Five Awesome Books You Need To Read This Winter

It’s that time of year! Goodreads just announced the opening round of their Best Books of 2021 Awards!

 You can head over here and cast your vote right now! A few of my favorites are nominees, I especially like the following:

The Lost Apothecary 

The Road Trip

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty (currently reading this)

Here are books to get excited about coming this winter! 2022 is off to a great start with some incredible novels…

DECEMBER

 

The Ballerinas by Rachel Kapelke-Dale caught my eye right away. What a stunning cover! I was intrigued by the description:

Thirteen years ago, Delphine abandoned her prestigious soloist spot at the Paris Opera Ballet for a new life in St. Petersburg––taking with her a secret that could upend the lives of her best friends, fellow dancers Lindsay and Margaux. Now 36 years old, Delphine has returned to her former home and to the legendary Palais Garnier Opera House, to choreograph the ballet that will kickstart the next phase of her career––and, she hopes, finally make things right with her former friends. But Delphine quickly discovers that things have changed while she’s been away…and some secrets can’t stay buried forever.

This is a detailed book and I enjoyed reading about the lives of ballerinas. The story is slow to unfold, it’s not an intense suspense story as I first thought it would be. But I really liked learning about the competitive and brutal life of dancers. Definitely a solid, interesting read!

 

 

I love nothing more than a super suspenseful read! So of course when I read the plot of The Girl Upstairs by Georgina Lees, I knew I had to read it! Check it out:

How well do you know your neighbour? Would you trust them with your life?

I heard Emily before I saw her. The harsh smack of heels against cheap wooden floorboards. The loud phone calls. The incessant music.

I knew Emily before I met her. Discarded receipts in our communal hallway. Sticky leftovers in the shared food waste bin. Wine shop vouchers in the letterbox.

Now she’s gone missing, and I’m the only one who can find her. The only one who can save her.

Because I know her best, and I heard everything.

I highly recommend this intense, well-written, wild ride of a book! A quick and fun book that’s perfect for an afternoon read.

 

55855788. sy475

 

I’m at the point where I don’t need to see what the book is about, I know if Kimberly Belle wrote it, it’s going to be fantastic. And My Darling Husband was a great book! Get it as soon as you can!

Synopsis:

Jade and Cam Lasky are by all accounts a happily married couple with two adorable kids, a spacious home and a rapidly growing restaurant business. But their world is tipped upside down when Jade is confronted by a masked home invader. As Cam scrambles to gather the ransom money, Jade starts to wonder if they’re as financially secure as their lifestyle suggests, and what other secrets her husband is keeping from her.

Cam may be a good father, a celebrity chef and a darling husband, but there’s another side he’s kept hidden from Jade that has put their family in danger. Unbeknownst to Cam and Jade, the home invader has been watching them and is about to turn their family secrets into a public scandal.

This book will keep you on your toes from start to finish, causing you to stay up late until you see how everything has unfolded. A really, really awesome suspense book that leaves me eager for another Kimberly Belle novel!

 

JANUARY 2022

 

I got a sneak peek of Greenwich Park by Katherine Faulkner a while ago and couldn’t wait to talk about it! I LOVED IT. What a story!

Here’s the plot:

Helen’s idyllic life—handsome architect husband, gorgeous Victorian house, and cherished baby on the way (after years of trying)—begins to change the day she attends her first prenatal class and meets Rachel, an unpredictable single mother-to-be. Rachel doesn’t seem very maternal: she smokes, drinks, and professes little interest in parenthood. Still, Helen is drawn to her. Maybe Rachel just needs a friend. And to be honest, Helen’s a bit lonely herself. At least Rachel is fun to be with. She makes Helen laugh, invites her confidences, and distracts her from her fears.

But her increasingly erratic behavior is unsettling. And Helen’s not the only one who’s noticed. Her friends and family begin to suspect that her strange new friend may be linked to their shared history in unexpected ways. When Rachel threatens to expose a past crime that could destroy all of their lives, it becomes clear that there are more than a few secrets laying beneath the broad-leaved trees and warm lamplight of Greenwich Park.

If you are in the mood for a twisty suspense that keeps a steady pace from beginning to end, this is the book for you. I also loved the setting of this story and the writing style. Looking forward to more from this author in the future!

 

What a gripping read! I couldn’t put this book down even though I read it on vacation and it took me forever since I was only reading a little bit each evening. When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham needs a place on your To-Be-Read list immediately.

The writing style, setting, pace, and characters come together perfectly in this serious suspense.

Take a look:

Philomena McCarthy is a young, ambitious police office with the elite Metropolitan Police in London. When she responds to a domestic violence call, she finds the victim, Tempe Brown, trying to protect her abuser, a married man named Darren Goodall, a decorated Scotland Yard detective afraid of no one. As Philomena pursues the case against him, she not only encounters resistance from her police force colleagues but also becomes dangerously entangled with the victim—who is not at all whom she appears to be—much to the increasing endangerment of herself and Henry, her fiancée.

Complicating matters is Philomena’s estranged father Edward McCarthy, a powerful man who has built a criminal empire along with his brothers. Philomena has long tried to pursue her career as a police officer without her father’s involvement, but as she falls under suspicion of stalking and harassing Goodall, her father becomes involved.

As the situation escalates, Tempe’s sinister maneuvers further entangle Philomena in a web of secrets, corruption, and murder, putting Philomena’s impending marriage, career, and very survival in jeopardy…​

I can usually figure things out in books but this kept me guessing! I’m a big fan of this author’s work, if you haven’t read anything by him, I highly recommend reading one of his previous works.