Oh, I’ve been to Hearst Castle, too! It was such an interesting building to tour!

Fyi – There is a sequel to The Maid coming out in a few weeks, title The Mystery Guest.

You are making me feel much better about not picking up Wellness last night. Instead, I jumped into The Running Grave by Robert Galbraith (the 7th in the Cormoran Strike series). I just wanted something I knew I would love!

Oh, I bet the audiobook would be fantastic with the right narrator. Eleanor has such a distinct voice!

It was so much fun to take some time away from new releases to reread a favorite. Although some had censored my thrift store copy and blacked out all the f* words.

Hearst Castle is on my bucket list!

I did see where Marion is buried in Hollywood Forever cemetery in L.A.

The book sounds good!

I also read Jessica Knoll’s Bright Young Women. I have it 3 stars, because I found it a little confusing. I actually had to clarify a few things and posted some questions on Goodreads. A great feature in case y’all are not familiar. You can post a question if you scroll way down on the title page & usually get very quick responses. Some authors take questions too, although Jessica is not currently.

I did like that the book was meant to focus on the victims and not the killer. I will not say more for those who have not read, but I do not think this should go in True Crime genre when it is heavily based on true crime, but has been turned into fiction. Not quite sure how I felt about that. This might make a good book club discussion.

I was saying the same, but not quite as drastic happened to me with The Vaster Wilds. I had won my first ever Goodreads giveaway & received an ARC. I was thrilled to finally win something (anyone else have trouble winning??) and I actually liked the writing, but it really bugged me that the story became very repetitive. The main character would find shelter, eat, sleep & repeat. So my stars dropped from what I thought would be a 5 to 3 (which if Goodreads could enable 1/2 stars would have been a 2 & 1/2). Lauren Groff writes beautifully, but this felt half baked.

I hoarded Evil Eye (that cover!) after being on a library wait list. I got the book home and did not get around to reading it. I am ashamed to say I do that often. I love having a dozen books on hand, just in case one doesn’t work, I move on to the next. A very, very bad habit. I bite off more than I can chew & get overwhelmed. I have never read A Woman Is No Man despite owning a copy. I may need to get to both of these in the future, based on your review!

Sorry to say, but Wellness, although well written and an Oprah pick, was not doing anything for me. I DNFed it despite loving the opening line and the initial love story trope.

Another letdown, but also well written & may need a revisit is Happiness Falls. I was having a hard time getting into the story bc the narrator Mia kinda stops and starts in the telling of what happened in the beginning. I may need to keep reading. Have you read it??

I liked Nora Goes Off Script by Annabel Monaghan so much, but her latest Same Time Next Summer was just meh. It would have been cuter to have actually read it in Summer, but I just got my library hold in October. Cute is the word for it. So much so, I can’t not like it, but it was def inferior to Nora Goes Off Script.

I think my lowest ever star rating was for Mexican Gothic. What was that?????!

I have so many great TBRs: The River We Remember by William Kent Krueger and the latest Jhumpa Lahiri Roman Stories. I keep telling myself I will stop requesting new releases from the library. But it is a very hard habit to break. I just love seeing what is coming up & getting my hands on fresh copies!!

I’ve just requested Let Us Descend, Jesmyn Ward’s new Oprah Pick. Phew! She was so obsessed with The Covenant of Water, I am relieved to see her picking another book fairly soon after Wellness. Along with an old favorite, tried and true Jacquelyn Mitchard’s A Very Inconvenient Scandal. My library just got these wait lists up today, so I am number one!!!!

Currently reading fellow Texan Deanna Raybourn’s Killers of a Certain Age and enjoying it.

Also recently finally got to Attica Locke’s Bluebird, Bluebird. Another Texas lady! She will have the third book in the Highway 59 trilogy out in Sept ‘24.