January 2025 Reads
I started January 2025 with 4 books. What about you? Check them out.
The Beginning After by Kiersten Modglin: 4⭐⭐⭐⭐
The alternate title of this novel should be “SECRETS” in flashing lights. It’s not just the dead husband and the wife who had secrets. Their bestfriend(s), Son, and the Cop all had secrets too. And the housemaid. Everyone! If you’re as smart as I am *ahem* 😅 with a strong radar, you might be like hmmmm 🤔 after the 1st major bombshell. 😬
Her husband died with his secrets…Can she live with hers?Peighton Claiborne’s perfect world is built on perfectly crafted lies. When the sudden death of her husband destroys everything she worked so hard to create, Peighton finds herself struggling to cope.As the police begin digging into the mysterious death, they uncover secrets her husband had spent years trying to keep buried. The people Peighton believed she could count on, and the ones she needs more than ever, begin to turn on her, leaving Peighton to pick up the remaining pieces of her life alone.When a police officer assigned to her husband’s case, Clay Nealson, takes a special interest in her, Peighton thinks they may finally uncover the truth she so desperately seeks. Together, Peighton and Clay search for answers. In a moment of weakness, she finds herself falling for a man she barely knows. (SOURCE/GoodReads)
The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell: 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
This is the sequel to #TheFamilyUpstairs which I read last year in October. My suggestion, don’t take too long to read book 2. I waited 2.5 months. Even though it’s supposed to be a standalone novel I needed to refresh my memory. So why 5⭐️? Coz it’s a good sequel.
***TRIGGER WARNING: R/SA
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-ever 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 proves she is writing at the height of her powers with another jaw-dropping, intricate, and affecting novel about the lengths we will go to protect the ones we love and uncover the truth.(SOURCE/GoodReads)
Every Little Secret by Ruby Speechley: 4⭐⭐⭐⭐
Intriguing and Suspenseful. I would’ve given it 5stars but at some point in the story it felt dragged on and then once it reaches the end, the resolution felt suddenly abrupt. Like, Huh? 🤔 After all that? WTF?? 🤷♀️😅 Still, an overall solid novel. 👍🏻
Maddy Saunders’ life is unravelling. After the heartbreaking, unexpected death of 5-year-old daughter Chloe, she’s trying desperately to keep her family together for other daughter, Emily. But when the police inform her that husband Max is missing, the rucksack found at the bottom of a local canal leading them to believe he has taken his own life, her grief takes a new and sharper turn.
Unable to believe that Max would abandon her and Emily, Maddy desperately searches for clues as to what has happened to her husband. But as she delves deeper into his secrets, Maddy finds a web of betrayal that forces her to re-examine everything about the life they have built together. (SOURCE/GoodReads)
Wild Rose by Vanessa Garden: 5⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I don’t read a lot of Young Adult books. It really has to capture my attention right off the bat. The beautiful cover did exactly that. I’m glad I didn’t pass on it because it’s actually very good. Even though the setting was painted as dark and mysterious, I find myself wanting to live in Howard Hall. It must be my fascination with old old houses from centuries ago.
Sixteen-year-old Iris Howard’s life is torn apart in a single, catastrophic moment.
Separated from her wheelchair-bound, drug-addicted mother, and her best and only friend, a boy named Phoenix, Iris is sent to live with her estranged great-aunt at Howard Hall, where she is offered a life of both security and luxury.
But all is not as it seems at Howard Hall, home to the infamous Rose Garden Massacre in 1974.
When Iris starts to see glimpses of a boy in the attic, in the hedge maze, and in the beautiful rose gardens, she begins to question her sanity. Is he the handsome ghost of a tortured soul bound by the home’s dark past, or is he real? (SOURCE/GoodReads)
