June 2024 First Reads

 This month's selections: 

1. Broken Bayou (book club fiction/thriller)
2. Sorry for the Inconvenience (Memoir)
3. Falling Down: Boys inthe Iron Box (short read)
4. A Clean Kill (thriller)
5. Summer Ever After (romance)
6. Still the Sun (romantic fantasy)
   
7. The Curse of the Flores Women (historical fiction, family fiction)
8. Veridian Sterling Fakes It (Mystery Humor)
9. The Last Time I Saw You (Family drama)
10. Campingland (childrens)

 After knocking out the thrillers, serial killers, and assorted stuff, I got the humorous mystery.  A good laugh is a good thing.

First Reads May 2024

 May's choices

1. Girl, Missing (thriller)
2. Promise of tomorrow (Women's fiction)
3. Tiger Chair (bonus short read)
4. Let's Pretend this will work (romance)
5. Lake County (mystery)
6. Meet me On The Bridgew (book club fiction)
7. In a Dark Mirror (suspense)
8. Curious Secrets of Yesterday (contemporary fiction)
9. Hot Dog Money (non-fiction)

I don't care about college sports scandals, or suspense/crime, or this version of whatever "Women's Fiction" is.   Or romance/"divorce fiction." or a mystery/thriller about the Tampa mafia, or time-travel, coming of age romances, or a kidnapping thriller.  

So, Contemporary Fiction aka Friendship Fiction it is - The Curious Secrets of Yesterday. 

First Reads - April 2024

 This month: 

1. Margaret Atwood short story 
2. The Alone Time (psych thriller)
3. The Letters We Keep (coming of age romance )
4. Vacation Rental (domestic suspense)
5. Their Last Resort (romance)
6. Bootlegger's Dauther (hist fict)
7. My Favorite Terrible Thing (mystery)
8. A Light through the Cracks (memoir)

The Bootlegger's Daughter is the one for this month. 

First Reads March 2024

 This onth: 

• Lost Letters of Aisling (Hist fict)
• Matterhorn (Thriller)
• Lovers at the Museum (bonus short read)
• Friends in Napa (Friendship drama)
• What is Love? (Romance)
• The Monstrous Misses Mai (Fantasy/occult horror)
• Family Reservations (book club fiction)
• The Lies Among Us (family drama)

I ended up going for What is Love, and will watch out for Lost Letters of Aisling at the library.   And the bonus short read, by Isabel Allende, was free too. 

 

First Reads February 2024

 This month: 

• Suspense - A Friend in the Dark 
• Romance - Hypnotized by Love
• Short Story Thriller - Rule of Threes
• Historical Fiction - When the World Goes Quet 
• Fantasy - The Canopy Keepers
• True Crime - the Waltham Murders
• Family drama - Hurt Mountain 
• Psych Thriller - Dont Forget Me
• Contemporary Fictiono - Blank 

 Taking out the thrillers and crime books, it's down to When the World GOes Quiet and The Canopy Keepers.  I'm a little tired of war fiction,so it's going to be The Canopy Keepers this month. 

First Reads January 2024

 January is another two-book month, with ten to choose from. 

• Almost Surely Dead (Mystery)
• the Bad Weather Friend (thriller)
• County Line (Historical fiction)
• Last night (Domestic thirller)
• We Ate the Dark (Horror)
• Mayluna (women's fiction)
• This Impossible Brightness (book club fiction)
• The Young of Other Animals (Family drama)
• The Real Deal (contemporary fiction)
• Hurt for Me (dark romance)

Well some of these are easy to weed out - horror, thriller, and dark romance, for a start.  This Impossible Brightness is in the "dystopian fiction" category, so it's out too.  

 Decision: The Real Deal and Mayluna

 

December First Reads

 December's choices 

• True Crime - The Amish Wife
• Romance - The last phone Booth in Manhattan
  
• Police Procedural - The Lies You Wrote
• Women's Fiction - Olivia Strauss is Running Out Of Time
• Military Sci Fi - Scorpio
• Psychological Thriller - Sleeping with Friends 
• Historical Fiction - Split 
• Crime Thriller - The Seventh Girl 
• Short Memoir - Two Women Walk Into a Bar

So, no kid's book this month.  Nope to the short read,  and to the thriller/crime books.  Split looks good, and I may need a translated book for next year's Read Harder.