Hello, all! I hope you’re all well and lovely and are getting heaps of reading done! The week is almost over and I’m just… so ready for the weekend. Okay, so this is going to be a combination post of updates, a book haul, and profuse apologies on my end. Let me attempt to explain.

I think I stated in an earlier post that I got a promotion at work and took over another job position that needed to be filled. Only problem is, they didn’t want to hire someone new to do the job I was already doing. I’m being compensated just fine, however, doing two jobs is just really taking over my life. I used to get pretty ample down time to read and get a steady flow of books done, and lately, that’s just not happening. By time I get home, I only have a few hours to settle down, have some dinner, shower, and get ready to do it all again the next day, so even my leisure time has been going without reading. Weekends are awesome, but they just fly by too quickly. Maybe I just suck at time management, who knows. By time I see a few people, do some laundry, run errands, and take care of the house, my weekends are gone too. Sounds awful to a bibliophile, right? I guess it is. My fingers are crossed harder than ever that I’ll get a break at some point and be able to just kick back with a book. That being said, my next review might not come for a bit. I like to review series stories together, and seeing as it’s been a week since I picked up my latest read and I’m STILL on book one, and there’s four more afterwards, it may be a little until the next review comes along. I’m also half way through my latest audio book which is a stand-alone, so here’s hoping I can get back to work! I am trying though, I promise you that! Pretty please, just bear with me, because I’m planning to pull some older reviews out of the archives and post them in the mean time to keep things moving along. How does that sound?

Anyway, last weekend, I got an invite to head to the bookstore, and obviously, this girl never says no. I did only come away with three new books because I had recently ordered eighteen other books via amazon (yes, you read that correctly… set up the intervention). I’ve been all over the board lately with what’s grabbing my interest… so I got a bit of a variety. Here’s what I came home with last Saturday.

The Nest by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney:

A warm, funny and acutely perceptive debut novel about four adult siblings and the fate of the shared inheritance that has shaped their choices and their lives.

Every family has its problems. But even among the most troubled, the Plumb family stands out as spectacularly dysfunctional. Years of simmering tensions finally reach a breaking point on an unseasonably cold afternoon in New York City as Melody, Beatrice, and Jack Plumb gather to confront their charismatic and reckless older brother, Leo, freshly released from rehab. Months earlier, an inebriated Leo got behind the wheel of a car with a nineteen-year-old waitress as his passenger. The ensuing accident has endangered the Plumbs joint trust fund, “The Nest,” which they are months away from finally receiving. Meant by their deceased father to be a modest mid-life supplement, the Plumb siblings have watched The Nest’s value soar along with the stock market and have been counting on the money to solve a number of self-inflicted problems.

Melody, a wife and mother in an upscale suburb, has an unwieldy mortgage and looming college tuition for her twin teenage daughters. Jack, an antiques dealer, has secretly borrowed against the beach cottage he shares with his husband, Walker, to keep his store open. And Bea, a once-promising short-story writer, just can’t seem to finish her overdue novel. Can Leo rescue his siblings and, by extension, the people they love? Or will everyone need to reimagine the future they’ve envisioned? Brought together as never before, Leo, Melody, Jack, and Beatrice must grapple with old resentments, present-day truths, and the significant emotional and financial toll of the accident, as well as finally acknowledge the choices they have made in their own lives.

This is a story about the power of family, the possibilities of friendship, the ways we depend upon one another and the ways we let one another down. In this tender, entertaining, and deftly written debut, Sweeney brings a remarkable cast of characters to life to illuminate what money does to relationships, what happens to our ambitions over the course of time, and the fraught yet unbreakable ties we share with those we love.

Six of Crows (Six of Crows #1) by Leigh Bardugo:

Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price—and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…

A convict with a thirst for revenge.

A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

Kaz’s crew are the only ones who might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.

Betrayal in Death (In Death #12) by J.D. Robb:

At the luxurious Roarke Palace Hotel, a maid walks into suite 4602 for the nightly turndown – and steps into her worst nightmare. A killer leaves her dead, strangled by a thin silver wire. He’s Sly Yost, a virtuoso of music and murder. A hit man for the elite. Lieutenant Eve Dallas knows him well. But in this twisted case, knowing the killer doesn’t help solve the crime. Because there’s someone else involved. Someone with a more personal motive. And Eve must face a terrifying possibility – that the real target may, in fact, be her husband Roarke…