The Library

I was lucky enough that Jo sent me a very early copy of this, and I loved every page!!! It’s historical fiction and a thriller, told in dual timelines, which is my favorite for historical fiction. We meet widow Jo van Gogh, struggling to stay afloat. With her husband and brother-in-law now gone, she has inherited hundreds of Vincent’s paintings. The art world has (of course) deemed the paintings worthless. Jo disagrees. Consumed by Vincent’s legacy, determined to prove his creative genius (and support her son), she takes on the ambitious and difficult, especially for a woman in those times!) task of representing his work. In more modern times (the nineties), we meet Emma, a struggling art student in Paris. Having recently lost her scholarship, she finds herself cleaning the homes of the wealthy elite, where she meets Stella. Once upon a time, Stella was art world royalty, the wife of one of the world’s most notorious art dealers. But upon her husband’s death, she was cut out of the will and now borders on penniless. Emma finds herself becoming friends with Stella and attracted to her charming grandson. When Stella convinces Emma and her roommates to pull off a daring art heist at Musée d’Orsay, all bets are off (and the storylines converge). I couldn’t put this down. It’s a convergence of my favorite things: art, Paris, and a heist. I cannot recommend it enough. Please pre-order it, you’ll get a treat in July (and we all know how vital preorders are to authors!).

I ordered this as I knew it would be fun, and Patricia had spoken at the literary festival here in Charleston. Plus, I’ll admit it: I always love a rich person memoir! I was not prepared for how much I would enjoy it! I have dipped in and out of Southern Charm to be a supportive friend at times, but it is not my thing–too much drama. I expected this book to be a funny memoir from an eccentric older woman who married very well. I fear I underestimated her! The book is so interesting. She’s had an incredible life (and career) before the show. I loved learning about her background in academia and the art world (she has some truly wild stories, especially one about Roy Cohn), her upbringing and family life, all of it. I gobbled it up! My only gripe is that I chose to listen to this, and she didn’t narrate. Otherwise, it’s perfect! A really fun read, but also wow: I didn’t realize what an impressive person she is.

Alexis Ecker has always been the behind-the-scenes sort of type. She stays out of the spotlight, while her co-founder Darcy (their fashion startup Savvy’s CEO) is front and center. When Darcy dies in a freak accident at Burning Man, Alexis must grieve the death of her very best friend but also rescue her company from the brink of bankruptcy. At just 29 years old, she feels lost and isn’t sure who to trust–especially as she finds herself under ruthless pressure to deliver a gigantic new round of VC funding. Everything is fine! It’s fine! No really. As Alexis attempts to woo investors and get her company onto the right track, secrets come out. Did she really know Darcy? Was Darcy keeping secrets from her? Was her death actually an accident? The plot is dark and twisty, reading like a psychological thriller. I couldn’t put it down. It brought me back to my own fashion startup days, gave me empathy for my former bosses (the co-founders), and kept me on my toes. I let out an audible sigh at the end! Highly enjoyable, though very stressful!

I really loved this. A lot of the advice was not pertinent to my life right now, but I was laid off back in 2008, and man, do I wish this book existed! The practical advice is top-notch, and the interviews would have left me feeling so much less alone. Brown and O’Neill share their own experiences with being let go from high-profile careers, but they also interview some incredible women: Lisa Kudrow, Jamie Lee Curtis, Oprah (!!), and more. I listened to it on audio and loved it. I would highly recommend it to anyone who has ever been fired, but also if you are feeling stagnant in your career or need a change. Or are just feeling down. The stories are really empowering. The book is a mix of practical and inspirational. A guidebook to the recently let go/fired/laid off, but also chock full of inspiring stories from women we all love and admire.

After her grandmother’s passing, Sydney Singleton finds a hidden photograph of a little girl that looks just like her. A little research tells her that the girl is her aunt Carol, one of six Black girls to go missing in North Carolina during the 1960s. But Sydney and her sister Sasha had no idea her aunt Carol even existed! With her grandmother (and father) gone, Sydney decides to unravel the truth and figure out what really happened to Aunt Carol (and the other girls). Her search leads her to Detroit, Brooklyn, and back and forth between Los Angeles and Raleigh. Meanwhile, Sydney is grappling with her own issues: her traumatic childhood and abusive father, her own nervousness about motherhood (as she goes through IVF), and her difficult relationship with her mother. As Sydney searches to find out what happened to Carol, she must confront her own baggage. Family secrets come out, and she must do everything she can to stay afloat as she entangles a web of lies that surround her family. I couldn’t put this down, I found it highly enjoyable (and I loved the twist).

I am classifying this as a thriller, but that feels a bit reductive: the writing is gorgeous, and it could just as easily be classified as literary fiction. Jane grew up in the woods of Montana. Her father is her entire world. They live in a tiny cabin filled with books and an old stove. They grow their vegetables in a garden and kill their own chickens. They are as self-sufficient and off the grid as anyone can be in the 1990s. She studies nineteenth-century philosophy and eventually learns HTML to help her father publish his manifesto online. Her father is her whole world. But as Jane enters her teenage years, she is bored, and begins to realize that her father may be keeping terrible secrets. She longs for connection (and answers!), begging her father to join him on his trips outside of the cabin. But when she realizes that her love for her father has caused her to become an accomplice in a horrible crime, her world is shattered. She flees Montana for the one place where she believes she can get some answers: San Francisco–the place that her mother died, the place her father lived and worked in before Montana. Can she get answers to her questions? Can she ever forgive herself for what she allowed her father to do? I will say no more as it really is best to read this knowing as little as possible! I really loved this one.

I’ve really turned a corner on Freida McFadden. Initially, I judged the writing. But the twistiness of her plots more than makes up for the more straightforward and sometimes simple writing style. Her books are always fast, fun, propulsive reads that you can’t put down. I’m at a point where I order anything she’s written, sight unseen. This one delivered. I stayed up late reading it and didn’t see one of the big twists coming! Casey is a young woman living alone in a cabin in the woods. She’s preparing for a long night when she discovers a young girl lurking outside her kitchen window. The girl is alone, covered in blood, and holding a knife. Casey invites her in and attempts to figure out what’s happened, making a disturbing discovery in the middle of the night. Things take a turn for the worse. The girl has a secret and she will kill to keep it. Casey alternates between wanting to protect the girl and protect herself. In between chapters, we get to know Ella, a victim of child abuse. She is the school outcast with a hoarder mother. We empathize with her as she does everything she can just to survive and get by when the whole world seems to be against her. I’ll say no more, but highly recommend this!

This one feels like a mashup between Love is Blind, The Handmaid’s Tale, and The Hunger Games. Emeline has been a lifelong outcast. She spends her days in the basement of her city’s capitol building, where she marks ancient artworks for destruction. It is centuries after a horrible war where humanity was nearly decimated. Now, the city thrives under the rule of a group called The Illum. The population’s health is constantly monitored, and procreation contracts are take seriously. Meanwhile, Emeline is twenty seven and waiting for the MIND device (a health monitoring chip that is embedded into everyone’s wrist to mark her ready for a mate. A mate could change everything for her: elevating her status within society, giving her new opportunities. When the unthinkable happens (for the first time in years, an Illum takes a mate–and he chooses Eveline), her whole world is changed and she is thrust into a lifestyle of parties and fancy courtship rituals. Meanwhile, Emeline finds herself torn between two men: there is also Hal, one of the leaders of an underground resistance. As Emeline draws closer to both men, she must question everything and decide which side she is on. This is fun, unputdownable, and has me so excited for a sequel!

When I learned about Diane Keaton’s passing, one of the first things I did was download Diane Keaton’s memoir from 2011. It’s a bit older, but an absolute delight to listen to. This is a memoir about both Diane Keaton’s mother and herself. To be totally honest, some of the parts about her mother were a little bit dull to me (I just didn’t really care, I wanted more about Diane!) but I loved the book all the same. She talks candidly about the beginnings of her career, about her struggles with bulimia in her younger years, her many romances (Woody! Warren! Al!), and of course loads of stories from her different film projects. She’s open and honest, but also very funny and charming (true Diane Keaton fashion). I particularly loved the part about filming Something’s Gotta Give with Jack Nicholson (and how he gave her a backend percentage point) as it is one of my favorite movies of all time . . . but the whole thing was super interesting. It’s a quick listen, I absolutely recommend it!

This book was fun. That being said, within the world of thrillers, I am coming to learn that my favorites are of the domestic variety, usually a marriage gone wrong or someone going missing from a neighborhood. These types of thrillers feel more realistic to me and are maybe scarier? This one was action-packed . . . like reading a James Bond movie! Maggie McCabe is a disgraced doctor. After a series of devastating events, she commits malpractice and loses her license. When an old colleague (an elite plastic surgeon with an anonymous clientele) reaches out to her with an enticing offer, she finds herself in Russia, operating on a billionaire oligarch. But when said oligarch goes missing, Maggie’s life is on the line, and she finds herself becoming a fugitive as she races to figure out what happened. This is a total pageturner and completely unputdownable, but I’ll say that several parts felt very implausible to me, which is why it only gets a B+. Very much worth reading, just be warned about that!

I cannot begin to tell you how much I enjoyed this book. It’s quite long (around 550 pages, I think?) but I read it in a single weekend, as I couldn’t put it down. Our protagonist, Clo, starts out very relatable. At the (thinly-veiled Vogue) magazine she works at, she is a “workhorse.” One of the girls who isn’t a wealthy, beautiful, well-connected society girl. Those girls are the showhorses. Clo will never be a showhorse but she can work her way to the top. The book transpires over several years as Clo works her way up at the magazine. We meet her office bestie Davis Lawrence (the privileged daughter of the famous actress Barbara Lawrence). We meet Davis’s bestie Harry, who Clo recognizes qualities within herself (a ruthless ambition to make it in this glitteringly cutthroat media world). The book is very dark at times. Clo makes terrible decisions. I found myself wanting to yell, “NO! Don’t do it!!!!” But I also liked her, and related to her in a lot of ways. The book is unputdownable. If you worked in media/beauty/fashion during the time it is set (the early 2000’s), you’ll gobble this up. But even if you didn’t, I think you’ll really enjoy it. Definitely one of my favorites of the year so far.

This might be one of the best books I’ve read in 2025. It’s beautiful. It’s funny, it’s sad, it’s wonderful. It’s also a pretty quick read. It is the fall of our narrator’s senior year of college when she meets two brilliant boys: Sam and Yash. They are stellar students, living off-campus in a beautiful house of a professor on sabbatical. They give her the nickname of Jordan, and she finds herself swept up into their world of witty banter and secret language. By the end of senior year, she finds herself in a bit of a love triangle. When she graduates from college, each of them makes difficult decisions that will shape the course of the rest of their lives. I am being vague so that you get all of the lovely surprises I got. Then we meet Jordan decades later, now a successful author. The glory days of her youth seem far behind her, except they aren’t. I will say no more but just read this book. It’s beautifully written, and while it is very sad, it moved me—a wholehearted A+ book.

This came out in 1992, but had been on my TBR list for ages, as I loved The Goldfinch so much. Donna Tartt is an incredible writer; I still can’t believe that this was her debut! I love that it seems to take her ten years between books–can you imagine!? I decided to finally tackle it this month as it felt like the perfect fall read: dark and academic, cozy in all the right ways. Richard Papen transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont. It is the eighties, and Richard comes from a poor background. He is there on scholarship, just scrapping by. He is drawn into a small group of five students and their enigmatic professor when he decides to major in Greek. The other students are worldly and come from privileged backgrounds. At first, he just wants to be included, to be a friend. But as he gets closer to the other students, dark secrets arise. He learns that the others have committed a violent crime and feel they need to murder their fifth classmate and friend, and he becomes an accomplice. (This isn’t a spoiler; the book opens with the murder.) The book deals with the lead-up to the murder and then the aftermath. It is dark and propulsive, I couldn’t put it down (but also wanted to savor the writing, it’s incredibly well done!).

I absolutely loved this. It’s part personal memoir, part business book, and such a joy to read. It’s also pretty quick, clocking in at under six hours. I learned so much from it, both about work and life. What I loved most about it is how normal she seems. She shares he story of her life and career with the same grounded authenticity that defines her beauty philosophy. From her childhood and early years in New York to launching her namesake brand with just ten lipsticks, selling it to Estée Lauder, and later founding Jones Road, Brown offers an insider’s look at how intuition, perseverance, and staying true to herself shaped her success. It’s a fascinating business journey that at times feels like a fairy tale at times, but it’s also about the personal values that guided her: family first, learning by doing, and embracing simplicity over flash. Brown’s refusal to chase trends or abandon her instincts made her an icon, yet she remains refreshingly down-to-earth. Through anecdotes of creativity, business lessons, and homebody wisdom, Still Bobbi emerges as both an inspiring entrepreneurial tale and a reminder that success doesn’t require compromise—it comes from trusting your “you-ness.”

The three Bishop sisters grew up privileged, in a wealthy suburb outside of Detroit. But as the auto industry declined, so did their means. These days, the sisters are middle-aged, struggling to provide for their families, barely making ends meet. Harper, the youngest daughter, is struggling when her charismatic and popular (middle) sister Pam invites her to join an excluswive club: The Wheel. Pam is in the middle of a contentious divorce with her ex and swears that The Wheel has changed everything for her. All it requires is a $5,000 buy-in. Harper will join, pay off her debts, and get out. Right? Does anyone ever leave? Things are going well for all three sisters, when a horrible crime happens, threatening to take the whole thing down. I will say no more! This one was only medium for me. An enjoyable read that I devoured in a couple sittings, but left me kind of just like, “that’s all!” with the end? Don’t get me wrong, it was enjoyable (and I love reading anything with MLM-y vibes, but I guess parts just fell a little bit flat for me. That being said, I loved the sister dynamic. This one had great characters.

Read this book! My first A+ in a little while. It’s almost like a jigsaw puzzle: structured entirely in letters, so you’ll have to put a few things together. It takes place over the course of nine years, as we get to know Sybil Van Antwerp, who has written letters all her life. At first, Sybil felt like a very disagreeable character to me, and I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy the book. But slowly, we get to understand her more deeply: her pain, her passions, her past. She writes to her family members, but also to famous authors like Joan Didion. There is her best friend Rosalie, a friend’s son Harry, a stalker who holds an unresolved grudge, and two men who are competing for Sybil’s affections. Meanwhile, she is going blind and understands that her days of letter-writing are numbered. There are so many tiny subplots that add up to make this such a beautiful, compelling read. I wept at the end. This one wil stick with me for a very long time.

I am still struggling with my thoughts on this book. On one hand, it’s honest and vulnerable, it’s a fast listen (just over five hours), and it is juicy as hell. I was not quite so prepared for all the oversharing about her personal life (specifically, her sex life!!). She does not hold back. Personally, I have always found her a little bit frustrating. There was the influencing, then the break, then the anti-influencing-influencing . . . it’s made my head spin a little bit. Reading the book and understanding her background helped to explain it a little bit more. But it is a very wild ride. It honestly made me feel super grateful for my own career: having more boundaries with what I share, treating it like a 9-5 (vs. a whole life!), starting later in life (I didn’t write my first blog post until I was 28 years old; she started in college!). It is a lot, upsetting at times, cringe at others. But it’s a fun and juicy listen. The epilogue was my favorite part. It seems like she’s found a better balance.

I am a huge fan of Jennifer Hillier’s books, and someone told me I had to read this one from 2018. I cannot remember who it was, but I am so happy they recommended it, as I could not put it down. This one is dark, and there is a major CW for sexual abuse. That out of the way, WOW. I am still thinking about it. Years ago, Georgina (Geo), Angela, and Kaiser were the best of friends. And then one was murdered, one went to jail, and one joined the police force (still searching for the truth about what really happened that night). At age 16, Angela Wong vanished. Years later, her remains are found, and Geo is implicated (her ex was Angela’s killer, and Geo helped cover it up). Geo has worked her way up to living a very fancy life—a VP for a pharmaceutical company, a wealthy fiancé, the best of everything. But when evidence implicates her in the murder, she’s sent away to jail. Five years later, she is released from prison. As she tries to rebuild her life, something terrifying happens. She learns that her serial-killer ex has escaped from prison and a series of murders has transpired, where the women were all killed the same way as Angela. As Geo struggles to protect herself and her father, she must revisit her horrific past to help prevent any further killings. I could not put this down. I guessed the twist, but it was satisfying. Highly recommend!

I listened to this and loved every minute. It was so interesting. Lawrence Leamer is a favorite of mine (Capote’s Women is another must-read!) and this is the account of Andy Warhol and the women he deemed his “Superstars.” Over the course of the book, we meet Baby Jane Holzer, Edie Sedgwick, Nico, Ultra Violet, Viva, Brigid Berlin, Ingrid Superstar, International Velvet, Mary Woronov, and Candy Darling. We learn how Warhol manipulated them, took advantage of their beauty, and used them to build his own empire and social status with (frankly!) no concern over their well-being. This made it hard to listen to at times, especially as a fan of his art. But I learned a lot about both Warhol and these women, and of course, life in the Factory and sixties New York. Sex, drugs, wild parties, and a world where (to Warhol at least), everyone and everything was replaceable.

I gobbled this up over the course of a weekend and promptly handed it over to my mother, knowing that she will love it too! Fans of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo will absolutely gobble this up. Told in dual timelines (alternating between the late sixties and the nineties), it is the story of the glamorous Hollywood starlet Lori Lovely. At the height of her career (at just twenty-three-years-old!), she decided to leave it all behind and become a Benedictine nun. What happened!? Why would she do this? Meanwhile, it’s the early nineties and Lori’s niece Lu Tibbott is working on her senior thesis. She decides to dig into the true-life mystery of her aunt and heads to Lori’s convent in rural New England. Mother Lori tells Lu that she’s finally ready to talk (and share the story of a lifetime). And wow, the story is a good one. We start in New York, where Lori is determined to make it as a dancer. She heads to London for schooling, and via a chance encounter ends up being chosen to play Juliet in Romeo and Juliet (opposite dreamboat Lucas Wesley). Romeo and Juliet catapults her into stardom (and a romance with Wesley). But Hollywood life is more tumultuous than Lori could have ever expected. That’s all I will say. I really enjoyed this one!

This is the newest from Elin Hilderbrand (written with her daughter!), and I must say, I am really enjoying this new direction for her. I wasn’t sure how to classify it, as it definitely had suspenseful parts, but it is not a thriller. There’s also some romance (but it’s not a romance!). So, contemporary fiction, it is! The book takes place over the course of a year at Tiffin Academy, a prestigious boarding school in New England. But when the school jumps 17 rankings (all the way up to the number two boarding school in the country), the headmaster fears that there’s been a typo (or that something fraudulent could be happening). Over the course of the year, the wheels begin to fall off the bus and mini crises emerge daily. A new app called ZipZap surfaces, releasing scandalous blind items every week. No one is safe, be it the young new history teacher, the queen bee influencer, the bookish new transfer student, the older staff members, or the charming son of a wealthy board member. This one has villains you want to see get taken down, and heroes you root for. I absolutely love it (and continually marvel over Hilderbrand’s ability to write from the perspective of so many different characters, with seamless transitions! There were a few things left unresolved; I hope we get a sequel!

This book is so beloved that I feel guilty saying anything bad about it. And my not liking it has more to do with my own preferences and taste than the writing. Objectively, it’s a beautifully written book, and I generally love a literary thriller! That being said, the pace and subject matter did not do it for me. Valerie Gillis is a nurse and experienced hiker. Deep in the Maine woods, she is hiking the Appalachian Trail. Somehow, she’s managed to vanish 200 miles from her final destination. She is alone in the wilderness, on the brink of starvation, pouring her thoughts into chaotic (but poetic) letters to her mother as she attempts to survive. Leading the investigation is Beverly, a tough, determined Maine State Game Warden. And then, in a Connecticut retirement community, we have Lena, a 76-year-old woman who spends her days chatting with fellow nature enthusiasts on Reddit. When she learns of Valerie’s disappearance, she becomes obsessed as Valerie bears some resemblance to her daughter. As the search goes on (and they determine that Valerie’s disappearance might not be accidental), the stakes become higher and higher. Will they be able to save Valerie before it is too late? I feel bad giving this only a B as I loved the writing. But it just wasn’t the most enjoyable read for me.

I’m not even sure where to start with this one. It’s twisty, and it held my attention entirely while I read it. But it’s almost too twisty and off the rails? Writing isn’t great either. I finished it, and rather than feeling satisfied, I just felt WTF-y! Like, what the heck did I just read!?!?! That being said, I couldn’t put it down while I was reading! So, proceed at your own risk, I guess? When Caitlin was ten years old, her older sister Olivia was snatched from her bed, never to be seen again. Caitlin witnesses it, and 16 years later, she still doesn’t know what happened. So when Olivia shows up back home, her entire world is shattered. At first, she’s thrilled to have her sister home. But Olivia is manipulative. Her moods fluctuate, and Caitlin can’t shake the thought that Olivia isn’t who she claims to be. As time goes on, Caitlin begins to feel like she’s going crazy. Olivia isolates her from her friends, family, and fiancé. But Caitlin is determined to figure out if this woman really is her sister . . . and if not, what really happened to her. It’s a wild ride. Too wild, which isn’t something I usually say!

Joanna Goddard compared this to “the best of When Harry Met Sally, Normal People, and Lady Bird,” and she is absolutely right. This opens with Teddy and Marin on a post-graduation road trip from Iowa City to NYC. They are initially very skeptical of each other; Teddy is only doing this as a favor to the girl he’s secretly pining for. But over the course of the road trip, the two find themselves getting along (maybe too well). Marin, desperate for a fresh start, tells Teddy they aren’t friends and that they will go their separate ways. But through a series of chance encounters over eight years, they keep finding their way back to each other. This one has some serious highs and serious lows, all packed into under 200 pages. You won’t be able to put it down. It made me cry, it made me very (very!) mad at times, but it also warmed my heart. This is highly enjoyable and perfect fro fans of Emily Henry’s books.