shelves: historical-fiction, under-300
review:

]]> 62326344
Mary Firth is a Stormsinger: a woman whose voice can still hurricanes and shatter armadas. Faced with servitude to pirate lord Silvanus Lirr, Mary offers her skills to his arch-rival in exchange for protection - and, more importantly, his help sending Lirr to a watery grave. But her new ally has a vendetta of his own, and Mary's dreams are dark and full of ghistings, spectral creatures who inhabit the ancient forests of her homeland and the figureheads of ships.

Samuel Rosser is a disgraced naval officer serving aboard The Hart, an infamous privateer commissioned to bring Lirr to justice. He will stop at nothing to capture Lirr, restore his good name and reclaim the only thing that stands between himself and madness: a talisman stolen by Mary.

Finally, driven into the eternal ice at the limits of their world, Mary and Samuel must choose their loyalties and battle forces older and more powerful than the pirates who would make them slaves.

Come sail the Winter Sea, for action-packed, high-stakes adventures, rich characterisation and epic plots full of intrigue and betrayal.]]> 457 H.M. Long 180336260X Frances 3 fantasy-sf 3.81 2023
author: H.M. Long
name: Frances
average rating: 3.81
book published: 2023
rating: 3
read at: 2026/04/22
date added: 2026/04/22
shelves: fantasy-sf
review:

]]> 154488299 The Kamogawa Food Detectives is the first book in the bestselling, mouth-watering Japanese series for fans of Before the Coffee Gets Cold.

What’s the one dish you’d do anything to taste just one more time?

Down a quiet backstreet in Kyoto exists a very special restaurant. Run by Koishi Kamogawa and her father Nagare, the Kamogawa Diner serves up deliciously extravagant meals. But that’s not the main reason customers stop by . . .

The father-daughter duo are ‘food detectives’. Through ingenious investigations, they are able to recreate dishes from a person’s treasured memories – dishes that may well hold the keys to their forgotten past and future happiness. The restaurant of lost recipes provides a link to vanished moments, creating a present full of possibility.

A bestseller in Japan, The Kamogawa Food Detectives is a celebration of good company and the power of a delicious meal.]]> 201 Hisashi Kashiwai 0593717716 Frances 0 tbr, under-300 3.67 2013
author: Hisashi Kashiwai
name: Frances
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2013
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/16
shelves: tbr, under-300
review:

]]> 231127196 Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic...if not murder.

In the 1960s, the world was caught up in reaching beyond our planet and into the cosmos. It felt impossible—but there was nothing science, math…and magic couldn’t make possible. The race to space was on, and the Moon was what everyone had their eyes on.

Including Cynthia Rhodes, a brilliant arcane engineer at NASA’s Ainsworth Research Labs. Talented in math and magic, she hosts a magical educational show... a job she took mostly for a chance to regularly see the dashing Theodore Danner, a professor of arcane archeology.

She is also an amateur sleuth—something that has run in her family for generations.

When a cursed museum curator nearly interrupts a broadcast of their show, Cynthia finds an eager sleuthing partner in Theo. Pairing up, they begin investigating the strange behavior of the curator and a mysterious theft at the arcane history museum—until one of Cynthia’s own coworkers perishes right in front of her in a major lab accident that endangers Ainsworth’s role in the space race.

Certain it was murder instead of an accident, Cynthia sees this as a separate case at first. However the more she and Theo investigate, Cynthia uncovers a surprising link between the two incidents. The museum theft and murder are part of a larger equation—one that includes deadly enchantments, rumored pirate treasure, a peculiar plant, and a dire threat to the space program as well as everything she holds dear.

The Starseekers is another rip-roaring adventure for the Rhodes family, who have been using magic to aid their community and solve mysteries since before the Civil War. The times may have changed, but a Rhodes once again finds themselves thrust into a world of murders, theft, sabotage, and curses, and this time the stakes extend to the stars themselves. ]]> 483 Nicole Glover 0063293633 Frances 0 3.57 2026
author: Nicole Glover
name: Frances
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/14
shelves: tbr, fantasy-sf, mystery-thriller
review:

]]> 123136728 Orbital deftly snapshots one day in the lives of six women and men traveling through space. Selected for one of the last space station missions of its kind before the program is dismantled, these astronauts and cosmonauts—from America, Russia, Italy, Britain, and Japan—have left their lives behind to travel at a speed of over seventeen thousand miles an hour as the earth reels below. We glimpse moments of their earthly lives through brief communications with family, their photos and talismans; we watch them whip up dehydrated meals, float in gravity-free sleep, and exercise in regimented routines to prevent atrophying muscles; we witness them form bonds that will stand between them and utter solitude. Most of all, we are with them as they behold and record their silent blue planet. Their experiences of sixteen sunrises and sunsets and the bright, blinking constellations of the galaxy are at once breathtakingly awesome and surprisingly intimate.

Profound and contemplative, Orbital is a moving elegy to our environment and planet.]]> 224 Samantha Harvey 0802161545 Frances 0 fantasy-sf, tbr, under-300 3.44 2023
author: Samantha Harvey
name: Frances
average rating: 3.44
book published: 2023
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: fantasy-sf, tbr, under-300
review:

]]> 224003731 A REESE’S BOOK CLUB “A breathtaking debut about family, identity, and love across generations.” —REESE WITHERSPOON

“Eliana Ramage will break your heart and take you to the stars. From painfully accurate depictions of adolescence to effortless jumps through time and space—I loved it all.” —KILEY REID

In this dazzlingly powerful story of family, ambition and belonging, one young woman’s obsessive quest to become the first Cherokee astronaut irrevocably alters the fates of the people she loves most.

Steph Harper is on the run. She has been all her life, ever since her mother drove five-year-old Steph and her younger sister through the night to Cherokee Nation, a place they had never been, but where she hoped they might finally belong. In response to the turmoil, Steph sets her sights as far away from Oklahoma as she can get, vowing that she will let nothing get in the way of pursuing the rigorous physical and academic training she knows she will need to be accepted by NASA, and ultimately, to go to the moon.

Spanning three decades and several continents, To the Moon and Back encompasses Steph’s turbulent journey, along with the multifaceted and intertwined lives of the three women closest to her sister Kayla, an artist who goes on to become an Indigenous social media influencer, and whose determination to appear good takes her life to unexpected places; Steph’s college girlfriend Della Owens, who strives to reclaim her identity as an adult after being removed from her Cherokee family through a challenge to the Indian Child Welfare Act; and Hannah, Steph and Kayla’s mother, who has held up her family’s tribal history as a beacon of inspiration to her children, all the while keeping her own past a secret.

In Steph’s certainty that only her ambition can save her, she will stretch her bonds with each of these women to the point of breaking, at once betraying their love and generosity, and forcing them to reconsider their own deepest desires in her shadow. Told through an intricately woven tapestry of narrative, To the Moon and Back is an astounding and expansive novel of mothers and daughters, love and sacrifice, alienation and heartbreak, terror and wonder. At its core, it is the story of the extraordinary lengths to which one woman will go to find space for herself.]]> 448 Eliana Ramage 1668065851 Frances 0 fantasy-sf, lgbt, tbr 3.39 2025
author: Eliana Ramage
name: Frances
average rating: 3.39
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: fantasy-sf, lgbt, tbr
review:

]]> 58673892 Family matters aren’t just hocus-pocus for this young witch!

Cartoonist Sas Milledge makes her astonishing debut in her first original graphic novel that answers the question of how we all reconcile our responsibilities with our dreams for our own future. Orla O’Reilly, the youngest in a long line of hedge witches, is compelled to return home after the death of her grandmother, Mamo. In the wake of her Mamo’s passing, seas are impossible to fish, crops have soured, even Jo Manalo’s attic is taken over by a poltergeist! And to make matters worse it appears that the cause is Mamo, or her mislaid bones that is. Can Orla shoulder the responsibility of quieting her Mamo’s spirit, saving her hometown, and will she have to step up as the new witch of Haresden like Mamo always wanted? Collects Mamo #1-5.]]> 224 Sas Milledge 1684158176 Frances 0 4.35 2022
author: Sas Milledge
name: Frances
average rating: 4.35
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: graphic-novel, tbr, fantasy-sf, lgbt, under-300
review:

]]> 60710448
A blend of warmth, deadpan humour, and pitch-perfect observations about the human condition, Everyone in This Room Will Someday Be Dead is a crackling exploration of what it takes to stay afloat in a world where your expiration – and the expiration of those you love – is the only certainty.]]> 258 Emily R. Austin Frances 4 lgbt, under-300, recs 4.03 2021
author: Emily R. Austin
name: Frances
average rating: 4.03
book published: 2021
rating: 4
read at: 2024/02/21
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: lgbt, under-300, recs
review:

]]> 223218724 In Help Wanted, Adelle Waldman brings her unparalleled wit and knack for social observation to the world of work.

At a big-box store in a small town in upstate New York, the members of Team Movement clock in every morning at 3:55. Under the eye of a self-absorbed and barely competent boss, they empty the day’s truck of merchandise, stock the shelves, and scatter before customers arrive. When a golden opportunity for a promotion presents itself, the diverse members of Movement―among them a comedy-obsessed oddball who acts half his age, a young woman clinging to her “cool kid” status from high school, a college football hopeful trying to find a new path―band together and set a just-so-crazy-it-might-work plot into motion. A darkly comic workplace caper that explores the aches and uses of solidarity, Help Wanted is a deeply human portrait of people trying, against increasingly long odds, to make a living.]]> 288 Adelle Waldman 1805221663 Frances 0 physical-tbr, tbr, under-300 3.46 2024
author: Adelle Waldman
name: Frances
average rating: 3.46
book published: 2024
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: physical-tbr, tbr, under-300
review:

]]> 48656848
Ash Persaud is about to become a reaper in the afterlife, but she is determined to see her first love Poppy Morgan again, the only thing that separates them is death.

Car headlights.

The last thing Ash hears is the snap of breaking glass as the windscreen hits her and breaks into a million pieces like stars.

But she made it, she's still here. Or is she?

This New Year's Eve, Ash gets an RSVP from the afterlife she can't decline: to join a clan of fierce girl reapers who take the souls of the city's dead to await their fate.

But Ash can't forget her first love, Poppy, and she will do anything to see her again... even if it means they only get a few more days together. Dead or alive...


NOT EVEN DEATH CAN TEAR THEM APART.]]> 389 Tanya Byrne 1444955950 Frances 0 3.95 2021
author: Tanya Byrne
name: Frances
average rating: 3.95
book published: 2021
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/12
shelves: lgbt, physical-tbr, romance, tbr
review:

]]> 231127223
Dominic Salt and his three children are caretakers of Shearwater, a tiny island not far from Antarctica. Home to the world’s largest seed bank, Shearwater was once full of researchers, but with sea levels rising, the Salts are now its final inhabitants. Until, during the worst storm the island has ever seen, a woman mysteriously washes ashore.

Isolation has taken its toll on the Salts, but as they nurse the woman, Rowan, back to strength, it begins to feel like she might just be what they need. Rowan, long accustomed to protecting herself, starts imagining a future where she could belong to someone again.

But Rowan isn’t telling the whole truth about why she set out for Shearwater. And when she discovers sabotaged radios and a freshly dug grave, she realizes Dominic is keeping his own secrets. As the storms on Shearwater gather force, they all must decide if they can trust each other enough to protect the precious seeds in their care before it’s too late—and if they can finally put the tragedies of the past behind them to create something new, together.

A novel of breathtaking twists, dizzying beauty, and ferocious love, Wild Dark Shore is about the impossible choices we make to protect the people we love, even as the world around us disappears.]]> 320 Charlotte McConaghy 1250828015 Frances 0 tbr, mystery-thriller 3.92 2025
author: Charlotte McConaghy
name: Frances
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2025
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/11
shelves: tbr, mystery-thriller
review:

]]> 235992452 A searing investigation into the child influencer industry and the perils of childhood internet fame, Like, Follow, Subscribe is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the costs of internet fame, and the ethics of online content.

What is it like to grow up with a camera in your face 24/7? To have your childhood moments sold as “content” to millions online? What happens when someone who works in a largely unregulated multi-billion-dollar industry sells away their childhood and has no financial safety net as an adult? What does it feel like to have your private moments—your medical diagnoses, your first period, your first break up, your tantrums, potty-training, and breastfeeding-weaning—broadcast to an audience of millions? Like, Follow, Subscribe shines a spotlight on the deeply troubling world of the child influencer industry.

Journalist Fortesa Latifi dives into the lives of children whose parents mine their everyday activities for monetizable content, exposing issues like privacy violations, financial abuse, and the absence of child labor protections. Through expert interviews with psychologists, labor scientists, and even former child influencers and family vloggers, she uncovers the pressures, trauma, and consequences for children thrust into the spotlight.

This timely and eye-opening book doesn’t just reveal the harm of toxic social media it also provides a roadmap to better regulating influencer families, safeguarding children, and questioning the role of audiences in perpetuating these cycles of exploitation.]]> 288 Fortesa Latifi 1668080508 Frances 0 non-fiction, tbr 3.86 2026
author: Fortesa Latifi
name: Frances
average rating: 3.86
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/11
shelves: non-fiction, tbr
review:

]]> 60460704
Adelaide Henry carries an enormous steamer trunk with her wherever she goes. It’s locked at all times. Because when the trunk opens, people around Adelaide start to disappear.

The year is 1915, and Adelaide is in trouble. Her secret sin killed her parents, forcing her to flee California in a hellfire rush and make her way to Montana as a homesteader. Dragging the trunk with her at every stop, she will become one of the “lone women” taking advantage of the government’s offer of free land for those who can tame it—except that Adelaide isn’t alone. And the secret she’s tried so desperately to lock away might be the only thing that will help her survive the harsh territory.

Crafted by a modern master of magical suspense, Lone Women blends shimmering prose, an unforgettable cast of adventurers who find horror and sisterhood in a brutal landscape, and a portrait of early-twentieth-century America like you’ve never seen. And at its heart is the gripping story of a woman desperate to bury her past—or redeem it.]]> 275 Victor LaValle 052551208X Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.66 2023
author: Victor LaValle
name: Frances
average rating: 3.66
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/04/08
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 244947580 Grey’s Anatomy meets A Deadly Education in this dark academia fantasy from USA Today bestselling author Freya Marske.

At the Academie of the Grand Duchy of Sieuxerr, every mage with the healer’s gift has five years to master their power and to prepare for the infamous Grand Exam—a five-day trial whose results will determine their entire future.

The list of exam rules includes:
• You will perform five practical cases.
• Your exam group is chosen at random.
• You pass together, or fail together.

It does not include:
• On the first day, your exam group will find a classmate's dead body in the exam hall.

And as they will soon discover, this particular group all have something to hide... and all have a connection with the dead girl, a brilliant scholar who would have been first in their class.

Five scholars. Five secrets. Five days in which to solve a murder, pass the most important exam of their lives, and uncover a secret larger than all of their own combined. One with the potential to change the world.

Are you ready?

Let’s begin.]]> 464 Freya Marske 1250341655 Frances 0 4.05 2026
author: Freya Marske
name: Frances
average rating: 4.05
book published: 2026
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/02
shelves: fantasy-sf, tbr, upcoming-releases
review:

]]> 37794149
Now, Mahit must discover who is behind the murder, rescue herself, and save her Station from Teixcalaan's unceasing expansion—all while navigating an alien culture that is all too seductive, engaging in intrigues of her own, and hiding a deadly technological secret—one that might spell the end of her Station and her way of life—or rescue it from annihilation.

A fascinating space opera debut novel, Arkady Martine's A Memory Called Empire is an interstellar mystery adventure.]]> 448 Arkady Martine 1529001587 Frances 0 fantasy-sf, tbr 4.07 2019
author: Arkady Martine
name: Frances
average rating: 4.07
book published: 2019
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/04/02
shelves: fantasy-sf, tbr
review:

]]> 209304420 An exquisitely moving story about grief, love, and family, from the global phenomenon Sally Rooney.

Aside from the fact that they are brothers, Peter and Ivan Koubek seem to have little in common.

Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke.

Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret, an older woman emerging from her own turbulent past, and their lives become rapidly and intensely intertwined.

For two grieving brothers and the people they love, this is a new interlude—a period of desire, despair, and possibility; a chance to find out how much one life might hold inside itself without breaking.]]> 342 Sally Rooney 0571365493 Frances 4 recs 3.87 2024
author: Sally Rooney
name: Frances
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2024
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/27
date added: 2026/03/27
shelves: recs
review:

]]> 54626223 From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa—the “Waldorf of Harlem”—and volunteers Ray’s services as the fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.]]> 318 Colson Whitehead 0385545134 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.67 2021
author: Colson Whitehead
name: Frances
average rating: 3.67
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/25
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 59603348 Oh my god, they were roommates . . . Young Royals meets To All The Boys I've Loved Before in this heartwarming and hilarious queer exes-to-lovers boarding school romance about two roommates, one secret and a lot of love letters.

When Charlie transfers from high school to Valentine Academy for Boys, love is the last thing on his mind. His plan is to survive the school year with perfect grades and no one discovering he's trans. Especially his new roommate Jasper - Sexiest Poet of the Year and the only boy to break Charlie's heart.

Miraculously, his ex-summer-camp romance doesn't recognise him, and the two boys make a deal: Jasper will request a new room if Charlie helps him deliver secret love letters between the boys at Valentine and the girls at its sister academy.

But as Jasper tutors him in the art of romance, will Charlie be able to keep himself from falling in love again?]]> 320 Page Powars 1444968378 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.76 2025
author: Page Powars
name: Frances
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/25
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 589979 421 Raymond E. Feist 055327211X Frances 0 fantasy-sf, tbr 4.28 1987
author: Raymond E. Feist
name: Frances
average rating: 4.28
book published: 1987
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/25
shelves: fantasy-sf, tbr
review:

]]> 48722416 He doesn't believe in happy endings.
She's lost her faith that they exist.
But could they find one together?

January is a hopeless romantic who likes narrating her life as if she's the heroine in a blockbuster movie.
Augustus is a serious literary type who thinks true love is a fairy-tale.
January and Augustus are not going to get on.

But they actually have more in common than you'd think:

They're both broke.
They've got crippling writer's block.
They need to write bestsellers before the end of the summer.

The result? A bet to see who can get their book published first.
The catch? They have to swap genres.
The risk? In telling each other's stories, their worlds might be changed entirely...]]> 361 Emily Henry 0241989523 Frances 4 recs, romance 3.89 2020
author: Emily Henry
name: Frances
average rating: 3.89
book published: 2020
rating: 4
read at: 2026/03/16
date added: 2026/03/16
shelves: recs, romance
review:

]]> 214151728 With unprecedented access and unsparing analysis, this is the definitive investigation into Spotify, weaving interviews with incisive cultural criticism, and illuminating how streaming has reshaped music for listeners and artists alike.

Flush with testimony from over a hundred industry insiders, former Spotify employees, and musicians, Mood Machine takes us into the inner workings of the highly consolidated modern music business and how it has become personalized, playlisted, autoplayed, and algorithmic.

With an expert’s eye, music journalist Liz Pelly reveals how Spotify’s two-sided marketplace—the listeners who pay with their dollars and data, and the musicians who provide the material powering it all—has changed music media forever. She also explores how musicians and listeners are coming together to fight this era of musical individualism and advocate for artists’ futures.

Amazon Unbound and Weapons of Math Destruction for the music industry, Mood Machine is a timely and unputdownable exploration of a company that has become synonymous with music.]]> 288 Liz Pelly 1668083507 Frances 2 non-fiction, under-300 3.83 2025
author: Liz Pelly
name: Frances
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at: 2026/03/10
date added: 2026/03/10
shelves: non-fiction, under-300
review:

]]> 228533448 From Elle Sprinkle, author of bestselling lesbian romance "Puppy Love", comes "Like a Power Play", a sapphic college hockey rom-com about a team captain who butts heads with her new student coach, until she begins to fall for her.

The student coach. The team captain. They’re skating on thin ice— until one of them falls.

Peyton Clarke has everything to prove. As the starting center for Greenrock University’s women’s hockey team, she’s determined to earn her place—no handouts, no shortcuts. Being the daughter of a retired NHL star, Peyton is desperate to show she’s more than just a product of her father’s fame. But when her relentless drive starts to blur the line between dedication and recklessness, she risks everything, including her future.

Darcy Cole never thought she'd return to hockey. Once a rising star at Michigan State, her dreams were shattered when rheumatoid arthritis forced her to quit the sport she loved. Now, thanks to her meddling head coach mother, she’s stuck as a student assistant coach, a role she never asked for. Darcy has sworn off the ice, keeping her past as a player a secret. But when Peyton Clarke’s reckless playing style clashes with her cautious approach, something sparks— and it’s not just chemistry.

To Darcy, Peyton is a reminder of everything she had to give up. To Peyton, Darcy is just the coach’s daughter who has no business telling her how to play. But Darcy is no stranger to the ice—and when their worlds collide, they both start to realize that maybe they have more in common than they think—both on and off the ice.]]> 494 Elle Sprinkle Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.13 2025
author: Elle Sprinkle
name: Frances
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 215816450 In this high-stakes heist novel, an alchemologist and a con man team up to steal a rare necklace—but complicated feelings of attraction and deception threaten to destroy everything and everyone they love—for fans of Alexandra Bracken and Judy I. Lin.

Within the dazzling halls of London’s Crystal Palace, the event of the season has The Great Exhibition. An opportunity for the greatest minds of the century to come together under one roof in an unprecedented display of art and invention. And for two unlikely partners in crime, it’s about to become the score of a lifetime.

Charming con man Kane Durante works alone—or on occasion with his best friend, Fletcher. But when his boss, the infamous Kingpin of London’s magical dark market, gives him the impossible task of stealing a priceless artifact from the Great Exhibition, he knows it’s a job he can’t pull off alone. Enter Zaria Mendoza, daughter of one of London’s greatest alchemologists. Ever since her father’s death, Zaria’s been struggling to keep her underground business afloat, and impatient clients are becoming violent. When the infuriatingly handsome Kane offers her the promise of enough money to get out of debt and leave London entirely, she knows she can’t walk away from this dangerous partnership.

But robbing one of the most public, heavily-guarded buildings in London isn’t going to be easy, especially when love and betrayal threaten to ruin everything they've worked so hard for.]]> 390 M.K. Lobb 031657550X Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.57 2025
author: M.K. Lobb
name: Frances
average rating: 3.57
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 217432802 An undeniably fierce, unforgettably funny, unapologetically queer feminist romp through the England of medieval legend. Bestselling and acclaimed authors Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner bring readers along on an epic quest for valor, freedom, and, above all, love. A Knight’s Tale meets the Lady Jane series, with a dash of The Great!

Gwen is sick of hiding—hiding the fact that she’s taken over her father’s blacksmithing duties, hiding her attraction to girls, hiding her yearning for glory as a knight.

Meanwhile, Lady Isobelle of Avington, queen bee of the castle, has never once considered hiding who she is—until now. She’s been chosen as the grand prize in the Tournament of Dragonslayers, to be given to whichever knight can claim her hand. And for the first time in her life, she can’t talk her way out of trouble.

When Isobelle discovers Gwen’s knightly ambitions, they hatch a scheme together—Gwen will joust in the tournament, disguised as Sir Gawain. Winning means freedom for Isobelle, and glory for Gwen. Losing means… well, let’s not go there.

One thing’s for sure: falling in love was never the plan.

But the best laid plans…are often trampled all over by dragons.]]> 432 Amie Kaufman 0062893394 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.84 2025
author: Amie Kaufman
name: Frances
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 56783258 When everything is lost, it’s our stories that survive.

How do we weather the end of things? Cloud Cuckoo Land brings together an unforgettable cast of dreamers and outsiders from past, present and future to offer a vision of survival against all odds.

Constantinople, 1453:
An orphaned seamstress and a cursed boy with a love for animals risk everything on opposite sides of a city wall to protect the people they love.

Idaho, 2020:
An impoverished, idealistic kid seeks revenge on a world that’s crumbling around him. Can he go through with it when a gentle old man stands between him and his plans?

Unknown, Sometime in the Future:
With her tiny community in peril, Konstance is the last hope for the human race. To find a way forward, she must look to the oldest stories of all for guidance.

Bound together by a single ancient text, these tales interweave to form a tapestry of solace and resilience and a celebration of storytelling itself. Like its predecessor All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr’s new novel is a tale of hope and of profound human connection.]]> 626 Anthony Doerr 1982168439 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.23 2021
author: Anthony Doerr
name: Frances
average rating: 4.23
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 74861997
Not every Regency lady is looking for a husband…

As the daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, impulsive Lila Marleigh has already broken the rules of society into tiny pieces.

When a face she never thought she would see again appears and begs for help, Lila must court notoriety once more and pit her wits against the annoyingly handsome aristocrat, Ivor Tristram. But does she risk opening her heart to the one person who can break it…?]]> 384 Amita Murray 0008598029 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.23 2023
author: Amita Murray
name: Frances
average rating: 3.23
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 54493401
Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it.

All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company.

His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species.

And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone.

Or does he?]]> 476 Andy Weir 0593135202 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.50 2021
author: Andy Weir
name: Frances
average rating: 4.50
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 212174157 She might win the throne. She might destroy an empire. Either way, it begins with murder.

After twenty-four years on the throne, it is time for Bersun the Brusque, emperor of Orrun, to bring his reign to an end. In the dizzying heat of mid-summer, seven contenders will compete to replace him.

Trained at rival monasteries, each contender is inspired by a sacred animal - Fox, Raven, Tiger, Ox, Bear, Monkey, and Hound. An eighth - the Dragon proxy - will be revealed only once the trials have begun. Eight exceptional warriors, thinkers, strategists - the best of the best.

Then one of them is murdered.

It falls to the brilliant but idiosyncratic Neema Kraa to investigate. But as she hunts for a killer, darker forces are gathering.

If Neema succeeds, she could win the throne - whether she wants it or not. But if she fails, she will sentence herself to death - and set in motion a sequence of events that could doom the empire . . .]]> 667 Antonia Hodgson 152933988X Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.36 2025
author: Antonia Hodgson
name: Frances
average rating: 4.36
book published: 2025
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 65214306
Elizabeth “Bitsy” Dockering (age 19), third daughter of a viscount, is enjoying her second Season in London. She is a Diamond of the Season and is adored by all—and especially by her precious black poodle, Galahad. To everyone else, however, Galahad is a demon dog. So much so that Peter Cordray, one of Bitsy’s most insistent beaux and a particular victim of Galahad’s bad manners and sharp teeth, has hired a petty thief (Jimmy Bly) to steal the dog, clearing the way for his suit.

When the two dogs and their “people” meet in the park, chaos ensues and unknowingly results in a dog swap. Which means Lancelot is kidnapped instead of Galahad! But when both dogs go missing in an ever thickening dognapping plot, Michael and Elizabeth end up coming together to scour London, recover Lancelot and Galahad all while falling in love.]]> 320 Suzanne Enoch 1250842549 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.79 2023
author: Suzanne Enoch
name: Frances
average rating: 3.79
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 196406400 Ted Lasso meets Bridgerton for a 19th century spin on The Hangover in USA Today bestselling author Jenny Holiday’s laugh-out-loud bromantic comedy featuring three Regency-era Earls on their annual trip – ride-or-die buddies offering one another unconditional support in everything from Lady problems to family woes. Even an earl needs his ride-or-dies, and Archibald Fielding-Burton, the Earl of Harcourt, counts himself lucky to have two. The annual trip that Archie takes with his BFFs Simon and Effie holds a sacred spot in their calendars. This year Archie is especially eager to get away until an urgent letter arrives from an old family friend, begging him to help prevent a ruinous scandal. Suddenly the trip has become earls-plus-girls, as Archie’s childhood pals, Clementine and Olive Morgan, are rescued en route to Gretna Green. This…complicates matters. The fully grown Clementine, while as frank and refreshing as he remembers, is also different to the wild, windswept girl he knew. This Clem is complex and surprising—and adamantly opposed to marriage. Which, for reasons Archie dare not examine too closely, he finds increasingly vexing. Then Clem makes him an indecent and quite delightful proposal, asking him to show her the pleasures of the marriage bed before she settles into spinsterhood. And what kind of gentleman would he be to refuse a lady?]]> 337 Jenny Holiday 1496745086 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.84 2024
author: Jenny Holiday
name: Frances
average rating: 3.84
book published: 2024
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 19161852
Three terrible things happen in a single day. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze -- the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization's bedrock for a thousand years -- collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman's vengeance. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Or centuries.

Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. She'll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter.]]> 468 N.K. Jemisin Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.27 2015
author: N.K. Jemisin
name: Frances
average rating: 4.27
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 57911600 Prepare to die. His kingdom is near.

Sixteen-year-old trans boy Benji is on the run from the cult that raised him—the fundamentalist sect that unleashed Armageddon and decimated the world’s population. Desperately, he searches for a place where the cult can’t get their hands on him, or more importantly, on the bioweapon they infected him with.

But when cornered by monsters born from the destruction, Benji is rescued by a group of teens from the local Acheson LGBTQ+ Center, affectionately known as the ALC. The ALC’s leader, Nick, is gorgeous, autistic, and a deadly shot, and he knows Benji’s darkest secret: the cult’s bioweapon is mutating him into a monster deadly enough to wipe humanity from the earth once and for all.

Still, Nick offers Benji shelter among his ragtag group of queer teens, as long as Benji can control the monster and use its power to defend the ALC. Eager to belong, Benji accepts Nick’s terms…until he discovers the ALC’s mysterious leader has a hidden agenda, and more than a few secrets of his own.

A furious, queer debut novel about embracing the monster within and unleashing its power against your oppressors.]]> 398 Andrew Joseph White 1682633241 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.08 2022
author: Andrew Joseph White
name: Frances
average rating: 4.08
book published: 2022
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 61431922
"Suspenseful, sexy, and with incredibly entertaining storytelling, the first in Yarros' Empyrean series will delight fans of romantic, adventure-filled fantasy." ―Booklist, starred review

"Fourth Wing will have your heart pounding from beginning to end... A fantasy like you've never read before." ―#1 New York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout


Enter the brutal and elite world of a war college for dragon riders from #1 New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Yarros

Twenty-year-old Violet Sorrengail was supposed to enter the Scribe Quadrant, living a quiet life among books and history. Now, the commanding general―also known as her tough-as-talons mother―has ordered Violet to join the hundreds of candidates striving to become the elite of Navarre: dragon riders.

But when you’re smaller than everyone else and your body is brittle, death is only a heartbeat away...because dragons don’t bond to “fragile” humans. They incinerate them.

With fewer dragons willing to bond than cadets, most would kill Violet to better their own chances of success. The rest would kill her just for being her mother’s daughter―like Xaden Riorson, the most powerful and ruthless wingleader in the Riders Quadrant.

She’ll need every edge her wits can give her just to see the next sunrise.

Yet, with every day that passes, the war outside grows more deadly, the kingdom's protective wards are failing, and the death toll continues to rise. Even worse, Violet begins to suspect leadership is hiding a terrible secret.

Friends, enemies, lovers. Everyone at Basgiath War College has an agenda―because once you enter, there are only two ways out: graduate or die.

The Empyrean series is best enjoyed in order.
Reading Order:
Book #1 Fourth Wing
Book #2 Iron Flame
Book #3 Onyx Storm]]> 517 Rebecca Yarros 1649374046 Frances 1 did-not-finish 4.54 2023
author: Rebecca Yarros
name: Frances
average rating: 4.54
book published: 2023
rating: 1
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 61885031
She’s got his back.
Hannah Brooks looks more like a kindergarten teacher than somebody who could kill you with a wine bottle opener. Or a ballpoint pen. Or a dinner napkin. But the truth is, she’s an Executive Protection Agent (aka "bodyguard"), and she just got hired to protect superstar actor Jack Stapleton from his middle-aged, corgi-breeding stalker.

He’s got her heart.
Jack Stapleton’s a household name—captured by paparazzi on beaches the world over, famous for, among other things, rising out of the waves in all manner of clingy board shorts and glistening like a Roman deity. But a few years back, in the wake of a family tragedy, he dropped from the public eye and went off the grid.

They’ve got a secret.
When Jack’s mom gets sick, he goes home to the family’s Texas ranch to help out. Only one catch: He doesn’t want his family to know about his stalker. Or the bodyguard thing. And so Hannah—against her will and her better judgment—finds herself pretending to be Jack’s girlfriend as a cover. Even though her ex, says no one will believe it.

What could possibly go wrong?
Hannah hardly believes it, herself. But the more time she spends with Jack, the more real it all starts to seem. And there lies the heartbreak. Because it’s easy for Hannah to protect Jack. But protecting her own, long-neglected heart? That’s the hardest thing she’s ever done.

“Great rollicking fun! Prepare to laugh and swoon and grin your pants off.”—Helen Hoang, New York Times bestselling author of The Heart Principle

"Absolutely, unequivocally delightful!"—Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here]]> 336 Katherine Center 1250219418 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.01 2022
author: Katherine Center
name: Frances
average rating: 4.01
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 60784546 After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again…

All eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow wants to do is hold her family together. With a brother on the frontline forced to fight on behalf of the Gods now missing from the frontline and a mother drowning her sorrows, Iris’s best bet is winning the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

But when Iris’s letters to her brother fall into the wrong hands – that of the handsome but cold Roman Kitt, her rival at the paper – an unlikely magical connection forms.

Expelled into the middle of a mystical war, magical typewriters in tow, can their bond withstand the fight for the fate of mankind and, most importantly, love?

An epic enemies-to-lovers fantasy novel filled with hope and heartbreak, and the unparalleled power of love.]]> 368 Rebecca Ross 1250857430 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.12 2023
author: Rebecca Ross
name: Frances
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2023
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 65070000   1. Stay, mope, regret it forever.
2. Go, try to reconcile with Dad, become his sidekick again.
3. Go, but make it his adventure, and Dad will be the sidekick.
The object of his father’s latest quest, the Rings of the Sacred Band of Thebes, is too enticing to say no to. Finding artifacts related to the troop of ancient Greek soldiers, composed of one-hundred-and-fifty gay couples, means navigating ruins, deciphering ancient mysteries, and maybe meeting a cute boy.

But will his dad let Tennessee do the right thing with the rings if they find them? And what is the right thing? Who does queer history belong to?

Against the backdrop of a sunlit Greek landscape, author L. C. Rosen masterfully weaves together adventure, romance, and magic in a celebration of the power of claiming your queer legacy.]]> 304 Lev A.C. Rosen 1454948051 Frances 2 arcs, did-not-finish 3.90 2023
author: Lev A.C. Rosen
name: Frances
average rating: 3.90
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: arcs, did-not-finish
review:

]]> 127823335 A swoon-worthy debut queer Victorian romance in which two debutantes distract themselves from having to seek husbands by setting up their widowed parents, and instead find their perfect match in each other—the lesbian Bridgerton/Parent Trap you never knew you needed!

Gwen has a brilliant beyond brilliant idea.

It’s 1857, and anxious debutante Beth has just one season to snag a wealthy husband, or she and her mother will be out on the street. But playing the blushing ingenue makes Beth’s skin crawl and she’d rather be anywhere but here.

Gwen, on the other hand, is on her fourth season and counting, with absolutely no intention of finding a husband, possibly ever. She figures she has plenty of security as the only daughter of a rakish earl, from whom she’s gotten all her flair, fun, and less-than-proper party games.

“Let’s get them together,” she says.

It doesn’t take long for Gwen to hatch her latest scheme: rather than surrender Beth to courtship, they should set up Gwen’s father and Beth’s newly widowed mother. Let them get married instead.

“It’ll be easy” she says.

There’s just…one, teeny, tiny problem. Their parents kind of seem to hate each other.

But no worries. Beth and Gwen are more than up to the challenge of a little twenty-year-old heartbreak. How hard can parent-trapping widowed ex-lovers be?

Of course, just as their plan begins to unfold, a handsome, wealthy viscount starts calling on Beth, offering up the perfect, secure marriage.

Beth’s not mature enough for this…

Now Gwen must face the prospect of sharing Beth with someone else, forever. And Beth must reckon with the fact that she’s caught feelings, hard, and they’re definitely not for her potential fiancé.

That’s the trouble with matchmaking: sometimes you accidentally fall in love with your best friend in the process.]]> 368 Emma R. Alban 006331200X Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.74 2024
author: Emma R. Alban
name: Frances
average rating: 3.74
book published: 2024
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 61027622 319 Alexis Hall 1542035287 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.92 2023
author: Alexis Hall
name: Frances
average rating: 3.92
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 61856503 557 Iain Maclean Frances 0 did-not-finish, arcs 5.00 2022
author: Iain Maclean
name: Frances
average rating: 5.00
book published: 2022
rating: 0
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish, arcs
review:

]]> 61933929 Nominated for the 2024 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature!

Enter the bazaar of the bizarre where fate and fortunes are for sale in this high-stakes magical adventure across a London not quite like our own, perfect for fans of Neverwhere and The Night Circus.

Below Covent Garden lies the Untermarkt, where anything and everything has a price: a lover’s first blush, a month of honesty, a wisp of fortune. As a child, Deri was sold to one of the Market’s most powerful merchants. Now, after years of watchful servitude, Deri finally spots a chance to buy not only his freedom but also his place amongst the Market’s elite when he stumbles into the path of a runaway princess desperate to sell her royal destiny.

But news of the missing princess and her wayward destiny spreads. Royal enforcers and Master Merchants alike are after it. Outmanoeuvring them all would all be hard enough had Deri not just also met the love of his life, a young man called Owain, whose employers are using the Market for their own nefarious schemes.

Deri soon finds that the price of selling the royal destiny, making a name for himself, and saving the man he loves is dear. The cost of it all might just change the destiny of London forever.]]> 424 Trip Galey 1803363681 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.83 2023
author: Trip Galey
name: Frances
average rating: 3.83
book published: 2023
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 45483470
After an accident involving her Dad and sister, Violet joins Elm Hollow Academy, a private girls school in a quiet coastal town, which has an unpleasant history as the site of famous 17th century witch trials. Violet quickly finds herself invited to become the fourth member of an advanced study group, alongside Robin, Grace, and Alex - led by their charismatic art teacher, Annabel.

While Annabel claims her classes aren’t related to ancient rites and rituals - warning the girls off the topic, describing it as little more than mythology - the girls start to believe that magic is real, and that they can harness it. But when the body of a former member of the society - Robin’s best friend, with whom Violet shares an uncanny resemblance - is found dead on campus nine months after she disappeared, Violet begins to wonder whether she can trust her friends, teachers, or even herself.]]> 384 Katie Lowe 0008289018 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.06 2019
author: Katie Lowe
name: Frances
average rating: 3.06
book published: 2019
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 56969561 A literary historical novel detailing the horrors faced by institutionalized women in 19th century Paris—was a film with Amazon Studios

The Salpetriere Asylum: Paris, 1885. Dr. Charcot holds all of Paris in thrall with his displays of hypnotism on women who have been deemed mad and cast out from society. But the truth is much more complicated—these women are often simply inconvenient, unwanted wives, those who have lost something precious, wayward daughters, or girls born from adulterous relationships. For Parisian society, the highlight of the year is the Lenten ball—the Madwomen’s Ball—when the great and good come to gawk at the patients of the Salpetriere dressed up in their finery for one night only. For the women themselves, it is a rare moment of hope.

Genevieve is a senior nurse. After the childhood death of her sister Blandine, she shunned religion and placed her faith in both the celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Charcot and science. But everything begins to change when she meets Eugenie—the 19-year-old daughter of a bourgeois family that has locked her away in the asylum. Because Eugenie has a secret: she sees spirits. Inspired by the scandalous, banned work that all of Paris is talking about, The Book of Spirits, Eugenie is determined to escape from the asylum—and the bonds of her gender—and seek out those who will believe in her. And for that she will need Genevieve's help . . .]]> 224 Victoria Mas 1419757598 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.69 2019
author: Victoria Mas
name: Frances
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 55004093 What is the purpose of a map?

Nell Young’s whole life and greatest passion is cartography. Her father, Dr. Daniel Young, is a legend in the field and Nell’s personal hero. But she hasn’t seen or spoken to him ever since he cruelly fired her and destroyed her reputation after an argument over an old, cheap gas station highway map.

But when Dr. Young is found dead in his office at the New York Public Library, with the very same seemingly worthless map hidden in his desk, Nell can’t resist investigating. To her surprise, she soon discovers that the map is incredibly valuable and exceedingly rare. In fact, she may now have the only copy left in existence... because a mysterious collector has been hunting down and destroying every last one—along with anyone who gets in the way.

But why?

To answer that question, Nell embarks on a dangerous journey to reveal a dark family secret and discovers the true power that lies in maps...

From the critically acclaimed author of The Book of M, a highly imaginative thriller about a young woman who discovers that a strange map in her deceased father’s belongings holds an incredible, deadly secret—one that will lead her on an extraordinary adventure and to the truth about her family’s dark history.]]> 392 Peng Shepherd 0062910698 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.61 2022
author: Peng Shepherd
name: Frances
average rating: 3.61
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 62194939 Welcome to The Sunbearer Trials, where teen semidioses compete in a series of challenges with the highest of stakes, in this electric new Mexican-inspired fantasy from Aiden Thomas, the New York Times bestselling author of Cemetery Boys.

“Only the most powerful and honorable semidioses get chosen. I’m just a Jade. I’m not a real hero.”

As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the evil Obsidian gods at bay. Ten semidioses between the ages of thirteen and eighteen are selected by Sol himself as the most worthy to compete in The Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all―they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body used to fuel the Sun Stones that will protect the people of Reino del Sol for the next ten years.

Teo, a 17-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of Quetzal, goddess of birds, has never worried about the Trials…or rather, he’s only worried for others. His best friend Niya―daughter of Tierra, the god of earth―is one of the strongest heroes of their generation and is much too likely to be chosen this year. He also can’t help but worry (reluctantly, and under protest) for Aurelio, a powerful Gold semidiós and Teo’s friend-turned-rival who is a shoo-in for the Trials. Teo wouldn’t mind taking Aurelio down a notch or two, but a one-in-ten chance of death is a bit too close for Teo’s taste.

But then, for the first time in over a century, Sol chooses a semidiós who isn’t a Gold. In fact, he chooses two: Xio, the 13-year-old child of Mala Suerte, god of bad luck, and…Teo. Now they must compete in five mysterious trials, against opponents who are both more powerful and better trained, for fame, glory, and their own survival.]]> 416 Aiden Thomas 1035008610 Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.33 2022
author: Aiden Thomas
name: Frances
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2022
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 33532 Dracula is a unique horror masterpiece and the most famous of all vampire tales.

Few readers will ever forget the nightmare atmosphere of Count Dracula's sinister castle in Transylvania, the prowlings of the Un-dead, the blood-curdling tension as Bram Stoker's tale races towards a thrilling climax.

Dracula recounts the struggle of a group of men and a woman - Dr Seward, Dr Van Helsing and Jonathan Harker and his wife Mina - to destroy the vampire, whose sinister earth-filled coffins are discovered by Harker in a ruined chapel adjoining Dr Seward's asylum. Cruel and noble, evilly and fatally desirable to women, Dracula possesses a terrifying lust for power and, like Dr Jekyll or Conan Doyle's Moriarty, is one of the immortal fictional monsters.]]> 449 Bram Stoker 014062063X Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.87 1897
author: Bram Stoker
name: Frances
average rating: 3.87
book published: 1897
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 43884209
• Enjoy a drunken night out.
• Ride a motorcycle.
• Go camping.
• Have meaningless but thoroughly enjoyable sex.
• Travel the world with nothing but hand luggage.
• And... do something bad.

But it’s not easy being bad, even when you’ve written step-by-step guidelines on how to do it correctly. What Chloe needs is a teacher, and she knows just the man for the job.

Redford ‘Red’ Morgan is a handyman with tattoos, a motorcycle, and more sex appeal than ten-thousand Hollywood heartthrobs. He’s also an artist who paints at night and hides his work in the light of day, which Chloe knows because she spies on him occasionally. Just the teeniest, tiniest bit.

But when she enlists Red in her mission to rebel, she learns things about him that no spy session could teach her. Like why he clearly resents Chloe’s wealthy background. And why he never shows his art to anyone. And what really lies beneath his rough exterior…]]> 373 Talia Hibbert 0062941208 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.77 2019
author: Talia Hibbert
name: Frances
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2019
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 56969452 A hilarious and vulnerable coming-of-age story about the thrilling new experiences––and missteps––of a girl's freshman year of college

Some students enter their freshman year of college knowing exactly what they want to do with their lives. Elliot McHugh is not one of those people. But picking a major is the last thing on Elliot’s mind when she’s too busy experiencing all that college has to offer—from dancing all night at off-campus parties, to testing her RA Rose’s patience, to making new friends, to having the best sex one can have on a twin-sized dorm room bed. But she may not be ready for the fallout when reality hits. When the sex she’s having isn’t that great. When finals creep up and smack her right in the face. Or when her roommate’s boyfriend turns out to be the biggest a-hole. Elliot may make epic mistakes, but if she’s honest with herself (and with you, dear reader), she may just find the person she wants to be. And maybe even fall in love in the process . . . Well, maybe. ]]> 352 Margot Wood 1419748130 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.87 2021
author: Margot Wood
name: Frances
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2021
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:
Never thought an Emma retelling would do me like this… dnf’d at 67%
]]> 56628963
"What this charming, moving and fascinating collection proves is that the [letter] form itself - a scribbled note, a declaration of love, an outpouring of passion, a bitter word - has always been with us." - Mark Gatiss

A good love letter can speak across centuries, and reassure us that the agony and the ecstasy one might feel today have been shared by lovers long gone. In  The Love That Dares , queer love speaks its name through a wonderful selection of surviving letters between lovers and friends, confidants and companions.

Alongside the more famous names coexist beautifully written letters by lesser-known lovers. Together, they weave a narrative of queer love through the centuries, through the romantic, often funny, and always poignant words of those who lived it.

Including letters written
John Cage
Audre Lorde
Benjamin Britten
Lorraine Hansberry
Walt Whitman
Vita Sackville-West
Radclyffe Hall
Allen Ginsberg]]> 288 Rachel Smith 178157829X Frances 0 did-not-finish, arcs 4.11 2022
author: Rachel Smith
name: Frances
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2022
rating: 0
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish, arcs
review:

]]> 24485148
Gunslinging, chain smoking, Stetson-wearing Taoist psychopomp, Elouise “Lou” Merriwether might not be a normal 19-year-old, but she’s too busy keeping San Francisco safe from ghosts, shades, and geung si to care much about that. It’s an important job, though most folks consider it downright spooky. Some have even accused Lou of being more comfortable with the dead than the living, and, well… they’re not wrong.

When Lou hears that a bunch of Chinatown boys have gone missing somewhere deep in the Colorado Rockies she decides to saddle up and head into the wilderness to investigate. Lou fears her particular talents make her better suited to help placate their spirits than ensure they get home alive, but it’s the right thing to do, and she’s the only one willing to do it.

On the road to a mysterious sanatorium known as Fountain of Youth, Lou will encounter bears, desperate men, a very undead villain, and even stranger challenges. Lou will need every one of her talents and a whole lot of luck to make it home alive…

From British Fantasy Award nominee Molly Tanzer comes debut novel Vermilion, a spirited weird Western adventure that puts the punk back into steampunk.]]> 376 Molly Tanzer 1939905087 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.55 2015
author: Molly Tanzer
name: Frances
average rating: 3.55
book published: 2015
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
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]]> 32606889
Danielle shows up in time to witness the spirit—a blood-red, three-antlered deer—begin to turn on its summoners. Danielle and her new friends have to act fast if they’re going to save the town—or get out alive.]]> 130 Margaret Killjoy Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.59 2017
author: Margaret Killjoy
name: Frances
average rating: 3.59
book published: 2017
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 34323570 The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.

When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.

One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable--until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.

As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world--and of each other.]]> 497 Claire Legrand 1492656623 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.76 2018
author: Claire Legrand
name: Frances
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2018
rating: 2
read at:
date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 56921877 Time's Best YA books of all time, gives Titanic an Ocean’s 8 makeover in a heist for a treasure aboard the infamous ship that sank in the Atlantic many years ago.

A thief. An artist. A acrobat. An actress. While Josefa, Emilie, Hinnah, and Violet seemingly don’t have anything in common, they’re united in one goal: stealing the Rubaiyat, a jewel-encrusted book aboard the RMS Titanic that just might be the golden ticket to solving their problems.

But careless mistakes, old grudges, and new romance threaten to jeopardize everything they’ve worked for and put them in incredible danger when tragedy strikes. While the odds of pulling off the heist are slim, the odds of survival are even slimmer . . .

Perfect for fans of Stalking Jack the Ripper and Girl in the Blue Coat, this high-seas heist from the author of The Henna Wars is an immersive story that makes readers forget one important detail— the ship sinks.]]> 367 Adiba Jaigirdar 0062916378 Frances 2 did-not-finish 3.41 2022
author: Adiba Jaigirdar
name: Frances
average rating: 3.41
book published: 2022
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

]]> 17332939 A reclusive scholar. A private detective. And a book of spells that could destroy the world.

Love is dangerous. Ever since the tragic death of the friend he adored, Percival Endicott Whyborne has ruthlessly suppressed any desire for another man. Instead, he spends his days studying dead languages at the museum where he works. So when handsome ex-Pinkerton Griffin Flaherty approaches him to translate a mysterious book, Whyborne wants to finish the job and get rid of the detective as quickly as possible.

Griffin left the Pinkertons after the death of his partner. Now in business for himself, he must investigate the murder of a wealthy young man. His only clue: an encrypted book that once belonged to the victim.

As the investigation draws them closer, Griffin’s rakish charm threatens to shatter Whyborne’s iron control. But when they uncover evidence of a powerful cult determined to rule the world, Whyborne must choose: to remain safely alone, or to risk everything for the man he loves.


Widdershins is the first novel in the Whyborne & Griffin series, where magic, mystery, and m/m romance collide with Victorian era America. Buy it today and join the adventure.]]> 226 Jordan L. Hawk Frances 2 did-not-finish 4.13 2012
author: Jordan L. Hawk
name: Frances
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2012
rating: 2
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date added: 2026/03/09
shelves: did-not-finish
review:

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