Mile Long TBR

Review: The Jetsetters by Amanda Eyre Ward

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I’m a huge fan of Reese’s Book Club and usually love her picks, even when they’re from a genre a bit out of my comfort zone.


Unfortunately, The Jetsetters, March’s pick fell a bit flat for me. The story was cute enough and the writing was okay, but I didn’t especially connect with any of the characters, and that made it hard to love this slow-paced character-driven novel.

Charlotte, a 70-year-old widow wins a Jetsetter contest and is off on a European dream vacation with her three adult children. They’re not close and each has secrets they’re trying to conceal from the others, but 10 days touring the Mediterranean together is sure to put the fun in this dysfunctional family’s vacation.

Is a getaway of a lifetime a chance to get over a lifetime’s worth of differences?

Will coming together as a family help each member cope with the struggles they’re facing individually?

These are some of the questions Amanda Eyre Ward’s novel explores, but the answers just fell a little short for me. Initially, I thought this was an unpopular opinion of the book, but I’ve since seen a number of people who were similarly disappointed.

Also, the setting of the Mediterranean gave the opportunity to really explore and bring to life all the coastal cities mentioned and could have really made the book. Ward missed the boat there, and I didn’t feel the places were brought to life any more than the characters. for a novel that features travel so prominently this was a significant letdown.

The Jettsetters got three stars from me. Truthfully, I think I would have given up if it weren’t a RBC book. I found it rather unmemorable. My favorite stories are those that stay with me and leave me thinking about them long after I’ve finished them, and this is definitely not one that will.

Of course, your mileage may vary, and if you love family dramas may enjoy this one more than I did.

Review: The Honey-Don’t List by Christina Lauren

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I’m a relatively new romance reader. A few years I gave the genre a try, and I’m glad I did because they often read like you’re watching your favorite rom-com movie. They also serve as a great way to have a fresh and fun read if you’re in a rut or need a palate-cleansing book.

The queens of the genre, Christina Lauren do it again with the Honey-Don’t List that follows a celebrity couple as their marriage implodes, and their assistants who just might come together despite their differences and initial impressions of each other.

The power couple in question, Melissa and Rusty Tripp gave off serious Chip and Joanna Gaines vibes, though to the extreme and gone wrong under the effects of fame, travel, and the tension in their lives.

The book was cute and funny, and while the romance between Carey and James seemed to take a back seat to the drama that was happening on the book tour with their bosses, I thought it was an enjoyable read and definitely recommend fans of the author to check out the latest book for a fast and playful romance.

I gave the book four stars, though if you’re a hardcore romance and CLo fan then you might love it even more!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Gallery Books for the advance copy.

Review: In Five Years by Rebecca Serle

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“You mistake love. You think it has to have a future in order to matter, but it doesn’t. It’s the only thing that does not need to become at all. … Love doesn’t require a future.”

Rebecca Serle

Oh, Rebecca Serle … why’d you have to do me like that again?
I binged the audiobook of In Five Years while working on this paint by number and I absolutely adored it!

Painting and enjoying some wine while listening to an audiobook may just be my new favorite quarantine activity. Any guess what I’m painting?


Dannie thinks she has it all figured out after she nails an interview at her dream job and gets engaged to her perfect man on the same day. Then she wakes up five years in the future and spends an hour in a very different, yet alluring alternate life. Too real to be a dream, yet too strange to be anything else, Dannie tries to carry on with the future shes been planning for years, until one day she unexpectedly meets the literal man of her dreams.


The book provides much to contemplate about love, fate, destiny, and friendship and how malleable those things are as Dannie tries to steer the course of her life away from the future she glimpsed in her premonition.

Is the future written in the stars, or if you are determined enough can you write it yourself ?

Just like Serle’s The Dinner List, this four-star book is heartwarming and heartbreaking all at once, with tantalizing descriptions of shared meals and a magical NYC backdrop.

The one criticism I have is that the characters here aren’t as developed as I’d have liked them to be. While unique and engaging, they were lacking depth and richness that would have taken this from a four-star read to a five-star for me.


Still, all the buzz surrounding this book is well-deserved and it lives up to the hype and the standard set by The Dinner List


Have you read this or The Dinner List? Have you ever tried an “adult” paint by number?

Review: Woman on the Edge

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Thrillers are one of my top genres, so I can’t think of a better way to open this blog than a review of a great one that came out earlier this month!

Woman on the Edge opens with a distraught woman on the subway who thrusts her baby into Morgan Kincaid’s arms and jumps in front of a train. It becomes apparent that Morgan, despite her own past, was chosen deliberately by this desperate stranger, and that she had her own past to hide which may have pushed her over the edge.


The woman who jumped is Nicole Markham, CEO of a successful lifestyle brand she founded and built from nothing. She had it all until everything turned upside down after the birth of her daughter. Now she’s filled with anxiety and can’t leave the house or baby for a minute, let alone think about returning to work. Her husband is growing discontent with the changes in her personality.

And skeletons in her closet she thought were long in the past are coming back to haunt her.

I absolutely could not put this book down, with all the turns the story took I was at the edge of my seat, and there were enough twists to have me suspecting every one of the people in Nicole’s life by the end of the novel.

I appreciated the complexity of the characters and feel Bailey handled the postpartum mental health issues well, which is important as it is something that warrants discussion.

Five stars to this fantastically fast-paced debut thriller from Samantha Bailey.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the advance copy!

Welcome!

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Hello and welcome!

I’m Danielle, a Florida-based bibliophile with a mile long TBR.

It includes everything from classics to thrillers, self-help books to true crime, modern fiction, romance, and genres in between. 


I’m an animal-loving, wine-drinking travel enthusiast and lover of books in all formats. Paperbacks, audiobooks, hardcovers, ebooks… I’ll take them all!

I’ve never been much of a social media user, but last January I finally started a Bookstagram account and it’s been a fun ride! For months I’ve been toying around with the idea of creating a book blog to compliment the Instagram page, but there was always one reason or another why it wasn’t the right time.


Cut to now. March 2020. I’m locked up at home with my books and nothing but time on my hands as I try to ride out this pandemic. So what better time to talk about books? I for one need an outlet and I can’t be the only one. 


Hopefully, this space will be a place to get ideas for your next great read, read reviews of upcoming books to add to your own TBR,  and an outlet to discuss bookish things with people who can relate. However you’ve found me here, I invite you to stay awhile and share your love of reading with the amazing community here and on Instagram.