Hello, and welcome to Pleasure Reading.

I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and this is a podcast about the pleasure of reading, where I share curated reading lists, author rankings, chats with my bookish friends, and more.

If you too take pleasure in reading, I hope that you will subscribe and share the show with a friend.

Cheers to your next best book.

Hello.

Hello.

And welcome to Pleasure Reading, a podcast about the many joys and pleasures of reading where we talk about our favorite books, the ones we love, the ones we cannot put down even when we are falling asleep as we read them.

And if you can relate to that, you will love this podcast.

I'm your host, Amelia Hruby, and on this show, I share curated book lists and recaps of the things that I have been reading.

I also occasionally have chats with my bookish friends.

And earlier this summer, I shared a conversation with my friend Rachel all about mood reading and how we select books just based on kind of how we're feeling in the moment or the sort of mood or vibe we want to cultivate for ourselves through our next read.

And that conversation with Rachel really inspired me to just keep on mood reading all spring and summer long.

So I haven't had very many curated book lists for you on the feed, but I have been reading a lot.

And I am here today to tell you about all of the books that I have read in April, May, June, July, and August 2025.

Now that's gonna be a lot of books, So I wanna invite you to settle in and get cozy and then to let these many wonderful books and titles wash over you.

I'm gonna be doing very quick reviews of each one.

So you're not gonna get a full recap.

You're just gonna get the highlights of what I loved about it and who I'd recommend it for.

And honestly, sometimes I think that's better than getting a whole synopsis.

This is the spirit of mood reading.

Right?

It's like, don't need to know what's gonna happen.

I just need to know if this is the vibe that I'm looking for right now.

So this episode is a mood reading vibe extravaganza as I've been thinking of it.

And let's dive in to me telling you all about these 47 books that I have read since March.

Okay.

So we're starting off on a high note because we're going to begin with one of my five star reads for the year, which is Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang.

I loved this dystopian fantasy novel that really digs deep into conversations around gender, conversations around colonialism, definitely conversations around power and how revolution might really work and what it requires of us.

Our main character, Siona, is the first woman to become a mage in hundreds of years, I believe, in this city that she lives in.

And when she goes to do her research at the institute that she's now able to join because she's passed all the tests.

She's proven that she can do this work.

When she gets there, all of the men there really look down on and demean her.

And instead of getting a research assistant, she's assigned the janitor as her assistant.

And it turns out that that janitor has a lot of wisdom of his own and they become research partners and a lot unfolds from there.

I loved the magic and world building in this book, and I also loved that it was willing to have a pretty messy ending for some of the characters.

It really reckoned with what it means to be complicit in oppression and violence.

And I just thought it was so well done.

So highly recommend Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang.

After that, I indulged myself in a little rereading of the second book of the Fever series by Karen Marie Moaning.

This is my favorite urban fantasy fairy warrior book that came well before A Court of Thorns and Roses.

I've read the entire series, and when I feel like I'm in kind of a reading rut, it's one of my favorites to return to.

So I do recommend the Fever series by Karen Marie Moaning.

I finished Blood Fever for the second time in April, and it's not everybody's cup of tea, but if Urban Fantasy Fairies is yours, you'll probably like these books.

Next up, I read Not in Love by Ali Hazelwood.

This was a foray into a more adult, erratic romance for our beloved, feminist romance writer.

It features a romance between a sort of like hedge fund CEO and a employee of this company that he's trying to acquire.

And so there are some like complicated boundaries and relationships to be navigated.

And I really liked this, but I followed that up later in the summer by reading problematic summer romance by Ali Hazelwood, which is a spin off of Not In Love.

It features some of the same characters.

And problematic summer romance is an age gap romance.

So one of the colleagues of our original MC from Not In Love has fallen for the younger sister of that character.

And I think they have like a fifteen or eighteen year age gap or something like that.

And they navigate it with a lot of, you know, emotional strife and yearning.

And I really liked it.

Honestly, I recommend them both, Not in Love and Problematic Summer Romance by Allie Hazelwood.

I also read Death at Morning House by Maureen Johnson.

I really loved her Truly Devious series, and this felt like another version of that where our main character Marlow is investigating a sort of mystery that she finds while working as a tour guide on an island in this giant mansion that they're leading tours through.

So if you love just like a You detective standalone, I definitely recommend Death at Morning House.

But I have to say the Truly Devious series is like just a chef's kiss from me, and I would go there first if you're really up for more.

My next read was I Am Made of Death by Kelly Andrew.

I am a huge Kelly Andrew fan.

She is writing the like darkest creepiest You books that I have found on the market, and I love it.

So in this one, we have Thomas and Vivian.

Vivian is like the daughter of an extremely wealthy family, and she doesn't speak.

And Thomas is the hearing child of a deaf adult, and so he's been hired basically to like chaperone Vivian around and help her communicate, although she is really not into this arrangement.

And so through the book, we learn why Vivian doesn't speak.

We learn how Thomas is really embroiled in this situation, and a lot of really creepy stuff happens.

So I'm a huge fan of Kelly Andrew and definitely recommend this book.

Although it does include some characters from her previous book.

So again, if you really wanna go for it, I'd start with the Whispering Dark, then read Your Blood, My Bones, and then I Am Made of Death.

After that, I was in the mood for zombies apparently.

So I read The Z Word by Lindsey King Miller.

This was a really sort of fun romp through zombieland.

It's set in the queer community of a fictional Arizona town, and our main character is, like, trying to figure out her place in the town after a bad breakup.

And she's sort of involved in, like, planning the town's pride celebrations, And there's a lot of drama around some corporate sponsors for pride, and then there's a lot of drama when people start turning into zombies at the pride events.

And it really manages to both be, like, a little gritty and gruesome while also being just, like, laugh out loud funny, and that's something I always love in a book.

So that was the z word by Lindsey King Miller.

Up next, I read one of the most talked about books of the summer, which was Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry.

And of course, Emily Henry is like the millennial romance writer.

So there were a lot of high expectations around this book.

I know a lot of people felt let down by it, but I enjoyed it.

In it, we meet two writers, Hayden and Alice.

They have traveled to somewhere in the South in The US.

I don't quite remember which state or area that they're in, but they've gone there to meet this celebrity and compete essentially for the possibility of writing her biography.

So throughout the book, we are hearing from the woman herself, Margaret Ives, and learning her backstory and also tracking this sort of bunny romance between Hayden and Alice.

I thought it was fun to work between timelines and to see many different romances unfold across them.

And it wasn't like a total five star home run for me, but still a very enjoyable read as Great Big Beautiful Life from Emily Henry.

The mood switched entirely from there, and I read Reprieve by James Han Matson.

I read this because it was set in Lincoln, Nebraska where I live.

And the premise is that in the nineties, four contestants make it to the final room of this, like, full contact haunted escape room in Lincoln.

And this escape room has been famous for all of the booby traps and obstacles and things you have to get through.

And if you get all the way through it, you win money.

But instead of winning money, these people disappeared.

And in the book, we're trying to unpack what happened, and we learn about the story of how this happened through many different points of view.

And I enjoyed it and it was worth reading, but I don't know that I would have picked it up if I wasn't just trying to read more books set in Nebraska.

So I'll let you explore Reprieve by James Han Matson if you're a horror reader who loves a good mystery.

Up next, I read Finley Donovan is Killing It by El Cosimano.

This series has been all over the Internet for many years, and, like, I have thought about reading it, and I finally was in a mood for, a cozy mystery.

And I will say that, like, Finlay's character as this sort of, like, divorced or in the middle of a divorce mom who is trying to, like, find her way again and accidentally becomes an assassin in the process, it was a lot of fun.

It wasn't totally for me.

The sort of like suburban mom setting I think would resonate with a lot of people and isn't one that I'm like that familiar with, so didn't quite land in the same way for me.

But if you like murder mysteries, and if you like complicated and funny female main characters, I would highly recommend Finlay Donovan is Killing It to you.

For my next read, I went back to Ali Hazelwood, and I read Deep End, which is a romance set in the world of competitive college swimming.

And it was a bit of a controversial release for miss Ali Hazelwood because it is really about sort of power play and dominant and submissive dynamics in sex.

And I really liked it.

I thought it was very well written as are all of Ali Hazelwood's books.

I enjoyed the characters.

I thought that the smuttiness was well done, and I would recommend checking it out.

If you're an Allie Hazelwood fan or a sports romance fan or you just wanna dip your toe in the deep end, all puns intended.

Something else that I did this spring and into summer was that I caught up on the Neon Gods series by Katie Robert.

This series is set in the fictional city of Olympus, which is run by these godlike figures, which as you might expect are named after the Greek gods.

So in the world of the book, gods aren't necessarily like gods.

They have these roles, and like people have to be voted into or appointed roles as Ares or Zeus or Athena or things like that.

But there is also some magic happening, and there's some different powers that people seem to have and like abilities and things like that.

So it has a really fun and interesting world building aspect to it.

And then it's just like the smuttiest series that I've read in a long time.

So every book focuses around typically two or three or more of the gods either in like the central or broader pantheon, and they develop these relationships in all sorts of different ways.

So I caught up on the series this spring before it's supposed to end at the 2025, and I read Cruel Seduction, Midnight Ruin, Dark Restraint, Stone Heart, and Sweet Obsession.

So quite a few of them.

And let me tell you, Katie Robert is out here for the polyamorous among us, for the queer among us.

She is really trying to write a broad range of sexual experiences and kinks and otherwise, and I appreciate that about her.

So I'm not gonna go into each book, but if that sounds up your alley, highly recommend the whole Neon God series.

And I would just say like, read all the synopses and like pick the ones that sound good to you.

Like, you can read them in order to sort of catch up on what's happening in this world.

But let's be honest, that's, like, not what we're really reading for.

Right?

Right.

Moving right along.

After that, I read The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner.

Sarah Penner is best known for writing The Lost Apothecary, a book that I feel like has been everywhere for quite a while.

But in this one, a nautical archaeologist is searching for sunken treasure and ends up discovering this generations long family story of witchcraft and love.

And it's all set, as you might expect, on the Amalfi Coast in Italy and Positano.

I enjoyed the setting.

I liked some of the characters.

I wanted a little more from the plot.

But if you want, like, a summary book set in Italy with a bit of a mystery and a bit of a love story, then I would recommend The Amalfi Curse by Sarah Penner to you.

For a different version of a beach set romance, I also read The Breakup Pact by Emma Lord.

And in this book, we have two best friends, June and Levi.

And they were friends as teenagers, but they didn't make the transition into adult friendship, let's say.

They've really, like, grown apart.

They haven't spoken in years, and they both end up in the town they grew up in after their breakups with their respective exes go viral.

So they were each sort of like Internet or reality TV known in their own way, and they're kind of like hiding from the press in their hometowns, like trying to get their work done, and they end up reconnecting and fake dating, and that goes even more viral.

And then we watch it all unfold from there.

So I thought this was fun.

Wasn't like a groundbreaking book for me, but definitely an enjoyable one.

If you like some fake dating and a beach side setting, then you might like The Breakup Pact by Emma Lord.

This summer, I also read Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison.

And I don't wanna tell you much about this book because it's so it has a couple twists that, like, if I was paying attention, I might have known were coming from reading the synopsis or not.

But because I just, like, picked it up and started reading, I did not know what was coming, and I don't wanna ruin that for you.

Essentially, the main character in this book is named Vesper.

She left home at 18 and never looked back, but now she's returning for the wedding of her beloved cousin.

And there are a lot of reasons she left home, and you need to read the book to find out what they are because this was a wild romp of a ride.

I love Rachel Harris's just like very irreverent approach to spooky stories, and this one was one of my faves that I've read of her so far.

So that's Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison.

If Rachel Harrison convinces you to go off the deep end of, like, totally what the fuck is happening in this horror novels, then I would also recommend my next read, which was Sister Maiden Monster by Lucy Snyder.

Once again, I picked up this book not knowing a ton about it, except that my friend Lillian had told me it was the most like batshit nonsense story that she had read in a long time.

And I took that recommendation and ran with it and just dove right in.

And let me tell you, I have never read anything else like this book.

It was gory.

It was gross.

It starts with a sort of outbreak of an illness and then goes places I never expected to go.

I think I thought I was in for something more like the z word that I mentioned earlier where I was like, oh, yeah.

There's like an illness.

There's sort of like an irreverent tone.

This will be interesting.

But wow, wow, wow, did it get completely unhinged in the second half.

So if that's your vibe, then I recommend Sister Maiden Monster by Lucy Snyder.

And if that's not your vibe, then I do not recommend this book.

Because if you're not gonna enjoy some gore and some gloriousness, then you don't need to pick this It's truly for the unhinged body horror lovers among us.

If you're not on board for body horror, but you do love a good cerebral figure it out mystery, then I would definitely recommend two books that I read by the author Uketsu this summer, and those are strange pictures and strange houses.

So in these books, the author sort of presents us with like an image or a diagram, and the book unfolds through these stories that explain what is actually really uncanny about the image or the diagram.

And I didn't know much about this going in.

Somebody recommended it to me actually in one of my business communities.

I think Jada recommended this to me if you're tuned in.

Thanks, Jada.

And I was so intrigued because I didn't really know what was gonna happen, and I never expected the answers to be what they were.

So if you like that sort of really cerebral puzzle mystery, I definitely recommend Strange Pictures and or Strange Houses by Uketsu to you.

Probably my favorite book of the year so far that I have already mentioned in my conversation with Rachel was The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton.

This is a story about a young girl who's born during a massive hurricane in Florida, and it explores the way that climate change ravages Florida throughout her lifetime and how she essentially has to become more of a water world living person by the end of her life.

It is beautifully written.

There is a lightly magical realism element, and it really was sort of an entry into clifi or climate fiction for me, and I have been reading so much more of that since.

So if you're up for a bit of eye opening fiction about what the future of our planet could look like as the climate shifts due to human actions in many cases, I highly recommend The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks Dalton.

In a similar vein, I also read a book called Tilt by Emma Patee.

That's another clifi or climate fiction novel.

And in that book, the author explores what might happen when there is a major earthquake on the Cascadia Fault Line that runs under the Western Coast Of The US.

So sort of from Vancouver down through Washington and Oregon into California.

And we follow this main character who is, like, nine months pregnant and going to IKEA to get the right crib mattress for the crib one morning, and then the earthquake hits.

And we follow her throughout her day and what happens after she survives this earthquake, but the city is literally in shambles and crashing down.

So it's not an easy read, but was an eye opening one.

And definitely, if you enjoy climate fiction or you're interested in exploring more of these, like, climate collapse scenarios, I would recommend tilt by Emma Petti.

Petti.

I don't know how she pronounce it.

Up next, I read Ghost Station by S.

A.

Barnes, which as I told Rachel was something I picked up because it was really hot outside, and I wanted to read a book that was set on an alien planet where it was super cold.

I really loved this take on interstellar space travel and the types of conflicts that can come up in remote space crews.

So if that is your vibe, I do recommend Ghostation by S.

A.

Barnes.

For an entirely different mood, I also read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanathy.

And this is a heartbreaking memoir of a doctor, a surgeon who has a terminal illness and who loses his life.

He dies at the end of the book.

No spoilers.

It's definitely the whole point of the book.

And it talks about like what he learned through becoming a doctor and what his medical training really taught him and the lessons he's taking away from his passion for life at the very end of his life.

So definitely a heartbreaking read, but a really beautiful, profound, and important one.

I saw that it had recently made it back on the New York Times bestseller list, so it's easy to find and worth reading for sure.

Another book that I believe made the New York Times bestseller list this summer and was a second five star read from my summer reading was atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

I mentioned this in my queer romance summer episode, and it was just a beautiful story about a woman who becomes one of the first to go into space.

This is fully fictional, of course, but it's set against the backdrop of the nineteen eighties space shuttle program.

And our main character Joan has been obsessed with the stars forever.

She applies to become an astronaut.

She gets to go to space, and she becomes incredibly close with the people that she trains with.

And there is this emergency that happens, and she has to guide this crew home.

And we learn that at the very beginning of the book, and then throughout the book, we learn more about her training and the people that are in space that she's trying to bring back and her love for them.

And it was just so beautiful and profound, and I cannot recommend it enough.

That is Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Before I get into all of my summer romance reading, I also read Rebel in the Deep by Katie Robert.

This is the third book in a trilogy that is about this world that exists between portals and different universes, and the many characters who end up there.

Throughout the series, we have romances between a vampire and a selkie, a witch and a pirate, and in this instance, a sort of like, will they, won't they, throuple, who are the leader of a rebellion in this world, as well as a ship captain and a downtrodden noble.

So I really loved the Crimson Sails trilogy.

That's what this is called.

I don't think it's Katie Roberts' most famous one.

Obviously, the Neon Gods series that I've already mentioned is much more famous, but this was a good time and a wild ride.

And I do recommend it if you like magical creatures and adventures through unknown worlds.

Okay.

Now let me tell you about my summer romance reading.

So I spent a few lovely weekends floating in my backyard pool reading romance novels, and I'll go through them here pretty quickly.

Please know they are all worth picking up, and you can find the links in the show notes.

So first up was Sounds Like Love by Ashley Pauston.

Now Ashley Pauston is the writer of The Dead Romantics, The Seven Year Slip, and A Novel Love Story.

And across all of these books, she is writing magical realism into romance.

So in Sounds Like Love, we have two characters who meet and kiss and then start hearing each other's voices in their heads.

For many reasons, they can't just immediately, like, meet up and try to figure this out.

So they end up sort of conversing in their minds, and it's a beautiful story.

So highly recommend Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston if you like her mix of magic and romance.

After that, I read It's a Love Story by Annabel Monaghan.

She's the author of Nora Goes Off Script and Same Time Next Summer and Summer Romance.

I've read all of those.

I like her voice.

I like her writing, and I like this book, which is about Jane and Dan.

So Jane is a former child star who is now a creative executive at a TV and movie studio, And she's trying to get her first project greenlit.

And to do that, she has to work with this guy she really doesn't like, Dan Finnegan.

So there's like a lightweight enemies to lovers plot line going on here.

It was a fun summer read.

Up next was the roughest draft by Emily Wiberley and Austin Siegmund Broca.

So the authors of this book are a couple, and in the book, we meet this not couple, Katrina and Nathan.

And they have co written a book that was like a huge bestseller and then had a serious falling out.

And they owe their publisher a second book, so now they're having to like come back together to try to write this book and bring it to life and figure out their relationship in the process.

So another one that's an enjoyable read.

Many of the details escaped me two months after having read it, but it felt like a fun summer romance to me.

After recording my queer romance summer episode, I also read a couple of the books on that list.

One was Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake, which is the first book in a trilogy set in this very cute town called Bright Falls.

And all of the books in this series are clever, steamy, queer romances.

They are some of my friend's favorite steamy queer romances.

And I don't know that this one, like, totally was a home run for me, but I definitely enjoyed it and would recommend Delilah Green Doesn't Care as well as the other two books in the trilogy.

I also read Girl Crushed by Katie Heaney.

That was a super fun You romance, basically set in, like, the senior year of high school where our main character Quinn has just been dumped by her like first love, true love, best friend, now ex girlfriend Jamie.

And Quinn is trying to find her way on the soccer team and in classes and like also what she gonna do college and everything that comes next.

And she has a crush on Ruby who is the lead singer of a band.

And we follow Quinn through her senior year and see how these relationship dramas unfold.

It was very sweet.

I enjoyed it as like a light, easy, queer romance read.

I also read Just One Taste by Lizzie Dent.

I love Lizzie Dent's romances.

I swear, I'm picking up like a lot of romance writers who like put out a new book every summer, and so now I have to read it, which means it's like every summer, I have to read a book by Emily Henry and Annabelle Monahan and Ashley Pauston and Lizzie Dent.

And honestly, I revel in the abundance of great romance to read.

But Just One Taste is about this woman whose father has just died, and he left her his restaurant.

And she doesn't really want the restaurant, but to even get it, she has to finish her father's last cookbook with the current executive chef who's like his protege.

So she has to travel with this chef to Italy to go around the country and pick different ingredients for the recipes, etcetera, etcetera, and it goes about how you might expect it.

It was a beautiful Italian soaked romance, and I highly recommend Just One Taste by Lizzie Dent.

Two other romances while we're on the summer romance theme.

I also read For Her Consideration by Amy Spaulding.

This was probably one of my favorite romances I read this summer.

It features Nina Rice, who is an aspiring LA screenwriter.

And she went through a breakup a few years ago where her ex essentially told her that she was a horrible person who never considered anybody else and whose friends really didn't like her even though she thought her friends liked her and, like, said all these horrible things about her.

And Nina kind of just believed them and basically like retreated from her home in LA to a suburb outside the city to stay at her beloved aunt's apartment and has just been kind of there, not seeing her friends, not doing anything for three years.

And through her work, she meets the celebrity Ari Fox, who is a young actress that is just up and coming and breaking through.

And Nina and Ari start to have a romance, And Nina starts to question if everything her ex told her was true and find her way back into her friendships.

And it was just like a beautiful story, and I honestly might reread it.

Now that I think back on it so fondly, it might be my favorite romance that I read this summer.

Although that said, the next one is a close second, maybe even tied for that title, and that is Triple Sec by TJ Alexander.

In this book, we meet Mel, who is a totally jaded bartender at one of the top cocktail bars in New York City.

And at work one night, Mel meets Bebe, who is this, like, totally gorgeous woman who's totally flirting with her until Bebe's wife arrives, and we meet Cade, who is a like super cool visual artist.

And Bebe and Cade have an open marriage, and Bebe wants to date Mel.

So they start dating, and we watch like Mel come into her own, and get to know Cade and Bebe both better.

And it was just a really beautiful cocktail soaked book.

So if you love romances set sort of in hospitality culture, if you love romances with multiple partners, I would definitely recommend Triple Sick by TJ Alexander.

Okay.

That was kind of my big summer romance binge.

I feel like every summer, I just wanna read a whole bunch of romance novels, and I think I definitely did that this summer.

If I count the ones I just mentioned, that was nine of them.

So pretty good showing.

Now let's talk about some of the other books I read this summer.

One of which was Kill Creatures by Rory Power.

So I, as you might have intuited by now, am always on the lookout for like You mysteries and thrillers that can just sort of like take me somewhere for an afternoon and like give me a little something to chew on, get my adrenaline going a little bit, and then it's like done and I read it and it's fine.

I find that You is good for this sometimes because some of the adult thrillers get really dark and really violent.

And I find that with the You ones, there's a just a more of a sort of skating on the top of that sometimes.

Not always, but sometimes that lets it feel a little bit more like a sort of like popcorn paperback.

So kill creatures by Rory Power is definitely a book sort of like that.

So in this book, our main character, our protagonist is Nan.

And last year, Nan's three best friends disappeared in Salt Cedar Canyon.

And she has spent the past twelve months grieving them and just avoiding questions about what happened to them.

So now that it's the anniversary of their death, there's going to be a candlelight vigil, and Nan has to go and sort of be there as like, you know, the one who survived.

But when she does, one of the missing girls appears.

She has come back a year later, and everybody wants to know where she's been and what has happened, especially for this reason.

Let me read you the last two sentences of the synopsis because this is what got me to read this book.

Everybody is overjoyed that one of the missing girls has returned except Nan.

After all, she's the one who killed them.

Dun dun dun.

That premise alone, like, was like, okay, I have to read this book.

And I definitely enjoyed where it took me.

I don't think it was like a perfect thriller.

It could have done a lot more.

But if you wanna fit one more summer soaked You thriller into your reading before fall, I do recommend Kill Creatures by Rory Power.

For another summer soaked thriller, not You, but adult this time, I also read The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager.

So with this book, we are set at this private lake where a bunch of very rich people have their houses.

And our main character, Casey, is a recently widowed actress, and she's been getting a lot of bad press.

So she just retreated to the lake house to stay away from the press and the paparazzi.

And across the lake, a new couple has moved in, Tom and Catherine.

And Catherine is a former model, and Tom runs a big tech company.

And Casey has this bad habit of watching them in the evenings because the side of their house that's across from hers on the lake is like all glass.

So she can just see into their house.

And so she watches them, and she starts to get suspicious about what's happening in that house.

And then Catherine disappears, and Casey is extra suspicious.

And throughout the book, we learn what's happening and what's not happening, and it all unravels from there.

So The House Across the Lake is not Riley Sager's highest reviewed thriller, but I thought it was a really good time.

My next read was honestly like a goth fever dream, and that was The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Caw.

I think Cassandra Caw is writing some of the weirdest horror out there right now, and I say that like in the best way.

Like, I love weird horror, and her stuff is always twisty and dark.

And in this book, we get all of that.

So at the start of the book, we meet a mermaid and a strange doctor, seemingly kinda like a plague doctor, and they are on a journey together.

They're seemingly running away from where the mermaid had lived because she has murdered her husband.

And when they're deep in the woods, they stumble upon a village full of these strange children and three surgeons who the children call the saints.

And the mermaid and the doctor need to make it out of this village.

And a lot of really dark, twisted stuff happens in the process.

This one's a novella.

It's a very fast read and a very dark and twisty read.

So if that's your sort of thing, I recommend The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Caw.

Another dark and twisty read that I might recommend for you this summer would be Night Watcher by Daphne Wollstonecraft.

This is not my typical read.

I have to say because it's from like a true crime podcaster, and it's about true crime, and true crime is not my genre.

So this was a real wild card of a book that I started listening to because the audiobook was available when I was going on a long drive, and I just saw it.

And I was like, why not?

We'll try it.

And even by the end of the audiobook, it wasn't like totally for me, but it might be for you.

So let me tell you about it.

In Nightwatcher, we meet Nola Straight.

She is the host of a late night call in radio show in Portland.

And on her show, people essentially call in and talk to her about like these like hauntings and cryptic sightings that they've had.

So they talk about ghosts.

They talk about monsters.

They talk about all these things.

And one night, this woman calls in, and she says there's an intruder in her house.

And on the call, they hear her get super scared and something seemingly happened to her.

And this call reminds Nola of something that happened to her many years ago, where she escaped from a serial killer, and now she's worried the killer is back.

And from that premise, a whole lot of stuff happens to Nola.

And if you wanna know what that stuff is, you should read Night Watcher by Daphne Wollstonecraft.

Another audiobook that I really enjoyed this summer was The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.

This is a novel about this group of recreational swimmers who swim at a local pool and what happens when a crack appears in the bottom of the pool.

What I loved about this book is the different chapters are told from different perspectives, including from the pool itself's perspective.

It's a very short read, but a very profound one.

And it really gets to the nature of community, of relationships, and of memory.

So I would highly recommend this for almost any reader.

It's called The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka.

And then to complete my audiobook trifecta, I did quite a bit of travel this summer, and travel is definitely when I listen to audiobooks.

So on my most recent trip, I listened to If You Don't Like This, I Will Die by Leigh Tillman.

And this is a book about Leigh's journey as an influencer.

So she has a very big Instagram account called Leigh From America.

I think at its height, she had over 400,000 followers.

And in this book, she talks about her experience as a wellness influencer and how it has impacted her life for the worse seemingly.

I think that the analysis could have gone a lot deeper.

I don't know that I wholeheartedly recommend it, but if you're interested in perspectives on influencer culture, this might be a book for you.

Alright.

Just a few books left on this list.

We've done over 40 of them already.

Thanks for sticking with me.

And I have a few wild card reads left.

So for multiple summers now, I have been meaning to read One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle.

In fact, I even put this on my list of, like, twenty twenty five five star hopefuls.

I can't remember quite what I called it, but the books I thought might be five star reads for me this year.

And I read it this summer.

It was not a five star read, but it was fantastic.

So in One Italian Summer, our main character Katie is going on a trip to the Amalfi Coast.

And she was meant to be going on this trip with her mother, Carol, who has just passed away.

And I don't wanna tell you much more about it because it's good to not anticipate what's gonna happen, I think, in this one.

But if you would like a beautiful book about mother daughter relationships and finding yourself amidst grief that just happens to be set in the beautiful Italian coast, then I think you'll really enjoy One Italian Summer by Rebecca Searle.

Another sun soaked book I read was The Lion's Den by Catherine Saint John.

This is more of a thriller.

So with this one, our main character, Belle, has been invited by her friend Summer onto Summer's, like, billionaire boyfriend's yacht for, like, an amazing, glamorous getaway.

And Belle is hoping this trip can help her reconnect with Summer, and also just like enjoy the end of her summer.

But it quickly becomes clear that like Summer had other plans for what this trip might be.

This was quite a romp, and take that as you will for The Lion's Den by Catherine Saint John.

And let me tell you about a literary fiction book that I don't know why or how I picked up, but really enjoyed in August.

That book was Audition by Katie Kitamura, and this book really stymied me.

I don't even know how I would describe it, but it's a book about performance and the roles that we play, and it's told from the perspective of an accomplished actress and what it means to act in our personal and professional lives.

So it really centers around three main characters, our protagonist and unnamed narrator, this actress, as well as this young man that she meets, and her partner or husband.

And having read it weeks ago, I still don't totally know what to make of it.

So if you enjoy first person narration that's about stories, and how we narrate our own stories and tell our own stories and the roles we play in our lives, then you will probably like this book.

And if you don't like things that are ambiguous, you probably won't like this book.

So that was Audition by Katie Kitamura.

And that takes me, drum roll please, to my two most recent reads, the books I ended August with that were both five stars.

Like, what is this world where I read two five star books in a row?

But the first was The Favorites by Lane Fargo.

I saw this book going around at the start of the year.

Everybody I knew was reading it, and I just put in my library hold and waited and waited and waited and waited and waited, and I finally got the book and devoured it.

This is about two ice skaters who are childhood best friends, who eventually become lovers, who become professional skaters, who break up, who get back together, who have all these scandals.

And it really felt like sort of Daisy Jones and the six on ice, which I loved.

I I ate up this book.

I, like, sat in bed for six hours on a Sunday morning just, like, rapidly, ravenously reading it, and I recommend it super highly.

So if you like the world of ice skating, if you like complicated romances, if you liked Daisy Jones and the Six, I highly recommend The Favorites by Lane Fargo.

And then my next five star read couldn't be more different, but I loved it all the same.

And that was the book of the most precious substance by Sarah Graham.

This book is a book about books, which is always like a green flag for me.

I love a book about books.

And in this book, we meet Lily and Lucas who are both booksellers, and they have been asked by another bookseller to look into a super rare book called The Book of the Most Precious Substance.

And so they go after this book.

They try to find it.

They try to see who has it.

They try to figure out who wants to buy it because the other bookseller just said, have a buyer for this.

But they're trying to figure out who is that buyer, how can they get a copy for that buyer, and then how much money can they make from it.

And all of that is a great drama, but it's happening on top of the fact that the book of the most precious substance is a book about sex magic.

So to find this book, we are taken into this very, like, sexy occult world, and I just found it, like, fascinating.

It was a rabbit hole that I didn't know that I wanted to go down that I definitely went down with this writer, and I am the happier for it.

I don't think this is a book for everyone, but if you like horror, if you like dark mysteries, if you like sexy books, I highly recommend The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sarah Graham.

And that's it, friends.

That was all 47 books that I have read since the March.

As you can hear, I have been deep in my mood reading era.

I am reading light fluffy summer romances and dark occult books about mermaids.

I am reading cerebral mysteries and cli fi dystopian earthquake novels.

I am reading ambiguous literary fiction and books about selkie vampire relationships.

My reading has been all over the place, and honestly, I couldn't love it more.

So if you have a book that you have read this summer that you absolutely adored, I would love to hear about it.

You can share it with me by following me on StoryGraph or heading to the show notes.

There's a contact form there where you could tell me all about your favorite books.

And while you're there, you will also see that I have launched a little bookshop wish list where you can send me a book that I have flagged as wanting to read.

And any book that I receive from a listener, I will review here on the show.

So I got the first book from a beloved fan.

It was The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and I will be reading it and sharing it on the podcast this fall.

So if you'd love to gift me a book and have me talk about it here on the pod, you can find that in the show notes.

If you wanna tell me about a book you love, you can do that there as well, or follow me on StoryGraph to keep up with what I've been reading even when I'm not so actively making episodes.

Thank you again for tuning in, and until next time, here's to your next best book.