Books #71

I have some good books for you to check out! It’s a wide range of book types, so hopefully you’ll find something you like. 🙂

1 – Ghost Eaters by Clay McLeod Chapman

Creepy, sometimes horrifying read. It’s a book about obsession, regret, grief, friendship, loss, and addiction.

Erin, Silas, Amara and Tobias are close friends just starting off in the world post-college. Silas has been the bigger-than-life personality of the group, kind of the ringleader. He’s also descending into drug addiction. When he ODs, Erin is gutted and deeply regrets the horrible things she said to him the last time they saw him. “But sometimes the best kind of help a friend can offer is to just stop helping.”

After the funeral, Toby has a proposition. “Do you want to get haunted?” There’s a new drug, called Ghost, that helps you see the dead and communicate with them. What happens next opens doors that shouldn’t have been opened.

“What do you think happens if you die outside? Your ghost wanders. Imagine all those homeless ghosts out there, roving the streets, just looking for something, anything, to call home……What is a ghost? Is it a shadow of our past clinging to our present? I believe it’s our addictions. The habits we form that end up consuming us if we allow them to take over.”

2 – Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper

“In the Industry, if a man falls off a cliff, maybe he can climb back up—people will even stick their hands over the side to yank him to safety. But once a woman falls, she’s fallen for good. If she’s clinging to the edge, folk might stomp on her fingers just for the love of the game.”

It takes place in Hollywood. Mae is a crisis PR expert for a powerful firm. It’s her job to keep the bad news out of the press. When a star ODs, she cleans it up and keeps the paparazzi at bay. But when her boss is murdered, she starts looking into the circumstances and finds something much darker and more powerful than just Hollywood scandals.

This book was so good! Edge of your seat, keep reading past your bedtime fun.

3- None of This is True by Lisa Jewell

This book is a slow-burn. The way it was written and the way the story unfolds is wild and I am still thinking about it. I still don’t know what was “true”. The story is different, and riveting and uncomfortable and tackles some pretty heavy topics–so trigger warning.

Alix is a podcaster. Josie is kind of a quiet, weird woman who wants to tell her story. But as the story unfolds, Alix realizes there is something going on that is much darker and it starts to invade her own life. There was a little bit of Single-White-Female vibe to this story as well. I recommend the book but be warned: it’s a twisted ride that will make you stay up way too late to finish reading it!

4 – Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult

At first I wasn’t sure I wanted to read a book about covid. But this one was done really well. I don’t want to give away too much because the book has a very interesting twist I didn’t see coming. But this book, and the way the story of covid was told, was so different it didn’t feel tired. In the end, the book is about following your heart, finding out what you want to do with your life that makes you happy.

5 – Trail of the Lost: The Relentless Search to Bring Home the Missing Hikers of the Pacific Crest Trail by Andrea Lankford

“According to Dr. Koester’s statistical analysis in Lost Person Behavior, there was a 75 percent chance of finding a stranded motorist within 2.8 miles of his abandoned vehicle. And the team wasn’t about to give up.”

Growing up in the Pacific Northwest I’ve always known about the Pacific Crest Trail and been fascinated by it. Like most people, I loved the book and movie “Wild”. There was one time I was out hiking and asked an oncoming hiker how much further the trail end was and he said he didn’t know because he’d been hiking since Mexico. LOL

But, I had no idea so many people go missing on the PCT. This book was the story of a few of the most “famous” missing hikers. It’s written by an ex-cop with the National Park Service and she knows her stuff. When she becomes frustrated with the lack of help from law enforcement agencies she leaves her job and basically becomes a professional finder of loss hikers. The book is about her journey of eventually creating a non-profit with other family members in the tragic club and mountaineers who are committed to finding the lost. It’s also about a few of the hikers that brought her to that point. One named “Sherpa” was the most compelling and written about for most of the book. What I found most powerful about the book was how committed people were to volunteering with Search and Rescue–some to the point of it taking over their lives. So many strangers pitched in to try and find missing hikers and it was heartwarming to read about.

My biggest complaint of the book was that it needed a lot of editing. While it was a fascinating read and it kept me hooked until the end and I learned a LOT, there were many times throughout where it felt bogged down with details I didn’t need and it slowed me down. Despite that, I recommend the book for anyone interested in hiking, the PCT and mysteries!

6 – Things we Do in the Dark by Jennifer Hillier

This was an excellent read and I couldn’t put it down! It was a mystery with lots of twists and turns. I loved the ending. I thought I had figured it out and it fooled me again! The book is dark and disturbing.

I’ve read other books by this author that were great, too. She is not one to miss out on!

Happy Reading!