Here’s a quick take on 5 books I’ve read lately, in case you are on the fence about any of them! Most of these are mystery or romance genre. I made it one of my goals for 2023 to read more, whether by audiobook or actual book, and so far I’ve been keeping up with it!

1. Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica – which I would give 5 out of 5 stars! This book is an excellent mystery, and it’s told from the viewpoint of different characters around a murdered woman, a missing woman and child. It does involve child abduction and murder though, just as a forewarning!

2. The House in the Pines by Ana Reyes – I would give this book a 3 out of 5. It was a quick read, but it was a twisty mystery that was hard to predict!

3. The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell – 4 out of 5. This is a sequel to The Family Upstairs, and I had a few difficulties reading both because they contain a large cast of characters. It had been a year or more since reading the first book, so I frequently had to look up characters or details from the first book. However, these two books together are extremely interesting and mysterious. They contain stories of cult-like activity, murder, and more intrigue!

4. Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover – 4 out of 5 stars. I FINALLY got on the C. Hoover bandwagon and started reading some of her books. I’m not usually a big romance reader, but I found the two characters in this book intriguing and kept reading. I also greatly enjoyed the ending, so it wrapped itself up nicely (with a bow).

5. Reminders of Him – 3.5 out of 5 stars. This book was interesting from the standpoint of redemption post-incarceration and the hidden plot of what landed the main character in prison to begin with, but I had a few issues with the ending. Nonetheless, I was still rooting for the main character to get her daughter back and enjoyed the romance along the way. Still worth the read!

Let me know if you have read any of these books, or if you want me to suggest more books in future blog posts! I love mystery and thriller novels most – so I’ve got tons of those that I’ve read and I just started using Goodreads to keep track of them all! Have a great weekend, friends!

xo, Chelsea