Haul:
I haven't done a book haul in quite some time. To be exact, I've only done one. It's way past time to do one. I had a bunch of books that I wasn't going to read and didn't know what to do with them. My Sister-In-Law introduced me to a local bookstore that instead of buying used books they offer a trade program. I originally ended up being offered credits for five free books, but then they decided to give me six. What's even better about this store is that every book in there is $2 and it goes to help promote literacy. Most of these are outside of my comfort-zone, but I'm really excited about them. So without further ado, here's the haul!
Goodreads Summary: S. J. Watson makes his powerful debut with this compelling, fast-paced psychological thriller, reminiscent of Shutter Island and Memento, in which an amnesiac who, following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and who she can trust.
Goodreads rating: 3.84 stars with over 123,000 ratings
Genre: Fiction, Mystery, Thriller, Book Club, Suspense, Contemporary, Crime, Adult Fiction
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm pretty excited to read this book. I picked it up because the cover looked really interesting. The red band kind of grabbed my attention right away. The blurb on the book is very short, but it grabs my attention. It leaves me to ask what would it be like if I kept losing my memories. When I was checking out the cashier told me she had read it and it was really good. So that already leaves me with good vibes. On Goodreads, it is listed as having been nominated for several awards, which makes me feel pretty good about it.
Goodreads Summary: Marissa Fordham had a past full of secrets, a present full of lies. Everyone knew of her, but no one knew her.
When Marissa is found brutally murdered, with her young daughter, Haley, resting her head on her mother's bloody breast, she sends the idyllic California town of Oak Knoll into a tailspin. Already on edge with the upcoming trial of the See- No-Evil killer, residents are shocked by reports of the crime scene, which might not have been discovered for days had it not been for a chilling 911 call: a small child's voice saying, "My daddy hurt my mommy."
Sheriff's detective Tony Mendez faces a puzzle with nothing but pieces that won't fit. To assist with his witness, Haley, he calls teacher-turned-child advocate Anne Leone. Anne's life is hectic enough she's a newlywed and a part- time student in child psychology, and she's the star witness in the See-No-Evil trial. But one look at Haley, alone and terrified, and Anne's heart is stolen.
As Tony and Anne begin to peel back the layers of Marissa Fordham's life, they find a clue fragment here, another there. And just when it seems Marissa has taken her secrets to the grave, they uncover a fact that puts Anne and Haley directly in the sights of a killer: Marissa Fordham never existed.
Goodreads Rating: 4:07 with over 12,000 reviews
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime, Thriller, Fiction, Romantic Suspense, Adult, Contemporary
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm going to be combining my thoughts for this one and two books that my sister-in-law bought in a little bit. It'll all make sense as to why I promise.
Goodreads Summary: California, 1985-Four children and young teacher Anne Navarre make a gruesome discovery: a partially buried female body, her eyes, and mouth glued shut. A serial killer is at large, and the very bonds that hold their idyllic town together are about to be tested. Tasked with finding the killer, FBI investigator Vince Leone employs a new and controversial FBI technique called "profiling", which plunges him into the lives of the four children and the young teacher whose need to uncover the truth is as intense as his own. But as new victims are found, Vince and Anne find themselves circling the same small group of local suspects, blissfully unaware that someone very near to them is a murderous psychopath...
Goodreads Rating: 4.00 stars with over 12,000 ratings
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Fiction, Crime, Romantic Suspense, Adult
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Goodreads Summary: Once upon a time I had the perfect family. I had the perfect husband. I had the perfect children. I had the perfect life in the perfect home. And then, as in all fairy tales, evil came into our lives and destroyed us.
Four years after the unsolved disappearance of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lauren Lawton is the only one still chasing the ghosts of her perfect Santa Barbara life. The world has given her daughter up for dead. Her husband ended his own life in the aftermath. Even Lauren's younger daughter is desperate to find what's left of the childhood she hasn't been allowed to have.
Lauren knows exactly who took her oldest child, but there is not a shred of evidence against the man. Even as he stalks her family, Lauren is powerless to stop him. The Santa Barbara police are handcuffed by the very laws they are sworn to uphold. Looking for a fresh start in a town with no memories, Lauren and her younger daughter, Leah, move to idyllic Oak Knoll. But when Lauren's suspect turns up in the same city, it feels to all the world that history is about to repeat itself. Leah Lawton will soon turn sixteen, and Oak Knoll has a cunning predator on the hunt.
Sheriff's detective Tony Mendez and his team begin to close in on the suspected killer, desperate to keep the young women of their picturesque town safe. But as the investigators sift through the murky circumstances of an increasingly disturbing case, a stunning question changes everything they thought they knew. In Down, the Darkest Road, #1 New York Times bestseller Tami Hoag proves again why she is one of the world's most beloved storytellers.
Goodreads Rating: 4.00 with over 7,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Fiction, Crime, Adult, Romantic Suspense, Adult
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: Okay! I finally get to explain my thoughts and why I'm including two books that my sister-in-law bought. Stay with me, this involves a story. We were looking around the bookstore, and she came across a shelf dedicated to Tami Hoag. The S-I-L had just got done telling me about Tami Hoag's books and found one that sounded interesting. She wasn't going to get it, but it sounded interesting to me so I got it. That book was Secrets to the Grave.
I started to get the information on it for this book haul and found out it was the second book in the series. I, of course, was disappointed. I'm of the persuasion that it should be mandatory for the series number to be printed somewhere on the book. The S-I-L informed me that she got some more of Hoag's books, and asked what the first was. I tell her that it's Deeper than the Dead. She starts freaking out because she bought it. She didn't realize it was a series and thought the cover was nice. So then I tell her there's a third book, and she swears she didn't get it. She asks what the third book was and I tell her it's Down the Darkest Road. We start freaking out and talking about how hilarious and crazy that is. What's even weirder is they had a different cover for Secrets to the Grave. I almost got that one instead, but at the last minute opted for the cover shown above. Which is great, because now it matches the two she bought. Anyways, we've sort of assumed joint custody over these books. She's going to start reading Deeper than the Dead. Once she's finished I'll start it. I was intrigued by Secrets to the Grave, but now I'm so psyched to read it. The whole series sounds interesting, but now that it has this funny story (at least to me) I'm REALLY excited to read it. I may see if the S-I-L wants to post her thoughts as well.
Goodreads Summary: #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag brings back her fan-favorite Minneapolis investigators Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska in the haunting new thriller The 9th Girl.
"Kovac had seen more dead bodies than he could count: Men, women, children; victims of shootings, stabbings, strangulations, beatings; fresh corpses and bodies that had been left for days in the trunks of cars in the dead of summer. But he had never seen anything quite like this . . . "
On a frigid New Year's Eve in Minneapolis, a young woman's brutalized body falls from the trunk of a car into the path of oncoming traffic. Questions as to whether she was alive or dead when she hit the icy pavement result in her macabre nickname, Zombie Doe. Unidentified and unidentifiable, she is the ninth nameless female victim of the year, and homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are charged with the task of not only finding out who Zombie Doe is, but who in her life hated her enough to destroy her. Was it personal, or could it just have been a crime of opportunity? Their greatest fear is that not only is she their ninth Jane Doe of the year but that she may be the ninth victim of a vicious transient serial killer they have come to call Doc Holiday.
Crisscrossing America's heartland, Doc Holiday chooses his victims at random, snatching them in one city and leaving them in another, always on a holiday. If Zombie Doe is one of his, he has brought his gruesome game to a new and more terrifying level. But as Kovac and Liska begin to uncover the truth, they will find that the monsters in their ninth girl's life may have lived closer to home. And even as another young woman disappears, they have to ask the question: which is the greater evil--the devil you know or the devil you don't?
Goodreads Rating: 3.98 with over 5,600 ratings
Genre Listing: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Fiction, Detective, Contemporary, Adult
Get the book: Amazon Kindle, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm not going to lie, I grabbed this because the words Zombie Doe stuck out to me. I probably should have looked more into it, because I had no idea this was the fourth book in the series. I'm hoping that I'll be able to kind of jump into it, but I'm having my doubts. If anyone is familiar with this series, please let me know if these need to be read in order or not. I'd greatly appreciate it. The frustration with series grows.
Goodreads Summary: From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Last Summer (of You and Me)comes to an imaginative, inspired, magical book-a love story that lasts more than a lifetime.
Daniel has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Sophia (despite her changing name and form) have been drawn together-and he remembers it all. Daniel has "the memory", the ability to recall past lives and recognize souls of those he's previously known. It is a gift and a curse. For all the times that he and Sophia have been drawn together throughout history, they have also been torn painfully, fatally, apart. A love always too short.
Interwoven through Sophia and Daniel's unfolding present day relationship are glimpses of their expansive history together. From 552 Asia Minor to 1918 England and 1972 Virginia, the two souls share a long and sometimes torturous path of seeking each other time and time again. But just when young Sophia (now "Lucy" in the present) finally begins to awaken to the secret of their shared past, to understand the true reason for the strength of their attraction, the mysterious force that has always torn them apart reappears. Ultimately, they must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are ever to spend a lifetime together.
A magical, suspenseful, heartbreaking story of true love, My Name is Memory proves the power and endurance of a union that was meant to be.
Goodreads Rating: 3.70 with over 20,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Chick Lit, Paranormal, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Time Travel
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm highly amused by the shiny cover. It's so pretty. I've picked this book up several times in bookstores since it came out. I have no idea why, but I always put it back down. When I saw it on the shelves I knew it was time to finally acquire it. I'm hoping it was worth the several-year-long wait. I haven't really heard anything good or bad about it. Definitely intrigued.
Goodreads Summary: In the tradition of 'The Orchid Thief', a compelling narrative set within the strange and genteel world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him.
Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.
Genre: Mystery, Suspense, Crime, Thriller, Fiction, Romantic Suspense, Adult, Contemporary
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm going to be combining my thoughts for this one and two books that my sister-in-law bought in a little bit. It'll all make sense as to why I promise.
Goodreads Summary: California, 1985-Four children and young teacher Anne Navarre make a gruesome discovery: a partially buried female body, her eyes, and mouth glued shut. A serial killer is at large, and the very bonds that hold their idyllic town together are about to be tested. Tasked with finding the killer, FBI investigator Vince Leone employs a new and controversial FBI technique called "profiling", which plunges him into the lives of the four children and the young teacher whose need to uncover the truth is as intense as his own. But as new victims are found, Vince and Anne find themselves circling the same small group of local suspects, blissfully unaware that someone very near to them is a murderous psychopath...
Goodreads Rating: 4.00 stars with over 12,000 ratings
Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Fiction, Crime, Romantic Suspense, Adult
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Goodreads Summary: Once upon a time I had the perfect family. I had the perfect husband. I had the perfect children. I had the perfect life in the perfect home. And then, as in all fairy tales, evil came into our lives and destroyed us.
Four years after the unsolved disappearance of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lauren Lawton is the only one still chasing the ghosts of her perfect Santa Barbara life. The world has given her daughter up for dead. Her husband ended his own life in the aftermath. Even Lauren's younger daughter is desperate to find what's left of the childhood she hasn't been allowed to have.
Lauren knows exactly who took her oldest child, but there is not a shred of evidence against the man. Even as he stalks her family, Lauren is powerless to stop him. The Santa Barbara police are handcuffed by the very laws they are sworn to uphold. Looking for a fresh start in a town with no memories, Lauren and her younger daughter, Leah, move to idyllic Oak Knoll. But when Lauren's suspect turns up in the same city, it feels to all the world that history is about to repeat itself. Leah Lawton will soon turn sixteen, and Oak Knoll has a cunning predator on the hunt.
Sheriff's detective Tony Mendez and his team begin to close in on the suspected killer, desperate to keep the young women of their picturesque town safe. But as the investigators sift through the murky circumstances of an increasingly disturbing case, a stunning question changes everything they thought they knew. In Down, the Darkest Road, #1 New York Times bestseller Tami Hoag proves again why she is one of the world's most beloved storytellers.
Goodreads Rating: 4.00 with over 7,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Mystery, Suspense, Thriller, Fiction, Crime, Adult, Romantic Suspense, Adult
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: Okay! I finally get to explain my thoughts and why I'm including two books that my sister-in-law bought. Stay with me, this involves a story. We were looking around the bookstore, and she came across a shelf dedicated to Tami Hoag. The S-I-L had just got done telling me about Tami Hoag's books and found one that sounded interesting. She wasn't going to get it, but it sounded interesting to me so I got it. That book was Secrets to the Grave.
I started to get the information on it for this book haul and found out it was the second book in the series. I, of course, was disappointed. I'm of the persuasion that it should be mandatory for the series number to be printed somewhere on the book. The S-I-L informed me that she got some more of Hoag's books, and asked what the first was. I tell her that it's Deeper than the Dead. She starts freaking out because she bought it. She didn't realize it was a series and thought the cover was nice. So then I tell her there's a third book, and she swears she didn't get it. She asks what the third book was and I tell her it's Down the Darkest Road. We start freaking out and talking about how hilarious and crazy that is. What's even weirder is they had a different cover for Secrets to the Grave. I almost got that one instead, but at the last minute opted for the cover shown above. Which is great, because now it matches the two she bought. Anyways, we've sort of assumed joint custody over these books. She's going to start reading Deeper than the Dead. Once she's finished I'll start it. I was intrigued by Secrets to the Grave, but now I'm so psyched to read it. The whole series sounds interesting, but now that it has this funny story (at least to me) I'm REALLY excited to read it. I may see if the S-I-L wants to post her thoughts as well.
Goodreads Summary: #1 New York Times bestselling author Tami Hoag brings back her fan-favorite Minneapolis investigators Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska in the haunting new thriller The 9th Girl.
"Kovac had seen more dead bodies than he could count: Men, women, children; victims of shootings, stabbings, strangulations, beatings; fresh corpses and bodies that had been left for days in the trunks of cars in the dead of summer. But he had never seen anything quite like this . . . "
On a frigid New Year's Eve in Minneapolis, a young woman's brutalized body falls from the trunk of a car into the path of oncoming traffic. Questions as to whether she was alive or dead when she hit the icy pavement result in her macabre nickname, Zombie Doe. Unidentified and unidentifiable, she is the ninth nameless female victim of the year, and homicide detectives Sam Kovac and Nikki Liska are charged with the task of not only finding out who Zombie Doe is, but who in her life hated her enough to destroy her. Was it personal, or could it just have been a crime of opportunity? Their greatest fear is that not only is she their ninth Jane Doe of the year but that she may be the ninth victim of a vicious transient serial killer they have come to call Doc Holiday.
Crisscrossing America's heartland, Doc Holiday chooses his victims at random, snatching them in one city and leaving them in another, always on a holiday. If Zombie Doe is one of his, he has brought his gruesome game to a new and more terrifying level. But as Kovac and Liska begin to uncover the truth, they will find that the monsters in their ninth girl's life may have lived closer to home. And even as another young woman disappears, they have to ask the question: which is the greater evil--the devil you know or the devil you don't?
Goodreads Rating: 3.98 with over 5,600 ratings
Genre Listing: Mystery, Thriller, Suspense, Crime, Fiction, Detective, Contemporary, Adult
Get the book: Amazon Kindle, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm not going to lie, I grabbed this because the words Zombie Doe stuck out to me. I probably should have looked more into it, because I had no idea this was the fourth book in the series. I'm hoping that I'll be able to kind of jump into it, but I'm having my doubts. If anyone is familiar with this series, please let me know if these need to be read in order or not. I'd greatly appreciate it. The frustration with series grows.
Goodreads Summary: From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Last Summer (of You and Me)comes to an imaginative, inspired, magical book-a love story that lasts more than a lifetime.
Daniel has spent centuries falling in love with the same girl. Life after life, crossing continents and dynasties, he and Sophia (despite her changing name and form) have been drawn together-and he remembers it all. Daniel has "the memory", the ability to recall past lives and recognize souls of those he's previously known. It is a gift and a curse. For all the times that he and Sophia have been drawn together throughout history, they have also been torn painfully, fatally, apart. A love always too short.
Interwoven through Sophia and Daniel's unfolding present day relationship are glimpses of their expansive history together. From 552 Asia Minor to 1918 England and 1972 Virginia, the two souls share a long and sometimes torturous path of seeking each other time and time again. But just when young Sophia (now "Lucy" in the present) finally begins to awaken to the secret of their shared past, to understand the true reason for the strength of their attraction, the mysterious force that has always torn them apart reappears. Ultimately, they must come to understand what stands in the way of their love if they are ever to spend a lifetime together.
A magical, suspenseful, heartbreaking story of true love, My Name is Memory proves the power and endurance of a union that was meant to be.
Goodreads Rating: 3.70 with over 20,000 ratings
Genre Listing: Fiction, Fantasy, Young Adult, Chick Lit, Paranormal, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Time Travel
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I'm highly amused by the shiny cover. It's so pretty. I've picked this book up several times in bookstores since it came out. I have no idea why, but I always put it back down. When I saw it on the shelves I knew it was time to finally acquire it. I'm hoping it was worth the several-year-long wait. I haven't really heard anything good or bad about it. Definitely intrigued.
Goodreads Summary: In the tradition of 'The Orchid Thief', a compelling narrative set within the strange and genteel world of rare-book collecting: the true story of an infamous book thief, his victims, and the man determined to catch him.
Rare-book theft is even more widespread than fine-art theft. Most thieves, of course, steal for profit. John Charles Gilkey steals purely for the love of books. In an attempt to understand him better, journalist Allison Hoover Bartlett plunged herself into the world of book lust and discovered just how dangerous it can be.
Gilkey is an obsessed, unrepentant book thief who has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of rare books from book fairs, stores, and libraries around the country. Ken Sanders is the self-appointed "bibliodick" (book dealer with a penchant for detective work) driven to catch him.
Bartlett befriended both outlandish characters and found herself caught in the middle of efforts to recover hidden treasure. With a mixture of suspense, insight, and humor, she has woven this entertaining cat-and-mouse chase into a narrative that not only reveals exactly how Gilkey pulled off his dirtiest crimes, where he stashed the loot, and how Sanders ultimately caught him but also explores the romance of books, the lure to collect them, and the temptation to steal them.
Immersing the reader in a rich, wide world of literary obsession, Bartlett looks at the history of book passion, collection, and theft through the ages, to examine the craving that makes some people willing to stop at nothing to possess the books they love.
Goodreads Rating: 3.35 stars with over 5,000 ratings
Get the Book: Amazon, Book Depository
Initial Thoughts: I picked this book up at random. The cover made me think of Sherlock Holmes standing in a library. I think it's going to be an interesting read. I like the idea of reading a book centered around books. That probably doesn't make sense, but the idea of catching a book thief just grabs my attention.
Goodreads Summary: In the heart of the bayou, Ruby Landry lives a simple, happy life. But innocence can't last forever...
The only family Ruby Landry has ever known are her loving guardian, Grandmère Catherine, a Cajun spiritual healer, and her drunken, outcast Grandpèrb Jack. Although thinking about her dead mother and mysterious father sometimes makes her feel as mournful as the wind sighing through the Spanish moss, Ruby is grateful for all she has. Her life is filled with hope and promise...especially when her attraction for handsome Paul Tate blossoms into a mysterious, wonderful love. But Paul's wealthy parents forbid him to associate with a poor Landry, and Grandmère urges her to follow her dream of becoming a great painter, foreseeing a time when Ruby will be surrounded with riches in the dazzling city of New Orleans! Yet she cannot know how close that uncertain future looms....
In a faded photograph, Ruby glimpses for the first time the image of her father -- and learns of a shameful deception and a shocking scheme of blackmail that now must come to light. Stunned by these revelations, she is devastated when Grandmère dies, leaving her to seek out her father in his vast New Orleans mansion. There, in a house of lies, madness, and cruel torment, Ruby clings to her memories of Paul to keep her heart alive. For only their love can save her now....
Goodreads Rating: 3.88 stars with 8,900 ratings
Genre Listing: Fiction, Young Adult, Romance, Horror, Mystery, Chick Lit, Gothic, Drama, Contemporary, Adult
Get the book:
AmazonInitial Thoughts: This is an absolute nostalgia pick for me. I've never read this particular V.C. Andrews book but V.C. is probably what started my bookwormness. I use to go to the library all of the time. I don't really remember what I'd read, but when I was about twelve or thirteen my mom convinced me to read V.C. Andrew's books. I binged on them for a few years, and then once I entered High School didn't really read as much. The store had a bunch of these books, so I picked on at random that I hadn't read yet. I'm pretty excited and hoping this lives up to my memories of reading these books late into the night.
You've got some great books!
ReplyDeleteI'm really curious about My name is memory by Ann Brashares, I hope you will like it :)
I just became a follower on bloglovin.
Have a great day,
Myra @ I'm Loving Books
Thank you for the comment! I'm hoping My Name is Memory will be good. That will probably be one of the first ones I pick up out of this stack. Thank you for the follow! I've followed you as well. :)
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