📚GENRE: Hockey Romance
🗓PUBLISHED: 2 July 2024
After a childhood spent being dragged around the country by her hockey coach father, Hayden Houston intends to take some time to figure out her future. Whether that future will include her currently off-again boyfriend remains to be seen. What it certainly won’t include is the for-one-night-only guy she just met at a bar.
It seems hockey star Brody Croft did not get the memo about being temporary. Big, bold and driven, he’s dedicated in everything he does. Up till now, that’s been his team—the one owned by Hayden’s dad. But his night with Hayden has sparked something he didn’t expect. The two of them are good together.
It seems hockey star Brody Croft did not get the memo about being temporary. Big, bold and driven, he’s dedicated in everything he does. Up till now, that’s been his team—the one owned by Hayden’s dad. But his night with Hayden has sparked something he didn’t expect. The two of them are good together. Really good. There’s a connection he’s never experienced before, one he knows they’d be wrong to ignore. Even with a game-fixing scandal testing both their loyalties—to teammates, to friends…to family.
Part of Hayden wants to turn tail and run. A complicated relationship with a bad boy hockey player is exactly what she never wanted. But when it comes to Brody, Hayden is realizing that people can be so much more than what they seem.
Here I thought Elle Kennedy came out with a new book, but it turns out this is actually a reissued version of her first book (or nearly first).
Anyway, many reviews I read said that you could tell this was one of the first books she had written because the writing wasn’t that great. I must not be very critical, because I really liked this one! It felt spicier than the other books I’ve read by her (which is almost every book!) but maybe I’m just mis-remembering because I haven’t binged her books since last February.
I really loved these characters. So much so that I wish I could keep reading about them! Even if it was just a continuation of this storyline from the perspective of a side character like the Off-Campus and Briar U. Maybe a Darcy story??
I also liked the drama spun into the romance. Although the resolution of it felt predictable, I thought it was a unique storyline.
Book 17 of 2025 🎧 Saving Noah by Lucinda Berry (4.5/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Fiction
🗓PUBLISHED: 12 September 2017
TW: r*pe, su*cide,
We forgive murderers, not pedophiles.
Not since Lionel Shriver brought us We Need to Talk About Kevin has a writer delved into the complexities of a disturbed mother/son relationship. Until now.
Meet Noah—an A-honor roll student, award-winning swimmer, and small-town star destined for greatness. There weren’t any signs that something was wrong until the day he confesses to molesting little girls during swim team practice. He’s sentenced to eighteen months in a juvenile sexual rehabilitation center.
His mother, Adrianne, refuses to turn her back on him despite his horrific crimes, but her husband won’t allow Noah back into their home. In a series of shocking and shattering revelations, Adrianne is forced to make the hardest decision of her life. Just how far will she go to protect her son?
Saving Noah challenges everything you think you know about teenage sexual offenders. It will keep you up at night long after you've read the last page, questioning beliefs you once thought were true.
Oof. I saw this book was NOT recommended by a Facebook friend, so I decided to read it. The premise of the story is quite taboo, so I was curious how the author would write it.
If I could study psychology for the rest of my life, I would. I think the human mind is a fascinating place. I wonder how close to reality this book is. Like did the author interview actual pe**philes to get their perspective? Is this accurate in showing the pain/denial/fear/grief a family suffers when finding out their family member is a predator? I read somewhere that the author is a trauma psychologist, so I suspect she has gained some real insight into trauma of this sort.
I felt so bad for the mother in this story. I can’t imagine being in her position. How do you rationalize still caring for the child you watch grow, the child you love unconditionally, who has done, and may do again, such a horrific thing?
Getting perspective seems like an odd phrase for this topic because it is obviously a terrible thing, but because it’s so taboo, the psychology on it isn’t widely talked about, and this story was an interesting way to get that perspective. I say perspective, because it’s not sympathy, and not even understanding. Maybe awareness? I don’t know. This book didn’t excuse the behavior by any means, it just makes you think.
Spoiler: the twist at the end surprised me! I felt like I should have seen it coming (the part about the dad), but I didn’t at all. I honestly thought that he was so upset about the son because he thought he would hurt his sister.
Book 18 of 2025 🎧 One of Our Own by Lucinda Berry (4/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Dark Thriller
🗓PUBLISHED: 12 March 2024
Felicia, a single mother and lawyer by day, volunteers at a local crisis center to give back to her tightknit community in a small Wisconsin town. One night, she answers a horrifying call: through tears, a frantic teenage girl tells her that she was a victim of sexual assault at a local house party.
Felicia is shocked, and breaking protocol, she begins communicating with the girl on her own, determined to keep her safe and hold her assailants accountable. But as she gets closer and closer to the truth, she can’t shake the feeling that she and the girl are connected by more than the phone call. As the girl shares more details, Felicia begins to think the unthinkable—someone close to her may be involved in this heinous crime.
As Felicia earns the girl’s trust and more facts emerge about the incident, she faces a gut-wrenching battle between her protective instincts and the moral responsibility to do what’s right.
I finished a Lucinda Berry book the other day, and after looking a little more into her background, I was curious to read more. This was my third book by her, and I’ll definitely be consuming more! (Though I may have to wait a bit..these are heavy stories).
It appears that this book was only released on audio? Also, it is performed by AJ Cook who I love on Criminal Minds! Honestly though, I didn’t recognize her by voice. It wasn’t until I saw her name on the “cover” that I realized. I listened to some bits again and I could sort of convince myself it sounded like her, but really I thought she sounded so different!
Spoilers to follow: I did see the ending coming in this one, in that I assumed Hunter was guilty. What I didn’t know was whether mom would figure it out, or more unlikely, whether mom would turn him in. I was really hoping she would, despite how difficult that would be to do to a loved one.
Book 19 of 2025 📖 Girl Abroad by Elle Kennedy (5/5🌟)
📚GENRE: Contemporary Romance
🗓PUBLISHED: 13 February 2024
💠FAVORITE QUOTE: “Then this dark-haired bit of poison slings a bass guitar over his shoulder…”
When nineteen-year-old Abbey Bly gets the opportunity to study abroad for a year in London, it's the perfect chance to finally slip out from under the thumb of her beloved but overbearing retired rock star father. She's ready to be free, to discover herself―but first off, to meet the girls she's rooming with. That is, until she arrives at her gorgeous new flat to discover those roommates are actually all boys. Charming, funny, insufferably attractive boys. And off-limits, with a rule against fraternizing between housemates after unwanted drama with the previous girl.
Abbey has never considered herself a rulebreaker. But soon, she's lying to her father about her living situation and falling for not one, but two men she can't have: her rugby-player roommate and a broody musician with a girlfriend. Not to mention, her research for school has gotten her tangled in a deeply hidden scandal of a high nobility family, surrounding her in secrets on all sides.
If there's any hope of Abbey finding love, answers, or a future in London, she'll have to decide which rules―and hearts―might be worth breaking.
My thoughts on this book are so wildly discombobulated, but here goes.
I saw how long this book was and was a little worried. I was afraid that the story would be unnecessarily drug out. Then, before I knew it, I was half way through and while I wanted to know how it turned out, I didn’t want the story to end! I loved these characters!
19-year-old Gretchen is so jealous of the FMC. Her flatmates are a hoot and I was constantly chuckling at the dialogue.
“For perhaps the first time in recorded rock history, the bassist is hot.” - this quote made me guffaw because I’ve always found the bassists to be the most attractive members of the band!
“There seems to be some confusion as to whether she’s several mice in a person costume….you’re not several mice in a costume, are you?….Right. So Abbey and I aren’t mice. Glad that’s sorted.” - this exchange made me LMAO. I think re-read this bit 5-6 times because it was so funny to me, particularly because I was ‘reading’ it in a British accent.
Also, let me just say that although my college years don’t feel as far behind me as they actually are, nothing has made me feel so far removed from them as reading about these college kids making plans for 10 or 11 PM…33-year-old Gretchen would NEVER.
I enjoyed the love triangle, which I’ll get to momentarily, but I was also engrossed in the history mystery that Abbey was investigating. Even though it’s fictional, it felt real, and I was desperate to know what happened.
As for the romance (spoilers to follow), I was really torn between the guys, though may have been partially leaning towards Team Nate for the first half. That being said, I was definitely Team Jack after the drama of the betrayals.
And the ending! Honestly I couldn’t have wanted more. I love how every little piece of the storyline wrapped up!
Book 20 of 2025 🎧 She’s Not Sorry by Mary Kubica (4/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Thriller
🗓PUBLISHED: 2 April 2024
Everyone has secrets, but not everyone has remorse…
A terrible accident.
Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below.
A shocking revelation.
When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was a crime committed? Did someone actually push Caitlin, and if so, who... and why?
No one is safe.
Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in the mystery surrounding her. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims...
This was a good one! This thriller was fast-paced, and I found the main character likeable, even when she did things I would deem unlikeable. I predicted the twist at the very end, but did not expect the other twists throughout! My jaw definitely dropped a time or two.
Spoiler: the one thing I didn’t like was the bit of story-line where her daughter was kidnapped in the beginning, which you find out was #fakenews. There was literally no point to adding that part??
Book 21 of 2025 🎧 That’s Not My Name by Megan Lally (4/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Thriller
🗓PUBLISHED: 26 December 2023
It was a mistake to trust him.
Shivering and bruised, a teen wakes up on the side of a dirt road with no memory of how she got there―or who she is. A passing officer takes her to the police station, and not long after, a frantic man arrives. He's been searching for her for hours. He has her school ID, her birth certificate, and even family photos.
He is her father. Her name is Mary. Or so he says.
When Lola slammed the car door and stormed off into the night, Drew thought they just needed some time to cool off. Except Lola disappeared, and the sheriff, his friends, and the whole town are convinced Drew murdered his girlfriend. Forget proving his innocence, he needs to find her before it's too late. The longer Lola is missing, the fewer leads there are to follow…and the more danger they both are in.
I have no idea how this ended up in my Libby holds, but I’m glad it did! Wow!
I can’t talk about this book without giving away spoilers, so stop now if you haven’t read yet.
I plowed through this book, and hated every minute I couldn’t spend listening to it! I thought that the story would be predictable and tie up in a nice happy ending. I thought there was no way there would be a twist. I was so wrong. I was devastated that Drew didn’t find Lola alive, but also I think the ending made this book a better story.
Book 22 of 2025 📖 The Dixon Rule (Campus Diaries #2) by Elle Kennedy (5/5🌟)
📚GENRE: Contemporary Romance
🗓PUBLISHED: 14 May 2024
ðŸ’FAVORITE QUOTE: “…all this ecstasy is a result not of coke but space camp.”
Diana Dixon has a lot going on this summer. She's rehearsing for a ballroom dance competition, juggling two jobs, and dealing with an ex-boyfriend who can't take the hint it's over. Yet despite all that, she still has plenty of time and energy to tell Shane Lindley to screw off.
Shane just moved into her apartment building and seems dedicated to sleeping his way through her entire cheerleading squad. Sure, he's a tall, gorgeous hockey player, but he's messing with her turf. This calls for some ground rules: no parties in her apartment, leave her teammates alone, and―most importantly―leave her alone.
What Diana doesn't realize is that Shane's sick of hookups and tired of being on the rebound after his long-term girlfriend called it quits. He wants a relationship. And when his ex comes back into the picture, he pretends he has one to make her jealous…and who better to play the girlfriend role than his sassy new neighbor?
Despite Diana's reluctance to break her rule, a fake relationship is the perfect solution for her own ex issues, and soon she can't deny something is sizzling between her and Shane. Something hot and completely unexpected.
And it might just be getting a little too real.
Okay, but I loved this book. I haven’t read about these characters since last February, so while I needed a little brush up, it was nice to see them again. And now that I’ve torn through this second book in the series, I can anxiously await the publication of the third next week!
For one, I would like to attend the HOA meetings of the main characters. Their whole little apartment neighborhood sounds like a hoot.
This book made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me simultaneously want to find how the story ended and keep reading it forever.
FREE on Kindle Unlimited!
Book 23 of 2025 📖 The Literacy 50 - A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up At Night by Melissa Loftus & Lori Sappington (4/5 ⭐️)
📚GENRE: Non-Fiction/Education
🗓PUBLISHED: 11 June 2024
Teachers have questions, and nobody knows that better than Melissa Loftus and Lori Sappington, hosts of the popular “Melissa & Lori Love Literacy” podcast. They have assembled the questions teachers ask them most about how children learn to read–and provided solid, evidence-based answers inspired by interviews with their expert guests. Their handy Q&A guide can be read from cover to cover, in sections, or by question, as your schedule allows. Written in a teacher-next-door style, it offers solid advice, references to reliable research, and lots of teaching ideas to put into action immediately. Turn to it as you would a trusted colleague who can answer your most pressing questions about phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Understanding the science of reading just got easier and more fascinating, thanks to this essential new book.
This was read for a book study that I joined. It was hard to rank this book because it wasn’t bad by any means, I just didn’t learn a whole lot of new information. It did reaffirm a lot of what I am already doing in my classroom and reminded me of other things I’d already learned in other book studies and my LETRS training.
I liked the structure of this text. It was a Q&A-type format, and very early to read/follow. I did like that podcast episodes were “linked” with the questions they matched. I did end up downloading some.
Book 24 of 2025 📖 Presumed Innocent by Scott Turow (4/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Legal Thriller
🗓PUBLISHED: 1988
Rusty Sabich, family man and the number-two prosecutor of Kindle County, is handed an explosive case--the brutal murder of a woman who happens to be his former lover. A shocking turn of events suddenly transforms him from the accuser into the accused... and plunges him into a nightmare world where nothing seems real and no one can be PRESUMED INNOCENT.
It's the stunning portrayal of one man's all-too-human, all-consuming fatal attraction for a passionate woman who is not his wife, and the story of how his obsession puts everything he loves and values on trial--including his own life. It's a book that lays bare a shocking world of betrayal and murder, as well as the hidden depths of the human heart. And it will hold you and haunt you...long after you have reached its shattering conclusion.
This book was slow to start for me, but very well could’ve been because of my lack of attention, span or need for sleep. That being said, once I got into it, I got into it. I was expecting this to be like a John Grisham novel, but it wasn’t. I did still enjoy it, however. One thing that I had to keep, reminding myself was that this book was written before I was born, and all of the modern technology that we have now was not in existence at the time. This wasn’t suspenseful, and read as more of a slow burn until the very end. I’m very excited to watch the series on Apple TV now! I don't know if I will continue the series, unless they continue the series on Apple TV, then I'll have to!
Book 25 of 2025 📖 The Charlie Method (Campus Diaries #3) by Elle Kennedy (4.5/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Contemporary Romance
🗓PUBLISHED: 25 February 2025
College senior Charlotte Kingston is living two lives―and she's nailing both of them. By day, she's the perfect sorority girl, a STEM student in biomedical engineering, and the adopted daughter of an overachiever family. At night, she's Charlie: a risk-taking daredevil looking for fun who finds herself chatting on a dating app with two anonymous hotties.
Will Larsen may seem like the breezy boy next door, but his congressman father is a constant thorn in his side. After a scandal hits another Division 1 hockey program, Will's dad is determined to distance his son from it, hiring a journalist to prove how squeaky-clean Will and his team are. Which means the last thing Will wants is for anyone to find out he and his best friend Beckett Dunne―a laidback Aussie shielding secret heartache―sometimes share girls in the bedroom.
When Charlie finally meets them in person and realizes she's been chatting with two gorgeous Briar U hockey players, things get steamy―fast. But all their messy secrets are piling up, and real life soon threatens to shatter the fantasy. With Charlie, Will, and Beckett all coming to terms with what they want and what others want for them, difficult decisions will need to be made.
Especially when lust starts to look a lot like love.
This is it. This is the one I’ve been waiting for. Will and Beckett have been great side characters throughout this series, but I was ready for them to have their own story! Romances are usually pretty predictable, but I had no clue how Kennedy would end this.
One thing I really hated about the story was the glorification of a dude who is pretty much stalking a girl. It was a minor part, but still gave me the ick.
Also, it kept saying “you’re in STEM,” “I’m a STEM major,” etc. Like, too many times. She was going to school for biomedical engineering, which while I understand is a field under the STEM umbrella, I’ve never heard the phrase “in STEM” as much as in this book and it just sounded weird. Maybe that’s just weird to me, idk.
This was a long book, and normally I’d say a romance shouldn’t be this long, but I enjoyed every page of this one! I suspect I know who the next story in this series will be about, and though I hated the start of their story, I’m always ready to read a new Kennedy book!
Book 26 of 2025 📱 Her Final Words by Brianna Labuskes (3.5/5⭐️)
📚GENRE: Police Procedural
🗓PUBLISHED: 1 August 2020
💠FAVORITE QUOTE: “Holy words were twisted by corrupt mortal men into steel bars that caged their community.”
It seems like an open-and-shut case for FBI special agent Lucy Thorne when Eliza Cook walks into the field office. The teenage girl confesses to murdering a young boy. Disturbingly composed, she reveals chilling details only the killer could know. Beyond that Eliza doesn’t say another word, leaving a vital question met with dead silence: Why did she do it?
To find the answer, Lucy goes to the scene of the crime in the small Idaho town of Knox Hollow. But Lucy’s questions are only mounting. Especially when she’s drawn deeper into the life of the victim. Then a combing of the woods yields unsettling evidence that Eliza isn’t the only one in this close-knit rural community with secrets.
Getting to the truth is becoming Lucy’s obsession. And it’s a dangerous one. Because for the good folks of Knox Hollow, hiding that truth will take more than silence.
I think this was a Prime Free Reads book I downloaded one month because I liked the author. It wasn’t my favorite by her, but it was still good. I found the main characters likeable for the most part. Sometimes the switched timeline paired with switched perspectives got confusing - I’m not sure if they offer an audiobook of this, but I think it would be complicated to listen to due to this. Overall, probably not a book that would come to mind when I’m asked for a recommendation, but I don’t regret taking the time to read it!
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(Summaries are from Amazon, but all thoughts about them are my own!)
Reading Challenge: 26/100 books read in 2025
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