2025 Reading Challenge

2025 Reading Challenge
Jill Elizabeth has read 164 books toward her goal of 365 books.
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Book Review AND Excerpt: Cover Girl by Amy Rossi

About the Book

Find them early enough, and they will always be her girls.

Birdie Rhodes was only thirteen when legendary modeling agent Harriet Goldman discovered her in a department store and transformed her into one of Harriet’s Girls. What followed felt like the start of something incredible, a chance for shy Birdie to express herself in front of the camera. But two years later, she meets a thirty-one-year-old rock star, and her teenage heart falls hard as he leads her into a new life, despite Harriet’s warnings. Then, as abruptly as it began, it’s over, like a lipstick-smeared fever dream. Birdie tries hard to forget that time—starting over in Paris, in the dying embers of the LA punk scene, in Boston at the height of the AIDS crisis. She’s not that person anymore. At least, that’s what she’s been telling herself. Continue reading Book Review AND Excerpt: Cover Girl by Amy Rossi

Excerpt: Reports of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated by James Goodhand

About the Book

Due to a case of mistaken identity, everyone believes Ray Thorns to be dead — while he is still very much alive. In the aftermath, he’s forced to reflect on the impact he’s had on the world and those closest to him in this heartbreakingly beautiful look at life and what we would all do if given a second chance, for fans of Dead Poets Society and It’s a Wonderful Life and readers of Fredrick Backman. Continue reading Excerpt: Reports of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated by James Goodhand

Excerpt: Grave Birds by Dana Elmendorf

About the Book

Grave birds haunt the cemeteries of Hawthorne, South Carolina, where Spanish moss drips from the trees and Southern charm hides ugly lies. Hollis Sutherland never knew these unique birds existed, not until she died and was brought back to life. The ghostly birds are manifestations of the dead’s unfinished business, and they know Hollis and her uncanny gift can set them free. Continue reading Excerpt: Grave Birds by Dana Elmendorf

Excerpt: Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Allison Brennan

About the Book

For fans of BAD SUMMER PEOPLE, FINLAY DONOVAN IS KILLING IT, and THE WHITE LOTUS, this sun-dappled mystery from New York Times bestselling author Allison Brennan features a risk-averse bibliophile who gets in over her head when strange notes in a book draw her into a real-life investigation.

Mia Crawford is responsible to a fault. She has to be. Between her high-demand job and taking care of her grandmother and her cats, she has little time for anything else. What time she does have, she pours into reading. Mysteries, romances, thrillers…books filled with women who are far more impulsive than she would ever dream of being. Now, forced into taking a long-overdue vacation, she finds herself on a luxurious private island where she just might have a chance to reinvent herself—for a little while, anyway. She can explore the island. Flirt shamelessly with a cute bartender. Have a vacation fling. Live like a heroine in one of her favorite novels. Continue reading Excerpt: Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds by Allison Brennan

Excerpt: A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais

About the Book

Interspersed with riddles and puzzles that both Destiny and the reader must solve, A Most Puzzling Murder is a one-of-a-kind mystery that will leave you guessing and gasping until the very last page!

Destiny Whip is a former child prodigy, world-renowned enigmatologist and very, very alone. A life filled with loss has made her a recluse, an existence she’s content to endure until a letter arrives inviting her to interview for the position of Scruffmore family historian. Not only does an internet search for the name yield almost nothing, it’s a role she never applied to in the first place!

She decodes the invitation’s hidden message with ease, and its promise to reveal her family secrets proves too powerful a draw for the orphaned Destiny, who soon finds herself on Eerie Island. It’s a place whose inhabitants are almost as inhospitable as the tempestuous weather. The Scruffmores themselves turn out to be not much better, a snarled mess of secrets and motives connected by their mistrust for one another.

Their newly arrived guest proves to be just as much an enigma to them as they are to her. While Destiny slowly works to unravel the mysteries hidden throughout the ominous castle, she struggles to interpret disturbing nightly visions of what is to come. In the midst of cryptic ciphers, hidden passages, and the family’s magical line of succession, Destiny is certain of two things: one of the Scruffmores is going to die and she’s running out of time to stop it. Continue reading Excerpt: A Most Puzzling Murder by Bianca Marais