Plain Like Vanilla: An American Tale
Book
Plain Like Vanilla is a gripping tale of murder, betrayal, and awakening. Charlottesville,...
Mystery
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated Unravel Me ( Book 1) in Books
Jul 27, 2022
Kindle
Unravel Me ( Book 1)
By Kendall Ryan
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
🌶🌶🌶🌶
Psychology student Ashlyn Drake's neat, orderly life takes a turn for the crazy when she finds the perfect subject for her amnesia thesis - a young man without any memory of his previous life, including the murder he's accused of committing. Against all common sense, Ashlyn's drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
Perhaps it's that he's so incredibly male: even handcuffed to his hospital bed, he could pass for a cologne ad - Scent de Insanity. Or perhaps it's because she's spent too many lonely nights studying. Either way, she's determined to help him solve the mystery of his past.
But when she finally learns his secret, there's no telling which one is the real him, the gentle lover she's fallen for or the troubled man with a dark past...
I enjoyed this more than I thought I was going to. It was defo an interesting story and way to meet the man of your dreams. Very well written and plenty of spicy bits. Only thing that really got my back up was the name Ashlyn I don’t know why I just don’t like it!
Mark @ Carstairs Considers (2456 KP) rated A Little Class on Murder in Books
Apr 7, 2022
This is the book where the series seems to finally be finding the right mix. There is plenty of humor, and I laughed quite a bit. The characters are still on the thin side, but they work to keep us engaged and entertained. We get plenty of references to other writers and characters, mostly the three authors Annie is teaching in her class (Christie, Sayers, and Rinehart), but they never overwhelm or feel like a list dropped into the story. And the mystery weaves all around, keeping us guessing until the end. There is still more foul language than in a typical cozy, but as long as you know this, you’ll be fine. I hope this mix continues as the series goes forward.
The Admiral’s Wife by M.K. Tod
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A memory wiped clean. A dark past. A faceless killer. They call her Jane. No one knows her real...
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Alan Hollinghurst, the Booker Prize-winning author of The Line of Beauty, brings us a dark, luminous...
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Twelve—year—old Florian Bates has just moved to Washington, DC, the latest of places he’s...
Amanda (96 KP) rated People Like Us in Books
Mar 12, 2019
So we have Katherine "Kay" at a boarding school called, Bates. She's there for a soccer and hopes to get an athletic scholarship. One night, her and her few friends come across a body, a student and things begin to unravel about Kay and now she's being blackmailed.
Here's Kay in a nutshell. She DID NOT come from money, though she is trying her best to dress and act the part - including being the bully. It's hard to say if she goes a long with most of the stuff her friends did and said, or if she is genuinely a 'mean girl'. Although, after a prank that was her idea comes to play, my sympathy for her slowly weakens.
She gets a link to this revenge blog and it works along with algorithm that if she doesn't get a student off the class roster (meaning getting them expelled) then information about her is leaked to the police that could put her in prison. How it works is the blog is a stove and it opens for a 'recipe'. The recipe is a poem and sometimes had photos or information that incriminates her friends. One of them, for example, hints that one of her friends cheats on her tests.
To add to the drama, Kay struggles with her romantic feelings for her best friend (though I often wonder why) Brie whom has a girlfriend. They've gone through the whole will they or will they not bit, and although Brie has a girlfriend, Kay still struggles. She also has conflicting feelings for her ex-boyfriend, Spencer, who cheated on her...oddly enough with the student they found dead.
Kay's life is one long soap opera. She harbors a secret about her brother's murder and her best friend's suicide (before she was shipped to Bates). Her and her group of friends makes me think of the reasons of why I didn't hang out with a group of girls growing up. They are catty and vengeful. Sometimes guys aren't any better, but I had more guy friends than I did girl friends growing up.
I dozed off on most of the book because Kay started babbling on about certain things that just didn't keep my interest. The more she told her story the more intrigued I did get, but in the end, I still couldn't really feel much for her. I'm not sure if that was the intention of the story - perhaps if it were, it wouldn't be told by Kay. The characters were not likable, but I think that was the point.
I didn't even care for Brie whom is basically the only NICE girl in the whole bunch. I can understand her being hurt by Kay (and Kay has said and done some things to warrant that), but at the same time, I wonder what it is about her that has Kay wanting her so badly.
I liked Nola for a moment because she was a computer nerd and liked literature, but that didn't last long at all. The only character I felt for was a cat named Hunter...poor kitty.
The story as a whole wasn't bad. Each side story came around in full circle and nothing was left out or left unresolved. I didn't even have a problem with how it ended, because honestly, how else would it have ended? Kay expresses regret for her actions and the things she has said, but if the story were to continue into a book two, I better see some major growth from everything she endured.


