After last month’s loooong list of books, I decided maybe I should share what I read monthly to break things up a bit. Well this month wasn’t overly busy on the reading front- read three and listened to one- because I ended up getting sucked into the show Never Have I Ever and spent a lot of time watching that one! If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d so recommend it- and then pick up one of these books after 🙂 As always, I’d love to hear your favorite reads of the month in the comments because my “to be read” list is definitely not long enough (joking 😉 )! And if you’ve read one of these books or any other I’ve mentioned, please let me know what you thought!
By The Book– This is one of Jasmine Guillory’s 2022 new releases and is a modern retelling of Beauty & The Beast making it a super sweet romance with an enemies to lover type trope. Isabelle is working at her dream job in publishing, but feeling unfulfilled with a tough boss and still living at home after college. When an opportunity comes up for her to stay in California for an extra day to convince her boss’ difficult celebrity memoir writer, she jumps on it. Next thing she knows, Izzy is helping the reclusive and standoffish Beau Towers write his memoir. I’ve recommended some of Jasmine’s books in the past and a few of you mentioned to me that you were surprised by the steaminess level after reading, so wanted to say this one is very mild on the spice level as I believe it is intended to even be YA appropriate!
The Palace Papers– I listened to The Palace Papers on audio and while this is the longest audio book I’ve ever listened to at over 17 hours, I was completely hooked. The Palace Papers is written and narrated on audio by Tina Brown who has been reporting on the royal family for 30 years. If you are a royal admirer, I think you would definitely learn something new by listening to this book- I think especially as an American who may not be inundated with royal coverage in our daily news and know as much of the history.
Fake– Emma Caan is using her art degree by working for a company that specializes in creating high end art replicas for museums or extremely wealthy clients who wish to keep their real works in a safe place. When a Russian oligarch art collector named Leonard who she has created several replicas for asks her to attend an event at her home, some of her art world dreams begin to come true. However as Emma is pulled further into Leonard’s world, she realizes just how fake things can be. If you liked the show Inventing Anna or read and liked the book Cover Story, I’d add this one to your reading list next!
Olga Dies Dreaming-Olga Dies Dreaming is a fabulous debut novel from Latinx author Xochitl Gonzalez. The novel follows siblings, Olga and Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo who have become not only local celebrities in their hometown of Brooklyn, but national celebrities- Olga is a wedding planner for the very wealthy who regularly appears on television and Prieto is an extremely popular congressman representing NY. While their public lives seem great, Olga and Prieto’s mother is a Puerto Rican independence fighter who abandoned them when they were children, but keeps tabs on them by sending letters throughout their lives. The novel is set in the period leading up to and during Hurricane Maria, one of the most devastating hurricanes in Puerto Rico’s history. I learned a lot from this book and also loved the main characters Olga and Prieto so much! Highly recommend!
What have been some of your favorite reads this month?
xoxo, Jenna
