Hello, beautiful friends and happy February! I am so excited to be back on the blog today and sharing a new fun series: monthly book catch-ups. ICYMI, I started keeping a virtual library here on the blog about two years ago and truly love being able to share all my quick reviews there with ratings and category organization – it’s the best! I rounded off January with 5 books finished (and several more started) to kick start my 48 book reading goal of 2024. Let’s jump in!
The Other Half *Content Warning: SA*
Thriller | Type: Audiobook
Description: You know how they live. This is how they die…
Rupert’s 30th birthday party is a black-tie dinner at the Kentish Town McDonald’s—catered with cocaine and expensive champagne. The morning after, his girlfriend Clemmie is found murdered on Hampstead Heath, a single stiletto heel jutting from under a bush.
Who killed Clemmie? Was it the blithe, sociopathic boyfriend? His impossibly wealthy godmother? The gallery owner with whom Clemmie was having an affair? Or was it the result of something else entirely?
All the party-goers have alibis. Naturally. This investigation is going to be about aristocrats and Classics degrees, Instagram influencers and whose father knows who.
Or is it ‘whom’? Detective Caius Beauchamp isn’t sure. He’s sharply dressed, smart, and thoroughly modern—he discovers Clemmie’s body on his early morning jog. As he searches for the dark truth beneath the luxurious life of these London socialites, a wall of staggering wealth and privilege threatens to shut down his investigation before it’s even begun. Can Caius peer through the tangled mess of connections in which the other half live—and die—before the case is wrenched from his hands? Bitingly funny, full of shocking twists, and all too familiar.
Review: Overall, very twisty with quite a few characters but a real mystery that kept me guessing the whole time! I love posh #richpeopleproblem thrillers SO much and this was no exception. With a little bit of royal adjacent 1%ers and a lavish estate to match, this was truly an indulgent thriller. There is an on-screen content warning that happens about 2/3 or 3/4 through the book so I would skip this book or that section (there are brief mentions later) if that type of content is sensitive to you.
Nerd Crush
YA Romance| Type: Audiobook
Description: 
The Ramona Lambert is a typical shy, artistic sixteen-year-old. She has a best friend whom she’s known since they were in diapers; parents who love her; a love for cosplay; and a crush on the cute boy in her class.
The only problem? Her best friend moved away; her parents don’t quite understand her love of cosplay; and she is pretty sure her crush has no idea she exists.
To escape her troubles, Ramona turns to cosplay and her original character, Rel, who gives her the confidence and freedom that she lacks in real life. Embracing this confidence, she decides to strike up an email conversation with her crush, Caleb Woolf, from her cosplay account in the hopes getting to know him . . . and maybe win his heart. Then as Caleb and Ramona are swept up in their emails back and forth to each other, and Ramona falls even harder as he opens up about his hopes, insecurities, and his own geeky loves.
However, as Caleb starts to grow closer and closer to Rel, he also strikes up a friendship with Ramona, who knows she can’t keep the truth about Rel from Caleb but isn’t sure she is ready to risk losing him. With an important cosplay convention coming up and the anxiety of her double-life weighing on her, Ramona has to decide if she’ll hide behind her cosplay character forever or take the chance and let Caleb see the real her–because he might actually like her for who she is.
Review: Y’all, this young adult romcom was seriously so fun! I love reading books about first crushes and young love because it’s so pure and light and fun and intense and inspiring all at once. I am not too familiar with some of the interests of the main characters but my recently developed love for the Big Bang Theory did help to shed some light on some of the fanfic and comic-book loving main characters. This book, as like most romcoms, has an adorable bow tie ending and I devoured it in just three days.
The Family Remains *Content Warning: SA*
Thriller | Type: Audiobook
Description: Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.
Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock–her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.
After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.
As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.
In this masterful standalone sequel to her haunting New York Times bestseller The Family Upstairs, “Lisa Jewell is a superb writer at the top of her game” (Karin Slaughter, New York Times bestselling author) with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.
Review: Okay, I have so many thoughts and honestly, most of them are not good. This is part two of a truly twisted family thriller I read a few years back. This book was not as triggering but honestly, there are triggers for almost everything. As much as I love thrillers, I do think this one, and the book before, were beyond disturbing just for the sake of being disturbing. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this book to most unless you have read the first book and feel comfortable with the content. I do believe that a lot of loose strings were tied up from book one which was nice to read this time around.
The Jessabelle House
Romcom | Type: Audiobook
Description: Can the truth bring her family back together again?
The Coleman Family of Nantucket is a piece of work. Samantha’s father, Roland, is obsessed with image and money, so much so that Sam’s career as a social worker who specializes in addiction recovery is a “stain” on the Coleman reputation.
Now, Samantha is forty-five years old and newly divorced. The further she gets from her relationship with her ex-husband, Daniel, the more she understands she married a manipulative and cruel individual, one not unlike her father. How did that happen?
When her Great-Aunt Jessabelle passes away and leaves her home to Samantha, Sam and her daughters, Darcy and Rachelle, begin refurbishment on The Jessabelle House, a glorious house not far from the town of Siasconset on Nantucket. Once there, Samantha discovers her aunt’s diaries, which reveal dramatic secrets from the past — and still more reasons not to trust the Colemans.
As Samantha dives deeper into her family’s history and Jessabelle’s stories, she finds herself learning more about what it means to be a powerful woman who knows who she is and what she wants.
More than that, she learns the present is just as complicated as the past ever was. If the Colemans are willing to open their hearts and start anew, Samantha just might have the tools to help them come back together again. But they’ll have to start talking to her, first.
The Jessabelle House is book one of The Coleman Series, a heart-wrenching yet hopeful family drama that unfolds between the glittering shores of Nantucket Island and Martha’s Vineyard.
Review: Y’all, this was one of the most fun books I’ve read in a long time. I love any family drama and absolutely adored how this story came together around a beautiful house. If you love a heartwarming book with enough family drama to make you never want to mess up again, you’ll love this book. The audiobook was only about 4 hours long and perfect to complete in a workday or on your commute. I can’t wait to read more from this author!
Such a Fun Age
Coming of Age | Type: Audiobook
Description: A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.
Alix Chamberlain is a woman who gets what she wants and has made a living, with her confidence-driven brand, showing other women how to do the same. So she is shocked when her babysitter, Emira Tucker, is confronted while watching the Chamberlains’ toddler one night, walking the aisles of their local high-end supermarket. The store’s security guard, seeing a young black woman out late with a white child, accuses Emira of kidnapping two-year-old Briar. A small crowd gathers, a bystander films everything, and Emira is furious and humiliated. Alix resolves to make things right.
But Emira herself is aimless, broke, and wary of Alix’s desire to help. At twenty-five, she is about to lose her health insurance and has no idea what to do with her life. When the video of Emira unearths someone from Alix’s past, both women find themselves on a crash course that will upend everything they think they know about themselves, and each other.
With empathy and piercing social commentary, Such a Fun Age explores the stickiness of transactional relationships, what it means to make someone family, and the complicated reality of being a grown up. It is a searing debut for our times.
Review: Coming off our January 2024 #LotsofBooksClub discussion, I had SO many thoughts on this book. First, I couldn’t decide who public enemy number one was – Alix or the boyfriend. Second, I think this book would have resonated differently if I read it pre-pandemic which is really interesting to think about how the pandemic and the many social justice issues that have been brought to light over the past few years can totally change how you think about a fictional book. Overall, I would give this book a 3.5/5 star rating. I do think it shed light onto the sometimes uncomfortable closeness of a nanny and family, postpartum, a healthy dose of #richpeopleproblems and how, often, some people view the lives of people of color as disposable or less than theirs. If you read the book back in 2019, I would love to know if your thoughts have changed after the past few years!
Whew, 1900 words later and I think I’ve rambled on enough! I ran through these January picks really quick and actually started about 7 more to prep for February book club and as evening wind down self-help/learning books. I hope to read about the same in February and pick up a few more hardcopies compared to this month full of audiobooks. If you love all my picks and want more, you can:
Check out all my book blog posts: here
Join #LotsofBooksClub, my monthly book club: here
Read along with me via Scribd: here (first two months free then $10/m)
See all my book ratings: here
Thanks so much for reading, friends! Have a lovely week -xo, Azanique <3
