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I've been reading, reading, reading again and I'm back to share the reviews of my most recent books as well as an update on my book club in real life!
My local book club met for a second time at True Food Kitchen in King of Prussia and we had such a fun time! I shared about our fist meet up in my last post. There was a group of girls who came back again from the first meet and a group of newbies as well. It was nice to catch up with the repeat members, meet some new friends, and then obviously just have fun chatting about books and life over some yummy food and wine! We are all squared away to meet again in the beginning of November: it's so fun having some other locals who love to read just as much as I do and enjoy an excuse to get out in the middle of the week for a little fun. I just started the book for our next meeting this week though so I'm going to have to rush a bit to make sure I'm done in time! Luckily I enjoy reading and am pretty fast so I think I'll be ok :) Here is the round-up of my pick for the last book club meeting as well as three other books I've recently read as well!
A Stranger In the House
By Shari Lapena. Synopsis from Amazon:
Karen and Tom Krupp are happy—they’ve got a lovely home in upstate New York, they’re practically newlyweds, and they have no kids to interrupt their comfortable life together. But one day, Tom returns home to find Karen has vanished—her car’s gone and it seems she left in a rush. She even left her purse—complete with phone and ID—behind.
There's a knock on the door—the police are there to take Tom to the hospital where his wife has been admitted. She had a car accident, and lost control as she sped through the worst part of town.
The accident has left Karen with a concussion and a few scrapes. Still, she’s mostly okay—except that she can’t remember what she was doing or where she was when she crashed. The cops think her memory loss is highly convenient, and they suspect she was up to no good.
Karen returns home with Tom, determined to heal and move on with her life. Then she realizes something’s been moved. Something’s not quite right. Someone’s been in her house. And the police won't stop asking questions.
Because in this house, everyone’s a stranger. Everyone has something they’d rather keep hidden. Something they might even kill to keep quiet.
I picked this book for my official book club read because I read "The Couple Next Door" by Shari Lapena first and absolutely LOVED that book. The mystery was so good and I just could not figure out what was going to happen next. I still enjoyed this book, but the mystery was just not quite as intense. I felt like I had figured out the ending about 60% of the way through the book: there was a little twist to it but generally I saw where it was going. Overall I still liked the book: it was a pretty easy read but kept me interested. The characters were a little...flat? Slightly unrealistic? and I'm getting a little tired of the whole "temporary memory loss" used in modern mystery novels to draw out the story line...but I still liked the book and it kept me interested.
Fitness Junkie: A Novel
By Lucy Sykes and Jo Piazza. Synopsis from Amazon:
