Friends Helping Friends

 

Author: Patrick Hoffman

Narrator: Jacques Roy

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Year: 2025

“Sure, we’ll beat him up for ya. Nothing too nasty. Friends helping friends, right…”

Bunny Simpson’s best friend Jerry has a proposition for him- $500 for help beating up a guy. Bunny is reluctant to do it, but agrees. Jerry and Bunny don’t know that the guy they’ve been hire to beat up is a judge. And that lands them in a lot of trouble. The police have no trouble arresting the pair. Federal agents offer Bunny a deal -infiltrate and gather information on a white nationalist group run by Bunny’s uncle. Bunny is thrown into a world of extreme violence. Can Bunny survive being a snitch and escape with his life? Swipe  to read the full summary. 

Friendship is at the heart of this story- mostly Bunny’s and Jerry’s friendship. They might be misguided and directionless, but they’re really not bad guys. They’re best friends and their actions through out the book prove how loyal they are and how much they deeply care for each other. It was really refreshing to see genuine friendship like this in a crime fiction novel. And since it is crime fiction, there was lots of conflict, twists and turns. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook. Jacques Roy provides a top notch narration, giving Bunny and Jerry depth and emotion. Kudos to author Patrick Hoffman for a unique and riveting thriller with male characters that show a real depth of emotion and who I really cared about. Definitely recommend picking this one up if you’re looking for a unique thriller with  engaging characters and a satisfying ending. 

Let’s play predictive text: Friends helping friends to find the most compelling stories. 

#crimefiction #mysterybooks #thrillerbooks #bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm 

#booklover #bookstagram#librarybook #lovemylibrary

#audiobook #audiobookstagram #audiobookreview #audiobookrec #friendshelpingfriends #patrickhoffman #simonaudio #thrillerthursday 

About the Author

Patrick Hoffman is a writer and private investigator based in Brooklyn, NY. His first book, The White Van, was a finalist for the Crime Writers' Association Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was named a Wall Street Journal and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. His highly anticipated follow-up, Every Man a Menace, came out in 2016, and was again named one of the ten best of the year by the Wall Street Journal. 

Sunrise on the Reaping

 

Author: Suzanne Collins 

Narrator: Jefferson White

Publisher: Scholastic Audio Books

Year: 2025

We’re back in District 12 and this time we get Haymitch’s back story. Haymitch was in the Quarter Quell and that meant double the amount of participants making it even deadlier. Here’s what I really liked about this story:

🏹 the glimpse of life in District 12 and some of the origins of of things that appear in the original trilogy like Katniss’s mockingjay pin

🏹 Lenore Dove, Haymitch’s girlfriend- feisty and defiant 

🏹 Maysilee Donner- so sassy and smart. I loved her!

🏹 the alliance of the new comers 

🏹 the roots of rebellion 

🏹 the early look at Effie Trinket

🏹 the pacing of the story and all the tension

🏹 learning more about some of the District 12 residents in the generation before Katniss

🏹 Haymitch is thoughtful, loving, and smart 

I liked this prequel much more than The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. I thought that story was disjointed and lagged at times. This new story just flowed better and kept me riveted. I also loved Jefferson White’s narration. He really brought young Haymitch and all his energy and emotions to life. 

It’ll be interesting to see if Suzanne Collins continues with the prequels and which character she focuses on next. 

What do you think of prequels for books (or movies)? I like that they can provide new insights into favorite characters or universes. 

#bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm #booklover #bookstagram #librarybook #lovemylibrary #audiobook #audiobookstagram#audiobookreview #audiobookrec #sunriseonthereaping #suzannecollins #hungergames #quarterquell 

March Reading Wrap Up

 

Happy April! I think March was a record month for me. I read 19 total books (7 ebooks

12 audiobooks). 🤯 Here they are: 

Loved 😍

📖Tell Me What You Did

🎧I Might Be in Trouble

📖What Kind of Paradise

🎧Broken Country

🎧Count My Lies

🎧The Story She Left Behind

📖Dark Neon & Dirt

Really Liked 👍🏻

🎧The Year of Living Constitutionally 

🎧Food for Thought

🎧Witness 8

📖Disappeared 

🎧Sunrise on the Reaping

🎧Friends Helping Friends

🎧City in Ruins

🎧 All the Water in the World

Liked but just ok 😐

📖Florida Palms

🎧The Talent

📖Erasure

📖A Killing Cold

Balancing the books:

1 purchased ebook ($7.41)

2 NetGalley - thank you Simon & Schuster and Penguin Random House! 

6 gifted from publisher - thank you Simon & Schuster Audio! 

10 library books

I think 7 five star books in a month is also a record for me. Did you have any 5⭐️ books in March? Or tell me your favorite March read. 

#crimefiction #mysterybooks #thrillerbooks #bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish#bookworm #booklover#bookstagram #audiobook

#librarybook #lovemylibrary

#audiobookstagram #audiobookrec #audiobookreview #historicalfiction #monthlywrapup #readingwrapup 

Erasure

 

Author: Percival Everett

Publisher: Graywolf  Press

Year: 2011

Monk Ellison is writer and professor. His books are scholarly literary works, but not best sellers. As both a Black man and a writer, he’s offended by a the instant commercial success of a debut novel filled with caricature experiences of living in the ghetto, but it was written by a middle class Black woman who visited her relatives in Harlem for a few days. Monk has some family tragedies and needs money to take care of his aging mother who is showing signs of dementia. His anger and desperation prompts him to write a satirical novel about a Black teen in the hood as a response to the exploitative best seller. Monk insists his that agent send it out to publishers under a pen name. Monk’s scathing parody is championed as a new authentic voice. Monk has everything he ever dreamed of- success, money, fame. But with the publishing world and the media are clamoring to learn about this hot new author, Monk must bring his pen name’s persona to life. 

I have mixed feelings on this one. For the most part I liked it. It’s thoughtful and insightful. It’s full of satire and I always enjoy the book within a book concept. Mixed in with all Monk’s family drama are his notes or story ideas. Either these passages were too high brow or I’m just not smart enough to understand them. Every time I encountered one, it took me right out of the story. I guess I’m a just pretty basic girl. I just want to enjoy a great and engaging story. I don’t want to feel like I’m back in high school struggling to analyze the text. I guess I’m not built for deep literature. This was a buddy read with @ and @ . Can’t wait for our discussion to hear what they think of it. If you’re looking for a book about race, identity, and scathing satire definitely give this one a try. 

How do you feel about rating books you didn’t particularly enjoy? 

I try to be honest and I usually don’t tag the author. 

#bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm #booklover #bookstagram #librarybook #lovemylibrary

About the Author

Percival Everett is a Distinguished Professor of English at USC. His most recent books include Dr. No (finalist for the NBCC Award for Fiction and winner of the PEN/ Jean Stein Book Award), The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction), Telephone (finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), So Much Blue, Erasure, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier. He has received the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award and The Windham Campbell Prize from Yale University. American Fiction, the feature film based on his novel Erasure, was released in 2023. His 2024 novel James is a NYT best seller and National Book Award winner. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their children.

Witness 8

 

Author: Steve Cavanagh 

Narrator: Adam Sims

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Year: 2025

Thank you Simon & Schuster Audio for the gifted audiobook. Appreciate it! 

Happy #thrillerthursday! Steve Cavanagh has a fantastic new book out now - Witness 8. Eddie Flynn is a former con man turned defense attorney. He uses in street smarts to help his clients. His latest case is a tough one. John Jackson, a strait-laced family man, is accused of killing one of his neighbors. The murder weapon with his DNA on it is found in his house. Jackson says he’s innocent. If he is, how did the gun get in his home? One person has all the answers. One person knows Jackson’s house and neighborhood intimately. One person is pulling all the strings, trying to hide all the secrets and lies.

This is the eighth book in the Eddie Flynn series. I jumped into the series with this book and hadn’t read any of the previous books. There was enough backstory so I didn’t feel lost and I quickly got a sense of the main characters. Eddie and his colleagues are interesting characters and I liked them. The pace of the story is good and there’s a lot of moving parts to the story. This is an engaging and intricate thriller that kept me on my toes. Adam Sims’s narration does a wonderful job bringing all the characters to life. I really enjoyed this one 👍🏻. I’m definitely planning on reading the series from the beginning.  

#crimefiction #mysterybooks #thrillerbooks #bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm 

#booklover #bookstagram #legalthriller #audiobook #audiobookstagram #audiobookreview #audiobookrec #witness8 #stevecavanagh #simonaudio #thrillerthursday

About the Author

Steve Cavanagh is the bestselling and award-winning author of several books, including the Eddie Flynn series and Kill for Me, Kill for You. A former lawyer, he was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he still lives. 

Disappeared

 

Author: Bonnar Spring

Publisher: Oceanview Publishing 

Year: 2022

Sisters Julie and Fay are on vacation in Morocco. Fay leaves the hotel to go for a walk and never returns. Now it’s up to Julie to find her sister before it’s too late. 

Disappeared is roller coaster ride of suspense. Author Bonnar Spring jacks up the tension then lets readers briefly catch their breath before cranking it even higher. I loved the setting. Chances are I’ll never visit Morocco, so visiting vicariously is always a plus. The author does an incredible job describing the people, land, and culture. The characters were relatable and smart. They’re ordinary women who get caught up in a nightmarish situation. I don’t want to give too much of the plot away, so I’ll just say that it’s filled with twists and turns. I really enjoyed this book. This a great choice if you’re looking for a quick and entertaining novel filled with suspense and set in an exotic location. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 

How’s the weather in your little corner of the world? We’re back to chilly weather and still waiting for a true spring warm up. 

 #mysterybooks #thrillerbooks #bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm #booklover #bookstagram #librarybook #lovemylibrary #bonnarspring #disapperaed #oceanviewpublishing #backlistbooks #suspensebooks

About the Author

Bonnar Spring writes eclectic and stylish mystery-suspense novels with an international flavor. An inveterate traveler, she hitchhiked across Europe at sixteen and joined the Peace Corps after college. For twenty-five years, Bonnar has been teaching ESL—English as a Second Language—at a community college. She currently divides her time between tiny houses on a New Hampshire salt marsh and by the Sea of Abaco.

Food for Thought

 

Author: Alton Brown

Narrator: Alton Brown

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Year: 2025

To be perfectly honest, I never watched any of Alton Brown’s shows. I had a vague awareness of him being in the food entertainment industry from some commercials he’s done. So I didn’t know what exactly to expect going into his latest book Food for Thought. What I found were very entertaining and thoughtful essays of his personal life, relationship with food, and career. 

He touches on subjects from his career, to culinary cultural appropriation, his childhood, culinary school, his television career, and cooking the perfect roast chicken. His story about making s’mores when his aunt visited when he was a kid and using some of her “chocolate” had me laughing hysterically. 

Brown is a wonderful storyteller. He’s witty, charming, and sarcastic. I really enjoyed his self deprecating humor. His narration for this audiobook is excellent. This is a great choice if you’re looking for a palate cleanser book. It’s short, flavorful, and very satisfying. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Many thanks to Simon & Schuster Audio for the complimentary audiobook! 

Do you like to cook? Can you just throw ingredients together and create something delicious or do you have to follow the recipe exactly as is? 

#audiobook #audiobookstagram #audiobookreview #audiobookrec #nonfiction #altonbrown #foodforthought #essays #simonaudio #foodie #bibliofile #reader #readinglife #alwaysreading #booksbooksbooks #bookish #bookrecomendation #bookworm 

#booklover #bookstagram 

About the Author

Alton Brown was directing TV commercials when he got the crazy idea to go to culinary school and reinvent the cooking show. The result was Good Eats, an irreverent, science-forward program that led to Brown working on the Food Network for over twenty years. His live culinary variety shows have toured to hundreds of sold-out crowds across the country since 2013. He is also the winner of a Peabody Award and two James Beard Awards. He lives in Atlanta with his wife, the designer Elizabeth Ingram, and three nefarious canines.