5 MORE RECENT READS!!!

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### Recent Reads: A Dive into Five Captivating Books

Hello everyone! Today, I’m back with another *recent reads* video. As you know, I don’t do a lot of wrap-ups anymore because I simply don’t read enough each month to warrant a wrap-up video. Instead, I thought I’d share my recent reads when I finish four or five books, which takes me about a month and a half—especially with two kids underfoot! Anyway, today I’m talking about five books across different genres, including thrillers, romance, and women’s fiction. Some of my memories of these books might be a bit foggy since it’s been about a month since I read them, but I’ll do my best to recall the details.

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#### **1. The Book of Cold Cases by Simone Saint James**

First up is a book that won’t be released until next year—I think maybe even March. It’s called *The Book of Cold Cases* by Simone Saint James. This is my second book by her; I read *The Sundown Motel* last year (or the year before, to be honest) and really enjoyed it. Both books are mystery thrillers with a twist—Saint James is known for weaving together two timelines, blending what’s happening now with events from the past.

This new book follows Shay, a receptionist at a doctor’s office who also runs a forum discussion site dedicated to unsolved cold cases. She’s obsessed with true crime and jumps at the chance to interview a patient in her clinic who is a famous woman accused of multiple murders decades ago but acquitted. Shay has always wondered if this woman is guilty, and when the woman agrees to let her interview her, Shay begins uncovering dark secrets about the town’s history.

The book delves into two timelines: one with Shay investigating the present day and another revisiting the past to explore what really happened in this decades-old mystery. Saint James adds a hint of paranormal elements that remain unexplained—her signature style. While I enjoyed the book, I was a bit frustrated by the ending because it didn’t fully make sense. However, after reading another Saint James book recently, I realized that’s just her writing style—she leaves some mysteries unresolved to build atmosphere and nuance.

I gave this one a **4 out of 5**. Every Simone Saint James book I’ve read has been solid, but I’m still trying to figure out which one is my favorite.

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#### **2. The Sweet Spot by Trish Doller**

Next up is *The Sweet Spot* by Trish Doller. This one also comes out next year, and I forgot the exact date—it’s right here if you’re curious. If you don’t know me, I loved Doller’s book *Float Plan* this past year; it was easily my favorite read of the year and one of the most underrated books I’ve ever read. It’s a romance with deep character development and a lot of heart.

*Sweept Spot* is sort of a sequel or companion novel to *Float Plan*, but you don’t need to read that book first to enjoy it. The main character, Rachel, is the sister of the protagonist from *Float Plan*. She has a strained relationship with her daughter’s father and is meandering through life when she gets fired from her job at a hotel due to sexual harassment—nobody believes her. She then lands an opportunity to manage a new brewery hotel on Lake Erie (which immediately makes me think of the movie *The Thing You Do*, one of my favorite films).

Rachel takes her daughter and moves to this small island off Lake Erie, where she helps a guy named Mason open the brewery hotel from the ground up. I loved how the book combined running a hotel with brewing beer—it’s interesting to see the process! While it wasn’t as strong as *Float Plan*, I still enjoyed Rachel’s character—she’s a solid protagonist and a great mom. However, I wish I knew more about Mason’s backstory before diving in; his struggles with loss of a child were a big trigger for me.

I gave this book a **3.5 out of 5**. It wasn’t my favorite, but it’s still a solid read if you’re a fan of Trish Doller’s writing or enjoy stories about single moms.

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#### **3. Runaway Girl by Tessa Bailey**

Moving on to *Runaway Girl* by Tessa Bailey—this is the sequel to her book *Getaway Girl*. You’ll need to read *Getaway Girl* first if you want to fully understand this one, but I’ll try to summarize briefly.

In *Getaway Girl*, a character attends her strange cousin’s wedding and helps whisk away the groom when he leaves the altar. This book follows Naomi, the bride who left the altar in *Getaway Girl*. She realizes her life has always been planned out for her—marrying the mayor of Charleston, having kids—but she’s never made any decisions on her own. When she flees her wedding, she heads to Florida and meets a guy named Jason and his sister Birdie. Birdie recently lost her twin sister Bernie, who was obsessed with pageantry, so Naomi decides to help her coach Birdie in a pageant as a way to honor her sister’s memory.

This is a steamy romance novel, and Tessa Bailey writes them like clockwork—easy reads that pull me out of a rut. I gave this one a **3.5 out of 5**, as the chemistry between Naomi and Jason wasn’t as strong as in *Getaway Girl*. However, I loved their relationship and the bond they formed with Birdie.

If you’re looking for an easy, quick read, any Tessa Bailey book will do the trick!

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#### **4. Just Haven’t Met You Yet by Sophie Cousins**

Next up is *Just Haven’t Met You Yet* by Sophie Cousins—my second book by her. I read her debut novel *This Time Next Year* last year and felt it was just okay, so I wasn’t sure what to expect from this one.

The protagonist, Laura, works for a company that features love stories on their blog or video series. She’s passionate about love because of her parents’ epic love story—her mom found her dad through a necklace with half of it missing. However, Laura’s dad passed away when she was very young, and her mother has always romanticized their relationship.

When the company starts struggling, Laura suggests they send her to Jersey (which I initially thought was New Jersey but later learned is an island near Guernsey). Her parents supposedly met there, so she decides to research their story. As she digs deeper, she learns that her mom’s version of events might not be entirely accurate—she may have romanticized their past.

The romance in this book takes a backseat as Laura discovers more about herself and the idea of love. It was a solid women’s fiction read, but I didn’t feel deeply invested in it. However, I loved learning about Jersey and its history. The ending left me satisfied, but overall, it wasn’t one of my favorites.

I gave this book a **3 out of 5**. If you’re a fan of women’s fiction, give it a try, but don’t expect anything earth-shattering.

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#### **5. The Broken Girls by Simone Saint James**

Finally, the last book I want to share is *The Broken Girls* by Simone Saint James. This one has been on my physical TBR list for a while, and I’m so glad I picked it up. It’s set in two timelines: 2014 and the past.

In the present day, Fiona—a journalist—learns that her sister was found murdered years ago, and her sister’s boyfriend was tried and convicted of the crime. However, Fiona can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right about the case. When she learns someone is restoring an old girls’ boarding school called Idlewood Hall (I think I said this name at least 50 times incorrectly!), she decides to investigate.

Back in 1950, we meet a group of girls attending Idlewood Hall—a place that was known for being haunted and sending girls who were “problematic” or illegitimate daughters. The school was meant to keep these girls hidden from society. As Fiona digs deeper into the case, she uncovers dark secrets about the school and her sister’s murder.

I loved how Saint James wove together the two timelines and added a paranormal aspect that kept me hooked. It’s a great book to read during spooky season—creepy, atmospheric, and full of twists. I gave this one a **4 out of 5**, as it was engaging from start to finish.

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### Final Thoughts

There you have it—five recent reads I’ve finished! Whether you’re into thrillers, romance, or women’s fiction, there’s something here for everyone. I’d love to know if you’ve read any of these books and what you thought. Did I convince you to add them to your TBR list? Or maybe I scared you away?

Thank you so much for watching! I’ll see you in my next video.

Bye!

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This article uses the full transcription and organizes it into readable sections with clear headings and descriptions.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhello everyone today i'm here to do another recent reads video so you guys know i'm not doing wrap ups a lot anymore because i don't read enough each month garner a wrap-up video so i thought i would just do recent reads when i read like four or five books which takes me like a month and a half because two kids know so anyway i'm talking about five books they are all different genres of things like two thrillers two romance and maybe a woman's fiction so we have a lot of different genres to talk about um some of my memories of them might be a little bit foggy because it's been like a month since i've read them so please forgive me on that i'll try to do the best i can i wrote down notes a little bit so let's just get into it first up is a book that's not coming out until next year i think like maybe even march i just really wanted to read it and that is the book of cold cases by simone saint james this is my second book by her i read um the sundown motel last year maybe the year before and i really enjoyed it it's a mystery thriller as well as this one the book of cold cases so this one is all about this true kind of crime a blogger like form person named shay she works as like a receptionist at a doctor's office but she runs like this um like forum discussion site that talks all about cold cases because she's really obsessed with it and then one day enters in her kind of um a patient enters into her doctor's um office and she notices that it's like this famous like woman in their town that's been accused of murders like many many years ago but she got off scot-free and shay's always wondered like does this one really do it and eventually they start talking and the woman's like okay you can interview me you could talk to me about it i never talked about it to anyone so shay's like oh my gosh so she starts going over to her house and she learns more about it and more undercoverings about this murderous spirit that happened years ago if this one really did it or not so it's got a lot of culmination of things you get two timelines simone st james is really known for that the two timeline things of what's going on now and then what's really happened in the past so you get to see shay uncovering the truth now and trying to figure out things she's also going through her own trauma as well of something that's happened to her and also you go back in time to this woman sorry i forget her name of what really happened did she murder those people did she not who's to say but i actually really enjoyed this book i gave it a 4 out of 5. i haven't read a simone st james book that i haven't liked they're all solid reads she also always does a hint of paranormalcy is that the right word paranormal stuff in him and she never really explains it it's just kind of there um at the end of this book i was kind of mad because i'm like it doesn't make any sense but in this video i've also read another simone st james books and i just kind of realized that's her writing style it's mostly like trying to uncover this big mystery thriller and then also having this paranormal aspect in the background that it's just kind of there it's never really explained but it adds to the um atmosphere to it adds to the nuance of it so i really enjoyed this one it's a great one i would highly recommend checking it out next year sorry this is the only book i will say that came out next year so at least there's that so i gave it a four out of five all right next up we have the sweet spot by tris dollar this one also comes out next year i forget what date here it is right here so if you don't know i read trish dollars book float plan which is right up here this past year and i loved it easily when my favorite books of the year you guys know i've talked about a ton it's an underrated read that is romance but it also is a lot of character development very deep and kind of um a lot of character development like i said so this one's kind of like a sequel companion novel to this one you don't have to read float plan at all to read this one i would recommend it because it does have a joining characters but in this book we have our main character rachel who's actually the sister of our character in float plans that's why they're kind of connected and she doesn't have the best relationship with her daughter's um dad but she's just kind of meandering with life she has this really great job at hotel and then somehow she gets fired from it because of sexual harassment and this nobody believes her that has happened and somehow she gets this opportunity to be a hotel manager at this very like kind of new brewery hotel in lake erie and whenever i hear lake erie i think automatically of the movie that thing you do one of my favorite movies of all time so she decides you know what i'm just i'm gonna do it why not life's short so she takes her and her daughter and she moves to this like it's a island off of like lake erie or something like that um and she learns that no she's not just like managing this brewery hotel they're still like building and getting it ready and so she meets this guy named mason and he is opening this and he's like i really need your help like i need to get decor i need to figure the theme and so that's what it pretty much is she helps him start this company from the ground up and i thought it was really cool that it was like a brewery and a hotel like the whole thing was like you went in and you could see how beers being made and stuff like that and i'm interested in that not a ton a lot of my husband's friends really love um different craft beers and stuff like that i i don't get it but um whatever to each their own but it was interesting in that regard i gave this book a three and a half out of five it was nowhere near the float float plan in my opinion but i did really like rachel she was a very solid character a great mom that had a good head on her shoulders and obviously there's a romance brewing between her and mason who has been through a lot of stuff like i kind of wish i knew the stuff that he had gone through before i read this book because it was a big trigger for me um and i will tell you it is loss of a child um so just in case that's really something hard to read maybe steer clear this book but overall i did really enjoy the friends that she made in this really really small like kind of lake town if you will and i also really enjoyed reading about how they opened up this brewery hotel and so that was really really cool but it just wasn't 100 there for me i do i would recommend it if you like the float plan i keep saying the flow plan it's just float please but it was good it wasn't one of my favorites i do really enjoy trish dollar's writing and i will read more for future books but it's three and a half for me i do like that it focused also on a single mom because that's the reality of it my mom's a single mom as well that's how it goes a lot of times and it should be talked about more so three and a half out of five not one of my favorites but a solid book nonetheless next up is runaway girl by tessa bailey so this is the sequel to her book getaway girl um and you do have to read getaway girl to read runnerman girl i'm just going to say it so getawaygirl is all about this character that meets she goes to her like a strange cousin's wedding and she learns that her cousin like just pieced out of the wedding and so the groom's left of the altar like what the heck and she kind of like helps him out whisk him away because he's also going to be the mayor of charleston and so that's what the first book's all about the second book follows the bride that left the altar her name is her name is naomi and she realizes that her whole life has always been planned out for her she was going to marry the mayor of charleston she was going to have kids but she's like i've never made any decisions of my own she decides to leave her own wedding and kind of just hightails it to florida and there she meets this guy named jason and his sister birdie and somehow she gets a job being birdie's pageant coach because birdie had just lost her sis bernie and jason her brother and sister and they both lost their birdie lost her twin sister this past year and her sister was all about pageantry and stuff like that and so bertie wants to honor her memory by running in this pageant so naomi you know his pageant girl she decides to help her out and there it kind of goes from there obviously this is a very steamy romance book because it is a tessa bailey book i read a lot of tessa bailey books when i'm kind of in a rut because they're just easy fast reads to get me out of that rut um that's just me i gave this one again a three and a half out of five i did like runaway no i did like getaway girl a little bit better i liked the romance more i felt the chemistry was really there this one the chemistry was there it was okay it wasn't one of my favorites but i really enjoyed the relationship that naomi and birdie really had it was really great i really enjoyed it but i mean if you just want a quick fast steamy romance read anything some bailey book will do that's just my personal opinion there you go it was cute it was enjoyable it just was kind of a good book to read to get me kind of out of a funk if you will next up is our women's fiction book and that is just haven't met you yet by sophie cousins this is my second book by her i read her first book last year what was it called this time next year and she writes kind of holiday-ish romance books um this one's not really holiday it's really i don't know but this one was okay i think i felt the same with just um this time next year it was just kind of okay so this book is all about a character named laura and her job is she works for like this blog or this company and she runs this feature of like of how these two people fell in love she gets kind of like a column she records a video things like that she's big on the proponent of love because her parents love story who have both passed away have this big grand love story where he she found like this necklace or like this half of a necklace and then he had the other half and they fell in love and laura's always known like their love story was just epic and just amazing but her dad passed away when she was very very young so her mom's always told her this and so the company's not doing so well so laura's like hey how about i go to jersey which by the way sophie i'm pretty sure sophie cousins is a british author she kept talking about jersey and i'm like why are we just not going to call it new jersey like that's a state and the us and so i'm like she's going to go all the way to new jersey her parents met new jersey but they kept saying jersey and finally i looked it up and i'm like oh jersey's like an island near guernsey you know that movie the potato oh gosh that i can't even pronounce that the potato peel pie something like that guernsey island um it's near that and so it is an island called jersey and me as an idiot was like why is she going all the way to new jersey mom brain tire brain whatever anyway she goes to jersey where her parents met and fell in love and she decides to research their story and of course the more she researches it the more she learns maybe her mom wasn't actually entirely factual spirit of how her her and her dad met um maybe she told laura a lot of things that were like rose-colored things that were maybe better than they appeared and so laura's learning more about her parents and maybe about the way they what really happened the estrangedness of it things like that and she laura learns discovers a lot about herself and the idea of love because she's always just has this idea of having a meat cute falling in love and things like that and of course she meets this guy um it was like a cab driver that kind of shows her all around jersey of where her parents her mom have always said this is where they went and things like that it was cute i gave it a three out of five it was definitely a woman's fictional the romance is on the back burner for sure it's more about laura discovering who she is and just the idea of love in general and discovering maybe like love isn't always so cookie cutter that things happen stuff like that i i don't know if i would recommend it a ton it was okay maybe if you're a big big lover or a woman's fiction check it out but i just found it kind of okay i kind of really pushed myself to finish it because it was a netgalley book i was like i need to review it and by the end i was happy i finished it because it was a solid like women's fiction read but i just didn't love it i wasn't super invested in it i did like the island of jersey and i loved learning about it and things like that even though an idiot me was like new jersey jesse anyway i gave it a three out of five and the last book i have i actually have a physical copy of i got it on my library and that is the broken girls by simone saying james quickly becoming one of my favorite mr thor writers this is one of her earlier books so this one is again takes place in two timelines so we have um 2014 we have fiona who is a journalist and her sister was found murdered years ago and um her sister's boyfriend was tried and convicted and for murder but fiona can't stop revisiting the event and feeling something not is not 100 there about the case and and so her sister like i said was found murder but her sisters found murdered like in the fields near this like kind of old abandoned girl schooled called idlewood idol what is it called idol wild hall i don't know what ha i don't know i say that like 50 times fast good luck um but anyway so she's she's learning now that somebody is restoring that and so she decides to investigate him more and maybe doing that will bring her answers to her sister's murder and figure out like kind of the missing puzzle pieces meanwhile we go back into 1950 while at the school that's being still very much going on and we have um a whole bunch of girls you get a whole bunch of girls perspectives that go to that school and they say this place is haunted things like that and so you have that going on so with simone st jane's books there's kind of a murder and then you kind of get two tiny timelines that go back and forth again with a paranormal aspect to it i really enjoyed this book four out of five i think i've given every simone st jane's book a four out of five they're solid reads i really enjoy them i don't know which one is my favorite i really enjoyed this one it took me a little bit time to get into but the ending was really great i loved how it all tied together i loved the paranormal aspect of this book i don't want to tell you what it is because i think it will spoil it for you it adds to the kind of scariness to the atmospheric it's a great book to read in the fall it definitely has got that creepy vibe because you got this old kind of all-girl school that like people sent their um girls to and they like were being bad or like a lot of them were like illegitimate daughters back in the 1950s that they didn't want anyone to know about so they would send them to that school to like be hush hush so no one knows about this school and no one wants to attend it so i really love that i also love fiona was trying to really figure out her sister's murder like something was missing and she couldn't quite piece it together so i really enjoyed it like any simone st and james book will do i've read three of them now and i really enjoy all of them i know she's got a few more that i want to get to that are really backless so if you have any of those that are your favorite let me know i still i don't know which one's my favorite i might have to read all of her books and do like an author video because i just really enjoy her books a ton so this is a great one to read especially you know i know we just kind of ended spooky season but like you know the fall is kind of that kind of mystery survive so it's a great book to read during now so there you have it those are five recent reads that i've read you guessed it recently i would love to know if you've read any of these what your thoughts and opinions are maybe i convince you to read them maybe i commit to you not to read them i would love to know either way thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in my next video byehello everyone today i'm here to do another recent reads video so you guys know i'm not doing wrap ups a lot anymore because i don't read enough each month garner a wrap-up video so i thought i would just do recent reads when i read like four or five books which takes me like a month and a half because two kids know so anyway i'm talking about five books they are all different genres of things like two thrillers two romance and maybe a woman's fiction so we have a lot of different genres to talk about um some of my memories of them might be a little bit foggy because it's been like a month since i've read them so please forgive me on that i'll try to do the best i can i wrote down notes a little bit so let's just get into it first up is a book that's not coming out until next year i think like maybe even march i just really wanted to read it and that is the book of cold cases by simone saint james this is my second book by her i read um the sundown motel last year maybe the year before and i really enjoyed it it's a mystery thriller as well as this one the book of cold cases so this one is all about this true kind of crime a blogger like form person named shay she works as like a receptionist at a doctor's office but she runs like this um like forum discussion site that talks all about cold cases because she's really obsessed with it and then one day enters in her kind of um a patient enters into her doctor's um office and she notices that it's like this famous like woman in their town that's been accused of murders like many many years ago but she got off scot-free and shay's always wondered like does this one really do it and eventually they start talking and the woman's like okay you can interview me you could talk to me about it i never talked about it to anyone so shay's like oh my gosh so she starts going over to her house and she learns more about it and more undercoverings about this murderous spirit that happened years ago if this one really did it or not so it's got a lot of culmination of things you get two timelines simone st james is really known for that the two timeline things of what's going on now and then what's really happened in the past so you get to see shay uncovering the truth now and trying to figure out things she's also going through her own trauma as well of something that's happened to her and also you go back in time to this woman sorry i forget her name of what really happened did she murder those people did she not who's to say but i actually really enjoyed this book i gave it a 4 out of 5. i haven't read a simone st james book that i haven't liked they're all solid reads she also always does a hint of paranormalcy is that the right word paranormal stuff in him and she never really explains it it's just kind of there um at the end of this book i was kind of mad because i'm like it doesn't make any sense but in this video i've also read another simone st james books and i just kind of realized that's her writing style it's mostly like trying to uncover this big mystery thriller and then also having this paranormal aspect in the background that it's just kind of there it's never really explained but it adds to the um atmosphere to it adds to the nuance of it so i really enjoyed this one it's a great one i would highly recommend checking it out next year sorry this is the only book i will say that came out next year so at least there's that so i gave it a four out of five all right next up we have the sweet spot by tris dollar this one also comes out next year i forget what date here it is right here so if you don't know i read trish dollars book float plan which is right up here this past year and i loved it easily when my favorite books of the year you guys know i've talked about a ton it's an underrated read that is romance but it also is a lot of character development very deep and kind of um a lot of character development like i said so this one's kind of like a sequel companion novel to this one you don't have to read float plan at all to read this one i would recommend it because it does have a joining characters but in this book we have our main character rachel who's actually the sister of our character in float plans that's why they're kind of connected and she doesn't have the best relationship with her daughter's um dad but she's just kind of meandering with life she has this really great job at hotel and then somehow she gets fired from it because of sexual harassment and this nobody believes her that has happened and somehow she gets this opportunity to be a hotel manager at this very like kind of new brewery hotel in lake erie and whenever i hear lake erie i think automatically of the movie that thing you do one of my favorite movies of all time so she decides you know what i'm just i'm gonna do it why not life's short so she takes her and her daughter and she moves to this like it's a island off of like lake erie or something like that um and she learns that no she's not just like managing this brewery hotel they're still like building and getting it ready and so she meets this guy named mason and he is opening this and he's like i really need your help like i need to get decor i need to figure the theme and so that's what it pretty much is she helps him start this company from the ground up and i thought it was really cool that it was like a brewery and a hotel like the whole thing was like you went in and you could see how beers being made and stuff like that and i'm interested in that not a ton a lot of my husband's friends really love um different craft beers and stuff like that i i don't get it but um whatever to each their own but it was interesting in that regard i gave this book a three and a half out of five it was nowhere near the float float plan in my opinion but i did really like rachel she was a very solid character a great mom that had a good head on her shoulders and obviously there's a romance brewing between her and mason who has been through a lot of stuff like i kind of wish i knew the stuff that he had gone through before i read this book because it was a big trigger for me um and i will tell you it is loss of a child um so just in case that's really something hard to read maybe steer clear this book but overall i did really enjoy the friends that she made in this really really small like kind of lake town if you will and i also really enjoyed reading about how they opened up this brewery hotel and so that was really really cool but it just wasn't 100 there for me i do i would recommend it if you like the float plan i keep saying the flow plan it's just float please but it was good it wasn't one of my favorites i do really enjoy trish dollar's writing and i will read more for future books but it's three and a half for me i do like that it focused also on a single mom because that's the reality of it my mom's a single mom as well that's how it goes a lot of times and it should be talked about more so three and a half out of five not one of my favorites but a solid book nonetheless next up is runaway girl by tessa bailey so this is the sequel to her book getaway girl um and you do have to read getaway girl to read runnerman girl i'm just going to say it so getawaygirl is all about this character that meets she goes to her like a strange cousin's wedding and she learns that her cousin like just pieced out of the wedding and so the groom's left of the altar like what the heck and she kind of like helps him out whisk him away because he's also going to be the mayor of charleston and so that's what the first book's all about the second book follows the bride that left the altar her name is her name is naomi and she realizes that her whole life has always been planned out for her she was going to marry the mayor of charleston she was going to have kids but she's like i've never made any decisions of my own she decides to leave her own wedding and kind of just hightails it to florida and there she meets this guy named jason and his sister birdie and somehow she gets a job being birdie's pageant coach because birdie had just lost her sis bernie and jason her brother and sister and they both lost their birdie lost her twin sister this past year and her sister was all about pageantry and stuff like that and so bertie wants to honor her memory by running in this pageant so naomi you know his pageant girl she decides to help her out and there it kind of goes from there obviously this is a very steamy romance book because it is a tessa bailey book i read a lot of tessa bailey books when i'm kind of in a rut because they're just easy fast reads to get me out of that rut um that's just me i gave this one again a three and a half out of five i did like runaway no i did like getaway girl a little bit better i liked the romance more i felt the chemistry was really there this one the chemistry was there it was okay it wasn't one of my favorites but i really enjoyed the relationship that naomi and birdie really had it was really great i really enjoyed it but i mean if you just want a quick fast steamy romance read anything some bailey book will do that's just my personal opinion there you go it was cute it was enjoyable it just was kind of a good book to read to get me kind of out of a funk if you will next up is our women's fiction book and that is just haven't met you yet by sophie cousins this is my second book by her i read her first book last year what was it called this time next year and she writes kind of holiday-ish romance books um this one's not really holiday it's really i don't know but this one was okay i think i felt the same with just um this time next year it was just kind of okay so this book is all about a character named laura and her job is she works for like this blog or this company and she runs this feature of like of how these two people fell in love she gets kind of like a column she records a video things like that she's big on the proponent of love because her parents love story who have both passed away have this big grand love story where he she found like this necklace or like this half of a necklace and then he had the other half and they fell in love and laura's always known like their love story was just epic and just amazing but her dad passed away when she was very very young so her mom's always told her this and so the company's not doing so well so laura's like hey how about i go to jersey which by the way sophie i'm pretty sure sophie cousins is a british author she kept talking about jersey and i'm like why are we just not going to call it new jersey like that's a state and the us and so i'm like she's going to go all the way to new jersey her parents met new jersey but they kept saying jersey and finally i looked it up and i'm like oh jersey's like an island near guernsey you know that movie the potato oh gosh that i can't even pronounce that the potato peel pie something like that guernsey island um it's near that and so it is an island called jersey and me as an idiot was like why is she going all the way to new jersey mom brain tire brain whatever anyway she goes to jersey where her parents met and fell in love and she decides to research their story and of course the more she researches it the more she learns maybe her mom wasn't actually entirely factual spirit of how her her and her dad met um maybe she told laura a lot of things that were like rose-colored things that were maybe better than they appeared and so laura's learning more about her parents and maybe about the way they what really happened the estrangedness of it things like that and she laura learns discovers a lot about herself and the idea of love because she's always just has this idea of having a meat cute falling in love and things like that and of course she meets this guy um it was like a cab driver that kind of shows her all around jersey of where her parents her mom have always said this is where they went and things like that it was cute i gave it a three out of five it was definitely a woman's fictional the romance is on the back burner for sure it's more about laura discovering who she is and just the idea of love in general and discovering maybe like love isn't always so cookie cutter that things happen stuff like that i i don't know if i would recommend it a ton it was okay maybe if you're a big big lover or a woman's fiction check it out but i just found it kind of okay i kind of really pushed myself to finish it because it was a netgalley book i was like i need to review it and by the end i was happy i finished it because it was a solid like women's fiction read but i just didn't love it i wasn't super invested in it i did like the island of jersey and i loved learning about it and things like that even though an idiot me was like new jersey jesse anyway i gave it a three out of five and the last book i have i actually have a physical copy of i got it on my library and that is the broken girls by simone saying james quickly becoming one of my favorite mr thor writers this is one of her earlier books so this one is again takes place in two timelines so we have um 2014 we have fiona who is a journalist and her sister was found murdered years ago and um her sister's boyfriend was tried and convicted and for murder but fiona can't stop revisiting the event and feeling something not is not 100 there about the case and and so her sister like i said was found murder but her sisters found murdered like in the fields near this like kind of old abandoned girl schooled called idlewood idol what is it called idol wild hall i don't know what ha i don't know i say that like 50 times fast good luck um but anyway so she's she's learning now that somebody is restoring that and so she decides to investigate him more and maybe doing that will bring her answers to her sister's murder and figure out like kind of the missing puzzle pieces meanwhile we go back into 1950 while at the school that's being still very much going on and we have um a whole bunch of girls you get a whole bunch of girls perspectives that go to that school and they say this place is haunted things like that and so you have that going on so with simone st jane's books there's kind of a murder and then you kind of get two tiny timelines that go back and forth again with a paranormal aspect to it i really enjoyed this book four out of five i think i've given every simone st jane's book a four out of five they're solid reads i really enjoy them i don't know which one is my favorite i really enjoyed this one it took me a little bit time to get into but the ending was really great i loved how it all tied together i loved the paranormal aspect of this book i don't want to tell you what it is because i think it will spoil it for you it adds to the kind of scariness to the atmospheric it's a great book to read in the fall it definitely has got that creepy vibe because you got this old kind of all-girl school that like people sent their um girls to and they like were being bad or like a lot of them were like illegitimate daughters back in the 1950s that they didn't want anyone to know about so they would send them to that school to like be hush hush so no one knows about this school and no one wants to attend it so i really love that i also love fiona was trying to really figure out her sister's murder like something was missing and she couldn't quite piece it together so i really enjoyed it like any simone st and james book will do i've read three of them now and i really enjoy all of them i know she's got a few more that i want to get to that are really backless so if you have any of those that are your favorite let me know i still i don't know which one's my favorite i might have to read all of her books and do like an author video because i just really enjoy her books a ton so this is a great one to read especially you know i know we just kind of ended spooky season but like you know the fall is kind of that kind of mystery survive so it's a great book to read during now so there you have it those are five recent reads that i've read you guessed it recently i would love to know if you've read any of these what your thoughts and opinions are maybe i convince you to read them maybe i commit to you not to read them i would love to know either way thank you guys so much for watching and i will see you in my next video bye\n"