There was always something strange about Mabel Waller. As a child, she was bigger than average, socially awkward, friendless, caught up in her own imagination, and desperate for affection. Then, there was the fact that the people close to her tended to end up injured or dead. When she became the youngest Australian ever to be convicted of murder, her fate as "Mad Mabel" was sealed. A monster like her was surely insane. Or was she?

Now 81, Mabel has become Elsie Fitzpatrick, an unassuming pensioner who has lived on the same quiet Melbourne street for 60 years. Other than an ongoing feud with her nemesis-neighbor, the irascible Elsie leads an unremarkable life. No one would ever guess she's a notorious criminal, possibly even a serial killer. When her nemesis winds up dead, Elsie's real identity is leaked, and suddenly she finds herself in the spotlight once again. Desperate to clear her name, she decides to tell her story for the first time ever to two young podcasters. As she divulges secrets from the past, deals with an angry public, and tries to fend off the unwanted attention of the 7-year-old "irritating little despot" next door, Elsie discovers—to her great surprise—that Mad Mabel has more friends than she thinks. Daring to care, however, has made her vulnerable. Will she lose everything she loves when she finally spills the truth about what she's done?

I'm a big Sally Hepworth fan, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed her newest thriller, Mad Mabel. The book is a little darker than her others, but it's also humorous, poignant, and heartwarming. Mabel's childhood and adolescence are so horrible that it's impossible not to pity her, even now that she's an old woman. Her sharpness—a defense mechanism if I ever saw one—makes her funny and appealing. Even though she's sarcastic and acerbic, I loved her from the start. Elise/Mabel becomes especially likeable as she opens her heart to the irrepressible Persephone. Their friendship is my favorite part of the story.

Mad Mabel is a character-driven novel, but there's plenty going on in the story to keep the reader turning pages. Hepworth spins the plot out in a way that gradually ups the tension, making it a suspenseful, engrossing read throughout. I did see one of the big plot twists coming from a mile away, but the one at the end caught me by surprise. (Funny enough, I read this book twice in a 6-month period and I still didn't see that last twist coming!) Although not all of my questions about Elise/Mabel were answered at the end of the novel, I still found its ending satisfying. In spite of some sad, dark content, Mad Mabel is actually a pretty warm, uplifting book. I loved it. 

(Readalikes: Reminds me a little bit of A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman)

To the FTC, with love: I received an e-ARC of Mad Mabel from the generous folks at St. Martin's Publishing Group via those at NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

I'm late to the party this week. Yesterday was a DAY, and I just wasn't up to crafting a TTT list. I was up all night with an upset stomach, so I finally just got out of bed in spite of the early hour. It's quiet and peaceful in my house, so it's the perfect time to make my belated list. This week's prompt is May Flowers, a follow-up to the April Showers one from a few weeks ago. Even though we haven't had much rain at all this year in the Phoenix area, we do have flowers blooming. The lantana in our backyard has been growing like crazy. I'm not sure how long it will last considering the crazy hot temps we've had this week. Our high yesterday was 105! Anyway, as much as I like flowers, I'm going to go rogue this week. Since I will be cruising the Yucatan on May 26, I'm going to jump ahead and do the theme for that week: My Favorite Books By My Favorite Authors (submitted by Cathy @What Cathy Read Next). Sounds like fun!

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The following authors aren't my ten absolute favorites. However, they are all writers I love and read often. More importantly, I can identify the one book of theirs that I love most. I can't necessarily do that with all of my favorite authors, you know? Or am I just weird? (I might just be weird. That's okay!) Here we go in alphabetical order:

1. A Rip Through Time by Kelley Armstrong—I yap about Armstrong a lot because I enjoy her crime fiction so much. Her urban fantasy novels don't interest me at all, and I haven't loved her horror novels either. As much as I enjoy her Rockton/Haven's Rock series, the Rip Through Time series is my favorite. The books are less graphic than the Rockton/Haven's Rock ones and funnier. All of the installments are worth reading, the but the first one is the one I like best so far.

In A Rip Through Time, a modern-day homicide detective travels to Edinburgh, Scotland, to visit her dying grandmother. While taking a mind-clearing jog, she is assaulted in the same spot where a chambermaid was attacked exactly 150 years earlier. When Detective Atkinson wakes up, she's in Victorian Scotland inhabiting the body of the maid, who works for a physician who moonlights as a coroner. As a confused Mallory tries to figure out what is happening and how to get home, she realizes that her professional skills can be of great use to her boss, who helps the police catch killers. How can she help him without revealing that she's not actually an uneducated maid? And how in the world is she going to get home?

2. Bluebird by Sharon Cameron—This YA author pens historical novels centered around World War II as well as sci-fi/fantasy books. Bluebird is the former. It's about a young German woman who travels to the U.S. after the war in order to unmask the Nazi who spearheaded a series of psychological experiments performed on concentration camp prisoners. Absorbing and memorable, Bluebird is a stunner of a novel.

3. Exiles by Jane Harper—I've enjoyed every book I've read by Harper, but those starring federal investigator Aaron Falk are my favorite. Of those, I like Exiles best. It tells a quieter, more intimate story than the other installments in the series do, but it's still a compelling mystery/thriller in its own right. The mystery revolves around a young mother who goes missing at a town festival, leaving her infant behind.

4. The Good Sister by Sally Hepworth—Another Australian author, Hepworth writes domestic fiction with lots of warmth and wit. This novel, my favorite of hers, is my book club's selection for May, so I'll be happily rereading it before next Tuesday. As is indicated by the title, the story concerns sisters, twins Fern and Rose. Fern lives a carefully structured life, sticking religiously to her routines in order to keep her fragile psyche intact. Rose is one of her few friends, someone for whom she is profoundly grateful, so when Rose learns she can't have children, Fern offers to carry a baby for her. She just needs to find a father. That search begins a journey that will profoundly affect both sisters as old secrets surface and new tensions emerge between them. 

5. The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee—Lee writes YA novels, most of which are historical fiction, featuring characters of Chinese descent. This one tells the story of 17-year-old Jo Kuan, a Chinese American who works as a maid for a wealthy, powerful family in Atlanta. Secretly, she also writes an advice column, doling out wisdom for genteel Southern ladies. As Jo's writing gains in popularity, she decides to use it to protest against the injustices she sees every day in her community. She's not prepared for the backlash those articles receive or the danger it will put her in if anyone discovers her secret identity. In the meantime, she's also grappling to understand her own mysterious past.

6. The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner—I've read almost all of Meissner's books and this one, about the San Francisco earthquake in 1906, is the one that has lingered most in my mind. It stars Sophie Walen, an Irish woman who is so desperate to escape poverty in her homeland that she travels across the sea to become the mail-order bride of an American man she's never met before. She's confused by her silent stranger of a husband, although she quickly becomes enamored of his young, mute daughter. Although she doesn't know it yet, Sophie's life is about to be rocked to its core, not just by a deadly earthquake that will literally shake up her world but also by the unknown woman who will appear at her door, revealing shocking secrets that will change the course of both of their lives. 

7. The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton—Morton's rich family sagas always sweep me away. Although I haven't loved her more recent books nearly as much as I do her older ones, I still consider her one of my favorite authors. Published in 2012, The Secret Keeper is about a woman who secretly witnesses a disturbing crime when she is 16 years old, an event that puts into question everything she knows about her mother. Fifty years later, Laurel is back home to celebrate her mom's 90th birthday. Realizing that time is running out to discover the truth about her mother, she determines to uncover all of the woman's many secrets.

8. How the Light Gets In by Louise Penny—Although I've only read 13 of the 20 books in the Armand Gamache series (the 21st comes out in October), it's one of my very favorite crime series. How the Light Gets In, #9, is set at Christmastime. Our hero, Inspector Armand Gamache, is at a low point in both his professional and personal life. When a friend in Three Pines invites him to come back to the quaint village to investigate a disappearance, he leaps at the chance to return to the place that always feels like home. Turns out, the missing woman is a celebrity who was once famous all over the world. What has happened to her? Because I hate to see my beloved Gamache suffer, How the Light Gets In was a bit of a painful read for me, but it's also a tender and heartening one.

9. The Spies of Shilling Lane by Jennifer Ryan—Ryan's latest two novels (one of which comes out next month) are set in the 1950s, but the rest of her books are all set during World War II. The Spies of Shilling Lane is my favorite of hers because although it has its poignant moments, it's mostly a fun, lively, madcap adventure. It stars the indomitable Mrs. Braithwaite, a hilarious queen bee who's knocked off her throne by her scandalous divorce. Indignant, she hies off to London to lick her wounds with her daughter, Betty, who has been in the city helping with war work. When Betty's timid landlord informs her mother that Betty is missing, Mrs. Braithwaite strong arms the reluctant landord into helping her locate her daughter. Turns out, her child has a much more complicated complicated life than Mrs. Braithwaite ever could have imagined, a life that will put all of them in grave danger.

10. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager—Final Girls is the only one of Sager's novels that I haven't read. I've enjoyed all of them, some more than others naturally, but Middle of the Night is my favorite. It's different from his other books, more gentle and moving. Never fear, though, it's just as riveting as his other thrillers. The story revolves around Ethan Marsh, a man who returns to the picture-perfect neighborhood he lived in as a child. It was there that, many years ago, his 10-year-old best friend disappeared during an overnight campout in Ethan's backyard. Already suffering from insomnia and disturbing nightmares, Ethan is plagued by strange things happening in the middle of the night. Signs of his missing friend keep appearing. Is someone playing a terrible joke on Ethan? Or has his long missing pal returned? What really happened the night of the campout? Ethan is determined to find out.

11. The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James—I love St. James' eerie thrillers. This one is set in a rundown motel in a dying town where strange things are known to happen. Viv Delaney reluctantly takes a job at the dumpy place with the goal of saving enough money to escape to New York City. It doesn't take long for her to realize that something is very wrong at her place of employment. There's a reason for the bad juju that emanates from the Sun Down Motel and she's going to uncover all its many secrets.

There you go, eleven of my favorite books by eleven of my favorite authors. Have you read any of them? Which are your favorite books by your favorite authors? I'd love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

I love me a seasonal TBR list, even if I never actually read any of the titles I so ambitiously place on them. Since I was feeling uninspired for last week's freebie-ish prompt, I actually started this week's topic—Top Ten Books On My Spring 2025 TBR List—early. If you want to see Part One of my list, click here or just scroll down on my blog (since TTT posts seem to be the only thing I publish lately). 

As always, this fun weekly meme is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.

- Part Two - 

1. The Last Lifeboat by Hazel Gaynor—I've been listening to this World War II novel on audio, but it's been slow going and I finally had to turn it back in to the library since another patron had requested it. Luckily, I have an e-ARC of the book on my Kindle. I'm about 60% through the book and it's still plodding along. You'd think a story about the last survivors of a torpedoed ship struggling to stay alive would be more exciting and emotionally resonant, but it just...isn't. I'm determined to finish The Last

 Lifeboat since I'm so close. It's just a *bit* of a slog...

2. The Mother-in-Law by Sally Hepworth—Since I can't do housework without an audiobook to listen to, I checked out a new one. I read three of this Australian author's domestic thrillers last year and loved them. The Mother-in-Law is about the suspicious death of a wealthy matriarch who had complicated relationships with her two children and their spouses. Although Diana Goodwin left behind a suicide note claiming she can't bear to live with the cancer inside her, the coroner finds no signs of the disease in her body, although he does find evidence of poison and suffocation. Diana was not the warmest of women, but who hated her enough to kill her?

3. You Belong Here by Megan Miranda (available July 29, 2025)—Miranda is one of my go-to mystery/thriller writers, so I'm always stoked when she publishes a new book. I started an e-ARC of this one, her newest, yesterday before setting it aside temporarily while I finish The Last Lifeboat. It has to do with a mother returning to her hometown to drop her daughter off for her freshman year of college. Twenty years ago, Beckett left the same school following a deadly fire allegedly set by her roommate, who then vanished, never to be seen again. Already uneasy about leaving her only child in a place she never intended to return to, Beckett finds her past overlapping with her present as she contemplates what really happened the night of the fire. 

4. A Town With Half the Lights On by Page Getz (available April 22, 2025)—I like the look and sound of this heartwarming novel. It's about a family from Brooklyn who move to tiny Goodnight, Kansas, to check out the crumbling Victorian home they've inherited. Even while they search for a way to go back to New York, Sid Solvang decides on a whim to buy Goodnight's fledgling diner. As the hopeful transplants try to make a go of their new life, they find themselves wrapped up in the small-town spirit of a place that is suddenly starting to feel an awful lot like home.

5. Famous Last Words by Gillian McAllister—After about a month of hanging out on a library waiting list, I've finally got my hands on the newest mystery/thriller from another one of my go-to authors. This one is about a woman who is eager to go back to her job as a literary agent after being on maternity leave. She's all set to drop her baby off at daycare and go to work, but when she wakes up, her husband is mysteriously missing from their bed. Then, she hears breaking news about a hostage situation brewing in London. She's shocked to learn that her mild-mannered husband is involved—as the gunman. What has driven him to this extreme and how can she stop him from taking things any further?

6. Murder at the Museum by Alasdair Beckett-King—The generous folks at Candlewick Press just sent me the first two books in this delightful-sounding middle-grade mystery series. It stars Bonnie Montgomery, aka Montgomery BonBon, a 10-year-old who just happens to be a world-famous detective (or will be someday). When a death occurs at a local museum, the intrepid investigator takes the case!

7. An Appetite for Murder by Lucy Burdette—I'm always on the lookout for fun cozy mysteries. This is the first installment in an older series about a woman who takes a job as a food critic for a Key West, Florida, magazine. Her new boss is the last person she wants to deal with. When the boss ends up dead, the food critic must find her killer before she ends up taking the blame for the foul deed.

8. The Midnight Estate by Kelly Rimmer (available July 22, 2025)—I've got an e-ARC of this forthcoming Gothic family secrets novel. It's about a woman who returns to her Australian hometown to restore her ancestral estate. As she works, she discovers dark secrets long buried by the family she thought she knew.

9. Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives by Gretchen Rubin—I made some fairly ambitious resolutions for 2025 which lasted for about, oh, 24 whole hours, if that. I've still got goals I want to work on and fulfill, but I'm in desperate need of motivation. I'm hoping this book will help.

10. Off the Map by Meika Hashimoto—Survival stories are my jam and this one sounds exciting. It's about two friends who are feeling distanced from each other, which makes going on the canoe trip their families planned together a little awkward. When the two get lost, they find themselves all alone in the Alaskan wilderness with no idea how to find their way back to civilization. Can they mend their differences and work together to save themselves?

There you go, ten more books I want to read this Spring. Have you read any of them? What did you think? What's on your Spring TBR list? I'd truly love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Like every other reader, I have my favorite, go-to authors whose books I always look forward to reading. I also enjoy discovering new authors to love. In fact, out of the 230 titles I read in 2024, 127 of them—almost half—were penned by new-to-me writers. That made it really easy to create a list to fit this week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt: Top Ten New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2024. As always, this fun weekly link-up is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.

1. Benjamin Stevenson—Everyone knows I love me a good mystery/thriller, especially when it's both clever and funny. Stevenson's Ernest Cunningham series is exactly that. You can tell just by the titles of the books—Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone; Everyone On This Train is a Suspect; and Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret—that they're hilarious. I read all three in 2024 and loved each one.. This Australian author has a couple other mystery/thriller series that I need to check out.

2. Sally Hepworth—Another Aussie, Hepworth writes absorbing domestic thrillers. I read three of them in 2024, of which The Good Sister was my favorite. I definitely plan to continue exploring Hepworth's backlist this year. 

3. Raquel V. Reyes—Cozy mysteries make nice palate cleansers for me between heavier reads, so I'm always on the lookout for entertaining ones. Reyes' series starring a Cuban American food anthropologist and amateur sleuth in Miami is a fun one. I read the first two books last year and have already read #3 this year.

4. Erin Lindsey—I'm a big historical mystery fan, so I get excited when I find new series in this genre to enjoy. I discovered Lindsey's Rose Gallagher series in 2024. It stars an Irish American housemaid in Gilded Age New York City who can see ghosts. She becomes part of the Pinkerton Detective Agency's secret paranormal division, which deals with supernatural disturbances. With lots of interesting historical details, cameos by famous people of the past, and quirky characters, it's an enjoyable series. I read the first book in 2024 and the second last week.

5. Marthe Jocelyn—Speaking of historical mysteries, I found Jocelyn's Aggie Morton series last year. The series, which is aimed at middle grade readers, features a young Agatha Christie and her new friend, Hercules Poirot. The youngsters team up to do what else, but solve mysteries. I read the first installment, The Body Under the Piano, in 2024 and plan to continue the series this year.

6. Gabrielle Meyer—Meyer is a popular author of Christian and inspirational fiction. Her publisher, Bethany House, has kindly sent me all the books in her Timeless series as they have come out. It took me until last year to finally read the first installment, When the Day Comes, which I enjoyed. The book is about a woman who has the unique ability to time travel between two lives—one in Gilded Age New York City, one in 1774 Colonial Williamsburg. When she turns 21, she will have to choose which life to inhabit permanently. 

7. Ying Chang Compestine—Compestine is a Chinese American food expert and writer who grew up in Wuhan, China, a city that became famous in 2020 because of the Covid outbreak there. Morning Sun in Wuhan, a middle grade novel, was one of my favorite reads of 2024 because of its authenticity and hopeful vibe. I'm interested in reading Compestine's other middle grade novels as well as her memoir, Growing Up Under a Red Flag.

8. Naomi Stephens—Although she only has a few books under her belt, this Christian historical fiction writer impressed me with The Burning of Rosemont Abbey. I hear that she is planning to write more mysteries and I am here for them!

9. Melanie Crowder—Crowder writes books for children in several different genres. I read her YA novel, An Uninterrupted View of the Sky, last year. It's set in 1999 Bolivia and concerns an Indigenous boy whose father is unfairly targeted by a corrupt government and sent to prison. Unable to cope, his mother abandons the family, leaving the boy and his younger sister no choice but to live with their father in prison. It's a beautiful novel about keeping hope alive even in the most dire circumstances. I enjoyed it, so I want to read more by Crowder.

10. Lesa Cline-Ransome—Cline-Ransome pens biographies and novels featuring important events and people in Black history. I loved One Big Open Sky, her middle-grade verse novel about Black homesteaders on the American frontier. Not only does it tell a unique story, but it's also poetic, poignant, and powerful. I'm definitely up for reading more by this author.

There you are, ten new-to-me authors I discovered in 2024. Are they new to you, too? Which writers did you find last year? I'd love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.

Happy Tuesday, everyone. How's your summer shaping up so far? Not surprisingly, given that I live in the Phoenix area, mine is scorching hot! The high today was 111. Ugh. I've mostly spent the day inside with the air conditioner on high. Our backyard swimming pool has become a very popular place for family, neighbors, and friends. I'll definitely be taking a dip before the day's over. I hope you are staying cool while enjoying your summer activities. 

This week's TTT prompt is a popular, bi-annual one that I always skip: Top Ten Bookish Wishes. Basically, you're supposed to post a list of books on your Amazon wishlist and then, as people hop around to different blogs, they can grant your bookish wishes by purchasing them for you.  I already own more books than I can read in two lifetimes and, even if I didn't, I can't imagine asking my readers/blog friends to buy me books, so...time to go rogue. My creative juices aren't flowing very well today (dried up by the heat, no doubt), but I have some evergreen topics that I pull out for weeks like this. In anticipation of Cybils judging to come (fingers crossed that I get to be a middle grade fiction judge again) and the need to fulfill certain prompts for reading challenges, these are the ten books I have on hold at the library right now. Except for #1 and #11, I'm planning to pick them up this afternoon.

As always, Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the lovely Jana over at That Artsy Reader Girl.

1. Middle of the Night by Riley Sager (available June 18, 2024)—I'm #31 on the waitlist for Sager's newest, so hopefully, it won't be too long before I have it in my hot little hands. 

The story concerns a man named Ethan Marsh who reluctantly returns to his quaint hometown to find the truth about the long-ago disappearance of his best friend. The boy vanished while he and Ethan were sleeping in a tent pitched in one of their backyards and has never been found. What happened to Billy? What sinister secrets lie beneath their idyllic neighborhood's pristine lawns and gentle facade?

2. Light and Air by Mindy Nichols Wendell—When Halle and her mother both contract tuberculosis in 1935, they are sent to a remote hospital in upstate New York to be quarantined with others like them. Although she is cut off from the rest of the world, Halle is surprised to find friendship, healing, and strength in her isolated existence. When her mother takes a turn for the worse, however, the young TB patient worries if either one of them have a future at all, let alone one outside the walls of the hospital. 

3. Anywhere You Run by Wanda M. Morris—In Jim Crow Mississippi, three men are savagely murdered after trying to help Black people register to vote. In the wake of the incident, a young Black woman is attacked. She fights back, killing the man who tried to hurt her. Knowing there's no way she'll be dealt a fair hand in Mississippi, she flees to Georgia to hide. Back in their hometown, the woman's older sister is also in dire straits. She takes to the road as well. As both sisters struggle to find safety, a man is secretly tracking them. What will happen when he catches up?

4. Deep Water by Jamie Sumer—This middle-grade verse novel centers on a young girl who is grieving the recent death of her mother. In an attempt to soothe her troubled soul, she decides to enter a 12-mile swimming race in Lake Tahoe. If she comes in first, she'll be the youngest person ever to win the competition. When she starts to struggle in the water, she'll have to call on every ounce of strength and fortitude she has in order to finish the race, let alone win it. 

5. Billie Starr's Book of Sorries by Deborah E. Kennedy—One of my IRL friends recommended this novel to me. It's about a single mother whose poor decision making has led to a chaotic life for her and her daughter. Now facing foreclosure on her house, the woman accepts a lucrative proposal. It doesn't take long for things to go awry. As she deals with her newest sticky situation, she finally begins to realize how life could be, if only she would learn to trust herself and take firm control of her own trajectory.

6. Trouble at the Tangerine by Gillian McDunn—Simon is tired of constantly being on the move. Unlike his adventure-seeking family, he wants to put down roots in a forever home. When a troubling theft occurs in his new apartment building, Simon worries the incident will be enough to get his family moving again. Determined to solve the mystery and keep his family in their new home, he sets out to do some sleuthing. Whodunit? 

7. With Prejudice by Robin Peguero—I need to read a legal thriller for a reading challenge and this one sounds intriguing. Twelve jurors from varying walks of life come together to decide the fate of Gabriel Soto, a young man accused of killing kind, free-spirited Melina Mora. The evidence is complicated, the jurors are flummoxed, and everyone has their own agenda. What will these everyday people decide as they face one of the most important decisions of their lives?

8. The First State of Being by Erin Entrada Kelly—With the Y2K crisis causing widespread panic, 12-year-old Michael Rosario is obsessing over two things: stockpiling supplies and wooing his crush, Gibby. When awkward Michael meets cool, confident Ridge—the first-ever time traveler—he gets a glimpse of what his future could look like. Ridge has a book that explains how to make it happen and Michael has to get it. No matter the consequences. How far will he go to get what he wants?

9. I Know Who You Are: How an Amateur DNA Sleuth Unmasked the Golden State Killer and Changed Crime Fighting Forever by Barbara Rae-Venter—Everyone seems to be obsessed with true crime these days. I value my sleep and my sanity, so I tend to avoid the genre altogether. I am, however, fascinated with the implications of DNA testing for genealogical purposes and beyond, so I'm all in for this book. Fingers crossed it isn't too disturbing!

10. The Luminous Life of Lucy Landry by Anna Rose Johnson—The titular heroine of this middle-grade historical novel is a French-Ojibwe girl who has just been orphaned by her sailor father's death at sea. With no one to care for her, she becomes the foster child of a mysterious Anishinaabe family of lighthouse keepers who care for a lighthouse in the middle of Lake Michigan. Although Lucy struggles with grief and fitting in, she's excited that she now lives very near the shipwreck (and treasure!) her dad spent his life looking for. If she can find what he always dreamed of unearthing, it will be sort of like having him back. When Lucy's future at the lighthouse becomes endangered, she grows even more determined to find the sunken treasure.

11. Darling Girls by Sally Hepworth—This thriller has been getting all kinds of buzz and it fits one of my reading challenge prompts for a book with "darling" in the title. Win-win. It's about three women who grew up together in a foster home with Miss Fairchild at the helm. Although it looked idyllic from the outside, their foster mother had strict rules and an unpredictable, no-nonsense approach to parenting. The trio escaped as soon as they could and have never looked back. When a dead body is found under the home where the girls lived, they reluctantly return to their hometown. Are they witnesses or suspects? I'm #11 on the waitlist for this one, so we'll see how long it takes to get it.

There you go, eleven books I have on hold at the library right now. Have you read any of them? What did you think? Are you a library user? What are the last books you put on hold? I'd love to know. Leave me a comment on this post and I will gladly return the favor on your blog.