Lily Chang

Sydney Shaw isn’t doing great with dating. Her friends, Bonnie and Gretchen don’t seem to be having any problems. In one of the dates gone wrong, a charming guy comes to her rescue. Sydney chances upon this man who helped her out of a potentially compromising situation. Not only is he charming and handsome, he’s a doctor. A young woman is brutally murdered, that is too close to home. Sydney senses that someone’s stalking her. If she doesn’t figure out the truth, she could be the murderer’s next victim. ✨ My thoughts - Initially, I found the two POVs—Tom and Sydney— too similar. But that didn’t last long. Soon the voices became more distinct and I got sucked into the dual time line story of deceit, obsession, and love. I couldn’t stop reading, until I paused at a surprising but “aha” twist. THE BOYFRIEND was a fun read.

Ivy Cooper is a fifty-two year old woman getting a divorce, raising a son (a tween?), and working as a writer, when she meets Ansel Fleming, who’s eighteen years her junior, at a party. He’s a musician who was recently released from incarceration for a nonviolent drug charge. Ansel’s beguiling handsome looks and quiet but intense attentiveness catch Ivy’s attention. Their physical chemistry consumes her, and she struggles to balance her “responsible” life with these extraordinary moments she shares with Ansel that consume her and have dramatically altered her life. ✨ My thoughts - Once I got past the long chapters (one was fifty pages) and utterances not being in quotation marks, I was swept away by how relatable and genuine Ivy is. I imagine her to be a bosom friend sharing her most intimate thoughts of what she’s experiencing. It felt strangely familiar, even though I haven’t reached her age or experienced what she was going through. She’s a flawed character who makes less-than-wise choices we all make in real life.

Olivia woke up in the trunk of a killer’s car and narrowly escaped. After that, she became a true-crime podcaster determined to protect other women from suffering a similar fate. Seven years later, Olivia is invited by her estranged sister—Quinn—to reconnect on a private cruise. Desiring a break from covering violence and crime, Olivia accepts the invitation. After embarking, Quinn isn’t the sister she remembers. After being volunteered into an exclusive path to wellness and self-improvement and someone in the yacht goes missing, Olivia realizes with nowhere to run, survival might not be an option. ✨My thoughts - This is a fast-paced, gripping thriller involving sisters with unresolved issues, a new-age cult, and nowhere to escape. I binge-read it.

My first read by Lisa Scottoline was WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BENNETTS. I noticed the book at the airport while traveling. The opening caught my attention, and I had to see it through. It was good. The other day, I was at ARC and saw SAVE ME. The synopsis drew me in. A mother, Rose McKenna, volunteers in her daughter’s elementary school cafeteria to look after her daughter, who’s being targeted and bullied by the mean girl at the new school. When the bully starts to tease Melly again, Rose jumps to protect her daughter. Only the unthinkable happens. Rose doesn’t have time to decide what to do. She must decide whether to save her child or someone else’s. ✨ My thoughts - This has Mean Girls vibe, with Mom of the bullied protecting her child but getting blamed for something she didn’t do. That seemed good and the struggle was real. Moving from Rose trying to discern the good, while protecting her daughter, seemed stalled and repetitive at times. And the transition from struggling mom to sleuthing felt sudden and surprising, though the last third of the novel was full of unpredictable, interesting twists.

Six people pile into Claire Matchett’s minivan, heading toward a luxurious hotel in a remote location. Perhaps a week away from pressures of real life demands and hiking and relaxing with friends will help repair Claire’s damaged marriage. But then Claire’s minivan breaks down and they must trek on foot, through the woods in the middle of nowhere, toward their destination. As they journey further, ill happens to some in the party. They must figure out if and how they’re being hunted. ✨My thoughts - I love that the vacationing group is heading to Colorado, the state where I live! This locked room mystery is pretty fast paced and does a good job of capturing nuances of a flawed character in a marriage that has seen better days.

Fourteen-year-old Richard Elauved’s parents died tragically in a house fire. He’s been sent to live with his aunt and uncle in the remote town of Ballantyne. A classmate, Tom, goes missing. No one believes him when he claims that a phone booth by the edge of the woods sucked Tom into the receiver. Rather, everyone suspects Richard is responsible for Tom’s disappearance. Soon, voices whisper that the girls be loves is going to burn and there’s nothing he can do about it…. ✨ My thoughts - People refuse to believe a kid who is trying to get help and warn others about horrific danger done and urgent, impending danger to come because of his history of causing trouble kept my attention. This is a fast-paced young adult horror. The twists at the end seemed a bit jolted and confusing. Overall, it was a good read.

Pained with ongoing assaults on Black life, in 2020, Tracy K. Smith uses lyricism—diving through the historical archive, her family’s background, and present affairs—to examine who we are as a nation and what we can hope for with one another. ✨ My thoughts - Tracy K. Smith’s writing, especially in the middle section, felt like a good friend speaking beautifully and eloquently while sharing vulnerable and personal but deeply reflective thoughts on life. At first glance, I was a bit intimidated by the book being categorized as social science. And by a distinguished poet. But her writing is accessible and personable. I highly recommend reading Tracy K. Smith’s writing, because she is part of our community, our family, as it were. If we are people united as Americans, we should make an effort truly to listen and understand one another.

As an infant, Kari Ferrell was adopted by a Mormon couple. Struggling with her identity and finding her place in life, Kari fell in with a group wherein she wrote counterfeit checks and shoplifted, earning her a place on Utah’s Most Wanted list. Kari fled to New York City but she continued to sink deeper into committing crimes, picking up men and then scamming them. Earning her the nickname of Hipster Grifter. She made headlines and her past caught up with her. That is, however, only part of her story. While incarcerated, she learned to love and respect her cell mates. And she became an advocate and activist. ✨ My thoughts - Unbridled and unapologetically honest, yet hilarious and insightful are her words. Kari Ferrell has a mouth on her. Don’t like it? Too bad. This isn’t about you and making you comfortable. She’s being true to herself and she’s boldly stepping out and genuinely sharing who she is. She’s had destructive after destructive life-altering experiences and she has come out on the winning end.

Whitney Golden has spent years building her brand as a social media influencer. A widow of four beautiful children (two of whom are twins), a gorgeous house, a picture perfect life. A million Instagram followers. Only her teenage daughter, Mia, has had enough of her life being put on display for all to see. Not only does she refuse to take part moving forward, she wants to be removed from her mom’s online brand. When her mom, Whitney, refuses, Mia does the unthinkable. She sues her mom. Her daughter fights for her right to privacy and right not to be used for monetary gain. Mia and Whitney must each decide what they are each willing to risk as well as what they are fighting for. ✨ My thoughts - This story spoke to me. Being a single parent of four small children (two of whom are twins) under the age of five was tough. The struggle was real. For a time, I kept a blog, albeit a private one, talking about real life and its struggles. As a social media influencer—a bookstagrammer—I haven’t made a career out of being an influencer and I’ve kept my posts mostly about books and some about me. However, given all that’s happening in the public view, I was curious where this story might go. I binge-read this debut novel in a day. It’s a fast-moving, engaging read.

Mary Trump’s father, Freddy Trump, was the eldest son of a wealthy and influential real state developer, and mother, Linda Clapp, was a flight attendant from a working-class family. Mary Trump grew up under the suffocating oppression of Freddy’s father, Fred Trump. Freddy was supposed to be his father’s namesake and inheritor of the family’s real estate empire. But Freddy didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps or use harsh and cold means to run the business. The cold, cruel Trump family destroyed their own, leaving Mary, from a young, vulnerable age, inadequately cared for and largely ignored. ✨ My thoughts - I don’t know how Mary survived the circumstances—grandfather’s destructive and ultimately lethal contempt, father’s continued decline into alcoholism and related complications, mother’s depression, and intense struggles with asthma. Mary didn’t just survive the tsunami family dynamics, she became and is a kind, empathetic, bright, and wise warrior lady.