Hello Readers! While I read sparingly the first few months of the year, my reading finally picked up in April. Just in time because I was getting behind on my advanced reader copies. 😉 We’ve had lovely spring weather, a mix of sunshine and rain, which always makes me want to pick up a book. I’m trying to soak it in because I know it’s only a matter of days before the heat sets in here in Texas.

I ended up reading 7 books, including 4 ARCs and 3 backlist books, 2 via Libby, for a total of 2,313 pages, enjoying everything I read! I added one new book to my shelf, one eARC, and a few free ebooks.

Let’s see what I read and what I added to my TBR in April!

(Link to synopsis on Goodreads through the book title.)

April Wrap-Up

I started the month finishing up my reading of The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn. My third book by the author—and probably my favorite read of the month—Clayborn blends romance and mystery in her latest emotional story featuring sisters, a podcast, and a roadtrip.

➤My Rating: ★★★★½
➤My Review
➤Published March 26, 2024

Continuing the podcast theme, I picked up Listen for the Lie by Amy Tintera, a thriller I was kindly sent by Celadon. I sped through this one full of unreliable characters, and was completely entertained!

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤My Review
➤Published March 5, 2024

When I was approved to read Not in Love, Ali Hazelwood’s next romance, I couldn’t wait until closer to the publishing date to read it! Extra spicy, this one is set more on the business side of the STEM world than in the lab, which I’m not sure I prefer, but once again Hazelwood has created a great cast of characters.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤My review will be coming closer to the publishing date.
➤Expected June 11, 2024
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – A book originally published under a pen name

I finally got caught up on my ARCs when I picked up Late Bloomer by Mazey Eddings. I have to admit, the cover of this one is what first attracted me to the story, and I wanted to read it as close to spring as I could. Set on a flower farm, it provided the perfect setting for this seasonal reader. I didn’t quite love this one as much as I did Eddings previous book, Tilly in Technicolor, but I did like the representation and the setting. I just didn’t love the frustrating miscommunication—or lack of communication—between our couple. This one was fun, though!

➤My Rating: ★★★¼
➤My Review
➤Published April 16, 2024
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – An LGBTQ+ Romance novel

Another book I was hoping to read in the spring, when Tom Lake by Ann Patchett became available for me on Libby, I dove right in! I quickly became immersed in this dream-like story, and it would have been five stars except for a few things that threw me off towards the end of the book. It’s my first book by the author and it won’t be my last!

➤My Rating: ★★★★½
➤Published August 1, 2023
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Advanced Prompt – A book about a 24-year-old

Next I listened to the novella The Honeymoon Crashers by Christina Lauren via Libby. It’s a follow-up to their hit book The Unhoneymooners. I’m not an audiobook listener, especially not a fan of full cast audiobooks, but since this one was only available as an audiobook, I made the sacrifice. 😉 I definitely know I would have preferred this one in book form, but I still enjoyed it!

➤My Rating: ★★★½
➤Published August 1, 2023

I officially finished All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy on May 1st, but since I read the bulk of it in April, I’m including it here. 😃 I was encouraged to pick this one up sooner rather than later by my husband who has been on a Cormac McCarthy binge-read. It’s my first book by the author and is very well-written! It definitely falls into the western genre, which is not usually my favorite, but McCarthy makes it more palatable.

➤My Rating: ★★★★
➤Published January 1, 1992
➤Popsugar Reading Challenge Prompt – A book from a genre you typically avoid

April Book Haul

I only picked up one physical book in April and a few ebooks, but I did do an unhaul of my shelves, getting rid of about 30 books I no longer wanted to read or ones I could get via Libby. It felt great, and I’m hoping to unhaul even more physical books, as well as cleaning out my Kindle, when I can make the time to dive deeper!

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Blackwells Preorder

Why would I preorder a UK version of a book when I live in the US?? Because all my Emily Henry books have been paperback until Happy Place came out last year and it was only available here in hardback! I refuse to bend to the publishers attempt to make me buy a hardback now and a paperback later. 😂 Plus, I do think their covers are better. Now I just need to exchange my US versions of her older books for UK ones so they’ll all match on my shelf. Ha! I can’t wait to pick up Funny Story!

Synopsis:

A shimmering, joyful new novel about a pair of opposites with the wrong thing in common.

Daphne always loved the way her fiancé Peter told their story. How they met (on a blustery day), fell in love (over an errant hat), and moved back to his lakeside hometown to begin their life together. He really was good at telling it…right up until the moment he realized he was actually in love with his childhood best friend Petra.

Which is how Daphne begins her new story: Stranded in beautiful Waning Bay, Michigan, without friends or family but with a dream job as a children’s librarian (that barely pays the bills), and proposing to be roommates with the only person who could possibly understand her predicament: Petra’s ex, Miles Nowak.

Scruffy and chaotic—with a penchant for taking solace in the sounds of heart break love ballads—Miles is exactly the opposite of practical, buttoned up Daphne, whose coworkers know so little about her they have a running bet that she’s either FBI or in witness protection. The roommates mainly avoid one another, until one day, while drowning their sorrows, they form a tenuous friendship and a plan. If said plan also involves posting deliberately misleading photos of their summer adventures together, well, who could blame them?

But it’s all just for show, of course, because there’s no way Daphne would actually start her new chapter by falling in love with her ex-fiancé’s new fiancée’s ex…right?

Published April 23, 2024

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eARC

I can not remember how The Wedding People by Alison Espach flew under my radar, but I was happy to be approved for it! It’s getting rave early reviews and sounds like a perfect vacation or poolside read.

Synopsis:

A propulsive and uncommonly wise novel about one unexpected wedding guest and the surprising people who help us start anew.

It’s a beautiful day in Newport, Rhode Island, when Phoebe Stone arrives at the grand Cornwall Inn wearing a green dress and gold heels, not a bag in sight, alone. She’s immediately mistaken by everyone in the lobby for one of the wedding people, but she’s actually the only guest at the Cornwall who isn’t here for the big event. Phoebe is here because she’s dreamt of coming for years―she hoped to shuck oysters and take sunset sails with her husband, only now she’s here without him. Meanwhile, the bride has accounted for every detail and every possible disaster the weekend might yield except for, well, Phoebe―which makes it that much more surprising when the women can’t stop confiding in each other.

In turns uproariously, absurdly funny and devastatingly tender, Alison Espach’s The Wedding People is a look at the winding paths we can take to places we never imagined―and the chance encounters it sometimes takes to reroute us.

Expected July 30, 2024

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eBooks

← Anytime I see a Sarina Bowen book for free, I snatch it up! Heartland is the 7th book in the True North series and I’ve only read the first, but I enjoy them when I need a break from heavier subjects. I just wish we could get different covers. I’m not a fan of the shirtless muscled man on the front of my books. 😂

→ My Favorite Terrible Thing by Madeleine Henry was my Amazon First Reads choice for April. I wasn’t overly impressed with any of the choices in April, but I’d read and enjoyed Henry’s book The Love Proof, so I picked this one up. It does have mixed reviews, though. Let me know if you’ve read it!

How was your reading month? Let me know in the comments!

Happy Wandering!